Sometimes I even join in, if the invitation is extended. But no one, no one, while in my club is a victim of violence. And even those who try,” her hands pointed high above the club, to where a sign fashioned to look like a cave entrance hung on the building. Marc could see several skulls worked into the frame like they were part of the motif. “Well, we have ways of dealing with the wicked that don’t require magic.”
Persephone wasn’t kidding. Inside, the dance floor pulsed with bodies that groped, grabbed, gyrated and pivoted in a thousand divergent expressions of desire. At tables, college students kicked back drinks that came in every color of the rainbow, some eerily glowing in the glass. The walls seemed to be moving, until Dee sharpened his gaze and saw the movement was human-based. Or, more appropriately, human-debased. At random intervals, couples made out with no care for how many could see them. Based on movements at the midline, Marc thought a few were even beyond the point of foreplay.
“We’d do better if we split up,” Dee shouted over the bass drone interlaced with electronic chords. “Can you guys handle that?”
Marc and Riona exchanged a heavy look before nodding. Dee and Persephone headed towards the high end of the venue, where the bar was packed with clubber clutter, while the two of them headed to the edges of the dance floor. When she was convinced that neither Dee nor Persephone’s superhuman ears would pick up on the conversation, she pounced.
“What’s with you telling her about Lucy?” Riona shouted over her shoulder and the boom-nnddn-boom of the speaker’s blast.
“Is that her name?” Marc spat back with what he hoped came across as indifference. “Why, was that a secret? You still in the closet?”
“No, I’m not, and no, it’s not a secret. But what business was it of hers?”
They caught luck and found a table with two chairs that offered a perfect visual sweep of the dance floor. Marc pulled a chair out for Riona, who seemed hesitant and eyed him warily. With a jerk of his head and a roll of his eyes, she gave in and sat on the peg-legged piece. He sunk quickly in the chair opposite. The table’s width was barely longer than the distance from his elbow to his wrist. He could easily lean over and shout in a volume she could pick up on.
“By all means, if you want to sleep with Persephone, or every resident of Mt. Olympus and Valhalla, go for it. I hear lesser divinities are particularly talented lovers. I just hope Lucy understands.”
Her steely gaze gave him a shiver. “You hate that I have a girlfriend, don’t you?”
Marc pointed vaguely to his neck. “I don’t leave the spirit of the collar at home when I dress like a layman, Keystone. It’s a sin in my world. I don’t expect you to follow suit, but I can’t help what I am.”
“I thought you were supposed to hate the sin and love the sinner?”
Loving the sinner is part of the problem, Marc inwardly chastised. “I do. Hate your sin, I mean.”
“And the sinner? What’s your position on her?”
His tongue bit back the word, missionary.
“My calling would have me love all sinners, though you make that a challenge. Sometimes I can’t figure out if that’s the reason I care about what you do so much. I…”
He choked on his words, but it was too late. That devilish little smile of hers was loaded with knowledge and insight. Shit, was it really that obvious to her? Had Dee said something, even though he promised on the way over he hadn’t? Should he just drop the asshat façade and tell her the truth?
No, there was too much to lose and nothing to gain by admitting his feelings, or for a moment giving her any reason to hope.
“I’m a priest, I have to love the sinners the most,” he answered stoically, before adding a snarky, “because y’all are the most fucked up and the most needing of attention. Now, are we here to talk, or to find evil?”
She turned her attention back to the dance floor. They both had the same problem: sin and evil were so easily confused in the passing of a moment and to the casual eye. One was temporary, the other long term, but they looked identical in the moment. A witch like Riona, and even a lesser wiccan like Marc, however, could usually distinguish the two by