by Emma Savant
I slammed the magazine down between Brendan and Alec. They both jumped.
“Pack-like.” I pointed at the paragraph. “Look, right there. ‘The upper echelon of House of Brick’s designers and visionaries have a pack-like quality, with Mr. Brick serving in the capacity of leader—’”
“—and others vying for a position in the hierarchy,’” Brendan finished. He looked up at me, suddenly alert. “Okay, that’s something.”
His gaze raced down the page as I dropped back into my seat.
“It’s something, but it’s not proof,” Alec said. He broke a cookie in half. A chocolate chip dropped to the table, and he picked it up and popped it in his mouth. “You’re going to need more than that.”
“I need to catch him in the act,” I said.
“The act of running mesmer games or the act of being a werewolf?” Brendan said.
“Both. Either.”
I jiggled my foot up and down. My mind raced.
To find out who was running the clubs and the mesmer games, chances were good that I needed to spend more time there and maybe get on friendly terms with some of the bartenders or mesmer dealers.
To encourage werewolves to come out of the corners and show themselves, I needed prey.
And what made better prey than a group of young, attractive women in short skirts?
The thought of putting my coven sisters in that position made my soul cringe, but I had no illusions about the world I lived in—and no illusions about the kind of person who would pin me to a wall in an alleyway and drag his disgusting tongue across my cheek.
The werewolf who had attacked me was a monster of the most predictable kind, and I was going to use that to make the monster show himself.
23
Rowan stood on the dark sidewalk and adjusted the hem of her minidress. It was the kind of twenty-dollar polyester thing that could only be found on the last-chance clearance rack, which made it perfect for our purposes, but she was visibly uncomfortable in it.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, tucking in her tag.
“I asked to be here.” She tugged at the hem again. “And I’m totally on board. This thing is just itchy and doesn’t want to seem to stay down.” She gave it another pull, this time strong enough to almost pop seams.
I brushed her hand aside and crouched. “Hold still, and I’ll fix it.”
I imagined filling my hands with heavy, damp soil and ran them around her hem, infusing the fabric with weight and gravity. The fabric settled against her thighs, and when I told Rowan to wiggle around, the hem stayed mostly put.
“I can’t do anything about the itching,” I said. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay, we’ll only be here for a few hours,” she said. “I’ll live.”
I stood and adjusted my own too-short skirt and too-low neckline. I never wore things like this; I felt vulnerable.
It wasn’t that I minded the thought of people staring at me. I just hated the thought of trying to land a roundhouse kick in a skirt this tight.
“How’s my glamour?” I turned so Rowan could get a good look.
“You look like a cute blonde who’s lying about being twenty-one,” she said.
“Perfect.”
Cerise and Ginger had just arrived and were entering the bar by the time we reached the door, so we lingered outside for a few moments to stagger our entrances. When we got inside, the bartender ignored Rowan and me as we walked through the mostly empty space, and Rowan reflexively fiddled with her skirt and waited for me to unlock the Out of Order sign. This was one of her first big missions, and definitely the most dangerous. The door swung open and I put a hand on her arm.
“You’re going to do great,” I said. “Dagger’s accessible?”
“I practiced before we left,” she said. “I can have it from thigh strap to my hand in less than a second.”
We entered the club, where the pulsing music instantly made it impossible to talk. We killed the first twenty minutes by dancing in the crush of people, gathering intelligence all the while. I paid attention to who could see into the games room beyond and who seemed blinded by the glamour, and kept an eye on how many people seemed clustered around the mesmer tables beyond.
One of the Burnside werewolves I’d met before with Brendan was dancing with a pretty young woman. I made a mental note to check on her later, then nodded at Rowan. Slowly, dancing the whole way so as not to draw attention, we moved in the direction of the other room.
“You’re doing great,” I said at the top of the shallow steps. “Remember to smile.”
She laughed like I’d said something hilarious. She was a natural.
She was also exactly the right person to have with me on this mission. She was young, beautiful, approachable, and didn’t have the kind of job that put her in the public eye. Everyone would be drawn to her, but no one would recognize her.
“Over there,” I said quietly and glanced toward one of the tables.
The room had been rearranged again, with a single mesmer table surrounded by roulette and poker and other games. A group of the same werewolves I’d met before lounged around the same poker table as before.
Rowan nodded at me and turned toward the mesmer game, as I’d instructed her earlier.
“Take your time,” I said quietly.
She slowed her pace and looked around, then found a spot next to Cerise and Ginger, who ignored us like we were strangers.
We watched a hand, and Rowan tensed as the snake confronted the player. When the snake went back to its place at the center of the table, everyone around us let out a deep breath, and I took the opportunity to smile over at Ginger.
“That was a close one!” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t know how the players do it.”
I let another hand pass before I ventured to speak again. In a casual tone, I began explaining the rules and different plays to Rowan.
“I think they’re only allowed three moves or so before they have to guess their card,” I said.
