Blood Gamble (Disrupted Magic Book 2) Page 15

  The accent, the dark hair, the way her brow furrowed, the mask she used to hide her true self. “Holy shit,” I blurted. Sashi’s eyes flew to me. “You look just like her.” How had I not seen it earlier?

  “Who? Grace?” Sashi asked, but her eyes told me she suspected exactly what I was going to say.

  “Stephanie Noring, from Minnesota. You’re Dr. Noring’s daughter, aren’t you? Or at least her niece or something.” Noring was the physician who had come to LA to take care of me after I’d cured a werewolf and twisted my knee in the resulting seizure. Because I was a null, she had never used anything other than conventional human medicine on me, but still, I should have seen it.

  Sashi’s face had gone glacial. “Her daughter.”

  “Damn, I’m an idiot. Dashiell said there was a whole specialty in healing magic, but Dr. Noring acted like what she did was kind of different from that, and I only now put it together,” I babbled. “You’re much stronger than her, though.”

  “Yes. I was bred to be,” Sashi said coolly. “My mother and I don’t speak. We haven’t for many years now.” She nodded to the transfusion equipment. “That’s enough, I should think. Let’s get you unhooked.”

  Expertly, Sashi pulled out the tubes and attached Band-Aids to my arm and Cliff’s. His color had improved dramatically, and she looked pleased. “He could wake up anytime now,” she said, looking up at me. “How do you feel?”

  “A little light-headed, but nothing major.” I should have picked up on her obviously intentional subject change, but I was too intrigued by my own discovery. Because I’m actually quite dense. “Hey, do you know why Noring has a feud going with our alpha werewolf?” I asked eagerly. “His name is Will, and they’ve got this weird frenemy vibe, but neither of them would tell me why, and I’ve never had anyone else to ask until now . . . Sashi?” The witch had gone pale, and I could see the muscles jumping in her cheek from her clenched jaw.

  Then her eyes jumped back to the fridge, and I turned to see that she had glanced at the photo of Grace again. Without speaking, I stood up and walked over to it, examining the girl more carefully. “Oh, wow,” I said softly. Grace looked so much like Sashi—but her skin and hair were lighter, and there was something about her stance and the way she squared her shoulders. Something I had seen so many times before.

  Will had a daughter.

  Chapter 22

  I turned around. “I am so, so sorry,” I blurted. Sashi just sat there, pale and frozen, as though I’d just pulled down her pants in a crowded church. “I wasn’t trying . . . I mean, I’m sorry to have brought it up . . .” I flailed my hands helplessly.

  “It’s all right,” she said in a soft voice, but her eyes were filled with tears. “I know you didn’t do it on purpose.”

  This explained so much, on one level, but I also had a thousand questions. Most of them were way too personal, and it wasn’t my business. But there was one that I had to ask her. I sat back down and said, “Does Will know?”

  “No,” she whispered. Her eyes had filled with tears. “It was so long ago. When I found out about the pregnancy, he had just been changed, and he was so violent . . .” She shook her head, like she was banishing a bad memory. “I was young, and frightened, and I didn’t think I could trust him.”

  I felt compelled to defend Will, who was truly a good guy, and the best alpha werewolf I’d ever heard of. “Did you know he’s alpha now?” I said anxiously. “He owns his own bar, where the wolves hang out. And he’s never taken a mate.” I wasn’t sure why I’d added that last part, but it sent the tears falling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry!” I said, horrified. “I’m really bad at knowing the right thing to say, ask anyone. Please don’t cry. I promise I’ll shut up now.”

  She shot me a quick smile through the tears, and we sat there in silence for a few minutes while she composed herself. I watched Cliff’s chest rise and fall, waiting and feeling generally miserable. I had made a nice lady cry.

  When Sashi finally did speak, it was in a whisper. “I never took a mate, either. I . . . I came close, once, but . . .” She didn’t finish.

