More than one hit had been put out on Paul Girard. Only one had been put out on me. My transmutation gene had allowed my body to heal before I bled out.
Others hadn’t been so lucky.
My phone chirped, and without looking, I knew it was Poe texting from my dad’s office, telling me to hurry. I pulled on a T-shirt over my corset and taffeta tutu and headed downstairs.
Once Dad learned about things like time travel, teleportation, remote viewing, and psychometry, it wasn’t a huge leap for him to figure out the best way to use them. He was the leading dealer in the “special” artifacts black market. I could’ve called him a magical mafia boss, but I wouldn’t. Not to his face, anyway.
Poe and I were partners. He could teleport. I could change my appearance, change it again, and change it some more. He could get in and out of places quickly. I could gather intel, ask questions, and cause distractions, all in a hundred different disguises.
There were veils in the fabric of time. Poe once compared them to waiting rooms for wormholes, and they were his conduits to teleporting in and out of places. I could see them, like solid walls of water in the atmosphere, but only Poe could get into them, which meant I had to take a lot of cabs.
I found my ability infinitely more valuable than Poe’s, but my father didn’t seem to agree.
“The guy behind the counter will be alone,” Dad said. “Hallie will distract him. You’ll handle everything else.”
Even though he’d made a point of waiting for me to walk through his office door to go over the rundown of tonight’s activities, Dad spoke directly to Poe, like I wasn’t even in the room.
“Why does Poe always take care of the big stuff?” I asked.
A lesser woman might be too intimidated to speak up, but when you went through puberty with Paul Girard for a father and no mother as a buffer, tough was a by-product. He would accept nothing less.
He ignored me and kept talking to Poe. “You’re the only one I want in the back of the shop.”
“Yes, sir,” Poe said. I’d never seen him be subservient to anyone except for my father, and it was because my dad was a scary mother trucker.
Even so, subservience wasn’t in my repertoire. I resented playing the part of the sidekick again, and Dad knew it. I wanted to make sure he knew it.
Dad continued, “All the scouting work we did—”
I interrupted. “You mean, all the scouting work I did.”
Dad’s dark-eyed stare was created to intimidate, and his mere presence was effective enough to sway most people into going along with anything he said, but I wasn’t backing down.
“Taking the watch shouldn’t be a problem,” he said to Poe, “as long as you port in.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Well, he isn’t going to walk in.”
“Then you port to the agreed-upon location,” he finished.
“Which is where?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Dad landed his eagle eyes on me. “You’ll take a cab home.”
“Tell me, Dad. Do you dismiss everything I say because you’re sexist or because you think I’m stupid?”
Wisely, Poe backed into a corner to stay out of the line of fire.
“Your level of respect is inappropriate.” Dad’s jaw was clenching.
“When do I ever do anything that is appropriate?” I asked.
“If you want to do this job, I would suggest you start immediately.”
I knew from Dad’s jaw and the tightness around his eyes that I’d pushed him too far. Now wasn’t the time to challenge him unless I wanted to get rolled over, and I wasn’t about to lose the chance to leave the house.
“Yes, sir.” I dropped my head.
And today’s round goes to Alpha Daddy.
Poe didn’t say a word as we walked out of Dad’s office, but his look clearly indicated I should’ve shut up way before I did.
My look back indicated he should screw off.
“He only acts that way because he loves you,” Poe said.
“So ignoring me equals loving me?”
“It does when it means he’s scared.”
I grabbed my bag and headed for the front door. Even though I preferred it, taking Dad’s town car wasn’t the best way to stay undercover. A cab waited at the corner, and I climbed in and gave the address. The driver didn’t balk when I pulled off my oversized T-shirt and adjusted the laces on my corset. New Orleans cab drivers were tough to rattle.
I’d figured out the art of decadent camouflage. Thanks to the number of flamboyant visitors to the clubs on Bourbon, I found it easy to blend in the Quarter. I had one rule when it came to my disguises: Go hard or go home. Dressing up gave me a chance to step into someone else’s fictitious life. Sometimes my characters had elaborate backstories. Other times, the simplicity of the costume sufficed.