Chapter Four

Paul sighed inwardly. It had been going so well. He’d felt a rapport with this stranger, something that might go beyond simple attraction—and the attraction had been fine in itself. Oh yes. And then he’d forgotten about the protocols of the outside world again. He’d let the magic that was so natural to him and so alien to most of the world combine with the fierce attraction to make him forget to pretend he couldn’t sometimes see truths others tried to hide.

Now Tag distrusted him, and with good reason. Duals had secrecy thrust upon them by scared-stupid elements in the normy world, and Paul had just blown right through his cover. Not that he could have helped seeing through it, but it would have been polite to play along until he was able to explain himself more gracefully to Tag.

Come to think of it, it did sound lame for a Donovan, even a young Donovan, to be a casino security consultant. Family obligations got you into weird situations sometimes, especially when your family included Grandma Josie, who’d believed in living, as she put it, la vie bohéme.

A light went on in Paul’s tangled brain. Duals understood family obligations and oaths in a way that normies wouldn’t. Tag might still think the situation was bizarre, but once he knew about Grandma Josie, it would begin to make sense.

He thought through the right way to tell the story as they hurried back to the Excalibur. And soon as the door closed behind them and his personal wards settled back into place, Paul began to talk.

 

Tag shook his head and chuckled ruefully. “So you’re stuck doing this job because back in the ‘20s, your grandmother got herself in a mess of magical trouble, and the casino owner called in some favors from his fae cousins and saved her bacon. Now he needs a favor in return, but Grandma’s dead, and someone else had to take the job.” He stopped pacing around the room—which was quite a bit bigger and more posh than his—and stared at Paul. “This is startin’ to make sense. A promise is a promise, and if the guy’s fae, a promise is a promise forever. It’s not the kind of story even a fox would make up on the fly, with your grandma being in a traveling circus before she met your grandpa, and the demon-possessed elephants and the gigantic snakes and the carnie who was…what did you call him? A snake-demon nasty thing from India.”

“A naga.”

“But why the big secret? You could have told me that in the restaurant. Your boss is a fool to waste that caliber of favor on spottin’ people cheatin’ in the casino, but that’s his problem, not yours.”

Paul’s face tightened. Tag could almost hear a door shutting behind Paul’s eyes. “He’s not just worried about people cheating. There’s something going on in Las Vegas that the police are having trouble handling. He thinks I can help. Or rather,” he added, surprising bitterness in his voice, “he thinks a Donovan can help, and I drew the short straw. The family thinks I need to get out of Donovan’s Cove more, mingle more with non-witches. Believe it or not, they think I’m too shy, which I normally am until you crashed into me tonight and made my head spin.”

Everything fell into place. “I think we’re here for the same reason. Does the name Randolph-Macon McNeil mean anything to you?”

“One of the five people who’ve died under mysterious circumstances lately at the Excalibur. Sixty-two, professional gambler, fox dual…” He spoke dispassionately, as if reciting facts from a report. Then he paused, and a look of horror crossed his face. “Was he family, Tag? I’m so sorry…”

“My uncle. I’m here to find out who the fuck killed him and take him down hard.” 

“No, you won’t. We will.” Paul’s voice was soft and professorial, but something in his tone made the words ring in the air with the force of an oath before the gods.

“Really? Do you mean that?” Tag tried to keep the emotion out of his voice, but that wasn’t the fox way. He was tough, tougher than most, but he’d loved his uncle.

And he hated to admit it, but he needed all the help he could get. He’d gotten into this figuring he’d find the killer and then call in reinforcements, but if Uncle Randolph was the fifth victim, and a fae had asked for help dealing with it, Tag needed magic, not just muscle. “Really?” he repeated, feebly aware he should be saying something wittier but unable to make his brain work at proper speed. 

 “Really. I got drafted to do this. For you, it’s personal. Hearth, heart and home fuel magic. We’ll be stronger together than we are alone. And you look like you shouldn’t be alone.”

The next thing Tag knew, Paul’s arms were around him.

Damn, Paul could kiss, and his hands, even when they weren’t touching anywhere Tag would normally consider an erogenous zone, sent heat through Tag’s body. Maybe it was magic, or maybe the guy was just that talented. At this point, Tag didn’t care. All he really cared about was seeing how long they could go without thinking about dead people and just focusing on sex, or at least the yummy preliminaries to sex. 

