Dirty Little Misery (Miss Misery)

by Tracey Martin

  My question caught Tom off-guard, and finally I could taste some real emotion from him. Surprise and disappointment that I wasn’t asking about something important.

  He touched the pin. “This? Oh, no. It marks me as a member of the Brotherhood of the Wing. It’s a kind of Gryphon fraternity.”

  “Oh.” I’d never heard of it, but then, why would I have? “Interesting. I didn’t know there were fraternities in the Gryphons.”

  His face was a curious mix of pride and tension. “I’m not sure there are fraternities, plural.”

  “I see.” Actually, I didn’t. Why did the Gryphons need a fraternity? But whatever. I had real issues to ponder. “Thanks for your concern, by the way. If I think of any specific questions, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  Not.

  I beat it out of Tom’s office, my head filled with two more worries. One, how was I going to get to talk to Victor? And two, what was with Tom’s prying into my life? The latter could simply be because he found me interesting, like so many others, or because he thought my gift might be related to the furies’ interest in me somehow. But the bad feeling I had about him stuck with me. I couldn’t shake the idea there was something more sinister in his attempt to “help” me.

  The first thing I did when I got back to my desk was text Steph to see if she’d managed to talk to her contact about breaking the file encryption. Tom probably did have access to a lot of potentially useful information, but I didn’t want to go through him to get it. I didn’t want the Gryphons to know anything until I knew more myself, particularly more about what they were doing with files on me and Victor. I had to get those things cracked.

  My desk phone rang shortly after. “I’ve got the warrant,” Andre said. “I’m pulling together a team to do the search. Meet me downstairs in five?”

  “Sure.” I hung up and put on my new jacket for the first time. If I was going to piss off the satyrs’ lieutenant, then I might as well look official doing it.

  Chapter Nine

  Purgatory was located among a row of clubs in a just-this-side-of-seedy neighborhood. At night, especially on the weekends, it was a safe area, flooded with twenty-something partiers and overflowing with booming bass and expensive cars. During the day, all was silent and sunlight exposed every crack in the sidewalk and splotch of graffiti along the ugly façades of the trendy nightclubs.

  Andre cursed as he parked the SUV. “I don’t believe this. How did he get here first?”

  I adjusted my sunglasses as I got out of the car and held in a groan. I’d known it was inevitable that Devon would discover my involvement in the search today, but I hadn’t actually expected to run into him during it.

  Yet here he was, standing in the building’s shade, impeccably dressed in a crisp, dark shirt, sports jacket and tie as always. A woman was with him, also dressed to kill in a sleek suit and pissy expression. She was probably in her forties, and she was definitely a lust addict. Whether she was one of his, I couldn’t tell, but it stood to reason.

  “How did he get here?” I muttered.

  Andre squared his shoulders as he locked the car. “Tipped off to the warrant. Every pred race in this city has people placed in strategic positions around town to keep them informed. It’s why we need you to be our strategic person.”

  Great. Because I was off to such a good start there.

  The two other Gryphons who came with us to conduct the search wore grim faces as we approached the club entrance. Afternoon sun bore down on us, but I wanted to hide inside my jacket regardless. I couldn’t tell where Devon was looking beneath his sunglasses, but I swore I could feel the weight of his gaze on me as we approached.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets as he stepped into the sun to meet us. Partly it was meant to be rude, I was sure. But it was also practical. Preds didn’t like the sun. Their skin and eyes were very sensitive to it.

  “You must be Devon, the owner of this fine establishment?” Andre pulled a copy of the warrant from his pocket, and my respect for him increased. I could taste his annoyance and anxiety, but he kept the latter out of his speech and manners.

  Of course, if I could sense it, Devon could too. But it was a good showing.

  Devon smiled coldly. “I am. And you must be the Gryphon who’s confused as to the nature of my business.”

