by Ben Reeder
“How much?”
“More than you’ve got,” he laughed.
I pursed my lips and gave him my sternest look as I reached into my bag and pulled out Dmitry’s jewelry. “Are you sure?” His eyes lit up as bright as the diamonds in my hand.
“I think we can work something out.” He plucked two of the biggest rings from my hand, then led me toward the steps leading up to the alcove. He waved his hand as we approached the opening, and a smaller set of rings slid upright from the floor. I stepped onto the platform, and he put his hand to the rings to set them spinning. The second vertical set swung out and moments later, a third ring flipped down to rotate horizontally, so that they covered all three axes. The jinni set the rings and the world turned blue for a moment. Between one moment and the next, I was compressed and stretched out to near infinite dimensions, then flung through a pinhole in the cosmos. In the next moment, I was elsewhere, and my body knew it.
I wasn’t sure how long I was blind, but it seemed like days. Then again, trying to heave your guts up while your diaphragm spasms makes everything seem like it takes longer. When I was able to take a breath again, my vision started to clear, and I found myself laying on a chaise lounge with a low table at my elbow. Peppermints, sliced fruit and petit fours were artfully arranged on a plate next a pitcher of water with an empty glass and a tumbler of something fizzy and amber.
“Where the hell am I?” I muttered as I reached for the pitcher and poured some water.
“You’re in the Priority Lounge in the New Essex Transit Annex,” a cultured voice said. “Welcome to New Essex, Miss…?” I turned to see a little man in an embroidered, belted, black tunic and matching pants. He would have come to my waist, and he sported a brown moustache that drooped down to his chin and followed his jaw back to his sideburns, where it became part of his hair. But it was his nose that dominated his face. Large, broad and long, there was no missing it. He looked down it at me to great effect, making me feel like I was being judged and found lacking.
“Shade,” I said, using my pack name. “Alpha of the Diamond Lake Pack.”
“Welcome Miss Shade,” he said, his nose and his attitude coming down a ways. “I am Felix Diamond, concierge for the Priority Transit Lounge. I take it this is your first trip via Priority Transit?”
“Yes,” I said after I took as polite a sip of the water as I could without gulping it.
“My compliments on your speedy recovery. I believe you’ll find subsequent trips far less taxing. Although, between the two of us, I’ve seen much worse reactions, even in seasoned travelers.”
“People do this twice?” I asked.
“Oh, of course,” Felix said with a broad smile. “The first time is always difficult, because of the smaller dimensional aperture. After that, it gets much less strenuous, and the convenience far outweighs any minor side effects. I highly recommend the ice nectar tonic; a very effective restorative. And I believe you’ll find the petit fours quite savory. They’re a salẻ from the gnomish hearths in Bourgogne. Quite delicious.”
“What time is it?” I asked before I took a sip of the tonic and plucked one of the petit fours from the tray.
Felix pulled a pocket watch out and consulted it. “Local time is…four-oh-eight in the morning. You were only inconvenienced for a minute or so.”
The petit four was divine, which, to my tongue, was saying something. I grabbed another one and stood. The world stayed pretty steady. “I have to go, Mister Diamond. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“You’re welcome any time, Miss Shade,” he said. I gave him a quick nod and hustled out of the lounge and to the elevator that would take me to the parking lot where I’d left my bike.
At four AM, the streets of New Essex were still busy, but the traffic was light. I wove in and out of the few cars on the roads, my Ninja growling as I took turns. It only took me fifteen minutes to get to the parking garage where my Mustang was parked. I tossed my travel bag into the trunk and grabbed my purse, then slid behind the wheel.
Rule One of travel in the Veiled world had always been to break the chain of connection between your normal life and your Veiled life. In an internet world, it meant traveling in disguise. You never knew when someone would post a picture of you online where your parents might see it. Rule Two: leave cell phones and anything GPS traceable behind. Having to explain why the GPS on my cell phone showed me in Dubai less than an hour ago would have been awkward, and my parents had an app for that. So now, as I checked my day phone, I saw that I had a missed call and a text from Lucas at about two AM. Normally, if Lucas or Wanda called me at two in the morning, they did it on my dark phone, the one my parents didn’t know about. I opened the text.
