It’s curious that the killings stopped after the car wreck. There might not be anyone left alive to bring to justice, or—if it’s the grandfather—maybe he got good enough not to be caught. I just can’t get that secret room of his out of my mind. After the auction tonight, I need to see what’s down there.
TWENTY-THREE
“There can only be one King of the Corpse
Pile; I will stand on whom I must to win.”
—Caine Deathwalker
I went to the jewelry shop after breakfast. There were several couples wandering around inside, under the raptor-bright, all-seeing eyes of the fey salesladies. They smiled warmly as I approached and waved me toward the back. I found my way the break room. Wearing a silver silk pantsuit and silver nail polish, Lysande sipped chamomile tea. Its flowery steam hung over the table where she pored over notepads and some office files, an untouched breakfast burrito on a paper plate at her elbow.
“Learning the operation?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “Running the shop is easy enough. It is its secondary purpose that I’m catching up on.”
“That sounds mysterious,” I took a seat opposite her. “What else is going on? Running a secret meth ring?”
She glared. “Don’t even joke about something like that. Without our family reputation, I might as well close up operations in the human realm, and stick to mining ore in Fairy.” She took a swallow of tea and set the cup down. “No, my father was dabbling in brokering deals, a middleman of sorts. For a commission, he arranged for humans to come by fey artifacts of power—many of them untrustworthy or flat-out dangerous.”
I caught her gaze. “Tell me flat-out, did your father arrange for this auction house we’re going to tonight to come into possession of Dracula’s coffin?”
She sighed so softly I almost didn’t hear it. “Yes. I just found out that was one of his recent deals. Dad liked to cut corners. He was representing himself on that deal. I think he was trying to muscle in on the occult antiquities market by coming up with something nobody else could get.”
My turn to sigh. I shook my head sadly. “It wasn’t that nobody else could get it. Nobody else was willing to piss off one of the most powerful vampires ever to live outside of the royal family itself. . Dracula has a very long history of avenging himself thoroughly against personal slights. Your father is safely dead, but that doesn’t mean Drac will let this go. He could very well come after you.”
She stiffened with fey pride. “I am not without resources, or defenses.”
I thought of fey magic, manticore statues, her family’s servants and hounds, and ability to draw superhuman strength by touching the ground. “Did any of that keep your father alive?”
She glared at me. “No. But you’re a demon lord, not some neck-biting fossil.”
“You obviously haven’t had
any
experience with black ops, or you’d know how vulnerable you are.”
“I’m doing all right.”
“The way you ripped off that merc force instead of getting them paid was totally amateur. You don’t think their running amok among the local vamps is going to come back on you? When Drac comes after you, the local vamps will be with him. All of which is likely to bring in the unwanted attention of the Preternatural Response Organization. You haven’t been messed with until Federal witches and warlocks start nosing into your affairs.”
She clamped her lips shut on an angry retort, and seemed to actually be considering what I’d said. Finally she said, “So what am I supposed to do? Cut all ties with your world and hide underground in fairy, living out the rest of my life in fear that one day I’ll be found?”
”Do the mercs know who hired them?”
“No. That was done anonymously on the Dark Web.” She didn’t mean the internet every human took for granted, but its dark mirror image, a secret, covert web used by mercs, spies, governments, and the powers behind the thrones of the world. “My father gave the mercs half up front, and when the coffin was delivered, he was supposed to have given them the second payment.”
“But I killed him.”
She nodded.
“Let me guess.” I leaned back in my chair. “You sent them the second payment, fulfilling the contract, but used magic during the process so you could steal back your funds.”
“Fey believe we are entitled to keep whatever we can honestly steal.”
“I admire the sentiment, really, but just because the mercs can’t be tied to you, doesn’t mean that the coffin can’t be traced to you through the auction house it went to.”
“But they assured me of complete confidentiality. And I went in disguise when I arranged for them to sell it for me.”
