by White, Gwynn
My frown deepened. “Then what? Are you with the Sweeps?” My voice sharpened, growing louder. “Home-Sec? Police? IPF? Who the fuck are you? And what do you want with me?”
The man raised his voice to be heard over the band.
“There is no reason to be alarmed, Miss Taylor.” He smiled again. “We are not with any of the branches of SCARB. We are not police or Homeland Security, either.”
“So who the hell are you?” I said. “If you’re some kind of terrorist––”
“Are you aware of the One True God, Miss Taylor?”
I blinked, staring at him. “Excuse me?”
“Do you know of Dragon? The God of Beginnings?”
I glanced around where I stood, once more looking for familiar faces, friendly or not. At that point, I would have been happy to see pouty lips among the crowd milling around that end of the stage. Instead I saw people ignoring us, walking around us like we were pebbles in a fast-moving stream. A few men stared briefly at my clothes and bare skin, but that was it.
I turned back to the blond with the ponytail.
“Look, I don’t know what your game is, but I’m not familiar with the Myther religion,” I said, still loud above the band. “I’m also 100% not interested. If you’re looking to recruit me in some way, or think I’m in any way sympathetic to your cause––”
“I told you. We are not Third Myth.” He continued to smile condescendingly, hands folded in front of his thick torso. “We do not worship their multitude of gods. Our God is far older… as are our beliefs, which predate those of the Sarks, as well. Our God created the Sarhacienne. He created those who came before… and those who have and will come after. He is the God of the Middle, Miss Taylor. The God of the beginning and the end.”
I knew Sarhacienne was another word for seer, and “Sark” was a shortened version of that. The words “seer,” “Sark” and “Sarhacienne” were basically interchangeable, like “human” and “homo sapiens,” but it felt deliberate somehow, him calling them Sarks, versus just seers.
I was still too drunk and too much in fight or flight mode to try and puzzle out what he was driving at. I was pretty sure it was just religious nonsense.
I shifted my weight from one foot to another, fighting a growing feeling of alarm. I considered making a run for Jon and the bar. But if the guy was going to come after me directly, wouldn’t he have done it already? Also, I still wasn’t convinced he didn’t work for SCARB or some other from of law enforcement. If that was the case, I could get in trouble if I ran, even if I claimed ignorance about who he was.
He might be hoping I’d run, so he’d have an excuse to bring me in.
I folded my arms, in part to cover some of my bare skin.
“What do you want from me?” I said. “If it’s religion or politics you’re selling, you’re seriously barking up the wrong tree. If you want me in some official capacity––”
“You had help today,” the man said, as if I hadn’t spoken. He glanced around, still smiling. “Your friend… is he here tonight?”
My jaw hardened more.
Rather than answer him, I tried to walk around him.
He mirrored my steps, forcing me to give him an increasingly wide berth when he continued to stand in my path. When he blocked me successfully a second time on the other end of the wide corridor, I came to a stop, staring up at him.
Just then, I saw Corey.
He was walking out of the backstage area, talking to the bouncer sitting there.
“COREY!” I shouted, raising a hand.
He looked over, saw me, and grinned, shaking his head to get his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes. He lifted a hand in return, indicating he would be with me in a moment.
The man standing in front of me surprised me by laughing, clapping his hands slowly.
“Very good.” He smiled wider. “Very, very good, Miss Taylor. They warned me you weren’t stupid. I’m glad to see they were right, for a change.”
I glared up at him, sorely tempted to tell him where “they” could shove it.
I held out a hand instead, motioning towards his jacket. “I want to see some credentials. Now. Or I’m registering a complaint with the police.”
“For what?” The man smiled wider. “For talking to you?”
“For stalking me,” I said, not returning his smile. “I’ll show them both notes you left. See what kind of DNA imprints they can pick up from the paper. I’m thinking with the surveillance cameras out back, they probably have some record of you or your thugs giving that note to the bartender this morning. Planes are all wired, so they’d definitely have a record of someone leaving the note in my lap last night. And no doubt they recorded that bullshit you pulled outside Central Park this morning.”
