Love Is in the Air (23 page)

Before she could argue, Tyr tore the other sleeve off. The shift was still salvageable, though. Then he ripped a strip out from the skirt. The dress was officially ruined.

“It suited you not.”

Sal felt on the verge of tears. “Then what would? A witch’s robe?”

Tyr gave her his by-now-patented sideways glare.

Anxiously, she looked over to the nearly bare rack. The only other options were the slinky cocktail dress or the gaudy Vegas number.

“What am I going to do?”

Tyr’s jaw clenched. “Hold.”

CHAPTER 74

Sal tried to look down at the piecemeal dress that Tyr was putting together out of bits and pieces of all the other costumes, but he put a finger under her chin and lifted it back up.

Frustrated, she growled, “The boat’s going to dock any second.”

“Is patience not a virtue taught at your elders’ feet?”

“Oh, do not get me started.”

But a grin played at the edge of his lips. For all his stoicism, Tyr seemed to be enjoying having her under his tutelage way too much.

“Put these on,” he said as he handed her a pair of vinyl boots. When last she had seen them, they were Madonna-gaudy. Stripper quality, but somehow Tyr had weathered them in such a way they were not only aged, but tasteful as well.

He wouldn’t allow her to kneel, so his strong hands pulled the zipper up her calf. It was a good thing that the usher hadn’t come with them.

She really couldn’t have kept a straight face.

“It is done,” he stated.

Sal rushed to the mirror and stumbled to a stop, shocked at what she found in the reflection.

Somehow, some way, Tyr had transformed the drabbest of dresses into the most exotic of gowns. Using the shift as scaffolding, he used the silk from the Monroe dress for the sleeves. The beading from the Liberace number crisscrossing her midsection not only glammed it up, but beautifully defined her waist. And the skirt? He’d taken the gossamer blues and greens and made a scarf skirt of unparalleled beauty.

Sal couldn’t help but turn to and fro. The delicate material spread outward like a blossoming flower. Grateful to the point of tears, she looked at Tyr.

“My thane arose from a people who called no land home.”

She didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

Tenderly, he pulled her hair up off her neck. “They called themselves the Romani.” Tyr used a set of beads that matched her midriff to tame her long, dark locks. “Like a dead blood, they travel the world without apology.”

The finishing touch came in the form of a single strand of silver with a pearl-drop pendant. After clasping the lock, he stood back, appreciating her in the mirror. She felt her cheeks burn under his scrutiny.

After what seemed like a century, he broke his stare.

Tyr offered his arm. “If it pleases the lady.”

Sal wrapped her arm through his.

It pleased the lady very much.

CHAPTER 75

Sal hesitated at the top of the plank. They were the last to disembark, but still, she hesitated. She wasn’t ready for the pageantry onshore. This year, the planning committee had pulled out all the stops. The steep path up the hillside to the prison was not only lined by torches, but trumpeters as well. Tyr urged her forward. “The beast awaits no one.”

He was right. They made their way off the boat and passed under the torchlit path, trumpets announcing their arrival. The switchback trail up “the Rock” was nearly as steep as the university campus. In heels this time.

Her annoyance was quickly dispelled as they crested the ridge to look down upon the gala. Tents upon gaily colored tents dotted the otherwise rocky hillside. The bright colors stretched as far as the eye could see, while the normally austere, hulking, three-story prison had been transformed into a medieval castle. Torches lined the “ramparts,” and banners fluttered along the edge of the roof. Quite a difference from the usual tour. Even the old lighthouse on the far side of the island glistened like a silver spire.

Roaming performers entertained the revelers. In the distance a “fire-eater” spewed flames high into the sky. Closer, two warriors clashed in simulated battle. And attendance? There must have been over a thousand people scattered over the island. It was all too much.

A cluster of partygoers had formed at the entrance, clapping as new guests entered the grounds. When it was finally their turn to enter, the applause died off. Suddenly self-conscious, Sal felt herself pull inward, away from the embarrassment that she had dared to think that she was something she could never be, if for even a night.

But then a collective exclamation burst from the crowd, and everyone gathered around the pair.

“Where did you get that dress?” “Is it a designer gown?” “Were the boots from Bloomingdale’s?”

