Dangerous Creatures (Dangerous Creatures 1)
Learn all the rules? Stand in the lines? Wait for my turn, like everyone else, every day?
Play nice?
The last thought was too terrifying to imagine.
For the rest of the day, it was all she could think about.
But when Ridley fell asleep, her nightmares were anything but regular. They were filled with disasters, with fires and explosions, with gold-eyed Casters watching her in the shadows, figures of terror cloaked in darkness and fear.
Everywhere she looked was blood. Magic and blood.
Hers and Link’s.
The longer she tossed and turned, desperately trying not to fall back asleep, the more regular life began to look like the lesser of two evils.
Finally, Ridley gave up, clutching her knees as she sat on the striped mattress, staring at the cracked wall. Maybe it’s a sign.
The next day, Ridley Duchannes had made her decision. She was ready to face the regular world. At least, she thought she was.
She was ready to try.
“I need a job,” Ridley said out loud, testing the words out. They might have sounded more legit if she hadn’t been lying on the beach as she said them.
It’s not my fault the living room floor is a beach, she thought, irritated. Besides, it’s only a fake one.
Necro burst out laughing and sat down in the sand next to her, sloshing a cup of coffee that narrowly missed hitting Ridley’s shiny red leather, heavily zippered jumpsuit—the one that made her look like a ninja-robot-assassin from the eighties. It was an outfit that signaled Getting Down to Business, which apparently Ridley intended to do. Even if the waves looked pretty nice, out on the horizon in front of her.
Necro put down her paper coffee cup, still smiling.
“Why is that so funny?” Ridley looked insulted, and this time, she didn’t have to fake it. “Mortals have jobs. They work. They get up in the morning and get on their little train things and go places with telephones and plants and—”
“Elevators?” Necro asked innocently. She pulled out an apple and flipped open her switchblade. With an expert flick of her wrist, she began to carve, smiling to herself.
Ridley was a little unnerved. Yesterday she had met the homeless-punk-looking Necro, the one wearing the jacket made of old carpet samples and black high-top Docs, the one who liked to pass on threats from unnamed people or things from another world. Not the laughing, smiling Necro. Ridley was instantly suspicious. At least she knew where she stood when a girl was threatening her.
“Elevators. Sure. Whatever. Why couldn’t I do that?” Ridley shrugged. “I could completely do that.”
“Ride in an elevator?” Necro fingered the silver hoop in her nose, trying not to laugh. “You really are gifted.”
“Is that a job?” Ridley wasn’t sure. She kicked at the sand. It sprayed up and into the balmy breeze that wrapped itself around the living room.
“Not really. But, man—you’re a Siren. That’s not you.”
“I’m also not a man.” Ridley frowned. “Sirens have had jobs. Some are real pros.”
Necro raised an eyebrow.
Ridley frowned. “Not that kind of job.”
“There’s probably an opening at the club somewhere. You could ask Nox.”
“No,” Ridley said quickly. “Not at the club.” She didn’t want to deal with his smug face any more than she had to.
“Hey, a job’s a job. And you’re the one who said you wanted one,” Necro said. She snapped her knife all the way through half of her apple.
“Not that badly.” Ridley shook her head. “Besides, I don’t want a Caster job. I want a Mortal job.”
At that, Necro began to really laugh, as if Ridley had told a joke. She tried to think what it could have been, but she couldn’t come up with anything.
“Again, what’s so funny?”
Necro tried to look serious. “What can you possibly do in the Mortal world? And why would you ever want to do it? Mortals are—”
“I know.” At least they could agree on that. Rid sighed. “You never know. It might turn out to be useful someday. If things get old around here.”
“Things like gambling debts?” Necro sliced through a section of apple.
Ridley ignored the implication. “Besides, I want to show Link that I can get by without the Power of Persuasion. Because he’s part Mortal. And because he thinks that’s all I know how to do. I’m more than just a Siren. I’m also—”
Necro leaned forward. Now she was interested. “Yeah?”
