Chapter Twenty

 

A woman screamed the moment Kuma and his friends stepped into the Onyx. His whole body went on high alert until he realized it'd been Darina squealing as her customer had grabbed her rear. The rest of the club was almost empty, except for two older alliance waku at the bar and a group of Blue Daggers in the back singing karaoke in a private room with a younger waku outside the paper door.

"You sure this is a good idea?" asked Camina. "What if word gets back that we came here, or someone from the clan spots us?"

"Then we'll be in trouble." He approached the bar. "Seen Leesa?"

The bartender was refilling the brand-name bottles of alchohol with cheaper generics. He appeared annoyed by their presence. He set down the bottle and jabbed his thumb into a little black box.

"Leesa. You got customers."

A minute later, the redhead appeared looking bleary-eyed and a little gaunt. A silver dress hung loosely on her frame, exposing bony shoulders. The delay in recognition was followed by a forced smile.

"Kuma? What are you three doing here?"

"Buying you a bottle," he said.

Leesa blinked. "Celebrating?"

"Sure," he said, gesturing towards the booth furthest from the private party on the opposite side.

She gave them hugs, ordered the bottle from the bartender, and led them to the booth. The hostess had always been impeccably prepared, speaking to him as if she'd known what he was thinking already. But her appearance made him think she'd just woken up, or had been under the influence of drugs, which were plentiful in the Terreno.

"What's wrong?" he asked her.

"Nothing." Pinched lips were followed by an angry glare. "I'm fine. Business has been slow. I was sleeping when you arrived."

Leesa popped the bottle of champagne when it arrived, pouring a glass for the four of them. She held hers aloft, which they matched. Her smile was obviously forced.

"To unexpected friends."

With the glass set down, Kuma nodded to Camina. The little black box set off a faint humming. Leesa tapped a crimson fingernail on the box, frowning.

"I don't like this."

"You'll just have to get over it," said Kuma, under his breath.

"So you didn't come to visit me?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"Think of the bottle as a down payment," he said.

Leesa considered them with half-lidded eyes. "I don't spill secrets."

"We're not asking you to. What we want to know is less specific."

"And?"

"The war between the clans is coming soon," said Kuma.

"No shit," she said, throwing back the fluted glass of yellowish-gold liquid and pouring herself a second. "The Terreno has been as dead as my sex life, but what do I have to do with that?"

"We want to avoid it, if possible," said Kuma.

Leesa checked over her shoulder. "You're kidding, right? I thought you wanted to scrap with the Drops. The way I see it, the war between you two has been inevitable."

"That's the problem. If we were the only two clans in the Undercity, the peace would have never been brokered, but the alliance waits to clean up the survivor. It puts the winning clan in a perilous position."

"I still don't see why you came to me," she said.

"Something happened in our clan that was made to look like it was the Drops that caused it. It's not the first, nor will it be the last. I suspect the same thing has been happening on their side."

"You want to know who's behind it," said Leesa.

"You've always said that you know everything going on in the Terreno. Not just because you hear us all run our mouths when we're in our cups, but because you keep your eyes and ears open. I'm not asking for secrets. That's your prerogative. But I am asking about what you've been seeing around here."

"Or lack of seeing. This place is dead. Profits have dried up and our illustrious owner is being stingy with our benefits."

"Then you've a vested interest in the Undercity returning to a calm stalemate."

Leesa stared back with an unusual animosity. "Or maybe I'd like to see you fight it out and let the winners return to the Onyx for a victory celebration which involves buying me more bottles of bubbly than I can count. I didn't come here for my health, Kuma. I came here to make money."

"I told you this was a waste of time," said Camina, starting to rise.

Kuma put a hand on her forearm. "Please."

Camina grumbled and returned to her seat.

"Have you noticed people in the Terreno you haven't seen before? Someone who looks out of place?"

Leesa snorted behind her hand. "Really? This is your line of questioning? Stick to your stones, Kuma, you're embarrassing yourself."

Shame burned in his cheeks. "I'm serious. The alliance clans have always been a bunch of collective fuck-ups. Then you have what happened to us. I want to know who's behind it. Who are we really fighting against? It sure as hell doesn't seem like this is only an Undercity battle."

The dead silence was a sign of recognition. He saw right through her with his amber. She'd seen things, but he smelled her fear. Kuma put his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze.

"You've seen something, or someone," he said.

"A few weeks ago. Whoever it was had a Look-Away enchantment. I couldn't see anything about them except that they existed, but their entourage was nothing I'd ever seen before in the Terreno."

Her nostrils flared as she reviewed the memory. Camina and Tick leaned forward in anticipation.

"And?"

Leesa shrugged, took another drink. "I told you. I couldn't see the person."

"What about the guards?" asked Camina.

