by Katya Moore
“Just remember, the first thing you say to any of the guards is, ‘It’s a lovely night for a concert.’ If you say anything else before that, they boot you.” I made eye contact with each of them. Roc. Feral. Cory. Even Kit, who wasn’t going in. I wanted to see their faces one last time, in case things went south. “Just be careful.”
“We’ll see you inside.” Roc’s voice was confident and calm. Feral smiled warmly. Kit gave a jaunty salute.
Cory offered his arm. I gripped it tightly.
It was time for my first heist.
“It’s damned clever of her. Great way to get everyone to look at the cameras.”
Three massive screens lit up the entryway to the concert. I could see people posing, flashing peace signs, and generally hamming it up for them, for the crowd. For the facial recognition systems.
I swallowed hard. Cory’s words weren’t settling my stomach in the least.
“We don’t even have tickets yet,” I muttered at him.
Cory gave a short laugh. “Just a sec.”
He released my arm and tripped, bumping into a leather-clad man twice his size. The man’s date, also twice his size, gave him a haughty look.
“Watch where you’re going, asshole!” the woman shouted at him.
The leather-clad man helped Cory to his feet. “Aww, Muffin, we’re at a Mother Glory concert. Enhance your chill. We’re here for the love, right?” He smiled at Cory with the serenity of the totally stoned. “Enjoy the concert, man.”
“Oh, we will. Thanks.” Cory stumbled back toward me. He winked and led me further into the crowd.
“You didn’t.”
Cory rolled his eyes heartily. “Of course I did, citizen. It’s called a lift. Remind me to teach you sometime.” He flashed the tickets at me, then made them vanish with a flourish. “At least we came by the VIP passes honestly. Oh wait, we didn’t, did we?”
I wanted to slap that smirk off his face. “I hate you.”
“Yeah, well, whatever, citizen. I don’t need your love to do my job.” He hauled on me roughly, leading me toward the entrance.
We stood in line for what felt like an eternity. I slouched into myself, trying to be small, trying to hide in plain sight. Cory slipped his arm around my shoulder and scooped me into his chest.
“Here. You’re making yourself more obvious. Just…hide on me.” I could feel tension in his arms as he simultaneously held me close and recoiled from the contact. It was like cuddling with a very pissed off cat, and was about as comfortable. We shuffled along the line, playing couple, until we reached the ticket-takers.
“We’re on the VIP list,” he said in his best impression of breathless enthusiasm. “We can’t wait to meet her.” He flashed his badge, then nudged me to flash mine. I did so with a wan smile.
A security guard stepped up to give us a good and thorough wanding with a metal detector. We passed with flying colors, except for the rows of rings on our ears. The security guard didn’t give them a second look. It would be more suspicious to be a Mother Glory fan without at least five piercings.
The ticket-taker lifted his walkie-talkie to his mouth and grunted something into it. “Step off to the side. Someone will bring you in. Smile for the screen.” He jerked a thumb at the cameras.
“Ooh. Selfie time!” Cory beamed into the camera, then hauled me in front of it to do a cheesy cheek-to-cheek shot. Horrified, my eyes flicked to the giant monitor above us. To my surprise, it pixelated our faces.
Ticket-taker Dude grunted at a colleague. “Thing’s fritzing again. Call security. Let them know it’s being a piece of shit.” A woman in a Mother Glory t-shirt and jeans tight enough to cut off circulation bounced toward us. Ticket-taker Dude jerked his thumb at us. “VIPs. They’re all yours.”
“If anyone recognizes me, we’re both eviscerated, you realize that?”
“Shut up.”
We holed ourselves up in a corner near the snack buffet in the VIP area.
The belly of the beast.
