Devil's Gate (Elder Races #4.6)(16)

She calmed, marginally. They were only two people in an overcrowded, dangerous and unknown place. Maybe it was ridiculous to believe him. Certainly it was neither sensible nor logical, but she did.

Impulsively she reached up to touch his lean cheek, more of the snakes reaching for him, and his gaze warmed. “Duncan, I don’t know what he’s talking about,” she said. “Vetta isn’t a Tarot reader, and she might be a total contrary shit, but she’s not a murderer. That’s insane. If—if by any chance she did kill someone, she wouldn’t have had any other choice.”

He frowned. “We need to ask some questions now. Whatever he says, we’re going to make this right. Okay?”

She nodded jerkily. “Okay.”

He took her hand and kissed her fingertips, then carefully disengaged himself. Only then did he turn around to face the pharmacist and his Light Fae guard, who had holstered his gun.

All of her snakes had calmed as she had calmed. She gathered them to her and nudged them behind her shoulder as Duncan said, pleasantly, “Let’s start this conversation over, shall we?”

Wendell regarded them both with narrowed eyes. “Fine, but you’re scaring away my paying customers, so your free sample is over,” he said, chewing gum. “You want to know anything else, you gotta pay. Standard 411 rate is ten dollars a minute, not including additional rates for premium intel.”

Anger sparked in Seremela at the human’s callousness. She had never in her life wanted to hurt another creature, but she was pretty sure she could hurt this one. Just one bite, she thought as she fixed a cold, level gaze on him. All it would take is one, and your heart rate would slow, your skin would turn dry and flake off and you would be scared, nauseated and f**king miserable for a week. And I think I would like that very much.

Even as she thought it, a single snake slipped over her shoulder and rose to the level of her cheekbone. It too stared at Wendell unblinkingly, until the human shifted on his stool and looked away.

Aw, she’d made him squirm. Yee-f*cking-haw.

Duncan slipped his hands in his jeans pockets, standing relaxed. “Your rate’s unimaginative but doable,” he said.

The human’s thin mouth tilted sourly, and he shifted again. “What the f**k do you mean by that?”

“There are much more valuable things than cash, Wendell,” Duncan said. “Like alliances, protection and immunity.”

Wendell’s eyebrows rose. “You think you could offer me protection or immunity? You’ve barely set foot in this place. You have no social equity here, Vampyre. You don’t know the Power brokers, and you have no alliances. You know nothing.”

“The world is a much wider place than this dusty little pile of tents,” Duncan said. He gave the human a cold smile, and a touch of a whip entered his voice, precisely balanced just so with a delicate lash of contempt. “But no worries, Wendell. If you want money, you’ll get money. Tell us what happened, with details, names and times.”

Wendell paused, regarding Duncan with equal parts greed and caution, and Seremela could tell he was rethinking the last few minutes. Then the pharmacist said, “There may not be any law here, but there is a balance of Power. Or there was, until one of the Power brokers was killed yesterday. Things are a bit destabilized at the moment.”

“Who were the Power brokers, and what did they control?” Duncan asked. “You’re not one of them.”

“Nah,” said Wendell as he glanced at his watch. “My motive is profit, not power. I’m strictly in parking and pharmaceuticals, with a side interest now and then in information. The real Power brokers in Devil’s Gate are hard core. There’s an Elf with an affinity to Earth. Caerlovena is her name. She’s got a lock on most of the diggers. Then there’s a Djinn, Malphas, who has a lock on all the casinos, and I mean all of them. And until yesterday, there was Cieran Thruvial, who locked on prostitutes and protection. All the shops and vendors owed him a cut of their take.”

“Cieran Thruvial,” Duncan said. Surprise flickered in his gaze. “I know that name.”

Seremela shook her head. Inside she was reeling again. “That can’t be right,” she said. “I don’t see Vetta turning to prostitution. I guess she could have, but I just don’t see it.”

Wendell shrugged. “Well, the girl read Tarot, or at least that’s what her tent sign said. She charged for quarter hour and half hour readings. She did a good business too, from what I heard. I don’t know if she was turning tricks on the side or not, but like a lot of other shop keepers, she owed Thruvial protection money. They had a tempestuous relationship and argued a lot in public. I gotta say, it seemed real intimate.”

“Where is she now?” Seremela asked, the words scraping in her dry, constricted throat.

“Malphas is holding her until dawn,” Wendell said, and for the first time since they met him, something like sympathy crept into his gaze. “Scary dude, that Djinn. I’m not sure what he cares about, if anything.”

“Thruvial is a Fae name,” Duncan said abruptly. “Was this Cieran Thruvial Dark Fae?”

This time, both Wendell and his guard shifted their attention to Duncan, their expressions sharpening. Speaking for the first time, the guard said, “Yes.”

Wendell asked, “You knew him?”

Duncan’s face had turned expressionless. He said, “I met him once.”