by Ian Hiatt
“You can tell a lot about a woman by her drink,” the man says, getting off his seat and walking toward me. My back stiffens in reflex and I hunch over my scotch. He sits on the stool beside me, bringing his own glass of green drink with him. “I chose the drink of the house.” He raises his glass in the direction of Sophia and gives a jovial nod to her, his reflection in the bar mirror mimicking his movements. If Sophia reacts, I don’t see it.
The man leans over his own drink, his breathing heavy but not as inebriated as the other customers of Naja. He sniffs his drink and tosses it back. Holding the glass out, he studies it as if in doubt the alcohol is really gone.
“You’re aware that Mama Sophia frowns on people doing business in her club, yeah?”
I chance a look at the man, certain that I’ll see some scaled imprint. Chilling eyes. Perhaps even venom dripping in a mouth of broken-glass teeth. But I see none of this.
“It’s a strange phrase, innit?” he says with a grin that flashes pearly-white, perfect teeth. He sets his glass back down and raises a hand to one of the women sliding along behind the bar.
“What is?” I ask, still trying to place this man, and why he seems to know what Sophia is. Maybe even what I am. Though he seems not to be of the Inhuman persuasion.
“Sophia frowning on something. As though she’ll slither out from her table and press her face on you and yours, a big ole frown there. Note to self: find out where that whole ‘frowning on’ phrase came from.” A quiet and sharp laugh escapes his lips as he pulls out a ratty pack of cigarettes, an onyx-haired bartender tipping more absinthe into his glass. He puts a smoke in his mouth and snatches a nearby pack of matches, then tears one out and lights his cheap cigarette.
I cough at the foul scent of it, a far-removed cousin of what many in Naja are enjoying tonight.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I say, turning away but knowing the brush-off won’t do it.
He takes a long drag off the cigarette, the ashes sizzling at the end. “Hence my statement. Mama Sophia doesn’t like people doing business in her club. She’s killed prettier girls than you for it.”
I scoff and sip my drink.
“Oh, a snarky one, eh? I like ‘em snarky. Always have.” He laughs and taps some of the loose ashes off his cigarette onto the bar, ignoring the ashtray only inches away from his hand. “I’m Garth.” After tucking his smoke back between his thin lips, he extends his hand toward me. When I don’t take it, he pulls it back with a snicker. “Still, you look like you’re on the hunt. You may want to take your business elsewhere.”
It doesn’t ring with the sound of a warning, nor a threat. If anything, it strikes me as a casual amusement.
“Let me guess,” Garth says, taking another drag. “Are you one of those uptown succubuses? Succubi? Succubistresses? One of those flashy girls Nox keeps up at the Crux?”
I take my drink in hand and slide off the stool, determined to shake the flea.
“No, don’t run away. How about one of the merfolk? We have those right? In the river? Or are they mermaids only, no merdudes? Merwomen? What’s the politically correct term?”
I push past him as the saxophone player makes a renewed jog to the stage. A trumpet player comes from the far recessed part of the stage, blowing out his spit-valve on his approach to the dance floor. “I have legs, if you hadn’t noticed,” I mutter.
“Hmm… good point. Well, you’re not of the human stock. That much is obvious. So what are you? I give up. I admit myself stumped.”
I prepare to swing around and smash the glass into the side of his face, hoping that I can deter the flirting and eventual throwing of himself at me. I’ll have to find another place to meet my seller or find what I need elsewhere.
A mountain dressed like a man steps into my path, throwing me off-balance. Bald-headed and stern-eyed, he glares down at me and my unwanted admirer. The piano begins its tinkling, the saxophone its baying. A man’s voice croons through the speakers of Naja. Garth comes to a halt beside me, cigarette dangling on his lip and glass still in his hand, its green contents sloshed about from his attempt to continue the conversation.
The mountain man, Lawrence, ignores my companion.
“Miss Layla,” he says, not a bare hint of emotion showing. “Mother Sophia would like to have a word with you.”
