Shadowglass (7 page)

7

N
o way, luv. I’m not taking it.” Quang folded leathery red arms across his scrawny chest and eyed the squidgy with beady black suspicion. His pointy ears twitched, crusted with dirt and dead skin, and his potbelly poked at his stretched black T-shirt, which read
MY ANGER MANAGEMENT CLASS PISSES ME OFF
.

Dusty sunlight dribbled in from a wire-covered skylight. My pretty diamonds glinted on black velvet, beside pink pearl strings and a sky-blue opal choker. The squidgy jiggled next to them, littering rust flecks on the velvet. A scaly whisper slithered in my ears, threatening.—
Don’t get rid of me. You’ll be sorry.—

I recalled the calming bell-chime voice it used when it liked me, and I shuddered.
Just leave me alone, okay?

The squidgy muttered darkly.—
Nice friend you are. Fine. You’re on your own. See how you like it.—

And like a raindrop on the wind, the voice was gone.

My heart lightened, cautious. Good riddance. But unease jabbed my spine. I still wanted it out of my sight. I leaned on the dusty glass counter, offering Quang a nice view of my boobs swelling against my halter dress. “Five, then. Not a cent less.”

Quang grinned and scratched coarse orange hair, a goaty stink wafting from his armpit. “It ain’t the price. It’s the smell. It’s yucky. I’m not taking it.”

I wrinkled my nose. He can talk. Quang’s pawnshop is crammed in above a Vietnamese restaurant in downtown Brunswick, a dark den festering with dust and stuffed with moldy carpet rolls and crates of junk, and it stinks of stale cooking oil and spriggan sweat.

In the corner, Blaze rummaged through cardboard cartons, pulling out rusted bike chains, pistol parts, desiccated specimens in jars. Humming. Amusing himself. Ignoring us.

Could use your help here, dude.
I scowled at him, but he didn’t see me.

Azure smiled her prettiest smile, playing with her dress hem to innocently show off her thighs. “But the diamonds are nice. You like diamonds, Quang. And pearls. And the shimmery blue stuff.”

Quang leered back, broken black teeth sliding up over his lip. “I’ll take all those, darlin’. Just not the stinky round thing. Why’d I get the feeling you’re conning me?”

The squidgy tilted and swerved on the glass, buzzing angrily. I grabbed it and jammed it back onto the velvet.
Behave
. “Why do I get the feeling you’re ripping us off? Come on, Az. Let’s take our business elsewhere.”

“Fine with me.” Quang tapped chewed yellow claws happily on the counter. “Come back when you don’t get half as much, and we’ll renegotiate.”

He had us, and he knew it. Our scores are high-profile and dangerous, and besides, we’re fairies. Most times no one else will touch us, and if we didn’t get at least four grand for this little lot, our asses were toast. But we had one secret weapon remaining. I raised my voice. “Okay. Whaddaya say, Blaze? We go elsewhere?”

This time I got Blaze’s attention. He glanced up, his hands full of broken crystal. “Can I have this? Sorry, what?”

“Quang don’t want our squidgy,” reported Azure, her tone thick with righteous indignation.

“That so?” Blaze dumped the crystal with a happy tinkle and sauntered up to the counter.

Quang cleared his throat, black eyes darting. “I’s just sayin to the ladies—”

Blaze licked his ruby lips, a sight you gotta witness to truly understand, and it dried the words in Quang’s mouth. “That a new haircut?”

“Um . . . What?” Quang’s fingers smeared the glass, his flashy golden ring glinting in sunlight.

I stifled a smile. Quang’s okay, for a skanky money-grubbing liar. He’s just got this thing for pretty fae boys. Which makes him quivering jelly in Blaze’s dirty-flirty hands.

You show weakness; we exploit it. That’s what con artists do. Sometimes I feel bad for him, but not today. Today, I wanted him a trembling wreck.

Blaze leaned closer, and as if by accident, sparks twinkled from his claws, caressing Quang’s crusty hand. “New haircut. Kinda cute. Anyway. It’s a fine squidgy, Quangster. Very . . . umm . . . stimulating. Sure we can’t come to some arrangement?”

Quang’s leathery throat bobbed. “Well, I guess I could . . .”

“You guess you could what?” Blaze let his lips drift apart.