He laughed again, as if enjoying everything I said. “I do like your spirit, Miss Taylor,” he said, smiling. “I do, indeed.”
I frowned. I liked being called “spirited” by condescending pricks about as much as I liked being called much worse words.
“Either way,” I said, as if I hadn’t heard him. “Leave me the hell alone. I get that everyone loves a good religious fanatic, I do… but apparently I need to remind you that it’s illegal to proselytize without a license. So unless you have one, you can take your ‘One True God’ and shove it right up your ass, all right?”
“Proselytize?” The man tilted his head, as if puzzled. “I merely wish to share with you your own birthright, Miss––”
“Well, don’t,” I cut in. “Next time, I call SCARB. I mean it. And maybe I’ll get my ‘friend’ to pay you a visit, too.”
Glancing at Corey, I saw him finishing up with the bouncer and walking my way. Hiding my relief with an effort, I walked around Ponytail, and that time he let me. When he turned, however, touching my arm, I snatched it away from his fingers, glaring up at him.
“Do not touch me,” I said. “Not ever.”
Ponytail chuckled, lifting his hands in mock apology.
“Very nice to see you again, Miss Taylor,” he called after me. “I do hope I haven’t upset you in any way.” Smiling in his words, he added, “I sincerely wish for you and your friend to have a very pleasant evening together… a very pleasant evening, indeed.”
I didn’t look back, but I felt my jaw clench.
It didn’t occur to me until later that his words sounded an awful lot like a threat.
15
Wrong Place, Wrong Time
I didn’t end up telling Corey much, although he asked me about the weird mafioso guy who tried to touch me. Corey joked that he looked like a Russian ex-con.
I laughed when he said it, but truthfully, I was having trouble shaking it off.
Ponytail had asked about that guy, Simon.
From the way he’d mentioned him, the two of them weren’t friends, or working for the same branch of law enforcement, which both relieved and alarmed me. I was relatively sure his crack about having a good night with “my friend” had been about Simon, too.
I still couldn’t get past the why me part of all this. More and more, I had my doubts there was any kind of legal investigation going on, at least not in the usual sense.
Still, I believed Ponytail that he and his three pals weren’t acting alone.
Could they be rogue SCARB, like Cass said? It was hard to imagine anyone but SCARB having the balls to tag and bag an owned seer in the middle of Fifth Avenue––or even just openly packing the type of enhanced equipment they’d been carrying.
I remembered Jon saying parts of SCARB were made up of real hard-core racial fanatics.
What if they weren’t all racial extremists, but religious ones, too?
I wished I’d stopped in a kiosk at some point that day and looked up the meaning of the three spirals. But the last thing I needed was SCARB or the Feds flagging me in the system if it turned out to be something they were monitoring.
I wondered if I should just go back to the hotel, lock myself in for the night––or even
call the police. I didn’t feel all that safe going back to the hotel alone, though, or even with Jon and Cass. If they’d known to find me here––twice––they likely knew where I was staying.
Only a few possibilities came to mind for how they’d even tracked me here.
None of them boded well for me.
They could have followed us from the airport, which was maybe the best case scenario. From what friends of mine in feed security had told me, government-issued headsets were pretty close to uncrackable these days, even by seers, so it was unlikely anyone non-law-enforcement could have hacked my headset.
They could have used a satellite imaging device, but I was pretty sure those were exclusive to SCARB. Someone could have scanned my bar code while I slept on the plane, then used ad-trakkers and the World Court surveillance system to find me. Any hologram on the street had an imprint of my barcode, as would the robo-taxi we took to our hotel.
Like I said––none of it boded well for me.
By now, I’d nearly forgotten why I’d wanted to go backstage.
I was barely present for the conversation with Corey.
