Blood Gamble (Disrupted Magic Book 2) Read online

  I stepped off the tiny front porch to meet him halfway. “You must be Hayne’s guy,” I said. The man nodded, his hands hanging loose at his sides. No effort to shake my hand. “Do you mind if I see some ID?” I asked.

  He pulled out a wallet and handed me a California state driver’s license that said Augustin Wesley Clifford. That name was too weird to be anything but real.

  I handed the ID back. “What do you want me to call you?” I asked, just to make him respond.

  “Cliff.”

  The part of my brain that expected stereotypes had also figured he was the kind of guy who mostly grunted his words. But that “Cliff” was clear and matter-of-fact. He could talk, he just didn’t want to.

  And we were about to spend the next five hours in a car together. Goody.

  Cliff opened the back so I could toss in my small suitcase, and we climbed into the SUV. It looked just like the vehicles that Dashiell kept for his security team, but from the personal touches—a couple of receipts on the floor, one of those organizers on the back of the visor, etc.—I had the feeling we were in Cliff’s personal vehicle. Which made sense, given that this was supposed to be an under-the-radar mission.

  As I’d expected, he was silent as we got on the street and skated the freeways out of town. I spent some time playing games on my cell phone, but when we were fully out of LA County and I lost the signal, I couldn’t stand the silence anymore.

  “So what’s your story, Cliff?”

  He just glanced at me, raising an eyebrow. “You know who I am, right?” I added.

  “Yes, Miss Bernard.”

  Ouch. So it was going to be like that. “Call me Scarlett. Do you know about our real mission this weekend?”

  “Yes, Miss Bernard.”

  “Scarlett,” I said again. “If you know all that, and if Dashiell sent you along, you’re not just a human security grunt. You know about the Old World. There are only a handful of humans in the city who know about the Old World but aren’t connected to it in some way, and you’re not one of them. So. What’s your story?”

  He was silent for a long moment, but I waited him out. Beatrice had said that this guy used to be a bodyguard in the Middle East, and he also reminded me of Jesse’s friend Lex, who was ex-military. Which meant he was probably weighing my need to know. I gave him a minute to reach his conclusion.

  Finally, he said, “My ex was a werewolf.”

  “Oh,” was all I managed to come up with. Only ten or fifteen years ago, most werewolf alphas didn’t let their pack members marry humans—or if they did, the human would have to become a werewolf, too. I didn’t know how it worked in other places now, but in LA, Will let his wolves marry whomever they wanted, and he also allowed them to tell their spouses the truth. It had been a point of contention between him and Dashiell, but it was one of the few times Will had put his foot down against the city’s cardinal vampire. All that had been before my time, though.

  “Does she live in LA?” I asked, and then his words caught up with me. He had said his ex was a werewolf. Shit. She had died.

  “No ma’am,” was all he said, and I let the matter drop. I’d been working with Dashiell, in one way or another, for about eight years, and I couldn’t think of any werewolves who’d died in that time who could be Cliff’s ex. So this had to have been before my time, too. If Cliff had worked as a bodyguard in the Middle East after her death, it would be just like Dashiell to offer him a job when he got back. Dashiell liked to keep humans in the know as close as possible.

  At any rate, I was relieved that Cliff already knew about the Old World. This weekend would have been way too hard if I’d had to keep secrets from him, too.

  “Beatrice told me your job is to protect the human women on this trip,” I offered. “Is that true?”

  He glanced at me quickly, then back at the road. “Yes, Miss Bernard.”

  “Scarlett. Do you ever smile?”

  “Yes, Miss Bernard,” we said in unison, and despite himself, the corner of Cliff’s mouth quirked, just a little bit.

  Encouraged, I tried asking, “Do you like working for Dashiell?”

  His eyes flicked over, trying to read me. “I work for Theo Hayne,” he said finally.

  Interesting. It didn’t necessarily worry me—Cliff was loyal to Hayne, and Hayne was loyal to Dashiell, completely. In this situation, at least, their orders would be one and the same. But why did Cliff feel the need to make the distinction?

