Kicking It

THE PARLOR BY LUCIENNE DIVER

“Tell me again how on earth you got talked into wearing booty shorts,” Christie said, with a laugh at my expense.

“Forget the booty shorts—would you take a look at these boots? I look like a fembot alien queen.”

She eyed my knee-high boots with their three-and-a-half-inch Plexiglas stiletto heels and the rest in a silver so shiny I could blind passing motorists. The matching silver short shorts and halter top weren’t see-through, but only because they didn’t have to be. They didn’t leave anything to the imagination.

“They are kind of Hooters-meets–space brothel.”

I groaned, took a step forward, and nearly fell on my face. I should have insisted on hazard pay.

“Okay, enough fun,” I told her. “You’re supposed to be teaching me how to walk in these damn things and how not to kill customers for tucking tips into inappropriate places.”

“You should have just sent me in.”

I eyed Christie—five-ten, one hundred and twelve pounds of blond, blue-eyed runway gorgeosity. She was my best friend, and she was tougher than she looked—she had to be. But patrons of The Parlor would probably eat her alive.

“Honey, I can’t afford you.”

“True,” she said without a trace of gloat. She made more in one shoot than I made in two weeks of PI work . . . or longer when times were lean, like now. It’d be a wonderful thing to get on my high horse and say I didn’t take dirty, low-down, cheating-rat-bastard cases (my client’s words), but beggars couldn’t be choosers, especially after the memorable incident a few weeks past with the singing fish possessed by Poseidon, who’d gotten pissy with me and tried his best to flood me out, doing extensive water damage to my office and leaving me with a sky-high deductible and an insurance company that would barely return my calls.

“Anyway, all I have to do is get in, get surveillance photos, and get out.”

She gave me a once-over. “Where are you going to hide your camera?” she asked dubiously.

“Hair clip.” I showed her the gaudy silver bow I’d rigged.

“Better facial recognition if you hide it in your cleavage. That’s where everyone will be looking.”

“Christie!”

“What? It’s not like I’m wrong.”

My client—cheating-rat-bastard’s wife, Marta—was convinced her husband was having an affair. He was smart enough to keep it off the credit cards, but his huge cash withdrawals and occasional guilt gifts had painted her a picture. Spontaneous diamond studs were almost always a dead giveaway. But in this case, I wasn’t so sure. I’d tracked her husband, Gareth, all week, and until last night his routine had been that of any other mild-mannered professor. There were no rumors of closed-door meetings with his students, and the only late nights had been spent in the lab with his myopic male research assistant . . . not that that necessarily meant anything.

But last night he’d come here, to The Parlor. He’d pulled an all-nighter, but not at the office or the lab as he’d told his wife. When several hours had passed and he hadn’t emerged, I’d followed him in, inspired by boredom and curiosity.

I found a gambling club in serious need of a miracle makeover. The chandeliers hanging from the high ceilings looked like jellyfish, with little lights swimming among the tentacles, providing enough illumination for patrons to avoid tripping over their own feet but not enough to notice the stains or wear marks on the really gnarly carpet, patterned like a clown had scattered Technicolor confetti and it had stuck. Of Gareth there was no sign. He’d disappeared like a six-pack at the Super Bowl.

I haunted the restrooms for a while, waiting for my mythical boyfriend to finish his business and watching the ebb and flow, getting a feel for the club. The Parlor wasn’t the kind of place a man went for an illicit liaison—not unless he was courting one of the cocktail waitresses. From what I could see, it was much more about making time with Lady Luck. It didn’t have the flash and pop of a Vegas casino with shows and dancing fountains or the Old World glitz and glamour of a Monte Carlo establishment. The Parlor was for the hard-core gamblers. There was eye candy in the form of the waitstaff, even a few men who looked like Rocky from The Rocky Horror Picture Show in their tiny silver shorts. But mostly there was a club full of chain-smoking, chain-drinking patrons looking for another kind of score. My precognition sat up and took notice, sending a little jolt through my system, letting me know there was danger about. But what kind? If I weren’t working, would it warn me off a bad bet? Help me at the tables? Or was the temptation to try for a quick score exactly the kind of trouble I faced?

It was in poking around for the off-limits and VIP areas, trying to find my wayward quarry, that I’d met Red. Or rather, he’d gone out of his way to meet me. “Meet” being a euphemism, of course, for intercept and potentially subdue. I debated giving him the gorgon glare, freezing him in his tracks, but I couldn’t be sure I’d get into the VIP section and out before he would unfreeze, and then I’d be in for it. I’d save that as a last resort and see where bluffing got me.

“Can I help you, miss?” he asked, stepping right into my path.

He was a mountain of a man, and it would have been hard to miss him even if I hadn’t been on the lookout for security. He was dressed much more subtly than the rest of the employees, in jeans and a short-sleeved black button-down shirt, which must have been specially made, because there was no frickin’ way a standard size could have covered those biceps. That didn’t stop him from leaving several buttons open to deal with his oversized pecs. He didn’t fill in the gaps with any gaudy chains. They would only have ruined the view.

But I’d seen Detective Nick Armani in full flagrante delicto, and while I couldn’t say that made me immune to Red’s charms, it did leave me able to form complete sentences.

“Miss? Well, thank God for that. I think if you’d ma’amed me, you’d have finished me off.”

He gave me a look of great confusion. I got that a lot. “The back room is by invitation only.” He forged on, standing between me and the curtained-off area I’d been about to explore. “Were you looking for something? Maybe I can help.”

“What does it take to get invited?” I asked, batting the one gift the gods had given me—my thick, dark lashes that looked like falsies and weren’t.

He grinned like he appreciated the effort, but not like it was having the desired effect. “You ain’t got it.”

