“Shut up! Where?”
“There’s this new clinic opening in the Cauldron. It’s a new approach to helping with addiction by treating the body and the mind. They’ll have physicians and nurses on staff along with counselors.”
“Wow, Pen, that sounds amazing.”
“It’s really exciting. They haven’t even broken ground since they’ll be opening in the fall. But the woman who’s starting it was in town to interview prospective employees this week. I went in yesterday to interview, and she called me an hour ago to tell me I got the job.”
“That’s so great. You like this woman?”
She smiled over the rim of her glass. “We really hit it off. She’s run clinics in New York for years and is expanding her practice to other areas that have high dirty magic epidemics. She said my own struggles with addiction in the past would help me be a more empathetic counselor.”
I nodded. “Makes sense.”
“The best part is, I’ll be making more at this community clinic than I made at Meadowlake and the benefits are amazing.”
“If they don’t open until the fall, when will you start?”
“Nicola—that’s my boss—is flying the new staff out to New York in a couple of weeks to tour her other clinics. We’ll be there for a week, shadowing their staff and helping out. But after that, I’ll be helping get everything ready here from writing procedure manuals to interviewing support staff.”
I held up my wine for a toast. “Cheers to new beginnings.”
She clinked her glass against mine. “And to old friends.”
After we each took a celebratory sip, I looked at her over the rim. “Speaking of new beginnings, you know this wedding I need to go to tomorrow?”
She tilted her head and shot me a knowing look. “Is it black tie or cocktail attire?”
I made a pained face. “There’s a difference?”
She grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the bedroom she’d converted into a closet. “Come on, Cinderella. Let’s find something for you to wear to the magic ball.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next afternoon, Morales and I arrived early for the six o’clock wedding. By the time we got there, people were still rushing around, getting things ready, which lent a frantic energy to the Orpheum Theater. Of course, the solar eclipse might have had something to do with it too. Adepts were always more sensitive and magic more unstable when big celestial events occurred, like eclipses or blue moons.
“You look good in a suit,” I said to Morales as we climbed the steps to the Orpheum’s balcony. “You look like one of those sexy tycoons from Baba’s romance novels.”
He shot me a side-eye. “You clean up pretty nice, yourself, Cupcake.”
It had taken two hours of trying on dresses for Pen to find something that fit both of our requirements. I demanded that it conceal weaponry and Pen wanted to be sure it flattered my assets. We’d finally found a sleeveless red dress with a deep neckline and something Pen called an “umpire waist.” The skirt was long and flowy with a knee-high slit.
Judging from the looks Morales kept shooting my cleavage, Pen had accomplished her goal. And considering the amount of firepower I had hidden in my underpants, I’d succeeded in mine, as well.
“But why are you walking like that?” he added.
I looked down at the black high heels. “Pen wouldn’t let me wear my boots. She made me wear these.” They were only two inches tall, but I felt like I had two skyscrapers attached to my feet. “Also, I have a lot of metal strapped to my thighs.”
“What?”
I waved my tiny purse. “I don’t know why women bother with these. It only has enough space for lipstick and one lousy knife. I had to get creative and use a garter belt as a holster.”
He missed a step. “Garter belt?”
“Sure.” I walked ahead of him onto the balcony area. “It chafes something fierce, but it’s good for holding my Glock and an extra magazine.”
“That’s not all it’s good for,” he whispered to himself.
“Are you coming?” I said over my shoulder.
He stopped and speared me a glare. “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?”
I shot him a saucy smile. “Maybe.”
“Devil woman.”
A loud crash on the floor below us destroyed the moment. We both ran to the balcony railing. The sound of a high-pitched voice yelling echoed through the cavernous space.
“Goddamn it, Leon, be careful.”
A slim man wearing a white tuxedo with a sparkly lavender cummerbund stood onstage with his hands on his hips. He was yelling at his assistant, who was rearranging some chairs on the floor. He also wore a white tux but his cummerbund and tie were black. He also looked to be on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, Stefan!”
“Must be the wedding planners,” Morales said.
“Charming.” I dismissed the arguing pair and focused on surveying the room as a whole. “This place is pretty cool.”
The people who renovated the Orpheum had decided not to polish all the surfaces or paint over all of the signs of decay. They’d cleaned it up and shored up the structure, but they hadn’t replaced all the seating on the floor or restore the chipped mural on the ceiling. The entire effect was a sort of post-apocalyptic chic.
“I just wish Aphrodite had chosen an easier space for us to surveil.”
Behind Stefan, a brand-new purple velvet curtain hung across the stage. In the center was the logo of the theater, a large golden lyre. Every now and then, a banging sound would sneak out from behind the curtain and Stefan would yell something. Apparently, he had other people working back there to prepare the backdrop for Aphrodite’s nuptials.
“I used to sneak into this place in high school. The backstage area is basically a maze.”
He cocked a brow at me. “Breaking and entering? I’m shocked.”
“Hardly. There used to be huge holes in the walls. You could just walk right in. It was pretty cool if you didn’t mind stumbling over homeless people having sex.”
“Weirdly, that is something I mind.”
I shrugged. “Potayto-potahto.”
He nudged my arm. “Let’s go check out the backstage, then. Make sure there aren’t any horned women hiding in a supply closet.”
He was joking, but the longer I was in that theater, the more my instincts warned me to be careful. Word was, Aphrodite had invited more than two hundred people to the wedding. That list included everyone from coven leaders to business associates and cops all the way up to the mayor. The potential dramas of mixing all those different strata of society was bad enough, but add the increased magical energy of a large-scale arcane ritual happening during an eclipse, and you had yourself a recipe for fireworks. Not to mention, neither of us trusted that the Fangshi were done making statements. If they wanted to send a message, this would be the place to do it.
“You look like you’re thinking,” he said. “I thought I warned you about that.”
“Just thinking through the variables,” I said. “When’s the boss getting here?”
Dixon and McGinty were already in their sedan across the street from the theater to have an extra set of eyes on the entrance. Shadi was on the roof of the building behind the theater. She had the back exit covered. Mez was an invited guest, and he was bringing Gardner as his “date.”
“Gardner said they’d be here thirty minutes before the ceremony.”
We’d originally all planned to arrive together, but at the last minute, Gardner decided it would look too suspicious to have the entire MEA task force arrive en masse.
I looked at the exits around the building as we walked through the lobby. Security guards in tuxedos were already manning the door. They were Aphrodite’s army, not law enforcement, so we couldn’t count on them pitching in if we had an emergency situation.
“Relax,” Morales said.