Dangerous Creatures

CHAPTER 8 Stairway to Heaven

Where are you taking me?”

“Have a little faith, Rid,” Link said.

“Right.” As if.

Link stopped and pulled her in front of him, putting a hand on each of her shoulders. “Look. I’m tryin’ to help, here. I’m not sayin’ it’s a slam dunk. I gotta make sure it’s a good fit, I mean. The band.”

Ridley held her breath.

“Yeah?”

“If it’s important to you, I’ll give it a shot. I mean, I’m your guy. But you gotta be straight with me.”

“I am.” She reached up to push a spike of hair out of his eyes.

“You sure there’s nothin’ else goin’ on here?”

She shook her head. Nothing I can tell you, anyway. But she was still spooked by the feeling that she was being watched. And more than a little guilty about having to lie to her own boyfriend.

She had a bad feeling about this whole night.

“I’m fine,” Ridley said, as much to herself as to him.

Link looked relieved and grabbed her hand. “Then let’s go.”

She followed him across the street from the Duane Reade—the very real drugstore, not the infinitely less real person—where there was a small, run-down, otherwise nondescript one-story diner. Though the street itself was dark, the front window of the building was lit by a blinking neon light that said one word: DINER. It looked like it hadn’t changed much, or been cleaned much, in half a century.

“Does that mean it’s a diner? Or that the name of the place is Diner?” Ridley stared up at it. “I don’t get it.”

“Marilyn’s Diner. Can’t you see where the rest of the neon’s blown out?”

She examined it more closely, but she could barely make out anything in the window. Now that he had transformed, the hybrid Incubus Link could see and hear things well beyond the abilities of a Mortal, or even a Caster.

“Anyway, I’m not talking about that. Look at this.” Link pointed to a wall on the side of the diner, the one that faced the corner of the intersection. It was a relatively average wall of brick covered with graffiti. Tagged words became abstract spray-painted shapes, swirling one into the next. A row of monsters. A sea of faces. Hands lining the ground like flowers.

And one word, arching over it all.

The lettering reminded Ridley of something, but she couldn’t recall exactly what. The name was familiar, or maybe just the artwork. “It’s like those paintings by that one guy. You know, in the museums in Paris, or Spain.”

“Oh, that guy. I see what you’re saying.” But Link didn’t see, since he had never set foot inside a museum in his entire life. Not even the gift shop.

“Dalí,” she said, snapping her fingers. “Salvador Dalí, the guy with the droopy clocks and bizarre faces and skulls that have skulls for eyes. Monster heads walking around on chicken legs and whatever.”

“Last time I checked, you paid about as much attention to museums as I did.” Link grinned. “You’re so full of it.”

“See right there? Where the monster coming out of the creepy egg thing with legs is eating those little guys? That’s what I’m talking about.” Ridley gestured to the wall.

“I think you’re missing the point.” Link looked smug.

“Yeah? What is it, then, Picasso?”

Link reached toward the white monster. “It’s that.”

He touched the wall right behind the white monster, where another creature, one that looked like a cross between a squid and a giraffe—with a strangely round, red nose—was spewing what looked like a bunch of eyeballs out of his enormous mouth.

“He’s throwing up,” Rid said. “Clown Nose is throwing up.” Suddenly, she saw it. Clown Nose. Throwing up. Puking clown!

“Pukin’ like Savannah Snow at Senior Night.” Link seemed more chipper than he’d been since they left Gatlin. “Or Emily Asher at prom. Or that really drunk Summerville kid with food poisoning at Meatstik’s last gig. Or—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got it.” Rid reached for the mouth. Her hand slid inside, until it disappeared all the way up to her wrist.

“Doorknob?” Link looked hopeful.

In answer, she grabbed his sleeve and yanked, until they both disappeared into the swirls of paint that were the graffiti mural…

… and reappeared on the other side of a door, in what seemed to be the mail room of an average-looking apartment building.

Link doubled over, his hands on his knees. Then he stood upright, shaking his head like a big dog that had just come out of the water. “Whoa. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

“A basic Occultus Vox Cast? Oh, please, whatever. Illusionist kid stuff. Larkin did the same thing to his clubhouse when he was five.” Ridley wasn’t so impressed with the doorway; anyone could do that. But through the glass of another doorway, she saw stairs zigzagging up into the darkness—apartments above Marilyn’s, hidden from the outside by a Cast. Illusioning away a whole apartment building was pretty cool. Only the diner on the bottom floor was visible, and Ridley realized there was a second way in.

“The diner’s the threshold,” Ridley said. “I think we came in the back door. They were probably trying to throw us off.”

“Why would they want to do that?”

Ridley shrugged. “They’re Dark Casters, not the Stonewall Jackson PTA. They’re not here to meet the neighbors.”

She stared at the mailboxes, where a row of names appeared in pencil next to their corresponding—and very Mortal, very battered-looking—metal boxes. She ran her fingers down the list.