Quang squirmed, glancing from the squidgy to Blaze and back again. “Look, I can only take the jewels. It ain’t the money. Just not my bag. Gives me the willies, okay? Sorry.”

Despair weighed like stones in my heart. If even pretty Blaze couldn’t talk Quang into it, we were lost. Stuck with this horrible thing. Damn it.

Disappointment built swiftly to careless anger, so abrupt, it scorched my senses and quivered my fingers with hate. I slammed my foot into the counter. Pain crunched into my toes, clawing up my ankle. “Ow! For fuck’s sake.” I kicked again, rage burning deep. The glass cracked like a starfish with a loud crunch, and this time the pain shocked me to silence.

I struggled to calm my breath, to hold my jerking fingers still. I don’t kick things. I just get angry and hot and sulk for a while. But I couldn’t help it. I wanted to crush something small and weak just to watch it hurt. If I’d had a weapon, I might have used it.

Fear crawled along my nerves like a cold centipede. This wasn’t me. Was I going mad?

Squidgy, you still there?

Silence.

Scorn darkened Azure’s frown. “Good one, Ice. Break everything. That’ll help.”

My blood seethed. I crunched my fingers tight until my claws bruised my palms, and rage bubbled and munched, leaving me hot and empty inside. Damn squidgy.

Quang backed off, lifting his hands. “Look, you guys need to leave—”

“Not so fast.” Blaze fluttered over the dented counter and parked his cute butt, hooking Quang’s thigh with a shapely ankle. “You never asked about my arrangement.”

His voice seduced, a familiar sultry tone that crawled a shiver down my legs, quenching my rage.

He’d used that one on me this morning.
Fuck me, Ice. You know you wanna.

My stomach coiled, discomfort jerking my wings tight. Surely he wouldn’t really . . . Not just for that. He’s got dignity, our Blaze. He screws anything that smells good, but on his terms.

Quang flushed a darker red and flicked a wary glance at us girls. “What, um, what’d ya have in mind?”

“I’ll fix your counter,” Blaze suggested coyly, and traced a delicate claw over one of the cracks I’d made. The edges glowed red with fire-fae heat, and glass fused with a steamy hiss, leaving a rippled ridge.

Quang stared, and swallowed, his imagination no doubt leading him to new and tempting places. “Should hope so.”

Blaze beckoned, and when Quang leaned closer, Blaze whispered in his crooked ear, a smile curving his lips.

Quang’s ears curled inward. He dampened his lips with a snaky black tongue. “Oh. Um. Okay.” His voice was barely audible, and Blaze stared him sultry in the eyes without flinching.

I shifted, squirming. “Blaze, you can’t be seri—”

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.” Blaze didn’t drop his gaze. “Fuck it. See ya downstairs.”

Az’s face paled like dawn sky. “Blaze—”

“Save it, Az. You don’t wanna see, leave.” He twisted Quang’s brittle orange hair in his fist, and when Quang dropped to his knees, I grabbed Azure’s hand and dragged her toward the stairwell.

On the way down the creaking stairs, my guts writhed like I’d stuffed them with worms. I didn’t want to hear, but I couldn’t help straining my ears. I couldn’t hear anything, and my nerves stretched even tighter.

Azure clomped behind me, her hand stiff and cold in mine, and as we squeezed onto the sunset-stained sidewalk, she ripped her hand away and rounded on me, big eyes glimmering emerald with tears. “You shoulda stopped him.”

Her accusation bit me like a horsefly. Tears sprang to my own eyes, my vision glaring cyan in the sun. Blaze is a sweet guy beneath all that vanity. I don’t give a damn whom he does—boys or girls, spriggans or banshees or humans, for all I care—but as far as I know, he’s never prostituted himself before. “I tried to stop him, Az.”

“Shoulda tried harder. He never listens to me. It’s your fault, Ice.”

“Is not!” People sidled past us on the skinny footpath, and I tucked my wings in and tried to keep my voice down below the traffic noise.

“It is too. You’re the negotiator. You shoulda made Quang take our deal.” That infuriating childish lilt crept into her voice.

