Tempt the Stars

high-necked gown that Eugenie would have called “genteel” and I called a nineteenth-century nightgown. It was one of the reasons I’d gone to miniskirts and thigh-high boots as soon as I got away from Tony’s and acquired a paycheck: I’d spent my youth dressed like Wendy Darling.
    Eugenie would have liked the girl’s hairstyle, too, which was long and light brown and rippled down her back in a strangely familiar way. I could see it because she partly had her back to me, struggling with something on the counter. I recognized it about the same time I recognized her, or rather, who she reminded me of.
    “Agnes?”
    The brown head whipped around, but of course it wasn’t her. I hadn’t really thought so, since this chick was an inch or two taller than me, and Agnes had been a tiny little thing. But the overall look was similar, and her face was familiar, although I couldn’t place it. She was also looking a little stressed, which had been Agnes’ default, although it usually took more to get that expression on her face than a misbehaving coffeepot.
    “It’s one of those pod things,” I told the girl helpfully.
    She didn’t say anything.
    “You know, with the little cups?”
    She obviously didn’t know. Or maybe she didn’t care. She had turned around, and was plastered against the sink, staring at me blankly out of a pale face and huge brown eyes. I decided there was a chance she didn’t speak English.
    “You need a pod,” I repeated, slower, and sketched a pod shape with my fingers.
    Nothing.
    “Here,” I told her, getting a box of coffee pods out of a cabinet and handing them to her. Or trying to. But she just stayed where she was, flat against the sink, hands gripping the counter and eyes big and freaked-out.
    Only no, I realized, she didn’t look freaked-out.
    She looked terrified.
    I whirled around, box of pods in hand, because you never knew around here. But no one was there. Not even one of the vamps, who tended to have an effect on sensitive-minded guests. But they were obviously traumatizing people elsewhere, because the doorway was empty.
    I turned back around, but the horror-movie-victim pose hadn’t changed, and it was starting to freak
me
out. I slid the pods onto the counter. I grabbed a beer out of the fridge. I backed slowly out of the door.
    And ran into Marco, who was coming in. “Let’s do this,” he told me quietly. “I’m running out of jokes.”
    “You could always feed them.”
    A lip curled. “If we feed them, they’ll stay longer.”
    “Not if the quality of the cuisine is anything like last time,” the Valkyrie said, from across the room. “Or was that deliberate?”
    She sank a ball.
    Marco looked at me.
    Enhanced hearing,
I mouthed.
    The wards are supposed to stop things like that,
he mouthed back.
    “And your wards are shit,” the witch added, causing Marco to mutter something. “I heard that.”
    I sighed and walked over.
    “At least most of them are,” she amended, leaning on her stick and watching me. “There was a bastardized fey spell that gave us some trouble, mainly from us not expecting it.”
    “Woven with holly all around,” the small witch added, in a singsong. “Shot through with sunlight and lightened by air, call on water, call on fire, call on wind—protect, protect, protect.” She took a swig of her beer. “Three elements are a bitch.”
    “But we got past it,” her companion added. “Mainly from your lot not maintaining it.”
    “The guy who usually does is out of town,” I said evenly.
    “Well, you need to get him back.”
    “Working on it.” Although it would be easier to do that if they’d go away, so I could track down Casanova and find out what he knew about the council. But that didn’t appear to be happening. And since I’d already pissed off the witches as much as I dared, it looked like I was going to have to practice my diplomacy for a while.
    “You play?” the Valkyrie asked, racking up another game, even though they’d barely started the last one.
    I looked over at the little witch, who grinned at me toothily. “I’ll sit one out,” she offered.
    I shrugged. “Okay.”
    Marco looked surprised, probably because he’d never seen me play. Something about almost dying on a weekly basis took the fun out of it. “I used to work in a bar,” I reminded him.
    “Doing what?” the Valkyrie demanded.
    “Bar-backing. Bartending sometimes, when somebody called in. Mostly reading tarot.”
    “The Pythia