“Fuckin’ whore!” Aiden roared, the word stabbing into my chest as though it had been aimed at me, even though I knew it hadn’t been.
I looked around stupidly, as if a weapon was somehow going to magically appear in the alley behind the employee entrance of a nightclub. Aiden strode toward us, and I’d barely managed to shove a still-sobbing Kat toward the door when a chilly mist swirled past us, emerging from deeper in the alley.
I blinked, not understanding what I was seeing. Where the cloud of mist had been an instant before, a dark form materialized, grabbing Aiden by the throat and swinging him around like he weighed nothing. My phone fell from numb fingers, clattering to the dirty pavement. Kat clung to me, her cries strangled into silence by shock.
Aiden’s back impacted the side of the building with a thump. His hand flashed, the switchblade burying itself in his attacker’s side, but the dark figure pinning him didn’t even flinch. Aiden’s hood had fallen down during his struggle with Len, and the light above the club entrance illuminated one side of his face.
Our rescuer’s back was turned, but the voice when he spoke was unmistakable.
“Bad move, asshole. You don’t fuck with my employees,” said Leonides, his normally mellow voice now sharp with anger.
I watched in blank confusion as Aiden’s expression twisted into horror. The knife dropped from his slackening grip, hitting the asphalt with a metallic clink. Aiden drew in a rasping breath... and screamed. He kept screaming as I watched—my mouth hanging open in shock, Kat and I bracing each other upright a few steps away.
Leonides released the grip on his throat, and Aiden slid down the wall, his piercing shrieks dissolving into incoherent, hyperventilating terror as he curled into a ball and rocked. Our boss turned, the light catching his eyes oddly for an instant, making them glow. I tore my attention from him to the street beyond.
“Len!” I gasped. Len hadn’t moved, still lying splayed on the sidewalk. “He’s hurt!”
I pulled Kat forward with me, unwilling to leave her alone even though Aiden was rocking back and forth on the ground behind us, keening softly. Leonides was at Len’s side before we were, crouching next to him and carefully rolling him onto his back. Len’s gray eyes were wide and scared; frothy, bright red blood trailing down from his nose and mouth. An ominous gurgling noise reached me as he struggled for breath.
“Damn it all to hell,” Leonides cursed. He cupped Len’s cheek, directing his attention to him. “Hey. Look at me, son. You know how this works. Don’t be afraid. You’ll be all right in a minute.”
As though the words had been some kind of magical balm, Len relaxed back on the pavement, his features smoothing into peaceful lines. Alarm tugged at me—that couldn’t be a good sign.
“We need an ambulance!” Where was my phone? I looked around wildly, remembering that I’d dropped it somewhere in the alley.
“No, we don’t,” Leonides said grimly.
“Help him, please!” Kat begged. “Oh, god. This is all my fault—”
Desperation propelled me upright. I ran back to the alley and scoured the shadows for my phone, while keeping a wary eye on Aiden’s hunched form at the same time.
“Drink,” I heard Leonides say. “I know it’s not your preferred vintage, sorry.”
My eyes lit on the corner of the pink case peeking out of the darkness. I pounced, holding my breath as I turned it over and checked the screen. A tortured groan reached my ears from the street, followed by Leonides soothing, “Easy. Almost there, son—I promise.”
A crack spidered across one corner of the phone’s front, but it powered on when I unlocked it, and the touch screen responded. I hurried toward the others.
“I’m calling 911—” I began, only to cut myself off when I saw Kat and Leonides helping Len sit up on the sidewalk. Len coughed, and swiped at the blood on his chin in evident disgust.
“It’s all right,” Leonides said. “No need for that.”
“Len?” I asked uncertainly.
He waved me off. “I’m okay,” he muttered hoarsely. “Just... give me a minute. Shit.”
I dropped to my knees next to him, phone call forgotten. Leonides’ gaze landed heavily on each of us, and again I was struck by that odd glint behind it. How had I never noticed that before?
“You know,” he said, “we do have security staff in the club for a reason.” His attention settled on Kat, who flinched. “So, that’s your waste-of-space ex, I take it?”
Kat gave a tiny nod.
“Do you want the police to have him, or do you want him to disappear for good?” Leonides asked.
