Unanswered Prayers-Book 6 Of The Mad Mad World Series

Chapter 7

I chased Richard and Ollie out of our hotel room, telling them that I needed a bit of peace and quiet before we went down to the party. They went with some protest, but in the end I had the room to myself. Richard was halfway dressed save for his boots and jacket; I'd shoved them into his arms, saying, "Go bother Till or Flake for a few minutes, okay? I'll meet you all downstairs in twenty minutes."

"Come on Richard, Lilly's got that look in her eyes," Ollie said dragging my protesting heart-mate out the door. I'd told him, and only him, what I'd planned for this last evening with everyone earlier in the day, right after sound check. He'd grinned, saluted me and went to talk to his tech. If anyone could keep a secret, it was Ollie.

Once I was sure of my privacy, I unzipped a 'hidden' side compartment in my larger suitcase. It was underneath a false bottom and I'd found it very handy to store what I'd bought several months back when Khira Li and Nele had been over to visit and we'd gone shopping. Carefully extracting the silky garment bag and a couple other smaller bags, I pulled the clothes out of them and hung everything up to get a good look at what I was planning to wear. I'd had the wardrobe crew iron out the few wrinkles my outfit had managed to get despite it hanging up in a rarely-used part of one of the wardrobe trunks, and had put all of the outfit on earlier that day to make sure the hems were straight and I had all the bits and bobs that went under it in place. With a happy sigh, I stripped out of my jeans and shirt, pulled my hair up and out of the way, and went to work. Makeup, putting my hair into something less chaotic looking and a final spritz of perfume took less than ten minutes. I put my ID, my cell phone and a few other things in my favorite clutch purse that looked like a large Faberge egg on a thin, delicate silver chain, and took one last look in the mirror hanging from the bathroom door.

"Showtime, I think," I murmured, then left the room in a cloud of hairspray and spice-and-citrus perfume.

The ballroom our final post-show party was set up in was on a level you needed a key card to get into. As I was running my card through the reader, a sudden flash of heat/cold/anger/pain went through me top to toe. I staggered back against the wall, forcing my knees to lock and spine to stay straight. The flare was gone as quickly as it had come on and for a moment, I thought I'd been imagining things. That it was so much like the flare I'd aimed at Richard a few days earlier told me nope, it had been a real event.

::Lilly! Are you okay? Did you feel that too?::

::That wasn't one of you, was it Flake?::

::Thankfully not. It came from someone in the building but nowhere near us. I tried following the remains of whatever that was and it's definitely coming from a person in the building. A guy, as far as I could sense before everything went dead. Bastard!:: Flake snapped.

::Is everyone okay?::

:For the most part. Ollie's kind of nauseated as he gave me a boost to track down what I could and I'm a little dizzy but nothing major. I'll tell you something interesting, some of the normals were affected too::

::What? You're kidding!:: I said.

::Nope. I saw a handful of people suddenly look like they'd been smacked in the face the second the rest of us felt that flare. It only lasted a few heartbeats but I noticed it. Whoever's the cause of that is more than likely the same person who's made us all edgy and prodded Richard into fighting with Schneider::

::Wonderful. Just what we need. Damn it, for once I'd like to be able to enjoy myself without worrying there's some idiot out there messing with us!:: I snapped.