“I’m Marcus, by the way—goodness!” he exclaimed, glancing at me over a shoulder. “You look absolutely hideous.”
“Huh?” I was still struggling to work out who the man was and what he wanted.
“I have him, but he needs work. Can you hold them off for another ten.” I realized Marcus was talking into his headset. He let out a dramatic sigh. “I need to work on him, Dwayne. He’s an utter disaster.”
I pulled against him. “Look, this is where we’re going to have to part ways.”
Marcus pushed me into a brightly lit room and looked me up and down. “Wrong hair, wrong fashion, wrong, wrong, wrong!”
He stamped a foot for emphasis, making me jump back. I bumped into something at thigh level and lost my balance. A padded chair caught me. Marcus swiveled the chair until I was staring at a dressing-room mirror. He frowned studiously over my right shoulder as he turned the chair each way and then began finger-teasing the hair on the sides of my head.
“Ugh. I can’t work with this,” he decided.
Before I could stand from the chair, it collapsed backwards and I was looking at the ceiling. Warm water gushed against my brow. In the next moment, Marcus was massaging cold conditioner into my hair. “I want elegant for you,” he said, “with a touch of rakish, a touch of … le mystérieux.”
I struggled from Marcus’s fingers and threw myself over the side of the chair. I landed on my hands and knees, sputtering as conditioner streamed down my face and into my eyes. Someone jerked my cane away, and a pair of hands seized me roughly by the arms. I was lifted into the air and slammed into the chair with enough force to relocate my left shoulder.
“Stay put until he’s done,” a gruff voice ordered.
I squinted my stinging eyes open to find Flint and Evan standing in the doorway, wearing pissed-off expressions. But they weren’t coming at me. I looked from their earpieces to Marcus’s headset. Was this who they’d been trying to deliver me to?
Marcus sighed as fresh water showered over my face and hair. “Are all wizards this difficult?”
With the werewolves standing guard, my cane in their possession and my casting prism offline, I had no choice but to let Marcus complete his work—to what purpose, I still had no idea.
Following a quick washing, Marcus scrubbed my hair with a towel and used a brush and blow dryer to give it a feathered look. He moved to makeup next, smearing a base layer over my face. He then came at me with various stencils, brushes, and lip glosses—“Or else the lights will reduce you to a corpse,” he said. Rather than explain further, he talked into his headset in emotional bursts, demanding a few more minutes from this Dwayne.
“There,” he said at last, standing out of my view of the mirror.
I hardly recognized the face staring back at me. “What in the hell?”
“Don’t touch it!” Marcus squealed, swatting my hand down.
I pursed my lips to make sure the copper-colored reflection was mine. In addition to the fake tan, Marcus had drawn over my eyebrows, making them more ornate, adding little curls to the ends. The harsh rouge along my cheekbones complemented the bright red of my lips.
“There’s nothing elegant or mysterious about this,” I said, searching around for something to wipe it off with. “I look fucking ridiculous.”
Marcus nodded at Flint and Evan, and they pulled me from the chair. Marcus reappeared with a black cape. “Here,” he said, fastening it around my neck. “There’s no time to change you out of that shirt, so keep the cape closed. Oh, and let’s get this on you.” He turned and reappeared with a leather hat with a huge brim and tall bulbous crown, which he set atop my head.
“Now you look the part,” he said.
“For the hundredth time, what’s this for?” I demanded.
Marcus tilted the hat slightly. “He’s ready,” he said into his headset.
Flint and Evan escorted me from the dressing room and up a short flight of steps to a door. Flint knocked, and another man with a headset answered—Dwayne, I presumed.
“Great, thanks, guys,” he whispered to the wolves.
The wolves slammed the cane against my chest and shoved me into the dark room after Dwayne.
“Don’t worry,” Dwayne said in a breathless voice, “you’re not going to have to speak. After your introduction, you’re to stand behind the mayor, a bit to his right. We’ve marked the spot with tape. Try to affect a mysterious look. Better yet, brooding. They’ll eat that up.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Ooh! They’re ready for you.”
Dwayne led me around a corner until we were peering out onto a small stage from the side. The mayor, who stood at the podium where he gave press conferences, glanced over at us.
“And here he is, ladies and gentlemen,” Budge announced. “The man—or rather, wizard—of the hour, Everson Croft!”
Oh, hell no.
I tried to turn around, but Dwayne blocked me and pushed me out onto the stage. I emerged into the packed press room to a detonation of camera flashes and shouted questions. Budge seized my hand and pumped vigorously. “Thanks for coming,” he whispered. The handshake went on for several seconds as he smiled toward the cameras. He finally released me, nodding toward the X taped on the floor behind him. Stunned by the sudden attention, I dutifully took up my position and faced the press in my makeup and hat.
“Mr. Croft!” a reporter shouted. “Where did you learn your magic?”
“I, ah…”
“C’mon, guys,” Budge answered for me. “You know a good magician never reveals his secrets.”
“How powerful are you?” someone else shouted.
Budge laughed. “What do you think? I went out and found some weakling wizard? He’s the most powerful in New York. And he’s working for me and my administration.”
