Firebug (11 page)

THERE ARE SEVERAL
bars in the Inferno, but the Purgatory bar is the smallest and has only one or two bartenders working. The bar, like the restaurant, is dimly lit, mostly by candles and chandeliers made to look like they're full of candles. There's some red backlighting that reflects off the burnished copper set into the wall.

I went to check on my two favorite bartenders—and despite their earlier behavior, they still were my favorites—behind the Purgatory bar. I slid onto the stool behind Lock, winking at Ezra as I did so. He solemnly held up one finger in a shushing fashion, then went back to wiping down a pint glass.

Lock's spiked, bleached hair appeared magenta in the bar's light. He wore his black Purgatory T-shirt and black pants well, judging from the way the women seated at the bar were staring, and by the amount of drool Brittany had produced at the table earlier. Not that I was sizing up one of my best friends. That would be weird.

I leaned forward and pinched him on the ass. I thought he'd leap or startle, as most people would when receiving an unexpected goose, but Lock simply spun around, grabbing my hand.

“Let go,” I said.

He shook his head slowly, eyes twinkling in the candlelight, then pulled me forward so he could lean over the bar and kiss me on the cheek. I felt the collective death stare of every girl seated at the bar.

“You're not supposed to be over here,” he said into my ear. “Especially since I'm full of wrath toward you right now. Never visit a wrathful bartender. We can do terrible things to your beverages.”

“You're full of something,” I said, leaning away from him and yanking my hand back as I did. “But I'm not sure it's wrath. Besides, you love me too much to poison me or kick me out for being underage.” Especially since I knew for a fact that neither of
them
was twenty-one either. One of the perks of working for the Coterie? Best fake IDs ever. Venus had even made
me
take one. She didn't want my age to get in the way of my job, should I ever have to go after someone in a bar or voting booth. Just because I had one didn't mean I wanted to use it to go into a Coterie bar unless it was to see my friends or take someone out.

Lock rolled his eyes theatrically at Ezra and pulled me a Coke from the bar, topping it with a cherry before he handed it over, but he didn't argue. When I was in Purgatory, the only two people who were allowed to give me food or beverages were Lock and Ezra. It was one of their rules. The Inferno had a large staff, and since I'd been one of Venus's bogeymen for years now and a lot of the creatures held a grudge, we didn't know what one of them might pull. People don't care that you hurt them or their loved ones because someone else told you to—they just care that you did it. It was too easy for something to go wrong, which is why Ezra had insisted on waiting on our table earlier. I thought they were being overly cautious most days, but after my little meeting with Venus I was willing to go along with their paranoia.

“How did it go?” Lock asked, handing off a set of martinis to a waitress.

“I turned down a job.”

Ezra and Lock both stilled.

“I'm sorry,” Ezra said, “could you repeat that last part? I couldn't hear it over the sound of you losing your damn mind.”

Lock tossed his bar rag on the counter. “Funny, you don't
look
dead.” He poked me with his index finger. “And you certainly don't feel dead. Maybe I need to feel you more to double-check.”

“Piss off.” He reached to poke me again, and I batted his hand away.

“It was Duncan. What was I supposed to do?”

Ezra came around to my side of the bar, completely ignoring the customers who'd just approached to order, forcing Lock to walk away for a second and deal with them.

“Duncan? Beardy, food-bringing Duncan? I like him. We can't kill him. He brings us fish.”

“I know,” I said.

“Also, because it would be wrong,” Lock said, walking back over to us. “Still, Ava. You told her no? Flat out? No attempts at negotiation?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “What am I saying? Of course you didn't negotiate. You probably yelled ‘no' and then spit on her shoes.”

“I'm not that bad. I know better than to spit. But I
am
a little worried about her lack of instant torture and/or murder. At the very least I should be hanging from warded manacles while starved weasels nibble at my toes.”

Lock rested his elbows on the bar. “See, you kid, but that really is where you should be right now. What did she do?”

