Valentina smiled at Hedda’s tone of imperious command and then shrugged at Tana. She waved her toward the steps and the second floor, where more clothes were to be found, piled up on worn wooden tables and hanging in mirrored armoires. True to Jameson’s word, Valentina did seem to have a crazy ability to understand the pattern of the mess and fish out beautiful things from unlikely places.
“So where did all this come from?” Tana asked, pulling on a pair of black stretchy, skinny jeans that were only a little too tight. They were marked five dollars. “It’s a lot of stuff.”
“Hedda started this place after the quarantine as a place for people to come and swap what they didn’t need for what they did. Soon after, scavengers started bringing her things they found in abandoned houses, hoping for cash. And then others came, looking for baubles and gowns. A lot of people come to the city and not that many leave. It’s a pretty good business.” Valentina pulled a leather jacket, the elbows a little worn, down from a hook and held it out to Tana. “This looks about your size.”
Tana shrugged it on, liking the weight. Wearing it felt like being armored. “It’s perfect.”
Valentina smiled at her. “This is a city with a very particular dress code.”
Tana laughed, bending to look through a pile. She found a T-shirt with a fanged happy face, another shirt that said DESPERATELY SEEKING DEATH, cutoff shorts, pajama bottoms covered in a pattern of steaming teacups, and a filmy blouse of palest ivory with a high collar and little, faux pearl buttons fastening it up the back and at the cuffs. “So how about you? How did you wind up here?”
Valentina’s expression changed subtly, as though she was trying to determine what Tana was really asking. Then she sighed and flopped into one of the overstuffed chairs, ignoring the clothing she was sitting on. She had a long, lean body, like a model’s, with large expressive hands. Her nails were painted the same gold that dusted her eyelids. “Jameson brought me to Hedda, told her that I was worth trusting to help her with the store. Her last employee disappeared—which happens around here—so she needed to find someone new. I can’t decide if Jameson was trying to be incredibly nice or just getting rid of me. Maybe both.”
“Have you known him long?”
Valentina shook her head. “I came to Coldtown with a friend about a year ago. We were both from the same small town. We didn’t fit in, and we thought we were going to run away to a place where everyone was like us and we’d be transformed and—”
Valentina paused as if at a loss for the next word. Tana nodded, urging her on. It was nice to talk. There was nothing she could do for the next couple of hours, while Aidan was newly turned and desperately thirsty. Her best bet was to go back and get the marker closer to dawn, after they’d fed him. Until then, she might as well enjoy the clothes and the company.
“Turns out, we were idiots. My friend almost got killed by the first vampires we met. He went off alone with these three red-eyed girls and, I mean, he didn’t even like girls. Next thing I know I find him in an alley with the vampires crowded around him, slicing his skin. They licked the blood off him like it was candy, and they were so careful never to bite him, the bitches. He would have died if Jameson hadn’t come along then.”
Valentina had a faraway look in her eye as she went on. “He had this huge, honking flamethrower, the same kind the guards use. There aren’t a lot of rules in Coldtown, but one thing vampires get really cranky about is when someone appears to be hunting them.”
“Was he?” Tana asked.
Valentina shrugged. “I don’t know, but he crisped all three of them and took us home like we were feral cats or something.” She sighed. “He brought us to a squat, up in the eaves of a church, where some other kids were living, some of them really little and some of them older. The place is empty now, but we lived there awhile. Jameson is a little bit of a folk hero around here.”
Tana thought of the clothes in piles and asked, “Where are the other kids who lived there?”
“Two of them became Rotter hangers-on, including my friend,” Valentina said. “It’s a vampire gang, basically anarchists, and they’ll turn people who prove they’re psychotic enough to impress them. My friend’s still human, but hopeful. One of the little kids got turned by a vampire and lives with her now. Another one went out one day and never came back. Jameson looked and looked, but sometimes people just disappear in the city.”
Tana spotted a nice-looking knife, long and sharp, resting in a jar with a few feathers and a fountain pen. “Jameson must have a complicated relationship with vampires.”
“Jameson? Yeah, I guess. His girlfriend’s one.”
Tana looked up at Valentina in surprise. “Oh, right,” she said after a moment, remembering what he’d told her at breakfast. “She must be the friend he was talking about. The one from Lucien Moreau’s.”
“Don’t say anything if you see him, okay? He’s never told me about her, but it’s a small town. I hear things. And I saw them once, up near Velvet Road, arguing. She was gorgeous. And I definitely don’t want him to think I care. He knows what I used to be, so it might be awkward for him.”