Keiko knows the other bar owners in town, so we skip the line at what qualifies as Ragnarok’s swankiest club. Technically that would be the Red Whale, but that requires a membership. Here, the rank and file can get in—if they start lining up outside early enough.
Catalina spanks my barely covered butt as we enter through the club’s backdoor. “This dress. Ow-ow!”
“What’d we say about boundaries?” Even after wearing the catsuit for years because of a stupid bet, this dress seems like it’s pushing it. The neck divebombs so deep that every step feels like the onset of a potential wardrobe malfunction.
And it covers half the leg real estate that the baggy t-shirt did. Lots of thigh on display here.
“You know, I think they could have come up with a way better name than Colossus,” Catalina says as the bouncer attaches her wristband. Half her words congeal together in a blob of drunken mush and pulsing dubstep.
Good thing about being a hot chick in a club, though: they need more of you. So even if you’re drooling on yourself, the bouncers aren’t gonna deny you entry before you even make it inside.
“Lay your name choice on us, then,” Keiko says.
“Oh, I can think of like, a million better names.”
“I’m hearing a lot of talk.”
“The Bar.” Catalina fist bumps the air. “Boom.”
“Seems a little confusing.” Keiko strokes her chin in mock contemplation. “What about just calling it You Can Get Drunk Here?”
“See.” Catalina raises an unsteady finger. “This is what I’m talking about. That’d be a great fucking name.”
Then she wobbles through the doors and disappears into the kaleidoscope of strobing lights and dancing bodies.
Keiko and I acquire our wristbands and follow in due course. Despite a few shots of tequila, I’m not nearly buzzed enough to enjoy this. But I plaster a fake smile across my face and slide my way through the writhing, sweaty bodies over to the bar. The televisions hanging above the racks of liquor play sports highlights.
I order a tequila on the rocks—sticking with the theme of the night—and turn around to find my friends. They’ve already been swallowed by the thrum of the crowd, though, Catalina spurred on by natural abandon and Keiko starting to channel it from her—and the tequila.
I stand at the bar, nursing the drink. Lacking a phone to mindlessly scroll through, I’m left with only my thoughts amid the thumping chaos. Drinking quiets some voices and magnifies others. And one is shouting louder than all the others.
Maybe I’ve been too focused on Emmy.
After all, I did Soulwalk in Delia’s body. The memories were fragmented.
But if I concentrate, maybe I can uncover more about the murder…
I rest my elbows on the sticky bar and squeeze my eyes shut. Try to burrow into the shadowy recollections from her long-frozen body. Nothing bubbles up from the depths, though. Maybe retrieving memories from a damaged body is a matter of training. Or ability. Or maybe there are just limits of what’s magically possible when a body is that far gone.
I clench my teeth and hold my breath.
“You could hurt yourself from thinking too hard,” a whiskey-smooth voice says next to me.
I open one eye to find Javy Diaz leaning up against the bar looking like he just stepped out of a cologne ad. Shirt slightly unbuttoned, jeans tight, but not in a douchebaggy way, and sleeves crisply rolled up to display his taut forearms.
“Looking fresh,” I say. “Who’s the lucky lady?”
“Catalina invited me.” He nods at the dress. “Suits you.”
“Thanks.” I finish my tequila. “And here I thought it was girls’ night.”
“I’ll leave if you want,” he says with the confidence of someone who knows the other party won’t take them up on the offer.
“That would make me a terrible wingwoman.” I flag the bartender down and briefly debate between another tequila and a water. I make the responsible decision and settle on the tequila. “Any progress on your end?”
“And here I thought Tess Skye might take a night off.”
“Are you taking the night off?” I crunch down on a tequila-soaked ice cube and raise an accusatory eyebrow.
“As best I can.”
“How’d the digging go?” I ask, referring to his cryptic explanation for why he couldn’t come with me to the county jail this morning.
It takes him a moment to realize what I’m talking about. “Oh. That.”
“Yeah. That.” When he doesn’t offer any sort of insight, I add, “So?”
“I thought another Shade might have arrived in town.”
That sounds less than promising. “And?”
“To be determined,” Javy says.
“Good talk.”
“There’s always topics other than work.”
“That must be why you’re talking to me instead of her.” I point at Catalina, who’s banging her head furiously to the music in the scrum of sweaty bodies.
“The job is easier.” His expression darkens, eternity weighing on him. “Relationships…”
I understand what he means. Getting close. Then watching everyone he cares about inevitably die, over and over.
Without thinking, I grab his forearm. “It’s okay—”
The cascade of memories hits me like a stampeding herd of rabid buffalo. I release my grip, but the Soulwalking ship has already sailed.
His throat being slashed open upon the gladiatorial sands.
Taking a lead bullet to the gut at the advent of the age of gunpowder.
Running naked through the jungle, pursued by his former captors, only to succumb to dehydration, skin crackling and flaking away.
I drop to my knee in the dark club, breathing heavily.
Javy offers me his hand.
I wave him off and between panting breaths say, “That’s not gonna help.”
He withdraws his hand and slips it into his pocket with a nod. “I’m sorry, Tess.”
