So far the Sinkhole had been the usual guy venue: alcohol, cigarettes and 3-D TV sports, plus a few rough-looking women lined up at the bar.

Now I was mesmerized by the famous personas heading toward the Invisible Man's table, two CinSims familiar from my pre-teen reading and cable TV-watching days.

Basil/Sherlock was looking as bored and unhappy as Mr. Spock at a picnic, but Ricardo/stock Latin lover character was eyeing the crowd. His eyeing got more personal the nearer he approached.

"Why did you want to meet me here anyway?" I asked the Invisible Man as our new companions joined the table.

He leaned nearer to whisper even more softly...and put a leather glove on my knee. "It's the only place in Vegas that isn't monitored by the powers that be or the police. That's why it moves around. It's the only place CinSims dare assemble, and are tolerated as free agents."

"Are you free agents?" I asked, glancing at all of my Three CinSim Stooges: Sexy, Asexual, and Horny. Snow White never had it so good.

"Shhh!" The Invisible Man eyed the unsavory ranks of supernaturals and debased humans surrounding us. "It's to everybody's advantage to keep a safe zone private. That doesn't mean that very bad things don't happen in the Sinkhole. They simply are not official business in the rest of Vegas."

"What entertainment venues host our new friends here?"

"Entertainment," Holmes spat. "Certainly not."

"These two are...privately owned. Like Hector Nightwine's man, Godfrey."

"Owned, not leased?"

The fedora nodded.

"How does this happen?"

"The...purveyors announce auctions. All interested parties are free to bid."

"This smacks of outright slavery." Which was exactly what I'd suggested to Snow, and which he'd denied vehemently.

"Viva Miss Delilah," Montalban hailed my indignation in his silken tequila voice. "It is even worse than the studio contracts I signed when I first came to Hollywood from Mexico. Those old time moguls were bastards, but at least they loved making movies. Our current masters only love making money."

"CinSims have been legally declared intellectual property," the Invisible Man explained. "Our base material is anonymous and the actors who played us are, in most cases, dead-"

"And if some are not?" I asked. "After all, people are extending their life spans in some form or other, or being revivified all the time, if they're rich enough."

"The studios, or whatever legal entity has succeeded them, get a royalty, as do the actors or their estates. But since a CinSim is a true amalgam, the courts have ruled, so far, that we are a new creative entity and belong to those who cobbled us together from the dead and the flickers of vintage film strips,"

"You sound almost proud of your unique status," I told the Invisible Man.

"Why not? I was and am still typecast as a mad scientist. I salute what science today has done to blur the lines between art and technology, and even life and death, to preserve what were mere half lives as whole lives."

Montalban was meanwhile eyeing my butch leather outfit. "This is most unfeminine," he said, caressing the next words. "No scarlet silks, no ruffles, no jewels." His autocratic tone softened. "But I like it. I like it very much."

"Who is your... master?" I asked.

"Mistress," he corrected smoothly. "I was won by a woman, of course."

Whoa. My inner girlfriend, Irma, spoke up for the first time on this expedition. "Does she rent him out, do you think? I'd share with you, even though you won't with me."

I rolled my eyes at no one in particular. Dealing with two "Rics" was beyond my modest experience of a social life. Still, I could see that my Ric, less suave and more direct, shared that certain sexy something with the young Ricardo Montalban.

"What about Sherlock?" I asked Claude, since the great detective was keeping aloof from the conversation.

"He won't say who commands his services," Claude admitted, leaning close to whisper. At least this time he had something interesting to say as well as another squeeze of my knee to execute. "But don't let his attitude fool you. He's here to learn the ways of the Sinkhole and to use them in the future."

"When the CinSims rebel," I guessed.

"Shhh! We trust no one here. I wanted to tell you in this safe zone that your escape from Cesar Cicereau's hit squad has infuriated him and his lieutenants and soldiers. Rumors abound that his organization "bungled' an operation. That's the first kiss of death in mob circles. We CinSims have our ways of learning things. That's why I called you here."

"You don't have information for me on who the Sunset Park male victim is?"

