Leon stood frozen, watching me with a wariness that seemed excessive given my simple request. “Sir? Your license?”
He whimpered. “It’s in my bag.” He pointed vaguely across the room at a chair that held a messenger bag.
One with a Korean flag patch.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. Leon, the put-upon assistant, was the guy from the massage parlor.
“Leon, hurry up and show it to her,” Stefan said. “We have to get the crucifix set up!”
I frowned at the mention of a crucifix, but I kept my eyes on Leon. He looked from the bag to me to Stefan, then back to me.
I waved. “Hi, there. You been moonlighting as a tea courier lately?”
“What are you talking about?” Stefan said. “I told you we don’t have time. Aphrodite will kill us if the ceremony starts even a minute late.”
Meanwhile, Leon had gone pale at my mention of tea.
“Damn it, Leon!” Stefan said.
It happened fast. One second, Leon looked like a trapped mouse, and the next, his fist shot out and clipped Stefan in his porcelain veneers.
The resulting howl bounced around the room. Before I could recover from the shock, Leon took off, hurdling boxes of tulle and silk flowers like Jesse Owens. He vaulted the stairs to the stage and disappeared.
I kicked off my shoes and pulled my phone out of my purse as I took off after him. While the phone rang, I dodged workers who were doing last-minute setup of one of the most bizarre wedding sets I’d ever seen. Three little people dressed as cupids milled around a low altar in the center of the stage. Fontina Douglas stood behind it, straightening an archway draped with green and white ribbons. When she saw me, she froze and scrambled for a phone from her pocket.
I ran past her without a second glance as Gardner answered on her end.
“Where are you?” she snapped.
“Backstage. I found Duffy’s Korean.”
“What?”
“The guy who left the tea for Krystal. I’m chasing him backstage.” I dodged a woman wearing a moon headdress. Stars dripped from the sleeves of her silvery gown. Next to her was a man in a sun headdress who wore a yellow leotard with painted orange and red flames licking up the side. “There are too many people back here and I need backup.”
“Where’s Morales?”
“I don’t know.” Not the time to explain that my partner and I were currently not speaking.
“I’ll find him or Duffy. Stay on the line and keep me updated on your location.”
“Copy.” I lowered the phone but kept it connected. Up ahead, Leon shot a wild look back in my direction before ducking into the backstage area on the other side.
As I gave chase, my mind spun with the potential ramifications of Leon being at Aphrodite’s wedding. Had the Chinese sent him to infiltrate the crew and sabotage things? Morales claimed the Koreans and the Chinese didn’t play well together, but that was hardly conclusive proof Leon didn’t work for the Fangshi.
I leapt down the steps on the other side of the stage and followed Leon down a ramp into the bowels of building. “Leon, I just want to talk to you!” I yelled.
He sped up.
I lifted the phone. “Sir, I’m going down a ramp on the west end of the building into the production areas.”
“Morales and Duffy are both on their way. Mez and I are dealing with a situation in the lobby.”
“What kind of situation?” I panted.
“Alexander Hung just arrived with four distraught Chinese women and Mayor Volos. They’re claiming Yü Nü is missing.”
“What the fuck?”
“Just focus on catching your guy. We’ve got this.”
“Hanging up now. I’ll call back once I have him.”
I punched the button, shoved the phone in my cleavage, and bore down. Leon was fast, but I was determined to find out what the hell was going on. He turned down a new hallway, looked back over his shoulder to clock me, and tripped over a pile of black clothes.
He slid headlong into a closed door. I grabbed him by the coat and pushed him against the panel. It took me a second to catch my breath to speak. “Just wanted to talk to you,” I said between gulps of air.
A low groan sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder. Leon hadn’t tripped over a pile of clothes, after all. He’d tripped over a beaten wizard.
“Harry?”
The leader of the Sanguinarian coven looked like ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack. Whoever had beaten the wizard had been thorough. In fact, if not for the white hair and the vague outline of the black ankh behind the bruising, I might not have recognized him at all.
Leon wiggled in my grasp. “Let me go, lady,” he said.
“Shut the fuck up, Leon. I need a minute.”
“Harry?” I called again.
No response. Whoever had beaten him had left him for dead.
“Shit.”
“I swear I didn’t do anything.” Leon whimpered.
I swiveled my face back at him. “Then why did you run, dumbass?”
His gaze skittered away.
“Prospero!” Morales’s voice carried down the cavernous backstage area.
“Down here!” I shouted back, relieved. Once he reached us, he could help me handle both Leon and the fact that someone had kicked the shit out of Harry Bane.
I turned my attention back to Leon. “Who are you working for?”
The sound of running footsteps told me that Morales and Duffy were almost on us. Once they arrived, Duffy would want to take over with Leon, and we’d have no choice but to let him. But I wanted to know the answer for my own sake.
“Did Alexander Hung hire you?”
Leon frowned. “Who?”
“Someone hired you to deliver that package to the massage parlor. Who was it?”
The door behind Leon flew open. He fell backward and I fell forward, landing in a heap at the feet of the person who opened the door. I saw two black shoes and black pants legs. Rolling over, I realized it was Gregor looming over me.
Then I saw the fist.
Then I didn’t see much because a lightning bolt of pain flashed through my skull.
Shouts seemed to come at me from all angles.
And then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Something poked my arm. It felt like a stick. My mind was so muddled that for a moment, I wondered how I ended up in a forest.
I opened the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. My vision blurred and I instantly regretted my curiosity as pain slammed into the backs of my eyeballs. I blinked to clear away the static in my head.
Finally, my one-eyed vision cleared enough to see that I was lying on the floor, my hands bound behind my back, and that it had not been a stick that poked my arm, but Yü Nü’s freaking horn.
She saw I was about to speak and shook her head. I squinted at her, and she jutted her chin to the side. I cut my eye toward the direction she’d pointed and caught my breath.
Aphrodite was dressed in white robes with a copper wreath on their bald head. At least, I thought it was Aphrodite. It was hard to tell because they wore a sun mask over their face and a moon mask over the back of their head. The effect was unsettling because no matter where you were, it seemed like one of those masks was watching.
The Hierophant paced in front of a pair of chairs that had been set up in the massive area. In those chairs sat Morales and Duffy. They were bound and bloodied, too. On either side of them stood massive guards with big guns.
“What’s going on?” I whispered.
“The hermaphrodite lost her damned mind,” Yü Nü hissed. “Wants to use me to become immortal.”
“How?”
She looked up and crossed her eyes to look at the horn. “I told her she has to be pure and do the rites, but she said she don’t have time. She gonna cut off my horn.” The scorn in her voice indicated her opinion of that plan.
I nodded to show I understood enough of the gist to know we were in deep shit.
I rolled over a little to take stock of the situation.