some kind of disaster

Hannya was probably finding this hilarious. Supernatural creatures dressing up along with everybody else on the night when nobody would blink at eye at fangs and blood smeared lips, when witches could pull off flashes and bangs magic out on the street. It was like the start of a bad joke, the demon walking through Emerald City all painted green, bolts that looked all too real shoved bloodily through his throat definitely some sort of punch line.

Lincoln pulled the blue hard hat deeper down over his eyes, trying not to meet that flat black stare. The demon was grinning at him like he knew the joke and found it hilarious. Muscles bunched and released in Linc’s jaw as he dropped the little nugget of dry ice into the glass. It smoked disturbingly but the demon was already scooping it up, gulping back half of it before the dry ice had melted away. ”On your tab, yeah?” he asked.

No reply for the guy. He looked up almost reluctantly, blue eyes flicking up in stages until he was meeting that soulless stare. The demon’s grin broadened before he opened his mouth slightly and revealed the chunk of dry ice held between his front teeth, steaming like a dragon’s breath. It disappeared with a crunch, mocking laughter rolling out with that smoke as the demon picked up his glass. ”Like always kid. I’d watch yourself tonight. Lots of things going bump in the night…” If he’d had a heart capable of it maybe it would’ve been racing jack rabbit fast in his throat but all it managed was the limping stutter of a lame race horse that didn’t know its prime was past.

Swallowing hard, he set the bottle of gin down on the bar and let out a long breath. There were plenty of truly scary things in this town – scarier than a vampire who made Genghis Khan look like a Millennial and a demon whose trade seemed to be in tricking people into her bed, well, broom closets. Some of them liked coming here to drink and others stalked the streets, danger thick enough in the air to have had him trying to talk Cassie into steering clear of the place. Things here and out there would eat her up without an ounce of regret. A pretty blonde snack gone in a single mouthful. Didn’t that have pain lancing through his chest like he had indigestion.

Linc pressed the heel of his hand hard against his breastbone, like he could grind that ache away. Across the room a kitsune with fox ears poking out of a nest of black hair held up a glass and wiggled it at him. A refill. On the imported gin she’d been swigging all night like it was water. He guessed to her it wasn’t much stronger. A fresh glass clinking down on the bar, the bottle grabbed. ”Shit. Sorry! I’m gonna have to get another bottle.” An apologetic look shot at the woman earned him irritation. ”I’ll be back,” he shot at Lawrence. It wasn’t like he was gonna be able to slip off and do his own version of celebrating on a night like tonight. Too busy. Too many other people willing to pay for the privilege of partying – upstairs and down here.

He didn’t run but when the store room shelves proved empty of that purple labelled bottle, Linc bounced up the stairs. Music pounded against the door even before he pushed it open. Out in the club the place was filling up. Costumes of every sort crowded together – a Freddie Mercury wannabe dancing with Marie Antoinette, a pair of tortoise-shell cats with whiskers that looked a little too real – bodies writhing to the music. He ducked his head, pushing through. The lights shot luminescent beams off of the reflective bands on his hi-vis. A shooting star working his way through the crowd to duck under the pass at the end of the bar. ”We’re out,” he called out to Kit, voice rising over the music. If he was pissed about it then Linc didn’t hear it.

Back under and he was working his way through the crowd again. Bodies had hit him slow and heavy before but the witch came in like a planet on a collision course with his star. The bottle bobbled and he was already reaching out for her arm as Cassie looked up, eyes wide. ”Cassie.” Her name breathed out before he looked around the two of them nervously. His lips twitched as he realised neither Hector or Hannya was lurking to give him – or her – the stink eye. Heat tried to rise in his face as she smirked at him, a bashful edge pulling at that smile. ”I guess you can’t miss Bob the Builder out here…” he said over the music. Teeth sinking into his lip as he glanced down at where her finger worked over his chest. All the heat he did have him in him gathering. Like when they’d …

Clearing his throat, he gave her arm a light squeeze. There was no telling her she shouldn’t be here tonight. The club had been thrown open, half the town here, even if she was still … ”Did you hit him with a spell?” he asked, the hardhat slipping slightly as he tipped his head back towards the door. ”Bibbidi bobbidi boo, you will let me in?” The warnings had dripped in quietly spoken words and snapped orders the last time. Cassie wasn’t meant to be here for her own good but she was in anyway and he was forgetting all about the kitsune and the bottle in his hand as he smiled slow back at her.

