by P. R. Frost
Oh, I thought I would kill you; I did, but I couldn’t,
We both know that I fall for all of your cons.”
One last round of the chorus as I returned to the stage, ready to hand the mike back to Mom and make my escape. I didn’t need to worry about Donovan. I could feel him heading toward the elevators.
“Take me in, yes, I’ll be your victim,
I’ll be Red Riding Hood, you be the wolf.”
Please, oh please, don’t let that part of the story be true this time.
But Donovan wasn’t waiting for me at the elevators, or at the door to my room.
I dialed his room and was told he had checked out.
Now what?
Um, Tess?
“Now what?” I snapped at Scrap.
I can’t find Mickey.
What do you mean? You’ve got instant radar. You can find anything or anyone.” Anxiety began burning up from my gut to my throat.
He’s dropped off the radar. Fortitude can’t find him either.
“Where did you see him last?”
Three blocks from here. He just—vanished.
I called Gollum’s cell phone. “We have to find Mickey before he kills Gregbaum.”
“Wait . . . what . . .” he stammered. I hadn’t even given him a chance to say hello.
So I told him what Scrap reported. “If he kills Gregbaum, the curse will die with him. That’s what Mickey’s going to do. And he’ll get killed in trying!”
“Ask Scrap if he can find Gregbaum.”
“Good idea.” I shouted into the ether.
Yeah, he’s in his penthouse wining and dining. Looking for a new home for “Fairy Moon.” Scrap yawned, sounding bored.
“Is Mickey with Gregbaum?” Gollum asked.
I relayed the question, hating the delays.
Nope. I checked that first thing Mickey went missing. I’m not stupid.
“The curse may not die with the magician,” Gollum said. He yawned himself.
I loosed my own. This sleepiness was catching. Well, it was almost two in the morning.
“Mickey has to investigate the spell before he does anything,” Gollum continued.
“Is he smart enough to calm down and take the time to do that?” I wouldn’t. I’d have charged right in with blade swirling.
“Mickey knows a lot more about magic than we do.”
“I’m not so sure . . .” I heard a brief knock on the door. Before I could get up to answer it, Gollum let himself in with my spare keycard.
He folded his phone and spoke to me directly. “He’s from Faery. He knows magic. He knows the limitations. Trust me, Tess. Mickey is not a fool.”
“Scrap, where are the dancers?” If Mickey was going to try a rescue, he might just go there directly.
All tucked up in their little beds, fast asleep. A bit of a pause. Tess, they’ve cried themselves to sleep. I’ve got to go in there and give them some hope. He sounded as if he wanted to cry, too.
My heart nearly broke. I’d never known Scrap to care for anything so deeply, except for himself—and me.
“Stop him, Tess,” Gollum shouted, looking up as if he might espy Scrap. “If the dancers perform as if they have hope, Gregbaum will get wise to us and change his spell.”
Ooops! Scrap bounced out of the air into my lap with a whoosh and a thud. For half a heartbeat he took solid form.
“Damn, but you are heavy.” I started to shove Scrap away when he faded to his normal insubstantial translucence.
Gollum stared gape-jawed at the space where Scrap appeared.
Sorry, babe. Rebounded off Gregbaum’s protections.
“Must be a strong web of interdimensional weaving around the dancers’ dormitory,” Gollum mused.
“Wait, did you hear Scrap as well as see him?” A spell strong enough to do that really scared me.
“I just heard bits of his words. Enough to piece together what happened. Then he faded. We’re up against some pretty powerful stuff here, Tess. We need help.”
“What kind of help?” I thought I knew where he was headed with this and didn’t like it. “MoonFeather?” My aunt was a witch of the Wicca variety and knew more about real magic than I wanted to admit.
Gollum shook his head. “Donovan. He’s got connections in all kinds of strange places.”
“Including to Lady Lucia and to Gregbaum.”
Gollum’s glasses slid to the end of his nose.
