“You’re just going to leave me here?” a girl whined, a few feet away.
The guy—who was probably her boyfriend, judging by the guilty expression on his face—caught her arm as she started to turn away. Ridley smiled. The girl obviously wasn’t a Siren, like Ridley, but at least she knew how to get her boyfriend to do what she wanted.
“I have to set up the game, Baby,” the guy said. “It’s the last night. Winner takes all.”
Ridley moved closer to the bar, and the couple’s conversation. Now things were getting interesting.
“What do you care?” she snapped. “It’s not like they’re going to let you play. They treat you like an indentured servant.”
The guy stiffened. That’s when Ridley noticed his eyes. They weren’t the gold eyes of a Dark Caster or the black eyes of an Incubus. His eyes were blue—Mortal blue.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “I’m part of the band.”
The girl laughed. “You’re their roadie. You can’t even get yourself in the game.”
“No one can get in the game!” he shouted.
As amused as Ridley was by the argument, she was more intrigued by this mystery game. It sounded exclusive. Why hadn’t she heard about it?
Before she had a chance to find out more, the Mortal’s Caster girlfriend stormed off. He slumped against the polished metal bar. The bartender reached over the Mortal’s shoulder, handing Blood Incubuses tall glasses of the club’s signature drink, O Positive.
The Mortal must have been telling the truth about being with the band, or those glasses would’ve been filled with his blood. Mortals weren’t welcome at Suffer unless they were payment for one of the dozens of illicit substances available in the Underground, the darkest part of the Caster world.
Ridley couldn’t stop staring at his blue eyes, lost in the sea of black and gold. In the Mortal world, he would’ve had the girls falling all over themselves to get his attention. But in a room full of sexy Dark Caster boys, he didn’t even show up on their radar.
The song ended, and the opening band stopped playing. The spotlights trailed over the crowd until they reached the stage and the lead singer. “The headliner tonight needs no introduction. Give it up for the Devil’s Hangmen!”
Ridley rolled her eyes. The Devil’s Hangmen? That was original. It sounded like the name of a failed eighties heavy metal band. It was almost as bad as the name of Link’s band, Meatstik. She felt a pang of something at the thought of Link, but she pushed him out of her mind—a skill at which she excelled.
The crowd erupted into applause.
The Mortal roadie’s head snapped up. He rushed through the wall of bodies toward the front of the club as the ragtag group jogged onstage—a lead singer the size of a linebacker, sporting leather pants and enough tattoos to pass for a T-shirt; a female bass guitarist in a faded Pink Floyd T-shirt, who tripped over the microphone cord; a pretty-boy punk with a blue faux-hawk and a guitar to match; and an Incubus who sat down at his drum kit wearing earplugs. If these were the Devil’s Hangmen, the Devil was slacking.
Rid glanced at the door. Maybe it was time to bail.
The drummer cracked his sticks together three times, and the band came to life in one thunderous heartbeat. And if you ignored the subpar drummer, they were actually good—a Pink Floyd Red Hot Chili Peppers mash-up, if you liked that sort of thing. Ridley didn’t, but then again, she didn’t like any bands. Not anymore. She’d trained her ears to tune out all music; it had been her way of dealing with the abuse that was Meatstik.
The music throbbed, and she spun around, reaching for the ceiling, and danced until she couldn’t think about anything—or anyone—except catching her breath and getting a drink with something sweet in it.
As she tossed her hair over her shoulder and turned back toward the bar, a weird feeling came over her, eclipsing the noise and the heat and the energy in the club.
Someone was watching her.
Ridley rapped her glitter-coated nails on the bar. If someone wanted a good look at her, she’d give the person a minute before she used her Power of Persuasion to convince them to punch the doorman in the face on their way out.
Payback’s a bitch. She couldn’t help but smile.
She turned around slowly, letting her black tank slide up just enough to reveal the edges of the Dark Caster tattoo that encircled her navel. Her gold eyes zeroed in on the edge of the stage immediately.
The Dark Caster stood perfectly still next to the heavy black curtain that framed one side of the stage. He stared back at Ridley as if they were the only two people in the room. He was almost as tall as the Goliath lead singer, but this guy was no linebacker. He looked more like a Greek sculpture—lean and muscular, with chiseled features and tanned skin that made his gold eyes glow. His dirty-blond hair curled around the collar of the steel gray shirt underneath the fitted black sweater that looked as if he’d been born wearing it.
He let his eyes wander over Ridley leisurely, drinking her in. From the long pink streak in her hair, over the dangerously low-cut neckline of her tank, to the mile-long bare legs, he enjoyed every inch.
Suddenly, the room felt hotter and the music sounded louder. Instead of reveling in the attention, Ridley wanted to shrink back into the crowd and disappear—a feeling she had only experienced in the presence of Sarafine, Lena’s Dark Caster of a mother, and Abraham, the ancient Blood Incubus who had trapped her in a gilded birdcage. The one Link and John Breed had killed.
