Curse the Dawn

Chapter Eleven

A string of furious French was the response to my knock. "I 'ave until four!" I was informed through the door. "Go away!"

I tapped on the door again—carefully—because a powerful witch in a mood is not someone to take lightly. Especially when she knows as many archaic spells as this one. "Francoise—it's me."

The door flung open to reveal a really unhappy brunette. Her long hair was everywhere, her chic green and white sundress was streaked with dust and she had a bulging garbage bag in one hand. From the look of things, it contained most of her clothes.

"Cassie!" Her eyes widened and a second later I found myself enveloped in a bone-crushing hug. "I was so worried! I was afraid the Circle 'ad taken you to MAGIC!"

"They did."

"But. . 'ow did you escape? Zey say it was destroyed!"

"It's a long story." I glanced at the garbage bag. "I take it you've been evicted?"

The scowl returned."Casanova, 'e say zat ze Senate needs my room for one of zere servants. So I must go! Today!"

"There's a lot of that going around."

"I 'ad thought to ask if I might stay with you," she admitted.

"What a coincidence."

"Mais c'est impossible!

You are ze Pythia!"

"And the Consul likes a view."

Francoise said some uncharitable things about the Consul. Since they were in French—which I'm not supposed to speak—I didn't contradict her. It was also a fact that they were all true.

I flopped onto the bed. I'd only meant to sit down, but I swear the mattress was spelled. It just pulled me in. I tried to kick my shoes off, but mud had welded them to my feet. I decided I didn't care.

I lay there for a few minutes, listening to Francoise tear the room apart. "Any ideas?" I finally asked.

Francoise grimaced. "Randolph 'as an apartment."

"Randy?" I opened an eye to watch her flush slightly. "Tall, corn-fed, crew-cut blond with biceps like boulders? That Randy?"

"When 'e 'eard that ze employees 'ave to move, 'e called me."

I rolled over onto my stomach and propped my chin in my hand. "Did he?"

The flush became a blush. "'E 'as an extra room."

"Uh-huh." And I'm sure he meant for her to stay in it, too.

She sighed. "'E ees very 'andsome, non?"

"Yeah." If you liked the laid-back surfer boy type, Randy was the man. He was also a genuinely nice guy, for someone possessed by an incubus. "So what's the problem?"

Francoise shot me a look. "You know what ees ze problem!"

"He wouldn't feed off you," I assured her. For one thing, she'd curse him into next week.

"I know zat!" She filled another Hefty bag with the extra pillow and blanket from the closet, the bedside lamp and the hotel's iron. When she picked up the last, the cord fell out the back.

"Then what is it? And you need that long skinny black thing." She looked blank. "It makes it go," I added, and she nodded and went hunting under the bed.

Francoise had issues with modern equipment. «Modern» meaning anything invented after the seventeenth century. That's when she'd been born, and when she'd met a bunch of dark mages with an entrepreneurial streak.

The Fey would pay top dollar for attractive, fertile young witches who could help them with their population problem, but most of the likely candidates were either too well-guarded or too powerful to be taken easily. But the mages had caught Francoise at a vulnerable moment and quickly bundled her off to a slave auction in Faerie. She'd lived with the Fey for what had seemed like a few years, until seizing the chance to escape—only to discover on her return that four hundred years had passed in our world. The whole thing just left Rip van Winkle standing.

"Zees?" She held up the cord.

"That would be the one."

It went into the bag, along with a painting that she climbed up onto the bed to rip off the wall. "It ees zese ozzair women," she told me, tugging on the painting. "I tell him, I weel not be—what ees ze word? Many women with one man?"

"Harem."

"Oui. I weel not be a harem!" she said, and tugged really hard. The painting came off the wall, flew across the room and put a dent in the door. Francoise hopped down and checked out the damage. The frame looked a little wonky, but apparently it passed muster because it went into the bag.

"I can see where that could pose a problem. He has an incubus to feed."

