Vicki Pettersson: Cheat the Grave

He ignored her. “Even the grand ones-the Trop, Fla mingo, Caesar’s-they all look different. And what the fuck did you do with the Hacienda? And the little Glass Pool Inn?” Tripp still looked hard and mean, but also confused.

I shrugged…though I was melancholic about that one’s destruction, too. “Eighteen years is a long time to be gone,” I said stiffly. “Though not quite long enough.”

Tripp shook his head. “Looks like a new Vegas got built up over the old.”

“Can’t stop progress.” I shrugged.

“Can’t stop much,” he agreed.

“How’d you get out?”

Tripp’s feral grin returned. “What you should be asking yourself is if I’m the only one who did.”

No, I’d ask him , I thought, relaxing a bit. It looked like he was just here to talk.

“Now git up.”

Or not.

“Let me put it this way, Archer,” he said when I didn’t move. “Throw up the sponge now, and I’ll murder you gently.”

Despite the deafening beats of my heart, I managed a sarcastic drawl. “Harlan, you sure talk mighty funny.”

His sharp, black eyes darted from me to Cher. “Eighteen years of frying like bacon has made me a mite impatient. You’ll come…or she will.”

“Silly boy. I don’t come for just anyone.” The retort was classic Cher, though her voice shook as she spoke. No wonder Terry had been white-faced while having his lobe pierced. A mortal facing a Shadow was like a rat facing a hungry snake. Even if you’d never seen one before, you instinctively knew which side of the predator/prey relationship you were on.

Tripp knew it too. “Fine.”

One moment I was seated, the next I’d been hauled up, neck trapped beneath an unyielding forearm. “You still stink,” I managed before my eyesight grew spotty. I knew he heard me over Cher’s screams because his clinch tightened. Would he really kill me in front of all these people?

He loves to blow holes through mortal lives.

Yes, he would.

The partiers nearest us took up Cher’s chorus, a call-and-response of ascending fear. Terry flat passed out again. At least I think it was him. I was busy blacking out, so didn’t note the finer details. Unlikely relief came in the form of Cher launching herself onto Tripp’s back. His grip on my neck loosened enough for me to suck in one great breath before he resumed an even tighter noose as he angled from side to side. I let that last, lovely bit of air go in a futile warning. “Let go, Cher!”

He could dislodge her by throwing her through a window, squeezing her neck until her arteries popped, caving her head in against the minibar. Sure enough, after another second a thwack sounded before a soft limb fell into view, and Cher sprawled unconscious on the bench beside me. I had no breath left to scream.

The bus swayed, partygoers scrambling for the door in full riot. Tripp surprised me by stumbling as well, before body-slamming me onto the hard floor. My limbs were numbing but I still felt my face eat rubber as his full weight dropped atop mine. Pain arrowed through my right knee, tendons stretched and threatening to snap. Then he twisted again, loosening his hold on my neck. I choked on the fresh air, the soft tissue there already bruised and swollen. My larynx had either shifted to a place it shouldn’t have or was missing altogether. The pain brought tears to my eyes even as the oxygen worked to clear my vision.

Then screeching metal joined the panicked voices, and the bus rocked harder. I was still trapped beneath Tripp’s arm but glanced up to see the metal rooftop peeling open like an aluminum can. Tripp’s partner, was my first thought, because such bold destruction was the mark of a Shadow. Then he cursed, and my hopes soared.

One of the Light? A former ally watching over me after all?

The thought gave me strength, and I decided to buy myself time for whatever they had in mind. I whipped my head back and his nose crunched beneath its weight. Another curse, then his forearm tensed in the tightest grip yet. My vision deteriorated into stop-motion, but I made out three terrifying things in the next few seconds:

A skeleton’s face, wrapped in worn, leather skin.

The skeleton’s rotted grin and bright, curved blade.

A scissored cry as the skeleton leapt.

Tripp yelled, terrified, but sunk one booted foot into the falling man’s middle. The blade arced, and another scream followed, sounding red. Then there was more frantic jostling as Tripp fled with me, faster than a Chevy on drag night. On his way out, though, he thoughtlessly rapped my head into one of those sexy Lucite poles. Embarrassment flooded me as I thought, Death by stripper pole . Then I was out.

I’d been knocked unconscious enough times to be intimately familiar with the staggered return of hearing, the touch-and-go awareness of feeling returning to limbs, and the eventual need to open eyes and regain bearings…whether one wanted to or not.

“What fresh hell is this?” I murmured, even before I’d peeked. You were never bound to wake to something good after a violent kidnapping.

Despite a wave of dizziness, I recognized Tripp’s stocky, hunched outline, though his back was to me, his desk lamp angled low. He didn’t bother looking up.

Probably because of the Boy Scout/bondage thing he had going on. I tested my restraints, unsurprised when all I could do was tense my muscles. Overkill in restraining a mortal, but then Harlan Tripp wasn’t known for his generous nature…and he probably didn’t yet know I was mortal. I certainly wasn’t going to clue him in.

Studying the narrow glass surfaces around me, I realized I lay atop an identical one like some pending sacrifice. I wasn’t a virgin, though, so I reserved hope for escape. We were in a darkened jewelry store with bright surfaces and tiny custom cushions filling every available space in the glass interiors. I didn’t know how Tripp had circumvented the store’s alarm-the entire store was a vault, thus the jewels still safe in their cases-but there he was, relaxed as could be behind the jeweler’s desk. I didn’t ask what he was going to do with the cutters.

“Diamonds really are forever,” I finally quipped in the elongated silence, though the scratch in my voice belayed the forced tone. “But if you’re going to choke me, please use the emeralds.”

“Don’t tempt me… Olivia. ”

My purse was open next to him, my identification spread haphazardly over the desk. So he knew who I was, big deal. I was already mortal and bound like a rodeo calf. He didn’t need my cover identity to kill me, just a reason and the flick of his wrist.

“How’s the nose?” I asked cheerfully.

“Already healed. Bitch.”

Sticks and stones, I thought, but stayed silent…and wary. It’d been weeks since I’d seen him, though to him it might have felt like years. Time moved differently in Midheaven. But on that first meeting Tripp had referred to the place as “Mid-hell,” and I couldn’t argue that. Midheaven drained a man’s soul energy, using it to feed the desires of the chosen few-all women, and all with delusions of goddesshood.

I’d only been trapped there a short time, but Midheaven had served as Tripp’s prison for years. He’d fled there as a rogue agent, banished by his leader, but it was the classic case of jumping from the pan into the fire. He’d attempted escape before, only to find someone had locked the entrance from the other side. So…“How did you get here?”

“You should damned well thank your stars that I did.”

I didn’t thank the stars for shit anymore. “Yeah. I’m always thankful when I get knocked out, tied up, and tortured with ring clamps.”

He finally turned. The light even made him look marginally amused. “You could be dead.”