“I guess this is when I admit that you were right and I was wrong,” I said.
He smiled. “If you’d like. I won’t hold it against you.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
Rick tipped back his head, for all the world like a wolf scenting the air. “I’d better get going. It’ll be morning soon. I want to make sure Roman’s really leaving town.”
“Even if he doesn’t have a place to bed down for the day?”
“He’s lasted this long, he’ll find a way. I used to dig myself a hole and wrap up in a blanket when I was caught in the open. Not very dignified, but it works.”
I shook my head, trying to wrap my mind around the image. Urbane Rick, wrapped in a blanket in a hole in the ground? That was another story I’d have to dig out of him.
I looked back to where Roman had walked away, as if expecting him to return with an army of centurions.
“I’m not important enough for a vampire like that to pay attention to,” I murmured. My skin was chilled, and I hugged myself to try to get warm.
“Kitty,” Rick said, a smile hiding in his voice. “There’s a pattern here, and in the middle of it all is you. You draw people to you. Things happen around you.”
“I’m danger prone, you mean.”
“You’re just one of those people.”
“What people? What are you talking about?”
He just shook his head, his smile lingering. “Take care, Kitty.”
He offered his hand. After a moment of hesitation, I decided to accept, and we shook. Partners. He walked off in the opposite direction Roman had gone.
Reality slowly crept back, we started to get on with our lives. Gary went to the van to consult with his camera crew. Hardin, with her cops and fire fighters, continued cleaning up the aftermath. Jules walked around the outside of the house, studying details, looking for who knew what in his quest for science. Tina sat on the steps, cradling the bottled djinn, refusing to let it out of her sight.
Ben put his arm around my shoulders. “I need to sleep,” he said. And yes, he sounded sleep deprived and grouchy. His eyes were shadowed, his skin pale. “Are we done here?”
“I don’t know.” We all had a posttraumatic dazed look. But none of us, even Ben, despite what he’d said, looked like we were ready for sleep. “I’m kind of antsy.” But not to run. It wasn’t anywhere near the full moon, and I didn’t want to Change, however much Wolf nagged me. But I wanted to do something.
Ben raised a brow and looked at me. “Really?”
“Yeah. We just saved the city, you know.”
He rolled his eyes. Not impressed, apparently.
I called to the others, “Anyone want to go grab a cup of coffee?”
“Are there any all-night diners around here?” Jules said.
“Hell, yeah. Detective? You up for it?” I said.
“Only if you tell me what the hell’s been going on.”
“Deal.”
Ben, still skeptical, said, “You think this is what the Justice League does after saving the city? They go out for coffee?”
“I don’t care what the Justice League does,” I said, hooking my arm around his. “This is what werewolves and paranormal investigators and police detectives do.”
“Whatever you say, dear.”
“I need to call Shaun and everyone,” I said. “Tell them they can stop using that gunk.”
“How well does that stuff clean up, anyway?”
I was afraid the answer to that wouldn’t be good.
Then my phone rang. A call at this hour of night couldn’t be good. I pulled it out of my pocket, answered it, and started pacing. “Yeah?”
“Kitty, it’s Peter,” he said breathlessly, like he’d been running. I heard the electronic jangle and mayhem of a Las Vegas casino in the background. “We found it, we figured it out.”
I clutched the phone tighter. “Peter! Oh my God, are you okay? What’s going on? What’s happening? Where’s Grant?”
“Grant’s with me, I found him, he’s got the solution!”
“The solution—” But we’d already caught the djinn. I almost didn’t have the heart to tell him. “Peter, a lot’s happened here since you left. Can I talk to Grant?”
“Sure, here he is.” I heard shifting noises as he passed the phone over.
“Kitty,” said a cool, unflappable voice. “I’ve discovered how they did it. How the Band of Tiamat summoned what’s been attacking you.”
“Grant, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you, the box office said you canceled your show—”
“I ran into a bit of trouble.”
And I wouldn’t get anything more out of him than that.
