He’d moved on to doing tricks with the deck of cards. He displayed a card—the three of spades—slid it back in the middle of the deck, shuffled, tapped the top of the deck, flipped the top card over. The three of spades. Shuffle, pick a card—ace of hearts this time—shuffled it back in, tap, and there it was. He did the sleight of hand another dozen times, producing a dozen cards on cue. His fingers seemed to move by instinct, as if they had minds of their own, working in a graceful, choreographed dance.
“I understand you can make people reappear after they’ve vanished,” I said.
“Given the right circumstances.”
“Trapdoors and hidden mirrors?”
“Something like that. You’re missing someone?”
“Friend of mine.” I paused, ducked my gaze. No need to be cagey, I supposed. “My fiancé. And don’t tell me he probably got cold feet and ditched me.”
“What happened?”
I told him.
Grant said, “It sounds like a perfectly mundane set of circumstances. I’m sure the mundane solutions—the police—will find him.”
He couldn’t help me. I wasn’t surprised. I’d just wanted to try everything. Leave no stone unturned. Time to hit the streets, then. But I didn’t want to leave. Somehow, even with his icy blue stare and the box that opened into a world of weirdness, I felt safe here. Feeling safe—that was a different kind of sexy. You got to a point where Prince Reliable was so much more attractive than Prince Charming. The thrill of living on the edge versus the warm glow of being cocooned and adored.
“Yeah, the cops’ll find him. But in one piece?” I sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. I guess I believed those stories that there’s something. . . different about you a little too much. Box notwithstanding.”
“Do you know how wealthy I’d be if I could make people appear just by snapping my fingers?”
I snapped. “Poof, here’s Jimmy Hoffa?”
“Exactly. I’m not willing to pay the price for that kind of magic.”
I narrowed my gaze. “But that kind of magic exists?”
“What do you think?”
I thought that over the last few years I’d seen a lot of things that the rational mind said were impossible. A lot of magic. My whole life had become a mission to chronicle the impossible. It was how I kept myself anchored to some kind of reality, in a world where werewolves were real and I was one of them.
“I think there’s a whole lot of this world I still don’t understand,” I said.
He regarded me, a faint smile touching his lips, which gave him the most genuine—even warm—expression I’d ever seen on him. “You surprise me. Your kind tends to chaos. But not you.”
Kitty Norville, a force for order? Wild. I felt like I’d passed some kind of test with him.
“I like to pretend that everything’s going to be all right. That everything’s normal.”
“How is that working out for you?”
“Some days are beƒome0%'tter than others.”
Suddenly, he pulled himself from the wall, looking toward the theater door in the back of the house. Unconsciously, his hands straightened and re-straightened the deck of cards. He held them like I’d seen some people hold weapons. He looked like nothing so much as an animal who’d spotted danger.
I looked where he did, in the direction of the supposed danger, and didn’t see what he did, or what he sensed with whatever senses he had. But a moment later, I smelled it, the wild skin and musk of a lycanthrope.
Nick came sauntering in, hands in the pockets of his oh-so-tight jeans. A fitted T-shirt showed off his muscles. I tensed, wondering what he wanted. He barely glanced at me, just long enough to acknowledge me with a wink, before he stopped about halfway down the theater to regard Grant. The magician glared back with an icy gaze, his lips pressed in a line, hands tensed around his deck of cards.
“I see how it is,” Nick said, behind a laugh. “You have to lure us here because you don’t have the guts to come after us.”
Grant’s jaw tightened, like he had to keep anger in check. Then he smiled faintly, but it was cold, challenging. “A dozen of you against one of me? I’m not foolish.”
“Sure, right,” Nick said. “And what are you doing with her? Think you can use her to cut some kind of deal?”
“Nobody uses me for anything,” I said, though I was clearly out of my depth. This was a long-running argument, a rivalry that went deeper than I could see from my vantage. But if I stuck around, maybe I’d learn something.
“We were just having a conversation. Like reasonable people do,” Grant said.
“This is stupid,” Nick said. He’d begun pacing, fists clenched at his side, going a few steps up and down the aisle, like a tiger. “We could bring you down. If we went public, people would know we were monsters—and celebrate us for it. While you’d still be a two-bit magician.” He jabbed a finger at Grant, who didn’t flinch.
“You only think that,” Grant said, ever calm. “If you went public, you’d be nothing more than a freakshow. You’d lose every advantage you have. Balthasar knows that.”
