"Thanks," I said to the waitress as she waved toward a table and shoved a small menu in my hands.

"You will please to read the rules. English is on the be-hind," she said in a heavy French accent.

"Rules? Oh, like the cover charge and stuff? Sure." I flipped' the menu over, and the sane world I so desper-ately clung to quickly took a nosedive.

G & T IS A NEUTRAL GROUND. PLEASE FOLLOW THE RULES:

L No summoning minions of any form, persua-sion, or origin.

2. No wards are to be drawn within the club, either protective or otherwise.

3. Glamours are strictly prohibited. No exceptions will be allowed.

4. Patrons who squash imps will please scrape up the mess and deposit the remains in the imp bucket.

BEINGS AND ENTITIES WHO DISREGARD THE RULES WILL BE SUMMARILY DEALT WITH BY THE VENEDIGER.

"Ooookay," I said, wondering for the millionth time that day when life would return to my previously sched-uled program. I glanced up at the waitress. She was clearly waiting for something. "Er… I agree?"

That was evidently it, because she nodded and headed toward the bar.

I sat back, leaning against the chair as I took a few deep breaths, struggling to come to grips with some very profound thoughts. Amelie was right. What I thought was unreal had turned out to be very real. Even six hours of sleep back at my hotel hadn't been able to wipe away the knowledge that Something Had Changed. Whether it was me or the world, I didn't know, and at that moment, I didn't care. All I knew is that I had been sucked into a weird version of Wonderland, but that didn't mean I couldn't hold my own. So demons were real, and dragons looked like handsome men with scrumptious bodies and droolworthy voices, and faeries had mammary fetishes. So what? I was still me, and I was a professional.

"I am confident. I am self-assured. I am in control—"

"Are you? How very nice for you. I've never been in control. I've found the world is just so much nicer if you let it go by without bothering too much about it."

A young woman with masses of waist-length curly blond hair stopped in front of me, her blue eyes twinkling with delight. "Did I startle you? I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to, but I heard you speaking English, you see, and it's rare we see Americans in G & T, let alone American Guardians, so I thought I would say hullo. Hullo!"

"Hi," I said. "Er .. . you're English?"

"Yes, Welsh actually, although I can't speak the lan-guage. May I?" She gestured toward the chair opposite me.

"Sorry, please do."

She sat, arranging her diaphanous sea-green skirt care-fully around her as she smiled a nice, normal, pleasant smile. I couldn't help but wonder what she was … wood nymph? Water sprite? Sacrificial virgin?

"My name is Ophelia. Now, don't laugh, Mum was a Shakespearean scholar."

I smiled in return, relaxing. She couldn't be anythingunnatural. She was too nice. "I think Ophelia is a pretty name. I'm Aisling"

"Hullo, Aisling. As for the name, it could be worse— my sister is named Perdita. That's her over there, talking to the Venediger. You look a bit lost. Is this your first time?"

"In France, in Paris, and in this club, yes," I said with a nervous laugh. "Does it show?"

"Only when you smile," she answered. "Well, what can I tell you about G and T? You've read the rules, so you know that this is a neutral ground. Practicers of both the light and dark powers are welcome here because everyone agrees to put their differences aside while in the club. It really is a pleasant place, although you have to watch out for the satyrs after they've had a few drinks. They get a bit grabby."

"Grabby?" I asked, making a silent promise to myself right then and there. No matter what weird things people said to me, no matter how many fantastical concepts were thrown my way, I would be calm and professional. I wouldn't gawk, I wouldn't stare, I wouldn't freak. Brazen it out, that was going to be my motto. Later, when I had time to sort through things, no doubt everything would become clear.

Yeah, likethat's going to happen.

Ophelia wiggled her hands in a recognizable boob-grabbing motion. "Grabby. Other than them, the rest of the regular crowd are fairly well behaved. We have to be—the Venediger wouldn't allow any breach of the rules."

"The Venediger? Uh…" Already I was regretting my promise to play it cool, but I was in too deep to go back to being clueless.

"You really are new, aren't you? The Venediger is the most powerful mage in France. He's a tyrant, really. It's not right one man having so much power, but there's not much any of us can do about it. The

wordVenediger is ac-tually German—I think it means 'man from Venice,' not that Albert is Venetian, but he clings to the old ways. Al-bert Camus is his name, although most of us just call him the Venediger. So much easier to remember, you see."

I didn't see, but I'd just sworn to brazen this through. I was sure that later there would be time to have that quiet nervous breakdown I had contemplated earlier.

Ophelia evidently saw my confusion, because she gave me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "Just remem-ber that he's the one person in all of France with enough power to keep everyone in line. You do not want to cross him."

That sounded more than a little ominous. I looked cu-riously at the man standing next to the woman she pointed out as her sister. He was dressed in a long navy frock coat with matching pants and a beautifully embroi-dered gold vest. It was a strangely elegant, very old-world ensemble. He was middle aged, probably early to mid-fifties, going bald with his shoulder-length black hair caught back in a ponytail. He looked polished and moderately narcissistic, but certainly not like the most powerful mage in France.

I didn't blink over the thought of a real mage, either, which says a lot about how well I was brazening. That or I was completely insane and totally out of touch with re-ality …

"So, where is your portal?"

"Oh. Um. Well, I'm portal-less." Her eyes opened wide in stark surprise. "For the moment," I added quickly, not wanting her to think me careless. Where ex-actly did these portals lead to? And did I really want to know?

Her eyebrows resumed their previous position. "Closed it, did you? You must be a very powerful Guardian if you can close a portal to Abaddon."