"No. I know you're after that secret even though identifying the female victim nearly got you torn apart by werewolves. Trouble is, word of that showdown in the mountains is arming the opposition too. Cicereau's people, and werewolves, have IDed your boyfriend, Ric. They're not happy with him gunning down their muscle with silver bullets. He should be wary too. Those of us CinSims who've preserved a sense of self and free will can help you, but we are sadly few."

He glanced at our table partners. "And you can see we are limited by the roles in which we were preserved."

Which meant that we had young skirt-chasing Montalban to deal with, not the seasoned actor who projected The Wrath of Khan on movie screens more than thirty years later. It also meant that Sherlock Holmes was present in the brisk, ultra-effective form of Basil Rathbone's 1940s portrayal, not the mercurial eccentric that Jeremy Brett portrayed to great acclaim forty years later.

I assumed that Rathbone's dazzling real life and onscreen fencing skills were still available in this Holmes enactment. The literary Holmes had practiced baritsu, a fictional Asian martial art Conan Doyle invented decades before such skills showed up routinely in twentieth century action novels and films. Too bad Sean Connery's James Bond wasn't available, but the youthful Montalban had wielded a mean sword in pirate movies.

A thought occurred to me. "Are any of the CinSims in color?"

Claude drew back in melodramatic shock.

"No! It's the silver nitrate in the old films that both destroyed the strips and now preserves our performances. Look at mine. I had to convey my character and emotions with voice only. Not since the Silents had an actor met a more demanding challenge, if I say so myself. More rumors say that a color process is under development, but, frankly, all that gaudy hokum diminishes and distracts from the power and polish of the classic black-and-white format."

He sounded as snobbish as Hector Nightwine. In fact, I wondered if Hector might have leased him, not Snow. Being invisible, he could go anywhere. Snow had once appeared to recognize him, but that may not mean he leased him. My rotund boss had an appetite for the bizarre. Whatever, I had time to inquire into that later in places less unpleasant than the Sinkhole.

"So why do you want to hire me to find out who died with Cicereau's daughter?"

"Cicereau's a big guy in this town. His CinSims work under the worst conditions in Vegas. We like his fur ruffled and you're pretty good at it so far. Plus, you escaped his forced labor operation.

"Even a magician with supernatural connections hasn't been able to do that. That makes you our hero. We can watch your back if you'll go for Cicereau's front. Another thing-"

Claude hunched closer. I could see my white-blond self reflected in his dark sunglasses like I saw myself in Snow's shades. The similarity was unpleasant.

His gauze lips barely moved as he whispered. "The vampire CinSims are all disappearing. All over town. Even at the supernatural chicken ranches out in the boonies."

"There are vampire brothels?"

"Of course. Any flavor or twist of supernatural you want, male or female or question mark. They say the chupacabra three-way is out of this world."

Chupacabra! Irma made herself known. Ric's seen one in the Mexican desert; you've seen the tracks of one in a Kansas cornfield. What's a monster animal doing in Nevada houses of ill repute?"

Good question. The chupacabra was known as a goat-sucker, a blood-sucking creature that left its prey a desiccated sack of bones. How this could be put to erotic use without resulting in death was beyond me and I was thankful for that.

I thought of Count Dracula, the motion picture CinSim. Was Howard Hughes snapping up all the Vegas vampire CinSims for some reason? Could be. He shared Hector Nightwine's love of vintage films and had a billionaire's need for one thing more. Control. He'd been a "force" in Vegas once, he wanted back in, and vampires had been out of power in Vegas since they'd lost out when the city was being founded.

Hughes had hired me to discover the identity of young Miss Cicereau's boyfriend, another piece in the power game. Of course, Nightwine was also my client. If we knew the whole story, we'd have Cicereau on the ropes. Nightwine could film a slightly fictionalized version of the murders and Cesar would be toppled by the publicity and outed as a known... what was the word for killing a daughter? There were words for killing mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers, but I knew none for offing offspring. The ever-unpopular "child killer" would have to do it.

Snow, another power player, also wanted to know who had died with Cicereau's daughter and, like Hughes and Hector, had "hired" me to find the answer. Now here I had a fourth set of clients-rogue CinSim conspirators.

