She watched me silently for a moment, then slowly held out the box. Like I was actually going to fall for that again. “No, I don’t want to play,” I told her. “Really.”
That was too bad, because it looked like I was in the minority.
“I want him back,” I said. Pemphredo shot me a look. “Okay, maybe not actually want, but you know how it is.”
She tilted her head inquiringly. Clearly, she didn’t know.
That was a problem, because I didn’t, either.
“See, it’s like this,” I said, trying to come up with a reason why they should let him go. “He’s annoying.”
The girls nodded. This, apparently, we could all agree on.
“And . . . and obviously he had no right to try to trap you like that. I mean, it’s not like you’ve been doing anything wrong.”
More nods.
“It’s just . . . um . . .” I stopped, trying to recall why I wanted the guy back. I thought about it while they all waited politely. I gave up. “Look, I don’t really have a good reason for you to give him back,” I said honestly. “He’s a crabby, self-centered, egotistical, money-grubbing snob. His own employees don’t even like him much. But it could be worse. If you cart him off somewhere, they’ll have to get a new manager. And he might be a lot more of a hard-ass.”
They exchanged glances.
I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not, but I decided to push ahead anyway. “And if you let him out, I’ll talk to him for you. Maybe if he gives you a suite, you can promise not to go breaking into the others anymore?”
Further glances were exchanged.
“A nice suite?”
Enyo made a little come-hither movement with her hand. It looked like I was getting warm.
“With room service?”
Ding, ding, ding, we had a winner. At least I guessed so, because she handed me the box.
I tucked it under an arm instead of letting him out, because I didn’t want to deal with the drama right now. “I, uh, I had another reason for coming down here,” I told them.
Pemphredo had been about to crawl off, but at that she came back and settled down, brushing off her filthy shorts. Deino crossed her legs. Enyo stopped picking at her fingernails with a knife and put it politely away.
I kind of felt like I should be serving tea.
“It’s like this,” I said. “It’s starting to feel like Grand Central around here for demigods. You know what I mean?”
They nodded.
“First it was this Morrigan person. She’s this half-Fey child of Ares who tried to possess me. And that really sucked.”
More nods.
“But it didn’t work, so then she possessed this mage who tried to kill me and almost succeeded.”
That got me a little pat from Deino.
“And then, last night, a bunch more demigods showed up. A guy I know thinks they may be something called the Spartoi, which would make them also children of Ares. Plus, I think they were also after my mother way back when—at least, they fought the same as those other guys and . . . Anyway, I don’t think these attacks are just going to stop, you know?”
Nods all around.
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to deal with them, only I don’t know how. But there’s this prophecy that says I can get help if I find a goddess. The one they used to call Artemis back in Greece.”
Deino frowned.
“I know the gods were all banished. But I thought that maybe, since it was her spell, she might still be around somewhere—”
The others just looked at me, but Deino slowly shook her head.
“You’re sure?”
A nod.
Damn. So much for that theory.
“Okay, then how about this? The prophecy said that Artemis and Ares were supposed to fight, but he isn’t here, either. It’s his kids who have been causing the trouble. So I was thinking, maybe I need to find her kids, you know?”
The girls exchanged some looks.
“I mean, she was supposed to be this virgin goddess, but I gotta think after a few thousand years, that’s gonna get kind of old. So I thought maybe—”
I broke off because the girls’ heads jerked up, all at the same time, like they were on a string. I hadn’t heard anything, but when I looked back over my shoulder, I saw a mob of Casanova’s security guards heading for us at a dead run. They must have been watching on CCTV, or maybe they felt it when the boss went pop. Either way, not good.
“No!” I yelled. “Don’t—”
That was all I got out before they were past me, ruffling my hair with the unnatural speed of vampires in a hurry. They didn’t ruffle the Graeae’s, because the girls were no longer there. I’d been looking at the vamps, so I hadn’t seen them move. But there was suddenly nothing where they’d been, except for a few gray hairs drifting slowly earthward.
The vamps stopped, realizing that their prey was gone, about the time that a piercing whistle from the other end of the garage caused all our heads to jerk back around. Silhouetted against the fading daylight were two stooped, wrinkled forms. One of them was waving, while the other held up Casanova’s box.
I hadn’t even realized it was gone.
Pemphredo turned around and dropped her filthy shorts, showing the guards a wrinkled white ass. Deino waggled the box some more and pointed. The challenge was clear: come and get him.
“No, wait,” I told the guards, glancing around for Enyo. She was the scariest of the three, and she was currently AWOL. “One of them is missing. We need to—”
I might as well have saved my breath, because they didn’t even hesitate. They started back toward the gals at full speed, just blurs against the gloom—until a plastic-wrapped pallet went sailing through the air like a Frisbee. Half the guards hit the wall with a sickening crunching sound. The other half turned, snarling, and came after Enyo.
Or, at least, they tried. But the bus depot contained one of the main loading docks for the hotel, which explained all the stuff sitting around. Including a case of produce that Enyo had just popped the top on, repurposing the contents as veggie grenades. Or make that fruit, because the first ten or twelve she threw in rapid-fire succession were cantaloupes. They spilled their slippery guts all over the floor, right about the time the vamps ran across it—and promptly ended up on their vampy asses.
But they were still sliding in our direction, and now they were really pissed. On average, a vampire would prefer to have his body wounded rather than his pride, which at least would leave him bragging rights among his peers. Losing a food fight with three old women, on the other hand, didn’t do a lot for the image. They were going to have a tough time spinning this unless they caught the girls.
Suddenly, the hunt became personal, and that really wasn’t good.
That was especially true because I didn’t think Casanova had bothered to tell his boys what they were facing. If the legends were to be believed, the trio had been created as ancient versions of the Incredible Hulk. Sweet—kind of—as long as they weren’t crossed, they morphed into scary with a little scary on top when threatened.
I’d seen Enyo’s alter ego before, and was really okay with not seeing it again. And it was looking like I’d get my wish. Because she was still in little-old-lady mode, just standing in front of a parked semi, as if asking to be caught.
For some reason, that made me more nervous than the reverse. But the sticky, pissed-off vamps didn’t appear to feel the same way. They lunged for her, and for a moment, I thought it was all over. Until I looked again and they were suddenly gone.
For a second, I thought she must have had another trap. But then a fist-shaped bit of metal bulged out of the side of the semi, followed by a lot of cursing. And laughter, because Enyo was on her knees, slapping the dirty ground and cackling.
“It isn’t funny,” I told her, as four or five other fist- and shoe-shaped bulges appeared.
She looked up at me, tears streaming down the crags on her face. Obviously, she begged to differ.