thought he was an eighteen-year-old girl whose interests revolved around painting and playing the pianoforte. But let’s face it. Even if a whole gang of thugs jumps out of the shadows, a moment that priceless is going to loop in your head until your inner bimbo stops trading howls of hilarity with the bartender and resumes her drunken dance with the coatrack. So I let the memory reel rol .
We’d been gathered in the courtyard that fil ed the center of the riad, giving the building the shape of a grater that went straight at the top. The eye-catcher in the whole outdoor garden was the fountain rising out of the rectangular wading pool, a graceful y crafted urn that made it hard to look away. But then, there was so much more to see.
The pool was surrounded by wooden chairs and tables with such ornate arms and legs you’d almost believe fairies had done the crafting. These sat on sand-colored tiles, two-foot-square sections of which had been removed in choice spots around the courtyard to make room for plantings of banana trees. Copper planters ful of ferns, palms, and lemon trees took turns with hanging lanterns to line the courtyard’s pink wal s, providing some relief for the eye when the sun beat down during the brightest part of the day.
Escape also came in the form of two corner-built gazebos hung with raspberry-colored curtains that could be closed for extra privacy. Inside, Monique had placed two couches framed in metal that was bent to reflect the shovel-shaped arches that showed up in so much of Marrakech’s architecture. The burgundy cushions topped with enough pil ows to satisfy an entire legion of interior decorators cozified them.
I’d been admiring those gazebos for days, thinking about what Vayl and I might have gotten away with behind their thick curtains if he hadn’t been brain-fried. Now I their thick curtains if he hadn’t been brain- fried. Now I shared them with my crew, watching the sky darken, waiting for the moment when—there. Cirilai sent a shot of warmth into the palm of my hand. The ring Vayl’s grandfather had made to protect his soul had warned me he was waking.
Which meant it was time to prepare the troops.
I looked at Bergman, sitting with his hands in his lap.
Across a glass-topped table framed in exotical y carved wood and covered with flickering candles sat Kyphas. I kept my eyes on her couch because, honestly? I could stil barely look at her without reaching for the gun strapped to my shoulder. So what if she’d promised Cole to stop trying to corrupt souls for the Great Taker. My reaction?
What I hoped was that she’d keep her paws off Cassandra now that we’d promised her Brude and a shot at the Oversight Committee in our psychic’s place.
The problem was, Kyphas didn’t believe in generosity.
In fact, greed tended to ooze out of her like hangover sweat. Cole might not recognize the stench. But he tended to get distracted as soon as boobs starting bouncing within his line of sight.
And she did look like she could gobble him whole as she eyed him from under her lashes. Which caused me to growl a little louder than I’d intended to when I said, “We can’t put Vayl off any longer. He keeps asking for a girl named Helena. We think that must be you, Kyphas. Play the part or—”
“Or what?” The demon’s perfectly pink lips quirked in amusement. “Go ahead, threaten me some more, Jaz.”
“He cal s me
“You know, Kyphas, you are probably the most beautiful woman I have ever fantasized about,” Cole said as he laid his arm across my shoulders. She sat forward, giving him ful access to her halter-topped, tight-jeaned magazine-cover bod. He took his time with the view. Then he said,
“Why do you have to be such a bitch al the time?” She sat up straight, crossing her arms as he went on, almost casual y, like he was discussing the price of lawn mowers this season. “I’ve kil ed snakes that were cuddlier than you. Wel ”—he glanced at me—“those inland taipans you offed during that Scidairan witch mission were pretty gnarly. But I remember this pygmy rattlesnake I had to shoot during a case in Miami when I was stil a PI. It was actual y pretty—”
“Al right!” Kyphas slapped her hand against the armrest. “I’l cooperate!” She glared at Bergman. “Am I that bad?”
He shook his head, but the shake slowly turned to a nod. The motion made his hair bounce, which activated Cole’s AGR (automatic giggle response). Because, despite my daily suggestions to dye it back to brown, Bergman insisted that if he modeled his look after Cole’s he might have the same luck with women. So far he’d gotten two imaginary cel numbers and an outright, “Are you kidding me?” Personal y I thought his head was too big and his frame too skeletal to pul it off. He needed a girl who was into unwrapped mummies.
Or, maybe, one who enjoyed feeding people. Monique had come out with a tray ful of cookies and tea just in time to say to Cole, “Lord Brancoveanu is cal ing for you.” She smiled sympathetical y, stil buying our loony- but-lovable uncle story. Which is why nice people are always getting suckered.
I reminded myself to leave her a big tip as I fol owed Cole out of the courtyard, motioning for the others, especial y Kyphas/Helena, to fol ow us to Vayl’s door.
Where we waited while Cole went in to do valet crap. Ten minutes later he invited us into the suite.
I felt a familiar pang of regret as I glanced at Vayl’s bed, its white spread resembling a cast-off wedding dress.
Except the mesh canopy that draped overhead and tied at each corner of its black metal support was a rich chocolaty brown. And the black-domed sleeping tent perched underneath that veil seemed less like a vampire’s shield from stray rays of light than a tunnel into another universe.
