Chapter 60: Chapter 6: Dream team

> “Ultimately, she found her solution in the unlikeliest of places. One day, as she was walking along Wall Street, she happened upon a young girl selling flowers.”

The bouncer at the door to Firebird eyed my newly acquired fake ID with extreme suspicion before looking me up and down, my hooded sweatshirt and ratty tennis sneakers doing me no favors. But thankfully, Jade’s sultry smile opened many more doors than my own could, and he finally handed the ID back to me and waved me through into the packed house beyond.

I spotted Emma sitting at a bar that stretched along the back wall, gentlemen callers on either side, and I approached with trepidation, not knowing how I would be received by the group. Taking the empty stool next to the guy on the left, I made my presence known, only for Emma to roll her eyes and throw back her head.

She whispered something into the ears of both guys, and they handed her their phones in unison, into which she dutifully typed a phone number before returning them to their owners. Once the stools were vacated, I slid down one spot and hailed the bartender.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, before downing the remainder of her clear drink. “Besides mucking up my plans for later this evening?”

“It’s almost 1:30,” I said, my body crying out for the rest I was so reluctantly denying it. “There’s not much evening left.”

“Says the girl who looks like she’s been locked in the library for the past month. I’m surprised they even let you in here, looking like that.”

The bartender, a tall woman with a pixie haircut wearing a leather vest and sporting piercings up and down her ears arrived and greeted Emma with a confused look.

“What happened to those guys? I liked the blond one.”

“She happened,” said Emma, nodding in my direction. “Another Tito’s neat for me, if you wouldn’t mind, Svetlana.”

“And for your friend?”

“She’s not my friend. More like a cock-block.”

“I’ll have the same,” I said, and the bartender departed.

“Of course you would,” said Emma, who ignored me until Svetlana returned with our drinks.

“You have exactly five minutes to tell me what the hell you want. Maybe I can still catch one of those guys before he finds someone else to shag in the bathroom.”

My eyes widened. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as that type of woman.”

“That’s cos I’m not,” she replied, producing a tube of purple lipstick after fishing around for a few moments in her tote bag from earlier. “One kiss and he’ll be unconscious for six hours. Can’t decide whether to leave him his shirt or his pants.”

“I’m sorry, but this all seems so-”

“Definitely the pants, only after I’ve dunked them in the toilet, though, so they’re cold and wet when he wakes up.”

“-wrong. I thought you liked the guy?”

“The prick sidled up here and cupped my arse within a few seconds of sitting down. Then he suggested that he and his friend take me back to their apartment to dou-”

“I’m sorry I asked!” I shouted, turning beet red. “You think he’s going to wake up tomorrow morning embarrassed and suddenly become a changed man?”

“Course not. That’s why I’m going to send a picture of his half-naked ass passed out to every single person in his company and every single contact in his phone.”

“That sounds like a … creative plan. Anyway, I just wanted to talk to you about our trip to Boston. We’ve only got four weeks to get the Dragon’s blood and-”

“We don’t have anything. I’m going up there in a few days and will return with the vial, somehow, and you will just wait here and beg Dalia at the next meeting to let you into the Guild. Or not. Frankly, I don’t give a damn what you do as long as it doesn’t involve me.”

“But Dalia and Gilbert said-”

“What? That we need to ‘work together to get the job done’? Well, I just spent the last month doing what they told me and look how that turned out! If they want me to get the vial, then I’m doing it my way.”

With that, Emma threw down some cash on the bar, applied the lipstick around her mouth, and stormed off in a huff.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

“She off on one of her revenge missions?” said the bartender, who had returned and was clearing away the column of empty glasses that were arrayed across the bar.

“You know what she does? And how she does it?”

The bartender smiled.

“Who do you think gave her the lipstick? Something I worked up in the back, in one of the old kegs. Emma’s helping me test it out. Fortunately, well, I guess also unfortunately, this place draws in a ton of assholes. But we’re slowly changing that.”

“That’s, um, very noble of you.”

Svetlana raised an eyebrow at me.

“You’re new. What happened to the other girl?”

“I … I don’t know. Never met her.”

“Hmm,” said Svetlana. “I’ve got an extra tube if you want to go after the second guy. Just do it somewhere else. One passed-out jackass I can deal with, but two in one night will start drawing questions.”

She dug her hand into one of her vest’s pockets, pulled out three tubes, and slid them down the bar to me.

“Why’s there three?” I asked, examining the tubes.

“One’s the lipstick, one’s a spray to stop you from passing out from the krekoxin in the lipstick. Otherwise you’ll be waking up around the same time as your target. And the last is a ‘perfume’ version of the lipstick for when kissing isn’t practical.”

