Read Online Tales of the Unquiet Gods by David Pascoe - Free Book Online

branches of what looked like living trees wove themselves into a lattice over the entryway. Enormous - for the city - double doors stood wide open. Panels of heavy, age-darkened oak bound in polished metal were studded here and there with what looked to be thick, hand-forged nails. The metal spikes had been hammered through the doors, and the excess length pounded flat to the wood.
    An enormous man bulked large in front of one of the doors. Anne was struck by the immediate difference between this bouncer and Mike. Her friend was smaller, for one. A lot smaller, she realized as she got closer. And prettier, by far. This - gentleman - reminded her of a chunk of scarred masonry that had been left in the weather for a couple of centuries.
    Small, dark eyes hid under thick, craggy brows. Black, wiry hair stood out from the back of his blocky head in a crest. A broad, flat nose clung to his face over a mouth set in a permanent frown. A mouth that seemed more like an animal's muzzle than anything human. Massive shoulders eliminated any chance he could call the space between his head and his chest a neck. Between the arms that hung nearly to his knees and the black suit transformed him into a caricature of a mafioso.
    "G'wan in," he said an abyssal voice. Along with his words, the doorman expelled a cloud of foul-smelling breath that threatened to curl Anne's nose-hairs. She managed to stifle her shudder. Barely. Between the depth of his voice and the stench of his breath, it took Anne a few seconds to realize they'd made it through the front door.
    "I expected a longer wait," she muttered to her sister.
    Giving no indication she'd even heard, Chelle drifted past her into the - into some kind of antechamber. Anne hurried to catch up. People filled the room, a collection of the young and hopeful. It was an unhip crowd. Or rather, it wasn't a crowd trying to look hip. Anne was surprised to note the crowd was missing the usual mixture of the desperate. Few of the glitterati she'd expected to see. In fact, most of them seemed - from their dress and attitude - artists. Musicians, painters, writers - and dancers.
    A spiky thread of unaccounted-for apprehension twisted through Anne's guts. Something felt off. Felt ... weird. Music thrummed on the air. A wild, unbound kind of music, it reminded her of folk music from her childhood. If that music was played by an orchestra full of virtuoso players. And written by a madman.
    "Chelle, honey, I'm not sure about-" Anne looked around, and realized her sister had disappeared. Her apprehension ratcheted quickly through concern and into foreboding. A quick scan around told her that while there were plenty of young faces around her, none belonged to her sister.
    Anne strangled the nameless dread trying to unfold within. This was a club. A weird one, with a weird doorman, but a club nonetheless. Even if they didn't have a line of hopefuls out the door. Even if they didn't seem to be serving drinks.
    Anne took a deep breath and a more careful look around. The room - what she could see of it through the dim light - was made up to look like the inside of - of - of she didn't know what. The industrial concrete floor had been polished until it shone. The walls were covered with some kind of stone facade, and the ceiling! Anne boggled a little at the amount of money it must have taken to make it look like a natural stone cave.
    At the far side of the room the floor dropped away. Flickering lights and the way the traffic generally flowed toward the open maw drew Anne. As she neared, she saw a set of stairs descending into a darkness shot through with myriad colors.
    In any other club, Anne wouldn't have felt off-balance. Flashing lights and loud music meant dancing. She assumed it was true here, as well. But.
    Light the colors of a sun-lit leaves seen through water splashed across steps that looked like they'd been carved of solid marble. Marble the color of healthy flesh. The threads of translucent blue