by Rhys Ford
“Yeah, but how do you know?” I said, glancing at her. “Because I sure as hell don’t.”
“You told him he couldn’t come with us because he isn’t good enough with a weapon.” Cari dug back down into her backpack, pulling out a handful of dried tangerine slices, offering me one, then shrugging when I shook my head. “Does it feel like time’s too slow when he’s not around? Do you miss him?”
I didn’t have to think about it. More than a few times in the Market I’d almost turned around to tell Ryder to look at one thing or another, but he hadn’t been there. The space at my side was empty, and I felt the loss—not heartbreaking but definitely looking for Ryder.
“Yeah, I miss him, but he’s where I know he’ll be okay. Down here, he won’t be. Most people know me or at least give me a bit of room. He… glitters. Ryder can’t help but be Ryder, Clan Sebac, Third in the House of Devon, High Lord of the Southern Rise Court, and that’s not someone I can take down here.” It was pointing out the obvious, but my words hurt, twisting about in my belly. “He’s the Court’s lord. He can’t go traipsing off with me to kill monsters when he’s got people he’s got to feed down here. That’s the reality of it.”
“Then sometimes you’re going to have to stay with him and make soup,” she murmured. “And sometimes he’ll go with you on things he can help with. It’s about blending your lives, Kai, not shoving them apart. I think you’re in love with him and it scares the hell out of you. And that’s saying a hell of a lot, because knowing everything you’ve gone through, I never thought love would be the bullet that stopped you.”
“Well, right now, I’ve got to stay focused on Kenny Dempsey, and that means going to deal with Orin Bennett. He’s the guy who owns the place, and he’s probably not going to be too happy to see me. And if he’s the one I’ve got to shake Kenny’s location out of, it’s going to cost me something fierce.” Someone honked, and I had to snag Cari’s hand before she could lean out the window to flip off the car behind us. “Don’t do that.”
“Asshole deserves it. And why does Bennett not like you now? Last time he was practically preening to get to you. Elfin are his thing.”
“Because I killed his brother, Oscar, remember?” I shook my head at Cari’s quiet and thoughtful murmur. “Yeah, let’s hope he wasn’t that fond of Oscar or it’s going to be a shitty time for us in the Diamond Kitty.”
THE DISTRICT was going to seed and fast, every block we passed painted more and more with grime, graffiti, and neglect, the people on the street shifting from day workers coming home from the upper city to the type of characters one only finds on the edges of the understreets. Small pockets of men and women stood on the corners, smoking cigarettes and chatting. Some were obviously in the skin trade, calling out to anyone passing by, but most just seemed more interested in doing deals or simply hanging out.
A neon cat winked in the distance, her curves a bright purple splash of light strong enough to push back the clinging shadows. The sunlamps here rarely reached full brightness, leaving the district in a steamy dusk. I found a place to park the Scout about twenty feet away from the club, angling it to get a good view of the front entrance as well as the side door leading out to a wide alley. It was now early evening, not late enough for the true nightcrawlers to come and ply their trade, but there were a few of the elfin skin jobs already standing at the front of the Kitty, smoking herbals and letting its neon lights play over their altered features.
Some had more work done than others, but they seemed to be openly touching the pieces and parts they’d changed. One kid was fully immersed, his face and hair altered to be a glittering mimicry of the Sidhe living in the upper city. His hair was a blend of metallics, silver and gold strands flashing about his lupine face. Even from where we were parked, his eyes glittered like emeralds and a rain-drenched forest, not unlike Ryder’s. Still, his movements were wrong, lacking the innate grace most elfin had, but that also could have been him. Some of the others moved with the fluidity of trained dancers, their hands dipping and gliding about as they spoke, pale sparrows dancing in the false full moonlight.
I’d seen their kind before—disaffected young men and women looking for a place they could fit into. Hell, every walk of life had them. Humans were driven to explore not only the world around them but themselves. That was the one truth I knew about the people who raised me. There was a constant, roaming quest to discover the depths or heights of humanity, and sometimes that journey took a hard left turn into a what-the-hell neighborhood.
