Mateo watched her, his unease clear. "You really sure about this? Give me a few more weeks, I might find another source."
She placed a hand on his forearm. "Thank you, but I'm sure. I've done my homework, and the Cloridine seems to be the way to go."
"Maybe," he said in a halfhearted tone that implied he didn't agree. He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "Be discreet. Go see a bald, fat piece of shit at the bar named Kale. Tell him I sent you and that Mads has given his blessings to a meeting."
"Kale, got it." He watched her then, his gaze intent. "I got it," she repeated with more emphasis. "Don't worry."
"Don't talk to anyone else. Don't accept anything from anyone—especially Kale. I haven't seen a real aspirin in ten years, but these a-holes always got homemade date rape drugs to spare."
"It's okay, Dad," she said mockingly. "I've been around rough guys before, remember?"
"It's not just the guys. Don't talk to the women, either. Some of 'em are worse."
"Sure. I'll be careful. I promise." And she meant it. He was worried about his role in this meeting, and guilt knotted her stomach, but this was important. She needed those drugs.
He nodded, looking away, placated, if still unhappy, and then ground out his cigarette butt. "And watch yourself around Mads. He's charming but colder than a frost giant's asshole."
"No such thing as a giant, but I'll be on my best behavior."
He gave her a quick hug, little more than a squeeze around her shoulders, but it was more emotion from him than she had seen in the years they had spent in the Home Guard. He strolled away without another word, his hands jammed in his jeans pockets, limping on his fake leg.
Chapter 4
Angie's shower was cold and quick, barely long enough to wash the grime away with the misshapen lump of homemade soap she had paid too much for in the market. There had been hot water in the Bunker, a luxury she desperately missed, and even scented shampoo. God, how she missed that. She closed the faucet on the portable water reservoir strapped above her shower and dried herself with a towel. After hanging the wet towel over the shower rod, she paused, her left arm still extended, and ran her right fingers over the two-inch scar on her ribs. The scar was bone white, the skin around it pink but long healed. She felt nothing; the skin might have been dead. Then, giving herself a shake, she hurried into the bedroom, her skin damp still.
She dressed quickly in jeans, a dark T-shirt, and a hoodie and then moved to the living room/training space and stood beside the window, looking out over the balcony. At nine thirty p.m., the city was dark and quiet. The streetlights were lit, but only on the main avenues, and she'd need to cover a half dozen blocks in darkness before she reached them. The Horse Cops would be out in force, but they rarely patrolled the side streets. From far off, a pack of dogs barked.
Turning away, she crossed the room and plopped down on the old couch, the springs creaking, and held her running shoes in one hand, staring at them. She glanced at her old combat boots near the front door. No, she decided, running shoes. Better to run than fight. Angie laced up the shoes, double-tying the knots.
If she got into trouble, she'd run, but if she couldn't... Angie moved to the small end table next to the full-length mirror near the front door. Two weapons sat on the table—the six-inch folding knife she had worn concealed in the small of her back to the meeting earlier and an expandable twenty-six-inch steel baton. She took a weapon in each hand, considering them. The knife was much more lethal and easier to hide, even from a pat down, but the baton gave her distance, and she could use it much like a side-sword. She debated bringing both, but then put the knife back on the mantel, slipping the baton into the small of her back, covering it with her hoodie. She was going to talk, not fight. If she couldn't talk, she'd run. If she carried the knife, her pride might force her to stand her ground and fight when she needed to run, and pride was a killer.
She examined herself in the mirror, looking over her shoulder at her back and butt. At a glance, the bulge of the baton would go unnoticed—she hoped. While she'd have much preferred a sidearm, maybe a nice compact 9 mm Glock, the penalty for possessing a firearm in Sanwa City was banishment, and that was pretty much a death sentence. Mind you, the law wasn't applied equally to mages, and Marshal might intervene on her behalf.
But what about ex-mages, Angie? And would he still help you if he knew why you were going out?