  And my heart broke for her. “It’s not too late,” I said urgently. “You could go to LA, or—”

  But she was already shaking her head. “I don’t . . . react well to werewolves,” she said, looking ashamed. And for about the fifteenth time in the last three minutes, I felt like a moron.

  The three species within the Old World do not inter-date. In fact, something about their various magics causes them to be repulsed by each other, like trying to connect magnets at the wrong ends. When Sashi said she didn’t react well to werewolves, she meant physically.

  Then a new thought struck me, an important one. “Wait—if you could become fully human and go be with him, would you?”

  She blinked, surprised. “What did you just say?”

  I had accidentally dragged her massive secret into the light, so it seemed only fair that I give her one of my own. “I can make someone human again. I mean, I’ve only done it with vampires and werewolves, but I think it would work for a witch, too,” I rushed out. “I would offer to turn Will into a human, but honestly, that would be terrible for so many people. He’s a really great leader. He takes good care of his pack. And it would be effectively asking him to choose between you and them.”

  “I wouldn’t want to do that,” she said, looking dazed. “You . . . you’re saying you can, what, cure magic?”

  “Yes. I can’t do it very often because it takes a lot out of me, but . . . yes.”

  “I’ve never heard of that.” For just the briefest moment, her face glowed with hope. I could practically see her imagining a happily-ever-after with Will. But then the light abruptly died and she shook her head. “He’s a werewolf,” she said. “He’s violent, dangerous.”

  Before I could protest, she added, “And even if he wasn’t . . . I’m rather needed here.” She glanced down at Cliff. His color was a little better, though still much paler than it should be. “You have no idea how many idiots hurt each other or themselves at the big hotels. Many of them would die without intervention, and the casinos don’t like hospitals, not when it could tarnish their reputation with tourists.”

  “So let them get a shady hotel doctor like everyone else!” I said indignantly.

  She smiled a little. “You are very young.” Her eyes were suddenly so sad. “It’s just not that simple.”

  She was, what, maybe fifteen years older than me? At the most? Then again, I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to raise a daughter as a single parent, especially in Las Vegas. And she’d done it without her own mother. It must have been so hard.

  No wonder Will and Dr. Noring had their contentious connection. Will had told me once that Noring used to be his doctor, meaning his oncologist. If Sashi and Will had been in love, and then Will had been changed in order to survive cancer . . . what a mess.

  Some of these thoughts must have played out on my face, because Sashi’s eyes narrowed a little. “Are you going to tell him about Gracie?”

  I shook my head. “It’s not my place. But will you at least think about contacting him and telling him yourself? I promise, he’s got control of his wolf side. He’s the best werewolf I’ve ever known.”

  “Bernard?” Cliff’s eyes fluttered open, his gaze fastening onto my face. He took in the room, and the beautiful woman on the other side of him, and his brow furrowed. “The hell is going on?”

  “Cliff, meet Sashi,” I said. “She’s a thaumaturge witch.”

  His hand strayed up to his midsection, encountering the bandage. “It barely even hurts,” he said in awe. “What did you do?”

  “Everything I could,” Sashi said briskly. “And your friend here donated blood.”

  Cliff’s eyes returned to me, and I gave a weak wave. “Thank you,” he said.

  Sashi’s violet eyes were boring into me. “We should talk again, before you leave town.” She pushed a strand of hair behind her ears and st
ood up. “If you can walk, Cliff, you can go.”

  “You’ll think about it?” I pressed.

  She gave me a short, tight nod. Cliff looked back and forth between us, bleary-eyed, and I could practically see him make the decision not to ask. Instead, he pushed himself up onto his elbows, wincing a little, then sat all the way up. “Where to, boss?” he said to me.

  I glanced at his blood-soaked clothes. “Do you have a change of clothes in the SUV?”

  He looked mildly insulted. “Of course.”

  “Excellent.” I checked my watch. Midafternoon, and I realized I was starving. “First, food. Then—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—we better get back to the bachelorette party.”