"I tell heem, geet rid of it," she said, making one of those wild French gestures that mean anything and nothing. "But non. 'It changed my life, " she mimicked.

"Maybe it did," I said carefully. "Casanova recruits a lot of his boys from small towns who don't think they have much of a future."

"'E ees 'ere now," she said fiercely. "'E does not need it anymore. I theenk it ees the ozzair women 'e does not wish to give up!"

I tried to find something to say, but everything was too jumbled, too out of control in my head. Thoughts and feelings I didn't want to examine kept pushing their way to the front. I wondered if Mircea felt the same way now that a spell no longer bound us together. Would he want other women? Or did he already have one?

He came from an era when it was common to have a wife to play hostess and a mistress or two with whom to play at other things. I'd never heard anyone speak of a long-term lover in connection with Mircea, but then, I hadn't asked, either. And I'd never been to his main court in Washington State. That was despite the fact that he'd discovered my existence when I was eleven, after a call from Raphael, his resident stooge at Tony's court.

Mircea was Tony's master, which by vampire law allowed him to put a claim on me. At best, he'd hoped that I might inherit the Pythia's position and give the vampires their first shot at controlling that kind of power. At worst, I was a genuine clairvoyant, and those aren't a dime a dozen. But he'd nonetheless chosen to let me grow up at Tony's rather than take me back to court with him.

I'd always assumed that had been to ensure that the Circle didn't find out about me. They had a proprietary interest in magic users in general and clairvoyants in particular, and they might have given him trouble. Tony's court was a lot lower profile than Mircea's, and therefore safer. But now I wondered if maybe there had been another reason as well.

A beautiful dark-eyed reason.

I groaned and threw an arm over my eyes. Damn it! There were only ever questions when it came to Mircea, never answers. It was starting to get really old.

My head hurt, my body ached and I wanted to just stop thinking for a while. But something about those photos was nagging at me. I suddenly realized that Mircea hadn't appeared in a single one, which seemed a little strange considering how many there had been. I'd have assumed that he was the one taking the pictures, but the woman hadn't been looking at the camera in any of them, at least not that I could remember. It was like she hadn't even been aware of it.

So what the hell was he doing? Paying someone to take photos for him, to keep track of her? And if so, why? Why not just take her if he was that smitten? Who could a master vampire possibly need to stalk?

I could only think of a few options, none of which seemed all that likely. Did she belong to another master, maybe even another Senate member? In that case, yes, he could refuse to give her up. But masters traded their servants all the time, and Mircea was perfectly capable of talking the moon down from the heavens when he wanted. If he was that motivated, he would have found something or someone the woman's master would have taken in trade.

So was she a senator herself who'd rejected him? That seemed even less plausible. Most vampires viewed sexuality as merely another marketable commodity. I couldn't imagine any senator turning down Mircea's advances when they would likely bring her an important political alliance. Vampires almost always thought in terms of profit and loss, even about intimate relations. And there would be no profit in refusal.

That left me with one idea, and not one I liked. The Senate had recently suffered some losses in the war. Was it possible that the woman in the photos was one of the senators who had died? Could that album have been some kind of memorial Mircea had compiled of his lost love?

The thought that he might have been pretending interest in me even while mourning someone he'd loved for decades, maybe centuries, made me almost physically ill. And what hurt the most was that he hadn't needed seduction to get me on his side. I'd already been there. He just hadn't noticed.

"What ees it?" Francoise asked, sounding concerned.

I realized that I'd totally missed whatever she'd been saying, too busy pondering my train wreck of a love life. I sat up and blanked my face, but she just raised an eyebrow. Damn it. It had been too long since I'd had to regularly control my features. I was out of practice.

"Nothing. It's just. . I sort of know how you feel."

She looked surprised. "Lord Mircea, 'e 'as a woman?"

"I don't know." I got up and started to pace, but the damn high heels hurt my feet. I sat back down again. "I don't know anything. We never talk."

"Pourqoui pas?"