She stared at her reflection, her pulse racing. "What are you doing, Angie?" she whispered, uncertainty eating at her. "Do you really need to do this?"
Her eyes darted to Bob and the exposed and well-worn Kevlar plate over his chest. She couldn't do this on her own, she knew. She needed to be part of the team again, but Nathan wouldn't let her back, not unless she beat this thing. She could never be a mage again, but that didn't mean she couldn't be a damn good soldier and intel officer.
Exhaling, she pulled her ball cap on and left the apartment before she changed her mind.
Angie slipped onto the lamp-lit main avenue, her breathing rushed, a trickle of moisture running down her spine from the fast pace she had kept through the dark side streets. She had seen no one else out so far, but here on the main avenue, there were a few stragglers, some clearly drunk. There were no homeless in Sanwa City. Not having a job and a residence was as much a banishment offence as possessing a firearm. If you didn't contribute to society, you didn't live behind the wall. Nothing had ever been as simple or as strictly enforced.
From at least a block away, she heard the music and saw the bright neon lights of Hurricane Joe's. When she saw the pair of Horse Cops, a man and a woman, stopping pedestrians ahead—both sitting atop their large quarter horses, one piebald, the other a dark bay—she came to a sudden halt, terrified one of them would be the same mutton-chopped cop from the meeting. They saw her stop, of course, and stared at her suspiciously. Her panic only subsided when she saw that both were strangers.
Idiot, she told herself, way to be cool. She took a deep breath and forced herself to approach.
The two cops blocked the road as they checked the ID papers of those few pedestrians that were out at this time of night. Clouds, a rarity in the valley, drifted over the half moon, but the Horse Cops were bathed in the bright light of one of the gas lamps. She arrived just as they finished up with a pair of laborers who must have worked in one of the canneries, the air rank with the smell of fish.
The female cop eyed her suspiciously; a lone woman out this late at night was always an oddity. "Papers," she ordered.
Angie produced the beat-up, folded identity papers, barely held together by a staple. The cop opened them, frowning at their state. "You need to go to city hall and replace these," she said. "Lose your permit and you'll be in a world of trouble."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Take the hat off," the male ordered.
She did, but kept her gaze lowered.
"Not her," the woman said. "Too short by half a foot and not a redhead." She gave Angie back her papers. "What are you doing out at this time of night? Does your father know?"
"Father's dead," she said.
"Just like you if you keep going out at night. Got any idea how many women we drag out of the sewers each year?"
"Think it's a record this year," the male cop said. "And it's only August."
"I'm just going over there." Angie looked past them at the lights of the strip club.
The female cop sighed, shaking her head. "Of course you are."
"You work there?" the man asked, looking her up and down now.
"No. Just meeting someone."
He snorted. "Find better places to meet people."
Angie's face warmed, but she nodded contritely.
"Go on," the woman said, tossing her head. As Angie slipped past their horses, the woman added, "Let's hope we don't pull you from the sewer later tonight."
Hurricane Joe's was a big, loud, garishly bright building several stories tall and built sturdily from corrugated sheets of tin and repurpos
ed brick that must have been part of a much nicer building before the world fell apart. Overlapping layers of graffiti covered most of the bricks. The only windows were on the upper levels, and those were covered by thick iron bars.
The place was a fortress, Angie decided. She had helped plan raids on buildings like this and recognized how hard it would be to take, if the police even bothered to try. Too dangerous, she decided. They'd likely ask Nathan to send in the Seagraves. We could put them on the roof with one of the Shrikes. Then they could assault down while the troops cordoned the entrances for squirters.
It was always best to take a building from the top down, and if that wasn't possible, then blow out a wall and go in that way. Never the front, never the entrances. That was how soldiers died.
