Shade City (16 page)

We were alone near the back railing, on a thin walkway set against the building and the sheer edge of the mountain. It made for a beautiful view. I leaned against the railing, listening to the muffled music, rubbing the chill air away.

I winced. That sounded dangerously close to a lead-in to a conversation I didn't want to have.

"What are we doing here?" I suddenly asked. The unspoken nagging doubt was the only distraction that came to mind. "This doesn't feel right."

I sighed and studied the moon. Maybe I was getting jumpy for no reason. Granted, I didn't take Alexander Ambrose directly at his word—there was no way he was being completely straight with me—but I would have come to this party with or without him. As the man had said, I was close enough to discovering everything. Why, then, did I feel as if a piece was missing?

I heard a giggle below me. To the side of the building, the way I had come, there was a walkway leading down the mountainside. Not all the way; it was just a gated path with a view. I noticed two girls hopping up the steps.

I approached them as they reached the walkway. The girls were Asian, and I had seen them before. I was particularly interested in the short one wearing bright yellow. I was on the level above them and they were going the other way, so I had to call out.

"Eva!"

The straight platinum hair spun around and her doe eyes were wide open for a brief moment. Then the recognition hit her and she smiled.

"Dante!"

"Good memory," I said. I waved to her friend, not sure if I had ever caught her name. "What are you ladies doing out here?"

Maybe it was because I was standing on a platform just above her, looking down, but she seemed shorter and skinnier than when we had last met. Not in a bad way, though. The tight yellow dress she wore hugged her form well. Her cleavage and legs competed in showing more skin and the moonlight caught a shine on her lips. I was immediately struck by how beautiful she was. I wanted her more than ever.

"I," she said, pausing to place emphasis on herself, "was invited." She looked up at me questioningly. "I didn't know you were in the biz."

"You don't know anything about me," I answered with a smile.

She stood still and batted her eyelashes playfully. "I know you probably crashed this party like you wanted to crash my little K-town shindig."

It was true I had wanted her to invite me, but then I never would have hooked up with Rachel. I thought things worked out for the best. "What were you afraid of? That I was dangerous?"

"No," she said. "Where we were going, they don't let white people in. White people talk to the police." Her friend giggled.

"I'm the last person that would shut down an after-hours drinking operation."

"They don't know that. For all they care, you could be an undercover cop yourself."

I nodded smugly. She wasn't making this easy. "Who said I wasn't?"

Her girlfriend started walking along the overhang, towards the staircase that would lead them up to my level. Eva followed her slowly.

"I didn't know there was anything here worth keeping an eye on," she said.

I walked along the upper rail, in step with her. "From where I'm standing, I'd disagree." Eva tried to hide her pleasure at my compliment, but I caught her forming a slight smile. She continued parading behind her friend. I finished the rest of my cocktail in a single gulp and set the plastic cup on the railing. She was sexy, and the banter was fun, but I wanted to get to more important matters. "What is it that you do, Eva?"

She looked at her friend as she started up the staircase. "I'm a... promoter... at Korean clubs." The friend said something in the language and they both giggled. I stopped and waited for them at the top of the steps. The girls were having an interesting time of it in their high heels.

"Any places I would know?" I asked. They just giggled again.

At the top of the staircase, I held out my hand to the friend to help her up the last step. She accepted, but as I tried to do the same for Eva, the friend stumbled and pressed against me. I caught her and she leaned into me, staying for a moment. By then, Eva had already sauntered by me, shooting me a glare.

"Liz is drunk," she said. "It's shameful. Koreans are the Irish of the Asians. They should be able to handle their whisky."

I had to think about that for a second to make sense of it, but it was hilarious. "A girl who knows how to drink. I like you more already."

Liz kept leaning on me for support as I escorted them back to the front courtyard. I wanted to disengage with her so I could get closer to Eva, but I didn't want to look like a dick. It was bad enough that I was one. Still, I suspected that Liz wasn't as drunk as she was acting and that they were having fun with me.

By the time I had gotten Liz to stand up on her own, Eva disappeared around the corner ahead of us. We hurried to catch up but the crowd was thick. I couldn't see her. Liz grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the bar.

There was a different DJ spinning now, some bald Mexican dude who wasn't wearing a shirt. The beat was harder and more disjointed, with some dubstep influences, and the crowd was more active. I still didn't see Soren anywhere.

As we pushed to the bar, Eva was already coming back with three plastic cups half filled with liquor.

"Chivas," she said, handing them to us.

I wasn't the biggest fan of scotch, but this wasn't the place or time to object. I held my glass up to match the girls.

"One shot," said Eva, and we downed the oversized drinks.

My mouth burned with a pleasant heat. We all laughed. I knew I was on a job, but I'd always been able to do two things at once. Besides, being at a party without finding fun was worse than work. Liz took the empty cups away. I saw an opening and put my hand on the small of Eva's back to pull her closer to me.

Unyielding and with a great sense of momentum to it, the feeling struck me like a train. As my arm brushed against her, I could feel the foreign presence that resided within her. The second shadow. Eva, this beautiful, fun girl, was taken.

She caught my momentary shock and looked at me strangely. "What is it?" she asked.

"You're..." I started. I didn't know what to say. The realization didn't sit well with me, but I had to play it off. I couldn't let her know that I knew. Not here. Not now. "You're so small," I said, looking her over. "I bet I can pick you up."

I grabbed the girl by both shoulders and lifted. Her hands clutched the back of my neck. I was never wrong about this kind of thing, but something in me hoped I'd made a mistake. As I spun around in a full circle, her small feet trailing in the air, there could be no denying it. She was one of them. Before I released her to the ground, I took one last breath of her platinum hair. As our cheeks lightly brushed, I privately cursed my hidden talents.

