Kitty and the Dead Man's Hand (Kitty Norville 5)

I should never have asked, because it took them forty minutes of chatter to say it was one big party, with a constant stream of fresh blood, literally. I finished a second martini and let the haze numb me.

Most conversations I’d ever had with vampires were frustrating, because vampires were so in love with being inscrutable and mysterious, it was hard to get any information out of them. They generally loved secrets and power and therefore loved letting me know they had secrets. I could usually tell when they were hiding something from me because they came right out and gloated about it.

My conversation with Dom and his flunkies was frustrating, as expected, but for an entirely different reason: because I was convinced that Dom didn’t know a damn thing about anything. When I got back to Denver, I was going to corner Rick and ask him: where the hell had Dom come from, and how had he lasted this long?

I started to get up. “Thanks for the party, Dom, but I really should be—”

“I have a question for you,” Dom said. I froze when he pointed at me. “Why’d you put Harry Burger on your show? That clown doesn’t deserve any air

time.” It took me a moment to register the name and context: the politician who came on the show to push his anti-psychic legislation. He hadn’t managed to convince much of anyone that the concept was even feasible. But he was enough of a character it made him interesting.

“That’s what I do on my show,” I said. “Drag this stuff into the open to try and figure out what it means. Here’s someone who thinks psychics in casinos are a problem, and I wanted to talk about it. You run a casino, what do you think? Are psychics in casinos a problem? Are they cheating?”

The vampires all giggled, except for Dom, who shook his head sadly. “It wouldn’t surprise me if it happens now and then. But I wouldn’t call it a problem.”

I knew I should have dragged Dom on the show. We could have had a real debate. I grinned, thinking of Ben and his lycanthropic senses giving him an edge at poker. That wasn’t exactly cheating, but maybe Burger had a point. “Have you ever cheated in a casino?”

He gave me a look like I should know better. “Let’s say we do have powers that give us an edge. Maybe we win at poker a little more than we ought to. Maybe we’re a little better at counting cards. Hell, theoretically someone with a little telekinesis could rig craps or roulette.”

“Do powers like that really exist?” I said.

A couple of the vampires had started to look over the crowd in the bar with glazed, hungry expressions. Like they were searching for the weak members of the herd. Suddenly, the bubbly brunette climbed over the two of us blocking her way out. She didn’t say a word, not even an apology, when she stepped on my foot. We watched, rapt, as she made a beeline for the bar and the tall, dark, Mediterranean-featured man taking a sip of what looked like whiskey from a tumbler. She stalked to his front, focused her gaze on his, said something. After that, he only had eyes for her. They left about five minutes later. He’d abandoned a woman—stylish, pretty, in a black cocktail dress and diamond necklace—standing dumbstruck at the bar, jaw dropped, staring after the two of them.

“She loves her hunts, doesn’t she?” Dom’s redhead said with a purr.

“She’s a little impetuous.” Dom’s tone suggested amusement more than anything else. “Ray, maybe you better take charge of the jilted girlfriend? I don’t want to be hearing about all this later.”

Ray, the one who’d been smoking all evening, ground out his latest stub in the ashtray in front of him. “Taking another one for the team, I see?”

“It’s not like it’d be hardship,” the redhead said. “She looks pretty tasty.”

“Then maybe you should throw yourself on that grenade.”

They pouted at each other for a moment, but Ray was the one who did the deed. He exited the booth more gracefully, straightened his jacket, and approached the woman. Looking her in the eye, he seduced her just as quickly as the brunette had seduced her quarry. It was like watching James Bond in real life.

Not exactly subtle. This was vampire Family as prime-time soap opera. It was time for me to leave.

“Dom, thanks for the great time, but I really should be going.”

“You mind if walk you out?” he said. “I want to show you a couple of things.”

“Oh?” Maybe now we were getting somewhere. Maybe he just hadn’t wanted to tell me anything in front of his cohort.

“Just in the casino. To answer your psychic question.”

This was wasting time. I had to find Ben. But if it was on the way out anyway, I could spend a couple of minutes. Especially if it would get me out of this crowd. I was convinced Sven was watching my neck out of the corner of his eye.

Together, we went downstairs and made the grand tour of the Napoli’s casino. I had stopped being able to tell the difference between all the various casinos. If you’ve seen one row of slot machines and flashing video poker screens, you’ve seen them all. The cavernous room had some nice decoration, at least, in keeping with the Italian Renaissance theme: opulent chandeliers, gilt fixtures, red plush upholstery on the chairs and stools. In the table-games areas, the dealers were all prim and elegantly dressed, with white shirts and red bow ties. The players gathered around them had a cosmopolitan flair, chic and sophisticated, like we were in Monaco rather than Nevada.

I couldn’t relax. We were being watched, I was sure of it, but the noise, lights, and abundance of smells had dulled my senses. I couldn’t differentiate anymore. When I looked for them, I could see the dark bubbles in the ceilings that housed the surveillance cameras. Maybe that was all it was, the knowledge that someone really was watching me, along with everyone else here. The realization didn’t keep the hair on the back of my neck from standing up, and Wolf was still tense.

That was all. Just surveillance. Except I swore I saw something out of the corner of my eye, something that vanished every time I turned to look. Like a person sneaking around. Sylvia, maybe. Or Odysseus Grant. Maybe he really could make himself disappear.

It had to be my imagination, because Dom didn’t seem to notice, and his senses should have been better than mine.

“Here’s the thing,” he explained, walking past table and card games, blackjack, and craps, all of which were vulnerable to cheating in ways the slots weren’t. “No one I know with any kind of power or ability is going to abuse that. You win a little here, a little there. Never enough to get noticed. You don’t want to break the house. You want the golden goose to keep laying. You win too much too often, the casinos kick you out, blacklist you. Then you’re done. We don’t have to legislate that, because the casinos are very good at taking care of themselves. Besides, you’ll always make more money investing in one of these joints than playing in it.”

In the poker room, Dom stopped me with a hand on my arm and pointed at the central table. A crowd had gathered, watching four men with cards in their hands stare at each other, studying each other. This might have been a prime sporting event. But the players were just sitting there.