City Infernal Read online

  “Yes, but—”

  “You don’t want to have to wait in this line, do you?”

  “No, but—”

  “All right already. Leave the rest to me.”

  There. The matter had been settled, with Cassie’s objections diffused. She tried not to think about the image of what must be going on now. Instead, she stood at the curb, tapping her high-heeled foot as dusk lengthened over the city. Distant sirens could be heard in this murder capital of the east, mixed with the collision of music pouring into the street from other clubs. At a strip bar just a block away, a former mayor had picked up prostitutes to smoke crack with. After doing jail time, he’d been re-elected. Only in D.C., Cassie thought with an amused sarcasm. If she peered between the high-rises just right, she could see the White House juxtaposed against dilapidated rowhouses that provided area heroin addicts with their shooting galleries. Another landmark, grandly lit, spired for all to see: the Washington Monument. Just last week another terrorist had tried to blow it up with dynamite strapped around his chest like a girdle. This happened at least twice a year, and along with the drive-bys, the road rage, and the politicians who acted more like mafia lords, nothing shocked the populace by now. It was, at the very least, an intensely interesting place to live.

  Come on, hurry up, she thought, still anxiously tapping her foot. Another glance into the alley showed her her sister’s gestures hastening, the head of the kneeling silhouette moving back and forth faster and faster. Even if Cassie had a lover—something she hadn’t had ever in her iife—the act she was witnessing now, in the alley, wasn’t something she thought she’d ever want to do. Or maybe love would change that some day.

  Yeah, she thought coldly. Some day.

  A few minutes later, Lissa’s shadow was standing up again. It’s about time! Cassie thought. She was waving Cassie into the alley, whispering, “Come on, we have to go in through the back.”

  The alley stank; Cassie grimaced when she stepped through, hoping not to sully her brand-new black stiletto heels, and she hoped that the squeaking sounds she heard weren’t rats. A syringe cracked beneath her sole.

  Re-buckling his dumpy pants, the bouncer winked at her. Not a chance, fat boy, she thought. I’d rather hang myself from the Wilson Bridge. Muffled music trebled in volume when she followed Lissa in through the back door. Anti-Christ, Superstar, someone had spray-painted on the door, and Lucretia My Reflection. A few quick turns down a few corridors, and they were in the middle of the jam-packed club. The throng of black-clad figures danced wildly to the ear-splitting music. Tonight was “oldies” night: Killing Joke, Front 242, .45 Grave, and the like. Cassie always preferred the material that founded the movement rather than popified stuff that was now ending it. Salvos of blinding white strobelights turned the dance floor into shifting freeze-frames. Stark flesh and bands of black. Vampiric faces and blood-red lips. Inhumanly wide eyes seemed never to blink. In cages high overhead, Goth girls danced through deadpan expressions, in varying states of undress. Couples kissed voraciously in secluded comers. Waves of grinding music made the air concuss.

  Cassie felt immediately at home.

  “Over here!” Her sister tugged her by the hand through more pressing bodies. As they edged further away from the crush of dancers, heads began to turn.

  Of course, Cassie thought, rather morosely.

  She and Lissa were identical twins. The only telling them apart was a minute detail: they’d both dyed a white streak in their matching straight black hair, Cassie’s on the left, Lissa’s on the right. The only other noticeable difference was the petite barbed-wire tattoo that encircled Lissa’s navel, while Cassie had a petite half-rainbow around hers. But it was Lissa who always insisted they dress identically whenever they snuck out to a club. Identical black-velvet gauntlets, identical short black crinoline skirts and black-lace blouses. Even their stiletto heels and kidskin wrist purses were identical. It drove their father nuts, but even Cassie was beginning to get bored with the novelty; that and it never seemed to draw any attention to her, just to Lissa.

  She didn’t dwell on that; it was a rumination that, she’d learned long ago, led to nowhere except the heart of her own lack of confidence and self-image. Her secret envy of Lissa sometimes bubbled up to quiet hatred ; she’d never understand how two people who looked so alike could possess such opposite personalities. Lissa the out-going Guy Magnet and Party Chick, Cassie the dour introvert. Five years of psychotherapy and a few months in a mental ward gave her only enough edge to keep going at all. But it wasn’t just Lissa, it was everything. It was the world.

