She held up a leonine paw until I went silent.
“Let’s just say that Dora’s got…connections. I owe her a favor as a friend, for pulling the strings that got me this gig, and this was my chance to pay her back. She’s one of the oldest, most powerful beings among us, and I believe that she’s the only one who can figure out a way to break the bond between you and Mitchel.”
That made me sit up and pay attention even more closely, if that were at all possible.
“Then shouldn’t I go see Dora directly?”
“You should see her. But you’ll never get to her without help,” came the reply. “Mitchel has enlisted his brothers to help bring back his wife. I believe that without help, they’ll nab you before you get within a hundred miles of Dora. And trust me, you do not want any of them catching you.”
This whole conversation wasn’t exactly giving me the warm and fuzzies, that was for sure.
“I trust you, believe me.”
“Cee Cee supposedly has the items you need to get you where you need to go. That gives me hope, as she’s a very resourceful, very old friend.”
I let out a breath, trying to absorb everything.
“I’m noticing that a lot of your friends are ‘old’,” I remarked.
The Sphinx made a kind of shrug. “Among my kind, they’re the only ones you’re allowed to keep. And there is one more thing you must take with you before you leave: a riddle.”
“And if I don’t solve it?”
“I won’t eat you. Rather, you must solve it, in order to survive your journey to Dora.”
She paused, and her expression shifted. Went blank. Her pupils vanished as her eyes turned into ice-cold orbs of blue. She recited her next lines in a voice that boomed as if it were done by a ticked-off James Earl Jones reading the Bible through a megaphone.
“What is it that looks like a door to some, a passage to others, a message from those who seek to do evil, and yet solves all of life’s problems?”
I remained frozen in place. Afraid to move, to speak. The Sphinx’s eyes slowly returned to normal, and she padded over to stand in front of me, a slightly abashed look on her beautiful face. She placed one warm, soft paw upon my shoulder as she added a final bit of advice.
“There will come a time and a place where all seems lost, Cassie. Where darkness overwhelms the light of the Dancer of the Sun. And at that time, you must surrender yourself. Surrender yourself to the answer to that riddle. And in doing so, you will have a chance to yet triumph.”
“Can’t you…” I whispered, “can’t you just…tell me what I need to know?”
A shake of the regal head. The beads in her hair rustled. “Alas, that is not the way the old magic works. The question is often more important than the answer, the journey more important than the destination. And do not give in to despair, my child. Fates willing, you just might make it after all.”
Chapter Twelve
Freeze Frame.
Yes, yes, I know. I’m starting off with one of these.
Sorry if this knocks you out of the flow of things. Tell you what, let’s make the next part go down nice and easy by using yet another oldie-but-a-goodie from the filmmaker’s bag of tricks: the monologue.
Specifically, let’s go for the voice-over monologue. That’ll give both of us what we need: you get the whole enchilada of noir coolness, and I get out of Dodge before Mitchel shows up to reclaim me like he’s picking up his winning lottery ticket.
Let’s kick this off with an over-the-shoulder shot. As it happens, the drizzling rain from before was still doing its thing. All the better for the atmosphere we’re shooting for. Tightly framed shot, focus on the moodily lit interior of the Porsche. The cars on the freeway swish by as my Porsche blends into the fast lane. I turn north-by-east, fleeing before an incoming storm front framed by clouds the color of strong tea.
My thoughts kept up with the beat of the windshield wipers.
I feel like my world’s been turned upside down.
No, not quite. That was when I learned who – or maybe I should say what – my husband truly was. But now, thanks to Dora and the Sphinx, I’d been given a peek behind the stage curtain, been given a glimpse of how the world really worked.
Greater, immensely older beings existed in the world. Ruled their little pieces of it the way a studio boss would run their little self-contained chunk of the universe. Magic existed too. I supposed that I should have felt relieved about one thing, at least. That I wasn’t losing it. Nor was I falling off the wagon and getting ready to check into the Betty Ford Center.
Matter of fact, my threshold for disbelieving the craziest things had just gotten its limbo bar lowered.