  I didn’t really think he was going to tell me, so I didn’t ask. Who says I’m not growing as a person?

  After a few more fidgety minutes of dead silence and desert views, I said, “Do you have any music?”

  Cliff let me connect my phone’s Bluetooth and serve as the in-car DJ for the rest of the trip. I assumed it was mostly just to get me to shut up, but that was fine. I played what I felt like hearing, and whenever I had a signal, I looked online for more information about Demeter.

  It didn’t surprise me to learn that in addition to big sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor, there were a whole bunch of websites devoted to reviewing the big casino shows. It also didn’t surprise me to learn that Demeter was receiving excellent reviews.

  But although I found dozens of evaluations for the show, I couldn’t find a single one that was more than two sentences long. It was like they’d all been written by marketing interns. “This show is wonderful, you should go to it.” “Way better than any other stage show in Vegas.” Like that. At least none of them said, “Now I’m pretty sure vampires are real.”

  We stopped in Barstow for gas and a bathroom break, and by the time the SUV was on the road again, my initial caffeine rush was wearing off and I was starting to nod off. The next thing I knew, the SUV was slowing to a halt. Starting awake, I squinted against the sunshine and pulled sunglasses out of my bag so I could look around. We were at a red light, about to turn onto Las Vegas Boulevard. Damn.

  It was a little after noon on a Friday, and the sidewalks were already getting crowded with tourists, but the traffic was still reasonably light. I found myself craning my head around to take in the sights on the Strip. Juliet was right: a lot had changed since I’d been there last. We cruised past the Luxor, the Excalibur, the MGM Grand—properties that had seemed so fun and innovative a decade earlier, and now appeared to be overshadowed by the adjacent shopping options. Teenage Scarlett had thought New York-New York was the coolest hotel on the Strip, but now it seemed kind of . . . tacky. Obvious.

  A little farther north, there were a bunch of casinos that hadn’t been there on my last visit: the Mandarin Oriental, the Cosmopolitan, the . . . LINQ? What did that even mean? Caesars Palace was even bigger than I remembered, and then suddenly we were pulling up to a sand-colored tower with the word Venetian running down the front in simple carved letters.

  Cliff put the SUV in park and hit a button to unlock the doors. “I’ll let you out here, go around, and park,” he explained, which was the most words I’d heard him string together yet. “Lunch is at one, yeah?”

  “Um, yes. Right.”

  “Here.” He handed me a card with a phone number on it. “In case of emergencies. Dashiell already gave me your number.”

  “Thanks.” I pocketed the card, resolving to program the number into my phone as soon as I reached my room. Then I got my suitcase out of the back and dragged it forward onto the sidewalk. Behind me, I heard the SUV pulling away again, and I craned my head back to look at the massive building, feeling a little claustrophobic. I lived in Los Angeles, which wasn’t exactly a small town, but I rarely went into the downtown district. The rest of the city sprawled out, rather than up. I wasn’t used to being around all this . . . size. Everything was so big, and the sidewalks were packed with people, which we also don’t do much in LA.

  On my left, man-made canals sparkled in the sunshine, and I could hear laughter and shouting from the handful of tourists lined up to take a ride. Beside them, a crowd seemed to be winding into the Venetian’s entrance, s
o I pushed out a breath and followed them.

  Here we go.

  Chapter 7

  Inside, I was immediately disoriented. I’d sort of prepared myself for beeping, flashing slot machines, but instead I was in some sort of opulent atrium, with statues scattered all over the pretty marble flooring. I could see the casino ahead, yes, but where the hell was check-in? How was I ever going to find my way around? I looked for signs, but they seemed to be mostly for towers and different sections of the casino, plus different sections of the connecting casino, the Palazzo.

  Someone jostled me, making me stumble forward, and when I turned around to look it was two laughing teenagers, who apologized—I think—in a language I didn’t recognize. I waved them on, chewing on my lip as more people pressed against me. God, I hated Vegas.

