I ran a comb through my damp hair, squinting into the foggy mirror to see if it was somewhat presentable. I definitely needed a haircut, it had been too long since I had done anything about it, and it had grown shaggy and unpresentable. Well, maybe that was fashionable at the moment. I could only hope, because I didn’t have time for a hair appointment tonight. I was more concerned with the redness of my eyes. I pulled back a lid and examined their bloodshot appearance. Sleep hadn’t exactly worked out like I had hoped. I shouldn’t be surprised; I hadn’t been able to fall asleep sober since I’d been released from the hospital. The things I saw when I closed my eyes were not conducive to sleep. I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face, well, that was what eyedrops were for, wasn’t it? I retrieved them from the medicine cabinet, then finished drying my hair. Simon would be here in about an hour to pick me up, but the question was, should I wait for him? I could get dressed, call a ride share and head over early to scope the place out. It was tempting, this would be easier without him hovering around and worrying about my ‘safety’. But it was also probably pointless. After all, I had told him the name of the club, so he could find me there easily enough with minimal effort, and I knew that he would, if I ditched him. So, better to wait, rather than have him storm in on me later and disrupt whatever I was doing. That decided, I wrapped a towel around myself and went to dress. As I crossed the hall, a voice from the living room startled me.
“You almost ready?”
“You’re early,” I noted, stepping into the bedroom, but leaving the door ajar so I could hear his reply.
“Well, I had this thought that you might try to leave without me,” Simon called.
“Don’t be ridiculous, the thought never crossed my mind,” I opened my closet and assessed my old work outfits, trying to decide if any were suitable for this evening.
“Of course it didn’t,” he chuckled. “Still, I think I will just wait out here, and we can leave whenever you are ready.”
“Fine, just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
He was sometimes more perceptive than he let on. I pulled out a low-cut, silky black top and a pair of leather pants and inspected them. I slipped them on and turned to inspect the outfit in the mirror. I frowned, the fit was looser than it should have been, especially around the butt and thighs. It wasn’t really unexpected; I had lost a lot of weight while I was in the hospital, and I hadn’t really had much of an appetite since I got out. Most of my clothes didn’t fit as well as they used to, and why would I have bought any new club clothes, since I was, after all, retired? I scrutinized the pants, trying to decide if they were acceptable or if I would have to try something else. Eventually, I figured they would have to be good enough. I turned to shut the closet door, but paused, my hand frozen on the doorhandle, when I caught sight of the safe in the corner. The thought hadn’t occurred to me until that moment, but my gun was in that safe. I hadn’t touched it since the day I returned from the hospital and locked it away. I told myself it was a part of my old life, that I didn’t need it anymore. But that wasn’t really the truth, was it? Truth was, I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want the responsibility that came with it. But if Mia really was in trouble, and I was the only one looking for her… I wasn’t worried about what could happen to me, but what if someone else paid the price for my reticence? This was exactly the responsibility I didn’t want. But it was too late now, I was already in, and I couldn’t just step back. So, before I could talk myself out of it, I punched the code into the safe and retrieved the weapon, holding it in my hand for the first time in months. It felt too cold on my skin, and heavier than it used to be, but I pushed that thought aside and strapped it to my ankle, covering it with my pantleg. It bulged slightly, but I had a pair of boots that would cover it the rest of the way. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need to touch it again until it went back in the safe. Inspecting myself in the mirror one last time, I decided I was now properly dressed, so I stepped out of the room to find Simon sitting on my couch, scrolling his phone. He looked up as I entered and raised his eyebrows in surprise,
“You’re dressed up.”
“And you aren’t,” I assessed the jeans and t-shirt he was wearing with some criticism.
“Why would I have dressed up?” he seemed genuinely confused.
“I thought you were going to come with me. If so, you will need to blend in.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think of that. I don’t really wear anything special when I go out, it’s never been a problem.”
“Of course, it hasn’t,” I smacked my forehead; he was ubarae, they didn’t have to put any effort to get humans to find them attractive. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Your outfit is fine. Let’s go.”
“I didn’t even know you owned clothes like that,” Simon mused as he followed me out the door. “I feel like I am learning new things about you today.”
