by August Li
Emrys knelt down next to Dante. “When I was in school, my class did a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I only had a small part, though, one of the faeries.”
“My sister loved reading about the faeries. She loved my mom’s old books, the plays about the sylphs and the enchanted forests. She’s so much smarter than me. I can still barely understand that stuff.”
Emrys stood and spoke in a voice so stiff that I understood why he was given a smaller part. “Over hill, over dale, thorough bush, thorough brier, over park, over pale, thorough flood, thorough fire…. Over hill… over dale. Over dale…. Thorough brier, over dale…. Thorough brier, over dale….” He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t seem to stop saying that. I…. Thorough brier, over dale. Thorough brier, over dale. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel so compelled. Thorough brier, over dale.”
Dante got to his feet and backed away from Emrys. “What the hell, man? You been into Jet’s stash?”
“No. I rarely smoke marijuana. I…. Thorough brier, over dale.”
“This isn’t some kind of fucking joke!” Dante shouted.
“Wait.” I hurried to get between them because Dante looked livid and Emrys seemed an oar short to starboard. “I’ve seen something like this happen before. Is there….” I spotted it. One house sat on a lot surrounded by hedge roses—briers. Leaving Dante and Emrys to bicker on the path, I went up to the big house’s porch and inspected the three letterboxes by the door: 1: Singh, S. 2: Dale, R. 3: Temporary.
I looked over my shoulder and called, “He lives on the third floor.”
Dante sprinted up the walk. “How the hell do you know that?”
“Look.” I pointed to the labels. “Over Dale. And we came through the briers already.”
“This….” He scratched the back of his head. “If this is Ros trying to help us, why would she be so cryptic? Why not just tell us where she is?”
Why indeed. “Blossom tried to explain it to me. He thinks she’s not doing it on purpose, that the magic is adapting to her wishes without her direction.” I shook my head as I looked at the fancy door with the patterned glass panels. “It’s hard to believe, but this is almost exactly how we found our way to you in the first place. Disjointed pieces that came together, made something we could follow.”
Emrys nodded. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this, but it makes sense in an odd way. Your sister seems to have the ability to control magic, but she’s never learned how to direct it. Her emotions and associations are acting on the bits of magic that are always present, and they are manifesting accordingly. She likely doesn’t know she could be clearer if she tried. You said she loves these plays, especially the ones about forests and faeries. If she’s scared and thinking about them to comfort herself, it’s likely influencing the magic.” He put a hand on Dante’s shoulder. “But there’s one definite positive here. She’s alive. Otherwise I doubt this would be happening.”
For a few minutes Dante stood staring at the calla lilies etched into the door’s glass. I felt the moment when he made a decision, like the step off the edge of a bridge, irrevocable. He opened the door and entered a large foyer with parquet floors and a staircase on either side that curved up to a landing. A tasteful faux Tiffany lamp dangled from the high ceiling, scattering shards of colored light across the hardwood. Dante went to the intercom and mashed the third button with his finger several times in rapid succession. We waited, and when there was no answer, he stabbed at it again. I wanted to ask what he would say if he got a response, but his desperation was making him reckless. Dangerous.
Well, more dangerous.
He must’ve pressed that button fifty times before Emrys said, “Nobody’s at home, it seems.”
“Fuck.” Dante kicked the bottle-green wall and left a dent in the plaster. Without acknowledging us, he hurried back outside and around to the back of the building, to a tarmac lot with six spaces marked off and a pair of big plastic dumpsters. There was also another small porch where a snow shovel leaned next to a steel door, and a fire escape that wound up to a small balcony on the third floor. As soon as Dante looked up, I knew what he was thinking, and I didn’t like it.
“We can’t,” I said.
“Why not? What if she’s in there?”
“Look, mate. This is a whole different world from your neighborhood. If someone sees us, the cops will come. They’ll come fast. People here won’t just look the other way. If we’re arrested, whoever has your sister will get spooked and take her someplace else. We’ll be back where we started. And if she isn’t in there, we need to talk to the person who lives in that flat, find out what they know. It’ll be harder if we frighten them off.”
