I flipped the bag over my shoulder and fumbled for the door at the sole blank wall, hands searching for the knob.
“Who armored you?”
I turned back. “What?”
She went from sitting at that table to standing in front of me, and I swore I hadn’t blinked. “Who. Armored. You?”
“I don’t know what-”
Something slapped me. But Solange never moved. “Who armored you?”
“Please,” I said before I could help it…
“Who, who, who-”
She flanked my every side but I still hadn’t seen her move. Then she was gone and I knew she was behind me. The scent of whipped rose wafted over my shoulder, and I stood so still I stopped breathing.
“Who the fuck is protecting your soul?”
Only my lips moved. “Y-You’re like Boyd and Bill, aren’t you? You work for the house?”
Suddenly in front of me again, she smiled, and it was beautiful. “More like Mackie.”
Where, I thought, backing up, was the fucking door?
“Calm down. I’ll let you leave.” Solange took a small step toward me. “But when you find JJ, you’re going to tell him Sola says hello. You’re going to make sure that door remains unlocked.” She licked her lips before smiling, and while alluring, there was also something feral in it. “And when you return, you’ll bring him along so I can string both your souls in my sky.”
Souls. That was why her gems were so beautiful. I thought of the men downstairs, ashy and drawn. The women, bright and alive. I shook my head even as the horror of that-all those colorful stones!-sunk in. “You can’t force me to barter my soul.”
“Of course not.” She was suddenly back at her desk, loupe in hand, hair swinging over her face as she studied a bloodred gem. After what she’d just done, the distance didn’t make me feel any safer. “Besides, you’ve already given up a third of it up for free.”
I frowned, swallowing hard. She had no reason to lie, but I didn’t know what she meant.
To clarify, she held up the precious gem between her tweezers and smiled. “Yours is the second lantern on the right.”
Your full identity isn’t revealed until you enter three times.
Giving someone your name gave her control over your soul.
And kill the rushlight in two tries…
That was what had been stripped from my body upon my passage here. I hadn’t just given up air in blowing out that candle…I’d given up a third of my soul. But how on earth had Solange gotten hold of it?
I didn’t know, but suddenly she didn’t look so beautiful. She was a spider, weaving a web of stolen gems, and I was being spun into its design. But I didn’t fight her. I didn’t know how. And I’d need all the energy I had left to me once I hit the staircase outside this door.
Women fight differently…in any world.
Oh Tekla, I thought, backing from the room. If only you knew.
12
Heat assailed me even before I hit the landing. Everything, I suddenly realized as I resettled my bag behind my back, from wacky Mackie at the piano to the potent drinks the bartender served, was meant to reinforce this world and keep it fueled. As for the men used as that fuel? Well, let’s just say I had a change of heart regarding their POW status when I reached the top of the landing to find every chair pushed back, every man standing, and every hard gaze turned my way.
Well, almost every man was standing.
Tripp remained seated, either unable to move due to the heat or merely unwilling to waste his energy on me. But from the way he watched me, his amusement honed, I could tell he was thinking wistfully of a world where Shadow and Light were all that mattered. Here he was content to let everyone else do the work for him.
And why wouldn’t they try to stop me? I thought, swallowing hard. By leaving now, and possessing nearly everything I’d entered with, I was robbing the men of the opportunity to skin my powers from me, and the women from using my soul to reinforce their pretty realities.
I returned my attention to the crowd, knowing I couldn’t take them all on. The players didn’t scare me. Each had been here far longer than I had, and I knew the extent of the lethargy one suffered under the influence of that drink. I’d be past them and at my lantern before any could shuffle from their seats.
Bill was more of a concern. He kept casting glances up at me, showing unnatural consideration as he ran his rag over the bar in small controlled circles. Moving normally, he could be over that bar top in one solid leap. Question was, how far could I get before he reached me?
Not far enough, I decided, especially if the dealers were in on the action. Though still seated, they too were operating on full cylinders. What bothered me were the things I didn’t know about them. Did they have weapons? What would they do if they caught me? How soon would they rise from their seats?
I took the stairs slowly, ring-studded fingers and black lacquered nails trailing over mysterious symbols carved into the banister, and by the time I hit the bottom stair my thirst was back in full force, like moisture was being wicked from my body from the inside out. The dry heat pulsed against me, and I knew standing and fighting would deplete all my energy reserves. Working together, these men would easily wear me down, and even if all they did was deliver me back upstairs, I wouldn’t be in any state to resist. I’d drink whatever those women put to my lips, fall asleep in the sky, and awake to someone studying my pretty soul.
So, bag on my back, I ran.
Closest to me, fittest, Bill moved first. I turned away from the rest of the room to focus on him. I felt the men moving behind me, but they were still like ants in molasses, so I was free to concentrate on the bartender. He was taller than me, wider too, with the extra mass and density afforded his sex. Everyone here was or had been agents raised and trained in battle, but it’d been a while since any of them had bothered to use their skills. Surprise rippled over his smooth features when I squared on him.
I shook my head. Pretty boys. Thought they could do whatever they wanted.
“Sit down, honey,” he said, circling like a hawk on prey. “Have a drink on the house.”
“The last man who called me honey,” I said, circling back, “spent the rest of his very short life sitting down.”
He remained cautious, knowing I had skills. Yet I doubted he’d ever encountered a woman exactly like me before; one who’d been born to mortality, never relying upon strength beyond what she’d built up herself. And what I’d built was a quick mind and a mean jab. Just because this was the house where “deeds reflected our true selves” didn’t mean our actions couldn’t lie. I drew him into a boxing stance by setting up my own, anticipated the one-two combination that was automatic in most fighters, and timed my double jab to rock his head straight back on his neck. I finished it with my own cross, and his eyes rolled back, much like Boyd’s had when calling Solange, before he hit the floor.
I smiled. If I didn’t know how good I was, I would have said he hadn’t even tried.
A tinkle of laughter had accompanied Bill’s fall, and I glanced up to find the women gathered again on the landing, though Solange was notably absent. Her mention of the second lantern on the right was what pulled my gaze from the light and life and color above, and I turned…
Just in time to dodge Boyd’s cruel uppercut.
Dodge it, but not avoid it completely. He too knew what he was doing, and grazed my kidney, the impact stealing breath I could ill afford to lose. The bell and bloodred rose in my hair fell to the ground. I coughed, a rasp that kept building, and almost got hit again because of it. Wheeling away, I instinctively backed toward the bar because that’s where all the liquid was. My throat was parched. It was like suffocating, but through lack of moisture instead of air. I squinted, noting with a mounting panic that my lids were beginning to stick to my eyeballs. If I didn’t leave soon, I’d dehydrate where I stood.