“So we should just, what? Let it happen?”
“This city just avoided one war, Scarlett. Nobody wants to start another one.”
Jameson started walking again, and I reluctantly trotted after him. “Wait. You didn’t answer me. Don’t Lucy and Arthur care that they probably drew the skinners here?”
He glanced at me, eyebrows raised.
“All that fucking publicity?” I said. Jameson paused for a moment, just gazing at me. “You hadn’t thought of that,” I concluded.
“No, I didn’t get that far. But you’re probably right.” He rubbed his eyes with the heel of one hand, looking tired. Jameson had really great hands, I couldn’t help but notice. “Look, do you have any idea how much work goes into a show like Demeter? I don’t mean the funding and the rehearsals and all the PR, but just the actual, day-to-day work of putting on that kind of production?”
“No.”
“Lucy and Arthur do care about other vampires, especially if the skinners came to town because of them. But they are focused on what they came here to do.”
“Tell the world about vampires?”
He gave me an exasperated look. “Put on a show. These two aren’t like any of the others, Scarlett. They’re performers. Their interests are pretty centralized.”
“So they’re vapid,” I suggested.
He shrugged, unperturbed. “But they pay well.”
It shouldn’t have stung, but I couldn’t help picturing Wyatt’s broken expression. I stopped walking. Jameson realized I wasn’t keeping up and turned to look down at me. “And that’s all that matters, right?” I said. “Jesus, Jameson, what happened to you?”
His face went so hard it might as well have been chiseled. “I survived,” he ground out, meeting my glare with his own. “Just like always.”
Just like always? What the hell did that mean? “Why did you leave Malcolm?” I asked, hands on my hips.
He glared down at me without answering. We stood there for nearly a full minute, but I held my ground. Finally, he said, “Look, when you were visiting, there was a lot I didn’t tell you about Malcolm and his business. Couldn’t tell you. And I shouldn’t now, either. Malcolm guards his secrets very closely.”
I blinked. In New York, there had been times when Jameson had sent me sightseeing or told me to stay in the apartment, with a sense of urgency that had unnerved me even then. I began to suspect it was because Malcolm was making him do something really bad. Hurting people, or worse. And Jameson had always looked so tired. So resigned.
He pointed ahead, and I saw a sign for a coffee shop that looked like it might double as an old-fashioned record store. We resumed walking again.
“When did you really start working for him?” I asked quietly. “How old were you?”
Jameson flinched, and I knew I’d poked a sore spot. Nulls are always valuable, but you can get the most out of us if you start training—or brainwashing—us when we’re young, as Olivia had tried to do with me. The last time I’d seen Jameson I had asked him how long he had been with Malcolm, and he’d just said, “a long time.” But he’d only been nineteen.
“I was twelve,” he said in a low voice. “But don’t ask me about that time, Scarlett. Please.” The words started out rough, but his voice faltered at the end.
And I finally thought I understood why Jameson was in Las Vegas. Very few people would have the balls to offer Malcolm’s personal null a job right under the cardinal vampire’s nose, but the Holmwoods sure as hell did, judging by what I’d seen at their show. And they could get away with it, too, because they were big-time celebrities.
Jameson had probably taken the gig as his way out of Malcolm’s service. Maybe his only way out. And now I was yelling at him about it. I touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”
He just looked at me, and I could see so much anger and frustration and sadness in his face. Jameson was three and a half years younger than me, but in that moment he looked ancient. And I felt like a fool.
We were at the corner of Fremont and Sixth Street, near the doorway of the coffee shop. People—humans—walked right by us, in and out with their mugs, but Jameson ignored them, stepping closer to me until we were toe to toe. He bent his head to look at me, and it was like he was creating a private space just for us. He took one of my hands. “Listen, Letts,” he said huskily. “There are things that I can’t—”
Then a gunshot rang out over the morning, and Jameson collapsed.
Chapter 19
The shot hit him in the back, and he stumbled into me, half-falling, half-pulling me down with him. I managed to land in a sort of crouch and looked around wildly. We were at an intersection, but judging from the angle, the shooter had to be up Sixth Street. I scooted around the coffee shop door and back onto Fremont, pulling Jameson along with me, his long legs scrabbling at the pavement, trying to help. I yelped once when I felt another shot hum past my face, close enough to shift my hair. He was moving okay, all things considered, and I realized that he’d been wearing his vest. Thank God.
We made it into the alley just as another bullet hit the asphalt right next to Jameson’s leg, spitting up dust. He rolled the rest of the way behind the wall, trying to stay between me and the opening. He groaned, leaning his back carefully against the building.
“You okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “Just give me a minute. Did you see where he was?”
“No, but if I were him, I’d be walking up to this alley right about now.” I tugged a knife from each of my boots, wishing like hell that Jesse were here. Or that I’d thought to wear my own bulletproof vest to this meeting. As soon as I got back to the hotel, I was putting it on for the duration.
Assuming we lived that long.
“What do we do now?” I asked Jameson. The shooter had gone silent, and I imagined him bursting around the corner to gun us down. I was fast with the knife, but not that fast.
Carefully, Jameson ducked his head out, peeking around the corner. He pulled his head back quickly, cursing. “There are two of them, coming this way fast.”
On either side of the mall, passersby were screaming and ducking, cowering against the buildings or running down side streets. “Three,” I breathed, and Jameson whipped his head around to look. Over his shoulder, I had spotted a big guy marching determinedly toward us. He wore a knee-length jacket and black pants, way too warm for the weather, and everything about his body language and detached expression screamed “paramilitary.” Especially the rifle he was pulling out from under the jacket.
“Skinners,” Jameson hissed.
Oh, God. Until that second, I realized, part of me hadn’t really believed there was such a thing as skinners. Now they were way, way too real. And they were closing in.
Jameson struggled to his feet, eyes filled with panic. “Run!” he shouted, grabbing my hand.
We raced across the Sixth Street opening and farther down Fremont, where there were plenty of pedestrians and mall paraphernalia to provide at least a little cover. I heard two more shots from behind us, but I didn’t dare slow down enough to look. A voice way in the back of my head was bursting with questions: Who were they? Were they after me or Jameson? Could the skinners have a bounty on nulls, too? Anything was possible, but I wasn’t about to go back there and ask them.
We ran out of the outdoor mall and onto a couple of generic-looking city streets. I didn’t know the area, so I let Jameson pull me along. I was suddenly incredibly thankful for all the mind-numbingly dull hours of running I’d put in over the years, which gave me the stamina to keep up.
Jameson didn’t slow down until we approached some kind of massive metal sculpture. “Turn in here,” he shouted over his shoulder. We ducked underneath an enormous sign that said Container Park.
Jameson slowed to a walk, not letting go of my hand. He was obviously trying to look calm, but I felt too flustered to fake it. We were in some kind of shopping center, but it was built out of what looked like those giant metal shipping containers they have at the Port of Los Angeles. A whole bunch of them had been fused together and stacked up, forming a U-shaped retail area with a playground in the middle. We’d just run into the mouth of the U.