by Dan Thompson
He nodded and opened the door. “Have a pleasant time.”
In the anteroom, a pretty girl sat behind a counter. She was human, but she wore little red wings, a blood-red satin chemise, and a pair of cute fake horns on her forehead to complete the ensemble. Cover was ten dollars, but it included a coat check. She checked my ID, stamped my hand, and opened the door beyond.
The bass of the thumping music hit me hard in the chest, while the smells of sex and sweat took their time creeping up on me. I looked around in the dim light, catching details in the random flashes of the strobe. I am not exactly an expert on strip clubs, but it looked like the ones I’d seen in the movies, only darker. A mix of tables and booths clustered around three stages, each with their own brass pole rising to the ceiling. An attractive girl was sliding down one of those poles in a G-string, while the other two stages were occupied by succubi. One had pale mottled skin reminiscent of the succubus on the bus the day before. She was already nude but used her wings to cover and uncover herself seductively. The other was jet black with a white mohawk trailing down her back. She was at the edge of the stage embracing a patron who had come up to tip her, her wings enveloping him.
Similar scenes played out at the various tables and booths. I suspected that inside those wings a lot more was happening than was officially allowed by Pittsburgh ordinances, but I imagine the right people were being compensated one way or another to ignore that fact.
More shocking to me, however, was the level of wing-touching the succubus dancers were tolerating. Wing tissue, especially the large spans between the ridges, was very sensitive. It has evolved over thousands of generations to feel minute changes in the air during flight. Touching a demon’s wings was very intimate in an emotional way that I will never fully appreciate. One succubus in particular sat in a man’s lap while he ran his hands over her outstretched wings. I grew up with a demon’s attitude toward sexuality, so I never thought poorly of the various kinds of sex workers. After all, who doesn’t want to fuck all day and get paid for it? But watching the way he pawed at her wings, I felt sorry for her.
I took a seat by the bar and ordered a glass of white wine. Anything heavier and I would be asleep before long, but I still wanted something to take the edge off. The music dwindled for a moment, and the dancers shifted stages as a new girl came out on the main stage. Miss Mohawk came off-stage and led her patron through a curtained archway. It was the only one in the room, so I assumed the private rooms must have been beyond it.
If I was to believe Carmen’s timeline, then Dillon had been here for only about twenty-five or thirty minutes. I had had my share of men who could go from foreplay to out the door in less than that, but if Dillon was one of them, I doubt he could have held Lithia’s interest this long. Besides, if Lithia was in genuine trouble, and if Dillon knew it, I would like to think his priority would be on that rather than getting some tail. More likely, he had come here to talk with someone. If he was meeting just anyone, he could have met them anywhere. That meant he came here to talk to an employee, and my money was on one of the dancers.
I drained my wine glass and motioned the bartender over. The name Stan was stitched into his shirt, orange on black. He looked friendly enough, but the scar across his temple said otherwise.
“Another glass?”
“Maybe some coffee in a minute, but I’ve got a question. I was supposed to meet a friend of mine here, but I think I may have missed him. Tall, blonde hair, very athletic.”
The bartender nodded. “I may have seen him. What’s it to you?”
“He’s getting married soon, and we’re trying to set up his bachelor party with one of the dancers here. Did he go talk to any of them?”
He smiled but shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t see those things.”
“You don’t see, or you don’t tell?”
“Same thing, and I make a good living doing neither.”
“But I need to talk to her too. We’re trying to coordinate with the bachelorette party.”
He reached below the bar for a cup and poured me some coffee. “Sorry, but these kinds of questions come from two types: old girlfriends and reporters.”
“I’m not an old girlfriend,” I protested.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’m sure you do a fine job and all that, but personally, I don’t think Dillon deserves to have his life dissected by the likes of you.”
I did my best to repress a grin. “I never said his name was Dillon.”
He glared at me. “Are we going to have a problem?”
I glanced around the room. “Maybe. If I can’t do one story, I’m sure I’ll find something else to write about.”