Lawrence is one of the many bouncers that Sophia employs. He’s human, but she keeps them very well trained―or drugged. Without any sort of advantage over Lawrence or Garth, I look towards the VIP area, and Sophia gives me a soft wave.
“This city is not what it used to be,” Sophia says, her elbows on the table, one hand clutching her cigarette holder. She taps the cigarette, which has almost burned its last cinder, into her metallic ashtray. A mournful sigh passes her lips, starkly darker than her eyes that glow an intriguing shade of green. “When I was young―not that I’m particularly old, you understand…” A smile cracks over aged lips.
I give her an endearing smirk and nod. I met Sophia some years ago, when Cassie first moved into the apartment beside mine. Sharing a wall meant we shared more in this world. As a rule, I try not to associate with many, Inhuman or not. But Sophia has taken a shine to me, and I’ve never had any compelling reason to dissuade her of it. She peers beneath black hair with the occasional gray strand at the crowd of people in her club.
“When I first came to Saint Roch”—she takes a puff on her cigarette, blowing out the smoke through her nostrils—“there were humans under every stone. ‘They were here first,’ you see.”
My mother had told a version of these same woes in my youth. A city destined for ruling by superior species already supplanted by humans.
“Seven families, seven dynasties is more like it.” Sophia stubs out her cigarette and pulls a fresh one from a leather case at her side. She shifts and the dangling tapestry behind her ripples. “Clinging to every scrap of land they own and position they hold. Passing them on to the next generation of pups. A disease with the best legal representation and muscle that money can buy. “
I don’t need the in-depth review of them. I’m already well on my way to rubbing out one of the human families of Saint Roch City. Though Sophia doesn’t need to know that.
“I’m one of the lucky ones, mind you, dear.” She pulls a matchbook much like the one Garth had at the bar and lights her cigarette. “I at least own the land this club and my home stand on. Some of these humans, the scum, hold it over the heads of their betters.”
As Sophia continues on her reminiscing, I keep an eye on the door, waiting for my contact from the Western edges of Saint Roch to appear. He’ll be holding a black beauty of a revolver for me. Serial numbers filed off, clean ballistic history. Nothing to point back to me.
“The Saint Roch of yesteryear. I wish you had been older then,” Sophia says. She shakes her head at the nostalgia of it. “When your mother worked the streets.”
A shudder runs up my spine, somewhere between chill and bristle.
Sophia smiles, her gaze nowhere near meeting mine. “She was an artist, that woman. When someone was marked for death, she took care of them. A ghost haunting the alleys.” Ashes tumble from the end of her cigarette to land on the marble surface of the table. Snapping back to reality, she swipes her hand, sending them onto the floor. She shivers at her own memories, and the tapestry trembles as well.
“Naturally, I never had to use her services,” Sophia says, taking no notice of the pride I don’t show. “She would give me a cut, though, to make use of my club on occasion. As you know, none of my staff is susceptible to your kind’s wiles.”
I nod and glance back toward Garth who is on to his next absinthe shooter.
“Oh, not that one,” Sophia says with a chuckle. “He’s not one of mine.”
I watch him as he raises his glass toward our table again. He gives a loose wave that has the hallmarks of intoxication, not flirtation.
“What is he?”
The sound Sophia emits is a mating of hiss
and snarl, as though she intended one but the other slipped out. “My daughter will be the death of me. First she insists on moving out into the city with these filthy primates. That desecrated husk of a building she lives in.” She pauses to take a puff on the cigarette, inhaling so hard I worry she’ll burn it down to the filter in one go. “I consider myself blessed by the goddesses that she at least has a neighbor with your blood.”
A woman not prone to show affection of any kind, I take this for the compliment I know it to be and blush appropriately. She reaches out and pats my hand with her ice-cold fingertips.
“That,” she says among unfurling layers of smoke, “is the boy my Cassandra has deemed worth her time. Garth, his name is, I think.” She flaps her hand, brushing off the name as she would likely wish to do the man.
“If he’s not… a snake…?”
