“I’m on it.” I turned and left the office. The darks clicked on before I was three steps down the hall, and shadows thick as tar pooled across the floor once more. I kept walking. That was my second mistake … and by that point, although I didn’t really know it yet, I was just about out of leeway.
Twenty-three
“There’s no such thing as fighting dirty. There’s fighting like you want to live, and fighting like you want to die. If you’ve got anything to live for—anything at all—I suggest you try the first way. The people you love will thank you for it.”
–Alice Healy
The dressing room of Dave’s Fish and Strips, a club for discerning gentlemen
TRUE TO HIS WORD, Dave pulled the fire alarm about five minutes after I reached my locker, sending the sirens wailing through the building. It was loud even before the DJ killed the sound system, and then it became practically deafening. I’ve known actual sirens who would’ve been proud to make that kind of racket. (Not all sirens are into the whole “sitting on rocky atolls luring sailors to their death” gig. At least one is making a pretty good living as a pop singer. She calls herself “Emerald Green,” pretends her hair is dyed that particular shade of seaweed, and refuses to book gigs in coastal cities unless they’re purely acoustic. Nature isn’t always destiny.)
The other female members of the wait staff began pouring into the dressing room. The uniforms Dave insisted on meant that they were already practically naked, which you’d think would make the process of getting dressed go faster for them, but no such luck. Even with the fire alarm screaming bloody murder in the background, they mobbed the mirror, taking their time fixing their makeup, adjusting their assets, and, of course, bitching loudly about the sudden closure robbing them of half a shift’s tips. Several glared at me while they gossiped, making it clear that they’d noticed how my visit to the manager ended conveniently right before the alarm went off.
I looked calmly back, making no effort to defend myself—or to hide the various weapons waiting to be concealed under my street clothes. One by one, the other waitresses looked away, and their preparations for departure got a lot faster after that. None of them had the guts to accuse me to my face, possibly out of fear that doing so would get their actual guts an introduction to the floor. I ducked my head and went back to adjusting my thigh holster, trying not to think about what that meant. Dave was right. I’d been seen too frequently with Dominic, and people were starting to question my loyalties.
I took my time changing out of my uniform, double and triple-checking the snaps on every holster and the placement of every knife as I pulled my street clothes on. I was dressing for war, and it was time I started taking that seriously. I needed to be on the move sooner, rather than later, but I didn’t want to leave until Ryan got back to the bar, and that meant I had time to make sure that I was doing things right for a change. After this, it was going to be corpses and carnage until the snake cult was no longer a part of the picture. They’d killed too many girls. This needed to end.
The last of the waitresses teemed out of the room, moving in a cloud of hairspray, sticky glitter, and cheap perfume. A locker slammed. I looked up again, only to find Candy glaring at me much more openly than any of the others had dared.
“I hope you realize that I was planning to get paid tonight,” she snarled.
“The snake cult went for Carol,” I replied, too annoyed by the accusation in her tone to sugarcoat things. She recoiled, looking like I’d slapped her. I pulled my shirt on over my head, continuing, “Two of them got bitten by her hair. Dominic’s getting the bodies now, so we can look them over to see if there’s anything that tells us where they’re operating. Unless you think your tips are more important than the lives of your coworkers, I suggest you drop the attitude.”
“What is a ‘snake cult’?” asked Istas, stepping around the bank of lockers. Waheela can move very quietly when they want to; I hadn’t even realized she was there. “A species of religious serpents pulled the fire alarm?”
The look of honest puzzlement on her face was enough to make me crack a smile. “A snake cult is a bunch of idiots who think worshiping a snake god will get them unbelievable cosmic power, wealth beyond their wildest dreams, and all the chicks they could want.”
“Ah.” Istas nodded, opening her own locker. “Are they responsible for the ones who have gone missing?”
“Yeah, they are.” I picked up my backpack. “I’m hoping I can stop them before anybody else gets hurt, but it took a long time to figure out who they were.”
