When he was half way out the door, he finally threw a glance my way and it was such a look of pain and confusion that I didn't have the heart to feel hurt.
"I'm sorry, Kitten," he said and there was a hint of his normal composure seeping back into his demeanor. "The last thing you need is another bastard."
He shot me a grin and then he was gone.
The cat yowled at me from the kitchen and pawed at her dish.
"Sure," I said to her. "At least one kitten deserves a treat."
CHAPTER 12
Three nights later, we stood in front of Errol's shop. The neon sign above the door was out but the barred door wasn't down. I could see through the glass door all the way to the back of his shop. A basket of what looked like electronics sat just inside on the floor.
Maddox stood beside me.
He was dressed in a crisp dress shirt, open three buttons down. I could see a freckle to the left of his sternum shaped like a star and wanted to trace it with my finger. The undershirt he wore beneath was one I'd seen Scottie call wife beaters with a knowing laugh. The trousers were tight at the hips, buttoned just below his waist and fell in a straight line to Louis Vuittons.
He didn't mention our kiss and I didn't either. After I went to bed with a laptop of porn, I decided he was still too heavily mired in his relationship with Kerri. I liked her despite not knowing much about her and told myself it was perfectly honorable to pay for a boy toy in the near future if I felt the need to throw myself at a man again.
Yeah. That rejection hurt. I wasn't going to pretend it didn't, but there were things at stake here that helped me at least push it to the back of my mind.
A pro never let personal things get in the way of a heist, and I was already feeling electric with the hum of possibility.
The other thing neither of us mentioned was the outfit Errol had provided me. When I'd pulled it out of the bag I'd retched out of sheer principle. I wore a long trench coat over what reminded me insufferably of a princess Leia slave outfit. Not only did Errol have a revolting idea of fashion, apparently, he was a nerd.
There were only two differences to the costume: one was that the nipples in my bra cups were cut out and replaced with a bit of gauzy fabric. It chaffed in awful ways. The other was the small pouch attached to my waist, presumably to hold the substitute stone that Errol promised would be delivered on entry to the soiree.
Maddox held out the chain that was also part of my garb. I sighed heavily and snapped the collar around my neck. The chain was not costume; it had weight and heft and real, honest to goodness locks. While I'd agreed to wear the thing, I'd been adamant that I would be the keeper of the key. It was tucked into the elven boots I wore, and a duplicate was safely sitting on my bureau at home.
A smart thief always had backup.
I was going to be the smart thief tonight.
"Just remember what Leia did with these chains," I quipped. "So be nice to me."
He gave me a blank stare, punctuated by a breeze that blew his auburn hair across his face. He'd come un-bunned for the soiree as a means to look more roguish and I wasn't sure the look was sexier than the knot he always pulled his hair into.
"Princess Leia," I said. "Jabba the Hut?"
He shook his head with a dumbfounded look on his face.
I sighed. "Plebeian," I said and held out the other end of the chain to him.
He rattled it noisily as I stood there and I noticed he wasn't just doing it to make me nervous. He was fidgeting.
"Are you ready for this?" I said.
"You can't mess this up," he said. "You have no idea what's at stake."
I stared at my feet, enrobed in felt boots. Earlier, he'd made me practice keeping my eyes downcast no matter what he said, and he said some pretty hurtful things. I'd failed the test three times before I managed to keep my gaze downcast. He then suggested I practice crawling on my hands and knees.
"Just in case," he said, but I had the feeling he was toying with me.
He sported a bruise on the corner of his left eye that told him exactly what I thought of that practice.
Now he was tapping his foot on the sidewalk and fiddling with the chain as though he was the one dressed in a sheer bit of gauze and humiliating chains for the sport of a few deviant guests.
"You need to understand that whatever Absalom wants can't be a paltry thing and that puts us both at risk." He pinned me with his gaze. "You understand?"
"I understand," I said. "I hadn't thought you'd be afraid of anything."
"I'm afraid of no one," he said. "But risk is an entirely different thing. I have others to think about. More lives than a few mortals are at stake."
He looped his end of the chain around his wrist several times, shortening the distance between us. After that awkward kiss, I was surprised he wanted me so close, but I supposed he didn't want to take a chance of me doing something stupid.
"Stay close to me," he said. "Don't wander off. Don't look anyone in the eye. Got it?"
"Got it, I said and noted the way his jaw clenched and unclenched. "Jesus," I said. "You're going to queer the deal."
He gave me a long look. "I just want you to understand what you're up against."
"You told me plenty back at the apartment."
He had. He had gone on for long moments about what I might see inside. Everything from orgies to cannibalism to snuff sex. All of it meant to titillate the Kindred within. I expected incubus, shifters, and vampires, but I wasn't sure what else could be there and it made me nervous.
"Just don't let anyone eat me, okay?" I said.
He lifted his russet brows as though he wanted to crack off a bad joke and I lifted my chains with an equally suggestive browline. He chuckled and then squared his shoulders with all seriousness. The muttering beneath his breath was a signal that he was uncomfortable, and I realized just how much when he faced me.
"You're sure he's going to be here?" Maddox said, lifting my chin with his index finger hooked beneath.