  For Christ’s sake, she nagged to herself. Just try to have a good time.

  They eventually made their way to the back bar. “Looks like we lucked out tonight!” Lissa exclaimed, still tugging Cassie along.

  “What?”

  “Radu’s working. That means we drink for free.” Radu’s real name was Jim—he couldn’t get off the vampire kick that seemed a stigma now for true Goths. Shirtless and shaven-headed, he looked like Nosferatu’s Max Schreck—only with muscles. He and Lissa had been dating for several months, but how seriously was a mystery. Radu must know about Lissa’s lusty reputation at school, and Cassie supposed that her sister’s expertise at bypassing the line at the door was already well-known amongst the club’s male employees.

  “Welcome to Goth House, ladies,” Radu greeted them, and slid them each a can of Holsten. Lissa was immediately leaning over—her cleavage blaring—to kiss him. Pink embarrassment tinted Cassie’s cheeks when the kiss protracted into a mutual tongue probe. “Jesus,” she complained. “You two sound like a couple of St. Bernards eating a pile of Alpo.”

  “My little sister’s just jealous,” Lissa whispered to him, running her finger round the Order of the Dragon tattoo. His toned pectorals, in reflex, flinched.

  Cassie seethed to herself. She was actually seven minutes older than Lissa but Lissa insisted on referring to her as her little sister. And, yes, she was jealous but she hated to hear it. Be yourself, her $250-per-hour psychiatrist would constantly compel her. Stop beating your head against the wall for not being someone else. Cassie supposed it was good advice, however impractical.

  “Ho, little sister!” Radu remarked. “Save some for the alcoholics! They gotta get drunk too, ya know.”

  Without realizing it, Cassie had finished her beer and had set the empty can back up on the bar. Did I just down a can of beer in five minutes?

  The answer was yes.

  White fizz sprayed when Radu popped open another one for her. “Need a straw for that? Or how about a funnel?”

  “Here’s a more efficient idea,” Lissa chuckled. “Just hook her mouth up to one of the taps.”

  That’s real funny, Cassie thought in response, considering what you hooked your mouth up to a little while ago. She wished she could say it, but didn’t dare. They’d just get into it again, and she definitely didn’t want that. She refaced the crowd, sipping her beer, while Lissa and Radu made more baby talk. Bauhaus’ infamous Bela Lugosi’s Dead started off the next set, riling the crowd. The song was older than Cassie but it never lost its defining power. The strobelights adjusted to the creepy tick of opening percussives, transforming the dancefloor into a chasm of jumpcuts and bladelike flashes. Cassie perused the revelers. Up front, two girls in black fishnet body suits openly caressed each other through the dance, and in a comer two guys in black leather ground groins. Tonight’s was a diverse crowd. Sometimes Cassie was perfectly content just to watch—for whatever reason, seeing other people happy made her happy. Other times, though—like now—it just threatened to bring on more depression. It didn’t help when a handsome guy in a Danzig blackaciddevil t-shirt hustled right up to her and said, “Hey, wanna dance? You’re Lissa, right?”

  “No, I’m her sister,” she replied.

  Then the guy said, “Oh, sorry,” and walked away.

  That’s just friggin’ wonderful!

  The two beers on an empty stomach were
doing their job. Screw it, she decided, I’m just going to get drunk. Back at the bar, Radu raised a brow when she signaled for another Holsten.

  “Hey, little sister, didn’t you know that the beer-chugging contest is next week?”

  “Just get me another beer,” she said.

  Now both brows raised. “What’s the magic word?”

  “Get me another beer please, you bald vampire-looking prick.”

  He threw his head back and laughed. “That’s the spirit!” he said, and slid her another beer.

  Lissa roughly grabbed her arm. “Would you lighten up! You’re gonna get drunk and brood all night and throw up in Dad’s Cadillac on the way home like you did the last two times we came here.”

  “No, I won’t. I promise, this time I’ll throw up out the window. I just hope we’re on Pennsylvania Avenue when it happens. I’ll wave to Bush.”