  If Cliff had been at full strength, I would have liked to push on for more answers for Wyatt. But Cliff needed food and rest, and anyway, I couldn’t think of anything I could do at the moment, short of waking up some vampires and knocking their heads together. Doing that without permission was expressly taboo, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t know where any of them spent their daytime hours. I would have to wait until sunset, when I could ask Wyatt for Ellen’s phone records. Meanwhile, my top choice would have been to go back to the room for a nap, but we’d been away from the bachelorette party for too long—Cliff had told the other women he was driving me to my “meeting.”

  We stopped at the Las Vegas In-N-Out for lunch. I know—all the great restaurants in Vegas, and I go to an LA chain. What can I say, I like what I like, and I was in no mood to eat fancy, especially in workout clothes. No matter how expensive they were.

  Cliff moved a little stiffly as we walked into the restaurant, but otherwise he seemed pretty okay. He kept touching the bandage, as if to assure himself that it was really there.

  When we were finally seated with our burgers, I caught Cliff giving me a speculative look. “What?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.

  “You just dipped french fries in your soda.”

  I looked down and swore. “I forgot I didn’t get a milkshake this time.”

  He watched me. “You’re worried about your friend, aren’t you? The big black guy?”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Just how long were you following me? And were you . . . eavesdropping?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t hear your conversation, no. But it looked intense. You guys have a history?”

  “Something like that.”

  I ate a few more fries, then blurted, “I don’t have a way to find him, is all, at least not until the show tonight. And that guy who came after me today, the skinner you shot at . . . two more of them went after Jameson.”

  “He moved like he could handle himself,” Cliff offered. “I’m sure he’s fine. We can go look for him at the theater later, if you want.”

  “Thanks.” Embarrassed, I tried to focus on my food, but I could feel Cliff still watching me. I looked down, but my fries were in ketchup this time and I hadn’t managed to drip special sauce all over Sashi’s clothes . . . yet. “Now what?” I asked.

  “You donated blood,” he said simply.

  I shrugged. “We have the same blood type. Yay, us.” But he was still looking at me. “Stop staring at me,” I said, getting irritated. “You would have done the same for me.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a . . .” He stopped himself.

  I pointed a finger at him, angry now. “Finish that sentence.”

  “A human,” he said reluctantly.

  “So am I.”

  “That’s—” But he cut himself off again, shaking his head a little. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

  I put down the burger, which was a big deal because they’re very hard to pick up again. “Is that why you’ve been so weird to me? Because I’m Old World and you’re not?”

  He shrugged, looking a little abashed. “I’ve dealt with plenty of vampires since I took this job, and more than a few werewolves before that.”

  “And none of them were nice to you?”

  “None of them were selfless,” he corrected. “The wolves put the needs of the pack before anything else, and the vampires don’t do anything without getting something in return. They’ve all got Asperger’s or something.”

  I stifled a smile, the anger draining out of me. I hadn’t really looked at it that way, but from his perspective, he did kind of have a point. “They’re transactional, yeah, because when you live forever, you’ve got a lot of time to accrue and spend favors. And when you have endless amounts of money, favors and power are the only currency worth caring about. As for the werewolves . . .” I shrugged. “Think of them as a particularly tight AA group.”

  He gave me a bitter smile. “That’s not how my ex saw it. They were always . . . well, hounding him, excuse the pun. Calling to check on him, inviting him to things, pushing at him. He was always looking for a way out of it, but he kept getting dragged back in to help someone.”

  I blinked. It hadn’t occurred to me that Cliff’s ex was male, but I shouldn’t have made assumptions. At any rate, that was a weird way to describe the werewolves. Most of the pack members I knew seemed to depend on the pack to stay sane, to help them maintain human-ish lives. Then again, maybe I was looking at it from Eli’s perspective, since we’d been together so long. He saw the pack as a force for good, a tool to help everyone keep it together. It hadn’t occurred to me that some members would feel differently. “What was his name?” I asked Cliff.

  “Drew.”

  Oh. I put my burger down again, suddenly not hungry. I had known Cliff’s ex. Drew Riddell had gotten sucked into helping a sketchy werewolf named Terrence try to broker a deal to take down Will. The plan had backfired, and Drew had been killed by the Luparii. Only they’d used Shadow to do it.

