Hunt: An Urban Faery Tale (The Faery Chronicles Book 1)

by Leslie Claire Walker

  Unless he went to see Simone. He could do that safely enough, seeing as she liked him.

  “I’ll try not to,” he said.

  “Excellent. See you tomorrow, but talk to you later.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said. “Later. Thanks.”

  He stepped out into the cold and shoved his hands into his pockets. The afternoon light had faded with the arrival of the front, leaving the sky mostly gray except for a spot on the horizon where the sun streamed through, just at the right angle to half-blind him. Didn’t stop him from bull’s-eyeing the Suburban at the curb, though.

  The dad who sat behind the wheel had done a one-eighty since the west-side parking lot. Either that, or he had to be a completely different guy. He didn’t seem broken at all.

  Because he said, “Hi, Kev,” not sounding the least bit annoyed at feeling like he had to pick up Kevin from school. “How was your day?”

  “Like a funhouse mirror, Dad.”

  “That bad?”

  “It’s high school,” Kevin said.

  “Well, get in and I’ll take you away from it.”

  Kevin hesitated, watching for any signs of homicidal weirdness—and listening for thoughts, the hearing of which would signal that imminent mortal danger he’d heard so much about. Nada. Deeper wrinkles than usual framed his father’s eyes, which had a wild look about them. Wild, and trapped.

  He held his breath while he climbed in and released it slow. No gun on the seat. No sudden movements. It would be okay. Please, let it be okay.

  His father put the vehicle in gear and pulled out into traffic.

  Kevin ventured a question. Something harmless. “How was your day, Dad?”

  “Good,” his father said. “I finally got a lead on a project I’ve been working on for a long time.”

  Definitely good. “What project is it?”

  “A dispute with a client. They’re behind six months on our invoices, but they wouldn’t pay until we made some adjustments, and the system wouldn’t let us make the required changes. But now I think we’ve got it licked.”

  Kevin tried not to yawn. When his dad spoke accounting-ese, it bored him to death. At the same time, it was normal. Normal, a word to celebrate.

  “You reschedule your Halloween date?” his father asked.

  Kevin took it back. Normal didn’t cut it. He wanted Rude’s luck. In fact, he had a piece of Rude’s luck in his pocket. He could undo this whole grounding thing in a heartbeat.

  But he didn’t, not yet. Because what if something worse happened?

  What had Rude said he should use as his alternative weapon? Sarcasm, it is. “Throw a brick at me, why don’t you?”

  “Just because we’re having a friendly conversation doesn’t mean you’re not still grounded,” his dad said. “It just means I’m tired of fighting, tired of hard words. If I have to be the grounder and you have to be the groundee, at least we can be civil to each other and get through this as painlessly as possible.”

  “Easy for you to say, Dad.”

  “But not for me to do.”

  Whoa. “Is this where you tell me it’s harder for you than it is for me? Are you canceling a date for Friday night?”

  “Did you?” his dad asked.

  “What?”

  “Cancel it.”

  “Not yet,” Kevin said.

  “Well, get to it, son.”

  Kevin glared out the window.

  His dad sighed. “I want us to go home and have a good dinner. Then you’ll go to your room and do your homework.”

  “Understood,” Kevin said.

  It went down just like that. His father chilled in the living room while he did all his usual chores and cooking. After dinner, he struggled with his chemistry homework, realizing with real horror that he didn’t understand chemistry at all. That it would never be easy like biology, which he’d aced, no problem. He was doomed. And if he didn’t figure it out, so was his grade.

  At bedtime, his father locked himself in his room with a beer and whatever game he could find on ESPN. Kevin gave up on chem. He had some serious decisions to make.

  Use the charm to un-ground himself—and save his date with Amy—or keep it on standby, just in case. After all, the night was still young and until he got the all-clear from Rude, he had no other backup.

  If he kept it in reserve and nothing happened, he could use it before he left for school tomorrow to do the deed and make his plans for Friday night.

