Carrie Vaughn - Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

“Kitty,” Dom said, serious now. “If Ben’s missing, if someone took him, I think you’re looking in the wrong place. You know who in this town has it in for werewolves?”

“Who?” I said, glaring, and thinking about the gun show at the Olympus. Wondering if Sylvia and Boris had figured out that Ben’s a werewolf.

“Balthasar and that crowd over at the Hanging Gardens.”

The statement made me pause. Vegas didn’t have werewolves because of Balthasar’s troupe. They were the dominant lycanthropes and kept the others out. Had Balthasar done something to Ben? I shook my head. “Security video showed him with one of Faber’s henchmen.”

“Who maybe isn’t working for Faber.”

“No, I’ve talked to Balthasar and he hasn’t been anything but decent to me. If he was after Ben, why not go after me, as well?”

“I don’t know. I can’t explain how those guys work. You’ve seen them yourself, they’re a little odd.”

That I could agree with. I couldn’t imagine shape-shifting almost every day like that. Whatever Balthasar said to explain it, it couldn’t be healthy. Not to mention the S&M erotica portion of the show. Maybe I was just being judgmental. I didn’t understand the lifestyle, and maybe it scared me. But I didn’t want to think that Balthasar had anything to do with Ben’s disappearance.

Dom had given me everything he was going to give me. Maybe he was right pointing me at Balthasar, maybe he wasn’t. But the conversation was finished, and I was itching to leave.

I had one more question, and I might not get another chance to talk to Dom like this. “What do you know about Odysseus Grant?”

Dom looked confused for a moment, and I frowned with disappointment. Then he called to the bodyguard type. “Hey, Sven—Odysseus Grant. He that magician over at the Diablo?”

“I believe so, sir,” the bodyguard Sven said.

Dom smiled at me. “Odysseus Grant. Magician over at the Diablo.”

I nearly growled. “I know that. I caught his show.”

“Is he any good?” Dom said.

“Yeah, he is. I guess that means you don’t know anything about rumors that some of his magic is real. You know, he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and he really pulls it out of thin air instead of relying on trapdoors and sleight of hand.”

“That’s a good rumor,” he said. “I like it. You think it’s true?”

This conversation was making me want to gnaw on a sofa.

“I don’t know,” I said through gritted teeth. I needed another martini. “I thought you might. So much for that.”

“Maybe we should go to the show and see for ourselves. Does that sound like fun?” the brunette said. They all nodded and murmured, yes, it sounded like fun, but maybe another time, like next week, or month, or something.

I set my elbow on the table and rested my chin on my hand. I put on my cheerful voice. “So what’s it really like being a vampire in Vegas?”

I should never have asked, because it took them forty minutes of chatter to say it was one big party, with a constant stream of fresh blood, literally. I finished a second martini and let the haze numb me.

Most conversations I’d ever had with vampires were frustrating, because vampires were so in love with being inscrutable and mysterious, it was hard to get any information out of them. They generally loved secrets and power and therefore loved letting me know they had secrets. I could usually tell when they were hiding something from me because they came right out and gloated about it.

My conversation with Dom and his flunkies was frustrating, as expected, but for an entirely different reason: because I was convinced that Dom didn’t know a damn thing about anything. When I got back to Denver, I was going to corner Rick and ask him: where the hell had Dom come from, and how had he lasted this long?

I started to get up. “Thanks for the party, Dom, but I really should be—”

“I have a question for you,” Dom said. I froze when he pointed at me. “Why’d you put Harry Burger on your show? That clown doesn’t deserve any airtime.” It took me a moment to register the name and context: the politician who came on the show to push his anti-psychic legislation. He hadn’t managed to convince much of anyone that the concept was even feasible. But he was enough of a character it made him interesting.

“That’s what I do on my show,” I said. “Drag this stuff into the open to try and figure out what it means. Here’s someone who thinks psychics in casinos are a problem, and I wanted to talk about it. You run a casino, what do you think? Are psychics in casinos a problem? Are they cheating?”

The vampires all giggled, except for Dom, who shook his head sadly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it happens now and then. But I wouldn’t call it a problem.”

I knew I should have dragged Dom on the show. We could have had a real debate. I grinned, thinking of Ben and his lycanthropic senses giving him an edge at poker. That wasn’t exactly cheating, but maybe Burger had a point. “Have you ever cheated in a casino?”

He gave me a look like I should know better. “Let’s say we do have powers that give us an edge. Maybe we win at poker a little more than we ought to. Maybe we’re a little better at counting cards. Hell, theoretically someone with a little telekinesis could rig craps or roulette.”

“Do powers like that really exist?” I said.

A couple of the vampires had started to look over the crowd in the bar with glazed, hungry expressions. Like they were searching for the weak members of the herd. Suddenly, the bubbly brunette climbed over the two of us blocking her way out. She didn’t say a word, not even an apology, when she stepped on my foot. We watched, rapt, as she made a beeline for the bar and the tall, dark, Mediterranean-featured man taking a sip of what looked like whiskey from a tumbler. She stalked to his front, focused her gaze on his, said something. After that, he only had eyes for her. They left about five minutes later. He’d abandoned a woman—stylish, pretty, in a black cocktail dress and diamond necklace—standing dumbstruck at the bar, jaw dropped, staring after the two of them.

“She loves her hunts, doesn’t she?” Dom’s redhead said with a purr.

“She’s a little impetuous.” Dom’s tone suggested amusement more than anything else. “Ray, maybe you better take charge of the jilted girlfriend? I don’t want to be hearing about all this later.”

Ray, the one who’d been smoking all evening, ground out his latest stub in the ashtray in front of him. “Taking another one for the team, I see?”

“It’s not like it’d be hardship,” the redhead said. “She looks pretty tasty.”

“Then maybe you should throw yourself on that grenade.”

They pouted at each other for a moment, but Ray was the one who did the deed. He exited the booth more gracefully, straightened his jacket, and approached the woman. Looking her in the eye, he seduced her just as quickly as the brunette had seduced her quarry. It was like watching James Bond in real life.

Not exactly subtle. This was vampire Family as prime-time soap opera. It was time for me to leave.

“Dom, thanks for the great time, but I really should be going.”

“You mind if walk you out?” he said. “I want to show you a couple of things.”

“Oh?” Maybe now we were getting somewhere. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to tell me anything in front of his cohort.

“Just in the casino. To answer your psychic question.”

This was wasting time. I had to find Ben. But if it was on the way out anyway, I could spend a couple of minutes. Especially if it would get me out of this crowd. I was convinced Sven was watching my neck out of the corner of his eye.