“I understand.” Istas’ street clothes kept up the Gothic Lolita look established by her pigtails: frilled faux-French maid’s uniform with pastel pink petticoats, white tights, even a pair of antique-looking buttonhole shoes. She dressed with admirable speed, navigating the various buttons and snaps with an ease that appeared to impress even Candy. “Will there be rending and destruction in the name of protecting the territory?”
“Probably.” I glanced to Candy. “You want to come with me? I’d like you to have a look at the bodies.”
“If I don’t go with you, Betty will have my head,” Candy replied. “I’m not working, thanks to you, so I need to be doing something with my time.”
“You are going to look at more bodies?” Istas frowned. “Were there insufficient bodies here?”
“Dead ones, Istas,” I said.
“Ah. I will accompany you, then.” She produced a ruffled lace parasol from her locker before swinging the door closed. She didn’t bother to lock it. No one in their right mind would steal from a waheela. “I would like to see some dead bodies. I find them pleasurable.”
Candy and I exchanged a look, for once united by our sheer bafflement. We know a lot about the biology and anatomy of the waheela. Their social behaviors, likes, and dislikes … not so much.
“Fine,” I said. “We could use you, in case the whole ‘rending and destruction’ thing comes up.”
Istas smiled.
The three of us finished getting ready just before the fire alarm stopped blaring. Dave probably shut it down to keep the fire department from showing up. The building was up to code as far as I knew, but the fire department in any given city is ninety percent human. The ten percent that aren’t human—salamanders and afrits and the like—tend to get a little pissed off when they get called out for false emergencies. Dave wouldn’t enjoy that, and he was too smart to risk it if he didn’t have to.
“Bodies now?” asked Istas.
“Let’s check the front of the club first,” I said. “Ryan’s supposed to be coming back after he gets Carol to a safe house, and I want to bring him along if he’s willing to come. More muscle for the, ah, rending and destruction.”
Istas looked pleased. Candy looked annoyed. Hanging out with a tanuki was probably beneath her dignity as a dragon princess. That, or she just didn’t like the number of coworkers she was suddenly hanging out with. Dragon princesses aren’t big on socializing outside their Nests, and the fact that I potentially had access to a male of her species was only going to buy me so much slack.
We stepped out into the main club, which looked even more like a deserted sideshow tent when there was no one in it. The British flags hanging from the walls were limp and listless without the air-conditioning to keep them moving, and the smells of sweat and alcohol were masked by a layer of hastily-applied bleach. Dave was closing for the night, if not for the week. That was a start.
“Ryan?” I moved toward the bar, craning my neck to search for signs of movement. “Hey, you back yet?”
No answer. Istas stiffened, a low growl rumbling from her throat before she said, “Something is not right here.”
“What?” I looked back at her.
She popped open her parasol, twirling it in agitation. “Something is not right here,” she repeated. Her canines were more pronounced than they’d been in the dressing room. “The bleach. This is not the brand Dave buys. This is cheaper, made to stink rather th
an clean. Everyone is gone. We should not be here.”
“Crap.” I turned. “Come on. Let’s get back to the dressing room.” From there, we’d have a clear shot on both the rooftop and cellar exits, in case Istas was right about something being wrong. Candy nodded quickly, and spun to power walk toward the hallway door.
The speed at which she was moving was the only thing that saved her. A servitor flowed out of the shadows surrounding one of the darkened stripper platforms, a lead pipe grasped firmly in its tail. Istas snarled, the sound conveying more shock than fear. Then the servitor’s tail lashed forward, the pipe catching her in the jaw, and the waheela went down in a crumpled, incongruously lacy heap.
Candy screamed. Eight more servitors flowed out of the shadows between the two of us, hissing through bared teeth. So much for making it to the corpses any time soon.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: so nine servitors, a dragon princess, a waheela, and a cranky ballroom dancer walk into a bar…
I started moving before the servitors could stop posturing and charge, running for the nearest stage as I shouted, “Candy! Tell them to stand down!”
