Death Masks

"Come on," I said, and guided Susan with me.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Buying some time to get across the room to those other doors," I said. I turned to her, put one hand on her waist and took her other hand in mine, and led off onto the dance floor with an uncomplicated two-step. "Just follow."

I looked back to her to see her mouth open in shock. "You told me you couldn’t dance."

"Not like in clubs and stuff," I said. She followed me well enough to let me do a little dip and step into a restrained hustle. "I don’t do so well with rock and roll. Ballroom is something else."

Susan laughed, her dark eyes shining, even as she watched the crowd around us for more red jackets. "Between this and the tux, you’re threatening to become classy. Where did you learn?"

I kept us moving down the dance floor, rolling Susan out to the length of our arms and then drawing her in again. "When I first came to Chicago, I had a bunch of jobs until I hooked up with Nick Christian at Ragged Angel Investigations. One of them was as a dance partner with a senior-citizen organization."

"You learned from little old ladies?"

"Tough to tango with someone with lumbago," I said. "It requires great skill." I spun Susan again, this time bringing her back to me with her back to my chest, one hand still on her hip with the other holding her arm out. There was a subtle electricity in touching her, her waist slender and supple under my hand. Her hair smelled of cinnamon, and her dress left quite a bit of her back naked to view. It was distracting as hell, and when she glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes were growing heated. She felt it too.

I swallowed. Focus, Harry. "See those doors behind the food tables?"

Susan nodded.

I checked over my shoulder. The security guards had been slowed down by the press of the crowd, and we had beaten them to the other side of the room. "That’s where we’re going. We need to ditch these guys and find Valmont before Marcone gets to her."

"Won’t security just follow us through the kitchen?"

"Not if Vanilla Martin diverts their attention before we leave the floor."

Susan’s eyes glittered and she kept dancing with me, drawing the tiny cell phone from her clutch. "You have a devious mind."

"Call me crazy but I’d rather not have Marcone’s goons walk us out." A little luck came our way, and the band moved to a somewhat slower number. Susan was able to stay closer to me, half concealing her cell phone. I heard the phone dialing numbers, and I tried to still my thoughts and feelings. It hadn’t worked for long at the Larry Fowler studio, but if I could rein in my emotions, Susan should at least be able to make a call.

It worked. She spoke quietly into the phone for all of three or four seconds, then clicked it closed and put it away. "Two minutes," she said.

Damn. Martin was good. I could pick out a couple of security guards at the main doors. Marcone’s dark-haired hitter was closer. He had trouble making his way politely through the crowd, and we had managed to gain a small lead on him as we danced.

"Do we have a signal or anything?"

"I think we wait for something distracting to happen," Susan said.

"Like what?"

The sudden shriek of braking tires cut through the band music. There was a loud crunch, and the sound of plate glass breaking, along with shrieks from the hotel lobby below. The band stopped in confusion, and people crowded toward the exit to see what was happening.

"Like that," Susan said. We had to swim upstream, so to speak, but it didn’t look like anyone was bothering to look at us. I caught a glimpse of Marcone’s hitter, heading out toward the ruckus. The ass had his gun in his hand, despite any possible field of fire he might have picked being filled with rich and influential socialites. At least he was holding the weapon low and against his leg.

The staff were just as interested in the disturbance as anyone else, and we were able to duck back into the service hallway without comment from anyone. Susan took a quick look around and said, "Elevator?"

"Stairs if they have them. If someone shoots at us on stairs, we can scream and flail around a lot more." I spotted a fire alarm diagram on the wall and traced my finger over it. "Here, down the hall and left."

Susan stepped out of her shoes while I did that. It left her a lot shorter, but her feet were silent on the utilitarian carpet. We went down the hall, found the stairs, and started down them. We went down three flights, which put us at ground level again, I guessed. I opened the door from the stairwell and took a look around. A dingy little elevator opened, and a couple of guys in the food-stained white of kitchen hands went walking down the hallway, peering ahead and chattering. I heard a siren or two wailing outside.

"I’ll say this for Martin," I muttered. "When he distracts, he distracts."

"He has a strong work ethic," Susan agreed.

"Keep an eye out," I said, and stepped back from the door. Susan’s gaze flicked around the stairwell and over the hallway while I stepped back to kneel on the ground, drawing out what I would need for my seeking spell.

I pulled out a black Magic Marker and drew a smooth circle on the tiled landing, all the way around me. The marker squealed as I did, and as I closed the circle I willed it shut. A gentle barrier, something I couldn’t see but could easily feel closed around me, screening out disruptive forces so that I could work my spell.

"Is that a permanent marker?" Susan asked.

"Thus do I strike a blow for anarchy whenever the mood takes me," I muttered. "Just a minute." I took out the sample from Father Vincent and a windup plastic duck.

Which isn’t as goofy as it sounds. Stay with me.

I touched the thread to the duck’s bill, then wound the duck up. I muttered a low chant, mostly nonsense syllables, and focused on what I wanted. I set the duck down on the floor, but instead of beginning to waddle, it instead waited, completely still. I had to use a rubber band to attach the tiny thread to the duck’s bill. It was too short to tie on. I focused, brushing aside any thoughts besides those I needed for the spell, and let the gathered magic go with a whispered, "Seek, seek, seek."

The power poured out of me, leaving me a bit short of breath. The little yellow duck quivered and then lurched into motion, spinning about in an aimless circle. I nodded once, reached out a hand, and with an effort of will to support the gesture, I broke the circle. The screen vanished as quickly as it had arrived, and the little yellow duck quacked and marched toward the door.