My heart gave another startled lurch, because his question sounded... one hundred percent serious. And I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel about that.
Kat’s expression crumpled as she looked at Len, and then hardened as she turned to look at the huddled form of her tormenter, rocking back and forth against the alley wall. When she turned back, hatred shone from her dark eyes. “I never want to see him again.”
“Kat.” Len’s voice was hoarse. “Be sure you’re not doing something you’ll regret later, okay?”
“I’m not,” she said softly.
Leonides nodded. “Go inside with the others, and help Len get cleaned up. Leave the rest to me.” His gaze fell on my necklace, and I realized I was worrying the warm stone of the pendant between my fingers. “One of you needs to have a talk with Vonnie, though. My tricks won’t work on her right now.”
I blinked stupidly at him, my brain apparently having decided that it had dealt with enough crazy stuff in the past half hour and was shutting down for the night. In a daze, I stared in disbelief as the guy who’d been coughing up his own lung contents a couple of minutes ago staggered to his feet. I rose with him, Kat at my side, and watched as he turned to our boss, leveling a flat stare at him.
“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. This job can be a real bloody mess sometimes.”
Leonides cocked a not-terribly-amused eyebrow at him, and jerked his chin toward the door in a ‘get out of here’ gesture. I let myself be chivvied along by my coworkers, aware of the way Kat steered us around Aiden, giving him as wide a berth as possible. Only when we were inside, standing in the employee restroom while Len splashed water on his face and scrubbed at the blood smearing his skin, did I find words.
“What... the hell just happened?” I asked blankly.
Kat seemed to shrink into herself, and Len sighed.
I pressed on. “I mean. Did our boss just offer to murder Kat’s ex? Because it really sounded like our boss just offered to murder Kat’s ex.”
Len’s mouth twisted down. “Think of it less as murder, and more as an example of the food chain in action.”
He poked at a bloodstained hole in his chef’s uniform, and unbuttoned the shirt, tugging it aside to reveal sticky red coating the skin over his ribs. I watched with sick fascination as he grabbed a wad of paper towels and wet them in the sink, dabbing at the mess until it cleared enough to reveal whole, unbroken skin beneath.
I pressed the heel of one hand against my right eye socket, trying to hold back the headache that was threatening to erupt. “Someone seriously needs to start talking. Like, right now. And preferably in a way that actually makes sense.”
I saw Len meet Kat’s eyes in the mirror.
“Look—I think you both need booze,” he said, sounding resigned. “Possibly a lot of booze. Give me a minute to grab a fresh shirt and talk to Sally. I’ll meet you at Kat’s station.”
* * *
Fifteen minutes later I sat on a bar stool next to Kat’s, clutching a tumbler of bourbon like it was a lifeline. “So you’re telling me the boss is really...”
“A vampire, yeah,” Len said.
I glanced at Kat, who sat hunched in on herself, nursing an identical glass of booze. “And you believe this, too?”
“You saw,” she said miserably. “Outside.”
I’d seen... what had I seen? A figure app
earing, seemingly from nowhere. Slamming a grown man around like he was a child’s doll. Ignoring a knife being jammed into his side. Reducing a guy to screaming hysterics, apparently just by looking at him. Miraculously healing Len’s obviously serious injury... how, exactly?
The good news was, things made a heck of a lot more sense if Leonides was actually a vampire. The bad news was... things made a heck of a lot more sense if Leonides was actually a vampire. I slammed back the bourbon, nearly choking as it burned its way down my throat. Len wordlessly refilled it. I stared at the amber liquid for a moment before slamming that one back, too.
It didn’t help.
“All right,” I said. “I am literally drinking as we speak, and I still need a drink.”
Len lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe let those two settle for a minute first,” he said mildly.
“What—” I began, only to cut myself off. “Why—” I tried again, before shaking my head. “You know what? Never mind. This is obviously some trippy dream resulting from too much stress and not enough sleep. Give me another drink, please.”
Len lifted the bottle. “Okay, but you’re not driving.” Then, he hesitated. “Hang on. What about your kid?”
I waved the empty glass. “He’s with his father for the weekend.”