  In the meantime, did he go out or stay in?

  If Simone held the key to solving his dad’s problem, he had to see her. Sooner rather than later. And if he got caught? He still had the charm.

  Seemed like he had all angles covered. He thought it through a second time, just to make sure. Then he set the timer on his desk lamp and went out the window because maybe last time it’d been his going out the front door that clued in his dad.

  Unfortunately, thieving the Suburban was out of the question. No way could he get it out of the garage and down the drive without making a ton of racket.

  He rode his bike downtown, taking his life into his own hands with not one but two close calls involving screeching tires. All that in spite of having a decent reflective windbreaker and two blinking red safety lights plastered to his back and the back of the bike. Houston streets? Not made for the cycling.

  He couldn’t even relax once he hopped onto the trail along Buffalo Bayou. Too many shadows among the oaks and pines and magnolias and crepe myrtle. Water flowed low and easy at the bottom of the slope to his left, its glassy surface occasionally rippled by fish or fallen branches or who knew what else.

  He dodged a couple of joggers on the trail, and once he got closer to the skyscrapers, homeless. A handful of them had set up camp under an overpass, backlit tonight by a construction crew building a foot bridge support with the help of a couple of klieg lights and a bunch of orange-and-white barrels to warn off late-night drivers.

  He found the school bus in the exact same place as last night, just like Oscar promised. But Simone?

  He tried knocking on the bus door. Then he tried jimmying it open. He even sang it a song and felt like a class A weirdo the whole time belting out Margaritaville. If a guy sang one of his dad’s fav tunes in an alley and no one made a video to upload to the Internet, the guy could pretend it never happened. Right?

  He sighed and checked his watch. Just a little under an hour before the clock struck midnight. She should be there. Shouldn’t she?

  What to do? Turn around and ride home? Looking around seemed like the best option. Provided he didn’t run into any other interested parties, like the Faery King’s pet policemen.

  If he were Simone, where would he go?

  Where would he go if he were a singer who’d lost her whole life, music being her whole life?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  HE HEADED TOWARD the party district, where jazz bars and restaurants had been tucked into the skirts of high-rise lofts and empty office buildings. He found one basement dance club with bumping beats and not a lot of takers on a Tuesday night. Nothing rock-n-roll-forever down there.

  If he turned east and went under the highway, he could check out Phantom. Bound to be at least two bands playing in that half-finished warehouse. The right kinds of bands.

  He heard the place long before he laid eyes on it. Bass with a sex-you-up groove. Drums of thunder. The wail of a guitar solo.

  Street parking had filled blocks away, the tiny lot outside the club packed to max. He chained up his bike on the rack outside and said a small prayer that it’d still be there when he got back. He stepped inside the ground floor, immediately and painfully deafened.

  The crash of music reverbed off the concrete floor and walls, making it impossible for him to hear the bouncer, who made it clear with blunt sign language that he wouldn’t get in without handing over the ten-dollar cover. Good thing he had plenty of money in his wallet left over from the last grocery run.

  No one asked him for I
.D. Which was good, since he’d left his fake at home in a drawer. Maybe some of Rude’s good luck had rubbed off on him. Or maybe he could lay it on the charm in his pocket.

  He made his way deeper into the club. Heat poured from overhead vents. It dried out his throat and made him cough. Puddles of spilled beer slicked the floor. Kevin watched where he walked and tried not to go down. He’d had enough humiliation for one day, please and thanks.

  People clotted in small groups in the big open space that served as a lobby, plastic cups in their hands. Some of them congregated around the staircase in the middle of the room. Most of the traffic flowed up to the second floor.

  The color of the night? Black. As in black clothes, black nails, black lips and eyes. The girls posed in stilettos and jeans so tight it would be a miracle if any of them could sit down.

  The guys wore T-shirts, some of them from old concerts, but most brand-new and bought from the card table in the corner. The shirts were multiple choice, with model tees duct-taped to the wall behind the dude minding the store.

