A nightclub has got to be the one of the best places to kidnap someone, especially in San Fraccuros. The smell of Shimmer is in the air, the vile, plastic-smelling kind that lingers in the back of your throat, and that means everyone here isn’t going to expect a not-so-friendly emergency lockdown. The club is called the Burning Moon. It’s a slim building with strobe lights near the entrance and valets taking keys from people with loud, shiny, sexy black cars. There’s a clear separation, though. Normal people are getting squeezed through the main entrance. People in loose suits, no ties, and women in dresses I can’t ever hope to afford, dripping in diamonds that look like crystalized stars, get taken through their own little private entrance around the building, almost like security wants to show off their clients to the poor people that have to line up, bribe, and sweet-talk their way into the club before it gets too late.
Which doesn’t work out too well for some of them, because we collectively wince when a younger group of people around our age, all dressed in shorts and beach shirts, get thrown to the street and nearly get hit by cars.
Partying isn’t really my scene, but tonight is gonna be a different kind of party since, according to Astrid, all’s fair game in there, and what’s in there is enough cash to send me right back home without a second thought. We’re parked a few alleyways away, near some Android drop-off station closed for the night. Its Open Tomorrow! neon signs are glowing a deep, flickering red above us. Everyone except Vicky is hunched around May’s tablet, something she pulled out of her fanny pack alongside a pure blue bird that clicked into life as soon as she wound up its dial and she tossed it into the air. Some kind of camera feed, I guess, because that’s how we’re checking out the club before getting anywhere near it. The bird sits on a powerline and tilts its head, zooming into a window.
The top floors all have blinds shading the windows, making everything faint yellow outlines. People are smoking and drinking there, but that’s about as much as we can figure out. Some kind of magical security system is making her tech get a little fuzzy the longer the bird stays up there. May swears and calls the bird back to her, shutting off the tablet and telling Vicky, who’s leaning against a dumpster at the end of the alley, what we’d seen.
She passively nods and keeps waiting, satellite phone clutched in one hand.
“What’s up with all this standing?” Morgan asks, stretching her arms. “Let’s go smash some heads.”
“If we’re waiting, it means that Vicky’s got a reason,” Astrid mutters.
“Or she just doesn’t like filling in the rest of us,” I say under my breath, earning me a glare.
As if on cue, a man comes walking down the street, casual and relaxed, Hawaiian shirt unbuttoned to show off all the hair on his flabby chest. Thick brown beard, a mane of hair getting tousled by the wind, tinted aviator sunglasses that hang from his collar. The guy looks like someone who was born and raised here, down to the way he walks with a slight swagger and has a mouth that looks quick to smile. He grins when he sees Victoria, stopping in the alleyway. She offers her hand, and he gives her one hell of a bear hug, even lifting her up off the ground, too.
“Nice to see you too, Dallas,” she mutters, massaging her spine. “Girls, come ‘ere. Kacey, meet officer–”
“Detective,” he corrects, as we get closer. “Got a handy, dandy promotion.”
A cop?
He clasps my hand so tightly it almost feels like he’ll break it. “I know what you’re thinking, and no, I’m not gonna rat you guys out. Can’t get my cut if you all get locked up!” He barks out a laugh, then says, “You’re new here. Too pale for someone aged in San Fraccuros. Guessing you’re some kinda tourist? How’s your stay going?”
“She’s my new Second Sword,” Victoria explains. “Name’s Kacey. Bounty Hunter from New Salem.”
“From the shits! Good old Salem,” he says, still shaking my hand out of its socket. “Replacement with some experience, then. Glad Vicky here didn’t just sweep up any old random gal off the streets to fill Reya’s shoes.”
“Reya?” I ask, having to yank my hand out of his bear-like grip, shaking it out. Well, that’s useless now.
“Someone who’s not your problem,” Astrid says dryly. “Detective, it’s nice to work with you again.”
“Bring it here, the rest of you!” None of them stand a chance when he wraps them all in a hug until Vicky tells him he’s gonna have to do this job himself if any of them get hurt because of him. With a jaunty laugh he lets them go. Juniper looks woozy and May has to lean against the truck, massaging her back, too. Morgan clasps the large guy’s hand, making a tiny smacking sound when their thick palms meet. For a second, they’re almost even, until Dallas forces her hand down, spins her around, and playfully shoves her against Astrid. “Getting stronger!”
“One day, you grimy pig,” Morgan says, rolling her shoulders.
“Onto what we’re all here for,” Victoria says. “Dallas?”
“Here I thought we could all catch up, maybe go for a drink first. You know, shake off some nerves.”
“There’s a reason you’re a private detective now.” Victoria folds her arms. “Mr. Semi-Unemployed.”
He shrugs one shoulder. “The force is too rigid for someone like me, anyway.” He claps his hands together and then says, “The good news for you is that there’s no police around the Moon tonight, which usually means that Mr. Hark is cooped up in his office and there’s plenty of unholy happenings in that building. It’ll take a good forty minutes before the cops come to investigate after he leaves, so that’s your window. Get in, raise hell, get out. He’ll have the chief on speed dial just in case he needs the boys in blue, but he’d rather deal with it himself. Elves, huh?”
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Elves, indeed.
“What about Platinum?” Vicky asks. “Haven’t been able to figure out if he’s here or not.”
