Chapter 49: Devil's Playbook

The first thing you notice when you wake up in the devil's guest room is the silence. Not a peaceful, quiet, but a dead, manufactured one. The kind of silence that costs a fortune. The windows were a foot thick, turning the screaming, twenty-four-hour-a-day party of Las Vegas into a silent, glittering movie. We were in a soundproof box in the sky, a thousand feet above the grunts and groans of the real world.

The sheets on the bed felt like spun money. I’d woken up in some questionable places in my time—ditches, cheap motel rooms that smelled of bleach and regret, the back of a pickup truck with a dead coyote for a pillow—but I’d never felt more like a prisoner than I did right then, sinking into a mattress that probably cost more than my first car.

I slid out of bed, my ribs still sending out little reminders of my recent dance with the Mongols. Maddie was still asleep, a dark tangle of hair on a pillow the size of a life raft. In sleep, she looked younger, the hard lines of the Dark Rose smoothed away, leaving only the woman who’d shared a dusty shed with me and all our ghosts. She was my North Star in the middle of hell, the only reason I hadn't just lain down in the desert and let the buzzards have me. The thought of what I’d just signed her up for sat like a cold, greasy stone in my gut.

I walked to the window and looked down. From up here, the city was a beautiful lie, a cancerous glitter of promises that would kill you if you believed them. We hadn't escaped Calico. We'd just traded a small, dusty cage for a bigger, fancier one, decorated in gold leaf and broken dreams.

Later, after we'd showered and put on the clean, ridiculously expensive clothes that had been left for us, we were escorted to what Lynn called her "study." It was a room that made the Oval Office look like a public library's broom closet. One entire wall was a screen, dark and waiting. And standing around the room were the four horsemen of her own private apocalypse.

I’d started giving them names in my head. It was a stupid habit, a cop thing. You label the threats to make them feel manageable.

Bastian was The Mountain. He stood by the door, arms crossed over a chest the size of a small car, his face a block of granite that emotion had given up on long ago. He moved with a kind of geological patience, like he had all the time in the world to wait for you to make a mistake.

Damon was The Snake. He was leaning against a bookshelf, all easy charm and a smile that was a beautiful, barbed hook. He was the one who’d fetch the cigarettes, but you just knew he could kill you with the same casual grace. His eyes followed Maddie as she moved, and I had to physically stop myself from stepping in front of her.

Serge was The Artist. He was meticulously arranging a set of crystal glasses on a bar cart, his movements precise and unnervingly delicate. He was the one who'd knelt to rub Lynn's feet. You got the feeling he could take a man apart with the same surgical focus he was giving those glasses. Pain wasn't just his job; it was his craft.

And Ardin… Ardin was The Ghost. He was just… there. In a corner, not quite in shadow, not quite in light. You could forget he was in the room until you turned your head and he was right there, his eyes on you, as blank and unreadable as camera lenses. He was maybe the most terrifying of them all. He was charming to the world, but could turn on a dime. You didn't know if he was Casper the Friendly Ghost or the Bogeyman himself.

They didn't speak to us. They didn't even really acknowledge us. We had just bought new furniture that had been brought into the room.

Then Lynn swept in, and the whole room seemed to snap to attention, the air crackling around her. She was dressed in a sharp, blood-red dress, and she carried a tablet in her hand like a scepter.

"Good morning, my little projects," she said, her voice bright and sharp as shattered glass. "I trust you slept well. Today, your education begins."