  “Can I help you find something, miss?” came a voice from my right. I turned, and was relieved to see a competent-looking young woman in a black blazer. Her gold name tag said Alyssa.

  “Um, check-in?” I managed to say. “Rooms? I have no idea where . . .”

  Alyssa clucked sympathetically and held out an arm. “Why don’t I walk you?” she suggested. “And we’ll get you a map right away.”

  “Alyssa, will you marry me?”

  She smiled. “You know, I get that a lot.”

  After checking in, I eventually managed to get on the right elevator and walk down the right hallway to the room where I would be staying. It was a few doors down from the other girls, who were rooming together. Beatrice had told Bethany that I would need my own space because I would be “conducting some business for Dashiell,” which sounded vague and flimsy to me, but apparently Bethany hadn’t questioned it. It was possible that they had made plans in person, where Beatrice could press her to accept whatever she wanted, but it seemed just as likely that Bethany had been secretly relieved. My absence would make it so much easier for the bridal party to discuss the important things in life, like getting your kids into private school and the perfect stretchy leggings.

  After dropping off my suitcase, I exchanged the hoodie for a light jacket, shoved my wallet and phone into the pockets, and headed down to lunch with the casino map in hand. After a few false starts, I managed to find the entrance to the Grand Lux Cafe, one of the restaurants just off the casino.

  I had been expecting . . . well, a cafe, with an order counter and cheap tables that hadn’t been wiped properly, but no, this was a full-on, rather decadent-looking restaurant, done in low, warm shades of glowing gold and brown. I automatically glanced down at my clothes. Jeans, boots with hidden knife holsters, and a V-neck tee shirt. Should I have changed?

  “Scarlett!” a familiar voice cried. I turned my head and spotted Juliet, waving at me from a crowded table. I recognized two of the women with her as fellow bridesmaids: Bethany, and a pale, shy woman in her midtwenties, Tara (pronounced TAR-uh, “like the sticky stuff they use on asphalt,” she’d told me, almost apologetically). The last bridesmaid, Amber, was missing, and I didn’t recognize the fourth woman at the table, a Caucasian woman about Juliet’s age, midthirties. She had gorgeous, flame-red hair in a chin-length bob, but her beige sundress was frumpy and unflattering.

  As I moved closer, I almost stumbled. Not from clumsiness—this time—but because I hadn’t been paying attention to my radius. At home I was used to supernatural beings moving in and out of it at all times, but I hadn’t been prepared for Juliet’s third friend to be a witch.

  Of the three Old World factions, witches are the most common, probably because they’re born into their powers. Well, sort of: witchblood is hereditary, but every witch has a window of time near puberty when they need to activate their magic, if they’re going to use it at all. If you miss the window, your capacity for magic goes dormant, and you spend the rest of your life as just another human.

  I can’t feel dormant witchblood, which means that whenever I sense a witch in my radius, I’m with an actual magic-user. I get a sense of how strong they are when it comes to magic, and the red-haired woman wasn’t particularly powerful—nowhere near the level of, say, Kirsten or Lex. But she was an active witch all the same, which made this weekend even more complicated. If she tried to use any magic at all in my presence, she was going to figure out what I was real quick.

  They were all staring at me, probably because I was standing next to the table gaping like a moron. I went to Juliet and accepted a warm hug. “Hey, ladies,” I said over her shoulder, turning on my brightest smile. It wasn’t really all that bright. “Good to see you all.”

  “Here, you’re by me,” Juliet said, removing her purse from the chair next to her. My sister-in-law looked so happy and excited that I felt a stab of guilt over the whole undercover ruse thing. She gestured toward the stranger. “And I don’t think you’ve met Laurel, my best friend from college. She couldn’t make it to the wedding, but she actually lives here in Vegas, so this works out great.”

  Laurel half-stood so she could reach across the table and shake my hand. “Nice to meet you,” I said. The witches I know tend to accessorize a lot—they love amulets and protective charms, all that stereotypical crap—but Laurel’s arms and neck were bare except for a wristwatch and an antique-looking necklace. It was a chunk of silver, carved in the form of what looked kind of like an ocean wave. Laurel didn’t strike me as a big-time surfer, but what did I know?

