Unearthed (24 page)

“I’d have gone with ocean,” Hendricks said, yawning. “Ocean of demons, like they’ll fucking drown you.” He hadn’t had much sleep. His mind had been moving at a thousand miles a second every time he’d shut his eyes. It wasn’t just Starling’s request that was urging him forward into confrontation with Kitty Elizabeth. This was something deeper, and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it all day.

“A group of demons is called a ‘murder,’” Duncan said. “Like crows.”

Hendricks felt his eyebrows raise. “Really?”

“I doubt there are official grammar guidelines around demons, so no,” Duncan said. “But if there were, that should be it.”

“It certainly fits,” Alison said grimly as the Mustang came to a stop. A valet opened the door and she stepped out. Hendricks didn’t try too hard to keep from staring. Not like anyone could see him in the back of the car anyway.

She was wearing a silver sequined number that was split up to the hip. She had bare shoulders, and the dress ended a little above the knee. Girl had shapely legs, Hendricks had noticed over the last few months, her youth still keeping them fresh. Not that she’d had much time to exercise them regularly on the farm. He watched her ass shimmer as she stood, and then he played it off like he was just waiting for her when she turned to slide the seat forward so he could get out.

Hendricks clutched his cane, heard it rattle a little. Bill had been as good as his word. His carpenter friend had hidden the sword inside, hilt replaced with a wooden one that blended with the cane. He’d be able to pull it in about two seconds. Not perfect, but better than walking in with it stuck down his pants. Then he would have just about had to cut them off to get at it. He didn’t have the guard or the quillons, but he could keep his hand out of the way of the blade, hopefully.

When he got out, Alison was waiting. She had a cool look on her face, and she was checking everything out. There were fancier cars than the Mustang in the valet line. There were a lot more practical ones, too, even bordering on crappy. There was an old-school Cadillac from the eighties that looked like the hood almost needed its own zip code. At least it didn’t have bull horns on its grill, though.

“Your invitation?” This came from a guy between them and the door. He wasn’t the lady of the house’s champagne-holding manservant, though, so that was a win in Hendricks’s mind. That would have been the mission blown.

Hendricks reached into his tux and pulled out a little envelope. He flipped it open and handed it over to the guy, watching him intently all the while. The dude was bald, young, smooth, and talked with a Tennessee accent. He was local, one way or another. Hendricks wondered if he was a demon, though. If he wasn’t, that meant there were more humans than just he and Alison on the plantation, which would make it a little more difficult for them to get caught, right?

He wanted to voice this thought to Duncan but thought better of it. Some demons had amazing hearing and getting caught by asking questions seemed like a dumb way to go.

“Right this way, if you please,” the bald guy said, leading them up to the front porch and to the entry. So far, so good, Hendricks figured.

They passed through the door on their own, the bald guy hanging back with a tight smile as he ushered them forward. Hendricks instinctively walked through the door first, almost shoving Duncan out of the way to do it. There he stopped. “Whoa,” he said.

The party wasn’t exactly wall-to-wall people, but it was a full room. They’d entered straight into a ballroom of some sort, with smooth, granite floors, beautifully appointed décor, and a chandelier that looked like it was gleaming gold and strung with diamonds. Music played softly in the background, something not even close to modern. He caught a few discordant twangs thrown in here and there.

“This is the place,” Duncan said in a low voice, pushing him forward. Hendricks went with it, letting the OOC shepherd him off to the side, toward a corner that looked unoccupied. “Those extra notes? That’s not human standard.”

“I was wondering how you knew,” Alison muttered once they were at least ten feet away from anyone else. “What now?”

“I’m hungry. Was thinking of checking out the buffet table,” Duncan said.

“What if it has finger foods?” Alison asked. “You’re not going to eat them, are you?”

“Depends what kind they are,” Duncan said. “Actual fingers? No. But if they have some of that port cheese spread? I’m gonna nom it.”

“‘Nom it’?” Alison asked as they started across the room. “For what, best supporting actor at the buffet table?”

“Most likely to sate my hunger.”

“Didn’t think you got hungry,” Hendricks said.

“Kindasorta,” Duncan said. “But I like the taste of food.”

