I loved this, I thought, as the car slid smoothly into traffic. I expressed my wish, and it was granted.

No one scolding me, telling me to calm down and be quiet—Do what everyone says, Gabrielle, because you’re too crazy to be trusted. Ha. Being out on my own was already so much better.

The night was warm beyond the darkened windows of the limo and full of light, the power outage caused when Janet and I had opened the vortex already forgotten. I gazed at the tall buildings we passed, all flashing and waving and trying to grab my attention. Come inside, they said. Delights await. Food, drink, money, sex. Whatever you want.

I didn’t believe the promises of the signs, dancing lights, and jetting fountains—people will say anything to take your money. I’d lived in Las Vegas right after I’d left home, though I’d worked at a grocery store in Henderson, trying to be “normal.” I’d given that up pretty fast. I’d rarely come down to the Strip to sample its enticements, but in those days I’d only had vengeance on my mind. No time for enjoyment.

Amos chatted to me as we went. He was from California, and had been driving here a couple of years. He told me he had a girlfriend he was trying to save up to marry, an ex-girlfriend who was kind of stalkery, and brothers he partied with whenever he went back to California.

I listened with interest, enjoying Amos going on about his ordinary life, which sounded so much more peaceful than mine.

Traffic was dense and it took a while to move down the Strip, but finally, Amos pulled into a long circular driveway that rose steeply to the front door of the C.

Unlike most of the other hotels, this one didn’t have a skyscraper attached. A gigantic fountain display in front of the entrance spewed light instead of water. A massive garden identical to the one at Versailles—so said Amos—lay behind it.

The hotel was in the style of a French chateau, like Versailles itself or maybe the Louvre—I’d never been to either place, but I’d seen pictures. Janet and Mick really needed to take me to Paris.

A doorman, even more smartly dressed than the one at the hotel I’d left, opened the car’s door for me.

“Here you go,” Amos said, sounding regretful. “Have a good time.”

I considered. “Why don’t you wait for me? I’ll hire you for the whole night. I might need to check out some other places.”

Amos brightened. “That would be cool.”

“Wait then. Janet’s good for it.”

Amos gave me his most handsome smile. “Your big sis must love you a lot.”

I leaned forward and patted his arm. “Oh, she does.”

At least, I hoped so. She’d be bitching at me for running out on her, but she’d be plenty happy if I caught the dragon slayer for her.

I blew Amos a kiss and slid out the back door, thanking the doorman. Two bellmen leapt to open the hotel’s front door for me and I smiled at them as I sailed inside. Everyone was so courteous.

I stepped into unbelievable opulence. Yep, if I were an all-powerful dragon slayer, I’d stay here.

The casino took up most of the floor, but this one had fewer slot machines and more card tables than the other hotels we’d visited tonight. People around these tables weren’t the comfortably dressed tourists and retirees I’d seen elsewhere but wore high-fashion clothes—slinky dresses for the ladies and suits or at least coats and natty shirts for the men.

The casino’s lofty ceiling was soft white, resembling a Mediterranean building decorated for the very rich of the past. A cool breeze blew through it, as though suggesting that the ocean was right outside.

I noticed most of the women had men with them, the kind who touched his lady’s back when escorting her across the room. The women put slender hands on their men’s arms, wrists dripping with diamonds.

These beautiful people sat at baccarat tables that were partitioned off from the other card games, each table with its own crystal chandelier and tuxedoed dealer.

“May I help you, ma’am?”

A suited man with a Bluetooth in his ear had approached me and now gave me a look of stern scrutiny. I noted there were others like him stationed about the casino, making sure the wrong element didn’t enter their fancy hotel.

I was still in my glittery blue party dress, but I was a mess from rescuing all those demons. Riding the female snake demon had scared the shit out of me and also been the most fun I’d had in a long time.

I’d connected with it. I’d felt the demon’s terror and fury, the kind that had raged through me whenever my so-called dad had gone on a drunken rampage against me and my stepmom.

Thinking about my parents led to some very bad memories, which I shoved swiftly away. I couldn’t focus on my mission if I wallowed in the past.

“Where’s the ladies’ room, sweetie?” I asked the well-dressed security guard. “I need to freshen up.”

He pointed the way. I saw him discreetly motion to another guard, telling him to keep an eye on me.

I waved at the second guard as I sashayed into the bathroom. A look into the mirror told me things weren’t as bad as I’d feared, but I needed to rinse my face, comb my hair, and fix a rip in one side of my dress.

The tear I repaired with magic, my hair with a little water and my fingers. I didn’t have a purse—that was smashed somewhere under our hotel—so I’d have to live without a comb until I could hit a store.

I ducked into a stall to do my business, and heard two women come in and linger in the lounge portion of the bathroom.

“Honey, are you sure?” one asked in concern.

The second’s answer had tears in it. “He’s on the phone all the time, and never talks to me anymore. I saw his texts to her one day, and he …” The young woman drifted into sobs. “And tonight he’s acting like everything’s fine.”

“Oh, honey.” True sympathy oozed from the first woman. “Do you want me to have Ron talk to him?”

“No.” Panicked. “I don’t want him to know.”

I flushed and burst out of the stall, heading to wash my hands at the sink. The two women jerked around to stare at me, but the poor thing in tears couldn’t stop crying.

Both ladies wore satiny, expensive dresses, and jewels that could feed a small family for a year. Their skin was far too pale for the hot Nevada sunshine, and their hair had been cut, highlighted, and styled in an upscale salon, probably the same one for both.