He hadn’t given me the once-over, hadn’t consulted any sort of list, mental or otherwise. I’d looked for the telltale eye movement.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“Look, you seem like a nice girl—”

I dove in before he could give me the speech. “Oh, please! I’m desperate! My no-good, lousy, cheating, thieving ex cleaned out our bank account, and we were already behind on the rent. If I can’t leverage my coffee-can money into enough to get caught up, I’m going to be out on my ass. I need higher stakes than the rinky-dink tables out here.”

He looked at said ass—or tried to, anyway. Since it was behind me, he had other real estate in the way, but he didn’t seem to mind. “You a gambler?” he asked.

“I am tonight.”

“Uh-huh. Those guys back there’d eat you alive. You ever waited tables?”

I eyed him back. “Why?”

“Just answer the question.”

“That’s how I put my stupid ex through school, and now—”

“One of our girls just quit,” he cut in. I let the sexism of “our girls” slide right by, but it cost me. “You want to earn some extra money, we could use you. Tips are pretty good, I hear, especially if someone gets lucky. A hundred, two hundred a night sometimes.”

That was where the booty shorts came in. It was also how I came to be waiting for my drink order at a bar made of glass block like you’d see in a shower. It might have been cool but for the blue light behind it that had me expecting my Close Encounter of the Third Kind any minute.

Unfortunately, a guy seated in my section, whom I’d dubbed Mr. Musk—for obvious reasons—wanted a close encounter of his own. If he wasn’t careful, it was going to be with the heel of my boot. As satisfying as that would be, it wouldn’t get me any closer to payday, or to my quarry.

According to Marta, Gareth had called, claiming to be pulling another all-nighter at the lab. Tonight I was going to get intel for her on what he was really up to. I’d thought I’d have greater access as an employee than as a random mark off the street, but so far all I had to show for my efforts were blisters on my feet, bruises on my butt from men’s pinching fingers, and some seriously high blood pressure. I understood exactly why my predecessor had quit. I was counting the minutes until my first break, and then I planned on doing some serious reconnaissance. Already I was coming to know the patterns, and noticing that one of the bouncers disappeared frequently to deal with what I assumed to be overactive-bladder issues. But Red—he was the ultimate immovable object.

Until she walked out from the off-limits area. My precog went off like a slot machine that had come up sevens across the board, and Red actually stepped away from his post for a word with her. She wore big black aviator sunglasses that matched her shiny black dress, which was fitted at the top to show off considerable skin and then flared, longer in the back than in the front and with a kind of bustle or hoop to bell it out around her backside. She looked like Trinity from The Matrix all dressed up for a costume ball. Yet, strangely, it worked for her, probably because the power rolling off her in waves kept her from being overwhelmed by her couture, making it complement instead of clash. At a guess, this was her Parlor . . . And all the men and women merely players. Wow, it wasn’t often that my brain defaulted to Shakespeare. Macbeth at that . . . not a good sign.

I looked away as her gaze swept the room, for some reason not wanting to catch her eye. That precog again, warning me. I still didn’t know what the danger was, but I now had a crystal clear idea of where it emanated from. As one of the two harried bartenders leaned close to take my drinks order, I asked him first, “That the boss?” I twitched my head in her direction.

The bartenders got to wear skintight silver pants that were, if possible, even worse than the short shorts. This one had shot glasses strung on bandoliers across his impressive chest. It was the oddest look. Mad Max meets Starlight Express. His chocolate brown eyes flickered toward the lady in question. “Yup. What can I get you?”

“She looks like a hard-ass. And sunglasses in here—is she kidding?”

The bartender huffed impatiently. “Do you have drink orders for me or are you just trying to chat me up? I don’t have time for this.”

So much for my womanly wiles. Christie would be so disappointed.

I gave him my order rather than blow my cover, and I watched the lady work the room as I waited. She air-kissed those who greeted her, slid her hand familiarly over the shoulders of others—regulars, I guessed—who were too focused on what they were doing to pay her any attention. She stopped by a table or two, exchanging meaningful glances and sometimes nods with the dealers, and then she slipped back into the off-limits area toward the back, as silently as she’d entered.

I had to get back there, past Red and whatever other security there might be. I didn’t have what it took to make their invitation-only games, but I bet I knew who did. Apollo Demas. Actor, agent, and general pain in my ass.

Gareth never made it home that night, not even in the wee hours of the morning. A frantic Marta called me at six a.m., a mere few hours after I’d gotten off shift and wound down enough to sleep. In the old days, before I’d pissed off some of the greater gods, I might not even have heard the phone, but with my new unasked-for powers of perception, I reached for it before it even rang. The opening notes of Santana’s “Oye Como Va” played out as I struggled to focus and find the right fingering on the phone to accept the call. I did it with probably milliseconds to spare and said a groggy “’Ello.”

The tears came through first. “He never came home!” Marta wailed. “I know I called him a cheating bastard, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want him back. And I never called him that to his face. Do you think he’s left me? What did you find? Is she young? And pretty? And, oh, God, Tori, you have to help me. Tell him . . . just tell him . . .”

She broke up then, and the sobbing was more than I could take.

“Marta,” I said, semi-sharply, trying to cut through the tears. “Wait up a second. If I hadn’t gotten in after two a.m., I’d have called you with a report. I figured it could wait until morning, but now . . . Listen, he’s not having an affair. At least, I don’t think so. He’s gambling.”

She broke off in midsob and stunned silence reigned. “Gambling? But he’s way too smart for that.”

“Smart enough, maybe, to feel like he could beat the system or count cards or find some other edge?”

More silence. “Maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t have said he’d sneak out on me at all, but now . . . Oh, I know I shouldn’t have insisted on that Sub-Zero refrigerator, especially with our son needing all his crazy orthodontics. Did I tell you they need to reset his whole jaw?”

She hadn’t. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. But however Gareth’s gambling had started, if he’d made it to the invitation-only games, he was in deep. Maybe even to addiction level. Marta was right to worry.