  Oddly, I could feel Devon’s annoyance too, at least in the sense he was throwing off a lot of power. Preds tended to do that when they were feeling particularly aggressive, and I didn’t think it was something they necessarily could control. In this case, Devon’s voice melted on me like butter, smooth and sweet. And oh, somewhat disconcerting. It had been a while since I’d been able to sense pred power other than Lucen’s, and I wasn’t prepared for it.

  Devon caught me staring at him in surprise, and he silently shook his head as though disappointed. Then he motioned for Andre to hand the warrant to the woman with him. “I’ll go unlock the building so you don’t feel the need to break down my door in your zealous but misplaced quest for justice.”

  I followed the others into the club as the woman scanned the document then handed it back to Andre without comment.

  I’d been in Purgatory on many occasions, the most recent of which was a few weeks ago, but the club was an entirely different place while empty. As sunlight had changed the nature of the street outside, lights and a lack of crowds showed me the club for all it was—the smudges on the walls, the exposed scaffolding in the ceiling, the dirt ground into the dance floor. In the harshness of the day, the black upholstery looked tacky and the chrome cheap. Darkness and smoke machines covered a variety of sins.

  Speaking quietly with his companion, Devon led us into the middle of the main room. Once there he stopped and spread his arms. “Enjoy yourselves. I’ll be in my office. Any questions should be directed to my lawyer.”

  “Actually,” Andre said, “your office is the place I thought we’d start.”

  As this was mostly another watch-and-learn trip for me, I stayed close to Andre during the search. He’d explained the procedure and legal technicalities to me on the drive, but my cluelessness couldn’t be cured in a mere twenty minutes.

  Devon’s office was large but sparsely furnished, and one wall consisted entirely of one-way glass that overlooked the main dance floor. The Gryphons were able to make quick work of the place without discovering anything questionable. While they fanned out afterward, the memory of what I’d done the last time I’d been in Purgatory weighed on me.

  That was the night I’d discovered cocoon-like things in the club’s basement. Would the compulsions Devon had placed around that floor be enough to keep the Gryphons out? They hadn’t worked on me, but they had silenced me from speaking about them.

  I tried again, now, to bring up the topic, but I could barely get the word “basement” to cross my lips. The Gryphon I was speaking to regarded me like I was choking.

  “Never mind.” I wandered away and half-heartedly began poking around at the main bar.

  Devon sidled up to me. “I promise you, Jess, there’s no F down there.”

  Aha. He must have seen me trying and failing to talk to the other Gryphon. I adopted an innocent voice. “No F down where?”

  He rolled his eyes. “There’s none anywhere around here, and you’re wasting your time. But you know what I store in the basement, and it’s not drugs. So do me a favor and pretend you’re normal and affected by the compulsion like the rest of them.”

  “Really? I don’t know what you store in that place I can’t name because you won’t tell me anything, remember?”

  “And why should I? Here you are, wearing the opposing team’s colors and snooping through my club on some misguided crusade. It hurts.” He put his hand to his heart, but I got the distinct sense that Devon’s ability to make light of the situation was running thin.

  “Opposing team’s colors
? I’m glad everything’s a joke to you. People are dead.”

  He frowned. “Yes, and I find it a bit insulting that you assume I might have something to do with it. I thought we were friends.”

  “Friends implies a degree of trust I’m not sure is possible. I was settling for friendly.”

  “Keep this up and even that will be uncharacteristically optimistic of you.”

  Peachy.

  I started to say something else, but across the room Andre had gotten into a heated discussion with Devon’s lawyer, and Devon was eyeing them with great interest. Taking a last scan of the bar, I moved closer to Devon. “You know what? Maybe that’s as it should be. I’m not exactly comfortable being friends or friendly with people who go around ruining other people’s lives.”

  “How have I ruined anyone’s life?”

  I nodded toward his lawyer. “Seriously? Is this the woman you keep on speed dial? You made your lawyer into an addict.”

  That earned me one of Devon’s smirks. “Lydia Cordero is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the Greater Boston area. How else do you expect me to be able to afford her rates?”