“She slapped me.” We all knew that the slap was almost a nonpunishment. I mean, Venus slapped when she was feeling
playful.
I gave them a brief sketch of the meeting, and Lock went back to wiping the counter, but he did it slowly, his face creased in thought. Ezra left his stool to drape over my back and steal the cherry out of my drink, because touching reassured him, which is how I knew that he was worried even if he was acting like his usual playful self.

After a few seconds like that, Lock shook his head. “I don't like it, Aves. You need—no, we all need—to watch our step for a while. She has to be planning something. No way she'd let you walk away with just a slap.” He grabbed a few dollars that someone had left as a tip off the counter and shoved them into his apron. “There's talk lately that she's been even more … interesting than usual. I know we always try to tiptoe, but now might be the time to add padded slippers and a noise machine into the act. Know what I mean?”

I stared down at my soda, stirring it with my straw. “I'm worried, Lock.” Ezra stroked my hair, and I caught a few people staring daggers at me. It didn't matter that we were just friends. All they knew was that I'd walked in and stolen Ezra's attention.

“You spoke for all of us,” Lock said. “Which means that, if she wants, Venus could terminate Ez and me as well.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I should have brought it to you first—”

Lock cut me off. “Why? Our answer would have been the same.”

A new drink ticket flashed on the screen behind Lock, and he started pulling some beers from the tap to fill the order. “Ezra and I can handle ourselves, but maybe you should go check on the friends you came with.”

“They aren't really my friends,” I said.

“Really? But you have so much in common.”

I knew that tone. It meant that the subject would come up again later, in much more detail. I squirmed in my seat and whined. “You're not going to make me talk about my feelings, are you? I hate that. Sometimes being friends with you is like having a girlfriend. If we X-ray you, will we find an errant uterus?”

“You can always strip-search me and find out.” Lock leaned against the bar and gave me a mock smolder. It always made me smile, but secretly, deep down in the Tartarus region of my libido, I actually kind of found it a little thrilling. Not that I would say so to Lock.

“Uteruses are found on the inside, Lock.
Inside.
You have met women, right?”

That earned me another grunt. “You have no idea.” There was no leer when he said it, just an honest response. “Okay,” he said. “Playtime is over.” Ezra took his place behind the counter, and Lock walked me to the elevators.

“What, you think ninjas are going to jump out and attack me in the fifteen feet between the bar and the elevators?” I looped my arm in his.

“The way tonight has gone, I would follow you into the bathroom right now.”

My throat went dry as he brushed my hair back from my face, staring at me for a moment before he turned to the elevators and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I can't follow you up there—I'm still on shift, and Venus would kill me. Well, she's probably going to kill me anyway, but I'm not going to go out of my way to give her extra reasons. Be careful, though, Aves, okay? Stay safe?”

I agreed, even though we both knew that it was an impossible promise. The only way to stay safe in a Coterie bar was to leave it.

 

 

A SECURITY
guard waved me into an elevator. There are stairs going up to the top floor, but they're used only for emergencies and staff. Venus thought the elevators were much more dramatic. For once, Venus and I agreed on something.

The doors dinged open, and my first impression was that the place was on fire. Maybe that was just the firebug in me, though. Smoke rolled over the floor, so you could only see the dancers from about thighs up. The seats that lined the dance floor were done in deep purple velvet, and everything was hazily lit, making the scene ethereal and dreamlike. I had expected a disco ball. Don't ask me why. Apparently I pictured Heaven as a grand seventies-style disco party. And I wouldn't have said no to some roller-skating dancers. A sudden image of my mom in bell-bottoms and an Afro made me smile, even though it hurt.

I felt bad for the waiters, who were all wearing scanty outfits. The guys had on short, Grecian-looking, white linen skirts that somehow emphasized rather than took away from their masculinity, and oh boy were these guys masculine. You could have made a “Men of the Inferno” calendar; you know the kind where guys are half-naked in waterfalls for no apparent reason, or chopping wood, even though it's clear they've never even held an ax before? Dreamy, every single one of them, and they were wearing nothing but those tiny skirts and the leather straps that held on their long white wings. I kid you not. The staff up top was winged. And the ladies, all voluptuous curves and sultry looks, were wearing the same thing, except they had an additional, if miniscule, piece of linen to go across their chests. How did anyone stay with their date?

