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Kierse would have loved to choose the bus, but Nate had recommended Dreadlord-controlled subway entrances. She could have taken the 1 to the Upper West Side, but she needed a minute to figure out her move before she went back to Graves. Instead, she headed north to 6th and 14th to catch the more familiar F train, straight up to Midtown.
She tensed her shoulders as she descended into the subway. Lights flickered overhead, barely illuminating the gloom. Another consequence of monsters in the public eye were the trolls who managed the subway entrances. They associated with certain gangs and forced tolls on unsuspecting victims. In a way, it was paying to cross a bridge.
“Thad,” she said with a head nod as she approached the troll at this stop.
He grunted. She forced herself not to shiver at the sight of a full-size troll. He was almost double her height, with meaty shoulders and clubs for arms. His bulky head rested nearly flat on his shoulders, and his eyes were small and beady. The cruel twist of his lips and the shine in his black eyes said he’d rather crush her than allow her access. But with the Treaty in place, so long as she paid her toll, all would be well. She hoped.
“Nate said to let me pass,” Kierse told him, revealing the pin of a crescent moon with five stars that revealed her association with the Dreadlords.
He stood to his considerable height. “You still have to pay the price.”
She hated the ritual, hated having to pay a toll to use a facility that already charged for usage. But it was easier than shooting her way through, which she had done before when she’d stumbled into the wrong station run by the wrong monsters in the East Village.
Nate had assured her that she wouldn’t have to pay, but she wasn’t about to fight a troll to find out if he was right. She fished out a five and passed it to him. She’d paid way more at other stops and hoped that he wouldn’t ask for more.
He took a minute to make sure it was what he wanted. Trolls weren’t that intelligent. The payments were more about power than the money itself. Finally, Thad pocketed the cash and nodded her into the depths below. She already had a MetroCard handy and hopped on the next F train north. She took the first available seat, carefully bolstered on either side by other humans who wanted nothing to do with her. At the last second, a shifter entered with a goblin. They were both packing and almost rippled with malice. Everyone immediately turned their attention elsewhere, and Kierse followed suit. She had enough problems as it was.
The reason she loved the F train was that it was the most direct route to Midtown without any of the more . . . unsavory stops. It was an unwritten rule to avoid the Times Square stop on the 1. Tourists were still stupid enough to do it, but Kierse always took another stop over and hoofed it if she had to go nearby. She equally rejected the 4, 5, or 6 north even though they were sometimes faster. Stopping at Grand Central was just asking for trouble. She shivered even thinking of it.
No, the F was the safest. And when she reemerged into the first rays of daylight on 57th Street a half hour later, she was glad to leave the subway behind her. Though she had been uptown last night, the contrast was worse during the day. The entire world was bright and vibrant, with skyscrapers of glass, open restaurants without bars on the windows, mothers pushing their babies in strollers, businesses with bright signs beckoning pedestrians inside, and not a seedy character in sight. Money could buy happiness.
Kierse had to stuff her hands in her jacket pockets to keep her thieving habit at bay. It was hard to ignore the naive little lambs wandering the streets wide-eyed who were just begging to be pickpocketed. But cops actually patrolled these streets, and she’d had enough trouble for one day.
Instead, she headed into the Upper East Side and straight to her favorite Jewish bakery. It had been a staple in its prime Madison Avenue location for decades. Even during the Monster War, it had only closed for a few months. After paying for her treats, she took the paper package filled with black-and-white cookies, rugelach, and cinnamon babka and headed out onto the busy streets. She rolled her eyes at the tea shop full of monsters reminiscing about the good old days. Wealthy women had been fond of this tea shop with little finger sandwiches and desserts before the war. That was when they’d found out that a succubus had used it as a feeding ground. Kierse pulled out a cookie and bit into it as she crossed to the Met.
