Ash to Embers (Courting Shadows) (6 page)

"You know me," he replied in a falsely bright tone. "I'm all about a cultured evening of frivolity with you and your girl."

"And Rachel," Jay added.

"Her too. Meet you there?"

"The show is at ten. We can swing by yours and collect you."

"You collecting my date?"

"She insisted."

Of course she did.

"I'll meet you there," he said.

Jay sounded relieved. "Thanks, Sio. I owe you."

"Yeah, yeah, you do."

Sio looked at the blue-haired pixie and her drawing as he got up to debark. She was a good artist and her sketch was impressive, mostly devoid of idealism. Kid had some serious talent. Then again, if he actually looked the way she'd drawn him he wasn't showing half as bad as he felt, which wasn't damn likely. Ahh, vanity. Maybe that's what prompted him to say what he did. Maybe he wanted one image out there to be more than an illusion of normal. A shooting pain tore through his neck as he leaned down. He ignored it.

"The eyes should be pale."

Sio selected a bleached yellow/brown from her bin as she gave him a startled look out of those impossibly wide eyes. She took the proffered pencil with a shaking hand.

"Use charcoal for the outside edges," he said. He booked it without looking back because the exchange and the beating had left him feeling exposed.

The Progeny's club was a small brick cottage nestled between two massive warehouses on Fisherman's Wharf. As Tian watched, the wooden slats on the shingled roof rippled with power, flexing and seething like the scales of a snake. The roof undulated, wrapping itself around the brick structure. She stood across the street in the shadow of a tree and observed the protective wards around the place rearranging themselves for the upcoming show. Blood magic from both human and other had made The Gates a fortress. Fear, rapture, lust, and excitement were palpable and screaming out of the sigils surrounding the heavy oak door. She took a deep breath, exhaled, and waded through the crushing energy currents.

She was smothered in a dense layer of power by the time she made it to the door. No sooner had she set foot to the carved stone mat, a compartment opened up at eye level. Through the one inch by half inch gap, a blood red eye roamed over her, starting at her feet, working its way up until it hit a speed bump at her flat stare. The eyeball widened and recoiled. The door slammed shut and a larger compartment opened, revealing the red eye and a right nostril. The small dark hole flared as the creature on the other side took a pull. The red eye widened again, moved back, and the cutout slammed shut.

"Piss on a pixie," Tian muttered.

A larger opening drew back, revealing only half of the door keeper's golden face. Tian did her best not to roll her eyes. Out loud she said, "As an emissary of Swift Retribution, I wish to hold audience with The Progeny, Royal and Xavier."

The eye flared a third time, but before the door could slam shut, Tian shoved her hand in it. "I appreciate the showmanship, Zulpey, but I'm on a time constraint. Would you mind doing me a solid and skipping to the part where you open the door that I'm going to fit through?"

"Okay," came Zulpey's muffled reply.

Zulpey's ready acquiescence was a relief. The energy from the sigils was setting Tian's teeth on edge and the threshold show usually took twenty minutes. The oak door opened, revealing an octagonal entryway circled in both fire and water. In the center of the foyer stood a voluptuous nude female with pale golden skin that matched her pale golden bob. Zulpey opened one of the small compartments drawn into her flesh and deposited a brass key into a rectangular slot in her left cheek.

Tian looked from the female to the hundreds of locks on the inside of the door she'd come through. "Not sure I want to know where you keep the rest of those," she said.

"The keys open the door," Zulpey told her with wide eyes and a pleased blank expression.

"Yeah, they seem to. What's doing, Z? How've you been?"

A master of small talk she was not.

"I do the doors!"

Right.

"And a good job too."

Zulpey tackled Tian in an enthusiastic bear hug. She may have been small, but she was steel crushing strong. Tian stood awkwardly, patting the other female on the head and searching for non-violent ways to extract herself because she didn't have the heart to shove the kid off. Whatever else she was, Zulpey was an innocent soul, a big, sweet puppy with a nice rack.

"Okay, down girl," Tian said maxing out on unnecessary contact. She leveraged the other female's right shoulder joint and pried herself loose.

"And I thought the show started later."

