Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [28]
I spotted Shelby’s Nissan and pulled in behind her, flashing my headlights once. She got out and we both looked at the club’s entrance, imagining what must be occurring within. “Have you ever been here before?” I asked.
“Not to this one,” said Shelby. “I did an underage sting at Top Hat, and that was enough to last me a very, very long time.”
“Top Hat?” I was only half sure I wanted to know.
“Dom/sub specialty,” said Shelby. “Along with the kiddie porn being filmed in the back room, of course.”
I adjusted the straps of my lace tank, skin prickling at the thought. I’d worn a black and pink bustier underneath my biker jacket and black jeans that had fit me properly sometime during a past presidential administration. Still, tight was tight, and who needed to sit down, anyway? I’d swapped my usual motorcycle boots for the patent leather stiletto version with steel heels and a liquid shine, three inches and counting, putting me over six feet. I felt a bit like a slutty Godzilla next to Shelby’s petite frame.
She’d managed to find an all-black outfit, but it still screamed upper-tax-bracket soccer mom. Maybe the patrons of Bete Noire would think she was part of the fantasy show. Her one nod was a pair of do-me red spike-heeled Manolos.
“Nice shoes,” I said.
“Thanks. Are we going in or shall we move on to complimenting each other’s hair and makeup?”
I snarled inwardly and stomped across the sidewalk and down the short flight of stairs to the club door, raising my fist to knock. Shelby stood behind me fidgeting.
“How many stings did you do in Vice?” I asked to make conversation.
“I don’t know or care,” said Shelby. “The slime like my look. That’s all that mattered.”
When I cocked an eyebrow at her defensiveness, she spread her hands. “What? Do you know exactly how many dead bodies you’ve found?”
“Actually found myself, or been called in on? Because those are two different numbers.”
“It doesn’t really matter,” said Shelby. “Just stop talking shop and turn off your copdar. If I can feel it, the people inside will eat you alive. People in our profession aren’t welcome unless we’re up on stage, being spanked in our dress uniforms, so chill unless you want to experience it firsthand.”
The door swung open before I could muster a reply, and an innocuous bouncer in a black T-shirt and jeans asked for our IDs. I gave him my driver’s license, which he swiped under a black light, and then he stepped aside, motioning us into the club.
“Could I have my license back?” I asked, holding out my hand. He shook his head, a gray ponytail wagging.
“You get it back when you leave. Have a good time, ladies.”
Shelby pushed me from behind and I moved inside, washing myself in the throbbing noise and light and smell of Bete Noire.
Nothing—not mutilated bodies, living, bleeding victims or my own attack by Joshua, the were who bit and turned me fifteen years earlier—could have prepared me for the inside of Bete Noire.
An octagonal cage was the central focus of the room, and raised platforms rested at each of the four corners. The rest of the tiny space was painted matte black and crammed with tables, a deejay, and a bar that was of the nailed-together-plywood variety.
Pink light saturated everything, along with throbbing house music and the beehive chatter of close to a hundred people shoehorned into a space that would comfortably hold forty.
“Hex me,” Shelby swore as a man in a torn mesh shirt and a conspicuous lack of pants jostled her. Her face was stark white under the lights and her expression was one of realizing that the bright light at the end of the tunnel was a freight train.
I followed her gaze to the cage. A corseted woman was shackled to one of the chain-link walls, ball-gagged and blindfolded as a steady stream of men and women entered the cage, some selecting a flogger or a toy from the card table near the woman, some using their bare hands. The line stretched nearly to the bathrooms.
Shelby was still staring with a goggling expression of disgust, and I gripped her upper arm. “Why don’t