Chapter Thirty-Four

Quicksilver had given me the doggie third degree when I returned from my rendezvous with Ric. He'd not only sniffed my crotch and growled, but he sniffed my discarded clothes and growled even more. Then he curled up in the corner of my bedroom and regarded me accusingly while I began preparing for bed. At least I was home alone. Sort of.

That intent pale-blue gaze was enough to make me take my underwear off behind the closed bathroom door. Jeez! I escape having overprotective parents to answer to by being born an orphan and then I get a dog that thinks he's a duenna, which means chaperone in Spanish.

All I, or anybody reasonable, would say about a twenty-four-year-old fallen woman was... high time, honey! as Irma put it.

The shower water reminded me of the many fountains in Ric's house. I adjusted the temperature until it fell like flowing warm satin on my body. I really wouldn't have felt comfortable sleeping in Ric's bed yet. One stage at a time. I donned my long granny nightgown and slunk back into the bedroom in the dark, easing under the covers.

I heard a long, disappointed, canine sigh from the corner. I'd call Quicksilver a bluestocking, except that he didn't wear any.

Morning was the usual bright and sunny. I decided to take Quick for a nice long run in the park to make up for my absence last night, and the absence of my supposed innocence, which his wolfhound nose could apparently detect.

Halfway through it, I let Quick off the leash to run far and wide, and sat out the rest of the marathon on a bench.

"Tender?" Irma asked me. "?Ai, carumba, chica!"

Ric had warned me, but tender was a way too nice word for it. I was as sore as hell. On the other hand, the abiding discomfort reminded me of the excellent adventure we'd shared last night. I couldn't wait to do it again, probably much sooner than advisable, like today.

I must have been giving off super-satisfied pheromones because two strange guys immediately plopped down on the bench on either side of me.

They wore those bright-colored knit golf shirts with the itty-bitty alligator embroidered on the chest, one pink, one green, and plaid pants to match. Serious muscles filled out the Florida duds on all fronts. Their faces were hawk-nosed and bleak-eyed.

"Our employer wants to see you," Mr. Flamingo Pink said.

"Here I am."

"On his turf."

Oops. "Turf" was not a respectable corporate byword unless it was part of a Surf and Turf lobster and rib eye dinner at the local Stake and Ale.

"I can't right now. I'm walking my dog."

"You're not walking and I don't see a dog," Mr. Chartreuse answered. "Let's go, doll."

Each had taken me politely but firmly by the elbow. Together they lifted me almost off the ground. I spotted a white van idling by the curb.

Elbows, as I may have mentioned before, are the strongest offensive part of the human body. I was about to smash mine into colorful kidneys on either side and sprint to freedom.

Then the name on the side of the van registered.

Who sends a labeled van to kidnap an unwilling woman? The Magnus-Gehenna-Megalith Hotel and Casino Consortium, that's who.

"It's to your advantage," Flamingo Pink growled. "The head man is interested in you. You know how rare that is?"

Yeah, very rare, which was probably just the way he wanted me cooked, the freaking werewolf.

"He wishes to talk to you about a job," Mr. Chartreuse chimed in.

With these guys, "a job" was probably dangerous, illegal, and maybe even fattening. But I'd been itching to get on the inside of the M-G-M operation. Voila! as Christophe might say, if he was really French.

"Okay. But I, ah, I can't just leave my dog alone here in the park."

"God," Flamingo said to Chartreuse. "These dames today and their little purse pooches. Who do they think they all are, Paris Hilton?"

"All right," Chartreuse said, "but it had better be house-broken."

Quicksilver chose that minute to come barreling back toward me, fangs bared.

The men jumped back, leaving me free.

"We can't take that thing." Flamingo sounded afraid of more than Quicksilver.

"It's Team Malamute or nothing," I said.

Their brows wrinkled until their hairlines lowered a full inch. I think I got their problem. The M-G-M was a were-run operation and Quicksilver was half wolfhound.

"Sit," I told Quick, who promptly obeyed. "He's really well-behaved."

"Yeah, right."

"It's both of us, or I do my tae kwan do routine and he eats you."

My introduction to werewolves at Los Lobos had made me regard them, perhaps foolishly, as just another breed of dog with alpha and beta modes bred into the bone. If they had the upper fang, they'd bite. If they were the slightest bit conflicted, they'd cave and wait for their master's voice.

"Well, we could always use him out at Starlight Lodge," Chartreuse said, snickering uneasily.

"At the lodge, right. Can always use an extra canine there."

With a mutual, rather mysterious shrug, Flamingo and Chartreuse caved.

