Edged Blade (21 page)

If I’d been coming here to see Charnal, I would have been happy.

But I wasn’t.

So I was…tense.

People died in the Abyss.

Magic flowed in strange ways here, too—and there had been a time when somebody had died here…and hadn’t stayed dead. I’d been standing nearby, talking to Charnal when it happened. Talk about freaky.

A sexless gray-skinned creature had separated itself from the herd of onlookers, watching as the corpse tried to pick up the blade it had dropped only minutes earlier, as it had been run through by a bigger, stronger male. The dead thing’s hand hadn’t wanted to work. The gray thing had calmly led it back to where it had died, smeared its own blood across its brow and spoken to it.

It laid back down.

A moment later, it closed its eyes and was once more, still. Dead, truly, that time.

I still didn’t know what the grey thing was and I’d spent a decent amount of time researching it. We parked less than a hundred feet from where it had happened. I shivered, chilled at the memory of it.

If I never saw an animated corpse again, it would be too soon. Nothing as creepy as seeing a body moving when there was nothing inside to pilot the actions.

Justin joined me a few minutes later.

“Your friend Saul lives in the Abyss,” I said neutrally, still staring at the spot where the thing’s blood had pooled so thick and wet.

“He
frequents
these parts.” Justin craned his head, staring at the place where I stared so hard. He couldn’t see anything. The blood had long since been cleaned away or faded by the elements. But could he
feel
it—the bone-deep…
longing
?

“And where does he frequently frequent?”

Justin smiled and gestured to the bar just to the right.

Howlers.

“Wow.” I clicked my tongue. “
That
is original.”

“I’ll be sure to pass your compliments to the MacDonald.” He winked at me. “He’s part owner.”

With more than a little dismay, I eyed the old-school sign, done in neon, with a wolf hanging over the door and the name of the bar spelled out over its snarl. The
e
was going dim and the buzzing noise that accompanied it made me think of a swarm of gnats waiting to descend.

“I would have thought Dair could afford better.”

“Oh, he can. He just believes in spreading his dollars around.” He winked at me. “Last I heard he had invested in an upscale whorehouse, too.”

That didn’t surprise me. There was money to be made in flesh. “Does he really expect to make money here?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of money to be made here. They water down the liquor, and if you’re buying it here, you don’t care how cheap it is.” Justin shrugged again. “There’s also flesh-work going on in the backrooms. It’s not as fancy as it is elsewhere, but it’s still here. That’s where we’re gonna find Saul.”

“Ugh.” I fought the urge to shudder. I could already imagine how many showers I’d need to make myself feel clean once I walked through a place this dirty—especially if they were using it for sex work. I didn’t have anything against whoring as a trade. Not in general, at least, if the whore was cool with it and if she—or he—was treated well. But plenty were forced into it and plenty
weren’t
treated well. Also, dives like this were
filthy
. I could smell the blood and the sweat—and yes, now that we were close, the earthy, musky scent of sex, a fine film that clung to everything. Alcohol was a pungent kick that blended the whole miasma together.

Yeah. I was going to have to drown myself in the shower to get this stink out of my pores. Aside from alcohol, the scents were a trigger of things I worked too hard to forget. Blood, pain, fear…the desperate wish to escape it all in the only way I knew how.

Filthy pig…your mother should have strangled you with your cord.

Justin’s hand, hard and firm, came down on my shoulder, squeezing with near brutal strength. I let myself take that one moment before I stepped away. He always seemed to know. When I looked at him, I saw the knowledge in his eyes. “Let’s get this done,” I said softly. I wanted out of here already and we hadn’t even started.

As we walked inside, an air of despondency settled around us. Below it was something that whispered of the damned, as though the people who came inside Howler’s knew that once they crossed that threshold, they might as well just settle down to die. The point of no return—it lay somewhere inside the Abyss. It might even be here.

Justin took the lead and I was happy to follow along behind him. A dozen eyes cut our way. Most of them skittered off as soon as they took our measure. There was no denying what we were and while I might not look terribly intimidating, the sword at my hip wasn’t there for show. Nobody with half a brain was going to dismiss Justin. He looked every inch of what he was—a warrior witch.

