"Ezling"

"No, it's Aisling"

"Azhlee?"

"Aisling It's Irish."

The Orly passport control man glared suspiciously at me over the top of my passport. "Your passport, it says you are American."

I rallied, a smile when I really wanted to scream with frustration instead. "I am. My mother was Irish, hence the name Aisling."

He transferred his glare to the passport. "A-sling."

I tried not to sigh too obviously. I might be brand-spanking-new to the courier business, but instinctively I knew that if I showed the least sign of impatience with being grilled on the pronunciation of my name, Antoine the passport man would drag out his interrogation. I sweetened my smile, pushed down the worry that some-thing would go wrong with the job, and said very slowly, "It's pronouncedash-ling."

"Ash-leen," Antoine said, his eyes narrowing in con-centration.

I nodded. It was close enough.

"Bon,we march forward," he said, flipping through my passport. "You are five feet and nine inches tall, have gray eyes, are thirty-one years of age, unmarried, and you live in Seattle, state of Washington, America. This is all correct, yes?"

"Yes, except I think of my eyes as being a bit more hazel than gray, but the passport guy said to put gray down. Hazel sounds more exotic, don't you think?"

Antoine cocked an eyebrow at me, briefly examining the visa that allowed me to act as a courier for Bell & Sons, before moving on to the documents for the aquamanile.

I quickly glanced around, Uncle Damian's strictures on perimeter security echoing in my head:Security is your personal responsibility; your security is not the responsibility of the police, or of the government, or any officials —your first and last line of security is yourself Be alert and aware of your surroundings. Radiate confi-dence. Never do anything to indicate you are prey.

Easier said than done, I mused as I eyed the large num-ber of people passing through the airport. Happily, no one was paying any attention to me or the case I held. I breathed a silent sigh of relief and raised my chin, trying to look confident and in control, not at all like a courier in charge of a six-hundred-year-old small golden statue in the shape of a dragon that was worth more than what I had made in the last ten years put together.

Antoine's gaze flickered to the small black heavy-duty plastic case I clutched tightly in my right hand. "Do you have theInventaire Detaille?"

"Of course." I passed over the sheets of paper describ-ing in French the gold aquamanile. The document was stamped by the San Francisco French consulate and in-cluded an appraiser's certificate, as well as a copy of the bill of sale to Mme. Aurora Deauxville, citizen of France and resident of Paris.

Antoine's finger tapped on the top document. "What is this … aquamanile?"

I shifted the case to my left hand, flexing my right fin-gers, being careful to keep the case out of sight, held be-tween me and the examination table. "An aquamanile is a form of ewer, usually made of metal, used for the ritual washing of hands by a priest or other liturgical person. They were very common in medieval times."

Antoine's eyes widened as he stared at the black case. "It is a religious artifact you have?"

I gave him a crooked smile. "Not really. Rumor has it that aquamaniles were sometimes used in … er … dark practices."

He stared. "Dark practices?"

I took in his raised eyebrows and smiled sympatheti-cally. "Demons," I said succinctly. "Aquamaniles such as this are said to have been used by powerful mages to raise the demon princes."

I didn't think his eyes could open any wider, but at the word demon, they all but popped out of his head. "Demon princes?" he asked, his voice a hoarse whisper.

I shifted the case again and leaned forward, speaking quickly, aware that a faint note of desperation had tinged my voice. "You know, Satan's big guns. The head honchos of Hell. The demon lords. Anyone can raise a demon, but it takes a special person with special powers to raise a demon lord."

Antoine blinked.

"Yeah, I know. I think it's a bit out there, too, but you'd be surprised what people believe. Even so, it's a fascinating subject. I've made quite a study of demons— not that I believe they really exist outside of man's imagination—and found there are whole cults revolving around the idea of demons and the power they wield over mortals. I heard there's a group in San Francisco that is trying to get a demon elected into public office. Ha ha, like anyone would notice?"

The bunking stopped. Antoine stared at me with a blank look in his eyes. I decided my little foray into joke land was probably pushing the Anglo-Franco boundaries. Not to mention that the minutes were ticking by at an alarming rate. "Yeah, well, I don't guarantee the useful-ness of the items; I just deliver them. So, if everything is in order, do you think I could go? I'm supposed to get this aquamanile to its owner at five, and it's already past three. This is my first job as a courier, you see, and my uncle—he's my boss—told me that if I screw up this de-livery, I'm off the payroll, and since a very stupid judge in California ordered me to pay my ex-husband alimony just because Alan, my ex, is a lazy slob who likes to hang around the beach and ogle the fake-boobed girls rather than get off his surfer ass and work for a living like the rest of us, it's kind of important that I keep this job, and to keep it means that I have to get the aquamanile to the woman who bought it from Uncle Damian."

Antoine looked a bit stunned until I nudged the hand that held my documents; then he pursed his lips as he shot me a quelling glare. He nodded toward my case. "You will open it. I must examine the object and ensure it matches the pictures presented."

I stifled yet another sigh of frustration as I fished the keys out of my bag before unlocking the case. Antoine's glare turned to an open mouthed look of wonder as I peeled back the protective foam padding and laid open the soft linen cloth that was wrapped around the aqua-manile. "Sacrefutur du bordel de Dieu!"

"Yeah, it's pretty impressive, isn't it?" I looked fondly at the dragon. It was about six inches high, all coiled tail, gleaming scales, and glittering emerald eyes. It was one of the few dragons I'd ever seen depicted without wings.

Antoine reached out to touch the golden dragon, but I quickly wrapped the linen back over it. "Sorry—look but don't touch." His nostrils flared dramatically. I hurried to sooth his ruffled feathers. "Not even the X-ray guys got to touch it. If you'll take a peek at the appraiser's valua-tion of the piece, I think you'll see why it's better not to."