“We need to get you a sign,” I say, dragging myself up on the slick bar. “Like a cattle fence. Warning: livewire.” I suck in air through my teeth as my heartrate starts to slow. “Or some sort of bell.”
I down the tequila, wishing it was water. Fragments of memories from Javy’s life still play, but so long as I focus on the pulse of the bass, his past doesn’t consume the current reality.
I’m almost fully recovered when the questionably named DJ Apocalypse interrupts the festivities with an announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special surprise guest tonight…” He lets silence settle over the room to build as much suspense as possible.
The club patrons stop dancing, a buzz passing through the crowd.
Then the guy screams, like he’s announcing a heavyweight title fight, “The one and only Mr. Hex Davis!”
Javy and I share a worried glance. Without a word, we know what the other is thinking.
Fuck.
Twenty-Two
Colossus is now so quiet that you can hear the rattle and hum of the air conditioning condensers. Everyone’s eyes are glued to the DJ stage as Hex Davis—but really Marius—bounds up the metal stairs, trailed by security guards. He waves the guards off as he takes the mic from DJ Apocalypse.
I’m not sure if the DJ’s name is a harbinger for what’s about to go down.
My eyes bounce through the interior of the club, the fuzzy cloak of the tequila immediately lifted by the threat of danger. But I don’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Maybe this is just the prelude before the actual storm.
“Good people of Ragnarok,” Marius begins, feedback ringing through the microphone, “I apologize for the interruption.”
Someone yells, “It’s okay, man, we love you!”
A small cheer bursts out.
Marius smiles and bows. “My infinite gratitude.” Then the smile dissipates, and his posture slumps. “But I come with some troubling news. And thank the good owner of thi
s establishment, my dear friend Andrew, for giving me this platform to share my thoughts—not just with you, but others as well.”
A woman calls out, “We’re livestreaming?”
Marius says, “Around the world.”
He paces about the stage, peering at the floor, pretending to gather his thoughts. It’s all an act. But the drunken crowd hangs on every bullshit word. Especially now that the camera might grant them a fleeting fifteen minutes of fame.
I whisper to Javy, “What’s the end game here?”
He replies, “Nothing good.”
“Think you should call backup?”
“And what, report that Hex Davis is giving a speech?”
“I’d personally go with, hey, Hex Davis has been possessed by an immortal body-possessing creature and is planning something horrible to get revenge on me for what I did to him over seven hundred years ago. Please send all units.”
“Sounds like a slam dunk,” Javy says.
“Desperate times.” I watch as Marius stands up straighter. Then he looks out across the throng of people and smiles.
It’s unmistakable.
He’s smiling at us. He already knew we were here.
“He’s looking at us,” Javy says.
“Excellent detective work.” I return Marius’s gaze, holding it. “You got your sidearm, at least?”
“They check at the door,” he says.
“So that’s a yes, right?”
“Funny.” Javy rolls his eyes.
Finally, someone in the crowd calls out, “What’s the announcement?”
Murmurs start. There are limits to partiers’ empathy and attention spans.
“A few people have resorted to violence on account of my reward this morning.” Marius’s smile widens like a jungle cat’s. Then he says, “So I ask that you please be civil as you search for my daughter. And be on the lookout for individuals like this woman.”
The room hangs by a thread. Then, on the video wall behind him, the footage starts rolling.
Of me. Security cam clips of the glass door breaking at Santellini & Associates. Holding Rosie’s golden pistol. Then down at the riverfront, phone video of the fight with Stacey Knight as we both plunge into the water.
The video ends and the screen goes dark.
There’s a slight pause.
And then all eyes in Colossus turn and focus on a single target.
Me.
Twenty-Three
It’s disconcerting enough to have a thousand pairs of eyes all starting at you.
It’s another level entirely when they’re all narrowed in abject disgust and fury.
“Hey, that’s her!” It only takes one idiot to start the crowd chattering and pointing fingers my way. Soon, a chorus of furious voices are hurling insults and curses. The energy within Colossus charges with feral hatred as people leer and snarl.
Javy charts a safe path through the drunken patrons before I’m torn limb-from-limb by the suddenly ravenous mob.
The hot and dry summer feels like a refreshing autumn night against my skin when we finally make it outside. My heart is beating a million miles an hour, threatening to escape from my shaking chest. The feeling of claustrophobia—the sensation that I was about to be suffocated by a wall of flailing arms, legs, and fists—subsides.
Another minute or two in there, and I’d have been extremely fucked.
“You okay, Tess?” Javy continues leading the way up the street as we hurry toward the parking lot. No telling whether an angry pitchfork mob is about to charge out from the club to hunt me down. I’m certainly not hanging around to find out what they might do next.
I just offer him an impassive, “Yeah.”
He looks skeptical but doesn’t question me further.
I have to admit, it’s an alpha move by Marius. If he’s trying to rattle us, then it’s working. Because now the whole town hates me.
As we’re walking across the lot to his car, I say, “Can I use your phone real quick?”
“You need me to call someone?”