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 954

All night he’d been on edge. Maybe some part of him had been for weeks, eyes ticking up every time there was a noise out of the ordinary, those dual hopes he wouldn’t see Cassie sneaking back in and wanting to see her going to war in the pit of his stomach. The things in this place would chew her up for breakfast, like the old men in Mrs Graham’s home, gumming at orange slices until the juice was all gone and it was just those mushed up masses of skin and straggly orange pulp that was spat back into tissues. She’d put on a brave face, going up on her toes, trying to look fierce like she had with him but Linc could picture her driven back into the shelves or one of those rooms he avoided at all costs. Her body crumpling the way he’d pictured it doing with his own teeth latched at her throat.

Days passing, no sign of Cassie again, some hope that if she had turned up Lawrence had done what he’d promised. The edge of the other sort slowly beginning to dominate thoughts of her again when things like the demon were in. A tight pull of nerves beneath his skin, like someone was winding him up, leaving him twitching. Linc had felt them loosen as he’d bolted upstairs to somewhere the ratio between big, bad and old and far less scary was better.

Standing in front of her now, his hand gripping her arm lightly, the fingers of the other hand gripping onto the bottle like it was his lifeline it felt more like the strings had snapped entirely. No yanking him back into that alcove, no feeling like he was stringing himself up with them. Oh, Linc could feel an edge there still but it was the sort that had been there with her the last time, want of more than one kind dragging that anxiety to the surface.

Blue eyes lifted from the fingers on his chest, peering at her through the screen of sandy lashes. The warmth of her skin building in his fingertips, spiking in his chest as he had her giggling. Brows as sandy as the lashes slammed together as she brought Hector up. Linc shot another look back over his shoulder, like Hector would’ve appeared in the two seconds he hadn’t been looking. ”Right,” he said lightly. ”He made a deal with you? Shit.” The laugh huffed out of his chest on a burst of surprise. Hector hadn’t said a word, not during their little meeting where he’d got a slap on the wrist for what Hannya and Lawrence had failed to do while they’d been entertaining themselves in something just like that little storage room Cassie had apparently turned the entry into Emerald City into.

There was probably another shoe waiting to drop when what Hector really wanted a witch on payroll for came out. Hanging over Cassie’s head while she revelled in this. And she was revelling. He couldn’t let out another ‘oh shit’ and have all that excitement popping like a balloon. She’d deflate instead of bouncing like she was, grasping at his friend hand. ”Weird?” he echoed. ”You mean the…” His throat went dry as he gestured at her throat with the bottle. Linc still wanted to settle his mouth there, remembering the way her skin had been hot against his mouth until he’d torn himself away. His eyes darted up from it, his mouth automatically twitching into a smile in return to hers. Without the bitey-bitey. Like it was easy enough to just flip a switch that would mean he didn’t want to every time he got close.

Bottle. Shit, shit, shit. A great steaming pile of it this time. Linc pressed his lips together, tugging lightly on her hand and stepped back, not wanting to shake her off but not wanting Hannya charging out of the shadows either to focus on Cassie like she was a particularly interest bug to stomp. "I was meant to get this to the bar. Some fox thing’s waiting for it …” The party was upstairs though, a safer spot that didn’t have the blade swinging through his stomach like that hopeful bit of him was gonna have to pull an Indiana Jones style roll to avoid it. ”Come with me for two minutes? Or wait right here…” Linc clutched her hand, feeling a little breathlessly at the lack of those strings slipping back round his wrists. Magnus would probably have something to say about this later too, that look that was all too much like disappointment gleaming in in the wrinkled face.

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 778

The first time his parents had dragged him past the bald, skeletal bouncer and into the club they’d damned him. Mrs Graham hadn’t even been dead then and he’d been too small to pay attention to anything but the weirdest, starkest details but it had painted that mark on his back for Wesley and his people. Theirs. Him and the parents who’d decided to cling on to Wesley, their hands out, knowing that he would fill them. What they should’ve seen they’d been blind to. They’d tied themselves to a monster, ending up strapped so tight into a deal with a man who knew they’d eventually fuck it up that he’d had to pay for their mistakes in the end.

From the start Magnus, the stranger who’d given enough of a shit to try and save his life when Wesley had laughed and shrugged, brushing the mess off, had promised that this place was different. Hector wasn’t Wesley. This was a place where he could learn and actually live. Barring his ties with a frigging demon, Hector had come close enough to Magnus glowing recommendation that he almost trusted him. Linc still wouldn’t have encouraged anybody to leap into bed with him though, let alone Cassie.

