“It’s a good thing you don’t have children!”
Nervousness had made my voice harsh, but Casanova didn’t seem to take offense. “One of the best things about being a vampire. Now stop talking and start looking.”
We edged farther into the darkness and my hands started to sweat, and not just from the heat. He was right about one thing: most of the people flooding into Vegas these days were adults, with fully half of them seniors. Which might explain why the three old crones we were after hadn’t been attracting the attention they deserved.
Well, that, and the fact that they were ancient demigoddesses with more than one trick up their sleeves. That was what had me clutching the slim black box I carried hard enough to leave my fingers white. It was a magical trap, the kind that had once imprisoned the trio known as the Graeae long enough for their story to fade into legend.
I suspected that they didn’t want to go back in.
That was fine with me, because I didn’t want to put them there. I just wanted to ask them some questions, assuming we ever found them. But Casanova wasn’t exactly an altruistic kind of guy, and I’d had to fudge a little on my motivations.
“I don’t know why you’re being so helpful all of a sudden,” he said suspiciously, as if he’d heard my thoughts.
“I’m always helpful.”
“You’re never helpful! You drop problems in my lap all the time and then disappear somewhere and leave me to deal with them.”
“Name one.”
“Those blasted kids you swore would be out of here two weeks ago!”
He was referring to some magical orphans he had less than charitably taken in until we could find other homes for them. The casino had more than a thousand rooms, but the two the kids were occupying preyed on his shriveled little soul. He acted like it was causing him actual pain.
“Tami is working on it,” I said, talking about their de facto foster mother. “It’s hard to find a house big enough for that many people that’s reasonable to rent.”
“And why bother when you can stay here and eat me out of house and home?”
“They don’t eat that much.”
“In comparison to what? Starving marines?”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, they’ll be out soon—”
“That’s what you always say.”
“—and I’m helping you today, aren’t I?”
“About damn time, too,” Casanova muttered, stopping to peer into a curbside drain as if he seriously thought someone might have squeezed down there. I looked in along with him until my brain conjured up a memorable scene from It, and I shied back nervously. He glanced over his shoulder, an annoyed frown creasing those handsome features.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I didn’t really think there were any homicidal clowns down there—or any ancient goddesses, either—but you never knew. This was Dante’s. Crazy was what we had for breakfast when we ran out of Corn Flakes.
“Good, because this is all your fault,” he complained. “You are not going to come up with another reason not to help me.”
I didn’t say anything, because technically, he was right. I’d sprung the gals from jail, and nobody seemed to care that it had been an accident. Least of all Casanova, whose beloved casino had become their favorite stomping ground.
“Why are you so interested in getting them out of here?” I asked, as we moved onto a loading dock. “They’ve been out for almost six weeks, and the worst thing I’ve seen them do is rip apart a slot machine.” And anyone who had ever played the one-armed bandits on the Strip could certainly sympathize with that.
“Well, one little thing would be that they keep breaking into the upper-level suites,” he said acidly. “The Consul came out of her bedroom the other day to find them swimming in the pool on her balcony!”
I grinned.
“It’s not funny!”
Considering that it had once been my balcony, before she’d pulled rank and kicked me out, I kind of disagreed. “Did they eat all her food?”
“There wasn’t any food. But they drank all the booze and beat up the guards she sent to remove them. They were there almost three hours before they went off to terrorize someone else. She wants them gone!”
“And God forbid anybody should inconvenience her,” I said sourly.
To my surprise, Casanova agreed. “I’m losing money every day that the damn Senate stays in residence. They’re using half of my suites—for which I’ve yet to see a dime in payment—co-opting my staff, taking over the conference rooms and eating me out of house and home!”
“This is only temporary. They’ll be gone soon.”
“Yes, leaving me with a trashed hotel, a ruined conference schedule and debts out my ears!”
“Mircea will understand—”
“Mircea doesn’t give a shit about this hotel,” Casanova said viciously. “Mircea cares about the damn war. If I drown in red ink, it’s all the same to him. He writes it off as a tax loss and transfers me to some dead-end job where I can molder away for another century or so.” He suddenly rounded on me, shining the light in my eyes and making me wince. “And that’s not going to happen, you understand? This is my one shot at the big time. Those old crones aren’t going to ruin it for me, and neither are you!”
“I’m not trying to—” I began, but he was already pushing forward again, muttering something indistinct in Spanish.
I scowled and started to follow, when a grizzled head popped out of nowhere in front of me. It was hanging upside down, the long, gray curls streaming earthward like moss on a plantation. It was Deino, the one who had always had a soft spot for me—at least until I started hunting her.
Like all the girls, she had a scrunched-up dried apple of a face with enough wrinkles to make a shar-pei jealous. It was a little hard to read the expression that was probably buried under there somewhere. But she wasn’t smiling.
Her chin dipped toward the trap I still clutched, and a few more wrinkles appeared on the weather-beaten face. “Um,” I said awkwardly.
It was hard to know what to say, since I’d been caught red-handed. And how much English she understood was problematic, anyway. But it didn’t matter, because before I could figure it out, she suddenly leaned over and kissed me on the cheek.
“Heh,” she said, and popped back out.
And so did the box.
I whipped my head around, but I didn’t see anything. Except for Casanova looking behind some stacked crates. “Uh, we may have a problem,” I told him nervously.
“What’s wrong now?” he demanded, brushing at a cobweb that had dared to sully his formerly pristine linen.
I didn’t answer, because I was staring at another ancient crone who was prowling toward him over the tops of the crates. Her movements weren’t remotely old, ladylike or, for that matter, particularly human. Enyo had gotten her hair cut, I noticed irrelevantly, right before Casanova winked out of existence.
For a moment, I just stood there while she bared toothless gums at me and cackled. Then she held up the black box and shook it suggestively. There was no doubt at all what had happened to the vampire.
“Oh, shit,” I said. Enyo cackled again and then paused, before holding the box out like a gift. I eyed it suspiciously. “You’re giving him to me?”
She nodded, grinning like a fiend. I suspected a trap, but, then, if the girls had wanted me in that box, they could have managed it easily enough. So maybe they were just trying to teach Casanova a lesson.
I tentatively took a step forward, then two. I put out a hand and almost had my fingers on it when Enyo flicked her wrist, tossing it over my head to Pemphredo, the third member of the trio. She was crouched on top of a nearby van, wearing grizzled pigtails and a “Vegas Made Me Do It” T-shirt, and peering at me out of the one eye they all shared.