He glances around. “Do you even know where we are?”
Yup. When I worked at SPAM, April once sent a team here to do some recon on a rumoured neurotoxin that was being trafficked through the city. Eight SPAM agents went in. They came back out with twelve black eyes, five broken noses, six broken legs, and twenty-nine broken fingers between them. Also some missing teeth. No neurotoxin. No desire to ever go back in.
But Jasper doesn’t know I know any of that, so I say, “Yeah, it’s some shitty dive bar where I’m more likely to get a staph infection than I am to get a salad.” I wriggle my fingers in disgust. I don’t even want to touch the table we’re sitting at. It looks like it hasn’t been wiped in months, and the empty stage in the back corner holds only a microphone stand and someshredded silver fringe that are a sad attempt to add some sparkle to the grime.
But Jasper throws a nervous glance at the people around us before he gets even closer and lowers his voice. “This isKicks.”
I study the faded menu. It’s the kind in the little plastic stand on the side of the table. I pretend to study it. “I could swear this font is Times New Roman. Clearly no one put any thought into graphic design. I could give them some tips. Everyone comes to me for help with their PowerPoint presentations at work.”
If laughing wouldn’t draw attention we don’t need, I would laugh at the dawning horror in Jasper’s face. He’s obviously beginning to question if bringing me here was a good idea. Fantastic. Let him underestimate me.
The server brings our order. I suck on my straw and make a big show of looking around the room. All those disgruntled SPAM agents who were stuck on desk duty after the neurotoxin incident make sense now. The bar is full of a lot of unshaven faces and shifty eyes. People hunched over phones, which isn’t uncommon, but the ones here seem extra paranoid that someone might peek over their shoulder and glimpse which criminal mastermind they’re texting. One guy even has an eyepatch, and the scar that runs from his hairline to his lip says it isn’t a frivolous accessory.
“We should go,” Jasper says. “This was a bad call.” But before he can get out of his seat, we’re interrupted as a flurry of feathers and sequins takes the chair next to his. For a moment, Jasper is engulfed. He squawks, but the sound is drowned out by a smacking kiss, and when he reemerges, shaking a feather out of the collar of his shirt, a large and sparkly lipstick print is smeared on his face.
“Jasper Jackson,” the new arrival says. “Where the hell have you been keeping yourself?”
“Oh, you know, Max.” He gives the woman his charming smile, now looking even more lopsided thanks to the lipstick. “Been staying busy.”
“And out of trouble?” She takes his chin between manicured nails that must be four inches long.
It’s fair to say I have not met a lot of drag queens in my life. In college, Clarissa used to... well... drag me to drag queen brunch from time to time. She’d hoot and cheer and wave her dollar bills in the air. I’d pretend like I recognized any of the songs the performers sang. When you spend your childhood in perpetual superhero bootcamp, you don’t get a lot of time for pop culture.
But the woman in front of me is not only the most beautiful drag queen I’ve ever seen, she’s possibly the most beautiful person. Her skin is flawless, her hair is basically a sculpture, her dress must weigh sixty pounds, and despite the grimy surroundings, she looks perfectly put together.
And she’s watching me like I’m gum on the heel of her reinforced Louboutins.
“I’m Maximum Shade,” she says. “Welcome to my establishment.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say. “Morgan Murray.”
“Pleasure.” She may have kissed Jasper, but her lips are still perfectly painted as she gives me a thin smile. “I think I met your mother once.”
Whatever I was going to say dies in my throat. I glance at Jasper, but his gaze is on the front door.
“She knew many people,” I say. “When you run your own company, you make a lot of contacts.”
Mother came up in the era where superheroes were still treated suspiciously and secret identities were commonplace. Her life as Farah Field, CEO of Field Security, a contractor that provided private security services to dignitaries and VIPs, was agreat cover for the Legendary Flame’s travels around the world fighting crime. But I can’t imagine someone like Maximum Shade ever going to Mom for security.
“You seen Ravensburger lately?” Jasper asks.
Max lets her gaze linger on me for one last long second before she snorts and turns her attention back to Jasper. “Ravensburger? What do you want with that kind of bad news?”
“We’re...” He shoots me a nervous glance. “He used to work with Indigo, right?”
Now, Max’s immaculate composure cracks the barest amount. You’d have to be watching her closely to notice, but not even the two-inch-deep eye shadow is enough to hide the way her eyes tighten and her mouth goes white at the corners, contrasting starkly with her plum lipstick.
But her voice is still calm when she says, “Now why would you go chasing after ghosts like Indigo?”
“Jasper!” Across the bar, a mountain stands up from a table. Okay, it’s not a mountain, but it might as well be. The man is as wide as he is tall, and he’s really tall.
Jasper goes pale, and he pushes slowly up from his seat. “Oh boy. That’s not good. Excuse me while I go clear up a... misunderstanding.”
I half rise, like I might follow him, but a pair of talons wraps around my wrist, and the way Max clears her throat very clearly says “I wouldn’t if I were you.”
Jasper calls a casual greeting to the mountain as he moves across the bar, and he gets a grumble that puts erupting volcanoes to shame in return.
“Don’t worry,” Max says. “He can talk his way out of any situation.”
