Quang leered back, broken black teeth sliding up over his lip. "I'll take all those, darlin'. Just not the stinky round thing. Why'd I get the feeling you're conning me?"

The squidgy tilted and swerved on the gla.s.s, buzzing angrily. I grabbed it and jammed it back onto the velvet. Behave Behave. "Why do I get the feeling you're ripping us off? Come on, Az. Let's take our business elsewhere."

"Fine with me." Quang tapped chewed yellow claws happily on the counter. "Come back when you don't get half as much, and we'll renegotiate."

He had us, and he knew it. Our scores are high-profile and dangerous, and besides, we're fairies. Most times no one else will touch us, and if we didn't get at least four grand for this little lot, our a.s.ses were toast. But we had one secret weapon remaining. I raised my voice. "Okay. Whaddaya say, Blaze? We go elsewhere?"

This time I got Blaze's attention. He glanced up, his hands full of broken crystal. "Can I have this? Sorry, what?"

"Quang don't want our squidgy," reported Azure, her tone thick with righteous indignation.

"That so?" Blaze dumped the crystal with a happy tinkle and sauntered up to the counter.

Quang cleared his throat, black eyes darting. "I's just sayin to the ladies-"

Blaze licked his ruby lips, a sight you gotta witness to truly understand, and it dried the words in Quang's mouth. "That a new haircut?"

"Um . . . What?" Quang's fingers smeared the gla.s.s, his flashy golden ring glinting in sunlight.

I stifled a smile. Quang's okay, for a s.k.a.n.ky money-grubbing liar. He's just got this thing for pretty fae boys. Which makes him quivering jelly in Blaze's dirty-flirty hands.

You show weakness; we exploit it. That's what con artists do. Sometimes I feel bad for him, but not today. Today, I wanted him a trembling wreck.

Blaze leaned closer, and as if by accident, sparks twinkled from his claws, caressing Quang's crusty hand. "New haircut. Kinda cute. Anyway. It's a fine squidgy, Quangster. Very . . . umm . . . stimulating. Sure we can't come to some arrangement?"

Quang's leathery throat bobbed. "Well, I guess I could . . ."

"You guess you could what?" Blaze let his lips drift apart.

Quang squirmed, glancing from the squidgy to Blaze and back again. "Look, I can only take the jewels. It ain't the money. Just not my bag. Gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, okay? Sorry."

Despair weighed like stones in my heart. If even pretty Blaze couldn't talk Quang into it, we were lost. Stuck with this horrible thing. d.a.m.n it.

Disappointment built swiftly to careless anger, so abrupt, it scorched my senses and quivered my fingers with hate. I slammed my foot into the counter. Pain crunched into my toes, clawing up my ankle. "Ow! For f.u.c.k's sake." I kicked again, rage burning deep. The gla.s.s cracked like a starfish with a loud crunch, and this time the pain shocked me to silence.

I struggled to calm my breath, to hold my jerking fingers still. I don't kick things. I just get angry and hot and sulk for a while. But I couldn't help it. I wanted to crush something small and weak just to watch it hurt. If I'd had a weapon, I might have used it.

Fear crawled along my nerves like a cold centipede. This wasn't me. Was I going mad?

Squidgy, you still there?

Silence.

Scorn darkened Azure's frown. "Good one, Ice. Break everything. That'll help."

My blood seethed. I crunched my fingers tight until my claws bruised my palms, and rage bubbled and munched, leaving me hot and empty inside. d.a.m.n squidgy.

Quang backed off, lifting his hands. "Look, you guys need to leave-"

"Not so fast." Blaze fluttered over the dented counter and parked his cute b.u.t.t, hooking Quang's thigh with a shapely ankle. "You never asked about my arrangement."

His voice seduced, a familiar sultry tone that crawled a shiver down my legs, quenching my rage.

He'd used that one on me this morning. f.u.c.k me, Ice. You know you wanna. f.u.c.k me, Ice. You know you wanna.

My stomach coiled, discomfort jerking my wings tight. Surely he wouldn't really . . . Not just for that. He's got dignity, our Blaze. He screws anything that smells good, but on his terms.

Quang flushed a darker red and flicked a wary glance at us girls. "What, um, what'd ya have in mind?"

"I'll fix your counter," Blaze suggested coyly, and traced a delicate claw over one of the cracks I'd made. The edges glowed red with fire-fae heat, and gla.s.s fused with a steamy hiss, leaving a rippled ridge.

