He didn’t, but as Cash walked away, he heard the man slur agreement. Eventually the memory would work its way in.
A server with a plate of canapés in each hand hopped back out of his path with a quick apology. Cash stopped to wave her through and caught a glimpse of motion out of the corner of his eye—a tilted elbow and flexed bicep. He waited until the server had gone by and looked in that direction.
The man was human and almost aggressively unremarkable, handsome enough, with stylish-enough fair hair and a suit that hit the exact spot between shabby and flashy. Even his aura was muted and tucked in tidily around his body.
Only the heavy-framed black glasses he wore made a statement. And probably—the man looked at a redcap with a protesting server on his knee and made the same absent-looking adjustment of one leg—a slight clicking sound.
Winslow’s casting scouts had the same model glasses camera so the crew could check for frauds and, worse, the unsympathetic. It wasn’t “on brand” for viewers to root for the devil to win some asshole’s soul, apparently.
The scout picked out another couple and adjusted his glasses again. Cash left him to it and headed over to rescue the server from her persistent suitor with a reminder that Donna’s staff was off-limits. The redcap scowled but finally let the woman bounce up off his knee.
“Thank you,” she mouthed at Cash.
Cash nodded and touched her elbow. “See that guy over there, with the glasses?”
“Table seventeen,” she said without even a glance that way. “The creeper. He takes pictures with those glasses every time we lean over the table. Like we haven’t seenCheaterandMystery Diners.”
“Get his name,” Cash said. “His room number too if you can.”
She looked suspicious.
“I’ll explain later,” Cash told her. “Trust me. I have to go.”
He left her to clear the redcap’s table—he doubted there would be more trouble with the thought of Donna’s wrath sharp in the monster’s mind—and stretched his legs to finally catch up with Arkady at the huge ebony door with the Staff Only sign. Arkady raised dark blond eyebrows at him.
“I see you found Natalie,” he said coolly. “Did she have something to say?”
Cash shrugged as he leaned back against the door and pushed it open with his shoulder. The wards stung as he stepped through, like thorns caught in the meat of his human side.
“Who can make her out with that accent?” he asked. “You have a spy on site.”
Arkady stiffened, and his face darkened as he turned to scan the bar.
“Who?”
Cash grabbed his sleeve and pulled him through the door into the corridor with him. “Leave him,” he said. “He’s just a scout, here to check how cinematic the weird is. If he disappears suddenly, that just proves there’s something here to investigate.”
“It’s not proof,” Arkady said. “Not if they don’t find the body.”
Cash snorted. “That’s a good twenty minutes of footage in the final cut,” he said. “If he’s still here, I can find who he works for later. He shouldn’t get anything he can use, anyhow. As long as they’re above ground, everyone should have their best humanity on show.”
“Should,” Arkady said darkly, but he let the door swing shut with a secure click. He peeled Cash’s fingers off his arm and lifted them to his lips. The kiss skimmed over Cash’s knuckles and made him swallow hard as he tried to decide if the gesture was hot or ridiculous. “See? I knew you weren’t just a pretty face.”
“Bite me.”
“Later.”
Cash snorted. He tried to take his hand back, but Arkady hung on to it and tucked Cash’s fingers into the crook of his arm. His forearm was taut with muscle and warm through the starched fabric. It felt like it was being absorbed into Cash’s bones as they walked down the hall.
“Really?” he grumbled halfheartedly.
“You’re here as my date, you go in to dinner on my arm,” Arkady said. “It’s what people expect.”
Cash rolled his eyes but left his hand where it was. If hehadto play boyfriend for the weekend, he might as well commit to the part. Some things could be ridiculousandhot.
The set of stairs at the end of the hall started as concrete and metal but gave way to roughly carved stone as they spiraled down. The light of hundreds of candles flickered over the high wall and glazed the milky streaks of lime that seeped out of the rock. A single fiddle dragged a slow, sweet tune from its strings and was stripped apart and played by echoes until it was an orchestra.
For all its grandeur, the spires and the flocked Victorian wallpaper, the Abascal Hotel and Spa that most people saw was just a roach motel. The real guests—the ones who paid with more than dollars and Instagram lines—stayed down here, in the atmospheric sprawl of tunnels.