"He's been gone most of the time lately, on Senate business. And when I do see him, he has so much else on his mind that it's hard to bring up relationship stuff." Next to war, politics and the supernatural world threatening to implode, it seemed a little trivial. But the result was that I'd somehow ended up married—at least from the vamps' perspective—to someone I knew next to nothing about.

"You should talk to 'im," Francoise said, eyeing the overhead light fixture. Luckily for Dante's, it was bolted into the ceiling.

"Yeah." Only every time I tried, talking wasn't what we ended up doing. Not to mention that I had absolutely no idea how to broach the subject of a possibly recently deceased ex-lover. Or whatever she was.

Francoise arched an eyebrow and started to say something, but a rap on the door saved me. She threw up her hands, turned around and snatched it open. Randy stood there looking sheepish, as much as is possible for a guy wearing skintight black jeans and a matching muscle shirt. At least I think it was a shirt. It might have been paint.

"What are you doing 'ere?"

He shrugged, setting a lot of muscles rippling. "I thought I could help you move. To wherever you're going," he added quickly as Francoise's expression darkened.

"We 'aven't decided zat yet," she said with a good attempt at nonchalance.

"I think I might know a place," I told her, prying my weary body off the bed.

A few minutes later, me, Randy, Francoise and her bags of loot arrived at what had once been a tiki bar on the hotel's fourth floor. It had recently suffered an unfortunate fire and renovations were still ongoing. The rebuilt stage smelled of varnish and the bare drywall on the walls still awaited paint. It was probably the only quiet place in the whole hotel.

Unfortunately, quiet was about the only thing the bar's back room had to recommend it. The place was tiny and had no bathroom, and we had to move boxes of plastic leis and condiment packets out to make room for a second bed. But it was livable. I should know; not so long ago, it had been my room.

"Okay. This is. . cozy," Randy said, looking around.

"It used to be a storage closet."

"I'd have never guessed." I shot him a look and he shrugged. "At least you won't get evicted." No, I didn't suppose so. No self-respecting vampire would be caught dead in it.

"I like eet," Francoise said, trying to navigate the maybe one-inch-wide aisle between her bed and the wall.

"It's just temporary," I promised.

"Yes. Lord Mircea will arrange something for you." I could already see her mentally removing my bed.

I'd been thinking more of the room next door. It was smaller but a lot more colorful than this one, with a floor-to-ceiling stained glass window depicting a battle scene. The window had met an unfortunate accident—they seemed to be pretty common around here since I showed up—and hadn't yet been replaced. A plastic sheet printed to look like it had been stapled over the gap but it let in the heat. I needed to ask Casanova when he thought a replacement might be expected.

But that could wait. There were more pressing issues at the moment. I left Francoise to arrange things to her liking and borrowed the key to her old room. If I was lucky, I'd have time for a shower before I was evicted again.

I woke hours later to a thump and a scream. The latter started in a falsetto and ended up in a baritone, which was enough to tell me that it wasn't Francoise even before the profanity started. I tensed, my lids flew open and I saw a hulking eight-foot shadow looming over me. I screamed.

"Honey, I know it's last year's wig," someone snapped. "But it's Liza. It's timeless."

I reached up and flicked on the overhead light, and the shadow resolved itself into an eight-foot-tall woman rubbing her shin. Part of the height was due to the aforementioned towering black wig and part to seven-inch platforms. The rest of the package was swathed in a skintight sheath short enough to be considered a shirt and constructed entirely of black sequined bow ties. It strained over shoulders wider than most men's and showed off heavily muscled legs. The total effect was linebacker in drag.

It took me a minute to realize that was because she was, in fact, a linebacker in drag.

"Who are you?" I demanded shrilly.

She looked insulted. "Darling, have you been living under a rock? I'm Dee Sire."

I just looked at her.

"Of the Three D's?"

I shook my head.

"We used to be the Double D's, but then we picked up a third. ."

I had no idea what she was talking about, but a quick survey showed that whoever she was, she didn't appear to be carrying a weapon. Unless she had one stuffed in that enormous wig. She could have stuck an AK-47 in there and no one would know.

