Kissed by Ice(9)

"This steampunk enough for you?"

He let us in.

At the front of the room was a large stage where a Master of Ceremonies in a dark Victorian suit with one of those frilly white shirts underneath paraded about with a lot of posturing and posing. The cheap sound system crackled and popped and squealed as he announced various contestants.

"The Lady Mei Chai," he announced with a flourish.

A young Asian woman glided across the stage. Her midnight black hair was done up in a classic bun with small silver daggers stuck through in lieu of hairpins. She wore a tiny pair of round spectacles with tinted blue lenses perched on the edge of her nose, and a classic peacock-blue cheongsam—one of those gorgeous Chinese sheath dress with a mandarin collar. A dark brown waist-cincher corset showed off her tiny waist. Matching brown Victorian ankle boots and fingerless lace gloves finished off the ensemble. She posed for the crowd, twisting this way and that, showing off a pair of very nice legs through the long slits on either side of her dress. The people seated around the stage were clapping and cheering louder than the crowd at a Blazer game.

"Oh my god, I know you." The voice, about three inches from my ear, caused me to jump. The speaker was a cute little blonde wearing a top hat, a pair of brass goggles, and not a whole lot else. Tiny rhinestones marched across her high cheekbones and sparkled beneath the bright overhead lights. Her powdery perfume made my nose itch.

"Excuse me?"

"I met you this winter in Portland. The steampunk party? Eddie introduced us." I vaguely recognized her as one of the mob of women hanging around him that night. She held out her hand, "Victoria von Thistlethwaite."

"Seriously?"

She shrugged. "Well, that's who I am this week," she said with a laugh.

"Sure." I shook her offered hand. "Morgan Bailey."

She frowned. "That's an odd steampunk name."

"It's my real name."

"Oh." She looked somewhat disappointed. Then she brightened. "I bet you're here to see Eddie. He told me he was expecting a friend." She glanced at Drago, gave him a wide smile, and fluttered her damn lashes. I was pretty sure they were fake. Nobody had real lashes that long. When Drago didn't respond to her feminine wiles, she shrugged and turned to me. "Come on. I'll take you to him."

Victoria led the way, sashaying through the crowd like the Queen of Sheba, her pert little ass barely covered by a scrap of pink silk and a bustle thing made of olive-green mosquito netting. Or at least that's what it looked like. I'm pretty sure the fabric had some kind of fancy name, but gods knew what it was. Not my fort&eactue;.

"Do you know why Eddie called me?" I asked, hurrying to keep up as she strode out into the hall. Her legs were about ten feet longer than mine.

"He didn't say. But he's been a little off the last couple of days. He's definitely hiding something, but then that's Eddie for you. Full of secrets." She paused in front of a door marked "private" and twisted the brass doorknob. "Here you go. He's been staying here. Says it's safer." She gave me a look that told me she thought Eddie was being ridiculous, then pushed open the door and popped her head in. "Eddie, that Morgan chick is here." She stepped back and waved us forward. "Have fun. I gotta get back to the contest. I'm up in a few minutes." She gave us a little finger wave and disappeared down the hall.

Drago and I exchanged glances, then with a shrug, I stepped into the room. It was clearly a storage room of some kind, but everything had been shoved against one wall. On the opposite wall hung a giant blueprint of the ship with red Xs marked in a couple of places, along with pink and yellow sticky notes covered in almost illegible handwriting. The table in the center of the room was covered in papers: long lists of names I assumed was a passenger manifest, what appeared to be background checks, and sketches of what looked like crime scene locations. Random notes in various colored ink littered the floor. Two chairs, their seats stacked high with reference books of supernaturals, were pulled up next to the table. I wondered where Eddie had gotten books in the middle of the ocean.

Eddie straightened up from where he was hunched over a file folder. "Morgan. Thank the gods. They just found another one."

"Another what?"

"Another body."





Chapter Four



"Body? What the hell is going on, Eddie?" I circled the room, stopping to stare at the blueprint on the wall. I was pretty sure the red Xs weren't party locations.

"I told you on the phone…" he began.

"The connection was horrible, Eddie. All I heard was something about death and then the line went dead."