And rather than flying completely blind, at least I had something else to puzzle out. Yet another creepy-cool riddle for Our Heroine Cassie to figure out, before it was too late.
But you want to know how I really felt about all of this?
Try going down to your local Chinese take-out place. Get the Pork Chop Suey platter, extra spicy, and make a dive for the fortune cookie come dessert. Crack it open, read the message inside and ponder it for a moment.
Now, imagine that your life depends on divining the right meaning from it.
That cheery thought echoed through my brain as the freeway ramped up through the Cajon Pass. I crested the summit just as the storm finished rolling into the Los Angeles basin below. Stalks of lightning flickered back and forth across the cloud’s leading edge, as if the weather were a pacing, angry tiger.
I shuddered and pressed down on the gas pedal until I had to stop in the town of Barstow, on the edge of the bone-dry flats of the Mojave Desert. I pulled into a nearby service station to top off my gas tank. Then I breezed into a nearby used bookstore to top off my Dolce & Gabbana handbag with a paperback book titled the Myth-O-Pedia. Said book was so dog-eared that it practically sat up and begged for a treat.
Evening fell with the suddenness of a blown klieg light as I blazed down the nearly empty freeway, one eye on the road, the other keeping a sharp lookout for cops. Or Apocalyptic Horsemen, for that matter. But nothing lunged out of the blackness to pounce on my car. Another hour and a half, and I could clearly make out the eye-catching glow of Las Vegas on the horizon.
That glow brightened into whole rivers of light, a ballet of glitz and synchronized glitter as I merged into the slow-moving stream of traffic that flowed with gelatinous majesty down the Las Vegas Strip. I checked my watch, saw that I still had plenty of time to make my rendezvous this evening. When I’d first read the Sphinx’s printout, a little chill had run down my spine.
Cee Cee was at The Grotto tonight. Given the age and size of some of the so-called ‘mythical’ creatures I’d been meeting, I immediately pictured some dark, dank cave done up with lots of wriggling, squirming creatures courtesy of the charming fellows in the F/X Department. But with a glance at the first billboard I spotted near the Strip, I knew I had little to worry about. It showed Cee Cee, clad in her silver tuxedo-and-top-hat showgirl outfit and reclining on a snow-white Siberian tiger’s back. The verbiage touted her show in ten-foot curlicues of script.
THE GROTTO PRESENTS AN EVENING OF SEDUCTION & SORCERY – BY THE FAMOUS ILLUSIONIST CEE CEE! MAN AND BEAST FALL TO HER BEAUTY! ONLY AT THE ODYSSEY CASINO!!!
Yup, complete with not one, not two, but three exclamation points. For the slow learners in the audience, I’m guessing.
I followed the Sphinx’s printed instructions to the letter as I pulled up to the glassy, neon-green tower that made up the bulk of the Odyssey. Instead of driving up to the front entrance, I headed around to the back towards the parking garage. Once there, I slowed to a crawl, and then took an unmarked ramp off to one side. It spiraled down three levels to a long, narrow subterranean garage illuminated by yet more green tubes of neon and lined with cars so expensive and well-maintained that my Porsche looked like a smog-coated taxicab by comparison.
A splash of scarlet and black marked the far end of the g
arage. As I drew closer, the colors resolved themselves into an elevator door flanked by a quartet of security guards who looked like football tacklers that someone had squeezed into tuxedoes. Luckily, there was an open spot only a couple car lengths down from the door.
I pulled in and shut off the motor. Let out a breath. Rehearsed what I was going to say to Cee Cee’s muscle guarding the private elevator. Did my darnedest to smooth out my hair with whatever I had in the car. Did my level best to touch up my face in the mirror on the back of the sun visor. Pretty hellish job when it came to the color. Remember, all I had to work with was the car’s dim cabin light and the garage’s sickly green neon glow. I’d be lucky not to come out of the car looking like the Bride of Frankenstein.
Yet when I grabbed my purse and stepped up to the four security guards, none of them flinched or made a smart remark. I smiled at the one in front, who held an extra-sized clipboard. But it was like exchanging pleasantries with the traffic cop that just pulled you over for speeding.
