The moon's intensity may wax and wane, but the sun is pretty much always on full power during the southern Nevada daylight hours, spreading warm vibes and skin cancer as the tourists soak it up from under funny hats, their white-creamed noses topped by very dark sunglasses.
My Black Irish - pale complexion had made high-SPF sunscreen a constant companion even in a come-and-go sunshine state like Kansas. Sunglasses were my constant accessory too, partly to hide the fabled baby-blues I share with my elusive double, Lilith Quince, but I put Lilith out of my mind before she drove me out of it instead.
Hector's description of sleazy businesses took my Strip walk toward downtown and the last surviving, nonimploded hotel-casinos of the town's fifties and sixties heyday, when the Rat Pack of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr., ran wild in Vegas instead of werewolf mobsters.
After weaving almost to the streetlamps to miss a steamy tourist array of sun-baked Goth and punk leather, I spotted a stunning gold-and-ebony sign above a shop frontage.
CHEZ SHEZ, the gilt letters read, just as I'd recommended.
"Chez" - pronounced as in "the wonderful one-horse shay" - was French for "house of." "Shez" was short for "Shezmou," the ancient Egyptian name for "vengeful, beheading demon under-god who's got great hands for neck-twisting as well as wine-pouring and massage."
The line of women wasn't blocks long, but they did almost kick me to the curb, literally. I'd been dodging ill-intentioned Jimmy Choos since Sheena, the weather witch at WTCH-TV in Kansas, so I simply hopped and skipped around them to the front door, which was manned by ... a woman.
Of my acquaintance.
She was also one don't-cross tiger of a female, Grizelle, Snow's shape-shifting security chief at the Inferno Hotel.
Right now she was all woman, six-foot-three of ridiculously high-priced and small-sized designer suit and stiletto heels on a velvet-black frame. Her skin was moire black taffeta, subtly marked with the shadow of tiger stripes. Little-known fact: all spotted and striped cats have skin to match. Grizelle in human form was almost as formidable as her six-hundred-pound white-tiger self. Her eyes were jungle green and her manicure was vampire red.
I'd worn my air-sole sneakers for my Strip stroll - the silver familiar was so ashamed of my unfashionable look it was hiding out as a toe-ring - so I was more pipsqueak than usual measuring up to her. But height is attitude, not altitude.
So I showed some.
"New job as a shop doorman, Grizelle? Was Snow so miffed by your last foiled attempt to stop my Inferno comings and goings that he fired you?" I taunted. "Naughty, naughty kitty. Maybe I can put in a good word for you with Nightwine Productions, Inc."
"I don't do door duty anywhere," she answered. "I was just leaving after I saw the low-rent party hanging around inside. Seeing as you're entering, I'll stick around awhile longer." She fanned the taloned fingers of her right hand.
"Delilah," said a deep male voice from within.
I promptly did a do-si-do around Grizelle's statuesque presence and doffed my sunglasses. I still had to blink for several seconds to see in the comparatively dim interior.
What I saw was tall, dark-haired, and not unhandsome, but unfortunately, it was not my indebted demigod, Shezmou.
"Sansouci," I said with surprise. "Fancy finding you here. Needing a manicure? Or just a good chiropractic neck adjustment?"
I'm no squirt, but most men of my acquaintance flirt with six-foot-something. Now - between the head muscle for both the werewolf mob and Snow's hellish Inferno operation - I was feeling distinctly outgunned.
Yet intrigued.
"I didn't know you two knew each other," I commented, switching my gaze from Sansouci to Grizelle like a nervous, well, gazelle. She scared me a lot more than he did, perhaps because I'd done her boss wrong in a very big way.
The pause became what you could call pregnant.
Grizelle tossed her mane of spangled dreadlocks that much resembled an Egyptian wig. I wondered if Shezmou had seen her yet. They'd make an awesome power couple.
"The doors are barred for now," Grizelle told me. "You can gawk a bit and then you should leave. I'm here for a private business conference with the owner."
"Me too." Sansouci's wolfish grin looked really rakish on a closeted vampire, trust me. "I represent the Gehenna werewolves," he continued, "but I have time to show you and the little lady around."