5
CASSANDRA
I was a good judge of a person. Right off the bat, like a golden retriever, I could sniff out the good ones from the bad ones. Maybe I was just hypersensitive to small details, but it came second nature to me.
Miguel—no, Orlando, he was now telling me—was a kind person. There was laughter in his soul, and I didn’t think he could hurt someone if he wanted to.
But there was something he was hiding, now, and the way he smiled made me nervous.
“What do you have to show me?” I asked, ignoring the part where he said it would freak me out. Had he lied on his background check? Or faked his medical records? All the safeguards we had in place suddenly felt woefully inadequate. I glanced at my clutch: it was on the table in the lounge area by the front door. If I needed to I could sprint to it, but he could cut me off…
“It’s…” He rolled his head back and forth. “Well, I can’t explain it. It’d be easier to show you.”
I cleaned up in the bathroom, and when I got out Orlando was all dressed. He looked dashing in his suit, with the button-down shirt contrasting wonderfully with his dark skin.
“Is what you wanted to show me at dinner?” I asked. I made jokes when I was nervous. “Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked up an appetite.”
“Nope. Come on.”
This time he took me by the hand and led me to the elevator. But instead of pressing the button for the lobby, he hit the one marked “RA.”
Roof Access.
I held my heavy clutch tighter. The excitement I felt for the weekend suddenly gave way to nervousness. That’s the part of being an escort I liked: there was always a taste of danger in the entire thing. Strangers meeting for the first time, to have a good time. It made the entire thing more exciting, more intense. A ghost pepper hiding in a bowl of chili.
But it was usually only a taste of danger. The vague hint of danger. But now I was in the elevator, trusting Orlando while he led me to the roof. I was putting my trust in him. He could do anything. Hell, he could throw me off the building and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.
I knew he wouldn’t, not with that pearly smile and the kind soul just behind his eyes, but the danger was still there.
“What’s on the roof?” I tried to sound aloof, but probably failed.
“I looked it up online. There are forums for people who like to explore roofs in cities, and this hotel is one that never locks the roof door. The only thing you have to do is hold down the button when you reach it.” I was about to point out that he was avoiding the question, but then the elevator stopped and he did just that, pressing his thumb to the “RA” button for three long seconds.
The door opened, revealing the city.
Chicago was a gorgeous city at night, but the fog coming off the lake gave it a ghostly feel tonight. I could see the glow of the neighboring skyscrapers’ lights, but nothing farther than that.
And it was cold and windy up here. I wrapped my coat around myself tighter.
Orlando turned and reached inside his pocket. He held it there for a second, then gradually pulled out a small object. It was a grey stone carving, with intricate details I could make out in the dim light, and it was adorned with a dark gem larger than my thumbnail.
Ahh, shit.
Getting extravagant gifts from men wasn’t unusual. In fact, it happened with annoying regularity. Necklaces, rings, earrings. It was like I was a prized cow and my dates wanted to mark me with jewelry.
But it usually happened after our time together, not at the beginning.
“Wow,” I said with faked enthusiasm.
“It’s onyx,” Orlando said. “The gem. You can see the imperfections in the dark reflection.”
“Oh,” I said, trying to regain my composure. “That’s beautiful. Is that… a tiger?”
“It’s a gryphon,” Orlando said in an excited voice. “Half eagle, half lion.”
He held it out in his hand.
There was something about it. I guess it was because I was used to getting jewelry as gifts, not jewel-encrusted figurines. That made it different. Exotic.
Orlando was staring at me intently while he held it out. Gauging my reaction. I wondered if it was a personal item to him, like a family heirloom.
I didn’t want to take it from him. We’d already made a transaction: money for time. For me to take this now would be some new transaction that he intended, one which I wasn’t sure about. And I didn’t want to accept it so early in our date.
But before I could stop myself, my fingers were wrapping around the cool stone and pulling it back to hold against my chest.
“That’s not what I wanted to show you,” Orlando said slowly.
I stiffened. “How’s that?”
He gave me an apologetic smile. “I’m going to have to be nude for this next part.”
“Dude,” I laughed, “if it were warmer I’d consider having sex on a roof. But not tonight.”
“It’s not that. I promise it will all make sense in a minute.”
And then he began stripping.
It was such a ridiculous thing, me shivering on the roof while he removed his clothes, that I couldn’t help but giggle. Whatever he was going to do, it was going to be innocent.
“Mind holding these for me?”
He tossed me his jacket and then shirt, revealing a broad chest rippled with dark muscle. Then he kicked off his shoes, and stripped his pants, until he was in his boxer briefs.
“Alright, that’s good enough.” He pointed to his underwear. “I can lose these in the process.”
“What process?” I asked, still not having a clue what was about to happen.
He took three steps back, widened his stance, then nodded at me. “Press it.”
“Huh?”
“The onyx gem on the gryphon. Press it. With your finger.”
If this was some magic trick, he was barking up the wrong tree. Magicians didn’t impress me. But I shifted his clothes to one arm and held out the figurine, twisting it until the dark gem came into view. I cupped the object in my fingers and ran my thumb along the tiny bumps which must have been eagle feathers, until my thumb reached the smooth stone…
“Do it,” Orlando whispered.
It happened… strangely. Like, I didn’t really push anything; the black gem just sank beneath my finger at the tiniest fraction of pressure. Like it’d been waiting to do it. Eager to do it.
The air between us shimmered and warped. Orlando’s face held a moment of surprise, and then twisted in immeasurable pain. He held his arms out to the side and clenched his hands into fists as he screamed, somehow remaining upright, fighting against invisible chains that wanted to pull him to the ground.
And then I started hallucinating.
His arms exploded like they were made of millions of kernels of popcorn, POOF POOF POOF, expanding and stretching with cartoonish speed. I heard a hollow snapping sound like bones breaking, one rib at a time, as his chest expanded and widened. His face smeared like sculptor’s clay, all recognizable features disappearing and changing and then being replaced. Hair grew everywhere on his body, long strands that stiffened like porcupine needles, and then the hairs grew outward and became feathers as dark as charcoal.
And two wings burst from his back, stretching wide like a black angel.
The animal before me was altogether identical to the object in my hand: half eagle and half lion, perched on his back paws like a good dog doing a trick. His bird eyes regarded me with curiosity, then satisfaction.
He launched into the air with a powerful leap, and then his wings were taking over, great beats that created new wind to blow my hair around. He rose into the air like a giant raven before flying around in a circle above, partially shrouded in the thick Chicago mist.
And then the blackness from his feathered body spread, and blocked out all other light, and then I fainted to the ground.