I couldn't help wincing on behalf of my maybe-baby sister, Lilith. "It was a job. Apparently I made a good impression in it."

"Nudity and gore work rating wonders. A magician's assistant, on the other hand, works hard. She has to be smart, strong, and supple."

"I can do that."

"And the dog?"

"Smart, strong, and fanged."

He sighed hard enough to distract me, then stepped back from the door to let us in. "My act doesn’t need some T and A ratings upswing."

T and A meant tits and ass, and I sure didn't like being reduced to that formula. "I haven't seen it, but I don't doubt it."

"Then why are you here?"

"I wasn’t asked."

His hands knotted in front of him. Then he looked at me for the first time and flicked his bronze eyelashes upward.

Observed, of course.

"Where do we rehearse?” I asked, thinking that might be private.

He shook his head slightly. "On stage, during the day. We'll have lots of time," he said, bitterly.

I recognized what he really meant. Later, we'll have time to really talk. He seemed to be as monitored as I was but maybe he'd learned a way around it. A magician would.

I didn't want to believe that this he-man magician had been as easily corralled as I had, because, if so, then my particular goose was royally cooked and garlanded with cranberry sauce as runny and, like Snow White's lips, as red as blood.

Rehearsals began that very day. A leotard and tights, rose pink, had appeared in my closet. From noon to 4 pm Madrigal and I worked out.

"You're too tall, too heavy, too busty, too clumsy," Madrigal said when he saw me clothed in neck-to-ankle Spandex that made me feel way too naked.

We weren't alone during this embarrassing summation. A tiny doll of a girl in a white outfit like mine hung back in the wings, watching us.

"Syl," Madrigal called with an extravagant bow and arm gesture. She came running onstage as lightly as a forever pre-pubescent ballerina. Her hair was Swedish white-blond and her skin had the sugary glow of a pastel gumdrop in blended Easter candy colors, lavender, white, yellow, pink. She was the born sugarplum fairy.

For the next hour I watched her curl into a box that seemed no more than a square foot in dimension and squeeze into six-inch false backs behind deceptive magical cabinets. Syl was triple-jointed, fairy-like, and astounding. She not only collapsed every joint in her body, she coiled into herself like a Slinky. She was also mute, I finally figured out. And her full name paid tribute to her physical plasticity: Sylphia. Emphasis on the PHEE as in a form of Sofia. Which meant wisdom in the ancient world. Or maybe the phee in her name was for fey.

Whatever, I watched them work together in awe and shame.

Lilith and I were an insulting replacement for Sylphia's abilities and artistry, bit players who should have stayed on the bottom fifth of the Screen Actors Guild membership list. But here we were with our shiny cheap media magic and had to perform.

That first afternoon Madrigal taught me to curl into a fetal bundle as small as my stiff and medium-boned frame could manage, but when I had to do it in a lady-sawed-in half box, I freaked from the dark confinement.

Sylphia fluttered to my side, tiny hands soothing my shaking shoulders. Her face was a mime's mask of heartfelt sympathy. I looked into her pale almond eyes and wondered, was she an enforced worker here too? Was Madrigal?

He unpeeled her from me with gentle fingers, then un-pretzeled me not quite so gently.

Madrigal seemed major upset. With me, with the situation. I couldn't blame him. Nobody professional wanted an amateur for a partner. We split for the dressing rooms. I tried not to watch Syl shed her leotard and tights like a paper cocoon. Mine were sweaty and seemed glued to my tense, damp skin.

A knock on the door revealed Madrigal, already changed into thick green terrycloth, the house robe.

Syl's thin eyelashes fluttered distress as he beckoned me out, silently.

He was our fearless leader. I followed.

He walked me into his private dressing room and then the shower, turned on the water, and tested it on his wrist as if warming milk for a baby. Then he pulled the opaque glass door shut as water pattered inside. He stripped off my leotard and tights with one long gesture, not bothering to watch as I hopped, naked, to free my bare feet from the snarl of Spandex. He dropped his terrycloth robe, yanked open the door on a cloud of steam, and stepped in with me before I could register anything but a wall of caramel-colored skin. Luckily, the shower was so frothy neither of us could see much but hot mist. Nor could anybody else, even a spy camera.

"They can't hear us in here," Madrigal murmured in my ear, his hand on my elbow.

I flailed a bit, still freaked by our sudden nude tete-a-tete.

"This is the only way. The werewolves revere human mating rituals. They only mate once a month in furred form. Naked human lust 24/7 inspires them. They'll assume our presumed union will guarantee your continuing cooperation."

Oh.

Madrigal pulled me more closely under the shower's hot tropical rain. He also pulled me closer against him. I didn't want to think how nice all this wet heat and slippery skin felt after the frigid uncertainty of being snatched from the Las Vegas streets and forced to turn myself into a human Windsor knot.

"I hear your name is Maggie," he said.

"Lilah," I corrected. I was starting to split personalities, not wanting to pass as my maybe-sister, not willing to be fully answerable as myself.

"You're too solid for this profession," he said, "but Cicereau only expects me to make a show of you, not a true performer. Neither of us deserves to be a pawn in the were-packs' game."

He was pretty, oh, solid himself.

Gad! I'd put myself in a position where my new sensual self was bereft and alone. Who wouldn’t welcome an ally in this situation? Who human? So what was Madrigal? Better question, who was I? Was it normal to be a little edgy yet excited when suddenly naked with an attractive stranger in a tropical steam bath of a shower? Pardon me for not knowing. They didn't teach us anything about this at Our Lady of the Lake Convent School. In fact, I couldn't remember much that they had taught us at OLLCS. While I was dithering, my trip back down Amnesia Lane pretty much killed any knee-jerk libido I had left.

What remained were the usual mysteries and insecurities, hints and allegations. Sure, my background was weird and isolated, but I'd managed to pass as a smart, savvy cookie since college. Trouble was, I had no idea what "normal" was. I did realize that I had pretty much shut down any sexual outreach or input after whatever bad had happened, whenever and wherever that was.

In the real, working world, I'd learned to look good for the camera and pass unmolested through all inter-sexual social situations. My aloofness only made me more attractive, more of a "challenge," to the wrong guys. I'd never met any right guys until Ric. And now-hot dog! – every guy, except goons, hitmen, and werewolf CEOs, seemed sort of right if I didn't get too picky or wigged out.

While I was doing all this useless navel-gazing, I suddenly saw that I really was seeing my own navel through the mists of steam. And a lot of naked and tattooed Madrigal standing behind me.

I put out my palm until it hit a barrier and married with its own image. The surface I touched was cool, smooth, and solid glass. Mirror. So why was it cold when the shower stall and steam were so overheated?

I had stepped close enough that there wasn’t much mist veiling me anymore. I ran my palm down over my reflected image in a hopeless gesture of self-defense.