Storm Chaser: A Novel of The Black Pages

by Danny Bell

  Ann couldn’t be less bothered, so I stuffed down my anxiety for her sake. Nothing to be done about it now. I’m already all-in on this thing, so I might as well enjoy it and let Ann do the same.

  For his part, Georgio and his assistants were more or less directing traffic with the various staff who seemed to be there exclusively for us. Maybe it was because he didn’t need to speak with me, now that I was being attended to, or maybe it was because I threatened to bludgeon him earlier in the day. Either way he thankfully he left us alone.

  By the time they’d finished with Ann’s hair, at a volume that qualified as epic, I was still getting started. There wasn’t much in the way of conversation with my stylist, but I understood the frustrated grunts for what they were. I’d always had a head of hair you could think of as a separate living entity. I enjoyed it, but anyone who ever tried to touch it in a professional capacity cursed my bloodline.

  Ann came back to me, beaming with a smile that looked like it might’ve hurt, wearing a flared evening gown that somehow produced the illusion of a continuous cascade of indigo and gold orchids that threatened to fly away from her as she twirled.

  She nearly shouted with glee when she saw me. “Elana! Look! It has pockets!”

  “For weapons,” the willowy stylist behind her added warmly.

  “For weapons!” Ann reiterated, not losing an ounce of that energy.

  “Holy shit, that’s amazing!” I sat up as I said it, only to be firmly pulled back down into my chair.

  “I feel like I’m going to the Oscars!” Ann kept twirling excessively, looking at herself in any reflective surface she could find. “Or, like, that masquerade dance in Labyrinth!”

  “I’ve been to something like that,” I remarked, careful not to say much more than that. “It wasn’t as great as you’d think.”

  “Yeah, but you hate parties. I probably would’ve liked it.”

  She was right. I got drunk and threatened a room full of fae, not necessarily in that order. Ann would’ve just got drunk and annoyed a sprite with questions about what it’s like to be neighbors with a squirrel. This, of course, left out the fact that my host was a manipulative, trickster deity obsessed with my mom. Ann’s mom is lovely and, when wine drunk, she has bragged about being on the Dodgers Kiss Cam a remarkable three times in her life. I doubt Abarta would’ve gone through the same effort for her, however.

  Something had been bothering me since we’d arrived, and I made the decision that I needed to talk about it now rather than later. With some minor effort, I convinced the staff to give Ann and myself the room for a minute and, when I was sure they were out of earshot, I took Ann to the far end of the room near the bay windows that overlooked a lush, almost too green, backyard. If not for the weather, it would’ve certainly felt idyllic rather than melancholy.

  Ann firmly wore her concerned face, which didn’t seem to suit her in her current state. Between the gown, the hair, and makeup, her furrowed brow gave me the feeling that she was about to ask why the caterers were late. “What’s going on?” she asked instead.

  “Just take a moment,” I said hesitantly. “Try and focus. Do you feel any weird energies? Any magic?”

  Ann shut her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply. When she opened them again, she didn’t seem to be any more relaxed. “No, I don’t sense anything. What are you getting?”

  “Nothing!” I hissed, trying to keep my voice down. “That’s hecking weird, isn’t it?”

  “Why would it be?” Ann asked, her expression unchanging.

  “How many non-humans have you seen since we’ve been here?” I asked. “Because I’m at about half a dozen, and your dress has weapon pockets, and… I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.”

  “It’s all unfamiliar and you think there needs to be something under the surface, that something has to be magical because that’s what you’re used to,” Ann finished for me.

  “No!” I protested before relenting. “Yes. Maybe. Look, I wasn’t going to say anything, but what is this place?”

  “It’s not magic. It’s just really goddamn expensive and exclusive and someplace we’re not supposed to be. Come on, I know you, and you know what you’re feeling, too, even if you won’t admit it.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest, defiantly. “Oh, I do, do I? I mean…you do, do…you? I?”

