Embrace the Night (Cassandra Palmer 3)

“With no restrictions! Even if I get with child on the first, I still get the second!”

“Agreed.”

Radella swallowed. “What kind of help do you want?”

“Whatever is needed.” I wasn’t about to let her impose conditions, either.

“I knew you’d find a way to talk me into this insanity,” she sniped, but her heart clearly wasn’t in it.

“Do we have a deal?”

“Oh, you damn well know we do!” I smiled, and she grimaced back. “Don’t be so smug, human. You haven’t heard my idea yet.”

Dante’s front entrance is something out of a medieval nightmare, with writhing basalt statues, tortured topiaries and an honest-to-God moat. The front door handles are agonized faces that moan and groan and utter its famous catchphrase, telling all who enter to abandon hope—along with their wallets. But demented decor is expensive, which explains why the back looks more like a modern warehouse, with loading ramps, overripe Dumpsters and a plain chain-link fence surrounding a crowded employee parking lot.

Françoise, Radella, Billy Joe and I landed in Dante’s parking lot two weeks in the past. It was still a few hours before the sun, or anyone with any sense, would think about rising. In other words, high noon for the types I needed to see.

Radella’s big idea was to go back in time before everyone who knew how to summon the portal left, and get the incantation out of them by whatever means necessary. I had amended that to exclude beatings, knifings or anything likely to result in the total trashing of the timeline. Françoise had added a refinement by mentioning that she could probably erase the short-term memory of anyone except a powerful mage. So we had a plan—we just needed the right guy. And Casanova’s predecessor, a slimy operator known as Jimmy the Rat, was my best guess for man in the know.

“Je suis désolée,” Françoise said, apparently talking to the bottom of the chain-link fence.

I exchanged looks with the pixie, who merely shrugged. I bent over to get a better look and found myself handcuffed to the fence post. “What the hell?”

Françoise stood back and crossed her arms, regarding me with a fair imitation of Pritkin in a mood. “We weel go. Eet ees too dangerous for you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You ’ave not the skill in magique, n’est-ce pas?”

“What’s your point?”

“You ’ad to breeng us ’ere; zere was no choice. But you do not ’ave to risk yourself now. We weel talk to thees gangster while you remain where it is safe.”

“I can handle Jimmy!”

Françoise didn’t answer, but she got this look on her face, like she was perfectly happy to stand in the parking lot for the rest of the night discussing it. I tugged on the cuff, but she must have liberated it from Casanova’s storeroom, because it was good-quality steel. All my efforts did was rattle the fence and piss me off.

“Okay,” I said. “You go, me stay. Have fun.”

“You aren’t serious,” Billy said incredulously.

“You weel stay right ’ere?” Françoise looked doubtful. Maybe she’d expected me to argue more.

I jangled the fence again for effect. “Do I have a choice?”

“I don’t trust her,” the pixie said, eyeing me narrowly. “We should stick her in a closet.”

“I have a gun,” I pointed out.

Radella frowned. “She’s right. She could shoot the lock.”

“I was thinking of something a little more animated,” I told her, not entirely sure I was kidding.

“Eet is for your own good,” Françoise said, biting her lip. She suddenly looked uncertain.

Radella snapped her fingers. “We knock her out. Then we stuff her in the closet. A really small one,” she added viciously.

Françoise didn’t even bother to look at her. “We return soon,” she promised, then turned on her heel and strode away.