There was something about this guy that sent her flight instinct into overdrive. This Caster was powerful, and he knew it.
Ridley’s hands curled into fists at her sides, and she stared back at him intently. She would never let anyone make her feel powerless again. This guy was not Abraham or Sarafine. The days of bargaining for her life were over.
The set ended, and the band jogged offstage.
Someone touched Ridley’s shoulder, and she practically jumped out of her skin. “What the—” She spun around, eyes blazing.
The roadie stood in front of her, his hands raised in surrender. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“You didn’t scare me,” Ridley snapped as she stalked toward him, pointing a long, glittery fingernail at his chest. “I just don’t like Mortals touching me. It’s a hygiene thing.”
He backed away, matching her step for step. “Sampson sent me over. The lead singer from the band. I’m supposed to find out if you wanna hang out after the gig.”
“If by ‘hang out,’ he means sleep with him, I’ll pass.”
The roadie shook his head. “I’m totally screwing this up. He’s gonna be pissed. He noticed you before. He’s just inviting you—”
Ridley cut him off. “To the big game?”
The Mortal’s blue eyes widened. “No. To have a drink backstage. How do you know about the game?”
“A little birdie told me, Blue Eyes.” Ridley unwrapped a lollipop. Using her powers to extract a little information from a Mortal was certainly not the same as using them to get what she wanted from Dark Caster boys. “Now, why don’t you tell me all about it.”
The Mortal stared into Ridley’s gold eyes, transfixed. “They’re playing Liar’s Trade, tournament-style. One winner takes all.”
Liar’s Trade was a Caster take on the Mortal card game known as bullshit. Except Casters didn’t play for money.
“What are they trading?” Rid asked.
“TFPs.”
“Are you screwing with me?” Ridley must have heard him wrong.
“Talents, favors, and powers. That’s the buy-in,” he said.
No one played for TFPs anymore. Wagering your powers and talents in a game was insane, even if most people only bet enough to lose their powers for a few weeks. Rid knew what it felt like to lose her powers, and she would never risk feeling that way again.
Still, there was always a way around the rules—especially if you were a Siren.
Ridley sucked on the lollipop for a second, then pulled it out of her mouth with a loud pop. “Get me in the game.”
His expression clouded over in confusion, and he shook his head. “It’s impossible.”
She leaned closer, until she and the Mortal were nose to nose. “Anything is possible, Blue Eyes. If your life depends on it.”
If the stakes were high enough, it might take her mind off the one thing she couldn’t stop thinking about.
And how easily he had let her go.
Ridley had never seen so much blood. Commercial refrigerators lined the walls of the club’s back room. Inside, plastic freezer bags filled with blood were stacked next to bar staples, like bottles of orange and cranberry juices.
Rid glanced from the bags to the Mortal. “You’re okay with that, Blue Eyes?” Most Mortals were squeamish when it came to the Dark side of the Caster world.
He shrugged and opened a cellar door in the floor. “Better than what I had waiting for me back home. Being a Mortal is harder than you think.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Ridley lied. She remembered every second she’d spent as a Mortal—life at the mercy of circumstances that were always beyond her control, and the constant sense of hope that tricked her into believing that her life could be different. That she could be different. Suffer would’ve been a better name for their world. What’s a little blood compared to that?
“You’ve played Liar’s Trade, right?”
“Of course,” Ridley lied again. She’d seen other people play, which was almost the same thing, and she didn’t actually intend to play, anyway. Just to win. Being a Siren gave Ridley the only edge she needed.
She followed the roadie down the damp stone steps and through the tunnel at the bottom. Ornate crystal sconces adorned the walls, throwing soft light on the reddish-brown water sloshing at their feet.
A rat scurried past one of Ridley’s platform heels. “Classy place.”
“It’s the Incubus VIP lounge,” he said.
For a moment, Rid tried to imagine Link hanging out in a bloodstained tunnel decorated with chandeliers that looked like they belonged in Ravenwood Manor. But she couldn’t. Even though he was a quarter Incubus now, there was nothing Dark about Link.
What a stiff.
They reached the end of the tunnel and stood before the mirrored doors of an elevator. “You’re sure you want to do this?” the roadie asked.
“Don’t worry about me, Blue Eyes. I’ve got this.” The elevator doors opened and Ridley stepped inside.
A withered Caster with dull yellow eyes manned the elevator. “Going up?”
Where else would she be going?
“Does this thing go to the Underground?” Ridley asked.
“Don’t know. I’ve been taking it up to the thirteenth floor and back here for a long time.” The doors closed, and the Caster pushed one of the two buttons on the panel: 13.
“Maybe you should broaden your horizons and find out.” Ridley raised an eyebrow. She unwrapped a piece of gum, then wadded up the wrapper and tucked it in the roadie’s jacket pocket.