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He did not put it down.
“Show yourself!” he demanded, the gun trembling a little, because he was new. And thus wasn’t used to three overburdened women appearing out of nowhere almost in his face. Of course, I wouldn’t have been in his face if he’d been over by the door where he should have been, instead of prowling around the large interior space.
“You’re supposed to be by the door,” I told him helpfully. “This is the landing strip.”
“Wh-what?” He stared at me. Or, rather, he stared at my right eye, which is all he could see through the tower of packages I was carrying.
“By the door,” I repeated, and started for the item in question.
Only to have the gun shoved back at me again.
“Hold up, or I’ll shoot!” he shrieked—right before he disappeared.
I blinked for a moment at the space where he’d been, and then my packages and I turned so I could see Hilde. Or at least the mountain of stuff in front of her. “Where’d you send him?”
“To the lobby.”
“He’s not going to like that.”
“As if I give a damn,” she said, trying to maneuver over to the door, but not being able to see made it difficult. She ended up moseying around the foyer. “He should go back where he came from. The boy is obviously unstable.”
“He’s new,” I told her, zeroing in on the door via the sliver of space between two of the biggest boxes. I remembered the troll, or whatever he’d been, on the mall. I could have really used his floating setup right now.
But I didn’t have it, so I made do. And kicked the door with my shoe. And almost fell over in the process, because that put me off balance, and I’d never counted gracefulness as one of my attributes.
“Careful,” Saffy said, steadying me. With a hand.
How the hell did she have one free?
I couldn’t tell because I couldn’t see. And then the vamp was back, even though elevators don’t work nearly that fast, but then, he hadn’t taken one. He’d taken the stairs.
And even for a vamp, running up twenty-something flights will piss you off.
“All right, listen up!” he began shrilly.
Then he was gone again.
“Hilde!” I said.
“What?” she demanded, from the other side of the foyer.
“First of all, don’t do that, and second of all, the door’s over here.”
“Where?” she asked, and then she cursed. Probably because she’d just run into a potted plant. “All right, I’ve had enough!” she said.
And the next thing I knew, my tower of packages was levitating into the air to join the multitude that were already floating overhead, studding the high, domed ceiling like brightly colored birds let loose from their cages.
Exactly like, I thought, looking up. The ceiling was white with gold ribs every four feet or so, giving it a cage-like look, and the packages had been wrapped in a rainbow of different-colored papers. It was all very pretty.
It was also well above my reach.
“Okay,” I said, admiring the view. “But how do we get them down?”
“She has a point,” Saffy said. “Some of that’s breakable. We can’t just drop the spell, or—”
The vamp was back.
And this time, he came in shooting.
