“Until she doesn’t need me anymore.”
“Yeah, but the way things are going, that might be a long time,” he said cynically. “May as well enjoy the perks while you’ve got ’em.”
And the perks were . . . the perks were nice, I thought, staring around at the finest of marbles on floor and columns and walls. At a glorious star pattern expertly inlaid into the floor. At the softly chiming chandelier overhead, glittering brightly enough to almost blind me after the dimmer light of my suite. And at the impressive double doors to the casino’s finest penthouse, guarded by two more vamps who were trying to appear casual, but whose lips were twitching worse than Roy’s.
And then openly grinning, as one of them caught my eye. “About time we got some decent accommodations around here,” he told me.
“Define decent,” I said, feeling a palm leaf, from a potted plant that I was sure had to be fake.
But no. Just perfect. Like the view when Roy threw open the huge double doors.
“Decent,” he said, and ushered me into a scene of majestic luxury and utter insanity.
Dante’s finest penthouse had always been breathtaking, but it had definitely received an upgrade from the last time I saw it, going from Vegas glam to something approaching mansion status. Or maybe palace status, since after I was unceremoniously kicked out a few months ago, the resident in chief had been none other than the current consul and uncrowned queen of the vampire world. Who lived like the crown was already firmly perched on her beautiful brow.
“No, no—open that one next,” Tami said. She strode ahead and was now standing in the middle of the living room, ordering around a couple of senior masters like she’d been born to it.
Her weave was up in a curly ponytail today, which didn’t even reach the shoulder of the nearest mountain of vampire flesh. Not that it mattered. Vamps had long ago adjusted to the idea that size did not equate to power. And judging by the look the two guys exchanged over her curly updo, they’d already learned that it was easier to just go along with the tiny woman with the huge attitude. Because a second later, one of a number of square, flat wooden crates was pried open, and the front fell off to reveal— “What is that?” I asked, staring in disbelief at the painting inside.
“What does it look like?” Tami asked, sounding satisfied.
I knew damn well what it looked like. “You have to take it back!”
“Like hell I’m taking it back,” Roy said. “I almost ruptured something lugging all of them up here.”
“Lugging them up from where? Where did you get them?”
“Oh, you know.” He grinned. “They were just hanging around.”
“So was this one,” a cheeky fourteen-year-old named Jesse added, carrying in one of the hula girl posters from the tiki bar downstairs.
One of the very scantily clad hula girl posters.
“Nice try,” Tami said, stopping her son with a hand on his chest.
“But you said we could decorate our rooms any way we want—”
“I also said I’m trying to cut down on the tacky.”
“It’ll be in my room. Nobody’ll see it! Not like those things,” he added, nodding at a bunch of statues being hauled in from the balcony.
Or what had been a balcony. But the expansive space had been enclosed since I last saw it, with curving windows arching overhead like a solarium, and plants, columns, and statues framing the pool. It looked like a Grecian grotto—or maybe an Olympian one, I thought, staring as a familiar visage was carted past.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Part of the tacky,” Tami said, frowning at it. “We’re fighting the gods and she’s decorating her garden with them? And whoever heard of a painted statue?”
“Used to be all the rage, back in old Rome,” Marco said, coming in from another room. “Painted clothes and skin, shells for eyes—so they’d glisten—and decked out in flowers for the festivals. Idea was to make them look like real people, not those creepy white things they fill the museums with.”
“Then why’d they make so many of the other kind?” Jesse asked.
Marco shrugged. “They didn’t. The paint just wore off.”
“Tami,” I said grimly. “Why. Are. We. Here?”
She blinked at me. “You told me to manage things; I’m managing them.”
“Yes, but—”
“And first priority was more room. Two dozen people stuffed into a three-bedroom suite? And that was just the girls. I’m surprised the fire marshal wasn’t out here—”
“Probably too scared,” another vamp said, heading out the door with a statue tucked under each arm. And having to perform a balletic move to avoid the two guys in painters’ whites coming in with cans and a ladder.
“Mural in the master. Get rid of it,” Tami told them shortly.
“Wait. What’s wrong with it?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“I want to know,” Jesse said, starting to follow them.
Until Tami caught him by the collar. “Aren’t you supposed to be entertaining the kids?”
“Jiao’s got that covered.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
He pursed his lips. “Probably not.”
“Go help him,” Tami said, and pushed him toward the lounge.
“Tami,” I said ominously.
“And finding somewhere with enough room wasn’t exactly easy,” she added, like nothing had happened. Tami had a lot of practice with chaos. “Not one safe enough, that wouldn’t absolutely embarrass you to live in—”
“I don’t embarrass easy.”
“—and that wouldn’t embarrass the office of Pythia, when you had people in—”
“Nobody comes here!”
“Nobody comes here ’cause a certain group wouldn’t let them in,” Tami said, eyeing the nearby vamps. “But they can’t hide you away forever. I know, I know,” she said, holding up a hand. “People were trying to kill you. But you still have to function.”
“She has a point,” the girl with the pink hair said, from a nearby sofa, with a baby on her lap.
“So, let’s review, shall we?” Tami persisted, holding up a finger. “One, you needed a safe place to come back to. And if a whole army of dark mages couldn’t get in here the other day, I think this is about as safe as it gets. Unless you wanna live in a bunker—”
“There’s an idea,” Marco said, crossing massive arms and scowling at us. Probably because he was going to have to sell this idea to the boss. “About the only thing we haven’t tried—”
“Didn’t work out in the desert, did it?” Tami asked, referring to the old supernatural UN, which had, in fact, been a lot like a bunker. One that was now a glass slick in the sand.
Marco’s mouth closed, and he scowled some more.
“Two, accessibility,” Tami steamrollered on. “People have to be able to see you. To petition, ask advice, etc. This place is in the middle of Vegas. Doesn’t get much more accessible than that.”
“Nobody is asking me for advice, either,” I pointed out.
“Well, they might be, if they could get to you!” Tami looked exasperated. “Look. I’m not saying let the whole world in. But there are people who need to see you and who you need to see. You’re Pythia. That has responsibilities attached.”