I have to blink my vision back into focus as the paparazzi cameras bathe us in a sudden outpour of light, the clicks of their cameras like the buzzing of locust wings. The initial ecstatic roar from the crowd turns to cries of attention.
"Katy!"
"Katy! I love you!"
"Katy, this way! When's your next album, Katy?"llian
"Are you still on speaking terms with Saffron? Can you confirm her rehab admission? Katy??"
"What's happening Katy? Is this guy threatening you?"
The woman who emerged from inside pays no heed to the cameras beyond a benign smile, even as the camera flashes center on her. I don't know why they even bother. The piercing white light from the reporters fades in comparison to her own glow.
Her brown skin is as dark as umber, contrasting brilliantly with the golden leotard she wears. The skin tight fabric seems to be made of solid a single, glistening snakeskin that coils around her body as she moves. That same gold shimmers behind her feline, upturned eyes. Ripples through the roots of her long, simple afro. Courses through feather-thin lines that pattern her skin like glowing veins.
She barely glances at me, focusing a gaze of cool derision on Lee as she steps closer, curling sharp nails into the leather of his jacket. "Kiss me."
To my shock, he obeys immediately, stooping low sweep up this Katy woman and place a brief, sweet kiss on her lips. The crowd howls on in shock and support and the camera flashes grow even more frenzied, jolting me with an awful memory of the flashing lightbulb in Bob's basement.
"Is that your boyfriend Katy? What's his name?"
"Are you pregnant?"
"Wait, that's Lee What's-his-name! Lee! Are you back together for a new album? What happened to your arm? Who's the human with you, Lee? Is she dating Katy too?"
"You two. Inside," Katy hisses, yanking Lee towards the door with her pincer-grip on his arm. With her spare hand, she tugs a note of money from her bra and tosses it at the bouncer, who looks as mortified as I feel. "You. Oger. Keep him out properly next time. For fuck's sake."
Lee reaches back and grabs my hand as he follows Katy inside, pulling me along with him as we escape the roaring chaos of the street and emerge into a quieter foyer, unbefitting a club.
"Are we dating again?" He asks mildly as Katy relinquishes her grip on him. An attendant rushes over from the coatroom beside us and takes his jacket. I only tug mine tighter when one offers the same.
"Pfft. The Oracle made me front page again with one of their stories about faking my sexuality. Who am I to deny them a reward for such dedication to trashy journalism?" Katy says sourly, accepting a glass of champagne from yet another attendant and washing her mouth with it. With a flick of her hand, the club workers scurry away as though spellbound. "What do you want, Lee? More importantly, what the fuck have you done to your face?"
She doesn't stop walking as she talks, leading us from a lavish foyer to an equally glamourous set of private rooms. Were it not from the faint sounds of pulsing pop music emanating from distant dancefloors, I'd hardly believe it to be the heart of young, rich party-life that Lee had made The California out to be.
"Katy, I'd like you to meet my friend Liv." Lee ignores her question, patting my shoulder. "Olivia, I'd like you to meet my patron, Katy Perry?"
"Excuse me?" I choke. "Are you being funny, Lee?"
"I'm sorry, but what is the point of this?" Katy Perry asks off-handedly, swinging herself into a large, private booth.
"Katy Perry is the stage name for Chastity's music career which I gave her. Katy, Olivia is a friend of my father. From Earth, so go easy on her," Lee explains. "She got swindled out of her soul last night and I figured you'd be the best person to talk to about that. Some rich kid called Otis. North Circe mansion rich. Surely some kind of regular here."
"From Earth... From- Are you kidding me Lee?" Katy explodes. She glances at me incredulously. "I can't buy you out of this one! The Ministry of Borders might turn a blind eye to smuggling over some Earth watches and MP3s, but if they found out you're running some- some what? Tourist industry for humans? They see her and you're both back on Earth with your minds wiped. If they don't lock you in prison instead. Did you forget how that went for you last time?!"
"Hey- I didn't smuggle anybody," Lee interjects hastily, raising his hands. "By the book, I took every reasonable precaution hiding away the portal here. I can't help it if Olivia's suicidal. Anyway, this is every reason why we need you help to find this Otis."
Katy begrudgingly allows Lee to finish, but turns her scrutinizing gaze on me instead. "I'll need more than just a name if you want me to find someone."
Reluctantly, I recount the happenings of last night again. Otis's brilliant appearance and erratic behavior. Nim and the others who'd travelled with him. All the while the gorgeous Katy stares at me pensively, expression growing stonier as each word leaves my mouth. Her eyes take on that strange, unfocused look that Lee had used on me earlier.
