Chapter Seven
By the time I'd navigated the crowd back to Niko's side my heart rate had dropped to normal and the cold sweat prickling the back of my neck had subsided. It was nice to know how quickly I could recover from the gibbering terror of a malfunctioning bathroom light. I gave Niko a nod and took my place discreetly behind Ms. Nottinger, who was a pale sun orbited by several planets long past their prime. She seemed more distantly amused than appreciative of the attention. Just went to show, there is a point where enough is enough… money, that is. Promise had retired from business, although her would-be sugar daddies didn't seem to want to believe it. I wanted to tell the group of horny Methuselahs to give it up, but instead swallowed the impulse and watched as Niko melted into the milling crowd to disappear from sight. Literally. One second there, one second gone. Get the man a white tiger and a silver jumpsuit and he could play Vegas. I might be more or less than human, depending on your viewpoint, but it was my brother who had the abilities that were all but supernatural. "Later, Houdini," I murmured to empty air, and then moved to subtly discourage a gentleman whose wrinkled, palsied hands were too ambitious for his own good.
Promise didn't stay more than an hour or so, just long enough to do a few circuits, bemuse a gaggle of old men, and make her donation. She might have come by her money in a less-than-orthodox manner, but she played by the same rules of her adopted social class. After she bade her farewells to several disappointed suitors, we left the hotel for the crisp night air. Underneath a midnight sky reflected orange by a million lights, Promise raised her face and said softly, "I miss the stars."
I slid a curious glance toward Niko. That was the first personal comment I had ever heard the woman make. And granted, I'd only met her twice before, compared with Niko's dozens of times, but from the eyebrow he raised he seemed as surprised as I was by the remark. Noncommittal, he responded, "Too much ambient light, a pollution all its own." He indicated her car and driver at the curb. "Shall we go, Ms. Nottinger?"
"Too much light," she repeated. Then, her eyes still on the sky, she knotted her shawl briskly. "No. I think not. I'm in the mood for a walk. Tell Timothy he's dismissed for the night. Pity. He'll have to forgo his customary nap behind the wheel." I gave a silent wince at her arch tone, the needle-sharp point of a stiletto coated with warm honey. I had a feeling Timothy the driver was going to be in the unemployment line before too much longer.
After Niko knocked on the smoked-glass window of the car and delivered the news, Promise swept down the sidewalk to head north. I could say like a queen among the rabble, but it wasn't like that. It was more like a ghost among unbelievers. She made her way, a fantastic creature, unseen and unnoticed, suddenly as insubstantial as she had been brilliant at the reception. She was like Niko that way, a chameleon, visible only if she wanted to be. It was a rare skill that only the truly self-contained, the genuinely balanced, had. To know thyself, right?
No, thanks. Guess that was one ability I'd have to leave to the pros.
Niko moved on ahead of Promise, while I brought up the rear, my eyes open for the more mundane threats now. Pickpockets, perverts, general weirdos, the usual nightlife, it was all a possibility—although less so in this ritzy area. But the farther we walked, the more of a probability it became. And while the human threats might not have claws or fangs, some still had an insatiable need for blood that would rival that of any monster.
Promise's walk was beginning to lengthen into a genuine trek. The forty minutes stretched into an hour and the faint click of her heels became more noticeable as the people began to thin around us. Niko caught me checking my watch and sent me a look of stern disapproval. Subtle and fleeting, it still had me squaring my shoulders with an inner groan. Working the bar had made me lazy. Until Samuel and his friends had shown up, that place had been one long eight-hour snooze. This, on the other hand, this was work. And if our client didn't hurry up and pull a groin muscle or sprain an ankle, I might actually get winded. When she said she missed the stars, I had no idea she was going to try to walk to them.
She finally halted down a dark stretch of alley between two sketchy-looking buildings. She just stopped out of the blue, hands cupping her elbows, her distracted gaze on the glittering white lights slung carelessly on a fire escape. Someone had the Christmas spirit all year round, or was every bit the sloth I was.
"Not stars," she said pensively, and then smiled, soft and warm as a summer rain. "But still beautiful." Sighing, she tightened her arms around herself and tilted her head toward Niko. There was resignation in the classic line of her jaw. "We were followed, weren't we?"
"Yes," he responded calmly. "We were. It seems that is not a total surprise to you, Ms. Nottinger."
Maybe not to her, but it was something of one to me. I'd picked up on the guy a few blocks from the Waldorf, and Niko had probably picked him up from minute one. But that Promise had known all along someone might be lurking outside waiting for her, that I hadn't picked up on at all. She had been serene and self-possessed, apparently oblivious. I guess I'd forgotten that the acting skills needed by a professional succubus would be impressive. She had pulled the wool over my eyes, and by this point in my life I was not an easy person to fool by any stretch of the imagination.
"No, not a total one." Fingers lightly stroked the silken threads of her wrap. "I can explain, if you allow me."
"Perhaps you can. However, this is not the time to do it. Cal, you take the front. Ms. Nottinger and I will take the back." His hand firmly on Promise's arm, Niko ushered her to the end of the alley, where they both disappeared into a darkness as physical as a wall. I chose my own pool of shadows to submerge myself in and waited patiently, the bricks rough and suspiciously wet against my back. There'd been no rain, and I didn't even want to hazard a guess as to what was soaking through the material of my coat. That is, until I remembered it was Niko's jacket, and then I gleefully thought of a hundred noxious, disgusting fluids it could be.
My patience wasn't all it could be when it came to the day-to-day shit, but when it came to matters of survival, it was as still and cold as that of any cat waiting for an unlucky low-flying bird. And it wasn't too long before our feathered friend fluttered in. Sharp beak, darting black eyes—he really was rather birdlike with a black trench coat that even vaguely mimicked wings. He was a smaller man, a few inches shorter than me, with a slight build, but there was a glassy sheen in his eyes that gave as much pause as a muscle-bound body would have. He wasn't talking to himself or carrying any handmade signs proclaiming the apocalypse was nigh, my brothers, but he had the same stark, white-eyed stare many of the street people had. Chaotic and intense as a laser beam without a guidance system.
He moved into the alley cautiously with quick short steps, askew gaze flitting back and forth. There was something in his hand, but it was hidden by the folds of his long coat. It had to be a weapon. Gun or knife, Taser maybe. And from his white-knuckle grip, it didn't look like he had any intentions of giving it up without a fight. I curved my lips in a silent, humorless grin. That was all right by me. I wasn't one to turn down pounding a deserving head against the asphalt. Good stress relief. I watched as he passed my position without detecting me in the deep gloom. The twinkling Christmas lights gleamed off his high forehead and pale fawn hair like an eerie halo. It was a jaggedly bizarre contrast with his jittering eyes and ferocious intensity—a soulless and psychotic angel in desperate need of a Prozac-lithium cocktail. He was also an angel who was about to get his wings clipped.