“What little something do you suggest I try, madame?” The desk clerk raised both eyebrows.
It was no use.
Ridley sighed, unwrapping a cherry lollipop. She didn’t want to do it.
Still.
She gave it one last halfhearted try. “I know you have a room for me, Sweet Cheeks. You e-mailed me saying I had been comped for the weekend.”
“This isn’t Las Vegas, madame. We don’t customarily comp people.” Now the desk clerk allowed her eyes to flicker up and down Ridley’s outfit.
It wasn’t a compliment.
Ridley sighed again, inserting the lollipop into her mouth. As she did, the flecks of gold in her eyes intensified, until it almost looked like they were glowing with light from within. She could feel the power surging up and out from her body, emanating from her on all sides until the lobby itself seemed lit by a slight golden haze.
“Why don’t you look again?”
The woman scrolled down her computer screen. “Sorry. It—it sounds familiar. But I don’t have you in the computer.”
Ridley raised an eyebrow.
Interesting. She’s one tough bird.
“Did I say weekend?” Ridley began. “Because now that I think about it, the letter only said that you had a room for me and I could stay as long as I liked. Free of charge. I think it was something about my fans? Wanting them to know that I had chosen you.”
Those were the fundamental rules of Persuasion: Bluff. Never back down. Believe what you’re selling. The bigger the ask, the more likely you’ll get what you’re asking for.
Just not this time.
“I don’t have a note of that in my computer. Are you in the entertainment industry?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“Would you like to give me a credit card? I could book you a standard room overlooking the construction on Seventy-Seventh Street. It’s a bit smaller than—”
“Did I say room? I meant suite.” Raise the stakes, Siren.
“We don’t have a suite available right now—”
“Did you hear suite? I said penthouse.” Believe it. You deserve that penthouse. You can’t imagine not having that penthouse. Ridley removed her sunglasses, looking at the woman with the full power of a Siren’s eyes.
“She’s with me, Penelope.”
Ridley was spluttering and infuriated when she turned to see Nox standing behind her, his black leather jacket slung over one shoulder.
Not him. Please. Not now.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Gates.” The clerk was flustered.
“Please, call me Nox.” He leaned over the counter, winking at the woman. “Seeing as we’re all such close friends here.”
“Of course, Mr. Gates.”
“You can put her in my sister’s rooms. She’s away for the moment.” He looked at Ridley. “We keep a few apartments here. You never know when they’ll come in handy.”
Ridley didn’t respond.
“Very good, sir.” The desk clerk averted her eyes.
Nox smiled at her encouragingly. “Maybe Frederico forgot to give you the message when I called earlier to tell you to expect Ms. Duchannes.”
“I do apologize, Mr. Gates. Er, Nox.”
Ridley watched the cold-hearted front desk agent melting.
He was good.
Whatever he was, he didn’t need sugar. Not a lollipop in sight. He didn’t have a tell, as far as Ridley could see. But he had all the power of a Siren.
Did he always? Was he using it on me? Was that why I kissed him? The thought was too unsettling for Ridley to process.
But the evidence was clear. He had some kind of power.
Whatever Lennox Gates was selling, this woman wanted it.
Ridley had never hated him more.
“Are you stalking me?” she hissed at him. He held up a finger. Not yet.
Nox motioned toward a bank of elevators. As they walked away from the front desk, Ridley’s blood was boiling so loudly she couldn’t hear the click of her heels on the black and white striped marble flooring. “What was wrong with that woman? I felt so—so—Mortal.” She shuddered.
“Welcome to New York.”
“You know, every time someone says that to me, I’m starting to understand they mean the opposite.” She didn’t know why she was talking to him. She shouldn’t be. He wasn’t worth it.
“Not me. I mean exactly what I say, every word of it.”
Liar. Ridley looked at Nox. “The Power of Persuasion couldn’t move a hair on that woman’s head.”
“You should probably consider Les Avenues immune to your powers.”
“Immune? As in, I’m nothing here?” The idea was staggering.
“Says everyone who has ever ventured into this neighborhood.” Nox laughed at his own joke. Then he gave up. “She’s a Darkborn.”
“What?”
“The top three floors of this building? All Casters, all powerful, and not exactly the Light variety.” He shrugged. “So the bottom floor, the staff? Darkborns. Ultimately impervious to power of any sort. The latest thing in Caster security.” He shrugged again. “It works.”
“But you could control her.”
“Of course. I’ve got the oldest power of all—an obscene amount of money. My father had the Sight and couldn’t resist the Mortal stock market.” Nox pressed the elevator button and held out a key card. “Take the room. My sister never uses the place.”
Ridley frowned.
“Take it. Think of it as a peace offering. I’m sorry about what happened back at the club. I shouldn’t have done it.”
The kiss. Even he can’t bring himself to say it.
“And I thought you meant everything you said.”
“I do.” He looked up at the mirrored glass ceiling. “At the time, I meant that, too. I just don’t know why I did it.” It sounded like he was being honest, but she’d given up on judging Nox Gates by how he appeared.
