He growls, “Nunca olvido una cara bonita, puta.”
I have no idea what they’re saying, but it sounds like a threat, so I bob my shoulders, put both hands on the pistol, spread my feet, and nod. “Yeah, whateva! Do I look like I care?”
“Crazy-ass-bitch! You like gettin’ cut?” the guy in the hoodie spits. “You got a real pretty face. No más bonita cara, la perra.”
Eyes pushing rage, both guys move backward and around the side of the building before I belt the gun, grab the bags, and back-walk toward the metal fence behind Publix.
Breaking into a run, I hurl the bags over the fence, take it straight on, tennis shoes digging in, and scramble over without breaking my pace. I snag the bags lying in the grass and bolt across a small field outside of the development.
After one last glance to see they’re not following, I slip into the development, zigzag down three blocks, over one, up four, hop a fence, jog around a pool and clubhouse, climb over a back fence near the water treatment building—and boom!—I slide into the sewer system.
I feel tuned into the body I’m wearing, acutely aware of every muscle, every nerve, and every heartbeat. I savor her spirit as it fuses with mine—get off on the fearless way we blindly handled each situation this evening in perfect tandem.
I. Feel. Empowered.
The plastic bags filled with Jane’s street clothes work like counterbalance weights as I hold my arms out and turn circles, eyes closed. Laughing and running, splashing my way through the darkness, my shouts of victory echo in the sewers Down Under—Jane, and the cold hard weight of the 9mm against my back feel more familiar than any being I’ve known, or worn.
“Gaire,” I shout, and it bounces off the sewer walls and reverberates though my mind.
I grit my teeth and squee with glee as I hold out my hand, close my eyes, and draw a fist full of wish tokens I have banked in the Etherafter. I pluck a red one with fifteen wishes left on it, and closing my eyes, I wish the rest back to the bank.
I’m a gnat’s hair closer to finding out what made Gaire kill the berserker at the bar, where he is now, and why I feel like I do simply by uttering his name. I pull the red token to my lips, give it a kiss, and wish myself to the other side of town before stuffing it into my pocket.
***
As I walk into Purgatory wearing Jane, heads turn and nostrils flair.
Down Under is where otherworld creatures are reasonably comfortable knowing they can be themselves without fear of the human race witnessing their true identity. Purgatory is a place to gather, a bar where we can meet, share information, gossip about happenings in our world, and fluff feathers by challenging strength, stamina, and the intelligence in other species. So it stands to reason every time someone enters who looks and smells human, everyone comes to attention.
I know from past experiences Down Under that I’m undetectable in human form. The patrons here see, smell, and sense me as Jane, a human, a threat … until I show my doppelganger.
Two bouncers—a shifter who smells feline, and a troll named Greta—walk toward me. Greta always moves slowly and slurs her words, but her strength is extraordinary. And in these close quarters, with a cat-shifter assisting, Jane would be toast if I don’t do something to identify myself quickly.
As they close the space between us, Jane tsks attitude and swings her hip out in defiance. I can’t help but mentally smile at how good that feels. But knowing my world and the creatures surrounding me, I flash doppelganger eyes, red with no pupils, and let smoke waft from between smiling lips. The instantaneous reaction is almost uncontrollably amusing. Almost. Respect is survival down here.
“Sorry, Greta. I hate to check my human at the door, especially if I really like the one I’m wearing—and I do, big time.”
She shakes her oversized head, cheeks pulled up in a smile, and then she says, “I’d be, uh, quicker to announce yourself, see. I may, uh, not … present … an immediate, uh, threat.” Greta’s big sausage-shaped finger distracts me as she picks at a crusty wart on the side of her nose. “But, uh, well, Grumpy Kitty over there, well, he does.”
Greta hee-hee-hee’s and points the bulbous index finger at me. The teeth under her smile really need a vigorous brushing. Green and brown junk is crammed between all four front teeth, top and bottom. And in some places it’s even waving at me as she breathes. I deflect my attention from her mouth to her finger. She shakes from knees to head and a fine spray of sewer water spreads in a three foot circle around her body. I try not to think about the brown gunk hanging on to the underside of her yellow fingernail.