“This seems to be it for the moment,” Brody answered for the man. The detective’s eyes were still on Eshe, and he broke away now to crouch beside her, his voice low and concerned as he murmured something to her. She glanced up, startled, then they both turned to Lainie. The young seer was kneeling perfectly straight, her chin up, her shoulders square, the sphinx overseeing her kingdom. Eshe, for her part, immediately rocked back on her heels, then stood.
“We’re done here,” she informed nobody in particular, though everyone seemed willing to take her at her word. They stood back another step as she moved over to Lainie, helping the younger woman up with a solicitude that seemed faintly alarming to me, though I didn’t know why. The two of them turned and left without another word.
“What was that about?” I asked as Brody returned to us.
He squinted after the two women. “That was Lainie apparently dropping into a waking trance. Or, put another way, the latest round of crazy in a morning that hasn’t had nearly enough caffeine to offset it.”
“I heartily agree,” Nikki announced. “Let’s do something about that, shall we?”
The relentlessly cheerful tone to her voice put me on my guard, but I wasn’t going to stand in the way of coffee. We entered the nearest casino doors and made our way around the perimeter of flashing lights and beeping machines until we reached a restaurant. Within a few short minutes, we each had a steaming mug in front of us, while Nikki’s expensive portfolio lay on the table in a little too prominent a position, the cream-colored envelope peeking jauntily out its top.
She couldn’t be serious. I quickly turned to Brody, hoping to head off a runaway train.
“What are you hearing about these fires?” I asked. “Was there any advance chatter that made you expect them, or was this out of the blue?”
He sighed. “Not exactly out of the blue. We were expecting something. We just didn’t know what. There’s been an unreasonable amount of what I would categorize as anxiety of late in the Connected community. Nerves. Tension. Like that. It doesn’t really make sense, honestly. There hasn’t been that much that’s changed over the summer. But everyone seems to be on edge.”
He looked at Nikki. “Are you getting the same thing?”
Fortunately, Nikki seemed more than willing to be distracted by this legitimate line of inquiry. “Everybody’s got amped-up energy, that’s for damn sure. I haven’t been hitting the clubs like usual, but from what I’ve seen, there’s a lot more Connecteds out rocking it like the party’s not going to last that much longer. There’s a mania to the community that makes me nervous.”
“Agreed,” said Brody. “It’s summer, of course. We’ve had an uptick in crime in all the regular places, domestic disturbances, disrupting the peace, indecent exposure, alcohol-related nonsense, all on the standard side of the blotter, totally consistent with anytime the heat ticks up. But among the Connected community, it’s a different vibe. Nobody’s committing any crimes, but everybody’s on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“What shoe?” I asked. “Anybody talking?”
Both Brody and Nikki shook their heads.
“It would be a lot easier if they did, but if you’re asking about whether people are nervous about the Shadow Court specifically, I’m going to have to say no,” Brody said. “I haven’t heard that name once in all this. They’re still ghosts.”
Nikki leaned back in her booth seat. “Well, they are a predominantly European organization. That’s where the roots are, so maybe they haven’t fully moved across the pond? Or, if they have, maybe their locations are in cities that have a little bit more of a European connection than, you know, Vegas. I’m thinking New York, New Orleans, maybe Miami?”
“Could be.” I nodded, once more rolling the problem of the Shadow Court around in my mind. We had no names, no locations other than the one we’d already uncovered in Hamburg, Germany, no operatives, and no apparent activity. Something had to be going on, though, because to all appearances, the Shadow Court was flush with cash. That kind of money implied commerce of some sort. And the Shadow Court had already been proven to be players in the arcane black market’s drug industry, pushing technoceuticals hard. Worse, the Shadow Court had been around almost as long as the Arcana Council had, and presumably, its powers ran equally deep.
“What does anyone know about them?” I murmured the question aloud. “Even by another name? There’s got to be something under another name.”
“Simon get us anything?” Brody asked.
I took another draw on my coffee mug. “Not a lot, and the information is all old. The Shadow Court vanished pretty quickly from everyone’s memories back in the 1850s, and they’ve done a good job of covering their tracks since then. Now Simon’s searching for anomalies and trends and patterns, basically trying to see the little man behind the curtain. But it’s slow going when he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Granted, along the way he’s uncovering a hell of a lot of other illegal operations, which could be useful down the line, but nothing specific to the Shadow Court.”
“Pretty sure I don’t want to know anything about that,” Brody drawled. He’d been cut loose from Interpol to return to his duties as a Las Vegas detective since the international stage had gone so quiet, at least as it pertained to the Shadow Court. He preferred it in Vegas, and I didn’t blame him. Interpol could be a pain in the ass. “But keep me posted. I don’t wanna be caught off guard when it’s information I rightfully should be the one to share.”
I nodded, momentarily distracted by the waitress as she refilled our mugs. I’d taken a long draw on my mug when Nikki pounced.
“So, Brody, what are you doing Saturday night? Because Sara here needs a date.”
I barely avoided spitting my coffee across the booth at her, but spluttered all the same, “I do not need a date.”
“A date for what?” Brody asked immediately. “This isn’t going to be trouble, is it?”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Yes,” Nikki said at the same time, “or at least I damn well hope it is. Sara’s been invited to her high school reunion.”
“Farraday High?” Brody said, turning to me in surprise. “You didn’t actually graduate, did you?”
“Hey, now. I got my GED.” I couldn’t help the flare of embarrassment as I said the words. But when your house gets blown up by a dragon when you’re seventeen, it’s kind of tough to show up for finals. “I took the test, passed it, and Farraday sent me a diploma. They felt pretty bad about everything that had happened to me, even though it had nothing to do with them. They were good people.”
“Apparently, it is an unofficial reunion of several of the students from Sara’s class, and they thought she might want to join them because hello, she’s a Vegas local.”
“That’s a bad idea,” Brody said. “We don’t need Grosse Pointe Blank with magic happening here.”
Nikki snorted. “That would be amazing, and you know it. But you’ve got to go, Sara. They reached out to you several times this summer, according to the little note they tucked inside the invitation, and they really want you to show up.”