His erstwhile companion let loose with a reedy sigh.
“What’s wrong, Tibs?”
“Purple. Why did it have to be purple? That damned dye doesn’t come out of anything, let me tell you.”
Under the harsh eye of the sun Detan adjusted his hood, shuffling around the parts of cloth that were damp with sweat. He’d be soaked before they even made it to the lowest levels. He’d have to buy water once there, no way around it. Real flowers like those painted on the flier he reckoned would need a quarter of a man’s daily water to keep on looking so pert. The blasted things didn’t even provide food. He glowered at them.
The pink flowers shone back at him, relentlessly cheerful. He spit, and trudged onward.
Chapter 17
It was a relief to have the makeup off, even if the bruise remained, but still Detan felt unkempt. Unwell. The double doors to the Red Door Club reared up before him, their scarlet paint pristine despite the glare of the desert sun. No windows faced the street; not a soul behind those doors cared what the dusty road and its worn inhabitants looked like. Detan had never been inside the place before, but he knew the type.
These upcrust beds of convenience were stepped all along the rise of Aransa, and if they bothered with windows at all they were pointed out into the air, toward the Fireline and the humped shoulders of the Smokestack.
He didn’t have any business at all knocking on a door to a place like this, save the scrawled note Lady Grandon had shoved in his hand. Dangerous business, getting mixed up in the private affairs of the wealthy, and wasn’t he mixed up in too much dangerous business to begin with? Didn’t help matters much that the lady in question was a pits-cursed apothik. With all their aprons, gloves, bottles and strange tinctures, apothiks were one short step from whitecoats. Detan suppressed a shiver. Best to follow Tibs’s advice, as always. What good was having a wingman if you never listened to him?
Detan turned, and one of the great red doors swung open. Rarified air blended with the dust and heat of the street. The air from within was cool from the low light, laden with the rich aromas of argent-leaf smoke and rare flower oils. A narrow man dressed in the brick-red vest of the club’s livery stepped out and glanced around the street until he found Detan. At the sight, a twitch took up residence in the corner of the young man’s eye.
“Lord Honding?” the man ventured.
“Who?”
The man’s stiff shoulders slumped under the force of a long-suffering sigh. “The Lady Grandon requests that–” he cleared his throat and raised his voice in imitation, “–you either get in here out of the heat or scurry back into whatever sandcave you fell out of.”
“Er, right. Yes. Very good. Lead the way, good man.”
The attendant guided him through the maze of private booths and winding bartops while giving Detan nothing more than the flat of his back. He couldn’t even be spurred into conversation when Detan inquired as to the origin of the Red Door’s garish livery.
Fretting so that he could hardly keep his head still, Detan gave up his attempts to cajole the man into anything like gentlemanly chatter. The club, he found, was quite larger than it had looked from the street. Three stories rolled down the face of Aransa, the top story the one which opened to the street. With each narrow set of stairs they ambled down the decor grew finer, the chandelier makers more generous with their crystal.
Live flames licked behind the barrel-sized creations, casting twisting prisms of light over all the open tables and booths. Detan frowned. There wasn’t a soul to be seen at those open tables, and every little booth had its tiny red curtain drawn.
The silent valet delivered Detan to a booth near the back of the bottom floor, its client hidden away behind one of those thick crimson curtains. Though he was certain they were along the back wall of the club, still no windows pierced the structure to break up the gloom.
At least it was cool in here. The sweat between his shoulder blades was beginning to chill and prickle. Not an altogether pleasant sensation.
The stone-faced valet picked up a narrow silver bell from a hook on the edge of the booth and gave it a jingle. It was an offensively gentle sound, like fairies pissing on a tin roof.
“Sands below.” Lady Grandon’s voice drifted from behind the curtain. “There’s no need for that nonsense.”
Detan beamed at the valet, but his sour little face hadn’t moved a muscle. He just hung the bell back up and wandered off to whatever bitter business needed seeing to next. Pity there was no time to work on the chap. With a flourish, Detan swept the curtain aside and half-bowed into the filmy light of the two-seater booth.
“At your service, lady.”
Lady Grandon exhaled a plume of silvery smoke, a black-lacquered extender hanging from her lips. “Of course you are, boy. Now sit. I am pleased, of course, by your miraculous recovery.”
He shuffled into the booth and pulled the curtain tight. With the light of the common room cut off, the darkness was held back only by the bulbous glass of a dust and grease-smeared lamp.
The low light softened the lady’s features, made her already artfully arranged face difficult to read. She’d held meetings like this before, he realized. Probably in this same booth every time. He grinned. It was always a pleasure to work with a professional.
“The delicate ministrations of your nursemaids were all the balm I needed to return to glowing health.”
She pursed her lips. “You haven’t set foot in my infirmary. I doubt you even know where it is.”
“And yet you yourself proclaimed me dangerously ill. Only days left on this big ball of dust, if I recall. That’s quite a shock to a man’s mind, you understand.”
She flicked ash into a black-glazed plate and drew smoke once more, the little cherry ember of her cigarette a brilliant pinpoint of light in the gloom. “You deserved a shock for interrupting my daughter’s party.”
“An unfortunate necessity to ensure the young lady’s safety from contagion, I assure you.”
“Please.” She waved the hand holding her extender, tracing a loop of smoke in the air. “Can we dispense with such nonsense? I’m growing too old for unnecessary games.”
“Games are a necessary part of life, dear lady. Why, just this morning, I–”
She snapped the fingers of her empty hand a beetle’s width from his nose.
“I said enough. I’ve asked you here to warn you, not to waste my time.”
“Warn me? Whatever for?” Detan forced his tongue to be still, to let her fill the gap in conversation. This was not a woman who could be distracted by his rambling ways.
“You kicked a hornet’s house, getting under my husband’s skin. And while I thank you for it, out of a certain sense of comradeship with your old aunt I feel compelled to tell you to skip off Aransa just as quick as you can. My husband may be occupied with matters political for the time being, but the first chance he gets he’ll come for you. I suppose you are not staying in the same locale in which my lord discovered your flier?”
“Whoa now, lady, back up just a second. I don’t know what you know about my dear old auntie, but I’ll hear it off you now.”
She dashed her ash again and picked up an obsidian decanter. From it she poured two snifters, the round bottoms held upright in a little pot of sand, and nudged one toward him. The rim was already garnished with a thumbprint-sized section of dripping honeycomb.
He picked it up, squinted at it. Sniffed it. Gave the bottom a little flick. It smelled of warm honey and the thick-petaled, pink flowers his auntie liked to keep in boxes outside her windows. Detan sipped and was surprised to find the thick liquid laced through with miniscule bubbles of effervescent sel. He was even more surprised to find his lips not at all numb. It was good to not be poisoned.