The Wicked City (5 page)

She turned. Muse was inside the car and Robbie outside the driver’s side window, the two exchanging a round of sign language. Sam caught June’s eye.

“Their powers cancel each other out. He can’t read her mind.”

“Isn’t she lucky?”

“You know, you can build defenses against telepaths. I only allow them to see as much as I want of my own mind. But it takes discipline and vigilance.”

“I’ll have to fit some lessons into my busy schedule.”

The entryway of the building glowed. A red rug lay out to guide them to a set of doors. A doorman opened one with a flourish.

“Welcome back, Mr. Haain.”

“Harry.” Sam nodded.

Inside, they faced a bank of elevators.

“We’re going to the twelfth floor,” Sam said. “To the lobby, and then up to a room I have here. Beyond these doors, you are guaranteed safety at all times.” He eyed Micha. “Even you.”

“The lobby’s on the twelfth floor?” June asked. “You know it’s a fancy hotel when you have to go up to get in.”

The elevator sported a marble floor and a chandelier, the light reflected all around in mirrored walls. They could pay for the bulbs by selling sunglasses to passengers before they got on. The operator largely ignored their presence, aside for some small talk with Sam.

The ridiculous elevator proved only a taste, as the lobby took first prize for most overblown room of the century—more extravagant chandeliers, furniture suited for royalty, and gleaming tile floors. A single lamp probably cost more than every inch of ink on June’s body. She expected to see the Queen lounging in one of the chairs, possibly being fed grapes.

A fountain rose in the middle of the room, with an elegant sculpture of several great bronze birds taking flight above the gushing water.

“Nice place,” Micha murmured.

They strode across the lobby toward another bank of elevators.

“I should bring Rose here for our anniversary,” he said.

June stopped in her tracks. “What?”

Micha nearly fell over her. The rest of them stopped and June gaped at Micha.

“You just mentioned Rose,” Cindy said.

“I did?”

“Is your memory coming back?” June panicked. This wasn’t a good time for Micha to remember his dead wife and proceed into a meltdown.

“I don't—” Micha scratched at his scalp. “I don’t even know what I just said. What…was it?”

“You said you should bring Rose here for your anniversary,” Cindy said.

“Oh.” Micha furrowed his brow. “I thought you said she was dead?”

“Hello!” Sam called out, drawing their attention. He stood a few feet away and gestured dramatically toward the elevators.

In the second elevator, as opulent as the first, June stole furtive glances at Micha. He was frowning, brows drawn down, staring at the floor. How would he react when he realized he would have no more anniversaries? Her guilt warred with the urge to hold and comfort him, to dry his inevitable tears and provide all the sex he would otherwise be deprived of with his wife gone.

I really am a crass bitch
. She scowled at her reflection in the mirrored wall.

After exiting the elevator, Sam led them down a hallway to a door at the end and unlocked it with a key card. The room was as overstated as the rest of the hotel.

Tiffany lamps, jewel-toned sofas, and cream-colored carpet filled the space, the décor bright, sophisticated, and chic. A wall of windows looked out on a spectacular view of the lake, the sky monochrome and thick with clouds above the dark water.

“Holy shit,” Cindy said. “Sam, is this what you’ve been doing with all the fundraising money?”

Sam pulled off his scarf. “Sit your ass down. I’ll have some food sent up.” He pointed to the sofas.

The three sat down, June and Micha on one, Cindy on another across from them. June swiveled.

“Fancy digs here,” June remarked. “Oh look, there’s even a bar.”

Sam took his coat and gloves off and tossed them in a chair. June arched an eyebrow, unable to stop herself.

Sam wore a dark green V-neck sweater and a pair of jeans, both formfitting, on a form worth showing off. He was broad and muscled and had nice hips and long legs. She was torn. She liked tall, light-haired, blue-eyed, goofy men. Oh, to hell with that. She liked men. And lately, she’d been suffering from a distinct lack of them in her life. Maybe that was why she was making such poor decisions.

“I know you have terribly important things to talk about, June,” Sam said. “But first we need to understand each other. That’s why I brought you here, so we can talk and understand. But first, what do you like to drink?”

June wanted a beer.

