Silver-Tongued Devil (18 page)

She held my gaze for a moment. I could see the gears moving behind her eyes, weighing the pros and cons of fighting me on this. I couldn’t blame her for her excitement and curiosity, but I wasn’t about to be a magical guinea pig. Not when there was a risk of getting trapped in the Liminal with that howling beast for all eternity.

Finally, her shoulders slumped as she surrendered hope that I’d relent. “I can respect your hesitation. But I think you’re making a mistake. Far better to pursue your destiny than to have it find you when you least expect it.”

I crossed my arms. “The only thing I’m interested in pursuing right now is dinner.”

She frowned at my lame attempt at humor. “Just think about it, okay?”

I’d already thought about it, but I didn’t have the heart to put my foot down. Rhea had done so much for me, and she’d proven a wise mentor and dependable friend. “I will.”

I said my good-byes—promising I’d let her know how my conversation with Maisie the next night went—and then promptly reneged on my promise about considering the Liminal experiments by pushing the entire issue from my mind.

By the time I made it back to the apartment, I’d totally forgotten about the concert. So when I walked in to find everyone waiting for me I paused.

“What’s up?” I asked slowly, tensed for bad news.

Giguhl crossed his arms. “You’re late. Again.”

I closed my eyes and silently cursed to myself. “Right. The concert. Sorry, guys.”

“Don’t let him give you shit.” Adam came forward and gave me a hug. “We’re still waiting for Pussy Willow anyway.”

As if his comment summoned her, the door to the apartment swept open and a vision in a black wig, leather pants, and a purple latex bustier sashayed in. “What’s up, bitches?”

“Wow, PW,” Adam said. “That’s quite an outfit.”

She blew a kiss at the mancy. “Thank you, darling!” She turned in an elaborate circle. “Are my pants too tight? I had to do my industrial strength tuck to fit in these babies.” She patted her boyish hips with pride and shot Adam an expectant look.

Adam shot me a wild-eyed plea for help. “That depends,” I said. “Did you intend for them to be tight enough for everyone to see your pulse?”

“Of course!” She threw back her head and emitted a throaty laugh. When she stopped laughing, she gave me a judgmental once-over. “Sabina, darling, can we talk about your ensemble?”

I frowned and looked down at the jeans and black T-shirt I’d thrown on earlier. “What about it?”

“You’re not seriously wearing that to the concert.”

“Um, yes, I am.” Granted it wasn’t the most glamorous outfit I owned, but who did I need to impress? Besides, I wasn’t about to take fashion advice from a lady-man whose fashion motto was “the more rhinestones the better.”

“Oh, honey. No, no, no.” She looked at me like I was a misguided child. “Don’t you want to look hot for your man?”

“Hey, don’t pull me into this,” Adam said. “She always looks hot to me.”

I patted him on the arm. “Good answer.” I shot PW a superior look, but she executed an exaggerated eye roll. I had to bite my tongue to keep from calling her out for her rudeness. Ever since she’d decided to be a full-time chick, her sense of humor had gone from sassy to bitchy. And not fun bitchy, either. All her jokes were as cutting as barbed wire and her dependence on passive aggression grated on my last nerve. So, yes, I bit my tongue. But the day was coming when Miss Thang was going to go too far.

“Can we go now?” Giguhl said into the tense silence following my exchange with the faery.

“Sure,” I said. “Just as soon as you change into cat form.”

A puff of green smoke erupted where he’d been standing. When it cleared, his little hairless body merged from the puddle of black sweatpants. “Bael’s balls, Red! Give me some warning next time.”

“Quit your bitching.” I rolled my eyes. “You know you can’t show up as a demon. There will be hundreds of mortals at the concert. Now go find your sweater and we’ll head out.”

He hissed in response and went to weave his way through Pussy Willow’s legs. The fae bent down to pick up the bitchy cat. She petted his head with her recently manicured silver-tipped fingers. “Don’t worry, Gigi. I have the perfect outfit for you. Some people might prefer to look frumpy”—she shot me a pointed look—“but you, at least, will show up in style.”

17

T
he audience clogged the dance floor like arterial plaque. Humans, mostly. Kids dressed in black with multiple piercings and enough angst to power the Eastern Seaboard.

“Um,” Giguhl hissed into my ear. “What the fuck are they doing?”

