Sugar Skulls Read online

  Maggie said he’ll be there all week. Maybe the Hellcat got a message to him before pulling the disappearing act. Or being disappeared.

  In either case, it’s a start. I make a quick meal of some protein bars before tossing my T-shirt and track pants onto an ever-growing pile—gotta make a laundry run soon—and pulling on a clean pair of broken-in 550s and a fresh button-down.

  One rain-hampering hoodie later, and I’m a ghost.

  V

  With the grid back online, it’s like goddamn Mardi Gras out here. The sidewalk in front of the Palace is crammed with pleasure-seekers, new recruits, energy junkies, strung-out sex fiends … and us. The only condition I placed on this evening was anonymity. No line-jumping or name-dropping, so we stand huddled under an umbrella for almost an hour before the doorman sees us.

  Which doesn’t mean “recognizes the Sugar Skulls” but “notices three nearly naked hot chicks” freezing our bits off.

  “About damn time!” Jax mutters, throwing the dripping umbrella into a dark corner and leaving it for lost. We cruise past a row of promo posters for the Dome concert, each one bathed in a pool of colored light.

  Everywhere I turn, there I am.

  Jax is still bitching that I nixed the face paint, but even without crazy stage makeup, she isn’t going to have a problem getting attention now that we’re inside. Back at the Loft, she traded her catsuit for a dress made of shredded netting and promises, then topped it with a cape that looks like she skinned Little Dead Thing’s littermates.

  Sasha’s right behind her, wearing her discomfort like a suit of medieval armor, if armor resembled acid green overalls and a sequined tube top. “Are you guys sure you want to go dancing? There’s a diner right down the street that serves pie all night.”

  “This place serves pie all night, too,” Jax says, towing Sasha down the dimly lit hallway and throwing a smirk over her shoulder at me. “Right, Vee?”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve been here,” I counter easily. “Maybe their menu’s changed.”

  I almost feel bad for Sasha. Her family back home suffers from the sort of ass-backwards fundamentalism that frowns on anything that makes you feel good. That they hit a tide low enough to send their daughter into a “den of sin” like Cyrene speaks volumes about their desperation.

  But that’s Sasha’s cross to bear, not mine.

  I shrug off my coat and feel the air hit my bare back. It would be highly optimistic to call what I’m wearing a shirt. It’s more like three or four dozen silver chains linked together over a piece of sheer lining, a jingle-jangle peekaboo number that would give Damon a simultaneous hard-on and heart attack, if he ever saw me in it.

  With luck, he won’t.

  It’s paired with a flared miniskirt that shifts and sways with my smallest movement. I skipped the contacts and pulled all the colored extensions out, but left the bath-damp curls so my hair is a glorious tangle down my back. It tickles as I walk, but it will come alive when I dance. Music rattles the walls, the bass line settling into my bones and my blood.

  I’m ready to burn the place down.

  Slamming through a set of double doors, we’re on the edge of the action. A dais in the center of the room showcases a troupe of professional ass-shakers and a shirtless god in well-tailored black dress slacks and a gold circlet crown.

  “Look, it’s Adonis!” Jax screams before letting out a long wolf whistle. Within seconds, a dozen people turn to peer at us, but this isn’t stage adoration or fan worship. This is eye-fucking. This is assessing potential pleasure levels according to what I’m wearing and how I’m standing and who I’m standing with.

  Jax quickly rounds up a group of likely prospects, an even split between wide-eyed newcomers and laid-back regulars, and heads to the bar to open a tab. That leaves me to corral Sasha into a booth, wondering if she’s going to relax enough to enjoy a single moment of our stolen freedom. A waitress stops by with a nanotech scanner; a wandwave to access our available credits would alert Damon and Corporate, so we slip her one platinum prepaid card from Jax’s special stash to cover the bill and a second to keep for herself. That nets us a wink, a smile, and a complimentary round of liquor and pills.

  Pay to play, that’s how it works.

  Our nanotech will still shut down any unpleasantness that might result from all the casual sexual contact. STDs and pregnancy aren’t a concern in Cyrene. It’s one of Corporate’s biggest selling points.

