"Jeannie knew. She sees stuff sometimes. She said you'd help us."
"Jeannie's a clairvoyant?"
"Yeah. She not very good. She don't see much and mostly it's stupid stuff. She's only five," he said disparagingly. "But Tami thought it was a good idea. She said we was to go to you, if something happened to her. After it all went down, we got on the bus."
"After what went down?"
"The mages came. They took her." Black eyes bored into mine, already anticipating the answer to a question he hadn't yet asked. I knew that look, too. I understood a thing or two about betrayal.
"I'll take care of you," I heard myself say, and wondered if I was crazy. So far, it had been a chore just looking after myself. Tami must have been desperate to send them to me, when I had the biggest target on my back of anyone. I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but there wasn't time. I'd get some answers, but first we had to lose their pursuers.
I peered around the side of the curtains again to see that Casanova had joined the vamps holding off the mages. He was wearing a vest that jumped and crackled with animated flames—part of the menswear line, I assumed. It set off his dark hair and olive complexion nicely, but didn't do much for his expression. War mages weren't his favorite people. But while he could give them a hard time, he couldn't throw them out without cause, and they were between us and the exits.
I did a swift count of the gang, which numbered eight in total. Nine, I corrected, as the baby a girl was clutching a little too hard started to sniffle. Way too many to shift.
I glanced at Françoise. "I could use a diversion."
"'Ow beeg?" she asked casually.
"Beeg."
"D'accord."
She moved to the other side of the stage and started chanting something under her breath. Within seconds, a bank of dark clouds rolled in, settling over the catwalk with complete disregard of the fact that we were indoors. Chairs were knocked over as people scrambled to their feet, and the background murmur almost instantly became a roar. The witches apparently knew a bad sign when they saw one.
The mages suddenly stopped playing nice, shoved identification in Casanova's face and started up the aisle at a run. That was about the same time that something slimy and green hit the catwalk. I didn't even have a chance to identify it before a lot of other somethings followed, bursting out of the rumbling black mass of clouds like popcorn. The current model's pretty chiffon dress went from a pleased peach to an angry dark green, a hue that almost matched the skin of the toad that had slammed into her shoulder.
She screamed as part of it started oozing down her chest, and she stumbled back down the catwalk. But as it was fast being littered with little broken bodies, most smashed and split open, it was pretty much inevitable that she'd slip and go sliding on her butt. Things sort of went downhill after that.
Protective spells were being fired off on all sides, which, when they impacted the kamikaze amphibians, caused fleshy fireworks in midair. This made the witches in the middle of the room, who were being liberally splattered with frog guts, even less happy, causing them to turn on their sisters with abandon. That slowed down the mages, but I could still see them, grim and determined, wading through the fracas toward us.
"Are there any more of you?" I asked Jesse.
He said something, but I couldn't hear him over the sound of the audience's chairs smashing into the battered mages. Of course, they were slamming into a lot of other things, too, blown here and there by the wind and the spells and the mayhem. But I didn't notice anyone else disappearing under a mountain of expensive painted wood. It looked like the mages had stepped on one too many witches' toes.
"What?"
"No!" Jesse screamed in my ear. "We were the only ones who got away!"
"Okay. Let's get away again."
Chapter 6
Miranda took one look at my dress, which had shifted to an agitated swirl of autumn leaves, and her ears went back. It was convenient to have such an obvious hint to her mood, since I'd never learned to read her very well. The fur on her catlike face might have had something to do with that, or possibly gargoyle expressions were too different from human ones for me to decipher.
The current group of Misfits crowded in behind me, leaving dirty footprints on her pristine white tile floor. I'd brought them to the room-service kitchens since I wasn't sure where Miranda lived. She was the leader of the group of Dark Fey that Tony had been using for cheap labor, but I only ever saw them at work, chopping and dicing with preternatural speed or pushing laden carts through Dante's halls.
They rarely paused except to pose for photographs with guests, who assumed they were midgets in suits. I wondered if anyone ever noticed that their film always came out slightly blurry, the same way their eyes never quite managed to focus on the small servers. Tony had spent a fortune to ward the casino, although considering the amount of alcohol that the majority of the guests put away, he probably hadn't needed to bother. I doubted he'd been so generous in accommodations for his workers, so what I wanted from Miranda was likely to hurt.
One of the kids, a girl who looked about twelve but who I later learned was sixteen, was holding a baby. It was maybe four months old and a little rumpled around the edges, wearing a pink T-shirt with a diaper and only one sock, its cheek flushed from being pressed against the girl's chest. I was about to launch into my carefully prepared speech when Miranda smiled, showing sharp fangs in her long, grave face. She was no longer looking at me.
I turned to see that several gargoyles had edged to within arm's length of the girl, close enough that she sent me a pleading look while clutching her infant tighter. "They won't hurt you," I assured her. "The Fey…well, they're really fond of babies."
It was a ridiculous understatement, as was becoming obvious. One of the larger gargoyles, with a dog's head above her spotless chef's whites, almost ran into a wall because she was waving at the infant while making a cutesy little face. Miranda's eyes were also fixed on the child, with enough longing in them that I started to worry. "Right?" I gave her a poke, and she swatted a paw at me. The claws weren't extended, thankfully.
"My people would defend a crèche with their lives," she told the mother with quiet dignity.
The girl looked relieved, but kept an eye on the closest gargoyle. He was one of the smaller variety, with floppy donkey ears under a tall chef's hat. He tentatively stretched out a hand mangled even more than Françoise's, with all but one finger missing. But the remaining digit ended in a long, curled claw of dense grayish black.
His hand was shaking, causing an iridescent shimmer to slide up and down the surface of the claw like an oil slick. The baby noticed the pretty colors and gurgled, reaching for it. The creature snatched it away in a blur of motion, letting out a bleat and falling backwards over its own squat tail. This, of course, further intrigued the baby, who fussed until her mother put her down, then crawled toward Donkey Ears with the intent of a hunter after prey, her one sock trailing and her chubby hand extended. The gargoyles retreated in a mad scramble.
Donkey Ears found himself trapped between the ferocious baby and a bank of ovens, which were filling the room with the scent of cinnamon and butter. Maybe that was what attracted the kid, or possibly she was just curious; either way, she crawled fearlessly up to the cowering creature and held up her hands demandingly. He stared at her with big eyes until Miranda cleared her throat. Then he snatched up the child, who made a contented sound and fisted her hands in his tunic before stuffing most of his scarf into her mouth.
My job wasn't too difficult after that.
Ten minutes later, we were gathered around the prep counter, wolfing down cinnamon rolls and milk. The kitchen staff had been feeding me up for a week. It had taken me most of that time to realize that they weren't being kind: I was their resident guinea pig, someone to let them know what recipes worked and what didn't. Apparently gargoyles don't have the same taste buds as humans. And now they had a whole slew of new taste testers on whom to experiment.