by Elle Cross
She didn't need to know that we were doing our own version of field work.
She didn't respond right away, and I slipped my phone in my bag before I let myself obsess over it. I also told myself that I wasn't looking out for a sleek limo that could possibly be parked and/or circling in the vicinity. And I definitely told myself that I wouldn't be hinting around for information about what she and Deimos possibly talked about in their twenty-minute commute to her precinct. If it were critically important, Corbin would tell me.
That's what I kept telling myself.
We left the subway stop just a few blocks away from our destination. Megan was the non-stop chatter that I needed to get my mind off the nagging sensation that I shouldn't be down here. That I should have just high-tailed it back to my place and relaxed like I normally would have done.
What was I playing at, anyway? I was no detective. But I wouldn't stay in my home when Jack was so far from it…
We grabbed some bubble tea at my favorite tea house. I was very conscious of the fact that Corbin and I were on our way to this shop last night, but never quite made it here.
I surreptitiously sniffed the air, somehow hoping that I would smell Jack again amid all the tourists. Megan didn't notice my inattention to her chatter as she checked out the kitschy stuff in the narrow side streets, wondering aloud which things she could pick up for the little nephews in her life.
For all her talk of never having kids, she was always on the level of getting stuff for her nephews and nieces.
We strolled past the park, our footsteps unconsciously taking us to our favorite dim sum place up the block. Some cute kids waved at us as we passed, the fingers on their chubby hands splayed wide.
The air felt different here. Chilled. Like there was a shadow here despite the sun in high beam mode. This was the summer part of the day that still lingered despite the fall month. It should have been sweltering now, but I pulled my jacket around me tighter. Like somehow the sun's warming rays didn't penetrate here.
I tried to swallow down the thought that just a few blocks away, Jack had disappeared. That must be where my anxiety was coming from. Remembering last night, the fresh memory tainting my perceptions.
My chest tightened to hear the laughing children in the background. It reminded me of a day decades ago that I had left far behind me. A lesson that lingered in me still, that bad things can happen during the day in the company of children.
"Hey, boss, you okay?" Megan had stopped her chatter, and she was no longer skipping at my side.
How long ago had that been?
I blinked the past away from behind my eyes. "Yeah," I said, knowing how unconvincing I sounded. "I think I just need some dim sum."
Only Megan would have believed that I could be hungry just a couple hours after a big lunch. She recognized the little dim sum place that we'd gone to with Corbin from time to time, and pulled me along there.
We stopped when we both felt a rippling breeze flow over us, but didn't seem to affect the surrounding trees or fallen leaves. In fact, everything felt...still...now. Like every footstep or little movement we made would cause an echo.
Like someone could be eavesdropping.
Where were the bustling cars and echoes of children's laughter? The guffaws of street hawkers or trundle of tourists?
"Uhm, boss?" Her eyes grew wide, glassy with fear.
"I know, Meg."
A crop of goosebumps rose all over my body.
I noticed a breezeway next to the dim sum entrance that I could have sworn had never been there before. These buildings were cobbled together and grew into each other, but there hadn’t been a place to walk from this side of the block through to the other side. I was almost positive.
A thrumming started to leak out from that breezeway, the pulse of which echoed my heartbeat. It seemed oddly familiar and foreign at the same time.
"Do you hear that?"
"Yeah, it sounds like..."
"Sounds like a club."
"In Chinatown? By a park? Pretty poor business planning if you ask me." Megan linked her arm around mine, as nervous by the subtle changes in the air as I was.
I remembered the last time I felt something close to this. The scene last night replayed in my mind. The night rippling, shadows boiling over, Jack rolling on the ground, bruised.
But at least now, there wasn't that feeling of malevolence. No weighted looks here. It just felt…different. One moment we were in the jumbled mess of Chinatown and now we were in a dead quiet. It reminded me of being in Jack’s apartment, when I went from the comfort and familiarity of his living room, and walking into his sterile bedroom.