  “Yeah, dude, you got that whole broke chic thing,” Ann explained. “You don’t own a lot, your car is older than us, you eat like shit, and part of you takes pride in that hard knock life. Experiences over things, that’s you. And that’s cool. But you’re suspicious of anything nice because everyone you’ve ever met with more than four digits in the bank turns out to be scummy. You want to like all this, but you don’t or can’t like it at the same time. How am I doing?”

  “I refuse to answer that on account of how accurate you are and how I’ll probably say something I regret,” I said, only half-joking.

  “Yeah, this place is fancy as hell, but Wilma’s word is gold. She’s getting us into the fancy pants party and, until we’re there, her side of the bargain isn’t fulfilled. This all might be concerning, but we don’t need to be concerned, right?”

  I took a moment to consider what she was saying and conceded the point. “Worry about the city drowning first and maybe save the mystery of the secret stylists for later?”

  “You got it,” Ann replied, offering me a high five.

  I begrudgingly granted it to her. “Did you have to be so damned blunt about it, though?”

  Ann shrugged. “If I weren’t, we’d never get out of here, and I want to take pictures of this look while I still can. You do the hair thing, I’m going to snack on cucumber slices and pretend I’m famous and deserving of cucumber slices.”

  It’s not that I was convinced Ann was right, I just wasn’t sure that she was wrong. Even if she was, and again, I had no level of certainty either way; I could count on my hands, feet, and nostrils the number of bigger and more immediate problems that I had than if this place was hiding something. There was something weirdly comforting about that. So much so that I probably would’ve fallen asleep if I hadn’t been literally unable to. Instead, I just stared wide-eyed out into a rain-soaked garden like a serial killer. Then I felt really anxious that everyone was going to think I was staring like a serial killer, and then I just started looking at everything, and then I got anxious about that, and eventually, my hair was finished, and somehow, that was the most uncomfortable I’d been this week.

  Mercifully, I’d been left alone while my evening attire was receiving its finishing touches and, in the spaces that filled my moments of lucidity, I wondered if I was hallucinating the almost living nature of the storm. Rain typically makes me feel calm, but not this. Not whatever was threatening to wash my city away. The drops seemed to fall bigger and harder each time I thought about it, and the intensity was now bordering on raging. In the time since we’d arrived, any natural light that could’ve illuminated the world seemed to vanish in a manner that had nothing to do with the time of day. Tasteful garden party bulbs did their best to bathe the garden with their glow, but it was a losing battle. I felt a creeping sense of something existential growing in my stomach, and it was a welcome distraction when I was summoned for my fitting.

  Unlike Ann’s sylphlike gown, which seemed to flow into infinity, mine was deceptively weighted. A strapless gown of tiered lace and tulle, a red that matched my hair, with a sash belt that hung off my hip to my knees. And unlike an ordinary crazy expensive designer dress that would otherwise cost more than a certified pre-owned Honda Civic, this one had a tight weave of under mesh that I was told could stop a small-caliber bullet. I preemptively declined a demonstration.

  Just like that, it was showtime. Two magical women dressed to the nines in the back of a limo, on their way to jump headfirst into a den of snakes and, somehow, neither of us could find it in our hearts to quote Raiders of the Lost Ark. Not every uncomfortable moment gets to be punctuated wit
h an ill-timed joke. Sometimes you just have to be anxious in the face of a bad idea.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Our ride to the hotel was unnerving, and not for the obvious reasons. Something about this event was special, and no one was trying to hide it, which meant we could be walking into a buzz saw. The heavy rain falling onto the limo had long since moved past the sort of weather that made hot soup and a good book under a thick blanket a relaxing time. Now, it hit the car like we had parked under a waterfall, and I didn’t know how much more the city could take. Neither of these facts were the cause of my anxiety. Instead, it was the thought that wouldn’t leave my head, and it was on repeat the way only the chorus of some catchy song bounces inside your skull when you don’t know all the lyrics. It was a simple question.

  What if I’m wrong?

