Embers (24 page)

But perhaps it had been something special after all. Anya opened a chapter on the site’s geology, and her hand stilled on the page:

. . . the underlying bedrock on which the mound sits displays a rare cryptoexplosion structure. Microscopic shattering and melting in the bedrock suggests that this geologic anomaly is the result of an explosive force, such as magma and volcanic gases or the impact of a meteor. The source of the anomaly is up for debate, but it is clear that great pressure and heat affected this area, possibly dating back to the Permian period.

The page showed a photograph of striated rock that was identical to the melting patterns the crime lab had shown her in the concrete at the crime scene.

“Felicity,” Anya asked. “Can you get me driving directions to Serpent Mound?”

While the librarian ghost disappeared to get the information, Anya’s fingers splayed over the glossy page. Though she hadn’t felt it when she was a little girl, she now felt this place was special. And perhaps it would hold a clue to Sirrush and his slumber.

She glanced at her watch. The library was getting ready to close. Much as she wanted to drive down to Serpent Mound this afternoon, it would be impossible. Drake Ferrer’s exhibit opening was tonight and she wanted to make him as uncomfortable as possible.

Even if that meant wearing a dress.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SACRIFICES WERE ALWAYS MADE IN the name of good investigative work.

This was one of the worst ones Anya had ever made.

Anya stood in a three-way mirror at a dress boutique entirely too devoted to the color pink. Her socks drooped around her ankles, her legs were unshaven, and she was trying to convince the saleswoman to sell her a dress that would cover bandages up to her armpits. She was currently stuffed into an orange dress with a fabric corsage on the shoulder that looked like a traffic cone had regurgitated on her. Sparky stood beside her in the mirror, watching how his tail was displayed when he wiggled it from three perspectives.

“Look,” Anya said. “I’m not interested in a prom dress. I want a plain, adult dress. Something in black.”

The saleswoman folded her arms and pursed her lips. She was a prune of a woman with short hair and entirely too much eyeliner. “I don’t really have anything else that will fit you, dear.”

Anya’s brows shot up. “What the hell does that mean?”

“That means,” the saleswoman said, “that we don’t have anything else in season in your size.”

“I wear a size eight,” Anya said frostily.

“Of course you do, dear.” The saleswoman’s mouth turned upward in a patronizing smile.

“You can have this monstrosity back.” Anya yanked the dress over her head, heedless of the sequins. She dumped it in the saleswoman’s arms and stalked back to the dressing room for her clothes. She gave the saleswoman a good view of her black-panty-clad ass and bandage bra as she stormed away. The black menswear socks were a nice touch, too.

When she exited the dressing room, the saleswoman was plucking the orange dress back into shape on the hanger.

“There’s no need to be huffy, dear,” the saleswoman said.

Anya sneered at her. “And there’s no need for you to be a complete and utter bitch.”

She slammed the door behind her and stormed out on the sidewalk. Sparky waddled past her, confused. Her fuse was growing shorter and shorter lately, and she struggled to keep her snarkiness in check.

“I
am
a size eight,” Anya muttered to him and a passerby gave her a strange look. “It says so on the inside of my pants.”

Anya was fast running out of options. It was past five o’clock and downtown was shutting down. She needed to get a damn dress, and quick. How hard could it possibly be? Christ, it wasn’t like she was looking for a swimsuit.

She paused before a shop window full of exotic lingerie. Mannequins posed inside the window before a velvet curtain wore peek-a-boo bustiers, miniskirts, and fishnet stockings. A line of high-heeled fuck-me pumps dangled from ribbons at the ceiling. But the lights were still on inside.

Anya looked up at the sign. The store was called Wild Walt’s Leather ’n’ Lace.

What the hell.

She opened the door and was immediately struck by the smell of patchouli and oiled leather. Boxes of thigh-high boots and biker boots lined the walls, and racks of garments made almost entirely of strings and buckles jingled near the front. A salesgirl looked up from the counter. Her long black hair was gathered in ponytails on the sides of her head, and her lip was pierced with a chain that reached back to her ear. She was the polar opposite of the prune in the dress shop.