I said, “Ah, do either of you want to explain to me what’s going on here?”
“Not your concern,” Grant said. “I’m sorry you had to see this much of it.”
“There’s some kind of feud between you and Balthasar’s troupe. I can see that much.”
“Feud?” Nick said, laughing. “It’s a war.”
“Over what?” I said.
Grant hadn’t taken his gaze off the lycanthrope. He said, “The nature of the universe.”
Now I laughed. “You’re joking.”
But neither of them reacted, locked in some epic stare-down. Odysseus Grant tapped the deck he was holding twice, then turned up the first card: ace of spades. Nick flinched but immediately straightened again and didn’t give ground.
“You really ought to leave,” Grant said.
“I will. I just came to deliver a message. To her.” He moved toward the stage, toward me, pulling something out of his pocket.
Grant moved to intercept us—to shield me from him. Frankly, though, I didn’t know who to be more worried about.
“Give this to her,” Nick said, tossing the thing from his pocket up to Grant. Still watching Nick, Grant handed it back to me.
It was a plastic bag holding a scrap of cloth, part of the collar of a white T-shirt. I opened it. The smell of Ben hit me, filled me. The plastic had preserved the scent.
My stomach turned to ice. “Where is he?”
Nick shrugged. “Balthasar said that would get your attention.”
Shit. My second thought was, not again. How many times could a guy need rescuing? Assuming there was something left to rescue.
“Why?” I said, my voice taut. “What does Balthasar want with him?”
“I guess you’ll have to go find out.”
I started running.
“Kitty!” Grant called, finally turning from Nick to reach after me. I stopped to listen. “It’s a trap. You know that.”
“So? Give me an alternative.”
He didn’t. Couldn’t. Nick wore an amused smile, like he was enjoying himself way too much. I ran past him, out of the theater. Nick might have followed me. I didn’t wait around to see.
Boris and Sylvia were still out there, which was one thing too many to worry about. If I moved fast enough, they wouldn’t spot me. So I just had to move faster.
But times like this, panic made time move way too slowly.
Chapter 17
I caught a cab, thinking that would give me some protection from the bounty hunters. From their point of view, I’d have just disappeared, I hoped. I left Nick behind. Saw him run out the doors, then stop, looking after me—he was smiling. Because I was walking into the trap, but what choice did I have? I made phone calls to Evan and Brenda. That they didn’t answer meant they were in a situation where they couldn’t have their phones on. Or they were ignoring me. I left messages telling them about Boris and Sylvia at the Diablo, and about Balthasar’s troupe at the Hanging Gardens . I didn’t have time to wait for them. I also left a message with Detective Gladden. I didn’t know what he would make of all this. I had no idea what my voice must have sounded like, if my messages would even be comprehensible.
Worry about that later.
I sat in the back seat, glancing out all the windows, looking over my shoulder, afraid of what I’d find following me. The car didn’t go fast enough, of course, and I was having trouble catching my breath.
The driver glanced at me in his rearview mirror. “You look like you’re late for your wedding or something,” he said.
That was hilarious. I covered my mouth and giggled.
Finally, we arrived at the Hanging Gardens . I paid the driver too much and left the door open in my hurry to rush into the hotel. People stared as I ran past. But hey, surely panicked people ran through the lobbies of Vegas hotels all the time. How many little tragedies happened in this town every day? I bet someone got jilted at the altar all the time. I wasn’t anything special.
I reprimanded myself. I hadn’t been jilted at the altar. No need to go inventing tragedies for myself. There were enough real ones in the making at the moment.
I didn’t know what time it was. Late. Really late, or really early, depending on your point of view. The crowds had actually thinned out. A few people wandered. A group of young drunks, bellowing laughter, leaned on each other as they walked. A few people sat in front of slot machines, staring like zombies, pressing the button over and over and over again. A janitor was wiping down a railing around the casino area. This was like the tail end of a party that a few lonely people refused to let end. It was tiring to see, and sad.
I stalled out where the lobby branched off to various sections of the hotel: casino, elevators, restaurants, theater. Where did I find Balthasar? In his suite? Where had he taken Ben? I couldn’t scent anything; this whole place smelled like Balthasar and his troupe. Searching for a single lycanthrope here would be like trying to find a single piece of chocolate in a candy store.
And any minute now, Boris, Sylvia, or Nick would walk through the door, intent on catching me. I had to find Ben first.
I headed to the theater.