"Well," she says after I finish, "I don't think I've ever met an Otis or a Nim. They certainly don't come here. But, go buy me a drink and I'll text some people. Get."
"You own the club. I'm not buying you shit," Lee says with a scowl.
"Why did I land myself with the most disobedient little slave possible? Go and maybe I'll help you." Katy watches Lee as he leaves anyway, before turning back to me. I want to shrink under her gaze as she watches me in silence, but instead I try my luck.
"I thought you people couldn't lie."
"Excuse me?"
"I thought you couldn't lie," I repeat louder, "Otis couldn't lie, at least. But you recognized who I was talking about."
"Well I'm not fucking Otis, am I?" Katy doesn't spit the words with the passive venom she's kept in her voice since we met, but she clearly still thinks little of me. "Do you know who's jacket he stole, the one you're wearing? How much it's worth?"
I shake my head, the line of questioning catching me off-guard.
"That's a custom enchanted design by Asmodeus. Lee wouldn't know because he's a broke little rat, but right now you're wearing fifteen thousand dollars' worth of stolen designer clothing," Katy hisses, revealing a set of pearly fangs. "Levi Noble is an asshole, but if you keep digging after your soul with him, those are the kind of enemies you're going to make him. If Otis and his lot want your soul, it's a whole lot safer to let him keep it."
"Are you and Lee a couple?" I ask. Wrong thing to be focusing on, Olivia, I tell myself, but I can't help it. While Katy looks to be nearing thirty years in age, there's an unmistakable fondness between the agitated banter she shares with Lee. "Is that why you're only telling me this?"
Katy snorts with the first true amusement I've seen from her. Tilting her head back and laughing like I'd told a joke.
"Us? Is that what you're really worried about here, Olivia? Please. That kiss was for show. I'm as straight as Lee is. Less, actually."
It shouldn't give me so much relief to hear her say it, even if it confirms my original suspicions about Lee.
"Lee and I met when we were both young and stupid," Katy continues, glancing over at Lee to make sure he's still at the bar. "He'd just escaped here from Earth. Beaten to shit and out of his league. I'd dreamt too big of fame and got kicked out of home myself."
"Lee wasn't kicked out," I protest, but Katy silences me with a look of pity more sad than condescending. Lee's righteous anger at his family home comes back to me.
"You Earthen humans have a rough time of it coming here, I know. He was smart enough not to sell his body to anyone to stay afloat. Just black magic and pedaling drugs. I was trying to make a name for myself as a musician and influencer. Call me an opportunist, but I knew an untapped resource when I saw one." Katy frowns. "Nobody this side had much of a clue about Earth technology back then. Nor culture wise, either. I talked Lee into forgoing the drugs next time he made a portal to Earth. He brought me back a Wi-Fi router, a computer and a USB full of pirated Earth pop music."
I can see where this is going. "You plagiarized it all? That was the big tech boom in the Edifice eight years ago, right?"
Katy laughs bitterly.
"Yep. My parents are both dentists. Always told me I had to do the full med degree and come straight back home to take over the clinic. Imagine being sixteen and told that your life plan is going to be other people's teeth. A dentist, for fuck's sake" She grins. "I made a hundred million from the tech alone in the first six months. Within a year 'my' songs were at the top of the charts here. It didn't last long, of course. The Ministry of Borders noticed the unexplainable progress in technology and traced it back. I lost the royalties to the songs we stole and was sued for most of the profit from the tech we sold."
"Jesus."
Katy shrugs as I stare at her in horror.
"I was fine though. If anything, it made my dreams come even truer. Celebrity isn't about money. It's about scandal. I had two documentaries out about me and a larger social following than the President. I got paid to model the clothes I wore to community service," Katy continues, before her expression drops. "But Lee was just an acerbic little drug addict the system wanted to scapegoat. He made... poor choices. Poor choices that I sponsored his way out of, but still. He's lost more of himself as a teenager than anyone should in a lifetime. And I'm not going to let him lose anymore because you decided to fuck around with Otysses and his ilk."
Well, there's a lot about Lee that I didn't know five minutes ago. I shouldn't be surprised most of all by the fact that he actually has a friend.
"So, you're Lee's sugar mommy?" I finally manage as the conversation dies, trying to steer it into lighter waters. The man himself is making his way back to the booth with a tray of drinks.
Katy laughs again, eyes flashing brighter with emotion. "Sugar mommy? Please. I'm the bitch he sold his soul to."