  The banner over the makeshift stand said BROKEN in three-foot Goth lettering. That got his attention. So did the picture of the band on the number 3 shirt, black of course, with long sleeves.

  Front and center? A nicely-rendered silver ink version of Simone.

  Kevin stood in a line six deep to buy one. When he got to the front, he pointed and paid the man, who sported a leather bracelet emblazoned with the name MARCUS. He leaned in close and yelled to be heard. “She’s amazing!”

  “Yeah,” Marcus said. “She’s the shit. Too bad she doesn’t show up as often as she used to. When she does, though—man, she does it for me. Know what I mean?”

  Kevin did. Probably not in the same way the guy meant it, but he got it. “She here tonight?”

  “She’s been on upstairs for a half hour already. You just getting here?”

  Kevin nodded.

  “Too bad, man. Better hurry or you’ll miss the rest of the show.”

  If the heat had been uncomfortable downstairs, upstairs was explosively hot. Doors were propped open to the balcony to let some of the warm air out and gusts of chill in, along with a heaping helping of fumes from the smokers huddled out there.

  Kevin could still only hear the downstairs band. Not one note from Broken. The interior doors were closed, no clue which set he should go through to find them until a couple of the smokers came back in and headed around the corner and through a set of double doors.

  He stripped off his sweatshirt and tied it around his waist, and slipped into his new tee before he followed them in.

  He caught up with them inside, in a snaking line that wove through tables and bar stools as people returned to their seats and filled in to stand along the walls. He overheard them say that the band had been on intermission, about to come back on. Otherwise they never would have left the room. No one left the room when Broken played, period.

  The woman turned off her cell phone. Kevin followed suit. Just in time, too.

  The band climbed onto the riser at the front of the room. The bassist and the guitarist picked up their instruments. The drummer sat down behind his kit. They looked like he’d felt when he and Rude woke up in the street last night—like they’d had cartoon anvils dropped on their heads. And they glowed around the edges with the same magic he’d experienced on the bus with Simone. He could see it, and he bet the rest of the crowd could at least feel it.

  Then the drummer counted off. The band began to play, a hypnotic wall of sound.

  Simone took the stage, floating up the steps, floating on the groove. She had on a different dress than the one he’d seen, the deep crimson of fresh blood with a ripped hem short enough to show off her long legs and delicate, bare feet. She wore a circlet of black roses in her hair. Her wings folded straight back, like a butterfly’s at rest. No one stared at them. Every single person in the room had eyes only for her face, her mouth. They were enraptured.

  She sang the first note. Kevin understood in his bones what Oscar had said about what she did with music. He couldn’t have moved from where he stood if he tried. He could hardly breathe and he couldn’t think. The hairs on his arms stood at attention, and so did his cock. He couldn’t help it and he didn’t want to.

  Simone sang sex.

  The first rush of desire. The quickening of a lover’s pulse. Lips and teeth and tongues. Taste of salt-slick skin.

  Kevin felt it—all of it—as if it were real. As if he was with Amy someplace private. Just the two of them. He could taste her. His body responded to the heat of her body, of those luscious curves pressed hard against him. Her hands pulling at his shirt. Dragging it over his head. His fingers moving fast on the buttons of her blouse.

  The warm, wet plunge of entering.

  Amy beneath him, her hair fanned across the pillow. Her legs wrapped around him.

  The exquisite tension of sensation, enveloping until there was nothing else. Building and building. Every muscle quivering. No shields. Nowhere to hide.

  Amy dug her nails into his back. Called his name.

  Building and building until you came. Hard and long and like death.

  He lost himself in her.

  He lost himself to time. To space. There was only the feel of the rise and fall of his chest, the fresh warm air in his lungs, the beat of his heart. And Simone’s voice.

  He opened his eyes, not aware of having closed them. He looked at Simone. She saw him at the same time, her mouth crooking into that same half-grin of Amy’s he found so sexy.

