Out of the Blue

by Lyra Evans

  He turned and swung as hard as he could at Cobalt, catching him on the chin with his fist. Cobalt’s head knocked sideways, forcing him to catch himself. When he righted himself, he ran his tongue over his lip and rubbed his jaw with his hand.

  “Don’t fuck with my job,” Niko said, and Cobalt, infuriatingly, smiled hungrily at him. Niko stalked to the door and pushed through, pretending he wasn’t still iron-hard.

  Every step away from the private room was a struggle in the war with himself, but as he drew closer to the main hall of the club, Niko slowly regained control of his treacherous body. He’d managed to will away the worst of his erection by the time Cobalt caught up with him near the end of the bar. Alli had busied herself there, wiping pointlessly at some glasses and trying not to look as though she was waiting for someone. Niko slipped around a group of patrons engaged in a round of self-flagellation and approached her end of the bar. The mood in the hall had heightened somewhat, the air now pregnant with lust and the sounds of ecstasy. There were considerably more people as well.

  “Another round,” Niko said at normal volume when he caught Alli’s attention. Then, more quietly, he added, “Where?”

  Alli nodded and got to making the same drink she’d provided them earlier. Cobalt pressed in close to Niko, causing a shiver down his spine, as Alli shot a glance down to the other end of the bar. There were groups of people, some in sets of couples intermingling, others just gathered haphazardly, leaning on or against the bar, seeking drinks and nursing them, flirting and propositioning. Niko spied two, maybe three Fae amid the patrons that he marked as independent prostitutes, but it was unclear which one Alli meant.

  “At the opposite end of the bar,” she said under her breath, handing Niko his drink first. “With the coral pink hair in braided pigtails.”

  With a practiced nonchalance, Niko spun around and leaned back against the bar, cradling his drink to sip it from the straw. Cobalt played into him, wrapping a protective arm around his stomach, and Niko ignored the easy way they fit into place with one another. He cast a look down the bar, searching for the hairstyle. There were different hairstyles for different female prostitutes, depending on the market they were selling to. For a club like the Magic Wand, almost anything went, so the hairstyle choice was up to the woman’s preference for the night. This particular woman seemed to be interested in catching a cross-section of the population interested in innocence, control, and pain play. He wondered at the choice, as independent prostitutes rarely wandered into dominance, control, and edge play territory because of the inherent dangers. It was so easy—and considerably safer for all parties—to engage a unionized escort and specialist in those fields that only the very inexperienced or the very rough would risk hiring an independent. But as Niko’s eyes found the woman with the coral pink hair, his stomach dropped, and he found most of the answers he was looking for.

  “We’re dropping the ‘couple’ act,” he told Cobalt, breaking free of his grip and pushing away from the bar.

  “What’s wrong?” Cobalt asked, following closely behind Niko.

  Niko fought the rising bile in his throat and the hurricane building in his chest. This made no sense, none at all, but here he was. As if everything was for nothing.

  “I know her.”

  Chapter 10

  As he walked, Niko felt the months that had passed slip away, disappearing as though they’d never occurred. He felt the recoil in his stomach, the anger bubbling at the back of his throat, the sheer threat of violence lying just underneath his skin, as though it was the first day of the trial again. As though he still had to face all those people as his real self for the first time, wondering all along who was his real self anyway?

  Downing his drink, ignoring the straw, Niko gritted through the sour-sweet flavour and wished he’d told Alli to leave the anti-drunkenness drop out of this one. He hated being drunk, hated the loss of control over his faculties, but for a brief moment, Niko wanted to yield the reins to something else.

  He left his glass on the bar next to him as he approached her from behind, casually inserting himself between her and the hungry-looking tourist she was trying to hook. A Werewolf, by Niko’s cursory glance, and one who was very much out of his element in Maeve’s Court. Apex predator, maybe, but not among the Fae. He’d clearly missed the fact that faced with Starla, he was the prey.

  “Some things never change,” Niko said by way of introduction, “even when a courtroom and a judge tell you they should.”