I grimaced at the lie—I may not even have been the most powerful on my block—but I saw what Budge was doing. He was fanning the positive interest in me in order to claim the glow for himself.
“Can you give us a demonstration?” another reporter asked.
An excited chorus of “yeah”s followed.
“No, no,” Budge said, waving his hands, “there’ll be none of that. Everson needs to conserve his power for the next phase of the eradication program. And if you thought the ghouls were something, wait till you see what’s coming up.”
“If he’s so powerful,” a female reporter cut in, “what’s to stop him from turning on the city?” I saw the anxiety in the young woman’s eyes—exactly why I kept a low profile. The mood of the assembly seemed to pivot as several reporters around her nodded.
I watched the mayor for his response.
“Look, I’ve known Everson a long time,” he lied. “Besides being a potent wizard, he’s a man of integrity. A man of morals. And hey, he’s a fellow New Yorker. We have a mutual interest in protecting the city that raised us.”
“But there has to be some constraints on him,” the reporter pressed.
“Well, sure,” Budge said, sweeping an arm out. “All of you. If I’ve learned anything in my years of public service, it’s that the press can lift the lowliest to the heavens and drop the mightiest into the gutter. If Everson gets out of line, why, just crack him with a column or two. That’ll straighten him up.”
Relieved laughter broke around a fresh burst of questions. But when Budge turned enough for me to see his face, there was no humor in his eyes.
15
“Thanks for being such a good sport,” Budge said, settling behind his office desk. “Can I get you anything?”
“How about some makeup remover?” I grumbled.
I dropped the hat and balled-up cape onto a coffee table and sagged into a deep leather chair across from him. The press conference had gone on for another thirty minutes. Thirty interminable minutes in which I’d stood there, a stage prop, while Budge rattled off superlatives about his program.
It only strengthened my determination to resign.
“You wanted to talk?
” Budge pulled out his smartphone and began thumbing through the messages.
“I’m out,” I said.
“Hm?” He raised his eyebrows without looking up.
“I’m resigning from the program.”
The mayor’s eyes joined his brows. “Resigning? What are you talking about?”
“I asked for discretion. That was one of the conditions for my participation. You nodded and said, ‘Mum’s the word.’ Do you remember that? Well, mum apparently left the building and got run over by a truck.”
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Budge said, showing his hands. “I got a little enthusiastic.”
“A little enthusiastic? You outed me to every major news network in the metropolitan area. And what was that little stage production just now?”
“I was trying to take the pressure off you.”
“By making me a Broadway extra?”
Budge set his forearms on the desk. “Look, I should’ve warned you I was bringing in the news crews yesterday. And, yeah, things got a little dicey there with the ghouls getting out and all—but listen to me. Capturing that final battle on film? You can’t pay for coverage like that. And it’s exactly what New Yorkers need to see—that there are monsters out there, and we’re fighting ’em. Did you catch today’s poll numbers? I jumped four points overnight. Four points! The race is a dead heat.” He laughed in disbelief.
“Good, so you don’t need me anymore.”
“Don’t need you?” His mouth straightened. “You’re the face of this thing.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You heard the press out there—they love you.”
“Right, and that’s the whole point,” I said. “I don’t want the attention.”
“What about our deal?”
He was referring to the protection from Penny, should she awaken. But as I looked on Budge’s wavering brown eyes, I knew I’d been kidding myself. The man didn’t wield that kind of power. Penny would have her retribution whether I helped the mayor win or not.
“I’ll take my chances,” I said.
“Well, gosh.” Budge sat back. “I’d hate to think what would happen if the press decided you weren’t working in the public’s best interest, that you were dangerous.”
Heat prickled over my face. “Is that a threat?”
“Hey, I just know reporters. They’re a bunch of jackals. You stop giving them what they want, and pretty soon they start digging for the bad stuff. Past arrests. Shady associations…”
The son of a bitch was threatening me. He was saying that if I didn’t remain on board, he would make sure the press knew about my indiscretions, including my arrest for murder two years earlier. And as went the press, so would go public opinion. Fear and anger stormed inside me.
“Well, maybe they’ll learn some interesting things about the mayor’s office, too,” I said through gritted teeth. “Such as Penny’s true nature.”
Budge shrugged. “It’ll be your word against ours. And my wife can’t very well speak for herself.” He nodded past me. I turned my head and observed a back wall heaped with floral baskets and bouquets. “Those arrived today. All for Penny. The volume’s down from the spring, but we still can’t get them to the Dumpster fast enough. That Caroline is brilliant. Too bad you let her slip away.”
“Caroline?” I said in confusion. “What does she have to do with this?”
“You didn’t know?” he said, sweeping hair from his glasses. “She’s been advising me.”
“Advising you?”
“Yeah, ever since Penny’s hospitalization.”
That explained what she’d been doing at City Hall, what she had meant by You came. I knew she had been negotiating with the mayor for the fae’s access to the portal in lower Manhattan, but advising him? I looked back at the pile of flowers and weighed the mayor’s remark.
“Wait,” I said, “the sympathy campaign was her idea?”
“And it’s worked like a charm,” Budge said. “She came up with the eradication program, too.”
