Smoke and Mirrors Read online

  "Marga, darling." Carmen Toni, the casino's owner slithered up to Megan's doorway. He wore his trademark red plush velvet jacket and enough sequins to make Liberace jealous.

  If her door had been closed, he would have opened it without knocking. She was content knowing he had missed another chance to walk in on her while she was half-dressed.

  "Sweetheart, are you really up for tonight?" He looked her over, and she knew he imagined her in a garter belt and not much else. If she had been wearing a Panzer tank instead of her pseudo-tux, he would still see her in the altogether.

  "Everything's fine." Megan clasped the amulet loaded with three doses of emergency magic her father had given her. Should she turn Carmen into a frog? It would be an improvement for him, of course, but she would lose a decent-paying gig.

  "But you don't have an assistant, sweetcakes." He trailed the manicured tip of his finger up her arm. "How about you let old Carmy-baby help you out?"

  "You want to get into show biz? I thought you were the wheeler-dealer, happy pulling strings behind scenes." Megan stepped away and reached for her top hat.

  "I'm talking about helping you in...other ways."

  Despite Megan twisting sideways enough to dislocate her hips, Carmen managed to cup her bottom so she felt the slimy cold of him through the material of her pants. She reacted with speed honed while dealing with prankster cousins who could fly, and backhanded him. He staggered back against the door and slid to the ground.

  Carmen stared at her, bug-eyed, for the five seconds it took to regain his breath. He struggled upright and wiped at his face. The blood trickling from his nose didn't show up on the red plush velvet. More's the pity.

  "You're working alone, so I only pay for half an act tonight, baby," he growled.

  "She's not working alone." Alexi appeared in the doorway, glowering, his chest visibly wider and more muscular. Megan swore his teeth had points and his eyes had little red flames. Usually she wasn't susceptible to Fae illusions. That meant either Alexi was really good or he was really angry.

  A man angry on her behalf? It amazed her, so she didn't feel the ache in her wrist from connecting with Carmen's nose.

  "Who are you?" Carmen sounded like he had a cold.

  "Marga's assistant." Alexi tugged on the flaps of his vest and gave Carmen a look that clearly said Duh! He glanced at Megan, his question clear in his eyes. She shrugged, rolled her eyes and grinned. Funny, how having him there made her feel a little giddy. "Who are you and why are you in a lady's dressing room uninvited?"

  "She's no--" Carmen swallowed hard when Alexi's glare jumped twenty degrees in heat. "Ten minutes before your first show. Don't be late. I got a dozen other acts that want a chance. You ain't the only magicians in town."

  Wincing again, he scrambled to his feet and stomped down the hall, to vanish into the doorway leading into the kitchen.

  "Are you sure you're all right?" Alexi took Carmen's spot in the doorway and leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. He looked a lot better there than Carmen. Megan didn't mind him looming over her at all. "I saw him touch you, but you were too fast for me to do anything." He grinned, baring his teeth.

  The growl in his voice made Megan shiver with feelings she thought she would never have. Especially toward a Fae male.

  "How about from now on, you play watchdog?" she joked.

  "Glad to."

  "Alexi--"

  "I know you were joking. But I wasn't. That scuzzbucket doesn't have the right to do that to you, even if he is paying you to perform. It's not that kind of performing." A wicked gleam wiped away the anger. "Anyway, I doubt he can perform."

  Megan laughed. She tossed him a handful of trick cards. Alexi plucked them out of the air, shuffled them in mid-air and tucked them into the velvet sash of his black trousers.

  "Pick a card, any card," he said, with a bow and a flourish.

  Don't tempt me, she thought.

  Alexi barked laughter, and she wondered if he had heard her thought. No, his magic field was weak and flickering. Besides, she would have felt the intrusion of him touching her thoughts. That was one magical power she kept as private as possible.

  "What's so funny?" she asked.

  "I was just thinking that maybe we can get a better gig if I can find us a place run by randy old women. The ones who talk a good fight but never do anything about it, of course."