They were alone in the elevator now. Ridley stared at the elevator buttons. It was the safest place to look—until the elevator lurched to a stop.
Nox watched her face as the elevator door opened. He held it. “I’m starting to think that something in you brings out the very worst in me.” The words were painfully familiar. He shook his head. “Or maybe it’s all for the best. It’s hard to tell lately.”
Ridley took a step from the elevator to the hallway beyond the doors. “You don’t exactly make me want to be a good girl, if that’s what you’re saying.”
She didn’t mean it as a compliment, and she hoped he knew it.
“Fire,” he said as she moved past him.
“I’m sorry?” She paused.
He sounded strained. “When I kissed you, I tasted fire. I don’t know what it means. I thought you should know.” He was rattled.
Curiously rattled, she thought.
“I’m sorry, that probably sounds insane.” He looked away.
“Not at all.” Ridley shrugged. “That’s what all the boys say.”
Then she moved down the hallway without a word, and the elevator door slid shut between them.
The black lacquered door waited for her at the far end of the hall. The moment Ridley waved the key card over the lock, she suspected that what lay behind the door would not be anything like apartment 2D.
She was right. Lennox Gates and his sister apparently lived like Prince and Princess Charming.
Or Charmless, she thought.
At least, when they were staying at Les Avenues.
The entry door swung open into a wide foyer. Just as in the lobby, there was a black and white inlaid marble floor, which extended into a living room with a panoramic view of the city. The floor-to-ceiling windows were dizzying. Every surface in the room was reflective—from the polished bamboo cabinets and the massive globe chandeliers suspended from the ceiling to the silver edging on the slab of white marble that served as the coffee table. Low black leather couches surrounded the table, where there was a massive disp
lay of white orchids. The remaining surface was occupied by dish after dish of candied fruits and chocolates.
She kicked her shoes off and leaned back on a couch, picking a candied sea horse from a dish. Candied sea horses were her childhood favorite.
Strange.
How could he possibly have known? How could he have been expecting me? Even I didn’t know where I was going.
She reached for a cream-colored card, folded in the middle of the dish of candy. “If you need anything, R, ring the bell. The bath should be almost full by now. Clothes are in the closet.”
Cocky little son of a witch.
The note confirmed what she had already suspected. Lennox Gates had known she was coming, which meant he had some kind of foresight, more even than just a Seer. Reading the future was a rare and limited gift. Reece could only read faces, and she had become completely insufferable. Nox had teased Ridley about her future before, but only in the way that anyone with half a brain could.
If Nox had foresight as well as his other abilities, Ridley had to admit he was one of the most powerful Dark Casters she’d ever encountered. She had known that he could manipulate material objects, that he had some kind of control over the material world. Aside from an Illusionist like Larkin or Floyd—who could only appear to have that sort of gift—the only person Ridley knew who could really do something like that was Lena. Or Sarafine, but she was truly out of the picture now.
At least, that’s what Ethan had insisted, ever since he had returned from the Otherworld.
She stared at the card in her hand. The note left Ridley no choice. She had to accept that there was more to Lennox Gates than a love of gambling and nightclubs. There was too much—his powers of Persuasion, Manifestation, and Temporal Distortion—it was too much for one Caster, and she didn’t know how or why he had come to be so powerful.
But it was something.
Something that made him either potentially dangerous or potentially useful.
It was an interesting thought.
Ridley leaned back against the couch. She felt awful about Link and worried about Necro.
No wonder they had kicked her out.
She heard the water running in the other room. The bath. She stood up, feeling the soft pile of the thick white rug beneath her feet. Maybe a bath would help her calm down. Think more clearly. Figure out what to do now.
A few bubbles couldn’t hurt.
She tried not to look at the enormous bed as she wandered through the bedroom. All she noticed was the circular skylight cut into the ceiling and roof above it. She imagined lying there, studying the stars.
Princess Charming had one hell of a view.
Ridley found the door to the bathroom and shut herself safely inside, where the massive tub was filling itself with rose-and lavender-scented water. Exactly as Lennox Gates had promised it would.
Only then did she let herself cry.
She told herself it was the soap burning her eyes.
Three thick white towels later, Ridley felt like a new person. Wrapped in a plush robe, she toweled dry her long wet hair.
She lectured herself as she stared in the mirror, brushing out her tangled curls.
Pick yourself back up. Get it together, Siren. This is what you do. Stop acting like you care about them. Stop acting like Uncle Macon.
Like you can’t accept who you are, how Dark you are. Like you have a choice. Like you have a home.
Like every other door wasn’t slammed in your face on the night of your own Claiming.
Let it be.
Ridley put down the brush and stood up, before the face in the mirror revealed anything to the contrary.
The apartment unfolded into a kind of luxurious stillness in front of her. She padded through the halls in bare feet, wandering into the living room to investigate. Beyond the foyer, the apartment was divided into a living room, a bathroom, a massive closet area, and a bedroom. The living room was framed by a wall of windows, with a marble fireplace dominating the far end of the room.
As she stood in front of it, the fire lit itself, crackling to life.
Nice touch, Prince Charming.