“I’m sure he hasn’t left you,” I said with more assurance than I felt. If he was an addict, he might not leave physically, but his new passion and priorities might amount to the same thing emotionally. I struggled with how much to tell her. “He’s probably just on a roll or . . . something. The club is closed for the night, but I doubt that means anything for the backroom games. I haven’t been able to crack the inner sanctum yet, but I have a plan.”

“Oh, Tori, please, you have to get him out of there. We’ll get him into a twelve-step program. Whatever. Just tell him to come home. I’ll return the fridge.”

I almost smiled at that. At least Marta had her priorities straight. “I’ll tell him. Let me get my plans in motion. I’ll call you as soon as I can, but I’m not sure how quickly I can make things happen.”

“I’ll stay by the phone.”

So that was it. I was going to have to call Apollo. I’d known it since last night, and yet I’d hesitated. I already owed Apollo my life, and I knew just how he wanted to collect. Even if I wasn’t taken by a certain hunky police detective with midnight blue eyes and dark hair that fell half over them when he ruffled it in frustration, as he often did where I was involved, I would have known better than to get involved with Apollo. For one thing, there was his track record. Mythology was chock-full of his tragic loves. For another, I was pretty certain that I had nothing to offer him after his millennia of experience, and I knew that if . . . when . . . he grew tired of me, I’d be left bereft. Why let myself in for an unhappy ending I didn’t need my precognition to predict? (Not that it worked like that. I couldn’t actually see the future, sadly. It was more like I had an early warning system where danger was concerned.)

I looked at the clock. Six eleven a.m. Definitely too early to call Apollo. I debated it anyway and decided that I’d have a better chance of catching him in the mood to humor me if I gave him a few more hours of sleep. I could use more myself.

But those hours of sleep turned out to be more elusive than an invitation to The Parlor’s inner sanctum. After half an hour or so of tossing and turning, I gave it up and rose. My oversized Arctic Monkeys T-shirt was crinkled beyond belief, but there was no one to see or care, since Nick’s and my schedules weren’t syncing up at the moment, so I just pulled my wild mane of hair back into a scrunchie and booted up my computer. Undercover work was all well and good, but there was something to be said for public records searches. The owner of the club would be a matter of public record, and if the place had ever been featured in any kind of press piece, any partners or major players would likely be mentioned, maybe even pictured. A few keystrokes and all would be revealed.

And sure enough, there she was, in an old issue of L.A. Days, a free daily that was more advertisement than actual news. THE PARLOR IS A GAMBLE, the headline read. It went on to talk about how the club had been investigated as the common denominator in the disappearance of a couple of out-of-state businessmen who were seen to enter but never to leave.

“Which is just defamatory,” says club owner Ariana Weaver. “Of course they left. The police have been through The Parlor from top to bottom. If the men had stayed behind, someone would have located them. I don’t see where my mail goes when it’s picked up, but I trust that it’s not still hiding out in my mailbox.”

My heart started to beat faster, as if my body was trying to tell me what my mind was smart enough to figure out for itself—that this was important. There was a picture of Ariana, standing beside her glass-block bar, just as I’d seen her today, in the wraparound aviator shades, but this time in a black satin jacket with a hood lined in red pulled up around her face, making her seem mysterious, as if she had something to hide. Probably that was the impression the photographer had been going for, given the headline and the direction of the story. But the really telling thing was that she didn’t look a day older last night than she’d looked in the picture, and the article was dated fifteen years ago. I wondered what she was hiding behind those aviator shades besides maybe crow’s-feet.

I looked around for other news of the case and found a reference here and there to the missing businessmen, but as far as I could tell they’d never been found. For anything more in-depth, though, I’d be scrolling through old microfiche at the library. I didn’t think that was going to be necessary. My Spidey senses told me that The Parlor had been involved with the missing businessmen. Just like Gareth? I wouldn’t think that way. He would be found. I was on it.

I made a decision and picked up the phone to call Apollo. It rang four times and I’d resigned myself to voice mail when he finally answered and grumbled into the phone, “No. Whatever it is, no. Unless you want my body, in which case you can get over here and tell me in person.”

He hung up. Just like that. I’d never been good at taking “no” for an answer. Well, he’d issued the invitation. I did want his body, just not quite in the way nature—or Apollo—intended.

I’d been to Apollo’s home exactly once, when he’d saved me from a watery grave and I’d woken from oblivion to find myself unclothed, with a big, buff, nearly naked sun god sharing his body heat and quite willing to share a whole lot more. In his defense, I had been one step away from hypothermia and he had stopped when I’d . . . reluctantly . . . called a halt to things. I didn’t really want to tempt fate again by dropping in unannounced, but he’d left me no other choice.

I came with peace offerings from Duffy’s—pastries, croissants, chocolate croissants, those little bite-sized cherry and apple pies, and both coffee and espresso, since I wasn’t sure which he preferred. I’d loaded my bag down with every kind of creamer and sweetener known to man and hoped for the best.

The doorman, it turned out, not only remembered me, but succumbed to a bribe of coffee and cream puffs and let me into Apollo’s apartment without buzzing him, although he did consult a list first, probably of crazy stalker chicks to keep out and crazy hot stalker chicks who were allowed to disturb Apollo’s rest. I was glad I fell into the latter category, even if I didn’t agree with the final analysis.

I shut the door to the penthouse apartment behind me with a bump of the hip, since my hands were full, and heard Apollo cry out, but I couldn’t tell if it was at the intrusion or something in his sleep. I’d find out soon enough. I followed the sound and my memory toward his room. Light filtered in through semi-sheer curtains, but it hadn’t woken Apollo, who lay tangled in his sheets, his bedcoverings spilling all over the floor, as if he’d had a rough night. His deeply tanned chest rose and fell more rapidly than normal, and as I entered he thrashed about, still fighting whatever battle his bed linens had lost. I set my bag and coffee tray down on his entertainment center across from the bed and approached cautiously, well aware from my own night terrors that one good thrash could mean a black eye, and there would go my tips for the night.