He chuckled. “Well, tonight problems aren’t my department.” He nodded back down the bar. A broad-shouldered demon hulked at far end, a tokkel with massive spiral horns, and he was watching us. “Right now, problems are his department, and I’ll be glad to hand it over to him if you’d like.”
I only thought it over for a second. It is not merely that I worried about getting hit in the head by a tokkel’s horns during sex. Of all the types of demons, they are the ones that scare me the most, and this one looked more gruesome than the usual. But beyond his bulk and visage, his eyes stared at me as though they truly could penetrate into my soul.
I looked back at the bartender. “I don’t think that will be necessary. Thank you for the coffee.”
He stepped away and filled a couple of drink orders for a waitress in similar garb to the girl in the entry way. I tried to check only using my peripheral vision, but it seemed like Mr. Problem at the end of the bar was always keeping an eye on me.
I sat and watched the dancers for a little while as the coffee battled the wine. Some were doing simple bump-and-grind routines, while others were quite skilled at blending the graceful with the erotic. They were nice to watch, and I toyed with the idea of at least getting a lap dance from one of them. Yes, I do prefer guys, but I also have a pulse, and some of them had what it takes to make that pulse race. There was no reason for the night to be a total loss.
The next dance rotation brought my answer onto the main stage. It was an albino succubus wearing a cheerleader outfit from Upper Karthai High School. It was not merely a human cheerleader outfit done with the UKHS logo; it was designed for a demon from the start, from the tight leather shorts to the wide suspenders that ran up her torso, completely failing to conceal her breasts. More than that, UKHS had changed their colors from black and red to black and gold four years ago in a nod to the Steelers. Her uniform had the older colors. Was it an actual uniform? Had it once belonged to her? Lithia had been a UKHS cheerleader in her day. Was it possible that this dancer had been on the same squad?
I took a sip of the coffee and pulled my phone out of my purse, keeping it tucked discreetly in my lap below the level of the bar. The UKHS web site did not format well on the small screen, but I was able to pan around to navigate the links. Before long I had the current cheerleader roster with pictures. There was no link to previous years, but I checked the web address and saw the current year in the filename. I edited it by hand for seven years back, and by the grace of sloppy web maintenance the file was still there, complete with headshots. There was Lithia along with seven others, including a remarkably pale Sylva Harson. Bingo.
By this point, she had moved to the second stage, sans cheerleading outfit. If she was only now doing a rotation across the stages, she could have been talking to Dillon before I arrived. All I had to do to talk to her was get a dance from her, preferably far away from the disturbing gaze of Mr. Problem.
A sign behind the bar listed the prices: twenty dollars for a lap dance, half-price on Tuesdays before seven. Private booths were a hundred dollars for twenty minutes plus dancer tip. I was guessing the dancer tip was a lot more than twenty dollars. I put my phone back in my purse and checked for cash: eighty-seven bucks. There was a cash machine by the bathrooms, so I went and checked my balance. I had seven hundred and change. Ren
t was already paid and the electric wasn’t due until the twentieth. I pulled out two hundred and wondered if I could ever find a way to get this onto an expense report.
Sylva was on the third stage by this point, and she had already had a number of men go up to tip her. I had to make an impression and fast. I tucked a twenty into my dress and sauntered across the room, doing my best not to lose my balance in the heels as I swung my hips around to the beat. At last I caught her eye, so she writhed over and kneeled down at the edge of the stage by me, wrapping her wings around me and pushing her breasts toward my face.
I leaned my cheek against her chest. “I want you,” I said. Taking in her scent this close made it not much of a lie. Succubi have good control of the pheromones they produce. This one had control and obviously plenty of practice.
“I think I can take care of you,” she replied, taking my face into her hands.
“Can we have some privacy?”
She nodded. “A hundred for the room, and a hundred for me, just because I like you.”
