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I’d found my way to Vida, so it was time to connect her to all the usual suspects and find what had made the two and two that became me and Lilith I didn’t expect to unbuild Rome in a day, but I expected to find soeneral-purpose spandex black-leather leggings, a trapeze-shaped turtleneck thigh-long top that hid my pared-down version of a cop’s duty belt under it, and ballet flats covered with suede gaiters to the knee I had to wear soly tarnished to black with faint rainbow highlights and fored steampunk epaulet on lar or a wo with

QUICKSILVER SURVEYED MY new look, and then sat in front of Dolly’sto move

"No," I said "Nix This is a solo erous I don’t need an escort"

I had to circle way around hiet to the driver’s seat, and then he leaped into the passenger side through the openWe had a stare-down, but I finally pulled onto Sunset Road with hiuilty

NotDolly in a low-rent parking garage so I was able to join the wo to buy lotions and bath oils They lined up two deep along the counters, sipping gratis hile buying the rare oils and costly perfumes The combined scents were sublime Like a Goth shadow I slipped around the end of one counter and into the shop’s rear

Shez by oil-larape press The sack that held the grapes or oil seeds he crushed was dyed dark bloodred froyptians favored red wine and extreine torn-off hu crushed by the steady power of Shezmou’s broad, muscled shoulders as he worked the tooden poles like opposing oars to twist the sap out of the sack

The liquid that dripped down today was clear and golden Olive oil

I could inhale throughwrench and stepped back to squint at ht at my back

"Who dares to intrude on Shezuy I need a quick favor"

He wiped his palods always pours down on the Mighty Delilah like the finest eoodie, Irhty I am a mere pipsqueak compared to your power and nobility And your custo"

"What is a pipsqueak?"

"Sonificant that your sandaled foot could crush like a grape"

"Or like the heads of the darinned with the zest of a proud craftsodly roleacting as Osiris’s heads damned heads as twist-off caps to throw into the bottoht now, I needed to persuade Alhty Shez to be , polite in the way of derease their skids with your own blood

"Delilah would do"

He inclined his head "So, pipsqueak," he said instead with relish, "what favor can I perforirl?"

"Hastur came to view my productline?"

I nodded Shez needed to update his ancient foret with his new career as entrepreneur

He spoke on "She seemed an excellent canvas for the nedered Jewels of the Nile Eye you encouraged me to create I wish to in pohen they come to sue me for custoyptian collar he wore formed a natural palette for a killer eye-shadow collectionreen, amethyst, lapis-lazuli blue, deep red carnelian Shez into the twenty-first century The least I could do was to find him a commercial niche

"They don’t want to sue you for custoal action They want to sew up your franchise"

"I a ofthis ‘franchise’"

"That merely means theypay you tribute,your unique wares at shops all over the world"

"Even in Phoenicia?"

"They call thatah, Phoenix now"

"Nubia?"

"NewNewport Beach"

"Persia"

"Palh during my endless imprisonment"

"The world is co to it very well It was smart to hire Hastur She has the look of a supermodel"

His tilted his head to question me

"Aha queen, as does Grizelle of the Inferno Hotel"

"Grizelle" He intoned her name with more than relish Reverence "She is the equal of Nefertiti, a word that e And you have also," he added with a majestic head nod

Beauty is as beauty does Grizelle had always kept uy who’d been chained to a pillar for four ht respond to the statuesque black shape-shifter in her tall, lithe huoddess attitude

"I have met with the Gehenna city’s Sandsoozi," Shez went on "Apparently Gehenna is a later version of the Egyptian underworld It is gratifying to encounter one whose ancestors go back a few centuries I ayptian royal house for millennia ispassable in this Sandsoozi and my esteemed sponsor"

"It’s Sansouci He’s a customer of yours?"

"He sa and bestowing on his one His "sponsor," the now eternal vaas, even though fe of his continued existence And Sansouci? Throwing back Howard Hughes’s synthetic bloodith Shezood could come of that

"I’m so happy for you all," I said to move on "That’s where I need your assistance, Shez I s atop the Karnak Hotel h the hotel’s main attraction floors I’m not exactly welcome to the current administration"

When Shez rening pharaohs, Kephron and Kepherati"

"Those unnaturally eternal betrayers! They re world as careless consumers of the blood of innocents Yes, I re me and the blood slaves had recently escaped their lowest unnatural appetites"

"My companion was Ric, Ric Montoya"

"A naue And where is your small Anubis?"

That stuod of the dead Souarding my, um, chariot"

"Most wise Then I will commend you to the protection of my little brother His position as court entertainer allows hie coave him a Captain Jack Sparrow–corape for the squeezing