by Ioana Visan
When he opened the door to his room, he found the bed already occupied.
“What took you so long?” Riella raised her head from the pillow to throw him a glare. As she shifted, a curly lock of red hair twisted and wrapped around her right breast. “I don’t have long. Serioja should wake up soon.”
The woman lay naked on his sheets, and Rake wondered if there was anything that might ever intimidate her. Her official partner finding out about their illicit affair surely didn’t.
“We had a lot of work to do.” Rake took off his jacket and hung it on a rack behind the door. Except for the blade locker, he kept the décor to a minimum because he never had time to clean the place, and he didn’t like a messy room. One by one, he pulled the blades from around his body and deposited them, wrapped in leather sheaths, on the shelves inside the locker. Once free of them, he turned off the magnetic fields generated by various parts of his body and allowed himself to relax.
“Are you done now?” Riella asked in a bored voice that didn’t accept “no” for an answer.
Rake ran his fingers through the short hair on the back of his head. “For now.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and bent over to unlace his boots.
Riella crawled on her knees behind him and lay on his back, an arm wrapped around his neck. “Do you know what people are saying?” she murmured by his ear.
“Mmm?”
“They say Nicholas is on his way to take over the circus.”
“Do they?” Rake straightened his back and proceeded to unbutton his padded shirt. “Would that be such a bad thing?”
“Big Dino will never stand for it.” Riella’s soft breasts rubbed pleasantly against Rake’s shoulder blades, eliciting a small groan from him.
“Big Dino neglected to delegate a successor,” Rake said, freeing his arms from the sleeves.
Riella ran her fingers over the sharp edges poking from under his skin, signaling the places where the prosthetics wrapped around his joints. With the fields off, he felt them cooperating less.
“While he’s out, he has no say in the matter.” Rake tossed the shirt away and rested his hands on his knees, frowning at the floor. “We can’t let the circus die.”
He leaned back to allow Riella to climb into his lap and straddle him. She was as flexible as the contortionists but despised their act. In her opinion, going out naked would have been preferable, as opposed to mangling her body in such disgraceful positions.
Rake’s big hands slid up and down her torso, enjoying the warmth of her skin.
“It’s already falling apart.” Riella pouted. “The music from last night was atrocious. The Nightingale missed half of the notes. She wasn’t into it at all.” Her complaint turned into a moan when the Rake’s thumb brushed against her nipple, and her back arched.
“She had an off night. It happens.” He clasped her chin between his fingers and made her look at him, showing her who was in control. “Now, how much time do we have?”
“About twenty minutes.”
“That will do,” Rake said and roughly threw her onto the mattress. He wasn’t that tired after all.
Riella let out a delighted laugh and pulled him to her.
20
The number columns added up evenly. Although she had several accountants on her payroll, Aurore periodically made unannounced visits to the jewelry stores and pawn shops she owned to look over the books. What people tended to ignore when faced with her golden arms and legs was that her brain worked better than any machine. She was good with numbers and possessed a fantastic memory. No one cheated on her twice.
Her bodyguards helped, but it wasn’t just the manpower. Making it to her blacklist represented the equivalent of business suicide. If word got out the Golden Lady refused to work with you—and she would make sure it did—all doors closed in your face. People trusted her judgment when it came to business. She had created a small, comfortable empire for herself, so whenever things ran out of the known pattern, she became suspicious.
“Shaz, why are people bringing in so many spare parts all of the sudden?” Aurore asked the older lady sitting behind the counter.
The woman briefly raised her eyes from the trashy novel she was reading, gave a disinterested shrug, and returned her attention to the book.
“It’s not winter yet, so they’re not freezing or starving.” Aurore ran her fingers through her hair and tightened the ivory clasp holding it back. “If anything, they should be desperate to buy parts so they can have them adjusted and installed while the circus is here. It’s cheaper than buying new ones.”
“Don’t ask me. I’m only buying and selling this stuff,” Shaz said. “I never ask where it’s coming from. It’s the firm’s policy.”
And it had been working fine for years. Nothing was reported to the police, but each shop kept logs on the items passing through—prices, buyers, sellers, dates, everything. If an item needed to be tracked, the best place to start was here. So when confronted with an avalanche of similar items, one could be sure that, sooner or later, someone was going to come and ask questions. Better stay ahead.
The chime of the doorbell announced a new customer. The bulky man stayed away from the cluttered shelves, ignoring their contents, obviously not wanting to have anything to do with them. A seller then. If Aurore hadn’t worn her gloves, the man might have given her a second look as she sat at the round, antique table, leaning over her book. But common people didn’t expect to run into the Golden Lady at a pawn shop.
He dragged his feet to Shaz, and from the pocket of his large sheepskin coat, he retrieved a small package that he placed on the counter.
“I … I’ve got something.” He unfolded the wrapping.
Shaz looked down her pointy nose at the gleaming metal inside the folds and raised her voice, startling him. “We’ve got another one!”
Maintaining her composure, Aurore rose from the table and joined them. She recognized the prosthetic as part of a more complicated wrist holder. They had first been introduced a decade ago and still circulated in various circles. Given its size, it had been designed for a child.
