Chapter Five
The Depths
Panic and disorientation sank claws into Seremela and wouldn’t let her go.
Vetta was to be hanged? For poisoning someone?
She couldn’t drag in a deep enough breath and struggled for air as she stared at the human and his Light Fae bodyguard.
The Light Fae bruiser stared back at her, his cynical expression turning wary. He took a couple steps back and drew his gun.
“Leash your dog,” Duncan said sharply. “He’s about to get stupid.”
What dog? Duncan moved so fast he blurred, crowding her back against a wall. Seremela stared at him blankly. What the hell was he doing?
When he stopped, he stood between her and the Light Fae, and belated understanding slammed into her—he was shielding her with his body.
At the same moment the nerdy human snapped, “Holster it, Dain.”
Lean, strong fingers came under her chin, and Duncan forcibly turned her face toward him. “Don’t look at him,” Duncan said to her in a quiet voice. “Look at me.”
She tried to focus on him. That was when she realized all her snakes were hissing at the Light Fae. Her panic had turned them deadly. She could feel them, roused and wanting to bite, and as she looked over Duncan’s shoulder, she could tell that the Light Fae male knew it.
“At me, Seremela,” Duncan whispered gently.
Her attention shifted back to him. He raised a hand and stroked it along a few of the snakes, and they quit hissing and wrapped around his forearm. Even though his back was turned to an unknown male with his gun drawn, Duncan looked calm, his dark gaze steady.
As soon as he knew he had gotten her attention, he smiled at her. “They’re not going to hang her,” he said telepathically. “We won’t let them.”
She calmed, marginally. They were only two people in an overcrowded, dangerous and unknown place. Maybe it was ridiculous to believe him. Certainly it was neither sensible nor logical, but she did.
Impulsively she reached up to touch his lean cheek, more of the snakes reaching for him, and his gaze warmed. “Duncan, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “Vetta isn’t a Tarot reader, and she might be a total contrary shit, but she’s not a murderer. That’s insane. If—if by any chance she did kill someone, she wouldn’t have had any other choice.”
He frowned. “We need to ask some questions now. Whatever he says, we’re going to make this right. Okay?”
She nodded jerkily. “Okay.”
He took her hand and kissed her fingertips, then carefully disengaged himself. Only then did he turn around to face the pharmacist and his Light Fae guard, who had holstered his gun.
All of her snakes had calmed as she had calmed. She gathered them to her and nudged them behind her shoulder as Duncan said, pleasantly, “Let’s start this conversation over, shall we?”
Wendell regarded them both with narrowed eyes. “Fine, but you’re scaring away my paying customers, so your free sample is over,” he said, chewing gum. “You want to know anything else, you gotta pay. Standard 411 rate is ten dollars a minute, not including additional rates for premium intel.”
Anger sparked in Seremela at the human’s callousness. She had never in her life wanted to hurt another creature, but she was pretty sure she could hurt this one. Just one bite, she thought as she fixed a cold, level gaze on him. All it would take is one, and your heart rate would slow, your skin would turn dry and flake off and you would be scared, nauseated and fucking miserable for a week. And I think I would like that very much.
Even as she thought it, a single snake slipped over her shoulder and rose to the level of her cheekbone. It too stared at Wendell unblinkingly, until the human shifted on his stool and looked away.
Aw, she’d made him squirm. Yee-fucking-haw.
Duncan slipped his hands in his jeans pockets, standing relaxed. “Your rate’s unimaginative but doable,” he said.
The human’s thin mouth tilted sourly, and he shifted again. “What the fuck do you mean by that?”
“There are much more valuable things than cash, Wendell,” Duncan said. “Like alliances, protection and immunity.”
Wendell’s eyebrows rose. “You think you could offer me protection or immunity? You’ve barely set foot in this place. You have no social equity here, Vampyre. You don’t know the Power brokers, and you have no alliances. You know nothing.”
“The world is a much wider place than this dusty little pile of tents,” Duncan said. He gave the human a cold smile, and a touch of a whip entered his voice, precisely balanced just so with a delicate lash of contempt. “But no worries, Wendell. If you want money, you’ll get money. Tell us what happened, with details, names and times.”
Wendell paused, regarding Duncan with equal parts greed and caution, and Seremela could tell he was rethinking the last few minutes. Then the pharmacist said, “There may not be any law here, but there is a balance of Power. Or there was, until one of the Power brokers was killed yesterday. Things are a bit destabilized at the moment.”
