Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

us.”
    “I thought I had.”
    Sparks answered for Czarina this time. “You’ve been tolerated, man, but remain unproven.”
    “We require a trifling... initiation ritual,” the older woman put in.
    “I found you in this rats’ maze, didn’t I?”
    Sparks shook his head. Not enough. “We require more than fine discernment. We require risk.”
    “You’re talking to me about risk?”
    “Granted. But perhaps you’ve grown complacent behind your anonymity.”
    “Perhaps. I wouldn’t bet on it.”
    “We’re not. We’re betting on you living up to, and surpassing, our highest expectations. Once you complete your assignment.”
    Max chuckled. It wasn’t a reassuring sound. “I haven’t had an ‘assignment’ since high school.”
    “We are Ph.D. level,” Carmen noted languidly from her corner. Her working name was Serendipity and he supposed he’d better get used to it. She went by Serena among friends. “We require absolute loyalty, dazzling ability, and, oddly enough for magicians, transcendent honesty. To the Synth, anyway.”
    “What do you want?”
    “The Czar Alexander Scepter.” The slightly British accent of Cosimo Sparks slapped the words onto the table like a gauntlet.
    Max snorted, delicately. “The centerpiece of the forthcoming White Russian exhibit at the New Millennium? You’re joking.”
    “No,” Czarina said. “We want you to get it for us.”
    “I’m not a thief.”
    “But you could be, an exquisite one,” she coaxed him. “We don’t care about the value of the piece. We care about the value of the act of taking it. You can return it, if you like.”
    “Or keep it.”
    “Or sell it and share the wealth with us, which would be a nice gesture.”
    Max fanned his fingers to produce a feathered bird of paradise, a faux one. No awkward droppings. “Magicians appreciate the nice gesture.” He presented the bird to the Czarina.
    “Then you’ll do it?” she asked.
    “I’ll do it if I study the situation and decide it’s doable.”
    “We should warn you,” Sparks said in his fuddy-duddy way. “None of us has come up with a foolproof method.”
    “I’m your court of last resort?”
    “You’re our pledge, Mr. Kinsella. If you can’t cut our initiation rite, you’ll have to take our hazing.”
    The threat was unmistakable.
    “I don’t take anything,” he warned back, “except what I want to. So I’ll leave now and examine the situation at the New Millennium that has stymied you all.” He stood to go.
    “Just a minute.”
    He paused, looking impatient. “Do you want this trinket, or not?”
    “We want your undivided attention.”
    “Have you seen the new act here at Neon Nightmare?” Serena, lying back on the room’s sole sofa in a gown out of a Sarah Bernhardt portrait, practically purred the question.
    “Besides yours?” Max asked back, sardonically.
    “Tut-tut.” Czarina intervened. “No need to get testy. You’re an untried factor. We must be sure you’re reliable.”
    “So.” Sparks was looking excited and a bit nasty. “Have you seen the Phantom Mage perform here?”
    “No, and with that impossibly hokey name, I don’t want to. I’ll be going.”
    “I hope not.” Serena uncoiled herself to rise and take his arm, a seductive gesture that was also custodial. “Why in such a rush to leave us?” she purred. And her voice did indeed rumble deep in her... ah, chest.
    “You want me to steal the most prized object in Las Vegas or not?”
    “Stay just a while,” she coaxed. “You might find this new fellow interesting.”
    “I find little that is common interesting. I must be off.”
    “No.” The tone and the glance was commanding.
    Max removed Serena’s arm from its entwined position on his.
    “Yes.”
    “It’s imperative you stay.” Sparks stood as well.
    “Come to the window,” Serena cajoled, entwining him again, like a velvet boa constrictor. Max was very glad he’d decided to drop the nickname Carmen for her. She was acting completely out of character for the Carmen he knew.
    He made her work to draw him toward the tinted rectangle on one-way glass that framed the dark upper pyramid of Neon Nightmare.
    “I really have better things to do....” But he let the sentence trail off.
    Everyone was watching him, like rats at a cheese tray.
    He stared out over the empty darkness, glancing at his watch without seeming to. The Phantom Mage was scheduled to start a set just about now....
    Everyone behind him had tensed, as