Then, I smelled something faint and familiar. The scent teased me, barely a wisp to permeate the air. It was too close to Jack's amber and spice for me to ignore it.
Jack.
With a steadying breath, and thoughts telling myself to get a grip, I led us both down the few stairs, and through the breezeway.
When we opened the door to the other side, we found ourselves in the middle of a bar. One of those bars that would rather call themselves a tavern. It had lots of old dark wood saturated with beer and good company.
"Ladies, what'll it be?" the barkeep hollered at us from the bar. He was as large as a troll and looked like one, too. Greenish skin, protruding eyes, bulbous nose, ears that ran the length of his face, with earlobes that held earrings that I could have comfortably worn as necklaces. Or belts. He easily took up the entire walking space behind the bar, his bald head just shy of grazing the ceiling. Yet, his big hands were nimble as he twirled and made drinks with flair for his customers.
As one, Megan and I stepped down into the main area. I glanced back to where we'd stepped through, and blinked at the wall and coats hanging on hooks where the door had just been. Somehow, there was no longer a door, or any sign that there had been an opening at all, though that had been the only place Megan and I had walked through.
When I turned back to the bartender, making drinks and talking up a party with his guests, the idea of not having a door behind me made perfect sense. "Whatever you're making looks good," I called out, and got a smile in response.
"Oh, this here ain't for ladies like yerselves. Here," he said, lifting up a bottle from beneath the counter, "I'll mix you up something proper for what ails you. It'll send you on the right path you was looking for." The liquid in the bottle swirled and glowed pink and gold.
I didn't know what he meant by 'ails,' but we took up a corner of the bar. I did my best to ignore the fact that we were the new curiosities in here. People openly stared at us.
I didn't like being stared at, but I was used it. Megan on the other hand, didn't know whether to feel flattered or offended.
The bartender flicked his wrist, and dashed two glasses our way. They were hefty: weighted glass, like a goblet without the stem. To see the liquid in the goblet was like holding sunset in my hand. Sparks seemed to fly from it like mini fireworks. It was as if I held summer and freedom and wild abandon all at the same time.
I felt the weight of the bartender's stare. I lifted my gaze, hoping to meet his stare measure for measure like Corbin would have, but he hadn't been paying me attention at all, just off making drinks for other clients.
Yet, when I turned my attention back to the drink, I felt it again. The gaze. The expectation. The need for me to drink.
I hesitated, telling myself that I never drink, and I especially never, ever drink something that I hadn't ordered specifically. Megan was captivated by what she held in her hand, eyes large as if she were peering into great depths, and not just a glass of liquid.
Then thirst, painful and sudden, took me over and dried out my throat. I could barely breathe, my windpipe closed over. I downed the liquid in a single gulp.
A rush of heat flowed through me, down to my toes until my limbs were loose and pliant, my head buzzed with euphoria and daydreams. It was like a champagne cork had escaped from its bottle, and the warmth and cama
raderie I'd been expecting since we got here finally arrived.
We were expected here. All these people had been waiting for us to arrive all day. It was a good thing we arrived here when we did!
"It's a good thing we got here when we did," I yelled at Megan, which was absurd because I knew she could hear me just fine. "We were expected here. I would have hated to be late. Or missed out!"
"Yeah, good call...coming down here." She had a confused look on her face, but it smoothed away once the bubbles fizzled against her nose as she took another sip of her drink. "This is really yummy!"
"I know, right?" We toasted and drank another swig. I was even more delighted to see that no matter how much I chugged, the glass would always be full when I needed to take another drink.
The room spun, but only for a moment. I blinked away my vertigo.
Megan giggled violently, the man next to her leaning awfully close. When had he appeared? Or had he always been there like we had always been here?
Megan couldn't stop laughing at whatever the man said.
I touched her arm for a moment to ask what was so funny. Like a bit of electricity, I zapped her arm where I touched her.