Maybe it was because I was elfin. Hell, as a chimera, I was a blend of both Unsidhe and Sidhe, not exactly a poster child for the sane and normal, but watching the elfin-human hybrids laugh and chat under the lights of a place they gathered to be a part of a tribe, I wondered where the hell I would actually feel like I belonged.
I didn’t know what went into altering someone’s features, at least on the human side of things. Human healers like Cari’s mom couldn’t shape flesh like the elfin. I didn’t know the mechanics of magic either, just the limitations, or mostly the accepted ones. Cari knew a hell of a lot more than I did and picked at the Court’s Sidhe healers to glean whatever she could to strengthen her own magics.
I didn’t think she would ever get to the point where she could take a human ear or face and sculpt its bone and flesh to look elfin.
But I could be wrong.
“They’re not open yet, but soon. We’ll go in and hit Bennett up when they do.” I gestured toward the small groups framed in the Scout’s windshield and unclicked my seat belt. “Surgery? Or do you know healers who can do that?”
Cari studied the group, then nodded at one with elongated ears poking out through her long pink hair. “Implants. Some healers will do that. It’s just cutting stuff open and then stretching the skin out. Like gauging. Sort of. Same thing with the cheeks and chin. That one had her jaw shaved down. Not much different than getting a boob job.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that either.” Shrugging, I leaned back against the vinyl seat, listening to it squeak against my leather jacket. “But I guess it’s whatever makes you feel like you, right? That’s all that matters.”
“If someone could make you look human, would you do it?” She undid her seat belt, shifting until she faced me a little bit but keeping her eyes on the Kitty. “Take off your ears?”
I caught myself touching the notch in my ear, the triangular chunk taken out by a pair of iron-dust-laced snips Tanic liked to use on my flesh. Trying to imagine myself with round ears and a blunter face was hard, oddly enough, even though my elfin features still sometimes shocked me when I saw them in the mirror.
“Maybe before,” I confessed with a nod. “Now, probably not. It’s different now. Used to be even hearing Unsidhe made me sick to my stomach, but I broke that magic. And could be I’m just more accustomed to seeing people like me walking around. Makes me feel less… alone. Probably the same reason these kids get together. Here, they’re normal. And that’s something huge when you feel lost inside.”
“That’s all you can ask for, I guess,” Cari murmured. “I’ve got some granola bars. Want one?”
“No. And what the hell? Did you bring the whole damned kitchen?” I peered over at her backpack. “Gonna pull out a ham next?”
“Like I’d share ham with you,” she snorted. “We could be here a long time waiting for him to not show up. Hell, I don’t even know what this guy looks like.”
The side door opened, the heavy industrial lamp fixed above the frame turning on, dousing the alley with bright light. Someone stepped out, his body a stocky silhouette against the unpainted brick. The empty lot next to the Kitty was thick with weeds and surrounded by a chain-link fence that had seen better days or maybe was never new, because it sagged in places, swooping down and bulging out around the property. We could make out the guy standing under the light for a moment before he stepped out, taking himself out of the intense sheen, and the light finally hit his face when he turned to light a
fat chewed-on cigar, cupping his face as if a wind were somehow going to flare up to douse the match he took to its end.
The match light brought the cigar to a bright red, and his blunt features were achingly familiar as he sucked on the cigar. He was shorter than Dempsey by a good five inches, his face a crude echo of the man who’d raised me, much like the half-done sculpting of the kids standing at the front of the building. Shaking the match out, he tossed its blackened corpse to the ground, pulling on the cigar to get a puff of smoke going. Bags tugged down on his flaccid, mottled skin, his hair a greasy curtain around his round face. He looked like hell and fidgeted, his eyes moving constantly, but the Scout seemed to be outside of his notice.
Or at least for now. I was about to take care of that for him.
“I’ll be damned. The gods are smiling or laughing at us. One or the other.” Undoing the holster straps on my Glocks, I nodded toward Kenny Dempsey and murmured to Cari, “Kenny looks exactly like that. In fact, we probably want to go shake him down for an ID and get him the hell out of here.”