I called to him softly as I approached, hoping to wake him from a distance. “No, Tori!” I heard him call, and thought I might have been getting through, but then he followed it up with “Don’t!”

As I reached the bed, he lashed out suddenly, grabbing blindly at my hand and yanking me down, then rolling on top of me to pin me beneath him. I looked up, half afraid, into his blind eyes and called, “Apollo, it’s me!” I grabbed for one of the hands that held me pinned and pinched him hard to snap him out of it.

It took another pinch before the veil of sleep cleared his eyes and he looked down into mine, and another second before I thought he was actually seeing me.

“Tori?” he asked. “What . . . what are you . . . Tori, you’re in danger.”

“So I gathered, but that was only in your dreams,” I said, trying to squirm out from under him, but his grip just tightened as he tried to make me understand.

“Lucid dreams,” he said, his turquoise eyes staring intensely into mine. “God of prophecy, remember? Did . . . did you call earlier?”

“I did.”

“Must have been what set me off.”

He rolled aside, but the sheets fell away just enough to reveal his assets . . . all of them. Apparently without a guest present he slept in the nude. So he had been acting the gentleman the last time I’d been here, at least by some definitions of it. I should have looked away. I tried, but managed only to avert my face. My eyes had a mind of their own. And what I could glimpse out of my peripheral vision . . .

“Enjoying the view?” Apollo asked, making no move to hide a thing.

“S’all right,” I lied. Damn, I’d forgotten the empathetic link his stupid “gift” had opened up between us.

He smiled at me over his shoulder and finally wrapped a sheet around himself towel style and went to check out my bribes. Maybe not the delicacies he’d been offered up on Mount Olympus, but pretty darn near the best L.A. had to offer.

He grabbed an espresso and both of the chocolate croissants and came back to bed. “I hope one of those is for me,” I told him.

“What do you have to trade?” he asked suggestively.

I growled and rose to help myself to one of the tiny cherry pies instead, biting it in half like it was his head. He laughed.

“Here,” he said, holding a croissant out to me. “I can’t stand to see you commit pastrycide.”

I bit into one of the croissants, closed my eyes in delight, and nearly sank into the bed, which was every bit as comfortable as I remembered. Hopefully, the sugar rush would hit soon and make up for my lack of sleep.

A pillow hit me upside the head, careful not to crush my croissant. “None of that,” Apollo said when I glared. “If anything’s going to pleasure you to sleep, it’s going to be me. Now spill. What’s going on that’s so important you had to beard the lion in his den?”

The lion’s den? Come to think of it, with that wild mane of golden hair, his tawny skin, and broad chest, it was an apt comparison.

I told him about Gareth, The Parlor, the invitation-only games, and the disappearances. Then I told him about Ariana Weaver. He got more and more thoughtful as the tale went on.

When I finished, he didn’t say a word, and I finally asked, “What?”

“I think you should drop the case. If it had anything to do with my dream . . .”

“Tell me about it,” I said gently.

“I saw fangs. You paralyzed, being sucked dry . . .” The haunted look was back in his eyes.

“Vampires?” I asked doubtfully. I thought about Ariana Weaver—dark glasses, dark clothing, a club that meant she’d be active at night and probably asleep by day . . . But I just couldn’t buy it. For one thing, she’d been captured on film. “Do vampires really exist?”

Apollo shrugged and the sheet he’d wrapped around his hips began to slip. “Depends on your definition. There are certainly things that go bump in the night. Some like the taste of blood. But I’m not sure that’s it. There was something . . . different . . .”

“Different how?” I prompted.

“Maybe if you’d let the dream play out . . .”

I stared down at the crumbs now decorating Apollo’s previously clean sheets. There was just no way to eat a croissant neatly. None. “So you’ll help me?” I asked.

He looked at me steadily. I could feel it even without meeting his gaze. “I’m trying, Tori. You told me to stay away, to give you and Nick a chance. I’m trying to honor that, but every time you pull me back in.”

“I know,” I said quietly, “but—”

“Have you tried calling the police? Having the wife file a missing person’s report?”

“Didn’t do any good the last time, fifteen years ago . . . if that was the last time. The men were never found.” Gareth wouldn’t be, either, not unless we found him. I felt it in my bones. “Will you help?” I repeated.

I looked up at last, and saw Apollo swipe a hand down his face. “You know I will. If the alternative is that dream coming true . . . I’ll help. But, Tori, you’ll owe me.”

That was the problem with gods, and what kept me from giving in to whatever was between me and Apollo. With gods, everything came with a cost. But in the balance of a man’s life versus complications for me, I knew which way the pendulum had to swing.

Since I couldn’t think of any good way to break into The Parlor during the day without getting caught, it seemed safe enough to call Detective Armani—Nick—and fill him in, just in case we were about to get in the middle of a police investigation or some such. He confirmed that Gareth hadn’t been missing long enough to officially launch an investigation and also unofficially confided that The Parlor had been named as a “last known” location in other cases that had led nowhere. I was ordered to be careful. And, if possible, to hang on to my waitressing outfit, because “That I have to see.”

Men. What was it about boots and booty shorts?

I promised, thinking of all the fun that would come after.

Then I had the day ahead of me to plan, to obsess and worry over my missing scientist. I had to hope that whatever was happening was on pause for the day, which I spent finding creative ways to hide lock picks, pepper spray, and an actual stiletto in the limited amount of fabric my costume provided. By nightfall I was as ready as I was ever going to be. Apollo had gotten himself invited into a game, and we had arranged for him to text or call me, his needy girlfriend, periodically to let me know what he’d learned.

We thought we’d planned for everything. We were wrong.