  A shot of Pennyroyale washes down three pretty pink pills. I don’t actually like the hot-buttered lighter fluid taste of it all that much, but it’s the most expensive thing on the menu, and I’m told I have standards to maintain. Across the room, Jax shares a hookah full of strawberry cough with a pair of androgynous twins who are a regular hookup. She’s the only one who knows which is the sister and which is the brother, and she’s not telling. The one time I’d asked her, she told me if I wanted to see the surface of Mars, I could put down my own goddamn rover. Flanking them is a dude with a colorshifting ’hawk and a cybergothette with baby-fresh nanotech.

  “Vee—” Sasha protests, fiddling with her glass.

  “Don’t start. I’m going to enjoy myself tonight, so you might as well have what fun you can.” I push a second set of pills at her. “Swallow the green one first. It’ll take the edge off.”

  She holds the appetizers in her hand, staring down at them with her usual frown. “Someone should stay lucid. Our trackers are off, and all our security is back at the Loft. They think we’re watching videos in your room.”

  “Yeah, and they could ping our nanotech any second now and turn up to spoil the fun.”

  A boy with hair like a metallic waterfall slips into the booth on Sasha’s other side and flashes a welcoming grin at her. “Hey there.”

  I hold my breath. The only thing Sasha likes better than her pajamas and cookie dough is pretty goth boys. This one has a dozen visible piercings and, my guess, at least three more we can’t see.

  Sasha turns the same bright pink as her hair. “Hey.”

  Young love. Always so eloquent.

  I nudge her with my foot under the table, give her knee a reassuring squeeze, then slide out of the booth to afford them some privacy.

  “Have fun, you two,” I admonish with a tiny finger-wag. Sasha looks from me to Pretty Goth Boy, pops the green and the white, and waves me off.

  I down a second shot and head toward the dais. The thrum-collectors at the Palace are newer than most, but the lasers are violet instead of next-gen green. They stroll across my skin, absorbing heat and the first wisps of arousal.

  Give me a few minutes … I’ll be feeding a lot more into the grid.

  I’m halfway across the floor when Adonis sees me headed for him. The first of the pink pills kicks in as the next song cues up. Suddenly, I’m listening to my words seducing the entire room. “Screams and Whispers.” The one I made up on the fly at Hellcat Maggie’s. The one I composed on the spot for him.

  For Micah.

  The second pink pill drops into my system as Adonis’s hands find my waist. “Evening, gorgeous. Killer song, isn’t it?”

  “You have no idea,” I shout over my own voice.

  “Ever seen them live?” His mouth is against my ear after he pulls me to his chest. “I could take you. They’re playing the Dome on Friday.”

  The third pill hits its stride, and I forget to be annoyed with him. Forget he’s talking about me. The Sugar Skulls? Just a band. Their music? Just noise. “Fuck them. What else are you offering?”

  “You want something special?” With a slow grin, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a packet of tabs. Peeling one off, he offers it to me.

  “Applejack?” I hesitate. Illicit shit, the kind Damon suspects Micah of running. That stuff isn’t Corporate-engineered or approved; it’s over-the-Wall contraband, and there’s no way to tell from one batch to the next how strong it’s going to be.

  Damon will crap himself if he finds out.


  Maybe I’ll tell him, and maybe I won’t.

  I smile up at Adonis, ducking my head and licking the tab off his thumb. For a split second, it feels like a square inch of flypaper is stuck to my tongue, then it melts into green apple and acid and chemicals.

  When he kisses me, he tastes like it, too, and everything is sticky and sweet and perfect.

  M

  Wow, the Palace is packed to the rafters and then some. There’s no slipping past the front-door bouncer or the delivery-side security on a night like this. Instead I take the scenic route, scaling the neighboring hardware supply outlet and blue-skying across the alley to the Palace’s rain-slicked roof.

  I land on both feet, but such leaps of faith come with a tax, so I tumble forward and shed that excess momentum, rolling back onto my feet and dusting myself off.