Ire jabbed like she’d poked me with a pitchfork, but guilt pierced me sharper, all the way to my heart. It was my fault. I’d brought the squidgy home, and now to get rid of it, Blaze was . . . I didn’t even want to think it. I didn’t care if the mirror made him act this way, like he didn’t care about consequences or conscience. It was my fault, and remorse cut my nasty tone to shreds. “Not like I held a pistol to his stupid fairy head. Just piss off, okay?”

Az stalked to the gutter and folded her arms, gazing out into the street with her chin in the air, an angry breeze fluttering her white dress.

I swore and kicked at the dirty concrete, my foot still sore, and for eternal minutes we stood there, waiting and avoiding each other. I cracked my knuckles. I tapped my foot. I hopped up and down. Pedestrians shuffled by. Cars passed. Traffic lights flicked from green to red and back to green. Damn it.

Light footsteps skipped down the stairs, and I whirled, my pulse cold.

Blaze emerged, blinking in the sun and scraping his hair back. Heat flushed his skin bright, and his chest heaved with light, short breaths. A drop of blood stained his thigh through his jeans, spreading.

I stumbled up to him, blue all over with embarrassment. “Blaze? You okay?”

He tossed a ragged green wad of cash at me, and I fumbled to catch it, sweat smearing my palms. A lot of money. All hundreds. I counted it swiftly. Five grand. The price of our jewels. Exactly what Quang offered us, no more. And the squidgy was gone.

I looked up, chill shrinking my skin.

Blaze cast me a cold, empty glance, still catching his ragged breath. “Fuck it. It felt good. What you staring at?”

My heart stung, and for once, I had nothing to say.

M
idnight moonshine floods the neat grass courtyard behind Kane’s town house with pale underwater light. The creamy façade looms tall, throwing black shadows onto the garden. Distant traffic smears the silence, and in the garden a fountain trickles, water over iron-bolted river stones and glassy blue ornaments, the rocks still smelling warm from the long-set sun.

In shadows above the porticoed entrance, Indigo floats, warm air supporting his wings, his dark hand resting lightly on the upper-story window ledge for balance. His reflection glints in distant headlamps, flashing in and out like a dim blue ghost. Beyond, inside, darkness stares back, the shadowy edges of a doorway in pale walls and the darker shape of empty carpet.

He sniffs the summer air, searching for the telltale ozone tinge of current, but only pollen and warm concrete greet him. He inhales deeper, the oxygen rush filling his blood. His nose twitches. Residue, the worn conduit of voltage past. If there’s an alarm, it’s off, or broken. Arrogance. Luck. Whatever. Saves him the trouble of shorting out the circuits.

He presses his palm against the top of the smooth window frame and grits his teeth in anticipation. Metaldark sweat springs out on his face, and the lock tumblers melt with a hiss and a puff of steam. Pain flares like acid. He yanks his singed palm away, the hot iron scent of his own burned flesh an unpleasant distraction.

He forces copper claws under the aluminum frame, a tiny grating sound he can’t avoid. Molten steel squelches from the ruined lock to splash on the carpet inside. Smoke wisps upward into darkness. He waits a few seconds, his pulse elevated but controlled. No movement. No lights. Swiftly, silently, he raises the window sash and slips feet-first into Kane’s upstairs bedroom.

His feet hit coarse wool. The room’s empty, unused, the carpet bare of furniture. Not Kane’s room, and no one else lives here. Air-conditioning taints his sweat with ash, and he slides the window closed behind him to halt the inward rush of warm air.

He closes his eyes, listening, breathing, searching for metal’s innate pressure on his senses. His eardrums throb, painful. As always, it’s deafening at first, and his sinuses whine in protest. Steel girders surrounding him, crushing inward like a claustrophobe’s nightmare, wrapped in a tangle of dust and plastic-sheathed wires. White noise, garbage, hash on an empty channel, free to anyone who’ll listen. Indigo’s trick is to tune in. It makes him such a useful thief.

Right now it makes him impatient. He digs deeper, in that iron-free space between air molecules, and faint motes of life glitter in the emptiness like a lost fairy girl’s diamond choker: A pin, dropped on the carpet and lost. The dim coil of a tap spring, a strip of bright chrome on a shower recess. Flickers of cheap gold on a circuit board, an intricate brass hinge, silvery flecks in the skin of a discarded photograph. A scatter of lead crystal, soft golden chains, a gold quartz watch, a platinum ring.