The Living End by Craig Schaefer Read Free Book Online Page B

shook her head. “No. She’s well-regarded by her court—despite not being one of our kind—and her star’s on the rise. She could lay some sort of an ambush for us, but there’s no profit in it for her. We’ll go tomorrow, when it’s light out. Stay alert, and if anything seems the slightest bit amiss, we pull up stakes and leave. So…how was the kiss?”
    I almost dropped my keys.
    “It was Roxy’s kiss,” I said. “I know Naavarasi had been watching me long before we met in Denver, but…it was Roxy’s kiss. Like she’d studied it, practiced it until it was absolutely perfect. Kept me from seeing through the ruse until you showed up.”
    “Mind games are what the baron does. They’re her passion and her power. But that’s not what I asked you.”
    I fired up the ignition and felt the Barracuda’s engine growl through the metal.
    “It was just a kiss. Not as good as yours.”
    Caitlin folded her arms and smiled. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
    We slid through the night like a knife made of ink, only slowing down once we turned onto Las Vegas Boulevard and merged with the wall of traffic along the Strip. The casinos rose up around us in a neon bouquet of flashing lights and broken promises.
    Dinner was at Saffron East, in a dining room with chintz drapes and table settings that could have served the royalty of old-world France. We had a table for two by the window, overlooking a man-made lake that glimmered with reflections from the casino lights.
    “We’ll have the imperial Peking duck,” Caitlin told our server before I could even look at the menu.
    I knew better than to complain. Caitlin’s habit of ordering for people she dined with would have been annoying, except that her choices were always perfect. The first course saw the duck served up in paper-thin crepes with scallions and cucumber, touched with a brown smear of hoisin sauce. The perfect combination of savory, fresh, and a touch of sweet. The next course brought diced duck meat served in wraps of butter-lettuce leaves sprinkled with shaved jicama root. While we ate, I brought her up to speed on my talk with Pixie.
    “Lots of things can devour their victims whole,” Caitlin mused, “but they’re rarely found in this part of the world.”
    I frowned while I chewed.
    “I know one that’s here right now,” I said. “Naavarasi. Eating people is kind of what she does. You think she’d do some hunting while she was in town?”
    “Without permission? Never. It would be a slap in my prince’s face. You’re right, though, I don’t like the timing. Do we have any news on Carmichael or Brand?”
    “They’re phantoms, and I can’t figure out how to smoke them out of hiding. There’s something else. I got a call from Napa State Hospital today. Eugene Planck is dead. I can’t prove it, but I know Lauren killed him. She’s tying up loose ends.”
    Caitlin’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed.
    “We’re being toyed with,” she said. “And I
hate
being toyed with. We have to proceed as if circumstances have changed, and assume that Lauren no longer needs de Rais’s soul to finish the Enclave.”
    I looked at her over my wineglass. “I still think our best bet is pumping de Rais for information. That’s only if we could get Agent Black to hand him over, though. Which we can’t.”
    “If we can’t negotiate with her, is there any chance intimidation might work?”
    “It’s Harmony Black we’re talking about here,” I said. “Trying to scare her would just make her dig her heels in harder. She’s got a stiffer spine than one of Meadow Brand’s puppets…”
    My voice trailed off. I raised my eyebrows.
    “Pet?” Caitlin said. “You’ve got that look. The one you get when you’ve done something clever.”
    “The one angle we never checked. The goddamn mannequins. Look, Brand attacked us with at least twenty of those things at the Silverlode Hotel. Another two of them went with her to kill Sophia. She had another,