Your eyes will attract attention.”
“Shouldn’t you be worried I’ll transmit the disease to the Elven?”
His eyes narrowed. “Naturally,” he said, and looked at his watch. “I’ll call for a Council meeting within twenty-four hours, and you’ll hear from me in the next twelve. Until then, stay home. I’ll send my own physician to your house tomorrow to examine you. Where are you parked?”
“I don’t need an escort, thank you.”
“Then I’ll return to the concert, where my absence will have been noted. You’ll have been recognized, as well. That’s how rumors begin. It was an unfortunate move on your part, coming here. That’s why it’s imperative you go home now. I’ll have to do some damage control.”
“I’m sure you’re quite capable of it. Sir,” she added, with as much sarcasm as she could fit into one syllable. She walked away before he could respond, pleased to have the last word.
Go home? Ha. She had things to do, and going home was far down on the list.
* * *
Declan knocked on the door of the first of the two guesthouses he came to, interrupting what he imagined to be the early stages of foreplay between Rhiannon Gryffald, the Canyon vampire Keeper, and Brodie McKay, her Elven lover. He was on good terms with both, so he spent a minute in friendly conversation before saying to Rhiannon, “Where’s your cousin?”
“Which one?” she asked, innocence written all over her lovely face.
“Sailor.”
“Oh.” She smiled. “Work, I expect. She waits tables at the House of Illusion. The late shift.”
She went to work? In her condition? Declan hid his reaction and asked, “Did you see her tonight?”
Rhiannon hesitated for a fraction of a second. “We don’t run into each other as much as you’d think.”
Declan saw Brodie raise an eyebrow, which told Declan a several things: Rhiannon knew about the attack on Sailor, but she wasn’t about to tell him, because she hadn’t even told her fiancé. And her fiancé, who happened to be a cop, would no doubt ask her why she’d just lied to a friend and fellow Keeper as soon as Declan was out the door.
And if Rhiannon was able to keep secrets from an Elven who would be looking her right in the eye, she was very talented indeed. Telepathy through eye contact was an Elven specialty, right up there with a strong sexual appetite. Declan wondered how his friends would reconcile the two tonight.
“Thanks,” he said. “Have a nice evening.”
* * *
The House of Illusion sat atop a hill on Hollywood Boulevard, east of Laurel Canyon. It was fully illuminated in all its medieval glory, turrets and battlements beckoning tourists and natives, skeptics and believers, devotees and the merely curious.
Declan had a soft spot in his heart for the place, having first seen it as an eighteen-year-old on his first night in L.A. He’d since outgrown its brooding kitschiness, but the tapestries, silvery mirrors and brocade sofas gave him a feeling of history, of Olde England, even—were he sentimental—of homesickness. Many of the furnishings had come from the British Isles, from castles fallen on hard times. The stained glass and stone fireplaces retained bits of history and, in some cases, magic.
The bar was an ornately carved mahogany affair, and Dennis, the gnome tending it, dressed for the period in a striped shirt and high-waisted trousers with suspenders. Declan would never require a uniform for his own waitstaff, and the guy had his sympathy.
Declan took a seat at a barstool, ordered a club soda and said, “Do you know a waitress named Sailor Gryffald?”
Dennis said, “Sailor? Sure. She’s due in—” He glanced at the clock behind the bar. “Seven minutes ago.”
* * *
Sailor had made the trip up the long winding drive to the House of Illusion more times than she could count. As a child she’d come with her parents, eyes wide, heart pounding, both terrified and mesmerized by the gargoyles, the heavy wooden doors, the moat that snaked around the castle. These days she didn’t drive over the ornate drawbridge that was the public entrance but around the back to employee parking.
Her waitress training had required her to memorize the history of the place, some of which overlapped with her family history. Ivan Schwartz, its founder, was the magician who went by the stage name of Merlin and was now their family ghost-in-residence. His star was rising in the 1920s, when he built not only the House of Illusion, but the House of the Rising Sun estate, his personal kingdom. He