The VIP area teemed with the most rabid Mother Glory fans the world had to offer. The true Thousand Young, not just the posers who listened to a couple of her songs and called themselves hardcore. I heard people speaking in five different languages, and didn’t doubt that they had flown from the ends of the earth just to be at this concert. More than one girl had the Soul’s Tear gems tattooed beneath her eyes, and it looked like it might come to blows between them. Others had visible branding, the Tears scorched into their flesh with hot irons. All wore Mother Glory apparel, a silent competition of who wore the most obscure tour shirt. The one who wore the hand-lettered Mother Glory Garage Tour shirt seemed to be their king, holding court in the middle of the room and answering questions about what she was like back before she was famous.
“She was humble. She’s always been humble. Even now… all of this is all for show. It’s for us, not her. She loves her fans and wants to put on the best possible show, y’know?”
“And the mansion is just a place to keep her crap y’know?” Cory mocked quietly. I elbowed him hard.
Then I saw him, and my blood ran cold. I crammed myself back into the corner, eyes wide, face pale.
“What? Alex, what’s your deal?” Cory hissed, scanning the crowd.
Raul was holding his own special court across the way from me. I saw him scanning the room with those beady little eyes of his. Watching. Watching for me.
“She always thought she was better than me, that Alexandria Martin,” he hissed to a pigtailed blonde girl. “She got me cast out, but I found my way back. She needs me. Glory needs me. She told me herself. ‘Find that Martin girl and bring her to me, and you’re welcome back into the fold.’” His eyes grew dewy. “Her fold. Her home. My home. I miss it so much.” His face grew hard again. “Focus, Raul. Focus.” Pigtails took a step back from the walking mood swing that was my former coworker.
“He seems to have a bit of a hard-on for finding you,” Cory whispered over his shoulder to me.
“That’s the stalker I got kicked out of the mansion the night you guys hit it.” I shrank in on myself even more. “He wanted to gut me just for meeting with Glory. Now she’s put an actual hit on me. Yeah, you might say he wants to talk to me.”
“Desperate times…” Cory said.
I saw Raul start to scan the room again. This is it. It’s over.
Cory caught me up in his arms and kissed me.
“Mmph!” I squeaked.
His hand caught the back of my head, pressing his lips tighter against mine. He nestled me back into my corner, joining me, pressing into me with his body. His lips parted mine. I opened my mouth, allowing him to deepen the kiss. My squeak became a moan. I forced myself to relax into it, to run my hands along his back, to buy in. His tongue danced along mine.
I didn’t have to force it.
My body pressed into his, eager and hungry. I was furious with it, traitorous bitch that it was, but there was something about his lips on mine, a hunger, a desperation that I felt echo deep within me. It was the same feeling I had every night, alone with my thoughts, alone in the world. His lips held the taste of my own loneliness, and in sharing it, we shone a light in the darkness.
Or maybe he was just a really good kisser.
I flicked an eye open, watching Raul over his shoulder. Raul glanced over us, then turned away to rant at Pigtails. Pigtails looked ready to call security. It was time to go.
I pressed a hand to Cory’s chest.
“Bathroom,” I gasped against his mouth.
His lips curled in a feral grin.
I rolled my eyes. “The crew.”
He harrumphed softly, but didn’t break our embrace. If anything, he intensified it. His hands coursed over my body, grasping, groping, fondling. I gripped his ass with both hands, moaning and gasping. We slid our way along the wall, aiming for the doorway to the bathroom, leaving none to wonder about our intentions. As we vanished through the doorway, there were a few hoots and a smattering of app
lause.
Cory released me and slammed the door behind us. He stood there for a moment, back to me, hands pressed against the surface of the door, panting hard.
I stumbled backwards and leaned my back against the cool tile of the wall. “You okay?” I gasped.
“Yeah. Whatever. It’s cool.” He took three long, slow breaths, then turned around and began scanning everything that wasn’t me. “Aha. There.”
I followed his gaze and saw the grating next to the toilet. It was about a two foot square. The space beyond was dark, the grating itself coated in fuzz and filth. I looked at him, looked back to the grating, then made a face at him.
“That’s what we’re…?”
“Welcome to crime, citizen. It ain’t pretty.” Cory knelt to examine the grating, made a satisfied noise, then gestured for me to move back. The room shifted sideways for a second, and Cory the raven pecked at the bolts.