The music, a live band, blasted out through the open main door. She couldn't hear the generator over the music but knew it was there, powering the lights. What was a functioning generator worth these days? Way more than she'd make in a decade working at the cannery. She recognized the music, a song from an eighties hair band, so loud her eardrums trembled. When she had been little, all music had been digital, or so she had been told; she had been five when the lights went out. Before the Awakening, everybody carried thousands of songs on wireless devices, but portable music devices had vanished with everything else that used electrical circuits eighteen years ago, along with almost all the vehicles, aircraft, communications, and, of course, the power grid.
There were some exceptions; some technology had been protected from the backlash of magical energy the dragons had released over Mount Fuji when they had shattered the Fey Sleep, the worldwide spell that had blocked humanity from magic and hidden the presence of the Fey. The Bunker had held aircraft, vehicles, and a vast surplus of other equipment, including precious electronics and computers, even tactical radios. When she had been the unit S2, an ordinance sergeant had been caught selling spare equipment, including a gas generator.
What had happened to him?
Had this generator come from the Bunker or from somewhere else? Either way, it must have cost a fortune.
Stripping must pay well. Maybe I'm in the wrong business.
When she saw the two barely dressed women standing at the entrance, rail thin and pale skinned, she realized her mistake. If this place was making credits—and it was clearly making credits—there was no way the women were getting rich. The world didn't work that way. She knew what went on in here. The other soldiers had spoken often enough of it after coming back from leave. The stripping served a purpose, but the real money was in prostitution.
There but for the grace of God, she thought. She needed to get back to the unit where she belonged, where everything made sense, but now that she was here, she was having second and even third thoughts. Courage, Angie, she told herself and then stepped forward.
The two women wore high heels, super-low-cut skirts that exposed most of their malnourished butts, and midriff-baring halter tops that barely covered their breasts. Angie was thin, but she was fit-thin from hours of fencing practice. These women desperately needed to eat. They might have been her age, in their early twenties, but it was hard to tell with all the makeup and glitter. They danced to the music, gyrating and rocking their hips to the beat, brandishing fake smiles and giggling as they chatted with the two laborers who had gone ahead of Angie. The men slipped inside the bar, and when the women noticed Angie, their smiles slipped a bit. Maybe they thought she was one of them, more competition. A hand-painted sign affixed to the wall beside the open doorway proclaimed 2 for 1 beer from 6-8 with no cover.
Before Angie could go in, two heavily muscled men in sleeveless T-shirts burst out into the street, hauling a thin bearded man between them. One of the men—bouncers—held the bearded man in a choking headlock. The bearded man’s face was bright red, his eyes bulging, and he slapped helplessly at the meaty arm around his neck. The two girls tried to jump aside, but one moved too slowly and was knocked sprawling to the pavement. With one bouncer holding the man, the second punched him savagely in the gut. The bearded man's legs gave out, and the bouncer dropped him. Then both men began to kick him in the ribs or anywhere else they could hit. The stench of voided bowel filled the street.
"You don't lick the nipples!" one bouncer snarled. "It's rude."
"Not without paying first," the other added. "Just be glad Jester didn't sort you out herself."
Both bouncers, breathing heavily now, drew back, taking a break from their workout. Their victim, blood soaking his beard, remained where he lay, his eyes glazed over, but the fallen stripper climbed to her feet, rubbing her hip. The toughs gave Angie a bored glance before reentering the bar. Angie stepped over the man, past the strippers, and into the bar. She had seen worse beatings, but that had been a touch extreme.
Inside the long, dark entrance hall, the music was almost a physical force pushing at her. Near the end of the hall, just before the lights of the main bar, a single bouncer leaned against the wall, his muscular tattooed arms crossed.
Another stripper, an older blond woman wearing skin-tight bikini bottoms, her breasts bare, blocked Angie's entrance. "Help you?" she asked in a tone that was anything but helpful.
