Haus Glietgel. I frowned at the discreet blue metal sign posted above a buzzer on the bright pink house. Part of a block of connected buildings, each house was painted either yellow or pink, with glossy black highlights picked out around the windows and doors. The windows were all adorned with flower boxes that were now empty, but I was willing to bet that in the summer they overflowed with the ubiquitous red flowers in Germany. "I know my German is mostly academic in nature, but doesn't that mean House of Lubricating Jelly?"
"Yes," Adrian answered, pushing me past him as the door hummed its willingness to allow us entrance. I had only a quick glance at the shop that filled the lower floor of the house before Adrian hustled me upstairs. At the top, a wrinkled old woman in a shapeless black dress stood waiting for us.
Adrian bowed politely. "Jada. It has been many years."
"Betrayer," the old lady answered in a sing-song voice so dry I swear bits of the words were flaking off into dust. Her face was a morass of wrinkles, her flesh sunken and loose, as if it were only just holding on to the bones beneath. Her hair, scraped back from her head and pulled tight in a minuscule lump on the back of her head, was white with a few thick black hairs mixed in. Her eyes were also white, clouded with cataracts, and although I knew she must be blind, the way she turned her attention on me had me squirming as if she could see deep into my soul. "So you have found her at last?"
"This is Nell. Jada is Gigli's" - Adrian stopped, unable to find the proper word - "sentinel."
"Sentinel?" I looked at the old woman. She was blind, frail, wrinkled within an inch of her life, and looked to be older than the building we stood in.
"Bouncer," the old lady corrected Adrian, cackling at my air of disbelief. "It is an American word, but it carries much power."
"Uh... OK. You're a bouncer." Right. And I was Alice after all.
"You are a Charmer," she answered, a whip-crack of steel in her dusty voice that had me taking back a little of my disbelief in her claim. She raised her hand, and one bent, gnarled finger touched the side of my head. The touch sent icy shivers down my back and arms. "You have light in your head, the white light of oblivion, but your fear is what will destroy you, not the light."
Goose bumps marched up and down my arms at her words. I had never told anyone but Adrian how the stroke had manifested itself as a white light, and he certainly had had no time to tell her about it... not that I thought he would discuss something so private.
"It wasn't my fear that destroyed part of my brain ten years ago," I said softly as I moved closer to Adrian. His arm came around me, comfortingly solid.
The old woman cackled again and waved us in.
"That is one very strange woman," I said in a low undertone as Adrian walked behind me down a dark, narrow passage. "Who on earth would hire someone blind and feeble to be a bouncer, of all things?"
"Jada is a Kohan." I looked my question at him over my shoulder. "Kohan is Farsi for ancient."
"Well, she's certainly all that," I agreed, opening the door at the end of the passage.
It was like opening the door to Wonderland. I looked around the big room pulsing with lights and soft music, walls filled with erotic pictures and paintings, the red and black carpeted floor all but invisible in the sea of bodies that moved and swayed in time with the music. Along the walls little alcoves had been built, shielded with long red velvet drapery, most of which were closed. But some had been left open, and the bodies within the alcoves were entwined and writhing together in a manner that left nothing to the imagination. I finally understood what sort of business Adrian's friend Gigli was running in her house.
"This is a brothel, isn't it? Some sort of weirdo German sex club?"
Adrian just shot me a look that warned me against making a scene, his hand warm and steady on the small of my back as he pushed me into the room. The music swept over us as we entered, and I realized that something must have been added to it, some sort of subliminal message leaving the listener with a strong compulsion to join the throng and dance the night away.
"Dance with me," I said, whirling around to face Adrian, anticipation pooling in my stomach at the thought of his body pressed hard against mine as we moved to the music. "I want to dance with you."
"You must resist the glamour," he answered, pushing me backward through the crowd. "It is meant for the others. We have much to do tonight, Nell."
"Yes, much," I purred, rubbing myself against him, feeling wickedly sensual. An overpowering swell of emotion rose within me, a need to touch him, to hold him deep inside me.
His eyes went sapphire at my words, but he held me off his chest when I would have wrapped myself around him. "Business first, Hasi. Later I will allow you to perform all those wicked acts you are imagining."
"I can imagine a lot of wicked acts," I warned, quivering with the need to touch him, to possess him. My body was sensitized with a heightened awareness that left the very touch of clothing against my flesh an intolerable irritation. The only thing I wanted touching me was Adrian. I tugged at buttons on my jacket, throwing it to the floor as Adrian backed me through the seemingly solid mass of dancers. Others brushed against me, but it was only Adrian's touch I wanted, only his body that mine craved. I ran my hands over my belly, up to my breasts, imagining they were his hands stroking me as I ripped off my sweater.
Adrian paused long enough to pluck both my sweater and jacket off the floor. "Hasi, look at me. You must fight the glamour. It is making you feel things you will later regret."
"I want you, Adrian. I want you right now. I could never regret that. Make love to me, my darling. Make love to me now!"
