Page 10 of Thief of Night
“You want to add something?”
“I’m just saying,” he muttered and got back to work. Maybe he’d expected her to lose her temper, but she was too tired and sore for that.
Soon the car dealers and their office staff started arriving, and the DJ adjusted his volume to compensate for the rising level of conversation. The holiday partiers were decked out in everything from cocktail dresses to suits to t-shirts and jeans, accessorized with the occasional snowflake earrings or Christmas-tree pin. Most of their shadows were unaltered and, from what Charlie could tell, all were unquickened. One of the younger salesmen had a shadow that loomed larger and was more square-shouldered than the man himself, but it was subtle enough that it took a second look to notice.
A short, squat, unsmiling older woman in a red sweater with blinking lights on it sat at the bar immediately and asked for a double-pour of a nice rye with ice on the side. She placed a twenty on the wood countertop. “For you. Keep ’em coming.”
Charlie admired her style.
A man with large, blindingly white teeth rapped loudly on the bar. “I need a half-dozen cranberry margaritas and you need to make them right away. This is my party, make me happy.”
“Sure,” Charlie told him, glancing over at Don to see if he was going to be any help. He was busy giving a lecture about local breweries to an older blonde in a green sequin dress.
Since Charlie had batched ahead, the margaritas weren’t too time-consuming. Just a lot of salting rims and shaking. But after the guy left, looking grudgingly pleased, the bar got crowded. She got lost in the momentum of making endless cocktails, and disappearing the few tips that came her way into her apron. The bar grew warmer from the heat of humans in a too-close space, and Charlie could feel the sweat collect under her arms and at her collarbone. More drinks were ordered. Vodka seltzers. Martinis, extra dirty. Coronas with lime.
Her pattern was disrupted by Balthazar Blades settling himself at one end of the bar, smiling with all his disreputable charm. “Make me an amaretto sour and put it on their tab.” His curls were pulled back in a ponytail and he yawned as though he’d only woken up in the last hour. Maybe he had. The shadow parlor he ran speakeasy-style below Rapture was a largely nocturnal affair.
Charlie rolled her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh come on,” Balthazar said. “It’s not like they’re going to notice.”
The head of the dealership was on the dance floor, cranberry margarita in hand, pumping his fists to the Vandals’ “Oi to the World.” She decided to just make Balthazar the drink.
“By the by,” he said after taking a sip, “Vicereine says she wants to see you as soon as possible. What’s wrong with your phone?”
Had she been one of the texts that Charlie hadn’t been able to see? The last thing she needed was trouble with the Cabals.
“I cracked the screen.” She didn’t bother telling him details. “Anyway, she doesn’t need to check up on me. I did her job.”
Balthazar swirled the liquid still in his glass. “Tell her yourself. I’m not your messenger boy.”
“Hey there, doll,” interrupted one of the sales guys, a balding man with a face flushed from drink and the heat of wearing a blazer indoors.
Doll?
“Hey there, time traveler,” Charlie said.
The sales guy looked confused. And overserved. “Your friend there won’t give me a drink.”
Charlie glanced at Don, who was steadfastly ignoring the situation. Balthazar finished his amaretto sour and got up, shooting her a pitying look as he abandoned her.
“And you think I look like a soft touch?” she asked.
“A soft touch? I don’t know… but I’d like to find out.” He leaned closer, damp fingers closing on her wrist. She pulled back, really wishing she’d used another phrase.
He hung on, his smile turning less friendly.
“Let go,” she told him.
He squeezed her wrist, hard. “You’re going to get me a drink, right?”
“Let GO,” Charlie shouted. Fuck Christmas and Santa and all of his elves. Fuck the social contract. And fuck this guy.
Abruptly, her wrist was free and the man was on the ground. Red stood over him. If he’d appeared as though he came out of nowhere, that was because he more or less had.
The shadow leaned down and gripped the man’s face. “Don’t touch her,” he growled. “Not ever again.”
Charlie stared, surprised into silence.
