(eng) Lisa Shearin - SPI Files 05 by The Myth Manifestation

Author:The Myth Manifestation [Manifestation, The Myth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Just because no one could leave the hotel didn’t mean there wasn’t any partying going on. Quite the opposite.

Rake had ordered his hotel staff to pull out all the stops to ensure that the delegates were kept entertained. Having run one of our world’s most exclusive sex clubs—until it was swallowed by a Hellpit a few months ago—Rake knew a thing or fifty about showing people a good time. There wasn’t anything as overt going on here. For one, Vivienne Sagadraco would never allow it. Rake had arranged entertainment customized to each species’ and race’s idea of good, relatively clean fun.

Some of the delegates were strictly nocturnal, and now was their happy hour. The other delegates fell into two camps: too pooped to party, and wide awake with worry so they might as well try to have fun.

Yes, there had been a murder committed to keep anyone from leaving. The delegates didn’t know about it, and had yet to be targeted. Since the success of the summit depended on maintaining congeniality, Vivienne Sagadraco had determined that the best way to deal with the current situation would be to carry on with the summit’s meetings as scheduled, beginning in the morning. I shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, the boss was the epitome of the whole “Keep Calm and Carry On” thing. If her teatime would not be interrupted for monsters, murder, or German bombers, neither would the Centennial Supernatural Summit.

And apparently, neither would vampire fun. Rumor had it there was one heck of a poker game going on in the room Vlad had taken for his team’s headquarters. As Ian and I headed toward the lobby, one of Vlad’s people passed us, presumably on his way to the game, and nodded a polite greeting. He had a flying monkey tucked under his arm.

“Is that the vampire version of taking a keg to a party?” I quietly asked my partner.

“More like just a growler. But yeah.”

When we entered the lobby, my eyes followed the path the killer had taken from the scene of the murder to the ballroom. If I’d just turned around, I’d have seen him, cloaked or not cloaked. Yes, we had just been sealed inside the hotel, and my attention had been on the front doors, but that was no excuse. Ian and I could be interrogating a killer right now. Well, Ian could be interrogating a killer. That was another thing I had to admit I wasn’t very good at.

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep,” Ian said. “It’ll take Kenji awhile to work on that footage, and there’s nothing you can do here.”

“You’re not taking a nap,” I said accusingly.

“I need to ask Rake a couple of questions about his portal mage.”

Ian’s tone suggested Rake wasn’t going to appreciate his line of questioning.

“You think Kenan was involved?” I asked.

“Probably not, but as an ex-homicide detective, I have to investigate and eliminate every possibility.”

That still didn’t bode well for Rake’s reaction to Ian questioning Kenan’s innocence in all this.

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