Her little sister’s eyes lit up the moment she saw Ridley back on the floor. “There you are, Saucy Bossy Girl.”
“Don’t ever say that.” No Sirensong. No Meatstik. No more lyrics.
“You missed most of the set. Link has been so—”
“Uh-huh. Say hi to Mamma for me. Love you.” Ridley shoved the envelope into Ryan’s hand and she was gone. You couldn’t even hear the Rip over the music.
Ridley breathed a sigh of relief. Her sister was safe. For the time being.
Your move, Gates.
She closed her eyes and stood there, in the middle of the crowd, listening to the music. Something wasn’t right. She could smell it, almost taste it.
Her skin was crawling with it.
Come out. Show yourself.
I can feel you. I know what you’re doing.
She opened her eyes. She didn’t know what kind of answer she was expecting, but there was nothing.
She couldn’t help but check inside her purse, where her last cherry lollipop remained firmly wrapped.
Yet, somehow, the Power of Persuasion was thick in the air around her. Ridley was sure of it, even if she wasn’t the one responsible for it.
Which only left one question…
Who was?
Backstage, beneath the jungle of scaffolding and light stands and extra amps and extension cords, Sirensong was celebrating. Bottles were popping, and fountains of champagne—no, from the smell of it, make that shaken cans of cheap soda—sprayed in every direction.
Geez. You would have thought Sirensong had never played a hit song to a full house of screaming fans before.
Maybe because they hadn’t.
“Dude. We smoked it.” Floyd fist-bumped Link. “Like Roger Waters.”
“Like bacon.” Link fist-bumped her back.
“Like a cigar,” Necro said. A shadow passed over her face, but Floyd sprayed both of them while Sampson ducked out of the way, and soon Necro was laughing as hard as everyone else. When Floyd’s fist began to actually smoke, Ridley shook her head and pulled Link away.
Illusionists.
Link flung his arm over Rid’s shoulder. “You just got me the greatest gig a my entire life, Babe.” He kissed her, smack on the mouth, without even stopping smiling. “Did you see the crowd losin’ it durin’ our set? They loved us.”
“Yeah. They did. And now we’ve got to get out of here.”
Link pointed at Rid. “Roll me! Bread crumbs!”
“I got that,” Rid said. “The whole recipe. I was there. Let’s go.”
Link took one look at her face and gave up. It was clear there wasn’t going to be all that much celebrating tonight. “Aw, come on. Geez. What now? Why are you givin’ me that stinkeye?”
“Link. Come on.” Now she was frustrated. He just wasn’t getting it. “Did you ever wonder why everyone was chanting that chorus?”
He shrugged. “Because meatballs are awesome. And so is Sirensong. And so am I.” He couldn’t stop smiling.
“Or?” Ridley looked at him. She could feel the anxiety tightening in her chest.
“Or what? What are you gettin’ at? They loved us because we killed it. Because of Floyd bringin’ it and Necro whalin’ on it, and Sammy Boy tearin’ it up out there. We made Meatstik look like beef jerky.” Link was starting to look insulted.
Careful, Ridley told herself. But Ridley also never listened to anyone—including herself. And she had spent far too long with Lennox Gates tonight to not know how high the stakes were.
There was no time for careful.
“Really, Link?” Ridley crossed her arms. “Do you really want to do this now?”
“Yeah, really,” Link said. He crossed his arms, too.
“Because I hate to break it to you, but everyone watching you was high.” There. She’d said it.
“What?”
“Sirensong. The joy juice. The Power of Persuasion. Whatever you want to call it. They were Charmed. This whole place is. It’s not you, it’s them.” She tossed her hair defiantly, just for emphasis.
“That’s not what you’re sayin’.” Link stiffened. “You’re sayin’ it’s not me, it’s you.” Link was madder than she could ever remember seeing him. Ridley hated to keep going, but she didn’t have a choice.