Quang stared, and swallowed, his imagination no doubt leading him to new and tempting places. "Should hope so."

Blaze beckoned, and when Quang leaned closer, Blaze whispered in his crooked ear, a smile curving his lips.

Quang's ears curled inward. He dampened his lips with a snaky black tongue. "Oh. Um. Okay." His voice was barely audible, and Blaze stared him sultry in the eyes without flinching.

I shifted, squirming. "Blaze, you can't be seri-"

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do." Blaze didn't drop his gaze. "f.u.c.k it. See ya downstairs."

Az's face paled like dawn sky. "Blaze-"

"Save it, Az. You don't wanna see, leave." He twisted Quang's brittle orange hair in his fist, and when Quang dropped to his knees, I grabbed Azure's hand and dragged her toward the stairwell.

On the way down the creaking stairs, my guts writhed like I'd stuffed them with worms. I didn't want to hear, but I couldn't help straining my ears. I couldn't hear anything, and my nerves stretched even tighter.

Azure clomped behind me, her hand stiff and cold in mine, and as we squeezed onto the sunset-stained sidewalk, she ripped her hand away and rounded on me, big eyes glimmering emerald with tears. "You shoulda stopped him."

Her accusation bit me like a horsefly. Tears sprang to my own eyes, my vision glaring cyan in the sun. Blaze is a sweet guy beneath all that vanity. I don't give a d.a.m.n whom he does-boys or girls, spriggans or banshees or humans, for all I care-but as far as I know, he's never prost.i.tuted himself before. "I tried to stop him, Az."

"Shoulda tried harder. He never listens to me. It's your fault, Ice."

"Is not!" People sidled past us on the skinny footpath, and I tucked my wings in and tried to keep my voice down below the traffic noise.

"It is too. You're the negotiator. You shoulda made Quang take our deal." That infuriating childish lilt crept into her voice.

Ire jabbed like she'd poked me with a pitchfork, but guilt pierced me sharper, all the way to my heart. It was my fault. I'd brought the squidgy home, and now to get rid of it, Blaze was . . . I didn't even want to think it. I didn't care if the mirror made him act this way, like he didn't care about consequences or conscience. It was my fault, and remorse cut my nasty tone to shreds. "Not like I held a pistol to his stupid fairy head. Just p.i.s.s off, okay?"

Az stalked to the gutter and folded her arms, gazing out into the street with her chin in the air, an angry breeze fluttering her white dress.

I swore and kicked at the dirty concrete, my foot still sore, and for eternal minutes we stood there, waiting and avoiding each other. I cracked my knuckles. I tapped my foot. I hopped up and down. Pedestrians shuffled by. Cars pa.s.sed. Traffic lights flicked from green to red and back to green. d.a.m.n it.

Light footsteps skipped down the stairs, and I whirled, my pulse cold.

Blaze emerged, blinking in the sun and sc.r.a.ping his hair back. Heat flushed his skin bright, and his chest heaved with light, short breaths. A drop of blood stained his thigh through his jeans, spreading.

I stumbled up to him, blue all over with embarra.s.sment. "Blaze? You okay?"

He tossed a ragged green wad of cash at me, and I fumbled to catch it, sweat smearing my palms. A lot of money. All hundreds. I counted it swiftly. Five grand. The price of our jewels. Exactly what Quang offered us, no more. And the squidgy was gone.

I looked up, chill shrinking my skin.

Blaze cast me a cold, empty glance, still catching his ragged breath. "f.u.c.k it. It felt good. What you staring at?"

My heart stung, and for once, I had nothing to say.

Midnight moonshine floods the neat gra.s.s courtyard behind Kane's town house with pale underwater light. The creamy facade looms tall, throwing black shadows onto the garden. Distant traffic smears the silence, and in the garden a fountain trickles, water over iron-bolted river stones and gla.s.sy blue ornaments, the rocks still smelling warm from the long-set sun.

In shadows above the porticoed entrance, Indigo floats, warm air supporting his wings, his dark hand resting lightly on the upper-story window ledge for balance. His reflection glints in distant headlamps, flashing in and out like a dim blue ghost. Beyond, inside, darkness stares back, the shadowy edges of a doorway in pale walls and the darker shape of empty carpet.

He sniffs the summer air, searching for the telltale ozone tinge of current, but only pollen and warm concrete greet him. He inhales deeper, the oxygen rush filling his blood. His nose twitches. Residue, the worn conduit of voltage past. If there's an alarm, it's off, or broken. Arrogance. Luck. Whatever. Saves him the trouble of shorting out the circuits.

