She studied me for a moment, and then nodded. Whether it was in acceptance or something else, I wasn’t entirely sure.
“Maggie, please buzz Ms. Grace out.”
I rose, gave her a nod, and left.
The weather had closed in again in the brief time I’d been in the ranger station, which meant I got absolutely drowned as I dashed back to the café.
“Oh, you poor thing,” a woman said, as I all but slid through the door she was holding open. “You’re soaked through.”
“Yes.” I remained where I was, dripping onto the welcome mat, knowing that Belle had already raced upstairs to grab a towel. “I wouldn’t recommend leaving just yet, Mrs.—” I paused, trying to remember her name. “—Williams, but if you need to, please grab one of our umbrellas. They’re in the pot underneath the coat peg.”
“You are a love.” She lightly patted my arm. “But my Freddie is coming to pick me— Ah, there he is now. Thank you.”
As I stepped to one side, a new BMW stopped in the no-standing zone. The old man sitting inside leaned across and opened the passenger door. She gave me a bright smile and dashed out. I let the café door close, shivering despite the room’s cozy warmth.
Our only other customers were a couple sitting in a corner nook, but their attention was on each other rather than anything going on around them. Given the weather’s sudden turn, we’d be lucky if anyone else actually ventured in.
Belle reappeared and tossed me the towel.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“I want to grab a shower first, but yes please, and in the largest mug possible.”
She nodded and then walked over to the couple to see if they wanted anything else. I wrapped the towel around my hair to stop it dripping everywhere, then slipped off my shoes and socks and padded barefoot through the café and up the stairs. But neither a hot shower nor the bucket of coffee Belle handed me when I went back down eased the chill that seemed to be settling into my bones. I hoped like hell it was merely a cold rather than some sort of portent of evil stepping our way.
I spent the rest of the day helping Mike out in the kitchen, and doing the prep for the following day. When the doors were finally closed and the café once again clean, Belle dropped into one of the chairs and said, “I checked out some of Granny’s books after you left this morning. She did have one on vampires—”
“Your gran seems to have had a book on absolutely everything.” I walked over to the table and handed Belle a glass of wine. “I would have loved to have met her. Given everything you’ve said, she surely would have been a force to be reckoned with, Sarr witch or not.”
Belle’s cheek’s dimpled. “Mom once told me there were over a dozen instances where bluebloods actually called on her, for advice or for the use of her library.”
“Then I’m surprised they didn’t requisition it on her death.”
“Oh, I believe they tried, but by that time, all the important books had been squirreled away by my mother. Apparently, she foresaw that her as-yet-unborn daughter would have a greater need of them than the goddamn bluebloods or their library.”
I raised my glass and tapped it against hers. “Here’s to your clever mother. Long may she continue to blight the aims of the bluebloods.”
Belle chuckled. “You seem to forget you’re one of said bluebloods.”
“Only by birth, and that doesn’t count.”
Her amusement grew. “Anyway, there was a whole chapter on how vampires became vampires.”
“In a book about vampires? Color me surprised.”
“If I had a peanut, I’d throw it at you right now.”
I grinned and motioned her to go on.
“Basically, it comes down to the fact that anyone wanting to become a vampire has to first inject the blood of a vampire into their system once a week over a course of five weeks—”
“Meaning there should have been some evidence of needle marks on Karen’s body,” I cut in, “and I can’t remember seeing any.”
“Which is not surprising given you weren’t looking for something like that at the time, and you can’t exactly examine the body now.”
“True, but the coroner should have picked it up and, given the rangers aren’t taking any extra precautions with her body, she apparently didn’t.”
“Yes, but there’s something in the vampire’s blood that makes the injection site heal quickly, so there probably wouldn’t have been any evidence on Karen’s arm by the time she was killed,” Belle said. “The fast healing is apparently the reason why the bastards are so hard to kill.”
“So did it say what does kill them?”
“Yes, in another chapter, but let me finish.” She hesitated, but when I didn’t say anything, added, “The only telltale sign that someone has shared the blood of a vampire is lips extraordinarily flushed with blood. She called it being blood kissed.”
I just about choked on my wine. “That’s what I saw in the dream.” And what I’d seen in the clearing, when I’d found Karen’s body.
Belle nodded. “It would appear that our dear teenager might be well on the path to becoming one of the undead.”
“Shit, we have to warn the rangers—”
“I contacted them the minute I read that particular paragraph. They rather politely thanked me and said they would look into it.”
“Shit,” I repeated. “How long does the transformation take once death has happened?”
“Anywhere between twenty-four and seventy-two hours.”
“If the clock I saw is any indication, it’ll happen tonight.”
“Yes, but we’re simply not equipped to handle vampires, Lizzie. The rangers still have your knife, and we can’t risk our athames.”
“What about wooden stakes? Do they work?”
“Yes,” she said again, “but even a newly spawned vampire will be far stronger and far quicker than either of us. It’d be like facing a werewolf with a tiny silver sewing needle.”
