Bloodshifted by Alexander Cassie

Author:Alexander, Cassie [Alexander, Cassie]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy.Urban
ISBN: 9781250037954
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I hung out in the back of Hell feeling like a mime. There was no work for me to do until people started to drink—but the announcement of two-for-one specials on all levels of the club was getting out; I could see people sending texts to tell friends. And music started to pound at the level you could feel in your chest when you walked by the speakers. Hope this isn’t giving you hearing damage, baby. Although it’s never too early to learn to appreciate a good beat.

I used to frequent clubs, back in the day. I’d met Asher at one, in fact, although I hadn’t known it at the time. It was hard not to think of him when I saw people dancing, remembering how once upon a time he’d watched me.

Soon the crowds meant I was too busy to reminisce. Girls swirled out first, braver boys followed, and then I was having to press through them to get back and forth with payloads of glassware for the bar. I swept through one level at a time, and then started over again. It wasn’t so bad and people were more interested in themselves—my clothes marked me clearly as unimportant, so I was completely ignored.

Celine and Estrella kept their eyes on me in their respective habitats, and I made sure to wave to Jackson each time I passed through Purgatory. By my twentieth pass even he began to look slightly more relaxed.

And I didn’t have time not to work—people were drinking with abandon. On a round through Hell, someone pushed a door open, and a wave of smoky air flew in. I’d found the smokers’ deck. Made sense that it was down in the inferno.

I glanced over at Estrella—she was dressed far more elegantly than anyone else in Hell, with her otherworldly beauty. Men and women were attracted to her, and she circled the bar like a shark, gracing groups of people with her presence, even dancing hypnotically at the edge of the floor to pull more people in. For someone who wasn’t technically alive, moving among humans made her seem full of life, as if she were a mirror, reflecting their life back at them.

I waited three more passes as the crowds grew, until I was sure she couldn’t see me, and then I bolted outside.

The smoking deck was protected from wind by buildings with brick walls on either side—it had a Garden of Eden theme, metal trellises supporting winter-dry vines, giving me a chance to see the bronze snakes that’d been welded on. Bushes circled the edges of the patio, and in the back were two large topiaries trimmed to look like genitalia, one carefully shaped penis with testicles on each side, the other a vulva with a spotlight pointed at its most sensitive part.

There were heat lamps at regular intervals, which girls in sleeveless club gear congregated around like moths. Ashtrays overflowed and small tables held an assortment of glasses from each of the floors, giving me a good excuse to be there.

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