“Actually, there’s not a limit,” Cerise said. She smiled. “Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing. The players can make as many moves as they want, provided they still have money for the pot. In theory, a player could keep requesting cards from the dealer until they ran out.”
“So someone could just keep going until they figured out their card by process of elimination?” I said.
She winked. “Only if they had very deep pockets and were really scared of the snake.”
“I don’t know who wouldn’t be,” Rowan said. “They look so creepy.”
She shuddered, and I bit back a laugh. Rowan adored all animals and had snuck more than one garter snake into the mansion when we were growing up.
“Wait until you see one of them bite,” I said.
“I hate that part,” Cerise said.
“I don’t know, I think it’s kind of exciting,” Ginger said. She nudged Cerise. “But then, you were never really an adrenaline junkie.”
Another lie. Every Dagger was an adrenaline junkie, and Cerise was an actual skydiver when she had the time.
“I’m not sure I want to see it,” Rowan said with another shudder. “You want to go play some poker or something? I could stand to sit down.”
“I told you not to wear those shoes.” I glanced at Cerise and Ginger and discreetly gestured with my eyes at the poker table still surrounded by werewolves. “Thanks for explaining the game.”
“Sure thing,” Ginger said. Immediately, her focus went back to the mesmer table, and she craned her neck as if hoping for a better view.
The comforting weight of my dagger pressed against my thigh as we approached the wolves’ poker game. I had tucked my blade into a clever little garter sheath and practiced for half an hour last night to make sure I could get the weapon from the sheath to my hand in an instant. I played with a strand of my hair to make sure it was still showing blonde.
Rowan lingered at the edge of the table, where the
werewolves were lounging and chatting without actually making much progress on their game. After a moment, one of the men glanced over at her. His eyes lingered for a long moment on her cleavage.
“You ladies hoping for a game?” he said.
The way he delivered the words, I was pretty sure he was making an innuendo of some kind, and equally sure I didn’t want to know what he was thinking.
“When you’re done.” Rowan batted her lashes at him, which was a move that would have looked stupid on me but worked for her. “No rush.”
“There’s never a rush with these jerks,” the guy said, thumbing at the people down the table from him. “Here, why don’t you pull up a chair and keep me company while we finish our game?”
It was easy—so easy I wanted to cringe and cover myself.
But we were bait, and they were taking it.
Another guy nudged an empty chair toward me, and I slid into it.
“You hoping I’m going to give you pointers?” I said.
He tossed me a cocky grin.
“No need,” he said and laid down his hand. The others at the table groaned as he raked in a pile of chips.
The alpha woman from earlier was at the table again, and she gave Rowan and me hard looks. The tip of her nose twitched.
I’d sprayed on enough perfume before coming out that Alec had assured me no werewolf would be able to catch my true scent, but that was easier to hear than believe. Still, I didn’t give the alpha more than a glance before touching the shoulder of the guy who’d pulled me in and leaning to look at his new hand of cards.
The game continued, and Rowan and I made it clear that we weren’t really there for poker so much as to meet new people. After about half an hour, my phone buzzed. I glanced at it and then looked back up.
“Hey, guys, I’ll be right back. Some more of my girls are here!”
It was beyond dangerous to bring them into this place, but being a Dagger meant embracing danger. Anyway, if they were here, it meant Ginger and Cerise had fully scoped out the area and determined our chances were good enough.
I found Adamine and Kamala standing near the entrance of the club with a bouncer looming over them, holding their ID cards in his beefy hands. The bouncers hadn’t been checking anyone at the door, but I’d still noticed them circulating, and this one seemed to have correctly pegged my teenage sisters as being too young for this club.
24
“Hey, girls!” I said loudly as I approached.
The bouncer glanced at me from under his heavy-set eyebrows. The guy had to be half-troll, or maybe quarter-giant, I thought, based on his shoulders and the thick slope of his forehead.
“You know these girls?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said and drew my face together in faux concern. “Why, is something the matter?”
“Not sure I believe these IDs,” he said gruffly.
“What?” I laughed and touched him lightly on the arm. “Gosh, I wish we were all young and dumb enough to have to buy fake IDs.”
He surveyed me, skepticism written clearly across his face.
“Club is eighteen and up.”
“We’re both eighteen,” Kamala said.
The bouncer gave the three of us a look that said he didn’t believe that any more than we did.
“I’ll keep an eye on them,” I said. “We’re just here to have a good time. I promise we won’t cause trouble.”
Rules in the Glimmering world being what they were, he wouldn’t get in trouble with the law for allowing us here, just his boss.
But if his boss was who I suspected, that might be bad enough.
“We just want to dance and be with our friends,” Adamine said in an almost-whine that set my teeth on edge but which most guys seemed to find adorable.
I reached into my bra and pulled out a gold coin. His eye caught on its shimmer, and I casually let the coin drop to the floor.
After a minute, he handed the IDs back and stepped neatly onto the coin, covering it with his big boot.
“I see any trouble, you’re all out,” he said.
“That’s fair,” I said, grabbing both women by the shoulders. “Thank you!”
