He walked out of the office. The club was well lit now that it was after hours, and the VIP section had the detritus of the night all over it, like a whore too well used: There were footprints on the glossy black floor, circular water marks on the tables, napkins wadded up and left in the banquettes here and there. The waitresses cleaned up after each patron, but there was only so much you could see in the dark if you were a human.
Across the way, the waterfall was off, so there was a clear view to the general-pop section-which didn’t look any better. The dance floor was scuffed up. There were swizzle sticks and lollipop wrappers everywhere, and even a pair of panties had been left behind in one corner. On the ceiling above, the laser lighting system’s networks of girders and wires and lamp cups was exposed, and without music being played, the huge speakers hibernated like black bears in a cave.
In this state, the club was The Wizard of Oz made obvious: All the magic that went on here night after night, all the buzz and excitement, was really just a combination of electronics, booze, and chemicals, an illusion for the people who walked through the front doors, a fantasy that allowed them to be whatever they weren’t in their day-to-day lives. Maybe they jonesed to be powerful because they felt weak, or sexual because they felt ugly, or chic and rich when they weren’t, or young when they were gaining speed on middle age. Maybe they wanted to burn off the pain of a failed relationship or get revenge over being jilted or pretend they weren’t searching for a mate when actually they were desperate for one.
Sure, they came out for “fun,” but he was damn certain that underneath the surface of all the bright and shiny, there was a whole lot of dark and seedy.
The club as it was now was the perfect metaphor for his life. He had been the Wizard, fooling those closest to him for so long, fitting in with the normals through a combination of drugs and lies and subterfuge.
That time had passed.
Rehv took one last turn around and went out the front double doors. The black-on-black ZeroSum sign was not spotlit, indicating that they were closed for the night. Closed for good was more like it.
He glanced left and right. There was no one on the street, no cars or pedestrians in sight.
He walked over and checked the alley by the side entrance that led into the VIP section and then quickly went across and looked down the other alley. No homeless. No hangers-on.
Standing in the cold wind, Rehv took a moment to sense out the buildings around the club, searching for grids that indicated there were humans in them. Nothing. All clear was right.
Ready to go, he walked across the street and down two blocks, and then he paused, slid the top of the remote down, and entered an eight-digit code.
Ten…nine…eight…
They’d find the bones burned to a crisp, and he wondered for a brief moment whose they were. iAm hadn’t said, and he hadn’t asked.
Seven…six…five…
Bella was going to be okay. She had Zsadist and Nalla and the Brothers and their shellans. It was going to be brutal on her, but she would get through it, and better this than her learning the truth that would destroy her: She didn’t need to ever know that her mother had been raped and her brother was half sin-eater.
Four…
Xhex would stay away from the colony. iAm would make sure of that, because he was going to force her to stick to the vow she’d made the night before: She’d promised to take care of someone, and the letter Rehv had written in the Old Language and made iAm witness had been the demand that she take care of herself. Yes, he’d tricked her into it. No doubt she assumed he was going to get her to kill off the princess, or maybe even watch after Ehlena. But he was a symphath, wasn’t he. And she’d made the mistake of giving her word without knowing what she was committing to.
Three…
He traced the club’s roofline with his eyes and imagined what the rubble was going to look like, not just around the club, but with what he was leaving behind in people’s lives as he went up north.
Two…
Rehv’s heart hurt like a bitch, and he knew it was because he was mourning Ehlena. Even though technically he was the one who was dying.
One…
The explosion that ignited under the main dance floor triggered two others, one under the VIP bar and one on the mezzanine’s balcony. With a tremendous thunder and a bracing quake, the building was rocked to its core, a blast of brick and vaporized cement rushing outward.
Rehvenge staggered back and banged into the glass front of a tattoo parlor. After he caught his breath, he watched the fine mist of dust drift downward like snow.
Rome had fallen. And yet it was hard to leave.
The first of the sirens rang out no more than five minutes later, and he waited for the splashes of red flashers to come down Trade Street at a dead run.