"Chickie-baby," a loathsome, lusting, derisive male voice growled into the haze of my macabre reverie.

The worst part was that I recognized it, even if the speaker didn't recognize me.

"Why's a hot babe like you sitting with these lame CinSymbiants, huh?"

The man had taken my tablemates for wandering tourists dressing up as their favorite hotel CinSims. That was a mistake.

He'd also grabbed the nape of my black leather vest.

That was an even bigger mistake.

Before I could even begin to tell Detective Half-balled Haskell to take his hands off me, Quicksilver, who'd been as still as a statue following our conversation, sped like a speeding bullet for his throat.

Haskell went down on the floor, with Quick growling and worrying at his most vulnerable areas-throat, gut and crotch.

"Back! Off!" I ordered, careful not to use the dog's name.

Haskell had glimpsed Quicksilver once, but had never heard his name. At the time, Haskell's attention was fixed on me, so I doubt he had even registered the wolfish breeds Quicksilver combined.

As far as I knew, since our round at the Enchanted Cottage Haskell now had only one ball left and was three times meaner than before. I didn't want Quicksilver snacking at his crotch because I was sure that no balls would make Haskell almost supernaturally dangerous. The last Sinkhole attack on him might have started something like that already. In the post-Millennium Revelation world, it was vital to watch out who, or what, you were bit by and how often.

Ric had gone incognito into the Sinkhole; someone, or something, had inflicted nasty extra damage on Haskell's body parts after Ric left him unconscious.

I had a few friends capable of the same vengeful instincts as Ric on my behalf. Quicksilver's gusto for the crotch area made me wonder what he did on his solo midnight runs. Nightwine could have sent one ugly CinSim of a customer after Haskell once he'd viewed the security tape of the cop mauling me in his very own treasured Enchanted Cottage.

At that moment, the silver familiar moved from my neck to make a chain-wrapped fist of my right hand, reminding me that maybe Snow could spy on me through the artifact. Even he might not like the corrupt fuzz hitting on his newly-wired toy.

All speculation was moot now. Haskell didn't know that blond Sinkhole Biker Girl was Delilah Street.

Quick had obeyed my command, a growl warning his prey that this was just a temporary truce. I took a deep breath...

... and expelled it as hot-tempered Ricardo Montalban hauled Haskell up from the floor.

"Puerco! Hijo de puta! You dare accost a woman sitting at my table?"

And Montalban essayed a fist to the chops that laid Haskell back down again.

"I'm a representative of the law," Haskell screamed at the lowlifes gathering around.

Sherlock Holmes bent down to blow pipe smoke into Haskell's face. "If this is a representative of the law, I'm the Dalai Lama."

Then Holmes hauled him upright without losing a breath to puff out smoke.

"How shall we expel this noxious snake? Is there a vampire in the house? Bites and blood-sucking are extremely effective ways of dealing with snake venom. I confess that I do not believe in vampires, but one would certainly be useful in this instance."

The Invisible Man had doffed trench coat, hat, sunglasses and gauze and was now invisibly pummeling Haskell about the head and chest like a frantic windstorm.

"Take these thugs into citizens' arrest!" Haskell shouted, dodging unseen blows.

The problem was one of the few human bodies in the place was looking picked upon. Visiting tourists, CinSymbiants and human riffraff rose in a wave from the wide-screen sports TVs at the bar and the small cocktail tables anchored by some CinSims of their choice.

"That's okay, officer! I'll help," a beefy man in Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt called, wading into the battle. "Hang in there," he added, an unfortunate choice of expression for Half-balled Haskell.

When he accidentally wopped the Invisible Man in the back with a fanny pack, I was forced to push him aside.

"Bitch!" a woman with pink hair and a nose ring screamed, heading for me.

I was more than ready, but she was plucked away before she could hit me with her faux-Prada bag.

A half-dozen half-were bikers waded in, their chains chiming. I pulled the nightstick and found it as effective when poking as when striking sideways. My chain-wrapped fist was scuffing lots of biker leather as I dodged return blows, getting into the rhythm of something I'd never participated in before, a brawl. With these allies-and no deadly weapons out as yet-it was kind of invigorating.

