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«So, like yesterday,» Lisandro said.
«Or sooner,» I said.
He nodded. «I'll make the call.» He hesitated at the door. «I'll put someone on the door, and I'll use a phone outside the club.»
«Good thinking,» I said.
«It's what I do.» Then he was gone.
«Where do you want this?» Clay asked, motioning with the box.
«Put it on the desk with the other one, I guess.»
He put it beside the first one. Jean-Claude didn't seem to want to touch it. I was the one who opened it and found the white mask staring sightless up at me. But this one looked more finished, with gilt musical notes decorating the face. I touched a note and found it was raised above the rest of the mask. The note with it said only, «As you requested.»
«Is there writing inside the mask?» Jean-Claude asked.
I lifted it out of the tissue paper. Inside the smooth bow of the mask was writing. «Do not read it out loud, ma petite .»
I didn't, I just handed it to him. Inside the mask was written «Circus of the Damned,» and a date that was two days away. The date was written backward with the day first, then the month, then the year like they wrote it in Europe. They'd chosen one of Jean-Claude's own businesses for the meeting. Was that good, bad, or neither? Did it mean we had home-court advantage, or that they were pla
I was praying we found bugs, because the alternative was that these vamps were so good that they could plant psychic bugs inside our brains. You could find and destroy mechanical shit in the rooms; if they were good enough to use magic inside our heads, then we were fucked. We'd die when they wanted us to die, or we'd live, and either way it would be their idea, and not ours. I never thought I'd pray to have our offices turn out to be bugged. Fu