I turned my head to where he sat on my shoulder and had to squint. The club was dark, but the rhinestone skull on his knit cap reflected the stage’s lights and nearly blinded me. I don’t know where Pussy Willow managed to find Ed Hardy cat clothes, but she’d wasted her money. Instead of looking tough, he looked like a tiny, hairless douche bag.

In response to his question, I shrugged and watched the scene below with a grimace. For some reason, the fans of Necrospank 5000 enjoyed nothing more than taking a saliva shower with five hundred of their closest friends. Not that I was one to judge, given I’d consumed blood from hobos and rapists. But seriously, what kind of freak enjoys having strangers spit on them?

Adam stood next to me, his arm casually draped around my waist. “Just be glad Erron sent us balcony tickets.”

“You’ve got to admit, there’s something about that Erron Zorn,” Pussy Willow purred. “I still can’t believe y’all didn’t introduce me to him in New Orleans.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” I said. “What with the battle for our lives and all, there just wasn’t time for proper introductions.”

“They’re certainly loud,” Georgia yelled. Her fingers were stuck in her ears and she cringed to buffer herself from the pounding bass line. She’d been quiet on the way over and hadn’t said much since we’d arrived. I wondered if part of her mood had to do with the fact she hadn’t heard from Mac. I hoped that seeing the werewolf the next night at the first Roller Derby practice might improve her mood.

Erron stood onstage with his head thrown back and his arms spread wide to receive the spit shower. He wore tight leather pants and little else, except for a self-inflicted chest wound he’d scored into his skin with a razor. The song he sang was a ballad of sorts, and by that I mean it had a slow tempo. The lyrics weren’t much different from all the others—lots of macabre symbolism accented with creative variations on the word “fuck.”

I turned to Adam. “I think this is the last number. Let’s head down.”

On my shoulder, Giguhl growled. “Dammit! Already? We only got to see three songs!”

By the time we got Giguhl dressed in his outfit and found a cab to the club, we’d ended up arriving halfway through the concert. In my opinion, this was far from a tragedy. But I suspected Giguhl would have plenty to be excited about backstage if the after-party was anything like the other Necrospank shindig we’d witnessed.

Adam dragged his eyes from the flashing lights that signaled the finale and blinked. “Maybe we should give Erron some time to grab a shower first.”

“C’mon,” I said. “It’s going to get crowded if we wait too long. And I have no intention of acting like some groupie begging for a moment of his time.”

Fifteen minutes later, we all stepped out of the elevator and directly into gridlock. I shot Adam an I-told-you-so glare. He grimaced and adjusted Giguhl on his shoulder.

“Lead on,” he said. “But don’t hurt anyone.”

I rolled my eyes, but he was right to remind me. My first instinct was to bulldoze through them. Instead, I played fair and tried to be patient as my polite requests to scoot by were ignored. After five minutes, we’d made it only ten feet from the elevator.

Giguhl perked up on Adam’s shoulder. “If you’re not going to start punching them, at least let me change forms. That’ll get ’em all moving.”

“Judging from the looks of Erron’s fan base, they wouldn’t be shocked by a naked demon in their midst.” As I said this, a chick with connect-the-dot piercings on her face turned to hiss at me. She’d had her tongue surgically split down the center and proceeded to waggle the forked thing at me.

“Bitch, please,” Giguhl said. “I’ll show you something forked.”

The chick squinted at me. Her dilated pupils were the size of pennies. “Did your cat just talk?”

“Of course not.” I laughed, the sound false and awkward to my own ears. “You might want to back off on the Special K, sweetie.”

She was unimpressed. “Please. Cat tranqs are so 2007.”

Unable to resist, I asked, “So what’s the big thing now?”

She squinted at me. “Are you a narc or something?”

“Believe me when I say I am as far from a cop as you can get.”

Her pupils were two black holes set into red-veined nebulas. “The newest thing is called Dry Humps.”

“What’s in it?”

Pin Cushion moved in closer. Her breath smelled of old cigarettes and daddy issues. “It’s combination of Viagra, Ecstasy, and Benadryl. Plus a few other goodies.”

“Jesus!” I looked over my shoulder at Adam. Judging from the way his mouth hung down to his clavicles, I figured he’d overheard. “Seriously?”

“It’s invigorating, really,” she said. “Especially once the stool softener hits. You should try it.”

Adam ignored her and stood on his tiptoes, seeing the long corridor ahead and judging our chances of making it through the throng in anything resembling a reasonable amount of time. Behind him, Pussy Willow and Georgia were too busy gawking at the freaks to be much help. “Okay, screw civility. Barge through there, Red.”