“I’m Cassie,” I said. “I’m here to see Cee Cee. I was sent by a mutual friend of ours…from Egypt. It’s urgent.”
I got a frown at first. Then the man held a finger to his earlobe, nodding as he listened to someone’s voice on his earpiece. He gave something like a caveman’s grunt, and then touched a button on his lapel. A ding, and the lipstick-colored elevator slipped open.
“Go on in,” the guard said brusquely. “You are expected backstage. Please do not speak to anyone of what you see inside Cee Cee’s quarters.”
I nodded, trying to look a lot more confident than I felt, and stepped into the elevator. There were only two buttons: GARAGE and DRESSING ROOMS. I pressed the top button and felt my stomach drop as the car shot upwards.
Another ding. The doors slid open and my nose was immediately assaulted by the scent of talcum powder, fresh roses, and warm, sun-baked fur.
I froze. It smelled too much like what I’d come a door’s width away from bumping into, in the motel outside of Bakersfield.
A blur of motion to my side. A richly accented woman’s voice cried out.
“Francois, no!”
A feline swirl of motion around my side, and suddenly I was face to face with the bright orange and black face of a tiger. A snarl. Fangs bared, the creature then let out a horrific roar.
Looked like the bodyguard down in the garage wasn’t going to have to worry about my speaking to anyone. Not about Cee Cee’s quarters.
Not about anything, at this rate.
Chapter Thirteen
The tiger crouched, within easy paw-swiping distance, and roared a second time.
My heart banged against my ribs like a bird trying to get out. I was too frightened to move, too frightened to scream.
Again, that richly accented voice from off to one side.
“Francois, you are trying my patience!”
A snap-crackle! The kind a sound artist would foley into the big sci-fi epic for the ‘ka-chow’ of the future’s version of the Saturday Night Special. Nothing big, just enough to grab the audience by their hairs and make them sit up in their seats a little.
No, what would’ve made Mr. and Mrs. America pause in the ferrying of popcorn to their mouths wasn’t the sound. It was the result of the snap-crackle, never mind the pop.
The tiger shimmered and turned into an elegantly dressed man with a blonde mop of hair and a faintly amused expression. He addressed someone over my right shoulder.
“Pardon, my sweet…I think the form just carried me away tonight. Ooh, it does get to one, being feline for the matinee as well as the evening shows.”
“Francois, enough with the excuses!” came the angry reply. “Out with you, on the stage, before I turn you into a frog or something with even less sex appeal!”
In response, the man bowed to me and quickly exited, stage right. I scarcely had time to blink before the woman who had dismissed Tiger-Francois came into my view. She wore the same spangled, silver-gray tuxedo outfit from the billboard as she scanned me from head to toe, making sure that I was untouched. Cee Cee addressed me with a regally accented voice that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from one of the Gabor sisters. Though between Eva and Zsa Zsa, I’d have had to go with Zsa Zsa.
“Darling, I am so, so sorry!” she said quickly guiding me to a seat. “One moment, I will fetch you something to calm your nerves.”
Cee Cee’s dressing room was huge compared to the entire backstage of most of the theatres I’d visited. A vanity table with a beveled-glass mirror festooned with makeup lights sat off to one side of my seat. A rectangular cage large enough to hold half-a-dozen SUVs lay off to the other. The rear wall displayed a set of training whips and other wince-inducing paraphernalia.
Cee Cee breezed back over to me, a martini glass in hand. A perfectly spitted olive teetered on its edge. I took the container and sipped at the dark blue liquid it contained. Immediately, a sensation of well-being flowed through me. I brought my lips back for seconds, draining the glass with something just under a guzzle.
The draggy feeling I had after the five-hour long drive here? Gone. I checked in the mirror: the bags under my eyes had vanished.
Even my frizzy puffball blonde hair went floop, and straightened back out into my familiar, cute-shag look that Jen Aniston would’ve recognized.
Abso-friggin’ amazing.
“That’s the power of Santorini’s best,” she said, settling into the cushy seat across from me. “It’s called vitis vinifera, for those in the know. And I? I am called Cee Cee, or ‘Circe.’ Also only by those ‘in the know’.”