  Starla looked up, her practiced coyness falling away immediately. Her brown eyes turned sharp as they met Niko’s. The Werewolf looked briefly confused, then grew somewhat possessive. Oh, the poor pup. He looked barely legal in Maeve’s Court, but he definitely had some Alpha in him. Niko had learned the tells.

  “Excuse me, I believe we were having a private conversation,” the Wolf said, clearly working hard to maintain civility. Niko smiled wanly at him.

  “No such thing as privacy in a public bar,” Niko said. “But trust me, you owe me a thank you. You were in way over your head with this one.”

  Starla’s stare was so cold she could have caused frostbite with a glance. Niko, unfortunately for her, was looking at the Werewolf.

  “I think I can decide that for myself, buddy,” he answered, the words rolling into a low growl. “Now I suggest you step the fuck off and let the lady and I get back to it.”

  Niko made a face as if to imply he was being precious. Turning to Starla, he said, “You do know how to pick a mark, I’ll give you that. He’s as green as they come, calling you a lady.”

  Starla glared daggers at Niko, her arms crossed over her ample breasts. The outfit she wore was reminiscent of a certain type of school uniform, though horrendously bastardized. The top was white latex pulled tightly over her breasts, barely covering her nipples. The skirt was red and black and yellow plaid, pleated, and too short to fully cover her ass. She wore large hoop earrings and a red lipstick to match the skirt. A tiny tie was fastened around her neck, also red and black and yellow. It could serve a number of purposes, if Niko recalled correctly.

  “You’ve got some nerve,” the Werewolf said. “What’s your fucking problem?”

  Niko’s jaw flexed, but he pasted a smile on his face that didn’t meet his eyes. “No problem. I just ran into an old friend, here,” he gestured at Starla, “and I’m eager to catch up. You know how it is. Thanks in advance for fucking off.”

  The Werewolf looked as though he’d been slapped. Cobalt, who’d been silent and strangely removed from the situation until this point, took the chance to stand closer to Niko here, assuming his full height. The Werewolf’s slowly elongating fangs retracted somewhat at the sight of Cobalt. He turned instead to Starla.

  “Do you even know this guy?” he asked. She rolled her jaw, cleaning her teeth with her tongue as though to remove an unpleasant flavour.

  “Unfortunately,” she said. “But we’re not friends. Can’t have a friendship when only one of the people involved thinks it’s real.” She shot Niko another withering glare at the last comment, but Niko brushed it off as best he could.

  “See? All sorted,” Niko said, nodding in the direction of the club floor as an indication the Werewolf should get going.

  Instead, he planted his feet and crossed his arms, weighing out his options against Cobalt and Niko together. He really was a fresh pup. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Sounds to me like she doesn’t really want to talk to you.”

  “Ah, well there’s the rub, I’m afraid,” Niko said, pulling his badge from seemingly nowhere. He flashed it at the Werewolf. “She doesn’t really have a choice.”

  In a flash, the taunting, posturing light of a threat vanished from the Werewolf’s eyes, replaced with clarity and alarm. He backed off slightly.

  "You’re a cop?” he asked, shaking his head. “But we weren’t doing anything illegal.”

  Again, Niko offered him the pitying look. “Were you planning on engaging her for sex?�
�� Niko asked.

  He hesitated. “Well, yeah. That’s what you do here, isn’t it?”

  “Soliciting prostitution,” Niko said. “You were going to hire a prostitute.”

  Starla made a disgusted noise, shaking her head. “That’s fucking rich.”

  “But prostitution is legal in Maeve’s Court,” the Wolf said, though it sounded more like a question.

  “Only with unionized escorts. You were about to hire an independent,” Niko said. He wrapped an arm around Starla’s shoulders, smiling his best fake smile. “I told you you were in over your head.”

  The Werewolf gaped at them, caught between horror, relief, and embarrassment. Cobalt stepped up now, planting a strong hand on the Wolf’s upper arm and guiding him toward the main floor. “Best move on and forget this ever happened,” he told the Wolf. The Werewolf nodded vaguely, clearly shaken to the core, and walked aimlessly, giving every nearby Fae a look of alarmed suspicion.

