TWENTY-SIX

The Only Girl in the World

“So it’s okay to drink these?” Oliver asked, motioning to the cocktails set in front of them. One of them looked like it was made from hot lava: it was a deep scarlet hue, and it bubbled and smoked over a silver chalice. The second was a brilliant shade of green, and set off minty sparks that fizzled.

He had never seen the likes of either, and while a deep-seated fear of everything in the place was still rooted in him, he was curious to find out what they tasted like. They had not drunk nor eaten anything since their arrival, and he was still light-headed and hungry.

“I don’t know. I don’t really care,” Mimi snapped, whipping her head around the nightclub to look for Kingsley.

Oliver took a tentative sip. The lavalike concoction was warm and buttery, delicious, but almost too sweet. The green cocktail tasted like a honeydew melon, except again, there was a sense that the melons were too ripe, and almost—but not quite—rotten. It was a pattern that he was starting to notice in Tartarus, that even if something was nice, it wasn’t quite right.

The club was either too hot or too cold—one could never get comfortable. It was as if the ideal temperature, the ideal state of anything, really, didn’t exist. It was always just a hair off, one way or the other. It could drive a person insane, he thought, if everything one ate was either too tasty or too bland, too salty or too sweet, too crunchy or too mushy, and nothing was ever just right. Well, where did he think he was…

right? Oliver chided himself for making jokes, but he couldn’t help amusing himself. It was all he had, at this point.

He wasn’t sure what to make of Kingsley. He hadn’t known him all that well when they were at Duchesne together, but the cool-kid act didn’t surprise him. Oliver didn’t know if Kingsley was pretending not to care, of if he had been in the underworld so long he truly didn’t feel the same about Mimi anymore. Poor girl. She wasn’t expecting this. She looked a little lost, a little forlorn, as she looked around the club. Her face sagged; her brittle armor was cracking, and Oliver felt for her. She didn’t deserve this after all the hard work she had put in to getting here. He wished he could cheer her up, offer some sort of consolation. When the DJ played something new, something that wasn’t such an earworm or designed to annoy, a song that actually had a beat and a melody, Oliver saw an opportunity.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s dance.”

Mimi could not resist a twirl on the dance floor, and if at first she had been inclined to say no to Oliver, she swallowed her frustration and annoyance. If Kingsley wanted to play this silly game, one where he pretended not to feel what he felt for her, then there was nothing she could do about it. She had begun to doubt her memories of his so-called love. What did they have between them anyway? They’d hooked up a few times, and sure, he’d come back to New York to convince her to forsake her bond; and sure, he’d sacrificed himself to save her—to save all of them—but Kingsley never promised anything; never even told her how he felt about her. What if she’d been wrong? What was she doing here? Mimi took a few deep breaths. She didn’t want to think about what it meant, so instead she took Oliver’s hand and they stepped onto the dance floor, in the middle of the writhing bodies. She would give these demons something to remember her by.

Oliver was a good dance partner. Unlike a lot of guys, he didn’t look like he had no idea what he was doing. He had rhythm, and they moved elegantly together—Mimi shimmying up next to him while he put his hands lightly on her waist.

She twisted and turned, feeling the music in her veins, feeling the liberation that came with moving to the sound of the beat, slowly becoming one with the music. Her face flushed, her breasts heaved, she began to glow with an inner light, and for the first time during their journey to the underworld, her face relaxed and she smiled. Oliver grinned and clapped his hands.

This was fun, Mimi thought. It had been a very long time since she had done something just for the pure enjoyment of it, and for a moment she was a teenager again, without a care in the world. When she closed her eyes she could pretend she was back in the city. There had been a nightclub just like this one once. Funny how the New York landscape changed like that. While the buildings themselves remained the same, nineteenth-century synagogues turned into hot fashion-show venues. Banks and cathedrals now housed cocktail bars and discos.

The dancing grew more frenetic, and the crowd pressed tightly so that Mimi was pushed back against Oliver, jostling him. As she turned around to apologize, she caught a glimpse of him back at their banquette, sipping his devil cocktail. (She probably should have warned him about them, but it was too late now.) He shrugged his shoulders as if he had no idea how that happened.

So whose hands were on her waist, then? Who was pressing his body against hers with a possessive, familiar weight?

She turned around slowly, although she already knew the answer.