“I’m Cassie,” I replied, as I did my best myself to sit up straight in the cushy depths of the chair. “And thank you, Circe. Both for this amazing cocktail, and saving me from…I guess he’s your pet…cat?”
“Oh, he’s one of many pets!” Circe laughed. “But perhaps you are not quite ‘in the know’ about those like him. Did the Sphinx send you all the way to this sinfully decadent place, without so much as a Michelin’s Guide to the demigods?”
“Ah, not quite,” I hedged, as I pulled my recently purchased book from its place in my handbag. “If you’ll give me a moment?”
“A lady may take all the time that she needs.”
It took me only a couple of seconds. I lucked out, since the text was alphabetized, and ‘Circe’ was close to the front. I scanned the contents and put the book back into place.
“It seems you’re a sorceress, or demigod, depending on which ancient Greek historian is telling the tale,” I held up the now-drained glass she’d given me. “You’re known for your vast knowledge of drugs and herbs. But your real talent…is transforming men into animals.”
“A mere triviality, my dear, a trifle!” she demurred. “Really, there’s very little talent in doing what I do. Men are pretty much animals to begin with, after all.”
“And I’m guessing that you use men – as animals – in your stage act?”
“But of course! This trick, this mere bagatelle of magic – it is how Dora helped me find this job in the first place!” Circe trilled, as she waggled her fingers in emphasis. “A competing casino used to have a white tiger act, several years ago. They had a most unfortunate accident, and had to withdraw from the limelight. As you know, the stage hates a vacuum, so voila! Cee Cee the Sorceress rides into the modern age, no one the wiser.”
“It’s amazing! Since you’re using men instead of real animals, I suppose that it takes away that extra element of danger?”
Another laugh. “Oh, Cassie. We are both women of the same business, are we not? And I suppose all of the starlets in your films – they have all natural D-cups to fill their brassieres, no?”
I plucked the olive from the toothpick and chomped it down. “You have me there.”
A chime from overhead. A man’s voice called down from a set of hidden speakers.
“Two minutes to showtime, Cee Cee.”
“Johann,” Circe said, rolling her eyes, “I have
a guest!”
“Yes,” the voice sighed, “But I have a theatre packed with people…along with a dozen of your admirers, who’ve paid top dollar for their box seats. You can’t ignore your public!”
“Ah, too true, my sweet. I shall be along.”
“Even with your opinion of men,” I said, surprised, “You still work for one?”
She stood, and made a Gallic shrug. “One must be pragmatic, darling. I have found that there is nothing wrong with a woman welcoming a man's advances. So long as they are in cash.”
I couldn’t help but smile, feel a sense of kinship with this expressive, independent woman.
“So, now to business,” she continued. “I have heard of your troubles. I think I might know how to help you get to Dora. Unless…the Sphinx gave you any more clues, a riddle, perhaps?”
“She did, as a matter of fact,” I replied, and I recited what I had been told. Though in all truth, even though I have a nice voice, coming from my pipes the damned thing didn’t sound at all enigmatic and majestic. Where the Sphinx’s voice was opera, mine was a singing telegram. “What is it that looks like a door to some, a passage to others, a message from those who seek to do evil, and yet solves all of life’s problems?”
Circe gasped. “That riddle…do you know what it means?”
I shook my head and sat straight up in my chair, eagerly awaiting her reply.
“What a pity,” Circe said ruefully. “I was kind of hoping that you would tell me. I have never been able to understand any of the Sphinx’s riddles.”
It took all of my willpower not to roll my eyes.
“I do have what you need to reach Dora,” she added. “I know, because I once stood in Mitchel’s immortal sandals myself. I too loved a human, a long time ago. But like all men, he wanted to leave me. Only one as cunning as he managed to escape my clutches and sail away.”
I remained quiet as she continued. Whoever that man was, he somehow had managed to resist both her considerable magical and physical charms. It sounded like he’d been in the Navy.
I Married the Third Horseman (Paranormal Romance and Divorce) Page 5