I took her hand from my cheek, and in the privacy afforded by her wings, I pulled it into my dress where I had the twenty tucked against my left breast. “So you don’t forget me,” I said.
She pulled the bill out and smiled. “Not a chance. You wait for me over there. I’m almost done.”
Her wings opened, and I walked toward the curtained arch. When I got there I turned around and gave the room a quick sweeping glance. The bartender was busy with another waitress, but Mr. Problem was staring right at me. I took a deep breath and willed myself to stay there, leaning against the side of the arch.
The song ended after an eternity of me faking nonchalance, and Sylva stepped down from the stage. She walked toward me in all her nude sensuality. She paused briefly at a table to whisper something to one of the men there, and then she was against me, her breath hot on my neck. Before I could recover, she was pulling me past the curtain into a short hallway. Several sets of curtained archways lined either side of the hall. Most of them were pulled closed, and I could hear passionate grunts and moans from beyond them. Three of them were open, revealing a small alcove with a sheet-covered loveseat, a small table, and a tiny sink with mirror.
A muscular kagnari demon stood at the far end wearing a sharp set of leathers and holding a four-foot staff with metal studs in each end. Still, as lethal as he looked, he did not unnerve me nearly as much as Mr. Problem had. Sylva led me to him. “One hundred please,” he said.
I fished through my purse and handed him a stack of twenties.
He took them with a nod, and Sylva pulled me into the nearest alcove. She pushed me toward the love seat and turned back to close the curtain. Once I sat, she leaned in close as my eyes wandered down over her nude body. When my eyes came back up to her face, she licked her lips.
“Shall we settle the formalities?” she asked.
I blinked twice before I understood. I reached into my purse and pulled out the rest of the twenties, still crisp from the ATM. She took them and blew me a kiss as she carried her cash back over to a small bag near the sink. I pushed my purse off to the side, and before I knew it she was on me. Her tail swept forward to grip my left knee and pulled it forward and off to the side as she moved in between my legs. The hem of my dress was pushed upwards, and she started grinding a hip against my panties. I stammered a mild objection, but before I could frame anything comprehensible, she was pulling my dress down off my shoulders and pressing her bare breasts against mine.
Two hundred dollars suddenly seemed like a pittance to be spent again and again—to the Depths with whatever else I might be pursuing—but then I remembered the look on Dillon’s face as he tossed that ring box. There was a story here. “Slower,” I finally managed to say. “A little slower.”
“Sure, honey,” she replied. She shifted to straddle my lap, her hips rocking side to side with the distant beat of the stage music. She looked down at me and started running her fingers through my hair. I thought for a moment she had felt the subtly raised elfin tip of my ear, but her hands slid down to my shoulders without a pause. “First time with a demon hottie like me?”
“No, but it’s been a while. High school sex ed.” That was the truth, though I hated to admit it. Then again, Pittsburgh community college did not have many dating opportunities as exotic as this.
She took it in stride. “High school? Where?”
“Upper Karthai,” I said and guided her hand to my Kalxi Axemen tattoo. “I loved your uniform, especially the old colors.”
“Well go Kalxi!” she replied and briefly leaned in for a hug, her warm skin pressing against me. “What year?”
I had to think for a second as her flesh brushed against mine. I was here for a story. “Oh-seven,” I said at last.
“Oh-nine,” she answered with a shrug.
I saw the opportunity and seized it. “Then you must have known Lithia!”
She lit up. “Fire above, girl, we’re still as tight as ever.”
I did my best to feign excitement. “She must be ecstatic about Dillon.”
The rocking of her hips missed a beat. “Yeah, she’s pretty happy about it.”
“I heard the ring was gorgeous.”
Another missed beat. “Yes, very fine. I helped Dillon order it. Lithia always used to talk about some ring her grandmother wore. This one is a perfect match.”
