Chapter Two
Law
Devil’s Gate. Yes, Duncan knew of it.
That period of his life was etched indelibly in his mind. He had lived his last days as a human and his first nights as a Vampyre during the riotous Gold Rush in San Francisco. He would wake in the evenings, starving for fresh blood and newspapers. Gods, he had loved that time. It had been wild, greedy and anarchistic, and everyone had been a sculptor, carving out their futures and fortunes the best way they knew how.
He had followed the original news about Devil’s Gate in the Pacific Courier. In June of 1850, a gold nugget had been discovered at Devil’s Gate, which lay just north of Silver City in western Nevada. For ten years the entire area became the scene of frenetic mining. The gold rush in Nevada had been even wilder than the California Gold Rush, fueled by a thread of land magic that ran like liquid mercury throughout the desert mountains and rock.
Formed out of lava rock, Devil’s Gate itself had been blasted wider to create a toll road on the route to Virginia City. The narrow opening soon became notorious as a popular hideout for highwayman, and anyone who wanted to pass along the route safely had to travel armed.
Even with the last hundred and sixty years of searching and with modern surveying techniques, it was still possible today to stumble upon a vein of magic-rich metal. In eastern Nevada, the Nirvana Silver Mining Company had done just that when they had accidentally blasted open a passageway to a small pocket of Other land that held a magic-rich silver node.
A few months ago, in March, the news of the discovery had slammed through the media. The law was very clear about mining rights and ownership in Other lands. Even though the passageway was on the Nirvana company grounds, and even though there were no indigenous people living in the Other land, the mining company had no legal right to harvest the newfound vein of silver.
Succumbing to greed, the company owner had imported undocumented workers and held them against their will, forcing them to work in such inhumane circumstances that several had died. An Elder tribunal Peacekeeper on a routine mission had uncovered the crimes.
The magic that ran through the rock in Devil’s Gate had never led to a full crossover passageway—at least not one that had ever been discovered or documented. But after what happened in Nirvana, that slight spark of land magic had been enough to ignite the imaginations of a great many people.
After all, if a crossover passageway leading to a magic-rich silver node could be uncovered so recently in Nirvana, who knows what one could discover in the witchy land at Devil’s Gate? Perhaps there were slivers of previously undiscovered gold, or there might be more magic-rich silver, or even more buried passageways that led to Other lands.
Thousands of people, both Elder Races and humankind, converged upon the place. They chased gold and silver, magic and fool’s dreams of sudden wealth.
Almost overnight a sprawling city of tents and RVs sprang up in Gold Canyon. By mid-April, nearly sixty thousand people had struck camp. At the end of May, the tent city had grown to over twice that size. Desperate for opportunity and a fresh start, illegal immigrants poured north from Mexico, while charlatans and schemers, sightseers, prostitutes, drug dealers and thieves poured in from all over the globe, creating a brawling mess that grew messier and more violent as the summer solstice came closer and the desert temperatures escalated accordingly.
The State of Nevada was caught completely off guard. Lawmakers struggled to come up with an effective way to deal with the situation, their resources already severely overburdened from a long economic downturn. They didn’t have the manpower to police an entirely new city that had sprung up overnight.
The last Duncan had heard, the state had filed several appeals for help, with the Nightkind demesne in California, with the Demonkind demesne in Texas, and with the human Federal government.
The process had stalled under one essential question: under whose jurisdiction did the very expensive problem fall? If more than fifty percent of the population in the tent city were creatures of the Elder Races, then the jurisdiction—and responsibility for policing it—fell to the Elder Races demesnes. But nobody could answer the question, because nobody had conducted a Census. There hadn’t been time.
And Seremela intended to walk all alone into that cesspool?
Duncan’s jaw tightened as he looked down into her face. “This won’t do, Seremela,” he said, and this time he didn’t even bother with an apology for intruding. Determination hardened his face and body. “It won’t do at all.”
A spark of amusement had entered her colorful, intelligent gaze. “If by ‘it won’t do,’ you mean that Vetta can’t be allowed to wreak havoc on the thousands of unsuspecting people at Devil’s Gate, you would be right,” she said. “That girl is like water running downhill. She can find the lowest common denominator in just about any situation.”
“I think you know very well that’s not what I meant,” he said.
He had not met many medusae before her. They were rare, comprising only a small fraction of the Demonkind population, and they also tended to be rather clannish.