Then I felt my arms pinned to my side by someone unseen and unwelcome and really strong behind me. We hadn't figured on vampires joining the fray.

I turned to snarl in that direction...and faced off a tattoo freak with a smear of black beard. He picked me up by the waist, spun me around behind him, and proceeded to stomp Haskell in the nuts. Or where what was left of them would be. Nice.

Quicksilver was nipping neatly at the thick ankles of the tourist couple while Holmes and Montalban were engaging the gathering crowd aching for a fight with quaint but effective fisticuffs. I dodged around my unsavory would-be rescuer to back up Holmes and Montalban, but was again grabbed and pinned, my back to his front. The whole scene was really beginning to look like The Three Stooges Meet the Monster Jamboree.

I couldn't enjoy the comic aspects in the custody of another mauling male. I twisted hard to take another look at my rescuer/meddler. He was a smoke-and-brimstone-streaked guy wearing Eau de NASCAR pit-stop cologne. Not attractive unless vintage auto exhaust turned you on.

I started to order him to back off, when he rubbed the back of one tatted forearm over his sooty brow, eyed me hard, and said "Whew. All this action gives me an adrenaline junkie itch. Let's go somewhere and fuck, babe."

Babe! Really offensive language always brought out my Our Lady of the Lake Convent School warrior maid.

I managed to slew around in the creep's grasp, fighting to pull far enough away to kick him in the nuthouse. Quicksilver was pushing between us, growling and snapping at the same target I coveted.

My attacker had snaked around, clutching me as close as a shield, and was once again behind me, holding me tight. Too close for Quicksilver to hurt him without taking a chunk out of me. I struggled, panting, at hearing my warrior dog whimper in sheer frustration.

"And you thought I couldn't disguise myself in the Sinkhole," the man whispered against my ear as my head thrashed to butt him under the jaw and get myself loose.

I stopped fighting. And was silent, hearing only my ragged breathing. And his. Fury became something quite the opposite, or maybe just in a different mode.

"Hell, Montoya," I whispered just as softly. "Why wouldn't I panic? That thing felt a foot long."

"I thought you were interested."

"So is Quick."

"You don't have a way to tell him to back off before I let you go and expose my crotch to his two-inch fangs?"

"Quick. Down."

The dog went to his stomach, still growling.

The eager-to-assist citizens and gang bangers were backing off, tamed by a first-class pummeling from some formidable CinSim superheroes. My friends held Haskell, but looked ready to rush my captor. I shook my head no. Violently. They looked carefully away, confused but aware that our new ally was more than friendly with me.

Ric rocked his pelvis into my backside until my pulses hummed like a vibrator, still whispering into my tingling ear. "Your place or mine? I think we have explanations, at least, to exchange."

"Yours," I whispered back. "We'll drop Quick off at the cottage."

"First," Ric said, "I have to secure the loose vermin. Wrathbone's might lose its hospitality license if we left this piece of shit crawling around."

While Haskell writhed, pinned facedown like a cockroach by Montalban and Holmes, I forced myself to bend down and lift up his black satin bowling club jacket. Tawdry taste. I found some shiny new cuffs on his belt, probably the ones he'd used on me. I bent down to wrench one hand behind his back as Holmes bent the other wrist at a painful angle and brought it around.

Haskell screamed curses when I snapped the cuffs shut. Sweet.

I rose, nodding at my gang of three CinSims, who looked disheveled but unbowed. The Invisible Man had hefted his wrappings and clothing over one arm, so I could tell where he was.

"We better split before we look like co-conspirators," Ric warned me.

He took my right arm in custody and this time Ricardo Montalban growled softly, not Quicksilver, who'd overcome the diesel smell to ID the man in Cheap Thug guise.

"Ricardo Montalban, meet Ric Montoya, my partner in crime-solving," I said quietly. "Ric, Mr. Holmes and, er, part of Dr. Griffin. We need to leave first."

Ric, eyeing the restless crowd, barely registered my famous associates.