“It still has blood on it.” Aurore wrinkled her nose at the brown spots decorating the joints.
“Well, how else would you get it out?” the man retorted, but beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead.
“You could have cleaned it,” Shaz said, turning the prosthetic around with a pair of tweezers. “It’s not totally useless.” She cast a glance at Aurore.
The man looked from one woman to the other, his gaze shifting and refusing to make eye contact.
“Relax. She’ll take it,” Aurore said. Firm policy: never turn down a customer’s goods because you may never know when you’ll need them. She nodded at Shaz to take the package to the storage room in the back of the shop, then turned to the man. “I just want to know from where you got it. It’s obviously not yours.” She pointed with her chin at the man’s big fists.
“My-my niece needed it a while ago … but she outgrew it.” He shifted his weight on his feet and mumbled, “And we don’t want it in our house.”
“Why not?” Aurore asked. “You can barter with it or sell it to someone for more than you’ll get here.”
A snort came from the back room, conveying Shaz’s opinion on Aurore’s way of doing business.
“Those who need this type of thing—” the man nodded towards the back door, “—fall into two categories: either they can afford to buy new parts, or they don’t have money for both the procedure and the parts. Neither will come to me.”
“But that’s not why you’re selling it,” Aurore said.
The man let his head hang. “The war is coming. People say the enemy has machines able to detect us because of our prosthetics. And when they get here … We don’t want to take any risks. I don’t have implants, but my wife does. When they get here, we’ll have them removed. It will be tough.” His voice trailed off as tears welled in his eyes. He rolled a shoulder and cleared his
throat. “It’s not much of a life, but it’s all we’ve got.”
“Shaz, give him a bonus … for the story.” Aurore granted them a thin smile and returned to her seat at the table, leaving them to argue over price. It was not her job to get a good deal. “Wrap that for me, will you?” she said after the customer left. “I’ve been looking for one of those for ages.”
“And how will you be paying?” Shaz’s eyebrows rose. “We only accept cash.”
“Don’t get cheeky with me.” Aurore barely hid a smile. “I’ll send you a fresh fruit basket from the market. Deal?”
“Sold.”
Shaking her head to herself, Aurore buried her nose back into the books. “I should so fire you …”
21
Dale wasn’t used to having strangers pick him up from work or anywhere else. The terrifying thought that they might be police and his whole plan had been compromised was discarded when he saw no uniforms or badges. They approached him by the entrance, saying, “Boss has an errand for you. You’re not working today.”
The only boss Dale could think of was the Golden Lady, and he was in no position to decline the invitation. Too much depended on her goodwill. So far, she had played fair, but he didn’t want to risk attracting her wrath, so he allowed her men to drive him back to her establishment.
This time, the entrance guard didn’t signal him to go upstairs, but opened a door to a small lounge on the ground floor where Aurore and Rosie were chatting over biscuits and tea. It looked more like a one-sided chat because the little girl was busy shoving biscuits into her mouth, only nodding from time to time. In the crook of her bad arm, she held a long, narrow package wrapped in brown paper.
“You wanted to see me?” Dale asked, stopping inside. He wasn’t in the mood for biscuits and tea, and made no effort to hide the low growl in his voice.
“How nice of you to come, Mr. Armstrong. Do come in.” Aurore’s smile lacked the usual coldness.
She gestured at the tea, but Dale shook his head.
“I need you to do something for me,” Aurore said. “I want you to take Rosie to the circus today.”
“I’m not a babysitter,” Dale replied. “You can put my services to better use.”
The child glared at him.
“Rosie is a big girl. She doesn’t need a babysitter,” Aurore said patiently. “She is going to have her hand fixed, and that fixture—” she pointed at the package Rosie was holding, “—was very hard to find. So I need you to make sure she arrives at the circus all right, wait for her during the procedure, and bring her back here when she’s done.”
“That’s still babysitting,” Dale said, ignoring the way the little girl smirked at him while chewing on her biscuits.
“Call it whatever you want as long as you’re doing it,” Aurore said. “Any questions?”
“Yes. Is this considered a favor? Or will it cover part of my debt to you?”
“Business … I like that.” Aurore nodded. “Okay. Five percent. That’s a lot of money for two hours of your time.”
“At least four hours,” Dale said. “Going there and back; plus, assuming they can do it on the spot, the time she needs to wake up from the anesthesia. That’s at least four hours.”
“It’s still more than a babysitter gets in any part of the world,” Aurore said, “and you’re not getting any more. Are you ready to go?”
Rosie nodded widely. She shoved two more biscuits into her mouth, wiped the crumbs from her lips with the back of her hand, and jumped off the sofa.
With a fluid motion, Aurore stood up, too. She wore a dark green skirt that stopped just above her knees, revealing five centimeters of golden skin peeking out from above the black leather boots. The skin gleaming in the daylight made Dale wonder how far up her legs the prosthetics went. Was any part, besides her face and cleavage, still natural? And why gold? Neither was a question Dale had any desire to ask her directly.