Seremela was strange to him, and lovely, with fine-boned, feminine features and blue-green eyes that had vertical slits for pupils. She seemed on the small side for a medusa, which was around average height for a human woman, with a trim waist and rounded breasts and hips. Her skin was a pale creamy green that had a faint iridescent pattern that resembled the pattern on snakeskin, but he had touched her hand before on other occasions, and her warm soft skin felt entirely human. He loved her exotic beauty. Her snakes were frankly mischievous, and he loved them as well.
Most of all what drew him to her was her intelligence and her gentle nature. She was a medical doctor, a pathologist and an academician. Her snakes were poisonous, which did give her beauty a certain edge, but many creatures, like himself, were immune to their poison.
And in any case, she would have to be caught in a situation extreme enough that her snakes felt threatened to bite. Even the most quickly acting poisons took at least a few moments to act. In a physical struggle, those few moments could easily mean the difference between life or death.
She could be deadly, but she was also very vulnerable.
Unable to resist, he reached out to take her hand, and she let him. He relished the sense of her slender warm fingers resting in his grip. She kept her neat, oval fingernails trimmed close, a practical choice for a medical examiner turned researcher. “You can’t go to Devil’s Gate all by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
She did not protest nor did she appear to be angry at his presumptuous language. Instead, she stared at their hands as she pointed out, “My niece is there all by herself.”
“Which, we can both agree, is not acceptable,” he said.
The smile in her eyes dimmed, her expression tightened and she looked at the floor. “Well, there isn’t any other option,” she told him. “I spent half the night and much of this morning trying to figure out the best thing to do.”
“There has to be some other way,” he said.
“There isn’t,” she said, her voice turning flat again. “There’s no legal recourse. The state can’t even keep the area adequately policed. They certainly don’t have the resources to send anyone in to find one person who I can guarantee doesn’t want to be found. And frankly, I don’t want to bully my sister into going with me. She’d only wring her hands, fall apart and be useless. Trust me, that would be much more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I understand,” he said. He raised her hand and pressed his lips against her fingers. She froze, her startled gaze flashing back up to his. “But nevertheless I still can’t let you go to Devil’s Gate by yourself.”
This time she did pick up on his language. “You can’t let me,” she repeated with a careful lack of emphasis.
He knew exactly what it sounded like, and he was entirely unrepentant for it. He stressed, “Not by yourself, Seremela.”
Her shoulders drooped and she tried to pull her hand out of his. “While I understand that you mean well, I don’t have time to argue with you,” she said. “My taxi’s coming in less than a half an hour, and I’m not finished packing yet.”
“Cancel it,” he told her, his fingers tightening on hers.
“Duncan—”
He pulled her closer until they stood toe to toe, and he looked deeply into her strange, beautiful eyes. “Cancel it,” he repeated. “And take your time as you finish packing. I will sort out the quickest flight to Reno then come back to pick you up.”
He could see from her puzzled expression that she still didn’t quite get it. “I’m not sure what to say.”
In light of the number of clues he had dropped, her confusion seemed remarkably innocent and was entirely adorable. He raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Or better yet, figure it out while you finish packing. You can tell me whatever it is on the flight, since I’m coming with you.”
A delicious warm rose color washed intoxicatingly underneath her creamy light green skin. “You are?”
“I am. Now, don’t argue with me,” he said as she took in a quick breath. He began to wonder just how far she would let him push her. In wondering where her boundaries might be, and what she might do should he cross them, he began to enjoy her even more than he had before. “Just do as I say.”
She shut her mouth with an audible click. “Can’t. Won’t. Don’t. You’ve used a lot of archaic-sounding prohibitives in the last fifteen minutes.”
He could tell she wasn’t really angry. She was, ever so gently, warning him not to go too far. It pleased him so much he ran the tip of a finger very lightly down her cheek. “You might have noticed, my dear,” he murmured. “I happen to be a nineteenth century kind of a guy.”
He left her sputtering and rosier than ever, and he spent a pleasant ride in the elevator to the basement garage wondering what she would say to him when he picked her up. A few minutes later, he called Carling and Rune’s house. Rune picked up.
Carling was a Vampyre, but Rune wasn’t. Rune was Wyr, and just under a year ago he had been First sentinel for Dragos Cuelebre, Lord of the Wyr in New York, until he had mated with Carling. Rune and Carling had relocated to Miami, and for several months they had been gathering underutilized talent from across several different demesnes.
Now Rune and Carling were setting up an international consulting agency so that they could put to use the talent they had gathered around them. Some parts of the agency, such as consultations with the Oracle, would be operated on a sliding scale fee, and other parts would be profit-based only. Carling must have told Rune about Seremela’s email, or perhaps Rune had read it for himself.
