The Long Way Down (31 page)

I
flew home, went back to my apartment and paced in the dark. I’d had enough sleep. My brain tugged at the problem like a kitten with a ball of twine, tossing it around and getting nowhere fast. Lauren had the Box and her harvest of souls, but there had to be a way to get close to her, to track her down and put a stop to this.

I laughed out loud when I figured it out.

My phone rang at half past sunrise. Caitlin sounded worn down, like she’d run a marathon and lost.

“I just landed at McCarran. Come pick me up?”

I pulled up curbside and she got in, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

“Something tells me you don’t have good news,” I said.

“The Box,” she said, “until last month, was kept in a place of honor in Prince Sitri’s personal trophy room. He never even knew it was gone until last night because someone not only stole it out from under his nose, they replaced it with a cunning counterfeit.”

I merged into traffic, my brow furrowed. “Sounds like an inside job.”

“We concur. There’s going to be an inquisition, but that doesn’t help us right now. It just confirms that the faceless men orchestrated this entire charade from the beginning. They spread ridiculous myths about the Box around the world for decades, stole it from hell, and dropped it in Lauren’s path. They groomed her for twenty years just to be sure she’d be ready to unlock it. Bloody thing’s not even Etruscan.”

“So what’s Sitri going to do?” I asked. “I mean, if Lauren opens it.”

“Wage war. As he is bound to do, even knowing he’ll herald the apocalypse. Making sure that doesn’t happen is on my shoulders.”

“And mine.”

She smiled, reaching over and touching my arm.

“Our shoulders,” she said. “Take me home? I need a shower and a change of clothes. Then we can plan our next move.”

“I think I know who can help us. It’s a gamble, but if you’re up for it, we might have an inside line on finding Lauren.”

“What do you have in mind?” Caitlin said, tilting her head curiously.

When I told her, she laughed louder than I had.

• • •

The Gentlemen’s Bet was a dive strip club in a stretch of town where the tourists didn’t go. The noonday sun baked down on a couple of battered cars and a semi tractor in the litter-strewn parking lot. The neon silhouette of a naked woman perched on a pair of dice sat lifeless over the front door, looking down over a tattered red carpet made of painted AstroTurf.

I’d suited up for the occasion with a forest green shirt and a metallic tie. Caitlin opted for a slender black dress with a short, cropped jacket. The throwing knives sewn into the jacket’s lining didn’t even make a whisper as we walked to the door.

“You clean up nicely,” she said.

“I can’t go making you look bad, now can I?”

“So what do you think our odds are?”

I opened the door for her, thinking it over.

“Fifty-fifty. In this town, that’s not a bad proposition.”

A lethargic, barrel-chested bouncer gave us a casual once-over and nodded over his shoulder. The sun vanished, replaced by stuffy darkness and the stink of cheap beer. A few patrons loitered in the near-empty club, each of them alone, watching a bored-looking stripper gyrate out of time to a hair metal song. We made a beeline for the hallway at the back of the room.

The bartender jumped out from behind the bar to get in our way, holding up his hands. “Sorry folks, no admittance. Bathrooms are over—”

He froze, taking a stumbling step back as Caitlin flashed molten copper eyes at him. When she spoke, her teeth were too many, too sharp, for any human mouth.

“
Move
,” she hissed. She gave him a charming smile as we passed, wearing her human mask once more.

I’d been here enough times on business to know that we wanted the door at the end, the one with the placard reading Private and the best lock in the building. I gestured to the knob.

“Want me to pick that?”

Caitlin thought about it for a moment and shrugged.

“Nah.”

The door blasted open under the heel of her calf-high boot, swinging wide and slamming against the inner wall. Nicky, sitting behind an army-surplus metal desk and eating lunch, froze with a forkful of steak halfway to his mouth. Justine and Juliette leaped up from their chairs. The cambion twins flashed fangs as they hissed and crouched.

“Bitches leave,” Caitlin growled.

I stared at her. “Did…did you just quote
Robocop
?”

