Hex Appeal (P.N. Elrod) (Kitty Norville 4.60)

My silver familiar, a souvenir of my ongoing war with Snow, left its default position as a thin hip chain under the James Bond–ish wet suit and eeled down a tight sleeve. It emerged clamped on my left wrist as a pair of handcuffs locked onto the same arm.

Cool look. I hoped the familiar would schedule a rerun the next time I was out for dinner with my investigative partner and dead-dowsing significant other, Ric. That would keep his mind on dessert.

I stuffed my feet into Ed Hardy motorcycle boots and emerged through the closet door as the pixie winked out. The Invisible Man, a learned scientist in his day, gave a piercing wolf whistle.

“Quicksilver, leave kitty!” I called my dog off just as his very visible fangs neared Dr. Jack’s very invisible throat.

“Toss me my fedora,” I told Dr. Jack. “I like to look professional going to a job.”

“My work here is done.” His voice was a rasp. “May you and the very big doggie live long and prosper.”

Quick let his forelegs click to the floor. He picked up one wet paw and wrinkled his muzzle.

“Not your mess,” I told him. “we’re walking into a much bigger one. What’s your position on anyone or anything who mucks with our CinSim friends?”

He lifted a rear leg and did nothing more.

I nodded. “That’s right. You took out that Kansas weather witch’s TV tower with one well-placed piss during her electrical storm. Let’s go see what’s shaking at the Inferno Hotel and find out who needs pissing on now.”

I looked around. My bedspread was a pyramid of folds on the floor, topped by my slightly used fedora. I decided I could leave home without it.

* * *

Just driving up to the Inferno in my vintage Cadillac convertible, Quicksilver riding shotgun in sunglasses, almost shocked the catsuit off me … not that anybody on the Vegas Strip would much notice a naked woman these days.

They sure couldn’t miss the hotel’s drastically altered façade. I parked on the curved driveway well before the entrance canopy, so I could gaze up. Neon was busting out all over up and down the Las Vegas Strip.

Not at the Inferno. Tonight it was less the Technicolor erupting volcano and more the smoldering ruin. The usual exterior fireworks had faded to cold, colorless flames the shades of ashes … the gray and black and white of a vintage film, like the CinSims inside.

Tourists elbowed in and out of the massive front doors, eyes on free-offer flyers, oblivious to the racket, bustle, and anyone else, as usual.

So I was only secondarily shocked almost out of my butt-stomping booties when my parking valet pal, Manny, opened my Caddy’s driver’s side door.

Good grief! Manny’s usual vibrant orange demon scales were dolphin blue-gray instead, and his mood was as subdued as his color.

“Dolly’s looking a bit lackluster, Miss Street,” he said.

“Well, sure. Her paint job isn’t reflecting the neon-bright flames ringing the hotel for sixty stories up. You look a bit down in the forked tongue and tail yourself.?

?

Manny shrugged as he slid into her red leather upholstery. “Something’s different about the hotel? You got me.”

Beside me, Quicksilver whimpered his suspicions.

“You’re right,” I told my dog. “The Invisible Man wasn’t wrong.”

We left Manny punked out behind the steering wheel as we hoofed it along the crowded sidewalk. I looked back to see the speed-demon valet putt-putting Dolly’s three hundred horses up the parking ramp. I’d never let Manny floor it like the regular leadfoots, but that exit was seriously lame.

Every hair on Quicksilver’s body stood on end the moment the hotel’s entry doors whooshed shut behind us. My studded wet suit felt warm and cozy, but the skin of my exposed face and hands tightened as if plunged into ice water.

The usual over-air-conditioned casino atmosphere had gone even more arctic.

Quick clung to my left hip, Mr. Service Dog incarnate.

I plunged through any crowd openings, heading straight for the Inferno bar, where my favorite tipsters hung out. I was relieved when a tall, dark-haired man in white tie and tails caught my eye.

Nick Charles, the famous detective, was still at his CinSim post. My relief trickled out in a sigh. If Nick Charles was on duty at the Inferno bar, all was right with the post–Millennium Revelation world.