Tag was fumbling with the buttons on Paul’s dress shirt—too formal by comparison to what everyone else seemed to wear in Las Vegas, almost silky under his hands although it was cotton—when someone knocked at the door. “Housekeeping always shows up at the worst times,” Paul muttered before throwing himself into kissing Tag so thoroughly that Tag forgot not only the persistent knock on the door but the day of the week and the reason he was in Las Vegas. He was working up to forgetting his name when the door opened, and a man walked into the room.

At least it looked like a man, as in a male human being, but Tag’s other senses screamed it wasn’t that simple.

“Mr. Aisling, this is…an unexpected pleasure.” Paul sounded completely unruffled, unembarrassed by the interruption or his obvious state of mid-fooling-around dishevelment, and pleased enough to see the man who stood in the doorway holding a pass key. Paul’s scent changed, though, something tight and grim overlaying his natural smell and the hot, heady odor of arousal. Not annoyance, Tag thought, or at least not primarily annoyance. Something more like alarm.

Tag considered saying something rude about people who barged in when they clearly weren’t invited, but something about the unwanted guest made him keep his mouth shut. The guy looked like an expensively dressed, expensively well-groomed human in his late fifties, not so different from a million other businessmen, but it wasn’t true. He reminded Tag of Colonial Williamsburg, all shiny and restored but with an edge of dust and the weight of history under the pretty surface. He wasn’t quite right, but he wasn’t left either. Wasn’t human, wasn’t dual, wasn’t anything Tag recognized by sight or scent. His presence felt strange, as if he was only half there, half in the world at all, and he didn’t smell like much of anything, not even the soap-and-water undertone of a normy who’d just showered. 

Under other circumstances, the guy wouldn’t seem dangerous, just puzzling, and Tag loved a good puzzle. Given that something no one could identify was killing hotel guests, though, the unknown was scary. If Tag had been on his own, he’d have been trying his damnedest to slide past the stranger and get the hell out of Dodge.

But he couldn’t do that in front of Paul, who seemed to know the man. Being. Whatever you’d call it. Paul seemed to know who the guy was and accepted him, even if Tag got a feeling there was no love lost.

All this flashed through his head in seconds as he watched Paul’s strained body language and the intruder’s stillness. Some duals could take on the stillness of a predator stalking prey, but this being was more like a statue. He didn’t even look like he was breathing.

“Mr. Donovan,” the being said in a rich, slightly Scots-accented voice, “we are not paying you to enjoy the company of your fellow guests, however handsome they may be. Unless this is our killer and you’ve discovered his power source is hidden in his clothing so getting him naked is part of your clever plan? Or is he another red witch? Your grandmother was quite keen on that sex magic of hers.”

Tag found his voice and the part of him prone to stupid acts of chivalry at the same time. He stepped between Paul and the being, who, he realized now, must be Paul’s part-fae employer. “I’d advise you not to speak about a lady in that tone of voice, sir,” he said, growling as much as he would have if the dude had said some squirrelly about Grandma Vi or Grandma Savannah or Grandma Russann. 

The world held its breath, or at least Tag and Paul did. Paul had implied the half-blood fae didn’t have much magic, not enough to handle finding the killer on his own, but it wouldn’t take all that much to put Tag in a world of hurt.

Then the fae began to laugh, a delightful sound like a stream made of the finest bourbon (or Scotch, Tag supposed, given the fae’s accent) burbling through a beautiful, secluded glen you were sharing with someone special. “My very dear mortal, you take offense where none was meant. I would not be so foolish as to say something untoward about any lady and certainly not about Jocelyn Clemens Donovan, who would not let being dead stop her from slapping me. But thank you for proving to me that chivalry, far from dead, is hyperactive in the confines of this room.”

Flushing, Tag realized Paul hadn’t taken any offense at the fae’s needling. “Sorry,” he muttered, the apology coming unnaturally to his lips. His fox yipped at him.

The fae laughed again. “We do not know each other,” the fae said, “although now I feel I know you a bit better.” He turned intent eyes on Tag. His foxside screamed for him to look away, but he met that silvery gaze, unable to resist. A wave of queasiness passed over him. He froze. The fox yipped frantically, trying to flee, but could not.

Paul put one curiously hot hand on Tag’s shoulder. A wall of transparent brick—Tag could think of no better description—went up between the two mortals and the fae. “Enough, Mr. Aisling. Let my friend be, or by the Powers and the blood of my grandmother that runs in my veins, this bargain between us is cancelled.” His words had palpable weight that stroked Tag’s skin gently but made the fae jump as if he were caught in an invisible hail storm. A spell, and not the kind of minor hedge-witch charms he’d run into occasionally. Something much bigger, yet cast as casually as breathing.