I arrived early for my shift, hoping I’d find some unguarded doorway or some other opportunity to poke around. To that end, I wore crepe-soled shoes, dark-wash jeans and a black T-shirt, the better for sneaking around. My stilettos and minuscule costume rested in a string backpack tossed carelessly over my shoulder. Anyway, there was no way I was walking the L.A. streets in them. Not unless I really wanted to make some extra cash and wasn’t too particular about the way I went about it.

But the doors weren’t open yet, even for employees, which meant I had to knock and Red had to eyeball me through the keyhole to approve my entrance. So much for stealth. Once I was inside, he announced, “You’re early.” And not like it was a good thing.

“Problem with that?” I asked. “I can be late tomorrow to make up for it.”

The right side of his mouth twitched at that, and I thought I might actually get a smile, but he fought it valiantly.

“Better not be. Boss lady wouldn’t like it.”

Boss lady. It was what my assistant, Jésus (pronounced Hey-Zeus), called me. Times like these I missed the hell out of him. I could only imagine his scathing commentary on the place. “Tinfoil bikinis? Really? It’s like The Wizard of Oz meets the deli counter. If I only had a style . . .” I could hear it now, like he was whispering in my ear.

“Speaking of the boss lady—,” I began.

“Yeah, she wants to meet you, too. There was a lot going on last night. She didn’t get to give you her blessing and the new employee orientation. I’m sure you’ll meet her tonight.”

Oh goody, goody gumdrops. I felt like someone had walked over my grave while I was still in it, very much alive and screaming to be heard. It was not a pleasant feeling.

I pasted a smile on my face as though I were looking forward to it.

“Since you’re here, you can help Tonio out behind the bar. He just got in a new shipment.”

Sure, it was Friday night. Had to stock up for the weekend. “No problem,” I answered. “Just let me get changed.” If I wasn’t able to sneak, at least maybe I could distract.

The waitstaff did have a tiny locker room at the back, and I’d been assigned a cubby along with my costume, but the room itself didn’t open onto anything but a bathroom with a few stalls so we didn’t have to take up those meant for customers. I’d checked it all out the night before. If there were any secret entrances or exits, they were well concealed. I looked again just to be sure that I had the place to myself, knocking on walls, reaching into unassigned and thus unlocked cubbies, but I found nothing and couldn’t stay long. I was expected out front.

I checked my cell phone before setting it down on the bench beside the bag, from which I pulled my shiny silver shorts. Apollo was supposed to call or text me every hour so that I’d know he was okay. There was a message waiting for me already.

ALL SET FOR THE GAME, BUT APPARENTLY THE FIRST RULE IS “NO ELECTRONICS.” WON’T BE ABLE TO TEXT OR CALL. IF I’M IN TROUBLE, WILL DO MY BEST TO RADIATE IT OUT THROUGH OUR LINK. SAME GOES FOR YOU. KEEP AN “EAR” OUT.

That feeling of someone walking over my grave escalated. Now I had two graves to worry about. Two graves and no plan but divide and conquer. ’Cause that worked out so well in horror films. At least there wasn’t any hanky-panky going on with us. That would have been the kiss of death.

My brain was doing what it always did under stress—bibble. I finished my quick change and left the locker room behind me, going back to the bar, where I was sure Tonio would give me something to do besides wait and worry.

Tonio turned out to be the bartender in the silver pants and shot glass bandolier from the night before. Without all that, he looked like a normal guy in a faded khaki Metal Mulisha T-shirt, jeans, and boots. His dark hair was spiked up and his chinstrap beard nicely highlighted the lines of his face. He had nickel-sized plug earrings in both ears, black on the outer rim, toxic green on the interior.

I was cutting lemon wedges when I casually asked him what had happened to my predecessor and why we were short-staffed. Was she yet another disappearance that could be laid at The Parlor’s door?

“Amber?” he asked. “She just ditched. Couldn’t take it anymore. I hear she got a job dancing somewhere on the Sunset Strip.”

“Did she give notice?”

Tonio gave me a “get real” look. “No one gives notice. It’s not that kind of job. Lots of turnover. Here one day, gone the next.”

I tried to look impressed. “Sounds like you’ve seen it all.”

“Been here almost a year.”

“Seems like they’d have you in the VIP room by now. Bet the tips are better back there.”

He studied me. “That what you’re angling for? I wouldn’t hold your breath. It’s based on seniority, and sister, you just got here.”

I gave him a cheeky grin, less effective since I wasn’t showing much actual cheek . . . not the kind most guys were interested in, anyway. “Honey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve got at least five years on most of these girls. I get much more senior in this biz and they’ll put me out to pasture. I don’t have time to wait my turn.”

Tonio did smile at that and gave me a really good once-over. Up, down, and back to my face. I’d been told by an ex-boyfriend once that I was “good enough for television,” which in La La Land was like saying I had a great personality. Kickboxing classes and wrestling with Latter-Day Olympians had kept me in shape, but I wouldn’t be winning any wet T-shirt contests, let alone pageants. “Honey,” he said back to me, “don’t sell yourself short. I didn’t ask, so you don’t tell. You can pass for a twentysomething. Hell, I’d give you a tumble if you were my type.”

“You’d be on,” I answered, because he’d about made my day. “So, no advice for moving on up?”

“Keep the customers happy and don’t step on any more toes.”

“Oh, you noticed that, huh?”

I’d accidentally mashed Mr. Musk’s toes beneath my stiletto heels when he startled me by grabbing for something other than his drink one time too many. It would have been hard for anyone to miss the shriek he’d let out, but I’d been hoping. I was lucky not to have been fired on the spot.

“Don’t worry, hon. I’m sure he deserved it.”

That was that. But I had no intention of working my way up the company ladder. One way or another, I was getting behind the scenes tonight.

It was killing me not knowing what was going on back there, not knowing whether Gareth was okay . . . or Apollo . . . So when I felt that first spike of apprehension from him, I was ready to go. I handed my tray off to Stacy, another of the waitresses, and promised she could keep my tips if she’d look after my tables. I blamed feminine issues. She huffed, but didn’t turn me down, and as soon as I was free, I struggled to walk rather than run toward the invitation-only area at the back.