The questions were too many, and came too quickly, for her to answer a single one. Women, and a few men, looked jealous of her, or at least of the man at her side. Sal was so unused to such attention that she wasn’t sure if she liked it.

Just as she was starting to feel overwhelmed, Tyr gently backed the crowd away. “My lady has pressing duties. If you might excuse her?”

That laughter again, as they assumed that Tyr was just that good an actor.

Once past the press at the entrance, the gala spread out into the night. A light breeze kicked up the fire pits and fluttered the edges of the tents. It would have been perfect, if they didn’t have to find one scientist out of a veritable sea of revelers and then save him from a deadly beast.

CHAPTER 76

Sal stopped the first jester she saw. “Do you know where the San Francisco State contingency is hanging out?”

The guy’s Bronx accent sounded weird coming out from under his belled cap. “Athletics or Academic?”

“Academic.”

As he shrugged, his entire costume tinkled. “Sorry. I just saw the football team on the far side of the prison playing some medieval game where they hit cones with a stick.”

“Shinty,” Tyr stated as he scanned the crowd.

“Yeah, that is what they called it.”

Yep, chalk up another person who was impressed by Tyr.

“Thanks. If you happen to see a short, Asian physicist, could you tell him that we’re looking for him?”

The tinkling shrug again. “Sure.”

“We’re—”

“The hot gypsy couple. I’ve got it dialed in.”

They suffered through a few similar interactions without getting any useful information. The more they mingled, the more impossible their task appeared. Every college or university within a fifty-mile radius was in attendance. They were trying to find a professor in a haystack full of academia.

Yet the average partygoer didn’t seem to know the difference between the scientific disciplines. For example, she knew a group of historians were inside the prison critiquing the medieval torture chambers that had been set up by the wax museum. Some chemists were poking around the other side of the island at the fireworks setup trying to figure out the payload of the explosives used to launch the displays.

All very interesting, but none of it bringing them closer to Lionel.

Searching the crowd, Sal spotted two men dressed as knights, hacking their way through feigned combat. A grin formed at their folly. She’d seen enough real fighting to know that if the taller warrior left his side open like that in battle, the beast would have opened his abdomen with a single swipe across the midsection.

The man glanced her way. He must have misinterpreted her smile, because he started really hamming it up, drawing their fake clash toward her.

“Forsake your cause!” he yelled. “Or I shall take this damsel hostage.”

Sal watched in horror as the knight aimed toward her. She wanted to slow time and shout for him to stop, but it all happened too quickly.

The second that his sword became even a fake threat, Tyr grabbed the man by his hair, yanked his head back and exposed his neck. Holding his very sharp knife to the knight’s pulsing jugular, Tyr’s bicep flexed.

Finally, she found her voice.

“Don’t!” she screamed, clutching his arm and trying to pull the blade away. “He didn’t mean it. He was just acting.” Tyr glared at her, but she nodded vigorously. “He meant no harm.”

Sal could tell that Tyr believed her, yet he didn’t release the man.

Instead, he leaned over and hissed into his ear, “Upon threat of death, aim no blade at a lady. Unless you wish to enjoy a slow, painful letting of your blood ‘til the last, never bear one at her. Are my words stark enough?”

The man nodded, careful to avoid cutting his own neck against the knife. Tyr didn’t really release him as much as shove him to his knees. The man choked and sputtered.

“Sorry, man. My bad. I didn’t see the rock on her finger.”

They both looked at Richard’s engagement ring.

Tyr’s face clouded over, and he turned on his heel, plowing into the crowd, scattering revelers in his path.

“I’m so sorry,” Sal muttered to the performer.

“No problem. Matter of fact,” the man yelled as she followed Tyr, “do you think he’d be interested in working our next gig?”

CHAPTER 77

Picking up her skirt, Sal broke into a trot as she caught up with the long-strided Tyr. He could put on some distance if he wanted to. Finally, a gaggle of belly dancers blocked his path.

She touched his arm, but Tyr growled, “Do not.”

Her hand fell away as the diamond of another man’s engagement ring glittered in the torchlight. “Tyr…”

His jaw muscles worked overtime. Were they really going to have this conversation? Here? Now?