I managed to stay focused long enough to disentangle myself from our back and forth without him noticing anything. As he wandered in the direction of the bar, I resumed walking toward the door leading backstage. I’d dismissed any thought of heavy conversations with Jaden by then. I just wanted to wish him luck, give him a kiss, and go find Jon.
I didn’t want to freak Jaden out before his big show, but I was thinking now I had to tell him what was going on––as soon as possible once the show ended.
As I reached the security checkpoint to backstage, I recognized the bouncer who’d been hanging out with us before the doors opened. He broke out in a wide grin upon seeing me, grinning wider when I smiled back. I showed him my badge and he rolled his eyes a little, winking at me as he got off his stool to open the door.
Motioning me to walk past once he had it open, he inclined his head towards the darker corridor behind him.
“First door on the left for your guys.”
“Thanks.”
I walked the dim hallway, pausing outside the door the bouncer had indicated.
I tried to collect my thoughts before I went in. I was still past buzzed and on the edges of being drunk. That brief jolt of fear-danger sobriety I’d felt while talking to Ponytail unfortunately hadn’t been permanent.
Now I mostly felt off-balance and paranoid.
I’d seen Drake, Winters and Hayden out at the bar, and Corey heading that way, so Jaden should be alone.
Well, hopefully he was alone.
Taking a breath, I knocked. When no one answered, I opened the door.
The room was empty. I thought maybe I’d missed something and scanned it again, pausing on piles of clothes and the ratty couch shoved against one wall. Half-empty beer bottles littered a stained glass coffee table, along with an ashtray filled with what looked like roach butts. Next to that stood a bowl filled with peanuts and empty shells. The room still smelled vaguely of pot.
No one was there now, though.
I wandered in a little further, but it didn’t change anything. I saw more beer bottles, empty chip packets, open guitar cases, stray cords. Even their instruments were gone.
Walking out, I wandered back to the bouncer I sort-of knew from earlier.
“Hey,” I said. “Have you seen Jaden?” Realizing Jaden hadn’t been sitting with us earlier, I added, “You know, the singer for Eye of Morris. Black hair, blue eyes, six-foot-plus…?”
The big, no-neck guy in the club T-shirt gave me a sheepish look. I don’t know any other way to describe it. Clearly, he had seen Jaden, or knew where he was, and didn’t want to tell me. Or, more likely, he’d been specifically told not to tell me. Or tell anyone, maybe.
Not sure I wanted to interpret what that meant, I let my voice grow a touch more pointed.
“I’m not going to bug him,” I said. “Honest. I just wanted to wish him luck.”
“I haven’t seen him, doll. Not recently.” Smiling at me, that avoiding look still lingering in his eyes, he added, “I saw you and your friend dancing earlier. You wanna dance with me later? After the bands?”
I smiled, patting him on the shoulder. “Sure. If we’re still around.”
Even heavily buzzed, I knew he was distracting me. I decided it wasn’t worth pressing. People like him probably got instructions all the time to keep girlfriends and family and whoever else away from members of their headlining bands. Not losing his job probably depended in part on his ability to keep his mouth shut.
“You mind if I look for him more back there?”
That nervous twinge in his eyes grew. I saw him thinking, maybe trying to come up with a reason to say no. Then he shrugged.
“Sure. Just don’t bother the other band, okay?”
Nodding, I patted his thick shoulder again, then walked back the way I’d come, wandering deeper under and behind the stage.
I thought maybe I could at least find Randy.
Randy often lurked in dark corners, smoking, especially right before a big show. Since he wasn’t in the dressing room or out at the bar, I figured he was probably back here, alone. He wasn’t exactly a people person––a fact I’d always found funny, given his role. Jaden swore he was a magician at the business end of things, though, and Drake told me Randy knew absolutely everyone in the industry, another fact I found inexplicable.
The music from the band onstage echoed strangely in the dark corridor.
