The elevator opened on the foyer to Cicereau’s penthouse.
This high, the soprano was coming in loud and clear, singing “My Blue Heaven.” I rather doubted it, having visited here before.
Two half-were bodyguards bracketed the elaborately carved wooden doors to Cesar Cicereau’s personal lair. They had frozen at man height in transition to wolf. I imagined the chatty wolf from “Little Red Riding Hood” would look like them—hairy, predatory beasts with snouts like crocodiles standing on two shoeless feet but otherwise clad.
These weren’t the fully human Cicereau pack members who usually faced the public. These were Cicereau’s paw-picked bodyguards, the weres who never fully reverted to human for some reason, like the half-were biker gangs on the Vegas streets.
In fact, I wished I were facing a tormented, self-hating werewolf like the Larry Talbot persona actor Lon Chaney Jr. had pioneered. The 1941 classic horror film The Wolf Man portrayed the title character as all angsty dude, with my devoted CinSim and all-around character actor, Claude Rains, playing his father figure.
But, no, it was the big boss I needed to see. No one half human.
“The boss is expecting me,” I said.
The guards eyed me for a long moment.
My adventures had finally made me look the part of the accused witch and Gypsy girl, Esmeralda. I was rumpled and bruised, with my ballerina-length taffeta skirt as ragged and bedraggled as my shoulder-length hair.
Their elongated lips curled. “The boss don’t entertain skags like you.”
“Skags like me can save his hairy ass. Tell him Delilah Street is calling.”
They reared back as one recognized me. He clawed at his buddy’s furry forearm to impart a fearsome message.
“This is the dame who killed that Frankenstein dude who plunged out the boss’s windows.”
“He was dead to begin with,” I pointed out. “Unless you yearn for the same condition, either let me pass or announce me. I won’t touch a hair on your matted bellies, but Cicereau wants to see me.”
Their handlike forepaws clawed at their shaggy, upright ears as the soprano reached the top of her four-octave range and held the note for an eternity. I could see the fur around their jaws was scabbed with blood. The high-pitched sound of music really did torment the poor misbred creatures.
“Please,” I added.
My alto-pitched voice must have been soothing. They panted in doglike relief and opened the doors for me. Or maybe nobody here said “please” without begging for his life.
“Forty-three stories, dude,” one whispered to the other behind my back. “A wild-woman. Almost as merciless as the boss.”
That was a bad rap, but any reputation in this town can’t hurt. The creature I’d tricked into that suicidal leap had already torn apart several tourists and even a few werewolves. Like the real Frankenstein’s monster, he had been more of a victim of his makers than bad to begin with. I’d done what was necessary to save lives, even supernatural half-lives. That didn’t mean I wasn’t sorry I’d had to do it. Hopefully, this assignment would have a happier ending, but I doubted it.
I knew the suite’s layout from my previous visit, especially the paired guest bathrooms bracketing the entry hall like guard wolves, so that welcome and not-so-welcome guests could clean off blood and gore, coming and going.
Inside, I felt nervous. Outside, I acted like the Girl Who Had Offed Frankenstein’s Monster. Inside, I was just another mob hireling.
Cicereau sat ensconced on a lavish spread of Swedish modern furniture, all woodsy and leather. He was wearing furry earmuffs and clutching an icepack to his head. The moon was recovering from being full, but Cicereau still looked like he had a hunting hangover.