“After you.” He gestured for Rosie to go ahead. When she left the room, he said over his shoulder, “It’s still babysitting.”
“Yes, it is. But you’re not keen on the bouncer gig, are you?” Aurore rested her hands on her hips.
Dale started for the door. “You could have asked.”
“You do know they call me the Golden Lady, right?” Aurore asked. “It’s actually a euphemism for the Bitch from Hell.”
“Yeah. And you just contradicted it by doing this for her.” He nodded towards the hallway and didn’t wait for an answer.
“Well, you won’t be in town long enough to ruin my reputation,” Aurore spoke into the empty room.
22
As it was only early afternoon when they arrived at the circus, they found the fair dead. Still, Rosie’s eyes opened wide at the sight of several gymnasts doing somersaults on a trampoline. She hadn’t uttered one word during their ride, but now she pulled closer to Dale, watching her surroundings with infinite curiosity.
The temptation to take her small hand in his was strong, but Dale had noticed the way the girl avoided any physical contact. He didn’t want to scare her. He settled for walking by her side, guiding her towards the train parked at the opposite end of the fair. There were fewer people than he expected, so he assumed they had gone to the theater for rehearsals. The entire city was raving about the circus show brought in the middle of it. Although many people grumbled about “breaking the law” and “freaks of nature”, all of the tickets had sold out the first day.
“Hey …” Dale stopped a young woman. He didn’t recognize her pretty, heart-shaped face, but her long legs identified her as the Swan, the mechanical ballerina from the show. “I’m looking for Renard. Do you know where I can find him?”
“Nicholas is still at the theater. He won’t return before five.”
Well, that wouldn’t do. He couldn’t wait until five to get Renard’s permission because there wouldn’t be enough time left to have the procedure done before the public arrived. And Rake and Spinner didn’t work while the fair was open.
The Swan smiled, seeing him frown, and glanced at Rosie. “But you don’t need him. Rake and Spinner are here.”
He didn’t need Renard’s approval? He found it a little strange, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that.
“So I should just … go?” Dale gestured in the direction of the train.
“Sure. They’ll find time for her,” the Swan said. “And before leaving, you should take her to see the animals. She’ll like that.”
Dale wasn’t sure he wanted to go that far with his babysitter attributions, but if the kid was in too much pain by the end, it sounded like a good idea to distract her.
“Thanks. Come.” He placed a hand on the little girl’s shoulder.
Rosie, who was enthralled by the aerialists practicing on the trapeze, turned and hissed at him. Dale quickly withdrew his hand. Those pieces of metal in her teeth looked menacing enough. He didn’t want to become one of Rake and Spinner’s clients. He couldn’t afford to owe any more favors.
“No-no, sweetheart. Those are just oversized, flying toys.” The Swan placed her hands on both of the girl’s shoulders and steered her in the right direction.
Rosie didn’t hiss but held tighter to her prosthetic.
With a smiled thanks, Dale fell back into step next to her, leaving the ballerina behind. They passed by unguarded kiosks and attractions. No one was working, except for Jacko, who waved at them from on top of a ladder where he was changing broken light bulbs.
Walking up to the new door of the car, Rosie hesitated at the sight of the bright lizard painted of it. That work was recent and still smelled of fresh paint. In the absence of another way to announce his presence, Dale placed his hand on the square panel near the lizard’s mouth, not exactly thrilled by having his handprint taken. The panel flashed once, and the door slid open.
“I already let you know how it went!” Spinner’s voice came from deep inside the car. “Nothing’s changed. You didn’t have to come—ah …” The
tirade abruptly stopped when Spinner laid eyes on Dale’s companion. “I told Rake we need a smaller size,” he grumbled as he stepped around the workbench to come and join them. “What do we have here?” He bent at the waist to look at the girl.
Rosie gave the knife thrower an up and down look and, apparently satisfied with what she saw, she thrust the package at him. Spinner unwrapped it on the closest table.
“Hmm.” He frowned at the metallic parts held together by thin wires. “I haven’t seen one of these in a while. They’re not making them anymore. EQ84 standard replaced many of the old ones. Of course, you must be able to charge it which—” Spinner eyed the kid, “—I reckon is not the case.”
The Golden Lady seemed too efficient to give Rosie a prosthetic she couldn’t use, so Dale asked, “Can you do it?”
“Yeah, sure …” Spinner’s eyebrows rose as if surprised someone doubted it. “It’s basic surgery, nothing fancy.”
“Can you do it now?”
Rosie looked from one adult to the other, following the exchange.
“Uhh … now?” Spinner scratched his head. “I was going to take a nap, but … well, there are no other clients waiting in line so …” He hesitated, then narrowed his eyes. “Let me guess. This is another one of Miss Aurore’s projects.”
“What gave it away?” Dale asked dryly.
“It’s not the first time she’s sent me one of her protégées. I don’t know where she finds them or the parts, but in this rhythm, their no-spare-parts rule will never take full effect.” Spinner paused and proceeded to clean the prosthetic. “Besides, you don’t look the type,” he said over his clunky shoulder.