Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand

Chapter 6

I’d made reservations at the steakhouse at the Napoli, supposedly one of the best in Vegas. My tastes weren’t that refined—a good steak was a good steak, but I appreciated a good rare steak a lot more now than I did before becoming a werewolf.

The real reason we were going there was so I could talk to Dominic, Master vampire of Las Vegas, after dinner. I hadn’t told Ben that part yet. I was waiting for the right moment. Funny how I hadn’t quite found the right moment yet.

Ben had pulled out his polished mode, very GQ in a suit and power tie. I wore a knee-length flowery, flowing skirt, a red fitted blouse, and heels. I left my hair down. We both cleaned up pretty good.

The Napoli was a couple of blocks down the Strip, and we decided to walk, thinking the fresh evening air would be nice. Ha. I had thought the night would be more cool and pleasant that the day had been. That was how the summer climate worked in Colorado. But here the heat only cooled from “excruciating” to “barely tolerable.”

Now that it was dark I discovered that Erica was right about the vampires.

I could smell vampires in casinos and bars, even walking on the street outside. Not a lot of them, and not all together, but they were everywhere, scattered here and there. A woman sitting at a bar, a man surveying a set of blackjack tables, another woman attached to a high roller at the craps table, blowing on his dice for luck and gazing at him with hungry eyes. I could smell them, cold islands in seas of living, sweating, breathing people.

They were looking for prey. A drunk businessman at a trade show might not even remember the sultry brunette taking him back to his room—then biting his neck. Vampires didn’t have to kill when they took blood, and I was guessing they didn’t. For all its lurid reputation, Vegas didn’t have one as a murder capital, CSI notwithstanding. Bad for tourism. And the vampires knew that.

They fed on the tourists just like everyone else in this town.

I didn’t smell any other lycanthropes. I thought I might, but I couldn’t blame others of my kind for staying out of this mess, the crowds and the constant feeling of near-panic. Maybe I had this sense of being overwhelmed not because I was new to town, but because I was a werewolf. Maybe it never went away. Lycanthropes didn’t like it, so they stayed out.

A couple of times, the vampires we passed paused and looked at us, following me and Ben with their gazes. Each time, I looked back to see their eyes widen in mild surprise. Like they weren’t used to seeing werewolves around here.

“First the gun show and now vampires,” Ben whispered at me as we entered the Napoli lobby. “Vegas isn’t supposed to be this creepy.”

“So you admit it. The gun show is creepy.”

“The vampires are creepy,” Ben said. “The gun show is just a gun show.”

“I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about which of those is creepier,” I said. And now was definitely not the moment to bring up visiting Dominic.

The decor at the Napoli was faux Italian Renaissance. Ceiling paintings of pastel cherubs and women in flowing togas arced overhead: gold and crystal chandeliers dripped light over red marble tiles. Through an archway resting on Ionic pillars lay the casino with a billion more flashing lights and clanking slots and electronic poker machines. In the middle of the islands of slots, marble fountains dripped water, which sparkled in the chaos of lights. The whole place screamed wealth and decadence. And all this could be yours, with a little luck.

On the way to the restaurant, we walked past one of the casino bars, where a woman accosted us. Or rather me, because she clearly hurried straight for me after spotting me across the room. She’d been leaning on a ledge to show off the cleavage revealed by her low-cut dress to the two men she was talking with. She abandoned them when she spotted me, however.

She was a vampire. It wasn’t just her pale skin, when every other woman of fashion had a bronze patina. She smelled cold and undead. I could smell a vampire across a room, and she was it.

“Speak of the devil,” Ben muttered, an anxious edge to his voice. His hand closed around mine.

Suddenly feeling cornered, I braced at her approach, looking around for an escape route. I was already tired of feeling panicked. If nothing else, we could bolt into the casino area. Nobody could do anything with a crowd of people and a million security cameras watching, right? Through Ben’s hand I could feel him tense, probably thinking the same thing.

Then she said, “Oh my God, are you really Kitty Norville?” She gave Ben a quick, awkward glance of acknowledgment, but all her attention focused on me.

Wait a minute. She was beaming, an unabashed smile lighting up her whole face. She’d recognized me, and she was a fan. Vampires were part of my audience, too, after all.

Smirking, Ben dropped my hand.

