by C. C. Mahon
She screamed and started to tear her hair out.
The customers had fallen quiet, and everyone was looking at Enola with round eyes. In some faces, I recognized a tinge of fear. I couldn’t let that crazy woman cause panic.
I grabbed Enola by the waist and threw her on my shoulder. “Okay, the show’s over,” I said. “Open the back door for me… Thank you.”
The back room was almost as crowded as the rest of the club, and my entrance did not go unnoticed. I spotted Britannicus and Lizzie in one of the alcoves and joined them. I roughly put Enola on the ground.
“Calm?” I asked.
She gave me a crazy look.
“I think she’s drooling,” said Lizzie. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing at all. She’s the one who came to tell me that Carver exploded and his phoenix powers didn’t work.”
“Exploded?” said Britannicus. “What do you mean?”
“She didn’t specify. As you can see, she’s not…um…”
“Not totally herself?” suggested the wizard.
I sat Enola on the bench and dropped myself on a corner of the seat.
“She’s never been ‘herself,’ ” I said. “She used Carver’s ritual to steal the powers of a prophetess. She was hired at the club under a false identity. She’s always lied.”
“Do you think she’s lying now?” asked Lizzie.
I looked at Enola. The young woman had buried her face in her hands and was now sobbing.
“It was probably the influx of magic that made her lose her mind,” said Britannicus. “The powers of a prophetess were new to her, and she would not have been able to control their growth.”
“Like the poor kid who killed himself because of the drug?” I said.
“I suppose so.”
“It doesn’t tell us what happened to Carver,” Lizzie said. “Do you really think he exploded? Erica, you said he had trouble bringing his powers together the other day. You think that’s what killed him?”
I considered the question for a moment. “I don’t care, actually.” My answer surprised even me. But it was true: Callum’s fate no longer mattered to me.
I noticed Britannicus’s approving smile, but he made no comment.
“What about her?” asked Lizzie, pointing to Enola. “What do we do with her?”
“We put her in a taxi and send her home,” I said.
“It might be difficult,” said Lizzie. “Taxis no longer run.”
A massive figure approached our table. I turned away from Enola to face a biker, clad in black leather and covered in tattoos.
“Walter!” I said. “How are you doing?”
“We won’t complain. I couldn’t help but hear you. And Kitty thought she recognized the lady.”
Kitty was the young blond biker who approached behind Walter.
“She’s the girlfriend of the crazy guy who kidnapped me,” grunted Kitty.
“That’s right,” I said. “I heard the nutcase in question exploded.”
Kitty cracked a smile—the first since I knew him. “Serves him right. And what does she want?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “I just wish she’d get out of my club.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Kitty said.
“No,” I said. “I don’t want…”
Walter raised his hand with a reassuring look. “We won’t do anything to her, I promise.”
“We’re just gonna take this opportunity to check out this explosion thing,” Kitty said.
I stared at the two bikers and wondered if I could trust them.
I liked Walter very much. But Kitty had almost died while she was in Callum’s captivity, and I was afraid he would want revenge.
“You could come with us,” Walter said.
I shook my head. I was done with Callum and his gang of crazies. My place was at the club with my team, friends, and customers. But the idea of entrusting a young woman in such a state to two men who had every reason to be angry with her to death…
Enola solved my dilemma when she jumped on her feet to scream, “It’s going to explode! Dimitri, the city, the bubble: everything will end in sparks of death, and no one will ever know why!”
Then she ran out of the room. I heard her screams until she left the bar.
A few moments later, Eupraxie called me on the intercom. “A woman with deer hooves just passed by screaming like a lunatic. Should I do something?”
“She left the club?”
“Yes, and the way she was galloping, she must already be far away.”
“Good riddance,” I said.
“Okay,” said Eupraxie. “But I could have easily petrified her.”
36
AFTER REAFFIRMING MY principled opposition to the petrification of our customers, I returned to sit down with Lizzie and Britannicus.
“Any news from Chloe?” I asked.
Lizzie shook her head. “I went to her house, but she wasn’t there. I don’t know if she joined Harriet or if she went into hiding somewhere.”
“Rumor has it that Harriet paid a visit to Customs,” Britannicus added.
“Should we expect some problems?” I asked.