For what might have been a second or a century, the atmosphere in the room grew thick, even more fraught with tension. Then both fae and witch dropped their spells, and everything relaxed so abruptly that Tag wanted to sink to the carpet in queasy relief.

 “I have your measures now, gentlemen.” Mr. Aisling wasn’t laughing, but he still had that intoxicating chuckle in his voice. “Blood of the fox-folk and a bold heart that ventures before your brain, though I sense great intelligence as well. And Paul Donovan, who seemed so stiff and shy yesterday, and clearly wishing himself back in the dampness and peace of the Oregon coast and his family’s great library, shows himself a worthy descendent of his brave and powerful, if sometimes feckless, grandmother. Do either of you even realize the fox moved to protect young Mr. Donovan from me, and now Mr. Donovan holds him close with arms and shield, protecting and comforting? Yet I would swear you came to Las Vegas alone yesterday, Paul Donovan, and the fox still has his boarding pass in his pocket.”

Paul started to say something, but Mr. Aisling cut him off. “You have been charged with a hard task, Paul Donovan, a task marked with death. Mortal blood runs hot in the face of the grave, and witch and dual blood hotter than most. I speak freely because I think it no coincidence that a young Tennessee fox is here with you when recently I helped arrange the cremation of an old Tennessee fox who should have been safe within the protection of these walls.” Mr. Aisling’s voice rose to a crescendo at that point. Tag could smell him for the first time at that moment, smelled frustration and grief and anger and a trace of acrid fear, though faintly, as if he were no longer in the room, perhaps miles away by now. Then his voice dropped off. “And now there have been more deaths.”

Paul turned even paler than nature made him. “When?”

“Just now. I was going about my business, and I felt them die. That brought me here. I do not know who or how, but I know where. Come with me—both of you.”

Tag thought about asking why Aisling had delayed so long bantering, but figured it wasn’t worth the effort. He didn’t know much about the fae, but from what he’d heard, they rarely made sense to mortals. 

 

Despite the air-conditioning’s icy blast, Paul was sweating by the time he followed Aisling, via back stairs and a service elevator, to a room that, even from the outside, even through the locked door, felt wrong. 

Before the door opened, he was trembling. Brought up among ghosts and with a mother who talked to the dead as readily as to the living, he knew there was nothing to fear from someone’s empty shell or the process of dying in itself. Donovans preferred to die at home, among their loved ones, and Paul had stood vigil as several of his relatives, including his beloved Grandma Josie, passed to the Otherworld.

 Being shoved violently into the Otherworld was something different. He didn’t mind dead people—but he wasn’t sure how well he’d handle how these poor creatures got to be dead.

As Mr. Aisling opened the door with a master key, Tag reached out and took his hand. “This part’s gonna suck,” he whispered. Tag’s hand holding his, the simple, surprisingly intimate gesture, eased some of his tension.

Paul made a mental note to laugh at himself once circumstances were conducive to laughing again.

The door swung soundlessly open, revealing yet another damn hotel room, this one larger and more lavish than the one Aisling had insisted on giving Paul. A suite, in fact. 

The first room was a sitting room, a deluxe version of the same curious mix of lavish and sterile Paul had noted all over Las Vegas. Everything was good quality, with faux-medieval touches that, while not remotely authentic, were attractive, and pre-Raphaelite Arthurian-themed art on the walls. Still, it seemed dull and soulless, where the same decoration in a room people lived in instead of perched in for a few days at a time would be geekily charming.

 The only things out of place were a pair of perilously high, hot-pink heels and a tiny matching purse, tossed carelessly onto the coffee table next to three empty glasses that held the remnants of champagne. Two were adorned with lipstick, a brilliant rose that matched the shoes and bag and a color that his sister Portia, who liked it herself, called Harlot Scarlet.

The room was so still, so utterly ordinary, that Paul hoped briefly that Aisling had been mistaken, that no one was dead here, that the inhabitants of the room had decided to go for a swim or gamble or grab a late dinner.

But Tag’s face screwed up as if he smelled something vile, and he squeezed Paul’s hand more tightly, and Paul knew he was kidding himself.

The second room of the suite was dominated by an ordinary king-size bed.

And the bed was dominated by two corpses.