Chicks Kick Butt (12 page)

Wolf snarled and lunged forward. I caught him by his hair, and he folded down to the floor, his knees hitting with a thump that shook the entire room. “No.” I yanked his head back, exposing his throat. “
No
, Wolf. He will kill you.”

He might very well kill us both
. I met Quinn’s flat dark gaze, his jaw set and a muscle ticking in his cheek. His hair was cut military-short, as ever, and he wore boots to match mine. No spot of blood fouled his leathers. The room could have been a charnel house and still he would have been pristine. Only once had I seen him covered in blood, and screaming.

I shuddered to remember.

“I am not here to kill you.” Flat, as usual, each word with the same monotone weight.

Wolf surged forward. I tightened my grasp in his shaggy hair and pulled him back. Quinn watched this, and a shadow of amusement fluttered in his dark eyes.

“Then what?” The enormity of the treachery threatened to choke me. “
He
did this. Your precious White King. He gave over his own kind to mortals!”

“Eleni.” Tarquin’s gaze dropped to the
lykanthe.
“You were a Promethean, however briefly. You were a prize for
him
. When you left, he took it ill.”

“No more ill than
you
did?” Old hurt rose.

That garnered a response. His face twisted briefly. It was shocking, a break in his customary immobility. “I made you. I do not wish to see you unmade.”

He said it as if it would be so easy. I did not doubt that for him, it would be.

Then why had he not done it already? Why wait here, with the last victim but one of my vengeance dead on the crusted sheets of the narrow bed?
“Why?”

“Because Leonidas is my King. I cannot stop him.” He paused, considering. “Not yet.”

Somewhere in the tenement, a baby woke. Its shrill faraway cry spiraled into an agony of need. In the street, gunfire echoed.

“But you will?” I did not credit my ears. His name was synonymous with loyalty, and had been for far longer than my own long lifespan.

He nodded once and rose, smoothly. Wolf tensed, and now Quinn looked faintly amused. “Only you would preserve a
lykanthe
.” One corner of his mouth pulled up, a millimeter’s worth. On him, it was as glaring as a shout.

I opened my mouth to tell him what he could do with his amusement, and his master. But he forestalled me.

“Take your dog and flee. I will tell Leonidas you are dead. Preserve what you can elsewhere, and stay away from the White Court and the Red.” He indicated the bed with a swift, economical motion, and I dragged Wolf back as if his hair were a chain. “Some day, Eleni, I will avenge
all
his victims. Then I will need your help.” He stopped, hands dangling loose and empty by his sides. “Do we have a bargain?”

I considered this. “Why should I trust you?”

“You are still breathing, are you not? And so is he.” This time it was a flash of disdain as he stared down at the growling
lykanthe
. Sooner or later my hold on Wolf would slip. Then what?

“Very well.” The words were ash in my mouth. “Make him suffer, Quinn. He must suffer to his last breath.”

“Have no doubt of that.” Quinn pointed at the bed again. “I am not merciful, Eleni. That is why you left me.”

“No—”

But he was gone. The window was open, and the cloth-tearing sound of a Kin using the speed slapped the walls. I stared at the body on the bed, the dried lumps of the lungs. Exquisite, and I could be sure Quinn had done it with no wasted motion, not a single wasted drop of blood.

“I left because you did not love me,” I finished, because it must be said.

Wolf sagged, and I realized my hand was still cramped in his hair. I let go with an effort. He caught himself on splayed hands, crouching, shaking his head as if it hurt.

“Bad.” He peered up at me, craning his neck. “Bad
vrykolak.
”

“Yes.” There was no reason not to agree. “Now we must leave. It’s too dangerous to stay here.”

But before we left, I examined the body on the bed. The face was left intact, in a mask of suffering, the eyes stretched open but clouded by death. I put my face near his hair and inhaled deeply. Underneath the mask of death, yes. The smell of male, dominance, gunfire, and a faint fading tang of smoke and petrol. It was indeed one of the mortals who had been inside my house.

My vengeance was—mostly—achieved. But all I felt was emptiness.

* * *

The long gray of predawn found us miles away from the city limits, in a north-facing hotel room. The Rest On Inn was cheap, but it was safer than staying in the city. Stealing a car was easy, as was changing the license plates; I had also stopped in an all-night bazaar and bought another jacket for Wolf as well as a load of groceries. Simple, high-carbohydrate and high-protein things, either easily heated or good to eat cold. The
lykanthe
did not demur.

He crouched by the door, eating cold beef stew out of a can with his fingers. I used the duct tape to fasten the cheap curtains down, the weight of approaching dawn filling my entire body with lead.

“Don’t open the door,” I said, again.

He nodded vigorously. “No housekeeping. No visitors. No no.”

