“Hey, I want some!” Silver whined, pouting at me. “Please, darling, that was so much fun.”
I shrugged. “As the lady commands.”
The sharply dressed dealer sized us up. “I’ll pay two grand for the two hundred. Cash.”
“Two and a half,” I countered casually.
The dealer ground his teeth. “Two thousand seven hundred.”
“Three,” I said with a shrug, glad I had the Gold Bank provide me some euros for the trip.
“Look, here, I’m in the business. What would you even do with two hundred pieces?”
“Whatever my woman wants, man. No offense, but what she says goes.”
He redirected his glare down to Silver. “Your whore looks like a fucking kid, she’s so short. Definitely not worth three fucking grand.”
I moved without considering the consequences, my fist crashing against bone until blood splurged out of what was left of his nose. I smiled as iron hit my nostrils.
I reached for a paper towel on the bar to wipe my knuckles in the stunned silence. “Sorry,friend,” I told Hat Dude. “No one talks shit about my woman. I’ll throw in an extra hundred for your cleaner. You understand.”
Whether he understood or not, he nodded as I retrieved my wallet and started counting fifty-euro bills. I slid sixty-one across the bar, shut the box, and turned to Silver, to press my lips against hers.
I meant it as a peck, telling myself I was playing a role: the man so devoted he’d harm anyone who insulted her, and couldn’t get enough of her. But the moment we touched, a ravenous need seized me, demanding more, more, more.
I don’t know if I would have ever stopped devouring her if I didn’t suddenly feel a shift around us. I made myself pull away, scanning the crowd around us.
Something was wrong. I felt it to my marrow.
“Let’s get you back to our room, doll,” I drawled, my tone as casual as I could make it.
We had what we came for, and we needed to get out of here.
We were downstairs, almost to the door when the scream started. One, then another, and a third.
We got a clear view of the dance floor from the vantage point near the entrance.
The woman in pink—the first to have used a crystal, was pulling at her dress, ripping it off her as though it felt like acidagainst her. Then she started to claw at her own skin, drawing blood.
Someone from the staff approached her, trying to reason with her, to push her away from the crowd, and with a strength that shouldn’t have been hers, she slapped him back, so hard his neck twisted almost all the way back. He fell with a hollow thud as more people started to scream, rushing towards the entrance.
We were closer, but we stepped aside to keep watching.
The woman, bloody, scratched, dress discarded, fell to her knees, moving like a beast, her eyes bright blue, all of the white gone.
“Runes,” Silver breathed.
It took me a second to realize what she meant: she hadn’t just scratched herself, she’d drawn runes all over her body.
Those blue eyes seemed to search wildly, looking for something.
I could guess what.
“We need to get out of here,” I told Silver.
“But she’s a human. We can?—”
“That’s no longer a human,” I told her, dragging her to the door as fast as the crowd allowed.