Red, of course, blocked my way. I stared straight into his eyes, gave him the gorgon glare, and put my force of will behind it, ordering, “Freeze.”

He stiffened, and I waved a hand in front of him to be sure it had taken. When he didn’t so much as blink, I stepped around him, my inner alarm klaxons blaring so loudly I could barely hear myself think. Like I didn’t know danger lurked behind that curtain. Steeling myself to push past the adrenaline-fueled fear that wanted to flood my system, I lifted the curtain to slip into the inner sanctum . . . right into the clutches of Ariana Weaver.

What use was an alarm, Apollo would ask me, if I didn’t heed it? A good question. One I hoped to live long enough to explore.

I stared into Ariana’s shades, hoping I’d be able to see the eyes behind them, but as far as I could tell, they were black holes. I knew I’d have no luck getting through to her, not unless I could knock her glasses askew, but she was holding me by the upper arms, and grinning, her lips curled up strangely to reveal fangs. Fangs. I’d never been agog before in my life, but this would probably qualify.

“Welcome to my Parlor, said the spider to the fly,” she crooned, and pincers came out of the sides of her mouth, explaining the strange curl. They clashed ominously and everything fell into place.

The Parlor. The bustle gown, all the better to hide an extended thorax. The dark glasses . . . If I knocked them off, I suddenly knew I’d find multifaceted eyes—spider’s eyes. Ariana Weaver . . . Arachne? Here? I’d expect maybe a dark cave somewhere, but L.A.? Of course, she was looking surprisingly human these days. The gods’ power had faded so much when their worship had waned . . . Maybe the transformative magic that had made her into a monster was waning as well. It would explain so much. But not what had become of the missing men. Had she spun them up in her web? Made a meal of them? Was that why there’d been nothing left to find?

“I’m no fly,” I told her, trying out my bravado. Inside, though, I was quaking. Of all the ways I didn’t want to die, becoming a monster’s meal was probably at the top of the list.

“No, you aren’t, at that. I saw what you did to Red. I have eyes everywhere, my dear. Eyes in the back of my head . . . or mounted on my walls. It’s all the same. I’ve never had gorgon get. It will be a new experience for me.”

Her tongue slipped out from between the mandibles that were distorting her speech. It was black as night, but surprisingly human in shape. It was a wonder she didn’t cut it on her teeth.

“Do you like games?” she asked.

Ariadne did, if I remembered my mythology right. That’s what had gotten her arachnified to begin with—or rather, given spiders their classification name, since she’d owned it first—Athena’s insult that Arachne would dare think herself exceptional enough to challenge the goddess with her weaving.

“Um, sure, as long as it’s a fair contest and the stakes are right.”

“What do you say to a life for a life?”

Fear scrabbled at my heart, gripping hard, squeezing until I could barely breathe. I’d sent Apollo into her lair. If anything happened to him, it would be all my fault.

She cocked her head at my reaction. I wished I could read her eyes. “Ah, I see, you thought I meant the Olympian. Yes, I knew who he was the second he reached out. Be assured, little gorgon, he is still playing my game. He hasn’t yet lost and so is not yet subject to my rules. However, his luck has just taken a turn for the worse. He will be mine soon enough. You see, in my Parlor, the house always wins. No, gorgon girl. I’ve had you checked out, as I do all new employees. I know who you are and that you’re here for the scientist—Athena’s own. His blood will be all the sweeter because of it, but he is hardly sporting. Now, you, my love”—she chucked me fondly under the chin, and it was all I could do not to recoil—“you, unless I’m very much mistaken, are a fighter.”

I glared at her, feeling those sunglasses like a barrier that even my screw you look couldn’t penetrate. A deal . . . my life for Gareth’s. As if I had a real decision to make. Without me, he had no chance. Still, it was a far cry from putting myself into Apollo’s debt for some guy I didn’t even know to giving my life for him. Hell, except for my retainer, I hadn’t even been paid for the job, and here I was facing death to finish it. Because I was pretty sure that’s what she was suggesting.

She watched avidly as all of this flitted across my face and stopped me with a raised hand just as I would have given her my answer. “But wait. I have just realized that I hold all of the cards. The scientist, the gorgon, and, soon, the god. I have no reason to give any of you up.”

“I’m not yours to hold. None of us are.”

“My dear, possession is nine-tenths of the law.” She gave me a shake, hard enough to make my teeth rattle. “And right now, I am in possession. So, we will make it double or nothing. Triple, even. If you survive, you all go free. If not . . .”

The alarm klaxons weren’t just screaming. They were about to shake apart. The house always wins. I strongly suspected that Ariadne liked to stack the deck. If she thought even for a moment that I would survive, she would never have made the offer.

“I can’t speak for Apollo,” I said, feeling him from a room away or more. He was aware of my distress. How could he miss it? And his own worry was creating a feedback loop I could barely stand. But we couldn’t read each other’s minds, and I couldn’t warn him or tell him to shut it, no matter how much I might want to.

“I don’t see that you have a choice,” she said with a truly scary smile.

She whipped off the glasses with a flourish and I flinched from her compound eyes and the million visions of my doom.

Red tore through the curtain just then, ready to hit something. He stopped cold when he saw me locked in Ariadne’s grasp, and a sick smile spread across his face.

“The Pit?” he asked, completely unsurprised by the sight of Ariadne exposed.

Ariadne continued to stare me down. “What will it be, my dear? Will you champion your companions or shall I arrange the scientist’s sudden death?”

As if there was a choice.

Red grabbed me and began to pull me away as Ariadne called to a minion unseen, perhaps on one of the many cameras she’d mentioned, “Rally the troops and tell them to place their bets. Challenge in ten!”

