“I’m gonna gets the mugs on you, First-Timer,” he choked out one word at a time.
I laughed. “No, you’re not.”
The Neanderthal forced his body to sit up, fought the storm that raged in his muscles. He pointed a quivering finger toward me. “Nobody pours liquid light on me and lives ta talk about it.” He pushed one leg into position, then the second, grabbed a chair and used it to hoist himself to a shaky stand.
I turned my palm toward him. Showed him the tattoo. Watched his eyes widen, saw his gaze sweep the room as if one of the people there could help him. As if they would even consider it. “You see that woman over there?” I asked, nodding toward Angelique. He slid a nervous glance in her direction, not moving his head. “That’s my baby, buddy. Nobody touches her—you got that? It’s within my legal rights to send you all the way back to your own miserable beginning. You want to start all over as a single-celled zygote?”
He shook his head, his jaw slack. His lip was still quivering.
I reached into my right pocket, pulled out a tag, walked toward him.
He started to move backward, ran into a table, knocked it over.
I stopped. “Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
He froze, every muscle trembling now, but not from the liquid light.
I sighed. Reached over, clicked the tag on the back of his hand. A microscopic chip shot out, embedded itself in his skin. He flinched, but not from the pain. “That’s my marker,” I whispered. “You’re my baby now.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t means nothin’. I didn’t do nothin’.”
“Well, then you just better pray that when you’re my baby, nobody does nothin’ to you, neither. Cause when your time comes, I’m gonna be your Babysitter. And sugah,” I leaned dangerously close to his face, let my hot breath sink into his pores, switched my speech patterns to make sure he understood. “We’s gonna haves lots of fun together. I promises.”
CHAPTER TWO
Neville:
I stumbled out the door, my feet numb, my vision blurred. I slumped onto broken cobblestone, strains of jazz seeping into the alley around me as I landed facedown. Behind me, a high-pitched twitter mingled with the bright notes of a clarinet. One of my own boys was laughing at me.
“Boss, you shoulda seen yourself, you was tumblin’ backward like a First-Timer with a mouthful of jive-sweet! Man, I wishes I had a VR of that pretty scene—”
I struggled to my feet, then grabbed the black-haired gutter punk by the throat and shook him until the change in his pocket jingled. The boy didn’t fight back. He didn’t dare. He sputtered and coughed, his lips turned blue.
Finally I dropped him to the ground, watched him gasp and flail.
“Was it pretty, like that?” I asked.
The boy cringed. Two other slender young men slid deeper into the shadows, their faces covered with fresh bruises from their recent mock battle inside the club.
I laughed until my voice echoed. “Good job, boys,” I said. Then I tossed each of them a token that spun through the evening gloom, engraved words catching the dim lamplight: FREE ADMISSION TO THE UNDERGROUND CIRCUS. Dangerous grins spread across their faces as they each pocketed their new favor.
“Was it her?” one of them asked.
I shrugged. Seven ladies downloaded in New Orleans today. I’d already discounted the two that had tumbled through the black market, a process that left their brains scorched and empty. Could be this one, but I didn’t want to say yeah or nay, not yet. Still had three more to track down.
I sucked in a long, dark breath. My boys waited for a sign that it was time to move on.
I nodded. Slow, so they’d pay attention.
“We goes that way.” I pointed toward the other end of the alley.
They all stared like they didn’t believe me.
“But, boss,” the punk on the ground finally coughed out a few words, his voice raspy, his neck still red from my grip. “That guy’s a ’sitter. He’s loaded with light. Nobody says he gonna be carryin’ light or—”
“Or you woulda been too chicken to belly up for the job? Look, you gots a sister, right?”
The kid nodded, then looked away.
“And you wants yur sister to keep that pretty face. Or maybe ya don’t cares no more.”
“I cares.” The boy shoved himself into a sitting position, then scrambled to his feet. “Let’s go.”