  Lissa sighed, exasperated. “Cassie, please don’t do this.”

  “Do what? I’m just drinking a beer and looking around.”

  “Yeah, and whenever you do that you sink right into one of your moods.”

  “My moods are my business. And speaking of business, why don’t you do me a favor and mind yours?”

  “Stop being such a bummer. Christ, half the time I feel like your babysitter.”

  “Babysitters perform fellatio on Goth bouncers?”

  “It got you into this place, didn’t it?” Lissa shot back at the insult. “Sometimes I don’t know why I bother bringing you in the first place. You’d still be standing out there in that line if it weren’t for me, moping and looking down at your friggin’ shoes like Little Bo-Peep. Next time you can blow the bouncer to get us in here.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’ll be happening,” Cassie said through a strained laugh.

  “Sometimes you can be such a chore, Cassie. I’m sick to death of having to worry about you all night whenever we go out.”

  “You don’t have to worry about anything. You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”

  “Your thing? What’s that, standing in the comer like a wallflower?” Lissa gestured the crowded dancefloor. “Why don’t you go out there and mingle. Meet someone. Meet a guy. Go dance and have a good time.”

  “I am having a good time,” Cassie said snidely, and drank more beer.

  Lissa abruptly took the can away. “Here, take this. It’ll mellow you.” She tried to give her a small heather-green pill with a Playboy bunny imprinted on it.

  “Oh, great. You give me a bunch of crap about drinking and now you’re telling me to take Ecstasy.”

  “Come on, tonight’s a rave, Cassie. Everyone’s doing it.”

  “Thanks, but no. I’d rather keep my neurons intact. A mind is a terrible thing to baste.”

  “It’ll put you in a good mood.”

  “Yeah, and shrink my brain to the size of a pecan by the time I’m twenty-five.” She held up her Holsten can.

  “At least my liver should last another couple of decades. I’ll quit drinking after the transplant.”

  “Fine,” Lissa snapped. “Be a wallflower. Get drunk and puke and make an idiot of yourself. Let everybody in the whole place think you’re a basket-case and a drunk. If you don’t want to have a good time, then don’t. Have a lousy time, Cassie; that’s what you want anyway. Just mope and frown like a dejected little dope so everyone feels sorry for you. Boo-hoo, poor little Cassie, she’s so misunderstood.”

  Cassie had heard enough; she tuned it out, let the argument die right there. She let the place take her away as Lissa stormed off back to a peering Radu. The music washed over her, soon leaving her contentedly numb, the sensation she preferred; it seemed to nullify the passage of time. She smiled serenely, looking out into the strobe-lit crowd. She didn’t need to take part in all of that—she just needed to take part in whatever small part of herself that she liked. She knew it was rationalization, but the alcohol helped her find that place.

  So what if no one noticed her?

  So what if no one was interested in Lissa Heydon’s “little” sister.

  Being by herself in this crowded place was safer than being part of the crowd itself. There’s as much unhappiness out there, she thought, than there is in here. Being alone was so much different than being lonely.

  At least that’s what she told herself.

  More music rolled over her in steady waves: Skinny Puppy, Faith and the Muse, This Mortal Coil, and Christian Death. She danced by herself through the next set and suddenly she was part of the crowd. She was being acknowledged as part of the whole. Exotic white faces flashed through the club’s wonderful murk; eyes sparkled at her, some keen with drugs or lust but others simply keen with living. A girl she’d never seen before, all tight and leggy in a scarlet corselette, rubbed right up against her, blood-red lips in a woozy grin. She gently stroked Cassie’s face as she slipped back into the throng. Next, a boy all in black eyed her forlornly; he smiled at her but then his face disappeared in the next strobe-flash. Barely seen couples were kissing—and more—hidden like daring ghosts in the club’s most remote crannies. Cassie’s stark black hair fell over her face like a veil, reducing her vision to long swaying gaps. Harder music ensued, deafening her—but she liked it. White Zombie, Tool, and iconic Marilyn Manson. She felt tantalized when bodies bumped into her, smiled dreamily when an errant hand slid across her back or arm. Not-so-errant touches didn’t anger her as they usually did; instead, she found them curious, even inspiring. Music and motion grew pandemonic as last call neared. When she drifted back to the bar, Radu got her another beer, but she didn’t see Lissa. He shouted something at her, as if to explain, but she couldn’t hear him over the pounding riffs and rhythms.

