Nonetheless, she took a table as instructed. A greasy menu stuck into one of those metal holders informed her that the buffet was $3.95, and All-U-Can-Eat (which, judging by the food, would be exactly none). But she was supposed to buy something and pick at it while she waited to attract someone’s attention.
Two little old ladies with hair as blue as the air sat two tables down, waving cigarettes as they spoke to each other. A few more tables away, an elderly man ate scrambled eggs covered in ketchup. The only person near Megan’s age was an obese young man who hunched over a cup of coffee as if he didn’t have a dime to his name.
She got up, grabbed a chipped white plate off the stack, and proceeded to fill it up with beet salad, tuna casserole, and old-fashioned macaroni and cheese, the only things on the buffet that looked halfway agreeable.
The dessert section had JELL-O filled with lime slices, which she believed was indestructible, and chocolate pudding which she would have thought was indestructible, until she saw the thick skins on the surface.
Still, she took one JELL-O and one pudding, poured a cup of coffee from the pot, and headed back to her table. A keno runner (invisible, apparently) had left a keno card next to her napkin, but other than that, Megan had seen no sign of any other employees, who Zoe had assured her were all Faeries.
Was Zoe wrong? Someone had mentioned that things changed hourly in Faerie. Maybe they didn’t own this place any more.
Megan slipped into her chair, looked at the unappetizing food, and hoped Rob was all right.
She hadn’t been told exactly what his part of the plan was—in case she was “compromised” (whatever that meant [and she certainly didn’t want to speculate])—so she had no idea what he was doing.
Except going for the wheel.
With the help of her accountant brother and the big, sensitive man known as Little John.
Thirty-six
The fact that the main entrance to Faerie was near the Mirage seemed appropriate to Rob. Faeries probably liked the irony: they had to create a mirage to hide the entrance.
What surprised him was how close the entrance was to that fake volcano that pretended to spew lava every half hour. The entrance was right near the volcano’s base, which took some work getting to, because the Mirage’s security was pretty tight.
Travers was surprised that the entrance had been moved. Apparently, the night before, the entrance had been several yards away in a concrete block of the sidewalk.
But the Faeries were well known for moving the entrance to their little hideaway, and since they figured out that Zoe had been in Faerie uninvited, they probably changed all the entrances.
This one was still surprisingly close to where it had been before.
John had wanted to use an invisibility spell to get them near the volcano’s base, but Rob wouldn’t let him. Mage magic was like a beacon to the Faeries, and using it this close could alert them to something going on.
So Rob and his team did it the old-fashioned way: they snuck behind tourists and guards, and crawled part of the distance on their bellies.
It felt the good old days.
Rob loved that.
John lifted part of the fake lava rock to reveal a hole the size of the door to Rob’s office. The entrance to Faerie beckoned.
“If you’re going to back out,” Rob whispered to the other two, “the time is now.”
John grinned at him, revealing startling white teeth. Rob wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to his friend looking like a troll on stilts. “I’m in.”
“I’m an old hand at this,” Travers said, and Rob would have believed him if it weren’t for the tremor in his voice.
“All right,” Rob said. “John first, Travers second, and I’ll bring up the rear.”
John slipped into the door feet first and waved as he disappeared. Travers took a deep breath, like a man about to dive into an ocean, and then slide in behind John.
Rob made sure no one was watching, grabbed the edge of the fake lava rock, and pulled it closed as he went through the door. There was a small slide that just ended.
He found himself in midair, free-falling in the darkness.
He couldn’t hear anything except his own breathing.
Somehow this no longer seemed like a good idea.
He resisted the urge to make a fist, casting some light. He let himself fall, through air that got progressively cooler. It smelled of earth and damp—oddly enough, given this was the desert—and mold, and he worried suddenly that he wasn’t falling down, he was falling over into some other part of Faerie, some part nowhere near Las Vegas.
Then he heard voices, all of them speaking Faerie, and the cling-cling of slot machines, and a strange glow appeared at his feet. It took him a moment to realize the glow was neon.
The air got drier and stank of cigarettes.
Then he fell into the light, landing on a silver net and tumbling off in the middle of a casino floor.
John and Travers already stood to one side, looking very nervous. They were both too tall to be in Faerie—by nearly two feet—and Travers was blond.
A Faerie woman put her hands on Travers’ chest. “Nice to see you again, big boy.”
John’s already upswept eyebrows went up. Rob picked himself off the floor, amazed he hadn’t had the wind knocked out of him or felt bruised from the fall.
“Playing with the mortals for a second night in a row?” she asked Travers.
He gave her a nervous smile and said, “Is it that obvious?”
She rubbed his hair. “I like you blond. I don’t think I’d recognize you with dark hair.”
Then she grinned at John.
He gave her a startled look back.
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced,” she said in a seductive tone.
“And I don’t see any point, since you’ve already claimed my friend there,” John said, sounding as nervous as Travers.
Rob stood and brushed himself off. No one seemed to notice him. Of course, he was the only one of the three short enough to fit into Faerie. He looked like countless other Faerie men standing around the machines.