They weren't in full werewolf power and the boss wanted to see me. Presumably he could stomach seeing Quicksilver too. At least for a while.

Chapter Thirty-Five

A panel van has a way of feeling like a jailhouse wagon. I felt a lot of regretful heebie-jeebies as Quicksilver and I were carted off as willing passengers. We could take these guys, I was sure of it, but once we were in the hotel-casino, the odds would tip decidedly in the goons' favor. And there were people who would miss us, pronto, but not Ric, who was out of town again. Better not to waste a minute.

"Who is the boss?" I asked.

The watermelon pair snorted in tandem, rather doglike.

"Mister Cicero is the boss of bosses. His consortium controls six top Las Vegas venues." Flamingo lit up a stogie. Its foul smoke floated back into the second tier of seats and nearly choked me.

Six. Then he was a silent partner in three no one knew about.

"It's a big compliment Mister Cicero has even noticed the likes of you," Chartreuse said, snapping the rubber band on his wrist. Apparently he was trying to stop smoking, which was futile with a partner who was a walking pink chimney.

I coughed discreetly. "I just want to know how to properly address him."

"'Mister Cicero, sir' should do it." Chartreuse was sounding choked now too. "You should be better dressed," Flamingo said. "Mister Cicero likes his people to look sharp."

If the golfing outfits were part of that corporate directive, I'd prefer to remain a Raggedy Ann in workout clothes.

The van sped toward the huge, lurking bulk of the Gehenna, which had a fiery moat filled with holograms of mythological monsters (at least I hoped they were holograms), then buzzed around the impressive entry lanes and porte cochere to the rear.

Quicksilver and I were ushered inside into a locked, solid stainless steel, private elevator and shot upward a zillion floors. Flamingo and Chartreuse stared blankly at the floor indicator, their hands folded discreetly over their colorful crotches. Perhaps that was where they carried their hidden artillery.

The elevator doors opened on a corridor carpeted in black plush. Everything here was hushed, muting even Quicksilver's clicking claws. We reached a door of embossed metal, which opened when our escorts hummed a certain melody into a voice-pad. Actually, it was more of an a capella howl.

The hair, such scanty stuff as it was, stood up on the back of my neck. Quicksilver's thick-furred hackles went haystack high, but he managed to quiet his built-in urge to bay and bark warning. What had I gotten us into? Whatever it was, I hoped it proved useful as well as scary.

I wouldn't find out a damn thing about the powers that be, and were, in Las Vegas sitting in Sunset Park nursing my newfound sexual itch. This was where I wanted to be. At the center of the hidden action, learning things, no matter the cost.

The office beyond the door was palatial, carpeted in mossy, dark emerald-green shag and paneled in black-stained pine. It felt like being in a night-time forest glade and was lit by etched globe lamps that mimicked dozens of full moons.

Quicksilver whimpered, feeling the ancient spell of dark forest and moonlight. I felt it too. Something Druid-like.

A huge redwood desk sat under a chandelier of milk-glass moons, the wood grain gleaming like watered silk under the overhead lights.

A man walked from the room's shadows to sit in the thorny embrace of a deer-antler chair behind the slab of desk. He wasn't very tall, but he was barrel-chested and pewter-haired, wearing a gray sharkskin suit that gleamed like a hematite gemstone. His mouth was wide, his eyes were Jack Daniel's-gold, and his nose was long and sharp, as were his ears. Both sported tufts of black hair.

Oh, Grandpa, what big eyes, ears, nose, and teeth you have! Can I sell you this Ronco rotating hair-removal device... ?

Quicksilver leaned his shoulder against my hip as we stood side by side, his own long canine nose pushing into the palm of my hand. It was dry and hot, and I could feel him panting slightly.

"Sit," Mr. Cicero said. So I sank into the black leather club chair in front of the desk, pulling Quick against its side. "Lights out," he ordered his staff.

Behind the casino boss, in the impenetrable dark, a screen lit up. I watched silent footage of myself at the Inferno, with Snow and Nick Charles.

"You have impressive resources," I said when the screen went blank and the many-mooned chandelier lit up again. How had he stolen security tapes from the Inferno?

"And you have an impressive fan base, Miss Maggie."

I didn't bother to correct him. I didn't want my real name issuing from those thin lips and through those sharp white teeth.

"I'm looking to raise the gate on my headlining show," he added. "Your presence could accomplish that."

"Show? I'm not an actress."

"Your appearance on CSI V makes that clear. However, you have unwittingly become a major media personality."

"Dead!"

"Exactly. I propose to add you to my headlining magic show."

"As what? A corpse?"