She jumped.
"Hey, what was zat?" Her voice slurred. She moved like she was underwater, heavy and lethargic.
"I dunno, you're electric."
"I am?" she said in awe, cocking her head to the side.
I shrugged. "Must be!"
I knew this as surely as I was sure of my own name.
Which come to think of it, I didn't quite know. It was in my mind somewhere.
This girl should know who I was. "Hey," I tapped her arm. "Hey, excuse me."
The pretty girl with the pixie face smiled at me. "Yeah, hun?"
"Do you know my name?"
She blinked at me, wide eyes, big and childlike. "Huh, I thought I did, but now I don't know." She blinked again. "Are you lost or somethin', hun?" She turned around, and fluttered her hand to her chest in surprise at the man next to her. "Hey there, can you help this poor lady? She's lost."
"She's not lost, sweeting, she's exactly where she needs to be."
The girl turned to look at me. "Hear that? You're right where you're supposed to be."
That made me feel so much better. "Thank you so much," I told her, grateful.
"You're welcome!" She seemed to be delighted to help me.
I got up so that I wouldn't intrude on their conversation. I didn't even know why I'd been sitting so close to her. That was rather rude of me.
A susurrus rose around me, until the chorus of whispering voices came to a fever pitch that had me pressing my hands over my ears. I had to shut my eyes tight against the pressure of it.
I needed to get away from the noise.
I stumbled away, desperate to get away from the noise. Hands darted out to hold me up and pull me back toward the sound, but I refused to be pulled back in. The girl at the bar gave me her arm, and the connection buoyed me.
Like a ray of sunshine that cut through the fog.
The images of rising storm clouds, and gathering dark pierced through the fog that had been blinding me to all sensation.
There, I thought. I want to go there.
Without intending to, I pulled the girl along with me. I couldn't quite keep my balance, and we ended up somersaulting into the coats. I put my arms up to brace against the fall, and like my ear popping from a pressure shift, we stumbled into a different kind of club altogether.
I clung to her, and she to me. I blinked into the dark room, lit up only with strobing lights. What I didn’t see freaked me out as much as what I could see.
The deep, dirty bass of the music was not enough to hide the moans, sighs, and slaps of flesh against flesh.
“Oh. Lords. Above.” I snapped my gaping mouth shut.
“Holy hells.”
I blinked, surprised to see Megan. Then, I remembered that bar, but turning around behind me, there was no indication of where we’d been.
How’d we get here?
Moans and cries, gasps and sighs filled the air. I blinked a few times before my brain could process what my eyes were seeing.
Two men worked whips over a woman bound and bent over a mount. Another woman on her knees, took a man’s cock deep into her mouth while a woman sporting a cock harness thrust into her from behind. Tucked away in a corner, a horned man in a sunken hot tub had a woman astride him, her head thrown back, mouth open, while he sucked her nipples.
Somewhere deep inside me, a resonant voice whispered, Don’t linger. You’ll draw attention if your attention lingers.
I believed this voice. It made me feel safe. I clasped Megan’s wrist, and pulled her along. I pretended I saw nothing but dense fog as I traipsed my way through the undulating mass. Not willing to see that there was no beginning or end to the flesh.
Focus on what you want.
The exit, that’s what I want, I told the voice.
Is that really what you want?
For now, yes.
My eyes drifted back to the horned man, who now had the woman bent over the hot tub, driving into her from behind. I lingered too long and drew his gaze. His eyes bore into me, as intense as his thrusting. He presented an unspoken offer. You can be next, he said without saying. You want to be next, I can feel it. He drove even harder into the woman who cried out in throaty gasps.
You still want the exit? the voice taunted me.
“Well now,” said a thoroughly masculine voice. “Been a long time since I tasted pixie flesh.”
