Luscious Craving (30 page)

I stared. How could everyone be winning there? The Magic Carpet Club cards couldn’t change table results.

I went to the closest table, a blackjack table, and watched Nina Padilla, who had been at the
Sher
since it opened, deal the cards—all
faceup
—to the six players gathered at the high red-felt tabletop. She scattered the cards around the table with cool efficiency. When she glanced at me, she smiled,
then
flipped a card in front of her.
A ten.

Then she dealt the second cards before setting a card facedown in front of herself. She gave the players a chance to consider their next move,
then
asked, “Card?”

Everyone at the table said in turn, “Hit me.”

Even the guy with a king and a queen.
Was he stupid?

The cards were dealt, and three of the players should have gone bust with a total of more than twenty-one, but all yelled, “Blackjack!”

Nina flipped her hole card up. It was an ace, but she said, “House pays.”

“What do you mean? House pays?” I asked. “
You’ve
got twenty-one. Not the players.”

“Candace, what’s wrong with your eyes?” Nina pointed to the cards in front of the players who were slapping one another on the back and high-
fiving
.

I looked at the trio of cards in front of each player. For a second, I was staring at six blackjacks. How could I have been so mistaken? How…? The cards blurred like a lens losing its focus, and I could see what was really there.

What the hell was going on?

The answer came with an icy chill that raced up my spine and clamped itself around my chest. I couldn’t breathe.

Vampires! Not just one, but a bunch.
The Bat Pack
, I thought. I turned, straining to look in every direction. The casino was jammed. Hundreds of people were crowding the floor, most of them gathered at the tables and the slots, the others moving forward to join in the play. I couldn’t see any Bat Packers, but I knew they were here.

I heard shouts behind me. Winning shouts. I spun to look at a craps table only a few feet away.

A man shouted, “Seven!
Again!”

Using my elbows, I shoved my way to the table. The dice showed a one and a five, but the house was paying just like the blackjack table.

Then I saw him.
The vampire wolf in Frank Sinatra clothing.
Standing by one of the columns with the carved snakes.
He was watching the play. He wasn’t alone. I knew that even though I couldn’t see any other vampires from where I stood. The chill was too strong. There had to be more of them.

This is my worst nightmare come true
, I thought.
Vampires all over the casino, using their rapport to manipulate the games, the staff, and the players.
And stopping them is supposed to be my job. This is exactly what I had been hired to prevent. If things kept up, they were going to take down the
Sher
, and I was so completely outnumbered that there was no way I could stop it.

“Al?” I called into my headset. It took several shouts before I got his attention.

“Meet me by the machines closest to registration,” he barked.

I ran up the steps to where Al was calling orders into his hand
mic
.

He took the broken sunglasses and shoved them into his coat pocket. “How could this happen? I know the odds can line up against the house, but
this
…?” He shook his head. “It’s impossible for so many people to win all at once.”

“They aren’t. Something’s going on.” I lowered my voice.
“
Vampires
.”

“Get them in here!” he answered to a question I hadn’t heard. I realized he was listening on several frequencies as he held up a walkie-talkie and barked orders into it. “What in hell are you talking about, Steele?”

I pulled him to the closest table. I picked up the cards of the woman sitting on the end. “Look! She went bust, and yet we’re paying out.”

He stared at me as if I had gone mad. Nausea rose in my throat as I realized Al couldn’t see the truth any more than anyone else in the casino. Everyone but me thought the wins were real. This was vampire rapport on a truly epic scale. But they weren’t using rapport to win for themselves. The winners were tourists, locals, high rollers, and dollar bettors. Everyone was winning! Why?

“Al, you’ve got to clear the floor.”

“We can’t close the casino when the house is losing.”

I grabbed both his arms. “Have I ever steered you wrong? I’m telling you: You have to shut down the casino. Use the poker tournament as an excuse. Say there’s too much noise, or something.”

“If you’re wrong about this…” Al began.

“Trust me,” I said. “I’m not. Just do it, Al.”

He hesitated another second, then went into action. “Get the rest of the backup here.
Now!”

I started to follow,
then
paused.
I’m seeing things
, I thought. In front of me, on the edges of the casino where they wouldn’t be noticed, were members of the Bat Pack, including Frank Sinatra who I knew damn well I’d just seen on the other side of the floor.

For crying out loud, they’re multiplying
! Though the truth was, their garb was the perfect disguise. If anybody even noticed more than one guy in the same getup, they’d figure it was some New Year’s Eve gag. The vampires stood, unmoving, as people jostled to get a share of the good fortune; rocks in a flood, not moving, not alive. In their eyes, an expression I had seen just once before.
On the face of Simmons, the vampire who had attacked Senator
Hamlyn
.
The one that reminded me of sleepwalking, of being…controlled.