I did not bother to take off my boots. Tomorrow we needed more money, a different car, more travel. There were other cities. They all held Prometheans, true, but Leonidas would not look for me if Tarquin said I was dead. And I had no fame among the Kin. I was merely an anonymous Preserver, working to hold back the tide of time.

I watched the
lykanthe
as he dropped the empty can in the rubbish bin and selected another one. A quick deft slice of his claws took the top off neatly. “Eleni.” He half-sang my name, happily. Just as Amelie was wont to sing as she painted. “Eleni. Pretty Eleni.”

I pulled up the blankets. Bleach, industrial-strength detergent, and the ghosts of mortals lived in the cloth. I arranged the flat pillows and lay on my back, hugging the red file folder to my chest. Evidence of Leonidas’s treachery. Even Prometheans were not supposed to turn on their own kind. How long had he been planning this? How many other Preservers had died, or lost their charges to this malice?

Did it matter? I am immortal too. I could keep this evidence for a long, long time. If there was ever a chance, I could find a way to make the viper sting the White King.

And Wolf? Did Leonidas have a reason to hate him as well, or was he just the victim of mortal cruelty? Where were his kin? Destroyed? Still living?

Did it matter? He was my ward now. One more thing to save. Perhaps I could do a better job of it now.

“Pretty Eleni,” he slurred. “Good
vrykolak
. Good Eleni.”

Our kind does not weep. So why were my cheeks wet? I shut my eyes and called up their faces, each printed on the darkness behind my lids.

Zhen. Virginia. Peter. Amelie. Vengeance did not give them a heartbeat again. It did not salve the wound.

Another empty can hit the pile in the bin. I breathed steadily, wishing for the unconsciousness of daysleep. The sun was a brass note hovering at the edge of my hearing, ready to climb over the horizon and scorch the earth once more.

The sun drew nearer, and my body became unresponsive. The bed creaked. Wolf climbed up and settled against me. The file’s heavy paper crinkled, but I freed one arm and he snuggled into my side, his head heavy on my slender iron shoulder. He made a low, happy sound.

I fled into darkness as the sun rose, and wept no more.

  WATERVIEW, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 1937

My weeklong singing engagement at the Classic Club was over, and my hard-earned pay was safe in a grouch bag hanging from my neck. All I had to do was trade my stage gown for a traveling suit, then get to the station to catch the milk train heading home to Chicago.

I was just dropping on a slip when my dressing room door crashed opened.

Being a damned pretty girl with a head of carefully tended platinum blond hair, guys “accidentally” blundering in on me has been a common occurrence since my first night onstage. As the star of this week’s show I had the luxury of a private room, kept locked against such interruptions. This door’s hook-and-eye latch was enough to discourage the casually curious, but not a meaty shoulder banging against it with serious force.

The latch snapped, one piece flying across to
ding
against the lighted mirror. I yanked the slip down and swung to face the invader, thinking it was a thief after my money. I put one hand in my open purse on the dressing table, fingers slipping around the grip of the .38 Colt Detective Special inside.

Four men crowded the opening, staring. I don’t mind when I’m onstage, but this was my sanctuary. Had they burst in two seconds sooner we’d have been arrested by the vice cops.

“What?” I snapped, ready to fight. Just how drunk were they, how had they gotten past the bouncers, and how much belligerence would be required to get rid of them?

The closest was the biggest and apparently the muscle behind the breaking-in. He was unshaved; his clothing was seedy; his eyes were puffy, bloodshot, and oddly calm. The others were similarly unshaved and red-eyed, but one was in a new suit and looked like a respectable banker, another wore brown pants and a blue coat over just an undershirt, and the third was fully dressed but had no shoes, just filthy wet socks.

Collectively an alarming sight, but my intuition said to stand my ground and act tough.

“What is it?” I demanded, prepared to cut loose with a healthy scream if they made a move. I could shoot, but preferred having the club’s bouncers deal with this … whatever it was.

The banker said in a flat voice, “She’s not the one.”

No-Shoes said, “She’s blond, it’s the right hair.”

“She’s not the one,” the banker repeated. He had something in one hand that might have been a photograph and held it up for the others. Sluggishly, they looked at it, then back at me, while the skin on the back of my neck went tight and cold. Whatever was wrong with them was an unnatural kind of wrong, yet weirdly familiar.

“She’s not the one,” they finally agreed in identical flat voices, then turned and went down the backstage hall to the next door along.

Same operation: Seedy Guy forced the door open, and they looked inside.

The other headliner, a ventriloquist, was surprised as hell and more talkative, angrily asking questions, getting no answers.

“Not a girl,” said the perceptive banker. This time they didn’t check the photo.