“I agree,” Emrys said. “Anything this person knows isn’t in a phone or a computer. Otherwise Jet would have found it. We need to figure out a way to speak to them.”
“And how the hell are we going to do that from out here?”
“Let’s watch the place,” Emrys said. “Give me some time to think. If I don’t come up with anything, we should at least wait until it gets dark to increase our chances of getting in undetected.” He looked over his shoulder at a copse of trees near the end of the lot. “I’ll stay here. You two go around front and keep an eye on the entryway. Send a text if anything happens, and I’ll do the same.”
“Two hours,” Dante said, “and then I’m going in there if I have to blow a hole in the wall to do it.”
We found a good hiding place in a kids’ playset made up to look like the Victorian houses around it. It stood across the street in a wide patch of lawn between two homes, and from the layers of snow and ice, I guessed it hadn’t been used in a while. Dante leapt from the walkway to the wooden stairs—I assumed to avoid leaving tracks—and I did the same. The turret room at the top of the slide offered plenty of room for us to sit and wait; it even had curved benches built in, though within minutes, my bum was soaked and going numb. I wondered if I should try to comfort Dante, talk him down. If he would want that. But when I tried to get a sense of his desires, I found his tunnel vision had only focused like a beam of light through a magnifying glass, the point aimed squarely at a bay window on the third floor of the house. I decided to stay quiet.
After a while I zoned out, left with nothing to do but watch the subtle change of light as afternoon wore on toward evening, note the small changes in the shadows the bare branches cast on the snow. When Dante’s phone vibrated, it was so obtrusive that I flinched.
“Emrys said a guy in a blue Lexus just pulled in.” Dante angled so he could have a better view through the arched opening, and I did the same.
The guy who came around the side of the building and went in the front door was pretty unremarkable—tan overcoat, navy suit, brown briefcase. Short brown hair with a biscuit-sized bald patch in the back. I was too far off to get a real sense of what he wanted, but I could feel an urgency thrumming through his slightly portly frame. He was excited about something. But then, it could be something as simple as some leftover takeaway he knew he had waiting in the fridge. I waited to see what Dante would do, but he stayed frozen in what had to be an uncomfortable half crouch, staring at the door the man had gone through.
Before long, the fancy streetlamps flickered to soft amber life, and with them came tiny shadows on silent feet. The cats converged on the house, melting into the darkness cast by bushes and trees until no one who hadn’t seen them arrive would know they were there—even though I saw a dozen before I stopped counting.
“Good sign,” I whispered to Dante.
Before he could answer, his phone buzzed again. His face looked ghostly in the blue light from the screen, the shadows deep around his eyes. “Emrys said a car just pulled into the alley and stopped a few houses down. Dropped someone off. A guy. He’s heading our way. I think we should stop him, see what he’s doing.”
“All right.”
Following Dante’s lead, I crossed the street and presse
d my body against the side of the house, beyond the light spilling from the big windows on the first floor. Something brushed my calf, and I looked down into a pair of luminous eyes. Joy and love warmed my chest, and I began to reach down, but Dante elbowed me hard in the ribs. Even in the shadows, I couldn’t miss his murderous look. “I’ll come back for you,” I promised the big black cat purring hard at my feet.
“Shut the fuck up,” Dante hissed out between his teeth.
I held a hand up in surrender just as a slender guy came around the corner. I thought hustler right away from the combination of his hip-swinging gait and the guarded way he held his spine straight and bunched his shoulders. When he stepped into the light, I saw professionally highlighted hair, foundation-smooth skin, and subtly glossed lips.
Dante stepped in front of the guy, blocking his path and getting right in his face. “Who the hell are you?”
“Whoa, buddy.” The guy tried to step back, but Dante mirrored him, keeping their chests flush. “What the hell?”
“I asked who you are and what you’re doing here,” Dante said.
“I’m visiting a friend. What’s it to you?”
