by Karen Chance
“You don’t know my life,” I told him back, trying not to sound as terrible as I felt. Although that probably would have worked better without the lip quiver. Or the swaying-on-my-feet thing. Or the tremor in my hand that juddered the handle just enough to make a mocking little sound until I let it go, feeling like a fool.
And probably looking like one, too, which wouldn’t help. Vamps admired power, strength, stoicism. And I was exhibiting exactly none of the above.
But to my surprise, Rico’s face relaxed, and not into a scowl. “Go on,” he told me. “You look like you could use it.”
I didn’t even ask what he meant. What were my alternatives, sleeping out here? And tripping up Marco when he got back from whatever he was actually doing?
I shook my head. And then I grasped the door latch again. And actually turned it this time.
And found myself face-to-face with a giggling two-year-old.
That wouldn’t have been so weird, except that no one was holding her.
She had black curls and big brown eyes, and a brand-new T-shirt in a bright, shocking pink. It had a bunch of balloons on the front in iridescent colors, with a signature below in an exaggerated curlicue that I knew all too well. Augustine, Dante’s resident designer, had struck again.
The little girl giggled some more, completing a slow somersault in the air. And when Rico gave her a gentle push, she tumbled back into a room filled with more jumping, floating, levitating kids, bouncing off the sofa and pushing off the walls, and being watched by a bunch of usually stoical bodyguards who were grinning like I’d never seen them, because how could you not?
Rhea was sitting in the middle of the group, on a chair like a normal person, maybe because the charm wasn’t strong enough to lift a grown woman. But it didn’t seem to matter. She was still laughing delightedly. And so was the woman at her side, with her own set of curls, because Tami liked a good weave, yes she did.
And I felt an answering grin break out over my own face, one so broad it felt like it might crack open.
I’d never been so glad to see someone in my life.
She looked up and saw me at the same second, and the sharp dark eyes took in the same clues Rico had, but Tami wasn’t big on silence.
“Damn it, girl! What happened to you?”
I couldn’t help it; I burst out laughing. And then laughed some more because of the look on her face. And then it sort of got out of hand, and I was leaning against the door, practically dying, because she’d never, ever believe me if I told her.
“Okay, yeah,” she said, getting up and coming over. “Time for beddie bye.”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I protested. Because I was. Suddenly, I felt about a thousand times better. It was just so good having her here.
Everybody else looked like they felt the same. The girls, who had been pretty damned bedraggled when I left, were clean and had on new—if somewhat bizarre—clothing. They were also smiling and, for the first time since I’d met them, not looking especially traumatized.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. Tami knew all about traumatized kids. Tami could write a freaking book on traumatized kids. And her attitude was that what most kids needed was affection, humor, and organization. And it looked like she’d organized the shit out of everything.
The overflowing ashtrays were gone, because of course there was no smoking allowed around the kids. The coats and ties and sometimes shoes that tended to get spread around were nowhere in sight, and the tape/blankets/covers on everything were missing. The carpet looked freshly vacuumed, there were flowers on the table in the lounge, and the pervasive smell of beer and sauerkraut from the foot-longs Marco dragged up from the lobby were conspicuously absent. Instead, the air had a distinct scent of—
“Cookies?” I asked, sounding almost tragically hopeful.
“After dinner,” Tami told me automatically, and then she laughed. But she meant it. If I tried to snatch one early, she’d . . . well, I didn’t know, but it would probably involve a lecture on setting a good example.
I was beginning to understand why Marco was “shopping.”
And then I found myself surrounded by a bunch of small, human balloons that floated around me like the tide, an ocean of pink shirts and pink cheeks and bright eyes, like the ones on a little red-haired girl with a too-serious expression, who was staring down at the glittery, multicolored parts of her shirt in awe, her hand stroking them tentatively. Like she was more taken with them than with the sensation of flying.
But then, if I’d never been able to wear anything but boring white, maybe I would be, too. I suddenly thought I understood Cherries’ crazy, colorful outfits a little better. And then I thought of something else.
My manicure kit was where I’d left it, in one of the sofa table drawers. And was still mostly full, because when the heck did I have time to do my nails? I grabbed it and turned to the girl, throwing back the top of the box and showing off a line of bottles of super sparkly polish in every color you could think of.
I didn’t use bright purple or acid green or brilliant orange, but the kit had come with them and it had been on sale, so they were all in there. Along with my favorite pinks—four different shades—and a fiery red, a pearlescent white, a rich gold, a polished silver, and a luscious black. And every single one of them was loaded with glitter, ’cause that’s how I like it.
And it looked like I wasn’t the only one.
The little girl’s eyes went huge.
“Pick a color,” I told her, but she just stayed where she was, bobbing gently up and down, staring at them. So I picked one for her, the brightest of the pinks, because it matched her shirt. “Do you like pink?” I asked, but she just stared some more.
“It’s okay,” Rhea told her, coming up and lifting a small, chubby hand. “The Pythia uses them.”
