Chapter 30

Demon Dan’s turns out to be a windowless strip club just off the highway, right next to one of those huge gas stations with long parking spaces for truckers. On the walls of Demon Dan’s, painted silhouettes of curvy women with devil’s tails and horns strike sexy poses with pitchforks and beckoning fingers.

I’ve never been to a strip club before. Can’t pretend like I’m not at least curious.

“Oh, damn,” Cyn sighs.

“What?” I say, hoping my thoughts aren’t plain on my face.

“This is going to be interesting,” Randall says softly.

The cherry-red convertible cruises into the parking lot with Isabella behind the wheel. Before her sister even kills the engine, Jessie hops out in sunglasses and spiky sandals and clicks her way over to Cyn. The way Jessie’s crimson lips form a deadly sneer, I step in front of Cyn like I might be some sort of shield.

“Honey,” Jessie says straight past me, “I am so very disappointed in you.”

Cyn sidesteps from my shadow and meets the werewolf’s gaze. “What did you expect?”

“A little bit more loyalty from someone who’s been given so much freedom.”

“You’re asking me for Stockholm Syndrome?” Cyn laughs. “Not going to happen.”

Jessie advances, her sneer curling into a snarl that bares her long white fangs. “We treated you like you were one of us.”

“Sweetie.” Isabella strides from the convertible and takes her sister by the arm. “That’s exactly the problem. You’ve been treating this poor human girl as if she’s a werewolf. As if she’s your very own bloodborn.”

Jessie’s snarl melts into a pout. “I’ve never had a bloodborn of my own.”

“Whoa,” Randall says, stepping forward. “Jessie, don’t even go there. We can’t have you turning hostages into more trouble.”

I can’t tell if Cyn looks flattered or creeped out.

Jessie sighs. “I apologize.” But then her face hardens again. “Don’t you try running off again, human, you hear?”

Cyn nods, though of course I know she’s lying.

“Done?” Randall says. “We’ve got to get moving.”

And so we all enter Demon Dan’s. The sagebrush-sweet perfume of faerie wine soaks the air and tingles in my nose. The shadowy room in the front thumps with the beat of techno coming from beyond a curtain. The lady at the desk has death-white skin and bobbed black hair so sleek it looks plastic. Not to mention huge boobs.

She wrinkles her nose at our smell. “Werewolves?”

Isabella gives her a chilled glance. “Yes. Our Alpha wishes to speak with Dan.”

“He’s busy,” says the death-white lady.

“If you’re lying, leech…” Isabella lets it hang in the air.

Leech? Christ, this lady must be a vampire. And maybe Isabella doesn’t like being one-upped in the seduction department.

The vampire sighs, then says, “He’s in the back. Have your Alpha meet him there.”

Isabella nods, then slips her phone from her tiny purse. “Winema? Yes. Yes, the back room. We’ll meet you there.”

Jessie strides straight toward the velvet curtain. She pinches it between two nails and pulls it aside as if it’s dirty, and Isabella slips through. Randall hovers behind me and Cyn, so I have no choice but to follow them.

My brain shuts off when my eyes overload.

Rainbow lights crisscross the darkness, shining on exotic dancers crouching in cages, clinging to poles, strutting by the bar. A bikinied woman with stoplight-red skin wraps her tail around a pole and slides down; another poses onstage, her platinum-blond hair the exact color of her feathery wings; a third ripples against the bars of her cage, her body sort of see-through. Not like a ghost, but like a woman made of glass.

“They’re all Others!” Cyn says over the thudding music.

I look closer at the see-through woman. She has liquid skin and swirling white hair like waterfall foam. When she twists my way, my breath snags in my throat. She’s totally naked, with sleek, sexy curves and generous breasts.

Cyn clutches my sleeve. “An undine!” she shouts in my ear, as if I’m not already deaf.

Randall grabs us both by the shoulders and hauls us through the strip club and into the back room, where it’s whole a lot darker and less exciting.

On a pink velvet couch, a man sits with crossed legs. Goat horns peek out of his dark curly hair. He’s got this weird smell to him, like burnt sugar. He slides a glance from Jessie, to Isabella, to Cyn, where his gaze lingers until her face reddens. He says something in Spanish that sounds an awful lot like a nasty pickup line.

Cyn’s face goes from a normal blush to volcanic. “Pretending like I didn’t understand,” she mutters to me.

The man laughs, flashing a smile I’m sure girls think is hot. “Charmed.”

“Demon Dan,” Randall says. “Our Alpha.”

Winema stands in the doorway, Charles at her heels. The fact that she’s having a baby soon looks totally out of place here, but she looks almost bored. “Demon Dan. That’s a fairly new name for you, isn’t it, Danathiel?”