  “I don’t care if that was a joke.” And I wasn’t sure it was a joke. “Sometimes you disgust me.”

  “I’m well aware of it, although it’s disappointing.” He smoothed the wrinkles on his sleeves, and I might have been imagining it, but his eyes seemed to harden. “I’m not about to hold you up as a paragon of moral virtue, Jess. Let’s remember—you’re working for the Gryphons only because it’s keeping your own ass out of prison. Or isn’t that what you told Dezzi the other day?”

  “I’m being blackmailed.” I lowered my voice as Andre and the lawyer stopped arguing. “How does that make what you do okay? So the Gryphons aren’t perfect. So what?”

  “So that’s my point. You’re not a great defender of humanity, that’s all. And you were perfectly fine accepting our help when you needed it. Hypocrisy is unattractive, even in you.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I’m not being hypocritical. Accepting your help isn’t the same thing as condoning your actions.”

  “Nor is fucking Lucen, I suppose?”

  Alas, I didn’t have a good retort to that. Although Devon’s assessment of my relationship with Lucen was a lot baser than mine would have been, he did have a point. I counted Lucen as a friend, and it was hard to argue that wasn’t condoning his behavior.

  Dragon shit on toast. There was a difference here, but this wasn’t the time to try to explain it. The more he talked to me, the more irritated Devon was getting. The rise in his emotions was having a noticeable effect on his power and thus on me, and that was uncomfortable. I didn’t understand why I could sense his magic, but my body was flush from the heat of it.

  Was my numbness wearing off? That would be horribly disappointing.

  Devon straightened, no doubt well aware he’d gotten to me. My silence likely only proved the point. “It must be uncomfortable having your knickers twisted up your ass the way you do. If Lucen’s not doing a good enough job of removing them, let me know. I’d be happy to try, and you don’t need to call me a friend unless you want to.”

  We left Purgatory with nothing. Nothing to help the case, and nothing to atone for the fact that I was now in even deeper salamander shit with the satyrs than I’d been this morning.

  Andre was annoyed, and so were the other Gryphons. I was more like livid, although I didn’t have anyone to direct my anger toward. I was simply mad at the universe for dumping on me.

  When Andre declared it quitting time later, I was only too happy to hightail it out of the office. I had one thing to look forward to this evening—my meeting with my soul-swapping client. I clung to that single act of defiance against the Gryphons to potentially make up for my shitty day. This was who I was. This was what defined me. And damn Olivia Lee’s rationale for why it was a bad idea.

  But in the meantime, I had to pass several hours. Once I’d have gone home or maybe to The Lair, but under the circumstances neither appealed. Instead I bought some dinner to go and headed over to the Esplanade to watch the runners and rollerbladers sweep past the Charles River.

  When I finished eating, I got some exercise of my own, meandering through the brick sidewalks of Beacon Hill and wandering the paths in Boston Garden. Even though this area hadn’t been hit the worst, the damage from the salamander fires was nonetheless apparent everywhere I turned. But Bostonians were nothing if not resilient. Already, the smoke-blackened buildings and rubble that scarred downtown were being healed by a massive recovery effort.

  Around ten, with the sky dark and a chill rolling off the river, I headed back toward the Esplanade and the Hatch Shell Amphitheater where I’d told my potential client I’d meet her. Since I didn’t have anything with me to obscure my face, I hung out among the trees some distance away.

  Behind me, the street noise was a constant din, punctuated by the occasional siren as ambulances came and went from nearby Mass General. But in the lulls between the noise, it was just me and the rush of the river. My thoughts drifted as if carried on the current, recalling that day Lucen had found me here. The day I’d met him. The day he’d stopped me from doing something stupid and put me—inadvertently—on the path I now walked.

  I knew why he’d intervened. He’d found my emerging pred-like talent fascinating because he didn’t understand it any more than I did. But when did his fascination with my gift turn into something more? He claimed he cared about me, and I was starting to accept that might be possible, but what did it mean for us? How could this relationship work?