“That vampire priestess, I put her at about twelve hundred, tops.” Which still made her damn scary—but not as scary as Roman. “She really did start as the priestess of a remnant of a Babylonian cult dedicated to Tiamat, but her real knowledge is in another area of magic entirely, drawn from Arabic lore. The demon she sent after you is a djinn.”
He sounded so enthusiastic and pleased with himself—rather, as enthusiastic as he ever got, which meant his voice had a little more of a lilt to it. “Grant, I know—”
“She used several strands of your hair to work the spell and bind the demon to you. Like setting a dog on a scent. I imagine she acquired stray strands of your hair from when you were tied to her altar.”
Or when I was sprawled out in the decadent, pillow-strewn lair of the Band of Tiamat’s hotel suite, practically in their leader Balthasar’s arms. All they’d have had to do was pick my blond hairs off the upholstery. But nobody had to know about that part, did they?
“It wasn’t easy, but I destroyed the amulet of your hair.”
This might explain the little adventure he’d been having the last couple of days. The priestess probably kept that amulet very well protected, deep in her lair. Grant would have needed all his talents to accomplish the task and get out of any resulting trouble. He may even have needed Peter’s help. “The djinn is no longer bound to you. It should return to its own realm now,” he finished.
Oops. I winced. Was he saying we hadn’t needed to go through all that ritual? Surely his solution couldn’t be that simple. I’d have to work out the timing—surely he didn’t just destroy the amulet, at the same time we were working our spell. Surely he’d done it a while—an hour or more—before. Which meant the djinn was still coming after me. Which meant we really had needed to trap it.
“Grant?” I began apologetically. “We know. We bottled the thing, actually. We went ahead and worked out this plan to trap it. And, well, it worked.”
He hesitated, then said, “Did you say you bottled the djinn?”
“Yeah. That protection spell you gave me worked really well, and we were able to use it to trap the djinn. And Tina—did Peter tell you about Paradox PI? Anyway, Tina and Jules figured out this spell. They did it by burning my hair—I guess it’s the same principle, they just used some that was a little fresher. We’ve got it sitting here in a bottle right now. I think. It’s hard to tell. If we shake it or something, will it rattle?”
“We’re so not shaking this thing,” Tina said. She was still on the porch, cradling the bottle, like she was afraid to move.
I waited through another long pause. He said, “Hmm. I see. Interesting.”
“Are you angry?” I said.
“Of course not. I think I’m impressed. I’ll want to talk to your Paradox PI friends, find out exactly what they did.”
“I think they’ll be fine with that,” I said.
“And Kitty? Take very, very good care of that bottle. It’s secured? Sealed tightly?”
“I think so.”
“This isn’t over yet—the vampire priestess is still at large, and as long as the cult remains intact, they’re a danger, but I have an idea. Can you bring the djinn here to Vegas? We can dispose of it and its mistress at the same time.”
I’d fly to Vegas on a red-eye for a chan
ce to see that.
“I’ll get there as soon as I can. And Grant—thank you. Thanks for sticking your neck out.”
He said, “I’m duty bound to help. And we’re not finished yet.”
“Yeah. I’ll call you when I’m in Vegas. Don’t get in any trouble until I get there!”
We clicked off.
Ben gave me a dark, suspicious look. “For a minute there, it sounded like you’re going back to Vegas to face down the cult.”
I winced. “Yeah. I’m going to take that thing to Grant. He has a plan to get rid of it for good.” Ben wasn’t going to like the idea. I knew he wasn’t going to like it. We were going to have another fight, weren’t we?
He took his phone from his pocket and made a call. I stared, confused, wondering who he was calling—divorce lawyer? I couldn’t get the question out.
He twitched a smile at my expression, which must have been dumbstruck. “I’m seeing how early we can get a flight.”
“We?”
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
So, we were headed back to Vegas.