She shook her head. “Just listen to me. I didn’t Charm anyone tonight but the bouncer. I told you I wouldn’t do it, and I didn’t. But if someone else is messing with you like that, we need to get out of here.”
Link looked at her in disbelief. “Do you hear how crazy that sounds? You’re freakin’ out because I did okay for once?”
Ridley grabbed his sweaty sleeve. “Nobody’s going to be doing you any favors at Sirene. We can’t trust Lennox Gates. This whole thing is a setup. Why can’t you get it through your thick skull?”
“I don’t know, Rid. Maybe on account a the hole where my brain is supposed to be?”
“Link—”
“Well, don’t worry. Here’s another hole for you, and I’ll make sure it’s an even bigger one. The one between you and me.” Link took off before she could say a word.
Ridley was stunned.
She closed her eyes and held out her hands, using her powers to see what the club really felt like beneath the pounding beat of the bass, above the thick layer of conversation and clinking glasses, through the buzzing lights and the roar of the sound system.
What is going on in here?
She smelled the thick elixir of sugar in the air, the coppery scent of blood. A fire. A kitchen. Things cooking, like in any restaurant. Smoke from a cigar or two.
Her own sweet power.
Basically, it was the smell of Suffer, or Exile, or any Underground Caster club, so long as she was in it.
Ridley felt power, but it felt no different from her own. It spread thickly through the air around her, like the Power of Persuasion. But she didn’t know who was behind it. She was the only Siren in the club, as far as she knew. And she wasn’t using her powers on anyone.
Have I lost my mind? Or just my way?
But her boyfriend was disappearing through the crowd in front of her, and she didn’t have time to wait for the answer.
CHAPTER 19
Something to Believe In
Link!” Ridley pushed her way through the crowd after him, trying to catch up. She followed him up the stairs, down the hall, and through the doors marked BROOKLYN. Moments later, she found herself standing on the empty street, in the miserable, rainy night, but it was too late.
He was gone, and she wasn’t a hybrid Incubus. She couldn’t keep up. She could barely walk in these shoes. And she didn’t have a jacket.
Even Lucille Ball the cat looked sorry for her, dry as she was beneath the awning of the liquor store next door, beating her tail against a trash can lid.
Lucille let out a sympathetic howl.
What a mess.
This wasn’t the way they’d come in, and Ridley was pretty sure it wasn’t the way they should have come out. The doors that opened onto the street appeared to be the doors to a Chinese Laundromat. Signs in the windows in Mandarin advertised what looked like free detergent with every load. A neon sign in Kanji seemed to be the only marker for the club.
Ridley was a little rusty on her Kanji, but she knew this one. It was familiar to Sirens worldwide, and a popular tattoo—aside from the more magical Dark Caster variety. Plus, it was the same in Chinese characters, Japanese Kanji, or old Korean Hanja. In its most rudimentary form, the brushstrokes formed a square body with a tail.
A bird.
Sometimes the character was slightly different. Sometimes it was a person with wings; sometimes it was a bird rising from ashes, like a phoenix; and still other times it was the bird of long life and spirit, the crane.
But it was always the bird.
That was the mark of the Siren, even for a sophisticated, edgy club like Sirene. When it came right down to it, that was what Sirens were—pretty songbirds with nightmares for nes
ts. Creatures with wings that still never managed to fly free. They sabotaged themselves too often for that. Talons for nails—so sharp they could draw blood, so fast you’d never know you were bleeding.
Even when, half the time, the blood was their own.
Sirens were messed-up Dark creations. There was no denying it.
Rid backed away from the door and the club, taking in the street. She was in Brooklyn. She knew that much.
Real Brooklyn. Mortal Brooklyn.
Home to a Siren club.
That was what this was. There was no doubt about it now. The sign, the name, the Sirenes—he wasn’t trying to hide it. It was his little inside joke.