And that was the problem. There were countless Faeries all over this section of the makeshift casino.
Shouldn’t they have been gone by now? Megan had gone to the Faerie casino on Boulder Highway, hadn’t she?
He would have sworn that her presence would have attracted them.
If he was wrong, then this plan wasn’t going to work.
If he was wrong, they have just placed themselves in serious danger.
If he was wrong, everything was going to fail.
Thirty-seven
The hotel suite looked like something out of an X-Men movie. Kyle sat in a big leather chair—the kind that Professor X would use, only cooler—and Zoe sat a few feet away. She had ordered complete quiet, mostly so that the Fates, who were on the other side of the room, wouldn’t distract everyone with their talking.
Zoe had cleared most of the furniture out of this bedroom in the suite, except for the chair (which she conjured out of somewhere) and the table in front of the Fates, and the big screen TV which showed a faint picture of the casino that Aunt Meg had gone into.
Zoe couldn’t use mage magic inside the casino—that would point out the plan to the Faeries—but she had installed real surveillance, like in the movies, on the outside. What they all saw was a real picture of the place from a little digital computer camera and a strategically placed computer not too far away.
Wireless. Like magic, Zoe said.
Kyle’s stomach was doing somersaults. Dad didn’t want him involved in this, but Zoe and the Fates promised he’d be all right.
He knew he would be, but everything rested on him—or at least, Aunt Megan’s safety did. He had to be calm and receptive to her thoughts even though he wouldn’t get the simple, everyday ones. Only the panicked scared ones, and only if she had any of those at all.
His mouth was dry. He hadn’t been this nervous
ever. At least that he could remember.
Fang waddled into the room, and jumped on Kyle’s lap, startling him. Kyle petted the heavy dog, glad for the company.
The Fates weren’t paying any attention to him. They were studying the Faerie map, which was spread out on the table before them. If there was some kind of problem with the wheel—and they didn’t expect it—they were to let Zoe know, not that anyone could do anything about it, at least that Kyle knew about. Because there wasn’t a backup for this part of the plan, unless Robin Hood had only told Zoe and her thoughts were blocking whatever it was, which Kyle hoped was the case, because he was really, really nervous….
“Kyle,” Zoe said softly, “I’m not an empath, and you’re making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” he said, and hugged Fang. Fang uttered a little squeak—a very undoglike noise—and struggled to get free. Kyle let the dog go.
He’d never been the center of a magical adventure before.
And he wasn’t really the center now. He was more like the fail-safe backup. In some ways, Aunt Megan was the center.
She had sure looked nervous on the camera as she walked into that ratty casino. But she didn’t have to do anything except sit there and look pretty, at least that’s what Rob had said, and he’d meant it too. He thought the Faeries would surround her like moths around really bright light.
So far, Kyle couldn’t tell if it was working. But he’d be able to tell if it went wrong. They’d tested it, and Aunt Megan had a pretty good mental shout, especially after Zoe enhanced his abilities to pick up over a distance.
Kyle swallowed against his dry throat. He’d have to trust everyone and hope this worked.
Because really, this whole thing was his fault. If he hadn’t insisted that Dad drive the Fates to Vegas, if he hadn’t introduced them to Aunt Megan, if he hadn’t goaded Robin Hood, then no one would be in Faerie right now.
But he had, and they were, and he was waiting.
He hated the waiting most of all.
Thirty-eight
Megan poked at the JELL-O, trying to get to the lime slices inside. The JELL-O jiggled, but its surface seemed impenetrable. She sighed and glanced around.
The blue-haired old ladies were still waving their cigarettes, the obese young man was at the buffet proper, filling his plate with the so-called food, and another elderly man peered into the service area, as if he were wondering whether or not he could sit down without a hostess escorting him.
But no Faeries. Was the thing about Faeries being drawn to empaths a myth—the kind not based in fact?
She didn’t even look at the roast beef, which she had gingerly taken a piece from, nor did she try to figure out whether or not the mashed potatoes were edible.
She did wonder whether the Faeries’ lack of time sense applied to how long food had been sitting under heating lamps, and then she shivered, trying to resist the urge to warn that poor young man away from his meal.
A door from the kitchen opened, and a small woman wearing spiked heels and a full-skirted cocktail dress backed her way out. As she turned, it became clear why she had to back out. She had a large tray braced against her stomach. Part of the tray was held in place by a strap around her neck.
She pasted a smile on her face and said, “Cigars? Cigarettes? Cigarillos?”
Megan gawked. A cigarette girl? She’d never seen one outside of the movies. She actually thought they were a Hollywood construct.
“Cigars?” the woman asked. “Cigarettes? Cigarillos?”
Her voice had a warmth to it that Megan hadn’t heard before. It almost shimmered with magic. Her hair was black and cut close, hiding her ears, but her features were delicate, like Zoe said Faerie-features were.
“Cigars?” The word just drifted off toward the end, and it wasn’t followed by cigarettes or cigarillos. Instead, the woman turned toward Megan and raised one painted eyebrow.
Megan froze in her chair, afraid to move, afraid she might do something that would break the moment.
