But that could wait. There were more pressing issues at the moment. I left Francoise to arrange things to her liking and borrowed the key to her old room. If I was lucky, I'd have time for a shower before I was evicted again.
I woke hours later to a thump and a scream. The latter started in a falsetto and ended up in a baritone, which was enough to tell me that it wasn't Francoise even before the profanity started. I tensed, my lids flew open and I saw a hulking eight-foot shadow looming over me. I screamed.
"Honey, I know it's last year's wig," someone snapped. "But it's Liza. It's timeless."
I reached up and flicked on the overhead light, and the shadow resolved itself into an eight-foot-tall woman rubbing her shin. Part of the height was due to the aforementioned towering black wig and part to seven-inch platforms. The rest of the package was swathed in a skintight sheath short enough to be considered a shirt and constructed entirely of black sequined bow ties. It strained over shoulders wider than most men's and showed off heavily muscled legs. The total effect was linebacker in drag.
It took me a minute to realize that was because she was, in fact, a linebacker in drag.
"Who are you?" I demanded shrilly.
She looked insulted. "Darling, have you been living under a rock? I'm Dee Sire."
I just looked at her.
"Of the Three D's?"
I shook my head.
"We used to be the Double D's, but then we picked up a third. ."
I had no idea what she was talking about, but a quick survey showed that whoever she was, she didn't appear to be carrying a weapon. Unless she had one stuffed in that enormous wig. She could have stuck an AK-47 in there and no one would know.
"What are you doing in my room?" I asked a little more calmly.
"I know how it is: you have one too many drinks, you're looking for the ladies' and you stumble in here. Fair enough, but, sweetie, this ain't your room."
"It is at the moment," I said testily, looking around.
Francoise was nowhere to be seen, probably still out with Randy. He'd talked her into dinner and she'd invited me along, but Randy had been giving me pleading eyes behind her back and anyway, I'd been too exhausted to eat. Not to mention that the only clean clothes I had were the Dante's T-shirt and sweatpants I'd bought at the gift shop to sleep in. No one had seemed to know where my luggage was and everything Francoise owned was six inches too long on me.
"What do you want?" I asked, finger combing my hair.
"No need to get snippy. And if you don't want to wake up in the stockroom with no idea how you got there, I'd lay off the sauce."
"I don't drink! And I know exactly how I got here. I was—Wait a minute!" I stopped, staring from her to the still-locked door. "How did you get in?"
Dee wasn't listening. She'd pulled a silver bejeweled phone out of her enormous bosom and was stabbing at it with a crimson talon. "Get me Dee Vine," she told it, and paused for a beat. "Don't give me that! Tell her to stop primping and answer the damn phone!" There was another pause and she rolled her eyes. "Dee Vine, my ass!" she told me. "She ought to call herself Dee Crepit; the bitch has to be going on sixty. No amount of makeup is going to hel—lo Dee, you gorgeous thing. ."
My stomach grumbled plaintively, a counterpoint to the throbbing in my skull. My last meal had been breakfast with Mircea and that had to be. . I wasn't even sure. A long time ago. I started looking for my shoes.
"Well, I don't know, do I?" Dee asked. "The only other person here is some wino in wrinkled sweats. ."
I looked down at myself and then glared up at her. She made a kissy face at me but didn't apologize. I found one shoe under Francoise's bed, but the other was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished like a sock in a dryer.
Dee grumbled into the phone some more and then clicked it shut. "They moved the rehearsal and didn't bother to tell me." She watched me crawling around the floor. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to find my other shoe." I held up the one I'd located and she snatched it with a little cry.
"Oh, my God. That's a Jimmy Choo Atlas gladiator sandal!"
"Uh-huh." Sal had picked them out. They were a little flashy, but at least all the straps had kept them on my feet. Otherwise, my bruises would have been joined by some seriously lacerated soles.
Dee lifted the sandal delicately, holding it up to her face. The patent surface was looking a little battered after its recent adventures and mud caked the heel, which had lost its end cap. She stroked its side softly. "Oh, my poor, poor baby."
Once upon a time, I'd also taken an interest in fashion, as much as my limited budget allowed. But lately, I was more interested in whether I could run in a pair of shoes than in whose name was on the box. And I'd never cooed to my footwear.
"It's just a shoe," I said impatiently.
She hugged it to her huge chest, glaring at me. "People like you shouldn't be allowed to own fashion." She stuck a massive calf up on the bed, a long nail pointing at her shiny red platform. "See these? Four years old and not a scratch. And they're off the rack!"
"It's been a rough day."
She shook her head hard enough to almost dislodge the wig. "That's no excuse. We've all been there, but you take the designer shoes off and then you puke."
"I'm not drunk!"
She was too busy petting the shoe to listen. "I could so work a pair of these."
I eyed her maybe size fourteen foot. "I don't think they come in your size."
"Oh, please. What's a little blood? I'd bind my feet up like a geisha if I could afford—"
"Well, I'd trade them for a pair of Keds and a good meal," I muttered, and looked up to find huge fake eyelashes fluttering in my face like a pair of angry moths.
"You would?" Dee asked, a little breathless.
"Yeah. If I don't get something to eat soon, I'm going to—"
She gave me a shove and I stumbled back into the wall—and kept going. I fell down what felt like a water slide except with no water. In its place was a blur of color and a roar of sound—and then I was tumbling head over heels into an alcove. It had rough wood floors, stucco walls and a pay phone with an out of order sign.
Something taupe and muddy lay right in front of my nose. I grabbed it. "My shoe!"
"My shoe," Dee said, stumbling out of the wall behind me. She plucked it out of my hands. "Keds and a meal—that was the deal, right?"
"Yes, but. ." I stared at the wall we'd just fallen out of.
"There was a portal in my room!"
"No kidding." Dee peered out of a set of red velvet drapes in front of the alcove.
"Why?!"
"Because it used to be a nightclub with undead performers," she threw over her massive shoulder. "How do you think they got them in and out? Walked them through the main casino floor, so they could munch on a few tourists in passing?"
I scowled. "You can't go around telling people this kind of stuff. You just met me. I might be a norm for all you—"
"Scrim."
"What?"
"The whole group, Dee Vine, Dee Licious and me. We're all Scrims."
"What difference does that make?" Scrims were just mages who didn't produce much magical energy. They varied in ability, from those who weren't very good at magic to those who couldn't even cast a simple spell. Like the Misfits, they weren't popular in the magical community, but they weren't locked up because nobody viewed them as a threat.
"Scrims can detect magic," she said impatiently. "We're like bloodhounds on a scent, drawn to it like queens to fashion. Speaking of which, those bitches I work with would kill for these shoes. Literally—I'm talking a stiletto to the neck. We have to be careful."