Kill Game: An Urban Fantasy Thriller (Dana McIntyre Must Die Book 2) Read online

  It was a gray area legally, but okay. “You must make friends real fucking fast,” Dana said. “Weird, seeing as how Vegas isn’t friendly unless you wave money at the people here.” She folded the kerchief, jammed it in her pocket. “Nissa, ropes?”

  “Of course.” Nissa hurried to the closet and came back with chains. “Is this good?”

  “Yeah. Tie the other ones up.”

  “Boss…” Miss Emery said slowly, hands lifted.

  Dana leaned on Arne. The stake cracked against bone.

  “Do it!” he cried.

  Which was how Dana ended up with three draugr chained up in Nissa’s office. She remained seated on Arne while Nissa did the tethering. She didn’t bother asking if the statues against the walls would be sturdy enough to hold their victims; Nissa was a woman who kept sturdy chains in her office closet, and she seemed to know what she was doing with them.

  Once they were tied up, Dana stood to chain Arne to the opposite wall.

  “Let’s try this from another angle,” Dana said, pacing in front of his feet. “Records show that this is your first visit to Las Vegas. What brings you here?”

  “Fun.” Arne’s voice was strained because they’d tied his arms so tightly behind his head. “This isn’t fun.”

  “I dunno. I’m having a good time.” She stepped her boot on his crotch, leaned her weight on it. Arne made a tiny whine. “Look, I don’t like questioning people. No patience for it. And let’s be real—I’m gonna kill you whether or not you cooperate. You’re just choosing how painful you want your death to be.”

  “I’m telling you the truth!”

  “Or you’re protecting someone you’re more afraid of than me,” Dana said.

  It looked like Arne would have peed himself if there had been anything in his bladder. His throat worked hard.

  “I don’t think he’s more scared of anyone than you,” said one of the other male draugr.

  “Still not scared enough,” Dana said.

  She strode over to the draugr who had spoken, crouched in front of him, patted down his pockets. She found his phone and unlocked it. “Put that down!” he said.

  There were photos on his cell phone. Bad ones. Lots of dead bodies.

  Nissa looked over Dana shoulder, and she sucked in a breath. “That’s…”

  “Evidence.” Dana swiped through his camera roll, but there was no picture of the victim at the airship dock. There was, however, a photo taken from the Big Blind, which was the magical twin to the High Roller Ferris Wheel. It looked straight at the Stratosphere. “What, you didn’t want any trophies from the security guard you killed?”

  “We are fucked, we are so fucked,” Miss Emery said. “I told you not to take pictures!”

  Dana backhanded her. She went silent.

  “All right, Arne,” Dana said, cracking her knuckles. “Remember my question. Why did the airship dock attendant have to die?”

  She drove the stake into the other draugr’s chest.

  His eyes went wide. His mouth opened and blood came out. Dana saw it surging up his throat, spilling down his tongue. She barely jumped off of him in time to avoid getting splattered.

  Draugr apparently weren’t one of the vampire breeds that turned to ash when killed. He was exploding blood from his ghostly form—not just mouth, but nose and eyes and ears, and probably some other holes judging by the stains spreading on his pants.

  Dana caught a glimpse of Nissa out the corner of her eye. Nissa was leaning toward her now, like she wanted to climb into the blood fountaining from the draugr.

  Fucking weird-ass vampires.

  Never mind that Dana could feel a similar urge stirring in her belly. She wasn’t a carrion eater, but this blood was coming from another creature’s body, and it seemed to confuse her instincts. Made her thirsty. That hunger was nauseating—Dana hated herself for feeling it.

  She spun on Arne. He was struggling, thrashing in his chains. “Why?” she asked again, gripping his chin in her fingers.

  “Those people were given to us!” Arne was talking so fast that it was nearly babble. “Comped by another casino! We were told to have fun with them!”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You can check, it was Judex, and—”

  “Bullshit.” This time, the curse came from Nissa. “I run Judex. We don’t comp human victims to vampires as treats. We operate legally.”

  Dana shoved Arne’s head back to bare his throat. “You wanna try answering that again?”

  “But it’s the truth! It’s the fucking truth!”