"Gotta make this exit fast and in character for this dump," he told us all in a low voice. In a loud, blustery tone, Ric ordered everyone within hearing, "Better drop this cuffed crap topside for the street cops to find."

His booted toe prodded the struggling and cursing Haskell's side. "Meanwhile, I'll take up this troublemaker myself."

I was startled to feel a shiver of cold run down my left arm and to hear a metallic clink. My obliging body jewelry had morphed into a pair of handcuffs. One clasped my wrist like a bracelet, the other dangled open. Ric grabbed the open cuff and locked my wrists behind my back.

No one regarded us openly as we left, Ric shepherding me like a captive, Quicksilver shadowing us both like a bodyguard on a leash. Just another dicey situation in the Sinkhole with someone likely heading toward a nasty fate. Didn't matter who or what. Ric acted like an undercover cop but he might be crooked or an impersonator. Maybe one more unescorted human woman would not be leaving the Sinkhole alive.

Outside Wrathbone's, we paused in the soft white neon light of the sign while Quicksilver eyed Ric's hands on my wrists and growled the soft friendly warning he reserved for people I know.

"It's okay, Killer," Ric told him. "It has to look like I'm an undercover cop taking your roommate out of here to jail." Quick liked being addressed man to man, and relaxed.

"Did Nightwine tip you off about where I was going?" I asked.

"Got it first try. The Fat Man has a surprising paternal streak when it comes to you."

Nightwine was mostly protective of my commercial possibilities as a Lilith/Maggie stand-in, but Ric didn't know about Lilith yet and would want me off of Hector's premises if he knew about the man's scummy commercial interest in both Lilith and me.

"You know," I told Ric, "now that I've seen the Sinkhole, I've got a couple of new theories about who really maimed Haskell after you beat him up and left him for what passes as street-sweeper meat down here last time you visited incognito."

"Yeah?"

Passing people didn't even glance at us. I must have looked like a hooker chatting up a client with bondage tendencies. I nodded toward Quick, who was following every word we said like he could lip-read. He probably could.

"I had to lock Quick up at the cottage when Haskell charged in or the creep would have shot him. The dog goes out alone at night a lot. He could have trailed Haskell's scent to hell and back. He was not happy about being shut out of the action or what Haskell was doing to me."

Ric eyed Quick. "Possible."

"Or...Hector could have loosed a really nasty CinSim on Haskell."

"A paternal meddler, maybe, but I don't see Hector Nightwine as the Black Knight riding to the damsel's revenge after the fact."

"He was really upset Haskell had crashed his security devices and violated his property."

"And you're his property too?"

"In a way, in his mind. He's hired me to research crime stories for his shows and I live on site. Sometimes I think he confuses me with one of the staff CinSims."

"Anyone else in your circle of suspects?"

Yeah, Christophe, a.k.a. Snow. Pointing that out would tip Ric off to the fact that another man, one he regarded as beyond a bad guy, had roped Ric's girl with a permanent silver lariat, now masquerading as handcuffs.

Snow was like Nightwine. He owned so much of this city and so many CinSims that he tended to confuse that with owning people. A lot of mobsters and lobbyists make that mistake. Not that Hector was a mobster. He was too egocentric to even have henchmen.

"You must have felt a lot of satisfaction," Ric said, "cuffing Haskell in return for the brutal way he searched and cuffed you at Nightwine's cottage."

"You must have enjoyed kicking him in the family vault."

"Not as much as whoever"-he glanced at Quicksilver, panting amiably as he lay on the slick Sinkhole street, tongue limp in a forest of sharp white fangs-"really maimed the bastard."

"And you must enjoy cuffing my hands behind my back." I grinned as Ric suddenly realized he had me in a very compromising position.

"I'm used to seeing a sexy thin silver chain around your hips." He released my second wrist as I pretended to fool with the one shut cuff. "When'd you add concealed handcuffs and a pseudo-cop belt to your walking-around wardrobe?"

"Found 'em at a second-hand store," I said, now pretending to slip the cuffs into a belt pocket. In reality, the instantly liquid silver ran up my arm and back down my side to my waist, where it became the spitting image of the thin sterling silver hip chain I wore. "They were so shiny and new I couldn't resist them. You know me and silver."

