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Chapter Fifty-three

I leaned a shoulder against a sray s just inside a narrow hallway that led to the casino&039;s bathrooood view of the double doors of the exclusive parlor

I inhaled deeply, fillingforNo nicotine addiction Nothing Forwas a purely voluntary act It was one of the few things that I could do without a violent reaction So I did it because I could

The good thing about casinos is that you can s a va cancer

At least, that&039;s what they tellThe s va about the Toothless Wonder Toothless because his canines had been reteeth, as they are so about that, since ed size or shape in the six years since I&039;d been unwillingly recruited into the creature of the night club Ader canine teeth would aid a vaer teeth aided creatures who hunted with their mouth, those who didn&039;t have the benefit of hands or weapons Longer teeth latched onto prey, held it down Longer teeth aided in tearing into the flesh

I couldn&039;t eat flesh I needed only a steady flow of blood to be sustained I didn&039;t need to kill other creatures, either

A voluntary source would be adequate

A donor

These thoughts were new to me They were revolutionary They made me look at myself differently

I didn&039;t have to kill

I only had to drink

Of course, I received my supply of blood from a local butchery, so I didn&039;t kill But the blood was also disgusting and ht very well be diseased or sick

All ht after night

But it didn&039;t have to be that way, did it? All I needed was a steady source

I thought of Fang I also thought of his request

Make h the sh it didn&039;t really hurt my eyes The room beyond the double doors was still quiet A few people passed in and out, but not Carl Luck or Captain Jack

Jesus, had Fang proposed to ht? I mean, he had taken my hand and said he wanted to be with me for all eternity

A proposal if I&039;d ever heard one

Wow

I dashed out lass ash tray around the corner, then went back to &039;s proposal later At the h on rioing to kill two roup of wealthy ed from the parlor roo a keffiyeh Captain Jack, who followed behind, looked like he was in a sour ly, and the two men headed off toward a bank of elevators

Vaders

Chapter Fifty-four

Fifteen minutes later, I took the elevator up to the upper suites

The luxury suites The high rollers suites Suites where the big boys stayed with their big bucks Suites that were spacious enough that you probably couldn&039;t hear soirl

I set my jaw as the elevator doors opened My purse was still over my shoulder Cool air ht or left I auto my way

The hallas lined with polished tables and flowers I doubted the other floors had polished tables and flowers The doors here were recessed deep in the walls and inlaid with brass relief designs The designs were, you guessed it, eagle feathers The doors, I saere also designed for security Although the reliefs were in brass, the doors theuided entirely by an just inside my eardrum And the further I walked down the hallway, the louder the buzzing beca at one recessed doorway in particular It was on my left and it looked like all the others

Except it didn&039;t feel like all the others I was drawn to it, and even as I was drawn to it, rew louder and louder

There&039;s danger here

The gilded door gleahts I was alone in the hallway I couldn&039;t hear a sound, and ood

Still, my head buzzed; irl - the sa ht as well have been a vault door The hotel gave its exalted guests a lot of security and privacy

Tooa deadbolt and no doubt another one elsewhere Maybe near the floor or ceiling This wasn&039;t your standard hotel door Up here, on this floor, nothing was standard

So I really was It&039;s not an easy thing to test, unless you want to draw attention to yourself A few years back, while out jogging, I paused next to an old Volkswagen Beetle On a whim, I reached down, felt underneath, and then lifted it three feet off the ground

A feeeks ago I had punched through a bulletproof prison glass and nearly killed ain and of itself I could have knocked, sure I could have called the police and pleaded ht be issued

Think again, Sas are done differently here

How differently, I didn&039;t know, but I suspected the hotel would think twice, or uest who plunks down 250K on a card gas differently at this ht

None, that is, except this

I raised my foot, leaned back, and drove the heel ofes, too

The steel slab fell inward, landing with a thunderous crash

Chapter Fifty-five

I instinctively stood to one side of the doorway Thedoor continued to reverberate throughout the suite

Hell of an entrance

But there was no one directly in front of h heels, the alarer than ever

So than I had previously iined What it was, I didn&039;t know Yet

Maybe I should have called the police Or at least had a gun

The suite was opulent Sickeningly so No doubt it costs thousands a night, although a guy like Captain Jack probably had it co comped in my life

The balcony doors ide open Even fro southern hillsideand the Ronald Reagan Library

I had the right place

Where the door had fallen, it had shattered about a dozen expensive Italian marble slabs I stepped over the fallen door, crunched over the broken tile, and slipped deeper into the roos that branched off fro room The hallway to my left led to the back rooht led off to a kitchen space and a billiard rooh to liquor up the entire casino