I saw one man straighten slightly, eying Justin for a long moment before he shifted his attention to me. His gaze lingered on the blade before skimming the rest of me, from my head down to my boots—some might think it odd that the boots would catch much attention, maybe, but people in our line of work don’t run around in a pair of beat-up tennis shoes. The boots on my feet told a story almost as detailed as a blade.

When he looked back at me, he lifted a chin in greeting and then did the same to Justin. As he turned back to his drink, I caught sight of the staff leaning against the bar.

“Chuck,” Justin murmured.

I glanced at him.

“His name’s Chuck…” Then he grinned. “Actually, it’s Charles Andrulis. He’s a mercenary. Human, believe it or not. Decent guy.” He ran his tongue across his teeth and then leaned in. “He’s got a thing for taking jobs nobody else will touch and he loves the underdog.”

“A human mercenary…in the Abyss.” I wanted to stare at him, the same way I’d first stared at the turreted towers of Cinderella’s castle. The same way I’d stare at any novelty.

I didn’t let myself.

“Come on.” Justin nudged me toward the far back. “Let’s go sit.”

My skin crawled at the idea of sitting in one of those booths, but I breathed an internal sigh of relief when Justin used a bit of his magic to cleanse the area. It cost him nothing and made me breathe easier. I’m not exactly a germophobe, but I’m pretty damn close. I stood at his side, facing over the bar as he placed a hand over the table. He’d done this a hundred, or probably a thousand times and it never ceased to amaze me how simple it was for him, to simply
will
the energy that came from everything around him into doing what he wished. Magic takes practice and control, but he’d turned it into an art.

The truly strong witches are like that.

We hadn’t been sitting there more than a few minutes when the human mercenary approached us. He nodded at us both and gestured at the booth. “Mind if I sit down?”

In response, Justin got up and moved into the seat next to mine. Andrulis took the now-vacated booth, and for several minutes, we sat there staring at each other. Eventually, a sleepy-eyed server made her way toward us. Her muttered, “What can I get ya?” had very little enthusiasm in it. I guess I couldn’t blame her. I was about to tell her I didn’t want anything when Justin told her, “Bring me two Redkins.”

She shifted her vague, brown eyes toward Andrulis. He lifted his pint toward her, still full. She nodded and moved to the bar.

“I hope whatever you ordered wasn’t expensive.” I skimmed a look around the bar. “I don’t think I trust my immune system enough to drink anything from here.”

Andrulis laughed.

Justin grinned. “Trust me, the amount of alcohol in a Redkin will kill any microbes. Also…they serve it in a bottle. The envies would kill them.”

“Yeah, but will I have a stomach lining left?” At that moment, I didn’t care what environmentalists thought. I cared about the millions of germs creeping around me.

“Yep.” Justin settled back in the booth. “You’ll even thank me for it. It’s good stuff. Brewed here in the Abyss, so you can’t find it anywhere else. The maker won’t sell it outside this area.”

I wasn’t sure if that was an endorsement or a warning.

While we waited for our drinks, Andrulis asked, “What brings you to the Abyss, Justin? You’re not around these parts too often anymore.”

“Neither are you,” Justin replied. He lifted one shoulder. In the dim lighting, the silver on his sleeves reflected a muted light. “I’m looking for Saul. He been in?”

For a mortal, Andrulis was very good at hiding his emotions. But no human could possibly hope to compete with the likes of what I was used to. I caught the faint flicker in his pale blue eyes, the minute tightening around his mouth.

Under the heavy miasma of scents clouding the air, I caught a new one. The slightly-acrid souring of the man in front of me. Body chemistry told a lot about a person, and his reactions just told me everything I needed to know. Charles Andrulis did not like Saul.

I filed that away. Since I hadn’t made up my mind about Andrulis, it wasn’t a lot of information. Yet.

“Why’re you looking for him? Any information he can get you, I can do the same for a lot less.” His lips twisted and he added, “And I do mean a lot less. People don’t die when I extract information, unless they deserve to die anyway.”

Yet another piece of information for me to file away.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Justin’s reaction. I also felt how he tensed. I don’t know if Andrulis saw it or not, but it was enough to make me wonder.