That seemed to make it all right, because the girl relaxed. And the others crowded around to watch me carefully paint the tiny nails. Like, intensely watch. You’d have thought I was teaching them some major life lesson or how to shift or something.
I finally finished. And a kid who had taken levitation in stride, who had probably seen magic in her short life that would blow my mind, stared at her hand in absolute disbelief. And then began flapping it around, trying to show all her friends at once, so excited she didn’t know what to do.
“You’ve created a monster,” Tami told me, as the other girls dove for colors and Rhea rushed for paper towels, to keep the glitter from decorating the whole suite.
“What’s with the shirts?” I asked as I was shooed into the bedroom, probably because I was about to fall over.
“That damned Augustine,” Tami said. “I told him we needed clothes for the girls, but since he wasn’t getting paid—”
“He wasn’t?”
“—he decided to give us the bargain-basement stuff. The balloons on those tees are supposed to float around, not whoever’s wearing them!”
“Tami—”
“So they didn’t sell, and we got stuck with ’em. Luckily, the girls are having a good time anyway. But Marco wasn’t happy, said it was a slight on the court, and went down to have a talk with the man himself.”
“Tami—”
“You know, he’s not so bad—Marco, I mean. I think the girls are starting to warm up to him. Of course, it might be easier if he didn’t look like a bad-tempered bear half the—”
“Tami!”
She looked around. “What?”
“Why don’t we just pay Augustine?”
She blinked at me. “’Cause you’re broke. Why you think?”
“What?”
“Broke. B-R-O-K-E,” said the woman who could stretch a dollar until it shrieked and begged for mercy.
Only apparently we didn’t have any to stretch.
“Jonas still hasn’t released the accounts?” I a
sked, surprised in spite of everything. I thought he’d had a momentary freak-out yesterday, in response to some really bad news. But if he wasn’t any better today . . .
I face-planted on the bed.
“Not a damned dime,” Tami said, sitting down beside me. “Should I ask why you aren’t wearing any shoes?”
“No. Tell me about Jonas.”
“There’s nothing to tell. Haven’t heard a peep out of him, and when Rhea called him, he handed her off to some secretary type to set up an appointment.” Tami made a disgusted sound. “You hear that? An appointment. For the Pythia.” She shook her head. “Girl, you gotta kick some butt.”
Yeah. That was what I felt like doing, I thought blearily. Butt kicking.
And I guess I looked it, because Tami grinned. “Well, maybe not right now.”
“They say anything else?” I asked, rolling over.
God, my feet were filthy.
“No, just to call. But Rhea doesn’t think that would be a good idea. She says—well, she can tell you,” Tami said, as Rhea came in.
“I said that it is customary for the Pythia to be put through immediately,” she told me quietly, looking concerned. Her eyes went over me and a worried frown appeared on her forehead. And I suddenly realized that she’d never seen me looking much better.
None of them had. It was entirely possible that my court was starting to think that I always went around with black feet and mud-splattered ankles, wearing a stolen war mage coat and reeking of cheap booze. Really cheap.
I shuddered at the memory of what passed for wine at the Bollocks, and put my head down on the bed.
“Hand me a phone?”
She obliged, biting her lip, but Tami wasn’t so shy.
Tami didn’t know what shy meant.
And Tami didn’t think I ought to make that call. “You let them walk on you, they’re gonna walk on you,” she told me. “You know that. This is the Circle we’re talking about.”
And yeah, Tami had never been overly fond of the Circle. Or vice versa. Maybe because some of those kids she’d rescued hadn’t been on the street. They’d been in the Circle’s little reeducation camps; at least they had until she broke them out.
She’d started with her own son, and then some of his friends, and then it had become something of a habit, gaining her the nickname in the press of the “Vixen Vigilante.” Because climbing into well-warded prison compounds does not mean one has to do it ill dressed. Unfortunately, the Circle hadn’t been as fond of her as the press, and had slapped a sizeable bounty on her head. I’d managed to wrangle her a pardon, back when Jonas was playing nice, but he would probably not be happy to learn that I had his old enemy as my newest staff member.
Not that she knew she was on staff yet.
And not that he was happy anyway, so it didn’t really matter, did it?
“I’m not calling Jonas,” I told her.
“Who, then?”
I hit the button for the front desk. “Augustine,” I told it, and there was some ringing and then there was some beeping and then there was the sound of an outraged genius who was yelling about something. I heard Marco’s voice in the background a second later, which probably explained the yelling, only that didn’t work on Augustine.
Fortunately, I had something that did.
“You know,” I said, not waiting for a break in the conversation because there probably wouldn’t be one, “I was thinking the other day that what I really need is a new design for the initiates’ uniforms.”
There was sudden silence on the other end of the phone.
“Or whatever they call their formal wear. Jeans and stuff are fine for every day, if nothing special is happening, but there are times when they’re going to have to get dressed up. And then they’re going to need something a bit better than the nightgowns they’ve been wearing. I mean, have you see them?”