“Seremela and I need to fly to Reno,” Duncan told Carling’s mate.
“Yo-okay,” said Rune. “Duncan, you dog.”
“You had to go there,” Duncan said. He smiled to himself as he negotiated the afternoon traffic. He liked Rune. They had learned to work well together when they had traveled to the Dark Fae Other land of Adriyel to see Niniane Lorelle safely to her coronation as the Dark Fae Queen.
“Seriously, is everything all right?”
“I hope so. Seremela has a runaway niece who has ended up at Devil’s Gate, of all places.” He paused briefly as he listened to Rune mutter a curse. “We’re going to extract her from the situation and escort her home to her mother.”
“Anything we can do?”
One of the first acquisitions their brand new consulting agency had purchased was a private jet that could seat up to twelve people and that had the capacity for international travel. They were serious about the agency and were allocating enough money to set it up with top notch resources.
Of course Duncan was well aware that the plane also had the capacity to travel quite comfortably across the continental U.S.
“It would be nice,” Duncan said, “to get to Nevada as quickly as possible before her niece has a chance to get hurt.”
“Is this urgent enough to bargain away a favor to a Djinn?”
Duncan gave the question serious consideration. Most people had never even met a Djinn. Still fewer were able to draw a Djinn’s attention long enough to bargain with one. Duncan and Seremela were acquainted with Khalil and could talk with him, but Khalil’s Djinn sensibilities were such that he would probably see nothing wrong with bargaining with them for a favor in return. While the situation at Devil’s Gate was unsafe and volatile, owing a favor to a Djinn could be an expensive and even more dangerous business over the long haul.
He said, “I don’t think so. Still, we should get there quickly.”
“I’ll have the plane fueled and on the tarmac inside an hour,” Rune said.
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
“I wish Seremela had felt comfortable enough to ask us herself.”
“Borrowing a plane is quite a big favor to ask, Rune,” Duncan told him. “And she’s new to Miami and still feeling her way. Hell, we all are. It’s just that some of us have known each other longer than others. Give her time.”
“Good point. Let us know if there’s anything else we can do.”
“Will do.” Duncan ended the call.
He was frowning when he reached his fifteen thousand square foot house. He would pack two bags. One of them would be a backpack filled with weapons, cash, a few toiletries and ways to keep himself protected from the sun. That would be the essential bag.
The other would be filled with luxuries like extra clothing, along with a securely encrypted laptop in case he found some time to get some work done. While he would also definitely pack a satellite phone as well, the land magic around Devil’s Gate interfered with phone reception so they would have to plan on being self-sufficient.
They would have to drive to Devil’s Gate from Reno, which meant they needed to rent an SUV. He made more calls to arrange a rental, including camping supplies, food and water for Seremela, and several cases of bloodwine. He tried to rent an RV, but there weren’t any available on short notice within five hundred miles of Devil’s Gate.
If retrieving Seremela’s niece took longer than a few days, and if anything happened to his food supply, he would have to hunt for sustenance. Hopefully he would be able to find and pay for willing donors. If not, he would do what he had to do. He thought of the delectable healthy blush that had risen in Seremela’s cheeks, and rather to his shock, his cock hardened in response.
He was an intelligent, educated and mature man who believed in law, in self control, and in regulating his emotions. He did not mix his appetites or confuse hunger for sustenance with sexual desire. He would not be that inconsiderate, either to his donors or to his lovers. Not even when a chaotic, sexy harpy had offered him a chance to taste her rare blood in exchange for sex had he given in to temptation.
But he also knew there were places and times where the law did not reach, and Devil’s Gate was one of those places and one of those times. Apparently there were also times when a man’s appetites became mixed, no matter how much self control he might try to exert over himself.
It had been some time since Duncan had done so, but he knew how to navigate through lawlessness. In fact he was looking forward to it again, and while he would have helped Seremela for decency’s sake, no matter what, it certainly did not hurt in the slightest that she was so very beautiful, and he was intensely attracted to her.
No doubt she would be very grateful for everything he did. She might even offer to feed him, herself.
If she did, despite all of his carefully thought out principles, he would take what she offered. Hell, he would jump at the chance. His cock grew even harder as he thought of her bare, slender neck arched in invitation. He thought of sinking his teeth into her soft skin while her breasts filled his hands, and his erection grew so tight it became painful.
Oh, Duncan, he thought. You had to go there too, didn’t you? Rune had been teasing, but he’d also had the right of it. You are a lowdown dirty dog.