Ten minutes? Who were the troops? Her minions? Those betting on the outcome of the battle? How frequent an occurrence was this that she could pull it all together so quickly? Even though I was facing my own doom, the questions wouldn’t stop. Or the urge to investigate.

Red swept me into a freight elevator, and thick metal doors closed ominously behind us. He patted me down, stealing my only weapons—the pepper spray, lock picks, and even my hidden dagger. Once he’d secured them all on his own person, he took a key from his pants pocket and inserted it into a slot on the elevator panel, which opened up to reveal a second set of buttons. He pressed the button for the basement, I assumed—and my heart sank as we started to descend. My precog had gone past high alert and onto overload. My head rang like the inside of a bell, and the reverb shot all-points bulletins to my extremities and everywhere in between.

“Enough!” I yelled. I must have said it out loud, because the word bounced around the elevator and seemed to strike Red right between the eyes, if the look he shot me was any indication.

The alarm klaxons quieted suddenly, leaving me with a resounding silence in which to think. If only I was equipped.

Hard to plan when you didn’t know what you faced and were armed only with a reflective bikini and stiletto heels. Hey, if they put me in a giant microwave, I’d show them. I’d blow that sucker right out.

Somehow I didn’t think it would be that simple.

When the elevator doors opened, we faced a concrete bunkerlike basement, the kind where you might wait out a nuclear holocaust—the kind where no one could hear you scream. He dragged me by the arm down a bare hallway. I desperately wanted to freeze him again, then grab his key and get the hell out, hopefully with Gareth and Apollo in tow. But my alarms started to blare again, and I knew I’d never get out that way. Ariadne had the whole place wired. Probably she could even shut down the elevator remotely. I suspected the only way out was to play her game.

Red opened a door along the hallway, hurled me inside, and slammed the door shut behind me. It closed like a vault door, and I immediately felt like I didn’t have enough air, though I knew it was all in my head. The room was dark but for a single bare bulb too high to reach. To call it a room was actually giving it too much credit. It was more like a closet of poured concrete. There was a crack running down one wall, but it wasn’t even big enough to fit a pinky nail into, and it had been sealed over by spackle as white as bone. Even the single bump in the wall, a ledgelike projection probably meant to be a bench, was concrete, all smooth edges. It wasn’t nearly high enough to stand on to get at the bulb—not that I thought a few pieces of jagged glass would mean the difference between life and death, but you never knew.

The wait almost killed me all by itself. There were few things to do in that tiny concrete room but braid my wild hair as tightly as I could to keep it from getting in my way, panic, and kiss my ass good-bye. Only my ass and I didn’t have that kind of relationship.

The door didn’t open again. Instead, an entire wall slid back, directly across from the door through which Red had thrown me. I wasn’t ready for it when it happened. Or for the roar that rushed in along with the air. I blinked into the lights that blinded me and kept me from seeing what awaited me, but whatever it was, we had an enthusiastic audience. Spectators . . . hungry for blood. Mine ran cold.

I stepped forward, out of my little box, into a narrow corridor with high walls on either side—concrete, of course—that funneled me into a . . . I blinked, my eyes adjusting, but my brain slower to accept . . . a coliseum. Old-school. I stepped out onto a round concrete floor surrounded on all sides by stadium seating. It wasn’t huge—more theater-in-the-round than high school auditorium. The seats were more than half filled, but when I looked around, up toward the lights, I saw cameras as well and wondered if this was being live-streamed to a larger, private audience. I wondered again what I’d be facing and who would be the odds-on favorite. At a guess, it wouldn’t be me. Was there bidding on how long I’d take to die? How many I’d take with me? The manner of my death? I fought not to think like that.

Ariadne was up on a dais with a microphone. In the days of lapel mics and others so small that you could barely see them with the naked eye, this seemed like an affectation, but people in concrete houses didn’t have any stones to throw. I’d barely blinked it all into view when she began.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I have a very special treat for you! Today, our gladiator is something truly unique. The blood of the ancients runs through her. I have seen her in action—or rather, inaction—for here is a woman who can, quite literally, stop men in their tracks.”

The crowd hooted and cheered. One shout of “You go, girl!” was even in a feminine voice. I tried not to let it go to my head. An easy thing when it was spinning with so many thoughts at once. Ariadne had just outed me. Oh sure, most of her crowd probably thought it was showmanship rather than anything serious. And likely there was some kind of code of silence when it came to fights to the death, as in talk and you’re next. But still, a whole host of bloodthirsty and potentially dangerous people now knew my secret. If I ever went up against any of them, it would be without the element of surprise. I couldn’t even prove Ariadne wrong by keeping my power to myself. It was truly all I had.

“Now, my pets today are terribly hungry.” She raised a hand dramatically in the air and let it fall. A door slid back across the arena from me, and my knees almost gave out. There was skittering, and so many legs and bodies that I couldn’t tell one from another. All segmented, all arachnid. But they weren’t getting any closer . . . for the moment. A clear glass barrier was the only thing that held them back. Of all the ways to die, spider swarm had never even been on my radar, but now that it was, I realized there had to be at least half a million ways I’d prefer to go. And only one solution: I had to win.

“I had a meal prepared for them, but our gladiator has valiantly decided to stand in for him. If she wins, he goes free.” She gestured dramatically and yet another door slid open, revealing a man wrapped in a web like a cocoon. I wondered if he could even breathe with all the spider silk over his face. I had to look hard to see his chest still rising and falling. I couldn’t tell if it was Gareth, but whoever the poor bastard was, I was getting him out. Somehow. “If she loses”—the crowd cheered in anticipation—“not only are their lives forfeited, but I collect this sweet specimen of manhood to sweeten the deal.”

Red brought a hooded figure forward, but I could tell from the breadth of the shoulders and the narrowness of the waist who it was even before the hood was ripped away. Apollo, looking stunned. His gaze didn’t immediately drop down to me. He looked odd. Loopy. As if he’d been drugged. Or mesmerized. I couldn’t look for any help from that direction. Dammit, spider-woman would pay.

