Elgar immediately looks ashamed. “I . . . you’re right. I didn’t think—”
“Try to,” Pip says. Then she blows out an annoyed breath, forces herself to flex her fist, runs her fingers through her hair, and pointedly turns away from him. “Ahbni, if you’d like to tell us where the coffee is, I can make sure that my husband fetches it for his own damn self. And then you and I can review where Mr. Neanderthal over there needs to be, and by when.”
Chastened, Elgar scowls and jams his hands further into his pockets. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“Are you his security, then?” Ahbni asks, clearly not convinced, even as she waves me toward the table at the back of the small conference room the ConComm has commandeered for this small shindig. I don’t blame her. Pip, in her leathers, looks nothing like a professional.
“Close enough,” Pip says. “Believe me when I say that I’m mostly here for his own good.”
Ahbni snorts and offers Pip a crooked smirk. “That must be a hell of a job,” she says.
“You’re telling me,” my wife agrees. It seems as if she’s made a new friend.
I take this opportunity to slink over to the aforementioned table, accepting the out that Pip and Elgar have proffered. Though only the former was, I think, aware that I had a desire to divide and conquer the crowd. Or, no, not conquer. Assess.
While Pip charms Ahbni and corrals Elgar, I spend a few hours practicing my Canadian accent so as not to stand out too much in the memory of the people around me. I sip coffee that I have fetched for my own damn self, and drop subtle phrases and suggestions in the ears of a large black man who is the head of security; the skinny, overworked and underslept white man who is the convention organizer; and Ichiro. Though I have no Words to compel with, I am able to murmur, and plant suggestions, and pry in ways so subtle that the subjects of my machinations do not realize they are being manipulated at all. It is nice to don the persona of the Shadow Hand once more; it is a little like a homecoming, and I find my hand drifting to cradle the pommel of Smoke so often that I must fold my hands behind my back to keep from making the security-seeking gesture appear as if it is meant to be a threat.
We leave the party shortly thereafter. Pip is assured that Ahbni will personally oversee Elgar’s schedule and safety, no matter that she is annoyed with his personality, and I am pleased with my progress with the rest of the staff.
And no one, as far as I could see, has green eyes.
A tension that I had only barely registered in Pip’s posture is more relaxed as we “batman” out of the party (Pip calls it this when we leave without calling attention to ourselves or announcing it), and head back to our suite. Pip and Elgar take the first elevator up, and I linger, pretending to read the newspaper left on the tall, thin table by the elevators, to take the next one. No one seems to be following us from the event, though I linger once again when I reach the penthouse floor before heading to our rooms.
When I get there, Pip and Elgar are already a few sips into their plastic cups of wine, and, satisfied for now, I indulge in one myself before we bid each other goodnight and make for our separate bedrooms.
“Should we sleep in shifts?” Pip asks me as I prop Smoke between the bed and the side table.
“I have considered that,” I admit. “And far be it for me to say that I think we are fine for now—”
“Don’t,” Pip says with laughing sternness. “You’ll call down trouble.”
“I think we ought to indulge in sleeping as much as we are able. I’m not certain we’ll have the chance for the rest of the weekend.”
Elgar
Elgar wakes to a screech. For a second, sitting bolt upright on his bed with sweat on his face and his heart thundering in his throat, he mistakes it for the fire alarm. He blinks rapidly and swallows a few times, the noise ringing shrill and . . . penetratingly discordant between his ears.
It’s not an alarm of any kind. It’s a scream.
He scrambles out of bed, yanking on a pair of lounge pants to cover his crumpled boxers, and searches his room for a weapon. Lucy is screaming, and he can’t hear Forsyth, so he might be dead already, and oh god, that means the Viceroy is going to come in here next, and Elgar is armed with literally nothing, and what can he do anyway, with a sword or a gun or a dagger, against magic?
Determined to not just stand in this room, a lone target, a stupid goose just waiting for the slaughter, Elgar grabs the bedside lamp, chucks the shade off it, and yanks the cord from the wall. The lamp is skinny enough that he can get his whole hand around it, and has enough heft that he can swing it like a baseball bat. If he’s lucky, the bulb might even shatter in the Viceroy’s face.
Oh, god, I’m contemplating smashing one of my own fictional creations in the face with a lamp, Elgar thinks a little wildly. His hands start to shake, and he redoubles his grip. And then, while his courage is up, he throws back his door, thunders down the hall, and kicks open Lucy and Forsyth’s with a roar of rage. He hefts the lamp over his head, ready to swing at their attacker and . . . freezes.
Lucy is on the bed, arched on her shoulders and heels, howling in agony. Forsyth is beside her on his
