The tiger crouched, within easy paw-swiping distance, and roared a second time.
My heart banged against my ribs like a bird trying to get out. I was too frightened to move, too frightened to scream.
Again, that richly accented voice from off to one side.
“Francois, you are trying my patience!”
A snap-crackle! The kind a sound artist would foley into the big sci-fi epic for the ‘ka-chow’ of the future’s version of the Saturday Night Special. Nothing big, just enough to grab the audience by their hairs and make them sit up in their seats a little.
No, what would’ve made Mr. and Mrs. America pause in the ferrying of popcorn to their mouths wasn’t the sound. It was the result of the snap-crackle, never mind the pop.
The tiger shimmered and turned into an elegantly dressed man with a blonde mop of hair and a faintly amused expression. He addressed someone over my right shoulder.
“Pardon, my sweet…I think the form just carried me away tonight. Ooh, it does get to one, being feline for the matinee as well as the evening shows.”
“Francois, enough with the excuses!” came the angry reply. “Out with you, on the stage, before I turn you into a frog or something with even less sex appeal!”
In response, the man bowed to me and quickly exited, stage right. I scarcely had time to blink before the woman who had dismissed Tiger-Francois came into my view. She wore the same spangled, silver-gray tuxedo outfit from the billboard as she scanned me from head to toe, making sure that I was untouched. Cee Cee addressed me with a regally accented voice that wouldn’t have been out of place coming from one of the Gabor sisters. Though between Eva and Zsa Zsa, I’d have had to go with Zsa Zsa.
“Darling, I am so, so sorry!” she said quickly guiding me to a seat. “One moment, I will fetch you something to calm your nerves.”
Cee Cee’s dressing room was huge compared to the entire backstage of most of the theatres I’d visited. A vanity table with a beveled-glass mirror festooned with makeup lights sat off to one side of my seat. A rectangular cage large enough to hold half-a-dozen SUVs lay off to the other. The rear wall displayed a set of training whips and other wince-inducing paraphernalia.
Cee Cee breezed back over to me, a martini glass in hand. A perfectly spitted olive teetered on its edge. I took the container and sipped at the dark blue liquid it contained. Immediately, a sensation of well-being flowed through me. I brought my lips back for seconds, draining the glass with something just under a guzzle.
The draggy feeling I had after the five-hour long drive here? Gone. I checked in the mirror: the bags under my eyes had vanished.
Even my frizzy puffball blonde hair went floop, and straightened back out into my familiar, cute-shag look that Jen Aniston would’ve recognized.
Abso-friggin’ amazing.
“That’s the power of Santorini’s best,” she said, settling into the cushy seat across from me. “It’s called vitis vinifera, for those in the know. And I? I am called Cee Cee, or ‘Circe.’ Also only by those ‘in the know’.”
“I’m Cassie,” I replied, as I did my best myself to sit up straight in the cushy depths of the chair. “And thank you, Circe. Both for this amazing cocktail, and saving me from…I guess he’s your pet…cat?”
“Oh, he’s one of many pets!” Circe laughed. “But perhaps you are not quite ‘in the know’ about those like him. Did the Sphinx send you all the way to this sinfully decadent place, without so much as a Michelin’s Guide to the demigods?”
“Ah, not quite,” I hedged, as I pulled my recently purchased book from its place in my handbag. “If you’ll give me a moment?”
“A lady may take all the time that she needs.”
It took me only a couple of seconds. I lucked out, since the text was alphabetized, and ‘Circe’ was close to the front. I scanned the contents and put the book back into place.
“It seems you’re a sorceress, or demigod, depending on which ancient Greek historian is telling the tale,” I held up the now-drained glass she’d given me. “You’re known for your vast knowledge of drugs and herbs. But your real talent…is transforming men into animals.”
“A mere triviality, my dear, a trifle!” she demurred. “Really, there’s very little talent in doing what I do. Men are pretty much animals to begin with, after all.”
“And I’m guessing that you use men – as animals – in your stage act?”