  She’d tortured a couple vampires in her day, and she’d never seen a liar as convincing as Arne. He was good at what he did. Or he was telling the truth.

  Either way, his behavior was indefensible. “So what should I do if you’re gonna be useless to me?” she mused, running the line of the stake along his throat, down to the hollow of his collarbone. “You don’t got the information I want, or else you just won’t give it up.”

  She jabbed the stake into the soft flesh of his esophagus. Arne thrashed.

  “I dunno,” Dana said. “I might not get answers once you’re dead, but at least you’ll be dead.”

  She lowered the stake.

  Arne relaxed.

  “I think I’m gonna hedge my bets on this,” Dana said.

  She slammed the stake into his heart.

  Dana knew that the blood fountain was coming this time, but she still didn’t get out of the way quickly enough. It poured over her chest. It caked her whole front. When she stood up, her jeans were squishing.

  The other vampires shouted with horror.

  Dana knew exactly how she’d look to them. This big butch bitch drenched in secondhand blood, haloed by casino lights. She was a fucking monster. She was the nightmare that haunted vampires during their daytime sleep. Dana almost wished she could have left one behind to tell stories about how badass she looked.

  The smell of the blood was making her hungry.

  “Let’s talk about something else.” Dana took the valkyrie blade out of Miss Emery’s sheath, and she held it close to the draugr’s cheek. “This sword killed a woman last night. I still want to know why.”

  “It was a welcoming present when we checked into our room at Judex,” the draugr said.

  Dana lowered the feathery blade against Miss Emery’s ribcage. “This is your last chance to tell me what I want to know.”

  “Fuck off,” Miss Emery said. She didn’t thrash like Arne did. She wasn’t afraid of dying again.

  Nissa’s hand rested on Dana’s. “Let me,” she said softly, her luminous eyes huge in the night.

  “Go ahead,” Dana said, sliding the hilt of the sword into Nissa’s palm.

  Nissa didn’t immediately move. It was like she was transfixed, gazing up at Dana. And she didn’t break eye contact when she began to slide the blade between Miss Emery’s ribs, seeking to turn her lungs into ribbons.

  Blood bubbled in Miss Emery’s throat when she screamed. Human blood.

  Nissa hesitated while Dana got another sample on the handkerchief.

  “Keep going,” Dana said.

  “Of course,” Nissa said.

  And she did.

  She kept going until every last draugr was dead on her floor, and Nissa was panting and spattered in the human blood that their bodies had contained.

  Dana was left without answers.

  She was wiping her knife clean on the snakeskin pants of a draugr when Nissa invaded Dana’s personal space. The vampire put her hands on Dana’s shoulder, and Dana thought briefly that she should step back, make room, prepare to fight. Nissa was a vampire. She was deadly.

  But Dana didn’t move, and Nissa didn’t attack.

  “Thank you,” Nissa said. Her chest was pressed to Dana’s. There was a steady rhythm under her breastbone. Its beat felt unfamiliar to Dana after all these weeks, so it took time for Dana to realize it was a heart. “Thank you.”

  Dana blinked. Her hand came up to brush o
ver Nissa’s cheek, which was still colorless aside from the spatter of blood. But her heart was beating. Vampire hearts didn’t beat.

  “No problem,” Dana said.

  9

  “Try again,” Lincoln said.

  Dana set her jaw. “It’s not going to work.”

  “Just try.”

  With a huff, she met the monk’s eyes. Lincoln was unafraid of her, even now. He held her gaze steadily. Framed by the mural of the gods behind him, he looked bizarrely bright—a kind of blond and tanned contrasting with the starker coloring of the deities he worshipped.

  Dana extended her hands toward him.

  “Cluck like a chicken,” she intoned in a dramatic voice.

  Lincoln folded his arms. “No.”

  “See? I don’t have thrall!” She tossed her hands into the air and paced away.

  They had spent most of the daylight hours trying to test the limits of Dana’s vampiric power. She could no longer deny that she had developed cravings. Chances were good she’d develop other attributes typical of vampires, too.

