Half a dozen bored looking men sit around each stage, their eyes wandering from dancer to dancer. A couple are in the corner getting lapdances, but even they don’t look interested in the grinding.
“Are all strip bars this depressing?” Amanda says.
“Most of them, yeah,” Fitz says. “Wait, you can get depressed?”
That same troubled look crosses her face. “No?” she says. “Let’s just find this guy.”
Fitz wonders if she’s glitching like on the drive from the museum. Hell, maybe she’s becoming more human. He’d like that. The idea of a Terminator-style Internet goddess kind of freaks him out. He doesn’t expect things to get ugly in here, or at least not in any way she and the other Amandas can’t handle no matter how glitched they get, but he’d rather not deal with it.
Fitz pokes his head into the single bathroom. It’s got a couple of open stalls, a urinal and a cracked sink that leaks rusty water. But no Jake.
“Maybe he’s out sick?” Fitz says.
“Maybe somebody’s already got him.”
That’s not a pleasant thought.
“Let’s not go there just yet.” Fitz looks across the room and recognizes one of the dancers, a frizzy-haired redhead with freckles and a tattoo between her collarbones that says I’M YOUR BEST BAD IDEA. He’s pretty sure he went to a motel with her one time a couple years ago, though he doesn’t think he met her here. Some of the dancers work around different clubs.
He goes up to where she’s slowly wiggling on the stage, pulls out a twenty and holds it up to her. She responds by turning her hip toward him so he can stuff it into her g-string. He has no idea of her name, or if he ever knew it. Chances are any name she gave him before was made up, just like whatever name he gave her was.
“Candy,” he says, figuring he’s got about a one in four chance of getting it right.
“Faith,” she says, looking at him. “You and your friend want a dance?”
“Actually, I was wondering if you knew where the janitor is.”
“Do I look like the fucking information desk?” she says.
He pulls out another twenty and puts it into her g-string. “You do now.”
“I don’t think he’s in yet,” she says. “He in trouble?”
“No,” Fitz says. “I just owe him some money and want to get square with him.”
She laughs. “Sure you do. He doesn’t have a dollar bill to wipe his ass with.”
“Well, I need to talk to him. It’s important. Any idea when he gets in?”
Fitz can’t tell if she just shrugged or if it’s part of her idea of a sexy dance routine. “If he’s here, he’s probably in the office getting chewed out by Tony.”
“That happen a lot?”
That same pseudo-dance shrug move. “He fucks up a lot. He’s crazy. I mean, not bad crazy, but crazy.”
“I hear he did some time.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Point. Thanks for the tip. I’ll check with Tony.”
“Careful. If Tony’s in a snit, he might punch you. He’s a puncher.”
“Of course he is.” Fitz follows Amanda back the way they came to the door marked Office.
“Do we knock?” Fitz says.
“I have his file,” Amanda says. “Tony Graham. Faith was right. He’s a puncher. And a shooter, and a stabber. Aggravated assault, armed robbery, attempted murder.”
“So no knocking?”
Amanda pulls back one leg and slams her steel-toed boot into the door next to the doorknob, ripping the door from the lock and throwing it wide open. Inside there’s two men: an overweight man in a blue T-shirt and jeans with an abysmal comb-over sitting at a desk—presumably Tony—and Jake Malmon standing on the other side of it, with a face so craggy it looks like a desert lake bed in a bad summer.
“The fuck is this?” Tony says, standing up and reaching into his desk.
“Hey, now,” Fitz says. He doesn’t want to shoot the guy, but he might be going for a gun. He seems like a dick, but that’s no reason to punch a hole into him.
He remembers the card in his pocket that Amanda showed the valet back at Big’s casino. She said looking at it would make people freak out. God knows it screwed with his head when he just gave it a glance. He digs it out of his pocket and shoves it into the big man’s face.
Tony goes a little green, but instead of freaking out and backing down, he pulls a pistol from his desk and tries to shoot Fitz. The bullet goes high, missing Fitz by several feet.