He swore under his breath as he pushed me through the crowd until another door stood before us, this one painted red with a sign marked Private. He knocked while I wrapped my arms around him, nuzzling his neck and rubbing my hips against him in blatant invitation. "I want to feel you inside me, Adrian. I want to feel you hard and hot and deep inside me. I want to feel every inch of you pressed against me, our flesh sliding together, your body pumping into mine."
My hand slid down his chest to the fly of his jeans. The cloth was tight, bulging with the strain of holding him in, his body shaking with the effort to restrain himself. His hand covered mine, intending to remove it from his groin, but at the touch of his fingers I felt his desire and need as I caressed the hard, thick length of him. Passion rose within him along with a terrible hunger, the blackness that still remained in him gone red with arousal.
"Love me," I breathed, tugging his hair until his mouth descended toward mine.
He scooped me up in his arms, his lips hot on mine as he kissed me.
"Has it been so long that you did not remember to ward yourself before entering the lounge?" a voice asked behind Adrian. His body stiffened as his lips parted from mine, but before I could protest the action, we were in a small room, the sound of the door closing behind us cutting through the red wave of need as effectively as if someone had thrown ice water on me.
Adrian set me down, silently handing me my sweater and jacket.
"Crap!" I squealed, grabbing both and pulling them on without meeting anyone's eyes. I vaguely remembered that a glamour was some sort of magical compulsion that could be bound to something audible or visible - like a piece of art or music - but I had no idea that it could be such a powerful thing, even away from its direct influence. My body tingled with the remainder of the glamour-induced lust.
"This must be your Beloved. You are welcome in my house, Nell."
I buttoned the last button on my jacket and forced myself to look at the woman who ushered us into the room. I don't know what I had expected a Welsh spirit to look like, but she looked as normal as any other red-headed, freckled, buxom woman in a tight scarlet dress that exactly matched the color of the door. She smiled a bit wryly, gesturing with a languid hand toward the room beyond. "I'm sorry Adrian didn't prepare you for that. It is a little bit of silliness, but the locals seem to enjoy it."
I gritted out a smile and a brief apology for my little striptease before glaring at Adrian.
"It has never affected me before," he shrugged, peeling off his coat and setting his satchel on a nearby black and red chair. "I did not think precautions were needed."
Gigli smiled, and I warmed up to her despite my embarrassment over almost ravishing Adrian in public. "You did not feel it before because you had not found your Beloved. Your emotions for her are what leave you vulnerable to the glamour. Please, sit down and tell me how I can be of help."
I sat in a black leather chair. Adrian stood behind me, his body language expressing unease and discomfort. "I have nothing to offer you in payment for your help, Gigli."
Her smile turned rueful. "You have done much to help me in the past without demanding payment, Adrian. I am happy I will be able to pay off my debt to you, although I must warn you, I do not have much cash. My clientele demands only the best, and just last week I had to fly in an entirely new group of sylphs after the last girls decided to form a union and start their own house." She snorted disgustedly. "After all I did for them, that was how they repaid me!"
Adrian frowned. "I'm sorry about your labor problems, Gigli, but - "
"Ungrateful, selfish sylphs," Gigli stormed. "You would think they'd have felt some loyalty to me, but no, they stayed long enough to learn what it takes to entertain a poltergeist, then poof! Off they went to start a rival house."
"Poltergeists?" I asked, my eyebrows shooting upward as I looked at Adrian.
"They took their costumes, too. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to clothe sylphs? It's all sheer silk this and gossamer lace that."
"Gigli's clientele," Adrian answered my question, a black frown settled on his brow.
"And they took my spectral whips. The price of those have positively skyrocketed ever since the poltergeists learned they served as an aphrodisiac."
"Really?" I slid a glance toward the door, the memory of the entwined bodies still fresh in my mind. "Those were poltergeists out there? Huh. They didn't look ghostly at all."
"That's because they aren't. Gigli uses the lounge as a cover for her real clients."
"The poltergeists," I said, trying to look as if there were nothing out of the ordinary in the idea of a whorehouse for ghosts.
"Exactly."
"They pay extremely well," Gigli added, evidently having worked out her tirade on the mutinous sylphs. "Not in money, of course, because everyone knows poltergeists have no head for any form of treasure, but they are expert kobold catchers. The market here for tamed kobolds is incredible."
"Kobolds?" I asked, trying not to look too stupid.
"A form of house imp," Adrian answered. "If we can get back to the point - "
"Very popular amongst the affluent set," Gigli said in a confidential tone. "A fully matured kobold can fetch anywhere from four thousand euros up. You can see why it pays to keep the poltergeists happy."
"Of course I can," I agreed, wondering if now was the point where my head exploded from all the strange things I had seen or heard about in the last seventy-two hours. "It makes perfect sense. You have to buy sylphs so the poltergeists can get it on with them, thereby obligating them into hunting kobolds for you. What's not to understand?"