I had a sudden premonition of more shit hitting a fan. “Lysande, who exactly did you go as?”
“Well, the best glamour is based on reality. I’ve studied some of the preternaturals my father used to do business with. One of them caught my eye at a recent event, a real vampire princess.”
“Dominika.”
“Yes, I believe that was her name. Sad little girl, really. So much power, and so little will to live. I don’t understand why the vampires haven’t replaced her by now.”
I sighed again. “So the mercs found the auction house with the coffin, and from there, went after the vampire princess instead of you. You better hope no one uses strong magic to uncover the real trail. Dom might find the strength to live after all if she gets filled with enough rage. And she’s the least of your danger. She’s in power because of family ties. Anyone who messes with her, messes with Rasputin.”
“Rasputin?” She said the name without real interest.
“Don’t you know anything about human history? Rasputin was a feared madman and mystic with miraculous powers
before
he became a vampire. Now, he’s something that might keep even
Drac awake during the day.”
She looked at me beseechingly, her breasts flouncing under her crossed arms, her eyes brighter, and a lovely flush on her cheeks. Her lips seemed much more inviting. Her scent was fresh apples and cinnamon, and countless mountain wildflowers. I felt an overwhelming compulsion to drag her across the table, to rip off her clothes, and take full possession.
Her voice was husky and sexy, like she’d been belting back whisky. “But you’re on my side, right? You’ll protect me?”
I felt a nearly overwhelming desire to say,
“Fuck, yes!”
I shook off the compulsion, and grinned at her.
She chose to believe in her own irresistibility so that she could project that glamour to me. To deceive anyone else, a fey must first deceive themselves. Unfortunately for Lysande, I was as impervious to fey glamour as to a vampire’s mind roll. I knew what she wanted me to see and feel, but I also saw a second, ghost image through all that, the truth that hid beneath, the plain, fey girl who was too scared to spit.
I should have been furious that she would try to control me, but all girls try that. It’s in their genes. And what male turns down a free fuck from a hot fey slut anyway?
* * *
I wore a suit of midnight green. My shirt was bright white with silver cufflinks. My silk tie and handkerchief were the contrasting green of freshly printed money. Clutching my arm, Lysande swept along in a silver-scale sheath with a filmy pink wrap over her bare shoulders. A metallic pink clutch purse contained makeup, cash, phone, but not a number of innocent-looking fey charms. Those, she’d been forced to leave at the door.
The security for this preternatural event was being provided by the wizards, witches, and warlocks of the local clean-up squad. Such people—able to rewrite reality to various extents—were necessary to keeping the secret of the preternatural from human society so that witch hunts and monster slaying didn’t return in a new Dark Age. There were agencies in the government that knew of course, but dealing with the unnatural gave their budgets reason to exist; they weren’t going to rock the boat unless we made too big a public spectacle of ourselves.
Lysande breathed a sigh of relief as our invitations were examined, and we were waved into the back of the hall where refreshment tables were set up and there was open floor space to mingle with strangers.
“What’s that sigh about?” I asked.
“I was hoping—if I gave them a stash of low-grade charms—that they’d miss the really important ones, covered by my glamour.”
That intrigued me. “What did you smuggle in?”
“Not me, you. Those silver cufflinks I gave you. If we get in trouble, give them to me. They will bring immediate assistance.”
I sent her an appraising look. “What kind of assistance?”
Her face went clear of guile as if a cloud shadow had just abandoned her. Instead of answering the question, she snagged us a couple of Champagne glasses from a passing waiter. Her eyes scanned the far reaches of the building, taking it all in. The place was half full, most of the occupants milling about, not yet taking their seats. Well-dressed, potential competitors were feeling each other out, voices blending in an ocean of sound.
“Quite an interesting place,” Lysande said.