“The big guy took off yesterday,” Dallas says, fishing around in his pocket for a packet of cigarettes. He offers, Morgan, May and I take one each, getting them lit from his tiny golden zippo. Astrid’s nose wrinkles when we all spew out streams of silver smoke, but she doesn’t take a step backward. “All of a sudden, too, like he’s got someplace urgent he needs to be. Earliest? He’ll be back before morning. Latest? Maybe in a few days. Hark is in charge of the strip right now, then, and the last thing he probably wants is to get Platinum to come back so quickly.”
“Perfect,” Vicky says, fist hitting her palm. “We’re taking Hark out of the strip, anyway.”
“Got somewhere secure?”
“Bedbug Motel, seven or so hours out of Frac in the sands,” she says. “Great place for hiding bodies.”
“Far away enough to be anywhere either inside this unicorn shit-colored town, or elsewhere,” Dallas says.
“That’s a tight timeframe, though,” Astrid mutters, thinking out loud. “‘If’ isn’t a great foundation.”
“We don’t know when Platinum is going to be out of Frac any other day,” Vicky tells her. “We get in and get out and take our chances when it comes. When we get our money, we dump him at the old droid depot on Sixth so Hark’s boys have to go through Hoodlum territory to get him. We’ll shoot up a few of their stores ‘n’ make those multicolored morons think Platinum’s guys did it, and then they’ll be busy dealing with that as we get out of here.”
“We’re not staying in San Fraccuros after?” Juniper asks, holding her Grimoire to her chest.
“Too much heat,” Morgan says. “Might as well skip over to River City for a few weeks.”
“Someone was paying attention to my debrief for once,” Vicky says, smiling.
Silver-hair shrugs one shoulder and pulls on her cigarette. “Got bored daydreaming.”
“New Girl is the silent type,” Dallas says, clapping my back and nearly making me swallow the cigarette. I cough and splutter. Vicky gives him a look that makes him apologize. “What’s the matter, something not groovy?”
“Maybe she’s got cold feet,” Astrid says, shrugging. “It happens when this is new to you.”
“Bounty hunting isn’t just killing people, you know,” I tell her. “I kidnap for a few bucks extra, and if you want them dead a certain way, you’re gonna have to tip me whatever I want, depending how bad things might get.”
“Like a dog who’s been taught how to attack people on command,” she says. “Fetch, good girl.”
The cigarette hangs from my fingertips as I stare at her. “What the fuck did you just say?”
She puts up her hands. “I’m just doing what you’ve been doing all night and making a joke. Taking the edge off everything, trying to make sure your head is calm enough to handle something you’ve never done before.”
I speak before Vicky can tell us to both zip it. “Yeah, and what’s that?”
Because I know for a fact her tight little ass hasn’t done half of what I’ve done.
She shrugs. “Work with people that aren’t the same sewer-dwelling, inbred ingrates you’re used to.”
By the time my cigarette drops, my fist is smashing into her jaw. She stumbles into the trash cans behind her, spilling garbage into the alleyway. Before I can stomp my boot into the side of her head, two powerful hands grab me and hold me in place, hauling me backward. Dallas. But I’m seething, angry, because who the fuck does she think she is, calling my friends sewer-dwelling ingrates? Aster is what she just said? Belle is what she just said?
I didn’t find my best friend’s body rotting in an alleyway for her to keep running her mouth so easily.
I did not leave the girl who stole my first kiss behind because she screamed for me to run, just for some preppy little bitch with a snarky, snake-like tongue to run her mouth however she likes and call them all inbreds.
Aster would have told me to relax, to breathe in and then out.
But I buried her last month, and she’s just not here anymore.
I slam my foot down onto Dallas’ slipper-wearing feet, making him release me. I barrel into Astrid and smack her against the graffiti-covered wall, grabbing her by the overalls and getting so close to her face that I could count the number of dark little freckles on her nose. We stand like that for a moment, breathing hard against one another with that annoying neon light flickering above us, but I don’t make a move. Vicky has her arms folded and her mouth in a thin line, and for a moment, when a car passes behind her, headlights bright, her hair turns into a fiery blonde mane sitting on her shoulders. Something loud and messy. Something that makes her look like my mom, and I guess it’s subconscious at that point, letting Astrid go, even if I shove her against the wall before that.
I point a finger in her face when she’s in the middle of thumbing the blood off her lips. “If I ever catch you saying that shit about my friends again, I’ll show you what happens when your dainty skull hits the pavement.”
The white aura around the sword at her side pulsates when she glares at me. “I don’t take you seriously enough to even bother fighting you, so get in order, get in place, and swallow whatever grudge you’ve got, clear?”
“I swear to the Gods—”
Morgan grabs my shoulder and pushes me away from her. “Stop blowing your load and chill, Kace.”
“She’s the one who kept running her mouth!”
“Kacey,” Victoria says flatly. I sigh and fold my arms, leaning on the wall opposite Astrid’s. Whatever.
“Fuck me,” Dallas says, massaging his foot. “Girl kicks like a mule with its ass on fire.”
“I suppose that wraps up our debrief,” Victoria mutters. “Grab your shit and let’s go. Oh, and Astrid?”
“Yes, ma’am?” she says. I roll my eyes and grab the claymore from out of the van, then check the AngelWeight and slide a few more magazines into my overalls’ pockets. “Has there been a change of plans?”
“None,” Vicky says. “Just a word of advice: keep your fuckin’ mouth shut. That kind of talk only floats in Frac because people let things slide more easily. Kacey’s not from here. She’ll break your jaw next time. So hush.”
Astrid opens her mouth to speak, then closes it and tightly nods.
“Good girl,” I whisper when I walk past her. “Now follow.”
