by Karen Chance
I sighed and leaned over the railing. The water was dark, because the bottom of the concrete channel was painted black. It reflected the overhead lights, which wavered in the ripples Enyo was making sloshing around down there. So I couldn’t read what was written on the drain. But I was pretty sure I knew where it went.
I turned my head to look at Deino.
“I’d consider it a personal favor if you didn’t drop him down the sewer.”
She looked thoughtful.
“Today,” I said.
She grinned.
Something caught my eye and I looked back down at the water. One of the reflections from the overhead lights was drifting upward. It was a testament to how my week had been going that I didn’t so much as blink when it broke the surface and floated into the air, like a small glowing balloon. Only this one had familiar shadows drifting over the surface, one half of which was dark, and the other a blinding, brilliant white. I reached out a hand to touch it, because it looked so solid, so real.
But as soon did, it just sank into my hand and was gone.
And a moment later, so was Deino. She hared away across the bridge with her sisters, leaving me with a cursing, livid, doused vampire flailing around in the dirty water below the bridge. And the feel of cool, cool mist on my fingertips.
Chapter Thirty-three
I heard the yelling as soon as I popped back into the suite, a vaguely familiar voice screeching in one of the back rooms. I paused in the foyer, wondering if I cared. I decided on the negative, and was about to pop back out again, but I waited too long.
Somebody grabbed me.
“Cassie!”
I looked down to find a panicked-looking Fred standing at the bottom of the short flight of steps and gripping my sleeve.
“What now?” I asked, resigned.
“It’s . . . I . . . Marco is off duty and I don’t want to have to call him. It makes it look like I can’t handle things.”
“What kind of things?”
Fred waved a hand toward the interior of the suite. “That thing. He stormed in a few minutes ago and demanded to see you. And, of course, I had to tell him that you weren’t in and I didn’t know when you’d be back. And he went off—”
“He who?”
“—and started going though your stuff. I told him he couldn’t, but—”
I didn’t have to wonder what he meant for long, because a second later, a tall, enraged blond emerged from the hall. He was wearing a glittering green brocade tailcoat that, with his height and overall skinniness, made him look like a particularly fabulous praying mantis. “You!”
A long, bony finger was pointed, and of course it was at me.
“I’ve been wanting to see you,” I told him, but I may as well have saved my breath. Augustine wasn’t listening.
“Who are you wearing, and don’t lie to me!”
“What?”
“A month of my life—a month. Do you understand?” The finger was shaking now, and so was he, but I didn’t think it was in fear of the circling ring of vamps. In fact, I got the impression that Augustine didn’t even see them. His eyes were fixed on me, and if blue eyes could burn, they were doing it. “I have slaved—slaved, worked myself into a frenzy. My masterpiece! Do you understand?”
“No.”
“My masterpiece,” he screeched. “The finest gown I have ever made. It’s almost ready, and what do you do? Who are you wearing?”
“Okay, no touching,” the redhead guard told him, prying long, bony white hands off the front of my shirt.
“You set me up!” Augustine’s usually perfect complexion was an ugly, mottled red. “You planned this all the time!”
“Planned what?” I asked, staying calm because I thought there was an outside chance the guy might actually have a heart attack right there.
“It isn’t ready! Do you understand? Another day, even two—but not by tonight!”
“Tonight? What is tonight?”
“Don’t give me that! We started getting requests this afternoon, but I didn’t think anything of it. It’s normal that people would want to pick up their dresses in advance. They are accustomed to dealing with inferior tailors, people like that Claude, who can’t fit a gown to save his life, or that ridiculous Tyndale. Tyndale—what kind of name is that for a—”
“Augustine—”
“But they kept on coming, didn’t they? Request after request, and do you know how many gowns I have left now? One! The one. The one in comparison to which all others are garbage—garbage. Do you understand? Except for mine, of course, but even they—”
I grabbed him. And I guess that was okay, because none of the vamps interfered this time. “Are you trying to tell me that the dresses for the coronation went out today?”
“You know damned well they did! Which means they changed the date, didn’t they? But no one bothered to tell me, and it isn’t finished! It isn’t—”
I didn’t hear what else it wasn’t, because I’d already shifted.
You know it’s not going to be a fun party when a serial killer answers the door. Of course, I’d been assuming that anyway. Crashing a vampire ball to which you’ve been specifically uninvited pretty much ensures that the evening will suck.
The killer in question leaned against the doorframe and looked me up and down, the pallid face stretching into a rictus. “Cassandra Palmer. And just when I thought the evening would be a frightful bore.”
I pushed fake black hair out of my eyes and glared. I’d been hoping for a nice human or even a lower-level vampire—someone who might have been fooled by the glamourie I’d used to give my too-round cheeks a little definition and to tint my blue eyes brown. So of course I ended up with a master vamp who thought he was funny.
“How did you recognize me?” I demanded.
“You have a style all your own.”