“Uh, yeah,” I said. “That’s pretty good, spotting me across the room like that.”

“I’m such a big fan of your show, I knew you were going to be in Vegas, but I didn’t think I’d actually see you walking across the lobby like a normal person. Are you staying here? I’m totally going to be at the show tomorrow, I can’t wait.”

She was almost bouncing. I’d never seen a vampire get this enthusiastic about anything. Most of them cultivated an attitude of arrogant detachment. She probably hadn’t been a vampire long.

I couldn’t help but smile. This really was flattering. For the first year or so of my show, no one knew what I looked like. I was still getting used to the public-notoriety thing. “Thanks a lot. I really appreciate the support. What’s your name?”

“Lisa,” she said, offering her hand to shake, which I did. It was cold.

“Nice to meet you. It’ll be good to see a familiar face during the show tomorrow.”

“Oh, this is so cool, I’m bringing everyone I know.”

Aw, she was adorable. I beamed right back at her. “Lisa, I’m sorry, we have reservations and really should be going.”

“Oh, of course, I don’t mean to interrupt. Have a really good time, okay?” We all said goodbye, and she went back to her quarry.

“That was kind of surreal,” Ben said. He was still smirking.

“See,” I said. “Vampire, but not creepy. Sylvia sneaking up on me outside the gun show? That was creepy.”

He just chuckled.

It turned out the Napoli steakhouse did serve an excellent rare steak, with a fabulous cabernet, topped off with a chocolate raspberry torte for dessert. His expression amused, Ben watched me devour this orgasmic dish. “You know why I really want to marry you? You’re so easy to please.”

“My needs are simple,” I said, licking every last crumb of chocolate off my fork.

“So, does that mean it’s time to head back to the hotel room, maybe address a few other simple needs? Not to mention getting away from all these people.” He glanced suggestively at the doorway. Even amid all the meat and chocolate, I could smell the hormones and knew what he was thinking.

Damn. This was probably the right moment to tell him about Dominic. Not that I had any choice now.

I tried to smile sweetly, but it probably came off looking guilty. “Actually, I have an errand here first. That’s kind of why I picked this place for dinner.”

“Ah. And what kind of errand?”

“It isn’t a big deal. It shouldn’t take long at all.” I avoided looking at him, folding and refolding the napkin on my lap instead.

“All right. But what is it?”

I winced. “Rick wants me to meet the Master vampire here, who just happens to own the Napoli. I know, I should have told you. But we were having such a good time, and it never came up.”

Ben’s smile grew very icy indeed. “Vampire crap. You’re running errands for Rick.”

“It’s a favor, not an errand.”

“You just called it an errand.”

I sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. But I just hand the guy Rick’s note and then we’re done.”

“I hate vampires. You know that, right?”

I did. I couldn’t really blame him, but then I had more vampire friends than he did. Rather, he had no vampire friends at all. “Rick’s not bad.”

“Rick almost got us both killed when he took over Denver.”

I couldn’t argue with that. “Look, you don’t have to come along if you don’t want to. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes. Maybe you can kill time in the casino.” He seemed to be pretty good at that.

“Do you want me to come?” he said.

“Yeah, I kind of do.” We were a pack; I’d feel better with him at my side.

“Then let’s go and get this over with.”

We made our way out, walking side by side, our arms just brushing. “I should have told you earlier. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything but took my hand and squeezed it. Grateful for the contact, I squeezed back.

Not knowing how else to go about seeing Dom, I asked at the front desk of the hotel. I was working on assumptions about a system I didn’t know very much about. Despite recent publicity, most of the city Masters still preferred to stay hidden. Among themselves, however, they had a network. They seemed to know each other and communicated with each other. Didn’t mean they were all friendly. In fact, there seemed to be factions. That was the part I didn’t understand too well.

I found a clerk at the desk. “May I speak to your manager? It’s nothing serious, I promise,” I added quickly at the young woman’s stricken expression.

After a moment, another young woman, this one more poised, balanced perfectly on high heels and wearing an armorlike smile, approached from the back. “I’m the duty manager this evening. Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all. It’s just that I have a message for Dom. Dominic. I was hoping to see him this evening. Do you have any way of letting him know I’m here?”