"Why not? It would be a huge draw and we can certainly play off of that, but I propose a climactic resurrection. Everybody loves a comeback. It would pay very well. I can make you a star."

You and Howard "Yellow Fang" Hughes! Irma hissed inside my brain.

"I'm not a professional performer," I pointed out.

"What about your classy performance as a CinSymbiant at the Inferno? And you weren't even paid for it. Obviously, Christophe is negotiating for your services. I have simply one-upped him, my rival hotel owner. You have the look of the moment, my dear Miss... Street, is it? That last name must go."

"Christophe? You think he wants me for his stage show? He was just hitting on me."

Cicero snickered and his flunkies, especially Flamingo Pink and Watermelon Green, snuffled and snickered too, in their cowed, canine way.

"Christophe doesn't 'hit on' humans, sweet cheeks," Cicero said.

Then what had he been doing? Or... what was I, really?

"I can double whatever he offered," Cicero added. "And, I can let you live. That's worth a bundle, don't you think?"

I was having a hard time thinking. "Christophe has his Seven Deadly Sins onstage. Why would he want to hire me? I can't think of an eighth sin I could be."

"Annoyance?"

"Surely that's not... deadly."

"I'm beginning to think so," Cicero said. "You will be my Maggie, a CSI body extraordinaire. I'll put your name up in neon."

"Hector Nightwine owns the Maggie franchise."

That ought to kill that idea, Irma cheered me on.

"You will be called Margie, then." Mr. Cicereau said. "Or Magpie. Something close, but not too close. The lawyers will be debating that intellectual property issue until the Second Coming, if you believe in such things."

I certainly didn't believe that there was anything "intellectual" about the property he was appropriating, but I only said, "The Millennium was certainly predictable, but we didn't get a Second Coming out of it."

Meanwhile, I'd been reading the papers on his desk upside down. Investigative reporters get good at that fast.

I was surprised to see his name spelled out on a letter. It sounded ancient Roman or Italian, but it was spelled "Cicereau." Of course! England had never had a big werewolf issue, because it was an island and the wolves never got there. The werewolf was a creature of the forests in what became Germany and France. I'd done an online search on werewolves after my first time at Los Lobos.

All the medieval werewolf trials had been held in France, where maidens and murderers were sacrificed to the river Seine to placate a dragon-gargoyle. Right now I felt much more like a sacrificial maiden than a murderer, but who said you couldn't be both, especially in your own defense?

"I have a first-rate magician," Cicereau was saying. "You will be an additional assistant in a special, headline cameo. Sexy costumes, some of usual tricks- vanishing, sawn-up, then, presto, no costume-a tasteful nude profile in the mist, perhaps as a sacrificial victim, then a dramatic death and resurrection."

"I know nothing about magic." But I marveled at how Cicereau had read my mind about the sacrificial part.

"Fortunately, my house magician does. Perhaps a bit too much."

Cicereau flashed emerald cufflinks set in drug-lord chunky gold as he shuffled papers on his desk, hiding the letter, reminding me of Ric's way smoother fashion sense. "You need only provide your very recognizable physical presence and follow his commands. A couple days' rehearsal should do it."

"I don't play well with others."

"Neither do I. This is not an option, Miss Street. Either play nicely with me, or I'll have you torn apart and tossed to Detective Haskell."

Quicksilver stood, legs braced, growling.

"There is wolf in that dog," the boss man said, careful not to move.

"I know."

"He makes a dangerous pet for a human."

"That's why he's a partner."

Cicereau's yellow eyes flashed with both approval and unleashed hunger. "Perhaps Madrigal can find a place for him in the act. If not, I expect you to control him."

"As much as you control me."

"And I will, because the life of everything you value... this dog, that man"-he didn't say who, but I saw he had learned about my doings here in Las Vegas, inside out-"will depend upon you becoming a prime attraction at my hotel. Don't forget all the roaming Maggie freaks out there. I can give you top-level protection."

I took a deep breath. And here I thought Snow was controlling! Even now I felt his chill bracelet coiling up my arm like a platinum snake, growing fangs that sank lightly into my forearm. A warning, or a sign of solidarity?

That was the trouble with unhuman allies; they were so damned hard to read.

And who, or what, was this Madrigal, besides sure to be seriously unhappy about having an unwilling rank amateur thrust into his headlining stage show?

Chapter Thirty-Six

The really bad part about becoming part of Team Gehenna (an ancient name for Hell, don't you know?) was that once inside the massive structure, like Dorothy in Oz I wasn't sure of ever going home again.