  "Of course." Megan gestured down the hall, toward the stage entrance. "Well, assistant--we really need to get you a stage name--let's get to work." She tried to laugh away the primal growl that rose up inside her at the mental image of Alexi pandering to spoiled, fat old women to get them a better job.

  Since when had she become so possessive?

  "How about Alexi the Astounding?" he suggested.

  "You have to earn it first, buster."

  Megan stumbled as an image came to her of exactly how she'd like Alexi to prove he was astounding. Down girl! Bad! You don't need a man complicating your life. Get your mind on track. Alexi is a friend, that's all. You should be grateful for that. Don't screw it up!

  * * * *

  Over the next few weeks, Alexi's wavering magic impressed on him how imperative it was to learn to do without magic completely. He wondered if his increasing clumsiness had anything to do with the curse and the decline in his personal magic. Either that, or the more time he spent with Megan, the more little details about her distracted him. Maybe he unconsciously chose to make a mess of every magic routine, so he had an excuse to touch her or have her touch him, guiding his hands through the movements again and again and again?

  It was his only chance to get close to her, breathe in her clean, sweet, natural perfume and soak in the warmth of her. He kept his word, no matter how much he thirsted for a taste of her lips. He kept his hands and the rest of his anatomy to himself. He needed this job, and Megan's friendship, more than he needed a one-night stand.

  Despite his return to the clumsy adolescent stage, he did learn a decent repertoire of tricks. He almost asked Megan why she wanted him to perform magic on his own, but an emergency call one Saturday morning answered his question before he asked it. Desdemona had a freelance entertainment business on the side, providing magicians, jugglers, musicians and comedians to entertain at parties. After Desdemona's commission, Alexi made fifty dollars doing an hour's worth of magic at a party for ten junior high girls who giggled and barely looked at him.

  "Oh, yeah, it's a good setup," Megan said, when he arrived for the first show of the afternoon with only five minutes to change his clothes. "Every little bit of extra you can put away is a buffer against the lean times." Her smile thinned and turned wistful.

  "Like when certain tomcats cut your pay because you won't play along?"

  "And other times," she said, nodding.

  "We have to get a better gig."

  "We're lucky to be here."

  "No, Carmen is lucky to have you. You deserve better."

  "Nobody is beating down my door, begging me to come work at their casino. Fact of life." She headed for the stage door.

  "Then I'll just have to make sure the right people know you're here," Alexi muttered, and watched her stroll down the dark hallway.

  He couldn't depend on his magic, but decades of exploring the Human world had taught him a few things. He had taken to spending his free time wandering the neon strip that was Vegas, listening to the hustlers, hucksters and promoters. Their patter succeeded because they knew how to break through the don't bother me attitude of most of the people walking the streets.

  Alexi suspected Megan wouldn't approve of him using his unreliable magic to coerce the movers and shakers in the casinos to hire them. So he would just have to use his charm. And a lot of luck.

  After weeks of walking the streets, learning the patterns of the casino owners, performers and the street workers, he had a plan. It still depended on luck, however. One afternoon, he followed Albert Vitaglio, owner of the Aurora Borealis, to the Luxor, and cast about
for an opportunity to catch the man's attention when he came out.

  Alexi spotted a pickpocket. The tiny, translucent sparkle of magic at work caught his attention more than the boy's long fingers delicately lifting wallets and slipping inside purses, robbing oblivious tourists blind while they snapped pictures. Alexi watched the boy for a few minutes, trying to decide if he was Fae on a larcenous lark, or a Halfling who didn't know his heritage. Unfortunately, there were hundreds of Halflings in the Human world who had magic, didn't know it, and didn't know they used it to make their lives a little easier.

  Alexi saw a handful of people stop and watch the boy work, then grin and walk on by. Obviously, some residents of Vegas had a low regard for tourists. They deserve what they get seemed to be the prevalent attitude.

  That irritated him, which in turn surprised him. It wasn't too long ago that he would have been enjoying the show, too. He supposed that being a fugitive and having to actually worry about material possessions for the first time in his life had changed his attitude.

