Chameleon | ONC 2020

7: Focus

"So here's the deal," Coran said, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Around the tiny apartment space, supernatural scumbags lounged or leaned on what furniture there was, or up against the wall. Two vampires were present, as well as another werewolf and a sorcerer whom Chameleon had the awful feeling had been dead at some point, and the sorrow clouds were suffocating. So was the staring.

None of them would try anything in front of Coran but Chameleon caught them looking. They made no effort to hide it. She couldn't lock herself in the bathroom for the meeting because she was supposed to be part of this grand plan, so instead she had squeezed herself into the farthest reach of the kitchenette, which wasn't very far at all.

"Cham goes in the front and works her charm on him," Coran continued, catching her eye and winking. Her lips twitched, hands curling in on themselves in her pockets. The last thing she felt like doing was 'working her charm' on a sleazebag. She couldn't stop thinking about the drawings in the dresser and the tiny note in the corner. She cursed Lilac for even putting the idea in her head. "Then Dante takes his boys round the back, breaks through the alarm system, and then the rest of us go in and grab what we can."

She didn't even know what they were grabbing. She didn't think she wanted to know.

"What're you going as this time?" one of the vampires called over to her, voice silky-smooth and eyes glinting red. His sorrow cloud boiled black as pitch over his brow, a live wire.

"What are you hoping for?" she said, smiling back and shoving down a wave of nausea. Coran's eyes were on her, but she avoided them.

"Sexy maid," the vampire replied.

She rolled her eyes, hoping no one could sense how tense she was. "Yes, he'll never suspect anything if I turn up in a polyester pinafore from the Halloween clearance rack in April."

The vampire chuckled, and his fangs caught the light from the bulb over his head. His eyes slipped down to her neck. She'd worn a scarf for the meeting, but it never made any difference.

Coran made a noise that fell somewhere between a throat clearance and a snarl, and the vampire's attention snapped to a random point on the wall.

It wasn't a sexy maid she ended up going as, but it wasn't far off. Coran had picked up the costume for her, a green and purple tartan summer dress and stockings. The wig was long and sleek dark brown – one of her best, he'd insisted – and she had slaved over the makeup so that she didn't look like the washed-out young crone she was starting to feel like.

Their target was a grimy shop down an alleyway on the outskirts of central London somewhere. She didn't know the location, because she'd travelled on Coran's back and was too busy holding her stomach in to pay attention. The building was tatty and closed for the night, a steel shutter drawn down amongst the drifts of rubbish bags. White graffiti glowed through the gloom. There was a light on upstairs, and as they approached a figure appeared briefly just before it went dark.

"Does he know we're here?" the other werewolf said.

"Can't do," Coran muttered back. "If he does, we got a squealer."

Chameleon shuddered. Coran glanced down at her. "You cold, babe?"

"It's freezing," she snapped, "and you got me dressed in almost nothing."

His brows lifted, and he moved in to hug her, but she ducked out from under his arm and stalked across the alley to the screen door beside the shutter. She looked back at the group hovering behind her, taking a small vindictive pleasure at the astonishment on Coran's face.

"You going to stand there and wait for him to spot you?"

She opened the screen door and stepped into the tiny entranceway. She heard nothing, but she knew the next time she looked round there would be nobody there.