Shadow Blade (5 page)

With the tingle of DMZ’s protective shielding buzzing along her arms, Kira eased her bike into a parked row of other motorcycles. As long as the shield held, nothing and no one—magical or human—could touch her bike.

The usual crowd milled around the steel and concrete industrial-looking entrance waiting their turn to enter, an eclectic mix of humans and half-breeds. Light and Shadow Adepts never had to queue up at the DMZ. If Avatars from either side ever showed themselves, they probably didn’t use the front door—or any door, for that matter. Kira normally used a private entrance herself, but not tonight. Tonight she had a point to make.

One of the bouncers, a thick, tan-skinned man with nickel-sized holes in his ears, sniffed the air as she walked up. “You’ve got blood on you, Chaser,” he informed her, saying her title the way some women called another “bitch” before they started pulling each other’s hair.

Kira curled the fingers of her left hand around the bloodied sleeve in her cargo pocket. It had been hard enough to leave Bernie’s scattered remains in the alley; she couldn’t throw away his blood like trash.

She gave the bouncer a level stare, resisting the urge to wonder out loud if he had a dick. “So?”

“Fine.”
He shrugged and waved her in. As she walked past him, Kira wondered how his T-shirt stayed intact with so much muscle stretching the seams. “Check your weapons and stay out of the pit.”

Right.
Like she was that brand of stupid.
Or suicidal.
The DMZ’s mosh pit tended toward the vicious, populated as it was by beings
who
enjoyed snacking on humans as well as throwing them around. No one, human or hybrid, entered the pit unless they signed a waiver releasing the DMZ from all claims.

She slipped past the bouncer, past the cashier who gave her a nod, and into the lobby of the DMZ. Restrooms flanked the double doors of the main-floor entrance. Scarred leather sofas crouched on a concrete floor near a smallish bar and the coat-check room, all presented in shades of gunmetal gray lit by black light. The only thing seemingly out of place was a large fish tank roughly six feet wide mounted in a side wall.

At least that was the Normal view.

Drawing on her extrasense, Kira watched the yellow-white glow of the DMZ’s protective aura shimmer into view. It ran in wide bars over every wall, corner, and door, far more reliable than any metal detector. She took another step into the lobby and the aura flashed an orange warning in response.

The coat-check girl pasted a wide smile on her pale, almost gray face. “Please check your weapons with me.”

The perky voice grated on Kira’s nerves, but she locked down her emotions. Demoz would have a field day if he knew how she felt and she had no intention of letting him feed off her. “No one touches my weapons.”

The girl, half human, half something else, showed teeth this time. “You have a primed assault spell on you. That’s not allowed on the floor. The larger gun is okay, but the small one and the Lightblade are against regulations. You know the rule:
You fire, you expire.
Even Chasers need to check their weapons.”

“Really?”
Kira checked the protective shielding,
then
took another step forward. “Have you just come out of incubation? You and those T-shirts are new.”

Perkiness dimmed as the girl glanced down at the neat stack of black shirts, with “I Survived the Pit” emblazoned on them in putrid green. “I don’t see what that has to do with—”

The phone beside her rang. The girl picked up the phone, listened, then gulped, her head bobbing rapidly.
“Yes, sir.
Of course, sir.”

She replaced the receiver. “Apologies, Chaser Solomon,” she said then, her voice almost humanly humble. “I didn’t realize you would use the main entrance. Mr. D welcomes you to the DMZ and asks that you please remove the assault spell.”

“Yeah.”
It was as close to charitable as Kira planned to get. Atlanta was her city—she was the only Shadowchaser in the Southeast U.S. If the girl could tell she was a Chaser, she had to know Kira was also
the
Chaser. She seriously doubted that any other Chasers who passed through town were five-foot-nine-inch black females with their hair in black and blue braids. It also made her wonder why Chasers were coming through her city long enough to use the DMZ without giving her at least a courtesy call. She’d have to look into that later.

Kira unstrapped her watch, removing the disc that contained the assault spell. The aura
glowed
a solid orange. She made a show of slowly stepping closer to the massive saltwater fish tank that dominated the left wall. An eel swam up from one dark corner and stared at her.