Alison frowned. “You haven’t been eating what I’ve been cooking.”

Duncan’s face shifted almost imperceptibly. “
Good
food.”

She looked like she wanted to hit him. “Prick.” The muscles in her bared arm twitched, the sequins on her dress catching the light as she wavered slightly. She held it in, though, and they kept on going.

Hendricks felt a little off-center with the cane in his hand. He let it click softly against the ground as he walked behind Duncan, toward the buffet table just across the room. He scanned the place slowly, letting his eyes try and take in as many details as possible. Mainly, he was looking for eyes that were looking for him, and when he completed an entire glance around the room and didn’t find any, he took a short breath of relief. He kept on following Duncan, Alison beside him, toward the table in the corner.

Kitty waited off the main room, listening to the hum of the attendees through the wood-paneled walls. She sat in a little parlor with her legs sideways over the edge of a padded armchair. She could have splayed out on the loveseat to her left, but there was something about draping herself over the chair that screamed that she gave zero fucks about this meeting, which was the aura she wanted to present.

Rousseau opened the double doors wide as he made room for another man to enter. “Man” might have been pushing it, actually. His skin was in the olive range, his eyes barely open, like he went through life with a disinterest in everything but missed nothing. “Mr. Feegan Bardsley,” Rousseau announced then stepped aside for Bardsley to enter. Once he was done, Rousseau closed both doors and walked out.

Bardsley wore a suit, impeccably tailored. Each step he took was slow, dignified. He looked like he was in his late thirties, but Kitty knew that was all an illusion. She wondered what was beneath the shell, what essence was there. She’d cracked open a few—okay, more than a few—in her time, and she liked to play the guessing game where she tried to figure out what they were in the seconds before they evaporated. It only worked if they were too surprised to reveal their true face before they vaped. Tough to pull off in most counts, especially once you had a reputation as a shell cracker. She kept that hidden, tried not to do anything at events like this, where even a moron could say, “Oh, Jimmy went to Duchess Elizabeth’s party and never came back. I wonder if she vaped him?” She would, without a doubt, but she wouldn’t do it in a way that would get the OOCs after her.

Kitty waited for Feegan Bardsley to speak first. Apparently, he felt the same. He who speaks first, loses. That was her philosophy and she wasn’t about to violate it for some new generation punk just because he had a piece of what she was looking for.

She stared at Bardsley, he looked around the room. When his eyes settled on the hand, inching its way around the room with the slap of its palm upon tile, his narrow eyes widened for the first time. When he saw the leg, his mouth opened just slightly. For him, she suspected, that was almost akin to swearing out loud—
FUCK!

“That’s right,” she said and stood up. “I’ve got two. I have a line on the last two, the buried ones. Of course, I know you have one.” She waited to see what he said, to see if he played coy. “I’ve heard you’re a businessman. I’d think that would make you a pragmatist.” She waited for his reaction; it was only a subtle nod of the head. “Do you want to unite the Rog’tausch?” Another subtle nod of the head. Not a great conversationalist, Feegan Beardsley. “Then the way I see it, you have two choices. You could try to kill me,” she brushed a hand across her breast, “take my research and my pieces, then kill Viscount Trinculo Barstotte, who has another one, and find the last two yourself.” She stared him down. “You would, of course, be immeasurably powerful if you could control the Rog’tausch at the end of it all.” She smiled. “People would follow you. You’d be revered. When it all settled out, you’d probably even get a grant of title. Knight, at least, maybe more.”

She leaned toward him. “Or we could … aim a little higher.”

Bardsley’s eyebrows inched up. She took at as,
Higher?

“With royalty on your side,” Kitty said, “there are no limits. Someone comes in and supports you by pushing a grant of title after you unite the Rog’tausch—and with allegations of killing other royals muddying your name—knight is the best you can do. But if someone was backing you, someone with a title and with the resources to get you your due … I think viscount would be achievable. Maybe even full count.” She smiled at those wary eyes. “There’s an easy way and a hard way. Which would you prefer?”

Bardsley finally spoke, and his accent was eastern Europe mixed with … Turkish? It had been a while since Kitty had traveled internationally. “I am under little illusion that I would survive the hard way, as you put it.” He drew himself up. “I know who you are—”

“Sweetie,” Kitty said, “everyone knows who I am.”