“May I help you?” she asked.

“Yes, please. I need a dress.”

“Sure. What kind of dress?”

“Something black. Something that will cover this.” Anya shrugged her blouse to show her bandages peeking out from her neckline.

“New tat?” the salesgirl asked.

“Um. Yeah. New tattoo gone wrong.”

“No problem.” The salesgirl hopped over the counter. She clunked in her combat boots over to a rack, started plucking out hangers. A girl who wore combat boots was much better qualified to dress her than the pastel-clad biddy in the pink shop, Anya decided.

She shooed Sparky from a display of edible body paint. He skittered away and began batting at a shirt made of chain mail.

“Are you looking for a dance dress or a bedroom dress?”

“Um. Dance.” Anya had no idea what that meant, but figured that
dance
sounded like a safer option than
bedroom.

“Try these.” The salesgirl popped her gum and led her back to the dressing area. She pulled out a few discarded bras that looked to be made of snakeskin. Anya assumed that these had been rejected by the previous customer in favor of the edible bras made of candy. The salesgirl hung the dresses on the hook and left Anya to her own devices.

Anya pulled the first dress on. It was made of a matte satin, very low-gloss. It hit her at the knee, very demurely, but the top was a corset that perfectly covered her bandages. Anya fumbled with the cords in the back until the salesgirl came in to check on her.

“Put your hands on your hips like a superhero,” the salesgirl commanded. “Turn around.”

Anya obeyed, shooting Sparky a worried look. The salesgirl laced her into the corset, tugging the laces so that the boning gripped tightly around her ribs. She felt a stab of panic, as if she were being trapped in the viselike fist of some fearsome beast from the 1800s. But the panic dissolved as the corset seemed to mold around her in a reassuring embrace.

The salesgirl stepped back. “Take a look.”

“Holy shit,” Anya blurted. “I look like a girl.”

The dress fit her like a glove, perfectly hugging every curve. It was long enough to require a kick-pleat in the back, and the built-in corset emphasized her narrow waist and the swell of her breasts.

Sparky wagged his tail.

“You like?” she asked Sparky, but the salesclerk answered instead, as if it were an entirely ordinary question.

“You’re a smokin’ hot dungeon mistress,” the salesclerk said.

“What size is it?” Anya asked.

The salesgirl looked at the tag in the back. “It’s a six.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Do you have shoes?” the clerk asked.

Anya stared down at her black flats. “Um. No.” She pointed at a pair of stilettos on the wall. “Those scare me.”

“Those are bedroom shoes.” She waved dismissively at them. “You need a dance shoe.”

“But I’m not doing any dancing. . .”

The clerk didn’t treat her like she was an idiot. She patiently explained the difference between dance shoes and bedroom shoes—dance shoes were apparently the ones used by girls onstage, that were designed to actually be walked in.

“That’s an industry secret,” the salesgirl said. “Department-store shoes hurt like hell. You can run a marathon in dance shoes. Hell, men wear these things. And even men dressing like women wouldn’t put up with bad shoes.”

Anya picked a pair of rounded-toe ankle-strap dance shoes that the clerk said were “very retro.” Anya was shocked that they felt no more uncomfortable than flats. Her weight was perfectly balanced between the heel and her toes.

“I’m impressed. These actually feel really good.”

“Just don’t tell the soccer moms. We want them to suffer.” The salesgirl winked.

Fifteen minutes later, Anya was walking out of the store with a bag in hand. She’d picked up a treat for Sparky: a tube of mysterious glitter gel that Sparky simply would not leave alone. Overjoyed, he gamboled at her heels, nosing at the bag. Glitter must contain some kind of elemental pheromone, she thought.

She’d opted to wear the dress home, doubtful of her ability to get in and out of it without the clerk’s assistance. But it was worth it. Even under her jacket, she felt every bit as powerful as any dungeon mistress who ever shopped at Wild Walt’s Leather ’n’ Lace.

Armed with stripper shoes and a killer dress, she’d be more than ready for anything Drake Ferrer could throw at her.