Lennox Gates has someone Charming his club. He has a Siren working for him. Ridley shivered. She’d heard of such a thing before. Abraham Ravenwood had once kept her locked in a cage until she agreed to do his bidding. It wasn’t common, and it wasn’t something she wanted to think about. Sapping some poor Siren’s powers. Making someone else do his dirty work.
She shuddered.
But there was a Siren’s hand in all of this—in Sirene, and Sirensong. Ridley was sure of it.
Why?
What does any of this have to do with me?
What does Lennox Gates really want from me? From us?
And where the hell is my boyfriend?
Ridley had to find him.
Ten blocks later, when it was raining ten times harder, Ridley found Link.
To be fair, it was Lucille who found him. Rid only saw the cat, standing in the street, complaining. Of course, Lucille had managed to stay completely dry. That cat had nine hundred lives, and she lived better than a Siren in every one of them.
Better than a part-Mortal, too. Especially this one.
Link was sitting on an abandoned couch tossed halfway on the sidewalk, halfway into the street. The sopping, puke green cushions were wetter than sponges in a fishbowl, as Link would normally say, but he didn’t seem to care that sitting on them was only making him wetter. Not now.
She knew the mood. He was past caring about anything.
He was past furious.
She’d crossed a line, but in her mind, she had crossed it so long ago that she couldn’t even remember when or why or how it had happened.
It was hard to keep track of the lines, there had been so many.
She sat down next to Link.
He didn’t look at her. The rain hit his face as he stared out at the depressing park with the cracked pavement right across the intersection from them. “You don’t believe anything good can happen to me. Ever.”
“That’s not true.”
“You think I’m stupid.” He sounded defeated.
“Don’t be—” Stupid. She caught herself just in time. “I don’t. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks about you.”
He shook his head. “See? There you go again. Why do you assume whatever someone thinks about me will be bad?”
“Because you act like a freaking idiot so much of the time.” There. She’d said it. She couldn’t help it.
“Thanks. Don’t hold back, now.” Link turned to her. “Answer me this, Rid. Did you use magic in there, at any time, when we were in Sirene?”
“No. I told you that. It wasn’t me. But I have an idea—”
He cut her off. He was in no mood to listen. “Did you, for even one second, stick one of those stupid lollipops in your mouth and do your thing?”
“No. Not once we got inside.” I even double-checked, she thought uncomfortably. But I think someone did.
Link looked relieved. “Then why are you freakin’ me out about the best gig a my life? Maybe the greatest night a my life? Why can’t you let me have that? Why can’t I enjoy this for just a second before you come in and take it all away from me?”
Ridley didn’t know.
She didn’t know why she broke everything she played with. Why she hurt everyone she cared about. Lost everything she found. Pushed away everything she wanted.
“I don’t want anything to happen to you. Anything else,” she said carefully. “And if it wasn’t me helping you tonight, then—”
Link held up a hand. “Face it, Rid. You’re jealous.”
“Jealous? What do you have that I could ever be jealous of? Except maybe me.” She refused to bring up Floyd the Rockerette, because deep down, she knew that none of this was really about her. It was about something bigger.
“You’re jealous of my dream,” Link said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Ridley scoffed. “I’m looking out for you.”
“No, you’re not. You’re jealous because you don’t have a dream of your own.” Link braced himself like he was afraid to say it. Like he was ready to duck from whatever she was going to throw at him.
What she wanted to throw was the couch. But she didn’t. Instead, she used her words, and not even supernatural ones. Lena would be proud.
“That’s really mean.”
“But it’s true.” He shook his head sadly. “I just call it like I see it, Rid.”
“Link.” She took a breath.
“When something good happens to me, you act like it’s an accident, or magic, or some sorta joke. Like you can’t believe I earned it.”
“Link—” She tried again.
He held up his hand. “I want to be someone, make somethin’ outta my life. You’re afraid to let me have that, and I don’t know why.” He stared straight ahead as he said it, out into the cold, wet street. Looking anywhere but at me, Ridley thought. That was how she knew he was for real.
She was stunned. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, get your own dream.”