> Lucas: Need to talk to you tomorrow. It’s important. I hope you can Shine a Light on something for me.
I tossed the phone back into my purse, wondering if he was talking about the Veiled side of our lives. If he was, why did he send the message to my day phone instead of the dark phone? I’d know soon enough.
My wolf had a bad habit of wanting to turn everything into a hunt. I felt the urge to sneak up on Lucas as I pulled into the parking lot of Kennedy High School the next morning, and recognized it as her playful way of honing skills. Plus, after bagging and tagging a Russian Mafia member and two bodyguards only a few hours before, she was still ready to play. So I indulged her a little and took a roundabout path toward Lucas and Wanda as they waited under their usual tree, avoiding his sight lines as I approached. As I got closer, I ducked a little to blend in with a crowd of people passing close by, and saw him look down at his cell phone, then smile. He looked left and right before he started typing out a reply. I’d seen that look before. Hell, most days, I was doing the same thing.
“Who is she?” I asked as I sidled up behind him. To their credit, neither of them flinched. They’d developed nerves of steel over the past year that I’d known them, and especially in the last few months. Fighting vampires and killing demons are pretty much the ultimate in ‘I’ve seen some shit.’
“The reason I didn’t blow up your dark phone last night,” Lucas said under his breath. I was the only person who could possibly have heard him, and he knew it. It was a trick he was even better at using than Chance was. Aloud he said “Do you remember Chastity, the girl who kept trying to give Chance a ‘ride’ back when we were dealing with the guy who ran Inferno?” he asked.
“Chas-titties?” I asked, letting a little more snark than usual creep into my voice. “Tits out to here, brain the size of a walnut?” It got a laugh out of Wanda, but Lucas just frowned.
“Try plaything to a vampire with an appetite for younger toys,” he growled. “Sound familiar?”
My shoulders tightened and I felt my head start to drop into a submissive posture at that. He’d hit close to a lot of old wounds, and I fought the urge to snap at him.
“What about her?” I asked.
“Her owner cut her loose last night, and I had to trade in a favor to keep him from ripping her throat out on the spot. She needs a new identity. Hell, she needs a new life.”
“She needs to make funeral arrangements,” I shot back, still feeling the sting of his reminder.
“I took responsibility for her. No one else is willing to see anything good about her, but she’s not as dumb as you think she is. She sure as hell noticed that I was the only person who didn’t look down my nose at her and act like I’d never been anyone’s bitch before.” My eyes went wide and he clamped his mouth shut for a second. My heart raced as I fought to keep my fist away from his face, my desire to hit him tempered by surprise at hearing him snap back at me.
“This is the part where you say you’re sorry,” I hissed.
“For what?” Lucas said. “Pointing out that you and Chance both, of anyone who ever met her, should be the first people to be jumping to her defense, instead of punching down at her because you keep seeing who you used to be?” I looked away, trying to deny what he was saying. There was a wor
ld of difference between Chastity and me. There had to be. She was willing, I had never been.
“She made her bed on her own.”
“Told you that, did she?” Lucas asked. His tone was too confident to assume I was right. “You have a lot more in common than you think, Alexis. And right now…she needs your help.” The bell rang, and people around us started gathering their books and bags to go to class. Lucas turned and walked away from me, his face set. I turned to Wanda.
“Why is he being such a dick?” I asked her.
“Because,” Wanda said, her voice soft and uncertain. She paused and tried again. “Because he has the room to talk. I hate to say it but…he’s right. We did treat her like hell.” She hurried off after him, leaving me to stew in my own anger.
The anger only lasted through second period, then the doubt started creeping in. By third period, I was about to break. Between classes, I sent him a text.
ME >> Meet me at the Lodge tonight. I’ll get her taken care of.
