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"Oh, that" He shrugged "I heard a couple say it et in as much trouble asuh, that is, they didn’t seem too bothered about it If you knohat I mean"

"I knohat youwith creatures hundreds of years old, who took things in stride Vampires were hard to impress, but they were also hard to rattle I felt my spine relax a little as one fear evaporated, at least

"Of course, they’re a little worried that thisto kill you more But I told theods couldn’t take you out, who are they gonna send? It’d have to be so really dangerous--"

"Like a trio of coven witches?"

Fred blinked "Naw," he finally said "There’s only three of theonna off you, they’d probably have sent more than that"

"Thanks," I said sourly "That makes me feel a lot better"

"I’onna wear?"

"I don’t know" I started looking through the dresses again, but they were hopeless, oddess-y And while I wanted to dress to i on Prince Charreed, slurping coffee "But I bet Augustine has so about the best--according to hiner around His boutique occupied the largest of the overpriced shops in the drag downstairs

"Well, yeah But he was just sending regular party stuff I bet he has soustine closed at six And no as I up to shifting back a couple of hours to try to catch the great man before he left

"No problem," Fred said, suddenly businesslike "What size do you wear?"

"Anywhere fro on the outfit But it doesn’t ustine closes at--"

"Yeah, I know What color you want?"

"White But you can’t get in, and he doesn’t live around here And by the ti he’d even do that for ht not like it, but he’d do it Have you seen his sign lately?"

"What sign?"

"The one outside his shop The one that says ‘Couturier to the Pythia’ He left off the official part, but it’s i I should have known Augustine wasn’t being generous He wasn’t known for the softer e a mint off all the wealthy women ant to dress like you," Fred added

I blinked at hihed "Point is, he’s in no position to complain We’ll just take e need, and let him know tomorrow If he puts up a fuss, you can tell hin down"

"Yeah, but you aren’t listening to et in"

"Wanna bet?"

It tookat "No," I said sternly "We can’t"

"Fifty bucks? Or do you want to h Didn’t you hear about those guys last week?"

"What guys?"

"Two teens with sticky fingers tried to rip off soustine spelled theet stuck"

Fred’s forehead wrinkled "To what?"

"To everything He did some spell thatstuck, it didn’t couys turned up at the end of the day, sobbing and freaked out, dragging achair, sorocery cart full of stuff"

"Well, that don’t sound so--"

"And the ho him over the head with a rolled-up newspaper" They’d been stuck together all day, since the guy had grabbed the kid’s are

"Oh Well, yeah, that would kind of--"

"And he was the lucky one They had to pry another guy off a taxi--after it went ten blocks!"

Fred’s lips pursed "Ten’s not so bad if you’re just riding along on the trunk or so behind! He’s just lucky it was a bad traffic day, and they weren’t going too fast"