The convention hall
was
eye-catching with the gapped, wide plank, false ceiling two stories up, like a carpenter’s version of a quilt. Inset in the boards were round, white lights. In contrast, hanging lower, were rows of box-shaped, yellow lights. The walls were cream colored with double doors. Second-story windows let artificial light in from other areas of the building. The floor copied the quilt pattern of the false ceiling, but used tiles to do it: pumpkin, beige, and cranberry. The hall had a party-or-business duality to it, and right now, contained a sea of folding chairs.
A platform that held a podium and several microphones had been erected at the far end. There were several people up there, most of them security, to prevent five-finger discounts and theft through magic. No one here was going to walk off with something they didn’t pay for, or pay with cash that—by dawn’s light—would magically turn back into a stack of leaves.
Of course, I knew if I really wanted to kill a lot of people, I could take what I wanted. Holding onto it would be the harder problem. The Old Man would make me give it back. The whole point of being a thief is not to get caught, or even known as a thief. As a recovery man for stolen objects, I was actually more of a repo man than anything else, with a bit of bounty hunter thrown in. That provided respectability. Speaking of which…
On the podium, I saw a clean-shaven, wizened bottom feeder in a white suit. His thinning hair was orange, faded with gray, and he clutched a catalog book under one arm. That would be the listing of each item to be auctioned, a detailed description, and the chronology of ownership. The moderator would briefly read from the book as each item was produced by an armed escort. I understood that with this crowd, nobody was going to be allowed to inspect too closely.
Lysande and I made nice with the various clans, strolling around, listening to conversations. The fey contingent was under represented. Balancing this out, there were more Indian shamans and skin-walkers. A huddle of cat people glared with distrust at a knot of mole-folk, some old feud never really settled. There were a few werewolves, but most of the shifters were Rat, Horse, or Tortoise Clan.
Isolated from the rest by a no-man’s-land strip of floor, a sickly green group of naked men and women spoke among themselves in low tones. Even they didn’t get too close to each other, their bodies plated with prickly scales. Their eyes were jade irises on yellow, but they weren’t jaundiced. They weren’t human except in a rough sense. Their noses were parrot beaks, their mouths just slits across their faces. These were cactus patch demons, descendants of emigrants who came to this land centuries ago from some arid hell dimension. This was their bipedal form. Their camouflage form emerged when they stretched out on the ground and became cactus patches.
I went over, dragging Lysande along.
Their leader stepped forward, his wax-smooth face stiff, barely hinting at eagerness. I had already learned the hard way not to play poker with these guys; no tells at all. “Caine, you do us honor.”
I inclined my head in greeting. “Echsel, Allow
me
the honor of presenting the Lady Lysande of the Mountain Fey.”
Ever game, she held out her hand in human greeting. “My pleasure.”
I saw a glint of tears in Echsel’s eyes at her willingness to touch him. He reached out and took her hand, holding it a moment, then releasing it. This was safer than one might suppose. The palms were one of the few smooth places on their bodies. Lysande recovered from the gesture, completely undamaged, a smile still on her face.
I gave her a look that said to play along with me. “Echsel, my dear friend here is establishing a presence in the city, inheriting her father’s silver interests. There has been some distasteful business recently, mercenaries running amok in the vamp territory. She’s in need of private security. It’s a well-paying gig. I thought you might be interested.”
A few more millimeters of smile appeared. The cactus demon was obviously ecstatic beyond belief. He bowed again. “We are her’s to call upon. And yours.”
I nodded. “Fine, a package deal.” The demons, by joining their clan house to mine, raised their stature in the preternatural world. People that might mess with them now had to pause and wonder what I would do about it. This guaranteed that the little demon clan would not be crowded out of the local scene. It also meant that Lysande was a client, indirectly under my protection. That might keep her alive should Drac or Rasputin learn of the role her family had played in recent events. I won because the demons would be getting paid in silver, and they would be sending a tithe to me in L.A. Santa Fe had the potential to become a major, international hub for preternaturals, just like L.A. had. If so, I had just bought my way to a place at the local table.