“Yes, they’re appalling,” Augustine said. “Who designed them?”
“I think it was one of the Pythias, Gertrude something, back in the nineteenth century. And maybe they looked okay then, I don’t know, but—”
“You can’t have them running around like that,” he agreed, sounding suddenly reasonable.
“Well, that’s what I thought. And then, naturally, I thought of you.”
“Naturally.” He sighed, and it was long-suffering. Because he was so overworked and my request was such a burden—a burden he would shortly have plastered on every bit of ad space he could find.
Augustine found his association with the Pythia very lucrative.
He just didn’t like paying for it.
I heard some pages flipping. “I suppose I could fit it in,” he told me. “It will be difficult, mind you. I have the pre-fall show coming up on the twentieth, and then there’s the—”
“And in the meantime,” I said, because Augustine could give Rosier a run for his money in the loving-the-sound-of-his-own-voice department, “I asked Marco to pick up some everyday stuff for the girls, to tide them over. You heard about what happened to their wardrobe?”
“If the rest was anything like that nightmare, they’re well rid of it.”
“But they have to wear something, until you’re ready to show the world your masterpiece. Don’t they?”
There was another pause.
“See what I can do,” he told me curtly, and hung up.
I lay back on the bed.
“Okay, now do that with Jonas,” Tami told me, bright-eyed.
I cracked a lid at her. “I thought you didn’t want me to call him.”
“Yeah, but that was good. Call him and do that.”
Sure. Like it was that easy.
“Jonas isn’t Augustine,” I told her. “I don’t have that kind of leverage with him.”
“But you’re Pythia—”
“And he’s the head of the Circle. I piss Augustine off, and there’s other designers. I piss Jonas off, and I’ve damaged a relationship with a close ally.” And that would not be a great idea right now.
“And you don’t think you pissed him off the other night?” Tami demanded. Apparently, news traveled fast.
“Probably. But he was seriously out of line then. I didn’t have a choice.”
“He’s out of line now. Tell her.” Tami looked at Rhea.
“She knows,” Rhea said, watching me.
“I’m giving him a chance to cool off,” I told Tami. “I’m not trying to show him up or make an enemy. This can’t turn into some kind of . . . of pissing contest.”
“It’s already a pissing contest—”
“Not to me. And I’m going to give him some time, see if he comes around.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
I closed my eyes. “Let’s hope he does.”
“You’re more of a . . . diplomat . . . than me,” Tami said.
I wondered if that was some diplomacy on her part, to avoid saying “pushover.” If it was, I couldn’t blame her. I’d been acting like one, not intentionally, but in a we’re-all-in-this-together kind of way, because we were. And because I had enough to worry about with my enemies; I didn’t need problems with my allies, too.
But maybe they hadn’t taken it that way.
Maybe they’d taken it Tami’s way.
I sighed.
“What about housing?” I asked, keeping my eyes closed because it felt really good. “Do I need to call Casanova, too?”
“Good luck,” she said dryly.
I opened my eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means that at least Augustine answers his phone. Casanova has gone AWOL.”
“AWOL?”
She nodded. “Like last month, when the damn electricity went haywire in my room. Looked like a horror movie in there—blink, blink, blink, about drove me nuts. But you think I could g
et anyone up to fix it? And when I called him to complain, and to point out that it was his hotel that was going to burn down if there was a short, you think he’d take my call?”
“He isn’t taking anyone’s,” Rhea told her. “I tried yesterday, and again this morning. They say he’s out.”
“He’s not out—he’s hiding,” Tami insisted, the light of battle in her eye. “But he can’t hide forever.”
“We’ll try again tomorrow,” I said, because I really did not feel like trying to track down an elusive vampire right now.
Tami nodded. “You look done in. Have a nap, Cassie.”
“I’m not going to nap,” I told her. “I have to take a bath. I can’t possibly sleep like this.”
“Mmhm,” she said, and closed the bedroom door.
Chapter Twenty-three
Rhea didn’t go with her, and a second after the door shut, a silence spell clicked into place.
I had to learn how to do that.
“The Tears?” I asked, even knowing that would be too easy.
She shook her head.
I put mine back down onto the bed.
“I’m sorry, Lady.”
“It’s okay. If he didn’t send the money, I really didn’t think he’d send those.” I turned to the side and propped my head up on an elbow so I could see her better. “Does Jonas understand what the acolytes might want with them?”
“He was in a hurry when I spoke to him . . . and a temper,” she added, grimacing slightly. “But I did explain—”
“And what did he say?”
“Only that they would not obtain any from him. But he did not say how he knew that, or . . . much of anything else. I can try again tomorrow—”
I sighed. Because yeah, she could. And so could I. But that raised its own problem, didn’t it? “We can’t give him the idea that we’re too interested, or he’ll use them as leverage to get control of the court.”
“It isn’t the court he wants,” she said, quietly furious. “It’s you.”
“Then he’ll use them to get leverage on me. Not that it’ll do him any good.”
“Not do him any good?” Rhea looked confused.
