Wilde Card: Immortal Vegas, Book 2 Read Online Free

other thoughts flew out of my head. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I groaned. “They put these things in Cracker Jack boxes or something?”
    “So that wasn’t what you sought?” Amusement laced his words.
    I stalked over to the case. On the third shelf, gleaming with polished stones and burnished bronze inlays, sat a near replica of the Mongolian helmet I’d wrenched off some hapless not-quite-a-corpse’s head before plunging into the iciest waters this side of Hell. “Does this do the same thing—the long-life business?” I quirked a glance back at him. “Do not tell me that’s what’s kept you kicking around for so long.”
    Armaeus lifted a contemptuous brow. He could do that better than anyone I knew. “I do not keep the crown for personal use. I have it here for study.” His golden eyes tracked me, cataloging my every move. “Who was your client?”
    “Some guy with a lot of money jonesing to dig up his family tree.” I shrugged. “No one you need to care about.”
    “It isn’t that difficult to learn what I wish to know.”
    “So why bother asking?”
    The rustle of silks was my only warning, then a fresh wave of panic seized me as the High Priestess spoke from another of the room’s four entrances.
    “Oh, good. The prodigal daughter returns.”
    Terror blanked my thoughts for the barest moment, but it was apparently long enough for the High Priestess to see my expression. She smiled with satisfaction, and her wide, intelligent eyes mocked me. Today Eshe was rocking the whole Greco-Roman goddess motif, from the tips of her dangle earrings to the toes of her gilded sandals. Her hair fell long and lustrous around her shoulders, framing her perfectly proportioned olive-toned face, and her body practically shimmered in a deep purple robe. “Don’t worry, Sara,” she cooed. “This won’t hurt much. And it’s for such a good cause.”
    I glared at Armaeus. “You didn’t tell me she was going to be here.”
    “You didn’t ask.” The Magician’s voice had also hardened another notch or six, and I fought to keep my stance easy, my shoulders square. I had to play this carefully. A pissed-off Armaeus was a good day’s work. A furious Armaeus was dangerous. “If I cannot see your thoughts, I cannot gauge your pain.”
    “My pain ?” An unexpected surge of outrage welled up, bolstering and fierce. I stalked forward, jabbing my finger at Armaeus to punctuate my words. “You don’t get the right to discuss my pain. I’ve already played that game with you, remember? That was you, wasn’t it? In my hotel room two weeks ago? Telling me that it ‘didn’t have to be like this’? Or am I getting my Council members confused?”
    “Tsk, tsk, Sara, so much anger.” Eshe was enjoying this. Then again, she probably enjoyed pulling the wings off dragonflies too. ”It was your choice to protect the twins from Kavala. They are the natural oracles, not you. Serving me is what they were born to do.”
    “No, they were born to be gifted, Eshe. No obligation required.”
    “Yet you feel obligated to them?”
    My own anger flared hotter, treating my brain vultures to a barbeque. “Gee, I don’t know. Fifteen years old, kidnapped, and sold to that scum-sucking Jerry Fitz, who pumped their lungs full of gas so they could see visions more clearly? Forgive me if I thought I should cut them a break.”
    A break. I guess you could call it that. Because after I’d freed the girls from Fitz’s hellhole, after I’d also been exposed to his freak show Pythene gas, I’d pledged myself to the High Priestess in place of the girls. Her abilities were specific and needed a prism. She could interpret and even direct present and future events, but she needed someone to see those events first. For the moment, that someone was me.
    So now, whenever Eshe called, I reported for duty, ready to exercise my gas-enhanced skills of astral travel. Wherever she directed, I went. Whatever she needed to see, I saw. Saw