by Lindsey Duga
Refocus, you fool. The reason we’d come to this place was to find out who was after Eris, and for that, I had to meet Gin. “You’re not on the docks anymore, Carl. You’ve got to be an upstanding gentleman.”
“Are you going to come willingly or can I knock you out first?” Carl growled. “I wouldn’t mind breaking both your legs and dragging you there.”
“Easy, easy, ole sport, I’ll—”
“You will not harm Colt Clemmons. You will take him to Gin peacefully.”
Eris’s magic was so thick and powerful it clung to my mind like cobwebs. Had she intended to pour more magic than usual into her voice, or was it just her own emotions bleeding through?
Carl looked down at her in a daze. “I will not harm Colt Clemmons. I will take him to Gin peacefully,” he repeated.
Eris turned back to me and gripped my hand with both of hers. “I’ll do what’s necessary, don’t worry about me. Just be careful.” She bit her bottom lip as her gaze searched my face. There seemed to be something else she wanted to say, but then the other man stepped forward. He didn’t seem to be a monster, but he was big and burly and plenty threatening.
“Carl, what did this dame just do?”
Eris gave me a tight nod then turned back to the second man. “What were your orders?”
The man blinked at her then started to talk, quickly, in a thick Chicago accent. “We was supposed to fetch Colt Clemmons and bring him to Gin’s room. I was to guard you in the cellar and then kill you in case Clemmons acted up.”
Eris paled, but she didn’t miss a beat. “You will guide me to the cellar, but you will not touch me and you will never tell Gin what I’ve done to you or your friend.”
The man just nodded dully and then stood there, staring off into space, as if waiting for further instructions.
The jazz band slowed their song and switched to a new melody. Dancers wove around us, heading off the floor for a break and for more booze. Eris turned back to me, the lights catching the white-silver sparkles on her dress. “I’m sorry I’ve let you take me this far—I wasn’t thinking. We don’t have to go through with this. Leave me. Go back to DC, and don’t worry about me.”
The heat in my chest that had been burning since she’d started trembling fizzled out and a cool sense of reason and purpose took its place. I caught her hand and, still staring into those blue eyes that had ensnared me all the way across some tiny Boston bar, I placed a kiss into the center of her palm.
This was why I followed her. This was why I’d smashed that briefcase into the side of my coworker’s face and turned my back on the only home I’d ever known. Her goodness. In the midst of all this danger, she kept on sacrificing her own happiness.
With our eyes still locked, I lowered her hand from my lips. “I’m ready, Carl.”
I left Eris at the bottom of the stairs, feeling, for the first time in my life, that I was doing something I wanted. She wasn’t a mission. She wasn’t an assignment. She wasn’t something I had to protect out of a warped sense of duty.
She was good and precious to me. And maybe if I kept following her, then some of that goodness could rub off on me.
Gin’s room was down a brick corridor lit with gaslight lanterns. The cold, dank underground air of Lake Michigan’s icy depths played across my hot skin. The temperature between this part of the Cerberus Club and the main dance floor was like night and day.
Carl said nothing as we walked. It was as if he was still captivated by Eris’s words and intent on following her instructions to the letter.
She proved, at least, that she understood the importance of using her voice. Yet the disgust on her face when the two men had bent so easily to her will had not been lost on me.
She detested it.
We arrived at the red door at the end of the corridor, and Carl knocked in a practiced sequence.
A younger man, slimmer, and quite beautiful, opened the door. He was as pale as the moon with dark, unintelligent eyes and seemed to be in a daze, like Carl, but not one of a siren’s making. He stepped aside to let us in, and I found the room similar to the last time I’d been there. Memories of that night came back to me in short flashes, and my skin crawled.
It was a large room decorated with velvet furniture—all lounging couches and settees—with a window looking out over the dance floor. A woman with a curtain of black hair and a dark maroon sequin dress lay on the middle couch, her eyes on the window, watching the writhing crowd below. A young flapper with bobbed blonde ringlets sat to her right, straight-backed and stiff, staring ahead.
