All These Ashes by James Queally

Author:James Queally [Queally, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Polis Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twelve:

There was a long line outside QXT, filled with enough people sporting black boots, garters, dreadlocks, latex and leather to make the cast of The Matrix blush.

I didn’t have the wardrobe to hover around that crowd for too long without drawing attention, and attention is bad when you’re trying to have a private conversation with the woman whose presence is the reason for the line.

Downtown Newark tends to clear out at night unless there’s a Devils game drawing thousands to the Prudential Center. But with The Rock’s lights dimmed, the entire neighborhood was a shadow: darkened buildings, shuttered storefronts and yawning, vacant parking lots. The only activity around the neighborhood was the old sandstone building with the ominous black doors that swung out to the sidewalk.

If you weren’t in line for QXT, you had almost no reason to be around. Every leather Daddy hat, chainmail corset attachment and mohawk turned my way as I trudged up Mulberry. It wasn’t their attention I wanted though. It was the guy with the bullseye tattoo on his forehead at the door.

The heavyset Black man with the shaved head and the frosted white contact lenses fit the part of QXT’s gothic guardian. He was short and chubby, but eighty percent of what hid under his trench coat was muscle, not fat. His hair was close cropped and dyed green, and a ring sat hooked under his nostrils, peering down at the snakebite piercing near his chin.

The gargoyle might have dissuaded anyone else trying to cut the line and get access to the venue’s top talent, but thankfully, I knew his first name. And he owed me a favor.

“Obie,” I shouted as I stepped to him, drawing looks from the line.

An arm blocked my path. It belonged to the other security guard who was checking IDs. If Obie heard me, he wasn’t acknowledging me, keeping his gaze on the line.

“Obie,” I said again. “Your friend here seems a little confused.”

I looked up at the head controlling the arm blocking my progress. Obie’s partner was a white man with longer black hair that curled at the neck and a goatee that seemed shaved into a point at his chin. He was in the prototypical black security shirt and pants, not trying to fit the mood of the building. Probably just an extra hand for a busy night.

“There’s a line,” the other guy said. “You should get in it.”

“I’m impatient. Also, I’m not here for…whatever that is,” I replied. “Obie, I really don’t have time for this.”

Obie uncrossed his arms and turned his artificially deadened pupils my way. Then his hands shot up and under my armpits as I turned around, lifting me straight off the ground.

I felt my legs kicking helplessly as Obie flung me over his shoulder and carried me like a rolled-up carpet. A few members of the line started laughing, and the other guard seemed satisfied with the departure of my mouthy ass, unaware that I’d gotten exactly what I wanted.

When we

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