  The roof pulses with pounding bass lines. I listen for the revealing rattle of a loose hatch and strike gold on the far corner of the building. Prying up the skylight, I gaze down into the writhing sea of flesh, the heady scent of sex and artificial pheromones already hitting critical mass.

  Slipping through the window and onto the rafters, I pull the skylight shut behind me and spidermonkey my way to the nearest catwalk, dropping in on a couple in the midst of petting so heavy, I’d call it pawing. They don’t even spare me a glance. Works for me.

  It takes a few minutes to weave a path to a spiral staircase and down to the dance floor. Easier to crowd-surf across the room than push my way there. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. The crowd is so thunderously addled with chemical comforts that they’d fold like pamphlets under my weight.

  I shove, elbow, and fight for every inch of territory, and finally make it to the neon-trimmed bar. When I manage to flag down Rete, he slams both palms on the countertop, the universal symbol for “get your ass over here and help me out.” Already giving orders.

  It would take forever and a week to crawl my way to the swinging gate that separates the drunken rabble from their beloved booze, so I take two steps back—just barely, considering the crush of the crowd—and charge forward, planting my hands on the counter and leaping upward, almost doing a handstand before dropping feetfirst onto the raised plastic mats behind the bar. The few patrons that actually notice look impressed. Then thirsty.

  I turn toward Rete and immediately wish I hadn’t. Maggie’s second-in-command is a fingerpoke to the visual cortex. Jeans with flared legs, more fashionable than utilitarian, so not at all my style. Long sports jersey over an electric blue undershirt, and the just-audible buzz of freshly applied magtats, though I can’t see them. Underneath his broad-brimmed cap are a mountain range of cheekbones and chin, with two brown valleys for eyes.

  He puts me to work mixing drinks: two Desevros on the rocks; several party cocktails that are more drug than drink; a small bathtub’s worth of some whiskey variant called minksack; three Blasters; and a shot of Sex on a Park Bench. Nothing I haven’t served before.

  After the rush, we steal a quiet moment and duck in the back, ostensibly to restock. It’s the perfect opportunity to do a little fishing.

  I pull the parcel from my back pocket and hand it over. “Any word from Maggie? I went by the club and her place, and nothing.”

  Rete tucks the packet into a case full of something orange and viscous before straddling a neighboring crate, obviously glad to be off his feet. A runner gone to seed. “Not a word, not a peep. Like she evaporated and fluttered away to the clouds, man.”

  “And you’re more than happy to step in.” Rete and Maggie share each other’s distribution networks, though I’ve never gotten a look at what he’s moving. This might be my chance.

  “Hey, Mr. Quick, it’s all for the greater good. You just let me handle the supply side, and everything will be golden. Dig?”

  Ugh. “Sure, I guess.”

  Rete ignores my lack of enthusiasm. “That’s the spirit. Do you need any Rivitocin to keep the greyfaces away?”

  He doesn’t know I’m off-grid, so I don’t need it. But the less he knows, the better. “No, I’m good for a while yet.”

  “Cool, man, cool. Keep in touch. I might have a few additions to your itinerary.” He offers his hand before I can press for details. “This awkward bit of small talk was a delight. See you around.”

  I nod, ignoring the handshake, pissed I couldn’t get more out of him. After I carry two cases out to the bar for him, I launch back into the mob scene in search of an exit. Even the chaos of the Palace is preferable to shadow games with Rete.

  I begin scanning for the right cover. The skylight trick only works as a way in, so I need a decent-sized group looking for some fresh air, and I can slip out with them.

  Before someone spots me first.

  V

  It practically takes a crowbar to extract myself from Adonis’s grip. Every time I move one hand away, another materializes, holding on to my waist, running down my back, sliding a finger along the edge of my skirt.

  Fabric ripping. Fingers wrapped around my neck—

  My throat starts to close with panic until I realize that I’m imagining it.

  Remembering it?

  The applejack is fucking with me, that’s for sure.

  “What’s the matter?” Adonis murmurs into my mouth.

  “Nothing, I guess.” I expect the words to slur a bit, but they run together like water into a drainage ditch. “I need—” Shit. What do I need? A minute ago, I wanted to climb on top of him. Then the drugs had me imagining the overture to a fucking assault. Three seconds to catch my breath ought to even this out. “I need to visit the ladies’ room.”

