“Small world,” I said coolly.

“Big enough.” He flashed an easy smile. “Most of the time.”

“New job?”

“City changes. Jobs, too. You?”

“Unemployed. Nobody buying books.” They were all out hunting one.

“Different look. Going dark, beautiful girl?”

I touched my hair.

“More than the ‘do.”

“Enough to survive.”

“Hard to say when enough’s enough.”

“Look who’s working where.”

“Look who’s drinking where.”

“I can handle myself. You?”

“Always.” He gave me another of those smiles and moved down the bar, tossing glasses, pouring high, fast, and flashy.

Beside me, Dani choked, spit, wheezed, and began to cough uncontrollably. When I patted her back, she jerked away and skewered me with a glare. “What are you trying to do? Kill me?” she squeaked, when she could speak. “That’s petrol! Who would wanna drink that?”

I laughed. “You develop a taste for it.”

“I think I mighta been born with all the tastes I need!” She pilfered a handful of cherries from across the bar, crammed them in her mouth, and hopped down from her stool. “Grown-ups are weird,” she said darkly.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Take a look around.”

I didn’t like the idea and told her so.

“C’mon, Mac, I’m superfast and superstrong. Nobody can touch me. I’m the one should be worried about leaving you alone, slowpoke.”

Put that way, she had a point.

“Gimme room to breathe, Mac.”

She was fidgeting from foot to foot, and the look in her eyes said she was about to whiz off whether I said okay or not. I had a sudden unwanted understanding of Rowena: How do you mother a kid who’s faster than you, stronger than you, and quite possibly smarter? “Don’t go far, and not for long, deal?”

“Deal.”

“And be careful!” Wind ruffled my hair. She was already gone.

“Who’s the kid?” The dreamy-eyed boy was back. A shot clinked to the chrome counter. I tossed it back, grimaced, gasped. Fire exploded in my gut.

“Friend.”

“Good to have in times like these.”

“How’d you find this place?”

“Same way as you, I imagine.”

“Doubt it.”

“Ever find Christian?”

He was referring to the day I’d called the ALD dozens of times, hunting for the young Scot. I’d been worried sick because Barrons had “Voiced” me into revealing that the Keltars were spying on him, and I was afraid Barrons was going to hunt Christian down and hurt him. “Yes.” I didn’t see any point in telling him I’d lost him again, perhaps permanently.

“Seen him lately?”

“No. You?”

“No. I’d like to.”

“Why?” Suspicion was me.

“Friends—good to have in times like these.”

“What do you think of this place?” Why was he here? Another pretty boy in search of immortality?

“Life and death, beautiful girl. Been about it since the beginning. Will be ‘til the end.”

“What’s your poison? You want to live forever, too?”

“I’d take some peace and quiet. A beautiful girl.” He laughed. “A good book.”

“Man after my own heart. I love a good book, too.” In the mirror above the bar, something caught my eye. I tensed. In a booth behind me, the Gray Woman was holding hands with the well-muscled, gorgeous waiter who’d earlier been flirting with the udder-thing. I could see both what she was and what she was making him see. To him, she was a Fae Princess, inhumanly beautiful, mind-numbingly sexual, gazing at him with rapt adoration.

Only I could see the open, oozing lesions with which she caressed him, with which she was sucking his life away, leaving rotting teeth, rheumy eyes, parchment-thin gray skin. She was making short work of him. He wouldn’t last the hour.

My hand went to the shoulder holster beneath my coat.

“Watch yourself, beautiful girl,” the dreamy-eyed boy said softly.

I tore my gaze away from the mirror and stared at him. He was eyeing my coat, watching my hand move beneath it. He couldn’t possibly know what I was reaching for.

“What are you talking about?”

He looked behind me. “They’re here, and … well, you’ll figure it out.”