Her eyes went wide, like the other clerk’s had done. Couldn’t blame her. When a stranger walked up and asked to see the owner of the place, it had to be a shock. If not an outright joke. The least Rick could have done was given me a phone number.

“May I get your name?” she said.

“I’m Kitty Norville. Can you tell him I have a message from Rick in Denver?”

“Please wait just a moment,” She disappeared into the back.

We spent five minutes in silence watching crowds walk past us through the lobby to the casino. Mostly tourists, starry-eyed couples of every age. A few jaded business-suit types passed by, not sparing a glance for the decor, as well as a few who could only be high rollers, both men and women wearing lots of jewelry and flashy clothing, trailed by bellhops pushing baggage carts. One couple walked by: an aura of sleaze followed the guy, who looked unassuming enough in a dark gray suit. He had a round, serious face and trimmed dark hair. The woman on his arm appeared far too young and far too thin, and she wore five-inch heels and a tiny, tiny black dress with a skirt up to here and one sleeve hanging off the shoulder. Straight out of a movie. If I hadn’t seen the stereotype for myself I wouldn’t have believed it.

“Don’t judge,” Ben said. “Maybe she’s his sister.”

I stared at him, brows raised. He chuckled.

The manager returned and offered a key card. “Take this to the elevator. It’ll give you access to the penthouse. Dom said he’s looking forward to meeting you.”

Well, wasn’t this fancy? “Thanks.”

“Just hand him the note, right? He offers us drinks, I’m out of there,” Ben said.

“Let’s get this over with,” I said, tugging at his arm.

Inside the gold and mirror-lined elevator, I slotted the key card, and it chimed a merry green light at me. Then the car zipped straight up. I was simultaneously excited and uneasy. How cool was it getting invited to the penthouse suite of a Vegas tycoon? But then, he was a vampire. If he offered us his kind of drinks, I’d be fleeing with Ben.

When the elevator doors slid open, I expected to see more of the Renaissance opulence the rest of the hotel boasted. Here, though, the decor was much more understated. We stepped into a foyer with a polished floor, wood paneling, and soft lighting. A large glass table held a black vase of white roses. The room spoke of wealth, but restrained and tasteful instead of out of control.

A man in his early forties, strong-jawed and handsome, with short, dark hair, graying a little, emerged from the room beyond the foyer. He wore a dark, long-sleeved shirt and gray slacks. Collar pressed, shoes polished. He might have been any businessman in any upscale setting. He had a winning smile, and he smelled cold.

He walked straight toward us, too quickly, too eager. Ben and I stood shoulder to shoulder, a step away from a defensive posture—the wolves’ reaction. The vampire didn’t seem to notice his effect on us.

“You’re Kitty?” he said in a flat, unplaceable American accent. “I’m Dom. It’s great to meet you. And—”

“This is Ben,” I said.

Dom put out his hand to shake ours, which he did enthusiastically. I was a little off balance with his enthusiasm.

He regarded us, seeming awfully pleased. “The alpha werewolves of Denver. What an honor. Can I invite you to my living room for a drink?” Ben raised a brow at me, and I winced. “I have a bar—liquor, soda, beer, whatever. Nothing spooky, I promise.” His smile showed a bit of fang.

I sighed. “Sure. We can stay for a few minutes.”

Dom might have seemed laid-back, but he was still a vampire and still had an entourage, though it stayed hidden. I caught a glimpse of a man in a dark suit, with short cropped hair and a hard glare. He stayed at the edges of the room and ducked back as we passed by. A bodyguard, I was sure. Just in case Ben and I tried something. Yeah, right. Hadn’t even crossed my mind.

Like the foyer, the living room was rich without being decadent: a pair of brown leather sofas around a mahogany coffee table formed the room’s centerpiece. In the corner was a fully stocked bar. Dom probably held parties here. Windows along one wall looked out over the Strip. The view was incredible. Ma, I can see Paris from here... Well, fake Vegas Paris.

Dom, as it turned out, made a pretty good martini. We enjoyed the drinks, admired the view, then settled back on the sofas.

“This your first time in Vegas?” Dom asked. I said yes, Ben said no but didn’t elaborate. Dom said, “There’s no other town like it in the world. I just love it.”

That made me warm to him. I’d met only a couple of Masters in my time. The good ones loved their cities. They had to want to protect their cities, if they were going to be anything but tyrants.

