Chapter 16

The ominous weightof foreboding was even worse the second time. But it was fine. Zee was here. We just had to get Tom and leave. If Reynard's hidden button camera still worked after being flushed through the aquarium, then hopefully we had all the evidence we needed and this whole escapade would be over soon.

"This is some Breaking Bad shit you've got going on here," Zee remarked as we entered the cosmetics lab. He'd vanished his wings or he wouldn't even have fit inside the small room.

He spotted the crates at the back of the room. "Lady Tinks, you should be grateful I'm carrying Victor Suck-Hard because if I weren't, you and I would be having fucking words right now."

Agatha ignored Zee and swept down the length of the lab table to retrieve the Tom Collins unit. But instead, she picked up a phone.

"What's she doin'?" Zee asked.

"Agatha?"

She held up a finger while tapping one-handed on her phone.

"She can see my big, threatening sword, right?" Zee asked me.

She raised her phone and took a picture of Zee.

"Eh, fuckin' excuse me?" He slammed Reynard's snoozing body down onto the lab table, knocking over several test tube and bottle contraptions. "This ain't no meet-and-greet." He beckoned, nails glinting. "Give us Tom back or imma get frisky with you in an unfun way."

"Yes, alright, but here's what is actually going to happen." She tucked her phone into her pants pocket. "Zodiac will remain with us, Adam, while you take your Tom Collins unit and Victor, and leave. A fair trade."

Zee and I glanced at each other.

"You seem to be confused," Zee said. "So let's clear up some points for you." He raised one finger. "Fuck." The second finger went up. "You." He glanced at me. "That seems clear. Is that clear, Adam?"

"That's pretty clear."

Agatha remained unamused. "That's pleasant, except, Zodiac's wings, horns, tail, and cock, are ample remittance for your trouble and the Tom Collins unit, Mr. Vex. It's a good deal. You should take it."

Zee blinked, glittery purple lashes fluttering. "Wait, hold your horses there, pardner. Back up some, because I did not hear you right. You want to trade my cock for Tom Collins?"

"And the rest of you."

Zee blinked again and screwed up his nose. "I'm really conflicted. I get it, lady, I do. We're all cock enthusiasts here, and we can all agree, mine is the best. I'm sympathetic, really. You clearly aren't getting any cock. But your proposal is a little unclear in some areas?—"

"She wants to cut off your dick, Zee."

Zee recoiled. "The fuck is wrong with you people?!"

I removed my hands from my pockets. "I've heard enough. I'm tired, wet, and really grumpy. I've had a terrible night, and I am done with all of this nonsense."

"Also, Tinks, my cock stays attached."

"And if you lay a finger on Zodiac I will come back there and?—"

She thrust the phone up, pointing its multiple lenses at me.

"You'll what, Adam Vex?" she asked.

I shoved my hands back into my pockets. "Are you filming?"

"Even better. Live streaming."

Oh dear. I gulped.

"I heard you're not fond of cameras." Agatha beamed. "Looks as though that rumor is true."

Gideon Cain must have told her, but how could he know that? "I don't mind cameras." I smiled, and willed my face to appear sweet and innocent. "Can we please have our Tom Collins, that you stole from us, back now?"

"Of course, but you'll be leaving Zodiac here as payment. As I said, a fair trade."

"Which one of us is holding a big fucking sword?" Zodiac asked, then raised Shareen, the mean looking scimitar. "Hand over Tom or lose your fake fae glamored head."

"Now, now, Zodiac. That sounded like a threat in front of a live audience? Haven't you already been arrested for multiple murders? How many of your fans will stick around when they see the real you?"

Zee pinched his lips together and visibly deflated. He needed social media to feed.

With a camera pointed at me, my options for how to deal with Agatha had just been dramatically reduced. "Look, let's be clear. You can't have Zee for your illegal cosmetics business like he's a box of body parts. That's never going to happen."