He presses his palm against the top of the smooth window frame and grits his teeth in antic.i.p.ation. Metaldark sweat springs out on his face, and the lock tumblers melt with a hiss and a puff of steam. Pain flares like acid. He yanks his singed palm away, the hot iron scent of his own burned flesh an unpleasant distraction.

He forces copper claws under the aluminum frame, a tiny grating sound he can't avoid. Molten steel squelches from the ruined lock to splash on the carpet inside. Smoke wisps upward into darkness. He waits a few seconds, his pulse elevated but controlled. No movement. No lights. Swiftly, silently, he raises the window sash and slips feet-first into Kane's upstairs bedroom.

His feet hit coa.r.s.e wool. The room's empty, unused, the carpet bare of furniture. Not Kane's room, and no one else lives here. Air-conditioning taints his sweat with ash, and he slides the window closed behind him to halt the inward rush of warm air.

He closes his eyes, listening, breathing, searching for metal's innate pressure on his senses. His eardrums throb, painful. As always, it's deafening at first, and his sinuses whine in protest. Steel girders surrounding him, crushing inward like a claustrophobe's nightmare, wrapped in a tangle of dust and plastic-sheathed wires. White noise, garbage, hash on an empty channel, free to anyone who'll listen. Indigo's trick is to tune in. It makes him such a useful thief.

Right now it makes him impatient. He digs deeper, in that iron-free s.p.a.ce between air molecules, and faint motes of life glitter in the emptiness like a lost fairy girl's diamond choker: A pin, dropped on the carpet and lost. The dim coil of a tap spring, a strip of bright chrome on a shower recess. Flickers of cheap gold on a circuit board, an intricate bra.s.s hinge, silvery flecks in the skin of a discarded photograph. A scatter of lead crystal, soft golden chains, a gold quartz watch, a platinum ring.

He swallows, dismissing it all. He's not interested in random plunder. He's here for only one thing, and he listens harder, scouring the fae-bright ether for the itching stink of a rusted round h.e.l.lball.

He doesn't find it. Gritty sweat stings his burnt palm. Too much clutter. He'll have to look the old-fashioned way. Folding damp silvery wings, he pads lightly out into the dark corridor, ears p.r.i.c.ked for movement even though he knows Kane's not here. If Kane were here, he'd be caught already.

Smooth off-white walls, an unused bathroom, the dry smell of vacuumed carpet leading to other rooms, empty, distant, stuffy with loneliness. Light spills up the curved white stairs, tall shadows angling, the rubble-flecked iron rail stabbing bright in his senses like a trail of fire. Down, on a draft of cool air that tingles beneath his wings, to mahogany floors lined with steel nails, receding like runway lights under the screaming tungsten filaments of halogen lamps.

The black television reflects him in a mosaic of gla.s.s and shimmering silicon transistors. The sick ache of overstimulation grips his skull. His stomach chews listlessly at what's left of the cobalt-laced fish he swallowed for dinner, and nausea climbs his guts to crouch in his throat like an oily toad. Metalsense makes him sick. He tries to focus on the cool blue t.i.tanium bangle shining around his wrist. Light, inert, comforting, it's the metalfae equivalent of a seasickness bracelet, but it's never enough. If he doesn't switch off soon, it'll get messy.

But he still can't smell the mirror. There's no rust here, not in this vapid facade of an apartment, almost as fake as Indigo's own.

Down a fresh-painted corridor, mercifully synthetic. He ghosts past a lead-spattered oil painting that glares in his eyes, and an old gilt-framed mirror backed with mercury sickens him with the stink of his own blood.

Kane's bedroom. Dim, cool, charcoal's acid tang drifting from neat white sheets. Metal clamors from the master bathroom, sharp chrome edges knifing his sinuses. No rust. No mirror. He swivels to leave, but gentle silver twinkles on his tongue like sherbet.

There, under the bed. Almost hidden by folded linen. He bends to slide one claw over knotted woolen carpet and hooks out a woman's shimmering diamond bracelet. Snapped, the silver wrenched apart, the clasp still holding.

He holds it to shadowed light, tiny rainbows prisming, and a faint fruity scent waters his mouth. Strawberries, tainted raw with alcohol. His memory somersaults back to last night, Ice laughing on his lap with diamonds tumbling around her slender wrists. The same wrists that trailed those sweaty diamonds around Kane's neck and crushed them into his hair when she came.