Zulpey bounced around like a baby with a bladder problem. She smiled wide, showing off multiple rows of razor sharp teeth. "I like our Tian half-breed," she said with a bright eyed smile.

The Progeny Xavier stepped away from the wall and through the fire/water boundary. The fluidity of his movement accentuated the fact that he was half naked. Razor-sharp hip bones framed wash board abs, drawing the eye towards an obscenely low waistband on a pair of turn of the century breeches.

"You look like you mugged a Quaker," Tian said. "That all you got away with?"

Xavier grinned; the well groomed dirty blonde goatee made his strong jawline even stronger and his teeth appear impossibly white. "Don't worry, sweetheart," he said, running a hand down his chest to where he gripped the bulge in his breeches. "I still got something for you."

He winked. It was a nice sight and he knew it. He also knew that she couldn't give a shit less. Tian raised an eyebrow. "Anyone ever tell you you're a crass bastard?"

"Surprisingly often. Speaking of which, Zulpey, go find Royal. Why don't you let me like our half-breed for a while in private?"

Zulpey bobbed her head, causing a great big eye-full of anatomy jiggle before disappearing into thin air.

"It's been awhile," Xavier said. "We missed you." His tone was light, but the earnestness crept in despite his obvious effort to the contrary.

"Don't tell me you boys couldn't find anyone else to bleed."

"Sweetheart, no one else looks quite as good while they're doing it."

"I need a spell and a favor, Xavier."

Xavier's almond shaped eyes glowed like a blue beacon over impossibly high cheekbones. "I'll take any opportunity you give me to perform."

"Motherfucker."

He was beaming. "You always were my favorite show."

"Lucky me."

The walls around them began to move. The marble slabs shifted and bunched with a loud grinding noise. They elongated, sculpting themselves into drapes that appeared the exact texture and shape of a heavy velvet cloth. They ran from the now twenty foot ceilings to the floor. Objects built themselves from the ground until they stood in a palatial office made of bright stone. Everything from the chairs to the impossibly thin post-it notes on the desk in the corner were monochromatic and smooth.

Xavier leaned in. "If you're impressed you should let me show you what I can do with my hands."

"For an angel you're pretty rough around the edges. You don't need to prove it."

"Half angel. How do you know that I'm not the one with the demon taint?" he asked. He twined his hands into the strands of her hair easing his body closer as she took a step back. He ignored the response.

"Ceyla finds Royal...of interest," Tian said. "Besides, you work too hard at being a dick."

Xavier traced her mouth with his gaze and tugged on the strands of hair in his grip. "It used to come naturally. Tell me, Tian, what kind of men interest you?"

He leaned in close, pressing the lean lines of his body flush against her. Xavier had pull, she'd give him that, but he'd have been better off using it on someone with a pulse. Despite the
attitude and the endless supply of come-ons, he was decent.

"No one interests me," Tian said. She turned her head because his mouth was too close to her own. "It's part of the appeal."

Intimate proximity made her feel like a victim when it wasn't a prelude to violence. She leaned back further and watched Xavier' s eyes grow serious, becoming too old for his face and too tragic for comfort.

"I believe you," he said with a gentleness that made her want to cringe. Damn him. He was definitely part angel and in the mirror of his light, the image of her soul he reflected was not a pretty one.

"I'm looking for something that belongs to Faerie, but could be obscured by black magic. Will you accept my blood in payment for the tracking spell I require to find it?"

"Indeed," he said, sliding the mask of bravado back into place. His smile was hollow as he gestured to the marble tapestry becoming translucent in front of them, "Far be it from me to deny our audience this kind of spectacle."

****

Sio leaned against a tree across the street from The Gates waiting for the cavalry to arrive. Something about the place had set his teeth on vibrate, not that he minded. The feeling was a great distraction, even if it did cause his rapidly fading wounds to hurt all over again. He caught sight of Jay's '87 Accord trundling down the road. The blatant distaste on some of the ticket holder's faces as the bumper sticker swaddled heap chugged to a noisy stop in front of the valet booth made him laugh out loud. Much to the guy's credit, the valet smiled openly and took the keys with the sort of glowing enthusiasm most people reserved for finding money in the street.