“Well, this is going to be a walk in the park, then,” she said with a grin, pulling her jacket back and lighting up her badges. “We do this right, we might even be home in time for dinner.”
“Don’t count on it,” I warned. “Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s never count your fire chicks before you can get them into the goddamned Nova.”
Sixteen
THE SCOUT’S doors opening must have been enough movement to catch Kenny’s attention, especially since he was probably as jumpy as a naked cat in a tattoo shop of drunk inkers. He tilted his head back, peering through the smoke first at Cari, then at me. Any hope I had of him thinking I was one of the Kitty’s skin jobs coming in for a good time was gone, because he choked on a mouthful of smoke and bolted.
Damn if the asshole wasn’t carrying a hell of a lot more weight than Dempsey did but still moved like the wind.
“Okay, not so easy,” Cari grumbled, breaking into a run. “Shit.”
I tapped on my badge, lighting it up, and drew my weapon before rounding the Scout. There was some commotion from the front—unclear shouting—but stopping wasn’t in the plan. I didn’t know the area, and chasing a runner through the understreets was a hazardous game. Out in the open with a creature was one thing. Animals, even black dogs, were wired to instinct, making them at least somewhat predictable. Humans, not so much. Especially this one.
“Cut him off?” Cari shouted, hitting the alley in full stride.
“No. Just… go.” I passed her easily, my longer legs eating up the distance, my boots pounding on the alley’s hard concrete.
Kenny dove to the left at the back of the building, and I turned the corner hard, keeping my weapon down and close. There was a small stretch of asphalt behind the Kitty, mostly parking for its employees, but a few kids were pulling themselves out of a tiny box of a car. Their shifting weight tilted the car up and down, its single middle-mounted front wheel dipping to one side then the next as the diminutive car vomited out its passengers. Even with only Kenny’s back to me, I could almost hear him debating hijacking the car and half wished he would. Shooting him at this point wasn’t off the table—just enough to slow him down—and it would be easier if he were in a piece-of-shit dot on three wheels whose top speed was probably barely above a drunk slug.
Sadly for me, he chose to lumber on.
The kids were ahead on my right, wide-eyed and pointy-eared, mouths open in surprise as they watched us approach. Kenny panted heavily, sucking in all the sour, foul air coming up from the sewers, and his slapping feet kicked up pieces of garbage with each step he took. Even from far away, I could see the kids were barely kissing the edge of adulthood, most of their modifications silicone constructs applied with a crude, uneven hand. Their clothes were outlandish, elaborate costuming with some of it half left in the car, obviously too big to wear and fit into the scrap metal that brought them there.
“Don’t make me shoot you, Kenny!” I yelled at his back, gaining on him with each stride. “You know—gods damn you.”
Bastard kept running.
Alleys and backdoor parking lots are never anyone’s highlight, but the Kitty’s back bins seemed particularly ripe. The stench alone was enough to bleach out someone’s nostril hairs, and I nearly gagged from the miasma rising up from the scum-clogged grates set into the ground. I tried to avoid the slippery algae pools growing across the wet gully running down the length of the alley, but some places were too wide, even with my long legs. Kenny had no such qualms. He splashed through the soggy moss, splashing up waves of sour water with each pounding step.
If I was going to catch up with the son of a bitch, I was going to have to be less delicate.
“What the hell,” I muttered, sidestepping another grate, careful to keep my feet clear of the mini swamps dotting the ground. “I’ll just hose the Scout out when we get back.”
Cari was somewhere behind me, shouting something I couldn’t make out. If she was asking me to get out of the way so she could get in a clear shot, I wouldn’t have blamed her. The farther we got down the walk, the thicker the smell, and I was surprised the kids hadn’t passed out from the stench. Kenny lumbered past them, his arms churning up and down. A hard sprint toward him almost put me on my ass when I slid over a piece of something clinging to the incline, and I righted myself with a flail of my arms before I took a spill in front of the kids scrambling to get out of the car.
I was about to pick up my pace again when I heard the first gunshot and one of the kids’ shoulders exploded in a gush of bone and blood.
