Chapter Thirty-Seven #2
“Her court is right upstairs.” I held up the baggy with the evidence. “She’s supposed to be a touch psychic, so maybe she can tell me something about these. Wanna come?”
Sophie and Jen exchanged glances. I didn’t have the card, but I didn’t need it. All of their clothing items immediately flashed to a dark shade of brownish orange.
“Or, you could stay here and improve my wardrobe,” I offered. “Although preferably not in this shop.”
Another glance was exchanged.
“Cyrus said not to leave you,” Sophie repeated, but she sounded considerably less sure than before.
“We’re not leaving,” Jen pointed out. “She’s in the hotel; we’re in the hotel. And you aren’t going to get in any trouble. Right?” She looked at me sternly.
And I wondered, not for the first time, who the teacher was here. But it wasn’t the time to bring it up. Not when I was winning.
“Right.”
◆◆◆
The Pythian Court was much as I remembered, except that the big vamp didn’t answer the door this time. A supercilious Frenchwoman did. She had a messy brown topknot, a beautiful face, and a small journal.
“You ‘ave an appointment?” she asked, looking at me over the top of some chic glasses.
“Uh, not exactly—”
“Zere ees no ‘not exactly.’ Zere is an appointment or non? Which ees eet?”
“Non. I mean, no,” I said—
And she started to close the door in my face!
I got a foot in it, which drew the attention of a couple of vamps I hadn’t seen, even though they were in colorful suits and the room was white.
Good trick.
“Now, see, it would be a shame for your—what is that? A Payless special?” a redhead in a tan suit with orange windowpane checks asked, looking pointedly at my foot.
We both regarded it for a moment. It was clad in a scuffed brown loafer to match my old sweatpants and t-shirt, because I hadn’t been expecting to visit royalty today.
The redhead did not seem to approve, perhaps because he was wearing a shiny croc-skin slip-on in a tan that perfectly matched the suit.
“Yes, be a shame for it to get damaged,” he said dryly. “Now wouldn’t it?”
He pushed my foot back outside while an aristocratic blond, who was an inch or so shorter than I was, nonetheless managed to look down his nose at me.
“Yep,” the blond said. The casual slang didn’t match the slicked-back hair ending in a short ponytail gathered at his neck, or his expensive blue suit, which exactly matched the icy color of his eyes. But his air of ennui said he didn’t care. “Need help finding the elevator?”
Considering that it was just behind me, I took that for what it was and reinserted the foot.
“You don’t want to do that,” the redhead said mildly.
“She’s a mage,” the blond murmured.
“Like I don’t have a nose?” the redhead asked him. “And Francoise here is a witch, if she decides to get funny.”
“I’m not feeling very funny,” I told them honestly.
“No, you’re short of blood,” the blond said, creeping me out, because how did he know that? “Odd blood,” he added, sniffing delicately. “What is that?”
“Were,” the redhead said, his nose wrinkling. “She positively reeks of it.”
“She can’t be Were and mage both,” the blond argued. “And anyway, there’s something else, something... strange...”
“You know, I don’t like strange,” the redhead said. And the next thing I knew, I was back in the elevator again, and the damned thing was going down.
I stopped it, feeling my temperature rising, and took a moment to sit on the little velvet-covered bench this thing came equipped with.
The hotel wasn’t old enough to date to the era when that had been a regular feature for elevators, but then, nothing about this place was normal.
Including the fact that I was dizzy, and not because I was still recuperating.
The vamp had influenced me, damn it!
That wasn’t supposed to be possible, not for a trained war mage, but the son of a bitch had managed it. Okay, time to stop being nice. I punched the penthouse button again and rode back up.
“Do you ‘ave—oh. Eet is you again,” the Frenchwoman sighed.
“Who?” A short, fat vamp with a bad combover and a tie that would have been ugly in the seventies, when he probably bought it, came forward.
“Oh, God. It’s Payless,” the redhead said dramatically from across the foyer.
“I told you she’d be trouble,” the blond commented. “I can always tell.”
“You have no idea how much trouble I can be,” I said, flashing my badge.
“Ooh, a war mage,” Red said, grinning and putting his hands up. “I love playing with war mages.”
“I need to see the Pythia,” I said, which made him laugh.
“Yeah, you and half the world. Make an appointment, honey. In fact, the little lady who can do that for you is right there.”
