Wicked Memories (CASTLE OF DARK DREAMS) by Nina Bangs Page B

it.
    Eric looked disgusted. “It’s a shitty way to show gratitude. Sparkle has a short memory. I did a lot for her. I won’t forget this. My wife’s still working in Chicago. I think I’ll tell her to hold off moving back here until things are more stable.”
    Thorn shook his head in mock sympathy. “Good idea.” He pulled out his house key and written directions to his place from his pocket and handed them to Zane. “I feel guilty about this. I’m staying here, but you can crash at my beach house. It’s a couple of miles down the road.” He pointed west. “You can stay there until you get on your feet.”
    Klepoth grinned. “A beach house? Great. Thanks.”
    Thorn wondered about the wisdom of turning over his house to a demon. “Eric, I have a safe room set up for vampires. Zane and Klepoth, be here at dawn tomorrow. The day manager will be here to fill you in. You don’t have to worry about the running of the pier. Everything’s been taken care of. I’ll check in with all of you at sunset.”
    “One concern.” Zane flipped the key into the air and then caught it. “How many hours do you expect us to work? We can’t be here every minute that the pier is open.”
    “Not a problem.” Thorn was ready for this night to be over. “Zane, come up with a spell that will make any illusions Eric or Klepoth create automatically repeat with each new customer. Klepoth will control the illusions during the day, and Eric will take the night ones. Once you have things set up, you can kick back and relax. Unless we have an emergency”—like Sparkle mounting an assault on the pier—“you can leave once Grim and I are awake.”
    The men nodded and left. Thorn closed his eyes for a moment. His revenge had better be worth all this. Then he opened them and headed back to his apartment. He had work to do, castles to destroy and cosmic troublemakers to lay low.
    But strangely enough, he spent more time thinking about Kayla—her smile, her voice, her everything—than he did planning.
    And as the day sleep finally took him, Thorn regretted that he couldn’t dream.

6
    Kayla couldn’t wait to get out of the castle. She’d spent most of the day dodging Sparkle and Ganymede while she tried to find evidence of what had caused last night’s noxious odor. She’d found none.
    But Sparkle had managed to find
her
over and over again as she peppered Kayla with ideas for getting rid of Nirvana. Now Kayla waited impatiently by the lobby doors while her client gave her some last-minute advice.
    “I don’t know why you wanted to wait until night before going over there.” Sparkle studied her perfect nails. “Today was their grand opening. You could’ve done a little of this, a little of that, and then lost yourself in the crowd.”
    Ganymede sat on Sparkle’s foot. He wore his disapproving-cat expression.
“You could’ve taken me. I would’ve brought that crappy Ferris wheel down in seconds.”
    “Subtle, Mede. We have to be
subtle
. We don’t need the police asking questions.” Sparkle didn’t seem upset by the mass-destruction concept, just its consequences.
    “I don’t do subtle.”
He seemed definite about that.
    Kayla stared at him. “Doesn’t it bother you that innocent people might get hurt?”
    “Collateral damage. It happens.”
He gave the equivalent of a cat shrug.
    “Zane is over there.” Sparkle glanced down at the cat. “He’ll have taken precautions. Besides, do you want to face Holgarth and explain that his son was collateral damage?”
    Ganymede looked up at her.
“That’d be ugly, wouldn’t it?”
    “Very. And if this Thorn has a bit of sense, he’s hired a bunch of nonhumans to help protect his property. We don’t want to start a supernatural war. We just got over the last one.” Sparkle leaned down to give him a quick scratch behind his ears.
    The cat did some low grumbling.
“If he had any sense, he wouldn’t have set up shop across the street from us.”
    Kayla had heard