I passed the first few doors, which were closed, then glimpsed the headliner band hanging out past the open door of the fourth. I only saw one of them, really, the lead singer, who lounged on a beat-up looking green velvet couch, a girl curled up in his lap. He was playing with her hair while he talked to someone I couldn’t see.
Once I passed their door, the rooms got fewer and further apart. Where I was now looked more like storage for the club itself.
I was almost to the other side of the corridor, getting ready to turn around and walk the length back––when I heard a giggle.
I froze.
My breath stopped, even before I’d put a face to that laugh.
The giggle came again.
The band on stage must have been between songs; I heard the echo of the lead singer’s voice above me, addressing the audience. I couldn’t make out most of his words, but he was loud––loud enough that I likely wouldn’t have heard anything if they’d been playing music.
Fighting not to react, I looked in the direction of the giggle. I hadn’t noticed until then, but the door set in the wall there stood a few inches ajar.
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to go in there.
More than pretty sure––I was maybe ninety-eight percent certain I didn’t want to look on the other side of that door.
My feet moved that way anyway, seemingly on their own. Pressing my lips together, I walked softly to the door and rested my fingers on the handle. Just before I pushed it open, the band started up with their next song.
I’d been right; the music was deafening. The floor and metal door handle vibrated under my feet and fingers.
I’d only heard the giggle because the band stopped playing. Now I couldn’t hear a thing. Whoever was inside that room wouldn’t be able to hear me, either.
Taking a breath, I tugged on the handle, bringing the door open a few more inches so I could slip inside.
I just wanted to look, I told myself.
I just wanted to reassure myself that it wasn’t what my overactive imagination wanted to make of it, before I let myself get paranoid over nothing.
I eased cautiously past the door’s opening. At first all I saw were the types of storage-room things you would expect for a big club.
Costumes hung on freestanding racks. Light stands and fixtures littered the floor, along with club chairs and barstools that needed a leg or some other part fixed. Burned out bulbs sat next to new ones in padded boxes o
n a metal shelving unit, along with folded tablecloths, cloth napkins and lace doilies for trays. Part of a booth hunkered next to a stack of dismantled round tops. A giant, papier-mâché head sat in a corner from some event or other.
Then I saw Jaden.
I couldn’t see all of him. A long, standing rack of clothing stood in the way of most of his body. But I could see his face––and the fact that he was leaning back on a stack of cushions. I knew his clothes, down to the necklace I’d given him and his bomber jacket. I also saw his hands, one of which was coiled into the hair of the woman leaning deeply into his side.
They were kissing.
I stared for a moment, taking it in.
My brain just… stopped.
While I stood there, the band blared behind me, leaving the room strangely soundless, making the whole thing feel even more unreal when the two of them didn't come up for air. Then Jaden leaned forward, saying something into the ear of pouty lips, who looked up long enough to giggle again, her breasts pushed up against his chest.
Seeing their faces so close together somehow made it real. More real than my brain could really handle.
“What the fuck?” I shouted.
Jaden jumped violently, looking up.
Seeing me standing there, he pushed pouty lips back instinctively, even as I saw panic touch his blue eyes as he took in my face. She didn’t seem to want to let him go. Frowning up at Jaden’s expression, she just held onto his side, as if confused.
Then she turned her head.
Seeing me standing there, she gave me a simpering, innocent look that made me want to punch her in the face. Or maybe do a lot more than punch her.
My brain shorted. My breath came harder. A sick feeling coiled up from somewhere inside, blotting out rationality.
I felt hatred. I don’t think I’d ever felt so much hatred.
I wasn’t sure which of them it was even aimed at.
Something in that feeling actually scared me. A surge of heat hit my chest, so intense it wanted to overwhelm all my other senses. For the first time in my life, I realized I was capable of violence––real violence––in a way I’d never wanted to believe. Understanding flashed through me, a knowing that if I let go of control, even for a second, I would do something.