"We've got some intelligence that suggests the Fists weren't behind the murder, but the new Caliph won't believe anything we tell him."
"I don't expect Abdul will be in power for long. Prince Siraj and the other moderates will push him aside."
"Will that stop the killing?"
Noel shrugged and leaned forward to study a blemish on his chin in the mirror over a sink. "Probably not, but at least we'll have someone reasonable to deal with." He decided that heat didn't suit him. His normally crisp, wavy brown hair was limp, and his English rose complexion looked blotchy and red. Even his blue eyes were ringed with red from the Los Angeles pollution.
"God, you're a calculating bastard." Straight Arrow paused, then added, "You and the prince were at Cambridge together."
Noel didn't answer. It was clear the American knew that full well, and the more you talked the more you were likely to give up.
"Well, if you guys did engineer the assassination you might want to tell Siraj to get his fanny in gear. If things don't calm down pretty quickly, we're going to have to step in. We have our own interests to protect."
Noel didn't try to hide his derisive smile. "Oh, dear fellow, really, you shouldn't. You Yanks are always so heavy-handed. Best you leave empire to those of us with real imperial experience. We'll act, but after we have a little useless PR bleating from the UN secretary-general."
"Jayewardene is going to the region?"
"Yes, Abdul the Idiot asked him to intervene."
Straight Arrow shook his head. "He's a very brave man."
"No, he's a predictable idiot."
They heard footsteps approaching. Noel turned on a tap and washed his hands. Straight Arrow looked over at the urinals. "Well, as long as I'm here."
"Yes, best you be busy or people might think we're trysting."
"Go away," the American ace said in a muffled voice.
It was Michael Berman who entered. They danced a bit in the doorway. "Hey, nice work," the producer said.
"Thank you. Did I ruin your ratings?" Noel asked.
"Nah. Nats secretly love to see aces getting their ass kicked. Especially when a nat does the kicking."
Noel moved on.
"You've got my power, right?" Wild Fox asked. "You create illusions."
Noel smiled enigmatically.
"You're a short-range teleporter," Curveball said. "Is that it?"
Noel took a sip from his crystal champagne flute. The bubbly puckered the edges of his tongue and danced in his sinuses. He was impressed. Given the age and class of most of the American Hero contestants, he'd expected Asti Spumante, or some other equally sweet crap.
"Nah, he's a fucking shape-shifter," Hardhat said. "It's the only way he could look that fucking hot. I know broads, and he was a fucking broad."
"No. No. And no. As to how I attracted youI'm an intersexed individual," Noel said, with a happy anticipation of Hardhat's likely response.
"Huh? What the fuck is that?"
"A hermaphrodite."
"Huh?"
"A person who has the sexual attributes of both a male and a female."
"You gotta a cock and a pussy?" Disgust and fascinationbut definitely more fascinationlaced Hardhat's words. Hmm, thought Noel. I can still be surprised.
"Precisely."
"Uh, I need a beer," Wild Fox said. His eyes roamed desperately around the crowded room, and he sidled away.
"Whatever you are, you're one cold pendejo," Earth Witch said.
"And why would you say that?"
"You sacrificed all your henchmen."
"They were expendable."
"They were your men."
"They were tools, and I wanted to win."
"How did you win?" Wild Fox asked, drawn back despite his unease.
"Brains and cunning."
"So you don't have any powers?" Wild Fox challenged.
"You're not listening."
"He's saying he beat us because we're stupid."
Noel just smiled again at Earth Witch's bitter remark. Hardhat dropped a broad, heavy hand onto her shoulder and said, "Get the fuck over it, Ana. He knocked our dicks in the dirt fair and square." Curveball gave him an ironic look. "Uh, boobs . . . uh?"
"You better quit while you're ahead, T. T.," the blonde said. She looked up and saw Drummer Boy bearing down on her determinedly. He had two of his four arms folded across his chest, and the fingers on his other two arms were snapping out a nervous rhythm. "Uh-oh." It was meant to be under her breath, but Noel heard it. She darted away while Earth Witch tried to intercept the rock-and-roll star.
Noel drifted over to the buffet table, where he grazed and observed. Earth Witch had failed in her attempted block, so Curveball was sprinting around the perimeter of the Warner Brothers restaurant with Drummer Boy stalking after her, taking one step to every two of hers. While Noel languidly consumed an egg roll, they made three complete circuits of the room.
In another corner, sexrather than determined virginitywas decidedly in the air. Berman leaned against the wall while Jade Blossom, Pop Tart, and Tiffani all preened and vamped. He looked like a man at a buffet, savoring his choices.
"Hey, magician." The words were strongly accented with the distant echoes of Spain filtered through Mexico and the American barrio. Rosa Loteria stood hip shot in front of him. There was no flirt here; the blue eyes flashed a challenge at him. She clutched her antique deck of loteria cards in a hand.
"My dear." Noel gave her a bow.
"You can cut the sophisticated European crap," she said.
Noel found himself smiling. "All right, what can I do for you?"
She jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the Candle. His multicolored flames waved languidly around his head like a psychedelic halo. "That pendejo motherfucker" (Noel reflected that there seemed to be a lot of pendejos present tonight) "has been giving me rafts of shit because I drew Los Platanos during the challenge."
The back of Noel's mind supplied the translationthe Bananas.
"Yes, I can see how that would be rather less than useful." He reached out and took the deck from her. It was old, probably Napoleonic, and very beautiful. Noel began shuffling the cards. "And you want to learn how to do this:" and after each shuffle he flipped out La Muerta over and over again. The opulently dressed female skeleton looked coy, as if she knew a secret. Noel found his thoughts going back to his conversation with Straight Arrow, and the situation in Egypt.
"Yeah. That's what I want," Rosa agreed.
Noel gave her back the cards. "I expect I could teach you, and with practice you could probably become quite proficient, but I foresee some problems. It would be unwieldy to mark all the cards, and you would be tying yourself to the most lethal of your manifestations. Depending on the circumstance, you might want a different power. To pull Death all the time might be coming on a little too strong, don't you know? Also, this is the crutch on which you hang your power." Noel tapped the deck of cards with a manicured forefinger. "Would you actually be able to transform if you knew you were cheating? You are Rosa Loteria, the Lottery Rose. If you removed the element of chance . . ." Noel let his voice trail away and raised his eyebrows.
The girl's brows snapped together in a ferocious frown. "I can't risk losing my powers."
"I would reach the same decision."
"Well, crap!" She walked away, trailing Spanish like a kite tail of profanity.
Noel fixed on a vapid smile and went strolling. There was a lot of conversation about the concluded Rogue Ace Challenge, but another thread of conversation wove like a line of bright sparks throughout the party.
" . . . burned to the ground." Said with breathless excitement by Diver.
"That idiot Bugsy will be behind it." Said with southern ice by Tiffani. " . . . Peregrine's fuuurious with Simoon." Said by Pop Tart, with that tickle of enjoyment at getting to observe anger and not be on the receiving end.
" . . . didn't find any bodies." Said with a thread of disappointment by Jade Blossom.