  Much as I hated to admit it, Devon had brought up a good point at Purgatory. In a way, I was condoning what Lucen did by being friends with him. I made excuses for him I didn’t make for other preds. He needed addicts to live. He took good care of his addicts. It wasn’t his fault.

  But I didn’t even know if that last one were true. Maybe Lucen had wanted to become a satyr. There was no reason I couldn’t ask except one. If I learned he had chosen this life for himself, then what did I do?

  I shivered and blamed it on the breeze.

  A blast of fear dragged me from my gloomy thoughts, melting on my tongue like lemon sherbet. I adjusted my stance and traced the emotion to a small figure heading my way from the opposite side of the amphitheater. Her size gave me pause. Her form was no bigger than a child’s.

  Pulling my hood on, I inched closer, keeping to the shadows. The stranger noticed my movement immediately and stopped right in front of the amphitheater itself. The stonework reflected the scant light, and I could tell that her face wasn’t a girl’s, after all. She was just a slightly built woman wearing a short dress over a pair of leggings.

  “Are you…?” She raised a hand to her lips as if surprised she’d spoken.

  I took a step backward, closer to the trees, and silently cursed myself for forgetting the scarf I usually used to cover my face. “If you’re supposed to be meeting someone, then I’m the one you’re supposed to be meeting. Come forward so we can talk, but don’t step onto the grass.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself and stopped at the edge of the walk so that the toes of her ballet flats skimmed the dirt. Either she was quite literal or a perfectionist. “I’ve heard you can help. It’s true?”

  “I can, depending on your situation. Tell me your story, and I’ll tell you what I can do.” Technically, I didn’t need her story. All I had to know was who she’d sold her soul to, but details helped me decide what I wanted to charge. Like I’d told Olivia, sometimes I helped for free, but that was rare. Most people offered to pay. With my old job, I was often in need of money, so unless it seemed like too much of a hardship, I took payment even if it was nothing more than ten dollars. Preds typically demanded a cut of my fee to do the soul exchange, and ten percent or ten dollars at a minimum was what I offered them.

  My would-
be client tucked stray strands of her long brown hair behind her ears. “My name’s… Do I need to tell you my name?”

  “You don’t need to tell me your real name unless you want to, but it might be nice to have something to call you.”

  Her right hand absently tugged at the earrings she wore. “Okay, right. I guess you can call me Bee. I’m a dancer with the…with a local group. We have a new production coming up, and I was competing for the lead role with another dancer, and…” She took a deep breath. “The director favors her even though she’s not as good. So I did something horrible.” Her voice cracked.

  “You bought a curse and used it on her.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard this sort of story, although it was the first time I’d heard it from a dancer. Musicians rigging auditions, grad students fighting for scholarship money, athletes taking down rivals—I got them all. Hell, I’d gotten lawyers so desperate to win a case that they’d torpedoed other lawyers or even clients and judges. Justice might be blind, but She wasn’t immune to a powerful curse or two. There were a thousand types of curses out there, ranging from generic bad luck to all sorts of unspeakably specific evils. If you could imagine it, there was probably a pred who could conjure it up for the right price. And it was all highly illegal.

  It was also highly frustrating. Cases like this were never ones I took for free. While there were always worse people out there than my client, I had a hard time pitying them.

  This time, at least, my would-be client seemed to have remorse for what she’d done, which was more than I could say for many. Beneath her fear, I could sense her sadness and self-disgust. That softened my feelings for her a bit. Everyone made mistakes.

  Bee covered her mouth with her hands again as if trying to hide her face from me. “I feel horrible, and I wish I hadn’t done it. And what’s worse is that it hasn’t changed anything. I’m still jealous of her. I still hate that she’s perceived as being better than me. And if it’s this bad now, these feelings, I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like if I’m an addict. You have to help me, please. If I could take back what I did, I would.”