As I watched, a feather floated down from one of the wings and disappeared into the smoke. Everything was so realistic. So beautiful. But it was too much. Like anything that Venus touched, it was over the top—too pretty, too luxurious, too
everything
. There was no heart in it. The dancers were gorgeous, but their expressions left me cold. It was like computer-generated music—sure the notes were right and hit everywhere they should, but there was no passion.

I noticed something else that the dancers were wearing. Tiny silver squares dangled on the ends of chains around necks, wrists, and ankles, all winking at me while they moved. But I was betting they weren't for fire. They were for glamour. Illusion. How many of the dancers had
real
wings? When they took off their jewelry, how many of those wings turned leathery? How many of those straight white teeth became fangs or something else? I shuddered. Maybe they were the kinds of creatures who considered humans to be in the same category as food. Or maybe the feathers were real and all the creatures actually were soft, delicate, made of spun sugar and not muscle and sinew. Pawns slaving for protection and safety, creatures with no power of their own. That was the problem with the Coterie. It could be damn difficult telling the victims apart from the perpetrators.

Still, I hoped the staff was extremely well paid. You'd have to offer me a hell of a lot of cash to get me in that outfit. I now understood why Lock preferred downstairs—this was way too much of a scene for him. And for Ezra it was too much competition.

After scanning the crowd a few times, I found Brittany gyrating around her boyfriend on the dance floor. She was clearly eyeing the winged dancers, hoping someone would cut in. Jeff didn't appear to notice. He was too busy having what appeared to be some sort of epileptic seizure. Or he was dancing. It was hard to tell.

Ryan was perched on a stool, looking sullen, a half-full drink in his hands, with several empty glasses next to him on the table. I went up behind him and snuggled his back. No response. I could have been air.

“Thinking about trying on the uniform?” I asked. “You'd look good with wings.” He shrugged. “C'mon,” I said, tightening my grip. “I'm a sucker for a man in a skirt. Eh? No?” He drained the rest of his glass in one gulp, turning so he could give me a partial stink eye, since I could see only half his face from where I was standing.

I stepped in front of him and gently removed the glass from his grip. Then I dragged him out on the floor. Ryan enjoyed dancing, and he was good at it—it was one of the things I liked about him. A lot of guys our age do the awkward dance-floor shuffle … or they dance like Jeff. Ryan could really move when he got into it, though. So maybe if I could get him into it and reassure him that I was there with him, he might get over the whole evening. Surely two months together meant he could shrug off one bumpy night. I just had to help him change the gears of his mood.

The song switched to something slower, and the lights dimmed. I slid my body up close to his and kissed his chin. He smelled like harsh juniper and lime, and I wondered how many gin and tonics he'd had. Ryan pulled me closer, but it was an automatic gesture. His eyes were anywhere but on me, and his body was so stiff, I was surprised he could move.

I enjoy shaking my booty. I'm not great at it, but it's fun, and I don't get the opportunity to do it often. Unless you count my solo dance parties in my living room that always end with me sliding around in my socks, which I don't. Official booty shaking is less enjoyable when your partner won't even look at you, though. Gently, I ran my fingers along Ryan's jawline and tried to maneuver his gaze onto me. For a tiny breath, his eyes were on mine and I could feel the heat between us, despite the wounded look he was giving me. Then he jerked his head away.

I made what was probably a really charming
ughk
noise, a sound born of pure frustration, and dropped my hands. I'd had enough of his pouty behavior. I walked away, leaving him alone on the dance floor, even though I knew it wouldn't last. Some enterprising girl or guy would hop into my empty space before it even got cold. But still, seriously, enough is enough. They could have him.