  “That’s twice now you’ve lost me a job, Officer,” Starla snapped, picking up the drink she’d been nursing and throwing it back without a flinch.

  “It’s Detective,” Niko corrected, and Starla shot him a dark look. “And what the fuck do you mean I lost you a job? What are you even doing out here? Your probation specifically prohibits you from solicitation.”

  Starla’s brown eyes were hard as rock. They’d always had a warm quality to them before, like melted chocolate. But now, Niko saw only frozen earth, cracked and harsh.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Did you know it even bars me from applying to the union? I can’t even work legally until the end of my probation. So what the fuck am I supposed to do? I got bills to pay, Kiki.” The use of his undercover nickname halted him momentarily. Starla seemed to catch it too, a cloud passing over the fury on her face. She waved it off. “Detective Spruce. Whatever.”

  Niko pushed past the awkwardness, the memory, and the lingering iceberg of his guilt. “So get a fucking job like everyone else,” Niko said. “I told you I’d—”

  “What? You’d what?” Starla interrupted, leaning toward him as if to square up. “Help me? How? You gonna erase my rap sheet? I don’t think I’m unemployed because I lack people skills. Employers are just chomping at the fucking bit to hire convicts, let me tell you.”

  Niko matched her glare, his chest full of fire and anger. He wasn’t sure what pissed him off more—that Starla was back to whoring after all Niko’s hard work, or that she was right. He hadn’t really thought about how hard it would be, once they got to the other side of the trial. He’d been so laser-focused on surviving through the damn thing, he never thought about what it would be like once he did.

  Running a hand through his hair, Niko took a few deep, calculated breaths. He cast a look around the club. No one was paying them any mind, though now and again people were sending hungry glances Cobalt’s way. An unexpected and very poorly timed jab of jealousy flashed through Niko, and he nearly let out a scream of frustration.

  “Look, I’m not here to bust you up about how you make money,” he said, avoiding the words he wanted to use. Starla opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off before she could. “I’m here for a case.”

  “Of course you are,” Starla snapped, her anger undercut by what Niko briefly thought was disappointment. But that made no sense. “If you think you’re going to use me to make more headlines for your career, you can just—”

  Cobalt interrupted them, his face a wash of emotion Niko couldn’t identify. It startled Starla sufficiently for her to fall silent. Niko waited for the inevitable swoon now she noticed him, but it didn’t come. Starla just blinked confusedly at him.

  “We’re here about Indigo,” Cobalt said. “He was last seen here, in some kind of argument with you.”

  Starla slowly gathered herself, focusing in on the relevant words. Or relevant to her. “What? Last seen? What do you mean? What’s happened to Indy?”

  Niko stepped in again, catching on the word Indy. “Look, since we fucked up your night, why do you let us make it up to you. We’ll buy you dinner somewhere quieter. We can talk there. You tell us what you know and that’s it. We’ll be on our way.”

  Starla searched Niko’s face, her lips pressed tightly together. Careful to keep his expression neutral—something she’d never really seen Niko do until he testified—Niko waited. Whatever she was searching for, she didn’t seem to find, because her jaw set, and she crossed her arms again.

  “Not until you tell me what happened to Indy, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  Niko ground his teeth together a moment. “That’s what the fucking case is about.”

  Starla rolled her eyes and made a face. “I mean, is he missing? Is he okay? Did he get arrested?”

  Forgetting Cobalt for a fraction of a heartbeat, Niko snapped, “No, Starla. He’s dead.”

  ***

  The diner they went to was small and out of the way, not in the cross-section of restaurants that catered to any of the major nightlife districts. It was quiet and dated, and the few patrons seated at the various laminate tables seemed very intent on their own business and no one else’s. Starla had specified the location, and given it was also in Niko’s interest not to be seen by her associates—whoever they might be now—he acquiesced. And though they should have stood out in a setting like this wearing fetish gear as they were, no one batted an eye when they walked through the lightly tinkling door.

