Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(145)

Emma drew her foot back, ready to smash the glass with the steel tip of her boot. Cristina caught her shoulder. “Wait.” She bent down and grabbed the window by its frame. The Strength rune on her neck buckled and glowed as she wrenched the rotted frame free and dropped it onto the plastic trash cans below. “Quieter that way,” she said.

Emma grinned and swung in through the window, landing on top of a crate full of vodka bottles. She sprang down and Cristina followed her. Cristina’s boots hit the floor just as the kitchen door swung open and a short man in a bartender’s apron with spiked black hair came into the room. The moment he caught sight of Emma and Cristina he let out a startled yelp.

Great, Emma thought. He had the Sight.

“Hello there,” she said. “We’re from the Department of Health. Did you know that there is no antibacterial hand gel left in these dispensers?”

This did not seem to impress the bartender. His gaze went from Emma to Cristina to the open window. “What the hell are you bitches doing, breaking in here? I’m gonna call the—”

Emma picked up a wooden spoon from the draining board and threw it. It thunked into the side of the bartender’s head. He went down in a heap. She strolled over and checked his pulse; it was regular. She glanced up at Cristina. “I hate being called a bitch.”

Cristina moved past her and pushed the door open, peeking out, while Emma dragged the bartender into the corner of the room and pushed him gently behind the stacked crates of bottles.

Cristina wrinkled up her nose. “Yuck.”

Emma let go of the bartender’s feet. They thumped to the ground. “What? Is something horrible happening out there?”

“No, it’s just a really disgusting bar,” said Cristina. “Why would anyone want to drink here?”

Emma joined her at the door and they both peered out.

“Bars in the D.F. are much nicer,” Cristina said. “I think someone has thrown up in that corner.”

She pointed. Emma didn’t look, but she believed it. The bar wasn’t just dimly lit, it was barely lit. The floor was concrete, strewn with cigarette butts. There was a zinc-countered bar, and a mirror behind it on which drink prices had been scrawled in marker. Men in flannel shirts and jeans crowded around a ragged-felt pool table. Others stood silently drinking at the bar. The place smelled like sour, old beer and cigarette smoke.

Hunched at the far end of the bar was a man in a familiar herringbone jacket. Sterling.

“There he is,” said Emma.

“The Tracking rune doesn’t lie.” Cristina ducked under Emma’s arm and stepped into the room. Emma followed. She felt the slight pressure on her skin that came with the gaze of many mundane eyes, but her glamour runes held. The single bartender looked up as the kitchen door swung shut, probably searching for his coworker, but turned back to polishing glasses when he didn’t see anything.

As Emma and Cristina approached, an extraordinary expression crossed Sterling’s face. A mixture of shock, followed by despair, followed by a sort of hilarity. There was a glass on the bar in front of him, half-full of golden liquid; he grabbed it up and tossed back the drink. When he slammed the glass back down on the bar, his eyes were gleaming.

“Nephilim,” he snarled.

The bartender looked over at him in surprise. Several of the other customers shifted on their stools.

“That’s right,” Sterling said. “They think I’m crazy.” He whipped his arm out to indicate the other bar patrons. “I’m talking to no one. Empty air. But you. You don’t care. You’re here to torture me.”

He staggered to his feet.

“Whoa,” Emma said. “You are drunk.”

Sterling popped off two finger guns in her direction. “Very observant, blondie.”

“Dude!” The bartender slammed a glass down on the countertop. “If you’re going to talk to yourself, do it outside. You’re ruining the ambiance.”

“This place has ambiance?” said Emma.

“Emma, focus,” said Cristina. She turned to Sterling. “We’re not here to torture you. We’re here to help you. We keep telling you that.”

“Keep telling yourselves that,” he hissed, and yanked a clump of bills from his pocket. He tossed them onto the bar. “Bye, Jimmy,” he said to the bartender. “See you again never.”

He stalked to the door and stiff-armed it open. Emma and Cristina dashed after him.

Emma was only too pleased to be back outside. Sterling was already hurrying down the street, his head down. The sun had fully set, and the streetlights were on, filling the air with a yellow sodium glow. Cars rushed by on Pico.

Sterling was moving fast. Cristina called out to him, but he didn’t turn around, just hunched down inside his suit jacket and moved more quickly. Suddenly he veered to the left, between two buildings, and disappeared.

Emma cursed under her breath and broke into a run. Excitement prickled up her veins. She loved running, the way it blanked her mind, the way it made her forget everything but the breath rushing in and out of her lungs.

The mouth of an alley loomed up to her left. Not a garbage alley—this one was nearly as wide as a street and ran along the back of a long line of apartment buildings with cheap stucco balconies that faced out over the backstreet. A gray concrete drain ran down the center.