"Then whatever your Tom Collins unit knows will soon find its way into Mr. Cain's hands."

I ambled around the side of the table, joining Agatha. She still had the camera trained on me, gleefully recording, but we were just talking, like normal people talked. Nothing untoward was happening, or would happen... while the camera was on me.

"Zee, put the sword down?" I suggested.

"What? Not while Tinks wants my dick." He shivered all over. "I'm gonna need another day off after this."

I inched closer, and Agatha backed up, keeping her distance. "It's alright, Zee. We're just going to talk," I said. "No harm ever came from talking. Isn't that right, Agatha?"

"But this fae wants my cock for face creams, Adam. Naw, imma hold Shareen."

"Alright, that's okay, you can keep hold of the sword. Can't he, Agatha? Nobody is going to hurt anyone. All our body parts will stay attached. We're going to talk and figure this out like civilized creatures."

"You have my terms." She eyed us warily, sensing we were trying to trick her, but she was more concerned with Zee than what I—an unarmed human—was doing. Now she'd backed up some, I spotted Tom's little black drive on a shelf under the lab table. The small device wouldn't do much, until it was plugged in. But to my left, a computer hummed. I had no idea how to use it, but I did know that when a drive such as Tom's was plugged in, it became connected to a power source. And Tom needed power.

I also knew our Tom Collins was no ordinary AI bartending unit. He shouldn't have worked at all, but he had. More than that, he'd become part of our team. The SOS Hotel needed him, and he needed us.

This had to work.

"Oh no!" I gasped, and pointed behind Zee. "A frog!"

Zee whirled, sword up, wings splayed, tail lashing. Just like when he'd poofed into the kitchen, his generous dimensions displaced everything around him. Test tubes went flying, his tail toppled a canister of something gloopy, and his right wing smacked Agatha in the face. She yelped, dropped her phone, and as she scrabbled on the floor for it, I grabbed Tom's stick and shoved it into the laptop's side socket.

Tom would know exactly what to do. He always did.

"Where's the frog?" Zee growled.

"Oh uh, sorry, must have just been a shadow."

The lab's bright lights flickered. The laptop whirred, sounding like a swarm of angry hornets.

"Time to leave, Adam Vex!" Agatha demanded, fumbling with her phone.

Something behind us sparked as the building's power surged. Half the lab went dark, leaving just a few spotlights illuminating the long table's array of shiny equipment from above.

Between me and Agatha, a figure shimmered, outlined in black and white static sparks—real but not. Like an old, out of tune TV trying to find a picture.

Tom's chipper American voice stuttered. "C-cure for d-depression is simply, more alcohol..."

Tom Collins's outline gradually solidified into semi-transparent existence, complete with his burgundy waistcoat, black pants, white dress shirt and blue bow tie. His hands paused over the lab table, and he blinked, looking up. He took in the room—me to his left, Agatha to his right, then Reynard asleep on the table, and Zee armored up and looming in the gloom. "This is not the hotel bar," he said in an irritated voice.

Zee strutted forward. "All you need to know right now is that I'd like to order a round of Fuck That Fae Over There, and a chaser of Let's Get The Fuck out of Here."

How he was real and solid without a bot body for him to operate, I had no idea, but we all saw him, even if he was a little... transparent, and out of focus.

"Coming right up," Tom said. He grabbed a few cannisters and test tubes, flung the liquids together, shook them up until the liquid began steaming, and launched it at Agatha. She side-stepped the cocktail, but we all watched as it smashed against the wall, exploding with a dramatic if short-lived flame and a puff of pantomime smoke.

Tom bared his thin smile. "Hydrogen cyanide gas can be quite fatal. I suggest you take your leave, gentlemen. Not that either of you ineffectual fucking idiots ever listens to my advice."

Zee grabbed Reynard and bolted out the door.

Agatha lurched for the door too. I grabbed her arm, spun her around, and slammed her down onto the lab table, putting some extra not-human oomph behind it. No phone, no witnesses, just Tom.