Chapter 23
Within a couple of hours, we stood in line at security at Denver International Airport, waiting to catch the morning’s first flight to Vegas. We didn’t even pack. I had a backpack, Ben didn’t have anything. I carried the bottled djinn in my arms. Tina and I had packed it in a box, padded the hell out of it, wrapped the box with duct tape, packed the box in another box, padded it some more, wrapped more duct tape around it. We weren’t taking any chances.
I didn’t want to let the box go to put it on the conveyor belt. What if the X-ray machine supercharged it and let it escape? But I also couldn’t see myself explaining any of this to the nice TSA folks. So I let it go and held my breath. I passed through the metal detector without incident. So did Ben.
Then the guy at the X-ray machine said, “Ma’am? Does this box belong to you?”
Oh, no. Of all the obstacles we’d overcome, of all the world’s wickedness we’d faced, I hadn’t expected this.
I looked at the guy, round-faced and mustached, sagging in his early-shift fatigue. I smiled, cheerful and feigning ignorance. “Yes?”
The X-ray operator inched the conveyor forward, and the guy who’d addressed me picked up the box.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need to take a look in this box.”
No no no. I must have looked stricken. Ben leaned forward and whispered—without looking like he was leaning forward and whispering—“If you argue, they’ll get suspicious and put you in a holding room. Say ‘All right.’”
“Um . . . okay?” I said. My smile froze.
The TSA agent led us over to a stainless-steel table and took out a box cutter, no doubt confiscated from some other hapless traveler. And what was I going to do if he confiscated the ifrit? Did the TSA manual even cover something like this?
With great precision, he sliced through the duct tape around the box. Watching, I bounced in place a little. Ben was a picture of aggravating serenity. Maybe he had some lawyer-fu he could pull out at the last minute to avert disaster.
The TSA agent dug through the wadded-up newspaper and drew out the next box. Holding it, he eyed us, as if inviting us to share the great secret we were hiding. We didn’t oblige him.
“Fragile?” he said.
“Very,” I said.
He cut through the tape on the second box. I winced, thinking maybe it would explode. It didn’t. Ben wasn’t quite the picture of calm anymore; he clenched his hands behind his back. His courtroom face didn’t reveal anything. I would have to learn from his example, because I was fidgeting. I was this close to grabbing the box from the guy and running. But that would be so very bad. Down, girl.
Finally, the agent drew out the brown bottle. My hands were reaching for it.
“Is it liquid?” he asked. Holding up to the light, he peered at it.
“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing liquid, nothing dangerous at all. Just a perfectly harmless bottle.” Corked, sealed with wax, with another layer of duct tape wrapped over the wax for good measure. The agent studied the elaborate corking material with great suspicion. Not that I could blame him. But I so didn’t have time for this.
“Mind if I have a look inside this?”
I winced. Truth-or-consequences time. “Actually, I’d really rather you didn’t. I’ll never be able to get it closed up just right again.” And wasn’t that the truth? This guy had no idea. If I said there was an evil djinn locked inside, he’d probably call the police.
He gave me the talking-to-crazy-people look. “There doesn’t seem to be anything in here.” To make his point, he gave the bottle a shake. I wanted to scream at him not to do that. What if it pissed the djinn off? Pissed him off more, anyway.
“Please. It shouldn’t be opened. It’s sealed like that for a reason.”
“Why? It’s not radioactive, is it?”
“It, uh, has the breath of Elvis inside?”
The expression on his face changed, subtly. The lines around his eyes grew softer, the hard edges of his frown vanished. It was a shift from a “dealing with crazy people” look to a “dealing with crazy but harmless people” look.
I’d take that.
He put the bottle in the little box, the little box in the big box, not bothering to arrange the packing or reseal the tape. He handed the box back to me, with crushed newspaper spilling out the top. “You folks have a nice flight.”
“Thank you,” I said around gritted teeth. Quickly, we retreated. I didn’t even pause to rearrange the packing. Time enough to do that while we waited to board—which was in about ten minutes, thanks to Mr. Vigilant.
“So,” Ben said. “That went well.”