Above the fireplace, Ridley noticed a framed piece of parchment, old and yellowing. It was a passage from Homer’s Odyssey, familiar to all Sirens: “The Song of the Sirens.” She knew the words almost by heart. Uncle Macon had a similar page in his library. The pages were rare, but important.
A Siren relic, if such a thing existed. How weird to find it here.
Come hither, come, Odysseus, / Whom all praise, great glory of the Achaeans!
Bring in your ship and listen to our song. / For none has ever passed us in a black-hulled ship
Till from our lips he heard ecstatic song, / Then went on his way, rejoicing and with larger knowledge.
For we know all that on the plain of Troy / Argives and Trojans suffered at the gods’ behest.
We know whatever happens on the bounteous earth.
Ridley stared at the words, remembering what they had first meant to her. Being Dark was hard to accept at sixteen; knowing that it was her destiny made it easier. For centuries, Siren after Siren had shared her fate, just as sailor after sailor had shared the rocks.
Why should I be spared?
She touched the parchment gently. The world was a cruel place, but at least it was consistent. Ridley understood who and what she was.
Ridley understood destiny.
She moved along the wall, looking at paintings and photographs and other Gates family memorabilia—until she came across a childhood photograph of Nox and his baby sister, sitting in a woman’s lap.
A dark-eyed man stood behind them. He looked familiar.
Even though it was only a photograph, she could feel the unmistakable power resonate through the room.
The Power of Persuasion.
Here.
Now.
Sirensong. Sirene. Everything Ridley had felt in the club. Suddenly, it all made sense.
The woman in the photograph was a Siren. The woman in the photograph was also, most likely, Nox’s mother.
Lennox Gates had Siren blood running through his veins.
CHAPTER 25
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
Link didn’t have time to pick up the phone. To be honest, he didn’t have time to think about Ridley. He didn’t have time to do anything but freak out.
In a big way.
A hybrid Incubus–sized way.
More than anything, Link hated it when girls cried. He hated it when they cried or when they were mad at you or when they just gave you those big old eyes so wobbly that they made it seem like they belonged in a basket of puppies.
But this was worse.
Necro wasn’t doing any of those things. She was just lying there—not moving. She didn’t even look like she was doing all that much breathing. She didn’t look all that different from the dead she was supposed to be talking to, Link thought.
Her skin was pale to the point of near greenness. Shadows had emerged under her eyes. The gash on her neck almost seemed to be growing, from the looks of it.
It was a mess.
All three of them had taken turns trying to bandage her neck. The results were pretty shoddy, but it didn’t matter. The black ooze seeped through, no matter what they tried.
Even Lucille Ball sat on the foot of the bed, staring.
“That can’t be good,” Floyd said. “It should’ve stopped by now.”
“You think Necro hit an artery or somethin’?” Link asked. “Do you have arteries in your neck?”
“I don’t know.” Floyd looked at him. “You think she’s going to bleed out?”
“No.” Link shook his head. “You can lose up to one-third of your body’s blood before you die. But we need to suture her.”
“What?” Floyd looked at him. He didn’t sound like himself to her, but that was probably only because she hadn’t known him during Shark Week.
“Sew her up.” Link shrugged
. “I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Hold on. Let me get my needle and thread.” Floyd was losing it.
“That only works if it’s sterile,” he informed her. “You guys got a Insta-Clinic Super 24 around here?” Link tried to think what the New York version of that would be.
“You want to take her to a Caster emergency room or something? Because, guess what? They don’t exist.” Floyd sounded desperate.
“She’s probably going to die,” Sampson said from the other end of the room.
“Shut it, man,” Link practically shouted.
“Please.” Floyd shook her head.
“Let’s face facts.” Sampson paced across the room. “I don’t know how long a Necromancer can stay like this before the effects are permanent. Not long. She spends enough time in contact with the Otherworld as it is. All it takes for someone like her to cross over is a little shove in the Other direction—”
“You think?” Link snapped, and bent over her bed. “Hey, Necro. Wake up, man. That was a killer gig. You gotta wake up so we can talk about it.” He shook her arm. He was desperate, and he couldn’t think straight.
What would Ethan do in this situation? What had Ethan done, seein’ as everythin’ that could go wrong in the whole universe had already gone wrong for him? Why is my finger burnin’ like crazy where that stupid ring is?
But it didn’t matter who tried, or what they said or did. Necro didn’t respond. She looked pale and small, lying half under the blankets. Floyd sat next to her on the floor.
“Esperanza,” Floyd said.
“What?” Link looked down at her, confused.
“Her real name’s not Necro. It’s Esperanza.”
Link looked at the sleeping punk. “Are you sure about that?”
Floyd smiled sadly. “She hates it, and she’ll kick your butt if you call her that. But sometimes she still seems like an Esperanza to me.”
“You guys have been friends for a long time, haven’t you?” Link suddenly felt almost as bad for Floyd as he did for Necro.
Floyd shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. She’s all right. For a Necro.”
“Who did this to you, Esperanza?” Link leaned closer to her face. “Esperanza? Wake up and kick my butt.”