She gave me a wink before looking back across the office. Nicky nodded slowly.

“Do as she says, ladies,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know if you can back that up,” I said, taking one of the chairs and dragging it over to the other side of his desk. The decor in Nicky’s office hadn’t changed since the seventies, just a cheap little hole-in-the-wall. You’d never know half the rackets in Vegas were run out of this room.

The twins slunk out the door. Justine paused on the threshold. Suddenly she leaped at Caitlin, fingernails hooked into claws, going for her eyes. Caitlin spun and grabbed Justine’s wrist in one hand and her hair in the other, using the cambion’s own momentum to force her down on her knees. Justine’s wrist bent back at a bone-grinding angle.

“Yield!” Justine gasped, gritting her teeth. “I yield!”

Caitlin kept the pressure on for a few more agonizing seconds before letting her go. Justine pushed herself up to her feet, rubbing her wrist, hovering on the verge of tears.

“I was just playing,” Justine whined. Juliette met her at the door, taking her sister in her arms and glaring daggers at Caitlin.

“She’s so
mean
,” Juliette said. “Why do you have to be so mean all the time?”

Caitlin shut the door in their faces. Dusting off her hands, she walked over to join us at Nicky’s desk.

“You have to excuse the girls,” Nicky said. “They’re a little, uh—”

“Sociopathic?” I offered.

“I was gonna say high-spirited, but sure, that works too.”

“Do you know why we’re here?” Caitlin asked.

“I know that when a cop asks you that, they want you to do their job for them. Pardon me if I don’t fall all over myself bein’ helpful. And what are you doing, Danny? You and the Wingtaker here, that’s a team-up I didn’t see coming.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m here for,” I said. “I’m here to save your ass.”

Nicky chewed a bite of steak, taking his time.

“That’s nice. You’d wanna do that why, exactly?”

“Because Lauren Carmichael is using you, and somebody else is playing her. There’s only one way this ends if you don’t listen to us. Badly.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nicky said flatly, his gaze drifting toward Caitlin. “Don’t know any Lauren anybody. Never met her.”

“I’m going to say two magic words,” Caitlin said. She loomed over his desk with murder in her eyes. “I’ve never said them in my life, and you’ll likely never hear them again. Listening?”

“I’m all ears,” Nicky said.

“Transactional immunity.”

That got his attention.

“I’m still listening,” he told her, “but I’m maybe not entirely sure what you’re offering me immunity for.”

I leaned back in my chair. “Let me paint you a picture. Lauren needed help setting up Carmichael-Sterling Nevada. She was an out-of-towner with big ambitions, and you were the guy who could pull the strings and secure the permits to make the Enclave happen.”

“I help lots of people,” he said, “in exchange for a nominal commission fee of course. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. But while you were greasing her wheels, she figured out what you really are. She brought you in on her real scheme. Problem is, how do you stall five murder investigations? There’s always blackmail, but that’s so messy, and payback’s always a risk. Lauren figured it out, or maybe you did. Why not use the ring to snare a succubus? And you knew just the target, somebody who’s been a thorn in your side for a long, long time.”

Nicky gave Caitlin a nervous glance, but he held his tongue.

“You used Caitlin’s powers to turn Detective Holt into a pleasure junkie,” I said. “He danced to your tune so long as he got his daily fix. It was the perfect setup. Sitri’s hound was out of your way, you had a homicide cop on a leash, and Lauren’s crew was free to open the Etruscan Box. A ceremony which, I’m sure you know, would drag Prince Sitri out of hell and give Lauren the chance to enslave him. Coincidentally leaving his throne vacant and your father primed and ready for a power grab.”

“And if you could prove any of that,” Nicky said, “we wouldn’t be having a nice chat like this.”

“You’re right,” Caitlin said. Nicky stared at her. It wasn’t the response he’d been expecting. “I can’t prove a single thing. Can’t do anything to you or about you.”