“But of course! This trick, this mere bagatelle of magic – it is how Dora helped me find this job in the first place!” Circe trilled, as she waggled her fingers in emphasis. “A competing casino used to have a white tiger act, several years ago. They had a most unfortunate accident, and had to withdraw from the limelight. As you know, the stage hates a vacuum, so voila! Cee Cee the Sorceress rides into the modern age, no one the wiser.”
“It’s amazing! Since you’re using men instead of real animals, I suppose that it takes away that extra element of danger?”
Another laugh. “Oh, Cassie. We are both women of the same business, are we not? And I suppose all of the starlets in your films – they have all natural D-cups to fill their brassieres, no?”
I plucked the olive from the toothpick and chomped it down. “You have me there.”
A chime from overhead. A man’s voice called down from a set of hidden speakers.
“Two minutes to showtime, Cee Cee.”
“Johann,” Circe said, rolling her eyes, “I have a guest!”
“Yes,” the voice sighed, “But I have a theatre packed with people…along with a dozen of your admirers, who’ve paid top dollar for their box seats. You can’t ignore your public!”
“Ah, too true, my sweet. I shall be along.”
“Even with your opinion of men,” I said, surprised, “You still work for one?”
She stood, and made a Gallic shrug. “One must be pragmatic, darling. I have found that there is nothing wrong with a woman welcoming a man's advances. So long as they are in cash.”
I couldn’t help but smile, feel a sense of kinship with this expressive, independent woman.
“So, now to business,” she continued. “I have heard of your troubles. I think I might know how to help you get to Dora. Unless…the Sphinx gave you any more clues, a riddle, perhaps?”
“She did, as a matter of fact,” I replied, and I recited what I had been told. Though in all truth, even though I have a nice voice, coming from my pipes the damned thing didn’t sound at all enigmatic and majestic. Where the Sphinx’s voice was opera, mine was a singing telegram. “What is it that looks like a door to some, a passage to others, a message from those who seek to do evil, and yet solves all of life’s problems?”
Circe gasped. “That riddle…do you know what it means?”
I shook my head and sat straight up in my chair, eagerly awaiting her reply.
“What a pity,” Circe said ruefully. “I was kind of hoping that you would tell me. I have never been able to understand any of the Sphinx’s riddles.”
It took all of my willpower not to roll my eyes.
“I do have what you need to reach Dora,” she added. “I know, because I once stood in Mitchel’s immortal sandals myself. I too loved a human, a long time ago. But like all men, he wanted to leave me. Only one as cunning as he managed to escape my clutches and sail away.”
I remained quiet as she continued. Whoever that man was, he somehow had managed to resist both her considerable magical and physical charms. It sounded like he’d been in the Navy.
Another chime.
“One minute to curtain, Cee Cee!” Johann’s voice announced, with a touch of panic.
“Coming, coming!” Circe picked up her top hat, pulled a business card out of a pocket, and handed it to me as we walked towards the side door. “Dora lives high atop a mountain north of a place you call ‘Taos.’ Giving you her address isn’t the difficult part. Getting there…well, it shall be up to you, of course, but I have three magical items that you shall need.”
I nodded as we came up to a pair of brightly lit doors. One was marked Backstage, while the other was labeled Lobby Service. She showed me over to the latter one.
“I’m grateful for any help,” I said honestly.
“Allow me to finish this performance, and then return through these doors. I apologize for showing you out, but for the show’s duration, my dressing room is going to have to hold a lot of men and animals.” She chuckled. “Men and animals…oh, there I go again, repeating myself!”
And with that, she pushed through her door, her face aglow with a stage performer’s smile. I shook my head and turned the knob on my own exit. I stepped into a wide, empty lobby that smelled ever so slightly of cigarette smoke. Plush green carpet and crystal chandeliers framed fine oil paintings and a triple set of closed doors off to one side. A crystal display above each door read: Performance In Session. From behind those doors, I heard the applause of a large, enthusiastic audience.
I felt a presence nearby. I turned. My stomach went into a triple-axel spin.
My husband stood a few yards away, dressed in an elegant white tuxedo and crisp bow tie.
“It’s good to see you again, Cassie,” he said, with an air of quiet menace. “It’s time that I took you back home.”