I took the note out of my purse. “Rick wanted me to give this to you.”

Dom waved me off. “No-no-no, do it official. ‘I carry greetings from Ricardo, Master of Denver,’ et cetera.”

“Ah. You’re old-school.”

He chuckled. “I have to admit, there are things I miss about the old days.”

“You’ll have to forgive me, then. I’m kinda punk about the whole thing.”

“Not even a little ceremony? Didn’t Ricky say anything besides, ‘Here, give him this’?”

Ricky? “I’m not his lackey.”

“You sure about that?”

I handed him the note. “Here.”

Glancing at me as he opened the envelope, he still looked like he was chuckling to himself at my expense. It didn’t take him long to read the letter.

He tossed it on the coffee table when he’d finished. “I’d never have guessed that Rick would finally settle down with his own city. And you helped him, I take it? That’s why he wanted me to meet you, look you over?”

Ben and I perched at the edge of our sofa, side by side, tense and ready to run. I didn’t know how to read Dom at all. The only thing I could do was trust that Rick knew this guy, and he wouldn’t have asked me to come here if he was dangerous.

“He seemed to think it would be good for me to have a contact here. But I’m sure you’ve got much better things to do with your time, and we really ought to be—”

“No, this is no trouble. I’ve got all the time in the world.”

Vampires. Huh.

He looked away, leaning back against the sofa, changing his posture from eager and forward to back and relaxed. It was wolf body language, a gesture of peace rather than aggression. It made me—my wolfish instincts—feel a little better.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We don’t have werewolves in Vegas. I sometimes forget how to deal with them. I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

I wasn’t going to admit that I was nervous at all, so I didn’t say anything.

He continued. “This, Rick sending you here, it’s all about gossip. Rumor. We all talk to each other. Maybe not very often, but it doesn’t have to be very often. If I can make noise on Rick’s behalf, tell the others that yes, he’s in charge, and a couple of strong alphas are in charge of the wolves there, other elements will be less likely to make a move on Denver.”

“I had a feeling it was something like that.”

“Maybe our boy’s finally growing up, settling down,” he said.

“Growing up? He’s five hundred years old.”

“He tell you that?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“Well. Being old and growing up are two different things.”

“Where’d you meet him?” I asked. “How long have you known him?” I’d had a hard time getting stories about Rick’s past from Rick himself. Dom made it sound like they’d known each other for a long time. Since Rick claimed to have known Coronado, that might have been a really long time.

“That’s always a tricky question with people like us.”

“I know. But one of these days I’m going to get a straight answer out of one of you guys.”

“San Francisco, 1850,” he said. Well then. Straight answer. Unfortunately, that opened a whole new set of questions, and I doubted he was going to give me anything else.

But I had to try. “There for the gold rush? You want to tell me about that?”

“Maybe some other time.”

I had a feeling it wasn’t that he didn’t want to answer. He just liked messing with me. Not that I ever let that stop me with anyone else. “You feel like coming on my show for an interview?”

“As a vampire? As Master of Vegas?” He chuckled. “This may be the one place in the world I can never go out in daylight and no one notices. I’m not ready to tell the world what I am, and I think you’ve got serious balls for doing it yourself.”

That was sort of a compliment. At least, I was going to take it as one. “It never hurts to ask. You’ll let me know if you change your mind?” I said hopefully.

Dom shifted his attention to Ben, who had been sitting quietly, watching us like we were on TV. “So, Ben. You always let her do all the talking?”

He gave a wolfish smile. “Always. She’s a professional.”

Dom laughed, and I was less nervous. Still wasn’t sure I trusted him, but I did believe that he and Rick were friends, and that was something.

“Dom, Rick says you’ve been here since the start, back when all the Mob money started pouring in.”

“You got one straight answer, you expect me to give you more now?”

I scooted forward, to the edge of my seat. “What’s the dirt on Frank Sinatra? What about Elvis? Did you ever meet JFK?”

“What makes you think I have any more dirt on those guys than has come out in the dozens of books and all that have been written on them?”

“Because all those books were written before anybody was willing to publicly acknowledge the existence of vampires.”

He chuckled. “What? You think any of those people were associated with our world? You want me to maybe tell you that Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets were silver?”

