Chapter Three

The bouncer standing guard atthe Iron Cock tonight was Curtis, a huge black man with gold-rimmed teeth and a crisscrossed starburst of scar beneath his right eye that he'd earned from Pandra one night at the Pits.

He let Pandra and her group walk past the front of the line and directly through the door. Please, have one of the other waiting partiers bemoan that. She'd thrape him in the mouth. But, no, this crowd was too street-smart for that kind of chuff.

Inside the old warehouse serving as playground tonight, the place was typically dim, illuminated only by unnatural blue lighting that left faces in shadow. The occasional strobe flashed, the white lasers streaking across a throbbing mass of people on the dance floor, bodies undulating and dry-humping to a pulsing beat of music that was sex itself. Most of the attendees were decked out in their sleaziest duds, others barely clad, some were outright nude.

Dolf, the man in charge of this travesty, stood just inside the main entryway. He was a thick, knotty fellow with a square head like a bolt rammed into the wide block of his neck. He straightened abruptly when he saw her. "I don't want any trouble tonight, Pandra," he said, his focus zeroing in on Murk.

"Piffle, Dolf. You love trouble." She reached up and pinched Dolf's cheek, a good hard squeeze of flesh between thumb and forefinger. "It's why you keep letting me come here." Not to mention how much money she threw down the pan in this pisshole. She shoved five hundred dollars into his hand. "We're going to need one of your special rooms tonight. Boys and girls. Toys. The usual fecked up bag o' shite." Without waiting for a reply, she headed to the bar. A stool was quickly vacated for her, and she slid onto it. "Four Wild Turkeys with beer backs," she told the bartender.

"Only beer," Murk corrected. Turning to the fellow on the barstool next to hers, Murk hard-stared the man out of it, then sat. "You don't want to be gettin' foxed and goin' R?u," he said just loud enough for her to hear over the music. "Not in this place."

Murk had a point. Hard alcohol and drugs had the inconvenient effect of making those of them with demon bloodlines go R?u. But this Monsieur Expert routine was getting bloody tiresome. She sniffed. "An hour into this night, and I'm already regretting bringing you along. Naffing killjoy."

The bartender plunked down four beers, and she passed them out to Duane, Bo Bo, and Murk. She lit a cig and took a sip of her drink. Over the rim of her mug she spotted one of Videon's mates across the bar. Edgar. The bloke was hot for her junk, and a prize sleaze about clueing her into that factoid. He emailed her nearly every day, although to suggest what, she didn't know anymore. She always pushed "delete" without reading what he had to say. Although tonight, hmm, maybe she'd use him for a bit of rough. Making a man weep in bed could be just the thing to take the edge off.

Dolf came up to her and aimed his square head toward a hallway. "Third door on the right."

"Top! That was fast."

"Slow night," Dolf answered. "I'll send your drinks in."

"Brilliant." She paid the bartender, adding a generous tip, then hopped off her stool. "Right-o, lads, it's fun time. Do make me proud." She took two steps, then stopped and turned back around.

Her brother hadn't moved off his stool.

"Don't sit around cabbaging, Murk," she snapped. "Shake a leg."

"Think I'll pass on the room, Pandra."

Edging one of her eyebrows up, Pandra strode back over to Murk. She took a slow drag on her cigarette, exhaling twin streams of smoke from her nostrils. "My party," she drawled. "My rules." Almost hysterically, the thought came, It's my party and I'll cry if I want to… Sod that.

Murk drank his beer.

She narrowed her eyes. "You wanted to come out with me tonight, Murk, so you'll get your knob waxed if I say so."

"I'm not going into that room with you."

"It didn't sound to me like I was asking."

Murk regarded her blandly. "Any other night you could force me to go in there, we both ken that, but…" He went back to his beer. "Not this night."

Heat shot in searing waves to her face. Think I'm that much of a sad arse, do you? Clenching her lit cigarette between tight lips, she lashed her hands out and fisted up Murk's leather jacket by the collar. "You dead cert about that, old boy?" R?u red bled into the edges of her vision, that fiery coal inside her chest burning hotter and hotter. A crackle snapped apart inside her ears. If she let herself go R?u, she'd do Murk over till there was naught left of the wank rag, enough to kill him if not for his ring.

Murk's lips pressed in on each other as he waited for whatever she would dole out.

She gave her brother a hard shove as she let go.

His stool skidded backward, knocking into the one behind.

The man on it scampered off.

"I'm just here to make sure you don't do anything too bollock-brained," Murk said in a low tone.

