One side of the man’s full lips rose. He selected a long pencil from a cup on his podium and lifted one of the long blond ponytails that trailed to her knees, peering at the nape of her neck and, Colleen assumed, bits of her brown hair peeking from under the bottom of her wig cap and hairpiece. He said, “Uh-huh. Nice wig. Okay, it’s possible. You can wait in the ID-checked line over there.”
He gestured toward a second set of blue velvet ropes with another line of people long enough to look like they were waiting for the newest ride at Disneyland.
Gray fog coasted into her head, and her lungs squeezed out a hopeless sigh. “I, um, I was told I’d be on the VIP list?” she asked.
“There is no Colleen Frost on the list,” he said while writing something on a sheet of paper.
“Oh, um, no. It would be under the name QueenMod, I think?”
He stopped writing and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes from under his curling eyelashes. “I beg your pardon?”
“Um, QueenMod. It’s my nickname.” Colleen sucked in a deep breath. “Because that’s what I go by sometimes.”
The man was still looking at her, his gaze as steady as if he held a sniper rifle. From the plethora of Marine tattoos on his arms, he might have done that at some point in his life. “QueenMod.”
“Yes,” she said, shrinking inside. “It’s probably not even on there anyway. I’m sorry to have bothered you. I’ll just—”
Jeffrey was holding a computer tablet and scrolling, and then he raised one eyebrow. “QueenMod. Like Queen, Mod?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” She should have chosen a less dumb moderator name.
“Well, that can’t be just a lucky guess. You’re on the VIP list, QueenMod, and your cover is already paid. Hold out your arm. This here’s your wristband. Your prepaid food and beverage credit is on the chip in it. Just have the bartenders or waitstaff beep the chip. Looks like you’ve got two hundred dollars to drink tonight, which won’t take nearly as long as you’d think. Eat something with it. They don’t water down the liquor here.”
Holy crap. TwistyTrader really was a whale. Two hundred bucks of free money, and the club’s cover charge was a C-note, too.
Jeffrey the Director of Security continued, “At nine-thirty, present yourself to the desk on the second floor at the back marked Private Rooms. There’s a black stage curtain back there. The desk is behind it. They’ll beep your chip to get back there, too, and they’ll set you up with the paperwork and NDA.” He secured a floppy strip of orange plastic snugly around her wrist. “Show this to my security people at the staircases. That’s how you’ll gain access to the VIP second floor. Third floor is Super-VIPs only, which is not you. Don’t even try. Go right in, Ms. QueenMod-Sailor-Moon-Colleen-Frost.” He turned and extended his hand for the ID of the next person in line behind her.
Colleen scooted inside the club before he changed his mind.
Frigid air enveloped her as she walked through the door, which cooled her off after the hot night outside. Her damp skin prickled.
Inside, strobe lights flashed in the air, and dance music thumped louder as she wiggled and shimmied her way through the crowd.
The crowd was not the cosplay kind.
The dress code looked more suitable for the opera than a nightclub. The men wore black or dark blue suits, either with ties or open at the collar, and the women wore black formals or glittering gowns. They all looked like they’d had professional blowouts and manicures that day.
And Colleen was Sailor Moon, straight out of an anime superhero comic book. Her white-blond ponytails were lined with wire so that they seemed to be whirling in spirals as she moved, defying gravity.
She lifted her chin and stalked on her bright red, high-heeled, thigh-high boots through the crowd because acting like you belonged was half the battle. The boots had stiletto heels and an inch of platform under the toe box, which meant Colleen was an unlikely five-seven instead of pretty dang short.
And yet—
Even though she was dressed as an anime character at an event that looked like a White House state dinner, people weren’t staring at her. They hadn’t even blinked as she’d strode into the crowd.
Maybe sophisticated people minded their own business instead of gawking. That wouldn’t be a bad thing.
But as Colleen approached the bar and waved two fingers in the air to get the bartender's attention and ordered, she noticed that not everyone in the bar was dressed in traditional formal attire.
One guy over at the far end of the bar wore a black leather motorcycle jacket and jeans, although the jeans certainly weren’t Levi’s or Wranglers. The way the dark blue denim clung to every curve of his muscular thighs and calves suggested they weren’t off-the-shelf at all.
A woman standing over at one of the small cocktail tables was wearing a short skirt instead of a long dress, and Colleen could have sworn a fluffy fox tail had swished below the hem of her skirt as she’d turned away.
Two bearded leather daddies were leaning against the wall and talking while sipping from highball glasses. Their black leather clothes were a little more subtle than what you’d see over at Studio 13, the gay bar over on the other side of the Southwestern State campus.
The Devilhouse’s bar was raised above the dance area. The crowd was jampacked down there, arms waving and bodies undulating in the strobe-flashed darkness. She didn’t know anybody and couldn’t have talked to anybody if she had because the beat from the dance music stomped in her ears.
The bartender—a hottie with a mischievous glint in his dark eyes and his dress shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows to bare powerful forearms—handed her a martini glass full of orange liquid. Shouting to be heard above the techno music, he told her, “Mango cosmopolitan, which is indeed sweet and light, made with Belvedere citron vodka from the top shelf, shaken! Enjoy!”