  When I really had a second to think about it, I had ultimately made a guess given the first piece of information I received, and if it hadn’t been for Logan’s family being involved and what that would do to Olivia, I had to wonder if I would’ve kept looking. It’s genuinely hard to say. I was on the clock with the threat of an unending storm, and Wilma has all but confirmed there’s something big going down at the Doubletree, but what if it has nothing to do with Susano-o or the Orochi or any of this? L.A. is a big, dangerous place. Something is always happening somewhere, and if I guessed wrong, I might not have enough time left to guess right.

  And that was the exact moment I was furious with myself. I wasn’t thinking long enough and hard enough to put together the right answer, I was flipping a coin with my home on the line. And the people of this city deserved better. I had to be better.

  “Are you going to open that envelope or just improvise the whole night?” The question brought me out of my head, and Ann stared at me as if she asked the question an hour ago and was still waiting on a reply.

  The envelope. It held our invitations, which I was led to believe wouldn’t be under our names, for fairly obvious reasons. “Right, sorry,” I responded, absently peeling away the green wax from the back of the cream-colored envelope of noticeable thickness. A rose-colored card thanked us for our generous donations and bid us welcome to an evening of art. And by us, I meant Jesika Libby and Kymberleigh Sinclair.

  “Goddamn, that’s an impressive way to spell that,” I muttered.

  “Which one?”

  “Jesus, both,” I decided after a second.

  Ann flipped the card over and inspected the blank backside for hidden clues and rubbed her fingers over the soft-looking cardstock a moment before looking at its face again. “So, am I supposed to be Kim or Jessie?”

  “You mean Kymberleigh or Jesika?” I teased.

  Ann continued to study the invitation and replied, “I am not confident in my ability to spell either of these names if quizzed, so I’m sticking with my original question.”

  “I’ve legitimately never heard of either of these people, maybe the internet can decide for us?”

  Ann reached for her phone and creased her brow as she searched the names. “Well, would you like to be the runway model with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering or the heiress of an automotive fortune turned contemporary artist and environmentalist?”

  I snatched her phone, and my stomach dropped. “We look absolutely nothing like either of these people!”

  “Maybe no one will notice?” Ann posited.

  I pulled out my phone and leaned into Ann, taking a graceless selfie with her, then showed her the image. “I think someone’s going to notice, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ann agreed. “But also, maybe they won’t?”

  I slumped back into frustratingly comfortable limousine seats and sighed, “Well, what else does it say about them?”

  Ann took a second then said, “Married for three years, they live in Scotland, lots of charity stuff; anything specific you’re looking for?”

  “No!” I said harsher than I intended. “Dude, I know I say this a lot, but we’re definitely about to die. We are about to walk into a hotel full of rich and probably supernatural assholes, minus any of our magical gear, and if even one of them knows who are—and I’ll remind you that our friend’s missing boyfriend’s dad most certainly does know us; and if he speaks or anyone else figures it out or just whatever—we are going to get Cecil’d or something.”

  “Cecil’d?” Ann turned up her nose with the question.

  “You know, the Cecil Hotel?” I said shortly. “Super haunted murder hotel? Shit, we’re almost here, aren’t we? I can’t breathe. Shit. I’m going to throw up! What’s the easiest thing for them to clean later?”

  “The Cecil Hotel is really haunted?” A bemused tone was in Ann’s voice at that.

  “Time and place!” I tried not to shout. My voice caught in my throat, and my pulse quickened. Shit, I was really starting to panic now.

  “Hey!” Ann snapped at me, punching me in the arm harder than I would’ve thought possible. “Head in the game! You’re a champion, right? And not figuratively, you were literally named as a champion in all this, so act like you’ve been here before!”

  “I have been here before,” I countered, trying to catch my breath to no avail.

  “Not…like that,” Ann stumbled. “Like…look, if you get me killed here, I swear I’m going to haunt you, and I’m going to look awesome doing it because of this dress, but I am not going to die because you couldn’t pretend to be an heiress!”

  “Why is this shit happening to me?” I shouted as our driver knocked on our window.

  “Not now!” Ann practically screamed, not taking her eyes off me. “Dude, come back to me. What shit? We deal with a lot of shit.”