The woman started toward her. The tray really did have cigar packages, cigarette packs, and long boxes of cigarillos. Also, candy cigarettes, and a small box filled with change.
Were they even charging twenty-first century prices for the cigarettes?
Then the woman unhooked the strap from around her neck. The strap slid to one side, and the tray fell to the floor, spilling cigarettes and cigarillos all over the threadbare carpet.
The blue-haired old ladies looked—not to see if the cigarette girl was all right—but to see if anyone would notice if they stole cigarettes.
The cigarette girl headed toward Megan, eyes glittering. The girl’s expression looked like something out of a zombie movie, which made Megan shudder.
The girl reached her side and touched Megan’s arm, ever so gingerly.
“Are you…?” she asked, but didn’t finish the sentence.
Megan had been instructed not to volunteer anything, no matter how much she wanted to.
“The emotion radiates off you,” the girl said, her voice filled with awe. “You’re not real, right?”
“I’m real,” Megan said.
The girl plucked at Megan’s shirt. Megan suddenly wished she had worn a suit or several leather jackets piled one on top of the other.
No one had told her this would involve touching. Or plucking. Or that glassy-eyed stare.
“Wow,” the girl said, ever so softly. “Wow.”
The kitchen door banged open, and a willowy man with a goatee and the same black hair as the girl peered out. “Brooke? Is something wrong? I heard the tray…”
And then he came out, a frown on his upswept features.
“What’s this?” he asked as he approached Megan.
The little old ladies had given up on discretion. They were grabbing cigarette packs and shoving them in purses the size of the Hindenburg.
The two Faeries didn’t seem to care.
“I thought you people were legends,” he said softly. “I never thought I’d see one of you in real life.”
This was real life? Megan preferred her own, even with the psychology practice that she was shutting down. Given her choice, she’d be back in her office at this moment, facing very wealthy, very screwed up, irate parents who had huge trouble accepting responsibility for any one of their actions.
The new Faerie plucked at the same sleeve the cigarette girl kept touching.
“Wow,” he said with just the same measure of awe. “Wow.”
“Chauncey!” a voice bellowed from the kitchen. “Hey, Chauncey, where in the six woods are you?”
The kitchen door opened a third time, and a squarely built man — similar upswept features, same black hair — came out. He was wearing a chef’s apron that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since…well, since time began.
“Hey, Chaunce…”
Then the familiar glazing began, and this guy got a goofy smile. The smile freaked Megan out more than the rest of it did.
She wished she had thought through her side of the plan better. She should have gotten a table in the center of the room, so that she had an open side, rather than a table against the wall, with nowhere for these freaky Faeries to go.
Others were coming in the main door, their eyes glazing as soon as they saw her. Or was it just because they were in her proximity?
She didn’t know, didn’t want to know. She did want to know if Faeries could be held back with lime JELL-O. Or with congealed roast beef.
She hadn’t taken enough burnt coffee, and it wasn’t hot enough to do real damage.
Zoe wanted her to stay here until the mission was over?
That would take all of Megan’s considerable strength. There were at least twenty Faeries in her vicinity, and more on the way.
The blue-haired old ladies were scurrying from the dining room. The obese kid set his food down and scurried after them. Only the elderly man continued to watch, as if he had never seen anything like it before.
; Well, Megan hadn’t either and she was part of it. And what was really creepy was they all repeated the same words, and then ended with “Wow,” like she was the Queen of England or Brad Pitt or something.
Maybe, in Faerie World, she was the equivalent of Brad Pitt. Or the Queen. If she had a choice, she’d be the Faerie equivalent of Julia Roberts.
Megan carefully set down her fork—she had been clutching it—and pushed her plates away. The Faeries were pressing against her table, but no one had taken the seat opposite her.
It was almost as if they were afraid to.
More and more came through the doors. This place was getting packed.
With the low ceilings, lack of fans, and no windows, there couldn’t be a lot of oxygen in this place.
Did Faeries breathe air?
Megan suddenly found herself hoping they didn’t.
Because if they did, they were going to use up all of hers.
She resisted the urge to look at her watch, but she sent a mental message, one she knew wouldn’t get through.
Hurry, Rob. Please. Just hurry.
Thirty-nine
The Faeries were leaving, marching away from their slot machines as if they’d received a message from an unseen god. Rob had never seen anything quite like it, and it unnerved him.
Even the Faerie who had her arms around Travers excused herself.
“This’s big,” she said. “You guys coming?”
“In a minute,” Travers said.
John crossed his arms, looking something like his old powerful self. The floor pulsed beneath Rob almost as if he were inside yet another machine.
All those warning movies he’d seen about the future—from Metropolis to Matrix—came to mind somehow. He never thought of Faerie as a place as soulless as the inside of a machine, but that’s how it felt.
“Okay,” Travers said as more and more Faeries moved away from them, heading to the exit. “Creepy.”
“No kidding,” John said.
Rob stared at a nearby slot. Lives rotated on it, not cherries. But in the middle of the machine he saw a faint map, and on it, a white glow.
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