Chapter 26

The only place I could think of to transport everyone safely, especially considering the incendiary nature of this particular rideshare, was the Bellagio fountain in front of the fabled casino. With a crackle of fire, we plunged into the shallow pool, any errant flames immediately doused with a crackle, hiss, and spark—and final spurt of pure fire.

What I hadn't counted on, however, was hitting the Bellagio in the evening, in the middle of one of the fountain's performances. No sooner had we staggered upright than a burst of water erupted all around us, an artful spray of celebratory burbling leaping in buoyant time with a Rat Pack standard I only dimly recalled. All around the fountain, onlookers burst into applause.

I stumbled forward a step. I'd never transported so many people at once, and I felt like my brain was floating several feet above my head. My magically incarnated wings had vanished as well—which was just as well. Some things, you couldn't explain so well. Not even in Vegas.

"What in the…" Some of the soaked hunters started wading forward with wobbly steps, trying to get their bearings, while others gasped and sputtered, having taken in the foul water of the fountain. Nikki grabbed two flailing hunters and started hauling them to the side, while Simon raised his voice.

"Viva Las Vegas," he shouted, and as if on cue, the crowd split to let pass a dozen compact tunic-clad men and women, their faces wreathed in smiles, their eyes bright, the lines that deepened around their eyes and mouths the only indication they weren't the spry teenagers they seemed to be.

The Moon was not the only Arcana Council member with an honor guard, and Simon's were the best of the best, a team of Mongolian hunter-gatherers who had pledged themselves to his service and were unwavering in their loyalty.

"Right this way, right this way," Simon announced, gesturing for his team to help the hunters out of the pool. As the crowd continued applauding, the hunters managed to exit the fountain without any further disaster befalling them, gratefully accepting the fancy robes in multiple colors Simon's team handed out.

"All part of the show," Simon continued loudly to more applause, and Nikki pounded him on the shoulder.

"You're the best," she decreed. "We may have a spot for your guys in our show at the Flamingo."

Simon kept the line of hunters moving into the opulent entryway of the Bellagio and down the central corridor. The hunters were so dazed, they didn't argue, and I appreciated the efficient and easygoing nature of Simon's patter. By the time he had them all locked in a room off the main casino, stiff drinks in their hands, none of them looked like they wanted to escape.

Instead, they studied us with the same curiosity we leveled their way, theirs tinged with years of experience in the arcane underbelly of the Connected community.

"Is this the part where you give us an offer we can't refuse?" one woman drawled, the one who'd gotten to the bracelet of the High Priestess before the others. Now her forearm was wrapped in a heavy bandage, though at least no blood seeped through. One of the benefits of traveling Air Sara—incidental healing was handed out along with the peanuts.

I glanced around the room as I considered the woman's question. Gamon sat against the wall at the far corner of the room, a bottle of scotch in one hand, her elbows resting on her knees. At one end of the long conference table, Nikki, Nigel, Emilio, and Roland all sat near Simon, who was busily murmuring to and high-fiving his team of honor guards.

The remaining eighteen or so hunters were some of the best of the best, from what I could remember, as well as a few new faces I couldn't quite track. They were also waiting for a response.

"That depends on what you have to offer back," I said. "I mainly wanted to understand who sent you and from where, because that was a mess."

"I'll tell you what was a mess. A member of the Arcana Council threw that bracelet out. In other words, somebody on your own team," Emilio protested while Nigel looked ready to throttle him.

"You're right," I said, arresting everyone's attention. "Viktor is one of our own, and the fact he showed up to make his claim on the Moon makes things more interesting than I personally care for. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Where did you all enter…the Moon's domain? What lost city got you there?"