Their screams were shrill, keening, and sharp, punctuated with panicked cries for their gods to help them. I wanted to keep after Kenny, but the splash of blood brought me to a stop. Metallic and cloying, the scent of fear and pain carried over me. A second boom hit, another tearing sound through the already high-pitched confusion, and a window shattered somewhere. Then came another shot, popping up bits of concrete and water. I shuffled to the side, pulling one of the kids behind the car and crouching down to drag the injured one out of the shooter’s line of sight.
She fought me, eyes wild and white. My fingers dug into her jacket, an oddly constructed knockoff of a formal Sidhe robe. A piece of fastener tape ripped as I tugged, the front opening up to give me a peek of the white T-shirt now soaked with blood beneath the jacket’s embroidered front. One of her ears flopped off, tangling in the pink-streaked metallic gold wig she’d tugged on while getting out of the car. The silicone swoop of fake cartilage tumbled out when I gave another yank, a pale floppy island poking up out of a sea of grit and muck.
“Come on, kid. Quit fighting me.” Murmuring the same stupid things I said to gut-shot Stalkers dying on a job seemed silly, but the girl quieted down a bit, going slack instead of helping me, but I took what I could get. I’d hauled out bigger and heavier. Tracking and taking down ainmhi dubh often meant hiking miles with hundreds of pounds of acidic meat slung over my shoulders or dragging the load behind me on a soft sling. “Hang on. You’re not that bad.”
The boy I’d pulled in first shook and trembled, his cheek dotted with the girl’s blood. I grabbed his wrist, pressing his hand on her wound, and he blinked at me, his own crudely elfin face bleached from fear. Staring down at his friend, he retched, gagging on his own terror.
“I can’t… I’m only fifteen,” the boy gulped, swallowing air he didn’t need in his belly. “My mom doesn’t even know I’m down here.”
“Yeah, figure that out later. Press down. It’ll help stop the bleeding.” I did a quick head count. The girl was sliding in and out of consciousness, but her eyes were still tracking. Flicking on my link, I pinned down the location and sent out an EMT call, attaching my SoCalGov badge number to the request. I got back a quick confirmation, acknowledging the gunshot civilian I’d tagged the call with. “Where’s your friends? Shit, you two! Come here.”
“Got ’em!” Cari tumbled in, shoving a
t the remaining kids. The other two—another boy and girl—were older but with the same wide-eyed terror stealing the color from their faces. “Stay down. Kai, you’re going to lose him.”
“Girl. And she’s fine. Clean through. Shoulder hit. Medics were tagged and are on their way.” I glanced down the alley. “Crap, you mean Kenny. I can’t dump you here. These kids—”
“Go! I’ll take care of this.” Cari ducked past me, shoving at the faux elfin boy next to me. Broken from his shock, he stumbled to hide behind the old van I’d gotten the others behind. “You guys stay behind the cars. Kai, go! I’ve got this. I’ll find you. Don’t lose that bastard. And don’t get shot.”
“Thanks.” I almost kissed her forehead but figured she’d either punch me or it would discredit her Stalker status with the kids. “Wish me luck.”
Kenny was a dot on the far end of the alley, hanging a sharp right with a skidding slide. He went down hard, slamming into a crumbling brick wall. While I was too far to hear what he said, I knew the look on his face. A Dempsey-like thundercloud rolled over it, flushing it redder than the flashing sign fixed to the building wall, an erratic lit-up shout to buy more cans of shaving cream. Kicking himself over, he struggled to get up, his hands sliding out from under him until he could get a good purchase on the ground, gravity and his plump belly giving me enough time to catch up. I was less than half a block away when he staggered to his feet and broke into a limping gallop, hurrying away from the alley as fast as he could.
“Kenny, just freaking stop!” I pulled up my Glock, then shook off the filmy trails of slime I’d somehow picked up when I slid down to avoid the gunfire. I sighted Kenny’s shoulder, but a whining ping smacked the brick by my right ear, careening stone fragments into my face. “Damn it.”