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Enhanced hearing, I mouthed.
The wards are supposed to stop things like that, he mouthed back.
“And your wards are shit,” the witch added, causing Marco to mutter something. “I heard that.”
I sighed and walked over.
“At least most of them are,” she amended, leaning on her stick and watching me. “There was a bastardized fey spell that gave us some trouble, mainly from us not expecting it.”
“Woven with holly all around,” the small witch added, in a singsong. “Shot through with sunlight and lightened by air, call on water, call on fire, call on wind—protect, protect, protect.” She took a swig of her beer. “Three elements are a bitch.”
“But we got past it,” her companion added. “Mainly from your lot not maintaining it.”
“The guy who usually does is out of town,” I said evenly.
“Well, you need to get him back.”
“Working on it.” Although it would be easier to do that if they’d go away, so I could track down Casanova and find out what he knew about the council. But that didn’t appear to be happening. And since I’d already pissed off the witches as much as I dared, it looked like I was going to have to practice my diplomacy for a while.
“You play?” the Valkyrie asked, racking up another game, even though they’d barely started the last one.
I looked over at the little witch, who grinned at me toothily. “I’ll sit one out,” she offered.
I shrugged. “Okay.”
Marco looked surprised, probably because he’d never seen me play. Something about almost dying on a weekly basis took the fun out of it. “I used to work in a bar,” I reminded him.
“Doing what?” the Valkyrie demanded.
“Bar-backing. Bartending sometimes, when somebody called in. Mostly reading tarot.”
“The Pythia read tarot in a bar,” the witch said, as if she thought I was lying to her.
“I wasn’t Pythia then. And I like eating.”
“You must have been quite the draw,” she said dryly.
“Not really.” I paused as she lined up the break, which she’d taken without bothering to flip me for it. “Most people didn’t like what I had to tell them.”
“And what was that?”
“The truth.”
Her cue stuttered on the velvet, and she flubbed the break. She scowled at me, as if I’d done that deliberately. I fished the cue ball out of a corner pocket and tossed it to her. “Redo it.”
She looked surprised that I was giving away my advantage. But I wasn’t feeling real competitive right now. And I doubted they’d broken into my suite and trashed the lobby in order to play pool.
The witch racked ’em up and broke again, leaving herself a couple of easy shots to start with. She took one of them before looking up at me through a fringe of gray bangs. “Didn’t expect to find you so polite.”
“Why? Because I didn’t talk to you after you broke in here?”
“No. But we have plenty of other reasons. Care to hear them?”
By the tone in her voice, I had a feeling I was going to anyway. “Sure.” I walked over to the wall and chose a cue stick.
“You didn’t invite us to the coronation, despite the fact that the damned Circ
le were there—in force.” She sank her first shot with a savage little motion. “You haven’t sent us the usual greetings or otherwise acknowledged our existence, despite having more than enough time to do so.” She sank two balls with her second shot, clack-clack. “And you’re living with a bunch of goddamned vampires!” She attempted a tough bank shot, and missed—barely.
