major hotel-casino's penthouse suite, it had been to wash off blood spatter after ridding werewolf mobster Cesar Cicereau of a reanimated victim at the Gehenna Hotel in Vegas.
Now, I just wanted to avoid Snow for a while.
When I entered, I discovered this was a kiss-off point for the ladies.
Here I'd been hopelessly Midwestern again, thinking vacationing married couples used this suite. Duh. It was for big spenders and their hired ladies of the night. No wonder it offered the high-tech fantasy makeover. I began to suspect the guest programmed his fantasy tart into the process. The lights in here should have been tinted red, but they, too, were green, as was anything reflected by the mirror.
I twisted to view the back of my gown ... gorgeous bias-cut green satin folds, tight through the torso and flaring into a mermaid skirt with a train. Yup, cut down to rear cleavage, which was accented with a rhinestone pin in a peacock tail design. How ironic that Snow fixated on bare white backs when his own was now hash, thanks to me. If he indeed bore no marks, the only way I'd find out would be with a rematch.
Speaking of marks ... I lifted the heavy waves of unbraided hair off my neck, but no matter which way I turned and twisted, I could just barely glimpse Ric's love bruise.
Well, look at you wearing a fairly fresh new skank tattoo yourself.
Dry up, Irma, I thought.
And then I turned to face myself in the mirror. I hadn't heard Irma. "Lilith" stared back at me.
I knew her because she wasn't a mirror image. She wore low-rise jeans that underlined an "outie" belly button, pierced by a familiar blue topaz stud, whereas mine was an "innie."
That kind of summed up our opposing personalities, but we actually differed in this minor way? I'd assumed we were identical in everything physical, for some reason.
"Here you are," Lilith went on, "back in Wichita, living it up in the 'whale' suite. Watching boring old movies. Riding our old friend Snow hard and putting him up wet. I love it."
"That's between him and me," I said. "Or maybe you are."
"Nope, I never got even one orgasmic shiver out of Ice Prick. I guess he likes using you better."
"Why are you here again? Oh. Maybe it's the current theme. Wicked Witch green. A little envy going on, Lilith?"
"What you don't know, Delilah, would fill a chasm."
"You know I saw your Wichita police mug shots. You got me in trouble here years ago. You were acting out and showing up on my record."
"I freaked out after that gross incident you know about now. I guess subconsciously I was trying to make Wichita too hot to hold me so I had to leave eventually. You sure weren't going to bust out."
She made a face. "I didn't know we were, like, the Corsican twins until that happened."
My mind did another rapid vintage movie rerun. The Corsican Brothers were guys, obviously, separated at birth, but they found each again because they felt each other's pain.
"Home run, kid," Lilith said, as the reference registered on my face. "I couldn't stick around and wait for you to turn bean-grinder and smell the Starbucks." Lilith sounded guilty anyway. "That ugly doctor stuff drove me to act out ... and finally move on. I hitched all the way to the Sunshine State to find Mother Dearest, though it turns out she didn't want either of us."
"We have a mother?"
"Most people do, even us."
"Where is she? Oh." I remembered the La Vida Loca checks sent to Our Lady of the Lake. "Corona, California?"
Lilith shrugged tattooed shoulders. The designs weren't pretty, just blots of dark ink. She looked hollow-eyed and gaunt and too indifferent to really be that way.
"Lil ... are you all right?"
"Right as acid rain," she answered bitterly, looking toward the ceiling and rolling heavenly blue-green eyes emphasized by seriously smoked-out eyeliner. "Watch your back, Dee. There's more than Snow with a hard-on for it. Some very bad supers are on our tails and in our future. Okay?"
She winked out like a night-light with a dead battery.
MY STREET CLOTHES, the unexciting navy suit, hung from a hook. On the malachite sink counter lay a set of mint-hued French underwear and a Red Carpet - level emerald-green metallic gift bag I couldn't resist exploring.
Immediately, a sinuous chill whipped up my spine and down my arm to cuff my right wrist in a circle of "eyes" from the peacock tail pin. It