“Hi, Morey.
Take care of this for me, will ya?” She tossed the disc inside. It fizzed like an antacid tablet as the salt water disrupted the magic. It flared as the eel zapped it before gulping it down.

“Thanks, Morey. If you feel up to leaving the tank, come take a turn with me out on the dance floor. It’ll be fun.”
Fun in a shocking-everyone-within-two-feet sort of way.

Morey just grinned at her before sinking back to the bottom of the tank. He obviously preferred the simple life of his eel form to his walking, talking one. At that moment Kira couldn’t blame him.

She turned back to the coat-check girl. If the new girl thought her most dangerous weapon was the assault charm, Kira wasn’t about to educate her. Of course, Demoz knew that Chasers didn’t hand over their Lightblades, not even in death. “Are we good?”

When the girl nodded, Kira headed for the main entrance to the floor. The doors were thick reinforced steel, spelled to muffle the sounds beyond. Above the door—written in flowing silver script—hung the words: the choice is yours.

Kira paused as her control momentarily wavered. Sometimes the choice was die or die screaming.

She placed her gloved hands against the doors, feeling the vibrations pulsing through from the other side. There
were
days when she wondered what sort of hits she’d get if she dared touch anything in the DMZ without her gloves on. But you didn’t have to touch a stove to know it could burn you.

A bass beat slammed into her as she pushed the doors open, startling her heart into an attempt to match the frenetic beat. Bare bulbs hung along the T-shaped corridor, becoming brighter to the left and darker to the right.

Just because she was feeling ornery, Kira swung to the right, the Shadow side. She pushed open another door and the music hit her full blast.

The DMZ flowed like a high-tech miniature Roman Colosseum on the inside, three levels ringing a pit that encircled a raised stage. Inviolate, an industrial Goth band, performed in sonic frenzy on the raised stage at the center of the DMZ. A seething mass of Normals and Not-Normals moshed in the pit surrounding and below the stage.

The Normals would be lucky if all they got were broken bones from their foray into the pit. Since they had to sign a waiver before going in, Kira wouldn’t do anything about it.
Free will and all.
At least they’d get a T-shirt if they made it out alive.

The Light entrance, appropriately bright, was directly opposite where she stood. She noted several Light Adepts—magic workers who preferred to work on the Light side of the balance—and messengers. Almost all the full humans and quite a few hybrids congregated in the center, the club’s clientele mimicking the Universal Balance. Some people just preferred not to mix, and some people liked the middle ground.

She needed information, and staying on the Light side wouldn’t do it. She peeled off her gloves as Inviolate broke into “Flatline,” a driving, frenetic song of insanity that she often hummed when she went out Chasing.

“You lost, little girl?”

Kira turned as a pair of half-demons came up to her. “Not even close, boys.”

“Funny.” The tall one gave her a measured look,
then
smiled, revealing an extra-wide row of very pointed teeth. “You look lost to me.”

The short one laughed. “Nice one, Lonnie.”

Kira realized they had no clue she was a Chaser. Or maybe Lonnie was so hyped up on something that he didn’t care. Or, most likely, he was just stupid.

They were beginning to draw attention. Good. Kira held her hand aloft. “Look at my hand.”

The man looked at her hand, then back at her. “So?”

“Not with human sight,” she said patiently. Maybe he was too stupid to live. “
Really
look at my hand.”

With a blink, she brought her extrasense forward, felt it when others did the same. Even if she couldn’t tell they’d recognized her power in any other manner, she’d have known by the way those in the circle dropped back.

Lonnie’s mouth dropped open as he stepped back, staring at her hand. Everyone with some sort of inherent magic could see the pale blue glow that surrounded her hand, the tendrils of magic that wisped from her fingers. Light magic had infused her body since her birth, or so she’d been told. It had only gotten stronger the longer she lived, though it was now concentrated primarily in her hands.

“Lonnie.” She made sure she had his attention before speaking again. “I didn’t come here looking for trouble.”
Liar.
“Don’t start none, won’t be none. But if you bring it, I’ll end it.”

