“Dammit. I don’t know everything. But unless I get some assurance you’re not going to waste me, I’m not going to tell you anything.”
The fear in his voice was enough to convince me he’d spill whatever he’d learned. Or at least enough that it’d give us another path to follow. “All right. If you tell us everything you know, I promise to let you walk away.”
“And what about your henchmen back there? Will you control the wolf and the vampire?”
“The wolf yes. Allcot? No one controls him.”
“Allcot?” Dante said. “Deal?”
“Deal. But if I find out Pandora’s already dead, I’ll tear your head right off.”
The vampire in front of me shuddered, and I suddenly knew what it meant to put the fear of God into someone. Or at least the fear of Eadric Allcot. Curiously, I’d never been all that afraid of the Cryrique leader, but then I’d never double-crossed him or harmed his consort either.
“Allcot is right. I was going to sell Pandora,” Dante said. Allcot hissed again and Dante rushed to add, “Sell to the Cryrique. I released her and was going to offer her up in return for a wad of cash. You’d pay a lot to have your woman back, wouldn’t you, Allcot?”
“I don’t respond well to extortion,” Allcot said, circling us as he glared at Dante. “And don’t lie to me. I know your brother would’ve never forgiven such a betrayal.”
“I swear on my tortured soul!” he cried, holding his hands partially up in surrender. “I only took this job because my brother said they’d pay off my debts.”
“Debts?” I asked.
“Gambling. Women. Bad business deals. The usual,” he said. “Nothing like this shit. I didn’t sign up for this. And I certainly didn’t know they were going to abduct Pandora. For fuck’s sake. If anyone knows how crazy that bitch is, it’s me.”
“She does have a certain flair for the dramatic,” Allcot said, puffing his chest out, a look of pride flashing over his face.
“Yes, we all know Pandora is your perfect match in every way,” I said, rolling my eyes at Allcot. “Can we move on?”
“You know, Kilsen,” Allcot said, his gaze sweeping over me. “If anyone ever turned you vampire, you’d be just like her.”
I ignored his remark, refusing to even entertain the idea of becoming a vamp. “So you freed Pandora,” I said to Dante. “What happened after that?”
“I got her outside, but the shifters were waiting for me and—”
“Shifters?” I asked. “Which shifters? Which pack?”
“No idea. Rogue shifters, I think. If they were with a pack, I don’t know which one. They never talked about it.”
“Fuck.” My gaze met Allcot’s, and his superior expression had “I told you so” written all over it. “Okay, so the shifters were there. Then what?”
“Pandora went insane. She accused me of lying to her, that I only told her I’d take her back to Allcot to get her to cooperate. That’s when she attacked half the shifters. She took out two of them before I grabbed her, trying to get her away from them. There were too many to fight off. I figured we’d make a break for it. Fly away from here, but she tried to take off without me. If I’d let that happen, those shifters would’ve killed me on the spot for betraying them.”
“So you stopped her from leaving?” I asked. “Because if she got away, there’d be no reason for Allcot to pay your ransom money, right?”
“That too,” he said, hanging his head. “And when I grabbed her, demanding she take me with her, she went into a rage, grabbed the garden stakes that were on the porch, and nailed me to the shed. Told me I could rot there forever as far as she was concerned.”
“So why didn’t she leave after that?” I asked, knowing damned well she possessed the same ability to fly that Allcot did.
“They tranq’d her.”
Shocked rattled me. “Vampire tranquilizer? How did they get their hands on it? It’s highly controlled.”
“Don’t be na?ve, Kilsen,” Allcot hissed. “Everyone has a price.”
I stared at him. “You’re not implying the director—”
“No, not necessarily. But it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Besides, she’s not the only one who has access to the drug, now is she?” He lowered his gaze to my feet where I did indeed have a tranq gun strapped to my ankle.
“No tracker would sell that. It’s too dangerous.” But even as I said the words, I knew my statement was a lie. Power and money ruled New Orleans, and no one was above corruption. In fact, there was a reason there was only a handful of people I trusted. Willow, Tal, and Dax. The others, like Allcot—we had a mutual understanding, but neither of us fully trusted the other. I shook my head and frowned. “Point taken,” I said to Allcot, and then turned my attention back to Dante. “Where did they get it?”
“Fuck if I know. That’s above my pay grade.”
“Fine. Where did they tell you they were going next?” I asked.
“They said they were taking up residence on the ghost ship at Poland Wharf. Tomorrow night.”
“Tomorrow night?” I asked, my mind reeling. It was a setup. The perfect con. If Allcot and I were off “saving” Pandora, we’d be out of the way for Asier.
“Yes. I don’t know where they’ll be before then.”
“I don’t believe you for one second, Dante,” I said, pressing the dagger to his throat. “I know exactly what’s supposed to happen tomorrow night, and it has nothing to do with Pandora.”
He flinched, and I knew I’d hit a nerve.
“Tell me where they’re taking Pandora. Is it the same place where Willow and Talisen are?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know, I swear!” he cried.
Allcot strolled around to face Dante. “You have five seconds to tell me where we can find Pandora, or I’m going to end you. Got it?”
Dante let out a whimper. “They’ll kill me.”
“They won’t have a chance,” I said. “Because at this point, I’m ready to let Allcot have his way.”
“Jesus,” he said, hanging his head. “I honestly don’t know. And I do think they’re planning on taking Pandora to that ghost ship.”
“Dante,” I said, “this blade is gonna do some real damage here in a second.”
“I-I have a couple of guesses. Solid ones.”
“Spit them out,” Allcot said.
“They have a compound in English Turn. It used to belong to Bazil Baker, that famous singer turned vampire. He disappeared a few years ago and left it to his nephew. I heard the crew talking about crashing there.”
“I know it,” Allcot said.
Of course he did. He knew just about every rich, powerful, or famous person who ever set foot in the city.
“Where else? And just give it to us straight, I’m tired of this game,” I said.
“Oak Street. The peacock-blue house just before River Road.”
“And Willow and Tal? Where are they?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about where they are. I was only hired to keep Pandora in line.”
“Will your brother Carter know?” I asked, my gut telling me Carter Voelkel was one of the main orchestrators of this entire ordeal.
“Yes, but you won’t find him,” Dante said as he glanced back at me. “He only shows his face when he’s putting a plan in action. Now that the wheels are in motion, he’ll be back in hiding.”
Dante’s words confirmed my suspicions. The vampire and shifters had been working together. Carter had distracted me while the shifters took Pandora. But what exactly had they wanted her for? Realization dawned on me.
Pandora was the distraction.
They needed to take her to distract Allcot while they completed the ritual, using a fae under his protection—the one and only accessible fairy with any notable power in the city.
“How do you get in touch with your brother?” I asked.
“I don’t. He gets in touch with me.”
“How?”
“He calls me or comes by my house. Why? You want me to give him a message?”
“No.” Keeping my cursed blade against his throat, I used my other hand to reach into his pocket and pull out his phone. “I’m going to keep this. And if you turn it off between now and tomorrow night, I’ll hunt you down and end you, got it?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Got it.”