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Several armed sentries patrolled the streets around Livestock, and gaslights burned brightly enough to chase away gloom and ghouls. I contemplated those gaslights as Shep ushered me into the Livestock’s main room. Bloom probably understood how the lights worked, but I wouldn’t ask her to explain it. Talk about B-O-R-I-N-G.
I also wondered where the gas supply came from, but like I’d said, Moll Grimes’s boyfriend had stuck his fingers in a whole lot of pies in the Time Before (before she killed him in his sleep, if you believed the rumors). If you paid her enough, Moll might let you stick a thumb in one of her pies too.
“What’ll you have?” Shep asked. He talked to me in a familiar way, even though we had met only minutes before. How did I feel about that? Before I could make up my mind, Bloom had recognized some other Solos in the corner and left Shep and me on our own.
“I don’t really know,” I said to Shep. “I’ve only been here once, and Bloom would only let me have tea.”
A gleam lit in Shep’s blue eyes, and he dragged me closer to the bar. “Rocking Horse for the lady.” He jammed a thumb in my direction. “A pint for me.”
The bartender nodded and slid us a mug of beer and a tin cup, the contents of which smelled like hair pomade.
“What’s this?” I motioned to my cup.
“Rocking Horse? It’s the house special.”
“But what is it? What’s in it?”
Shep grinned, revealing several crooked bottom teeth but no apparent holes. He wasn’t half bad looking if you go in for the big, blond, German type. “It’s wine... sort of.”
“I don’t like the sound of ‘sort of.’” I peered at my drink as if it might jump up and smack me. It smelled strong enough to put up a good fight.
“They take a bunch of fruits—cherries, crabapples, blackberries—whatever they can get their hands on—mash them up, stir in some sugar, and then let it sit in its juices until it ferments.”
“It’s sweet!” I said after an experimental sip. Then I tossed back the cup for a longer drink. The wine fizzled on my tongue, and in another few minutes, I suspected it would fizzle in my brain.
“Too sweet for me.” Shep grimaced. “But the ladies seem to prefer it.”
I had never liked being lumped in with the “ladies,” but I had tasted beer enough times to know I had no palate for it. The wine, however, went down like candy. “Why’s it called Rocking Horse?”
“Because if you drink enough of it, it’ll rock you off your horse. It’ll give you a rotten gut and a thumping brain in the morning, too, so go easy.” Shep guided me to a table near the one Bloom occupied with her friends. She had ordered a pint of her own—no Rocking Horse for her. Bloom liked her beer thick and dark. “You have a right to worry about John Brown and Moll.” Shep pulled out a seat for me. “They’re not the type a couple of kids like you and your sister ought to get mixed up with.”
“Bloom’s no kid.” My sister was five years older than me, and if Shep was a day older than Bloom, I’d lick his boots. “And anyone who’s survived as long as we have on our own has lost most of whatever once made them children.”
He inclined his head toward me in a gesture of concurrence. “Maybe you got a point, but you are still a little naïve. Naivety and brains are the best combination in Grimes’s eyes. She could use you up, and you won’t even know any better.”
“I know better than to get mixed up with her.”
He drained the rest of his beer and held up his mug, gesturing to the waitress. She shuffled to our table and collected the empty cup from him without a word. “Moll can make a pretty attractive offer.”
“Like what?” I peered into my emptying mug and considered asking for another despite Shep’s warnings.
“Security, uncommon comforts, food. And I mean good food too. Moll has convinced many a stubborn man to come work for her with nothing more than a plate of ribs and a side of baked beans.”
My traitorous mouth watered. “Barbecued pork ribs?”
He chuckled. “With all the trimmings.”
“Well, that’s not fighting fair at all.” I frowned into my wine.
He chuckled again. “Moll has hot-water plumbing fixed up in her high-rise building. You can take a hot bath with the turn of a handle.”
A groan full of desire and lust—things I only knew about because of the cheap novels I liked to read—seeped from my throat. “Did she send you to recruit us?”
“How was I to know I would run into the notorious Blite siblings tonight?” Shep leaned back in his chair, threaded his fingers together over his stomach, and shrugged. The waitress returned and set another beer on the table before him. He snatched it up and swallowed a long gulp. Then he scrubbed his cuff across his mouth, wiping away his foam mustache. “You’re the one who showed up on Grimes’s doorstep. Might appear to her that you and your sister came to talk business.”
My heart skipped a beat, and a chill slunk down my spine. “Moll doesn’t have to know we were in her part of town tonight.”
He raised a judicial eyebrow. “See, that’s some of that naivety I was talking about. Nothing that happens in this neighborhood goes unnoticed, and you and your sister are particularly interesting. Soon as you two leave, most everyone in this room is probably going to beat a path to Moll’s front door to let her know you were here and what you were talking about.”
I leaned forward and bared my teeth. “Including you?”
He shrugged. “We all gotta survive.”
I glared at Shep before returning my attention to Bloom. She had leaned in to talk to her companions in a low voice. I couldn’t make out her words, and with the way her head was turned, I couldn’t hope to read her lips. She seemed serious, though, and I found myself needing to know right that minute what she was talking about.
“’Scuse me, Shep.” I rose to my feet. “I appreciate your hospitality, but I’d better be getting back to my sister now.”
Wearing a sardonic smile, he stood, nodded, and tugged his forelock as I left his company. “Another time then, Sera. It was a pleasure to meet you.”
“Sure, sure.” I flapped a hand toward him but kept my gaze trained on my sister. “Nice to meet you too.”
One of Bloom’s cohorts—a young man close to her age—nudged her as I made my way to her table. My sister clamped her lips into an unconvincing smile as she pushed out a chair for me. “Had enough of the corporal’s company?”
“Maybe.” I slid into the seat beside her. “And maybe I’m just more interested in whatever it is you’ve been talking about.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “What have you been talking about?”
Bloom’s gaze darted to the others at the table before returning to me. “Talking about the weather, garden crops, undead activity, the usual.”
Her answer was too much sugar for a nickel, but I would save our inevitable confrontation for later, when we had only the four walls of the bank vault to overhear us.
“And did you learn anything noteworthy from your new friend?” Bloom asked, blinking her long, dark lashes in an innocent way. She didn’t fool me. My sister was a great politician but a terrible actress.
“Oh, we just talked about the weather, garden crops, undead activity...” I smirked at her. “The usual.”
My conversation with Shep had been informative but not particularly scandalous. I didn’t think I could say the same for the subject of Bloom’s secretive tête-à-tête. There was something she wasn’t telling me, and in our world, secrets could be deadly. Or worse.
Whatever she was scheming, I hoped it wouldn’t get her, or both of us, undead.