A large table spanned the space to my right, and the eight filled spaces save one flickered with holograms of varying strengths. The other was a gaunt man with graying hair, loose skin, and spindly hands resting on the table.
“No, no, Burke…” Elliot sat at the head of the table, his hologram the strongest of the group, barely flickering. “No hands on the table for those here in the flesh. You know the rules.”
“What are you going to do about it?” the man sneered. “You’re too chicken to show your face. All of you are.”
“What is there to fear? No one sitting at this table in the flesh is worth half a thought,” said a young man with a snooty voice, blonde hair parted pristinely to the right, wearing a perfectly knotted bow tie the basajaun really should study.
The woman in red closed the door after Cyra before leading Austin and me to the two empty chairs next to each other, in between two holograms. Cyra would apparently need to stand behind us.
“Is it Jane culture to be late?” asked a man opposite Austin’s place, his face pulled tight like a rubber band. Clearly he lacked the ability to pull off a convincing magical illusion and had chosen to pay a plastic surgeon. White hair crawled out of his ears and nose.
“Yes,” I said as Austin pulled out the chair for me and waited for me to sit. “It’s called fashionably late. Do you not have TVs in the magical world? That’s not a new term.”
Elliot rested his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers, watching me as Austin sat down.
The man across from me didn’t take his hands off the table, and the corner of his upper lip pulled back from his teeth as he watched Austin.
“Since when do we allow animals at the table?” asked a mage with reddish hair and thin lips, seated next to Elliot. It looked like someone had been about to blow freckles onto his face like pixie dust and then accidentally sneezed. I pegged him for late twenties. At least, he looked that age. I had no idea what age any of these people actually were, since they could probably all mess with their appearance, with magic or money.
I breathed through my mouth and closed my eyes, forcing down my instinctive reaction to hearing any insults to Austin.
“One day soon, I don’t think anyone will say that to their faces, Noah.” Elliot smiled behind his steepled fingers. “Burke, I will only ask you once more: please follow the rules and remove your hands.”
Burke huffed, staring at Austin, and then slowly removed his hands from the table.
I turned to Austin. “I really wasn’t worried about it, were you?”
Austin placed his napkin in his lap before meeting Burke’s stare with a pulse of primal aggression and power. It slammed into Burke so hard that he jolted. His eyes widened and he sat back in his chair like he was in a very fast car and the driver had just slammed the gas pedal.
“No,” Austin said with an extra hint of gravel in his voice.
“And why would you be?” Elliot said as a side door opened and two service people in red coats walked in carrying bottles of wine. “Those of you who are joining us from the comfort of your…quarters, or wherever you had to hunker down in order to cast your soul’s shadow into this room—please, synchronize your dinners with us. It doesn’t work when some of us are eating and some are not.”
The people in the red coats split up, one walking toward Austin and me while the other went around the table to serve Burke. I leaned back in my chair to make it easier for her to pour.
Cyra stepped forward immediately, pushing between me and the person next to me, a chubby man in a light gray suit, sticking her butt into his hologram as she reached for the wine. “I got it.”
“Meet the phoenix, everyone,” Elliot said. “Cyra.”
Cyra straightened up, her nose in my glass, inhaling deeply. She swirled it, nodded, and held up her finger for the service person pouring Austin’s glass. “I’ll have one of these too, please.”
“Yes, of course,” Elliot said. “I would never pass up an opportunity to serve a legendary creature such as yourself. After we discuss business, we’ll happily make room for another animal at the table. Or do you count as something different? I can never tell how this stuff goes.”
Cyra shrugged as she tasted, lowering the glass slowly. “Hmm, that is very good.” She set it down in front of me. “Wait a moment. If I don’t die, you may drink.”
“I would never destroy such a great power as yours, Miss Ironheart. You have no need to worry,” Elliot said.
Noah snorted.
“Did you have a comment, Noah?” Elliot asked, hands still steepled.
“Forgive me. I thought you were telling a joke. Since…” Noah gestured at me.
“No, Noah, please. Enlighten us. I’m sure Miss Ironheart would dearly like to hear your thoughts on her…setup.”
Noah frowned and looked at the other hologram mages down the table, each of them smirking, snickering, or, in the case of the man who’d been reading the paper in the lobby earlier in the day, blankly staring. Noah shook his head. “Isn’t it obvious? When she’s not being a Jane, she’s one of them stinky gargoyles, and she has filthy animals around all the time. She doesn’t even have the power to cast a soul shadow. She’s a hot piece of ass, but—”
Rage blistered through the link, and it wasn’t mine this time. Every muscle on Austin’s large frame went taut. His jaw clenched. He slowly clasped his hands in his lap, his stare of death beating a promise into Noah’s head.
The situation would have been very precarious for Noah if he’d been present in the flesh. And he knew it. His mouth clicked shut and his eyes widened, just like Burke’s had.
Actually, just like Burke’s were doing again. Still leaning back in his chair, he lost what little color he’d had left.
I sipped my wine, basking in the glow of Austin’s rage, something within me purring at the feel of it.
“Yes, they are something, aren’t they, these shifters?” Elliot said.
The appetizers were brought in, and the server put one plate each in front of Austin and me.
“Here we have, mini cornbread crab cakes with a lemon-caper sauce,” she said softly.
“Thank you,” I said, setting down my glass. Cyra drifted up, on Austin’s side this time, sticking her butt in the fairly weak hologram of a man who looked old enough to be Father Time’s brother.
“Now. The subject that has been on everyone’s mind and all over social media for the past month…” Elliot pulled his hands away and leaned back, being served wherever he was. The others did the same. Once settled, he picked up utensils that didn’t show in his hologram and cut into something off screen. “Why are you here?” He smiled and popped a bit of nothing into his mouth, like a mime. The others followed suit, and suddenly I was mighty uncomfortable. Mimes had never been my favorite, although I guessed it wasn’t as big of a deal, since these guys could still talk.
Cyra finished her bite of Austin’s crab cake and tried one of mine. “Hmm.” She nodded as she chewed. “Very good. I have the best job there is.”
“Okay, but…” I picked up my fork and knife. “The wine I get, but if they poisoned the crab cakes, they could’ve poisoned only one of them, hoping it wasn’t the one you actually tried. You’d only have a one in five shot of tasting the poisoned one.”