Free Doubletake by Rob Thurman Page A

pasties over her scaly chest and a G-string made to accommodate her thrashing crocodile tail. Nine feet of croc-a-croc-a burning love. “Oh shit, I think I’m going to pass out.” I clenched the edge of the bar.
    “Almost all
paien
,” one of the pucks corrected. Puckstein—I recognized him by the Star of David around his neck. “Not the lili and lilitu. They can’t smell us.” He stretched as if he were next up in Olympic men’s gymnastics.
Jesus.
“Hope you have a fire hose handy to clean out the place. You’re going to need it when this night is over.”
    Jesus
.
    I thought about shooting myself in the head. I thought about shooting the puck, but taking out seventy wasn’t going to happen. I decided on the simple: running out the emergency exit doors, if Niko didn’t beat me to them.
    But it was too late. There were three reasons for that. One was the commitment we’d made to Robin—by commitment I meant the money we’d taken and had no intention of giving back. The second was the chains I saw wrapped and locked around the emergency door push bars. Goddamn mind-reading Goodfellow. The third was the worst.
    The entertainment had arrived.
    Seventy or so lions prowled through the front door. They walked upright, dressed in long raincoats to pass among humans, but they were lions. Until they stripped off the coats as soon as they passed through the door, and then they were lions and eagles. Male and female, they all had masses of hair—no, not hair, but manes, tawny or dark brown or a mixture of both. Sunglasses were dropped as well to reveal cat’s eyes in reverse, black with a golden slit of iris. They also had dark brown/black wings springing from their backs. That was comfortingly familiar. It was a peri bar. We were used to feathers here.
    But there was something off. I took a harder look. I was used to anything these days when it came to monsters. Yet there was something…missing.
    Their eyes and full-lipped mouths were so large, you almost didn’t notice—that there was only smooth skin between. No noses.
    Puckstein was right: Puck pheromones wouldn’t bother them at all. Hard to smell when you’re lacking noses.
    Everywhere else they looked mostly human—humanwith the bare minimum of sequined stripper wear to be taken off for money, and lion fur billowing where most women waxed or shaved and some men manscaped. I was half monster, but, yeah, I knew the word “manscape” and if I hadn’t, seeing enough fur escape a bulging G-string that it crept down to knee level, I would’ve
invented
the term.
    The music started, the lights lowered and began to pulse in wild colors, and a wall-covering sheet I hadn’t given a single thought of going near was ripped down to reveal the entire contents of a porn warehouse. There were sex toys I’d seen, sex toys I hadn’t seen but was aware existed, and then there were things I hadn’t seen, hadn’t heard of, and couldn’t begin to guess what in the hell they did.
    “I’m surprised Goodfellow didn’t go all out and bring in chandeliers from which they could swing,” Niko said.
    I pointed to a corner where a leather swing was being set up to hang from the ceiling. “Ah.” Niko exhaled, to center himself—I’d seen him do it many times before. “You’re fascinated with the porn channel. Now you get the three-dimensional version. I’d think you’d be enjoying yourself.”
    “I like a candy bar once in a while too. This is being stuck in Willy Wonka’s Perverted Sex Factory.” I started pouring drinks. It was a job.
Muscle through it.
    Niko began pouring as well, as a wall of impatient hands waved frantically in our faces. “The lili, male, and lilitu, female, were born under the sands of Assyria in ancient times. If you’re born under the sand, often live in sandstorms, I understand nature deciding you didn’t need a nose. They’re known to be ravenously sexually predatory, more so than—difficult as it is to imagine—pucks, I’ve