Someone knocked on the door. Cory and I exchanged a look. I opened my mouth and let out a long impassioned moan. Cory winked at me and went back to using his beak as a wrench. I threw myself into the act, slamming against the tile, gasping, pulling a full When Harry Met Sally. I saw the grating teeter and lunged for it, catching it before it hit the floor and feigning the best orgasm of my life to cover the sound of metal being laid on tile. I could hear more applause out in the VIP room.
“Encore!” some wise guy shouted.
Cory hopped into the vent and jerked his head. I dropped to my knees and squirmed into the vent behind him.
“If I get stuck in here, I’m going to kick your ass.”
“Caw.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Feral
“Stand still.” Kit dug his foot into the side of my neck and shoved down. “I can’t work like this.”
“Quit your bitching,” I growled. “I’m not a fucking stepladder. Just make your connection and be done already.”
“Okay, okay.” I heard something pop, a crackle, then a soft crow of victory. “I’m in. A couple twists and…there.”
I reached up and lent Kit a hand down off my shoulders. He dove headlong toward his laptop without so much as a thank you.
“I’ve got cameras. No wi-fi, but we’ve got hotspots for that. I’ll move myself back to the van and sync up the comms.” Kit folded the laptop under his arm. He gave us a solemn salute. “Good luck in there.”
“We don’t need luck. We need comms. Get to it.” Whatever Kit saw in my eyes sent him running double-time toward the van.
“A little harsh, don’t you think?” Roc chided.
I grunted in reply.
“Stay focused. If you get in your head about Luxe, we’ll lose him. Just take it a piece at a time. Flowers, then pick up the crew, then Glory. And Luxe.” Roc slapped a hand on my shoulder. “Believe it.”
I wanted to believe it. I wanted to know that this was going to go according to plan. I needed it to go to plan, more than I needed anything in my life. I needed Luxe to survive. And now, Alex was in there too.
I took a deep breath.
Too many variables. Too many people I care about in there. Focus.
I picked up the bouquet of flowers and dusted them off.
Roc smiled. “Let’s make a delivery.”
“About fucking time. We’ve been going nuts waiting for these.” The guard at the door barely looked at us as he ushered us in. “These needed to be in the green room an hour ago. Where the hell have you been?”
Where we’d been was neither here nor there. The florists I’d acquired these from were tied up in their own ribbons in the back of a delivery van about three miles away. They’d live, they’d have a hell of a story to tell the papers the next day, but they wouldn’t get to see the backstage area like they’d so hoped.
“It’s a lovely night for a concert. Also, we got held up,” Roc said. I bit my tongue. It was an old joke, but it never stopped being funny.
“Well, get your ass in gear. Down the hall, around the corner to the left, six doors down on your right.”
Roc timed the delivery perfectly. The anxiety radiated off these guards in waves. I could have smuggled in a bandolier of knives and twin M-16s and they wouldn’t have detected them with the half-assed metal detector wand sweep they did. They missed our heads entirely, giving us a free pass on our comm earpieces.
We hustled down the hallway and made the left-hand turn.
“The bathroom vent should let out right around…” Roc began.
“Caw.”
We both froze and looked down. The tip of a black beak poked out of a vent next to my knee. I could hear huffing and puffing behind him. I dropped to a knee and squinted into the darkness. My cat’s eyes made out Alex’s shape behind the massive raven.
“You okay in there?” I asked.
“Caw.”
“Not you, jackass.”
“I’m…ugh…fine.” Alex spat something out of her mouth. “If I eat one more cobweb, I’m gonna puke.”
“Caw.” I could swear the asshole was laughing at her.
“Less cawing, more bolts, dammit. This is a tight fit and I want out.” Alex reached forward and gave Cory’s tail feathers a swat.
“Caw!” Cory grabbed the last bolt in his beak and gave it a firm twist.
I grabbed the edges of the grate and lowered it to the floor. “I really hope Kit has those cameras looped,” I muttered to Roc. “We’re gonna have incoming if they spot us doing this.”