Another young man and woman lay stretched on the other couches, their eyes half closed, their lips parted, but with euphoric smiles on their faces.
I didn’t let a single emotion show through my expression—disgust, or rage, though both flowed through me.
“Colt Clemmons,” the woman with the black hair said, her rouge lips transforming into a smile. “You’ve come back to me at last.”
“Gin,” I said with a nod, then glanced down at the inebriated couple lounging on the couches, barely breathing. “Did you have a good meal?”
Gin’s dark eyes flicked to them and she frowned. “Somewhat disappointing, actually. Too much whiskey and tobacco in their blood. You, however”—she lifted her gaze to me—“would be delectable. A la flambé, if you will.”
Hard to imagine that only three years ago I’d been drawn in by that same magnetic smile and sexuality. That vampiric draw.
The memory of her fangs sinking into my neck, drawing blood, wanting to give her everything and more, was something that kept me up many nights following.
But I was no longer that innocent boy. That sixteen-year-old fool who was angry at the world and everyone in it and desperate to prove his worth. That he didn’t have to be a monster—that he could hunt them and be better.
It would’ve been easier if he’d just accepted his monstrosity. It’s always easier that way.
“Not tonight, Gin,” I answered.
Gin watched me carefully, tapping her fingers on her lips. “Another night perhaps. So”—she lounged into the velvet cushions, throwing her arms across the back of the sofa—“what brings you to my little club?”
“I need information.”
Gin cocked an eyebrow then gestured toward a settee opposite her. “Then take a seat, and let us negotiate, Mr. Clemmons. Anything comes with a price, and why don’t you double it, seeing as how you killed one of my men and I’ve yet to receive any retribution for it.”
I sat on the settee and leaned forward, interlacing my fingers. “I can get you some cash, I just need to wire it to you.”
Gin threw her head back and laughed. “I don’t need any spinach. I want something only you can offer me.”
Despite my best efforts, I drew away, sitting up taller. “I’m not letting you drain me.”
“Yes, Colt, you made that clear.” She tucked strands of raven hair behind her ears to show off dangling rubies. “You know I prefer my food to be willing.”
“Gin,” I said through clenched teeth, “what do you want?”
“I want what you want. Information.” The vampire tilted her head to the side, resting her temple on her fist.
I should’ve guessed that. Gin had been a vampire long before the monster trade made its way to America. Her fortune came from old money, way back when the New World was young and rich with resources—when the first vampires were said to have made it to the port of New Orleans in coffins. Rumors were that she’d been one of them.
“Regarding?”
“The monster trade.”
I stared at her. Gin probably knew more about the monster underground than I did. In fact, she was often referred to as the “Queen of Chicago’s Netherworld.” In times of desperation, even the SOCD had come to her for help. What could I know that would be useful to her?
&nb
sp; “What about it?”
“Any crime lord—any dealer in the trade—knows the most powerful monster in America is seated in this room.” Her dark eyes locked on mine, and she smiled a full, white smile, revealing her glistening fangs. “Well…who knows what you are now.”
My temper spiked as the aching, searing burn in my chest roared to life. “I’ve told you,” I seethed through clenched teeth, “I don’t know where the BOI got them.”
“And I believed you,” Gin said with a serene nod. “Few people can lie to me when I have my fangs inside them. We’re in a war, young hunter. A free-for-all. Booze. Dope. Cabbage. Bootlegging. Every night is another battle and every night a new player enters the ring, and we all need more hatchet men.” She paused and her sharp eyes narrowed with intensity.
Something dark and twisted seeded in my gut as I listened to Gin. I didn’t like where this conversation was headed, but if she could give me the name of Eris’s creator…then it’d be worth it.