I ordered a bottle of single malt scotch from room service. The price made me blanch. “What about a blend?”
The waiter rattled off a list and their prices.
“I think we’ll try the Muirhead.” That scotch had a decent reputation and they used to sponsor a top notch bagpipe band.
“Ma’am, if price is your consideration, I’ve got a bottle of Sheep Dip I can’t give away. I’ll let you have the whole bottle for half the price of the Muirhead,” the waiter said.
“Sold.”
I’d heard stories about that scotch. Farmers in England used to deduct it from their taxes as necessary agricultural supplies.
“Let’s hope it tastes better than its namesake.”
Chapter 26
Some of the best educated people in Las Vegas work as bartenders. The tips are better than schoolteacher salaries.
IF TESS IS GOING TO SPEND TIME with Mr. Stinky Man, I’ve got to get out of here. Might as well use the time to my advantage.
I zip into the side corridor of the chat room, noting that Mickey’s beacon is blinking again. He’s brooding in a tiny, one-room apartment. Okay to leave him for a while.
I stand in front of a window into the past. The beings flitting about on the other side of the glass pane, or deep inside like a TV, I can’t tell for sure, are faeries. Or the distant ancestors of them. I see subtle differences, more pointed ears, longer noses that almost resemble animal snouts. And they are bigger.
They frown more, too. Not since WindScribe killed the last king of the faeries and tried to loose a whole horde of full-blooded demons on all the dimensions, has anyone, I mean anyone,in living memory seen a faery frown. But here they stand in a big circle around a forge. They have linked hands to seal whatever is inside. No one escapes a circle of faery magic.
A very large human smith pounds his hammer against an anvil. He works a strip of gold thinner and thinner.
A dwarf, sitting at a tall bench beside the brightly burning hearth, chips away at a rock.
Bound in braided ropes of holly, mistletoe, and ivy sits an imp at the exact center of the circle. My heart reels in shock. The knots and twists in those ropes have turned three innocuous plants into imp’s bane, the most dreaded form of punishment for my kind. At least the poor prisoner won’t care what they do to him, until they do it. He’s powerless, has no judgment, and cannot connect to those who love him. Worse of all, he can’t duck into the chat room or through any portal to escape.
If you haven’t guessed already, I’ve spent some time under the influence of imp’s bane. Last autumn, when Sasquatch, masquerading as terrorists, kidnapped my Tess and filled their headquarters with imp’s bane. I spent the entire time swinging from the rafters, making friends with a bat, and disconnected from Tess. If she hadn’t discovered the purpose of the imp’s bane and started burning it bit by bit, we would have died from the separation.
And I couldn’t hop into the chat room for relief. The arcane knots anchored me in one dimension. Most beings can only get into one or two dimensions, if they can get beyond the demons in the chat room. Imps can go anywhere. We have to in order to do our jobs as Celestial Blades. We have to catalog as many demon forms we can. Can’t fight them if you don’t know what they are.
Then I noticed that this is no ordinary imp. He’s big. The biggest imp I’ve ever seen. Which means he’s old. And cranky. Imps change color to reflect their mood. Normally we’re sort of gray-green, go blue with pleasure, purple with desire, yellow with laughter, green with curiosity. Vermilion just before we
transform into a weapon.
This imp, beneath his deep orange anger—I’d be angry, too, with that much imp’s bane coiled around me, and sick with it, too—is black. I have never seen a black imp before. His bat-wing ears are shaped wrong, too, more like pointy rat ears. And there’s not a single wart to soften his ugliness.
The tap, tap, tap of the dwarf’s tools changes to a softer, more hesitant rhythm.
I see the precious stone emerge from the rock. Little tiny chips fly away, revealing the biggest diamond I’ve ever seen. A few more taps of the chisel and he begins shaping the jewel, adding facets—lots of them—polishing it.
By this time, the smith has done something to the gold to turn it into wire. He hands it off to a lady faery who wears a gold filigree crown. She shapes and twists the wire into a ring to match her crown.