The words sounded like rain to her. Gray and soggy and depressing.
“I have dreams. You’ll see. And then you’ll feel like the giant idiot that you actually are.” Ridley stood in the rain. “I felt it. In the club, back there. Someone was using the Power of Persuasion. Someone was watching us, too.”
“Yeah. It’s called an audience.”
Rid bristled. “What do you think that stunt with Ryan was?”
He shrugged. “Kids sneak out to see bands all the time.”
She tried to control herself. She tried to stay calm. She had to make him understand, whether or not she felt like unleashing every Cast and hex in the Caster universe on him.
Which she did.
“Link. We’re not safe here. This isn’t me being jealous or crazy. This isn’t about me wanting to be the center of attention. I know what the Power of Persuasion feels like, because I have it, too.” She looked at him, daring him to even try to stop her.
He didn’t.
“There are some things I still know better than a brand-new hybrid Incubus. This is one of them, whether or not you want to believe it. And I’m sorry if that means you suck as a band. I’m sorry if you’re never going to be Sting. I’m sorry if nobody really wanted you for a drummer after all. But I’m not sorry that I’m telling you the truth.”
There.
It had to be said, and now she’d said it. She only wished it didn’t make her feel so awful. The way the words had sounded as they came out of her mouth was almost as bad as the look on Link’s face.
“Why should I believe you now?” he asked.
She wanted to smack him.
“Why should you believe me ever?” She wiped the rain off her face. “Look. This is me doing the best I can. I’m not perfect, but I am trying to help you.”
“Some help.” He still wasn’t buying it. She didn’t know what more she could say to him.
“Someone’s setting you up, and they’re going to take you down. Maybe both of us. That’s how it works. Trust me. I invented that game.”
Tell him. Tell him what Lennox Gates said. Tell him that Abraham Ravenwood is going to come for him. That he will never be safe.
That you got him into this mess in the first place.
But she couldn’t. She didn’t want him to live in that world. It was no place
for regular people. She had to take care of this.
She had to handle it for both of them.
Link didn’t say a word.
Ridley felt herself swaying, on the inside. She felt little pieces of her breaking off, smashing into the street like that old couch Link was sitting on.
“I can’t believe a word you say anymore, and that’s the truth,” Link said. “That’s all the truth I’m ever going to get from you, isn’t it, Rid?”
She knew she was going to burst into tears, and she couldn’t let that happen. She was Ridley Duchannes. Nobody made her feel like this. Nobody but a dumb quarter Incubus from the middle of nowhere.
But deep down, she knew something else, too.
He’s right.
She took a deep breath.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you. Some things happened that night at Suffer. I didn’t beat a Dark Caster in a game of Liar’s Trade. I lost to Sampson. Because I didn’t know he was a Darkborn, and I couldn’t—” Rid shrugged.
“Cheat?”
“Pretty much.”
“So you lost your shirt to Sammy Boy, huh?” Link smiled, in spite of his anger. “I guess he’d have a good poker face.”
“I didn’t lose my shirt to him. Not exactly. He was playing for the house.”
“What house?” Link asked slowly.
“The club. Suffer.”
“You mean Lennox Gates?” He didn’t look at her.
Ridley nodded.
“What did you lose, Rid?” Link’s tone was darker now.
She swallowed. “Two markers.” She really didn’t want to tell him the rest, but she knew she had to. It had all gotten too big for just one person.
“One was for a drummer. Because the drummer for Devil’s Hangmen lost his talent in the game. When I cheated it out of him.” She didn’t look at Link.
“A drummer?”
Rid nodded. She felt her eyes starting to water.
“So you had to hand me over in return? You lost me in a card game? Some sick Dark Caster game?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“What was it like, Rid? You sold me out and then you lied to me about it ever since?”
“I feel awful, Shrinky Dink. You have to believe me. And I thought it would be good for you. I thought you’d get a chance to be in a real band, even if it was a Caster one.”