"Jim is deadly. It's not an exaggeration, it's a fact. Also, he's been at this game for a lot longer than you. No fighting Jim. Yes?"
"Yes," Derek agreed.
Maybe he had some sense after all.
"So ..." Derek shifted from foot to foot. "Can I have a job?"
I closed my eyes and counted from ten backward.
"Kate?"
"The last two times you and I crossed paths, you got your leg ripped up and had molten metal poured on your face."
"The metal was my fault, not yours." All humor fled from his eyes. A wolf looked at me, a vicious wolf with a scarred face. "I've worked for Jim for three years as a `face.' I went in undercover, I obtained information, and I brought it back, safe. After that, I ran Curran's personal security for six months. I know the security protocols, I know procedures, and I've proven I can effectively use resources at my disposal. If you hire me, I would be a valuable asset."
"Very nice. How many times did you rehearse this speech?"
"I'm serious, Kate. I can be useful to you. Besides, you need somebody to ride shotgun. You gave Grendel to Andrea, so you don't have a wingman. I can vomit better than a shaved poodle, I promise. And honestly, you could use a driver."
"What are you implying?"
"I'm not implying, I'm saying it. You're the opposite of Dali. She drives like a maniac, you drive like an old lady ..."
Bloody hell. I closed my eyes. I couldn't tell him no and he knew it.
"Are you okay?"
"I need you to go to the garage and get another Jeep, because mine only seats two. Then I need you to follow me in that Jeep. And if I hear as much as a whisper about my driving abilities, I'll fire you on the spot."
"Thanks, Kate." He grinned and took off running.
Curran got rid of Ascanio and saddled me with not one, but two bodyguards. God help anyone who dared to look at me funny. They would rip him to pieces, just to outdo each other.
NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I VISITED THE CASINO, it always took me by surprise. After the hard freezes of a freakishly cold winter, the early spring painted Atlanta in black, brown, and gray. Grim ruins thrust here and there, like dark husks stained with cold spring rain. Bleak houses glared at the streets with barred windows. Mud stained the streets, churned by the current of horses, mules, oxen, and an occasional camel. Wagons creaked, engines growled, drivers barked curses at each other, animals brayed ... And then you turned the corner and ran into a castle straight out of the Arabian Nights. Pure white and almost delicate, it all but floated in the middle of a huge lot, flanked by elegant minarets and wrapped by a wall with a textured parapet. Long fountains stretched toward its ornate doors, and Hindu gods, cast in bronze and copper, posed frozen in time above the water.
For a moment it took your breath away. And then you saw the vampires, smeared in purple and lime-green sunblock, patrolling those snow-white walls and the reality came back real fast. There was something so alien and foreign about the undead crawling over all that beauty. I wanted to pluck them off like fleas from a white cat.
I parked in the far lot and shut off the engine. A moment later Derek pulled his vehicle next to mine, parked, and stepped out. "Are we going in?" "We are."
"With him?" He nodded at Ascanio.
The kid bared his teeth. "What exactly do you mean by that?"
I turned to him. "Who is the primary enemy of the Pack?"
Ascanio hesitated. "The People?"
I nodded. "We have a very uneasy truce going. I have to go into the Casino to talk to Ghastek. He's a Master of the Dead. Because I'm the Consort, I can't go in there without a proper escort." Now I was calling myself the Consort. Kill me, somebody.
"If Kate goes in by herself, the People could claim that she did something to break the truce," Derek said. "Or something could happen to her. This way we'll act as witnesses."
"You have a choice: you can stay with the vehicles or you can come with us," I said. "But if you decide to come, you follow Derek and you keep your mouth shut. You don't flirt, you don't crack jokes, you give the People absolutely no excuse to take any kind of offense. One wrong word, and we're at war. Do I make myself clear?"
Ascanio nodded. "Yes, Consort."
"Good." I took a manila folder from the front seat of my Jeep and locked the car. "Put your badass faces on and follow me."
We crossed the parking lot, with me leading the way and Derek and Ascanio behind, stone-faced and emanating a willingness to kill, in case any stray People got out of line. Two solemn sentries with curved yatagan swords guarded the Casino doors. We walked right past them, across the floor filled with slot machines jerry-rigged to work during magic and card tables to the back, to a small service room. A young woman in the Casino uniform of black pants and dark purple vest looked up at me from behind the desk.
"Kate Daniels," I told her. "To see Ghastek."
She nodded. "Please have a seat."
I sat. The two boys remained standing, one on either side of my chair. The noise of the crowd floated through the door, a steady hum interrupted by periodic outbursts of laughter and shouts.
The side door opened and a blond man stepped out. "Good morning. I'm so sorry, but your escort will have to remain here."
"That's fine." I rose.
"Please follow me." I followed him up the stairs and through the hallways, to a stairway. We went down, lower and lower, one floor, two, three. The air smelled of undead, a dry, revolting scent, laced with a tinge of foul magic.
We turned on the landing and another flight of stairs rolled down, ending in stone floor and a metal door. A vampire clung to the wall above it, like a steel-muscled gecko, its dull red eyes tracking our movement. Before the Shift, corporations installed cameras. Now the People installed vampires.
The blond man opened the door and led me into a narrow concrete tunnel, its ceiling punctuated by glowing warts of electric lights. The underbelly of the Casino was a maze of claustrophobic tunnels. Loose vampires weren't great with direction. In the event the locks on their cells malfunctioned, the personnel of the stables would evacuate, and the loose vampires would wander through the tunnels, confused and contained, until the navigators secured them one by one.
The tunnels ended, opening into a huge chamber filled with cells, set back to back in twin rows angling toward the center of the room like spokes of a wheel. The side walls and the backs of the cells were stone and concrete, but the fronts consisted of thick metal grates, designed to slide upward. The stench of undeath hit me full force and I almost gagged. Vampires filled the cells, chained to the walls, pacing behind the metal bars, crouching in corners, their mad eyes glowing with insane hunger.