The place was packed, each small round wooden table occupied. A long bar lit up with neon lights flashed across the room. One naked woman lay on her back on the stripper stage in the center of the bar, her legs in the air, her hands on her ankles, pulling them apart. The men sitting in front of the stage leaned forward on their elbows, gazing like drunken gynecologists. A concentrated blend of body odor, smoke, stale beer and even staler vomit washed over Angie, probably staining her clothing, but she ignored it, breathing through her mouth. Just for a moment, she felt something else in the air, the promise of occult energy, but then it was gone again.
"Just going to the bar," she told the topless stripper or waitress … or whatever she was.
"Why?" the woman asked, her mouth hanging open, her eyes vapid. Up close, she looked to be at least forty with a slight tummy, a slab of skin and flab hanging over her too-tight bikini bottom.
"My business," Angie said.
The bouncer snorted, a toothpick in his mouth. "Don't start no shit, won't be no shit." He never even looked at her.
The stripper motioned inside with her head. "Can't miss it, honey."
Something bothered Angie, a sense of unease at the back of her mind as she made her way through the densely packed tables and drunks, but she put it down to fear.
There were no female customers, but lots of naked women, most of them gyrating on the laps of glassy-eyed customers, mostly laborers but here and there a city official. Sawdust, cigarette butts, and garbage covered the floor. Several harried-looking waitresses, wearing little more than the strippers, moved among the tables, taking orders and delivering drinks. There were no bottles, not in a place like this where they could become weapons; instead, the waitresses delivered the homemade beer in decades-old recycled plastic cups that were washed every night—or at least Angie hoped they washed them every night. Nobody made anything anymore, let alone plastic. She swerved away from a drunk's outstretched arm as he tried to grab her ass, keeping her eyes down and heading for the bar. The Awakening might have been responsible for billions of deaths, but it had also given nature a chance to surge back.
Do we thank the great dragons for that?
Are they even still out there?
Yes.
Men watched her pass, but other than the one drunk, the others ignored her. She was wearing too much clothing to be of any real interest.
She heard a loud slap followed by containers of beer falling onto the floor. When she spun about, she saw a waitress rubbing her butt, her face red with anger and beer foaming around her ankles where she had spilled her tray. The same drunk that had just tried to accost Angie sat in his chair, grinning stupidly. The bouncers converged on him like sharks on a wounded fish. He went down so fast he barely had time to yelp before they were hauling him out
side, two men holding his legs, two more his arms.
Karma, asshole.
She found an empty part of the long wooden bar and leaned back against it, her gaze drifting about. Once again, she felt the strange energy in the room, only now recognizing it for a heady mixture of erotic desire and desperation. Magic, she realized with a start, her breath catching in her throat. Then she focused on how she felt—breathless, her skin flushed, a delicious heat coursing through her woman bits. Not just magic, Fey magic. There's a Fey in here.
The sudden revelation cut through her like a knife. She only recognized the enchantment because she had grown up around Char and the erotic energy the succubus gave off as pheromones. Fey were outlawed from all the walled cities within the Commonwealth.
She swept the room, seeking the source of the magic. And why would any self-respecting Fey even be here? They think we're little better than cancer—or worse, food for the ones like Ephix and her vampires.
One of the bartenders, a tall dude with long, greasy hair and sideburns to his jaw, approached. "Beer?" he asked.
"Nothing. I'm looking for Kale."
"Not without spending C-creds, you're not. Get naked or order something."
"Fine, beer." She slapped some shrapnel, a fifty-cent piece, on the bar. He poured her a plastic cup of beer, which she ignored. "Kale," she repeated.
"Don't get your panties in a knot, honey. I'll let him know." He strolled away, pausing to joke with a pair of drunks, clearly in no hurry.
She sat on one of the stools. Turning about again, she resumed her scan of the bar. Clearly, the Fey magic was having its intended effect on the customers. They looked randy as hell. Angie could smell their arousal, a heady mixture of sweat, alcohol, and lust. The strippers weren't immune either. She saw it in their red faces, the way they ground themselves against their customers' groins during the lap dances, openly stroking their erections through the fabric of their pants as if they were alone.
The Awakened World Boxed Set Page 4
