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promptly disappeared through the front door, into the house. The apparent hostess
chatted briefly with the others waiting, then went inside herself.
“Weird party,” Marla said. “Making the guests wait.”
“But I didn’t see money change hands, and more important, nobody handed over
invitations,” Rondeau said. “So maybe we can get in without any fuss.”
“Unless they all know one another,” Marla said. “But we’ll obliterate that obstacle if we
come to it.” She crossed the street, and Rondeau followed. They took a place at the back
of the line. Most of the people waiting were youngish, and diversely dressed—some in
leather jackets, some in ordinary street clothes, some in velvet and lace, all talking to
one another comfortably.
A man with short black hair and Buddy Holly glasses glanced at Marla and smiled.
“Have I seen you here before?”
“Maybe,” Marla said.
He looked her up and down, openly appraising. “I think I’d remember you. Maybe I’ll
see you downstairs later?”
“Anything’s possible.” Her admirer was, quite obviously, not a sorcerer, and Marla’s
initial assumption that Finch’s party would be a gathering place for the magically
inclined was apparently mistaken. She hadn’t yet come up with a new theory. Maybe
Finch just liked to entertain. That wasn’t unheard of, even among the sort of deeply selfcentered
people the magical arts attracted. Some people enjoyed seeing their radiance
reflected in the eyes of others.
Rondeau was deep in conversation with a willowy, pale woman with white-blond hair.
She was beautiful, Marla supposed, in a nearly-translucent, fragile way. Her eyes were
rimmed with kohl, and she looked up at Rondeau with a mixture of childlike awe and
sexual longing, but Marla suspected that was her default expression, an accessory as
carefully chosen as the knee-high black boots and the black latex flip-skirt. The look
certainly worked for her—it had captured Rondeau like a Venus flytrap snared flies.
The caped woman emerged from the house, and Marla stood on her tiptoes to get a
glimpse of what lay beyond the door, but all she saw was a staircase leading up, blocked
off with a velvet rope, and an open doorway to the right of the entrance, with the
suggestion of movement beyond. The gatekeeper held up four fingers, opened the gate,
and ushered four more people inside. The gate closed again, and Marla began to feel a
slow burn of impatience start in her chest. She’d had to stand in line at the airport, too,
just this morning, and that had nearly driven her insane. Marla hadn’t had to wait in line
for anything in a long time, and it didn’t suit her.
“I hate this line,” her erstwhile admirer commented to the short-haired, stocky woman
in biker’s leathers standing in front of him. “I remember in the old days, there was no
waiting, even if you got here later than this. Now you have to come before nine to get
even a crappy spot downstairs.”