  My bargest had killed Cliff’s ex. What do you even say to that? Small world?

  I decided not to mention it. Cliff probably knew—werewolves were nearly impossible to kill, unless you had a null or a magically spelled creature who’d been created for that singular purpose—but if he didn’t, I had no reason to tell him.

  “Anyway,” Cliff said gruffly, trying to break the sudden silence. “The wolves are too insular, if you ask me. They’re all about secrets and insider plans.”

  Yeah, I could see how that would be hard on a relationship. But I had a bizarre impulse to defend Will’s people. “They’re protective of each other, but they sort of have to be. Sometimes knowing you have support is the only thing that keeps you from losing your shit.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Speaking from personal experience?”

  Happily, my cell phone rang at just that moment. I glanced at the screen and saw Abby’s number. “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey, yourself,” she retorted. Abby is a little brusque. “I got the information you asked for about Margaret’s cell phone.”

  “And?”

  “She did receive a call shortly before her disappearance. The number is registered to an Ellen Jones.”

  “Damn,” I said, disappointed. That had to be Wyatt’s Ellen. Jesse had probably been right about vampires inviting each other into the trap, but this didn’t really help me. “Okay, thanks, Abby.”

  “Hang on,” she interrupted. “There’s something else. One of your old cell phone numbers has been called three times in the last two hours.”

  Abby changes my number periodically for security purposes. And, okay, because I keep trashing cell phones. She takes care of forwarding the number or intercepting calls or whatever, because I am technologically uninclined. “Did you answer it?”

  “Noooo,” she said in a tone that reminded me that she was not an answering service. We’d actually come a long way: only a few months ago she would have barked this at me and hung up. “But here’s the number.”

  She rattled off a stream of digits, but I didn’t recognize it. I jotted it down on an In-N-Out napkin and studied the area code. “Six-four-six?” I said. “Where’s that?”

  “Midtown. New York,” Abby said, and hung up the phone.

  My he
art leapt. Jameson.

  Chapter 23

  I called Jameson back as we left the restaurant and walked out to the parking lot. He sounded anxious but said he was fine, and we arranged to meet in person outside my hotel.

  Cliff claimed he felt well enough to get back behind the wheel, but I insisted on driving us back to the hotel, letting him play navigator. When we got there, I tried to send him back to his room to rest, but of course he refused. After five minutes of bickering—and me reminding him that whatever Dashiell said, Hayne’s orders were to stay with the other women—he agreed that he didn’t need to follow me to meet Jameson. Instead, he would rejoin Juliet and friends as they went about their bachelorette activities.

  Better him than me. What did it say about me that I was more comfortable having clandestine meetings with the supernatural than I was taking a dance lesson?

  Jameson was waiting for me outside, at the lower entrance to the Venetian. He had a beauty of a black eye, and he was keeping one arm close to his body, like it hurt to move it. When he saw me walking toward him, he straightened up, looking concerned.

  “Your face,” he said, taking my chin in his hand and turning it to the side. “What the hell happened?”

  “One of those guys followed me into the container park,” I replied. “In related news, pistol-whipping is apparently still a thing.”

  “God, I’m sorry.” He let go of me, looking remorseful. “I thought they’d stay with me.”

  I shrugged it off. “Anyway, I’m not the only one who looks like they lost a fight. What happened to your eye? Did they catch you?”

  “Shh,” he hissed, and I realized I’d been too loud. There were a lot of tourists around. “Come with me.” Taking my hand, he led me to the end of a nearby line.

  I craned my neck to see what we were waiting for. “The gondolas? Why?”

  “So we can talk and stay in public at the same time.”

  I was about to ask why we needed to stay in public, but then I realized he was afraid we might be attacked again. Unlike the streets downtown, every casino is plastered with video cameras, which would make it hard for a gunman to get away with shooting us. Even the skinners didn’t want to interfere with casino security.