Then the guy at the X-ray machine said, “Ma’am? Does this box belong to you?”
Oh, no. Of all the obstacles we’d overcome, of all the world’s wickedness we’d faced, I hadn’t expected this.
I looked at the guy, round-faced and mustached, sagging in his early-shift fatigue. I smiled, cheerful and feigning ignorance. “Yes?”
The X-ray operator inched the conveyor forward, and the guy who’d addressed me picked up the box.
“Ma’am, I’m going to need to take a look in this box.”
No no no. I must have looked stricken. Ben leaned forward and whispered—without looking like he was leaning forward and whispering—“If you argue, they’ll get suspicious and put you in a holding room. Say ‘All right.’”
“Um... okay?” I said. My smile froze.
The TSA agent led us over to a stainless-steel table and took out a box cutter, no doubt confiscated from some other hapless traveler. And what was I going to do if he confiscated the ifrit? Did the TSA manual even cover something like this?
With great precision, he sliced through the duct tape around the box. Watching, I bounced in place a little. Ben was a picture of aggravating serenity. Maybe he had some lawyer-fu he could pull out at the last minute to avert disaster.
The TSA agent dug through the wadded-up newspaper and drew out the next box. Holding it, he eyed us, as if inviting us to share the great secret we were hiding. We didn’t oblige him.
“Fragile?” he said.
“Very,” I said.
He cut through the tape on the second box. I winced, thinking maybe it would explode. It didn’t. Ben wasn’t quite the picture of calm anymore; he clenched his hands behind his back. His courtroom face didn’t reveal anything. I would have to learn from his example, because I was fidgeting. I was this close to grabbing the box from the guy and running. But that would be so very bad. Down, girl.
Finally, the agent drew out the brown bottle. My hands were reaching for it.
“Is it liquid?” he asked. Holding up to the light, he peered at it.
“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing liquid, nothing dangerous at all. Just a perfectly harmless bottle.” Corked, sealed with wax, with another layer of duct tape wrapped over the wax for good measure. The agent studied the elaborate corking material with great suspicion. Not that I could blame him. But I so didn’t have time for this.
“Mind if I have a look inside this?”
I winced. Truth-or-consequences time. “Actually, I’d really rather you didn’t. I’ll never be able to get it closed up just right again.” And wasn’t that the truth? This guy had no idea. If I said there was an evil djinn locked inside, he’d probably call the police.
He gave me the talking-to-crazy-people look. “There doesn’t seem to be anything in here.” To make his point, he gave the bottle a shake. I wanted to scream at him not to do that. What if it pissed the djinn off? Pissed him off more, anyway.
“Please. It shouldn’t be opened. It’s sealed like that for a reason.”
“Why? It’s not radioactive, is it?”
“It, uh, has the breath of Elvis inside?”
The expression on his face changed, subtly. The lines around his eyes grew softer, the hard edges of his frown vanished. It was a shift from a “dealing with crazy people” look to a “dealing with crazy but harmless people” look.
I’d take that.
He put the bottle in the little box, the little box in the big box, not bothering to arrange the packing or reseal the tape. He handed the box back to me, with crushed newspaper spilling out the top. “You folks have a nice flight.”
“Thank you,” I said around gritted teeth. Quickly, we retreated. I didn’t even pause to rearrange the packing. Time enough to do that while we waited to board—which was in about ten minutes, thanks to Mr. Vigilant.
“So,” Ben said. “That went well.”
I glared at him.
It was near dawn when Peter met us at Las Vegas’s McCarran Airport in Grant’s car. He seemed to be in a rush. Excited, at least. Positively gleeful, like a plan was coming together. We climbed into the car’s backseat.
“Is that it?” He nodded at the box.
“Yeah,” I said. “So what’s the plan? What’s Grant cooking up?”
Grinning, he shook his head. “I think Odysseus Grant is the freakiest guy I’ve ever met. He’s so cool.”
I glared. “You’re having way too much fun, Peter. What’s going on?”
“Grant said to tell you to just be ready with the jar.”
I hated all this man-of-mystery crap.
Even at this hour, Las Vegas was overstimulating. The Strip, the main street, home to all the mega hotel resorts and most of the crowds, was all lights, bleached slightly by the first hint of the rising sun. I had to squint against the glare. It was like a giant parade that had stalled in the desert.
We turned a corner, crossed the Strip, and continued toward a great concrete ziggurat.
Ben groaned. “We’re not going where I think we’re going.”
But yes, we were. The Hanging Gardens Hotel and Resort, home of the Balthasar, King of Beasts Show, now fronted by Nick, since were-lion Balthasar died in a blaze of silver-bulleted gunfire. Right before he tried to sacrifice me on his unholy fake altar. We were heading toward where this whole sleigh ride started.
Peter pulled into the drive and handed the keys to the valet parking guy. He barely broke stride while collecting his ticket, turning to us, and saying, “We need to hurry.”
“But what are we doing?”
“You’ll see.”
I held the box under one arm, and held Ben’s arm with the other, as we followed Peter. He walked briskly, almost jogging through the lobby and past the tourists and gamblers and noise. I was so focused I barely registered the area. I was in hunting mode, and the prey was in sight.
Peter led us to the King of Beasts theater, then to a side door. It was unlocked. We went in, and before us was the stage, just as it looked at the end of the show: torches, palm trees, vegetation dripping off the backdrop of a giant fake ziggurat, like we’d landed in some lost jungle temple. I’d seen the show—way up close. It was on this stage and setting that the cult of Tiamat had tried to kill me.
Now Odysseus Grant stood downstage center, next to a six-and-a-half-foot-high coffinlike box, painted black and covered with faded decorations, vines and flowers, arcane symbols. Part of his magic show, he put people inside and made them disappear. He always brought them back—during the show, at least.
I knew better than to ask how he’d managed to get the box here from his own theater at the Diablo Hotel, at least a mile away. Grant just did things.
Ben hadn’t seen any of this. He’d just heard the aftermath stories. He stopped halfway down the aisle and stared at the setting, agog.
“When I said this was fucked up, that was an understatement,” he said.
“Is that it?” Grant said to me, marching to the edge of the stage, reaching toward me. I fished the jar out of the box and handed it to him.
He held it up to the light, turning it, as if he could see through the mostly opaque glass. As if he could see anything inside. For all I knew, the ifrit had simply vanished and the jar was empty. Except for the way Tina had stared at it, and how carefully she handled it.
“Extraordinary,” Grant said softly. When he glanced at us, he was actually smiling. “Do you know what you’ve done here?”
I shrugged. “We weren’t trying to do anything fancy. I just wanted to keep my city safe.”
Peter had lingered by the theater door, and now slammed it shut. “They’re coming.”
“Get out of sight,” Grant said to us. We didn’t argue. Not that it would help; we were facing a vampire and a pack of lycanthropes. They’d be able to smell us. Peter waved us over to the far edge of the stage, where we could hide in the wings, at least for a little while. This was going to come down to the face-to-face battle I’d been hoping to avoid.