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Then I wait until the little clump in the middle of the courtyard is gone. While I was being questioned and poked and prodded this afternoon, I got to thinking.

I have screwed up Margarite’s plan. She isn’t going to get the chaos she wants. In fact, a straightforward stabbing /self defense probably doesn’t even register as an energy spike.

I have a few precious hours before she tries to rile up someone else to kill me.

I’m going to have to take care of her now.

And if I do it right, no one will ever blame me for her death.

Of course, doing it right means I can’t use the tried and true chaos-demon killing techniques. Doing it right means I do something no one has ever done before.

I don’t even know if it’ll work.

But I’m going to have to try.

The fanciest hotel in town isn’t all that fancy. It’s basically a mid-level hotel with a Four Seasons attitude and a Holiday Inn budget.

I slip in the front doors, and walk purposefully to the house phone near some potted plants. The nice thing about me, remember, is I’m one of those beige middle-aged women, formerly pretty, that most people see but don’t really see.

Of course, the security cameras see me, but most hotels put them in the same locations—facing the registration desk (because of the money), the offices (again, the money), and the entrances and exits. Elevators and stairwells have them too.

No one cares about the house phone, however. I use it to verify that Margarite is here (she is) and what room she’s in. I do that by asking for her direct dial phone number. Hotels always put a nine in front of the hotel room number as the direct dial, and they’re usually happy to give that out to other guests—or the person who booked the room, namely one Raj O’Driscoll acting on the part of the university.

Apparently, the hotel operator has no idea that Raj is a male name.

Which works to my advantage of course. Margarite’s room is on the top floor (as I expected) and is probably one of the few suites in the hotel.

I take the stairs, because it’s easier (and more logical) to keep your head down in a stairwell than in an elevator. I’m carrying a purse instead of my weapons kit, having already prepared my tools.

I have my standard equipment inside the purse—a pistol and a couple of knives as well as the bowie knife in its sheath. I also have the tranquilizer ready to go. Fortunately, I learned that the best way to tranquilize an alligator is to use the same tranquilizer needle that vets use on elephants. So I have a few in stock.

I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Except for the aching knife wound and the slowly growing exhaustion. I might be at more of a disadvantage here than I thought.

I make it to the eighth floor, find the room, and get confirmation that yes, she’s in a suite. If I had more time, I’d finesse the room next door or find a maid’s cart or something, but I don’t.

So I go the old-fashioned route.

I knock.

It only takes a moment for the door to sweep open. Margarite is standing there in a lovely pink negligee, complete with matching pink mules.

I of course see both her and the tusked alligator within, and I have to admit the pink looks a lot better with scaly green than the purple ever did.

She looks surprised to see me.

“We have a problem,” I say and walk inside as if I’ve been invited.

She has no choice except to follow me.

Here’s the moment of truth. With one quick movement, I grab the tranquilizer and shove it—not in her neck, like you’d do with most humans—but in that poochy belly of hers.

If she were a real human, that just might kill her, but she’s not. And my aim has to be perfect, because I’m trying to drill through the fake human skin into the soft spot where the alligator’s jaw meets its neck.

If I miss and survive, I have to go to plan B, where I try to get rid of the human form (which’ll be tough because now she’s prepared) and then go for the alligator soft spot.

She looks at me in stunned surprise, and then growls. Or roars. Or whatever it is alligators do. I feel the damn tusks clamp down on my wrist—something I hadn