Page 114 of Iron Unicorn

“Sorry, Terry, but I’m going to have to acknowledge you make a beautiful woman.”

I chuckled. “Holly worked miracles. I have learned a lesson: I will be more appreciative of the work a woman puts in getting dressed, especially for parties. I can’t wait to get this makeup off and escape from this bra.”

Olivia howled her laughter, and the other women joined in with snickers and giggles.

A rather confused Aanya stared at me with wide eyes. “I don’t get it, Mr. Terry.”

I gave the little girl my undivided attention, gesturing to my face. “It took Holly well over an hour to make my face pretty. It was a lot of work, and honestly, it makes my skin a little itchy.”

“You didn’t tell me it itches, Terry,” Holly complained. “I had makeups for sensitive skin.”

“I assumed it was normal.”

“If you got a rash, I can treat it with a trip to the pharmacy, so don’t worry. Aanya, Terry was mostly making a comment acknowledging how much work it is for women to make themselves pretty. Terry puts in a lot of work making himself pretty when he wears a suit, he just doesn’t use makeup, so it doesn’t take him quite as long.”

“I really did think it took less time.”

“Well, I did have to transform you from handsome man to beautiful woman, and that’s a little more work than normal.”

“Just so you know, Mom, the roller coaster was spotted. They are crying over the loss of your window. Dad is stating he’s not sure about the effectiveness of handcuffing someone to a chairwithoutbolting the chair to the floor. He wants someone to unbolt the chair so he can see how hard it is to get around while his feet are handcuffed to a chair.”

Jessica laughed. “Of course he does. Indulge him while we find a hotel. Then they can move him to a place that’s easy enough to guard while they try to figure out how much damage Terry did to the wiring.”

“I completely destroyed your wiring system. Sorry. I found sparking faults deep in the walls, and the safest thing to do was to make certain every wire has to be replaced. I checked before I got started, and I made certain they can’t take any shortcuts to restore electricity. Your generators aren’t going to do you much good. It was a fire hazard.”

“You’re a god, Terry,” Eddie announced. “I’ve been complaining about a power flicker for a few months, and people just kept saying I was being paranoid.”

“Wasn’t me,” Jessica chirped. “I took you seriously. I even asked maintenance to look into it. How hard would it have been for maintenance to find those faults?”

“Pretty difficult, I suspect. I could sense where the metal was starting to give and sparks could happen. I follow the metal in the electric wires, and I can feel when something isn’t quite right. The larger the sources of metal, the easier it is to find, so I picked the concentrated sources, but I made certain to destroy and ground the wiring that might spark while I was doing it. I don’t know if your lightningweaving can detect it.”

“Mine can’t, but Geoff probably could have detected it. I work best with storms, but I can summon electricity. I’m refined enough to fry people, but I’m not refined enough to play at being an electrician.”

I assumed I’d blamed my metalweaving for using another talent without awareness. I would need to work on that. “As the hostage, can I request a room with a fancy tub?”

“Yes,” Olivia replied.

I laughed at the immediacy of her response. “You want to use the tub, too.”

“I really do. Jessica, why don’t you invite your guests to the hotel, too? With the power out at the palace, you’ll want to set up shop somewhere anyway. If they want to rough it up at the palace, Pat can work the grills. He’ll love it, they’ll love it, and the staff can go home while you get repairs done.”

“You know what to do, boy,” Jessica said, rubbing her hands together. “And if there are suites open at our favorite hotel, they have grills and don’t mind us using them.”

Shaking his head, Eddie used the car’s navigation system to verbally activate his microphone and went to work reining in the chaos.

TWENTY-SEVEN

“I’ll thank you between the curses.”

We reached the hotel first,but Jessica ended up chatting with the woman at the desk sorting out how they’d be invading and grabbing up every free room in the place to deal with the electrical woes at the palace. The process dragged; the queen needed to guess how many people would be in each room. She handled my room with Olivia first, asking that we get the best suite the place had to offer.

Once done, she shooed us away, ordered Eddie to escort us so we didn’t decide to get lost on the way, and promised she could handle any issues.

Fortunately for Eddie’s sanity, several other agents arrived before he could break his brain trying to figure out how to guard his mom and obey a direct order. Carl led the charge, and because I could be an ass, I blew him a kiss.

Olivia elbowed me. I elbowed her back.

Before we could start kicking each other in the shins, the RPS agent stopped, sighed, and asked, “Seriously?”

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