Excerpt of Absolutely Captivated by Kristine Grayson

Zoe Sinclair carded three overflowing beer steins toward the darkened comer of the bar, ignoring the catcalls and cries of "Hey, baby, bring 'era over here!" coming from the men at tables around the room. The calls came in perfect counter-point to the beep-beep of the video poker machines lined up against the wall by the door. The cigarette smoke was thick and blue in the low-ceilinged room, and Zoe wouldn't have it any other way.

She was emphatically not a waitress--never had been, never would be, no matter how tight her money got--but she had perfected the three-stein carry in the nineteenth century, when she spent way too much time in German beer gardens, trying to find a secret doorway to Faerie that she'd heard about in Munich. She never found that German doorway, but she had come away with some practical skills, most of them having to do with beer.

O'Hasie's Pub was crowded tonight, which meant that one of the downtown casinos was hosting a major poker tournament. O'Hasie's was on the wrong side of Fremont Street, as far from the Fremont Street Experience as a walker could get.

O'Hasie's catered mainly to the locals, but during major downtown tournaments, the poker players--usually the losing ones--made their way through the drug dealers and hookers who found refuge in this last unDisneyfied section of Vegas, and stopped at O'Hasie's for some refreshment.

If Zoe had remembered that this was the big event, she would have suggested a different bar. But there were so many casinos in Las Vegas now, each with its own round of tournaments and concerts and special events, that she couldn't keep track of any of them.

Whenever Zoe went to a tourist venue, she wore the traditional costume of the traveling American: blue jeans, logo t-shirt, and sneakers. What she usually liked about O'Hasie's was that no tourists ventured close to it (except during major tournaments), and she could dress however she pleased.

Tonight she wore a black skirt with a slit along the side, and a see-through blouse over a black t-shirt. She topped it all with a small black fedora on her chin-length black hair. Certainly not camouflage clothes. The tourists looked at her as if she were a member of Vegas's exotic nightlife.

Zoe managed to make it all the way to the back without spilling a drop--not a mean trick, considering how wobbly her stiletto heels were on the pilled carpet. She skirted around two bulky women in green Fitzgerald's t-shirts, and headed for the booth next to the restrooms.

The booth had the benefit of privacy. It had tall sides made of the original mahogany wood that had once graced O'Hasie's. In the many remodels this bar had undergone since 1955, the mahogany mostly disappeared, except in a few surprising places--this booth, the corridor leading to the restrooms, and an old-fashioned, glass-doored phone cubicle just past the men's room door.

A small, red-shaded lamp glued to the wall above the table gave the booth an even greater air of privacy. From the bar, the patrons sitting in the booth were impossible to see.

But as she stepped across a rip in the carpet that had been there since 1983, the booth came into view. Its red upholstery looked particularly seedy, and the plastic oak- veneer tabletop, which someone had replaced the old wooden tables with four decades ago, had dried water stains that looked orange in the weird light.

Her friends, Herschel and Gaylord, were using two straws to slap a wadded-up straw wrapper back and forth as if it were a hockey puck. They were bent across the table, the game obviously serious, as games always were with the two of them.

They looked enough alike to be brothers, even though they weren't. They both had thick black hair, slightly pointed ears, and slender forms that they tried to hide under heavy leather jackets covered with lots of chains and metal. Lately Herschel had tried to toughen up his pretty face with piercings, but the studs in his nose emphasized its small, perfect shape, and the rings in the eyebrows only served to accent their upswept arch, which made them look like wings. Nothing these two guys could do--not even Gaylord's bruised right eye--could take away from their unearthly beauty.

Zoe set the steins down, then slid one to Herschel and the other to Gaylord. She took the third stein for herself and sat down next to Herschel, adjusting her skirt so the slit didn't show quite as much thigh to the drunk and disappointed poker players.

"You screwed up the arena," Gaylord said, raising his straw as if it were a lance. "You got water all over the playing surface?”

Zoe picked up the crumpled wrapper, rolled it into a perfect ball between her manicured fingertips, and then tossed it into the wastebasket halfway across the room. She hit the basket, but didn't shout Two points! like she normally would have.

Instead, she leaned back in the booth and said, "We've had enough table hockey for the night."

"You know, Zo" Herschel said, tugging on a ring at the corner of his delicate mouth, "there are times yon are no fun at all."

Zoe sipped the foam on her beer, wishing this bar had something more exotic than Heineken on tap. "'I've got two divorces, one insurance fraud case, and one missing dachshund to find, so if you two--"

"Missing dachsund?" Gaylord giggled. The sound was high- pitched and infectious, and caught the attention of the poker players at a nearby table. They looked at Gaylord in shock, probably trying to decide how old he was. When Gaylord giggled like that, he sounded like he was three.

"Zo" Gaylord said, "you're better than finding missing dogs."

"It's my job" Zoe said. "I take the work that interests me."

"Since when did you become a pet detective?" Herschel asked.

Zoe felt a thread of irritation. "Since the client came to my office. Which is where I'm going to go if you two don't tell me why I'm here."

"Zo, Zo, Zo,” Gaylord said. "You should get your money the old-fashioned way. You should conjure it"

He clapped his hands together and stacks of neatly wrapped, hundred-dollar bills littered the tabletop.

"I don't do that," Zoe said. "You know that"

She believed in earning her way through hard work, not magic. Besides, she was a mage, subject to the judgement of the Fates, and the rule of the Powers That Be.