“John.”
Cash walked away. Behind him he heard the sin-eater’s companion ask curiously, “How did he know your name?” He nearly choked on his own snort of laughter and covered his cough with a sip of wine. Monsters could get away with being rude, but laughing at your own jokes was the sort of thing that only Baba Yaga could get away with.
Laughing at my jokes, the monster poked at him snidely.
He ignored it as he stepped over a tail and avoided a thick spill of ruched velvet train. It was the same thing, and besides, Cash didn’t care about the crack at him. That would have been hypocritical. If you dished it out, you had to be willing to take it. But people needed to learn to hold their tongue about El.
They should be grateful it was Cash who taught them that lesson. It just cost them a needle to the ego. Donna didn’t believe in any lesson that didn’t end with someone’s liver on the floor.
It had been a whole thing when Cash sent El to a Montessori preschool. He didn’t think even the few segregated monster nurseries encouraged baby cage matches. It was hardly conducive to staying under the Church’s radar. Toddlers would murder someone over a sticky penny if they knew it was an option.
A slattenpatte sighed in exasperation as she lifted one breast up to dab seltzer on the hot-sauce stain on the underside of the velvet bra.
“Every time I wear white,” she groused. “I get blood on it.”
“So don’t wear white,” her trow escort suggested as he held the glass of seltzer for her to dip into. He looked bored, a thin dark gray man with an explosion of such extravagant lace at his collar that it looked like he had started to froth. “Or learn where your mouth is.”
She lowered her boob long enough to give him an annoyed look from under her heavy brows. “Is that a crack about the children?”
The trow rolled his eyes and groused, “No.” It had been. They both wanted to go back in time, although the length of history they wanted to unwind was different—yesterday and a decade ago, respectively.
Their discontent was small and immediate—the restrictions of parenthood, his mother, the fact they might have murdered the head of the homeowner’s association… or just really wanted to. It was hard to tell if the flickering image of blood on white tiles and torn white culottes on the perfect green grass lawn were real or wishful thinking.
Cash could sympathize, although it was the PTA that always got his goat.
The banshee had fucked someone she shouldn’t. A troll in a glorious cloth-of-gold suit, his tail tasseled and gemmed, had pennies in his pocket and an eye out for a rich lass. Those were just the monsters common enough to have a breed. Others were like the Abascals—a pared-down bloodline that didn’t need to be named. Although, if you were young and in love like Cash had been, you might try dragon or demon and find neither quite fit—or just one horrible, solitary deed that served as their new identity. A short mercreature in pirate finery, long boots on short legs and a nest of jellyfish stingers strung from his nose down, wanted something that Cash couldn’t understand, with a salt-bitter poignancy. The witch in cracked black leather whose grimy fingers made mold sprout where she touched was ripe with simple, cheerful lust for a wedding hookup.
Everyone wanted something. Most of them had secrets they would sweat through a lie to keep hidden.
None of themfeltlike Harry’s contact. Surely someone who put this whole self-destructive—Prodigium-destructive—plan into play would be consumed by the Abascals’ fall? Not with the question of whether they could pour another thin mushroom cocktail down their throat without puking up their last meal.
Of course, these were only the powerful. Old breeds and up-and-comings who’d gotten a foot on the ladder of power. They wanted to show off their finery to Donna, impress her or intrigue her enough to earn her interest.
The real power-players—the Prodigium movers and shakers—would arrive with the dawn. Much as she hated it, those were the ones Donna needed to show off to in order to stay their peer.
It was easy to slip. That’s why Cash liked it where he was. No one wanted anything from him, and the only person he had to impress was the director with a steady shot.
Cash traded his glass of wine—still half-full, the stuff tasted worse than he remembered—with a server for a napkin. The square of fabric was thick and smooth, nicer than any of the suits he’d brought with him. He wiped his hands with it as he glanced around the room. That was the thing about the Abascals. It was hard to stay in their orbit andnotjust accept their world.
His gaze flicked over the rest of the evening crowd as they milled around and waited for the guests of honor to show themselves. He stopped on a man in the corner of the room who looked almost as out of place as Cash did. Not that Luke Kohary was. The Left Hand of the Prodigiumwasthe power player in the monster world.
He didn’t look it, though. Tall and sandy-haired, with an actual tan, Kohary was dressed down in black jeans and an open-collared shirt. If it weren’t for the wary exclusion zone around him, he might have even passed for human.
Rumor had it that he had been.
Cash wished Donna served whiskey at these events. He didn’t drink much these days—it was hard enough to function during daylight hours without a hangover added to the mix—but a shot of liquid stupidity always made things easier. In its absence, he’d just have to depend on the dumb he’d been born with.
He blotted his hands on the napkin again and headed over to talk to Kohary.
Chapter Ten
NOTHING.
To a wisp there was nothing where Luke Kohary stood but meat. No itch of regret or want, no thin hotdog-broth saltiness of yearning. He didn’t even have an aura, not even a thin rind of one like Harry. It was… disorienting, like he was a projection of some kind instead of a real person.
But Cash could feel the warmth of his skin as Luke grasped his hand. There were rough calluses on his fingers and old scars on the bony back. He was here, even if Cash’s monster didn’t want to believe it.
“It’s an honor,” Cash said. It wasn’t, of course. It was a nape-prickling, pit-sweating mistake that made his stomach regret that fishy bite he’d taken earlier. They both knew that, but niceties and fear were what tied the Prodigium together. “It’s not often you see the Left Hand… socially.”