She ripples, and I’m reminded that Sophia does not use a chair. She does not leave this table when in the club. Her many staff members cater to her every need while she watches the customers, on the rare occasion selecting one to bring home. The police force in this area is paid very well to ignore missing persons reports that end at Naja.
“He is a phoenix, or so I’m told.”
The word is familiar to me, but not the being. “A phoenix? Like a bird?” I look back at the boy with his ruffled hair and torn jacket. I suppress the disbelieving laugh, but it pains me to do it.
“Humans always associate animals to legends. No, he’s not birdlike in the slightest. Birds are at least clean. But in a short while, the man will burn to ashes and become a boy. I, for one, have never seen such things. My grandmother told me tales of her encounters.” She grumbles and shakes her head, tapping fingers on the marble table. Her nails click like the talons of a predator. “I had envisioned something far more noble. With any luck, his molting will come sooner rather than later. I am loath to see my Cassandra lower herself to be with such a whelp.”
I watch the man move off to the side of the bar and enter a door that leads off to the living quarters of Sophia’s extended family. While Cassie and I share many stories between us, I have never heard of her romantic dealings.
With a sharp intake on her cigarette and crawling clouds of smoke, Sophia speaks. “I allowed your mother to do business out of my club, Layla. It was a sign of respect, and she paid well for it. She did not do business in my club. So I must ask you, why are you here?”
It’s not a threat. I’ve been present for one of Sophia’s threats―they’re usually followed by violence. She watches me, unblinking.
“Just here meeting a contact,” I say. After picking up my drink, I shake its contents, the ice cubes rattling within.
“Sirens don’t have contacts. You have a broker, I assume, but you wouldn’t be meeting him. Not here.” She takes a puff on her cigarette, a smile creeping over her face. Her height shifts, almost imperceptibly, but I know to watch for it.
This must be how the poor little animals feel on nature documentaries while the narrator tells the audience all about the hunting prowess of the predator.
“And sirens don’t need any material goods. Drugs barely make a dent on your kind, and you have no need for weapons. You’re not here with my daughter; she’s up in the house.” She nods toward the side door Garth had gone through. “So again, I ask, why are you in my club?”
I don’t want my fuck-up out in the world more than it needs to be, so I take a quick drink to buy time. The cold liquid burns all the way down, eliciting the reflexive storytelling that I would use on a mark.
“I’m looking for―”
But before I can weave the tale, my pride at coming up with a good lie is deflated as Sophia looks past me.
“Damn,” she mutters, stubbing out her not-nearly-finished cigarette and pulling another from her leather case. “Be silent, girl,” she says to me, her eyes flashing in scarlet fury that feels misplaced.
Over the music and murmuring patrons of Naja, the sounds of a disturbance reach us at our distant and dark table. A man, primly dressed in a crisp, black suit moves through the club. The hitwoman in me can mark his companions―bodyguards―flanking him at a fair distance. Some of the customers at the bar and various tables look up, realizing who the man is. The Inhumans take note of him, the humans only give a hint of noticing a new person in their midst. They turn back to their hookahs and liquor in the time of a blink.
All the better for them, I think to myself. Robert Nox is not a being it pays to recognize. He strides across the club, the smoke parting before him as though he were Moses and it the Red Sea. He gives off his own heat that the air of Naja seems unwilling or unable to assault. It’s with no small amount of annoyance that I spot my contact, a low-level drug peddler, milling around at the bar. He spots Nox as well and makes a beeline for the exit, taking my hoped-for handgun with him.
For my part, I recognize Nox only from the one occasion I had to venture into his casino to take out a high-profile performer that was in for only one night. Nox had a look of fury when his big-ticket act wound up drowning in the tub in his hotel suite, the result of an apparent overdose. I’ve seen fury on men and women, human and Inhuman alike.
Nox does not look furious as he approaches Sophia’s table. He, in fact, has a wide grin on his face.
