I figured my best strategy was to give her stuff she already knew. “I’ve made a lot of enemies in my line of work, and most of them are demons. I need to have a demon on my side if I want to live to a ripe old age.”
It was the truth, though hardly the whole truth. Shae regarded me with an expression that bordered on contempt. “You get what you pay for. Are you sure you want to stick with that answer?”
I met her eyes, trying to project the image of a woman with nothing to hide. “I answered your question, and I told you the truth. What more do you want?”
Shae snorted. “Fine. My arrangement with Tommy is that he gives me money, and I keep my mouth shut.” When I glared at her, she said, “I answered your question, and I told you the truth. What more do you want?”
Yeah, I was definitely in over my head. I sure could use Brian’s lawyer skills right about now. If I had him here feeding me the answers, I bet I’d be able to answer all kinds of questions in great detail without giving away anything. I briefly considered giving up and asking Adam to interrogate Shae, but I knew without being told that that would never work. Shae cooperated with Adam at times because she had no choice, and Adam cooperated with Shae because he needed her help to catch certain illegal demons. That didn’t mean they would ever cooperate with one another when not forced, and there was no missing the deepseated animosity between the two.
“I suppose asking you to tell the whole truth would be overly optimistic of me, huh?” I said, stalling a bit to give myself more time to think.
“Do I need to remind you again that this is a trade? You give me the whole truth, I give you the whole truth. You give me the tip of the iceberg, and. .”
It made sense, but I wasn’t in a position to give her the whole truth. “Why do you want to know this stuff anyway?” I was still stalling. She probably knew that, but she didn’t call me on it. I didn’t expect her to answer, but she surprised me.
“I’ve managed to stay on the Mortal Plain for more than eighty years,” she said, which of course made me wonder how many hosts she’d gone through in that time. Certainly her current host wasn’t eighty years old. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that information is the most valuable currency anywhere in the world. And the funny thing is, you never know exactly what information is going to come in handy in the future. Obviously, I know you have enemies in high places. Knowing the full story behind it may turn out to be absolutely useless to me.” Her eyes glittered. “Or maybe it won’t.”
It was the latter possibility that made me hesitate. What did I dare tell her? How badly did I need to know whatever it was she could tell me? Lugh shot me a brief stab of pain through the eye, but it was hard to determine what he was trying to communicate. Maybe I’d been better off when I could hear his voice in my head, after all.
I concentrated as hard as I could on a question for Lugh. Should I take some chances in what I reveal in order to maybe learn more about Tommy? Give me one stab for yes, two for no.
I guess he heard my question. Not being a masochist, I was glad his answer was yes. Let me know if you think I’m about to say something I shouldn’t.
I took a deep breath and then forced myself to meet Shae’s eyes. “All right,” I said. “I’ll tell you the whole truth. But the information you have on Tommy had better be worth it.”
“Fair enough.” She leaned forward in her chair, and I’d swear the look on her face was almost lust. “So tell me, what is your relationship with Adam White?”
“Like I said, we’re allies. He’s one of Lugh’s lieutenants, and I would very much rather see Lugh on the throne than Dougal.”
Shae was better at masking her expression than I was, but she couldn’t entirely hide her surprise. I would have thought she’d known that I was somehow involved in the war of succession after Dougal’s minions had paid her to hold Brian hostage. I had to remind myself once more that she was a mercenary. A mercenary who could be persuaded not to ask “why” if the price was high enough.
“You look surprised,” I told her, hoping to press my advantage. “Do you expect me to believe you knew nothing about any of this?”
She recovered her composure much more quickly than I’d have liked. The smile was back, sharp and cold as ever. “That sounds almost like another question.”
I scowled at her. “Just tell me what your deal is with Tommy Brewster. It’s late, I’m tired, and I want to go home.”
She gave me a long, piercing, probing look before she answered. I suspect she was trying to determine if she could wring anything else out of me. She must have come to the correct conclusion.
“You might say I’m serving as his matchmaker,” she said with a wry twist of her lips that might have been a smile.
“Huh?” I responded intelligently.
Shae stood up, and my hand tightened on the Taser. She held both her hands up, her eyebrows arching. “Now, now,” she said. “Don’t shoot me before I give you the information you want.”
I kept the Taser pointed at her as I eased out of my chair. “You can talk just fine sitting down.”
“If you want the answer to your question, you’ll follow me and I’ll show you. You can keep your Taser handy if I make you that nervous.”
Her condescending tone suggested I was somehow being a coward for insisting on the weapon, but I didn’t feel any particular sense of shame. As far as I was concerned, it was an entirely practical safety measure.
I kept a wide distance between us as Shae walked to the door, her hands still in plain sight. But when she stepped through the door out into the hallway, I followed.
I wasn’t sure where we were going, but I suppose I wasn’t all that surprised when she headed toward the mysterious door at the end of the hall. The door that led to “more offices.” The door opened with a beep when Shae swiped her card. I had to get closer to her than I’d have liked to catch the door before it slammed shut behind her.
There were indeed a couple of other office-like rooms behind that door. However, of far greater importance was the massive, space-age security center that Shae showed off with a flourish.
There were at least a couple dozen screens, each displaying a different image of the club. And not all of them were of the main room. My stomach twisted as my eyes finally focused on one screen and I realized what the two men and the one naked woman were doing. I jerked my gaze away, only to find myself looking at an even more unsettling image—a woman wearing nothing but a black hood that covered her entire head except for her mouth down on her knees with her hands cuffed behind her as she fellated the disgusting no-neck man who’d tried to pick me up the other night. It was all I could do not to hurl.
Shae reached up and tapped her finger on one of the other screens, drawing my eye once again. And there was good old Tommy Brewster, his naked ass pumping as he fucked a pretty young woman who was bound spread-eagled on the bed. The look on her face told me she wasn’t there against her will. If that wasn’t already more than I wanted to know, I could see two more young women, both blond, naked, and eagerlooking, watching the proceedings, apparently waiting their turn.
I’m nowhere near a good enough actress to hide my disgust and embarrassment, so I didn’t bother trying. Instead I focused on Shae’s face and tried to convince myself I had no peripheral vision.
“Isn’t there some kind of law against videotaping people having sex without their knowledge?”
Shae grinned. “How do you know it’s without their knowledge?”
I knew that most people who frequented this club would find me prudish in the extreme. I also knew that there was no way they were all so uninhibited that they didn’t mind being taped in the act. But what was I going to do about it? I sighed as I came to the inevitable conclusion: nothing.
I wanted to cross my arms over my chest, my favorite defensive gesture, but that would mean hindering my Taser hand, and I wasn’t about to do that.