“The eradication program?” I stood and paced a circle around the chairs in front of his desk. The revelations were coming in too hard, too fast. By my second circuit, I started molding them into something sensible. The fae kingdoms Caroline served were anxious to maintain control over the lower portal. If Budge’s opponent in the mayoral race, Abby Azonka, couldn’t or wouldn’t cotton to the idea, the fae had to ensure Budge’s reelection. Whoever advised him would need an expertise in New York politics as well as a strong connection to the mayor’s office—Caroline offered both, the second through her father, one of the mayor’s attorneys.
In essence, she was the reason the information Vega and I once wielded over the mayor’s office was no longer effective. “Was hiring me as a consultant also Caroline’s idea?” I asked bitterly.
“She was against it, actually,” Budge said. “Didn’t say why, though.”
I gave a begrudging nod, remembering her warnings, including her most recent one about seeing a lot more than I could. I assumed she’d been referring to her fae powers, but now I wondered. As advisor to the mayor, had she already worked out the contingencies? Seen a looming threat?
“So why did you come looking for me?” I asked.
“I went to that detective first. What’s her name?” He circled a hand. “The one who was with you when you visited my mansion in the spring?”
“Vega?”
He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, I was told Vega ran a supernatural unit in Homicide. She was the one who insisted you be brought in.”
I stopped pacing. Why in the hell would Vega want me involved in the eradication program? I remembered the dismissive way she’d dealt with me at the crime scene, the bitter look she’d given me in the auditorium.
“Did she say why?” I asked.
“Well, she said she’d help out however she could, but for the scale of the operations we were talking, we really needed someone of your caliber. You know, a magic-user who understood the threats, knew the monsters’ weaknesses, how best to go after them, so on and so forth.”
So Vega was the one who had told the mayor about my work.
“But to tell you the truth,” he continued, “I think she just wanted to make sure you got the same deal.”
“What deal?”
“Extra protection in the event someone woke up.” He laced his fingers behind his neck and grinned, evidently pleased at how the conversation had come full circle. “Funny how you asked the same for Vega.”
I sat down again, my head starting to throb.
“Look at it this way,” Budge said, buddy-buddy again. “You’ve got one friend who came up with the idea for the eradication program and another who insisted on you being a part of it. Both of them are drop-dead gorgeous to boot,” he added with a laugh. “How can you say no to that?”
“Just shut up for a minute,” I said.
I massaged my closed eyes. I had to think, but the only thing striking through was Budge’s threat to use the media to turn public opinion against me. And with the city’s growing bloodlust for nasty supernaturals, I’d be a walking target. Unless, of course, I aligned with Arnaud or took up Caroline’s offer to hide in her world. Both nonstarters.
“Fine,” I said, opening my eyes. “I’ll stay in the program.”
At least until I can figure out something else, I thought.
“You’re making the right decision.”
“But on one condition,” I added.
“What’s that?”
I picked up the cape from the coffee table and wiped my brow, smearing copper makeup over the fabric. I moved on to my nose, cheeks, and finally my lips and jaw before tossing the soiled cape onto the mayor’s desk.
“Keep me out of your damned press conferences.”
16
“When in Diablo’s name is someone coming to fix the air conditioner?” Tabitha asked, sauntering into my lab and hopping onto the table.
> “We’re still on the waiting list,” I answered distractedly, motioning for her to move away from the casting circle. I squinted at the circle from another angle and added more silver filings to the far side.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” she said.
I had returned to the apartment, relieved to find Tabitha fast asleep in front of the box fan, her belly swollen from the tuna steak lunch I’d set out for her earlier. Now I regretted not spiking her lunch with Xanax.
“If not this weekend then next, all right?” I said with a sigh. “The brownout fried a ton of AC systems in the neighborhood. Now can you leave me alone? I have something important to do.”
Tabitha made a dramatic noise and plopped down at the end of the table. Shed hair blew off in tufts around her. “Have you given any more thought to Caroline’s offer?”
“No,” I said thinly, picking strands of orange hair from the casting circle.
“Just think. We could be in that wonderful realm right now instead of melting in this hell hole.”
I ignored her, my eyes moving between the casting circle and an illustration in the book I’d propped open. The book was a crumbling tome that protected a caster against powerful demonic attacks. Not knowing the origin of the sulfurous residue Hoffman had given me, I couldn’t afford to take any chances. The casting circle featured two concentric circles with extra sigils of protection. I stooped and fixed a blemish in the outer circle.
Tabitha made a scoffing sound. “Men and their wounded egos.”
She was still talking about Caroline. I bristled. “This doesn’t have anything to do with my ego.”
“Ooh. Touchy, touchy.”
“Just let it go,” I said. “I need to concentrate.”
“You saw her today, didn’t you?”
I glanced over, in spite of myself. “What makes you say that?”
“I know that hot and bothered look.”
“I saw her briefly,” I admitted, hoping that would be enough to satisfy Tabitha. I should have known better.
“I told you she’s trying to get up close and personal.”
“It was a chance encounter outside City Hall,” I said. “She was leaving a meeting with the mayor as I was arriving.”
Purge City (Prof Croft Book 3) Page 10