  “Yes! That!” I exclaimed, feeling panicked tears welling up. “Why isn’t this more weird to us? We’re not supposed to be doing all of this! We used to get day drunk at Comic-Con and read comics in bed on Friday nights. Remember that? We didn’t do…this! What are we even wearing?”

  I had no idea where this was coming from, but something in me was very quickly turning into a dam break, and I was fighting futilely to hold it back. Words were coming out of me without thought, and the air began to taste stale.

  Something was working behind Ann’s eyes, but I couldn’t focus enough to tell what she was thinking or feeling. She was scanning the car, not looking at me. “Okay. Okay, just maybe do that thing.”

  “What thing?” It came out of me with a shallow breath.

  Ann was still searching for an answer. “That focus thing. I don’t know! Whatever you do when you need to calm down.”

  “It’s not to calm me down, it’s—”

  “Sorry,” Ann interrupted. “Just do it.”

  Like a machine given instructions, I began without question. I had the soft lights of the interior to see. I had the sound of the low hum of the limo as it began to move again suddenly. I could smell the subtle hints of perfume tingle in my nostrils. It was incomplete, I didn’t have enough to focus on, and it was falling apart.

  “Champagne,” I said, wooden and hushed.

  “Yeah, totally,” Ann obliged, handing me the thankfully open bottle, not bothering with a glass. I didn’t bother with one either as I took a hard swig.

  It was too much too quick, and the bubbles burned my throat, but it worked. By the time I lowered the bottle, my senses were occupied by the dry citrus of my drink, the soft lighting on my eyes, the incessant crackle of rainfall on asphalt, the jasmine and sandalwood as it tickled my nose, and lastly, the comforting touch of Ann rubbing my back reassuringly. I closed my eyes for the briefest of moments and held it all there, trying to remember what we were doing and why it mattered. And before me, the puzzle came together, and with a touch of sadness, I understood this was not the end. But in that, I felt hopeful, because it was not the end. For me, at least.

  “I’m not going to be the heiress,” I said softly.

  Ann stopped rubbing my back, but her hand remained for a moment, before finally, she asked, “What?”<
br />
  “If I’m not the heiress, you can’t haunt me later,” I calmly explained. “Besides, I’m taller, I should be the runway model.”

  Ann removed her hand and smoothed her dress. “You know how scary that is, right? You were like, this close to a meltdown literally just now. All panic and no disco. Now you’re smiling like you’re too high to get off the couch.”

  “I am burdened with the clarity of purpose,” I said sagely.

  “Shit’s definitely not normal,” Ann shook her head. “It’s great, but weird.”

  “Aww, you’re great and weird too!” I cooed. That got an eye roll as Ann lowered the dividing window and let the driver know that we were ready. There was an almost imperceptible tinge of annoyance near his eyes that I would’ve otherwise missed if not for my current focus. We’d been parked in front of the hotel for several minutes by this point, and to anyone outside, it likely seemed like we were looking to make an entrance. So maybe his annoyance was justified.

  Our driver informed us that he’d be on the bottom floor of the parking garage should we need to leave early. I barely heard him. It occurred to me that I felt a bit high, and I wasn’t sure where that was coming from. I had the clarity to realize that this wasn’t typically how I felt when I found clarity. Still, it felt good. I was keenly aware of everything and, as we were led into the lobby by a gentleman who had checked our invitations, everything around me was something to behold.

  The expansive and aptly named Rendezvous Lounge was a bar that took up the majority of the room and seamlessly bled into the lobby so completely that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. Playful, tasteful lighting illuminated the room with soft warmth, ideally suited to the retro-contemporary design that somehow managed to make a palette of beige, white, and pistachio green feel alive and exciting. Every chair in the atrium seating was taken, and gorgeous, well-dressed people occupied them. The lobby was abuzz with excitable, emotional energy, but it struck me suddenly that none of them were as well dressed as we were, and I was picking up on those who noticed. Conversation stopped for an instant or two from people who glanced in our direction, trying to hide their curiosity.