  Generally, after so many beers, she’d begin to feel depressed right about now—it always worked that way. But not tonight. Instead, she felt gently enlivened. She’d truly had a good time tonight, in spite of her sister’s mordant guarantee to the opposite. Next song up was something by Death in June, a group Cassie had never liked. They seemed cryptofascist so she wandered further back in the club, contemplated going to the bathroom, but shirked away from the chatty line.

  She wandered around without really thinking. Getting home late wouldn’t be a problem tonight—their father was in New York, yet another business trip. But Lissa would have to drive. I’m too drunk, Cassie admitted to herself. And now that she thought of it, where was Lissa?

  She didn’t see her anywhere. The bathroom maybe? Another door off to the side stood open an inch. She drifted in.

  No Lissa. It was just a back room, for storage, dark, cluttered with boxes and recycle bins full of empty cans and bottles. Then—yeck! she thought. A bitter taste flooded her mouth along with something grainy. She angled her Holsten can under the light and saw a half-dissolved pale green pill at the bottom. Those assholes, she thought. She tossed the can away and realized now why she’d felt so wistful tonight. Oh, well, I’ll live, she supposed. Next, though, she found herself staring at an old Bauhaus poster on the wall, the group’s four members standing in what appeared to be an art-deco crypt.

  “Can you believe it? Those guys are old men now. Forty, at least.”

  Radu’s voice startled her. He’d walked in without her realizing it. The sudden image of his bare chest and well-toned abdomen caught her even more off-guard than his voice. He’s so good-looking, she paused to realize. Outside, she could hear the night’s last cut come on: Alien Sex Fiend’s “The Girl at the End of My Gun.”

  “You put that Ecstasy crap in my beer, didn’t you?”

  His hands spread out.

  “I confess. Your sister put me up to it. It was a low dose and, besides, it has an anti-depressant effect. Your sister told me you’ve been seeing a shrink for depression.”

  Damn her. “That’s my business, not hers or yours.” “Well, you did have a good time tonight, didn’t you?” A pause. “Yes....”

  He stepped closer, nonchalant, the finely shaped pectorals moving beneath tight skin. “That
’s why we come here, to have a good time.”

  His voice sounded distant. She tried to shake off the distraction of his lean body so close to her, but when the image returned, of Lissa kissing him, Cassie saw herself kissing him. She wondered what it would be like. Sweet eighteen and never been kissed, she thought to herself. Just drunk again. So what else is new?

  “Where is Lissa anyway?”

  His smile mixed with a frown. “We had an argument earlier. One of my ex-girlfriends came in, started flirting. Usually stuff like that doesn’t bother Lissa, she’s usually more mature about it. But she stalked off somewhere all pissed off.”

  “She better not have driven home without me,” Cassie considered.

  “I’m sure she’s still here someplace. She’ll be back after she thinks about things.” He shrugged as if to denote some kind of innocence. “Anyway, the arrangement we have was her idea.”

  Arrangement? “What do you mean?”

  Another shrug. “Well, you know. We agreed that we can see other people and not get all bent out of shape about it. It’s nothing new. She acknowledges my needs, and I acknowledge her desire to stay a virgin until she’s ready.”

  The casual comment jolted her. Cassie had no idea. “You mean, you two don’t—”

  “No. That’s the way she wants it for now. And I respect that. I love her.”

  Confusion whipped around her.

  Then Radu added, “We do ... other things, and that’s fine. I’m sure she’s told you about our arrangement—”

  “No,” Cassie said abruptly.

  “Oh, I’m sure she has. She even told me that it would be okay. You know. She wouldn’t mind if ...”

  “If what?”

  “You know. She wouldn’t mind if you and I got together.”

  Another, harder jolt. But all Cassie could do was stand there, struck dumb, immobile as if paralyzed in a dream.

  Why didn’t she object? Why didn’t she leave right then?