Sal shot me a look in the full-length mirror in front of us. "You don't need to breathe. You need to look good," she said, ruthlessly lacing up the back of my bodice. We were in the penthouse suite that she'd appropriated along with a bottle of champagne, half a dozen bellboys and the dress I'd ordered from Augustine. He had not been pleased to be woken up in the middle of the night or to have his workroom invaded, and had loudly declared that feats of genius take time and he wasn't finished yet, thank you. Then Sal bought two outfits outright and put in an order for an even dozen more and he shut up so fast his mouth made a popping sound.
"No, you don't need to breathe. I'm pretty sure it's a necessity for me."
"Did you always whine this much?"
"I don't think asking to be allowed to breathe constitutes—"
"Because I don't remember it." Sal paused to admire the very rude slogan that had just written itself across her chest. One of the outfits she'd gotten from Augustine was a black cat suit that displayed neon-colored graffiti on itself at random moments. Sal had discovered that she could influence the choice of words if she thought very hard, and she was having fun corrupting her outfit.
"Of course, I don't remember much about you at all," she continued. "You never had two words to say to anybody, except those imaginary friends of yours—"
"They were ghosts!"
“—always slinking around in the shadows, looking spooked if anyone so much as noticed you—"
"I wonder why?"
“—which as far as I can tell hasn't changed."
I sucked in a breath, planning to teach her suit a new word, except that she cinched in the waist at that moment and all the air was forced out of my lungs. "Keeping your head down is the very worst thing you can do! It makes you look vulnerable."
"Which is fair enough since I am, in fact—"
"You gonna hide all your life? You gotta show everybody that they need to be afraid of you, not the other way 'round. That thing you did with the Consul, that was good. It made 'em pull back a little, made 'em think. You haven't had any more problems with the Circle lately, right?"
"Other than the huge bounty they put on my head?"
"Huh. Maybe we need to make the point a little more obvious."
"Any more obvious and I'll be dead." Sal turned to pick up her champagne and a very rude phrase flashed across her backside. I scowled at it, but I wasn't going to lower myself to fight with a piece of fabric. "I haven't had any problems because they don't know where I am."
Sal paused to tip the last of the exhausted-looking bellhops. He'd just dumped a trunk big enough to conceal a body in the middle of the living room floor. And considering who it belonged to, it just might. "Honey, everyone knows where you are!" she said, as soon as he'd left. "I mean, come on. What do you think we're doin' out here?"
"Planning to beat up Casanova?"
"Other than that."
"I don't know. Rafe called you—"
"And we usually jump when he snaps his fingers," Sal said, rolling her eyes. "Alphonse's come to suck up to the new boss. And since he ain't around, you'll do."
"Uh-huh." Alphonse sucking up to me was about as likely as the earth suddenly deciding to change direction, just for a switch.
"You really don't get it, do you?" Sal looked genuinely puzzled. "There's a war on. Everybody's choosing sides. The smart ones are aligning themselves where the strength is. Like with Mircea. Like with you."
"What about Tony? He's your master."
"And I never fully appreciated how much I hated that little toad until he was gone."
"But if he comes back—"
"I'll kill him," Sal said, sounding as if she'd relish the opportunity.
"You can't. As your master—"
"He won't be my master by then. Mircea will."
Things suddenly made a lot more sense. "You want Mircea to break your bond."
"When this thing's over, we intend to still be standing—and on the winning side," Sal confirmed, shooting me a look out of suddenly shrewd blue eyes. "Not dead fighting for a man we both despise."
Wonderful. Yet another group who was depending on me, expecting me to somehow miraculously make everything right again. I decided that maybe I'd been better off alone; fewer people to disappoint that way, fewer things to screw up. "If I'm so powerful, why can't I keep those two downstairs from killing each other?"
Sal picked up the phone and handed it to me. "You want them to stop horsing around, tell them."
"Just like that."
"Exactly like that."
I looked at her blankly, but she just snapped her gum at me so I told the phone that I would like to speak to Casanova. It told me that he was rather busy at the moment. I said I'd really appreciate it if he could make the time. It asked if I would like to leave a message. Sal grabbed it out of my hand with a disgusted look. "Get your ass in there and tell him that the reigning Pythia wants to talk to him," she snapped.
So much for my disguise. If the Circle didn't already know where I was, they probably would soon. "Do you have any idea what you just did?" I demanded, feeling a migraine coming on.
Sal punched me on the arm. "You're Pythia. Start acting like it!"
I refrained from rubbing my now sore arm and glared. She glared right back. Casanova came on the line, sounding a little breathless. "What?"
"Are you through?" I asked him. "Because maybe I'm insane, but I could have sworn we were here because your master is about to go out of his mind, thereby forcing the Consul to kill him, and do I even need to bring up what happens to both of you in that case?"
Alphonse grabbed the phone, not that he needed it—vampire hearing was more than good enough to make any phone conversation a conference call. "What's the plan? We gonna break him out?"
"That would be good," I agreed.
"Rafe said you saw the master a couple days ago. If you got in then, why do you need us now?"
"Because the wards almost certainly recorded that little visit!" I said impatiently. "They'll be expecting me to try again. And the last time I removed someone from the Consul's control, she used a null bomb to trap me."
"I heard about that. Didn't believe it, though."
"Oh, null bombs exist," I assured him. "And the Consul's got a stash of them." I'd seen it for myself, and although I doubted that she wanted to use up any more of a very expensive, very scarce resource on me, the fact remained that I'd made her look bad. It hadn't been intentional, but vamps rarely cared about such trifles. And messing with the reputation of someone who ruled partly through the fear she was able to inspire was a very big deal.
"I meant I didn't believe you could pull it off," Alphonse clarified.
Neither had I. I decided it wouldn't be prudent to mention exactly how much luck had been involved. In a world where reputation was all-important, I didn't have much of one to trade on. Alphonse remembered me as Tony's tame little clairvoyant, something that was not going to convince him to do a damn thing. Thinking of me as someone gutsy enough or crazy enough to go up against the Consul would be a much better image.
Fortunately, both Alphonse and Casanova needed me to ensure that Mircea stayed alive and well. Until the geis was lifted, I could trust them. To a point. Probably.
"I think I know how we can do it," I said.
Casanova had been making spluttering sounds in the background. I thought someone had been choking him, but I guess not, because he suddenly piped up. "Okay then. You're insane. This explains a lot about you."
"Insane and the boss's girlfriend," I reminded him sweetly.
It's probably just as well I don't speak Spanish.
Thankfully, by the time Sal received word back from the Consul that she would see us, it was almost dawn. That wouldn't have bothered the head of the Senate, as she'd long since ceased to be bound by the sun cycle, but Alphonse and company weren't in that league. So I had a day's reprieve before I found out if my plan was going to work. And since I'd already screwed up my sleep cycle, I decided to use it for other things.