I nodded. “Only problem with the whole scheme, really, is that Lauren’s about to blow up the planet. See, that’s the part you aren’t in on. The thing in the Box? It’s an angel. And it’s really old and really pissed off.”

“You’re bluffing,” Nicky said.

“Are we?” Caitlin shrugged. “We’re keeping things under wraps to avoid a panic, but a full report’s been delivered to the prince and his inner council. A council which, last time I checked, includes your father. Why don’t you get in touch with him? Ask him who Belephaia is.”

He looked from her to me and back again, resting his hand on his desk phone. His brow furrowed as he worked out the implications. “Why don’t you two go out to the bar for a few minutes? I gotta make a couple of calls. Tell the bartender I said anything you want; it’s on the house.”

I stayed close to Caitlin as we stepped back into the club, taking seats at the end of the bar. She ordered a Manhattan, and I asked for a martini with top-shelf vodka. It was on Nicky’s dime, and seeing as he had tried to feed me to a pack of feral cambion I figured he owed me a little something. A Rolling Stones song played over the house speakers as a new dancer took the stage.

“He can’t actually call his dad, can he?” I asked. “Like, on the phone?”

Caitlin smiled. “No, but he can call my office and they’ll arrange a conduit. That’s how I spoke with my prince last night.”

“Conduit?”

“You take a human and—” She paused. Maybe she saw something in my eyes, or maybe she just remembered my history when it came to demonic possession. She waved it off. “There are ways.”

Her hand rested lightly on the bar. I placed mine over it. She turned her hand, our fingers twining.

“We will stop them,” I said. “I promise. I’m not letting anything or anyone take you away from me now. Not a chance.”

She chuckled, shaking her head. “I forgot what it felt like to care about anything but my duty. To have something worth fighting to hold on to. I like this feeling.” She traced a fingernail over the back of my hand. “I like this feeling too.”

I started to say something, cut short by a voice at our backs.

“Oh. My. Light,” Juliette said. We turned to look at her. She pointed at our hands. “Are you two
rutting
?”

“That is so gross.” Justine stood next to her with her mouth agape. “You are so gross.”

“No,” Caitlin said, grinning. “We’re holding hands. What I did with your father, that was rutting.”

Justine made a strangled squeaking noise, like a cat had lodged in her throat and was trying to kick its way out. Juliette stammered incoherently as she dragged her sister away by the arm. I let go of Caitlin’s hand just long enough to hold up my open palm.

“High-five me.”

She slapped her palm against mine. We settled into a comfortable silence.

“You didn’t actually—” I eventually asked, and Caitlin arched an eyebrow.

“They’ll always wonder,” she said. “I do hope you’re not the jealous type, Daniel. I
am
a succubus. If you want me to list my lovers, we’re going to be here a while.”

I shook my head. “Not even a little bit.”

“Good. But for the record? Never. You don’t rut with a pride demon; you hold up a mirror for him to stare into while he pleasures himself. I’m only slightly exaggerating.”

Nicky appeared in the hallway, pale as a sheet. Beads of sweat pooled at his hairline. He looked like a middle manager who’d just gotten called on the carpet by his CEO.

“C’mon back,” he said. “Let’s talk.”

Thirty-Eight

“T
he first thing I want,” Nicky said, pouring himself a splash of whiskey from a bottle in his desk drawer, “is immunity for my dad, too. He didn’t know anything about this, and that’s the honest truth.”

“You set up a coup attempt without telling him?” I asked, sitting on the other side of the desk and cradling my martini.

“You gotta understand, Danny, how it is for people like me. My old man’s a big shot back home. Me, I’m nothing but his big mistake. I thought I could prove to him, y’know, that I can roll like he does, like a fullblood. Maybe if I did, I thought…maybe he’d like me.”

“You conspired against your lawful prince,” Caitlin said, “and that’s not even considering what you did to
me
. If I had my way, I’d teach you exactly how we fullbloods respond to insolence. Your usefulness is the only thing sparing you, for the moment, from an eternity of pain.”