"You sure there isn't some Latina in you, Querida? You wear silver so well. Your jewelry always rocks."

Well, it came from a headlining rock'n'roller's head. I was speechless. Ric took that as a pleased response to his compliment when I was scared stiff he'd guess the nature of the silver familiar.

"You should resist your faux law enforcement tendencies," he went on. "They could get you into serious trouble sometime."

So could Snow's morphing lock of hair.

Ric still had custody of my right arm and used it to steer me through the ambling tourist traffic. Quick was up and heeling alongside me like a service dog. Which he was to me. He kept so close to my outside leg that he reminded me of Achilles.

"I sort of had to go into a trance to get here," I said. "How do we get out?"

"Trance, huh?" Ric's grin was white-hot against the black, two-day beard smudge. "Like you went into in Sunset Park when we first met. You're full of surprises. The rest of us just take the completely natural mobile spiral staircase."

I stared at the ornate wrought-iron corkscrew that appeared out of the smoky air like something very Jules Verne glimpsed in a London pea-soup fog. "You're telling me this thing moves?"

"Think of it as the Devil's auger to the Lower Depths." He hitched up my arm to help me onto the first step. They were higher than ordinary ones. Quick brushed past to bound up three risers sniffing the iron, the smoke, the upper air.

Meanwhile, Ric had mounted close behind me. Nicely close. As for climbing the spinning spiral staircase, we didn't need to move. It was as if we'd all jumped on a passing tram to Nowhere.

I wanted to grab the smooth metal handrail, because the stairs were indeed swirling around. The effect was so dizzying I closed my eyes, fighting nausea.

"We're here," Ric whispered in my ear.

My eyes opened to see downtown take shape around me, a panorama of darkness stabbed with slashes of light. Quicksilver was nosing around ten feet away, chasing the phantom scents of hundreds of pedestrians. We stood by a hole in the street bounded by a metal-pipe fence and orange safety cones.

"How does anyone know this hole in the ground from any other street-repair site?" I asked.

"It's always near downtown and the manhole cover is a Celtic design."

I peered at the pierced metal circle. "Celtic?"

"The assumption is that the fey folk created this underground retreat. With the green spaces declining, they've had to turn to the cities, and this desert environment isn't welcoming of the fey. Some of the stuff going around now is fairy stories, plain and simple. Some isn't. The anthropologists are still trying to sort legend from reality and delusion from actual experience." Ric made a face. "It's no delusion that the Sinkhole is a reeking, rank evil place. Let's get away from here."

It took a couple blocks' walk to reach the tourist-crowded areas and recognize landmarks.

"You parked by the Four Goddesses? Great," Ric said. "I'm there too."

Dolly was not hard to find.

At my car, Ric stood back to take in the faint fluorescent green glow haloing it.

"Some funky Hector Nightwine safety alarm," I explained.

He didn't know about the Enchanted Cottage oddities, either. I didn't want to freak him out any more than I had to. He had one stunning paranormal power. I had, and was surrounded by, a whole growing flock of weird little quirks I was still figuring out.

"The Caddy sure looks too toxic to steal." He glanced over to study me as thoroughly as he had my car. "I wouldn't have recognized you except for the dog." He paused long enough for our stressed-out pulses to beam us into a more intimate mode. "You make a hot blond, chica."

"Guys are always suckers for a bleach job." Compliments still made me want to make excuses. "I wouldn't have thought you'd have one rough edge in your high-end city slicker wardrobe, and here you show up with razor-cut seams on your jeans and a jaw primed to give beard burns."

"So you like?"

"You do dark well," I agreed demurely.

Ric picked up my return cue. "Undercover needs to be extreme, Blondie," he said in a mock street growl. "Speaking of which, the nice folks at Wrathbone's expected me to do something bad to you. I'm the law and it'd be suspicious if I didn't give you a strip search."

His eyes were doing a good job of that already; the effect was a world away from Haskell's impression of a tough cop. "That super-sexy utility belt is LVMPD property. Take it off."