Candy nodded and hissed out something in the sibilant language she’d used when we were in the sewers. The servitors ignored her, moving to form a sort of wedge before advancing toward me. She stomped her foot and tried again, louder, the note of command unmistakable in her voice. That got a reaction. The nearest of the servitors whipped around to face her, and snarled, tail lashing in her direction. Candy stepped quickly backward, eyes going wide in her suddenly-pale face.
“Okay, so that’s not going to work,” I muttered, and jumped up onto the stage, pulling a throwing knife from inside my shirt. I flung it at the lead servitor. It caught the knife with the tip of its tail and flung it back. I ducked, hearing the blade whistle over my head on its way to embed itself in the far wall. Oh, this was so not good.
The lead servitor leaped onto the table nearest the stage, grabbing a chair with its tail and whipping it twice over its head before launching it in my direction. I grabbed the pole and went into a one-woman deadfall, hooking an ankle around the pole’s base to keep from toppling off the stage. The chair hit the wall just below my throwing knife. The servitor hissed in frustration, and then again in pain when I lashed out with one foot, catching it squarely in the kneecap.
Of the nine servitors in sight, seven were focusing on me, and two of them seemed intent on harrying Candy, who clearly had no idea how to deal with this. Istas still wasn’t moving. The odds were so far from in our favor that it wasn’t even funny.
I’ve dealt with lousy odds before. Taking advantage of the closest servitor’s preoccupation with its bruised knee, I straightened up, yanked my iPod out of my backpack, and flung it overhand at Candy. Years of waiting tables had left her with the kind of reflexes many gymnasts would envy; she caught the flying MP3 player one-handed, shooting me a quizzical look.
“Sound system!” I shouted. “Track four!” The closest servitor seemed to be over his injury, because he lunged for me, taloned hands extended. I grabbed the pole again and dropped back into a bend, kicking forward at the same time. The side of my foot caught him in the chin with substantially more force than would have been possible in an unassisted kick. He dropped like a rock. That would teach him to go fucking with a trained ballroom dancer in a strip club.
“Then what?” shouted Candy, punctuating the question with a startled squeal. I stole a glance in her direction. She was running ahead of the servitors, eyes still huge and frightened.
Dragon princesses have no natural weapons, and only one real natural defense: they’re completely fireproof. I grabbed the closest chair and smashed it down on the fallen servitor’s head, just to be sure. Then I took off running for the bar. “Just get the music on!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Candy stumbling up onto the DJ platform, the two servitors following behind her with the lazy grace of an apex predator. She wasn’t fighting back; she was just running. There was no real reason for them to hurry. The seven servitors still “assigned” to me had clustered together again, and they looked pissed. Candy wasn’t fighting, but I was apparently fighting substantially more than they wanted me to.
Tough titty. I vaulted onto the bar, grabbing a bottle of the cheap-ass house vodka. “How’s that music coming, Candy?”
“I think I’ve got it!” The speakers crackled on, hissing static white noise. Half a second later, the opening drone of the Tamperer’s “Hammer to the Heart” blasted into the room.
“Catch!” I flung the vodka across to her as hard as I could, praying that the cap would stay on, and that I was still close enough to have any accuracy. Someone was listening, maybe for the only time that night, because the bottle spun end over end to smack into Candy’s hand like the game-winning ball at the end of the ninth inning. “Now set yourself on fire!”
Her eyes went enormously wide. “What?!”
“Set yourself on fire!” I grabbed two more bottles of vodka, flinging them heedlessly at the lead servitors. They batted the bottles aside, but that didn’t matter; taking the time to block had slowed them down, and that was all I really wanted. “They started human, remember?”
Candy’s eyes remained wide, but the look in them was comprehension, not confusion. Dragon princesses were fireproof. For all I knew, dragon servitors were, too … but humans weren’t, and these servitors started life as humans. They were likely to be afraid of fire on general principles, even if it couldn’t actually hurt them.
