of “my home away from home” after City Hall dialed the nightclub hours back and my first fave, a fetish dance club called The Chamber, folded.
Now the Beltline project was sweeping around Atlanta, eating up a whole ring of the city like the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and turning every low-rent district in its path into mixed-use monoblocs or greenspace. Supposedly the whole district around The Masquerade and City Hall East was next on the list, and this Halloween was The Masquerade’s blowout swan song.
Savannah pushed my wheelchair along the sidewalk through a cavalcade of people in Halloween costumes, fetish gear, and combinations of both. There were zombies, vampires and werewolves, or at least people dressed like zombies, vampires, and werewolves. Women dressed as Wednesday Addams and men dressed as The Crow mugged for the cameras. There was even a pair of fetching young lesbian Borg from Star Trek, turning heads in leather, rubber and laser pointers. Savannah herself wasn’t in costume per se, but in a long leather coat over a matching leather bikini and thigh-high boots, she turned heads all the same.
As for my costume? Savannah had heartily approved of my desire to get out of the house and get on with my life, but guessing what outfit I’d had in mind, she’d tried to derail my choice several different ways—rescuing a long leather coat and shiny T-shirt from my apartment, getting Lord Delancaster to loan his cape coat so I could be ‘Sherlockina’, and even hopefully pulling out a whole array of fetish gear, complete with gas mask.
In the end, I did my own costume: I sprayed the remaining tufts of hair so they stood up in spikes, tore and muddied up an old pair pants, and poured on layers of makeup accentuating, rather than hiding the bruises and scrapes. It was hard to get the makeup right around my neck because of the collar, but in the end ‘Roadkill’ lived again. I did such a good job, I actually felt a little bit guilty as I wheeled myself out of the guest room, but Savannah was so bossy even with me injured and us split that it felt good to have something to needle her with. Sure enough, she took just one look at me before getting nauseous and excusing herself to the bathroom.
Success.
The queue came to a halt as we got closer—the police had stopped the line as it crossed North Angler Street and were letting people across in bursts as the doorkeep let them in. You could see the flaring lights of firedancers reflecting off the surface of the Masquerade’s towering, blocky surface, and I whined. A few days ago, when I’d been naive and healthy, I’d have bulled across the street, counting on the crowd behind me to overwhelm the police while I darted ahead for a better view.
Now I looked at the tired cop standing in the street, holding up his hand to the crowd while he waved traffic by with his little yellow airport light. That man could just as easily been Rand, or Gibbs, or even Philip, a hero who’d stumbled and was now directing traffic. I looked up, at the dark shape of City Hall East not five hundred yards away. Somewhere, up on the sixth floor, men were working late to track someone who was ripping the skin off my clients, and working to find the man who had beaten me.
Somehow, dicking with the police didn’t seem funny anymore, and when we trundled across the street, I threw up my hand for five and told the man Happy Halloween. His eyes lit up. “That is a bad ass costume,” he said, calling after me. “The bruises look totally real!”
“They are,” Savannah hissed back at him.
“Be nice, ‘Lady Saffron,’” I said, and she squeezed my shoulder. It was surprisingly difficult to remember she became ‘Saffron’ in public, but she seemed to really appreciate it.
We came to a stop at the end of the line. The pumping music from inside The Masquerade was louder now, and the flickering fire was brighter. Occasionally, the crowd gasped as a fiery baton flipped end for end high up into the air, but from where I was sitting, I could see nothing. I itched to get out of the chair, and Saffron actually put her hand on my shoulder and pushed me back down.
“Be good,” she said, breathing into my ear. “Or I’m turning the car around.”
My cell rang. “Dakota Frost,” I answered. “Best magical