Free Nightwise by R. S. Belcher Page B

mainstream. Without her there never would never have been any Malika, no Tula Cossey, no Lea T. Wow. You met her here in New York?”
    â€œNo,” I said, opening the door for her. The music, a club mix of “Afterlife,” by Arcade Fire, rolled out into the street. “I met her back in Australia, when she was a skinny little Abo boy named Adoni and got beat nightly by Outback shit kickers for dressing like a girl.”
    We walked down a narrow hallway painted black, with strands of white Christmas tree lights adorning the walls. It narrowed, funneled into a vast room. Beams of light and darkness rained down with the music. The dance floor was painted, covered with a rainbow-colored serpent with scales of black light paint. The serpent coiled, slithered, twisted, and glowed across the floor. It was everywhere, and the dancers flowed, moved among its coils. The serpent was the dancers and dancers were the great snake.
    â€œNow,” I said, “she’s the queen of the world, holding court.”
    Above the glowing, undulating snake-floor, on a stage just in front of the DJ’s perch, was a shifting, swirling figure with twin neon-burning poi ropes in her hand, spinning a hypnotic pattern around herself—a cocoon of electronic fire. She had bronze-brown skin shimmering with body glitter, a dress of golden metal mesh, golden knee boots with six-inch heels, platinum hair raining down like Lady Godiva, and eyes the color of clove. I couldn’t help but smile. She was a goddess.
    â€œDidgeri-fucking-Doo!” Magdalena said, jumping up and down and tugging on my arm. “Come on, old man, let’s dance!”
    The music changed, slid, morphed into Sultan and Ned Shepard’s “Ordinary People.” I could feel the power flowing through Dreamtime, I knew Didgeri was using that power, was in the middle of a working. I knew I had Roman to deal with and Slorzack and the Illuminati, and, and, and. But in that second, in that moment of heat and sound, with this beautiful girl, so much life and passion shining out of her, I laughed and nodded.
    â€œOkay, let’s fucking dance, darlin’.”
    And we did. A lot. For the first time I could remember in years—hell, decades—I felt the joy the power could bring, the beating heart of magic, the power of humanity, of release, of emotion not guarded behind a wall of discipline and paranoia. I laughed and I sweated and I danced. And Magdalena was the center of the storm; she moved with fluid grace, navigated the serpent coils flawlessly with instinct and passion, and I felt the power shine off of her, out of her like a geyser from Heaven. In that moment I saw what she was, what she could be.
    I looked above the dance floor to the stage, and my eyes and Didgeri’s locked. She had sensed it too.
    Magdalena and I eventually collapsed in a booth, our clothes soaked. I’d ditched my sweater within ten minutes of starting to thrash about. I bought an ice bucket full of obscenely overpriced bottled water and paid extra to make sure it wasn’t dosed with X. Magdalena and I both downed two bottles before either of us could talk.
    â€œYou dance pretty good for a seasoned citizen,” Magdalena said, raising her bottle in a toast. I tapped my bottle to hers, smiled, and uttered a quaint vulgarity. We turned to look at the dance floor, and Roman was standing in front of our table, both eyes blackened and tape on his nose. He was damp from the rain outside and had slid one of his hands under his raincoat. His eyes burned with fantasies of payback and petty anger.
    â€œEnjoy your dance, bitch,” Roman shouted over the pounding beat of the music. He started to draw, and I began to rise, but I was tired, sore, and caught completely off guard. I tried to think of a simple ward, anything to stop him, but I had let all my defenses down. Idiot. I suddenly felt a flare of power, like the sun bursting to life from behind storm