The woman comforting her friend gave me a look of embarrassment tinged with hostility—but hey, they should have checked whether they were alone before they went off about their problems.

I dried my hands and faced them. “So your idiot husband not only wants a trophy wife, but a trophy girlfriend too?” I asked the teary-eyed woman.

“This really is none of your business,” her friend began, but my heart went out to the poor crying rich girl who was learning that money couldn’t buy her everything. I’d grown up in a trailer with a drunk, and even I knew that.

I tossed my terrycloth towel into a hamper—no paper towels for this bathroom. “Here’s what you do,” I said. “You find the hottest guy in this place and flirt like hell with him. Take him dancing, buy him drinks. Make the dickhead you’re married to realize you aren’t going to roll over and let him cheat on you. Then you hire a limo for yourself, the hot guy, and your girlfriends, and you go out on the town. Steal your husband’s phone before you go, drop it on the ground in front of the limo and tell the driver to run over it. I have a car waiting out front—driver’s name is Amos. He’ll help you out. Tell him Gabrielle sent you.”

The sad woman listened, her eyes swimming with tears. “I’m not sure I could do that.”

“Why not?” I put my hands on my hips. “Sounds like your perfect husband doesn’t appreciate you. Sell those rocks he gave you, buy your own place, and find yourself a boy toy.”

She shook her head while her friend listened, open-mouthed. “I don’t want that,” the cheated-on woman said. “I just want things the way they used to be.”

“Take it from me, sweetie, no, you don’t. You want what you think you had—I bet your husband was a philandering asshole from day one, just good at hiding it. Take your own life into your hands, and tell him to suck on it. If you don’t let him have a hold on you—then you win.” If only my stepmom had listened to me when I’d tried to tell her that.

“I think I agree with her,” her friend said, sounding surprised at herself. “Allan is a shit. I always thought you were too good for him.”

“There you go.” I spread my hands. “Don’t forget—steal cell phone, smash it. First, though, maybe send some texts to the girlfriend—you know, like they’re from him. ‘I decided I hated you, bitch.’ Or ‘You’re so ugly, looking at you gives me a migraine.’”

The friend laughed quietly, and even crying girl smiled through her tears. Maybe they weren’t so bad for privileged, rich, flawless women. I guess not everyone’s life is ideal.

I tipped them a wink and moved out the bathroom door. Look at me doing all kinds of good deeds tonight.

Waving again at the security guard, I went to the cashier’s counter to pick up some chips.

I can’t do mind magic—like put people in trances or anything—only the simple suggestion like with Amos—but I made the computer on the other side of the cage think I’d handed the lady a good credit card, and it told her to give me about ten grand in chips. I’d done a similar thing to get the hotel suite for Janet.

I distracted the cashier with patter, and she shoved chips at me, looking faintly puzzled. There were so many chips, she gave me a little wooden carrier for them. I thought I looked elegant gliding through the casino, my neatly stacked chip carrier at my side.

The two ladies came out of the bathroom. They pasted bright smiles on their faces as they approached a group of sleek-suited men who took no notice of them.

What was with these guys? Were they so convinced that their women would drop their panties whenever they snapped their fingers that they no longer had to be decent to them?

Bought and paid for, I heard Grandmother Begay’s voice in my head.

I paused a step. When did I start thinking of Ruby Begay as Grandmother? She wasn’t my grandmother.

Pushing the troubling thought aside I changed my direction to make for the guys. The two ladies, still a few yards from their husbands, caught sight of me. Which one? I mimed at them.

The friend gestured to the tallest one, with blond hair, cool blue eyes, and a superior smile. He was trying to dominate the conversation, making his friends acknowledge that he was leader.

I headed for him. A couple of the men in the small group saw me coming. They showed interest—of course they did. I was cute, young, wearing a tight blue dress with shimmering sequins, and I wasn’t married to them.

One said, “Hey, darling, what’s your rush?”

I ignored him. I pretended to trip and banged right into Allan the Dickhead.

He looked down at me with scorn that quickly turned to lechery as he steadied me on my feet. “Careful, honey.” He looked me up and down and said, “Out of curiosity, are you Asian?”

A lot of people mistook Indians for Asians. Thank that land bridge in Alaska so many eons ago. “Chinese,” I lied.

“I like Chinese,” another of them quipped. “Got any fortune cookies, honey?”

Could they disparage any more races at the same time? They were all dickheads.

Janet would be proud of me, because I did not toast the whole group and dust their ashes off my hands. I kept to my objective and turned away, tossing a little smile over my shoulder as I went.

“Sorry, dudes. See ya.”

As I passed the two ladies on my way to the card tables I slipped Allan’s phone, which I’d lifted from his coat pocket, to the friend—she’d make sure crying girl followed my advice.

“You can do so much better than those assholes,” I said. “Hey, come partying with me—we’ll find us some sweet guys and go dancing.”

Both shook their heads, as I knew they would. They were too afraid to break free at the moment, but I’d planted the idea in their heads. They had a spark of defiance in their eyes as they regarded the cluster of men, who were busy looking at me, not their wives, the shitheads.

Those guys were so screwed, and they didn’t even know it yet. I laughed as I sauntered away. Mission accomplished.

And then I saw him. Not so much him as the aura of black, white, and brilliant red that wrapped him like a cloak. The power washing off him—a blast of Earth magic like I’ve never felt before—brushed against my Beneath magic and sent every nerve buzzing.

I’d found him.

The dragon slayer. Right in front of me.