Cape Storm Read Online Free Page B

one of them, right?” Them presumably being the Wardens. I nodded. “I hear you guys have some kind of, uh, magic. Would you mind . . . ?”
    “What, working some on these idiots? Not sure you really want me to do that. It tends to not be so great at crowd control, unless you’re trying to kill people or put them in comas. Better let me try the persuasion route first.”
    “Be my guest. I hope you brought horse tranquilizers.” He gave me a bow and handed me the room. Cherise and I exchanged glances and stepped inside.
    We stepped in it, all right. The place was complete chaos, which was odd, because it really was a room with all kinds of calm built right in. The designers had envisioned the space as a Victorian-style reading room, complete with expensively bound leather volumes and comfy couches and chairs. Nobody was enjoying the decor now, though. Middle-aged society matrons rubbed shoulders, however unwillingly, with young, vapid starlets (I might have recognized one or two of those, but truthfully, they’d all been sculpted and styled into the same person, so it didn’t much matter). A thick cluster of black-clad people who I assumed were New York literary types clumped together like a dour flock of crows toward the outer edge. West Coast bling glittered in a group on the opposite side of the room. It was like a map of the wealth of America, from coast to coast—all arguing at the same time.
    Another steward, looking not-so-crisp, was trying his best to calm people. They were ignoring him and all yammering away at each other, waving tickets, papers, cell phones, and BlackBerries. The din was all focused on one thing: I’m going to sue. I’m not leaving without my (fill in the blank).
    I beckoned the steward over. He came, looking grateful that someone—even a potential troublemaker—was paying attention to him instead of shouting at full volume. I could understand why; this room full of people, at least fifty strong, had enough clout to bury the cruise line in legal red tape for years, if not generations. “We need to move these idiots out,” I said. “It’s time to go.”
    I saw him swallow whatever he was tempted to shoot back at me, and try again. “Yes, miss, I’m trying,” he said, in that smoothly patient tone that only the very stressed develop after years of therapy. “I explained that if they didn’t disembark, we couldn’t wait for them to do so, but—”
    “They called your bluff.”
    “Exactly.” He swallowed and tugged a little at the white collar of his formal jacket. “I’ve tried to get the captain, but he’s busy with preparations to cast off.”
    A woman of indeterminate age—indeterminate because plastic surgery, heavy makeup, and a forty-hour-a-week workout schedule had effectively rendered her a wax figure of herself—grabbed the steward by the arm with expertly manicured, clawlike fingers. “What are you going to do about this?” she demanded. “I demand to speak to the captain! Immediately!”
    “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but the captain is occupied,” the steward said, and patiently removed her grip from his uniform sleeve. “You must depart the ship immediately, for your own safety.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.This ship was advertised as being able to sail through a hurricane without a wineglass tipping. It’s the safest place to be! I refuse to be turned out like some penniless hobo into a storm. My people say there are no hotels, and no flights out. There’s nowhere to go. I’m staying.”
    “That’s not an option,” I said. “If you get your people and head toward the exit, you might still make it off the ship. Go. Right now.”
    She fixed me with an icy stare. “And who are you?” Her glance traveled over me, dismissing every item of clothing on me with ruthless clarity, and then summing me up and dismissing me as a whole, all over again. “Are you with the cruise line? Because if you are, I will have a word with the captain about the dress code