“Mother Sophia!” He extends his hands out, a gesture of a son embracing his true mother. Though I doubt Nox would have even hugged his actual mother. The poisonous grin remains on his face as he approaches Lawrence. Sophia’s faithful bodyguard looks back toward his mistress.
She nods, deciding she wants her servant to survive the night. Nox’s own men stop at the base of the stairs as he jogs up the few steps. He snags a chair from one of the few tables in our area and sits before being invited by his host. His chair is beside me, the very heat of his body curling over my sweatpants-clad legs. I struggle to take a breath.
“What brings you into my club, Robert?” Sophia asks, drawing on her cigarette, color draining from her lips.
“I’m a man of the people, Sophia,” Nox says with a chuckle. He leans back in his chair, petting out the wrinkles that dare to form on his suit. “I can’t come out and visit one of my favorite… people?” He glances over at me, but I keep my eyes on Sophia. A dangerous club owner demanding payment for use of her premises seems like a far kinder animal than the hell-beast at my side.
Nox allows his gaze to linger on me for longer than I’m comfortable with, but eventually he turns back to the woman he treats like a guest in her own home.
Sophia, not one to allow such treatment, smirks and holds out her cigarette case to Nox.
“No. No thank you,” Nox says, waving his hand at the offered smokes. “Terrible for your health.”
“Right,” Sophia says. She snaps the case shut and tucks it close to her body. “I forget, the only thing you suck on is the hapless women who stumble into your club.”
I’ve always known Nox to be an Inhuman of some kind, but never put much thought into what he really was. He’s not a member of the Seven human families of Saint Roch, but he runs his skyscraper and owns most of the police department. That level of power means he has a lot of money. And having that level of money without being one of the Seven means he’s no human.
Nox nods and his smile fades. “I have finer tastes than my reptilian neighbors, I’m afraid. Though, it would be polite to offer me a drink.”
Sophia takes a drag on her cigarette, a wisp of smoke that had already escaped getting sucked back into the smoldering ashes to her lips. She breathes it out, and I have to stifle a cough to remain meaningless in the conversation.
“The polite thing to do would be to tell me what the hell you’re doing in my club, Robert.”
Nox glances at me again. “I know you prefer to not have business conducted in your club, but I’m afraid that is what brings me here.”
“It is not my preference; it is my rule.” Sophia’s cigarette clings to the emerald holder, fine tendrils of smoke twisting away
. It’s the only movement at the table for an uncomfortable moment.
“And a fine rule it is,” Nox says. He reaches out to me and puts a hand on my thigh, ignoring the sweat-laced stink I must give off.
The sensation that erupts from my leg at his touch is unlike any I’ve ever experienced. Thousands of infinitely minute pinpricks spread, crawling along my skin. Burrowing into my muscles and cutting up my bones. The wave spreads down my leg, making the whole limb numb and useless to control. Worse still, the army of pins-and-needles marches up to my waist, my stomach roiling. It reaches my chest and my heart begins to falter, my lungs seize, clinging to the last bit of air I had taken in before his touch. Stars burst before my eyes.
“Robert, enough,” Sophia barks. Her voice echoes as dull noise in my ears, as though I’m hearing her through water.
My body burns in frigid release. Nox takes his hand away and the sensations evaporate. I collapse off the chair as a vacuum kicks on in my ear. It takes me a few heart-shuddering moments to realize it’s not a vacuum, but my own breath sucking in with little effect. Tears fill my eyes, my throat burning. On any normal day, I can’t feel most things. This puts that fact to the test.
Nox groans and pulls a napkin from Sophia’s side of the table and wipes his hand. “The dregs you run with are quite disappointing. You should have someone stop the vermin at the door.”
A pair of strong hands snakes under my arms and lifts me up. Lawrence stands behind me, handling me like he might someone’s coat.
“Bring her upstairs,” Sophia spits, her eyes never leaving Nox. Lawrence drags me so that at a distance it probably looks like I’m at least partially under my own power, my feet scraping on the floor. He walks past Sophia, parting the tapestry to access the small doorway behind the owner’s table.
