Chapter 27: The Nightclub
Moonrise occupied the basement level of a converted warehouse in the industrial district, unmarked except for a small crescent moon etched into the steel door. The line stretched down the block at 10 PM—Portland's supernatural community coming out to play.
Cole had dressed for the occasion: dark clothes, expensive enough to suggest money but not so flashy as to attract attention. His cover identity was simple—a mixed-blood Wesen, heritage unclear, looking for entertainment in a city he was new to.
The bouncer was a Siegbarste—ogre-like, massive, with the kind of face that discouraged argument. He studied Cole for a long moment, nostrils flaring as he tried to identify the scent.
"What are you?"
"Complicated," Cole said. "My mother didn't talk about my father much."
The Siegbarste grunted—the explanation was common enough among Wesen with mixed heritage. "Cover's fifty. No trouble inside, or you answer to me."
Cole paid and entered.
The club interior was everything he'd expected and more. Strobe lights painted the dance floor in rotating colors. Music pounded through speakers powerful enough to feel in your chest. And everywhere, Wesen moved freely—some fully woged, others flickering between human and other as the mood took them.
[DETECTION MATRIX: ACTIVE]
[WESEN PRESENT: 47 CONFIRMED]
[SPECIES IDENTIFIED: BLUTBAD (5), LOWEN (3), FUCHSBAU (8), LAUSENSCHLANGE (4), OTHERS (27)]
The variety was impressive. Cole had never seen so many Wesen in one place, moving and dancing and drinking with the casual ease of people who didn't have to hide what they were.
This is what Portland's supernatural community looks like when they're not afraid.
He pushed through the crowd toward the bar, scanning faces for Jessica Reeves. The Lowen's photos had shown distinctive features—high cheekbones, copper-colored hair, eyes that held the particular intensity of her species.
He found her behind the bar, mixing drinks with the practiced efficiency of someone who'd done the job for years. She looked nervous—checking the entrance every few minutes, flinching at sudden movements, carrying herself like someone waiting for bad news.
She knows something. About Michael Chen, about his disappearance.
Cole approached the bar and ordered a whiskey he didn't plan to drink. Jessica's eyes met his briefly—suspicious, assessing, then dismissive. He wasn't what she was afraid of.
"Jessica Reeves?"
Her expression hardened. "Who's asking?"
"Cole Ashford. I'm a private investigator. Michael Chen's sister hired me to find him."
The color drained from her face.
"I can't talk about that. Not here."
"Then where?"
"Nowhere. I don't know anything about—"
A hand touched Cole's shoulder.
He turned, reflexes tensing, and found himself looking at Adalind Schade.
She wore a black dress that probably cost more than the building's monthly utilities, and her green eyes held the particular shine of someone who'd just found something interesting in an otherwise boring evening.
"I know you," she said, tilting her head. "The coffee shop. You were staring at me."
"I wasn't staring."
"You absolutely were." Her smile was sharp and curious. "I'm good at noticing when men stare. You were different, though. You looked like you were trying to figure something out. Did you?"
Cole was acutely aware that Jessica Reeves had used the interruption to slip away toward the back of the club. His investigative target was fleeing while Adalind Schade demanded his attention.
She's working for Renard. This might not be coincidence.
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"Of course you're not." Adalind's smile widened. "What brings you to Moonrise? This doesn't seem like your kind of place."
"Work. Missing person case."
"How exciting. I mostly come here for boring meetings." She gestured vaguely toward the VIP section. "Someone always needs legal consultation at the most inconvenient hours."
She's collecting something for Renard. Or delivering something. Either way, she's here on business.
Cole glanced toward the back of the club. Jessica was gone—through a door marked "Staff Only," disappearing into whatever back areas the club maintained.
"Your case seems to have walked away," Adalind observed. "Bad luck."
"I'll find another approach."
"I'm sure you will." She studied him with an intensity that made his skin prickle. "You're not what you appear to be, Cole Ashford. I can't quite figure out what you are, though. That's unusual for me."
She can sense something. The Hexenbiest in her, maybe, picking up on the wrongness of my combined essences.
"Maybe I'm just unusually mysterious."
"Maybe." She laughed—not the polite social sound he'd expected, but something genuine. "I like mysterious. It's rare in my line of work." She pulled a card from her clutch and pressed it into his hand. "If your investigations ever need legal consultation, give me a call. I specialize in unusual cases."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Please do." She held his gaze for a moment longer than necessary. "And Cole? The people who run this club have connections you don't want to test. Be careful who you ask questions about."
She walked away toward the VIP section, leaving Cole with her business card and more questions than answers.
The card was simple: Adalind Schade, Attorney at Law, followed by a phone number and email. Professional and unremarkable, except for the way it felt warm in his hand—Hexenbiest magic, maybe, or just his imagination.
She gave me her number. She warned me about the club's connections. She's interested.
The combination of attraction and danger was intoxicating. Cole understood, on an intellectual level, that Adalind Schade was one of the most dangerous people in Portland—connected to Renard, working for the Royals, destined to cause tremendous damage to people Cole might need as allies.
He saved her number anyway.
The "Staff Only" door was locked, but Cole's enhanced senses told him Jessica Reeves was still somewhere in the building. Her scent—fear-sharp and distinctively feline—led toward the back loading area.