I’d tiptoed over to watch, ready to duck, but none of them paid me further notice. I was shaking, fuming, and scared as I tore down the hall yelling for the stage manager and anyone else handy.

A couple bouncers appeared, offering friendly leers, since I was wearing just a slip, but they shot past to earn their keep when shrieks started up in the chorus girls’ dressing room.

The strange invaders had a bad time of it because I didn’t stop raising the roof until they were outnumbered by club employees three to one. Half measures are silly in some situations.

The backstage area was quickly packed with struggling bodies, punches were thrown and caught, clothes ripped. The confined area heard thumpings, glass breaking, men cursing, and girls squealing for what seemed like an hour, but was probably less than a minute. The bouncers knew their business and appeared to be enjoying the exercise. The four men made a good effort to defend themselves, though they moved like players who had overrehearsed and lost their spark.

But if you’re going to have a fight, this was the best kind: brief, brutal, and with the home team victorious.

The men got the bum’s rush. The bouncers and a few other guys who had joined the battle carried things to the back alley, and probably would have rolled into the street, but the club manager stopped them.

“No trouble with the law!” he bellowed, which halted the diehards. It was an advantage to any business not to have police cars roaring up and down the block, scaring off customers. The Classic Club, with illegal gambling in the basement, was particularly considerate of the feelings of its patrons.

The manager stormed into the backstage hall, scowling at the chorus girls who had cautiously emerged from their lair. “All right—who started it?”

With five of them in various stages of dress, undress, outrage, and agitation, he should have known better. They all started talking at once.

He should also have counted. Last I looked there were six girls in the line. While he tried to make sense of simultaneous stories, I eased into the dressing room.

It was like mine, drafty and poorly lighted, but with a lot more stuff confined to roughly the same space. A clothing rack took up the wall behind the door, near to collapse with gaudy taffeta, spangles, and feathers. Onstage the outfits were magical; here they were musty with sweat, sagging, sad—and twitching.

I shoved aside still-warm costumes. Katie Burnell, the sixth girl, crouched behind them, tying a scarf around her head. She gaped up at me in sheer terror for a startled second, then wilted with relief. Her exaggerated makeup had been spoiled by flowing tears. Black trails from her too-thick mascara cut through the supposedly waterproof pancake and greasepaint. She was a mess, a scared-out-of-her-mind mess.

“Those guys are gone, but the boss is hopping mad,” I said. “Stay here a minute.”

She gulped and nodded.

I returned to the hall. The manager—who really wasn’t a bad sort, just upset—had worked out that none of the girls knew any of the guys.

“So they wasn’t nobody’s boyfriends?” he asked, his eyes sharp for the least hint of a lie. Male visitors were not allowed in this part of the club, only stage talent and other employees.

“Oh, please,” said Big Maggie, who wasn’t big, except for her loud, fluting voice. “I can do better than those mugs. Ask me if I can do better.”

He declined the invitation. “You girls never seen ’em before?”

“They weren’t in the audience,” I said from the back. “They were dressed too strange.” On weekends the Classic Club was a high-hat joint. Patrons had to put on the Ritz or find some other place for drinks and a show come Saturday night.

The other girls supported my observation, nodding, agreeing, and comparing notes now that the excitement had died down.

The manager turned toward the bouncers and guys who’d found an excuse to continue loitering at their end of the hall. You’d think they’d be used to seeing half-dressed females, but apparently not. The ventriloquist and even his dummy had come out for a gander.

The manager gave someone hell about the back door being unlocked, but it was like holding back winter: people were always leaving it open after sneaking outside for a smoke.

I kept my lips together about the men looking for a blonde like me. Katie Burnell had dark hair, but it was a recent and poorly done bottle job. No woman goes from traffic-stopping platinum to a mousy shade of brunette without a good reason.

“Break this up and get back to work,” said the manager. “No need to call the law if no one’s hurt.”

“I broke a nail,” Big Maggie informed him, showing her left ring finger, the rest of her digits in a loose fist. She was too much a lady to use her middle finger, which made the gesture all the more amusing to everyone but the boss.

He grumbled about smart alecks as the girls went back to their room. His gaze fell on me as the guys whistled and hooted appreciation. I straightened, having bent over to pick up some trash. The only thing covering my behind was the pale satin slip. They’d focused on that, not on what I’d snagged from the floor and held behind my back.

“You know anything about those mugs, Bobbi?”

“Nope,” I answered truthfully. “They broke in on me, looked like trouble, so I thought I better yell.”

“You thought right.” He turned to make waving motions to my admirers. “Awright, you cake eaters, show’s over. Walk around the building. Make sure those crashers don’t come back. Discourage ’em if they do, but don’t get caught.”

Though the men were worse for wear with blackening eyes and cut lips, they brightened at the possibility of another donnybrook.