“Just to text Catalina and Keiko.” They weren’t in my little highlight reel, but there’s no telling what the social media crazies might drudge up from the depths over the next few days.
Or minutes. A mob doesn’t like to waste time.
Javy hands me his phone, and I try calling Catalina first, then Keiko. They both go to voicemail, so I fire off a quick warning text to both of them telling them to get the hell out of Colossus and lay low until this blows over.
I pause as I’m about to give his phone back.
Then a bad urge seizes control of my fingers. Before I know it, I’m deep down the social media rabbit hole. A quick perusal of various networks reveals that my public scapegoating is not isolated to just Ragnarok.
It’s worldwide.
“Crazy bitch threatens PR rep for chance at fifty mil,” I read above a retweet of Marius’s video montage as I climb into Javy’s passenger seat.
“Come on, give me that.” Javy reaches for the phone, but I huddle against the door to avoid his reach.
“Trending,” I say. “Up to a million retweets.”
“Tess—”
“Let’s see how we’re doing on the Gram.” I flip to Hex’s account. “Damn, two million likes.”
“That garbage means nothing.” Javy rests his hands on the steering wheel but doesn’t start the engine. “We’ll figure out how to get Marius and it’ll all be wiped away.”
“Could’ve gotten him before if someone hadn’t wanted to wait,” I say. “We knew where to find him.”
“Don’t blame this on me,” Javy says. “Marius wants us distracted. That’s all this is. A smoke screen.”
“Disagreement isn’t blame,” I say.
“This isn’t his endgame, Tess.” Javy throws a glance at the driver’s side mirror, watching as a couple approach. He doesn’t avert his eyes until they climb into an SUV and exit the lot. “He might already have something dangerous in place. Failsafes. Like Dom.”
I grind my back teeth together and grimace. The last year was brutal, waiting for the right opportunity to take Dom Rillo down. But I know he’s right. We have to be sure before we make our final move. But it’s still hard to shake the feeling that we might stand by until it’s too late—and Marius will do something that we could’ve stopped.
“Two million’s gotta be some sort of record, right? I mean, he announced it like two seconds ago.” I play the video again. Credit where credit is due: the quick cuts and edited footage make me look like a total psycho.
Not sure why Rosie leaked her security cam video to him, since she hated Hex. But I guess the impression I made today was even more negative than I thought.
Stacey—yeah, I get that. She got totally embarrassed. Or it could’ve just been Marius calling in the favor she owed him from all those years ago.
Maybe I should’ve thought all this through before charging ahead today. After all, a PR rep might not be dangerous with a gun. And a social media star might not be a threat in the ring. But they can still kill you via a death of a thousand internet cuts.
Just like what Stella Reynolds was hoping for.
But everything’s always obvious in hindsight.
Javy’s phone lights up with a text from Catalina.
omg, what the fuck just happened???
I fire a message back to her and Keiko, reiterating the previous one: get the hell out of there now
As the initial shock wears off, I find myself far more concerned for those around me rather than my own well-being. I can handle my own shit. If some neckbeard from the internet comes looking for me, he’s going to get a swift kick in the ass.
And then another one for good measure.
But Catalina or Keiko—the last thing I need is for some would-be avenger to take a shot at them. It’s an instant-gratification culture, and that goes double for bloodlust, collateral damage be damned.
“Let’s put that away.” Javy gently grips the
phone.
His fingertips brush my knuckles.
One of his memories bubbles up and refuses to stay down.
This time it’s not him dying, though.
Javy sits at a small wooden desk in a dark, spartan room with earthen walls. A torch sits in a sconce, throwing flickering light over the dirt floors. On a rickety table lies a rounded piece of glass—a shard scroll.
He rises and holds the shard up to the torchlight, his fingers almost plunging into the flame itself. Shadowy rows of numbers and letters appear on the walls. He angles the shard to bring them into focus.
Then he reaches for a curled piece of parchment and traces his finger over the letters and numbers. He dips a pen into ink and writes down one letter, then another, decoding the message.
The memory fades before he reaches the end.
“Tess.” A splash of water hits my face. “Tess.”
The world around me is blurry when I open my eyes. Javy’s fingers are wet. He’s holding a water bottle in his other hand. I wipe a few droplets from my cheeks and then look at him, blinking hard.
“Are you flicking water at me?”
He says the only thing someone can in that situation, I guess, which is, “Yes.”
“But why?”
“You’ve been staring out the window for ten minutes,” he says. “I didn’t know any other way to wake you up without touching you.”
I blink again and the car’s leather interior comes into sharper focus. I glance out the window, and find that we’re actually in motion, rolling through the downtown streets. We’re close to my apartment, in fact.
“What the hell happened?”
“I think you touched my hand,” he says. “Sorry. I started driving because I didn’t want to stay near the club.”
“I know what it is.”
Javy’s knits together as he replies, “What’s that?”
I stare at my fingertips as I acclimate back to reality, thinking about the numbers hidden beneath Emmy’s sticker. “I have it.”
Now Javy looks even more confused. “Have what?”
Smoke Show (Tess Skye Book 2) Page 11