“You see, I used to think you were special merely because of the rarity of your monster part. But then I realized…why did such a powerful item not kill you? Most men and women barely survive the infusion of the chimera agent. But you were a young boy—how could you have survived?”
“How should I know?”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. I’ve spent a long time studying monster transformations to find the secret of its success,” Gin replied.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Youth,” came a cold voice from behind.
I flinched. The blonde flapper who sat next to Gin hadn’t moved, or barely blinked, but I’d completely forgotten about the other male vampire.
I twisted in my seat to look at him. He leaned against the wall, cleaning his fingernails with a knife, and when he felt my gaze on him, he stared right back.
“Children are much more adaptable to the chimera agent and their minds are so malleable,” he said, a smile curling his pale lips.
Every syllable fell cold and hard, like a knife into my back, and the space between my shoulder blades once again began to throb with that same dull pain. I’d live with it forever.
“Frederick,” Gin sing-songed, “hush now. Our little agent doesn’t need to know the details. Just what I need from him.”
I licked my dry lips. “Which is?”
Gin’s expression flashed into one I’d seen many times before—greed.
“Your immunity. You are immune to most monsters—a werewolf’s bite, a vampire’s blood, a manticore’s stinger, a basilisk’s stare…you’ve survived it all. Was it the chimera agent they used on you or the monster you are—or were?”
My gut clenched. Few crime lords knew of my immunity, and few knew of my monster days…the BOI had made sure their secret weapon was kept secret.
My chest burned again and I was reminded of Eris and our goal. The manticore, the minotaur, and the men on the train platform. How many attacks could we survive without knowing who we were up against?
“Okay, you’ve laid out what you want. Now I need to know if you have the information that I need,” I said. It was highly possible, after all, that she would have no idea who BKH was.
Still smiling, Gin flicked her wrist, gesturing me to continue.
I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out the gold emblem that I’d pried loose from the briefcase. Leaning over, she took it from me and, as she inspected the letters, I caught an almost imperceptible moment of recognition in her gaze. Even one of shock.
“Where did you get this?” she asked calmly.
“I pulled it off a manticore’s briefcase. And I saw the letters again embroidered into a minotaur’s hat.”
“Was this before or after you picked up your latest squeeze?”
She was referring to Eris, of course. I was wondering when Gin would bring up me taking a girl to her club.
“Why should that matter?”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t. Not really.” Then she shot me a heated gaze. “But I’m a jealous woman. I like to know when my favorites get girls.”
“Gin.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, fine. You’ve gotten boring in your old age, Colt. How about we at least have a drink?” Snapping her fingers, she beckoned the younger vampire over. “Frederick, be a dear and escort Millie to get our guest something to drink.” Gin drew her arm around the slender shoulders of the blonde flapper next to her. The flapper shuddered slightly under Gin’s touch and her eyes rolled back into her head. Her lashes fluttered and she gave a soft gasp, like a soul possessed.
“I don’t need anything,” I said. “Let’s just get to it. Do you know what BKH stands for? Who’s behind it? Is it a crime syndicate?”
“If memory serves me right, you like tea. Orange pekoe, isn’t it?” Without waiting for my affirmation, she tilted her chin toward the flapper. “Mildred, my love, go fetch our guest some tea. And I’ll have a white Russian. Off with you now.”
Mildred stood on shaky legs like a newborn calf and then hurried out the door, Frederick following and shutting it behind him.
“Now,” she purred, lounging back into her velvet cushions again, “BKH. Interesting sequence of letters. It’s not often you see a crime organization use an acronym, do you?”
“No.”
“Which begs the question—is it even crime-related?”
“What do you mean?”
Her fangs gleamed with an even wider smile. “Well, how do you know it has anything to do with rum-running and dope dealing?”
I knew the Socratic method well. McCarney had used it to train me as a gumshoe. Thinking deductively and all that. But why was Gin wasting my time with it? She was stalling.
“Because both the men with this emblem were monsters.”
“So?”