  Most vampires with good lineage had some kind of special talent. Nissa was an empath. Achlys had been preternaturally creepy. Dana was from the bloodline of a master, a first-generation descendant, so it was likely that she had something up her sleeves.

  Yet after hours of attempting to get into Lincoln’s head, trying to perform feats of unusual strength, and testing her resistance to typical apotropaics, they hadn’t found anything new for Dana to do.

  “I give up,” she said. “Being undead sucks. I’m not even one of the interesting kinds of bloodless.”

  “If anyone’s interesting, it’s you. Just might not have manifested the powers yet.”

  “Probably better that way. Wouldn’t it be terrible if I turned out to have a skill useful to the Hunting Club and we lose it when I die permanently?”

  “Wouldn’t be a worse tragedy than what’s already happened to you.” He grabbed his monk robes off of the pulpit, where he’d thrown them as they worked.

  Dana checked her cell phone while he got back into his usual garb. There were no messages from Lina yet.

  She had taken the bloody handkerchiefs to the lab at the Hunting Lodge and asked one of the younger associates to analyze the DNA. Lina was discreet; she hadn’t asked where Dana got the blood from, or why she wanted it compared to the airship dock victim. But apparently she was also slow to run tests.

  “So what do I do about the cravings?” Dana asked.

  “Could try synth,” Lincoln said. “It’s lab-grown, and morally neutral as far as vampirism goes. And it won’t make you finish changing.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Then you’ve just gotta deal with it for now.” He shrugged into his robes, leaving them open. The contrast of his Steelers shirt under the voluminous linen was good for a laugh. “Come to nightly prayers with the brothers. It’s a good time to double down on faith.”

  “They haven’t done jack shit for me so far,” Dana said.

  “Maybe you haven’t asked them for help the right way,” he said. “You should join the monks in our nightly prayers.”

  Nightly prayers. Dana shot a dirty look up at the mural with those familiar, unfriendly faces. Even when she was annoyed by them, she found it comforting to rub her thumb on the triadist rune. “Yeah, fine. Maybe.”

  The doors to the Holy Nights Cathedral opened. Just in case, Dana stepped closer to the shadow of the pillar, but the sun didn’t touch her.

  A broad-shouldered male figure entered slowly, like he was half-asleep.

  It was Anthony.

  “Hey, you ugly dumbass,” she called. She stepped out of cover when the doors shut again.

  “Hey, stupid dyke,” he said.

  Dana grinned. “What are you doing out of bed? Do they let the infirm wander away from hospice whenever?”

  “Edie says I’m all better.” Anthony spread his arms wide. He didn’t look injured, but he also didn’t look better. The rings under his eyes were too deep. “Need to take it easy for a few more days, drink a few more potions that taste worse than your ass sweat, but then I’m good.”

  “Don’t tell me how you know what my ass sweat tastes like.” Dana yanked Anthony close and ruffled what little hair he still had. “You douche. I hate you.” He pushed her away with a laugh.

  “Glad to see you up and about,” Lincoln said, giving Anthony one of those hearty man-handshakes that manly men thought reinforced their testosterone or whatever. “What brings you to our neck of the shadows? Bored? Wanna help figure out Dana’s vampire powers?”

  “Actually, Lina sent me with lab results. Seemed to think it was better to share the info analog-style,” Anthony said.

  So maybe Lina wasn’t that discreet after all. “Where’s the blood from?”

  “She said it’s the stuff you pulled at a potential crime scene.” Anthony showed Dana a piece of paper. “She matched the blood to college students reported missing two days ago.”

  She scanned the pages. None of the blood matched the airship dock attendant. “Fuck.”

  “However you got the blood, regardless of how legal it was, you should tip off the LVMPD,” Anthony said. “Give the families closure.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” It wouldn’t be the first time Dana had solved a case by coloring outside the lines, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d slipped tips to Charmaine under the chief’s desk.

  “You’re not happy with the result?” Anthony asked.

  “Not at all.” She debated internally for a moment, then said, “You guys wanna come downstairs so I can show you something?”

  They followed her into the catacombs. Dana unlocked the room where Lincoln had made a grave for her—the closest thing she had to home at the moment.

  The valkyrie feather blade rested atop her sarcophagus.