Kingsley smiled his wicked grin, and she could feel his body responding to hers as they swiveled and ground to the beat of the music. He leaned over and rested his chin on the base of her neck. She could feel his slick-warm sweat on her skin. His hands wandered, dropping from her waist to her hips, pulling her closer to him. She could feel her heart thud-ding with the music but also in rhythm with his—as if they were alone together, the heat of the dance floor and the darkness a cocoon that surrounded them.

“Nice moves, Force,” he murmured.

She pulled away, not willing to give in so easily. He twirled her expertly around, spinning and dipping her so far backward that his nose was practically in her cleavage. Damn, he was smooth. But then what did she expect? She realized that in the time they had been apart she’d constructed an ideal image of him; had only remembered the shining parts of his personality, and the way he had looked at her that last time, before he’d disappeared into the White Darkness. That was all she had set her hopes and heart upon, that one last look. She had forgotten what he was really like. Unpredictable. Cocky.

Sly. He’d never said he loved her, after all. She’d just assumed….

But now he was pulling her toward him again, and they were facing each other, her head resting on his shoulder, and his hand was on her back. The music was something she recognized. marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Too many of her human familiars liked to play it before the Caerimonia. The classic makeout song, almost as clichéd as Van morrison’s

“Moondance.” Kingsley sang softly in her ear, and his voice had that low, smoky quality she’d liked so much from the beginning. “‘Giving yourself to me can never be wrong if the love is true…’”

Mimi tried not to laugh. He really was a piece of work, this guy. Was he freaking serious? Did he only think of one thing and one thing only? Was that all it was? Did he really believe she had come all the way to the underworld so they could hook up? She tried not to feel too insulted.

The music stopped, and she moved away from his embrace. Taking her cue, Kingsley slouched away as well. He was still smirking. He didn’t need to say it: she knew he was thinking that she was being silly to pretend they weren’t going to end up in bed sooner or later.

Am I wrong? His voice was loud and clear in her head, and she could hear the confidence behind it.

But Mimi ignored it for now. She didn’t want to fall back to their old ways—pretending that they didn’t care about each other; pretending it was all just Venators-with-benefits; that he hadn’t sacrificed so much for her, or that she was in the underworld for any other reason than to get him out of there. All the events of the day—Oliver’s fake wedding, mamon’s offer, the journey to Tartarus, and actually seeing Kingsley again—were suddenly overwhelming. She felt a bit dizzy and as if she were going to burst into tears. It was too much, and she felt her knees begin to buckle underneath her. She was going to faint.

“Hey,” Kingsley said, looking concerned. He slung a friendly arm around her shoulder and pulled her toward him.

“C’mon now. I was just kidding around. You all right?”

She nodded. “I just need some air. It’s hot in here.”

“No kidding.” Kingsley walked her back to her table.

“Where are you staying in town?”

Mimi shrugged. “I don’t know.” She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Go see my man at the Duke’s Arms. He’ll give you guys a nice room. make sure Hazard-Perry over there doesn’t get targeted by the trolls—or worse, by the Hellhounds,” Kingsley said, writing an address on the back of a calling card and handing it to her.

“What’d he say?” Oliver asked, when Kingsley left.

“To stay in a hotel,” Mimi said, again feeling the absurdity of the current situation. She’d risked everything for him, and now…

“So what do we do, boss?” Oliver asked.

Mimi fingered the card. Her head ached. She had journeyed all the way down. She wasn’t about to give up now. She had to find out how Kingsley felt about her. If he wanted her the way she wanted him—and not just for a one-night stand or a meaningless, loveless affair. The real thing. The love that had eluded her all her immortal life in her years with Jack.

If Kingsley didn’t want her around, he wouldn’t have asked her to stay, would he? Boys. Even in the underworld it was hard to decipher their intentions. She thought of the way they had moved together, what it felt like. There had to be more than just physical attraction between them. It had to mean something, didn’t it? She thought of how she had laughed at girls who thought just because a guy slept with them it meant that he loved them. Now she was one of those needy, clingy girls. How ridiculous to find that her heart was so much more vulnerable than she had ever imagined it could be. How the hell had she allowed herself to fall in love with someone like Kingsley martin? It was infuriating. He was like a shooting star you tried to catch with your hands. She would only get burned.

But she was made of sterner stuff than that. Mimi would play the game. She would stay until he told her she had to leave. Until he told her the truth of what was in his heart.

She noted the address and put the card in her purse. “I guess we should get settled. Looks like we’ll be here for a while.”