I smiled and kissed his cheek. “Yes, sir.”

Thirty seconds, four bruised ribs, two “accidentally” bloodied noses, and bucket loads of cursing later, we stood in front of two burly human security guys. They wore earpieces and sidearms, but they had rent-a-cop written all over them.

If they noticed the carnage we’d left in our wake, they didn’t react. Either they were used to Erron’s fans getting rough with each other, which frankly was a major possibility, or they didn’t care—the more likely option. “Passes?” the one on the right said in a bored tone.

I squinted at him, looking for some sign of life behind his dark glasses. I flicked my wrist up to show the backstage passes Erron had sent over that afternoon.

The left guard gave the passes a cursory glance. Then he straightened and looked at Giguhl. “No pets allowed.”

“Who, him?” I nodded toward the hairless cat on Adam’s shoulder. “He’s not a pet.”

Leftie lowered his shades a fraction. “Do you really expect me to believe that hideous cat is a service animal?”

The cat in question tensed, ready to deliver a barbed retort, no doubt. Adam pulled Giguhl off his shoulder and squeezed him tight against his chest, just in case. My lip twitched. “As a matter of fact, he is a service animal, of sorts.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. As my minion, Giguhl performed all sorts of services. Granted, his specialty was lip service, but still.

The guards didn’t look like they were buying it, so I soldiered on before they could refuse us entrance. “Listen, ask Erron. Tell him Giguhl the cat is out here. He’ll let us in.”

The right guy looked unconvinced. But since we had passes and seemed not the least bit nervous that he’d call my bluff, he spoke into the mouthpiece. “Ask Erron if he knows a cat named Giguhl.” Pause. “Yes, a fucking cat. Just do it.”

Adam crossed his arms and looked about ready to just flash us directly into the room. That was the problem with trying to fit into the mortal world. Having to ignore that we had the ability to circumvent their rules and little inconveniences at will.

The guard put his hand to his ear. He looked at me with a frown. “Is your name Sabina Kane?”

I paused, not liking his tone. “Maybe.” It’s not that any of us had reason to feel threatened by the dude. A couple of humans versus a mage, a vampire, a demon cat, a transsexual faery, and a former assassin with death magic skills? Please. No contest. But I’d had enough experience with people gunning for me that I knew better than to not be on guard.

He murmured something into the mouthpiece. “Hold on. Someone’s coming to get you.”

A few moments later, the door opened behind him and a familiar face peeked out. It was Ziggy, Necrospank 5000’s drummer. Like Erron, he was a Recreant, or shunned, mage. Unlike Erron, he didn’t go for the industrial aesthetic in his choice of hair or clothing. Instead, Ziggy sported his usual rockabilly look—black T-shirt with a pack of cigs rolled up in one sleeve, dark jeans with a silver chain at his hip, and ankle cuffs rolled up over red Converse. Both arms were tattooed up with pinups, swallows, and four-leaf clovers. A gigantic pompadour towered over his face like the prow of an ocean liner. He was also angry, judging from the flurry of signs jumping off his fingers.

“What?” the guard yelled.

“Dude, he’s deaf,” I said. “Screaming isn’t going to help.” I waved at Ziggy to get his attention. Shrugged to let him know we weren’t following. He sighed and shot us an annoyed look. Finally, with exaggerated movements he pointed to Adam, Giguhl, PW, Georgia, and me and waved us toward the door. From behind the steel panel, the sounds of breaking furniture and more cursing than a group of horny sailors on shore leave echoed down the hallway.

“Let’s go.” With that, I pushed past the guards, high-fived Ziggy on my way by, and stormed straight into the eye of a Necrospank 5000 hurricane. We’d entered a dressing room, or at least it used to be one. The band members had broken most of the furniture. The things that hadn’t been broken were covered in various liquor, foodstuffs, and body fluids. In the corner, a groupie gave the bassist oral pleasure. Another chick lay on her stomach on the coffee table, where the keyboardist snorted white lines off her ass.

I suppose they believed they were being shocking and edgy. But the whole thing was so stereotypical that it struck me as a little desperate and pedestrian. I looked over my shoulder at Ziggy. He shrugged and made a wanking gesture with his hand. With his free hand, he pointed to a doorway to the right. Adam nodded and made toward the door, looking as unimpressed as I felt. But Giguhl and the others were rubbernecking like crazy.