I turned to see who in the hell was talking like that. I looked up, and kept looking up. It was a tall, blond, mountain of a man, with a legit loin cloth wrapped around his man parts. He looked savage and fierce, like he’d just left a battlefield, his body riddled with scars and scratches. He reminded me of stories of Norsemen gone a-Viking.
He hadn’t been talking to me, though. He was eyeing Megan. And, from what I could tell, he’d already fucked her nine different ways in his mind.
Megan was lapping up all he had to offer. She was already skimming her free hand over his hard body. He grabbed her hips and nudging his knee between her legs, he slid her slowly up against him, until she straddled his hips.
I rolled my eyes. I refused to let go of Megan’s hand, and I would be damned before I let them go at it with me in tow.
“Now’s not the time, cowboy,” I yelled over the music. “We’re just passing through at the moment. If she’s still interested, she can come back later.”
She pouted at me, “Aw, boss. Please!”
“Yeah boss, please?” He was already grinding against her.
“Okay, enough. Ew. We’re going. Megan, get down from the man meat,” I said in my most stern, boss voice.
She harrumphed, but hopped down off the Viking mountain man.
He, however, was not impressed. “She was willing,” he snarled at me.
There was a distant part of me that remembered that I would normally have been afraid of someone or something like him. But that part of me didn’t reign here. “Well, good. When we’re done with our field work, then she can play. But work first, play later. Got that? Now, back off, Viking man. Now.”
He blinked, and looked at me like he just saw me for the first time. He stepped back slowly, hands up. “Apologies, Lady. I did not realize who you were. I did not mean to interrupt you at your work.” He bowed a little, too.
Well. That was unexpected.
Then, something darker than the darkness around us moved around Viking man. Gold and red ribbon-like tattoos swirled in whorls over the black figure. Without them, he would have been completely invisible. I barely thought it was a person until I saw eyes blinking at me from the black pool of its head. Or at least what I assumed was its head.
“Is there a problem here, Lady Vesper?” the voice and face were familiar. I would think, though, that I’d remember meeting someone who was pitch black with swirls of red and gold.
“No,
no, no problem here, Lord Corso, no problem. I offered my services before realizing the ladies were only passing through. We were having a great joke, is all.”
The one called Lord Corso turned to the Viking mountain man and made him seem small despite being similarly built. “I asked Lady Vesper,” he said softly.
“Er, he’s right…Lord Corso? Is it?” When he nodded, I continued. “We were just passing through, taking the scenic route, evidently. It was an honest misunderstanding.”
“Of course,” he said, more to humor me than to agree that it was an honest mistake.
“So, hey, since you’re here, you wanna point me to the exit toward Chinatown?”
Lord Corso tilted his head, as if listening to some unseen force, then a rectangle of light appeared a little ways ahead. “I believe this is the exit you wish, Lady Vesper.”
Without even seeing what was on the other side of that door, I knew that it was where I wanted to go. “Uhm, thank you, Lord Corso.”
He bowed at his waist. Since he still had a hand on Viking mountain man’s shoulder, he bowed, too. “It is my pleasure to serve you. Always.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked over at Megan, who was definitely in awe of the men before her. I coughed a little, and whispered, “Megan, did you want to like, I dunno, give him your number or whatever it is you do?” I figured it was the least I could do since I cheated her out of some play time.
“Where would I write it?”
In a blink, Viking mountain man leaned down and licked up Megan’s neck and side of her face. “I have tasted you now. I will find you.”
I couldn’t hide my shock. “Ew! Dude. Really?”
Lord Corso seemed to agree. Lightning-quick, he bound Viking mountain man in black, red, and gold tendrils that snaked off his body. Those whorls were more than just elaborate body art.
Megan squeaked in surprise.
“Do not worry, Miss Megan. He will have better manners when he comes to call on you if you would still invite his company.” He bowed to us again. “Good day, Lady Vesper, Miss Megan.” Then he prowled away, Viking mountain man floating in tow, completely wrapped in Corso’s shadows.