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“What?” I croaked. “What if not?”
“—then one will have the knowledge that one fell in pursuit of an admirable goal,” the card said, its small
voice rising passionately. “The heavens shall sing praises of your bravery, as they do for the heroes for which the constellations are named, and your renown shall echo down the ages to—”
“Oh, shut up,” I said viciously, fumbling around on the nightstand for the card pack. And not finding it. Great, I thought, and rolled off the bed.
But not mine.
I hit the floor, blinking at the god-awful coverlet that had half fallen off with me. Instead of tufted satin, it was one of the scratchy, cheapo kind the hotel reserved for rooms priced at less than a trip to Tahiti. And instead of a tasteful pale blue, it had a full-on Halloween theme in yellow, black, and gray, with a ghostly moon caged by the branches of a gaunt and lifeless tree.
Shit.
I must have accidentally fallen asleep in Pritkin’s room, instead of dragging my weary butt back to my own bed. And wasn’t that just going to get me blessed out by Marco? Of course, I was kind of surprised that it hadn’t already, since I knew damned well the vamps kept a tracking spell on me. I’d had Pritkin take it off a few times, but it always ended up right back in place, usually within an hour or two. And since he’d been gone for a week, it was safe to assume that they knew exactly where—
I’d hauled myself to my feet, in preparation for getting my shit together, but tripped over something and went right back down again. Only this time I hit the carpet beside a pair of dirty boots. They were old, with massive soles and scratched leather uppers, at least what I could see through a coating of mud. It was so thick that the steel cap over the toes was barely visible.
Huh. That’s weird, some tiny, more awake part of my brain commented. But it didn’t explain why.
I sat up and frowned at them some more.
There was nothing particularly odd about them, except for the mud, which wasn’t exactly common in Vegas. But they were the kind Pritkin wore, useful for caving in doors or bad guy’s faces, and had been thrown in his usual haphazard fashion under the bed. Or beside it, but the dust ruffle had obscured most of them. Which maybe explained why I hadn’t—
Okay, that was it. They weren’t weird, but the fact that I hadn’t noticed them last night was. Especially since I should have been able to smell them a couple of yards off. I wrinkled my nose at the locker room funk and pushed them to the side. And peered into the gloom beyond for the damned card pack, while a cheerful voice began to regale me with fun facts about the Star card.
That was bad, but if I didn’t shut it up, it was going to segue into the possible meanings of the card in combination with others. And then into how it should be read in the different spreads. And if I remembered right, that would be followed by the whole history of the tarot, which could go on for literally hours before it finally wound down. And the way I felt, a migraine was going to explode my left eye long before then.
After a fruitless search, I surfaced, gasping from a combo of boot funk and dust bunnies, and started sorting through the jumbled bedclothes for the pack that simply had to be there somewhere. But I didn’t see it. Maybe because it was hard to see anything in the wash of sunshine pouring in through the curtains.
I stopped and blinked at them.
The suddenly wide-open curtains.
The suddenly wide-open curtains that were being reflected in the mirror over the dresser.
And okay, no. That mirror had been in about a thousand pieces all over the floor last night. I mean, I couldn’t be wrong about that, right? I’d stepped in the remains, and even kicked some when—
My brain came to a screeching halt as three things happened simultaneously. My eyes wandered over the view beyond the bed, which was noticeably lacking in broken glass, destroyed furniture, or ominous stains. My nose registered a complete dearth of potion residue. And my ears pricked up at a small, new sound.
A sound like the beep of a key card tripping an automatic lock.
My head jerked around to see the doorknob start to turn, and I tried to shift. But my fuzzy brain wasn’t having it. Instead, it had gone into flight mode all right, but for some reason it had decided that the path to safety involved me trying to squash myself into the few inches of space under the bed. Only I couldn’t because the damned boots were in the way. And by the time I shoved them aside, thrust the still-talking tarot card down my shirt, realized there was already something wedged in between my breasts, crammed the card into the top of a small, greasy package I found there, and started stuffing myself past the dust ruffle . . .
It was too late.
The door opened and someone came in, sneaker-clad feet quiet on the tiled floor of the entryway. They stopped abruptly, and there was no sound for a beat, then two. And then they crossed silently onto the carpet before pausing again, beside the bed.
Where they were currently being treated to the sight of my ass wriggling around in the air like Pooh Bear sticking out of Rabbit’s house, because it hadn’t made it under here with the rest of me.
For a moment, nothing was said.
Then a single finger pushed up the dust ruffle. And a clear green eye peered underneath at me. I stared back at it, and what little coherent thought I’d managed to form went out the window.
“Is there . . . a problem?” a mild voice asked me.
I licked my lips, because, as usual for me, “problem” didn’t cover it. I opened my mouth to reply, and God knows what I’d have said. Only, luckily, speech was one of many things that didn’t seem to be working right now.
Like motor control. Because the next moment, when I was hauled out from under the bed and up to a pair of so-familiar green eyes, I just hung there limply. And stared.