I looked down at the disguise I’d had to assemble on the fly. I’d been going for high-end waitress, but Dante’s wasn’t exactly known for good taste. As a result, I’d ended up with a cross between naughty French maid and The Rocky Horror Picture Show: ratty green velvet, torn fishnets and an Elvira wig that kept falling into my eyes.
I looked back up. “Ha. Ha.”
He leaned closer, his nostrils flaring. “And your scent is really quite . . . distinctive.”
I tried not to flinch or to let the fact that he knew what I smelled like gross me out.
But I must not have done a great job, because that horrible smile emerged again. Someone should mention that it wasn’t a good look for him. Of course, it was hard to think of anything that would be.
He dressed like an old-fashioned mortician, his hair was the flat black of a bad dye job and his fangs were always out and always yellow. I had no idea why he chose to look like that. Anyone who had been a vampire since the Victorian era had definitely had time to get it down pat.
He kept leaning in until I could feel his breath on my throat. “I would know you in the dark,” he whispered.
And then he licked my neck.
I stumbled back, fighting revulsion, and lost my grip on the tray of hors d’oeuvres I was carrying. I grabbed for it and for my ridiculously short skirt at the same time and caught only one. My butt hit the bottom of a short flight of cold, wet steps just as the door slammed shut above me.
“Jack!”
There was no response.
I hauled myself off the ground, pulled my thong out of my ass and stomped back up the steps. I peered through the door but didn’t see much. The frosted glass in the servant’s entrance showed me only vague shadows, one of whom I was pretty sure was laughing at me. “I’m not going to just go away, you know!”
Nothing.
“It’s my goddamned party!” I yelled, and kicked the door. All I got for my trouble was a stubbed toe and a warning thump from the house wards.
I cursed and went to retrieve my tray. The blinis were no longer edible, having been scattered all over the grass, but I needed them for
my disguise. Assuming I ever got inside to use it.
But that was looking less and less likely. My power couldn’t even feel the house, much less get a grip on it. Every time I tried, it slipped through my metaphysical clutches like a wet piece of glass, leaving me holding nothing. It didn’t feel like a spell or like I was being blocked somehow. I’d had that happen before, and this was different. I could see the house, could reach out and touch the damn thing, but as far as my power was concerned, it just wasn’t there.
“Told you that wouldn’t work,” Billy said, lounging in the air beside me.
“I didn’t hear you come up with any better ideas,” I pointed out, just as I noticed a new tear in my hose. Goddamnit!
“You shoulda just come in jeans. All the servers I saw are male—and vampire.”
“You mean I dressed like this for nothing?”
“Well, you look cute,” he offered, trying to look up my skirt.
“Stop that! And find me a way in.”
He shook his head. “That’s what I came to tell you, Cass. There is no way.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I figured it out when I tried to float through a window and I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it!”
“So? Maybe it’s warded.”
“It shouldn’t matter. I’m a ghost. There’s never been a ward invented that works on me.”
“Well, obviously, there is.”
He shook his head. “No, there isn’t. It took me a while to figure it out, too. I probably wouldn’t have, but a couple of the guests were talking about it. Apparently, they don’t do it often and the mages are having a collective magicgasm over the whole—”
“Billy!” I said impatiently.
“I couldn’t go through the wall because it wasn’t there,” he said simply.
“Come again?”
“Near as I can figure out, they’ve turned the whole inside of the house into a portal. The outside is still here, but they’ve transported the inside . . . somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. There’re only two doors that work—the front and this one—and none of the windows do. I guess when you go through one of the working doors, you go through the portal to . . . well, wherever they’ve taken the place. And when you come out, you’re back here.”
“That’s why I can’t shift,” I said slowly. “They’ve taken the house outside this world, and my power only works here.”
“That would be my guess, yeah. So, like I said, you’re not getting in.”
“Oh, I’m getting in.” This only made me more determined. Not only were they having my coronation without me, but they were having it somewhere my own power didn’t even work. And, apparently, no one saw the irony in that.
Billy crossed his arms. “Okay, say you do. What then? Most of the major players in the sup world are in there. If something big is about to go down, let them handle it.”
“They can’t handle it if they don’t know what it is.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“And I’m not going to if I’m stuck out here. Now get back in there and get me something I can use!”
Billy sighed and faded away, muttering something, while I stared in frustration at the ultramodern sphere looming overhead. It looked vaguely like aliens had crashed into the side of the mountain, leaving half of their flying saucer sticking out. Much of the visible part of the house was glass, I suppose to take advantage of the panoramic view of the tree-lined valley below and the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas beyond.
It was gorgeous, sleek and impressive, much like its owner. With a shell just as maddeningly hard to crack. But I had to figure something out or this was going to be one memorable evening—for all the wrong reasons.
I was still standing there when a couple emerged from the darkness. The man had a seventies nerdstache and eyes as cold as a new razor blade. The woman adjusted a spill of mink over her shoulder and tried not to look like she’d been feeding a vampire in the woods in the middle of the night. Neither paid any attention to the snack carrying snacks as they mounted the stairs.