“Who were the Power brokers, and what did they control?” Duncan asked. “You’re not one of them.”
“Nah,” said Wendell as he glanced at his watch. “My motive is profit, not power. I’m strictly in parking and pharmaceuticals, with a side interest now and then in information. The real Power brokers in Devil’s Gate are hard core. There’s an Elf with an affinity to Earth. Caerlovena is her name. She’s got a lock on most of the diggers. Then there’s a Djinn, Malphas, who has a lock on all the casinos, and I mean all of them. And until yesterday, there was Cieran Thruvial, who locked on prostitutes and protection. All the shops and vendors owed him a cut of their take.”
“Cieran Thruvial,” Duncan said. Surprise flickered in his gaze. “I know that name.”
Seremela shook her head. Inside she was reeling again. “That can’t be right,” she said. “I don’t see Vetta turning to prostitution. I guess she could have, but I just don’t see it.”
Wendell shrugged. “Well, the girl read Tarot, or at least that’s what her tent sign said. She charged for quarter hour and half hour readings. She did a good business too, from what I heard. I don’t know if she was turning tricks on the side or not, but like a lot of other shop keepers, she owed Thruvial protection money. They had a tempestuous relationship and argued a lot in public. I gotta say, it seemed real intimate.”
“Where is she now?” Seremela asked, the words scraping in her dry, constricted throat.
“Malphas is holding her until dawn,” Wendell said, and for the first time since they met him, something like sympathy crept into his gaze. “Scary dude, that Djinn. I’m not sure what he cares about, if anything.”
“Thruvial is a Fae name,” Duncan said abruptly. “Was this Cieran Thruvial Dark Fae?”
This time, both Wendell and his guard shifted their attention to Duncan, their expressions sharpening. Speaking for the first time, the guard said, “Yes.”
Wendell asked, “You knew him?”
Duncan’s face had turned expressionless. He said, “I met him once.”
“Where?” The pharmacist looked avid again.
Duncan gave him a sardonic smile. “That’s not part of our agreement, Wendell. Where’s the best place to find Malphas?”
Wendell made a face but said, “Much as he hangs anywhere, I guess it would be Gehenna—that’s the name of his main casino. Get it? Devil’s Gate—Gehenna. Ar ar ar, right?”
Duncan’s dark gaze shifted to her. He asked the pharmacist, “What do we owe you?”
“You’re not going to ask me how to find Gehenna?” Wendell asked.
Duncan shook his head. “We don’t need you anymore.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” Wendell said. “With Thruvial dead, things are shifting. People are making a grab for his territory, and a couple of them are strong magic users. You don’t know who to watch out for, or where to go. You still don’t know anything.”
“Now you’re trying too hard,” Duncan told him. He pulled out some cash and laid it on the counter. “I make it just under fifteen minutes. Keep the change.” He turned to Seremela, his expression softening. “Let’s go.”
She nodded and stepped out of the door, and he followed.
Wendell called after them, “You’re making a mistake if you think you don’t need me.”
Duncan shook his head. Once they were outside, he offered Seremela his hand. She took it. His grip was like the rest of him, steady, calm and cool. She gripped it tightly and took a deep breath. The smoke scented night air seemed so much fresher than it had before they had stepped into Wendell’s shop.
“What a scurvy little bug,” she said between her teeth.
“I know. I want to squash him.”
He pulled her around to face him, cupping her elbows in the palms of his hands while he watched the crowd behind her. After a quick glance at his face, she did the same, watching what happened at his back. The red-tinged light from various campfires was indirect. Nearby someone laughed, a sharp sound abruptly cut off. Magic tinged the air, mingling with the physical smells of spilt whiskey and other sour odors.
“Would you leave if I asked you to?” he asked telepathically.
She glanced at his shadowed face quickly. He looked as casual and indifferent as if they were talking about the weather. A few choice responses occurred to her, but she saw too many reasons for why he asked what he did.
In the end she just simply said, “No.”
He didn’t look surprised. He nodded and rubbed his thumbs along the sensitive skin at the inside of her elbows, but she didn’t think he was aware of what he was doing.
“The thing that bothers me is the Djinn,” he said and frowned. “Well, there’s more than a few things that bother me.”
