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“You would?” Dee asked, a little breathless.
“Yeah. If I don’t get something to eat soon, I’m going to—”
She gave me a shove and I stumbled back into the wall—and kept going. I fell down what felt like a water slide except with no water. In its place was a blur of color and a roar of sound—and then I was tumbling head over heels into an alcove. It had rough wood floors, stucco walls and a pay phone with an out of order sign.
Something taupe and muddy lay right in front of my nose. I grabbed it. “My shoe!”
“My shoe,” Dee said, stumbling out of the wall behind me. She plucked it out of my hands. “Keds and a meal—that was the deal, right?”
“Yes, but . . .” I stared at the wall we’d just fallen out of.
“There was a portal in my room!”
“No kidding.” Dee peered out of a set of red velvet drapes in front of the alcove.
“Why?!”
“Because it used to be a nightclub with undead performers,” she threw over her massive shoulder. “How do you think they got them in and out? Walked them through the main casino floor, so they could munch on a few tourists in passing?”
I scowled. “You can’t go around telling people this kind of stuff. You just met me. I might be a norm for all you—”
“Scrim.”
“What?”
“The whole group, Dee Vine, Dee Licious and me. We’re all Scrims.”
“What difference does that make?” Scrims were just mages who didn’t produce much magical energy. They varied in ability, from those who weren’t very good at magic to those who couldn’t even cast a simple spell. Like the Misfits, they weren’t popular in the magical community, but they weren’t locked up because nobody viewed them as a threat.
“Scrims can detect magic,” she said impatiently. “We’re like bloodhounds on a scent, drawn to it like queens to fashion. Speaking of which, those bitches I work with would kill for these shoes. Literally—I’m talking a stiletto to the neck. We have to be careful.”
“Look, I just want a sandwich—”
“It’s all about you, isn’t it?” she hissed. “This is an act of mercy. I have a friend who can restore these babies to their proper glory but I have to smuggle them past the hags. Oh, shit! There’s one now!”
Dee snapped the curtains shut and started stuffing the shoes down her already overpadded front. She’d just finished when the curtain was snatched back to reveal a tall, gaunt person in a black see-through body stocking, sequined pasties and black satin hot pants. “She” had purple lipstick, purple feathers on her long, fake eyelashes and the pale, expressionless face of the overly Botoxed.
“That look went out with the eighties,” she drawled, staring suspiciously at Dee’s now ultrapointy breasts.
Dee draped an arm around my shoulders. “Darling, meet Dee Ceased—”
“Dee Vine!” the woman snapped.
“Careful with the emotion, love. Your forehead might fall off.”
Someone laughed and edged in around the ample space left by Dee Vine’s scrawny form. The newcomer was a seven-foot-tall African-American in a blond wig, her ample curves spilling over the top of a full-length red-sequined dress. “That’s what I was telling her. Then we can call her Dee Composed.”
That won her a glare from her costar. “Like you’ve never had work. You’re over forty without a line!”
The newcomer ran hands in opera-length, red satin gloves down her curves. “And it’s all natural, baby. Ain’t you heard? Black don’t crack.”
“Are we gonna get this rehearsal on or not?” Dee Vine demanded. “This dump opens in two days!”
“I’m going to grab a bite first,” Dee Sire told her, pushing me through the miniscule opening between the two queens.
“Another few pounds and what’ll be cracking around here is your ass out of that dress!” floated after us as we emerged into a dark club.
The theme seemed to be Wild West saloon, with a long bar, clusters of round wood tables, sawdust on the floor and a couple of old-fashioned swinging doors. We stepped through them into the middle of a ghost town. Or at least Dante’s idea of one.