“Never fear, The Fox is here. Your hall cameras are on a three-minute blind loop, so you’re free and clear. Also, you have comms, so if you split up, you’re good to chat.”
Cory hopped out of the vent and shifted up. Alex wriggled out behind him. I offered her a hand up. She dusted herself off frantically, especially her short black wig.
“So…many…cobwebs,” she groaned.
“They’re not all cobwebs. Is that a spider?” Cory pointed at her left shoulder. Alex gave a start, swung a hand at it, then narrowed her eyes in a glare that could stop a heart. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop Cory’s. He just snickered like a fucking twelve-year-old bully. It took everything I had not to punch him square in the nuts.
“We have work to do. Come on.” Roc shot us a long-suffering look and began to lead us down the hallway.
“You okay? For real?” I sidled up next to Alex. “You look a little freaked out.” I leaned in to nuzzle her cheek and froze. There was a scent to her I wasn’t expecting. A musk. Cory’s musk. She practically reeked of bird.
She was stuck in a vent with the asshole. Of course she reeks of him.
Then why does it smell like sex?
I resisted a growl. Not the time.
She shook her head. “I’m fine. This… A lot of stuff is happening, we’re going into a situation I don’t know how to deal with, and you guys are counting on me. It’s a lot.”
I slung an arm around her shoulders. She leaned her head on me. A warm feeling rose through my chest. I could still smell that asshat on her skin, but I didn’t care. She needed me, and that was enough. The rest could wait.
“Do you know who my parents are? I will fucking end you! Your hopes, your dreams, your career… I’m Dex Fucking Ward, you peon!”
A door swung open in front of us. I released Alex, bracing for a fight. Cory flung open a broom closet and shoved Alex inside, closing himself in there with her. That rumble of jealousy burned in my chest. I tamped it down.
Two security guards dragged a scrawny, greasy-haired little geek of a man out of the room. He wore expensive glasses, designer clothes, and an outraged expression.
“I could buy this whole damned arena! You have no right!”
“Mother Glory doesn’t give interviews before her shows. I don’t know how you got in here, but you just got yourself blacklisted, pal. You can take your damned podcast and shove it up your…” The security guard looked up and saw me and Roc standing there.
“Which way to the green room?” I asked the guards, then winced
.
It’s a lovely night for a concert, you fucking dolt.
The security guard on the right frowned and reached for his radio.
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said.
The other guard reached for his. They dropped Dex Fucking Ward in a heap on the floor. The little weasel skittered off down the hall, leaving the four of us facing off.
“Now that he’s out of the way…” Roc began.
“Yeah.” I shifted down into my panther and dove at the larger of the two. I felt Roc’s wolf beside me, lunging at the other guard.
Both men cried out in horror, then hit the floor hard as we plowed into them. I caught my guard’s throat in my jaws, lifted, then slammed the back of his head against the floor. Nighty-night. I could smell urine and hear the other guard flailing and gasping as Roc pinned him to the floor by the throat.
“Little help?” Roc growled.
I swung a massive paw at the side of the guard’s head. It bounced off the floor like a basketball, knocking him out.
“Thanks. Didn’t want to tear his throat out in front of Alex,” he rumbled, then shifted back into human form. He straightened his delivery uniform and looked behind us. “Aww fuck.”
I shifted up and turned around. The flowers were scattered all over the hallway. “Goddamn it.”
Alex shoved her way out of the closet and looked at the bodies on the floor. “Are they…?”
“No, but they’ll wish they were in the morning.” I knelt down and started to pick up the flowers. The fragile peonies had basically exploded into piles of petals. Alex knelt beside me to help.
“Leave them. We’re blown. We’ve got two missing guards who were supposed to be bringing a suspect to the security desk.” Roc’s eyes were dark. “We’ve got a couple minutes before all hell breaks loose.”
Cory snatched up a radio. “Alex, who’s the guy in charge? You said you knew him?”