Amanda’s already got a pistol out and shoots him through the desk right in the knee. He screams and drops to the floor.
“What the hell were you thinking?” Amanda says.
He shows her the card. “I didn’t want you to shoot him. I thought this thing was supposed to terrify him or something.”
“Everybody reacts differently to fear. Tony’s reaction, apparently, is to shoot whatever’s scaring him.” She grabs the card and stuffs it into her pocket. “And don’t worry. He’ll live.”
“Well, that’s a plus.” He turns to Jake, who’s curled up on the floor and wrapped his hands over his head. “Hey, Jake. We gotta go.”
“Who the hell are you people?” he says, his voice shaky from fear.
“I’m Fitz. This is Amanda. There’s a bunch of gods looking for me and I need you to help me figure out how to do what I do. Whatever that is. I’m really not sure.”
Jake looks up at him with dawning horror. “Aw, shit,” he says. “It’s happening again, isn’t it? Man. They said this was all a delusion. They said I was cured. I just stopped taking my meds a couple weeks ago. Goddammit.”
“Sorry, old timer. It’s all real. And it’s all fucked. And if you don’t come with us, they’re gonna come after you. And you won’t like that.”
“No,” he says. “No, no, no, no,” his voice getting higher and higher in pitch.
“I guess we drag him out?”
“Or we—” she pauses, her eyes going blank. A moment later they snap back into focus. “Yes. Quickly. Help me get him out the door.”
Fitz gets behind him and lifts him in a bear hug. Bones like a bird’s, skin like paper. He barely weighs a thing. “What’s going on?”
“Agents of my father.”
“Fuck, I hate those guys.”
“No. Not Agents, agents.”
“You just said the same exact thing twice.”
“Not the Men in Black. Medeina and your friend Sam.”
“I thought Medeina was with Zaphiel.”
“Either they’ve had a falling out, or Zaphiel has teamed up with my father. But whatever the case Medeina is definitely working with my father now. Come on.”
“I’m not sure which of those ideas I like less.” He tries to get Jake into a fireman’s carry but, though Jake isn’t struggling and he weighs next to nothing, he doesn’t want to hurt the guy. It feels like he’s about to snap in half. He settles for walking him through the door.
They get to the back door when the sound of gunfire tears through the club. Screaming, yelling.
“The clones at the front door are dead,” Amanda says. She yanks the door open for Fitz to get through. He’s trying not to panic, and doing a shitty job of it. The fact that the old man just keeps muttering “no, no, no” over and over isn’t helping. Outside, the empty van is idling, one Amanda covering the door with a shotgun. Fitz is about to shove Jake into the back of the van and follow him, when a yell across the alley catches his attention.
“Fitz!” He turns at his name and there’s Sam, hands up and in front of her, no gun, no knife. “Wait. Please.”
Fitz freezes. The look on Sam’s face is pleading. That’s not the look of someone coming to kill him. “You don’t want to be here, Sam.”
“No, I don’t. I know what’s going on. I know what’s happened to Blake. I know what you are. I want to help you.”
“How do I know—” Fitz starts to say, but cuts off when Amanda puts a bullet straight into Sam’s
chest.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SAM SITS ON the edge of the bed drumming her fingers on her thigh. She’s been in this room before, a place Blake stores memorabilia and files. All legit. If things go south and the cops decide to raid his place, they won’t find anything linking him to any of his crimes.
Or at least it was. Now it’s a blandly tasteful, if Spartan, bedroom. Queen bed, nightstands, lamps, hotel art on the walls. She didn’t even know it had carpet. Hell, with all the changes it’s had in the last twelve hours, maybe it didn’t.
She’s having a hard time processing everything. Before Fitz went into the hospital, she thought she knew what was what. She had certainty. Illegal as all fuck, but she understood what was going on and her place in it.
The only other time she’s felt that way was when she was fighting MMA, and even then only in the ring. Outside the ring, she was lost. Dealing with managers and promoters and marketing people and asshole fans and... Well, that life was over.