“So?” I snapped. “Monsters are used by crime lords.”
“But only them?”
My mind blanked. Only.
Within the SOCD, all I’d known were the criminals who operated in the netherworld of cities. That was where monsters were engineered, created, born, bred, used, and murdered.
Then, slowly, the wheels started to turn.
“For Godsakes, Colt, it’s been nearly a decade into the monster trade,” Gin said. “You don’t think it would’ve stayed just within the crime world, do you?”
Monsters could be anywhere. Used by anyone. Anyone with power. Resources. Capital.
“A company,” I said slowly. “BKH is the acronym of a corporation. What is it?”
Gin smiled, tilting her head, dark eyes glittering. “I think I’ve supplied plenty of information so far. Now you give me something.” She leaned forward, hair cascading down pale, bare shoulders. “Your immunity. How is it possible?”
If I knew BKH was a company that would be enough information. Only truly rich companies could afford something like the siren’s pearl.
I stood. “Thanks for your time, Gin. I’ll be off now.”
Her eyes narrowed. “We had a deal, Clemmons.”
“I never agreed to it. And I don’t make deals with conniving hags.” So maybe I was a little jaded from our last encounter. How she’d taken advantage of my youth and self-hatred.
Anger flashed across her face like a lightning strike, but then it cleared and she smiled once more.
“Wait a moment, sugar. I do have one more piece of information I should share with you. And this is free.”
“No, thanks.” I turned my back to her when, at that moment, the door opened and in came the flapper named Mildred. In her hands was a tray with a cocktail and a white porcelain teacup.
“Millie, darling. Come set down the drinks. I’d like you to show Mr. Clemmons something.”
Mildred obeyed. She set down the tray and faced me, her gaze, for the first time, alive and locked on mine.
&
nbsp; Gin stood, draping an arm across Mildred’s shoulders like she’d done before, and petted the girl’s cheek with two fingers. “Show him, my love.”
Mildred pulled off her headband, shaking loose her blonde curls and revealing…a third eye dead center in the middle of her forehead.
The eye was blue, just like her others, but slightly wider and without a lid or eyelashes. It could never blink.
A cyclops.
But I’d never seen a small female one before. Cyclops were known usually to be men—big brutes with super strength like minotaurs.
“Millie, here,” Gin said, moving her fingers into Mildred’s hair to play with her curls, “is my own special brand of cyclops. Did you know a cyclops eye has untapped potential? Men with no imagination think a cyclops can do nothing but break some bones. But it’s a third eye. Think about it, Mr. Clemmons. A third eye has always been mythicized to possess mystic abilities. It can see things. Read things. For example…seeing across time and space. Hearing words that were never actually said…”
“Gin, what’ve you done?” I asked, panic coating my voice for the first time.
“Experimenting mostly. Succeeding occasionally. Winning always.” Gin twirled another one of Millie’s curls, petting her cheek with one long finger topped with one long red nail. “And I’ve found that telepathy is a winning hand, wouldn’t you say, sugar?”
Still trying to unravel her words, the door opened for the third time.
My chest flared with heat and it traveled into my throat and through my nostrils, as real and certain fear held me in a vice-like grip.
Chapter Nineteen
The Siren
Was this what it felt like to have five shots of bourbon in one hour? I’d seen many of my patrons slam glass after glass on the mahogany bar and watched them stumble away, out into the Boston night.
I wondered if I looked that way now. My steps swervy, legs like jelly, knees wobbly and my head spinning, while the Cerberus bouncer led me to the cellar steps.
I couldn’t remember being kissed before…by anyone. Not my faceless birth parents who abandoned me at an orphanage, not the nuns I spent my childhood with, not Stan, or the bar patrons, or even Madame Maldu. She’d treated me well. Kindly, but distantly. Not a hug or a kiss or any significant, definitive displays of affection. I felt like a charity project to her, one that she liked, cared for, but not necessarily loved.