I glared at him.
It was near dawn when Peter met us at Las Vegas’s McCarran Airport in Grant’s car. He seemed to be in a rush. Excited, at least. Positively gleeful, like a plan was coming together. We climbed into the car’s backseat.
“Is that it?” He nodded at the box.
“Yeah,” I said. “So what’s the plan? What’s Grant cooking up?”
Grinning, he shook his head. “I think Odysseus Grant is the freakiest guy I’ve ever met. He’s so cool.”
I glared. “You’re having way too much fun, Peter. What’s going on?”
“Grant said to tell you to just be ready with the jar.”
I hated all this man-of-mystery crap.
Even at this hour, Las Vegas was overstimulating. The Strip, the main street, home to all the mega hotel resorts and most of the crowds, was all lights, bleached slightly by the first hint of the rising sun. I had to squint against the glare. It was like a giant parade that had stalled out in the desert.
We turned a corner, crossed the Strip, and continued toward a great concrete ziggurat.
Ben groaned. “We’re not going where I think we’re going.”
But yes, we were. The Hanging Gardens Hotel and Resort, home of the Balthasar, King of Beasts Show, now fronted by Nick, since were-lion Balthasar died in a blaze of silver-bulleted gunfire. Right before he tried to sacrifice me on his unholy fake altar. We were heading toward where this whole sleigh ride started.
Peter pulled into the drive and handed the keys to the valet parking guy. He barely broke stride while collecting his ticket, turning to us, and saying, “We need to hurry.”
“But what are we doing?”
“You’ll see.”
I held the box under one arm, and held Ben’s arm with the other, as we followed Peter. He walked briskly, almost jogging through the lobby and past the tourists and gamblers and noise. I was so focused I barely registered the area. I was in hunting mode, and the prey was in sight.
Peter led us to the King of Beasts theater, then to a side door. It was unlocked. We went in, and before us was the stage, just as it looked at the end of the show: torches, palm trees, vegetation dripping off the backdrop of a giant fake ziggurat, like we’d landed in some lost jungle temple. I’d seen
the show—way up close. It was on this stage and setting that the cult of Tiamat had tried to kill me.
Now Odysseus Grant stood downstage center, next to a six-and-a-half-foot-high coffinlike box, painted black and covered with faded decorations, vines and flowers, arcane symbols. Part of his magic show, he put people inside and made them disappear. He always brought them back—during the show, at least.
I knew better than to ask how he’d managed to get the box here from his own theater at the Diablo Hotel, at least a mile away. Grant just did things.
Ben hadn’t seen any of this. He’d just heard the aftermath stories. He stopped halfway down the aisle and stared at the setting, agog.
“When I said this was fucked up, that was an understatement,” he said.
“Is that it?” Grant said to me, marching to the edge of the stage, reaching toward me. I fished the jar out of the box and handed it to him.
He held it up to the light, turning it, as if he could see through the mostly opaque glass. As if he could see anything inside. For all I knew, the ifrit had simply vanished and the jar was empty. Except for the way Tina had stared at it, and how carefully she handled it.
“Extraordinary,” Grant said softly. When he glanced at us, he was actually smiling. “Do you know what you’ve done here?”
I shrugged. “We weren’t trying to do anything fancy. I just wanted to keep my city safe.”
Peter had lingered by the theater door, and now slammed it shut. “They’re coming.”
“Get out of sight,” Grant said to us. We didn’t argue. Not that it would help; we were facing a vampire and a pack of lycanthropes. They’d be able to smell us. Peter waved us over to the far edge of the stage, where we could hide in the wings, at least for a little while. This was going to come down to the face-to-face battle I’d been hoping to avoid.
I whispered to Peter, “This is going to get ugly. You should get out of here, okay? I don’t want you to get tossed around or bitten.”
“Shh.” He didn’t promise. I decided that my first priority was going to have to be looking after him. Might not be the best policy. But I owed it to him—and his brother.
Kitty Raises Hell Page 24