So why was she feeling safe with him?

Tanner led her the last few steps to the bar. “Human clubs . . . paranormal dives. They’re all the same.” He slapped his right hand down on the counter but kept his left arm firmly around her. “You want information, then you always go to the one source in the place who knows every single thing that happens.”

The bartender, a woman with long, curly, red hair and demon-black eyes, strolled toward them. Her eyes widened a little as she looked at Marna and a soundless whistle slipped from her lips. “Don’t see too many of your kind.”

Her nails—blood-red and wicked sharp—tapped on the bar. Then her gaze slid from Marna to Tanner. The bartender stiffened, but did a good job of keeping any emotion from slipping across her face.

“I’m sure you see all sorts here,” Tanner said, voice thickening a bit with a drawl that seemed to come and go as he pleased.

Tricky shifter. Was that slow drawl supposed to make him seem harmless? Nothing could pull off that lie. Maybe it was just supposed to make him seem a little less lethal? More good old boy?

“Right now,” Tanner continued quietly, “I’m wanting to know if you can give me some information on those . . . sorts . . . that you might see.” He kept his hold on Marna, but he leaned toward the bartender.

The redhead lifted a brow. “Information ain’t cheap. You know that, cop.”

So she realized who and what Tanner was? Marna didn’t know if that was good or bad. But either way, Marna decided she needed to step up her game. She wasn’t just going to stand there. “What kind of payment do you want?” Marna demanded. Not that she had any money on her . . .

The woman’s dark eyes glanced her way. “The kind that will get me out of this shithole before I turn up dead in a dark alley.”

Dead—like the shifters?

“You know,” Tanner said.

A little shrug lifted the bartender’s shoulders as she grabbed for a glass and began to fill it with a gleaming, gold liquid. “I know two shifters got to meet the devil the other night. Just a few streets away . . .” Her gaze was back on Tanner, but she said, voice whispering now, “And from what I hear, that devil looked a whole lot like the lady you’re holding so tight.” She shoved the glass toward him.

He didn’t drink.

“It wasn’t me,” Marna said. They weren’t going to pay the demon bartender just for telling them a story that was pure bull.

“A lost, blond angel, with shadow wings streaking from her back . . .” The bartender sighed. “Yeah, because there are so many folks like you running around the Quarter.”

Shadow wings streaking from her back. Marna stiffened. “I don’t have wings.” Was that hard, angry voice really hers?

The lady poured another drink. This time, she pushed the glass toward Marna. “Not the real thing. Not anymore.” She smirked. “What’d you do to fall?”

Marna leapt up, ready to jump right across that bar. Nothing. I shouldn’t have been forced here. I—

Tanner pulled her back even as the bartender let out a little gasp and slammed back against the glasses on the wall. “Don’t touch me!” the redhead cried out and this time, she didn’t keep the blank mask on her face.

Fear.

So someone was finally afraid. And it isn’t me. Right then, Marna was too angry—too pissed, as Sammael would have said—to be afraid. I didn’t fall. I didn’t break the rules.

But she was still in hell.

Pissed. Being angry was much better than being afraid. Fear was for the weak. She didn’t want to be weak. “Better watch it,” Marna said to the redhead as she shook off Tanner’s hold. “I hear the monsters in this place love the scent of fear.”

The bartender swallowed as she pried herself off the wall of glasses. She glanced around and flushed when she realized that others had seen her.

Even in Hell, it was hard to miss a scream.

“Meet me out back,” she told them, grabbing up another glass and a bottle of gold liquid before turning away. “You can tell me what you’ll pay, and maybe I’ll tell you what I know.”

“There’s no maybe,” Tanner said.

The redhead kept walking away from them. “Then make the price high enough.” She disappeared through a pair of swinging, double doors.

And she left them in Hell.

Cadence LaVert kept a smirk on her face until she entered the back room of Hell. Then she tightened her fist around the glass in her hand, and it shattered.