Wicked City
Authors: Alaya Johnson
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For my family
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Sequels are notoriously tricky, and this one would not have been possible if not for the support of my friends, colleagues, and family, for whose help I am incalculably grateful. I would like to thank Lauren and Alexis, for helping me navigate a thicket of story problems; Amanda, for being so excited to read more; Justine, Abby, and Rachel, for helping me sort out the messes of early drafts; Eddie, for regular care and feeding when I was on deadline; my fellow members of Altered Fluid, for early-morning title brainstorming and general writing advice; Kris, for the beautiful map; Jill and Cheryl, for drinks by the Piazza Nettuno; Karyn, for continuing to be the most awesome editor Zephyr or I could have asked for; and, finally, my readers, whose enthusiasm has encouraged me throughout this process.
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CONTENTS
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CHAPTER ONE
In the depths of late summer, when airless nights meet dog-eared days, the cream of New York City society flees east to the beaches of Long Island, where dinner parties last the weekend and hangovers last the week.
But instead of sipping champagne by a fountain at Scott and Zelda's, I was standing on East Twenty-eighth Street in an evening dress far too hot for the weather and T-strap heels far too small for my feet. The latter had just recently been splattered with that most unsavory of New York excreta: the blood and fatty remains of an exsanguinated vampireâor, in common slang, a popper.
“I did always hate these shoes,” I said, attempting philosophical resignation.
“Aren't they your only ones?” Aileen said. My roommate was staring at the remains of the unfortunate vampire with equal parts fascination and disgust.
“I already have three blisters.”
“I don't suppose you can afford a new pair?”
I sighed. “Not really.” I hadn't been paid in nearly two weeks, as my night school classes were on temporary hiatus until August. Money and I never had much to say to each other, in any case. Too many people needed it moreâthe vampire charities, the immigrant charities, the socialists and the communists and any number of women's rights organizations. I owned a sensible pair of leather boots that served me adequately. Evening shoes were a luxury I had never bothered to afford.
And yet now their loss made me unaccountably melancholyâbloodstains have yet to debut in the Parisian fashion houses. Having already made a mess of myself by walking unwarily near the popper, I gingerly stepped closer. The remains of baggy skin could tell me nothing of the poor man's appearance, but the absence of any stake or scorch mark from a blessed blade made me conclude that he had expired from natural causes. Common enough, particularly in the heat of summer. My friend Ysabel, who ran the Bank on St. Marks Place, always complained of the low donation rates in July and August. The poorest vampires used the Banks, and every summer a few dozen of them died of blood starvation. And when a vampire died, he popped.
“I wonder who he was,” I said softly. Worn gray trousers and a patched shirt were drenched in exsanguination. Familiar as I was with popped vampires, I had no desire to explore further. Vampire blood burned.
“You could ask Amir, you know,” Aileen said.
“About the popper?”
She rolled her eyes. “Heavens, no. The shoes. What good is having some filthy rich djinni prince at your beck and call if you can't ask him for a favor now and then?”
I stood and stepped carefully away from the mess. Nothing I could do for him nowâthe cleanup crew would take him to the medical examiner's, and from there the potter's field. For a moment I contemplated asking Amir to conjure his identity, so perhaps I could inform his family, but I shook my head. That sort of request would mean a wish, and a wish entailed precisely the emotional entanglement I was determined to avoid. When you have a past like mine with a djinni like Amir, extreme caution is warranted.
“I'm not some gold-digger, Aileen,” I said. “I earn what I have.”
“Lorelei Lee would ask for a lot more than a new pair of shoes,” Aileen said, sighing. “But have it your way. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a speakeasy with dim lights.”
“Horace's has dim lights,” I said glumly. But as we had discovered, our favorite speakeasy was closed for a private party. Horace and I have a working relationship (I have been known to open for the house band), but he hustled us out the door and said to come back next week.
Which left us here, staring at a popped vampire on a quiet stretch of the East Twenties, wondering what happened to our special night out.
“I don't suppose you know of another one nearby?” Aileen asked.
“The Puncheon?”
“Very funny,” she said, sighing. New York's most exclusive speakeasy wouldn't give two girls from the Lower East Side the time of day. “Should we go home?”
I was inclined to agree, but my attention was caught by a strange commotion at the other end of the street, near Lexington. A crowd had gathered around the entrance of some establishmentâa gentleman's club or a restaurant, judging by the awning. A reporter's camera flashed.
Aileen and I glanced at each other. “That looks interesting,” she said.
She started to hurry toward the crowd, but I hesitated. I hated to leave the poor vampire's remains just lying there, trickling into the gutter with all the other refuse of the city. On the other hand, I couldn't do anything to help him. A clean-up crew had finally arrived in an ambulance wagon parked across the street.