Which was not something anyone with any sort of sense would ever contemplate. I drank some wine as I considered our options. “What about placing some sort of containment spell around the morgue?”
“It could work, except for one major problem,” she said. “We’d have to account for the presence of everyone who works there within the structure of the spell.”
“Presuming they’re actually working at night. They might not.”
“There’d at least be security guards.”
“So we give a newly hatched vampire free rein to escape?” Frustration gave my voice an edge.
“No, we hope to hell the rangers take us seriously and place extra guards around the morgue tonight.”
“That might not help if the older vamp comes to collect his protégé.”
“No, but this is a werewolf reservation and our master vamp will know the wolves are more than a match for his speed and strength.”
“Which might not help if he’s also capable of decent magic.”
“We can’t do anything, Lizzie.” Belle’s voice was blunt. “Not tonight, and certainly not until we know more about who and what, exactly, we’re dealing with.”
“I know,” I said. “It’s just that giving evil free rein has never sat easily with me.”
And that was what had almost gotten both of us killed twelve years ago. I’d been both ill-equipped and totally underprepared to deal with the monster behind the ritual killings. As a result, I’d not only failed to save my sister, but I’d allowed a killer to get away.
“Maybe,” Belle said softly. “That trail of blood they found afterward seemed to suggest he would have bled out before he managed to get to any help.”
“And yet they never found a body.”
“Which is not surprising when it comes to those dealing with blood magic,” she said. “The darker forces they call upon thoroughly enjoy reclaiming their pound of flesh on the sorcerer’s death.”
“I’ve spent the last twelve years hoping that’s true.” Twelve years hoping that by my
actions, I hadn’t given a killer the time to rest, recover, and plot his revenge.
“Enough remembering a past neither of us are capable of changing,” Belle said. “Let’s just concentrate on what we can do.”
I glanced at my watch and then said, “Speaking of changing, why don’t we both go upstairs and do just that?”
She blinked, and then smiled. “Are you thinking a little trip to Émigré is in order, by chance?”
“Indeed I am. We can kill two metaphorical birds with one stone by checking out the club and talking to the staff, all while having a nice night out.”
“I’m liking the way you think.” She drained her glass and then jumped up. “First dibs on the shower.”
I laughed as she raced for the stairs, and propped my feet up on her chair, watching the raindrops race each other down the windows as the darkness gathered force outside.
Once I heard the shower shut down, I grabbed her glass and rose, dumping both in the kitchen sink before I went up. It took us close to an hour to get ready, which brought us uncomfortably close to the countdown’s end time. And no matter how much I tried not to think about what might be happening in the morgue right now, I couldn’t seem to escape it.
The taxi we’d called to take us over to Émigré arrived right on the dot of eight thirty. I hesitated as Belle climbed into the cab’s back seat, my senses—both physical and other—attuned for anything untoward. The night was cold and wet, but there was no sense of danger within it, no sense that evil stirred.
Maybe the dream was wrong. Or maybe the countdown had meant something else.
Maybe.
I tried to ignore the growing sense of trepidation and jumped into the cab. It didn’t take long to get over to Richards Road, and once I’d paid the driver, I climbed out and studied the building.
“Whoa,” Belle said, as she stopped beside me. “I wasn’t expecting something so… bizarre.”
Bizarre was certainly a good word. While the main bulk of the building had been painted a flat black, there were weird, almost alien-looking biomechanical forms crawling across the walls and roofline, and they all but covered many of the windows. There also wasn’t much in the way of music pulsing out of the building, which suggested either it wasn’t very loud or they’d installed the very best in sound deadening. Given this area was a mix of industrial and housing stock, sound management had probably been a permit requirement.
The main entrance rather amusedly looked more like an air lock than a common old doorway. We paid our fee, checked our coats, and then headed into the main room. The music that had been barely audible outside hit full force once we went through a second set of doors, but it was fierce and joyous, and instantly made me want to dance. We paused to get our bearings, and my gaze was drawn to the vaulted ceiling. The huge room had been painted a battleship gray rather than black, and the ceiling again had a series of intricate and intriguing biomechanical and alien forms crawling all over each arch. It looked like something that belonged in a science fiction movie rather than in the middle of a werewolf reservation.
The room itself had been split into two levels. One side of the upper tier held a series of “pods” in which there were seats and small tables, while the other half was dominated by a long bar that was made from twisted metal and glass. The lower tier was devoted to the dance floor, and despite the early hour, it was packed.
“Holy hell,” Belle said, awe in her voice. “This place is impressive.”
“I wonder why they built it here rather than in a main city center like Melbourne?” I said. “It surely would have been more lucrative.”
Belle snorted. “This place is packed. I doubt they’d get a better turnout even if it was in Melbourne.”
But a city center would have given them a longer period of time before the novelty started wearing off—which I guessed could be true of any business, even one as small as ours. “You want a drink?”
She nodded and led the way across to the bar. I followed in her wake, amused at the way the crowd parted before her. Having Amazonian height and strength did have its advantages.