  Without waiting to be seated, Starla bee-lined for the empty booth at the back of the diner and seated herself so she faced outward toward the door. This left Niko and Cobalt to sit with their backs to the door. Niko didn’t appreciate the position, feeling like an ambush was not beyond Starla’s potential, but sitting next to her wasn’t an option. He hadn’t intended to send a subtle message of opposition, but she wasn’t going to look at him like a friend any time soon, so confrontational positioning it would have to be.

  Niko slid into his side of the booth, followed by Cobalt, who pressed so close to Niko, Niko had to wonder if the booth wasn’t actually meant for two. He suppressed the set of complex, intertwined feelings that he began to associate with Cobalt’s scent, and leaned back against the red plastic cushion of the seat. One hand out on the table, in front of him, Niko played with an abandoned sugar packet, waiting for Starla to make the first move.

  Starla, for her part, stared with sullen coldness back at him, not one to give in easily. A harried waitress appeared after a moment, setting out paper menus in front of them without actually looking at them. She was an older Fae, her curled hair barely contained in a struggling clip at the back of her head. The line of her creased lips told Niko she wasn’t interested in anything at all but their order.

  “What can I get you?” she asked, though there was little welcome in the question.

  “I’ll have the full seaside breakfast,” Starla said without hesitation, scanning the menu briefly. “Three pancakes, eggs over-easy, bacon super crispy—like I mean almost burnt—and a side of dark rye, please. Oh! And no onion in the tuna salad. Thanks.”

  The waitress jotted down some shorthand on her tiny notepad. “Drink?”

  Starla glanced at Niko then said, “Coffee, black, two sugars. And a shot of whiskey.” She tilted her chin up at the waitress, but Niko was sure the defiant gesture was meant for him. “I’m mourning a friend.”

  The waitress nodded once, unconcerned, then turned to Niko and Cobalt. “For you?”

  “Just coffee,” Niko said, then deciding to minimize his suffering for the night, added, “Two cream.”

  The waitress made the slightest hint of a face, marking down his order, then turned to Cobalt. For the first time, she actually looked up at them, and when she saw Cobalt fully, her eyes cleared of their exhausted disdain. She didn’t seem as afflicted by lust and longing as the average person upon seeing the Selkie. Instead, her eyes filled with a hint of sadness, a kind of yearning Niko wasn’t sure he could place.

  “And you, love
?” she asked Cobalt.

  He smiled gently at her. “Just water for me, thank you,” he said. “Iced, if you have it. Might as well bring a full pitcher.”

  She nodded quickly at him and disappeared toward the kitchen. Every new reaction to Cobalt tugged at Niko’s mind, making him wonder. But with Starla sitting opposite them, her arms crossed as she leaned back against the booth, Niko decided those questions could wait.

  “So we’re at the place you wanted, you ordered your food,” Niko said, “now spill.”

  Thin eyebrows rose on Starla’s hardened face. She was only a few years older than Niko, but she’d been in the sex work industry since she was a child. And years of being trafficked, beaten down, and treated as a commodity took their toll. Niko tried not to think of how angry he’d been when he learned that. He tried not to think of how she’d told him with a shrug, like she was relating the time, as though it was divorced from her, as though it was okay. He tried not to think of that first night he’d been undercover, when he’d been shoved down into the basement bunk room, where all the whores slept, bleeding and bruised with his entire self-image shaken to the core. And how she’d gathered him in, tending to his injuries and reassuring him it would be okay, he’d get used to it. They all did.

  The Starla he saw in front of him now was a different woman to the Fae who cradled him that night, waking him every two hours to ensure he didn’t have a concussion. But maybe this was the Starla she’d been all along. And maybe it was Niko’s fault for not seeing the truth of her, just as he had hidden the truth of himself.

  “As I understand interrogations, they generally involved questions,” Starla said with false sweetness.

  “You aren’t being interrogated,” Niko said, counting himself back from the edge of frustration. “But fine. How did you know Indigo?”