“Oh,” I said. “That makes sense. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Next time you’re in, let me know how it turns out.”

Svetlana turned to walk away, only for Emma to appear out of the crowd behind me and reclaim her seat.

“That was fast,” said the bartender. “Hope he didn’t get too grabby before you knocked him out.”

“Nah,” said Emma, smiling. “I pushed him up against the wall just as soon as we cleared the bathroom door and he went down like the sack of shit that he is. Also nicked his wallet out of his jeans for good measure. Guess we’re going up to Beantown for free.”

“You came around quick,” I said, secretly thankful that I didn’t have to beg Emma to actually do what the Guild was asking.

“Well, taking that asshole down 40 rungs will do that to you. Don’t make me regret it, though. And we’ll be catching the 7 a.m. Acela, yeah? So go home and pack some stuff, and I’ll see you in the lounge in a few hours.”

----------------------------------------

The rest of the night was a complete blur, as was getting to Penn Station and getting on the train. It wasn’t until we were well past New Haven that my mind came to, and I looked across the table to see Emma passed out with her mouth wide open, spittle dripping down her face.

Of course.

I hadn’t wanted to argue with her over the quick turnaround, not with her grudging decision to work together on what I had dubbed our “epic quest.” But there was only so much more my body could take, both with the constant running on adrenaline and the glamour almost always on, and I dreaded the inevitable crash that was approaching.

I pulled out my laptop, opened up an empty text file, and wrote “Steal the Dragon’s blood” at the top. Then I unhelpfully added four bullet points:

• Gain access to the library

• Locate the Dragon’s blood

• Remove the vial

• Escape without getting caught or killed

So simple.

In the rush to leave, I managed to pack my invisibility robe, as Gilbert had advised, my trusty vial of vitality serum, and Svetlana’s lipstick, but after those items and my glamour, I was plumb out of alchemic tricks. I considered whether I could use the robe and glamour in tandem. I could enter as Jade, disappear, and then reappear as myself somewhere else. At best, though, it was a diversion and would additionally require an awkward conversation with Emma where I would have to convince her that my actual body was the glamour, like Zoe had mistakenly thought back in the alley.

Emma at least brought some additional firepower, with White Hilt, the giant sword, and whatever else was in that bag of hers. I contemplated rifling through it while she was still passed out, but thought better of it. Who knew what crazy shit was hiding in there?

I decided I would concentrate my efforts on the access and locating steps. Fortunately, at my first job out of college, the higher ups had seen fit to hire a battery of penetration testers and social engineers to challenge our IT security. Truth be told, that company wouldn’t have been on anyone’s radar to steal from, but the CIO needed to justify his existence, and so for weeks we were all on edge while we waited for the red team to infiltrate us. And I had witnessed how miserably we had failed in both waves of the attack. But now those agonizing weeks of training afterward were about to prove very useful.

The library, of course, wasn’t open to the public, other than a small exhibit in the building’s lobby with some historical pigments. I highly doubted our quarry was stored there, but it would at least give us one free visit to survey the layout of the building and observe the security, to see if we could talk our way in pretending to be grad students doing research for our theses, or if more fulsome cover identities would be required.

“Wass, what happened?” Emma’s head slumped forward, and she startled herself awake, turning away to surreptitiously wipe the drool off her chin.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I said, shaking my head. “Thanks again for making us take the early train, by the way.”

Emma straightened herself out and looked out the window, the sunlight hitting her in the face, and she flung the curtains shut with a flourish.

“If we waited any longer, we wouldn’t have time to get to Al’s for lunch. It closes at 2 on Tuesdays,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“What are you talking about?” I responded, nearly ready to tear Jade’s hair out.

“It’s a sub shop. Best subs on the East Coast in my opinion.”

“Are. You. Fucking. Serious?”

I felt something in my head snap and the blood rush to my fists, but Emma just sat there, straight faced. Finally, as I was about to reach over the table and shake her by her collar, a small smile crept across her mouth and she burst out laughing.

“Ha! You should see yourself right now. That was great. But seriously, we should definitely go there for lunch. Their Italian sub is-”

I stormed out of the seat, nearly tripping over myself, and didn’t look back as I made my way to the cafe car and away from Emma’s laughter. After ordering a ridiculously large iced coffee, I sat down at one of the stools and buried Jade’s face in her elbows.

“Hey,” said a voice next to me. I ignored it until I felt someone poking me in the ribs.

“Leave me alone,” I said, until finally I looked up, expecting to see Emma, but instead finding a woman with frazzled blonde hair and familiar green eyes.

“Beatrice?”