The Warslayer(60)

"Glory?" When he wasn't putting on side as the cultured Castilian, Dylan's vowels were pure working-class Britain. "What the hell are . . . ? That's not your sword!"

She'd used to think the stereotypes about actors never carried over into real life until she met Dylan.

"I reckon it is now," she said with magnificent simplicity. "Dylan, what are you doing here?"

"I was in the men's room at the Waldorf Astoria," he said with an expression of hurt dignity. "Then I came out again and they'd bombed the place or something. I'll sue, I swear I will. But what's going on? I thought you were out in the land of sun and hardbodies, doing vapid telly for luscious bronzed young persons. My God, you are a mess, aren't you? Ooh, Tricia is just going to kill you when she sees what you've done to your leather! And where's your sword? Your proper sword? Our Brucie won't be best pleased if you've gone and lost it somewhere, now, will he?"

"Dylan, did three short people in strange costumes show up and ask you to come and save the world?" Glory demanded in exasperation, cutting short what promised to be a lengthy catalogue of her lapses. Dylan's ability to ignore everything that didn't revolve directly around Dylan was legendary on the set, but this was excessive, even for him.

He fluttered his lashes at her sweetly. "Well, I am staying with some dear friends down in the Village, but . . . no. Now what the hell is going on?"

Glory sighed. "It is a very long and very complicated story. I'll tell you everything I know—"

"That shouldn't take long."

"—but first I want you to wait right here while I go take a look at something."

"Suppose I don't feel like it?" Dylan said sulkily.

"Do you see any taxis around here?" Glory said. "Or Craft Services, for that matter? Stand about. There's things that come out at night here that make the jackbooted Family Values crowd look like something you'd want to meet. Hold this," she added, thrusting Fimlas's lead-rein at him.

For once, Dylan didn't have anything to say. He didn't even criticize her delivery. Glory strode past him, sword out, stepping into the ruin.

She wasn't sure what she was looking for—the men's room door of the Waldorf-Astoria, maybe. But there wasn't anything. She got as far as the back wall of the building, and found nothing more than a curious absence of debris. No mages, good or bad. No glowing crystals in any color, or eldritch runes, or anything in the least peculiar. Assuming she could identify, any longer, what peculiar consisted of.

But . . .

If Belegir had recruited Glory to aid him because he was looking for a hero and had gotten her confused with the part she played, why was Dylan here? He didn't look all that much like Sister Bernadette, assuming The Powers That Were had decided she needed a sidekick. And if they'd wanted a Bad Guy, why wasn't Romy here, not Dylan?

Though anybody who tangled with Romy Blackburn got what was coming to them, and then some.

She shrugged. She had no clue. But even assuming they were after Fra Diavolo instead, anyone seizing upon Dylan as a henchweasel of evil had some unhappy surprises coming. Dylan wasn't willing to exert himself that much.

"The explanation?" Dylan demanded waspishly, when she re-emerged. He'd dropped the rein, and Fimlas had wandered away, looking for something to eat. She hurried after the pony and collected it, then sheathed her sword before returning to Dylan. She picked up her sweatshirt, trying to figure out what she was going to say. No point in trying to convince Dylan of the reality and the gravity of the situation. If Great Drathil itself couldn't convince him, nothing she could say would help. Best to stick to simple facts.

"When I was in Hollywood, a bunch of wizards from another dimension came and asked me to save their country from this villain called the Warmother. She lives up there," Glory added, pointing toward the mountaintop. "They'd got me all confused with, you know, Vixen, but before I could sort them out, their magic went off and I ended up here. Since she's going to do the lot of us whether I help or not, I thought I'd see what I could do."

"That's the stupidest pitch I've ever heard," Dylan said after a long pause, speaking with the surreal self-possession of the entirely self-involved.

Glory didn't say anything.

Another pause, then: "Are you out of your flaming little mind, dearie?"

Glory shook her head wearily. "This isn't a pitch, Dylan. This is real life. And do you have a better explanation? Or an idea?"

"Run like hell," Dylan said smugly.

"Where?"

"Well, there's got to be somewhere," Dylan said uneasily. He looked around. "Even assuming I believe your idiotic story."