Much chanting and dancing in circles. Then, finally, the diamond is ready to mate with the gold.
And a true mating it is. For the ring that is born of both gold and diamond becomes something more, something special.
I can’t see what they are doing; they close ranks and block my view. But I can smell the magic. Strong magic. Not black and evil, but not entirely white and healing either. Something more sinister than normal Faery Blessings.
The faeries back away. The imp is gone. The ropes of imp’s bane lie limp and withering on the bright green grass.
The faery queen holds the ring up for all to see, The dark flaw at the very center of the diamond is no imperfection. It is the imp, imprisoned forever. Forced to stare at his own black reflection for eternity. No flaw or crack in the diamond for the black imp to communicate with the outside world. The faery magic keeps him from opening a portal to the chat room.
He can only open a portal under the direction of the ring wearer. This ring will open the portal to Faery so we can send the dancers home.
Then Queenie slips the ring on the thumb of her left hand.
I nearly faint with shock.
There is only one ring. Not two, as we thought. The ring flexes to fit the hand of the wearer.
But if Gregbaum just got the ring, and Donovan had it only days ago, how did he get the dancers over to Earth?
I move on. More to learn. I just hope I can get back to Tess before she needs me. These windows in time distort my senses and I’m not certain when I was when I entered the chat room.
I filled the water glass from the bathroom with scotch and handed it to Gollum. “Drink it down, language guy.”
He stared at the amber liquid. “A terrible waste of good scotch to just drink it.”
“I know. But this is necessary. And not necessarily good scotch,” I busied myself fishing a tiny digital recorder out of my computer bag. The memory chip was empty. I hadn’t had a single idea for the novel to record since leaving Providence on Wednesday morning.
Gollum closed his eyes and drank. A grimace almost formed on his face. “Tastes like burned butterscotch filtered through grounds-keeper Willie’s moth-eaten kilt.” He took another gulp. “You aren’t joining me?”
“You bet your sweet ass I am. I’m not wasting all of that water of life on your ability to speak in tongues when you’re drunk.” I poured myself a healthy belt and topped off his glass.
“What legend am I supposed to channel this time?” He settled into the armchair and put his big feet up on the side of the bed. This could take some time.
Time I felt pressing close against my chest like a two-hundred-pound imp.
“I don’t know what’s going to come out of your subconscious or the ether. But last time you did this, you pointed us in the right direction based on local legends. Let’s see what local spirits choose your brain as a vehicle to enlighten me.” I sat cross-legged on the bed and stuffed pillows behind my back. Nope, the strained muscles in my thigh didn’t like that. So I stretched out, my feet atop his ankles. A small connection. A familiar and comfortable connection.
The recorder sat on the table next to Gollum’s left elbow. He took another deep swallow, grimaced at the burn, and turned on the gadget.
“If I have to guzzle alcohol, beer would go down easier.” He took another belt. This time his face twisted only a little bit. He already grew a bit numb.
“Beer isn’t strong enough. It would take too long.” I sipped my own glass, respecting the miracle of decent whiskey as it should be. I don’t know about filtering through a moth-eaten kilt, but I caught the burned butterscotch and the essence of heather in the blend. “And if you have to get stone-cold drunk, you might as well have the water of life.” I saluted him with my glass.
He refilled his to the brim.
“And if I recite some obscure legend in an ancient and unspeakable tongue, who will translate for you while I sleep off the drunk? Presuming, of course, I could figure it out.”
“I have my sources. Now drink up. It’s getting late, and I’d like to get a little sleep tonight.”
He downed his glass. His hands shook as he reached for the bottle. I took it from him and poured a steady stream. No sense in slopping good whiskey on the table.
One more glassful—I was still on my first, and he tipped his head back. His eyes crossed and he smiled while his glasses slipped all the way off his hawk nose into his lap.
“Did I ever tell you how much I love you, Tess?” he mumbled.
