“No, no sleepover here. Not for me, anyway. Sorry,” Alex replied, stepping back to allow her inside as he buttoned up his pajama shirt the rest of the way. He wasn’t sure if Amber was staring or not, and gave it as little thought as he could. Woah, boy. Jason’s date. So off-limits. “Just a sudden change of plans.”
“Should I let you and Jason be alone?” she asked suggestively.
“Nah. He likes you better than me. I had a last-minute catastrophe and came rushing over.” Alex pulled his bathrobe out of his saddlebags and threw it on. “I never really did get the hang of Thursdays.”
“Hah! Now I get it,” Amber smiled. “Nice literary choice. It just took me a second. Where’s your towel?”
“Shit, I knew I forgot something important.”
“Hey!” Jason said, walking in on the two. He had intended to show off, knowing he looked good, but stopped dead in his tracks. “Holy shit, Amber, that costume kicks ass!”
“Aw, thanks. Turns out I had a few things safely stored away after all. And look at you! Number Nine,” Amber said immediately, her smile only brightening as she looked him over. “Very nice. Gosh, that leather coat is perfect. If I’d known you were both going so British, I’d have tried to come up with something to match.”
“I like what you’ve got on now,” Jason told her.
“Uh. Hey, Jason, I need you to rescue my costume one more time,” Alex said as much for Amber’s benefit as anything else. “You got a towel I can borrow?”
* * *
“You can’t just slap a bunch of gears on your old cowboy outfit and say it’s steampunk,” asserted Wade’s critic. He had to shout to be heard over the music and the crowd, but that seemed reasonable to him. This was important.
“Oh, but buyin’ BDUs an’ a toy raygun makes you a space ranger or whatever y’all are?” laughed Wade. “Besides,” he said, tugging on the bit of black leather and glass around his neck, “ah got mah goggles. Don’t that make me legit?”
“Those are welder’s goggles!”
“Yeah? And?” Wade shrugged. He couldn’t be bothered to get upset about this. He also couldn’t be bothered to be tactful. Spinning up nerds was far too funny.
“So those don’t count!”
“They don’t? That’s not what the internet said.” Wade took another sip of his drink. He’d have preferred it stronger, but at least they accepted his handstamp and his wristband as proof that he was over twenty-one, instead of checking his driver’s license-which said, explicitly, that he wasn’t legal just yet.
The space ranger’s eyes lit up behind his thick glasses as if he’d hit paydirt. He raised his gloved finger to drive home his point. “So you went online to research but didn’t notice that just gluing gears on it wasn’t good enough?”
“Meh,” Wade smiled. “Ah jus’ didn’t care. Anyway, if flyin’ the steampunk flag correctly is so important to you, why aren’t you doin’ it?”
“I’m here with friends,” answered the space trooper. “We’ve got a theme. We all come from the same legion of the Imperial Guard!”
“Aw, that’s cool. Mah buddies an’ ah got us a theme, too!”
Sensing a bad joke but unwilling to cede the issue yet, the other man asked, “Like what?”
“People who ain’t gettin’ spun up about unimportant shit,” Wade said as if it were a great joke his debate partner would actually appreciate.
The bearded space trooper sputtered. “It’s people like you that ruin sci-fi fandom!” he said before he turned and dove back into the dark crowd of costumes.
“The hell was that about?” asked a voice behind Wade. Drew appeared behind him dressed in a sharp black suit and sunglasses.
“Apparently ah’m ruinin’ sci-fi, f’r everyone,” Wade answered as he turned. Then he paused. “Drew,” he asked, “izzat a phone number on your cup?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Drew nodded. “I guess it is.”
A lithe “alien” in a black bikini and green body paint sauntered by Drew, reaching out her arm to trace around his shoulders and then throwing him a sultry look as she passed. Wade’s amused but accusing glare remained.
“You wanna pick up girls?” Drew asked smugly. “Wear a suit to a nerd party.”
Wade shook his head once more as the two set to weaving their way through the crowd. The Emerald City Halloween Ball had become a big event over its few short years, now to the point of renting out the convention space of a downtown hotel. Tickets were no longer cheap, nor were other little details like parking or coat checks. Yet for all the opportunistic price hikes, attendees to the event still felt like they got what they paid for.
The event sold out months in advance. Scalped tickets went for three figures. At those prices, Wade and Drew gave up on attending this year-until one of their newest friends learned of her lover’s interest. Gaining tickets for the event had impressed all of Lorelei’s friends; getting them put on the guest list to speed them through check-in and security went above and beyond their expectations.
They walked past store-bought ensembles, homemade costumes and serious cosplayers that put everyone around them to shame. Many times, they found themselves surrounded by space explorers, by sci-fi heroes and a great many aliens, all in keeping with the year’s “Not of This Earth” theme. There were also plenty of people outside the theme: hookers and pimps, doctors, nurses, ninjas and cops.
A great many of the women at the ball fully embraced the racy freedoms of Halloween. Neither Drew nor Wade found anything wrong with that at all.
* * *
Lorelei observed the main entrance from a rooftop across the street. She listened and inhaled deeply as her eyes scanned the crowd. She planned in advance, taking numerous precautions before this point, but last minute assurances were still worthwhile. It was one thing to take chances. It was another to take them stupidly.
Had any demon claimed the venue as its own, the succubus would surely have suffered the pain of violating their territory. Anyone less powerful than Lorelei would have a hard time escaping her notice. Anyone more powerful would not likely bother to hide.
Seattle’s supernatural population was simply not what it had been. Rachel’s first order of business upon achieving Dominion over the city was to begin actively hunting any demon that dared show its face. The vampires and the most belligerent sorcerers-those who survived the recent conflicts, at least-had all either fled the city or gone to ground to evade fellow survivors. Werewolves detested crowds like this. Ghosts had similar problems with large numbers of the living. And if nothing else, so many mortals meant for a fair number of guardian angels on hand at any time-and Lorelei had a good connection there, too.
The night brightened around her as Rachel faded up through the rooftop. She seemed distracted. The tremor in her lips was quite obvious. For a brief moment, Lorelei grew concerned. Then Rachel stepped closer, and Lorelei recognized the look in the angel’s eyes.
“Yes, love?” she asked.
“He’s checking in now. He reeks, Lorelei,” Rachel explained breathlessly. “He reeks of selflessness and friendship. HolyfuckingshitIwannafuckhim,” the angel laughed, grabbing her lover by the arms and pulling her close. “If I had panties, they’d be on the floor already.”
“He gave Jason his costume?”
“Yeah. On his birthday, too. I mean how sweet is that? Seriously, we need to drag him into a broom closet or something. He’s just in a bathrobe and pajamas. It’s not like getting him undressed is gonna be complicated.”
Lorelei’s lips spread with mild amusement. “I can see how this would arouse you madly,” she mused.
“Pff. You don’t.”
“I do,” Lorelei assured her.
Rachel made a face, but it faded quickly. “Lorelei,” she said, “you know I’m not… it’s not like I play favorites or-“
“Shh, love, I do not doubt us,” Lorelei shook her head, stepping in to caress Rachel’s cheek. “What better time would there be for us to both dote on him than his birthday?”
Rachel let out another aroused breath past Lorelei’s ear as the succubus lightly embraced her. “By dote you mean fuck him out of his mind, right?”