through the Immortality Mob. That’s another ugly coalition that’ll be wanting you dead or on its payroll.”
“Is that why you’re making an offer you think I can’t refuse? That I live at your hotel from now on? To give you leverage with all these bad guys supposedly wanting my hide?”
Christophe kept silent, sipping from the martini glass set on a built-in Lalique glass table, savoring the drink Delilah had created to annoy him, an Albino Vampire. Christophe violently denied he was any such thing, but the jury that could rule on that issue hadn’t even been picked yet.
Ric could see why the man infuriated Delilah. He was unflappable.
“It’s the ideal solution to my prize CinSim’s security and your own safety,” he was saying. “It is an offer you can’t afford to refuse.”
As Christophe’s head had lifted to speak, Ric spotted a bruise as dark as cherry amber underneath the pink-ruby-studded black leather collar he wore onstage, and now, apparently, off.
Pink albino eyes were ultrasensitive to light. That would explain the constant sunglasses and symbolic hot-pink jewels. It didn’t explain why a flagrantly sexy rock star wanted to conceal a passion bruise . . . or a bite?
Ric didn’t want to speculate about Christophe’s sexuality any more than he needed to know what brand of supernatural he was. Sorcerer, it looked like, but looks were especially deceiving in a Vegas teeming with paranormal creatures and effects. The nickname “Snow” came from his onstage identity as Cocaine, the lead singer of the Seven Deadly Sins band. His stage persona reeked of sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.
Ric bet Delilah would have a fit to know he was seriously powwowing with the guy instead of just watching a movie, but Ric had learned long ago as a small boy in Mexico that sometimes you have to deal directly with the Devil.
“Moving in here would be . . . awkward . . . Snow.” Ric sipped his own cocktail.
The pale lips smiled at this first step toward possible concession.
“I’ll give you a whole floor,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, now attired instead of bared for the stage. “A private elevator for Miss Street to come and go discreetly on her errands of surveillance and . . . other matters.”
“I like my house.”
“A suburban ranch-style equipped with a smart-ass computer? It has a certain earthy charm, like you, maybe. But it’s not secure enough now, Montoya. You were in the FBI. You know that.”
“Perhaps not safe enough for . . . her.”
Christophe leaned forward, his long white hair brushing the lapels of his silk designer blazer. White, of course. The nickname literally suited him. “You can’t keep the most valuable CinSim in the world at home in a closet, like a vacuum cleaner.”
Ric sipped the Bloody Mary he’d accepted, silent and forcing the other man to speak.
“I’m building a new Metropolis for it . . . her,” the mogul went on. “A modern Tower of Babel for the first silver-screen robot. Once it’s done, I’ll have the best normal and paranormal security in Vegas or the world for it. Her. But you still won’t be free to return to your modest, middle-class house and play bait for whomever you like.”
“Why don’t we ask her?” Ric said.
“Really? That would be like boosting C-3PO from the Star Wars film strip and taking his scripted words for . . . well, scripture. That golden futuristic robot is her cinematic descendant.”
“I can see that without being a damn movie buff. Where is she?”
“In the home theater, of course.”
Ric stood, waiting to be shown.
He wasn’t surprised to be led through a pair of double doors, but the semicircular 3-D surround screen that confronted them could match any installed at major national monuments. A curved single row of six lavish reclining theater seats seemed lost in the massive carpeted space.
“Lonely at the top, huh, Christophe?” Ric commented.
Then the lights came up and he saw her again. At one end seat, the Silver Zombie stood like an unused usher.
His . . . protégé? Creature? What was it . . . she, really? His responsibility, certainly.
“We need a name for her.” Ric spoke softly, as if she might hear.
“Don’t ask me. I was content with It.”
“Delilah is right. You are a heartless bastard.”
“The last individual I heard of who was hankering after a heart was a Tin Woodman not unlike my mute guest there.”
The robot was evidently voice-activated, though, because the motionless metal figure had turned to home in on