I unbuckled without a word or a moment's hesitation, and then let the belt slip slowly off my hips. Our surprising, disguised personas gave us a new way to express our insanely intense attraction, playing hard and fast into our fantasy roles. It was as I'd discovered while salsa dancing with Ric at Los Lobos. Letting him lead at moments like this made me hot.

I watched Ric's fingers expertly probe the contents of the belt's various pockets and holsters, swallowing hard.

He looked up. "If you're going to be a scofflaw, you need some better defensive weapons. Silver-hafted stilettos. I don't recommend silver bullets; guns are two-edged swords in close quarters, excuse the mixed metaphor. You need more street cop stuff. Mace, for one. A taser for another."

"You sure you want me equipped to drop a man helpless to the ground at the push of a button?"

He smiled at my comment. "Depends on who the man is." He set the belt on Dolly's fender so gently I nearly swooned as he turned his attention to me again.

"Nice vest." He fingered the long fringe on my used leathers. "Take it off. I have to make sure you're not carrying concealed."

"And you aren't?" I looked where it was relevant.

"Strip."

I shrugged slowly out of the vest. Didn't want to give the nice undercover policeman any reason to panic. In fact, I had him breathing hard already.

"That tight knit top really juices up your breasts," he said. "Take it off."

Here? Outdoors in the empty night? It might not be empty any minute. The notion was exciting. Besides, the big bad strange lawman made me do it. S��, senor, Irma growled in my mind. Give and you shall receive, chica.

I torqued my torso to eel out of the spandex knit, down to my black sports bra. My thin silver chain shimmied on my hips, where I usually wore a chain with him in mind.

He parked a thumb in my navel to stroke the chain. Even that tiny bit of mock penetration had me ready to writhe with excitement, except that Ric caressing Snow's lock of hair once-removed made me feel oddly incestuous.

"Nice low-rise jeans." Ric was still exploring. His finger stroked along the top edge just above my pubic bone, hidden until now by the top. A sudden vertical jab down inside almost made me jump out of my skin... and my skin-tight leather.

"This short little front zipper is going to drive me wild until we get home." Ric tugged on the metal pull. I felt an answering tug from deep within, my muscles straining to pull something inside, that teasing finger, that eager erection I'd felt in Wrathbone's.

Ric curved me back against the convertible top. The night was warm, but I shivered. His other hand brushed over my breasts, along my ribs, down my hips, and past my navel to the ebbing edge of the jeans' band.

His mouth started at my throat and slipped down my center, his teeth finally biting the zipper pull and tugging until I spasmed, arching toward his face and mouth.

"Mi amor," he whispered into my pelvis, as shaken as I was by our mutual sensual connection. He pulled away, brought his face up to mine.

I was quivering. "You get off on bare torsos, senor. Any reason?"

"You always want to know 'why' about everything, mi periodista."

I recognized the Spanish word for "journalist."

"Yes, I am one. I have a muy grande need to know."

"Now you need to know why I like to caress you, where and how."

"It's because all this is new to me."

"In my case, it's because of those filthy coyotes who held me captive in the desert. I kept the herd animals between myself and those evil men. I knew, even as a muchacho, that nothing was safe from them. But they had magazines. Porn. The only thing I had to read. The crude photos repelled me, but one magazine had a photo of a belly dancer glittering with gold coins in a fringe beneath her breasts and in a circle of gold at her hips-all swathed in sheer silk. That bare midriff with mysteries above and below, that an ignorant boy could safely covet."

I smiled at him, letting my glance fall to his dingy neck, expert applied camo makeup rather than dirt. A wrinkled bandana circled it, covered something. "There are things an ignorant girl can covet too."

We froze, my heart pounding at the thought of soon teasing the love mark I'd made on his throat and kept bruised and tender, the site of a boyhood vampire bat bite. That had been his first innocent, unconscious turn-on and I'd learned to use it.

Quicksilver had endured enough of our sensual games that aimed straight at the heart of love. He thrust his furry head and neck up at the sky and celebrated, or protested, human lust with an ancient, long and mournful canine yowl.