The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [74]
The hallway was longer than Deirdre would have guessed. The painted black walls were disorienting, receding into darkness so that the glowing yellow floor seemed a path leading across a lightless plain. Then the dull throbbing expanded into a rhythmic storm of sound. Fractured shards of a rainbow alighted on her skin, then flitted past, like fireflies whirling through the smoke-heavy air.
“There she is.”
The doorman pointed to a murky corner, past the glowing dance floor where a dozen spindly figures clad in sequins, feathers, and bright plastic undulated. Deirdre caught a flash of orange hair and the glint of haunted violet eyes.
The doorman turned and disappeared back down the hallway. Deirdre made her way across the club. Tinsel dangled from the invisible ceiling, and television screens hovered at odd angles, flashing images in jewel-like colors. Figures lounged in foggy alcoves and dim corners: some small and stout like the doorman, others long and slender, draped languorously on shabby chaises. She felt curious gazes touch upon her before slipping past.
Glinda was curled up on a ratty purple sofa shaped like a half moon. Her willow-switch arms were folded on the back of the sofa, her mop of orange hair resting upon them. Violet eyes stared at the flickering lights, as empty as the small plastic bottle lying upended on the sofa cushion beside her.
Deirdre swore softly. She picked up the bottle and sat on the sofa. “How many, Glinda? How many did you take?”
Deirdre pressed a hand to her forehead, then squeezed her shoulder and shook her. Glinda’s flesh was cold and stiff as clay beneath the creaking black vinyl. In small amounts, Electria could induce euphoria and a sense of well-being. In large doses it could depress the heart rate, lower the core body temperature, until coma and death resulted.
“Glinda, you’ve got to tell me how—”
She halted. The other’s eyes gazed at her, hazed with a fog like that drifting over the dance floor, yet somehow piercing all the same. Deep purple lips parted in a smile.
“You came.” Glinda’s voice was a soft croak. “Moon and stars, you came. But you’re too late, sweetie. You’re too late.”
Deirdre smoothed tangled orange hair back from her face. “It’s not too late, Glinda. Just tell me how many pills you took. I’ll get you to the hospital.”
Glinda sat up straight. “No,” she spat. “Needle-stabbers. Blood-lickers. No, you won’t take me there. They’re all the same. Poke and prod, turn you inside out. What makes you tick, sweetie? What runs in your veins, sweetie? Spread yourself and give us another look inside, will you?” A shudder wracked her too-thin body. “Leo took me there once. I won’t go again.”
Deirdre cursed herself; she couldn’t save Glinda by driving her away. She took the other’s hands, folded them together, and pressed them between her own; they were cold as sticks.
“All right, I won’t take you there. Promise. And I won’t let Leo take you, either.”
At this Glinda laughed, a sound like a broken silver bell. “He can’t take me, sweetie.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leo’s dead. He thought he could bargain with them, that he could get a good price for me. Stupid Leo. I told him they take whatever they want, only he never listened. He hurt me sometimes, and he used me. But he didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that.”
Deirdre tightened her grip on Glinda’s hands, but somehow she felt the other slipping away. “Who, Glinda? Who was Leo trying to bargain with? Why do they want you? I have … friends who can help us.”
Slowly, as if with terrible sorrow, Glinda shook her head. “No, sweetie. I told you, it’s too late. They don’t need me anymore. They don’t need … us.”
Carefully, she disentangled her fingers from Deirdre’s, then pressed them against her belly. Only then did Deirdre notice the faintest swelling in the center of her willowy body.
Glinda sighed. “Arion told me tonight.”
“Arion?”
“The doorman. Everyone’s whispering about it. No one knows how, but they