"I'd need to know some things first."
"Yeah?"
"Like why you wear your Karnak outfit parking for the Inferno."
"The big boss don't mind," the demon said with a shrug that dislodged some large orange scales from his bare upper arms, "and my Inferno uniform hasn't arrived yet. I don't think the big boss likes the Karnak much and is glad I was hired away."
"You mean Christophe?"
"I don't know who. I only heard that the big boss liked my outfit and since I paid a fortune for it myself- the Karnak is cheap for such a big joint-why not wear it here? I mean, almost everyone is eligible for going to Hell, right? Even ancient Egyptians."
"When exactly did the Karnak open?"
"Jeez, lady, I don't know. I was only summoned a few lost souls ago. Fairly recently. It's run by a foreign outfit. Vegas moguls are building all over Asia now, so Vegas is getting new blood too. I like working for the Inferno a lot better."
I cocked an eyebrow. "Why?"
He grinned, showing gray-green pointed teeth. "A better class of vintage car comes through?"
"Okay, you can take her for one run through the parking garage, but no racing!" I slid out of the driver's seat.
"Sure, sure," he said insincerely, hopping into Dolly's bench seat-yuck, what a color clash: orange scaly skin against fire-engine red leather!-and screeched away into the garage's dark maw, a dragon's head designed as a mini gate of Hell.
"Do you need some assistance?" a deep, icy voice inquired behind me.
I turned to see Grizelle, Snow's security chief, in human form. She was a towering black woman whose skin bore the tabby pattern of a house cat. Not a tattoo, natural. She wore four-inch Manolo Blahnik spikes. I liked her better naked in a fur coat, in plush black-and-white tiger stripes with six-inch claws.
"No, thanks," I told her. "I'm just passing through. The parking valet should return with my ride any minute."
Grizelle folded arms clad in emerald green silk to match her eyes and glowered. Apparently people weren't supposed to loiter in the driveway, and I suppose my jeans, sleeveless gauze top, sneakers, and glittery tourist fanny pack weren't up to the Inferno's dress code. Fanny packs were pathetic, but they left my hands free and held what I needed. Plus, it was great camouflage. Usually I dressed a lot more formally when I visited, but then I was seeing Snow, not parking attendants. I'd always found as a reporter that it was wise to dress to the druthers of whomever you were interviewing.
So I didn't bother chatting up Grizelle.
"I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have," she prodded.
"No, you'd be happy to know any questions I might have," I told her.
"The boss puts up with a lot from you. I won't," she warned me.
"You don't think I don't put up with a lot in turn?" I lifted my wrist to display the silver familiar, now changed into an Egyptian dancing girl's slave bracelet with rings on every finger and chains linking them to the broad sterling cuff. "It's kinda clumsy to shift Dolly with all this hardware hanging off my right hand."
"I don't know anything about that," she said. "Only that you shouldn't be interrogating the help."
"Hey, we were just talking cool cars. Don't you have a hobby?"
"I do, but you wouldn't want to know what it is." Her dazzling bleached smile featured pointed teeth.
A squeal of brakes hailed Dolly's return.
"Smooth as a Black Russian," the demon valet announced, hopping out. "Ask for Hermie at the Karnak. Tell him Manny sent you."
Grizelle still stood guard, frowning, as I slipped behind Dolly's huge steering wheel, shifted into drive with a clatter worthy of old St. Nick, and accelerated our way into Strip traffic.
Ten minutes later Dolly and I idled in the shadow of the Karnak's looming black marble façade, a thick stone forest of soaring massively broad pillars looking too crowded to allow anything but an anorexic between them. The overall effect was to dwarf and awe puny humanity.
I'd quickly checked out the real Karnak on the Web. It was the world's largest temple complex. Las Vegas 's usual overblown theme architects had done such good job of capturing the reality that one could hardly take in the actual shape of the building from this close. I glimpsed a monumental gateway bracketed by two tapering towers and flagpoles topped with crimson banners. Of course, in Vegas they always went for the gold: blinding, sun-shot gold glinted from the pillars' capitals and the tops of two glassy black obelisks on either side of the entrance. The effect was massive, imperial, and cold, despite the blistering afternoon heat.
Meanwhile, I needed a parking valet-cum-guide.
"Hermie?" I asked the row of kilt-clad demons, all wearing instant tanner so their scales were a matching shoe-polish brown, giving them the look of upright alligator boots. No wonder Manny hadn't fit in. He liked to flaunt his colors.
A parking valet wearing a headdress with fetchingly spiral Hathor horns leaped forward. Hathor was a female cow goddess, so wearing her headdress could be considered cross-dressing for a male. I wondered if demons could be gay, not that it would bother me. I held up a fifty-dollar bill. "Manny said you'd treat my car right. Why don't we breeze into the garage and discuss it?"
"Scoot over, miss, and we're gone."
I did, watching his clawed fingernails-enameled purple and chartreuse-curl around the wheel. I was sure pimping out poor Dolly today. I owed her a highspeed desert drive this afternoon to air out her vents and upholstery.
"Thanks, Hermie," I said in the dark, deserted spot he'd parked Dolly. "I just wanted to get the lay of the land inside from someone who knew."
"Hermesaphritus," he corrected me.
"And 'Manny'?"
"Manniphilpestiles."
Humph. Where is Rumplestiltskin when you need him? Irma grumbled.
I'd turned on my cell phone voice recorder to get these guys' full formal names. I'd heard demons were proper name nuts, wouldn't answer to anything else, and had no idea if I might need one of these scaly little rascals again someday soon.
"Delphine Delgado," I told him, keeping my own name secret. "I'm new in town and I need to know a bit about the Karnak. When it was built, why this particular decor."
"You a cop or something?"
"Heavens no, Mr. Hermesaphritus. I'm a scout for Women's Werewear Daily. Animal-headed supermodels are the rage in all the hip rag mags nowadays. We might shoot a big fashion spread here."
"Don't we have a PR person who could tell you all that?"
"Of course, and I'll check in there soon, but first, I need the inside dope. I want to know all the fascinating nooks and crannies that only the staff sees, places that would make absolutely fab fashion-shoot backgrounds."
Hermie was looking dubious, even downright scared. Scared demons get big purple goose bumps and it is not a pretty sight on all those scales, even if they are tanned a toasty brown. Obviously, very low-level demons staffed the Karnak service areas.