He gestured at Frenchie, who looked bored. “Vee are booked up for sees mois,” she told me, before looking at the blond. “I am going back to zee office. Let me know when la princesse arrives.”
“Will do.”
She started to walk away, but I muscled my way through the door after her. Literally, because the blond vamp moved to stop me, and widened his eyes slightly when that didn’t work. But then the redhead was standing in my way, too, although he’d been across the room a second ago.
“You’re a mage and a Were?” he said. “That’s a fun combo, and not one I’ve met before. Or fought,” he added, still smiling. And giving the impression that I wouldn’t like it much when he stopped.
“You don’t want to fight me,” I said shortly.
“Ooh, tough girl.”
“Something like that. And all I want—”
“Honey.” Red put up a hand. “I could give a shit what you want. And that badge doesn’t cut a lot of ice up here. Jonas Marsden—maybe you’ve heard of him?” he said, talking about the Lord Protector who commanded the entire Corps. “When he wants to see the Pythia, he makes an appointment!”
I thought about it. Hargroves had to have filed his report by now; the bastard was never late. So Marsden, whom I hadn’t had the privilege of meeting, had nonetheless heard of me. And my current assignment.
“Call him,” I said.
“What?”
“If you need someone to vouch for me,” I added. “Or the Corps’ local head honcho is Richard Hargroves, if you want to save a long-distance call. I’m here on business that could win us the war—or lose it. And, for the record, I don’t give a shit what you want. I am seeing the Pythia.”
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Blondie said.
But it wasn’t fun, because someone interrupted.
“What’s going on out here?” A familiar voice asked, and I looked up to meet the eyes of the big, handsome vamp from the other day.
He was wearing a mint green polo this time, paired with swim trunks in a tropical print featuring pink hibiscus flowers on a dark blue background, with leaves the same shade as the shirt.
Leather sandals completed the look, showing off shapely legs covered with enough hair for a Were and the same pastel toenails as the other day.
How he made all that look manly, I didn’t know, but damn if he didn’t pull it off.
I guessed a couple thousand years provided some swagger.
“Mr. Carales,” I said, remembering that he was supposed to be head of security. “There seems to be a problem—”
“War mage trying to skip the line,” Red said, hiking a thumb at me. “I was about to toss her out on her skinny ass.”
“Yes, do try,” I told him, before I could stop myself. “Please.”
Carales raised a thick, black eyebrow. “You’re feisty today,” he told me.
“I don’t have a lot of time, and I’m here on Corps business. I need to see the Pythia, and it’s extremely—”
“Okay.”
I stopped, my mouth still open. “What?”
“She sent me for you. Said to bring you back before, and I quote, ‘she Hulks out and destroys my foyer’.”
Everyone looked at me.
“I wasn’t planning to... Hulk out,” I said awkwardly.
“Good thing. We just had this place remodeled after the last disaster. Come on.”
He turned around and walked away, without waiting to see if I was following.
Swagger, I thought, and hurried to keep up.
I expected to be led to the throne room I’d seen in a magazine spread, an expansive room with floor-to-ceiling windows letting in a cascade of light, a great gilt throne up a dais of steps at one end, and rows of delicate chairs around the walls.
The latter were where prelates and potentates, billionaires and, today at least, a princess, kicked their heels until her Pythianess deigned to notice them. But we didn’t go there.
We also didn’t go to the large balcony, where a bunch of little girls were splashing around in a pool a lot nicer than mine, which explained the swimwear on Carales, I assumed.
Or the living room, where an Edwardian-looking chick in a long, white lace gown was pouring tea for a couple of posh-looking ladies in high heels and pearls—and enough magic crackling around them to make me blink.
Coven witches, I thought, as one of them, a stout old matriarch who looked like trouble even in a flowered silk gown, glanced briefly at me, and it was all I could do not to raise a shield.
But we bypassed all that, cut through a butler’s pantry where a tiny, possibly fey creature with a mostly bald head and huge, sunburst eyes was pouring himself a drink, and then pushed through a door into a large kitchen.
Where I had a split second to see a vast expanse of white and black subway tile, some modern fixtures made to look like old-timey originals, and a bunch of tasteful black-and-white prints on the walls.
And a startled-looking blonde with a tub of mint chocolate chip in one hand and a spoon in the other, who I vaguely recognized as Cassie Palmer—
Right before a powerful dark mage jumped her.
Son of a bitch!