  “Is that the murder weapon used against Irma Stoppard?” Anthony asked. At Dana’s surprised expression, he said, “I can keep up with cases from the med bay, you know.”

  “I thought it was the weapon,” Dana said. “It matches the wounds used to kill her. Problem is, I got that blood off of the vampire who was carrying the sword, and the vampire hadn’t drunk from Irma Stoppard. So I can’t really connect the two of them. The vamp who carried it didn’t have an obvious motive anyway.”

  “I assume the former owner of the sword is dead?” Lincoln picked up the sword carefully, examining its fibers in a sliver of firelight from the hallway.

  “Very dead,” Dana said. “Nobody’ll ever find her.” Nissa had stayed behind at RKO Pantages to clean up the torture scene, assuring Dana that the Paradisos had ways of making such messes disappear.

  “Well, we know for a fact whoever had that sword killed some people, so we’ll call this one good,” Anthony said.

  “That’s it? No lecture about following the law today?”

  “You know what I’d say.”

  “It’s never stopped you before,” Dana said.

  Anthony shrugged, exhausted. “Cut me some slack on this one. I’m tired.”

  “Valkyrie blades are rare, really rare,” Lincoln said. “And dangerous. If you don’t have other plans for it, I think I should lock this in the catacombs.” He kept a lot of artifacts in the labyrinth underneath the Holy Nights Cathedral. It was the safest place that Dana knew of in any dimension. And pretty much only the gods were allowed to requisition items from its belly.

  “Be my guest,” Dana said. “I’ve already had my fun with it, and I’m not short on swords, seeing as how I’m married to a blacksmith.”

  Her phone pinged with a calendar reminder.

  She needed to meet Penny for mediation, after which she’d be one step closer to no longer being married to a blacksmith.

  Lincoln left with the blade, and Dana was alone with Anthony, staring at her phone.

  He patted her shoulder.

  “I got a six pack of O’Doul’s in my trunk,” he said. “Got a few minutes
to crack one open?”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “You hate O’Doul’s.”

  “Edie said no alcohol while I’m on her potions. I don’t have better choices.”

  There were still a couple hours until sunset—and a couple hours until one of the last steps Dana had to take to be excised from Penny’s life.

  “Beer sounds great,” Dana said.

  Dana’s lawyer was a young woman named Lucinde Ramirez. She showed up with her hair pulled into a thick braid, hole-riddled sweatpants, and a briefcase bulging with papers. Lucinde handed Dana the envelope for a greeting card instead of saying hello.

  “Go ahead,” Lucinde said, unlocking the courtroom doors. “Open it.”

  Dana ripped the envelope open. It was a saccharine condolences card with flowers on the front. Lucinde had written on the inside, “I’m sorry you fucking died and your wife hates you.” She also drew a tombstone with Dana’s boots sticking out of the ground.

  “You’re so gods-damned sweet,” Dana said, chucking the card in the trash. “Thanks, pudding.”

  “Don’t even think about it.” Lucinde winked at her. “Looks like my cunty ex is already here, so yours should be too. Hey ladies!” She waved at the pair down the hallway.

  Lucinde’s ex was another lawyer—a slightly older woman who actually looked the part of a lawyer. Mala Goddard wore a skirt suit, anyway. Her black hair was trimmed to jaw-length. She wore makeup even though it was after typical working hours. And the expression she made when she realized that Lucinde was yelling at her was fucking priceless.

  “Hey there,” Lucinde said, moving like she was going to hug Mala, who stepped out of her reach.

  Penny’s eyes were pinched at the corners. “You…you know each other.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid we do,” said Mala. She had a thick London accent that hadn’t been softened at all by her time attending school and practicing law in Las Vegas, though she was good at American parlance. “I’m sure it’s a coincidence that Ms. McIntyre hired my ex-wife to represent her.”

  “Total coincidence,” Dana said with a grin.

  It was no coincidence at all. Dana used to hang with Lucinde and Mala at a UNLV queer advocacy group, so she knew that the lawyers used to be married. They’d hooked up young. U-Haul lesbians were a stereotype, but sometimes stereotypes came true.