The Phoenix Illusion

by Lisa Shearin

  The generator hadn’t been activated yet. I was no mage, but I think I would’ve known if the thing had been switched on. Marek would do that once it was on stage with him. I couldn’t imagine activating a magical weapon of mass destruction not being part of the show.

  I was the last of the four girls on the back side of the platform. It was the best possible place not to be noticed, and I didn’t even need to ask to trade with one of the other girls. I was glad they’d assigned the girl with the smallest boobs to the back of the line. As an added bonus, no one saw that I’d kicked off my stripper heels and was walking on my tippy toes.

  Marek was speaking, his voice ringing out over the audience. Apparently, the generator was supposed to be the Ark of the Covenant—or at least the Vegas magic show version. Marek was telling the audience the story of how when armies carried the Ark in front of it, they couldn’t be defeated. It sounded like something Nidaar crystals could do.

  I stopped listening to him. Think, Mac. You’ve got to stop this before he flips the switch on this thing.

  Wait. Maybe it is that simple. Maybe all I need to do is—

  A boom like a clap of thunder shook the stage beneath my feet.

  It came from the main aisle of the theater.

  Tamnais Nathrach, chief mage of the royal House of Mal’Salin, chancellor to the goblin king, and heir (albeit temporary) to the goblin crown, had appeared in the aisle in a brilliant flash of light and smoke. He had dropped his entire glamour, except for one part. He’d given his skin a vampire’s preternatural paleness. He was garbed in the leather armor and tall boots he’d worn when he arrived on our world, only now he had his archmage robes on top, open down the front, flowing behind him, the robe and his long hair blowing in an honest-to-God wind.

  The audience thought it was part of the show and roared its approval.

  I bit my lip to keep myself from doing the same.

  Tam’s clear voice rang the crystal in the chandeliers. “Keram Rei! Only the mightiest mage may command the forces you have imprisoned in the Ark. I challenge you, here and now, before these most noble witnesses, to a trial of strength and cunning, to establish once and for all, who is the master…” His lips twisted in a wicked grin. “And who is still the student.”

  I couldn’t fight back my own grin, and I didn’t even try.

  Way to hide in plain sight and be brazen as hell while you did it.

  The audience was eating it up.

  Tam strode toward the stage as ruby flames rolled down either side of the aisle, turning it into his own personal red carpet. At the same time, his hands began to glow with what I knew to be some seriously offensive magic.

  Marek Reigory was a goblin mage pretending to be a vampire magician.

  Two could play at that game.

  Marek’s face went even paler than he’d already glamoured it to be. It was with rage, not fear. I didn’t know if he knew who Tam was, but he knew what he was, and that a goblin mage at or above his own level of power had just snatched away control of his show.

  Since the generator was on a cart, I had no way of knowing how heavy it was. But that didn’t matter. I had to make this work.

  The poles attached to the generator were just for show, but they appeared to be attached well enough for what I needed to do.

  Everyone’s attention was on Marek and Tam. It was now or never.

  I gripped the pole in both hands and pushed with everything I had.

  The generator and cart flipped over, and the other girls screamed and ran, leaving yours truly to take the blame.

  Okay, the cart and generator were lighter than I thought. Either that or my time in the SPI weight room was really paying off.

  I played to the crowd with an apologetic grin and exaggerated shrug.

  “You!” Marek roared.

  I dove behind the generator. He wouldn’t dare hurt that.

  But he would come behind it after me.

  I ran around to the other side, Marek chasing me. No doubt we looked ridiculous. I heard the audience laughing and clapping.

  Marek stopped, his hands and arms suddenly extended in front of him toward the audience as if preparing to launch an attack.

  No, no, no.

  Marek’s face was distorted with effort. He wasn’t attacking, he was being attacked. It wasn’t Tam. He had just reached the base of the stage. An unseen force had pulled Marek’s hands out and away from him. His sleeves pulled back, exposing the cuffs on both wrists.