He found a service entrance that hadn't been properly secured and followed the trail into a corridor that smelled like beer kegs and industrial cleaner. The club's back-of-house areas were standard—storage, offices, a break room where staff could escape the pounding music.
Jessica was in the break room, packing her things into a bag with the frantic energy of someone planning to run.
"Ms. Reeves."
She spun, fear flooding her features, then confusion when she recognized him from the bar.
"I told you, I can't talk—"
"Michael Chen disappeared a week ago. His sister hasn't slept since. Whatever you're afraid of, running won't help if the people looking for him decide you're involved."
The words hit something vulnerable. Jessica's frantic movements slowed.
"I'm not involved. I tried to warn him, but he wouldn't listen."
"Warn him about what?"
"The Verrat." Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. "Michael found out something he shouldn't have. About their trafficking operation, about where the victims were coming from. He wanted to go to the police. I told him that would get him killed."
Michael Chen discovered Marsh's trafficking network. The same operation I destroyed.
"When did he find out?"
"Two weeks ago. He was doing some consulting work for a shipping company—something about their database systems. He found records that didn't add up. People being moved like cargo."
The timeline clicked into place. Michael had discovered the trafficking operation around November 1st. He'd started asking questions. And then, two weeks later, he'd disappeared—right around the time Cole had been planning his move against Marsh.
"Did the Verrat take him?"
"I don't know." Tears were forming in Jessica's eyes. "I told him to forget what he'd found, to pretend he'd never seen it. He said he couldn't. He said someone had to do something." She laughed bitterly. "He was always like that. Too moral for his own good."
He might still be alive. The Verrat would have interrogated him first, tried to find out what he'd told anyone else.
"Where would they have taken him?"
"I don't know. I don't know anything about how they operate. I just know that people who cross them disappear." She grabbed Cole's arm with desperate strength. "Is he dead? Tell me the truth—is Michael dead?"
Cole thought about the timing. Marsh had died on November 15th. Michael had disappeared around the same time. If the Verrat had been holding Michael for interrogation, his value as a prisoner would have decreased dramatically once the operation was exposed.
They might have killed him. Or they might have decided to cut their losses and leave Portland.
"I don't know," Cole said honestly. "But the trafficking operation is finished. The police raided their warehouse last week. If Michael is still alive, the people who took him have bigger problems than one software developer who saw too much."
"So there's hope?"
Hope is a dangerous thing.
"There's a chance. I'll keep looking."
Jessica nodded, some of the panic draining from her posture. She pulled a phone from her bag and scrolled through contacts.
"There's someone—a man Michael mentioned. He was going to meet with someone who claimed to have inside information about the trafficking. Maybe that person knows something."
She showed Cole a name and number. The name meant nothing, but the area code was Portland.
"Thank you."
"Just find him." Jessica's eyes held the particular intensity of her Lowen heritage. "He's a good man. He deserves better than this."
Good men often get worse than they deserve. It's one of the things I'm trying to change.
Cole left through the service entrance, Adalind's card in one pocket and a new lead in another. The missing brother case had just become significantly more complicated—connected to the Verrat operation he'd destroyed, which meant connected to Renard, which meant connected to everything dangerous in Portland.
Nothing is ever simple.
His phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
It was nice meeting you properly. Let me know if you want that coffee sometime. — A
Adalind. Already following up. Already pulling the thread that could unravel everything.
Cole should have deleted the message. Should have buried the connection before it could grow into something complicated.
Instead, he saved her number under her name and replied: Coffee sounds good. Next week?
The response came thirty seconds later: Looking forward to it.
Cole drove home through Portland's empty late-night streets, thinking about missing brothers and dangerous women and the web of connections that was slowly drawing him deeper into the city's supernatural politics.
You're playing with fire.
The thought was familiar by now. He'd been playing with fire since the moment he'd woken up in Cole Ashford's body. Every kill, every absorption, every step toward power had been a gamble against forces that could destroy him if they ever focused their attention.
But the fire is warm. And the dark is so cold.
He parked in his building's garage and took the stairs to his apartment, using the climb to clear his head. Tomorrow he'd follow up on the new lead. Tomorrow he'd deal with the Jessica situation and the Monroe complication and the Verrat uncertainty.
Tonight, he'd let himself imagine what coffee with Adalind Schade might lead to.
Dangerous territory. Uncharted waters.
The apartment was dark and quiet. Cole sat at his desk and opened his laptop, pulling up everything he could find about the name Jessica had given him. The lead was thin, but it was something.
And somewhere in the darkness of his mind, where the wolf prowled and the lizard waited and the hunter tracked its prey, Cole felt the stirring of something that might have been anticipation.
The game was getting interesting.
Reviews and Power Stones keep the heat on!
Want to see what happens before the "heroes" do?
Secure your spot in the inner circle on Patreon. Skip the weekly wait and read ahead:
💵 Hustler [$7]: 15 Chapters ahead.
⚖️ Enforcer [$11]: 20 Chapters ahead.
👑 Kingpin [$16]: 25 Chapters ahead.
Periodic drops. Check on Patreon for the full release list.
👉 Join the Syndicate: patreon.com/Anti_hero_fanfic