Chapter Thirteen

It was time I started looking for Lilith to save my own skin.

I'd spotted her name on some of the discussion forums of Snow groupie Web sites like cocainefreaks.com, sevendivinesins.com and brimstonesluts.com.

It could be another Lilith or a pseudonym someone had liked. After I'd finally realized that Snow had mistaken me for Lilith the first time we met-and tangoed and tangled-at the Inferno, I was more inclined than ever to think I'd find a path to Lilith through his groupies.

I might also find out who'd killed the one who'd messed with me. Doing that would get Malloy off my case, if not Haskell.

My scheme to start a groupie "self-help" group seemed the best way to get to know the culture and its members. And the best way to do that was mingle with them during a Seven Deadly Sins show.

Perry had been right and wrong at my interrogation today. I was not a mirror-gazer. My typical adolescent dislike of my maturing looks was magnified by the realization that vampires really grooved on them.

Now that I'd encountered Vegas, Ric and the Enchanted Cottage looking glass, though, I couldn't avoid mirrors. I needed them to confirm my disguises. I didn't need seeing glimpses of the dead in them, but I got them. Ric and I had first made love in front of a mirror, his choice, showing me a sexy side of myself I'd never imagined. Was I becoming a mirror seeress and escape artist because I always had a mirror self, a twin?

These thoughts were circling in my head as I did a last check in the hall mirror to make sure I passed as a Snow groupie. I had a lot of range there. They ran from dewy 'tweenhood to octogenarians and beyond, in flavors from Goth to punk to country club to vintage diner.

I had butterflies in my stomach, but not because I was going to the Inferno Hotel and Casino for the Seven Deadly Sins' nightly show. That alone proved I wasn't in any danger of becoming a Snow groupie. No, I was nervous because I was going to seduce those groupies away from the object of their mania. Long shot. But I didn't have any others when it came to tracking down my possible "twin."

I wore gray contact lenses to camouflage my signature baby blues. My outfit was relentlessly denim down to the ankle boots. I didn't usually dress this urban casual-I'd been a newsroom career woman for too long-so it was a good disguise.

The silver familiar had followed my thoughts, slithering up my arm, neck, and cheek to become a literal crown of thorns. That was a little dressy for denim, but the spiky look resembled the Statue of Liberty's tiara in a funky way and I needed one touch that would get me remembered, yet not attract Snow's post-show Brimstone Kiss.

His Brimstone Kiss was supposedly the one and only admitted desire of Cocaine groupies. Their raunchy online discussions, though, proved they hankered for more. Rumor nicknamed him "Ice Prick," but nobody could speak from experience. Witchcraft lore claimed the Devil and demons had ice-cold penises. Believing Cocaine demonic might appeal to women with Darkside tastes, but I couldn't imagine any thrill from that chilly attribute, other than goose bumps.

What I found demonic was that Cocaine fans who got to a Vegas show lost both ways. Some, broke, eventually went home without the Brimstone Kiss to try again on another trip. The "lucky" ones, though, might as well have rewound and erased their previous lives once they got that mosh pit lip-lock. They moved to Las Vegas, they held menial jobs, they attended the Seven Deadly Sins performance every night they could afford, seeking a return engagement with the Brimstone Kiss. And they never got it again.

I wasn't sure what Snow was, besides addictive to his victims, but right now I was more concerned about where Lilith was, or if she even was at all. I adjusted my crown of silver thorns to look more like a custom chrome hubcap. Then I slung a hobo bag full of my new business cards over my shoulder, and bid my mirror goodbye.

Nowadays Las Vegas resembled Lord of the Rings country. The new forests of time-share and condo towers were narrow needles, like magicians' or hermits' towers, that offered views from every unit. Hotels dating from after the millennium favored fountains of fire and geysers of colored smoke. They all looked like pits of Hell and just the right cracks of doom to throw a pesky but supremely powerful ring into.

The Inferno was the most fiendishly lit. The sound of falling water, hissing steam, and beating flames was oddly New Age. I dropped Dolly off at valet parking.

"Don't bruise those fins," I warned. "She's a big girl."

"Sure thing, ma'am," said the loathsome, scaly demon who slipped behind the wheel. Since the last time I saw him he'd lost the temporary tan, but still wore the beaded collar, linen kilt and jackal-head mask of a Karnak employee. "I'll park this baby in a handicapped spot. A '56, right?"

"Right." Guys and cars.

"Love your bitchin' Inquisition headache band. Radically retro, like the wheels."

I should have known, I thought, touching my fingertips to the sharp spikes haloing my head.

I entered the lobby to join the flow of females pouring past the casino area for the theater at the main floor's rear. They were so tightly packed we could only shuffle forward like old folks. I avoided even looking at the bar area, where my CinSim pals Nicky and Claude Rains, the Invisible Man, hung out. This was a total undercover outing. Small mirrored surveillance balls danced above us. Tiny bubbles. Tiny bubbles courtesy of Big Brother.

None of the other audience members came here alone like me. Their Snow dependency was a full circle of enabling. I intended to break it, but first I had to break into it.

"You're the one," a breathless voice behind me said, "who almost got the BK a few nights back."

I nodded as everyone around me quieted. "Have any of you gotten it yet?"

Heads short and tall, light and dark, shook in disappointment. Obviously, only a few lucky souls got the post-concert smooch. I prepared myself for two hours on my booted feet, sandwiched between pushing mobs of hysterical women, my eardrums caught between the huge stage amplifiers and mewls and whimpers of my sisters-in-waiting.

Still, Snow was a compelling performer. I couldn't avoid a small tremor in the pit of my stomach. If I worked it right, I would again "just miss" the Brimstone Kiss and get a ton of sympathy from my "sister" addicts.

I only prayed one would lead me to Lilith, my Lilith, and possibly to the groupie killer.

Maybe praying before a Seven Deadly Sins concert was a bit inappropriate to both parties involved.

A screaming guitar chord announced the Sins' entrance.

Greed's lead electric guitar was the culprit. Once he had our attention, he rocked that axe like a maniac, his silver-and gold-coin-encrusted duds glittering in shades the color of money and autumn leaves: green, amber, and rust.

The female back-up singers shimmied into place. Lust's lithe black figure was licked by rhinestoned red, orange, and gold tatters of flame silk. Envy looked mermaid sleek in a strapless sequined green gown.

Anger wore his black leather jacket with a swagger that emphasized the blood-red lightning bolts decorating it. He made his bass guitar grumble and rumble, a one-man biker gang. Gluttony in patchwork velvet hung over the drums like they were a five-course dinner he needed to devour, cooking up a percussive storm. Sloth's rhinestone-slathered silver-gray jersey shirt sparkled as he drifted almost idly into supporting riffs.

All the scene needed was lead singer Cocaine.

Ear-spearing screams erupted all around me. I could see the massive gold, green and maroon scaly chest and clawed feet of a huge animated dragon descending from the flies high above the stage. Clouds of smoke and fire enveloped the stage and the mosh pit, bringing a wave of heat, light and fog, and a beastly roar from the dragon's two hideously gnarled and horned heads that were now visible.