Her choice arrived in a dark green bottle, a goblet with a gold rim provided to drink it from. Sam also ordered coffee and tea. June had no qualms about drinking from the fancy glass while they sipped from their little teacups. Cindy had a whiskey on the rocks. June appreciated a woman who actively, unabashedly cultivated her alcoholism, grating as Cindy could otherwise be.

Sam also ordered an array of snack food, and June was glad to partake, as she hadn’t eaten anything since Cindy ordered Chinese takeout the night before. She had to be careful what she put in her mouth, though. She had an assortment of annoying and ever-growing food allergies. Not the kind trendy people used to annoy waiters in restaurants, real ones that could be debilitating and miserable. She knew which beers were gluten-free, too.

“You have a ridiculous amount of tattoos.” Sam sat down across from her, on the sofa with Cindy.

June had taken off her jacket and was wearing a short-sleeved scoop neck T-shirt. She extended her arms, like she had for Micha, goblet clutched in her left hand. Myriad artwork curled around her biceps and flowed down her forearms. The right arm held more.

“Chaos on my right. I did a lot of them myself. I’m ambidextrous, but I’m better with my left hand.”

She hadn’t done all of them herself. The one on the underside of her right arm, a black-and-white portrait of a little girl, had been done by her friend and the co-owner of her shop, Diego.

Cindy smirked. “Apparently some people think having a bunch of tattoos makes you a lesbian, so I hear.”

June picked up the cap from her beer bottle and threw it at Cindy. She flinched out of the way and chuckled as it just missed her head.

Sam sat his cup on the table beside him and gazed at June. She took a drink from her goblet.

“Tell me what happened at the Institute,” Sam said.

June lowered the goblet. “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“It’s a non-smoking room.”

“That’s not what I asked.” The pesky smoke detector was on the other side of the room, above the wet bar. Far enough. She delved into the pocket of her jacket that she’d draped over the arm of the sofa.

“By all means,” Sam said, “do whatever the hell you want.”

“Thanks.”

She lit up and took a long, delicious drag. She blew the smoke out the corner of her mouth, away from Micha. She needed something to brace her nerves before she hashed over the story again. She’d had to tell the whole sordid tale to Cindy the night they met.

“When we first got to the Institute, we were in a pretty bad mood.” June grabbed her empty bottle. “I’d let our secret slip. Jason was pissed, and I was pretty pissed off myself. But Jason always wanted to visit Chicago, so he was trying to make the best of it. And they were really cool to us, at first. Gave us a nice room, TV, all that crap, even if it was a bit like a hospital. Good food, even. They were nice enough to have special stuff made up for me since I’m allergic to half the food on the planet.”

Micha raised his eyebrows. “Food allergies?”

“Yeah, it’s kinda ridiculous. I have to watch myself. I don’t make a huge deal out of it, though. I can usually find something. And you know, it makes me healthier. I can’t eat a lot of junk.”

“But you smoke like a chimney,” Cindy said. “Very conscious of your health.”

June held up the cigarette perched between her index and middle fingers. “I’m not allergic to cigarettes.”

Sam continued staring at June like he intended to use his gaze to burn a hole through her chest.

“Anyway, it was all stuff we expected at first. They asked us questions, took our history, gave us a psychological evaluation. They had a field day with me, let me tell you.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Micha grin.

“We were allowed to roam around. Couldn’t leave the building, they said for security reasons, but we were allowed to go anywhere not restricted. That’s how I met him.” June jerked her head toward Micha. “I saw him giving a lecture in a conference room, thought it was interesting, so I waited around and said hello to him after.” She left out the fact Micha’s body had been the only thing she found “interesting.”

“His wife was there, and he introduced us. That’s how I knew her, later.” She paused. Here, the story took a dark turn.

“They started doing tests. Recording our voices, MRIs, x-rays. Then they wanted blood samples, and for some reason—I don’t know, it was the way they were acting—that put a red flag up for me. I asked them what the hell they wanted our blood for, but they wouldn’t give me a straight answer. So of course that just made me ask more questions. And the more questions I asked, the more uncomfortable they got.”

Sam leaned forward, placed his elbows on his knees, and clasped his hands under his chin.