Indigo drags the shimmering chain over his tongue, just to be sure. Sweetness flares like fruit juice from rough facets, delicious icing on the cake of fine silver. His blood sparkles. It's her.

Ice was here. The mirror's gone. Given her incorrigible jackdaw fingers, probably not a coincidence. Brave, quirky, cute little Ice. He wishes he'd been there to see it. He smiles darkly to think of her, and distrust of his own motives burns his bones.

He should leave her alone. No certainty she'll know anything. Kane could simply have the horrid thing with him. And for all he knows, she's working for Kane anyway.

But it's a place to start. A plan that doesn't involve picking a demon lord's pocket in public view.

Antic.i.p.ation whets his metal-drenched senses. His headache swells, deafening, and he wraps the diamond chain around his finger, clenching his fist so tight, it cuts, and silvery blood slides over his knuckles.

He's still leaving. This is just for information. Ask his questions, use her blushing fangirl act against her. Find the mirror, return it to Delilah. Leave Ice alone and get out. That's all.

That's all.

Urgency twists his diaphragm, and he swirls on sweating wings and darts for the stairs. The motion sickens him further, and he barely makes it into the empty bedroom and out the window before gritty metal vomit explodes in his mouth. He spears into the air, giddy, and gasps warm fresh air through the acid remnants of his sensory feast and a faint, lingering l.u.s.t for strawberries.

8.

Afternoon sun glared in our shop window, spearing mercilessly through the purple tie-dyed drapes to roast us. The sign outside says CRYSTAL DREAMS CRYSTAL DREAMS, and we dress up like New Age gypsies and pretend to be fortune-tellers, dazzle them with glamour so we can steal their wallets and break into their houses if they look rich.

The air inside had been cooking all day like a dead pig. Hair stuck to my neck in trickles of persistent yellow sweat, and the scent of sandalwood candles stifled me, though we'd stopped burning them when it started to get hot.

Business was slow. Nonexistent, in fact. Our feathered dream catchers hung stagnant and damp. I sighed and gazed longingly outside, where light breeze ruffled cafe blinds and shopping bags, fingering lightly through people's hair like little dancing feet. The urge to flee swamped me like an ocean wave. I imagined the clean smell, sea breeze and pollen and freshly cooked pancakes from the cafe next door, and my head throbbed in sympathy.

In reality it'd be stinky with exhaust fumes and sweat and city dust. I didn't care. I wanted out to play, to let the wind ruffle my hair in the park and smell green gra.s.s's cool moisture, or drink in bright salty sea spray with a sugary sorbet and roll down the sand into warm waves at St. Kilda Beach.

I wriggled my legs on my wicker chair, the garish sequins on my top flashing in the sun. My silken skirts itched me, damp. Sweat trickled down my bare belly into my navel. Innate longing for cool water flooded my veins. "Can't we close up and go to the beach? I wanna swim and chase jellyfish and throw sand at little kids."

Azure glared up from her puzzle book, damp purple scarf tied loosely over her hair. Heat doesn't bedraggle her as it does me. It just polishes her beauty a little more. She puffed her wings, wafting cooling breeze over her face. "Be sensible for once, sensible one. How are we supposed to scam anyone if you p.i.s.s off to the beach?"

"We don't need another one yet, Az. We just made four and a half grand, remember?"

"Yeah. Half of which you two already spent on booze and pills."

"It wasn't half-"

"And the diamond money we already owe to Sonny V," reminded Blaze, who was trying to fly upside down over the coffee table, his feet stuck up in the air and his dangling scarlet hair dripping sweat on the pinewood. He reveled in the heat, being firefae and all. I asked him once why he sweats, if he loves heat so much. He said because it makes him look s.e.xy. I couldn't argue with that. "In fact, we owe Sonny a lot more than that. Five grand more by week's end. Fancy getting your wings ripped off by a hairy Italian gangster?"

"And your teeth pulled one by one," chimed in Az.

"And your claws torn out."

"And your ears sliced off."

"And a fat ugly c.o.c.k up your-Ow!" Blaze banged his head on the table and tumbled to the floor, lithe denim-clad legs tangling over his head.

"Serves you right, idiot," I said crossly. "Stop doing that. Someone'll see."

Blaze unfolded himself and shook like a wet dog on his knees, wings crackling with green sparks. "f.u.c.k 'em if they do. I don't care."

"Well, you should care. What's gotten into you lately?"