  With a sharp snap, the cuffs unlatched and went flying over the audience’s heads toward the back of the theater and to a lone figure standing there.

  Ben. Wearing Rake’s protective robe.

  I didn’t think the gem mage expected the cuffs to come shooting at him that fast. Ben didn’t have his catcher’s mitt, so he did the only thing he could do.

  He ducked and the cuffs slammed into the wall behind him, shattering on impact.

  The audience loved it. They hadn’t expected comedy, but they were going along for the ride.

  Tam launched himself up and onto the stage to the delighted gasps of the crowd.

  Marek had no way to escape—unless he was willing to activate the generator and risk surviving the journey.

  Everything went into slow motion for me.

  Marek’s expression hardened as he made his choice. I’d seen the same look on Rake’s face when he’d decided to run into his burning house to save Tulis.

  The lid had come off the generator, exposing a single crystal, oblong, almost football shaped.

  I knew what I had to do.

  Marek and I dove for it at the same time, but I was closer and not encumbered by tight leather.

  I grabbed it, tucked it against my body, and ran like hell.

  30

  I wanted nothing more than to run through the theater toward where Rake and Ian were, but that would put me on a path through the audience. Marek wouldn’t care how many defenseless humans he had to kill to get that crystal back.

  My primal instincts must have already realized that because I was now running, ducking, and weaving in the direction of the door I’d used to get backstage. Ian and Rake would approve. In that direction were Kitty and Yasha—and the escape portal. I wasn’t thinking of it for myself, but I had to get the crystal as far away from Marek and the cabal as quickly as I could.

  A portal back to the relative safety of our warded suite fit the bill.

  There was chaos backstage, but not nearly enough. The door I’d used to get in was now blocked by two goblins.

  I was scared spitless and couldn’t see diddly squat.

  I changed direction, feeling like the Vegas version of Tweety Bird trying to get away from Sylvester and his friends. I could be captured and the crystal taken, and I had to at least clear every living and undead soul out of the hotel before that happened—and hopefully incapacitate the goblins chasing me.

  I paused long enough to pull down on a fire alarm.

  A banshee shriek filled the hotel, and I swear I felt my ears start to bleed.

  Agonized goblin screams filled the backstage. Goblins had really sensitive ears. The hotel was owned by elves. They didn’t care if their alarms hurt goblins. They’d probably planned it that way. I was gonna owe a serious sorry to Rake and Tam.

  I’d heard a banshee before, and it’d been bad, but the Phoenix’s fire alarms were like an entire flock of the things. A fire alarm’s job was to clear everyone out because it was simply too painful to stay. Humans and supernaturals were stubborn, and if there was any way they could ignore orders they didn’t want to follow, they’d do it.

  This alarm didn’t give you a choice. It was flee or have your head split open with sheer volume and pitch.

  On my way in, I’d seen a ladder running up a wall leading to a catwalk.

  I spat my favorite Goblin cuss word in realization. I needed two hands to climb a ladder. One of mine had a death grip on the
crystal of death.

  I desperately looked around for something, anything, any way out of here.

  The flashing emergency lights showed me the way.

  A small platform with a railing around it.

  A lift. A one-person elevator.

  I ran over, jumped in, and slammed my palm down on the button.

  Please, please, please don’t let anyone push a button and bring me right back down.

  Over the alarms came a howl—familiar to me, no doubt bone-chilling to everyone else.

  Yasha, an overprotective werewolf hopped-up on super-duper blood moon power.

  Four goblins were running toward the lift, and Yasha jumped in front of them, dropping his glamour, and ripped off his stripper tux—starting with the pants—to the horrified screams of every being backstage with working eyes.

  Yasha waved to me as I escaped, wearing nothing but fur and a smile.

  Yep, my partners always had my back.