She checked around the bar before lowering her head. "Real badasses. Fully enchanted Kevlar gear, automatics that looked custom, though I don't know shit about guns. Earpieces and their glasses shimmered." Leesa inhaled slowly. "I spend a lot of time when I'm not down here watching out my window from the apartments above the Onyx. My windows are tinted, and I was half hidden by a curtain. There's no way anyone should have seen me but one of those guys, neck as thick as a tree trunk, looked right up at me. I was afraid he'd come into the Onyx and strangle me."

Remembering the day of Shade's End, Kuma asked, "Blackstone Security?"

"No," she said right away, shaking her head. "Like them, sure. But not them. I've seen enough of Blackstone over the years to recognize their insignia. This group wasn't wearing any."

"Where'd they go?" asked Tick.

"I couldn't tell you. They turned right, headed towards the other end of the Terreno."

"Anything else?" he asked.

Leesa nodded slowly as if the memory had been burned into her mind. "One of the guards wasn't like the others. He made my skin crawl. Gray, chalky skin and a smile that would have given a serial killer the creeps."

"City fae?" asked Tick, breathlessly.

"Yeah. Seen 'em from time to time down here, usually on their own, but this one was part of the security detail. Probably in charge of it."

"Shadows below. Whoever this is must be a big player, being able to afford a maetrie as their head of security," said Kuma.

"We don't know that's who's behind all this," said Camina.

"No, but it's weird for someone to visit the Terreno with all those precautions. It's not like this is a grand destination that pulls in tourists from the light."

Leesa elbowed him. "Hey, I think we put on a pretty good time down here."

"Sorry, Leesa. You know what I mean." He tapped on his glass, then threw it back. The bubbles made his nose itch. "I'd put all the money Tick's lost at pachinko on that our visitors have something to do with the alliance clans. They might not be behind them, but they certainly could be business partners."

"Buying up the stones?" suggested Camina. "Maybe that's how they're recruiting so many new waku and soldados."

"Fuck," said Kuma. "You're probably right. They're treating them like a business, expanding rapidly, bringing in new partners. Soon they'll be big enough to eat us both for lunch."

Leesa refilled their glasses, taking care to wipe the rims with a white silk napkin.

"No offense, but what's the point of all this? It's not like you're going to suddenly change the power balance in the Undercity. Not the three of you."

Tick grinned and jabbed his thumb at Kuma. "He singlehandedly screwed things up last year at Shade's End when he let that Drops girl live."

"Shut up, Tick."

He opened his palms. "Am I right?"

"You're not wrong."

Leesa stared at him with the truth of what really had happened clearly on her mind. Camina hunched her forehead as she checked between them.

"What? There's something else that happened."

"No," said Kuma, holding up his glass to Camina to distract her.

Camina looked back and forth. "You sure? Seemed like something passed between you there."

"Anything else?" he asked Leesa.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. You know we get mages down here sometimes. Either curious, or probably to do a deal. More traffic since the stones trade started, but nothing that unusual considering."

"Anyone in particular?"

"I'm a hostess at an Undercity club. All those mages look the same to me. They usually disguise themselves anyway. It could be Celesse D'Agastine herself at my booth and I probably wouldn't know it."

"Let's look around," said Kuma, finishing his glass.

"For what?" asked Camina.

Kuma lifted his shoulders. "Dunno. But the shadows don't reveal their secrets from the light. Figure we can head the same way that group did, maybe see where they might have gone."

"There are hundreds of businesses and apartments in the Terreno," said Camina.

"You don't have to go."

Camina pursed her lips. "You know I do."

Leesa joined them on their feet, giving hugs and kisses on the cheek. Kuma lingered afterwards as his friends moved towards the exit. He slipped a note that he'd written for Pandora into her palm, giving a curt nod.

"In case."

He started to move away, but she pulled him back. Leesa checked with the rest of the bar before leaning towards his ear.

"I heard something happened at Drops recently. Around the same timing as what happened in Razor. Rumor, but, you know."

"Thanks."

Outside the Onyx, the sad chimes of pachinko rang through the nearly empty streets. An old woman who looked like she'd been chain-smoking for the entire day was working her pachinko machine inside the Bogo. Two trays of silvery balls sat by her seat along with an ashtray stabbed with a half dozen old cigarettes.

"Where to?" asked Camina.

When he didn’t answer, Tick gestured towards the Bogo. "You know, since we're here..."

The last bit of information swam around his mind. "I don't know."

The idea that he might learn something by coming to the Terreno seemed foolish standing outside the Onyx.

"What was that with you and Leesa? Before, when you were talking about Shade's End," Camina said.

Kuma checked over his shoulder. "I told you, nothing."

"Didn't seem like nothing."

"When we left, she told me that the Drops had been hit recently. Around the same time as Botan. What if those heavily armored visitors had something to do with it? They showed up and then both clans get hit in a way that suggests it was the other?"

"Sounds good, but what are you going to do with that information? Even if it was true, which I doubt, your father wouldn't believe you," said Camina.

Tick was staring longingly at the pachinko machines. Kuma pushed him forward.

"Let's walk. I need to think."