"What are you doing in my room?" I asked a little more calmly.

"I know how it is: you have one too many drinks, you're looking for the ladies' and you stumble in here. Fair enough, but, sweetie, this ain't your room."

"It is at the moment," I said testily, looking around.

Francoise was nowhere to be seen, probably still out with Randy. He'd talked her into dinner and she'd invited me along, but Randy had been giving me pleading eyes behind her back and anyway, I'd been too exhausted to eat. Not to mention that the only clean clothes I had were the Dante's T-shirt and sweatpants I'd bought at the gift shop to sleep in. No one had seemed to know where my luggage was and everything Francoise owned was six inches too long on me.

"What do you want?" I asked, finger combing my hair.

"No need to get snippy. And if you don't want to wake up in the stockroom with no idea how you got there, I'd lay off the sauce."

"I don't drink! And I know exactly how I got here. I was—Wait a minute!" I stopped, staring from her to the still-locked door. "How did you get in?"

Dee wasn't listening. She'd pulled a silver bejeweled phone out of her enormous bosom and was stabbing at it with a crimson talon. "Get me Dee Vine," she told it, and paused for a beat. "Don't give me that! Tell her to stop primping and answer the damn phone!" There was another pause and she rolled her eyes. "Dee Vine, my ass!" she told me. "She ought to call herself Dee Crepit; the bitch has to be going on sixty. No amount of makeup is going to hel—lo Dee, you gorgeous thing. ."

My stomach grumbled plaintively, a counterpoint to the throbbing in my skull. My last meal had been breakfast with Mircea and that had to be. . I wasn't even sure. A long time ago. I started looking for my shoes.

"Well, I don't know, do I?" Dee asked. "The only other person here is some wino in wrinkled sweats. ."

I looked down at myself and then glared up at her. She made a kissy face at me but didn't apologize. I found one shoe under Francoise's bed, but the other was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished like a sock in a dryer.

Dee grumbled into the phone some more and then clicked it shut. "They moved the rehearsal and didn't bother to tell me." She watched me crawling around the floor. "What are you doing?"

"Trying to find my other shoe." I held up the one I'd located and she snatched it with a little cry.

"Oh, my God. That's a Jimmy Choo Atlas gladiator sandal!"

"Uh-huh." Sal had picked them out. They were a little flashy, but at least all the straps had kept them on my feet. Otherwise, my bruises would have been joined by some seriously lacerated soles.

Dee lifted the sandal delicately, holding it up to her face. The patent surface was looking a little battered after its recent adventures and mud caked the heel, which had lost its end cap. She stroked its side softly. "Oh, my poor, poor baby."

Once upon a time, I'd also taken an interest in fashion, as much as my limited budget allowed. But lately, I was more interested in whether I could run in a pair of shoes than in whose name was on the box. And I'd never cooed to my footwear.

"It's just a shoe," I said impatiently.

She hugged it to her huge chest, glaring at me. "People like you shouldn't be allowed to own fashion." She stuck a massive calf up on the bed, a long nail pointing at her shiny red platform. "See these? Four years old and not a scratch. And they're off the rack!"

"It's been a rough day."

She shook her head hard enough to almost dislodge the wig. "That's no excuse. We've all been there, but you take the designer shoes off and then you puke."

"I'm not drunk!"

She was too busy petting the shoe to listen. "I could so work a pair of these."

I eyed her maybe size fourteen foot. "I don't think they come in your size."

"Oh, please. What's a little blood? I'd bind my feet up like a geisha if I could afford—"

"Well, I'd trade them for a pair of Keds and a good meal," I muttered, and looked up to find huge fake eyelashes fluttering in my face like a pair of angry moths.

"You would?" Dee asked, a little breathless.

"Yeah. If I don't get something to eat soon, I'm going to—"

She gave me a shove and I stumbled back into the wall—and kept going. I fell down what felt like a water slide except with no water. In its place was a blur of color and a roar of sound—and then I was tumbling head over heels into an alcove. It had rough wood floors, stucco walls and a pay phone with an out of order sign.

