Except she’s apparently a better liar than I am.
If Ember was coming to her with whatever this orc problem was, after four years of never crossing this line into humans-versus-magicals territory, maybe she did need Cheyenne’s help. Perhaps this half-drow Goth chick could offer something no one else could.
When she was only a few yards from the bar’s entrance, the door burst open with that stupid jingle, and Ember stepped outside. Cheyenne opened her mouth to start the slippery slope into heartfelt apologies, but her friend turned in the opposite direction and hurried down the sidewalk. Ember hunched over, one finger stuck in her ear while the other hand pressed her cell phone against her cheek. “Are you serious? Why would he—” Ember groaned and glanced at the night sky. “Yeah. No, Jackie, listen to me. I’m on my way, okay? Just keep him from doing anything stupid. Please. Hey, if anybody can do that, it’s you. I’ll be there soon.”
Shutting her mouth, Cheyenne frowned and followed her friend down the sidewalk. She paused beside Gnarly’s front door for a quick glance inside, but nobody seemed to care about the two regulars in a dumpy bar full of regulars, all of whom had their own problems to deal with without chasing down someone else’s.
Maybe I should’ve listened to her. Cheyenne glared at her wan reflection in the door, backlit by all the lights on East Clay Street. The ring through her septum glinted in the bleached lights, and in the warped glass, it almost made her look like she was smiling.
“Sometimes.” She glanced down the sidewalk to see Ember turn the corner around the building to cut across the parking lot. Maybe there was something Cheyenne could do to help.
Time to find out what she meant by “people like us.”
Chapter Four
Cheyenne followed her friend down five blocks on the northwest end of Jackson Ward, her hands shoved into the front pockets of her baggy black pants just to keep the chains on her wrists from giving her away. Ember had caught her attention freshman year during their Intro to Cyber Security lectures. Even back then, the girl had sat in her seat like Cheyenne—slumped all the way back, legs stretched out in front of her, arms folded with her chin to her chest, and blankly staring at absolutely nothing. They’d bonded over an inability to focus in that useless class of over two hundred students. Ember had been bored to death, and Cheyenne had taught herself three years ago everything the instructor had to say.
Back to the moment at hand, it wasn’t challenging to see Ember was hoofing it. The girl cut a pace above power walking but under jogging, and typically Ember didn’t do either of those speeds. Ember strolled.
Cheyenne stuck to the shadows a half-dozen yards behind her friend, never taking her eyes off the back of Ember’s brown leather jacket and her light-brown ponytail swinging from side to side.
I’m spying on her right now. My only friend, and I can’t suck it up and tell her I’m coming because I wanna see some other magicals to know what that looks like.
Shaking her head, she slipped behind a thick sugar maple on the other side of the sidewalk and realized where they were. Gangs meeting at skateparks. Low on the originality score.
Ember turned to glance across the open space of grass and trimmed hedges, then she moved toward the six-foot-high fence around the skatepark. Cheyenne crouched outside the pool of light cast by the parking lot streetlamp. No one else around, as far as she could see; yet, it would take serious effort not to hear angry, hushed voices arising from the cement playground of halfpipes across the park.
Cheyenne stood and crept as fast as she dared across the grass. Luckily, she’d worn her black Vans. She went wide around the tall chain-link fence and the pavilion outside the skatepark. The arguing voices stopped when the gate creaked. Ember stepped inside the open-air structure, leaving the gate open, while Cheyenne crouched on the other side of the closest pillar. From her position, she got a clear view of everyone, including her friend.
“Who’s this?” The deep, gruff voice came from a hulking figure the size of an NFL linebacker. He held a pistol pointed at the concrete rise beside the dip of the halfpipe, and Cheyenne could tell his flesh had a dark green tint. An orc.
“She’s with us.” Another guy in a group of three faced the orc and his six cronies. A lot of ‘em. Fantastic.
Ember joined a man who ran his hand through his tuft of dark-blue hair, and Cheyenne realized his skin was a light purple shade. Halfling. Earth-sider, definitely.
“She’s human,” the big orc snarled and waved his pistol at Ember. “This is between you and me, Earthside-lover. Get her the hell outta here.”
“I’m not human.” Ember stepped beside the purple guy and faced the orc. “I’m just smart enough to hide my face when I’m in public. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if you all did the same.”
“Masks.” The orc grunted with disdain. “I didn’t cross the Border to betray everything I stand for just to blend in. And I sure as hell didn’t expect this much shit from a goblin traitor who wouldn’t know his place if it bashed him over the head.”
Cheyenne narrowed her eyes. Goblin?
“Watch it, Durg.” The guy with blue hair standing next to Ember pointed at the orc. “I’ve been minding my own business for