I adjusted the gauze over my left nipple where it had begun to chafe enough to make it itch.
"Errol was quite clear that he would be here and that he would be sufficiently pliant."
I'd been sure the incubus was telling the truth when he'd given me a time frame when the target would most likely be near the fire gate. All I had to do was ingratiate myself and lure him close enough to the gate for the item to reveal itself.
I believed Errol because I had the feeling he was getting something out of the deal as well, and while I bristled at the thought that he was using me, I told myself that in the end it didn't matter.
Maddox's eye followed the trail of my fingers from beneath the trench coat to the loin cloth that had begun to creep sideways.
"What?" I said. "A gal doesn't want the whole of her goddessness to peek out at the world."
"You should have worn panties under that thing," he muttered. "It's going to be distracting."
"Isn't that the point?"
Maddox made a sound deep in his throat that could have meant anything. I heard him take a deep breath and mutter something about he hated these things before sending a text on the phone Errol had also supplied along with the outfit. Immediately, the phone evaporated into nothingness and showed up on the counter inside along with a dozen others.
Moments later, a short girl in a flowing see through dress came through the beaded curtain and headed toward the door. She waved away the locks and bolts from her side and opened the door.
Tiny, elvish ears waggled playfully. Her nipples were purple and I'd have thought it was paint until I noticed that she also had a purple birthmark on her left breast. She was amply endowed for a girl shorter than me, with full hips that curved into a triangle of purple hair. I tried to lift my gaze to her face but the way she jutted her hip to the sides made looking away tough.
"Like what you see?" Maddox said in my ear. I felt my face burn.
"Just thinking they're all going to be very disappointed to
see regular human pink nipples."
"Not half as disappointed as they'll be to see you didn't bother to shave your legs."
He chuckled darkly as the girl opened the door and ushered us in. She said nothing but slipped a heavy object into my bag. The stone, I realized. So. Part one had begun.
I heard the girl locking the door back up behind us and would have turned around except Maddox jerked the chain and I staggered toward him. He wasn't waiting for me at all, just striding toward the beaded curtain with dogged purpose.
"Hey," I complained. "I thought you hated these things."
"Silence, pet," he said over his shoulder. "You know the rules. You speak, you are spanked. You argue, you are bitten. You disobey and—"
"You're enjoying this too much," I complained, and the girl sent a sharp, uncertain look toward me. She was hesitant as she held out her arm toward me, giving me a wary look that said she didn't trust me.
Maddox nudged me with his elbow. "Your coat, pet." He leaned in close and hissed in my ear. "Play the game dammit."
I clutched my jacket tighter. Something about baring my skin, even if I'd agreed to it, seemed wrong. I couldn't go through with it. He was fully clothed, after all. I was the one left exposed.
He gave the chain a hard jerk and I gagged as the collar bit into my throat. I clutched at the edges, glaring at him as I tryed to loosen it from my skin. I hissed a curse at him and he lifted an eyebrow in apology.
"It's a privilege you were invited, mortal," he said. "Act grateful."
I sucked in a spiteful comment, reminding myself that I'd agreed to all this. I pulled off the trench and laid it over the girl's arm then heeled like any good pet, coming up along his left side, just in line with his boots. The girl seemed less flustered now that he had assumed command but when she went ahead of us, I stabbed him in the kidney with a stiffened finger.
"This is a show, remember," I said. "Don't take advantage."
"I don't think anyone can take advantage of you, Kitten," he said.
He pulled me close, wrapping his free arm around my midriff and I felt safe in that moment. I knew he wouldn't just leave me exposed and open to attack or otherwise in unknown territory. He had my back.
At least, that was how I felt until he spoke.
"Get ready," he said. "It's going to get hairy in there."
CHAPTER 13
I'd been in Errol's back room before of course, but I wasn't sure what to expect since he'd admitted that it changed depending on its need and use. I told myself it would no doubt be very much the same as my first visit in the sense that I wouldn't be able to make out any faces or creatures or identify anyone. With the exception of Kerri, I'd been unable to really make out features or even if the company were human. He'd been careful to either mask my ability to see reality or warp it. No doubt his nefarious activities required some anonymity of most. Maybe his company had their own sorts of glamor. I was still pretty ignorant of the Kindred worlds except for the fact that it existed.
I knew other things, however. More than one of these worlds existed, for example. Nine if I remembered correctly, and no matter what the inhabitants looked like, ate, drank, or breathed, if they were able to come through to the human realm, they had to have some sort of portal.
The inhabits either had magic or twisted energies and time. Anything seemed possible from what I could tell. But what I didn't know would fill a universe, and I had the feeling that now it was part of my reality, I'd best bone up or risk being caught up in worse than the mire of Scottie.
In short. I needed to suck it up, whatever it was, and get on with why I was here.
One problem at at time.
I doubted Errol would let just anyone through, no matter how much energy Maddox told me he'd be trying to siphon off. Incubi fed on sexual energy and that was what this soiree was all about. In his prime, Errol sold these soirees to other creatures, earning power in return for every lascivious activity. There was at least some sort of safety in that. Errol wouldn't do anything to risk the power he was pulling.