She pushed her face into her brother's. "What's your angle, Murk?" No one in the brood ever did anything "nice" without an ulterior motive. True, she had helped Murk get his bum out of hot water with Raymond when Murk and the lads had botched a mission to turn over three Dragon women to the Underground Om R?u to pay a debt. The Varcolac had ended up stealing those women: Hadley Wickstrum, Kendra Mawbry, and Marissa Nichita née Bonaventure. Still, that didn't mean she trusted Murk any further than she could lob him.

"Nothing," he said.

She caught sight of the hard kick of Murk's pulse along the skin of his throat. That was somewhat mollifying. "You're a fool," she growled, stepping back. "We'll be revisiting this later, you and I."

"I have no doubt."

She rounded on her minions. "Offer up your gratitude to Murk here, m'lads. He just made your night a whole lot worse."

Inside their room, Dolf had provided them with a smorgasbord of choices as ordered: two women, one black-haired and goth-like, the other blondish and sweet-looking…as close to sweet as one could get in a place like this. Plus there were two men, one Caucasian, one African American, both dressed only in spandex shorts. They were athletically built, their bodies slicked down with oil to emphasize that fact.

She strode over to a high bench positioned in the center of the room. It looked like the type of gym equipment one might use for bicep curls, but it was for something else entirely. "Alrighty, Bo Bo." She patted the bench. "Get over here, cracker. It's time to grab your ankles."

"No." Bo Bo shook his head violently. "I don't want to."

Oh, yawn. Always the same with him. She'd say, "Come," then Bo Bo would say, "No"—even though he was really gagging for it—and she'd have to make him. 'Round 'n 'round we go. She stalked over to Bo Bo, blood hot inside her eardrums.

He backed away from her, sweat dampening his upper lip, and…

There went his tongue. Lick, lick. Effing twat.

She fisted her hand into Bo Bo's shirt and yanked him to the center of the room. Grabbing him by the back of the neck, she forced him to bend over the bench. "You move from this spot, Bo Bo, and I break your snotter." Holding her glowing Camel between the vee of her long, pointed fingernails, she jabbed her cigarette at the black guy. "Listen, mate, you lube your todger up nice and good before you go poking around, right? You hurt him, and I hurt you."

She spun hard on her heels and made for Duane, shoving him down into a chair. "You know what you get tonight, Duane?" She leaned into him. "Nothing," she hissed. "You have to sit there and watch Bo Bo and only give it a tug."

Duane's eyes blazed into hers, fury and defiance. "That's not fair."

"No?" She waited for it. C'mon, laddie…

"Y-you bitch."

There it is! "It's going to be like that, is it?" Securing her ciggy into the corner of her mouth, she grabbed Duane's hair with one hand and shoved his head back against the wall. Using her other hand, she slapped his face, again and again…three times, four. She released him and stepped back.

He was breathing with effort, blood trickling down his chin. His langer stood erect as Big Ben in his trousers.

Jesus wept, I'm surrounded. "Poor babby." She sneered. "Got a lob on and no one to do."

Duane dragged his tongue across his lip, licking up his own blood. "Maybe I should do you."

She belted out a laugh. "Bold words, love. Either you're in the mood for a right hard stomping or just plain thick as a brick." She snapped her fingers at the "sweet" one. "Come, Petunia. Time to put that kisser of yours to good use."

There was a scuffling noise over by the sex bench, Bo Bo whimpering. Pandra didn't look.

The blonde scurried over and planted herself in front of Duane.

"Make bloody well certain you dig your fingernails into his bollockbag while you're about it." Pandra dropped her cigarette to the floor and ground it out beneath the toe of her boot. "Or I'll be stomping you." She strode over to a chair set against the wall and dropped herself down into it, the leather of her pirate boots squiching as she crossed her legs. She pulled out another Camel and a lighter from her purse, and blazed up.

She heard the wet slap of flesh on flesh and Bo Bo squealing. Her airway tried to close off, but she ruthlessly stopped it. Out of her periphery, she saw the blonde's head bobbing rhythmically against Duane's crotch.

She stared straight ahead, shutting her vision off to as much as possible, and smoked. Her lungs congested. Her lower intestines writhed and ached. Dirty tossbags. This was supposed to have been one of her extra-special outings, a night of violence and bullying and depravity to make her feel better. But nothing at all had changed. She still felt small and mean and insignificant, no better than she had five hours ago.

Sod you, Raymond.

She tilted her head back and puffed smoke rings, letting her R?u fire scorch her insides until she was nothing but a burnt ruin wrapped in a cold, impenetrable shell.