Page 99 of Hoofin’ It

I was tempted to pop my fake eye out and roll it across the marble floor. “I wouldn’t go that far, Pieri.”

“I would. Come, come. I’ll take you to your table, darlings. Don’t mind Gibby, Miss Marian. If he gives you any problems, smack him around a bit. He likes it. You’re lucky he let you bite him. He shoots us in the knees when we think about it. So unfair.”

“He bit me back.”

Marian’s four words widened Pierina’s eyes and her smile. “Wonderful. There are many reasons to celebrate. I would love to get to know you better—and share with you some tidbits that may help you unravel the mystery that is our Gibby.”

I didn’t look forward to Marian joining forces with Ernesto’s daughter, who ran crime rings right under her father’s nose and made him like it. No matter what happened, it would cause trouble for me. Too wise to voice my concerns, I slid my arm behind Marian’s back and guided her across the restaurant.

The main dining room’s fresco of Noah’s Flood intrigued me the most; there was no ark, only craggy mountain peaks covered in snow and surrounded by churning water, where the remnants of Earth’s life clung to tenacious survival. Only after several visits and unashamed staring had I realized unicorns lurked within the waves, fighting back the waters, while on the bitterly cold peaks, a phoenix and another unicorn, blacker than night with flames in its eyes, protected the survivors from winter’s cold embrace.

When the lights were turned off, the fresco revealed its true secrets, and I hoped I would get a chance to show Marian a special sort of magic—and draw her attention to a few of the figures huddled on the slopes of the mighty mountains withstanding the raging sea.

The lights were on and the place was packed, forcing us to navigate through a sea of tables, chairs, busy waiters and waitresses, and diners to the staircase tucked in the far corner. It spiraled upwards to my second favorite room, which featured a fresco of the eruption of Vesuvius over Pompeii and the destruction of Herculaneum. After dark, it replayed the final days of the cities, and at the end, a phoenix rose from the mountain’s heart and took to the skies, raining cinders and ash on the ground below.

Pushing aside the dark curtain separating the main dining room from the wall-to-wall window, Pierina gestured to the opened door, and I waited for Marian to go first. Instead of the white tablecloths used in the rest of the restaurant, Pierina had brought out the black cloth embroidered with gold thread, which depicted dragons in flight chasing phoenixes while unicorns galloped beneath them, whinnying their dismay they too couldn’t fly. Long red candles, surrounded with an olive and laurel wreath, served as the center piece.

I was pretty sure the silverware was made of white and yellow gold.

“You’ve outdone yourself as always, Pierina.”

The vampire smiled at me. “It’s our pleasure to bring you our finest at our papa’s expense. Please, sit. Enjoy the view. My brothers will bring you your wine and serve you tonight while I attend to matters in the kitchen.”

I took advantage of Marian’s hesitance to pull out her chair. “Now try to imagine me in either a cop uniform or a pair of jeans doing this. I’ve seen the entire secondary dining room stop and stare at me for sitting on the balcony fresh off duty.”

She giggled and sat, and I nudged her chair closer to the table. “I never would have taken you for the type to know proper etiquette.”

“I’m a man of many surprises. Usually, Pierina sets the table with the white cloth, but she’s feeling extravagant today for some reason.” I smiled and sat across from Marian. “It’s definitely nicer when I’m not dining alone.”

My choice of seat for Marian gave her the best view of Lower Chicago’s drop into the abyss, and the rumble of the canal’s waterfall drowned out the conversation inside the building. While we’d be able to hear each other, the noise meant others couldn’t, not easily.

The waterfall’s noise made the balcony one of the best places to do business, and if secrecy mattered, the curtains could be drawn for absolute privacy.

Marian leaned to the side, her gaze fixed on the black waters tumbling into the darkness below. “It didn’t seem so loud on the street!”

“Magic. Pierina likes the ambiance of the falls but doesn’t want it disturbing the diners in the restaurant, so she had a practitioner muffle the sound to only be heard in certain locations in the restaurant. The balcony is one of them.”

“That’s amazing. What happens if you fall in?”

I turned and pointed to where the canal washed over the edge. “There’s a grate down there. If you fall in, it’s possible to get your head above the surface; the current’s really strong, but every now and then someone survives. It’s one of the jobs the CPD has; if someone falls into the canal, we’re the S&R team for the grate. I’ve pulled a few people off the grate in my time. Some of them survived. If you go over, survival is a coin toss. It’s a manmade waterway. If you go over, it’s a violent water slide to the bottom into a deep pool. The denizens below send the survivors back up and call for a patrol and ambulance. The city pays them for the live bodies.”

“How many survive each year?”

I thought about my years patrolling the area. “For every five or six who get pinned to the grate, one goes through or over, and I’d say maybe fifty-fifty odds of living to tell the story.”

“And the denizens below don’t mind the water is so disgusting down there?”

“I think they like it.”

Marian stared at the canal and the darkness beyond. “Well, isn’t that charming?”

I smiled. “Even in darkness there’s beauty. If you’re lucky, you’ll see something really special.”

“What?”

“While many of the denizens are unknown, some come up from time to time. Among them are the lampad.”

“Lampad?”