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"I seldo you out totally, but keep your coht now"

I drifted off into dreamland and a sleep level they call "fitful"

A couple hours later I woke up, knowing exactly the right person to call for a spontaneous ency consult I just needed to wait until it got dark so no one would know about it

And Irettin’ out your black leatherWhat kinda shrink digs in-your-face?

"It’s not a shrink in the traditional sense," I told Irs, if you could see the the door of my mind shut on her

I tossed the jacket down on the bed after a try-on Vegas nights did cool down at times, not in summer so much, but I was after effect, not comfort I wasn’t content to leave ht and waved away the Goth T-shirt she’d produced on the hanger rack next to s had tiny skull studs down the sides that coordinated with the buckles on the ankle-high genuine ed into a white ruffled shirt that would suit a pirate or Mrs Peel Then I buckled one last buckle, or swashbuckle, a black leather collar around my neck

A savvy reporter kno to dress up or down for the assignoing to a bad part of town to lad even Quicksilver wasn’t around to give tails up or down on irl collar than the fa studs with spikes At least it felt at home Too bad Quicksilver wasn’t purse pooch ht reminded ht hand already bore my homemade tattoo

I firmly refused to even think of Jane Wyatt, Helena Troy Burnside, or Ir out to

HE’D PICKED THE place since thisneeded to be secret even more on his account than mine

Now that I stood in front of the off-don location too close for coiant bunker that passed itself off as a nightclub squatted on a parking lot that stank of spilled four-dollar-a gallon contraband gas, beer and storayCinSi

They weren’t terribly articulate beyond Argggh, but one held up an infrared device to scan the membership ink on o fro tru security measures Then I duplicated it in the invisible ink forue, coroner Grisly Bahr hiularly with the club’s reentry iht Classy place

I breezed by the Three Argh drums easily drowned out any editorial coasoff-and-on strobe lights and that stripper-bar staple, black light that leam the same electric blue as litter on eyebrow-raising places, but they were all way less dressed than I was, if you didn’t count ankle-to-eyebrow body ink

I’d wanted to be instantly visible to nature look was i urban olves were hoping for an iht out to hohile they could still have human intercourse, in both senses of the word Before I had to iypsy leathers, they peeled away right and left as if Moses was coht part in the Red Sea My source was here and announcing himself

"Bitchin outfit," Sansouci said when he alone stood before nized vaer, wilder His eye whites caught the black light too, glea blue as he elboay the co?" Sansouci asked, shifting down into the usual ain He steered h the crowds in his custody and bent down so he could adh-decibel rock band wailing from every wall

"When you set this s is reatest entertainment form in the world entertainaiant skulls suspended on chains at various heights around the vast dark space I’d checked out the setup on the Spider Skull Bar website, so wasn’t surprised when Sansouci steeredskull booth a couple feet off the floor

Entering it was like stepping up into Cinderella’s pumpkin coach from Hell Sansouci’s hand under my elbow boosted me inside We were scooped onto a se the skull’s jaws snapped shut The ently in the dark

Whee, Ired to blurt

Whee, indeed My stoet fronized both sides of "thrill" now

Inside, we sat at a slass top as round and perfect as a gun barrel As soon as the swinging-on-a-skull effect slowed, Sansouci used the remote control on the table to shut off the piped-in racket

He leaned back on the tufting to inspect me from head to boot So I surveyed hiuy with a slash of silver in his brunet forelock His black turtleneck shirtsleeves were pushed up to the elbows to reveal a landscape new to reen tattoos of snaky Celtic design

He’d recentlyattracted to et under his own assess if he could be a remote candidate for Daddy dearest really upped the ante on my nerves

What I wanted--needed--to know from him was extremely personal and evenfrom a man or supernatural like him I had to extract my information in a way that see fears

Lucky for o public these post–Millenniuolo vamp who liked and lived off women, a few drops at a tier

A screen inset on one of the skull’s eye sockets burned into being, showing the impassively perfect face of the joint’s virtual cocktail waitress "Your order, please?"

Sansouci cocked a dark eyebroay "You’re the star Inferno Bar hts "I’ll have a Virtual Virgin" I ticked off the ingredients "Six ounces of no cal, no sodium, no caffeine cherry cola, an ounce of lime juice, and a slice of lime"

"Is there any octane at all in that drink?" Sansouci asked

"Add two ounces of UV cherry vodka," I suggested