Demon Dan flinches, his smile dimming. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that.”

Is this guy really a demon? Why isn’t he red like that pole dancer?

“We need to find Cliff Sterling,” Winema says.

Dan’s smile shuts off. “Now why would you do a thing like that?”

Winema paces closer to him. “We need his help.”

“Oh, you must be fucked.” Dan laughs humorlessly and twists a curl around his finger. “Are you in trouble with the law again?”

“Some people aren’t as adept at bending the rules.”

“You flatter me,” Dan says coldly.

“You owe me a favor. Where’s Cliff?”

“Have you met him? This is the man who grills mermaids when he feels like seafood.”

“An urban legend,” Winema says. “And yes, we’ve met before. Unfortunately for us, we’ve lost touch, and I don’t know where he calls home. But I’m sure you do, considering how much faerie wine you sell here.” Her voice roughens. “Does your queen know about your dealings in the black market? I doubt it.”

Queen? So he’s got to be a faerie. Not a very powerful one, though, if he’s working for werewolves and not the other way around.

Dan arches his eyebrows. “She doesn’t.”

“Danathiel, I don’t have very much time, which means I have even less patience.”

He grimaces at her use of his true name. “Well, Cliff Sterling isn’t here.” When Winema growls, he adds quickly, “Try the Moonshine, down in Denver. You won’t be able to find it on the map. It’s beneath Rex’s Steakhouse, through the back door. Tell him that I sent you, if you enjoy keeping your hides intact.”

“I will,” Winema says. “Anything else we should know?”

Dan shrugs. “If you don’t mind me asking, why do you have a human with your pack?”

Winema glances at Cyn. “Hostage.”

Cyn keeps her face perfectly cool.

Dan raises his eyebrows. “You are in trouble with the police. You’d best be on your way.” He pauses. “Is the favor returned?”

Winema shares a glance with Charles, who nods. “Yes.”

Everybody follows her back out, with me and Cyn at the rear.

“What,” Dan calls after us, “no goodbye kiss?”

Cyn gives him an acidic glare over her shoulder.

His laugh sounds like icicles snapping. “Good luck with the Zlatroviks,” he says, like we’re really going to need it.

~

Cyn returns to the red convertible, so it’s just me and Randall in the pickup. I’m sad to see her go, but glad I’m not constantly distracted anymore. We gnaw on strips of beef jerky and chug soda without stopping, just drive and drive. I’d love a Bigfoot Burger right about now, but this doesn’t seem like the time to stop.

Fatigue creases Randall’s face. His eyelids lower as he nods in time with the radio.

“What’s this music?” I say, to keep him awake.

“Vivaldi. The Four Seasons, Concerto Number Two in G Minor. This one is Summer.” Randall turns up the volume. “Listen.”

On the strings, flurries of falling notes, hard and fast. When I close my eyes, I see pelting rain and lightning ripping the sky.

“Reminds me of a storm,” I say.

“Me, too.”

We listen to the music whirl and quiet. Evening soaks through the sky like purple ink. Sunset takes forever to die above the prairie. The lights of scattered towns blink on, firefly-bright, in the long stretch of dusty darkness.

Randall’s eyelids droop lower.

“I can drive,” I say.

He glances at me, his eyebrows raised.

“Just tell me where we’re going, and I can drive. You look beat.”

Randall looks back out the windshield, then pulls off the road. “All right.”

He slides out of his seat. As we cross paths in front of the hood, he gives me a glance. Not wary, exactly, but still calculating.

I buckle myself in. “Denver?”

He sits in the passenger’s seat and stares straight ahead, his eyes distant. “Denver.”

I release the parking brake and give the truck some gas.

We slide into a monotony of tires humming on pavement, the rumbling engine, and the fading sound of Vivaldi. At last, the radio disintegrates to static. I lean over and switch if off. Randall’s head slumps against the back of the seat.

I let him sleep, and keep driving.

The hollowness inside me gnaws harder. I’m a werewolf now. One of the pack. I’m living with them, running with them.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Brock? A career fugitive?

I grip the steering wheel tighter. Klikamuks is looking less and less possible. Maybe I can find a new town, not too far away, where they wouldn’t care too much if a new werewolf slipped into their forest on full moons. I wouldn’t hurt anybody. I wouldn’t even scare the neighborhood dogs. Of course, that would be like asking somebody to let black widows build webs in their basement. Even if the spiders promised not to bite.

I’m beginning to realize just how fucked I am.

In a side mirror, I see a green SUV tailgating us. As we round a curve, I read the gold letters painted on its side: SHERIFF.

Wow. I just got that much more fucked.