  There were a few minutes of small talk about their flight and my drive, and what everyone wanted to eat. The waiter brought out some warm bread that was so good that I basically forgot my own name for a few minutes, and by the time I finished my second slice, I’d missed a question from Laurel. “Sorry, what?”

  “I was just curious about your job,” she said pleasantly. “Juliet says you clean houses?”

  I nodded. “And a few offices for a handful of clients, kind of a word-of-mouth thing.” I didn’t mention that I was also now licensed to clean up actual human crime scenes. We had set this up with the police as a precaution for when I needed to hide a supernatural incident. “I also help clients get their homes set up for parties and events, so I work a lot of nights.”

  “Did you go to school for that?” Bethany asked sweetly.

  “No, I dropped out of college when my parents died,” I said in as pleasant a voice as I could manage.

  There was a moment of awkward silence, then Tara asked, “Did you ever think about going back to school? I mean, that’s probably not the kind of job you want to stick with forever . . . right?” She immediately looked flustered.

  I fought the urge to roll my eyes. They meant well—at least, I thought Tara did—but I’d run into this before. Educated white people just could not believe that a white kid from the suburbs would want to clean houses as a career. They were equally shocked that I’d gotten into a perfectly good college and didn’t want to go back for a degree. So then I was expected to defend what I saw as a perfectly reasonable career choice—except it wasn’t actually my career. It was my cover. The whole situation was just weird.

  Luckily, Juliet jumped in to save me. “Scarlett started her own business when she was just twenty,” she said proudly, “and now she has employees. She’s doing just fine.”

  I had to smile at that. It was cute to hear her bragging about me, even if it was about my human cover. “Just one or two,” I said. “I had a regular part-timer, but she went off to college. I keep meaning to hire someone else, but I’ve just been calling in freelancers.” This was more or less true, if you counted Jesse, who I did not actually pay. He didn’t need the money.

  “What do you do?” I asked Laurel, mostly to get the conversation off my job. As far as I knew, my cover story was bulletproof, but there was no reason to test it.

  “Well, I used to design fountains for some of the casinos,” Laurel replied, “but now I run a nonprofit devoted to preserving Las Vegas’s history. We had our big gala event the same weekend as Juliet’s wedding, unfortunately.” She shot Juliet an apologetic look, which Jules brushed
off with a smile.

  Fountain designer? That was a real job? I filed that thought under Things Not to Say Out Loud.

  “Tara, honey, are you all right?” Juliet asked, looking across the table with concern. Sure enough, Tara had turned a little green.

  “I thought I was past the morning sickness,” she said with a shaky smile, rising from the table. “Excuse me.” When she stood up, I saw the baby bump and remembered how at the wedding, she’d been talking about finishing her first trimester. Right.

  She speed-walked toward the bathroom, and as my eyes followed the movement I spotted a familiar face hanging out at a table for one. Cliff, sipping from a glass of water, holding a book. He had changed into a charcoal suit with no tie. I tried to smile at him, but he ignored me.

  Tara returned a few minutes later, looking much better. The others began chatting about pregnancy, so I pulled out my phone and surreptitiously sent Cliff a text. Do you want to come meet everyone? You are the “driver.”

  When you’re all done, he sent back. I want to make sure no one is watching you.

  I shrugged and went back to the conversation, at least as much as I could. I didn’t know anything about pregnancy, or babies, for that matter. Nulls couldn’t have kids, so there had never been any reason to learn. But Bethany had two teenagers, and Laurel’s wife was apparently eight months pregnant with their second. Laurel turned to me. “Do you have any kids, Scarlett?” she asked.

  Juliet shot me a sympathetic look. She opened her mouth, probably to stick up for me, but I answered before she could. “Nope.”

  “There’s still time,” Bethany said, in a voice that sounded sympathetic on the surface, but was really just bitchy. Tara, who was maybe a year younger than me, nodded encouragingly.