Thank you. I’m sorry about this morning. << LUCAS
>> You were right. Asshole.
That night, I parked the Mustang in a different parking garage and tossed my purse into the trunk, then rode my Ninja out to Camp Crystal Pines. Victor texted me a few minutes after I arrived, and I heard him pull up in his beat-up Impala a couple of minutes after that. He let himself in without knocking and strutted over to the table.
“So, what’s the deal this time?” he asked.
“I need a fake ID for a girl.”
“You do, or someone else does?”
“I need it for someone else.”
“How good does it need to be?”
“That good,” I said, laying another of Dmitry’s rings on the table. He scooped it up, his eyes never straying from the diamonds set in it. I slid the Rolex across the table toward him “And that fast.”
“Is that a…is this a Rolex?” he asked, flipping it over.
“Yes.”
“And is that Russian on the back?”
“Better that you not know.” I glanced toward the window as I heard the crunch of tires on loose rock and the distinct rumble of Lucas’s Barracuda.
Victor nodded. “Yeah, probably. All I need is a picture of the girl.”
“We can get that for you in a couple of minutes.”
Lucas didn’t even bother knocking. On the one hand, he was one of the few people who didn’t need to. On the other, he used to be one of the few people who still did. His right hand swept the great coat aside, and I could see the slight change in the way his hips moved that told me he was armed, even though I didn’t smell gun oil or gunpowder. Then the acrid scent of alchemical reagents and wax hit my nose. He was carrying a paintball gun, which made him even more of a threat in the world we both moved in. He zeroed in on Vic, then looked to me before he relaxed a little and took another step to let Chastity in behind him.
Even in a baggy t-shirt and sweats, there was no hiding the curves on her. She’d added a pink streak to her blonde hair, and let it grow out even further. And there were her eyes, already large and doe-like without makeup. Blonde haired, blue eyed, with boobs as big as her head, and she was all over Lucas. Just then, I think every boy at Kennedy High School would have killed to be in his shoes. None of them could have held a candle to him, though. Sure he was still a little skinny, but he’d let his hair grow out until it almost brushed his collar, and the narrow glasses he wore gave him a more mature look. His face had lost a lot of its softer edges over the past few months, bringing out the strength of his jaw line and chin. Most importantly, though, he’d become more focused. I could see it in his posture and in his eyes. He’d gone from being gawky and brave to being genuinely dangerous.
I glanced over at Victor, whose eyes hadn’t moved from Chastity’s tits from the moment they’d bounced into view. I rolled my eyes, and nodded to Lucas and Chastity. “Your client.” Given where Vic’s attention was, I was tempted to make it plural.
“Yeah, hi. I’m Victor,” he introduced himself, pulling out his phone. He pointed to a bare patch of wall. “If you could stand over there, I just need a few pictures to use for your ID card.” I shook my head. Names were strictly off the table with Vic if he didn’t know someone. That he’d broken that rule told me how distracted he was.
“I’m Chas…”she paused and looked to Lucas, who shook his head and winked at her. For a fraction of a second, she paused, and I could see the uncertain girl behind the mask. Then she smiled and pulled her shoulders back slightly, with an added head tilt as she put on the mask, oozing sexuality like a protective second skin. “I’m Chastity,” she breathed, strutting over to hold one delicate hand out to him. He took it and went to do the usual bullshit make-nice stuff. But the second she touched Vic’s hand, his heartbeat went up. I looked just in time to see her thumb running down the side of his finger while she blinked a couple of times. By now, Vic was putty in her hands...well, mostly putty. Some parts of him were a little firmer. With him practically drooling over her, Chastity went to stand where he pointed, then gave him a vacant looking smile. Vic pulled up an app on his phone that blued out the background and took a couple of pictures of her from the shoulders up, then snapped a couple of normal shots that were mostly from the shoulders down.
“That should do it,” Vic said. “And if you ever need anything else, Shade knows how to get in touch with me.”
