Page 126 of Junk Magic

“—so who knows what I can do?”

Sienna nodded, looking as if she was revising her speech for if we got caught, while Laura abruptly leaned forward and grasped my hands. Her reaction surprised me, both because of the concern on her face and because carriers of Neuri were treated worse by the Were community than lepers. Nobody wanted to touch us; nobody wanted to get close.

But her fingers closed hard around mine nonetheless.

“You have to go back!” she told me breathlessly. “Now! We’ll . . . we’ll call you a cab. You can hop out and run across to another hotel to wait for it. Nobody has to see you—”

“I’m not going back, Laura.”

“But they’ll kill you! And that’s assuming Whirlwind doesn’t get you first! You have an open challenge—”

“Not anymore,” Sienna said, her jaw tight. “That’s why that bastard Farkas was so quick to spill his guts. A vargulf can’t challenge.”

“Lobizon will hunt me to the ends of the Earth regardless,” I told Laura softly, because she was looking seriously distressed.

I’d saved her favorite nephew, and to Weres, that kind of thing creates an obligation, and a bond. She felt responsible for me, although she should have been running as fast as she could in the other direction. I gently removed her fingers.

“But today, most of those people in there still don’t know what I look like. It’s the best chance I’m going to get.”

“To do what?” she said angrily. “I don’t understand—

“There’s someone I have to see.”

She would have grilled me some more, it was all over her face, but we’d just pulled up. Only not to a Were owned facility, since the only one large enough in the area was Wolf’s Head, which was still a crime scene and would be so for days. And even for Weres, holding court among a field of bodies was a bit much.

So, they were holding it here, in Vegas’s only supernaturally owned hotel and casino, the gaudy, overly themed, Halloween-all-year-long monstrosity known as Dante’s. It was where most of the out of towners had been staying anyway, so it was convenient, and the meeting of a bunch of Weres didn’t even raise an eyebrow in these parts. Weird occurrences were so much the norm on the property that the Corps had almost stopped responding to calls.

Not that that seemed to concern the vamps who ran the place overmuch. They just brushed any problems under the rug and added the cost to the culprits’ bills. And hid the fallout from the regular folk who came here to party and gamble by adding even more spooky kitsch to the crap ton they already had.

Thankfully, we weren’t going in the front, which was part medieval castle, part hellmouth, and all wince inducing. The lobby was currently undergoing refurbishment, so the long line of shiny cars had been routed around to the back. Where the local glitterati were exiting onto a literal red carpet.

I thought that was a bit much considering that the back was mostly a large parking garage where the buses arrived, but maybe that was why they’d needed the carpet—to cover up the oil leaks on the cracked concrete. Like I assumed that the planters of evergreens along either side of the plush were supposed to mask the scent of urine in the corners. It didn’t help with a bunch of Were noses, but everyone was politely pretending not to notice.

The torches spaced regularly inside the evergreens were a nice touch, though, and sent rippling shadows over the faces of the beautiful people heading inside. It helped that Dante’s looked better at night, where the fake rock on the façade more easily resembling an old European castle, and where the weeds in the landscaping weren’t as noticeable. With the clan banners arrayed in a long line over the façade and fluttering in a mild breeze, it was actually pretty impressive.

Especially when you considered that they’d had less than a day to pull it off.

The limo Sienna had rented, because her clan might be small but damned if she’d arrive in a taxi, glided to a halt and she and her cousin got out. Laura still looked trapped between anger, worry and sadness, but I doubt that anybody else noticed. Because Mamma Thunderbird knew how to put on a show, and today she’d gone all out in an attempt to keep eyes on her and off of me.

It worked spectacularly.

I slipped out of the limo behind the two ladies, head down and partly turned into my neck, allowing the drape of the material to largely obscure my face. But it was a needless precaution. And almost caused me to step on the hem of the gown, if it could be called that, that my hostess was wearing.

It was constructed of a sweep of long, blue green feathers that had an iridescent quality to them, shifting their hues depending on what she passed. They were mostly gold and green at the moment, with crimson around the hemline where they reflected the carpet. Although the whole flowed with color as she moved, like ocean waves or swiftly moving clouds.

The feathers also glittered with gold at the tips, as did the low-cut bodice, which was all gold, to match the diadem in her long, dark hair. And as if that wasn’t enough, she had iridescent blue and green tones feathering out from her eyes like wings, and demarcating her high cheekbones. In short, she looked like a goddamned supermodel and nobody so much as glanced at anyone else as she swept inside.

I followed them at a short distance, then broke off when we were through the main doors because several members of Lobizon were headed this way. Even worse, it was Wulfgar and Simeon, both of whom had been there that night that dad and I fought to keep them from giving me the bite, and thereby to retain my secret. We’d been essentially fighting for my life, and we had acted like it, which was why Wulfgar was missing an eye and Simeon had a face of pockmarked skin from the potion bomb I’d thrown into it.

I didn’t know why they were here instead of prowling for me in the city. But here they were, sniffing the air, testing for my scent. And I wasn’t wearing perfume since I’d woken up at a Were’s house that didn’t have any.

Shit.

I quickly hung a right into a hallway I was familiar with from one of the aforementioned weird occurrences, which led to the banqueting kitchens. And made it halfway down before they caught me. The kitchen would have confused my scent with the smells of whatever was on the menu tonight, as well as the skin ruffling odor of the workers, who weren’t exactly human.

But I didn’t make it that far.

I felt them Change behind me, without a word or a shout of warning. They weren’t interested in talking; they were interested in killing, and they knew from past experience who they were dealing with. At least, they thought they did.

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