Tempt the Stars

read tarot in a bar,” the witch said, as if she thought I was lying to her.
    “I wasn’t Pythia then. And I like eating.”
    “You must have been quite the draw,” she said dryly.
    “Not really.” I paused as she lined up the break, which she’d taken without bothering to flip me for it. “Most people didn’t like what I had to tell them.”
    “And what was that?”
    “The truth.”
    Her cue stuttered on the velvet, and she flubbed the break. She scowled at me, as if I’d done that deliberately. I fished the cue ball out of a corner pocket and tossed it to her. “Redo it.”
    She looked surprised that I was giving away my advantage. But I wasn’t feeling real competitive right now. And I doubted they’d broken into my suite and trashed the lobby in order to play pool.
    The witch racked ’em up and broke again, leaving herself a couple of easy shots to start with. She took one of them before looking up at me through a fringe of gray bangs. “Didn’t expect to find you so polite.”
    “Why? Because I didn’t talk to you after you broke in here?”
    “No. But we have plenty of other reasons. Care to hear them?”
    By the tone in her voice, I had a feeling I was going to anyway. “Sure.” I walked over to the wall and chose a cue stick.
    “You didn’t invite us to the coronation, despite the fact that the damned Circle were there—in force.” She sank her first shot with a savage little motion. “You haven’t sent us the usual greetings or otherwise acknowledged our existence, despite having more than enough time to do so.” She sank two balls with her second shot, clack-clack. “And you’re living with a bunch of goddamned vampires!” She attempted a tough bank shot, and missed—barely.
    She swore and moved off, and I took her place. Because no way was I giving her a second advantage after that. I took a moment to size up the table.
    “Who I live with is my business,” I said, chalking up. “And I didn’t send you greetings because I didn’t know I was supposed to.” Or that you existed, I didn’t add, because I decided it was barely possible that the head of a whole coven might have an ego. “As for the other, well, if it helps, I wasn’t invited, either.”
    “Wasn’t invited to what?” she demanded as I bent over the table.
    “My coronation.” I took the shot. It was an easy two ball in the side pocket. It went in—just. I was rusty.
    “What do you mean, you weren’t invited?” the witch repeated, as if I wasn’t making sense. Which, okay. It hadn’t made much sense to me at the time, either.
    “The Circle and the senate got together and decided it was too dangerous for me to be there with all the death threats I’ve been getting,” I explained. “So they moved the date up without telling me. I barely found out in time to make it.”
    “They moved the date?” She still looked confused.
    “And when I did show up, they threw me out.”
    “Of what?”
    I looked up from lining up my next shot, to find her frowning. “The building. Marlowe—that’s Kit Marlowe—”
    “I know who he is!”
    “Well, then you know he can be pretty . . . persuasive. Not that he bothered that night. He just pushed me onto the back steps and slammed the door. They had some chick pretending to be me, and it would have been awkward if there were two of us running around.”
    The Valkyrie didn’t say anything, but her lips tightened perceptibly.
    “Then why not shift back in?” Afro asked, dark eyes dancing. Like she was expecting to hear about some serious shit going down. Too bad I was about to disappoint her.
    “Because they had the damned thing warded. Some weird spell that parked the house in the middle of a ley line, basically taking it out of this world. It looked like it was there, but as far as my power was concerned, it wasn’t. And I can’t shift into nothing.”
    I sank the three ball easily, as her face fell.
    “I’d have found a way to make them pay!” she declared, stamping the floor with a walking stick I hadn’t noticed before, but which it didn’t look like she needed. It was black and old and gnarly, but shined to a high gloss. Like the eyes that met mine defiantly.
    “Too bad you weren’t there, then,” I said mildly. And sank the six as Jasmine wafted in, a highball in hand and Fred close behind her.
    He was making weird faces and gestures at me, until he suddenly froze, one hand and one knee up, toes pigeoned and tongue lolling. He looked