Afterlight

“Someone’s coming, and I don’t like him,” Eli said close to me, and he turned to the bar. I waited, although I knew who it’d be. I was right.

“Riley Poe. Damn, it is you,” a throaty voice said behind me. “All grown-up.”

I turned and amid the strobe lights stared into a face from my past—one I hadn’t ever planned on encountering again but knew I’d run into tonight. Average-sized, Kelter Phillips wore his usual attire: a collection of black leather, chains, spiked cuffs, and collars, and his signature bald head and black goatee looked exactly as they had when I used to hang with him. Ten years my senior and filthy rich, he now sported a large tat that started at his brow and stretched over his head in a six-inch-wide strip, Mohawk style. The tat was a list of the seven deadly sins, written in Old English and inked in black, with black vines and bloodred roses along the side. The words above his brow read Fuck Virtue, followed by lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride in intricate calligraphy. Damn, he always thought he was a badass. He could smell fresh meat a mile away, and to him I’d always been meat—only back then, I hadn’t known or cared. I pushed past my revulsion and gave Kelter a seductive smile. Eli tensed beside me. “What’s up, Kelter?”

Kelter gave Eli a curious glance and a nod. “Friend of yours?” he asked.

“Yeah, a friend,” I assured him. I’d get nowhere fast if Kelter thought I had the scrutiny of a boyfriend, and I nearly snorted out loud when I thought of what he’d think if he knew Eli was a creature of the afterlight. Beside me, Eli smothered a chuckle. Get out of my head, jackass, I thought. I knew Eli had heard.

“Come with me,” Kelter offered, completely ignoring Eli, and I tried not to shiver with revulsion when he placed his hand on my bare lower back.

“Sure,” I said, looking directly into Kelter’s black-lined eyes. I slid from the barstool and allowed him to guide me into the throng of people dancing. Before I got too far, I glanced over my shoulder; Eli sat watching me with a deadly glare in his eyes. I’ll be okay, I told him in my mind, and allowed the crowd to swallow me up. I wasn’t kidding myself; I knew Eli could see me, hear my heart, and would hear if called for him.

And God help anyone in his path.

Megadeth’s “Bite the Hand” roared through the Panic Room, and I moved seductively to the music; strange bodies moved with me. With my peripheral, I noticed someone standing close to us, and when I turned, the person had slipped back into the crowd. I stared hard through the smoky darkness. It was Eli, and he was everywhere, moving so fast the human eye couldn’t track him. I knew to look for him, and although I couldn’t see him actually change locations, I glimpsed him hovering closer, like a hawk. I got one glimpse of his face; he looked like he wanted to rip Kelter apart. Take it easy, Dupré, I said in my mind, and turned my attention back to the scumbag I was forced to deal with.

Kelter watched me intently as his hands slid down my hips and pulled me closer, and I knew he was already half lit and turned on, the smell of whiskey, marijuana, and cigarettes clinging to him. Suddenly, his hands were on my ass, his crotch grinding against me, and his mouth pressed to my ear. “You look good enough to fuck right here,” he said, obviously thinking his controlling dirty talk would do it for me, and it made me sick to think that at one time, it had done it for me. Now it made me profusely sick, and I tried not to let it show. “That ink is goddamn hot,” he said, and traced my dragons up both arms, then back down again. “All professional now, huh? Got your own business,” he said, moving behind me and groping my hips, pulling me hard against him. His dick was already hard—it probably stayed that way. With all the crap Kelter took, it wouldn’t surprise me to know he’d added Viagra to his repertoire of drugs and walked around with a twenty-four-hour woody. “Wanna go to the back?” he said in my ear, and turned me back around to face him. “Old times, huh, Riley?”

“Depends,” I said loudly over the pounding music. “On what you got back there.”

Without warning, Kelter grabbed my hand and pushed it against his crotch, and he throbbed beneath the leather pants at my touch. I tried to control my reaction; seriously, I did. But a lot had happened since my wild, reckless days at the Panic Room, and I reacted. I grabbed his balls hard, yanked upward and in, and twisted; Kelter’s eyes widened, and he smothered a painful gasp. I could tell he was getting no air at all if the squeaking from his throat and stretched eyeballs meant anything. I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing.

“Nobody forces me anymore,” I said, staring deadpan at Kelter’s agonized face. I squeezed harder. “Like you said—I’m all grown-up, and I didn’t come here for a lay. I don’t trade shit for it anymore. I’ll pay. Cash.” I glared at him. “Understand?”

Kelter nodded because he couldn’t breathe, and I released him. He coughed and drew a few deep breaths, and finally gave me a skeptical look. “Always did like it rough, didn’t you, Poe?”