“My only concern is that I would get what you promised me,” Bardsley said. “Uniting the Rog’tausch for the sake of it is not my purpose. I want the power, the prestige, the doors opened.”

She raised an eyebrow. “But not the apocalypse?”

He looked as though he were going to twitch. “If it is to happen, it will happen. I only wish to know that if it does, I am positioned to weather it.”

She almost giggled. Almost. “And to hell with the rest of the world, right?”

“That is the idea of the apocalypse, is it not?” He didn’t flinch the way a newbie demon would.

“It is indeed,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “About tearing down the walls, ripping up the entrenched hierarchies and making whole new ones. Making a new omelet and watching all the prettiest eggs get cracked first.” She extended a hand. “I can work with you, Mr. Bardsley. You have the right attitude. I respect a pragmatist.”

He looked at her hand, hesitating for almost a half-second before taking it and giving it a hearty shake that she matched. “And I could not ask for a more powerful ally in this endeavor, Duchess.” He knew his place. He bent the knee, just slightly, and kissed her hand. Then he nodded once to her and began to retreat from the room, never showing her his back. “I will bring the piece to you this very evening, if you wish.”

She felt a very subtle sense of his spittle on her hand. This was the problem with being a duchess—having your hand kissed by people. “Tomorrow will do. Rousseau will give you the details of my itinerary.”

“Until then,” Bardsley said and bowed once more before leaving. Rousseau gave her a look then shut the double doors behind Feegan Bardsley.

Kitty strolled back to the chair and wiped her hand on the arm of it. Yuck. Businessmen.

“What do you think this is?” Hendricks asked as they poked around the buffet table.

“It’s duck confit,” Duncan said, his nose moving slightly as he sniffed, filling a plate with the appetizers spread all over the table. Hendricks hadn’t seen anything quite like this spread, maybe ever. It was some swank stuff. There was a frigging barrel of caviar that people were dipping itty-bitty crackers in. He took enough of a sniff to know he didn’t want any of that shit. Rich people were weird, he concluded, and then wondered how much the mini-keg of that stuff cost.

“Listen to the gourmand,” Alison said, filling a plate of her own. “What’s this?”

Duncan frowned as he looked at it, staring like it was a puzzle he could decipher by looks alone. Whatever it was, it had a toothpick through it, was drenched in sauce, and looked made up of three elements he couldn’t identify.

“It’s Black Pepper Shrimp,” said a man who wandered up in a tuxedo of his own. His was a little … over-the-top in Hendricks’s opinion, though. His frame bulged a little, and his lapels were black silk, shining under the chandelier’s ten thousand lights. His hair was parted over the side, and he was shorter than Hendricks by a little. Looked effete, and Hendricks got the feeling he could put the guy down in about two seconds if he were a human. As a demon? Maybe five seconds. “With ginger, black bean sauce, and pineapple.” He sniffed and his face blossomed into a look of undisguised pleasure.

Hendricks and Alison exchanged a glance. “What’s that?” Hendricks asked, pointing to another dish that looked like really small tendrils in fried batter.

The man gave Hendricks an appraising look that was all absurdity. “Calamari, of course.” He sniffed. “With some sort of aioli sauce.”

Hendricks just stared. “A … what sauce?”

“You’ll have to forgive my friend,” Duncan said, interrupting them. “He’s newly arrived, if you know what I mean.”

“All too well,” the man said, looking sympathetically at Hendricks. “We all go through it. I am sad to say that most feasts you’ll experience—though you’ve probably realized this by now—aren’t nearly on this level, so savor it while you can.” He sighed. “Next week it’ll be back to waffle restaurants, at least for as long as this hotspot lasts. I only hope the next one will be somewhere a bit more avant-garde in terms of the culinary culture.”

“I kinda like the waffle restaurants,” Alison said.

“You poor thing,” the man said. “You poor, poor, thing. I feel so bad for you. Here, have some deconstructed spring rolls.” He made a gesture toward one of the dishes, something that looked like a vegetable garden had exploded in a tissue paper package, and moved off down the table, scooping items here and there, filling his plate.