“Zephyr!” Aileen called.
I swallowed, took one last look at the popper, and hurried to catch up. I would speak with Ysabel about getting blood out more efficiently to the most desperate vampires. Perhaps that way I could save someone from a similar fate.
From the back of the crowd, it was difficult to see the object of their focus, but it wasn't hard to hear about it.
“Mr. Lindbergh, a picture for the papers?” called out a reporter. From over the shoulder of a short gentleman, I caught sight of the famous aviator's suit jacket and gray hat as he hurried to the car parked on the curb. They said the man who had crossed the Atlantic in an airplane had a boyishly handsome air, but I couldn't see his face well enough to tell. The city had thrown him a ticker tape parade a month ago, and I wondered if a man could grow tired of adulation.
The gathered crowd lingered for a few minutes after Charles Lindbergh drove off, chatting animatedly about their brush with fame.
“He
was
handsome, don't you think?” Aileen was saying.
“I have no idea,” I said, a little snappish. My feet hurt and the prospects for making it up with alcohol had grown quite slim. “I can vouch for his fine taste in millinery, at least.”
Aileen clucked her tongue. “You're no fun,” she said. “We just saw the most famous man in the city.”
“I saw his hat,” I said.
“No fun
at all
.”
Aileen was my best friend, but sometimes she was insufferable. “Then why are you out with me?”
“Because my regular partner has defected to the Hamptons. Traitor.”
The traitor in question was Lily Harding, a peculiar mix of debutante and hard-nosed lady reporter. She had formed an unlikely friendship with Aileen, mostly founded on their shared love of late nights, nice gentlemen, and fine spirits. Never mind that Aileen and I shared a small room in a boardinghouse on Ludlow Street, that Aileen was an Irish immigrant, or that she told fortunes for a living. Lily could be a snob about a lot of things, but it wouldn't be smart to bet on what.
“Sorry to be such a disappointment,” I said. “You two are out all the timeâdon't you know of any other speakeasies?”
She took a look at my shoes and winced. “We wouldn't get in,” she said.
Well, then.
“Pardon me?” A gentleman slightly taller than my collarbone had turned to face Aileen and me. “If you don't mind my intruding, I take it you ladies are looking for a gin joint?”
Aileen nodded. “Absolutely!”
“I'm going to a nice place not two blocks up. I'd be happy to take you there.”
Getting a lead on a gin joint from a stranger struck me as a dubious idea, but I did not argue very strenuously. I wanted a night out nearly as much as Aileen, after all.
The short gentleman chatted with Aileen about Mr. Lindbergh while we made our way two blocks north. An imposingly large gentleman puffed on a cigarette in front of a promising red door on East 30th. Our guide paused and looked a little nervously back at the two of us.
“I forgot to mention one peculiarity of this establishment,” he said. “I hope you don't mind, but it also serves Faust.”
Aileen's nod froze halfway. She turned to look at me. “Zephyr?” she said, a plea.
The trouble was that I had spent all of my time recently buried in work for my latest causeâFriends Against Faust. We were dedicated to prohibition of the vampire liquor that had spread like wildfire across New York City in the six months since its introduction. My organization contended that Faust consumption had proved too dangerous for vampires and humans alike. Which explained why Aileen thought I would refuse to set foot in any establishment that served the brew.
But the truth of the matter was that I felt profoundly ambivalent about the wisdom of our cause. After all, if I allowed myself to indulge in the dubious pleasures of alcohol, who was I to declare that vampires were incapable of controlling their own impulses? The real trouble was Amir. The djinni had brought Faust to the city in the first place, and now I found myself unaccountably in control of his powers. An unscrupulous, spendthrift djinni with a penchant for playing practical jokes on humans would hardly be an ideal partner in the best of times. But I had become his vesselâthe one human able to control his powers and make wishes. Guilt as much as anything motivated my participation in Friends Against Faust.
But right now, I didn't give a fig. I wanted a gin and tonic, and I didn't care who gave it to me.
“It's perfectly fine,” I said, to both of their relief.
The inside of the speakeasy was low-lit and smoky, with a jazz band barely visible on stage and a shabby but glamorous clientele crowding the bar. As promised, vampires mixed with humans, seemingly without regard for social status. The vampires I easily identified by the dusty pallor of their skin and the unmistakable red flush around their cheeks and ears from a recent feeding. Some even flashed unretracted fangs, a taboo in other social situations. The bartenders alternated alcohol with shots of a thick liquid, so dark it appeared black in the low light. Occasionally, they would top it with a dash of real blood from a bag. Faust had originally been developed from pig blood, but it paradoxically caused vampires to go blood-mad. Presumably adding a bit of human blood helped ameliorate the effect.