“Thank you, Victor,” she said, adding a dazzling smile to up the sincerity. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. And, I hate to ask this, Victor, and I wouldn’t if it wasn’t really, really important, but…is there any way you could do this super quick? I’m kind of in trouble.”
“Trouble?” Vic said.
“Bad trouble.”
“How bad?” he asked. Normally I would have expected him to bolt at the first sign of complications, but I couldn’t smell any of the fear Vic usually gave off.
“Life or death bad,” she answered, giving him a frightened little pout.
“I’ll have it for you by the end of the night.” The tone of his voice made me do a slow double take. So help me, Vic sounded brave.
“Careful,” I said as I took him by the elbow and guided him toward the door. “You might start to grow some principles or something.”
“Nah, there’s no money in honesty,” Vic said. “Besides, you know I don’t like playing it safe.” He gave Chastity a crooked smile then ducked out the door. When his car started, I turned back to Lucas and Chastity.
“Damn girl,” I said. “If I’d known you were that good, I could have saved myself a Rolex.” The smile that surfaced from under the mask made me feel like I’d just praised an eager to please puppy, and any minute now she’d sprout a wagging little tail.
“Thank you,” she said. “If you want, I could try to get it back for you.”
“Did you already pay him?” Lucas asked.
“Kind of. I traded him some jewelry that I picked up in Dubai last night.”
“You were in Dubai last night?” Chastity and Lucas asked at the same time but in completely different tones. Awe from Chastity and curiosity from Lucas.
“Yeah, I used the transit rings in the Underground. Now, do you need a place to stay, Chastity?”
“Yeah, I need pretty much everything. But…my name is Monica.”
“I’m Alexis. But my friends call me Shade in private. So, you need everything?”
“Yeah,” she said as she ducked her head. “Lord Thraxus chose my wardrobe for me, or he let Furcas do it. It was mostly gowns and…lingerie. I left most of it behind.”
“Shade, you didn’t have to pay for her ID,” Lucas interjected. “I can pay you back if you want.”
“I didn’t have to,” I said. “But I realized you were right, Lucas. So this is my way of both saying I’m sorry to you, Monica, and to make up for the way I treated you.” The next thing I knew, Monica had her arms around me and was squeezing me tight. Even in the middle of a bear hug, I was
struck by how soft she was all over. The scent of roses and salt hit my nose first, then the herbal scent of her shampoo. Finally, her personal scent hit me, a faint musk with vanilla undertones. It was like everything about her was there to be pleasing. When she stepped back, her eyes were damp and her cheeks were glistening.
“I’m sorry to be so emotional,” she sniffled. “It’s just…no one ever did anything for me before. Especially not something huge like this.”
“Look, this is just a fake ID,” I said. Lucas was shaking his head, trying to put on an ‘Aw shucks’ act, but evidently Monica stopped him.
“I know what you did,” she said. “You traded your favor to keep me alive. Furcas made sure I knew Thraxus traded me cheap.” Her voice was bitter, and she turned away, a gesture I saw a lot of myself in. “But a favor from Thraxus…that’s a big deal. I’m just not sure I’m worth it.” The shock on Lucas’s face told me everything I needed to know. I reached out and took her chin in my hand and turned her face toward mine.
“You’re worth it to him,” I said, nodding toward Lucas. “If Lucas sees someone worth trading that kind of favor for, then maybe he’s on to something.” She turned to search his face, and I grabbed her chin and turned her back to me. “No, don’t look there. Look in here,” I tapped her forehead. “That’s where you’re going to see what he sees.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she pulled away again.
“Up until about a year ago, sister,” I said with a laugh. “I was you.”
“Yeah? What happened?”
“Someone said no for all the right reasons.”
She did a double take. “What? I don’t get it.”
I held up a hand as a scent reached my nose that made my hackles stand up “I don’t have time to explain it. We have company.”
“What kind?” Lucas said.
“The not quite dead variety.”
“Ghouls?” Monica asked. “That’s what they call the blood drinkers. Because they feed off the blood of the dead. They also call them Renfields.”