“I must get away from…” He shook his head. “From this gaiety. Cast a sooth. Find the beast. Face him as a man, not as a lady’s consort.”

“Tyr,” she sighed. How could so much unspoken fill the air with such noise? Sal opened her mouth to elaborate when a cluster of young men captured her attention.

They looked like characters straight out of The
Lord of the Rings
. Well, if anyone from Middle Earth had ever been a geek. Groping behind her, she grabbed Tyr’s hand as she headed toward the LOTR-fest.

“Did I not—?”

Sal ignored his protest as she made a beeline for the Elvish group. “Are you guys physicists?”

They were all clearly startled that a female of any sort was talking to them, let alone one of childbearing age.

“Um, some of us, yeah,” the one with the blond Legolas wig stammered.

“Advanced mathematical theory, specializing in discrete mathematical modeling,” the Gimli lookalike added.

The one that was supposed to be Aragorn couldn’t even find his voice.

“SFSU?”

The elf looked defeated. “Naw, Stanford.”

Gimli must have seen the disappointment on her face. “But hey, if you want some question about the origin of the universe answered, we’re your guys.”

“Sorry, but I kind of had my heart set on Lionel.”

“Hing?” Aragorn finally figured out how to speak.

Sal focused on him. “Yes.”

Not to be outdone, Legolas thumbed at the towering prison. “He and some guy from UC Berkeley got into an argument about a sliding door that an inmate supposedly opened with his mind. But the Oski said the prisoner must have used some low volatile liquid that he made out of soap to pop the lock.”

That sounded like something right up Lionel’s alley.

“So Hing’s inside?”

Gimli nudged the elf out of the way. “I can show you.”

She gave the best kind, but dismissive, smile that she could. “No, thanks.”

Sal swung around to find Tyr already heading toward the prison’s entrance. Damn it, she was going to have to run after him again. Then Tyr paused. His tall frame turned back, waiting.

Waiting for
her
.

CHAPTER 78

Sal had toured Alcatraz more times than she cared to count. You couldn’t avoid it if you lived in the City. It wasn’t like she wanted to make the trip across the bay that often, but anytime a friend came in from out of town, it was the first place that he or she wanted to visit.

As her heels clicked against the cement floor, Sal could see why. The federal prison could both repulse and compel. Who
didn’t
want to see Al Capone’s bunk? Or tour the cell that inspired the film
Escape from
Alcatraz
?

There weren’t many places left where people could literally walk through history. Have it above, on each side, and beneath one’s feet.

Even under daylight conditions, the prison gave off a creepy energy. To think of the brutality suffered within these walls! But tonight? Tonight, the walls oozed with downright malice.

Sure, she’d been here on sunny days, foggy days, and during a rainstorm, but never under torchlight. The dull, barren prison environment had been transformed into a medieval dungeon. The torch’s flickering reds and oranges cast shadows down the long central passageway. Looking up, Sal glanced at the two stories looming above them. The multitude of cells pressed down upon her. She imagined being a guard walking the main hall, having every prisoner in the place able to glare down at her. It sent gooseflesh up her arms.

But now? With the torchlight and the third floor mired in shadows?

What had once been a sterile passage had become a foreboding gauntlet.

For on each side, the ground-floor cells had been converted into hideous torture chambers. Wax figures on loan from Ripley’s Believe it or Not! Museum played the victim to every type of agony known to man. Some were hung upside down, others had the screws put to them, and the rack… Sal couldn’t even look in that cell.

She wasn’t naïve about suffering. She’d grown up in the Mission District and worked at an inner-city ER. Tonight, it felt different. With the beast on the prowl, these cells weren’t just a historical account of torture, but a prediction of the night’s pain and anguish.

No matter her misgivings, everyone else seemed to be enjoying the show. Bejeweled duchesses and armored dukes toured the horrors. As she and Tyr passed by the cluster of historians arguing over the veracity of the displays, one of them flagged him down.

“You there. You look…” the woman said offhandedly, then surveyed Tyr’s bulging biceps, suddenly becoming self-conscious. “Look… um, surprisingly era-appropriate.”