Something taupe and muddy lay right in front of my nose. I grabbed it. "My shoe!"

"My shoe," Dee said, stumbling out of the wall behind me. She plucked it out of my hands. "Keds and a meal—that was the deal, right?"

"Yes, but. ." I stared at the wall we'd just fallen out of.

"There was a portal in my room!"

"No kidding." Dee peered out of a set of red velvet drapes in front of the alcove.

"Why?!"

"Because it used to be a nightclub with undead performers," she threw over her massive shoulder. "How do you think they got them in and out? Walked them through the main casino floor, so they could munch on a few tourists in passing?"

I scowled. "You can't go around telling people this kind of stuff. You just met me. I might be a norm for all you—"

"Scrim."

"What?"

"The whole group, Dee Vine, Dee Licious and me. We're all Scrims."

"What difference does that make?" Scrims were just mages who didn't produce much magical energy. They varied in ability, from those who weren't very good at magic to those who couldn't even cast a simple spell. Like the Misfits, they weren't popular in the magical community, but they weren't locked up because nobody viewed them as a threat.

"Scrims can detect magic," she said impatiently. "We're like bloodhounds on a scent, drawn to it like queens to fashion. Speaking of which, those bitches I work with would kill for these shoes. Literally—I'm talking a stiletto to the neck. We have to be careful."

"Look, I just want a sandwich—"

"It's all about you, isn't it?" she hissed. "This is an act of mercy. I have a friend who can restore these babies to their proper glory but I have to smuggle them past the hags. Oh, shit! There's one now!"

Dee snapped the curtains shut and started stuffing the shoes down her already overpadded front. She'd just finished when the curtain was snatched back to reveal a tall, gaunt person in a black see-through body stocking, sequined pasties and black satin hot pants. «She» had purple lipstick, purple feathers on her long, fake eyelashes and the pale, expressionless face of the overly Botoxed.

"That look went out with the eighties," she drawled, staring suspiciously at Dee's now ultrapointy breasts.

Dee draped an arm around my shoulders. "Darling, meet Dee Ceased—"

"Dee Vine!" the woman snapped.

"Careful with the emotion, love. Your forehead might fall off."

Someone laughed and edged in around the ample space left by Dee Vine's scrawny form. The newcomer was a seven-foot-tall African-American in a blond wig, her ample curves spilling over the top of a full-length red-sequined dress. "That's what I was telling her. Then we can call her Dee Composed."

That won her a glare from her costar. "Like you've never had work. You're over forty without a line!"

The newcomer ran hands in opera-length, red satin gloves down her curves. "And it's all natural, baby. Ain't you heard? Black don't crack."

"Are we gonna get this rehearsal on or not?" Dee Vine demanded. "This dump opens in two days!"

"I'm going to grab a bite first," Dee Sire told her, pushing me through the miniscule opening between the two queens.

"Another few pounds and what'll be cracking around here is your ass out of that dress!" floated after us as we emerged into a dark club.

The theme seemed to be Wild West saloon, with a long bar, clusters of round wood tables, sawdust on the floor and a couple of old-fashioned swinging doors. We stepped through them into the middle of a ghost town. Or at least Dante's idea of one.

Most of the casinos in town were trending away from Vegas' overly kitschy roots, but not here. Dante's had a vested interest in maintaining its reputation as the home of the wild, the wacky and the tacky. The more the scarier; that was Dante's motto.

The overall theme of the casino had begun as various versions of hell, as evidenced by the lobby. But over time, that had pretty much devolved into a hodgepodge of all things supernatural. The more there was to distract the eye, the less likely that anyone would notice that not all of the «acts» were fake.

