5

VERUCA

Veruca washed her hands with deliberate purpose in the basement mop sink. The maintenance area of the casino may not have been built for their purposes…then again, contemplating the history of Vegas, it might very well have been built for exactly their purpose. The storage room behind her had thick concrete walls and a rather solid door, allowing for all the privacy Duchess, she, and their guest could have wanted. V tried to focus on cleansing her hands, both to make sure she got every drop of blood off and to ritually escape the sins she had just committed.

Love was a funny thing. Veruca Wakefield of a year ago would not have been bothered in the least by a necessary information extraction session with an enemy combatant. Colin’s conscience was starting to prove contagious. A conscience was a very dangerous liability in the Inner Circle of Valente International. Better to focus on rubbing her hands raw under the hot water than to allow thoughts to float loose anywhere that Duchess might pick them up.

“It’s a shame she was so hollow,” Duchess Deluce observed. She had no need for the sink as she had never actually touched their guest, at least not physically. “Whoever programmed her did a rather effective job of scouring her brain meats of anything resembling a history, past, or identity.”

Veruca didn’t even look up from her hands. “Do you believe her? Did we get everything there was to get?”

Duchess smiled her best amused-goddess smile. “Of course we got everything there was to get. Between your technique and my telepathy, I’m surprised it took us this long to break her. We may have to try this again sometime. Maybe we can go for speed records.”

The Faceless assailant had not been able to give up much. For the last two years, she had lived in Chicago. She ran a kiosk on the Navy Pier, slept in a homeless shelter. The suit was the only outfit she owned, the only outfit she needed. Her lifestyle sounded like a miserable mess, but it did not seem to bother her. She did what she did because the man without a face told her this was what she was supposed to do, when he remade her. She came to Las Vegas with two busloads of others because that was what the man without a face wanted. Some were assigned to watch one abomination, some were assigned to watch the other abomination.

Veruca was glad the abomination word was pried out by Duchess and not uttered from the assassin’s lips. She was getting a bit testy when it came to Colin and she might have lost control and finished her. Coming from Duchess’ lips was all right. She already knew she wanted to kill Duchess. No one called the love of her life an abomination.

She twitched and shivered when a fingernail caressed her back shoulder. Duchess was right behind her. “Any time you want to try, Miss Wakefield. We work better as a team. But if you really want to kill me, I would be happy to reciprocate.”

“Get out of my head, fae witch.”

Duchess took a step back, just out of leg range for Veruca. “As you wish. So what will you do now?”

Veruca smiled. “Report back to Lucien. What else?”

She could feel Duchess probing at her frontal lobe, trying to uncover her real plans. She could only hope she was guarding them well. She didn’t want Lucien to put her on a short leash.

Duchess stared at her intently. “What else, indeed?”