Vicki Pettersson - The Taste Of Night

It wasn’t the steel in his voice that propelled me through the archway, or the risk of detection a few seconds more would have cost me. It was the look on his face just before he tore his gaze away; his eyes searching mine before lowering to linger on my mouth, then dropping to my throat, which forced me to swallow hard, and then lower still. Feral . We turned away from each other at the same time, the air crackling between us like charred satin, and I dove through the portal. It was safer, I thought, in the shadows.

I found myself thrust into a pitch-black room. Always comforting. At least Hunter couldn’t just open the door I’d entered and find me back in living color, aura-less, waiting on the other side. He’d probably have thrown me out of Valhalla himself. I tried to gain my bearings, edging forward, my footsteps echoing on linoleum. A fairly large room, then, probably storage. I felt along the wall, reaching a second doorway before long, and ran my palm along the right side until I found a switch. I didn’t flip it on immediately, instead yanking my conduit from my bag again, crouching low in a readied stance. Then I flipped it on.

Two liquid brown eyes stared at me through the crosshairs of my weapon.

The owner of the eyes screamed, and I screamed back.

“Oh shit. Shit!” Heart pounding, I fell back against the wall. The beast across from me began shaking its cage, the sound lost in a cacophony of agitated screeches and cage rattling by the room’s other inhabitants. I took a quick look around-obviously a lab of some sort-then did the only thing I could think of when faced with a roomful of shrieking chimpanzees. I flipped the light back off, felt for the door handle, and got out of primate hell.

I’d entered a softly lit anteroom, the middle cleared for foot traffic, with a U-shaped reception desk off to one side and a sofa and coffee table opposite that. The beasts continued their muffled screeches behind me while I tried to figure out where to go next, wondering what the hell monkeys were doing in a casino, when I heard the pounding of footsteps. I sniffed-two mortals-and ducked behind the couch just before they appeared.

I watched them launch themselves down the staircase, dressed in civilian wear, but athletically trim, sporting buzz cuts…and military-issue guns trained on the door before them. They communicated in sign language and entered the door in tandem, a well-practiced team. Not, I thought, regular security guards hired off the street. The monkeys went crazy once again, and I could’ve used the opportunity to escape up the stairs, but something held me back. Curiosity, perhaps. Stupidity, more likely.

“Fuckin’ chimps,” one of the men muttered as he slammed the door behind him a few moments later, muting the cries circulating from inside…though not much. I palmed my conduit in case they decided to search this room too, but relaxed marginally as I scented annoyance and laziness overtake the martial interest that had propelled them down here. “We can’t come running every time those fuckers have a coronary over their own shadows.”

“Actually, chimpanzees are the smartest primates alive, besides humans. Their closest relation is to us, not gorillas or orangutans, so they can make tools, be taught to communicate, and they possess similar emotions to our own.”

“What are you, a fuckin’ encyclopedia?” I heard a smack, and a pained exclamation from the smaller man before he came into view, rubbing the back of his head.

“I’m just sayin’. I’ve been reading the books the professor gave us-”

“ Chimpanzees for Dummies ,” the first man scoffed.

“-and it’s really interesting. Did you know they enjoy lifelong bonds with their mothers?”

“Yeah, well, I shoot mine a card on Christmas and her birthday. Guess we’re not all that closely related after all. Let’s go.”

“Shouldn’t we look around a bit more?”

“Be my guest, Dr. Dolittle, but I’m not missing the playoffs for no fuckin’ monkey.”

Dolittle, seeing his point, sighed and followed.

I remained where I was a few minutes after their boot-clad steps faded away, more alarmed by this than I would’ve been a few months ago. I’d watched enough of the Discovery Channel to know that labs and chimps meant experiments. Experiments meant science. And science was what the supernaturals used to augment their magic to more easily manipulate the mortal world. So what was a lab full of primates-primates that most closely resembled humans, I now knew-doing in a casino on the Las Vegas Strip? And why were soldiers-mortals, sure, but armed nonetheless-guarding them? Somehow I thought I could rule out coincidence as a viable option, but maybe Hunter would know what was going on. I’d ask him later…or perhaps I’d come back again on my own.

For now, however, both guards and monkeys had to wait. I was in search of a Shadow.

Once I was sure the guards had gone, I bounded up the empty stairwell, straightening my clothes as I walked and tucking my conduit back out of sight.

It didn’t take long before my presence was known, and reported, among the employees. The Valhalla Hotel and Casino was one of the newest and most extravagant resorts in Las Vegas, and Xavier Archer the savviest, most respected, and feared entrepreneur in town. Thus walking around in Olivia Archer’s skin was akin to the queen of England strutting around Buckingham. Employees practically genuflected in front of the woman they assumed was the sole heiress to the Archer family fortune.

Yet I knew something they didn’t. Xavier might have held the title of president and CEO of Valhalla, but he did so by my true father’s will and whim. Though we had yet to prove it, the agents of Light believed this was where the Shadow organization was headquartered, and where their conspiracies-operating under the guise of a little innocent gaming-were plotted and set into motion. That my biological father tried to kill me here last winter was proof enough for me.

I shut out the memories of that last encounter as I strode through the pit. Sure, I was walking around the lion’s den, but this time I was doing so with claws and fangs of my own.

Dozens of gazes weighed on me as I crossed the casino floor, and I could practically hear the whirring of machinery as every eye in the monitor room followed my progress. If I’d ever in my life considered striving for fame and fortune, my time spent in Olivia’s skin would’ve had me reconsidering that career goal.

I plastered an expression of vacuous cheerfulness on my face, moving as quickly as I could without looking hurried, and added an extra bit of sway to my hips as I walked. Meanwhile I searched for the olfactory thread I’d memorized while racing down the streets. I was like a voluptuous, blond bloodhound.

Twenty feet later my eyes fastened on a sectioned-off area of the casino. Bingo. If I’d had a tail, I’d be on point. Renovations were ongoing in most Strip properties, and I skirted the craps pit to edge along the curtained area, scanning the signs updating tourists on the latest and greatest improvements. The Great Hall of the Gods was, apparently, getting an aquarium. One that, I recalled Xavier saying, would make Monterey look like a wading pool. At two hundred million, it had better.

And though it was new, it smelled like a few fish had been rotting too long in the tide pool. Another specimen Monterey didn’t possess, I thought, wrinkling my nose. Shadows.

I exited through the main entrance before I could be stopped by some solicitous casino host, knowing the Eye in the Sky was still trained on me as I strode through the porte cochere. Once on the Boulevard, I circled the block, ducked behind a line of perfectly edged shrubs, jumped an eight-foot wall, and approached again from the back.