Ada had said good-bye to Charlie almost half an hour ago. He wanted to make it back to the Red Cat in time for the last set. She could have found another dance partner or asked Danny to make her a drink, but all she really wanted was some solitude. Now that the initial excitement of the evening had worn off, her fatigue had crept back, more insistent than ever.
She kept her seat on the couch as the musicians filed in. They didn’t seem concerned by the ruckus upstairs. Someone pulled out a deck of cards and started dealing. Ada stood up when Johnny and Jackson emerged from the stairwell. Worry had started edging into her chest, pressing against her lungs.
“Where’s Corinne?” she asked.
“Being a pain in my ass, as usual,” Johnny said, with uncharacteristic shortness. He disappeared into his office with Jackson right behind. The door slammed shut.
There was a creak of footsteps on the stairs, and Ada ran to the base. Gabriel was coming down, alone.
“Have you seen Corinne?” Ada asked, aware that panic was bleeding into her voice.
Gabriel hesitated on the bottom step, his eyes darting around the room. The thin line of a frown appeared between his eyes.
“I thought she would be with you,” he said.
Ada didn’t need to hear more. She slid past him and ran up the stairs. He called after her, but she opened the panel and ducked out. Gordon had not left his post. He watched her with his usual air of unconcern as she closed the panel. He popped a few sunflower seeds into his mouth.
“Has Corinne come through here?” Ada asked.
Gordon pointed silently toward the door leading into the club. Ada could hear muffled shouts and banging that could only be the bulls, tearing the place apart in search of hemopaths. She swallowed the acidic fear rising in her throat. She didn’t know if her escape had been reported to the local precinct yet. She did know that the next time they arrested her, they’d lock her so deep in Haversham Asylum that even Corinne would never be able to find her.
Ada sucked in a ragged breath and climbed the five steps to the door. She turned the brass handle in slow, agonizing degrees and pushed her palm against the smooth wood until the door creaked open a couple of inches. She peered through the crack, expecting any second that someone would yank it open from the other side. She could see Danny behind the bar, arguing with one of the cops.
After a few seconds, Danny caught sight of her and inclined his head toward the stage in the briefest of gestures, then resumed his vehement denial that he’d ever seen any hemopath activity in the Cast Iron. The backstage door was open, and Corinne was being prodded by a burly uniformed officer onto the stage and down the steps to the dance floor. She was loudly declaring that she’d only come here for a good time and had never so much as talked to a hemopath in her life. Ada bit her lip, thinking that they might actually be convinced. Corinne’s dress was nice enough, and she knew how to carry herself like a blue blood.
Then another cop produced a burnished gray rod, no bigger than a pencil, and Ada knew it was over. She didn’t let herself think anymore. There was no time for that. She was halfway to the stage when the cop pressed the iron against Corinne’s neck and her gasp of pain revealed her as a hemopath. They were grabbing their earplugs as Ada reached the microphone, the melody already thrumming in her throat. She’d hummed only a few notes when the hands started lowering, earplugs forgotten. She watched their faces as they searched the room in confusion. They spotted her, but not soon enough. Their faces were already slack, eyes glazing over.
Since the law had passed six months ago, there had been a push in law enforcement to develop hemopath-resistance techniques. Given enough time, the cops would probably find ways to withstand emotions and illusions, but Ada had been honing her skill a lot longer than they had been learning to resist it.
It was a fluid melody that she offered, deceptively complex—but then trust was a complex feeling. With enough focus, she could concentrate the full force of the music on the cops in the room. Danny would still feel residual effects, but he would be able to keep his head about him at least.
Corinne looked up and met Ada’s eyes. She was smiling. She extricated herself easily from the cops, who were standing in dumb fascination, ready to believe anything that Corinne wanted to tell them . . . or show them.
She patted the shoulder of the man next to her in an exaggerated show of sympathy. Then she started to speak to them in quiet tones. She was fiddling with her brass pocket watch, a habit that had become a ritual. They hung on her every word, nodding occasionally, even laughing once. Ada focused on her melody, layering trust and blurring the edges of their memory. The instinctual harmony between her and Corinne extended beyond the shows they played for regs.