  Megan had changed him. Just yesterday, she caught a customer stealing tips from a table. Signaling Joey, who manned the spotlight, she jumped down off the stage and caught hold of the hand holding the stolen bills. She went into an impromptu spiel about tripling the man's money with magic, so it would seem like he had stolen it, and squeezed his wrist until he let go of the money. The waitress whose table it was returned at that moment, scooped up her tip, flashed Megan a grin and stepped on the man's foot with her spike heel before she left.

  Alexi had nearly broken into applause, right there.

  No, Megan would not approve of what this boy was doing, and Alexi had the sneaking suspicion she would not approve if he just let the boy get away.

  I'm no knight in shining armor, he growled at his conscience. They died out centuries ago, and good riddance, always running around trying to break enchantments and kill friendly dragons and-- Well, what do we have here?

  He recognized four faces in the oncoming stream of men coming out of the Luxor. Four of the most influential casino owners on the strip. All heading directly toward the pickpocket. And more important, Albert was among them.

  There was nothing wrong with cleaning up crime and profiting from it at the same time, was there?

  Alexi snapped his fingers and skipped across the street in the blink of an eye, to reappear directly behind the pickpocket. The boy turned and tripped over Alexi, to sprawl across the sidewalk at the feet of the four casino owners. Another snap of his fingers made the boy's belt break, so his oversized pants slid down to his knees when he stood up again.

  While he pulled the pickpocket to his feet and brushed him off, Alexi used the sleight-of-hand skills Megan drilled him in. He pulled wallets and jewelry, watches and cameras from the boy's pockets and his sweatshirt.

  "Here," he said, loudly enough to get Albert's attention as all four men tried to skirt around them. "Here's your wallet. You must have dropped it. And this must be your wallet, too. And this must be your watch. And your other watch."

  A crowd gathered around, so the boy couldn't have escaped, even if Alexi hadn't been standing on the cuff of his fallen pants. The four casino owners stopped and grinned. A woman let out a little shriek and snatched back the pink rhinestone-studded watch Alexi retrieved from the pickpocket's right sleeve.

  "Who do you think you are, the Lone Ranger?" someone muttered.

  Alexi didn't have time to respond, because the shouts from people who had discovered they had been robbed brought a police officer running. He wasn't above using a few flickers of magic to keep the attention of Albert and his three friends. He only influenced them to stay and watch, knowing Megan wouldn't approve if he took away their free will.

  What was wrong with him, that her opinion meant so much to him? Especially when she would never know, because he would never tell her?

  That last flicker of magic made his head hurt. Now was not the time for his magic to go on the blink.

  "Hey, Lone Ranger, got a minute?" a Southern-accented voice called, once Alexi finished making his statement to the officer.

  Alexi turned to see Albert smiling at him, hands jammed in his pockets, the dusty afternoon breeze ruffling his expensive hairpiece. Bingo! Why a man that rich didn't get plugs or a hair weave, Alexi couldn't figure out.

  "I have a few, but I need to get back to work. The show starts in an hour."

  "Oh, you're in showbiz, huh?" He fell into step with Alexi. "Magician, right?"

  "Assistant. Apprentice, I guess. Now, my boss, she's the real magician."

  By the time they reached the casino, Alexi had let Albert pump him for information on every bit of magical talent Marga the Magnificent possessed. That earned him an invitation to come up to Albert's office and demonstrate their routine. That was the good news. The bad news was that Alexi's magic had slid from unreliable to AWOL. He couldn't have made the lights flicker if he gave himself an aneurysm by trying.

  "Are you sure you don't want to watch Marga at work? The early show is the best, no drunks in the audience."

  "Hey, we have a sort of code of ethics here on the strip." Albert chuckled raggedly and slapped Alexi on the back. "I couldn't sneak in and watch you two at work without old Carmen guessing what I'm up to. No, you come on over to my place, and we'll see how you do in a private performance, comprende?"

  "Sounds good." Alexi pushed once more, begging his magic to work. All he got was a headache.

  A horrifying thought made him stumble as Albert walked away. What if Albert and his pals wanted a private performance from Megan, with no magic involved?