Adrian's hand descended upon my shoulder, squeezing it gently. "Gigli, you're frightening Nell."
"I'm not frightened. Disturbed, yes, I'm disturbed within a hairbreadth of going stark raving mad, but I'm not frightened."
"We need two tickets to London," Adrian said, ignoring both the rising note in my voice and Gigli's attempt to smother laughter. "If you can provide us with them, I will consider your debt to me paid."
"Done," she said, lifting a black phone from the black glass desk that sat diagonally in a corner. She punched a few numbers, covering the mouthpiece to add, "I will need your passport numbers."
I looked at Adrian. He looked at Gigli.
"What?" she asked, her red brows pulling together slightly. "Don't tell me you don't have your passport!"
"I have mine," Adrian said slowly, his gaze dipping to where I sat.
"But mine got left behind in Christian's castle."
Gigli set the phone back on its cradle, her gray eyes suddenly hard and assessing as she looked me over carefully before turning to Adrian. "Christian? C.J. Dante?"
He nodded sharply.
"If you don't have your passport, how did you cross from the Czech Republic into Germany?"
"Adrian used me to do a mind push on the conductor on the train, which worked great, even though I had no idea how to make someone do what I wanted them to do just by giving them a mental shove, but..." I gnawed on my lower lip and slid him a quick glance. His face was frozen, his eyes locked on Gigli. "But I had a bit of an accident in the Cologne train station, and we can't do that again."
"Can you not have Dante send you the passport?"
"Are you kidding?" My lips curled into a jaded smile as Adrian's fingers tightened on my shoulder. "Christian wants to see us dead. I don't think he's going to help us escape Germany."
She sucked in her breath, her eyes huge as she turned them on Adrian. "You did not mention that Dante is the Dark One pursuing you."
Pain radiated from under Adrian's grip. I touched his fingers, wordlessly asking him to loosen his hold. He did so immediately, rubbing the sore spot as he answered Gigli. "Does it matter who is trying to find us? We still need to get to London."
"But this changes everything. Dante is" - she spread her hands wide in a gesture of helplessness - "very resourceful. You know that as well as I. The airport will be the first place he looks for you. This is not merely a matter of booking you on a flight to London. If you insist on flying, you must have new identities, and I cannot help you with that."
I stood up, twining my fingers through Adrian's. Frustration raged in an angry swirl around him, wrapping me in its embrace until I thought I would scream at the obstructions that seemed to block our every move. "Look, I realize we're asking a lot, and I don't have much I can offer in return, but I can withdraw some money from my retirement fund - "
"Money," she said, snorting at the idea. "What good is money? It is used only in the mortal world, and I keep my contacts with that to a minimum."
"A big bucket of cash sure would come in handy right about now," I snarled, immediately ashamed that my bad mood had caused me to lash out at someone who was trying to help us. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. It's just that it's important that we get to London. Very important. And we'll do almost anything to get there, so whatever it will take - money, information, kobolds, whatever - we'll get it just so long as we're on a plane in the next couple of hours."
Adrian disentangled his fingers from mine, wrapping both his arms around me as he pulled me back against his chest. "Who do you know who can make us new identities?"
Gigli had pursed her lips at my outburst, softening the look to a thoughtful moue as I'd pleaded with her. Her lips relaxed into their normal full lines now as she eyed us. "Seal."
I leaned back against Adrian, exhausted and too overwhelmed to cope anymore. "Trained or harbor?" I asked.
"The man who can help you is named Seal," she answered, looking away quickly. "He will be able to make you both new passports."
"At what cost?" Adrian asked, his voice rumbling deep in his chest.
She wouldn't meet his eyes. "That is between you and him. I cannot help you there. Once you have the passport numbers, I will arrange for you to be on the next flight to London."
I had a bad feeling about this guy Seal, but didn't see that we had much choice. Adrian's frustration was still spilling onto me, joining with my own impatience and leaving me edgy and more than a little jumpy. Gigli wrote down the directions to Seal's apartment while I rubbed my arms, trying to quell the sense of disaster that seemed to grow stronger with each second that we were stuck in Germany.
Before we left, Gigli gave me an odd look, then unlocked a steel filing cabinet, pulling out a small green book which she offered to me.
"What's this?" I asked, flipping through it. It was in Latin, filled with diagrams and brief explanations along with what appeared to be very bad poetry. I translated a few sentences, surprised when I realized they weren't poems... they were spells.
"It is a book of charms. As you can see, it's not very old, and thus not worth much on the resale market. I thought you might like to have it, as you are a Charmer."
I smiled and handed the book back to her. "Thanks, but no thanks. I know that no one but Adrian believes me, but my Charming skills are pretty much limited to a couple of wards."
"How do you know what you can do until you have tried?" she asked, her lips curving in a smile.
Unbidden, the image of Beth's bleak grave rose in my mind. I grimaced and looked away. "Trust me, I know."
