Dangerous Creatures(54)

“I didn’t mean—”

Floyd’s voice rose. “For once will you shut up? This isn’t about you.”

“Just go,” Link said again. “Please, Rid.”

Then he scooped Necro up, as carefully as he would one of the Sisters’ baby squirrels, and carried her off the stage.



I really am the worst person in the world. Worse, even, than a Mortal. Worse than Lennox Gates himself.

It didn’t even take the whole cab ride for Ridley to come to that conclusion.

Link had told her to go, and so she’d gone, with nothing except the clothes on her back and a pocketful of lollipops. She’d Charmed the first taxi she saw and asked the driver to take her to the nicest hotel in New York City.

For once in her life, Ridley wanted to help. And she didn’t feel like abandoning all the inhabitants of apartment 2D, which was a new thing for her. And it was ripping her up inside that something was wrong with Necro; even she hadn’t seen anything like that before.

And Necro was the only person who had actually been nice to her since she’d gotten to New York.

Ridley felt terrible. She felt responsible. She felt worried. She felt anxious.

These were all unusual feelings for Ridley.

But Link didn’t want her around, and Floyd and Sampson cared more about getting Necro back to the apartment than anything else. The best thing she could do for all of them was leave and let them try and help Necro.

She had made this mess that night at Suffer, and she’d only made it worse since then.

It was time for her to go, and it was what Link wanted.

So she left behind Sirene and Marilyn’s Diner and apartment 2D and the Brooklyn Blowout. She left behind a sick Necromancer, an Illusionist with eyes for her ex-boyfriend, a highly questionable Darkborn, and a betrayed, brokenhearted quarter Incubus.

Ridley didn’t know where she was going, only what she was leaving behind. Which was everything.

When she looked out the window, there was nothing familiar. The city was changing in front of her eyes—the buildings getting taller, the window boxes getting watered, the streetlights getting brighter. This wasn’t Brooklyn. New York was the toughest place in the world if you couldn’t afford your rent. On the other hand, if you could afford not only your own rent but the rent of a thousand other people, New York was the greatest city in the universe. That was the part of town where Ridley was headed. She couldn’t afford it before, but if Link was the only reason she wasn’t using her powers, and he didn’t want her, there was nothing holding her back.

Seeing as Ridley herself had no interest in being a regular person.

Then again, nobody in this neighborhood was a regular person.

That was all she could think about as she walked into the lobby of Les Avenues Hotel. Seventy-Seventh and Madison, in the heart of Manhattan’s Upper East Side, was as far away from Bushwick as Gatlin.

Maybe farther, she thought as she stood looking at the lobby floor of black and white inlaid marble tile, dotted with love seats so modern that you would have to be a gymnast not to roll right off them.

A man in a fedora sat reading a paper on one of them. As he turned the pages, she noticed a glinting signet ring on his finger.

He looked up.

She looked away, her breath catching in her throat.

What is it?

There was something about him that looked familiar, but he was gone before she could think why. Only the paper remained behind, folded on his chair.

Strange.

As Ridley leaned against the front desk, she realized she was exhausted. Exhausted and overwhelmed. All I want to do is collapse into a bed. Luckily, a desk clerk appeared as soon as she had the thought.

“Good afternoon. Can I help you?” Even the desk clerk looked more sophisticated than Ridley felt at the moment. Ridley couldn’t help but notice the high quality of her blowout. Glossy ends. Good conditioner. None of the cheap stuff we use.

“Yes. I have a reservation. Ridley Duchannes.” She smiled her best How little you understand can’t you tell by the way I say my name how much it means smile. It was a new one, one she’d perfected since coming to New York. It worked better if she did the eyebrows with it, but Ridley was too tired to move any other part of her face right now.

The clerk had a smile of her own, and it was nasty stuff. “Did you make it recently? You’re not showing up in our computer.” She raised a tiny Do you think I care who you are eyebrow right back at Ridley.

“That’s strange,” Ridley said. Not that strange, since I don’t have a reservation at all.

She waved her hand at the computer. “Can’t you do a little something with that thing and fix it?” Nick the Nerd Warrior would have come in handy right about now. She eyed her phone wistfully.

“What little something do you suggest I try, madame?” The desk clerk raised both eyebrows.

It was no use.

Ridley sighed, unwrapping a cherry lollipop. She didn’t want to do it.

Still.

She gave it one last halfhearted try. “I know you have a room for me, Sweet Cheeks. You e-mailed me saying I had been comped for the weekend.”

“This isn’t Las Vegas, madame. We don’t customarily comp people.” Now the desk clerk allowed her eyes to flicker up and down Ridley’s outfit.

It wasn’t a compliment.

Ridley sighed again, inserting the lollipop into her mouth. As she did, the flecks of gold in her eyes intensified, until it almost looked like they were glowing with light from within. She could feel the power surging up and out from her body, emanating from her on all sides until the lobby itself seemed lit by a slight golden haze.