As if we were not already swimming in an ocean of problems.
“Their differences of opinion date back to the creation of Customs,” he said. “I don’t think it concerns us.”
“Good, because I have enough to do without it. By the way, where’s Nate? Did he find…”
“The last three resurrected?” said Britannicus. “Indeed. He brought them back here, and the spells of my colleagues of the Guild put an end to their suffering. I think the morgue vehicle picked them up not too long ago.”
“It took them twenty-four hours to come and get them?”
“Roads are bad,” Lizzie intervened. “The magnetic storm interferes with traffic lights and vehicle electronics. Not to mention the endless rain. We had waves of mud on the streets, and then we settled into a more stable flood. Frankly, I think the coroner’s people came all the way here only because they had already ‘lost’ these bodies once, and they refused to see them go adrift. I don’t even know if their van made it back to the morgue.”
“That bad?” I asked. “All of this is because of the magical leak?”
They nodded in silence. Things had really deteriorated in the last twenty-four hours while I was playing Sleeping Beauty.
“What does Customs say about it?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Lizzie, raising her hands towards the ceiling.
Britannicus cracked a smile, but his face quickly regained a stern look. “Customs swear by procedures,” he said. “And the procedure requires that any magical leaks be contained.”
“Even if the city ends up underwater?” I said.
“Even if the city drowns in molasses,” Lizzie added with a dark look. “As long as the ley line is leaking, the dome around Vegas must hold. And for now, it seems to be holding up.”
I thought about what Enola had said just before she ran away screaming.
“Could the city explode?”
“Rather implode,” Britannicus said, “give in under the pressure of the raw magic that accumulates under the dome.”
“Won’t the dome crack at one point?” I asked.
“It uses part of the energy from the leak,” says Britannicus. “It’s a pretty ingenious system…”
“A ritual developed by the Founding Mothers,” Lizzie intervened. “The ritual takes a percentage of the geyser’s energy and diverts it to create the dome. In this way, the strength of the bubble is always adequate to contain the power of the leak.”
“But won’t it end up popping, like a cork of Champagne?”
“Let’s hope not,” said Britannicus.
“Why not?” I asked. “If the situation is as serious as you say, shouldn’t it be better to let the magic spread? After all, we are surrounded by hundreds of miles of desert, and the magic will dilute…”
Lizzie shook her head. �
�Remember that earthquake I told you about?”
“In China? The one that killed…”
“Eight hundred thousand people,” she said.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“If the dome gives way, it will release a magical blast but also magnetic and physical shock waves.”
“On the desert?” I said. It didn’t seem that bad to me.
“Los Angeles is only two hundred and fifty miles from here,” Britannicus intervened. “It has a population of nineteen million. Nineteen million people who have seen fit to settle just above a tectonic fault. The shock wave could cause the fault to move and create a huge earthquake in California. The question for Customs is: can nineteen million people be put in mortal danger to save the seven hundred thousand people of Las Vegas?”
“It’s a terrible decision to make,” I said. “All these people…”
“But Customs does not care about individuals…” Lizzie reminded me.
“Only flows,” I added.
She nodded, her expression dark. “Exactly. Customs think in figures, and the figures are clear: the dome must remain in place.”
A thoughtful silence settled between us.
“A little rain won’t kill anyone!” intervened Britannicus with a forced smile. “Believe a British man!”
“Rain boot sellers are thrilled,” added Lizzie.
She took her foot out from under the table and pulled up her skirt to show me her red rubber boot. “That’s not bad, is it?”
“And knowing the entrepreneurial spirit of the American people,” Britannicus added, “we will soon have a taxi-gondola service in town.”
They were joking, but I could see how their faces were drawn, their smiles tense. I wondered if they had been able to rest since the day before. Then I noticed the dirty plates on the table. “Have you had dinner?”
“Well…yes?” said Lizzie. “Did you want us to wait for you?”
“I thought Matteo left? Who cooked?”
“Mrs. Appelbaum,” replied Britannicus.
“Mrs. who?”
“The poor woman Chloe wanted to sacrifice,” said Lizzie.
“The high school principal? What’s she doing here?”
“It is better if you go and see for yourself,” Britannicus said.
37
BRITANNICUS AND LIZZIE refused to give me more information about my new cook, and I went into the kitchen to ask her my questions.