But then Fitz’s betrayal, and Blake getting all weird, and now this Medeina woman. It’s clear she’s a lot more than what she looks. Sam rubs the bruise on her arm, where the woman held on for just a moment.
There’s a knock on the door and Blake says through it, “You decent?”
“Just a second,” she says, standing. Her hands ball into fists. She still can’t believe Blake wants to kill her. She would have thought it was all a dream if Medeina hadn’t talked to her afterward. If it is true—and even with all that, she has her doubts—she wonders if she should just kill Blake here and now.
But she knows she won’t. She can’t. That certainty she had as of this morning might be gone, but goddamn if she isn’t going to hang onto whatever shredded tatters of it might still remain. She forces herself to relax, rolling her neck; it cracks from the tension.
“Come in,” she says.
Blake opens the door. He’s wearing a different suit. Gray pinstripes, red tie, diamond tie tack. “All rested?”
“I’m good.”
“Excellent. I’ve found Fitz. I need you to go with Medeina and grab him.”
This is it, she thinks. This is where he has me killed. “Are you coming?”
“I’ll be along behind you. He and I, well, we got off on the wrong foot earlier and I don’t want to spook him. He’s at a strip bar in the Valley. Or, at least, he’ll be there soon.” He hands her an index card with an address on it. The printing is tight, controlled, legible. And clearly not Blake’s.
“You sure you want me to go with her?” Sam says.
“Absolutely. She’s just a consultant. Who knows what she’ll do on her own. I need you to keep an eye on her. You’re my ace in the hole.”
“I’ll leave now. So you don’t want him dead anymore?”
Blake laughs. “Oh, no. Not at all. I was just angry, you know? Heat of the moment stuff. So just keep him from leaving and I’ll be along behind you, and we’ll sort this all out.”
“And I have to take Medeina with me?”
“Absolutely. Very important. She’s the one who figured out where he was going. If he gives you the slip, she can help track him down.”
“That’s her job? Tracking Fitz? She some sort of bounty hunter or something?”
“Something like that. Very woodsy type. The two of you’ll get along perfectly. I just know it.”
She grabs her holstered pistol from the nightstand, slips it into her waistband at the small of her back.
“Oh, you won’t need that,” Blake says.
“Seriously?” Sam says. “He had help last time. He’s probably gonna have help again.” No gun? Blake always wants her to be armed. Even when he knows she can handle herself without one. And considering how badly the museum went, what the hell makes him think she won’t need a gun now?
Unless he doesn’t want her to be able to defend herself when Medeina tries to kill her.
“Fair point,” Blake says. “Just don’t hurt him.”
“Of course not,” Sam says. “I’ll get him back here in one piece.”
“I expect nothing less,” he says. “Oh, one last thing.” He pulls a flask from his coat pocket and hands it to her. “You need to take a swig of this. You’re still going to have that shit in your system that Fitz dosed you with. This will clear the last of it out and he won’t be able to try it again.”
Sam takes the flask from him, unscrews the cap. The scent is thick and sweet. Cherry? “What’ll it do to me?”
“Oh, something about binding to opioid receptors or some shit. I have no idea. I had a doctor put it together for me. Totally harmless.”
“I feel fine,” Sam says. “Whatever he dosed me with is gone.”
“One can’t be too careful,” Blake says.
Sam wonders if this is how he’s going to kill her. Make her drink some poison. But no, that doesn’t fit. He said he wants her dead so Fitz can see it and... what exactly? He wants Fitz back working for him, that much is clear, but he doesn’t understand what he said in the car about gods. She must have heard that wrong.
Point is that if he’s really going to kill her, he’s not going to do it here. Still.
“What’s in it?”
“Little this, little that. I don’t really know.” He cocks his head like he’s pulling up some old memory. “I had a doctor I used to work with whip it up. Gave it to my boys back in the day to make sure they could get on stage. You know. ‘There’ll be no more—aaaah!—but you may feel a little sick’?”