“Um . . . not in so many words.” What had I done to him? This was not my Gollum. But maybe it was. I took a long drink of my scotch. A new set of possibilities opened in my liquor-loosened brain.
What would it be like to have his long-fingered hands caress me with intimate care.
Shivers of delight ran up and down my spine, further numbing my mind.
Before I could pursue those thoughts, Gollum mumbled something I couldn’t understand.
Anxiously, I leaned forward and held the recorder close to his mouth. I had to catch every word and nuance.
Without warning, he sat up straight, planting his feet firmly on the floor. I had to roll for balance as he dislodged my feet. His empty glass dangled from his hand.
His abrupt movement knocked the recorder out of my hand. He kept talking. Nonsense syllables to my ear. But I’m not a linguist.
“Shit! I hope we get all this.” I fumbled around on the floor until I found the recorder under the lion’s claw table leg support. Carefully I positioned it close to his mouth.
He stopped talking. His head rolled to the side, and he let out a snore.
Chapter 27
The highest recorded dealer tip in Las Vegas was $120,000 out of a $2 million pot.
I LEFT GOLLUM sprawled on the armchair, head lolling, drunken snores erupting from his mouth. I paused a moment to look back at him fondly.
Seemed like I was always postponing things with Gollum. Always the press of time on our missions when our emotions surged to the surface. On a normal day we walked politely around each other, careful not to tread on each other’s toes or turf.
With the digital recorder in hand, I sought the bartender in the quiet bar on the opposite side of the lobby from the lounge. He looked up from polishing the bar as I entered.
Only one patron here at this late hour. The noise from the casino had dulled but kept going. With its convention-oriented customer base, this hotel did slow down in the wee small hours of the morning, unlike the bigger hotels closer to the Strip.
“I’m just going off shift, ma’am. My replacement will serve you in a moment.” He looked tired, as if his night had been as long and fraught with emergencies as mine.
“Actually, I need to talk to you.”
His eyebrows perked up, and he lost some of the look of fatigue.
“You said the other night that only local Native Americans venture into the Valley of Fire at night when they are on vision quest . . .”
“Yes,” he replied slowly. A wall grew up between us, almost visible in the way his face lost all animation and his gaze found other places to rest away from me.
“I’
m guessing you are at least part Native American.”
He nodded.
“Do you speak or understand any of the local dialects?”
The relief bartender sidled into place beside him. “What can I get you ma’am?” she asked politely.
“We’re just leaving. Together,” my bartender said. He stashed his polishing towel and slid beneath a bar that blocked an opening between patrons and servers. “I’m not fluent. But I can at least recognize if it’s Modoc or Paiute.”
“Can you listen to a recording? It may be a local dialect or possibly something older.” I held up the digital gadget.
He took it from me as he led me to a bench seat behind a potted palm in the lobby. “I’m not supposed to fraternize with customers, so let’s keep this short and discreet.” He looked around, barely acknowledging the sleepy desk clerks.
He turned on the recorder. Gollum’s voice came out sounding strangely soft and lilting.
“I’m missing part of it,” my bartender shook his head. Then he listened again.
“Please. This could be very important.”
“It’s very old. The language my great-grandfather used when he told the ancient legends of my people. He was the last full-blooded Paiute in my family.”
“Do you recognize it?”
“Yeah. Even with the missing part in the middle.”
I waited expectantly.
“You aren’t a member of the tribe. You have no right to be in the places where you might have heard this.”
“Believe me. I came by it legitimately. It’s important.”
“I’m guessing you aren’t the normal Las Vegas tourist out for a weekend of fun and games.”
“No, I’m not. I have connections in places you would not believe. Spiritual places.” Dared I say more?
He nodded. “I won’t give you my name, and I won’t ask yours. This is between Warriors, though I’ve never met your kind before.”
I nodded agreement. “I’ll not repeat this to anyone who doesn’t absolutely have to know in order to save their lives.”