FLOYD: #2D

She tapped her finger on the name. “I met that girl. She’s the Illusionist.”

“Floyd?”

“I guess so.” Ridley shrugged. To be honest, she hadn’t paid much attention to anything that night at Suffer beyond her own predicament. “She was good at Liar’s Trade. But I was better.”

“What else?” Link looked at her like she was forgetting the important stuff.

“Oh, right. Bass guitar, I think.” She tried to remember, then gave up. “Whatever. She’s just some rocker chick.”

“I like rocker chicks.” Link grinned.

Ridley ignored him. She just pointed at a different name on the wall. “She didn’t do it all by herself. Look.”

There it was.

NECRO: #2D

“So they’re friends,” Link said.

Ridley nodded. “One did the tagging and the other hid the door. I met them both, but I don’t think I said two words to them all night.” Another poser rock loser.

“Necro? Probably a Necromancer.” Link looked anxious. He wasn’t interested in talking to the dead any more than he already had in the last few years. Having your best friend go to the Otherworld and back will do that to a guy.

“You think? What gave that away?”

Link raised his hands in surrender.

One name was scratched out. Ridley looked more closely but she couldn’t read it. “That one must have been their blowhole of a drummer. The one you’re replacing.”

“I’m not—”

Careful. Pull back. “The one they think you’re replacing. I know, I know. It’s not up to me. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m not the boss of you. So we’ll just go inside and clear the whole thing up.”

“What about this one?” Link stooped over to read the name. “It looks like Sam. Sam something.”

SAMPSON: #2D

Ridley felt seriously ill seeing the name of the strange Darkborn who had beaten her in the final hand of Liar’s Trade. The one who was playing for the house. “Sampson, he’s… something different.”

“Dark? Light? Incubus?”

If only she knew.

“Just different.” Her tone said leave it, and he did.

Ridley took a breath.

Now or never. I got us into this mess. This is how I’ll get us out.

So she did the opposite of every single thing she felt like doing. She found apartment 2D—up one flight of stairs, with nothing obviously Caster about them—and pushed the buzzer.

The door opened.

It was the pretty-boyish girl with the blue faux-hawk. Ridley recognized the close-cropped blue hair from the club. She couldn’t remember her name. They were all a blur now.

“Hey, Duane.” She attempted a smile. “Knock, knock. It’s us.” Ridley had taken a step closer toward the door when the blue faux-hawk tried to slam it shut, in her face. “Not expecting us, were you? Thanks for the great directions. You really made things easy.”

Link pushed the door open, and they stared at two very different girls. Ridley remembered them both from Suffer.

One was tall and gangly, sporting ratty jeans, a ripped Pink Floyd T-shirt, and more stringy blond hair than she seemed to know what to do with. Right now it was spilling out of two knots on the top of her head. “Hi, Floyd,” Ridley said.

Next to her, the one with the faux-hawk was short and slight. Where there wasn’t blue hair or black leather there were so many piercings it looked like she had a stapler fetish. “Necro.” Ridley nodded. It occurred to her that she had never realized Necro was actually a girl before, when they’d met at Suffer.

Neither girl answered.

“Hey, Floyd.” Link pointed at her shirt. “I get it. Awesome.” He made a small, worshipful bow. Floyd swallowed a smile.

He looked at Necro. “What’s up, Gaga?”

Ridley snorted. “Link. Don’t be rude. It’s not Gaga. I’m not even sure it’s a Lady.”

“It? Are you talking about me?” Necro examined her fist like she was considering her options. “Ouch, Barbie. Where’d you learn your manners?”

“On the streets of Brooklyn,” Ridley shot back. “Thanks to your excellent directions.” She looked at Link. “This is my boyfriend, Link.” She nodded at the girls. “This is Devil’s Hairspray.”

“Hangmen,” Floyd corrected.

“As if that’s any better.” Ridley rolled her eyes.

Necro looked annoyed. “Aren’t Sirens supposed to keep their killer talons hidden under soft, sweet exteriors?”

Ridley waved a hand of talon-like nails.

Necro smiled. “Oh, I see the talons. I’m just having a hard time finding the sweet exterior.”

“Bite me,” Ridley said. “See how sweet I taste then.”

Necro raised an eyebrow. “Funny, I’m going to pass.”

Ridley smiled back. “Funny, I’m not going anywhere.”

They stood eye to eye, talon to talon. Necromancer to Siren, at an unspoken impasse.

In the end, the Necromancer blinked.

Don’t they always?

Necro shoved the door open with a sweeping gesture. “Fine. Lennox warned us you were coming. You can hang at the Devil’s Hangout until you find a place of your own.” Ridley took a step toward the door, but Necro stopped her. “I hope your boyfriend’s better at the drums than you are at cards, Siren.”

Ridley pushed past her. She didn’t laugh.

There was nothing funny about Lennox Gates.