The circle edged further away. Lonnie unzipped a wide grin, showing more teeth than the average human could. “Hey, ain’t
nothing
but a thang,” he said, lifting his hands in a harmless gesture. “I ain’t starting
nothing
.”

Kira pulled her glove back over her hand. The tension on the floor eased considerably. Instantly two bodyguards built like defensive linemen on steroids sandwiched her in. “Come with us, please.”

Without a word, Kira followed the first guard as he cut a wide swath through the crowd. Murmurs rose as they passed, some worried, most curious. She’d needed to do something to shake the crowd up; it was the only way she’d get Demoz to cooperate. Her standoff with Lonnie had probably done little more than whet Demoz’s unusual appetite, but she didn’t have time for anything more to his personal preference. She wasn’t in a mood to be low-key, not with every passing minute chilling the trail of Bernie’s killer. If anyone in this crowd knew who killed Bernie, Demoz would find out.

The guards led her behind the bar and up a flight of stairs. Another guard blocked the head of the stairs. He was so identical to the two escorting her that Kira wondered if they’d hatched from the same clutch. The third man stepped back, allowing them to pass.

One smoked-glass wall—mirrored on the club side—of the large office overlooked the dance floor. The room was furnished in the same black leather and gunmetal as the lobby. A massive slab of clear quartz crystal, the largest specimen she’d ever seen, served as a table between the guest chairs. Demoz probably used it as a balancing mechanism between the Light and Shadow guests who entered his office, but she knew it could also serve as a magic amplifier for those with the ability to use it.

“Kira,” Demoz rose to his feet as they entered. “You do know how to make an entrance.”

“You know what they say, Demoz. If you’re going to do it, do it in style.”

“True, true.”
The big man regarded her, his skin black as tires and just as thick. If the Michelin Man had been dipped in tar—and dressed by Armani—Demoz would be his twin. The only traces of color on his plump body were the thin silver stripes in the fabric of his very expensive suit. He gestured her to a club chair facing the one-way mirror that overlooked the club’s floor. “But showing so much skin—and removing your gloves? That could have been considered a provocative act.”

She knew he didn’t mean sexually provocative. Demoz didn’t care about sex—at least she didn’t think he did and she definitely had no plans to find out. The DMZ strictly enforced their neutrality, placing them in a delicate position straddling both sides of the Universal Balance.

Kira’s provocation was, technically, pulling a weapon. It violated the house rules, regardless of who pulled the weapon or why. Given that her touch could be deadly to some and hurtful to most, Kira had taken a chance going onto the main level with so much skin showing, even with her extrasense muted. She’d taken the chance anyway, betting that Demoz would be waiting and feeding.

Kira adjusted her remaining weapons,
then
eased into the chair. “Then I suppose I should thank you for coming to get me—although I know you must’ve gotten something out of it for yourself.”

“You know it.” Demoz smacked his lips then released a delighted, deep-throated laugh. “The fear you invoked was delicious. The adrenaline alone fed me quite well.”

The psychic vampire turned to the glass, staring down at the crowd. “The fear tasted almost as good as the lust you cause when you dance. I suppose, however, that’s like trying to compare filet mignon to prime rib.”

“If you say so.”
Kira crossed her arms. He didn’t really expect her to be flattered, did he? She wasn’t a girly girl by any stretch, but comparing her to cuts of beef wouldn’t win Demoz brownie points with her.

Most informants liked being paid in money. Not Demoz. No, he preferred being paid in emotional energy. But then, what psychic vampire didn’t?

He turned his bulk away from the window. “The fear is, regrettably, fading now. It feels as if a few of them have moved to anger, however. I don’t believe that hybrid appreciated you showing him up in front of his friends. He doesn’t have your best interests at heart tonight.”

“Why, Demoz, I didn’t think you cared.”

The vamp grinned. “You are exquisite, Kira Solomon. I would miss you were you gone. Of course the psychic onslaught unleashed at the moment of your demise would certainly feed me for months.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Demoz, but I plan on sticking around for a little while longer.” Keeping her emotions on lockdown out of habit, she braced her elbows on the arms of the black leather chair, steepling her fingers. “Besides, I’ve already fed you tonight.”