I tried doing a bit of hip thrusting of my own to keep her in the moment. I was playing close to the edge of ethics, not so much journalism ethics as demon ethics. Big Jim, of course, would have had me call upon Sylva during the day and identify myself at the outset. I was well past those ethics, but in the pursuit of a really good story, I always figured those were more guidelines than rules. However, the false association I was hinting at was crossing a deeper line, but in the moment I convinced myself that I was doing this for Lithia, not my career. With all that buried beneath some of my own honest lust, I allowed my right hand to slide up from her hip and brush across the side of her breast. “Say, isn’t Dillon supposed to be here tonight?”
Her hips kept going and she started playing with my collarbone again, her fingers tracing down between my breasts. “You know Dillon?”
I took a deep breath to focus on something other than her fingers tracing across my skin. “In passing,” I replied. Well, he had passed me in the parking lot after all. Okay, I was lying through my teeth, and I knew it. “Did I miss him?”
“You must have. He was only here a little while.”
I tried to laugh, but it flopped out as a creepy chuckle. The fact that she had accepted the lie had not made me feel any better. “Is he starting on his bachelor party already?”
“No, he was just here to talk.”
I took hold of her hips again and squeezed. I could tell she was losing her sexual energy the longer we talked, and I needed her to stay distracted if I was going to get what I needed. “About the ring?”
Her hips came to a dead stop, but she looked more thoughtful than suspicious. “Yeah, we went over all the steps again, the jeweler, the diamond, everything.”
“He didn’t do something stupid like order one of those wizard-crafted diamonds, did he? That would have been pretty tacky.”
“No, he’s way too smart for that,” she replied, her hands slipping absently down to rest next to mine on her own hips. “No, in fact, it was supposed to be one of the Stonemen diamonds, you know, from the ruins. Mr. Rothschild had been certain of it.”
“But I’ve heard rumors there’s a problem with the ring. Is Lithia all right?”
Her hands came up to my face, gently at first and then more firmly. One hand held my jaw while the other ran up the length of my ear, taking a firm hold of its elfin tip. The lust drained away from her face. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m only trying to get some answers,” I said. Once alert, she was going to smell any overt lie I attempted. “I’m pretty sure there was a curse on the ring box, and I think Lithia might be in d
anger.”
Her hand shifted from my jaw to my neck and tightened. “Who are you?”
Maybe Big Jim had a point after all. “My name is Alice. I’m a reporter for—”
She was off me in a second, and as she whipped around, I swear the barbed tip of her tail popped me in the nose. “Frankie,” she called out.
The leather-clad demon from the hall ripped back the curtain, his short staff held warily in the other hand. “What’s up?”
Sylva took one more look at me. “She needs to leave.”
Frankie glared at me and thumped his staff down on the floor. “Easy or hard, Miss. Your choice.”
“Easy,” I said. I picked up my purse, pulled my dress back up, and put on the shoe that had been lost somewhere in the heat. I stood and walked to Frankie, but I paused before Sylva. I could not bring myself to face her. I had crossed the line, and I knew it. “I’m sorry.”
“May you fall to the depths,” she hissed at me.
Frankie walked me back to the main room, his hand digging into my arm. Beyond the curtain, Mr. Problem was already waiting for me like he knew exactly what had happened. He looked back and forth between Frankie and me. “Single file, smooth and quiet.” From there, we marched in a line as Mr. Problem led us back to the entry room and then out into the cold.
Frankie dropped off somewhere along the way, and Mr. Problem stood with me outside with the doorman as I shivered in silence. Eventually the coat check girl brought my coat out and handed it to him. He made no move to give it to me.
It should be a sign of how much this particular tokkel was creeping me out that it took me almost a minute before I summoned the courage to ask for my coat. Even then, I did not meet his gaze. “My coat?”
He grunted.
“My coat, please?”
Silence.
I stood there another minute, hugging my arms close as I started to shiver. Finally, I turned my head to look at him. “May I please have my coat?”
His feral smile made me shiver that much more, and I took another step away. He waited another moment, and then he spoke, his voice low but clear. “Do you know who owns this club?”