Nowhere was that better realized than on the casino's main drag. Wooden sidewalks creaked and groaned mysteriously, even when no one was on them. There were hitching posts every so often for ghostly horses that only showed up in the darkened windows of the stores they faced. There was a water tower at one end with a hanged man dangling from it, turning gently in a nonexistent breeze. And the sky overhead was constantly dark, except for a few fake bolts of lightning flashing occasionally.

Of course, this was Vegas, which meant the old wooden shops had been slutted up with neon signs featuring glowing cacti, dancing martini glasses and tap dancing skeletons. There was one advertising "Drag on the drag" outside the saloon we'd just exited. And there were tourists everywhere.

"Look at this!" Dee was indignant. "I wouldn't wait in those lines for seventy-five percent off at Saks, much less a Tombstone Taco."

"I don't care. Right now, anything I can put in my mouth is fine."

"Oh, honey, if only you were a boy," she sighed, and pulled me into the madhouse of Main Street.

It was not only busier than usual, it was creepier, too. Along with the tourists in bright colored tees and the Dante's employees in costumes and face paint were a large number of pale, elegant observers watching the melee through jaded eyes. The senators' servants had arrived in force and midnight was lunchtime. And the street was a walking buffet.

"This is ridiculous," Dee said as people kept trying to pose with her. I guess they thought she was one of the costumed performers who appeared here and there for photo ops. Only they were dressed in a gothic version of Old West attire, not Dee's glittery bow ties.

"You know, I could just call room service—"

"No way. A deal's a deal." She spied an opening in the throng and towed me through.

We ended up at the Last Stop train station. It was a steakhouse filled with conductors wearing white face paint, with deep black circles under their eyes and wild Beetle-juice hair. Among others, the menu featured Punched Ticket Porterhouses, Terminated T-bones and No Return Rib Eyes. The smell was enough to make my stomach complain loudly, but the place was hip deep in people and the line snaked around the corner.

Dee parked me by the menu sign. "I know a guy in the kitchen. Stay here. I'll be right back." She waded through the throng like a bulldozer in heels, scattering tourists left and right.

I leaned against the sign, trying not to get stepped on, and watched the people go by. A costumed brunette in black lace and burgundy satin sashayed down the street a few minutes later, flirting and laughing and posing for photos. And getting steadily closer to a group of three too-pale loiterers.

The performer stopped near the trio to straighten a garter, smiling at them flirtatiously. She obviously liked admiration, and they were giving it to her in spades. Her smile grew as they surrounded her and didn't falter even when their hands brushed down her arms. She was still smiling when they started to feed.

It was the PC way to do it, drawing her blood up through the skin in molecules so small, even she didn't notice, but three on one was a definite no-no. Three hungry vampires could drain a human in less than a minute, and she was already looking unsteady on her feet. I glanced around, but there was no security in sight. Wonderful.

I darted across the street before I could talk myself out of it just as a master vamp approached from the other direction. He grabbed the girl and sent her spinning into a party of Japanese tourists. They happily started posing for photos while she blinked at them dazedly, her cheeks pale under a liberal amount of blush.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like the Senate had their own security in place, and he looked pretty pissed off. The master hoisted one of the three delinquents into the air by his expensive lapels, looked him over with a slight curl to his lip and tossed him casually into the water tower. That would have been great, except the tower was a prop with no actual water in it. It hadn't been designed to withstand the force of a 180-pound vampire hitting it at about ninety miles an hour, which it demonstrated by groaning and toppling slowly into the crowd.

People screamed and scattered as it hit down, including the two remaining miscreants who'd started the whole thing. The master cursed and went after them, leaving me standing in the street in front of the downed tower. Everyone who wasn't running for the sidewalks was looking right at me—including two war mages.

For an instant, we locked eyes, and I saw theirs widen in recognition. Shit! I ran for the nearest sidewalk, intending to get out of sight and shift—assuming I could. But the crowd was six deep on either side, and nobody felt like letting me through. I looked back to find the mages almost on top of me. I changed course and scurried for the fallen tower. Maybe, if I could get underneath—

An arm reached out of the aluminum side of the tower and pulled me in. Only I didn't end up there. There was a moment of disorientation and then I popped out on a balcony hanging off the facade of a fake feed store. "I thought I told you to stay put!" Dee said, pushing a fallen curl out of her face.