“Let the games . . . BEGIN!” she shouted, throwing her arm up and snapping above her head like a matador.

Just like that, the seething mass of spiders was released as the glass fell rather than slid away and they swarmed over it. A spike of panic drove into my heart like a needle jam-packed with adrenaline, like the heart-attack scene from Pulp Fiction. I saw movement over on the dais and risked taking my focus off the arachnid army just long enough to see Apollo’s whole body jolt, as if his heart had been goosed by my very own shot of adrenaline. He looked to me, fear and disbelief in his eyes, and I couldn’t risk seeing more.

The army was almost on me.

“Freeze!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, raking my gaze over them, desperate to get my point across. Some obeyed, but they were only shaken off or overrun by the others, who kept on coming. Furry, sticklike, black, white, and gray, some bigger than my hand, they raced for me.

Frantic, I hopped on one foot as I pulled off a boot and swung it like a bat, heel out, at the oncoming tide. I swept a few aside, but others immediately took their places. One clung to the heel and started a slow crawl my way. I yelped and dropped the boot, my one weapon. Probably not my brightest moment.

“FREEZE!” I yelled again. It was all I had, but a tone sounded at almost the same time, and I could barely hear more than the first letter of the word myself, as if someone had grabbed a tuning fork and hit whatever frequency canceled me out.

Legs reached out for my bare shin, and I kicked in a panic. Not gracefully, like I’d been taught in kickboxing. Not effectively. This had to stop. Already one spider climbed. Another leaped for me. I planted my bare foot and lashed out with the booted one, skewering the jumper, impaling it on my stiletto heel. Others were immediately airborne. I kicked, slashed, and whirled. In the groove now, but for as many as I knocked aside or impaled, others reached me, were climbing and crawling and biting. My bare foot was going numb. I didn’t know how long it would be before it was no good to me at all, before I lost my balance and fell to the floor, only to be overrun by spiders.

Not going to happen. I still had my reflective gear. If only I could . . .

I batted away the spiders that had crawled the highest and looked toward the stands, trying to catch Apollo’s eye.

“Apollo!” I yelled. “The sun?”

He looked desperately around, and I thought I saw him nod at me before something skittered across my face, and I squeezed my eyes closed in reflex, swatting desperately at the multi-legged menace. I heard something explode and forced my eyes open again. Another explosion, and glass rained down from the ceiling, from the inset lights there, and the light itself flared. I swatted and bashed and whirled, noting that my left arm wasn’t doing any more than flopping at that moment, but I had to expose enough of my shiny foil farce of an outfit to catch the light. I felt like a Dutch oven as I started to heat up. There were inhuman shrieks from the arachnids all around, and I whirled like a possessed disco ball, throwing off light and spiders in equal measure. I was smoking . . . literally. So hot I had no idea whether it was the lights on my shiny spots or a fever from all my spider bites. My leg gave out, and I went down hard, falling at an awkward angle, limbs not working well enough to catch me, but nothing jumped on my face, and in a moment I realized that the tone had ended and that the spectators were on their feet, roaring with elation or anger . . . I didn’t know. Didn’t care.

But I looked up at the dais and saw through swollen eyes Apollo, still standing, looking down at me with sadness and approval.

Arachne rounded on him, as if to take out her anger, but he clocked her right between the eyes, snapping the bridge of her glasses so that they fell to the ground along with her. Spider lady was down for the count, which I thought meant that I could finally pass out.

No, I couldn’t. There was still Gareth to save. I had to make sure . . .

My brain wasn’t working so well. I felt hot and slow and numb and hurt all at the same time, but I forced myself to sit and then to pull off my one remaining boot . . . clumsily. It took me three tries before Apollo was there to help me.

“You okay?” he asked.

It was a stupid question and I didn’t dignify it with an answer. Instead I pointed at the man cocooned in the web. He rushed to Gareth, and I saw him tear the webbing away, saw Gareth’s face start to appear and could confirm that it was the missing scientist. Then I passed out.

I woke some time later in Apollo’s arms . . . in Apollo’s bed, even, when he shook me awake with, “Here, eat this.”

I blinked my eyes open and realized only one was willing to stay that way. It didn’t matter. I didn’t need sight to know that what he offered was ambrosia and that it would heal me faster than any hospital. Also, that it was highly addictive, and that like any addict, I was always ready to quit, but not right now. Not when I needed it so badly. I didn’t fight it.

“Saved you,” I said a second later, through still-swollen lips. “That make us even?”

“Oh, did you now?” he asked, his gaze ridiculously tender. “And who put me in danger in the first place?”

“Splitting . . . hairs,” I answered.

“Uh-huh.”

“What am I doing here? Where’s Gareth?” Already, talking was easier, and if I wasn’t mistaken, my other eye was starting to open.

“The police raided the place before I could get him loose, so I grabbed you and got out. I knew if they saw you first, they’d insist on paramedics and the hospital, and I didn’t know if you had that kind of time or whether you could even recover from all the spider bites without the ambrosia. But I left the panel open in the elevator and Arachne’s own key in the lock so that they could find him.”

And the audience . . . What had they seen? How much of it would they believe?

He shrugged. “I was more worried about you.”

I was breathing easier now, and the numbness that had overtaken my body was starting to burn off like the morning fog.

“Thank you,” I said finally. It was long overdue. I was usually too busy being pissed off at him for something or other.

“You’re welcome,” he said, looking down at me with something a lot like love. But those he loved tended to meet bad ends . . . worse than becoming spider food. Turning into a tree or ending up with an arrow through the heart or the power to see the fate of Troy but not affect it . . .

I looked away, wondering whether Detective Armani had been in on the raid and what he’d think when he heard the tale of the fembot who’d kicked spider ass.