The man rapped imperiously on the door, which promptly opened. His lip curled as his eyes took in Jack’s complete dearth of sartorial elegance. “Even tonight, you couldn’t make an effort?”
“An effort?” Jack inquired, deliberately disingenuous.
“You know what I mean! Half the guests are human!”
“And half are vampire.” Jack ran a bony finger under the guy’s too-wide polyester tie and gave it a flip. “Do you think for a moment that fine clothes and a pretty face make them forget what we are?”
“Not with you wearing that ridiculous costume!” the man snapped with a total lack of irony. He and his dinner swept inside.
Jack laughed. It looked no better on him than the smile, but the sound was surprisingly full and rich. “Everyone here is in costume,” he called after them. “Some are even smart enough to know it!”
“Everyone except you,” I said.
His eyes slid back to me, reflecting the gaslight from beside the door. It made flames dance in his pupils, like he needed the added creepy. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s how you really look, isn’t it?” Judging by the brown lace of his cravat and the frayed cuffs on his coat, they might have been Victorian originals. And his pale face and limp, lifeless hair looked that way because he was exerting no power to make them appear otherwise. I was in disguise; the other vamp was in disguise. But Jack was just Jack.
I hadn’t really expected an answer, but he suddenly bent forward, his breath raising goose bumps on the still-wet skin of my neck. “Tell me, little one, do you know why vampires find the Hollywood stereotype so loathsome?”
“Bad dialogue and worse acting?”
“Because it shows us stripped bare, exposed and naked in our brutality—in other words, as we really are. We’re all monsters, under the skin.” He grinned at me. “Even the beautiful ones.”
I ignored the jab at Mircea, who most definitely fit that description. “Is that why they stuck you guarding the back door? Because you embarrass them?”
“They’re afraid of what I might say if allowed to mingle with all our fine guests.” His tone was light, but there was something dark in his eyes.
“Same here,” I said, trying to find common ground.
His gaze met mine, and there was the tiniest glint of laughter in those beetle black depths. He knew he was being played, but he was bored and pissed and he didn’t care. “I thought they were afraid that their precious asset might get her soft, white throat cut.”
I swallowed, resisting a strong urge to cover up the vulnerable skin in question. “That’s what they say, because it sounds better. But I think they’re ashamed of me. I grew up in a vampire’s court, but it wasn’t the right court. You know?”
He nodded. It was no secret that Tony had been the vampire equivalent of white trash. It was one reason why I was starting to suspect that I would never fit in with vampire society. That and not actually being a vampire.
“We outcasts should stick together—is that your contention?” he asked.
“You’re the one who said this party needed livening up.”
“So to speak.”
“Are you going to let me in?”
“My orders were to stop you.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Jack beamed like the owner of a dim-witted puppy that has finally done its first trick. “No, it wasn’t, was it?”
“Well?”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You are about to become Pythia.”
I crossed my arms. I knew what was coming. “And?”
“And you may have an opportunity to do me a small favor in the future.”
“What kind of favor?”
“Nothing too disturbing,” he murmured.
Since this was Jack, that didn’t reassure me much. “I’d have to approve of whatever it is,” I said re
luctantly. It felt like I was making a pact with the devil, which wasn’t far from the truth. But I had to get in there.
“Agreed,” he said, so quickly that I knew I was going to regret this. But he flung open the door with a flourish. “I look forward to seeing Lord Mircea’s reaction to your presence.”
“That makes one of us,” I muttered, and hurried inside.
Chapter Thirty-four
Jack had set up a stool at the end of a walnut-paneled hallway just outside the kitchen. There was a mirror on the wall, probably for the servers to use to check themselves out, so I did—and got a shock. My strawberry blond curls were still hidden by the wig, but it was my own tip-tilted nose and wide blue eyes staring back at me.
“Antiglamourie charms,” Jack murmured, watching me with amusement.
Great. And the green velvet did not, as I’d hoped, look black in the low lights. I tried pulling up the too-low top, but that merely raised the skirt to indecent levels, so I stopped. “Anything else I should know about?” I demanded.
“Almost certainly,” he said cheerfully.
I shot him a look, which did no good at all, and headed down a corridor. It let out onto a vast foyer with a sweeping staircase, heavy with aged wood and hushed elegance. And another half dozen guards.
That was a problem, because a couple of these guards I knew. Tall, blond and impassive, they were like perfectly matched bookends, right down to the sleek black tuxes and eerie golden eyes. I ducked behind a porphyry vase taller than I was and silently cursed.
No wonder Jack had let me in so easily; he knew I wouldn’t get ten yards. And he was right, damn it. There was no way they weren’t going to recognize me. Those two had been assigned to my bodyguard detail until this little shindig took precedence, and ancient eyes didn’t miss much. Even worse, the staircase ended not two yards away from them, meaning I couldn’t even try to find another entrance without being nabbed.
I was about to double back and see if there was another exit through the kitchen when the front door burst open, letting in a swirl of rain and a couple of glittering corpses. They must have been important, because half the guards jumped to greet them and the rest were staring like starstruck teenagers.