I was already imagining the setting Errol would have cultivated beyond the curtain as I pushed through behind Maddox. Aft first, all I could see was his broad back and the way it tensed beneath his dress shirt. He gave off a scent of Old Spice cologne, one he said he'd put on to ground me to reality because he was certain Errol might be after more than just helping me help a powerful alchemist.
I was prepared for a 70s style disco with undulating naked bodies basking on bear skin rugs and sniffing cocaine from silver trays to fuel their lustful adventures. Errol himself looked so much like a 70s porn star when I'd first met him, that I couldn't see him in any other setting despite his more recent glamour to resemble the Irish actor I had a crush on.
And just how had he known that, I'd want to know but for now, I needed to focus on what was important. If I couldn't just have Scottie handle the stone and be gone from my life indefinitely without endangering me and the entire world in the long run, then I'd have to find another way to get rid of him. And since no plan at present revealed itself other than the original one, I might as well forge ahead.
For now.
That meant I had this one chance to get a replica that might fool Scottie and get it charmed. I wasn't about to muck that up by looking either shocked or angry at what would meet me.
As our hostess guided us toward the beaded curtain, lit behind by an alternating blue and red light, she was careful to wrest the trench coat from my fingers, leaving me standing in the outfit Errol had picked out for me.
I braced myself for that cheesy 70s porn movie, and took a deep breath. I nodded at Maddox and clenched his hand briefly, either giving or taking support, I wasn't sure.
Then the hostess lifted it aside, and I realized this visit would be different.
The first thing to assault my senses were the sounds.
Deep, throaty moans swelled across the room, but they sounded tinny and distant, disguised by the dull roar of regular conversation. The muted sounds of jazz tinkled along, filling in the gaps in the lull of voices.
It could have been an upscale meet and greet until you took in the decor and setting.
While the first time I'd been to the back room, most of the patrons had been blurred in a wash of unrecognizable color, this time the room and its inhabitants were all painfully, crystally clear.
I held my breath, certain that when the fog cleared this time, I'd see a chamber filled with large satin throw pillows cast around a gaudily decorated room. Naked bodies would no doubt be writhing over each other, the lights blinking on white backsides and creamy skin.
Chalk one up for Errol. He pulled off the most discreet of sexual escapades. I was even relieved to see that most of the patrons looked very human.
"I thought they were supposed to be escorted," I said.
Maddox tracked my gaze to a sofa where three men and one woman were about to get down to some serious petting.
"You see humans?" he asked and I nodded.
"Glamor meant to keep the true pets from freaking out," he said. "Most of them are incubus, a means of priming the pump, if you get my meaning. But at least all the Kindred I see are humanoid: vampires and shifters and sorcerers. There's a mage in the corner with a human woman on a leash, and a raven shifter staring at you but nothing worse. That's a step in the right direction. It means we can hope that the other spectacles are aimed at and attended by ninth worlders who will no doubt discover tomorrow that they had the most lascivious dreams."
He leaned down. "But that doesn't mean it's a given, you understand. Just my presumption."
I gulped.
"You see why you need to stick close?" he said. "Anything could be beyond those thresholds." He jerked his chin toward three doors that wore signage I didn't understand.
"What do the signs say?" I said. "Is it some strange language?"
The first one was a long, brownish burn mark with a white flower, the second an oblong fire red etching. The th
ird was an orange circle with at least nine crimson rings.
He pulled me close and leaned in to answer. The perfume of woodsmoke and whiskey engulfed me.
"You don't recognize a vanilla bean, Kitten?"
"Vanilla," I said, and made a small sound of understanding that made him chuckle under his breath. With the first one decoded, I didn't need further hints to know the rooms got increasingly more risque.
"Good," he answered. "But you should keep your eyes down. Most of the allure is visually driven. Do you want to hang out here a bit longer," he said, sensing the way I hung back.
I waggled my head up and down but I had a hard time not looking around me and taking it all in. I doubted a priest could have kept his eyes downcast.
There were sofas, yes, with couples half reclined in semi-upright positions on them, leaning into each other, pressing against each other and kissing. I wasn't sure how many were human and how many were Kindred, but it was all very titillating to be honest.
Especially the nude statues made of living flesh that entreated passersby to touch them.
I had to admit the sexual tension in the room was enough to make even a nun sweat. I've never been to an orgy before. I'd never had a threesome. Scottie was always so jealous of me, he wasn't about to share. And since he was my only lover, I often wondered what it would be like with another man.
I cast a sidelong look at Maddox. Was he as affected by all this as I was?
Surely we could mix business and pleasure a little bit. We didn't have to go all in, but we didn't have to be frigid either.
"I actually feel over dressed," I said, looking down at myself. I picked at the loin cloth, deciding it might not need to get in the way.
Maddox pulled my hand away and tucked it beneath his arm. "Eyes down."
"But it's so hard," I said, giggling at the pun.
It wasn't so bad, actually. No worse than a few porn films I'd watched. Nothing truly deviant. I certainly didn't see any cannibalism.
And it was making me feel a little flushed.
Stone Goddess (Isabella Hush Series Book 3) Page 10