A perky blonde dressed in jeans that looked as if they had been painted on vaulted down the steps.
“The videos of him carrying that dumb bitch out of the Dead City were awesome,” she said. “They’re making a movie, you know. It’s going to be called Guild Boss.”
“Language, dear,” her mother said.
The blonde ignored her and hurried forward to meet Gabriel.
“I heard the foolish woman did some weird drugs in the Underworld and never recovered,” an elderly man announced. “They had to lock her up in a para-psych ward, I believe.”
“She should have done jail time, if you ask me,” a woman declared. “Forcing that brave Guild man to risk his own life to rescue her when it was her fault she got into trouble in the first place. Outrageous. There should be consequences for that sort of irresponsibility.”
“Don’t worry,” Lucy said softly. “There were consequences. Lots of consequences. I can give you a list.”
But no one paid any attention. They were too busy hurrying off the bus to meet Gabriel.
The last member of the tour group lumbered down the steps and joined the others clustered around Gabriel.
The perky blonde smiled at Gabriel. “Hi, Mr. Jones. My name is Amie. Do you know who is going to play you in Guild Boss?”
“Play me?” Gabriel said.
“In the movie.”
“I didn’t know there was a movie,” Gabriel said.
“They’re casting for it now,” the blonde informed him. “The title is Guild Boss.”
“I see,” Gabriel said. He looked at Lucy across the heads of the crowd. “That’s interesting.”
Another young woman studied Gabriel with an assessing look. “What happened to the woman you rescued?”
“Good question,” Gabriel said. He did not take his eyes off Lucy.
She pretended not to see him and climbed back onto the bus to make the sweep of the seats. Someone always left something behind.
Fortunately, none of the tour group so much as glanced back at her. People saw what they expected to see, and no one expected to see the drunk, drugged-up, irresponsible woman Gabriel had carried out of the Underworld driving a tour bus.
It helped that she had cut her hair and now wore it in a sleek, sharply angled bob. In addition, she was dressed in the Storm Zone Adventure Tours uniform: khaki trousers, white shirt, and boots. Her dark glasses and the brim of a rakish expedition hat partially obscured her face.
In the news videos and the photos that had hit the front pages of the papers after she had returned from the Underworld, she had been wearing the bridesmaid gown and her stilettos. Her long, dark hair had been a tousled tangle. All in all, she had been the perfect picture of a silly woman who had gotten drunk at the wedding reception, done some drugs, and wandered into the Dead City, where she had proceeded to get lost in the tunnels.
For once she did not find a pair of sunglasses or a kid’s backpack under the seats. That was a good thing, because she would not have to leave the bus and find the owner of the lost item in the crowd around Gabriel.
She had not received a single tip. Just one more thing to blame on Illusion Town’s new Guild boss. Her only hope now was that most of the people who had taken the tour would pick up a souvenir in the gift shop. She got a small commission from the sale of toy dust bunnies.
The crowd around Gabriel was finally thinning. Luckily, several people headed for the gift shop. That would mean at least a few sales. Otis, however, was perched on Gabriel’s shoulder and showed no sign of abandoning his position.
“Traitor,” Lucy muttered.
Apparently, unlike humans, dust bunnies did not know how to hold a grudge.
She sat down behind the wheel and rezzed the engine. The tour she had just escorted through the Storm Zone was the last one of the day. Time to park the bus for the night.
She reached for the lever that closed the doors.
Gabriel and Otis were suddenly on the bottom step. So much for trying to shut the doors.
“Hello, Lucy,” Gabriel said.
His voice was exactly as she remembered it—compelling, thrilling. It was a voice she heard in her dreams. She also heard it in her nightmares.
“Oh, hello.” She managed her brightest smile, the one she reserved for the tourists. “Welcome to Illusion Town, Mr. Jones. Congratulations on the promotion. I understand you’re the director of our new Guild. As you can see, we’re all terribly excited. We’ve never had our very own Guild headquarters.”
“This town hasn’t needed the Guild until recently.” Gabriel lounged in the doorway. “The discovery of the Ghost City has changed the situation. Lot of work going on in the Underworld near here now. That requires increased security.”