That brightness in her eyes, the excitement at having done something to help someone was probably proof that she was too good for Hector, definitely too good for here. There were things in here that were attracted to that innocent glow like magpies with a shiny object. Linc’s fingers tightened slightly, his throat growing dry. He hadn’t gotten her out of here the last time because he hadn’t wanted to spent more time with her, it had been for her safety but her face had fallen that way then too.

Linc shook his head, forcing his grip on her loosen up. He tilted his head, lips tipping up slightly. Like that was gonna be enough to stop her from worrying about it now he’d shone some sort of dubious light on the deal. ”You’ve just gotta be careful. Look, Hector’s probably the least dangerous one of them all but gettin’ into bed with him’s still somethin’ to be cautious about. What did you get for your part of the deal?” His brows bunched. Probably less than she was giving Hector, that was the way of all business, not just the club.

Both Magnus and Lawrence had cautioned him about letting Cassie in here but now Hector had thrown the doors wide open and he was looking like the shit for warning her about it. It wasn’t like he didn’t want to be around her. He’d imagined the warmth of her throat against his lips a hundred times since, his dreams not ending with him tearing himself away and pushing temptation out the door. Linc’s eyes dropped to her pulse for a second as she’d gestured at it, thirst growing hotter for a moment. ”You’re not,” he said instantly, looking up at her again. Now it felt shittier to have rejected her, like somehow trying to protect her had ended up with her imagining that it was her who’d put him off somehow. ”I don’t hate you. Didn’t then either. We can though … if you want.” Wiping the slate clean, including the rattle of the bottles on the shelves as she’d pushed him back into them, the hungry press of her mouth against his.

Aarrrrggggh.

He could promise it but it wasn’t really gonna happen, not if Cassie was gonna be here all the time. New memories didn’t just erase the old ones. They built up like layers of paint, showing through, reminding you every now and then of what lurked beneath. Cassie’s appearance had slapped another on but the imagined bite of the chewing out he was gonna get shone through. Linc had cursed, his grip on the bottle tightening. He grinned grimly, shrugging. ”No idea. It’s not got ears or a tail but I guess when the full moon hits it might do.” Either way it’d given him that same shudder when he’d met its eye a little too long. Definitely wasn’t like the foxes back home, skulking in and out of the bins, screaming out in the playground at midnight like someone was being murdered out there.

The sooner the bottle was dumped down on the bar in front of the thing, the sooner he could get away from it for a while. He deserved some sort of break from playing errand boy to enjoy a bit of tonight. Leaving Cassie down here, even with Hector’s protection was dicey but it really would be two minutes and then … Thank God he didn’t have to toss the decision around for more than one slow heartbeat before Cassie was beaming again.

Clutching her hand Linc let her lead the way, bouncing her way up like she was part kangaroo. The wash of the music rushed over him the minute they popped out into the club. Louder than the one downstairs, a little less likely to have that shiver running down his spine whenever someone glanced at Cassie. She wasn’t on their menu for tonight, or ever if he had his way about it. Working their way towards the bar he pulled her close, wanting the bottle gone so he could keep both hands on her. Linc dipped his head towards her, lips quirking with a nervous twitching. ”Shots, then a dance,” he called into her ear. The last time had been in a storage nook, no room to stretch out. ”What was wrong with the wiggle?” The question came with a chuckle. It wasn’t like he’d needed smooth moves to get girls in Wesley’s place hooked.

Throat going dry again Linc wormed between two stalls at the bar, depositing Cassie there before he scrambled up on top of it. Kit would probably shit a brick later, but for now it was expediency. He grinned back at her before he jogged down to its other end. The bottle was dumped in front of the – what had Cassie called it, a kitsune? – fox thing. ”It’s on the house, the whole bottle. Compliments of the owner.” And a chewing out for him later. Linc walked back, shooting Kit a vaguely guilty look as he squeezed past him.

He hopped up again, ignoring the complaint that shot his way, slithering down the other side, squeezing into that tight space with Cassie. One slid to the small of her back, easing into her like it’d give them more space in that pocket away from the crowd. ”What did you get? If it’s that green stuff Kit mixed up earlier, it’s lethal.” Linc’s brows bunched for a second. That maybe wasn’t even a joke, half the stuff the crowd was sinking tonight looked like some alchemist’s strange brew.

Tagged: CASSIE LUANNA * Word Count: 1140