Just this once, I wanted to be normal.

She giggled as Liz returned and they both shared a devious exchange in Korean. Each of them grabbed one of my hands and dragged me to the dance floor.

Maybe it was the whisky, or maybe it was being sandwiched between two pretty girls, but I let the music take me over.

* * *

Two skinny black dudes shared a set, and then a guy with sunglasses and a cowboy hat took over. This was the only stage at the party and the DJs only had twenty or thirty minutes each to make an impression. It was a lively time, one I began to enjoy rather than observe. Dancing and drinks led the night toward its end, and I had still not seen Soren.

Violet had put up with me long enough. Perhaps, after what had gone down on the Dead Side, she'd given me more leeway than usual. She didn't start complaining the second I was hitting on a girl. But even I conceded that I was stretching the limits of what was reasonable. I couldn't dance with Eva all night.

I herded them to the side of the dance floor. It was a cool night—not uncomfortable—but our bodies were slick with sweat all the same. I needed a chance to stop. To think.

The girls wanted to walk to their dark path and smoke a joint.

"I'm looking for a friend," I said, shaking my head. "He said he would be here."

"Come on," said Liz. "Don't you want to go somewhere quiet?"

I did. I really did. But I changed the subject all the same.

"Eva, do you know any of the DJs spinning tonight? Have you heard of DJ Ingress?"

She shook her head. "I'm more customer-facing. I don't deal with the musicians at all. Most of them are jerks anyway. Let's go. It'll be quick."

The problem, I decided, with working at parties was that I could never cut loose. Not completely. "How about I catch up with you later?" I offered.

They tried to convince me some more, then Eva got a little hot and complained. I thought her little tantrum was cute. It reminded me of the first time I had seen her, yelling outside a taxi. It wasn't anything serious, just part of her personality, and her friends were used to it. Liz calmed her down. They eventually left me by the dance floor, and I again set myself to searching the crowd.

It was a loose event: no rigid structure, no corporate announcements, no middle management leading team-building exercises. Thus far, for all I could tell, this was just another party thrown by Red Hat Events. Sure, maybe all of the guests were connected to the company in some way, but I didn't see anything sketchy going on. It made me think.

I toyed with the antique watch in my palm.

"What—Eva?" The thought hadn't even occurred to me. "No way. Her second shadow didn't feel especially strange... although I couldn't place her pleasure."

"...I don't know. I mean, she's drinking and smoking out. But she's not just looking for an easy fix. She doesn't strike me as a fiend, like the shade that was in Soren. Then again, I don't think she's masterminding anything."

The thought put a sour taste in my mouth. "Trust me. After recent events, I'm not taking anything at face value."

That's when I noticed John standing in the crowd. He was an older Chinese man, in his forties, who I regularly ran into in the nightlife. We weren't friends. In fact, sometimes it felt like just the opposite. I didn't know what he thought of me exactly, but his motivations were easy enough to peg. Our needs often overlapped. Still, I always had the feeling that I had to watch my back around him.

I approached him from behind, not announcing myself until I was upon him. "Still fighting through the economic downturn, I see."

John flipped around. His face was pockmarked a bit and his hair was short in a crew cut, but otherwise he wasn't very memorable at all. He was dressed plainly, except for a blue and white windbreaker. The man always appeared unassuming; in fact, it was his business strategy.

"What do you want, Butcher?"

"I should have known I'd see you here," I said, yelling a little louder than I liked. The music was pumping and the crowd was really going for it. I motioned my head to the side and John followed me a bit farther from the speaker system. "You get around," I said. "I was wondering if you'd heard of a DJ playing tonight. Ingress?"

John eyed me coldly. "I don't run the shows. I supply them. You always ask too many questions, anyway." He looked around a bit, then reached into his pocket and produced a baggy of pills. "What do you want, Butcher?"

"Is it always about drugs to you?" I asked with a smile.

He didn't see the humor in the remark and put the bag away. "Get out of here, man."

"Why?"

"You're bad for business," he answered. "Trouble follows you."

"John, you know those guys always threw the first punch."

"Hey man, I'm a lover, not a fighter. I stay away from drama. I don't need that bullshit."

"Listen," I said, catching his arm before he turned away, "who's running this party? What else is going down here besides this dance floor?"

"Fuck you," he said.

"It's an easy question, John. Where's the Red Hat management?"

The dealer looked around again, then put his hand in his pocket. "Seventy-five bucks."

"Seventy-five? Don't you know this is a down market?"

"Hey man," he said, holding firm, "do you think any of these assholes pay attention to Wall Street?"

I smirked and begrudgingly pulled out my money clip. This was John's way of getting his back scratched too. I handed him the cash.

"There's a side entrance, by the cafe. It's closed off for some VIPs but pretty quiet. I heard about someone interviewing in there, but you'll probably just find some groupies having sex with their boss."

"What boss?"

"I don't know. You asked for Red Hat management, right? I don't know their names, but they're the only ones with access to the inside of the observatory."

I nodded as he slipped two pills into my palm. For seventy-five bucks, I should have gotten three.

"I think you forgot one," I said.

"Nah," he returned, "that's a special price, just for you. Because we're friends." He stormed off.

I stared at the capsules in the palm of my hand. "Well fuck you too," I muttered under my breath.

* * *

I wandered to the side of the building I hadn't been to yet. There was a similar path around the observatory that circled to the back, but there were also some steps down to a lower level sitting flush with the mountain. That's where the restaurant was. A makeshift gate closed it off. I watched it for a while from a distance. No one came or went.

I passed by the regular path and headed to the back, glancing in the likely direction of Eva and Liz. I was too far to see them on this side. It was for the best—I'd been distracted enough tonight.