  “Don’t go yet,” he complains, dark eyes trying to memorize my face.

  Fair enough. With all the new faces, he could lose me in the crowd in a hot second.

  “I’ll be right back, I promise.” I kiss the golden god one more time to seal the deal, but before he’s quite done, I pull away and duck into the crowd.

  The music transforms the dance floor into a mosh pit, elbows and arms jostling me from all sides. I ride the tide toward the bar and smack into the only guy in the room not dancing.

  “Sorry about that,” I purr into his chest, then look up.

  The guy’s face comes into focus, and it’s him. Him. What’s his name? Shit. The guy … from Hellcat Maggie’s. The drugs in my system ate his name for breakfast, but I’d recognize him anywhere. Just like before, he’s trying to fade into the shadows. Unlike every other writhing, grinding, sweating body on the dance floor, he doesn’t want to be noticed. He isn’t part of the scene. He isn’t moving to the music. He isn’t high on anything.

  He isn’t on the grid.

  Before he can bolt, I grab his wrist. My other hand locks on to one of his belt loops. “Where are you headed, love?”

  His eyes jump from my hand on his waist to my eyes, but except for a raised eyebrow, he’s still stone-faced. He mumbles something about “important” or “urgent” or whatever, but all I hear is “I’m late, I’m late, for a very important date.”

  “You … don’t remember me?” I peer at him, the sharp pain in my chest shifting from disappointment to relief.

  Not a spy, then. Or the worst one in history, if he can’t recognize Clark Kent without his glasses.

  Which makes him just a guy. And I’m not that girl with the voice, I’m just a body. A warm body. Shit, a really hot fucking body, liquid gold running through my veins. I can feel the sweat gather in the small of my bare back as I lean into him. “Really?”

  He steps back and bumps right into the wall. His hands are rough and callused, trying to pry mine from his belt loop, but he’s going at it gently. The next time he speaks, I get every word.

  M

  “I’m sorry, believe me, I wish I did remember you.” A pause. “I have a hard time believing I wouldn’t remember you.”

  Okay, there are distractions, there are distractions, and then there’s this girl, glistening with sweat and radiating pure, unadulterated sex. H
er barely-there shirt offers tantalizing glimpses, her untamed ringlets of hair bouncing with every movement, begging to be grabbed and pulled and caressed.

  She presses her body close to mine and flicks her tongue across my lip before I can protest. Not that I do protest, because while part of me wants to, plenty other parts of me are more than thrilled with the recent turn of events.

  As her knee slips between mine, she smiles, triumphant, in control. Her hand moves from my wrist to stroke my neck possessively, trusting that I won’t push her away.

  I don’t. I won’t. Because, truth be told, it’s nice just to be touched again. To be wanted. My hand drifts along her arm, fingertips tracing the soft skin until I bury my fingers in her hair, pulling her mouth close to mine.

  With our lips almost brushing, I mutter, “I still don’t remember you.”

  Her answering smile is downright wicked. “You will tomorrow.”

  V

  I’m plastered against him like one of the sixty billion posters that Corporate’s hung all over town. The music’s getting louder, more distorted, the high end a shriek and the low a steady, throbbing bass line that reverberates in my chest. It’s been years since I was just another girl at the club. Just another set of lips to kiss and just another riot of fucked-up tangled hair he’s more than welcome to twist his fingers through. Just another set of wants and needs and aches.

  He doesn’t need to know my name to touch me.

  Better, really, if he never knows. That way, when the Facilitators pick him up at the Dome, he won’t connect The Girl in the Club to The Girl with the Voice.

  Maybe she’s the girl he really wants, but I’m the girl he gets tonight.

  I take a step back, bringing him with me like it’s a tango and I’m leading. There’s a bank of velvet-curtained alcoves not ten feet from where we’re standing, and a little privacy would be nice right about now. I tow him to the one on the end, push him inside when he hesitates at the entrance, follow him in. There’s a tiny bench and a mirror. The sconce on the wall burns bright and blue, painting my skin with frost.