One of Cicereau's lieutenants took Quick and me into custody. For a flying monkey he was pretty chunky-hunky. I'd noticed him blending into the black pine of the office walls. He had a pronounced widow's peak in a thicket of dark hair streaked with silver. He wore a black suit, gray shirt, and red tie like a gout of designer-silk blood. He was young despite the silver streaks, but easy to sum up. Hard body, hard mind, hard heart. Cicereau had called him Sansouci. In French the phrase meant "without care."

It didn't fit him. Everything about him screamed extreme control, including his icy manner as he escorted Quicksilver and me a few floors down in the silver bullet elevator. I smelled an astringent cologne in the elevator's austere close quarters. Aquavit on ice. Essence du hit man.

With all the warmth of a vampire undertaker, Sansouci showed Quicksilver and me to our new home, suite, home.

It was ultra luxurious: two huge bedrooms and several living areas. We were given a pass card to the hotel running track, gym, spa, and exercise rooms. We would be under constant surveillance, Sansouci informed us, even when I walked the dog on the rooftop swath of grass. And, by the way, the drop to the Strip below was forty stories and traffic was always heavy.

I didn't mind slamming the door shut on his straight, impervious back, which stayed there, facing out into the hall like a guard.

Exploring the suite, I found a refrigerator stuffed with rabbit food veggies and fish. Message sent. This was me. I doubted the Gehenna gang went much for broccoli or even rabbits when on their monthly wolfish runs through the desert. That was them.

My bedroom closet held a tracksuit, running shoes, pajamas, slippers and nothing else. Meanwhile, my heart and brain were revving on hyper drive, worrying about Godfrey and Nightwine missing us, worrying about where I'd allowed Quicksilver and me to be taken... and taken prisoner.

The reporter in me realized that I had a unique undercover position to exploit until I learned what I needed to know. Like all undercover assignments, this one was uncertain and scary. I had been ordered, immediately, to visit the magician called Madrigal's far more palatial suite two floors above. Of course Quicksilver would accompany me.

Mr. Big may have been my assigned boss, but I was curious to see how his headliner would like being saddled with a CSI V corpse and a gigantic wolfhound.

Clad in my same Sunset Park terrycloth shorts and top, Quicksilver and I passed the suite door and the waiting Sansouci to return to the elevator. Once inside, we all three faced forward and stared mutely at the floor indicator.

Oddly, Sansouci remained inside when the elevator doors opened. Quick and I were on our own with the magician. His suite was dead ahead, the door surface crossed with glittering gold wands.

I rang the doorbell. Yeah, penthouse suites at the Gehenna had doorbells. Hell didn't let just anybody in.

I wasn't sure if "Madrigal" or "Mad Max" answered.

Whichever, he was tall, broad, and bronze-skinned, with sea-green eyes and golden-brown dreadlocks. He wore a sleeveless tee that showed off elaborate bicep tattoos and martial arts pants. I couldn't help noticing that his pecs were so developed that his nipples stood at permanent and distracting attention. I felt small and pale and stupid and very unwanted, which wasn't a new feeling for me since kidhood, even though I'd outgrown the small part.

"What is this?" Madrigal's deep basso held the charmed singsong accent of the Caribbean islands, soft and welcoming where his physical appearance, however melting pot hot, was rigid and off-putting. "Little Orphan Annie and her dog, Sandy?"

"Mr. Cicereau wants me to use the name Margie."

"Yeah. I got my marching orders, and I saw that particular CSI V episode. What do you do besides sneeze maggots?"

I couldn't help wincing on behalf of my maybe-baby sister, Lilith. "It was a job. Apparently I made a good impression in it."

"Nudity and gore work rating wonders. A magician's assistant, on the other hand, works hard. She has to be smart, strong, and supple."

"I can do that."

"And the dog?"

"Smart, strong, and fanged."

He sighed hard enough to distract me, then stepped back from the door to let us in. "My act doesn't need some T and A ratings upswing."

T and A meant tits and ass, and I sure didn't like being reduced to that formula. "I haven't seen it, but I don't doubt it."

"Then why are you here?"

"I wasn't asked."

His hands knotted in front of him. Then he looked at me for the first time and flicked his bronze eyelashes upward.

Observed, of course.

"Where do we rehearse?" I asked, thinking that might be private.

He shook his head slightly. "On stage, during the day. We'll have lots of time," he said, bitterly.

I recognized what he really meant. Later, we'll have time to really talk. He seemed to be as monitored as I was but maybe he'd learned a way around it. A magician would.

I didn't want to believe that this he-man magician had been as easily corralled as I had, because, if so, then my particular goose was royally cooked and garlanded with cranberry sauce as runny and, like Snow White's lips, as red as blood.