stirred in him.
The other men also stood, as if he’d cued them. Tallgrass turned to Ric, nodding and brushing his palms lightly together. “She moves with a whisper like soft sandpaper, a slight snare drum brush.”
Trust a veteran tracker to notice. Ric realized he heard that too.
Tallgrass had seen the
She stopped in front of Ric. “Master.”
“No one’s your master now,” he said.
Her streamlined metal features turned to regard Christophe and Tallgrass before returning to face him. “I must answer to my maker, my caretaker. If not you, who else?”
It was her first sentence.
Ric found Christophe’s head and sunglasses bowed, looking down, staying neutral. Tallgrass’s dark eyes, often so noncommittal, had gone blank with shock.
There it was. The quandary.
If Ric didn’t use his natural power over this complex homemade CinSim, this brave new creature who was as diverse as mogul Christophe/rock star Cocaine/acquaintance Snow, who or what would fill that vacuum? She could be Good Maria/Bad Maria/robot/actress.
“Thank you . . . Brigitte,” he said, using the actress’s name to establish himself as . . . director. “You may go.”
She turned and strode away to the ajar double doors Ric knew led to the home theater. Could she even sit down in that wooden bodysuit? Did CinSims need to?
Tallgrass released a windy sigh. “Certainly not one of the spirit-walkers of my forefathers.”
Snow looked up at Ric, smiling. “In this case, looking out for my own interests dovetails with your needs, Montoya. Who can argue that this entity
He directed his gaze at Tallgrass. “You might have need of a dragon again,” Christophe added, referring to a recent battle with El Demonio’s forces in Wichita.
“And you, Mr. Christophe, of a Wendigo.” Tallgrass smiled.
“HE’S A SUPERNATURAL something,” Tallgrass told Ric once they’d reached the Inferno’s main floor again. “That’s my opinion. We know Christophe’s powers are impressive. You’ll never know their extent unless you watch him as closely as he seems to want to watch you.”
“‘Watch over me,’” Ric said. “That’s his claim.”
Tallgrass grinned. “You already have Miss Delilah doing a much more personal job of that. It’s hard to tell these days, Ricardo, who or what has anyone’s best interests at heart. If you can strike a mutually advantageous deal with this smooth operator, you’re doing well. I worry about you too. Meanwhile you and me have to keep the government working for us as we work for it. That’s our priority now.”
“Before we leave, want to meet Godfrey’s ‘cousin’ at the Inferno Bar?” Ric asked.
“Home of Miss Delilah’s Albino Vampire martini?” Tallgrass’s laugh boomed out, attracting amused stares. “She nailed Mr. Christophe but good by inventing that at his own bar. Sure, if they serve plain spring water. We’ll need our sharpest wits soon.”
“That’s all right. We can let Nick Charles do all our drinking for us.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
THERE WERE A lot of reasons a venture to the Karnak Hotel made me edgy, and a few hundred of them had fangs. Just because the Karnak was a relatively new kid on the block in Vegas didn’t mean it wasn’t chock-full of the evil dead.
In “middle-kingdom” Las Vegas, when the hotel-casinos first aspired to be modern architectural marvels instead of hyped-up motels with attached casinos and nightclub acts, the main hotel-casino buildings were set far back from the Las Vegas Strip.
More people drove than flew to Vegas then. Land was plentiful and cheap. Like aristocratic proprietors of country estates, the owners of major properties wanted long driveways leading to the magnificence of their main buildings, something impressive on the scale of the Roman Empire, say, of which Caesars Palace was the first and best example.
And even Caesars had installed a moving sidewalk from one corner of the Strip to the front facade early on.
So tourists had hoofed blocks along the Las Vegas Boulevard sidewalks and more blocks along driveways to reach the first hint of air-conditioning, the fabled
Call it sweat equity. Tourists consider the sweltering heat part of the experience.
Then some accountants realized the time the customers spent hoofing could be more profitably used having them cool and relaxed indoors, betting and spending money. Newer properties had entrances that cozied right up to the Strip, more like the long established Riviera and Flamingo hotels.
That explains why the Egyptian-themed hotels like the Luxor, Oasis, and Karnak planted their main entrances right out front, where a pyramid, an obelisk, or a temple would be only a short stroll away. No grandiose avenue of the sphinxes like in the ancient days.
At the Karnak Hotel you were immediately deposited by cab or walking in from the Strip among the massively thick and high crowded pillars duplicating a mammoth hall in the ancient temples of Karnak. And, incidentally, you were instantly immersed in cool, blessed shade, even outside.
Since I’d dressed for my undercover outing in heat-absorbing black I took to the shade like a mallard to marsh. I wove from one clot of tourists to another through the lobby and registration area, not pausing to gawk at animal-headed gods twenty feet high.
I was looking for a much lowlier deity.
And having zilch luck.
The crowds came and went, too thick and furious for a pipsqueak figure like Bez to stand out. I needed to avoid catching the eye of any hotel staff in linen kilt and braided wig who weren’t just local color, but whose kohl- outlined eyes would be scanning for suspicious characters like me.
I was more familiar than anyone besides Ric with the Karnak’s hidden vampire court and underworld, from which Shez was an escapee, thanks to me.
A cold wet nudge in the palm of my hand made me pause my weary tourist shuffle and step out of the traffic flow to snuggle up to the base of a towering statue of Anubis.
“Quick! No dogs allowed,” I said, grabbing his collar and kneeling so I wasn’t a target. At least his wet nose told me he wasn’t dehydrated after following me from the parking garage.
I felt a tug on the silver bangle on my left wrist. It melted down through my fingers to make a shoulder- circling semiprecious stone-studded collar on Quicksilver. Darned if he didn’t resemble the ancient god Osiris wearing his ceremonial doghead on his handsome broad human shoulders, of course.
Before I could lecture the both of them, Fido and familiar, the crowd around us milled with murmurs of annoyance. They parted, unhappily, to provide a path.
In moments, a short stocky figure about the height of Quick’s head was facing me.
The deity know as Bes to the ancient Egyptians and—less reverently to me as the second headliner in the act of Shez and Bez—tucked the cell phone in his hand into the decorative horizontal band of his wrapped linen kilt. I’d glimpsed a screenful of Egyptians hieroglyphics before he’d hidden the screen.
“Hail, Mighty Delilah and Quicksilver the Clever. My heart-brother, Shezmou, alerted me to your advent,” he noted in the formal way of ancient Egyptian gods.
If I resembled Snow White, Bez was one of my seven dwarves, short, stout, and cocky. Too cocky. Since Bez
