Carole Douglas - Dancing with Werewolves

"I know."

"He makes a dangerous pet for a human."

"That's why he's a partner."

Cicereau's yellow eyes flashed with both approval and unleashed hunger. "Perhaps Madrigal can find a place for him in the act. If not, I expect you to control him."

"As much as you control me."

"And I will, because the life of everything you value…this dog, that man"-he didn't say who, but I saw he had learned about my doings here in Las Vegas, inside out-"will depend upon you becoming a prime attraction at my hotel. Don't forget all the roaming Maggie freaks out there. I can give you top-level protection."

I took a deep breath. And here I thought Snow was controlling! Even now I felt his chill bracelet coiling up my arm like a platinum snake, growing fangs that sank lightly into my forearm. A warning, or a sign of solidarity?

That was the trouble with unhuman allies; they were so damned hard to read.

And who, or what, was this Madrigal, besides sure to be seriously unhappy about having an unwilling rank amateur thrust into his headlining stage show?

The really bad part about becoming part of Team Gehenna (an ancient name for Hell, don't you know?) was that once inside the massive structure, like Dorothy in Oz I wasn’t sure of ever going home again.

One of Cicereau's lieutenants took Quick and me into custody. For a flying monkey he was pretty chunky-hunky. I'd noticed him blending into the black pine of the office walls. He had a pronounced widow's peak in a thicket of dark hair streaked with silver. He wore a black suit, gray shirt, and red tie like a gout of designer-silk blood. He was young despite the silver streaks, but easy to sum up. Hard body, hard mind, hard heart. Cicereau had called him Sansouci. In French the phrase meant "without care."

It didn't fit him. Everything about him screamed extreme control, including his icy manner as he escorted Quicksilver and me a few floors down in the silver bullet elevator. I smelled an astringent cologne in the elevator's austere close quarters. Aquavit on ice. Essence du hit man.

With all the warmth of a vampire undertaker, Sansouci showed Quicksilver and me to our new home, suite, home.

It was ultra luxurious: two huge bedrooms and several living areas. We were given a pass card to the hotel running track, gym, spa, and exercise rooms. We would be under constant surveillance, Sansouci informed us, even when I walked the dog on the rooftop swath of grass. And, by the way, the drop to the Strip below was forty stories and traffic was always heavy.

I didn't mind slamming the door shut on his straight, impervious back, which stayed there, facing out into the hall like a guard.

Exploring the suite, I found a refrigerator stuffed with rabbit food veggies and fish. Message sent. This was me. I doubted the Gehenna gang went much for broccoli or even rabbits when on their monthly wolfish runs through the desert. That was them.

My bedroom closet held a tracksuit, running shoes, pajamas, slippers and nothing else. Meanwhile, my heart and brain were revving on hyper drive, worrying about Godfrey and Nightwine missing us, worrying about where I'd allowed Quicksilver and me to be taken…and taken prisoner.

The reporter in me realized that I had a unique undercover position to exploit until I learned what I needed to know. Like all undercover assignments, this one was uncertain and scary. I had been ordered, immediately, to visit the magician called Madrigal's far more palatial suite two floors above. Of course Quicksilver would accompany me.

Mr. Big may have been my assigned boss, but I was curious to see how his headliner would like being saddled with a CSI V corpse and a gigantic wolfhound.

Clad in my same Sunset Park terrycloth shorts and top, Quicksilver and I passed the suite door and the waiting Sansouci to return to the elevator. Once inside, we all three faced forward and stared mutely at the floor indicator.

Oddly, Sansouci remained inside when the elevator doors opened. Quick and I were on our own with the magician. His suite was dead ahead, the door surface crossed with glittering gold wands.

I rang the doorbell. Yeah, penthouse suites at the Gehenna had doorbells. Hell didn't let just anybody in.

I wasn’t sure if "Madrigal" or "Mad Max" answered.

Whichever, he was tall, broad, and bronze-skinned, with sea-green eyes and golden-brown dreadlocks. He wore a sleeveless tee that showed off elaborate bicep tattoos and martial arts pants. I couldn't help noticing that his pecs were so developed that his nipples stood at permanent and distracting attention. I felt small and pale and stupid and very unwanted, which wasn’t a new feeling for me since kidhood, even though I'd outgrown the small part.

"What is this?" Madrigal's deep basso held the charmed singsong accent of the Caribbean islands, soft and welcoming where his physical appearance, however melting pot hot, was rigid and off-putting. "Little Orphan Annie and her dog, Sandy?"

"Mr. Cicereau wants me to use the name Margie."

"Yeah. I got my marching orders, and I saw that particular CSI V episode. What do you do besides sneeze maggots?"

I couldn't help wincing on behalf of my maybe-baby sister, Lilith. "It was a job. Apparently I made a good impression in it."

"Nudity and gore work rating wonders. A magician's assistant, on the other hand, works hard. She has to be smart, strong, and supple."

"I can do that."

"And the dog?"

"Smart, strong, and fanged."

He sighed hard enough to distract me, then stepped back from the door to let us in. "My act doesn’t need some T and A ratings upswing."

T and A meant tits and ass, and I sure didn't like being reduced to that formula. "I haven't seen it, but I don't doubt it."

"Then why are you here?"

"I wasn’t asked."

His hands knotted in front of him. Then he looked at me for the first time and flicked his bronze eyelashes upward.

Observed, of course.

"Where do we rehearse?” I asked, thinking that might be private.

He shook his head slightly. "On stage, during the day. We'll have lots of time," he said, bitterly.

I recognized what he really meant. Later, we'll have time to really talk. He seemed to be as monitored as I was but maybe he'd learned a way around it. A magician would.

I didn't want to believe that this he-man magician had been as easily corralled as I had, because, if so, then my particular goose was royally cooked and garlanded with cranberry sauce as runny and, like Snow White's lips, as red as blood.

Rehearsals began that very day. A leotard and tights, rose pink, had appeared in my closet. From noon to 4 pm Madrigal and I worked out.

"You're too tall, too heavy, too busty, too clumsy," Madrigal said when he saw me clothed in neck-to-ankle Spandex that made me feel way too naked.

We weren't alone during this embarrassing summation. A tiny doll of a girl in a white outfit like mine hung back in the wings, watching us.

"Syl," Madrigal called with an extravagant bow and arm gesture. She came running onstage as lightly as a forever pre-pubescent ballerina. Her hair was Swedish white-blond and her skin had the sugary glow of a pastel gumdrop in blended Easter candy colors, lavender, white, yellow, pink. She was the born sugarplum fairy.

For the next hour I watched her curl into a box that seemed no more than a square foot in dimension and squeeze into six-inch false backs behind deceptive magical cabinets. Syl was triple-jointed, fairy-like, and astounding. She not only collapsed every joint in her body, she coiled into herself like a Slinky. She was also mute, I finally figured out. And her full name paid tribute to her physical plasticity: Sylphia. Emphasis on the PHEE as in a form of Sofia. Which meant wisdom in the ancient world. Or maybe the phee in her name was for fey.