I pulled them away before he could change his mind. We danced to the rhythmic music until he got distracted by someone else, and then I nodded at my sisters and cut a path through the dancers to the game room.
“You guys okay?” I said once we were on the stairs.
The air felt thinner and cooler here, and it was a relief to finally have some elbow room after the crush of the dance floor.
They both nodded.
“We could have handled him,” Adamine said.
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “Just didn’t want to risk a scene. Okay, so we’re over at a poker table with some werewolves. I need you guys to flirt and make friends and just generally settle in until I make a move. That sound all right?”
“You got it, boss,” Kamala said.
I had never been called boss before, not seriously. A little thrill of fear traveled down my spine.
I was in charge of this mission.
What if one of them got hurt? What if something happened and they ended up in a situation where they didn’t feel safe, or felt violated by having to flirt with these werewolves, or ended up tipping our hand to the people we were here to smoke out?
I took a deep breath and pasted on a smile. My fears didn’t belong in this room. Not right now.
The wolves were more than willing to welcome Kamala and Adamine to the table, and the girls quickly snuggled up to whoever showed them the most attention. The alpha seemed to have determined we were no threat, and merely rolled her eyes a little when Adamine ended up on someone’s lap.
Adamine, I noticed, was a little too good at this. I'd have to keep a close eye on her.
The poker game continued, with the stakes low and no one paying much attention to the cards. I set my girls up with drinks before any of the wolves could offer, and lounged around and played with the long hair of the guy next to me while everyone talked about nothing. After enough time had passed, I stretched and crossed my legs.
Instantly, Kamala leaped into action.
“Where’s the bathroom, Whitney?” she said, which was the name I was using tonight. “I need to fix my dress.”
I arranged my face into an expression of concern. “What’s wrong with it?”
“It’s that stupid hook on the back again,” she said. “It keeps scratching me.”
“I can fix it,” Adamine offered.
“You guys don’t want to use the bathroom here,” I said. “It’s totally gross, and there’s always a line. There’s an alley right out back, though. We can step outside for a sec and fix it.”
The wolves’ posture changed, and I tried to ignore the way their eyes lit up as they glanced at one another. They were embarrassingly obvious, at least to a Dagger’s trained eyes.
“Okay,” Kamala said with a shrug. She offered a dazzling smile to the wolf who’d been fawning over her and stood.
“Don’t let anyone steal my seat,” I said.
One of the wolves shifted eagerly, and the alpha stilled him with a single, sharp look. She gestured toward the mesmer table with her eyes, and the wolf silently left the table. I fussed over my girls, careful to appear too dumb and distracted to have noticed any of the alpha’s interaction.
Ginger had scouted out the alley when she’d come here yesterday, and now I led the girls toward it as if I’d traced the route a thousand times. The door was down a hall just past the bathrooms; as usual, the men’s was virtually empty, and the women’s had a line that snaked down the hall. I pushed open the exit to the alley and took a deep breath as the bracing autumn air hit my bare shoulders and legs.
Once the door was securely shut behind us, I turned Kamala’s back toward the single, dim yellow light that was mounted on the alley wall, and Adamine pretended to fuss with the hook at the top of Kamala’s zipper. I offered advice and made sure to keep my
eyes trained on the hook while all my other senses reached out into the darkness around us.
We weren’t alone. Ginger and Cerise were here somewhere, hidden deep in the shadows or behind the Dumpsters, but I sensed other eyes on us, too—watchful canine eyes that saw us as nothing more or less than prey. Goosebumps rose on my skin that had nothing to do with the cold air.
“You’ve got to twist it backwards here,” I said, pointing. “But don’t snag the fabric.”
“This would be easier if I had a pair of pliers,” Adamine said.
“Hurry,” Kamala whined. “I’m cold.”
I felt him behind us. Even without the throngs of club-goers who opened paths for him wherever he walked, his presence was enough to fill the alley. I held my breath, and his well-heeled footstep landed on the asphalt with a solid click.
I knew that sound. I’d heard it in the alley beside Straw.
I turned just as he stepped into the pool of yellow light, which cut patterns of light and shadow across his sharp face.
“Mr. Brick,” I said, feigning surprise.
25
He smiled. “Do I know you?”
I had a different face and hair tonight, but the curl of his lip suggested he did recognize me after all, and maybe had when I’d met him at the bar, too. Something about me standing there seemed to amuse and delight him in a way that made my skin crawl.
“No, but I know who you are,” I said. “Of course. You run the club, don’t you?”
“Does that impress you?” he said.
I smiled a little, not sure what game we were playing. “Shouldn’t it?”
He smoothed the already flawless lines of his suit jacket. “You ladies shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“We’re not alone,” Kamala said with a bright, innocent smile. “We have each other.”
Mr. Brick walked smoothly past us and leaned against the door leading back into the club. Even though the alley opened to the street on both sides, the gesture was clear: we were trapped, in every way that mattered.
I pretended to give a last tug to the hook on Kamala’s dress and patted her shoulder.