  The lift arrived at its destination, and within seconds, I was running down the catwalk toward the stage and the auditorium beyond. We’d studied the theater’s layout, and supposedly in this direction was access to a narrow hallway for light and sound maintenance that looked out over the auditorium and led to the control booth in the back. There had to be other ways that led back into the theater itself, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where they were, or if they even existed. I could get to the boxes on this side, I could meet up with my team if they were still there, or I could blend with the crowd that had to be stampeding to get away from the alarms. The gowns some of the ladies were wearing covered even less than my costume.

  I reached the section where I could see down into the auditorium. It was complete chaos. I desperately looked around for a familiar face. I didn’t see either Tam or Ben. Part of me wanted to find Ben. I couldn’t throw a frisbee, but I could flatout throw a football. The crystal was much heavier than a football, but I still should be able to put a decent spiral on it. And even if it hit the floor, the thing was indestructible, which was really too bad. If it could be shattered, the only hotel it’d be able to translocate would be a roach motel.

  “Here she is!”

  The shouter, and the man who blocked my way, was an elf. A familiar elf. I’d seen him just before he had dived through a mirror to escape me and Kenji in the restaurant at the Regor Regency Hotel.

  Phaeon Silvanus.

  Inventor of the magetech generator. The cause of all of this.

  I didn’t think. I just reacted. Violently.

  I may have been the one with the football, but I tackled Phaeon Silvanus. He wasn’t a mage; he was just an elf, an elf who needed his ass kicked.

  Rake would rather have Isidor, but I had Phaeon right here and right now.

  We fell to the floor, rolling and wrestling. I knew some dirty moves, but there was no way I was letting go of that rock, so Phaeon got to use his moves first, flipping me onto my back and making me lose my grip on the crystal. Before I could get my knee up, the elf was on top of me. I got one hand on his throat, the other fumbled around in my cleavage for my purse-sized pepper spray and let him have it right in the eyes.

  The scent of jasmine and honeysuckle filled the air.

  Perfume, not pepper spray.

  I cussed like castanets, and speed-pressed that bottle nozzle for all I was worth. Judging from Phaeon’s reaction, even though it wasn’t pepper spray, it still hurt like hell.

  Never hit a man when he’s down. Kick him. Hard.

  Then shove him into a supply closet full of lightbulbs and lock it with a chair jammed under the doorknob.

  I scooped up the crystal and kept running.

  *

  The only unlocked door I found leading out of the theater put me on the hotel’s roof where the screech of the fire alarms had been replaced by the scream of the Las Vegas Fire Department’s sirens.

  Nothing about this was good. At least not for me. In horror movies, you didn’t go into basements or attics—or onto roofs. It wasn’t like I had a choice. Any other doors had been locked or blocked.

  I ran to the edge and looked down. Whoa. I didn’t have a problem with heights. I had a problem of falling from heights.

  I was at the front of the hotel, and the only way down was into the neon flames of the marquee with the ill-fated phoenix. While I’d developed some nifty new skills, none of them involved flight or regeneration.

  As far as Vegas hotels went, the Phoenix’s ten stories made it downright tiny. But it could’ve been a hundred and ten, and my problem wouldn’t have been any different. Falling from either height would kill me, the only difference being the consistency of the end result. There had to be another way down, and I’d find it.

  The pool bar. Yes! Kitty and hopefully Ben would be there. I hadn’t seen him since I’d gotten the crystal. Maybe he’d made it outside to our rendezvous point. They’d see me waving and jumping, and I could throw the crystal to Ben. He’d be able to catch it. Maybe.

  Let’s see, I was at the front of the hotel, that’d put the pool bar—

  “I thought I might find you up here,” Marek Reigory called out as he stepped from behind one of the big air-conditioning units.

  I clutched my crystal football tighter. “I’ll spike this thing into the parking lot.”

  “Go ahead. My people should be waiting there now to retrieve it.” He came toward me. “And then I can help you have a horrible accident—just like one of your SPI predecessors. Falling from the Empire State Building was rather cliché, but you must work with what you’re given.”