I almost chuckled along with him, then I stopped. My jaw dropped. “What? Holy shit—”

“Just kidding,” he said, making a calming gesture. Then he winked. “Maybe.”

He could deny it all he wanted, it still took a while for my heart to stop racing. The implications were mind-blowing. I’d mused about what would happen if a lycanthrope ever managed to get elected president. But it begged the question, didn’t it: had one already? Oh, God, the research involved: cross-referencing public appearances with phases of the moon, whether or not the White House silver was ever used for state dinners, who had survived assassination attempts... And it would still be all circumstantial.

It would be so much easier if he would just tell me.

“See, that’s the kind of dirt I’m looking for,” I said. “And if you would just maybe come on the show for a little chat—”

His smile was thin. “No. Sorry.”

Darn. I pouted.

We didn’t stay much longer. Long enough to finish the drinks without gulping them. A gracious host, Dom walked us back to the elevators. He gave us his cell phone number and insisted that we call him if we needed anything or had any trouble. Dom turned out to be a decent guy, as vampires went, but I really hoped we didn’t run into the kind of trouble where we’d need to call him.

I did find one more question before we reached the elevators. “Why doesn’t Las Vegas have any lycanthropes?”

“Ah, I didn’t say there weren’t any lycanthropes. I said there weren’t any werewolves. I think the wolves don’t settle down here because it’s too urban, and the desert outside the city isn’t the greatest place for them. But Las Vegas has lycanthropes.”

“Where? I’ve been looking. I’ve seen plenty of vampires, but no lycanthropes.”

“You been to the Hanging Gardens yet? Big joint a few blocks down on the Strip, the one that looks like a temple.”

I’d seen it, another hulking fantasy edifice shimmering like a mirage among all the other giant resorts. I hadn’t paid it much attention. I said, “Not yet.”

“There’s an animal act there. One of these magic-show spectacles with trained tigers and leopards doing tricks. Those guys are the closest thing Vegas has to a pack of anything.”

I needed a couple of moments to put two and two together on that one. I still resisted the implication. Carefully, I said, “So lycanthropes are running the show—”

Dom shook his head, and my eyes widened.

“You mean to tell me there’s a performing troupe of tigers and leopards who are actually people?” He just smiled.

Lycanthropes performing onstage in their animal guises. I was totally going to have to check that out. Right now. The idea—it was crazy. They’d have to shape-shift every night. They’d have to control themselves enough to remember their routines. I didn’t think it was possible. And could I convince one of them to come on my show to explain the whole thing by tomorrow?

Ben shook his head. “I’ve heard of a lot of crazy stuff in Vegas, but that tops everything.”

“You don’t believe me, go see for yourself,” Dom said. Almost like a challenge.

Ben was right; it was crazy. Which meant of course I was going to have to check it out.

“Yeah, maybe we’ll do that. Thanks for the tip,” I said. Ben was already edging toward the door. “You know, you could come to the show anyway. Just to watch. I won’t drag you onstage, I promise.”

“I’d love to see you try to drag me onstage,” he said, with just a hint of a menacing glint in his eye. The phrase “sleep with the fishes” popped into my head suddenly.

Dom once again wished us a happy stay, then we were in the elevator.

As soon as the doors closed, both of us let out sighs.

“That wasn’t so bad,” I said, trying to sound positive.

Ben said, “Do you think he was serious? About lycanthropes performing in that show? I can’t even imagine.”

Shifting was terrifying, painful, horrifying. Doing it every day, suffering through that—I had to agree with Ben. I couldn’t imagine it.

“It’d be easy enough to find out,” I said. “Go to the show and smell them out.”

“Right now?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t take much more today. And this was still only the first day here. “Tomorrow, first thing.”

“This is like work,” he said. “This is like networking and making sales calls. I started my own practice so I wouldn’t have to do this sort of thing in a law firm.”

“If I had known we were going to have to do this sort of thing when we took over the pack and helped Rick, I’d have left town.”

“No, you wouldn’t.” He smiled and tucked his arm around my shoulders to give me a hug. I leaned against him and, taking in his warmth, let myself relax for the first time in an hour. “Now, if I’m not mistaken, your next appointment is in our room.”

We gave the tourists in the lobby a thrill when the elevator doors opened and Ben and I were locked in an embrace, kissing, oblivious.

Now I felt like I was on vacation.