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“Which time?” I asked uneasily. Because, okay, there’d been a few incidents.
“But zombies are newcomers compared to Weres,” the announcer told us. “There are cave drawings from fourteen thousand years ago depicting humans with animal faces, or transforming into beasts of all kinds. From Europe come tales of the most famous Weres of all: werewolves. But did you know, in Central America there are stories of were-jaguars? In central Asia, of were-bears?”
“The huge battle?” Casanova whispered, spitting mad. “The one I’m still making repairs for?”
“Oh.” That one. “What about it?”
“Well, word got out, didn’t it? Containment isn’t so easy when you have giant magical melees taking place in the air over the damned roof! We did the best we could, but ever since, there have been rumors. They finally became so insistent that the senate decided it would be easier to have the Hogwash people come in—”
“What people?”
“You must have seen them,” he said impatiently. “With the little horns and the squeals and the—oh, never mind! The point is, their shtick is debunking urban legends and the like. If they come here and don’t find anything—”
“And if they do?”
“Then there’s everybody’s perennial favorite, the vampire,” the announcer intoned. “How far do they date back? Let’s put it this way: there are shards of ancient Persian pottery depicting blood-sucking creatures. That predates all written records, folks.”
“Then we make a few mental adjustments, erase some footage, whatever it takes!” Casanova said. “But in the end, they’ll go off satisfied and, more important, I will have had an hour-long, prime-time advertisement for free and you are not going to mess that up for me!”
“I’m not doing anything,” I said angrily. “What is your problem?”
“Oh, please! Don’t think I don’t know why those bitches are here!”
“What are you talking about?”
I didn’t get an answer, because a guy in a security uniform ran up, looking freaked. Since most of the security detail around the cas
ino were vamps, and vamps who had seen some shit, it didn’t make me too happy. And for once, Casanova and I appeared to be on the same wavelength.
“What?” he demanded, before the guard even stopped.
“Sir, it’s getting worse. We can’t contain—”
“Then call for backup! They’re filming!”
“Sir, we have called for backup. We have every guard on duty either in place or on the way, but we aren’t, that is, we don’t—”
“Don’t give me that,” Casanova snarled. “There’s only three! Sit on them if you have to!”
“Sir, I don’t think you under—”
“All right, you’re going to have to hold it down,” we were told, by a guy in a black tee with a pink pig on the front. “We’re picking you up on the mikes.”
“So sorry,” Casanova whispered ingratiatingly, and jerked me back against the wall.
“And as for demons, well, they’ve been mentioned in almost every holy book going,” the announcer said. “Along with plenty of secular texts. Take the incubus, for example. A spirit who supposedly visits people in their sleep, for, er, carnal relations. That idea goes back to Mesopotamia at the beginning of written history, at least forty-five hundred years.”
Casanova turned on his vamp again. “They’ll be through with the intro in another minute. Just hold on until—” A chicken flew past his face. “What the—what was that?”
“Sir, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” the vampire said tightly. “We don’t have a minute.”
“But now all these legends, fables, myths, and—yes—monsters, have been brought together in one place, for your entertainment,” the announcer said, throwing out an arm, “in the Vegas attraction everyone’s talking about! Dante’s, where it’s rumored, unexplainable things happen on a regular—”
Another chicken flew by, this time in front of the man’s face. “What’s that? What’s going on?” he demanded, breaking character.
“I do believe you missed one,” a woman’s voice rang out, sounding amused.
“What?”