Unscrewing the bottle, Candy emptied its contents over her head while I continued pitching everything I could get my hands on at the closest servitors. Her two started moving faster, apparently realizing that something was up. Then she produced a lighter from her pocket and hit the flint, sending a line of blue flame racing up her hand to her arm to her hair, until she finally went up like a Christmas candle. The servitors fell back, hissing furiously. Even my seven whipped around to face her, snarling and hissing with disbelief. The music was blasting, the beat thrumming through the bar and into the soles of my feet.
Dave always did want me to dance in his club. Grabbing the gun from my waistband, I launched myself off the bar again, and ran for the servitors.
They weren’t expecting that. They also weren’t expecting me to swerve off at the last minute, shooting enthusiastically but without particular concern for my aim as I ran for the nearest stage. Four of them broke off and chased after me, while the other three hung back, hissing in confusion. They must have been the smart ones.
The thing about dance—and by the same token, the thing about combat—is that it’s all in the rhythm. If you can’t find the beat, you can’t possibly get the steps right. People who say they can’t dance really mean that they have no idea how to get themselves synchronized to the beat of the music, and that screws them up. In a fight, the rhythm is generally set by the participants, rather than by any outside soundtrack … that is, unless you have a convenient sound system, and a dragon princess on hand to play DJ for you.
The other thing about dance and combat is that once you find the beat, it’s borderline impossible to ignore it. I grabbed the pole and boosted myself onto the stage, testing out the four-four rhythm of the song as the servitors closed in. There were four of them approaching, but the shape of the stage restricted them to attacking two at a time. That was good. The fact that they were starting to move clumsily along with the music was better.
The first pair of servitors crowded up against the stage, one of them swinging a two-by-four at my calves. I grabbed the pole and spun myself out of reach, shooting it in the tail. It hissed and dropped the weapon, but didn’t fall back as its companion grabbed a chair and slung it in my direction. I barely ducked in time. That’s the trouble with bar fights: there’s so damn much potential weaponry around. Even someone who doesn’t have a clue what they’re doing can find plenty of things to throw. Time to shut this party down.
Both s
ervitors were moving, however unconsciously, with the beat of the music. I stopped spinning and leaned out to give them my best tango smile, one hand still clasping the pole. “Hey, boys,” I said coquettishly. I wasn’t even sure they’d originally been male, but regardless of gender, my behavior needed to be odd enough to throw them off their game. “You want to dance?”
The servitors looked puzzled. Then, snarling, they charged.
I grabbed the pole, dropping back and aiming squarely at the lead servitor’s chest as I shouted, “Candy, track seven!” The flaming figure at the DJ stand gestured assent and began jabbing fingers at my iPod, which was hopefully fireproof. If it survived this experience, I’d be sure to send a nice note to Apple about the quality of their products.
The music changed abruptly, replacing the Tamperer with the high-speed frenzy of “Hey Ya!” by Outkast. The servitors kept charging—but they were off-balance now, thrown out of their comfort zone by the sudden change in the beat. I unloaded two bullets into the lead servitor’s chest, dropping him, and swung myself hard around to slam my elbow into the second servitor’s throat. It wasn’t showing mercy; it was conserving bullets by hitting him while his equilibrium was off. He fell back, choking, and was promptly replaced by two more healthy lizard-men, both bent on ripping me to pieces.
I shot the first in the chest. The second lashed out with the lead pipe held in his tail, hitting my wrist and knocking the gun from my hand. I yelped and spun around the pole again, bringing my feet up and together to slam into the servitor’s face. He rocked back, hissing ferociously, but didn’t fall.
“Okay, time for plan B,” I muttered, before shouting, “Candy! Track eleven!” The poisonously bubbly sound of Aqua blasted from the speakers, the sudden addition of a bone-rattling bass line disorienting the servitors for the half second I needed to jump from the stage and take off running across the strip club. They followed. That was fine. I’d been looking for a reprieve, not an escape.
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