Of course, it also helped that said Amazon was wearing a barely there red dress that stood out vividly against the more muted tones everyone else was wearing. Even my sapphire blue, formfitting sheath dress seemed dull in comparison.
We managed to claim a couple of barstools—which, following the theme of the place, were shaped like aliens’ heads—and then caught the eye of one the bartenders.
“Welcome, ladies,” he said, his dark amber eyes glowing with appreciation as his gaze swept from Belle to me and back again. “I’m thinking you’re both new around these parts.”
He was almost as tall as Belle, and had brown skin and hair that held just the slightest tinge of red. Which, from what I knew of the reservation wolf packs, meant he was one of the Marins.
“We’ve been in town a couple of months,” Belle said, her tone amused. “But this is our first time in the club. What drink do you recommend?”
“Ah, well, that depends on how good a time you want.”
“I want a ‘hell yeah, dancing on the bar’ type good time,” Belle said, her smile echoing his.
He laughed. “Then I have just the drink for you—two Death in the Afternoons coming up.”
As he walked away, I swung around to study the dance floor. There was an intriguing mix of both young and old in the room, and the atmosphere in the place was warm and friendly, despite the weirdness of the surrounds.
Movement above the dance floor caught my eye. I looked up, and realized a room had been built into the ceiling at the point where all the arches met. It was right above the dance floor and basically built from dark glass and metal, which gave it a full view of the whole room while all but concealing its presence from casual sight.
There was a woman standing at one of the windows. She was little more than a featureless shadow, but there was something about her presence that had unease stirring. Maybe it was the night, maybe it was simply the uncertainty of my dream and what it had meant, but she was almost otherworldly.
I shivered, and, just for a moment, wanted to do nothing more than run. She stepped away from the window and beyond my sight, but that uneasy need to flee didn’t similarly fade.
What you need, Belle said, with a glance up at the concealed glass room, is to stop seeing threats in shadows, and just try to have a good time.
I’m trying.
Try harder. Especially given this might be our one and only chance before all hell breaks loose.
Thanks for that rather cheery thought.
She laughed. You’re most welcome.
The bartender returned and handed us each a champagne glass. The alcohol inside had bubbles and a greenish-yellow tinge. Belle took a sip and then grinned. “Oh hell, yeah. That’s good.”
“Absinthe and champagne,” he said. “An awesome combination that should be imbibed slowly if you don’t wish to be flat out on the floor rather than dancing on the bar.”
Belle laughed and held out her hand. “I’m Isabelle—Belle to my friends—and this is Lizzie, my good mate and the co-owner of our café.”
“Zak Marin,” he said, holding her hand just a little longer than necessary. “Bar person by night, handyman by day.”
“A man who is handy never goes astray,” Belle all but purred, even as I rolled my eyes. “You’ll have to give me your business card.”
“Oh, of that you can be sure. Shall I start up a tab for you both?”
“Yes, please,” Belle said, and handed him her credit card.
He swiped it through the machine and then handed it back. “I’ve got to go attend to some other customers, but don’t run away on me, ladies. I’ll be right back.”
“A man who is handy never goes astray?” I repeated, once he was out of earshot. “Seriously?”
“Hey, it worked, did it not? That wolf is all but mine for the night, Lizzie dearest, so you’d best start looking elsewhere.”
<
br /> “No problem, because I’ve sworn off men, remember?”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t flirt and dance a little.”
I let my gaze roam across the dance floor. There was no denying that there were some fine-looking men in this room, but that was to be expected in a reservation. You didn’t often see overweight or out of shape werewolves—their systems simply ran too hot for that to happen.
Of course, that heat also made them very good lovers—a thought that instantly raised Aiden’s image in my mind. I shoved it firmly back into its box and swung back to the bar.
“Maybe.” I took a sip of the cocktail and felt the bubbly, licorice-like alcohol burn all the way down to my stomach. “Of course, it’s highly likely that after one or two more of these, I’ll be dancing on the bar right alongside you.”
She laughed. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I took another sip as our bartender returned. “Got a message from the boss for you, Lizzie. She’d like to see you if you’ve got a spare moment.”
“Does your boss have a name?” I said, even as my heart rate jumped.
“Indeed she does,” a voice said from behind me. “And she will introduce herself once you are in her presence.”
I jumped slightly and swung around. The man who had spoken was tall and thin, with pale hair and even paler eyes. Not a werewolf, but something else. Something other than human. He gave me a polite smile and added, “If you’ll please follow me, Ms. Grace, it would be appreciated.”
You want me to come with you? Belle asked, concern in her thoughts.
I hesitated. No. You weren’t invited, and I have a bad feeling it wouldn’t be wise to go against her wishes.”
Well, you know I’m only a mental shout away.
I know. I picked up my drink and motioned the pale stranger to lead the way. We made our way along the top tier, past the end of the bar, and toward a pod that was closed off by a wrought iron door that was an intricate mix of vine leaves and skeletal spines. There was an inconspicuous keypad on the right-side wall, and after my escort put in a code, the door slid aside to reveal a set of black glass stairs.
“Please,” the thin stranger said, and motioned me on.