“Right now, I’m not looking for information,” Justin said. “I just want Saul.” His voice had noticeably cooled. His normally vivid-green eyes had gone to ice. The expression on his face was that of a man the wise did not cross.

Andrulis saw it all and I watched as he took it in. Something that might have been appreciation flickered in those pale blue eyes. Under his breath, he muttered, “Finally screwed up there, did you, Saul?”

A human wouldn’t have heard that low comment. Even though we were in a dive with more than a few non-humans, I doubted if anybody more than a couple of feet away had heard him, Andrulis was so quiet. But I had, and I couldn’t help but wonder just what had Saul done to fuck this guy over.

Andrulis scraped nails over the light growth of facial hair darkening his cheeks. “I’ve seen him today. Seems to me he came in looking for his normal girl. She wasn’t here. So the bartender back there—his name’s John—offered one of his other girls. He’s in one of the backrooms with Marcia.” His eyelids drooped while a smiled curved his lips. “Gotta admit…I don’t get why she’s here—she doesn’t really fit in the life, but maybe I’m wrong. He got her price.”

“Thanks,” Justin said. He might have said more, but the server appeared with two tall, frosted bottles. The bottles were clear and the liquid inside was an odd cross between orange and yellow, not quite the pale amber of any number of brews. Actually, it was unlike anything I’d ever seen before. Damn if it didn’t look like it glowed in the dim light. I was supposed to drink that. I don’t know if I wanted to drink something that glowed.

She slid the two bottles in front of us and Justin slid a few bills in front of her. The money disappeared even quicker than she did and we were once more left alone.

Once more left the relative anonymity of Howler’s, Andrulis resumed his thoughtful contemplation. “If y’all need some help, I’d be more than happy to oblige. Saul owes me some blood.” As he spoke, a feral light glinted in his eyes.

Although this man was human, I found myself thinking I wouldn’t mind having him at my back. I also did not want him coming
at
my back.

Justin’s amused grin did nothing to change either of those thoughts. “Charles, my man, I think I got this, but if things change, I’ll definitely look you up.”

“You do that.” Then he shifted his entire focus to me.

Some people are just born old.

Like Colleen. In reality, she was thirty-nine. She had almost a dozen years on me. But there was something within Colleen that was older—much older. Her soul, perhaps. She had a feel to her that made you think there was nothing you could do or say that would throw her, surprise her. She could just take it all in stride.

The man in front of me gave me the same impression.

Even though he’d likely be dust in the ground before I ever showed the first sign of aging, he had that wise beyond his years look to him.

“I know you,” he said.

“Do you?”

“Maybe not personally.” He shrugged. “But I know who you are.”

“I’m afraid I can’t say the same.” It wasn’t until the words came out that I realized how rude it sounded, but it was too late to take it back and rather than stutter or stammer out an apology, I just brazened my way through it, staring him down while he chuckled into his tall pilsner.

When he didn’t seem offended, I mentally breathed out a sigh of relief. Closing my hands over the bottle, I took an experimental sniff. The server had twisted off the caps before she brought them out and the fumes all but singed the hairs inside my nose. Immediately, my head started to spin. “Wow.”

A slow smile spreading across Justin’s lips, he took a long, deep draught of his and then thumped it on the table. “That’s how you do it, Kitty.”

“Yeah, if you wanna stumble and fall on your ass.” I took a slower drink, tentative and quick. Anybody who wanted to bolt back something in a place like this, more power to them. But me? I preferred to walk out of here—not be carried out.

The taste of Redkin lingered on my tongue, even as it hit my belly and exploded in a loose rush of liquid warmth. It started to spread through my body with every pulsation of my heart. Oh…oh…that was nice.

A sweet buzz settled in my veins and I eyed the bottle I’d put down. One taste. Just one taste had hit my head like this. “Wow.”

I found myself reaching for the bottle again—

Something hummed inside.

Reluctantly, I curled my hands into fists. No. No, I didn’t want that sweet,
false
liquid warmth. Not right—

“That stuff is dangerous,” I said, shaking my head.