“Bullshit. You’re sneaking around, and I want to know why.”
“Look, it’s none of your business. Just get the fuck out of my face, man.”
It was the wrong answer. Dante grabbed a handful of the guy’s silk shirt, spun him, slammed his back against the house, and pressed his forearm across the guy’s throat. He made wet choking sounds, and blotchy red showed through his makeup.
Dante leaned in until his lips almost touched the guy’s sideburns. “You look, asshole. I don’t have a problem with you, and I don’t want your money, but if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m gonna kick your ass.”
I could see the second the guy realized it wasn’t posturing on Dante’s part, like somebody flicked a switch behind his eyes. He nodded as best he could with Dante’s arm across his throat, and Dante let up a little bit.
“I work for an escort service, Gold Standard. The guy on the third floor, Mr. Schneider, is a regular client. He usually asks for Jamie, but he’s on vacation. So I’m here. That’s all. Making a living, man. Same as anybody.”
When Dante looked at me, his slightly touched, toothy smile would’ve given Blossom a run for his money. I took a step back, but I knew what he was thinking, and I couldn’t say it was a bad plan. He asked the guy a few more questions and then he reached into the pocket of his tight trousers and pulled out his wallet. “Good. Now get the hell out of here. I’m just gonna keep your driver’s license in case you decide to open your mouth about what happened tonight. Anybody asks you, the guy changed his mind. Say anything different and I’ll find you. We have an understanding?”
“Y-yeah.”
Dante let the guy go and handed him back his wallet. He had too much dignity to turn and run right away, but as soon as he reached the parking lot, I could hear his heeled dress shoes pounding the tarmac.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and shook my head. “Guess that’s my cue, then.”
“Is that a problem? I thought you liked this stuff. I thought you’d welcome the opportunity. If not, I can go up and make the guy talk. My methods might be a little more direct, but—”
“No, no. It isn’t that. I’ll do it. I’ll…. Dante, I’ll do it for you.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
WHAT THE hell had I been thinking, saying that to Dante? I raked my fingers through my hair even though the guy wouldn’t see it as I stared at the hole Dante had kicked in the wall. He didn’t want that, didn’t want a connection between us, and I bloody well knew it. I had wanted to say that to him, wanted him to know. Needed him to know, for myself, and that wasn’t supposed to happen. Scared the shite out of me, truth told. I preferred having a set of instructions to follow, the desires of others to guide me. My own….
I put it out of my mind, popped a few mints in my mouth, and pressed the button on the intercom.
“Yes?”
I had to sound peppy, like I was at least pretending to be glad to be there. “Hi, Mr. Schneider? My name is….” Fuck! Should’ve prepared something. I looked around frantically until I noticed a print hanging on the wall. Water Lilies. “My name is Claude. I’m from Gold Standard.”
“Oh! I’m looking forward to meeting you. Just go up to the landing and then take the stairs on the left. There’s a locked security door at the top, but I’ll let you in.”
I did as I was asked, and the guy from earlier greeted me in some pajama pants and a T-shirt. He smelled freshly showered with a soft hint of some expensive cologne. He looked me up and down and smiled.
Good a start as any.
As I followed him into a tiny alcove where an umbrella stand and some muddy trainers sat on the terra-cotta tiles, I could already feel his desires molding me. I was a little on the small side, in good shape but not stocky, more of a dancer’s build. Mr. Schneider liked having the advantage, being physically superior. I could run with that, sure. I didn’t mind getting tossed about a bit now and then. Not at all.
Beyond the alcove was a more normal wooden door, and past that, his apartment. It was nice if a little clinical—all earthy masculine tones from the leather sectional to the plaid throw pillows. From the gas fireplace to the wet bar on one end of the living room to the open-plan kitchen and its exposed brick, it all looked like a picture out of a magazine. I had the feeling of being in a showroom, not someplace a person actually lived. Even the knickknacks on the mantel and bookshelves seemed chosen by a designer, rather than personal things with any meaning behind them.