"What did you—How many portals are there?"

"Never counted. A bunch were put in for a magic act a couple years ago and nobody ever shut them down. They don't use magic unless they're activated, so. ." She shrugged. "Anyway, I got you an End of the Line burger and fries. Will that do?"

I took a greasy sack that smelled like heaven. "Absolutely," I said fervently.

"Okay, then. We're making progress. Now stay here while I go look for some shoes."

"Gotcha." The balcony was more for show than anything else and only a few feet wide. I'd have to eat standing up, but at the moment, I didn't care.

Dee nodded and stepped back through the side of the building, heedless of any watching eyes, not that there appeared to be any. The crowd was fixated on the mages, who were studying the fallen tower suspiciously. One cautiously stuck an arm in the side, which disappeared up to the shoulder—and reappeared on my side of the portal.

It flailed around for a second, almost brushing against me twice, while he craned his neck and looked around to see where it came out. He didn't see me, but someone in the crowd did and pointed. The waving arm snatched at me, I jerked back and it grabbed my sandwich bag instead. And disappeared.

"Damn it!"

The mage pulled my lunch out on his side of the portal, dropped it on the ground like he was afraid it was contagious and threw a fireball at it. The crowd roared in delight, apparently deciding that this was some unscheduled entertainment. I almost cried.

"That was my lunch, you idiot!" I yelled right before he stepped through the portal.

He appeared in my face, startling me, and I instinctively pushed him away. He fell back through the portal, stumbled out of the tower and landed on his ass. He glared, scrambled up and pulled a gun.

For a moment, I didn't believe he'd do it. There were a couple hundred people around; no way would he risk killing one of them while trying to take me out. The Circle hadn't impressed me with their sanity, but they weren't that crazy.

Then he pointed the gun, not at me, but at the fallen tower.

I threw myself out of the way just as he shot at point-blank range into the portal. The bullet came out my side, ruffling my hair on its way past, and shattered a lighted sign on the other side of the street. I was still staring at the sparks and broken glass when he launched himself back through—and this time he grabbed me.

I panicked and shifted—and since he was still holding on, he came along for the ride. We landed on the roof of the opposite building, or rather, he did. I was left dangling over the side, and in his surprise, he let go.

I shifted midair and ended up back where I'd started, woozy and nauseous. Shifting two people on no food and maybe five hours' sleep had wiped me out. I didn't think I could do it again. That proved to be a problem when the other mage popped out of the portal practically on top of me.

I did the only thing I could. I grabbed his coat, swung him around and fell back through the portal before he could curse me. I rolled out of the tower a second later, into the middle of the street, adding another layer of bruises. The crowd applauded as I struggled to my feet.

"They do it with doubles," I heard someone say. "The girl on the balcony was a lot more blond."

"You'd think they'd check for something like that," someone else said.

The mage stepped out of the portal and tripped over my body, kicking me painfully in the ribs. Down the street, his partner jumped from the roof and started for us through the crowd. I got my feet under me, kicked the still-burning remains of my lunch in the mage's face and ran.

"Over here!" I saw Dee waving at me, her wig towering over everyone else. A hand grabbed the back of my sweatshirt, but she jerked me over the heads of the last few people and it fell away. She swiveled on a heel, plunged into a ladies' restroom and shoved me into the janitor's closet. I didn't even have time to catch my breath before we fell through a wall.

We tumbled out into my room again a second later. I landed on the bed, but Dee hit her shin painfully on the side of the headboard. "Fuck it, that's twice today!"

I lay there, staring at the wall, wondering who was going to come through next. But nobody did. I guess the mages hadn't been able to pass the gauntlet of outraged women in line.

"Here!" Dee threw a package on the bed and pulled my shoes out of her bra. "God, what I do to look good," she said, clutching them to her heaving bosom. And disappeared.