Page 24 of Branding the Bat

"Partly."

"Is he okay?"

"He's fine. He doesn't know I'm calling you."

"Then what's this about?"

Trevor closed his eyes. "I've done something I need to fix, and I don't know how, and you're the only person I trust to tell me if I'm wrong."

Silence. Then: "That's a hell of a thing to say to someone who specifically told you to be nice to his friend."

"I know."

"Come at ten. I'll be here. Bring coffee, black, no sugar. And Trevor?"

"Yeah?"

"If this is something that puts Sero at risk, I'm not going to be sympathetic. I'm going to be angry. Understand that going in."

"I understand."

"Good. Ten o'clock. Don't be late."

The line went dead.

Trevor put his phone down and looked at the golden vials one more time. Then he closed the workshop door and went to make coffee.

He arrived at Kinky Kritters at ten, two paper cups of black coffee in hand. The building's lobby was empty. Bethany wasn't at the desk this early, the front counter bare except for a folded newspaper and a pen. The elevator took him down, and the doors opened onto a club that was, for the first time in Trevor's experience, silent.

No music. No voices. No clink of glasses or murmur of negotiation. Just the amber light and the empty bar and Amani, sitting on the counter with his feet on a stool, reading something on his phone. He was wearing jeans and a loose t-shirt, off-duty clothes, no tiny shorts, no bare chest. He looked younger withoutthe bartender persona. More like the twenty-year-old he actually was.

"Coffee," Trevor said, setting a cup beside him.

"Thanks." Amani picked it up but didn't drink. He looked at Trevor with an expression that was neither hostile nor friendly, neutral, watchful, the look of someone who'd agreed to listen but hadn't agreed to anything else. "Talk."

Trevor sat on a stool across from him. The empty club stretched behind them, the play areas dark, the private room doors closed, the cobwebs from Halloween still clinging to the ceiling beams. In the silence, every sound carried: the creak of Trevor's stool, the tap of Amani's phone being set aside, the faint electrical hum of the lights.

"I'm in trouble," Trevor said.

"What kind?"

"The kind with sharks."

Amani's expression didn't change, but his eyes went hard. "Go on."

Trevor told him. Not everything, not the machine, not the vials, not the specifics of what he extracted or how. But the shape of it: he had a business arrangement with the Grizzly, an old bear who frequented the Playground. He provided a product, an alchemical serum, that the Grizzly paid well for. The quality had been inconsistent, and the Grizzly was losing patience. Sharks were involved as intermediaries. The sharks were escalating.

Amani listened without interrupting. He sipped his coffee once, set it down, and waited until Trevor was done.

"What does this have to do with Sero?" Amani asked.

Trevor looked at his hands. "The best batch I've ever produced came from a session with Sero. The Grizzly wants more of that quality. If he finds out who my source is—"

"Source." Amani's voice was flat. "You're calling Sero your source."

"That's what he is. In the context of the business."

"And in the context of the relationship you're supposedly building with him?"