“Yeah, well, these are just work clothes, Simon. Don’t read too much into it.”
“Work clothes?”
“Yeah, this sort of thing came up pretty frequently in my old job. I had to spend a lot of time wherever Rogues would be hunting for victims; sometimes I even played a victim, myself.”
“Huh, that makes sense, I guess I just never thought about it,” he rubbed his chin. “You had a strange job.”
“Tell me about it.”
I leaned my head against the side window of the car, watching as the city lights blurred past. We had been driving in silence for some time, and though I was enjoying a bit of quiet, Simon was usually not this reticent. I had just given him the directions for the final turn to the parking lot we were going to use, and he had made the turn, but hadn’t said a single word in response. As he pulled in to park, I turned to study his face in the dim light and found his eyes fixed on the road and his hands tense on the wheel. His jaw flexed as it tightened repeatedly, like he was chewing gum. I took a deep breath. This was exactly why I hadn’t wanted him to come tonight.
“Simon, are you alright? You, uh, seem a little tense.”
“I’m fine,” he answered through gritted teeth. “Just focused on what we need to do.”
“You literally do not need to do anything. You can wait in the car, if you want.”
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“I’m not letting you go in there alone. What if you get hurt?”
“I don’t need you to watch over me, Simon. I assure you that I can take care of myself.”
“I know that you can, but I am not sure that you will.”
Well, he had me there, didn’t he?
“Relax, you are the one who asked me to do this, remember?”
“Yeah, I am having some second thoughts about that, at the moment,” he admitted. “Honestly, when I asked you to look into this, I thought you would poke around a bit and tell us the same thing the cops did, that we were overreacting, and she would be back on Monday.”
“I knew you were just trying to get me out of the house,” I scoffed.
“I admit it, I thought it would be good for you to have something to do. I didn’t want to get you involved in anything dangerous.”
“Oh, come on. I am just going into a public place to ask a few questions. There is no reason to assume this will be dangerous at all.”
“Why are you so stubborn? You did everything to avoid doing this in the first place, why not just walk away now? I will call Gail in the morning and let her take care of this.”
“Look, I told you I didn’t want to get involved, but we are past that point now. I am involved, and I can’t just walk away. Besides, Gail has enough on her plate at the moment.”
“Ray…”
“Nope. We are done talking about this, Simon. You can wait here for me if you want, in fact I would prefer it if you did, but I am going in. Understand?”
“I’m not waiting in the car, so just forget about that,” he made a noticeable effort to relax his jaw. “Alright, well if there is nothing I can say to stop you, what’s the plan?”
“There is no plan. We just go in and, depending on the situation, I will maybe ask a few questions and see if anyone remembers Mia from the other night. You do nothing, just sit somewhere and try not to draw too much attention.”
“How are we planning to get in in the first place? I thought you said the club was invitation only?”
“It is. Which is why I sent myself an invitation from Mia’s account.”
“What about me, then?”
“Invitations are only necessary for humans. You should get in fine.”
“Oh, that makes sense.”
Before he could delay things any further, I popped the door and stepped out of the car.
“We are not going to go in together, so wait here for 10 minutes and then you can follow, if you still want to. If you change your mind, I’ll just meet you out here.”
“I’ll see you inside,” he replied, setting his jaw.
“See me, but remember, we do not know each other. I am there alone, understood?”
He nodded. I sighed and headed down the street towards the club.
As I approached the location on the invitation, I found nothing but an unassuming building with the windows blacked out and boards on the door. Anyone who walked or drove by would think that the place was abandoned. Even I was having my doubts, at the moment. We were on the outskirts of town in a more industrial area of town, so at this time of night, the area was pretty well deserted. The street was dark and silent. As I glanced up and down the street, looking for any sign that there was a nightclub here, I wondered if I had the wrong address. Still, it couldn’t hurt to knock, so I approached the boarded-up door and tapped lightly. There was a long moment of silence, but just before I was about to turn away, the door opened a crack and a man inside peered out, looking me up and down carefully. I looked back at him and suppressed a smile; he was ubarae. That answered that, I supposed.