  That roar deep inside his psyche made him wish he could shift shape. Preferably into something big and fanged and fast. So he could shred anyone who tried to take advantage of Megan.

  Alexi had to face the fact that he wanted Megan all to himself. He knew with his head that he had to keep his hands off her if he wanted to keep his job. He liked her, as a person, as a boss, as a friend. That was far more important than getting her horizontal.

  At least, he knew that with his brain. Convincing the rest of his body of that was taking more effort than he had ever imagined.

  Chapter Three

  Megan nearly dropped her new deck of cards when she glanced out in the hall and saw Alexi stumble up to his dressing room door. "You okay?"

  His magic field was almost completely gone. Just a few sickly yellowy-green sparks, fizzing like half-dead ginger ale.

  "Fine. Just a headache." He offered her a weak smile, winced, and closed the door.

  Megan knew the kind of headache he had. Her father described them as the feeling his skull would explode into a thousand pieces, his brain stem was on fire, and dragons slid down his throat to ride skateboards in his stomach--wearing spiked helmets and elbow pads.

  Megan's secret magic allowed her to send healing to someone she knew well. Did she dare try to help Alexi? Had their weeks of friendship and working so closely together created enough of a bridge, a bond between them, to let her help? The condition his magic was in, he would never know that bit of healing magic requiring familiarity came from her. After working together for hours every day, and quite a few early morning hours spent drinking coffee and talking about anything and everything, if she didn't know him well enough to share what little magic she had, she never would. They were as close as two people could get without sharing toothbrushes.

  Besides the fact that he hadn't told her he was Fae, and she hadn't told him she was a Halfling, that is.

  "For the sake of the show," she muttered, when the dithering in her brain grew so loud, she thought she would scream in another moment.

  Do it, she commanded the truncated magic at her disposal, and visualized what she wanted.

  The air inside her dressing room tightened and tried to collapse in on her for a moment as Megan tapped the reservoir of power available to Humans alone. Most didn't know it was there, and of those few who did, only a fraction of a percent knew how to tap
that power. She was one of them. It was one of the reasons that she had been able to hide her own version of magic from her Fae relatives, and why her Human relatives had tried to have her committed to an asylum 150 years ago.

  Two seconds later, a steaming cup of peppermint-scented, bilious green tea appeared in her hand. Over the years, she had been able to mask the noxious taste and scent, but Megan still hadn't been able to conquer the color. She supposed that didn't matter. Her father had always claimed that his magic-deprivation headaches made him blind and unable to taste or smell, so the same probably held for Alexi.

  She knew Alexi would drink the tea just because she told him to. She had been sharing all her latest herbal teas and fruit concoctions with him, and he had gamely tried each experiment, which she thought utterly sweet and so unlike the average male, let alone the average Fae male.

  "Hey, you sure you're okay?" She tapped on the open door and held out the cup before Alexi could get enough energy to lie to her. "This should help a little." Just to distract him further from the magic in the cup, she handed him two aspirin with the supposed tea.

  "You're an angel." Alexi's voice sounded like those dragons had been doing chin-ups on his vocal chords. He managed a pitiful smile, popped the aspirin in his mouth, and tossed back the tea to wash them down without hesitating. While he was distracted, she touched his shoulder and willed some of her magic strength into him. His magic field strengthened, going from yellow to grass green in a couple of spots.

  "The mint should help you relax, which will loosen up the pressure in the blood vessels in your head, which should ease part of the headache, which should help you relax more. At least, that's the theory."

  "Hey." Alexi's eyes widened. Already most of the red had left them. "You're right." He sniffed at the quarter inch of liquid left in the cup. When Megan braced to face a few uncomfortable questions, he surprised her by tipping the cup to drain the last few drops into his mouth. When was the last time someone trusted her so utterly, without hesitating? "You are a life saver."

  "Nah." Her face warmed and her heart skipped a few beats. She knew better than to think too hard on the reasons for that. "I'm just your anxious boss who doesn't want to do the show alone today, that's all."