  Her voice trailed off before the music faded. The drummer played a gorgeous fall of chimes.

  Kevin tore his gaze away. He fixed on shapes across the room in a shadowed corner. A couple backing into the wall, entwined so tight he couldn’t tell who was who—until the man lifted his woman and plunged into her right there. In the middle of the club. In front of God and everyone.

  Someone in the rear of the audience applauded the band. The sound rolled over Kevin like a wave—and broke the magic that had rooted him to the spot.

  He pushed his way out of the room on trembling legs. Barely made it to the balcony before they gave out.

  He white-knuckled the rickety rail, leaning into it as far as he dared and relieved as hell that he was alone out there. Just him and a bunch of old coffee cans full of sand and cigarette butts.

  The chill seeped in through his clothes and into his joints, and cleared his head until he could think again. He’d never heard—never seen—anything like that before. It was all-encompassing. The whole world shrank until it held only Simone’s voice. And you felt everything she sang to you. You did what she sang to you. It felt more than good. It felt indescribable, like a drug. One he could see getting high off every single night for the rest of his life if it didn’t kill him first.

  Jesus.

  A breeze kicked up in cold gusts. He shivered, but couldn’t bring himself to put his sweatshirt back on—not even when his teeth started to chatter uncontrollably. His fingers grew stiff, but he kept hold of the railing. He didn’t know how long he stood there.

  Scattered crowd noise buffeted him from behind him; the show had finally ended.

  Marcus joined him on the balcony and raked him up and down with a dash of humor. “First time you’ve seen them, huh?”

  Kevin could only nod.

  “You’d better sit down, man.” Marcus cocked his head at a single plastic chair at the end of the balcony.

  Kevin nodded again and peeled his fingers free of the cold metal while Marcus fetched him the seat. Settling into a chair had never felt so good. Or so precarious. He could pass out any minute.

  “Busy giving yourself a good case of hypothermia, are you?” Marcus asked.

  Kevin found his voice. “I didn’t really think about it.”

  “She makes it hard to think,” Marcus said, and lit up a smoke. “You even old enough to be in here?”

  He could deny it, but why? “No.”

  “I
don’t know how you got past Zeke. He’s got a better eye than that.”

  “The bouncer?”

  “Yeah, him,” Marcus said. “We’re gonna have to sneak you out. Otherwise, you’re gonna be in trouble and Zeke’ll get fired and beat your ass. Not a good thing.”

  “Not so much.”

  Marcus tapped his ashes into the wind. “Just let me know when you’re ready to walk and we’ll go out the back. Where’d you park?”

  “Bike rack.”

  “I’ll need the combination to your lock so I can bring it around.”

  Kevin had trusted the guy until he said that. Just trying to be helpful. And maybe larcenous. His thoughts must’ve shown on his face, because Marcus raised a brow, managing to keep the good humor and seem offended at the same time.

  “I’m staff,” he said, “for Simone and the rest of the band. You can find me here every week, if not every night. I screw you over, you can bring your friends and take it up with me later.”

  Kevin appreciated the honesty. “I believe you. And thanks.”

  “Forget it,” Marcus said. “So, are you capable yet?”

  “I think so.”

  Marcus stuffed what remained of his cigarette into the nearest ash can. “I’m gonna get you out of here, and you’re gonna go straight home. Do not pass go and all that. All right?”

  Kevin had come down there to find Simone and talk, not to find her and run away. That was what it would feel like if he took Marcus’s advice. But he didn’t know if he could handle doing anything else.

  “All right, man?” Marcus wanted an answer.

  “Yeah. Okay.” Kevin would make up his mind for real after he hit the street.

  He took it easy down the back stairs in an unfinished part of the club that still bore a resemblance to the building’s original function as a warehouse, complete with a layer of dust six inches thick and empty, wheeled pallets stacked against the walls. He hugged the rail on his way down, and the closer he got to the landing, the stronger his legs held up.

  One, two, three steps to the ground floor, then ten feet to the back door.