Only three of them had been in Peru, it turned out. The others had entered in cities across the world: Petra, Sukhotai, even the lost city of the Anasazi, Mesa Verde. I stared in surprise at a slender but tough-looking Japanese hunter who claimed to have come in by way of diving down near the Yonaguni pyramid, off the coast of Okinawa. And to a one, their stories matched up regarding the source of their information. Whether it started out as a message to a friend through a client through a past collaborator—nobody knew the ultimate source—all of them got the impression that the person who hired them for the job was a woman, but when pressed, they couldn't say why. More than that, the job was simple. Find the lost city and recover the sorceress hiding within it. Even more interestingly, each hunter had been given a bauble to either track down during or to aid them in their search.

"What kind of baubles?" I asked, thinking about the thick silver ring that still weighed heavily in my pocket.

With the influence of liquor warming their bellies, liquor that was almost certainly spiked, the artifacts came out readily enough. Rings, a necklace, earrings, several scattered stones, all of them stunning in their craftsmanship and size, soon lined the table.

"We weren't given any information about the jewelry," the woman who'd picked up Eshe's bracelet said, her tone tinged with annoyance. "I had no idea they were supposed to lure the sorceress out of her hiding place. I would have played things differently."

"Same," Roland said with a scowl. "I thought it was the key to get into that hellhole, nothing more. Kind of an important piece of information to leave out."

"Maybe, maybe not," I said. "The Moon didn't strike me as an entirely rational individual back there. If you'd all come at her with your trinkets, you may not have gotten very far."

"You would have spooked her," Nikki agreed, nodding. "I don't know that she would have come out if the chips hadn't fallen the way they did."

"So now what?" Roland asked, turning toward me. "Where is the Moon?"

"I don't know," I admitted. I'd sent out a call to the Magician immediately upon our crash landing, but he'd remained quiet. That could have been for a number of reasons. Either he didn't know where the Moon was, he didn't want to reveal it quite yet, or he was afraid this conversation was being monitored. I shrugged. "She's in this plane now, though. I have a feeling she's going to out herself pretty quickly."

"And remember, she's not the only one who came through," Nikki put in. "We've also got her entire passel of werewolf guardians. I don't know if they're going to keep their shifting capability when they touch down, but I'm gonna tell you right now, they pull that move at Walmart, it's gonna cause a stir."

"I'm already on it," Simon said, reaching out to take a tablet proffered by one of his guards. He waved it at me. "The moment she showed up in this plane, the beacon that'd locked on to her reanimated and found her. It took her a good half an hour to fling it away, but at least we have a place to start. Not that far away either. The Craters of the Moon National Park. You know it?

I grimaced. "Not at all."

Nikki straightened. "You have got to be kidding me. That's a national park out in Idaho, a nature preserve on top of it. Why would she go there? Other than the name, but how would she even know that?"

"Could have been something magically imposed with Eshe's bracelet?" Simon hazarded. "That's the most likely situation."

I nodded. It made sense. "And if it's a park, that gives her and her guard some wide open space too."

"More than that," Simon said, tapping on his tablet. "There's all sorts of woo groups affiliated with that park, moon worship, that kind of thing. If that sort of energy is playing out there, it might have been a natural draw for her."

"So now we need to go to Idaho?" Nikki asked, frowning. "What do they wear in Idaho?"

"We don't need to go anywhere," one of the hunters said. "The job's done. We get to keep the trinkets as a kill fee, and we're out."

They rumbled in agreement. Truthfully, there wasn't much I could do to make them stay, nor would I want them to. These hunters made their living chasing down artifacts for wealthy buyers. They would be best in their natural habitat. But that made me think…

"You know, I actually think I may have an offer you won't want to refuse," I said, looking at Roland a long minute. He'd been broken, his wires disintegrated, his connections shattered. When I'd put him back together, he was better than he was before.

I couldn't go that far with these hunters, maybe, but I was tired of playing by rules I hadn't made. And if I could help them out in return for their cooperation and collaboration, why wouldn't I? I was Justice of the Arcana Council, but that didn't mean I was Glinda the Good Witch. If there was to be a balance between the peacekeepers and chaos makers among the Connected community, I'd need to make it happen.

"This is what we're going to do," I said.