"Adam, you do not have long before the air becomes lethal," Tom warned.

The taste of bitter almonds tingled on my tongue. I pinned Agatha down and bared my plain, flat human teeth in a snarl.

"What are you?" Agatha wheezed, after fighting and failing to shove me off.

"I'm a nice person, most of the time. But sometimes, people like you and Gideon and Sebastien mistake niceness for weakness. Don't make that mistake, Agatha, and in future, we'll get along fine."

She saw it then, or some of it. Deep in my eyes, she saw the thing I kept hidden, the thing countless others had died for, the thing that had been hunted from one world into the next, and she knew her fight was over before it had begun. "Gideon Cain will not like this, Mr. Vex," she whispered, trembling.

"Then he can take it up with hotel management." I snatched her phone from her hand, crushed it to dust, and let her up. The almond taste scorched my tongue. It was time to leave.

"And it's SOS Hotel." I told her. "S-O-S. Not Sex Hotel. We don't do that. Well, we do, but it's not... it's not in the name."

She glared, and coughed. "There's a whole lot of hurt coming your way, Mr. Vex."

I grabbed Tom's backup from the laptop, and he vanished back into the little black box. "Maybe." A tickle burned my throat. I coughed, wheezed, and backed toward the door. "Stay away, Agatha. Next time I won't be so nice."

I hurried back along the dark corridors, and stepped out into San Francisco's warm, clean night air, tasting freedom.

"You alright, Kitten?" Zee asked, still carrying Reynard.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Can you text Reynard's driver so we can get out of here?"

"Sure." Zee dropped Reynard. He landed with a hard thump on the asphalt. "Oops." Zee unlaced his leather armor at the side and slid out his phone. "Did you get Tom?"

I showed Zee the drive. "Got him."

"Awesome, I'm getting so fucking wasted in the bar later, and then imma give my cock some much needed personal time. You wanna join us? You, me, and my still-attached dick?"

I grinned. "Do you have to ask?"

He tapped out a quick message to Reynard's driver, scooped Reynard into his arms again, and we headed for the rusted gateway.

"You know," I mused aloud. "I think Tom might be a djinn."

"He serves gin."

"No, I mean, like a genie in a lamp kind of thing." I needed to look up djinn in the Wilson's Guide, but I did know AI definitely did not manifest themselves into existence. Tom Collins was a Lost One. The kind who knew how to whip up hydrogen cyanide, apparently.

Reynard's car rolled to a burbling halt outside the parking lot.

"Can you get the door?" Zee asked, shifting Reynard so his head rested on Zee's shoulder.

I grinned, even as my shoes squelched.

"What?" Zee frowned.

"You look cute carrying him like that."

"Cute?"

"Yeah, it's sweet how you keep rescuing him."

"Uh, hello? I'm not doing this for him. I only save him because you keep telling me to. Open the fucking door or I'll toss him in the trunk."

I opened the back door and watched Zee shove Reynard's floppy body inside. "So cute."

He glowered. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, I just need to make a quick stop on the way back."

"I'll keep an eye on you from above." He spread his wings and shot into the air, vanishing among the city's light pollution and occasional twinkling star.

After climbing in beside Reynard, I told the driver where to meet Agent Leomaris, and settled in the seat. We left the aquarium and Agatha's lab in the rearview mirror. I shuddered a sigh and rolled my head to gaze at Reynard.

He snoozed, slumped against the door. His hair was a tangled mess, and curtained half across his pale face. Wet, filthy clothes clung to him. He'd hate that we'd seen him like this, at his worst.

The little blue flower he'd given to me earlier caught my eye on the back shelf. Still there, still beautiful. Made stronger with each crease and fold.

Victor's heart was in the right place. He was just really bad at trying to do good.

Like the rest of us.

I picked up the flower and cradled it in my hand, then gazed at the ageless, ancient vampire who'd become a part of my life.

We'd figure it all out. Together.