“Who was Thruvial?” she asked.
He met her gaze. “Do you remember that I traveled last year with Carling to Adriyel for Niniane Lorelle’s coronation?”
“Yes,” she said.
She wasn’t likely to forget it.
Adriyel was the Dark Fae Other land, and last year had been eventful for the Dark Fae demesne. Dragos, the Lord of the Wyr, had killed Urien, the Dark Fae King, when Urien kidnapped Dragos’s mate. Then the heir to the throne, Niniane Lorelle, who had been living under Dragos’s protection, had to travel to Adriyel to claim her birthright. Along the way, Niniane had survived two assassination attempts in Chicago. Seremela had been the medical examiner who conducted an autopsy on the bodies of the would-be assassins.
The Wyr sentinel warlord Tiago had left his position in the Wyr demesne in New York to travel with Niniane and protect her. As far as the public knew, he now worked for the new Queen as her chief of security, but privately, those who knew the couple also knew that he had mated with Niniane.
Since that time, news from Adriyel had come out in snippets interspersed with weeks of silence. A few months after her coronation, the new Dark Fae Queen had imprisoned several noblemen and tried them for crimes committed against the crown, including treason, conspiracy, the regicide of her father and the murders of the rest of her family. Shortly after the trials, the conspirators had been executed.
A short time after, around January or so, Adriyel had officially opened its borders to tourism and open trade. Still, six months later, it was rare to see Dark Fae in the general public.
Seremela asked, “Did you meet Thruvial in Adriyel?”
“Yes, briefly,” Duncan said. “Thruvial was a nobleman, and I was just a part of Carling’s entourage, so he and I had no reason to strike up a conversation. But I have a good memory for names and faces, and I remember him at the coronation and the celebration afterwards. Why would he come here, of all places?”
Now he had her frowning as well. Urgency pounded in her veins. She needed to get to her niece. Vetta had finally bitten off more than she could chew, and the poor little shit had to be scared out of her mind. Sometimes people had to hit rock bottom before they could change. If that was true, Seremela didn’t think there was any lower Vetta could go than sitting in the dark tonight, all alone, while she waited for her own execution.
But as much as Seremela wanted to barge over to Gehenna, Duncan was right to pause and assess the situation. They needed clear heads and to understand as much as they could about what was really going on, and part of that meant trying to understand the victim and why he had been killed.
She said, “The Dark Fae are famous for their metallurgy. Maybe the possibility of finding a node of magic-rich metal lured him here, especially now that trade has opened up between Adriyel and the rest of the world.”
“Maybe, but if that was the case,” Duncan said, “why didn’t Thruvial send servants or employees? Why come himself? And once he got here, why did he get involved in trafficking, and not excavation and mining?”
“I don’t know,” she said, as frustration welled up.
His grip tightened. He repeated, “But what really bothers me is the Djinn’s presence here, and his involvement. Seremela, if you left, you could reach Reno inside an hour. You could call out until you get cell phone reception, talk to Carling and Rune and tell them what is going on while I go talk to this Malphas and see what I can do here.”
“I’m not leaving,” she told him.
He looked as disturbed as she had ever seen him, and even a little angry. “I don’t want you to stay here.”
He was that worried about her?
She said gently, “Duncan, think for a moment. It would be nice if one of us could leave and tell the outside world what is going on, but there is a Djinn involved, and information works both ways. What if Wendell decides that other people would be willing to pay for what he learned about us? What if one of them is the Djinn? Nobody here has any legal authority or any right to execute Vetta. Hanging her is murder. I could get halfway to Reno—hell, we could both leave and he could still stop us if he wanted to.” She paused to let that point sink in. “We couldn’t know it at the time, but we hit the point of no return the moment we stepped into Wendell’s shop. We need to confront whatever this is together, head on. Right now.”
“Gods damn it,” he whispered. His lips pulled back from his teeth where, she saw, a hint of his fangs showed. Then his grip on her elbows loosened, and he stroked his fingers lightly down her forearms before he let her go. “All right. Let’s find Gehenna.”
The casino was easy to locate. It sat at the edge of the settlement in a large circus-sized tent. Raucous noise poured out of it, and drunks milled about the opening. Inside a blaze of electric lights flashed atop rows of slot machines. Malphas, or his casino managers, had invested in importing electric generators. Cigarette, cigar and hashish smoke hazed the air.