Omigod
, that’s it
! I thought, as I felt my body seize with a cold that had nothing to do with the physical presence of vampires.

This was the true core of things. Michael and his friends used their talents to fix the poker game and reprogram the slots. The Bat Pack used theirs to influence the table games.
The double whammy—the con within the con.
None of it made sense, which is why it was so brilliant. All the action at the Scheherazade was just smoke and mirrors.
A colossal show.
A Vegas extravaganza that had the
Sher’s
security force running around like headless chickens.
Michael and the tournament.
Even what was happening now, out on the main
floor.
The Bat Pack said the action would go down at midnight. They said it was about power. Well, it wasn’t midnight yet, and the action here at the casino wasn’t about power. It was about money. I knew I was right. All this was just a distraction to deflect security from the real action. The real action wasn’t here; it wasn’t here at all. It was at Randolph Glass’s lake house. And my guess was that the target of this Vegas show was
Randolph
’s powerful guest of honor, Senator
Hamlyn
.

Go, Candace
, I thought. I turned on one high heel and sprinted for the closest door. There was nothing more that I could do at the
Sher
. I had done my best to alert Al to what was going on. I had to get to
Randolph
’s house fast.

Midnight was less than an hour away. I could only hope I would be in time to stop whatever it was that was about to go down.

Twenty-one

Las Vegas, present
Ash

Two years. It has been two years
, I thought.

Two years since the night of the
Albedo
, the night I had tried, and failed, to make Candace irrevocably mine and, in so doing, secure my place on the Board. A failure that had caused me to do the one thing I hated.

Actually, make
that
two things: run and hide. There were nights when the fact that the Board had driven me to do both still burned like a cinder in my gut.

Let it go
, I thought.
You did what needed to be done, on both counts
. And because of it, I had survived. Though I had denied it to Sloane, of course I had had an exit strategy in place. It had existed from the night I was first taken by the Board. My finest antiques put in storage so my business was protected.
Bank accounts all over the globe.
One call to my secretary put the whole plan in motion. Within the hour, a dozen Ashford
Donahues
had departed
San Francisco
, their destinations spanning the globe. The reach of the Board is long, but not even they can be everywhere at once. And so I had gone to ground. Buried my anger, my desire for revenge down deep; nurturing it, like a seed waiting for the light. And my love for Candace had nestled against it, still inextricably bound. Every place I had traveled, every country that had served to hide me, had only strengthened my determination to win her back.

I slid my gold cuff links through the cuffs of my immaculate white shirt, fastened them with quick, economical motions.
Egyptian gold
, I thought. Like every other place that I had traveled,
Egypt
had yielded up its secrets about the Board to me. I knew the truth now. The members of the Board weren’t the only vampires who could invoke the spell for immortality. Any vampire could do that, providing he was strong enough and possessed the Emblems of
Thoth
.

I could do it
, I thought.
I would do it
. The Board possessed one emblem, but that still left two more. With my contacts in the world of antiquities, I was well placed to conduct research. I would find the other two emblems; it was just a matter of time and I would have the ultimate revenge on the Board. I would defeat them and capture the prize they had been striving to possess for hundreds of years.
Immortality.

“I still don’t understand why you won’t let me go tonight, Ash,” Dune’s petulant voice slid across my thoughts. I stifled a sigh.

This is what comes of being weak
, I thought.

I had met Dune the very day I had arrived in
Las Vegas
.
This vampire walks into a bar
…and sees, on the very last barstool, a woman.
The woman that he loves.
The second he reaches her, puts his hands on her shoulders to turn her around, he realizes his mistake. This woman is not the true, the right one. But by then, it’s too late. He is past caring. Even the outer form will be better than nothing at all.

A mistake
.
I had known it almost at once, from the moment I had felt Dune’s blood inside my mouth. I had looked to create solace. Instead, I’d created a liability, a millstone.

“I wish I could,” I said, as I turned around, reached for the jacket of my tux. She was wearing the robe I had given her for Christmas, a vivid emerald green. “But, as I explained, your resemblance to Candace Steele is simply too strong. If I take you to Randolph Glass’s party tonight, he’s bound to notice the resemblance. This will call attention to you, Dune, attention to us, and that isn’t what I want.”

She moved toward me then, unfastening the sash, letting the robe fall open.

“I know you,” she said. “I know what you want. I can still give it to you.”