“Then Jason got upset. He wouldn’t do any more recordings. He’s got issues about using his power.” She paused again. “They got hostile and sequestered him in our room and took all our shit—our clothes, our wallets, our cell phones. I only had my jacket because I was outside smoking when it all went down. When I came back, they told me to get in the room with him. I knew something was going down and we were in trouble, so I started planning a way to get out.”

“What did you do?” Sam asked.

“They came in to give us food after a while, two guys. They were wearing these special noise canceling headphones; they’d been using them every time they did a test on us.” She snorted. “Didn’t stop the one from going down like a load of bricks when Jason punched him. The other one just got out of the way. We ran out of there, got in an elevator. I didn’t know where to go, the elevator didn’t go all the way to the ground, so I just hit the lowest floor.”

She tucked the bottle in her lap. The cigarette burned away in her hand.

“When the doors opened, she was standing there, his wife, Rose. She must have been getting ready to go home or something. I didn’t know if she would help us. I told her they were chasing us, and she got this look on her face, like…she knew. Like she’d been waiting for something to happen.”

Micha furrowed his brow.

“She said ‘come on.’ We got in this other elevator. It went down to a parking garage.”

“The vampire research floor,” Sam said. “It has access to an underground parking garage, so the vampires don’t have to expose themselves to sunlight. Trust me. I’ve got more blueprints of that place than the people who built it.”

“When we got down there, it was too late,” June said. “These security guards popped up out of nowhere.” She stared down at the glowing end of her cigarette emitting a slow ribbon of smoke. “They took a shot, just like that. Shooting at us like if we got out it would be the end of the world. They didn’t even try to subdue us. I felt the heat off the bullet. Went right past me and into her.”

She saw Rose’s face again—her wide, shocked eyes, her dark red mouth opening in a scream. Her blood splattering the trunk of the car behind her.

“They grabbed Jason, but I ran. I should have stopped. But I ran instead. I don’t know how I got away, just hiding behind cars until I found a way out.”

Micha still looked confused.

“When I calmed down enough to think, I went through my pockets. All I had was my smokes and Micha’s card. He’d given it to me when I talked to him. So I hustled some change and called him from a pay phone. I’d just watched his wife die, and he was the only person I could call.” She took a long drag. She blew the smoke out slowly.

“Go on,” Sam said.

“I hid until he picked me up. I was out of my skull. I was sure they’d killed Jason. I didn’t know what to do. I needed Micha to help me, so I made a bad decision. Not the first one that night.”

“You enchanted him.” Sam sat up straight.

She nodded. “I made him forget he was married, in case someone called him while we were together. I just wanted him to get me somewhere safe, then I was gonna take it off him. But I couldn’t. It was stuck.”

“You were emotional when you did it,” Sam said. “That gives it power.”

She pushed the stub of her cigarette into the bottle, and it sizzled faintly as it hit the bottom.

“Micha took me to her place.” She indicated Cindy. “She hid me out. Us. Since Micha has a big gaping hole in his memory concerning his wife, who was just murdered, we thought things might be a little difficult for him.”

“I don’t remember this woman they’re telling me is my wife.” Micha’s voice was odd, flat yet tremulous. “I feel like I’m going mad. There’s pictures of her in all the papers. Hell, there’s pictures of her in my phone. But I don’t remember being with her. How can I not remember my own wife?”

The desperate edge in his voice made June’s stomach lurch.

“It’ll wear off,” Cindy said. “Maybe it’s best you don’t know right now. It’s saving you from a lot of despair, so you can save your own life.”

“I feel like someone is playing a big joke on me.” Micha looked down at his hands. “I can remember everything else—my work, my life, my family. There’s just these big empty spots where I know things used to fit, and I suppose that’s where she goes, but she’s a stranger to me.”

June swallowed thickly. “Micha, I’m sorry…”

Sam clapped his hands together, cutting through the moment. “Stop it. We have no time for bullshit and pity. Regret is a useless emotion.” He focused on June. “Your power is ‘stupid strong,’ as the kids say.”

“I don’t think the kids say that.” She set her bottle aside.

“Whatever the hell they say, you have an impressive amount of whatever it is you have. That’s why the Institute wants to stick a huge scientific dildo up you.”