Seremela caught sight of movement out of the periphery of her vision and looked up. A boardwalk had been constructed around the edge of the tent where several large Goblins, weapons prominently displayed, walked and watched the crowd below.
Her lip curled. She and Duncan exchanged a glance then moved further into the tent where they found the game tables. People caught sight of Seremela and moved to give them both a wide berth.
She was okay with that. She wanted a three foot space between her and anyone else in this hellhole.
Male and female servers, both Elder Races and human, carried drinks and trays of chips for people to buy, dressed only in waist chains and dog collars. While Seremela wasn’t a prude by any means, she didn’t like strangers’ dangly bits paraded in front of her without warning, and she jerked her gaze away with a muttered curse.
A human server approached them with a bright smile, although Seremela noted that he came up on Duncan’s far side, staying well away from her. “Want to buy some chips?”
“We want a manager,” Duncan said.
His smile never faltering, the server said, “Yeah, good luck with that. It’s a busy night, but they’re all real busy. Days too. Gehenna never closes, no matter how hot it gets. Offices are straight ahead.”
“Thanks,” Duncan said.
They barely took three steps forward when a female Vampyre, flanked by two Goblins, shouldered through the crowd toward them. The Vampyre had short blonde hair and was dressed in black fatigue pants and a black tank top, which showed off her muscled torso. She wore a semiautomatic in a hip holster and she moved like a fighter. She also looked intelligent, and she stopped right in front of them.
After one comprehensive glance at Duncan, the Vampyre focused on Seremela. “If you want to stay in Gehenna, you have to wrap up your snakes. You’re disturbing the customers.”
“We’re not here to gamble and we have no intention of staying on the floor,” Seremela said quietly. “We’re here to talk to Malphas.”
The Vampyre rubbed the back of her neck and studied them both under leveled brows. “You’re here about the girl, aren’t you?” she said. When neither of them confirmed nor denied, she shook her head. “Follow me.”
Dismissing the two Goblins, the Vampyre led them through the crowd to the back of the tent. Then, without stopping, she led them outside through another opening. Behind the tent several modular buildings had been set up, the area surrounded by a nine foot high barbed wire fence. Seremela looked around everywhere as they walked. She knew in her bones that Vetta was very close, probably in one of these buildings.
“She’s here,” Seremela said to Duncan. “I know she is.”
He moved as calmly as ever, hands loose at his sides, but she noticed how his sharp gaze roamed over the scene. “I believe you,” he said. “I think she’s here too.”
Their Vampyre escort was apparently not much for idle chitchat, for she didn’t say a word until they reached the last modular building. Once there, she propped open the door and flipped on an inside light. Duncan looked in but didn’t step inside. Seremela glanced in too. The interior was totally empty and lit by a single naked light bulb.
The Vampyre said, “If you want to talk to Malphas, go in and call him. He’ll come or not, as it suits him. If you’ve changed your mind, leave. Either way, the hanging is at dawn.”
Seremela clenched her fists and started after the Vampyre, snakes hissing. She ran into a barrier as Duncan’s arm shot out to block her way. “Easy, darling,” he said quietly to her. Telepathically, he said, “Don’t waste your energy on her. She doesn’t matter. We’ve got more important things to focus on.”
She sucked in a breath and struggled to rein in her temper. He was right. This Vampyre didn’t matter in the slightest. She gave him a curt nod, and he dropped his arm and stepped inside. With one last glare at the Vampyre, Seremela followed.
Inside the building was just as bare and unadorned as her first glance had told her it was. Metal walls, metal floor, metal ceiling. No chairs, no carpet, no wall hangings or desks.
After they had both turned in a circle, Duncan shrugged at her and said into the apparent emptiness, “Malphas.”
At first nothing happened, and a raging despair threatened to take Seremela over. He had to come. He had to.
Then black smoke slid into the building through the open door, and the air began to compress. Power built and built. It pressed against them so that Seremela’s breathing felt constricted and she had to swallow hard. This was a very old one, possibly a first generation Djinn. What was a first generation Djinn doing at Devil’s Gate?
The Power coalesced into the form of a tall, golden haired man, with an angelically beautiful face and two supernovas for eyes. Those piercing twin stars fixed on them, and the beautiful man gave them a deadly smile.
Malphas said, “Welcome to Gehenna.”