Since wigs and I didn’t always agree (can anybody say awkward seatmate with an umbrella?), I’d had my stylist, Magic Mikey, straighten my hair and dye it darker red. The white streak that framed the right side of my face drove him crazy because it wouldn’t take color. That’s what happens when Mommy touches you during your unplanned excursion to hell. But since I couldn’t tell him that, I said I preferred it that way and even the chemicals knew better than to cross me. Which is why even my beautician thinks I’m badass.
Factor the hair in with my big green eyes, deceptively frail frame, the aforementioned ruffles, and Astral lashes, and you’re walking the bimbo line. So I’d added a pair of black, rectangular glasses that, thankfully, didn’t interfere with Astral’s transmissions.
Robokitty had followed my order to stay in the room I was sharing with Vayl while he changed. And now, finally, the pictures were coming in clear and hot. (Shut up. If you had to operate this close to that much sexy while itching like a flea-bitten mongrel, you’d voyeur it up too!) Vayl had, for the sake of his own self-control, spent my changing time in the bathroom. As he moved back into the bedroom and noted Astral perched on the pillow, one corner of his lip curled.
“So is that how you want it, my pretera ?” he murmured, the glint in his eyes sending a shiver up my spine. I abandoned the mop, leaning it against the wall by the door while I nodded. Like I thought he could see me. He probably sensed my excitement as he threw open his suitcase and pulled out a pair of brown motocross leathers that I knew would fit him so well I’d probably spend the evening wishing we needed to do a second-story job so I could watch him go up and down a ladder.
Next came a white silk shirt that I knew he’d leave halfway unbuttoned because he already wore an undershirt, the sleeveless kind that cling like a fan who’s snuck past the bodyguard’s defenses. And to cover it all, not his usual calf-length duster, but a supple leather jacket that would ride his hips, giving me a full view of his tight little tush if my dreams came true and we did need to scale a wall. Or climb a tree.
Or, hell, maybe if I could just find an excuse to tie somebody’s shoes while he was looking the other way.
I dropped to the couch. Which hit me so hard in the back I realized the upholstery had probably squeezed itself into an I-surrender ball sometime before the end of the last World War.
I wiggled around, trying to find a comfortable spot while Vayl peeled off his duster, and dumped his boots and socks. He slowed down with his sweater, staring off into the distance with an increasingly smug smile on his face like he knew I was leaning forward, gripping my knees with my hands so they wouldn’t dig their nails into the wall, possibly clawing right through in an effort to speed up the process.
“You’re fast!”
I sat up, crossing my arms over my chest like Bergman had just caught me in my underwear. “Yeah, ha-ha. That’s why they hired me. I’m like Superman in the phone booth. Except, you know, tightless.” Under my breath I added, “Astral, get out of there. Mission aborted. Repeat, mission aborted.” When I saw the flattened form of the cat slide out from beneath the bedroom door behind Bergman, who stood at the point where the hall intersected both the living room and dining room, I felt some of the tension bleed from my muscles. Not all, though. Because before she’d shut down video Astral had sent me a shot of Vayl. Half naked. And laughing.
“So?” Bergman held out his hands. “They sent me this outfit and said it would make me look like a cameraman. Would you be convinced?”
He’d put on a tan work shirt topped by a quilted vest covered with pockets. Hopefully at least a couple actually held the equipment that identified us as something other than a killing crew from the States. His jeans, while still looking as if they’d accompanied Moses across the desert, at least held together okay.
And he still carried the backpack Astral had arrived in.
I said, “Yeah, I think I’d buy the photographer angle.”
“Out of the way, peon!” Cassandra called as she strode down the hallway. When Bergman spun around she smiled. “I’m working on my world-class bitchy. I believe one of us needs to go there. What do you think?”
He nodded because, well, it was just hard to disagree with our Seer no matter what she wore. For her, our costumers had chosen skintight blue jeans tucked into high-heeled boots and a red mock turtleneck woven with sparkly thread that reflected the gems in her jewelry. Other people might be fooled by the fact that she wore more bling than Flavor Flav, but I wasn’t. I knew she could saw off those heels, shove her hands into a pair of gloves, and muck stalls like a homegrown farm girl. Which was why I wanted so badly to make Kyphas go away for good. I couldn’t imagine another woman I could love more as a sister-in-law. Except, maybe, for Dave’s late wife, Jessie. Thinking of her and looking at Dave’s new girl made me shiver.
I won’t let anyone hurt you, Cassandra, I promise.
As if she’d heard my thoughts she smiled at me. But all she said was, “I have good news.”
“Yeah? Do you See us coming out on top in this whole deal?” She shrugged. “That hasn’t been made clear to me yet. But I don’t See you traveling around in the Wheezer much longer. Perhaps one or two more trips and then you’ll be switching—”
“Hot damn! That’s the kind of vision I like!”
She nodded as she followed Bergman into the living room. He pulled out one of the chairs, dropped into it, and crossed his heels onto the table, oblivious to the fact that he might be permanently scarring the surface. This was the problem with beaker-sniffers. Their sense of beauty had taken such a molecular turn that they’d developed a sort of aesthetic blindness that some people found jarring.
“Get your damn feet off the table,” I snapped.
He dropped his boots to the floor. “Are you going to be like this when we’re partners?” he asked.
“If you’re tearing up other people’s furniture? Yeah.”
“But…” He motioned to the floor.
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“It’s not pretty.”
“Oh.”
Astral had snap-crackle-popped back to form and sidled up to Cassandra’s boots, which she seemed to find cuddly.
“You programmed a lot of cat moves into this one,” Cassandra said to Bergman as she picked up the robokitty and sat down next to him.
“I wanted her to blend in. That move is actually her signal that she has information she wants to share with you.”
Cassandra nodded. “Well done on both fronts, then.” She looked at me. “Do you think we have the time?”
“Go for it,” I said, so she whispered a few words in the cat’s ear, causing her feet to curl up underneath her belly. Astral opened her mouth wide, like she was gagging on a fish bone, and a beam of light winked on from the back of her throat, as if some industrious vet had figured out a way to test from the inside out. Since the video also came straight to my receivers, for a second the holograms blurred, twin images that made me wonder if this was how my parents had viewed Dave and I the day we were born.
I moved to stand behind Astral. I figured I could lean against the fireplace if the dizzies kicked in, but the repositioning worked. The images connected. In fact, Astral was projecting the clearest hologram I’d ever seen from an Enkyklios. It was like watching live actors walk through a movie scene right in the front entryway. Unfortunately she hadn’t found anything on Brude. The guy she’d indexed wasn’t even a Scot, unless they’d taken to wearing chaps and Stetsons like the frontiersmen this dude resembled.