“We’re closed,” he said sharply.
“Oh, I um, I’m sorry. I was sure this was the right address,” I stammered.
“Address for what? Maybe I can point you in the right direction,” his tone softened slightly at my feigned nervousness.
I held out my phone with the invitation opened on the screen. He looked at it carefully before nodding and opening the door wider.
“Hurry and get inside.”
He waved me into a darkened vestibule, slamming and bolting the door behind me. He quickly patted me down for weapons, but fortunately he wasn’t especially good at it and didn’t bother to do anything beyond quickly slapping at my torso.
“May I ask how you heard of us?” he asked.
“My… umm… my friend Mia told me about this place…” I folded my arms over my chest and hunched my shoulders, trying to make myself smaller. “Did I do something wrong?”
He seemed to relax a bit at that,
“No, no. I apologize, we just take security seriously here, surely you can understand.”
“Oh, I… I suppose that makes sense.”
“The club is this way, please follow me.”
The bouncer led me down a flight of stairs, opening the door to a basement room with dim lights and pulsing music. There was a bar over in one corner of the room and a few tables on the other side of a dancefloor, each with a smattering of people seated at them. The place certainly wasn’t hopping. Though, it was early, just before 8, perhaps things picked up later, or perhaps their secrecy and precautions meant that they were never very busy. If it was the latter, that was good news for me, as it made it more likely that Mia would have been noticed and remembered by the staff. I made my way across the room to the bar, taking a seat at the end, close enough to listen in, but not so close as to draw attention. I had considered simply showing her picture around and asking if anyone remembered her, but if people were disappearing from here, I couldn’t be sure the staff weren’t involved, so I decided to keep a low profile, for now. For now, I would just watch and get a feel for the place. Then, if I could find a likely candidate to get information from, I would try to talk to them alone, minimize how many people knew I was looking around. It seemed safest, until I knew more. I leaned against the bar, keeping my gaze vague and my expression timid. It was only a moment before the bartender approached for my order. He was older than most of the people here, probably in his fifties, but he’d aged in a way that incubi always seemed to, with dark hair that turned silver at his temples and salt-and-pepper in his beard. He smiled brightly at me, seeming genuinely pleased to see me.
“Welcome to Synergy! I don’t think I have seen you here before, I’m glad you could join us. What can I get for you?”
I made a show of blushing at his attention,
“Maybe a, uh, vodka martini?”
“Coming right up, darling,” salt-and-pepper winked, then turned away to make my drink.
As he did, a young succubus with bright blue hair and a sour expression approached and set a drink tray down on the bar.
“You promised me things would pick up on the weekend, Jackson.”
“Come on, Emily, it’s still early, it will probably be busier later in the evening,” he offered.
“It pretty much has to be, it’s not like it could get slower,” she snorted.
Jackson glanced over at me, biting his lip briefly,
“Can we talk about this later, Em?”
She glanced at me, then threw her hands up,
“Well, we talked about it on Thursday, and on Wednesday, and on Tuesday and it hasn’t changed anything, so sure, we can talk about it whenever, Jack. What difference does it make? But I can’t live off the tips from 6 people. So, something had better change soon.”
Then she stormed off, back into a staff area in the back. Jackson approached with my drink, and an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry you had to hear that. Every new place has some bumps early on, right? We are… still growing our customer base.”
“Well, I am sure it is only a matter of time,” I offered.
“I hope so,” he set the drink down on the bar in front of me. “Well, you just let me know if there is anything else I can do for you, ok? Anything at all.”
I nodded and he drifted off down the bar, to tend to other clients. I took a small sip of my drink, it wasn’t half bad, and watched the bartender over the rim of the glass, studying him as he poured another drink. Jackson seemed to be in charge around here. If not the owner, then at least a manager of some sort. More importantly, he seemed to have been here on Wednesday. Considering the level of personal service people seemed to be receiving, there was a real chance that he might have seen Mia that night, and that he might remember her. So far, that was encouraging. Now I just needed to find a way to talk to him, privately. Luckily, I did know of one way to get an ubarae alone. Time to see if I still had the knack for it.