Anya had never visited the Detroit Institute of Arts at night. All of her elementary-school field trips had been during the day, when the museum was crowded with kids in large groups ushered by teachers, by elderly people looking to while away the day, and by tourists repeatedly told by security to turn the flash off their cameras. Then, it had seemed like a haven for those escaping from the workaday world by virtue of age or geography.

After dark, it was entirely different. It was clearly a place for adults who would keep their grubby fingers off the canvases. Not just any adults—adults who appeared in glossy black cars, dripping with watches and pieces of jewelry that easily exceeded Anya’s annual salary.

Anya climbed out of the cab, feeling rather intimidated at the elegant façade of the building lit for night with sweeping uplights. A cast of Rodin’s
The Thinker
perched in the front plaza. When she had been seven or eight, he merely looked like a constipated man contemplating what he’d eaten for lunch. Now, with the benefit of time and artful lighting, he looked as if he were closely scrutinizing who would be permitted to enter the premises. The ultimate bouncer.

Anya’s stripper shoes clicked softly on the concrete as she climbed the steps to hand her invitation to one of the white-gloved doormen. He nodded and opened the door for her, and she stepped into the Great Hall.

The vaulted, coffered ceilings of the Great Hall were strewn with chandeliers and mosaicwork. Thousands of strings of reflective silver disks hung from the ceiling, gleaming like stars in the half darkness. Voices, footfalls, and a breeze rattled through them as they turned. Suits of armor were stationed at regular intervals on the glossy floor, encased in glass and dwarfed by the display overhead. The reflections of the empty knights and artificial stars gleamed on the polished floors, as if reflected in a black pool.

One suit of armor caught her eye. Anya leaned closer, feeling Sparky’s tail twitch against her collarbone. The thin skin of a ghost still occupied that shell of ancient armor, as inextricably entwined in it as a beetle in its carapace. All she could detect of it was its eyes glinting behind a slitted visor. Whatever kind of soldier the ghost had been, it now guarded this vault of stars and the treasure beyond it. Anya sensed no volition in it, no desire to speak, only to watch.

She left it alone. She hoped that Drake Ferrer would, too.

Anya followed the other invitees through a walkway of velvet ropes to the south wing, where the majority of the museum’s twentieth-century art was held. The patrons walked through galleries open three floors to the ceiling, skylights casting paned shadows on the inlaid floors. Ferrer’s exhibit was held in an airy, modern exhibit space with simple white walls and a dark floor. Coffered ceilings concealed down lights that highlighted a mixture of his blueprints and elevation sketches. The sign outside the door called the exhibition
Designs for a New Detroit
.

Anya melted into the crowd, feeling the chatter wash over her. She gazed at the first pictures in the series, blueprints showing an unfamiliar plan for downtown Detroit. Nearly all the buildings built within the last fifty years were gone, replaced by new structures that seemed to blend seamlessly with the 1920s architecture—a revival of Detroit’s aesthetic heyday, its boom times come to life again. She didn’t recognize all the features in Ferrer’s skyline; some of the casinos were gone, replaced by what looked like apartment buildings rendered in bright colors.

Ferrer didn’t stop with the architecture. Some of his casual drawings showed trees, meandering parks curving around existing and new buildings. Pedestrians milled on sidewalks lined with shops and restaurants. When she looked closely, she could see that Ferrer had costumed his people in clothes with lines speaking of Old Detroit. . . she even spotted some Jazz Age fringe peeking out from under a woman’s skirt.

It was like looking at the old and new, all at once. Instead of warring with each other, the past and future melded seamlessly together. The elements of classical Art Deco were foremost in his designs: the geometric forms, the nod to ancient Egyptian stylized flowers and motifs. It was not hard to imagine how Ferrer would have discovered the symbol of the Horned Viper—his drawings were steeped in the memory of pyramids reaching to the sky, crowned with metallic caps in geometric patterns. His buildings opened onto gardens dotted with columnar statuary, the languorous steps of his public buildings spilling down into the streets