Vera Appelbaum was preparing three plates of what looked like bacon omelets.
She had given up on the gray suit and was wearing casual jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt under Matteo’s apron.
“Miss St. Gilles!” she cried out. “You’re just in time. I didn’t find any salad in the store room. It would be prettier, though…” She shot a sad look at her three portions of omelet.
“Um…” I said. “Uh, yes, Mrs. Appelbaum…”
She wiped her hands furtively on her apron before shaking the hand I was holding out to her.
“It is very kind of you to replace my cook,” I said.
But I didn’t employ ordinary humans in my club.
Except for Johnny.
But after his seventy years in captivity, Johnny was no longer ordinary.
“It is I who thank you for welcoming me,” she said. “With all this chaotic magic on the streets, I didn’t feel safe outside.”
“This…uh…”
She winked at me like a conspirator. “After a whole career in public education, I’ve seen enough to know when things are getting really strange. And I can say that these last few days are the strangest—and most terrifying—days of my life. Especially since…” She approached and pulled up her sleeve from her T-shirt. Her forearm was covered with golden scales.
“What…?” I whispered.
“No idea!” she replied cheerfully.
She was too perky for someone who had just discovered a strange mutation on her body. Not to mention her abduction, her near-murder during a necromancy ritual, the discovery of magic…
In fact, all of this may explain her cheerful look.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I asked.
She seemed to be on the verge of a crisis.
“Your team has been charming. They explained to me their…’peculiarities,’” she mimicked the quotation marks with her fingers, “and that reassured me a lot. Your bartender has feathers on his body, and your waitress is made of granite. So what are these few scales…”
I decided that the poor woman was in shock and that she needed a cup of chamomile with a lot of brandy.
“What about your school?” I asked in the hope of giving the conversation a normal turn again.
“Closed!” she said with a big smile.
“Definitively?”
“Probably not. The magnetic storm damaged part of the premises. I ordered everyone to stay home for the week. It gives me a little time off to decide what I want to do.”
“About what?”
“What I want to do for the rest of my life,” she said with a bright smile. “Teaching is a difficult job in itself, but if students start reading your thoughts or sacrificing you for their occult rituals… Now I say, stop! I give myself a few days to think about it before contacting my bosses, but I am seriously considering a career change. And in the meantime, I’m making myself useful. I’ve always loved cooking; it relaxes me. I have some Tatin pies in the oven; do you want some?”
I declined and left at full speed, with the idea of telling Britannicus and Lizzie what I was thinking about this. I stopped along the way, discovering that I didn’t know what I was thinking. I turned around and requisitioned a carton of chocolate ice cream in the kitchen freezer—a professional-sized carton. Then I asked Johnny for a bottle of our best whiskey and headed back to my loft.
Lola was still curled up on my couch, apparently lost in contemplating the storm through the glass ceiling.
I put the ice cream on the coffee table and went to get glasses and spoons.
“Did you know the principal is in the kitchen?” I said. “And then Enola came to the bar!”
I summarized what Enola had told us.
“Your ex exploded, and mine almost killed me,” concluded Lola. “Is it just me or do we have no luck in love?”
“Matteo is not a bad man,” I said as I opened the ice cream carton.
“I know! And the worst part is that I’ve always insisted that he absorb my emotions.”
I stuck a spoon in her hand. “Cheaper than psychotherapy?” I asked.
“And faster. I have a stressful job, especially since I learned about the existence of the supernatural. Matteo was helping me to withstand it. And then…” She blushed.
“The famous Italian charm?” I suggested.
“Again, I made the first step. And now I feel so stupid!”
I poured two whiskeys and attacked the ice cream. “I have a plan,” I said. “In the coming days, we will probably have to make some difficult decisions. I apparently opened a shelter while I was sleeping, and the rest of the city is turned upside down. You and I are going to handle all this. But not tonight. Because tonight we’re going to eat ice cream and drink whiskey and speak ill of all the vampires we know.”
That put a smile on her face. It was a good start.
Above our heads, lightning strikes tore the sky apart, and raindrops struck the glass ceiling relentlessly. The column of raw magic lit up the night like a lantern as the magic storm raged on Las Vegas.
*********************************************************************
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