“Has this happened before?” I asked as the troops moved off.

He shook his head.

“Maybe at another club?”

That got me a suspicious squint. “What do you know?”

“Nothing, it just seemed a good bet.”

He snorted. “Next time play the horses.”

“What happened at the other place?”

“Same as here. Four bums bust into the dressing rooms, only they left before they could be thrown out. My brother runs the Golden Rose and called about it. I better phone him back. This is an epidemic.”

“What about the other clubs in town?”

“This is Waterview, not Cheboygan. The only entertainment is this place, the other place, a movie house, and a skating rink. Oh, yeah, the barbershop got in a Whiffle Board. If it wasn’t for that colony of swells from Mackinac Island supportin’ our slot machines, we’d be kissing cousins with a Hooverville.”

“Bet it boomed during Prohibition.”

“Nah, the rumrunners from Canada went to the next town over. Faster boats. You sure you don’t know nothing?”

“I wish I didn’t know this much.”

“You an’ me both, sister.” He moved off, scowl intact. I checked on the girls. Their door leaned crazily on one hinge. Big Maggie stood guard while the rest finished changing. Everyone talked a mile a minute, but subsided when they noticed me.

“What’s goin’ on?” Maggie asked, buttoning her dress.

“Boss thinks it was drunks after a free show. They tried the same thing at another club.”

“Huh. Creeps.”

“Men,” said another girl knowingly.

“Men-creeps,” agreed a third.

“Damn,” said a fourth, reacting to a run in the stocking she’d been pulling on.

“Where’s Katie?” I asked, my heart sinking. Enough costumes had been shifted from the rack to show she was no longer there.

“Washroom.”

I crossed to it, knocked, and called before pushing in. The window was wide, the room empty. The alley outside was also empty. Katie had made a clean escape.

Well, I’d
intended
to offer help.

I looked at the item I’d plucked from the floor. It was the photo the banker type had carried. Though crinkled with abuse, the image was clear, showing a much younger Katie Burnell. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen at the time.

It was a bridal portrait; she was radiant, smiling, and had platinum blond hair.

The cardboard back bore the stamped-on address of a photography studio in Sheldon, Ohio. An elegant copperplate hand had written on the white space under the photo:
Mrs. Ethan Duvert on the Day of Her Wedding
. The date was under it.

The picture was less than a month old.

Good God, what was she doing to herself? The heavy makeup she always wore made her look years older. She’d also been
scared
. That could pile on the years.

“Hey, you done in there? I gotta go.” One of the girls slipped by.

I went to my dressing room, donned my traveling suit, and arranged to get my trunk hauled to the train station. It wasn’t a
big
trunk, not like the one my boyfriend sometimes sleeps in, but I’d checked inside in case Katie had gotten a bright idea. My clothes were there, but no runaway bride. I’d seen too many movies.

Yes … that is correct. My boyfriend sleeps in a trunk. During the day. But only
sometimes
.

I’ll get back to him shortly.

One of the guys drove me and the trunk to the train station two blocks away. He offered to stay, but the stationmaster and a porter were there, and I had my .38. It made my purse heavy, but I didn’t mind. I was safe enough. Those badly dressed creepy guys weren’t looking for me, after all.

The porter took care of the trunk, the stationmaster took care of my ticket. It was three in the morning in Waterview, Michigan, and I had nothing to do for the next three hours, which was exactly perfect. I parked on one of the long benches and pulled an apple and a movie magazine from my purse. Both gave me something to do while I thought about Katie Burnell and whether there was still some way to find her.

I wanted to know what had her so scared, why those guys were after her, and to help if I could. I could call a cop, but if this was the kind a problem the law could solve, wouldn’t she have already gone to them? Maybe she was at the police station even now.

She was a good dancer, keeping pace with the others, never missing a cue, smiling when required, but quiet. Not that she was snobbish, more like she wanted to be invisible. Some girls were like that, able to perform onstage, but shy the rest of the time.

Katie kept to herself and the hotel room she shared with two of the girls. I’d stayed at the same place and gotten to know everyone. Some headliners don’t mix with the chorus, but not me. They always know the best gossip. Show a little respect and you’ve got friends for life.

Last Friday Katie had turned down going to the matinee showing of a Clark Gable picture with us, even after I said the tickets and popcorn were my treat. The girls and I had a great time, but no one wondered much about Katie. For that I felt a touch of guilt, but how was I to know scary lugs were looking for her?

A tall young man marched purposefully into the station. He was shaved, dressed well, and alert, which was wrong for the hour. Early risers and nighthawks were never so brisk at three in the morning. I decided to ignore him and hope he’d not notice me. Fat chance of that, since I was the only other person there.