I shrugged and turned to leave. I knew he’d stop me. He did.

“Okay,” he said, nearly grabbing my arm but thinking better of it. “Come on.” He inclined his head but didn’t touch me. “You remember the way?”

“Yeah,” I said, and followed him. Weaving through the sweating bodies and haze of cigarette smoke, I made my way to the panic rooms. Behind the main floor of the club was a horseshoe-shaped, dimly lit corridor that held the bathrooms. It swung in a half circle back to the main hall, and I knew that in the back was a set of double doors that led to six small rooms—rooms where crazy-weird stuff went on: sex, prostitution, drugs, fantasy role-playing—just about anything. As we squeezed past the people in the corridor, I winced as memories of my old self resurfaced. Near the back, a couple made out against the wall, her short leather skirt riding up her hips as his hand disappeared between her legs. She looked over his shoulder as I passed by and gave me the slightest of smiles, just before her eyes rolled back. Turning my head, I ignored her and continued on. Another small group of people hovered close by, and one guy in particular who stood off alone didn’t really surprise me: Eli. His head was bent, but as I passed he lifted it, and a hot, penetrating gaze met mine, followed by a look of pure hatred at Kelter. I got it, I mouthed to him, but it didn’t change his glare. All I wanted to do was get back into the scene, or at least make Kelter think I wanted back in. Lowlifes of various ages abounded in the panic rooms—but they were mostly buck-wild teens whose parents had no effing clue what they were up to, and Kelter, the sicko that he was, supplied whatever, whenever. Perfect recruits for the Arcoses. Not if I can help it . . .

Kelter stopped at the double doors, withdrew a key from his pocket, and opened the lock. He inclined his head for me to enter, and I did, and the moment I stepped through, the heavy scent of marijuana billowed out. My eyes burned as we walked down another short hall to Kelter’s office. He opened the door, and in a rush, a body flew by me, slamming into me so hard that I stumbled and fell against the wall.

“Goddamn it!” Kelter yelled. At the door, the figure stopped and turned. The figure wore dark ratty jeans and a black hoodie, and a pasty white face peered back at him. My insides froze to ice. It was Riggs Parker. And he turned directly to me and stared.

Part 7

OBSESSIONS

Riggs stared at me for several seconds, and I knew right away that he didn’t recognize me. The feral gaze in his eyes reminded me of a junkie, or worse—a starved animal, one who’d been chained in a grass-less, dirt-covered backyard with no food, no water. It sent shivers down my spine, and just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, he looked away and focused on Kelter. It took everything in my power not to scream, Riggs! You peckerhead! Snap out of it! I knew it would do no good.

“Val says the next time you lock me out, you’re dead,” Riggs said, smirking, dangling a gallon-sized ziplock filled with small, plastic-wrapped packages the size of sausage links in the air, his voice heavy, dark, menacing. A maniacal smile tainted his youthful features. He barely even looked like the Riggs I knew. “Well, look at that,” he said, cocking his head and scrutinizing Kelter. “Looks like you’re already dead, man.” Without another glance my way, he turned and disappeared out the door; I pushed off the wall and ran after him.

In the corridor, I pulled up short and caught a glimpse of Riggs as he pushed out a single steel door. I took off after him. My mind was void of everything; I thought of nothing but finding Seth. The metal bar of the steel door stung my palms as I slammed into it and ran outside and into the dark, dank alley behind the Panic Room. The putrid scent of urine mixed with rain and trash from the Dumpster made me gasp for air, and at the end of the alley, beneath a streetlamp, I saw Riggs. He and several others—I counted seven in all—wore dark hoodies, and they paused and glanced back at me. I knew Seth was one of them, and I drew in a deep breath and yelled. “Se—!”

My eyes widened, and I fought against the steely grip around my waist and mouth. I knew it was Eli without even looking. I watched, stunned, as Riggs and the others did something that literally blew my mind. With a series of shrill yells, extreme leaps, and acrobatic moves, running up the trunk of a tree and swinging off limbs, railings, window ledges, they dispersed to the building across the street like a freaking circus troupe. One of them picked something up from the ground and smashed it into the window of a parked car, and the night air filled with the shrill sound of an alarm, followed by adolescent laughter. Within seconds—no lie, under a minute—they were all on the rooftop. I held my breath because I knew one of them was my brother and they teetered dangerously close to the roof’s edge. Finally, the blackness of the night swallowed them up as they leapt out of sight. If I hadn’t known any better, I would have sworn they’d flown.

“Free running.” Eli’s voice spoke quietly against my ear. He released my mouth but not my waist. “They’re learning fast.”