Sam looks at him blankly.
“No appreciation for the classics,” Blake says. “Trust me. It’s for your own good.”
Trust is something Sam doesn’t have much of right now. She gets the reference, but Blake would never use it. He hates Pink Floyd.
Sam considers grabbing Blake by the throat and demanding answers, but what if she’s wrong? What if she heard all that wrong and she’s being lied to? She thought she was Blake’s right hand, but after the museum with all those weird Men In Black types and now this weird new ‘consultant,’ she doesn’t know. If she pisses him off, will he send an army in helicopters to take her out, too?
“Okay,” Sam says, wary. She downs the flask, wincing from the taste. It’s like drinking cherry cough syrup. It reminds her of overly sugared punch when she was a kid, that nasty mixed stuff her mom used to make for her and the neighborhood kids during the summer.
“You might feel a little off for a couple of minutes, but by the time you get downstairs you’ll be fine.” Sam feels a little warmth as it goes down and she staggers with a momentary rush of vertigo. “You okay, there?” Blake says.
She blinks and the vertigo passes. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Good, good.” Blake takes the flask back and hands her a key hanging from a long lanyard.
She looks at the key. She can’t tell from the symbol on the head, some kind of jumping stylized animal, what the car is, but it’s wrapped in a weird wood veneer, slivers of bark and leaves crusted around it and covered in layers of clear lacquer until it’s shiny and smooth, the metal of the key blade weirdly out of place. When she touches it she feels a tiny electric shock.
“What is this?”
“The key to a 1972 Triumph Stag,” he says. “A classic beauty. Runs like a dream.”
“Since when have you been a classic car nut?” Sam says. And since when did Blake buy bespoke hippie keys?
“You think you know everything about me? Please. I am a man of hidden depths. There’s only about two thousand of those cars in existence. Hard to come by. Runs like a dream. Don’t tell anybody, but I’ve had it updated. New ignition so all you have to do is get near the car and it’ll start up for you with a push of the button. Put the key around your neck and you won’t even have to unlock the car. It’ll do it for you. Like it’s magic. Don’t worry. It won’t fall off.” He waits until she’s put it around her neck. It feels heavier around her neck than in her hand, as if it had suddenly gained weight. She slides it under her shi
rt.
“Excellent,” he says. “Now git. Medeina’s waiting. I’ll be along in a little while. And remember, you’re my ace in the hole.” He backs out of the room, leaving Sam alone with the key to a car he would never go near to do a thing he would never have her do.
This is all so very, very wrong.
MEDEINA STANDS BESIDE the car, a red two-seater convertible that looks too tiny to comfortably fit either of them, leaning against a staff and looking up at the sky. Though it’s not overcast, the city lights make the stars impossible to see.
“Nothing up there,” Sam says. The staff is intricately carved with convoluted designs that would make a tribal tattoo fetishist cream his jeans. Sam wonders if she takes it everywhere with her, and if so, how people must react to it.
“There used to be,” she says. “A long time ago. Do you ever think you’ve outlived your usefulness?”
Sam isn’t sure if this is her being maudlin or some kind of threat. But it does make her think. “Once. I used to fight.”
“I knew you were a warrior,” Medeina says. “I have a brother who was a warrior. He’s dead now.”
“Sorry to hear it.”
“That’s okay. I killed him, and he was reborn in the form of a flaming bull. Why did you stop fighting?”
Sam pauses, trying to take in this sudden crazy murder confession. She doesn’t know what to make of it. “Took a beating in the ring,” she says. “Broke my nose, supraorbital ridge, left clavicle, femur, tibia, three ribs, lost a couple molars. Ref should have called it earlier, but by the time he did I was done. Spent three months in the hospital. They had to rebuild my face, my leg. Another three doing PT. Pretty much had to learn to walk all over again.”
“And you did,” Medeina says.
Sam nods. “And how to fight. But I was done with the circuit. I wasn’t nearly as good as I was before. You take a beating like that, you don’t come back from it.”
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