Unfortunately, Ridley couldn’t finish that sentence. If she could, they wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. Because she wasn’t a regular person. She wasn’t a regular anything. And aside from being a Siren, she wasn’t sure what else she was.
Ridley gave up. “Enough with the interrogation.”
Necro snapped her switchblade shut. “That’s what I thought.”
Ridley clenched her fists. She’d show Necro. Rid would make it in the Mortal world on her own. She could be regular. She could do more than any of these idiots thought she could.
Even if the idiot happened to be Ridley herself.
CHAPTER 12
Hell on High Heels
Hey there, Hot Rod.”
Ridley used the term loosely, and for once, she wasn’t talking about Link, who was busily rehearsing imaginary drum solos back at the apartment.
She was talking to Nerd Warrior Nick.
At least, according to his name tag.
It had taken her two hours to find the nearest Nerdworld in Brooklyn, which was where Necro had told her to go for a fast, free job search. This particular Nerd Warrior, which was apparently what you called the inhabitants of Nerdworld, looked more Nerd than Warrior.
“Are you talking to me?” Nerd Warrior Nick swallowed, taking in Ridley’s red leather jumpsuit, head to toe. It was a serious eyeful. Rid smiled, satisfied. Score another point for robot-ninja-assassins.
Somewhere in Gatlin, the ladies of the DAR were turning over in their future plastic-flower-covered graves.
Ridley pointed at Nerd Warrior Nick’s chest with one long, red fingernail. “I need you to show me how to work this thing.”
“What thing?” He swallowed. Then he seemed to remember he was standing behind a long table full of the latest and greatest Nerdworld gadgets. “You mean, a tablet?”
Ridley nodded. “Yeah. The little square thing.”
“To be honest, it’s actually more of a rectangle.” Nick pushed his glasses up against his eyes.
“Are you kidding me?” She blinked at him. “Honey, if I say it’s a circle, it’s a circle. You got that?”
“Wh—what can I help you with? Seven-inch? Nine-inch? Memory upgrades? Are you in the market for
a—”
Ridley sighed. “I’m thinking I might need a job.”
“Printing job?” He looked confused. “The tablet can wirelessly connect to almost any—”
“Nick.” Ridley shook her head, edging her way up onto the table until she was sitting all the way atop it, swinging her legs. “I’m talking about a job job.”
“Here?” He swallowed again.
“No, not here. Well, maybe. What is it you do here?”
“Fix computers and tablets and smartphones and—”
“And all the other little square things?”
“Rectangles.” She glared at him the moment he said the word, and he looked down, ashamed. “Yes.”
“No. This is a terrible job.”
“Well, actually—”
“For me,” Ridley said.
Nick looked relieved. “It’s not for everyone.”
Ridley thought about it. “I need something with a little glamour, a little style. Something exceptional. Something that only I could do. Something that would make everyone who ever met me—”
“Proud?”
Ridley looked at Nick like he was insane. “Hate me. In a fit of seething jealous rage.”
Nick stared at her. “Are you still talking to me?”
She smiled, tugging playfully on his incredibly short and unevenly cut hair. Nobody should pay for that haircut. There really wasn’t much to tug on. Still. She’d worked with less before. “Why don’t you fire up that little squ—rectangle of yours and find me what I’m looking for, Smarty-Pants?”
He was searching JOB EXCEPTIONAL GLAMOUR STYLE NEW YORK CITY before Ridley had to unwrap a single lollipop.
There was persuasion, and then there was Persuasion. Sometimes it was even more satisfying for Ridley to remember she didn’t need magic to be powerful.
She just needed red leather.
It felt good to be back in the game.
Nerd Warrior Nick had been a faithful soldier to the end, and now it was time for Ridley to cash in on his valiant Googling.
Even if that should be a made-up word.
“You don’t have to do this,” Necro said. She couldn’t even imagine going into a place like the one they were standing in front of.
“Yes, I do.” Ridley took a deep breath. “I can do this.”