Sio waded through the electric current in the night air to the sidewalk in front of the infamous theater. He saw Rachel dart out of the backseat, putting as much distance between herself and the offending vehicle as possible until it was safely out of sight around the corner. She ignored both Jay and Bren, tottering on unfathomably high heels, and checking on the ten pounds of make-up spackled to her orange skin. Some date.

"The Accord's looking good," Sio said. "I'm pretty sure I caught a flash of paint under all those slogans."

Jay jumped. "Damn, man, what are you moonlighting as a cat burglar now? You scared the crap out of me," he swore, clutching his chest in mock horror. The thin blonde wisps of his baby fine hair stuck out in unplanned disarray. He was wearing a white button down, probably because Bren had threatened him, but underneath was the "Snakes on an Incline Plane" T-shirt Sio had gotten him for his thirtieth birthday.

Brenwyn, Jay's leggy goth, laughed and added, "It must be the Big Bastard Cloaking Device. How are you Sio?"

"Ready to have my life altered," he told her.

"I can so handle that." Rachel's southern California drawl whined around him as she clacked up and grabbed his ass. Handsy. Sio forced down the initial revulsion and played nice.

"Looks like you're handling a lot more than life alterations," Jay said.

"Hi, Rachel. It's been a while." A muscle twitched in Sio's jaw as he removed Rachel's hands from his goods. He hoped that came out polite as opposed to interested, but odds were she'd already started dubbing over him.

"What happened to your face?" Rachel asked, eyeing his damage.

"Car accident," he lied.

"Don't front," Jay said. "It's not your fault you got worked for your lunch money."

"We never blame the victim," Bren chimed in, patting his arm. Sio laughed.

"It looks sexy. Like you got into a fight or something," Rachel said. "You guys are going to love this. I've heard it's really hot."

Again with the pointed stares.

"And here I thought I'd been tricked into that pesky culture thing," Jay quipped, barging into Rachel's line of sight.

Bren shook her head, "I don't know what you're crying for. Your culture involves a five course meal."

"Are you calling me a fat kid?"

"Hey, my inner fat kid's in convulsions already," Sio said after seeing the feigned affront on Jay's goofy mug. "I think he needs a drink."

"Excuse me."

A middle aged woman in an expensive looking coat and horn rimmed glasses ran a hand down Sio's left bicep. "Excuse me, you look familiar; are you part of the show?"

Sio countered the urge to move away by easing an arm around her. What was entertainment for one more? Before he could figure out how to answer, Rachel piped up.

"My boyfriend's only show is going to be for me later tonight."

Worse, that was definitely worse. The woman flushed with embarrassment and began to stutter an apology.

"Actually," he interrupted, "My
date
wouldn't want to see the show either. I have the internal rhythm of an epileptic gibbon. It ain't pretty." He held up three fingers and added, "Scouts honor."

The woman flushed again and Bren jumped in to smooth the situation further. "He really does. Two left feet, you know? It's kinda sad."

"Totally pathetic," Jay added.

"Your package is pathetic, smart guy."

The woman in the horn rimmed glasses drifted back towards her own group, no doubt impressed by his rapier wit and incredible maturity. None of that mattered, however, because seconds later a compartment swung open in the door with a high pitched squeal and commanded everyone's attention. Revealed was a bright eye the color of a fresh blood stain.

When the door show was over they were ushered inside and plugged into a world with too many opulent images to process. The building was huge. That it had appeared otherwise from the outside was one hell of an optical illusion. The winding maze of rooms they were led through contained everything from old stone churches to lavish circus tents so saturated in color it was painful. Nothing in the place wasn't top of the line and beyond. Each item and entity they passed was poised to evoke the most dramatic effect, and none of it disappointed. There was still something strange about the air, but at least the biting, stinging, finger in light socket feeling had abated at the door.

A compact woman with pale finger waved green hair and facial tattooing seated them and returned with drinks without taking an order. She placed a wide glass in front of him. Sio looked up to thank her, wondering how she'd known. As their eyes met she hissed and averted her gaze. She curtseyed and booked. Sio watched as she receded into the shadows.