The 8th Circle by Sarah Cain

“You have really beautiful eyes. Are you a Scorpio?”
    Danny shook his head. “Sorry.”
    “That’s okay. I’m not compatible with Scorpios.”
    She had a stud in her nose, six rings in her left eyebrow, and four studs below her lower lip. A snake tattoo slithered up her neck. Christ knew what other surprises she had on her body. He didn’t want to find out.
    A slim man in a burgundy velvet bodysuit admitted them into a dimly lit corridor that reeked of incense and a thick musk. He beckoned Ivy to come close. She handed him Michael’s card, and the two of them spoke in low tones for a couple of minutes before he turned to Danny.
    “Four hundred,” the man said.
    “Excuse me?”
    “Cover charge. Four hundred. Each.” The man’s oily voice was threaded with steel. A black goatee rimmed his pointed chin; all he needed was a bifurcated tongue and horns and he would have made a fine devil.
    “That’s a steep goddamn cover charge,” Danny said.
    The devilman gave Danny a slow smile that didn’t reach his kohl-lined eyes. “I don’t know you, my friend.”
    Danny handed over the cash. He’d come prepared because he figured from the onset that certain kinds of clubs didn’t take American Express. Michael had traveled to the land of white powder and kinky sex. Did Michael really hang out here? It wouldn’t be the kind of place you’d write about in an article on Philly nightlife unless you were into the seriously twisted. Still, Danny couldn’t picture Michael on the dance floor in a normal club. In this bat cave, he’d be right at home.
    We’ve now entered the Twilight Zone .
    He heard voices and music to his right, but the devilman returned the card and then led them down a corridor to the left through a door he was careful to close and lock.
    Pulsating electronic music vibrated from black velvet walls. The musk odor grew stronger until they came to a square room lit by red neon lights shaped like open mouths. Squashy looking couches and tables shaped like scarlet lips surrounded an ebony bar.
    It took Danny a half second to realize that bodies slithering and squirming together filled the couches. It was hard to tellwhere one body ended and the next began. Men with women. Women with women. Men with men. Combinations of numbers and positions.
    “Isn’t it beautiful?” Ivy said. “They’re so natural. Just like rabbits.”
    Danny thought he was prepared for the sex club experience. He was wrong.
    “We encourage our guests to use condoms,” the devilman said and slipped back down the corridor.
    Ivy took Danny by the arm. “Zach is over here.” She pointed to the man behind the bar. He wore a black velvet G-string and had a tattoo of a flaming skull on his left shoulder. His light brown skin gleamed like it had been greased.
    “Zach, my friend here needs something,” Ivy said.
    Zach smirked and held up a glass. “A little liquid fortification? It can be a bit overwhelming your first time. Say, that’s a nice jacket. Is it Armani? I’d better get you a locker.”
    “I don’t need a locker,” Danny said.
    “Whatever, blue eyes.” Zach poured tequila into a shaker of crushed ice and followed it with a succession of clear liquors. He shook the mixture, poured it into a tall glass, and added a shot of grenadine that curled down through the alcohol like a bloody worm. “I call it a bloodsucker,” Zach said. He dropped in a maraschino cherry. “It’ll knock you on your sweet ass.”
    Danny shook his head. “Thanks. I’ll pass.”
    “I know you. You’re that reporter dude what used to be such hot shit. You wrote about Huey Newcomber—that kid got killed for stealin’ a pack of dental floss? That was some righteous anger you stirred up, man. What you looking for here?”
    Zach watched with curious eyes as Danny tried to dredge up the story. The memory flickered at the edges of his mind and shut off at once when Ivy leaned over his arm and he realized she had unlaced her bustier. Christ, her