Claimed by Shadow Page 0,11
Pemphredo glanced up at the gong. Since it was her turn with the eye, she was able to wink at me before cutting loose.
I remembered that, when I'd looked up some information on the sisters after they dropped in, Pemphredo had been called "the master of alarming surprises." I hadn't been sure what that meant, but since the three had been given the task of protecting the Gorgons, I assumed they each had some kind of warlike talent. Considering what had happened to Medusa, though, it didn't seem like they'd been too effective.
As if she'd heard me, Pemphredo suddenly turned her gaze on the nearest mage, a delicate Asian woman, who didn't even have time to scream before the heavy lacquered chandelier came crashing down on her head. Pieces of splintered wood went flying everywhere, and the woman disappeared under a pile of red silk lanterns. It seemed the gals had been practicing.
The mage managed to crawl out from under the fixture a few seconds later, looking battered and bloody, but still breathing. She was in no condition to rejoin the fight, though, and her companions were having trouble holding Enyo on their own. She was tearing through the net almost faster than they could reform it, and it was starting to look like a question of who would tire first. I couldn't tell whether she was getting weary, but even with their backs to me, the mages looked strained, with their raised arms visibly shaking.
"We have a problem," Casanova said.
"Duh." I watched as Pemphredo glanced at one of the other mages, who promptly shot himself in the foot. Deino was sipping beer and trying to flirt with the new bartender, who had crouched behind the bar with his arms over his head. Casanova was probably going to get requests for combat pay after today. I decided that I could live without learning what her special talent was.
"No. I mean we really have a problem." I glanced up at Casanova's tone to see a pissed-off mage standing in the doorway, a sawed-off shotgun leveled on us.
I sighed. "Hello, Pritkin.”
"Call off your harpies or this will be a very short conversation.”
I sighed again. Pritkin has that effect on me. "They aren't harpies. They're the Graeae, ancient Greek demigoddesses. Or something.”
Pritkin sneered. It was what he did best, other than for killing things. "Trust you to side with the monsters. Call them off." An edge of anger threaded through his words, threatening to grow into something more substantial soon.
"I can't." It was the truth, but I wasn't surprised that he didn't believe me. I couldn't recall Pritkin ever believing anything I said; it kind of made me wonder why he bothered talking to me at all. Of course, conversation probably wasn't foremost on his list. It'd be somewhere after dragging me back to the Silver Circle, throwing me in a really deep dungeon and losing the key.
I discovered that a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun sounds very loud when cocked in a small room.
"Do as he says, Cassie," Casanova chimed in. "I like this body as it is. If it acquires a large hole, I will be very annoyed.”
"Yeah, and that's really what's worrying us." The comment came from the ghost who had just drifted through the wall. Casanova swatted in his direction as you might a pesky fly, but missed him. "I thought incubi were supposed to be charming," Billy said, wafting out of the way.
Casanova couldn't see Billy, but his demon senses could obviously hear him. His handsome forehead acquired an annoyed wrinkle, but he didn't deign to respond. I was glad about that, since it meant that Pritkin couldn't be sure that Billy was there.
Billy Joe is what remains of an Irish-American gambler with a love for loose women, dirty limericks and cheating at cards. Because of that last item, he cashed in his chips for the final time at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. A couple of cowboys hadn't liked his faint Irish accent, his ruffled shirt or the fact that the saloon girls were paying him a lot of attention. But the real kicker had come when he won too many hands at cards and they caught him with an ace up his sleeve. Billy was soon thereafter introduced to the inside of a croaker sack, which in turn made the acquaintance of the bottom of the Mississippi.
That should have ended a colorful, if abbreviated, life.
But a few weeks earlier Billy had won a variety of favors off