Everything for appearance, like my host. He was one of those gift boxes in a department store window, covered in expensive paper and perfect ribbons, but empty on the inside. He was also something of a vacuum, his need to fill that hollow place tugging me toward him. He needed what I had to offer, needed it desperately, and that felt damned good.
“Let me take your coat.”
I slipped it off and handed it to him, and he hung it in a narrow closet in the hall. Then he went to the bar and took two tumblers from underneath it. “Can I offer you a drink?”
“Whiskey’s my poison.” My voice came out higher than I expected, lilting and filled with innuendo. Mr. Schneider seemed to like it; his grin took on a feral edge. “But not bourbon. Scotch or Irish, if you have it.”
“Good man.” He winked. “I have Macallan or Bushmills. Nothing terribly exotic, I’m afraid, but they’re both decent.” He watched me expectantly as I sauntered up to the bar and leaned one hip against it.
“Bushmills is great. You’ve got good taste. I like that.” I brushed my fingers across the back of his hand as he slid my drink over. “Seems like fewer and fewer guys these days know how to appreciate the finer things.”
He tapped the rim of his glass against mine. “Well, to mutual appreciation.”
He had nice eyes, the soft blue-gray of an old chamois shirt. A little vapid, maybe, but no malice. No sadism. He liked impressing me, liked knowing more than me. I could use that.
“Mmm.” I sipped my drink. “So this one’s Irish, right? What’s the difference?”
He talked for a while about stuff I already knew: barley, distillation, aging, casks. I put my elbow on the bar, leaned in, and rested a cheek against my palm. I got the distinct feeling that most people didn’t pay much attention when Mr. Schneider talked, and it was ramping him up that I did. I could feel that special light and energy spilling off him like heat from a flame, taste it in the air, smoky and leathery and dirty, like the whiskey.
He refilled our glasses and picked them up. “Let’s move to the sofa and I’ll get a fire going. Some cold spell we’re having, isn’t it? How about some music?”
“Sure, Mr. Schneider. I like everything. Whatever’s on the radio.”
He chuckled. “Please, call me Brandt. And we’re not going to settle for any of that studio-manufactured stuff. I’ll teach you a little bit about the classi
cs.”
“I’d like that,” I said, standing between the coffee table and the chaise longue end of the couch.
“I hope you’re not nervous,” Brandt said as he fiddled with an iPhone hooked into a set of speakers.
Of course I wasn’t; this was what I did—and liked—best. That was why I knew it turned him on that I was a little unsure, and I milked it, saying, “The truth is, I’m a little new to this.”
“You mean working for the escort service?” He sat down, took my hand, and guided me to take a seat beside him.
“Uh, all of it, actually. I haven’t had many—” I gulped and lowered my face so my positively cherubic blond curls hid—but not completely—my blush. “—many lovers.”
Brandt pinched my chin and angled my head up. He brushed the hair out of my face. Smiling, he ran his thumb along my lower lip. “That’s okay. I’ll show you what to do. I’d be happy to.”
“I’d like that too.” If I could show this guy a good enough time, he’d be putty in my hands. After the best fuck of his life, he’d probably answer any questions I asked.
Guess I’d give it to him.
Not a problem.
WE HAD a nice time. Brandt was versatile, it turned out, and he had a lot of stamina. We went twice and then sixty-nined on the rug by the fireplace for a while, but we both needed time to recover. Well, I didn’t, but proving that wouldn’t help my cause, especially not with this guy. He liked flattery, and I laid it on thick. Yes, I needed some information if he had it, but I also fucking loved satisfying people, making their dreams come true. I’m just wired that way.
I reached up and pulled a blanket off the couch, tucking it around us. Brandt was shining like a lighthouse, absolutely infatuated with me. Some of it was even sticking, though it was fish-food flakes when there was lobster and filet mignon right within my reach. I couldn’t have it, thanks to whatever Blossom had done. Still, a snack was better than nothing, and I expected the supply would keep coming strong for at least a few weeks, maybe longer.