  We were both having to shout to be heard over the AC units and the sirens. I could tell it was sapping the fun right out of his Evil Villain Speech.

  “You look a little singed around the edges,” I told him. Actually, his hair looked shorter, and the ends were smoking. I took a whiff. That was definitely the smell of burnt hair and leather. Good job, Tam.

  Marek gave me an elaborate shrug. “When you play with fire, you have to pay from time to time.”

  There were two ways for me to escape. One was unlikely, given that it involved me getting past a thwarted and homicidal goblin megamage. The other was taking a swan dive onto concrete, or whatever was ten stories down. It was time to find a third option and fast.

  Marek was close enough now that we didn’t have to yell. It was a relief for both of us.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “You give me the crystal, and then do me the very large favor of jumping to your death. I promise it will be less painful than what I will do to you.”

  I clutched the crystal to my chest with both hands. “No.”

  He leaned wearily against the backside of a neon flame. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. No. I’m not doing one thing to make this easy for you. You want the crystal, come and get it. You want me dead, you’ll have to do it yourself.”

  With a sigh, Marek pushed off from the neon flame. “Very well.”

  There was a dark blur, and Rake slammed into him from the side. Gethen was nowhere to be seen. Looked like Rake had ditched his babysitter.

  “Run!” he shouted.

  Rolling, punching, and kicking followed. And zapping, lots and lots of zapping. Rake had said that his and Marek’s blood link protected each against some of the other’s magic. That must have been why there was zapping and no vaporizing. Moments later, I smelled burning hair and leather again. All that rolling around must have fanned the flames.

  Marek was not having a good night.

  The couple of times they managed to get to their feet, punches were landing. Hard. At least Rake’s were. Tam must’ve really rung Marek’s bell.

  I didn’t try to help. Rake wouldn’t want my help, nor did he look like he needed it. He was doing more than fine on his own.

  Ian crossed the roof to where I was, staring the entire time at the rolling, hissing, snarling, and now seriously smoking mass of
battling goblins.

  “Damn.”

  I nodded slowly. “You said it, partner.”

  Without another word, Ian reached behind his head and drew out the nearly two-foot-long spearhead from under his jacket. It no longer glowed when Ian touched it, but I sensed a thrum coming from it. Maybe since the blade now knew Ian better, it didn’t feel the need for extreme PDA, just a quiet acknowledgment of affection.

  He saw me looking and shrugged. “Just in case.” His lips twitched at the corners. “By the way, nice moves onstage earlier.”

  I nodded once. “Thanks.”

  The goblin fight had kicked into high gear. There was an explosion, and the two of them flew apart. Marek looked like a tom cat on the wrong end of a nasty alley fight. I think I even saw a nick on the pointed tip of his ear.

  Then he stumbled to his feet and dove off the side of the hotel.

  Ian and I ran over to see him land lightly, turn around and make a gun with his index finger and thumb, pointed right at me. Then he vanished; at least it looked that way to Ian.

  I could see through his cloaking spell as he ran away, occasionally staggering.

  Rake stumbled to my side, catching himself on the edge of the roof’s wall. “Where is he?” He was battered, but his eyes were blazing for Round Two.

  Marek had now gotten as far as the Bellagio and had gotten his wind back. His cloak solidified, and he vanished even to my seer sight.

  I wrapped my arm around Rake’s waist and gave him a squeeze. “Gone,” I told him. “He’s gone.”

  He’d be back. We both knew it, but I wasn’t going to say it. Not now.

  Rake plopped down to sit with his back against the wall. “I told you to run,” he said too loudly.

  “And I told you no.”

  “What?” he shouted.

  Yeah, I definitely owed him an apology for pulling that fire alarm.

  “We’ll argue when we’re not both deaf,” I shouted back at him.

  Rake looked me up and down with a wickedly sexy smile. “Nice costume.”