Len shrugged and filled the tumbler again, once I stopped gesturing with it. I took a sip, fighting the urge to keep chugging and risk the resulting alcohol poisoning.
“You’re short-pouring me,” I accused, eyeing the level in the glass.
He nodded. “Uh-huh. You’ll thank me later, believe me.”
I pointed between them. “Why are you two acting like you’re both okay with this?” I asked, thinking that if this was a dream, I’d at least appreciate someone else to freak out with.
“Told you,” Kat said. “I was in a real bad spot and he helped me get out of it.”
“He paid for my rehab after I failed a drug test at my last job and got fired,” Len put in. “Then he gave me this gig after I got out.”
I blinked a bit blearily, slumping on the stool as the warmth of the alcohol I’d drunk eased some of the tension from my muscles. “Why, though?” I asked. “Why would he do that?”
“No idea,” Kat muttered.
“In my case, I think it was mostly because I’m sort of friends with his granddaughter,” Len said. “Well... and maybe because I gave him cocaine-laced blood once, when he was having an even shittier day than I was.”
I ran through the words a couple of times in hopes they’d rearrange into something less insane. When they didn’t, I poured the third glass of bourbon down my throat rather than trying to come up with an answer.
The silence settled heavily over our little group, broken only by the murmur of the club, and Monique’s smooth voice singing about a bad, bad man who held the key to her heart.
“He hired me as a call girl,” I said distantly, not sure why I was telling them this. “It was my first night and I was nervous as hell. Didn’t wanna be there. But... he never laid a finger on me. Sent me home with five hundred dollars, and when I came back the next day looking for my phone, he offered me a job here.”
Kat lifted her head from her hands and met Len’s gaze over my head. “What do you think he meant about not being able to use his glowy eyes thing on her?”
Len shrugged. “Haven’t the faintest.”
He looked at the bottle of bourbon with something like longing, before pushing it across to Kat. She took it and poured herself another glass. Instead of drinking it, though, she just stared at it.
I felt like I should be more involved in the conversation, somehow, but the bourbon was hitting me like a freight train now that my adrenaline had ebbed.
Bad life choices for the win.
I was a pro at those, after all.
Beside me, Kat buried her face in her hands again. “Jesus,” she moaned. “Aiden could’ve killed you guys. Why the fuck does everything have to be like this all the time?”
“The world sucks,” I said, feeling the deep profundity of the words even though they slurred a bit. “Like... really, really sucks.”
Len cocked an eyebrow at me. “Was that a vampire joke?”
I frowned, not understanding the question. “... no?”
My head was starting to feel strangely heavy, so I put it down on my crossed arms at the edge of the bar.
“I’m really sorry, you two,” I heard Kat say.
I gave a little uncoordinated wave of the fingers closest to her, and Len said, “Not your fault, Kat.”
In the background, Monique crooned on about the man she’d sold her soul to.
EIGHT
I MUST’VE LOST some time, because when I next lifted my head, the club was quiet and empty. Kat was gone, but Len still stood behind the bar, casually wiping a glass with a clean rag.
“Regretting that third glass yet?” he asked.
The inside of my mouth felt like something small and furry had crawled inside and died of gangrene, but the hangover wouldn’t kick in for a while yet.
“Depends,” I slurred. “Did Kat’s ex really try to kill us? An’ did you try to convince me the boss was actually a vampire afterward?”
A belch erupted on the heels of the final word. It tasted... really bad, and I made a face in reaction.
“Yes and yes,” Len said. “But you’ll have to take the second part up with him directly.” He tipped his chin toward the end of the bar, and I followed the gesture with a sinking feeling.
Leonides stood there, one elbow resting on the polished wood as he regarded me.
“Oh,” I said. “Um... hi. So, did you just murder a guy?”
He didn’t break expression. “First rule of fight club—you don’t talk about fight club.”
Len snorted. “Didn’t know you’d even seen that movie, Gramps.”
Leonides’ dark gaze cut to him. “I didn’t. I read the book. Oh, and the part about being able to swallow a pint of blood before you get sick? Let’s just say, that’s misleading.”
“I’m still too drunk for this conversation,” I said flatly.
“Agreed,” said my boss. “You know, this is all becoming a bit Groundhog Day. And yes, I did see that one on cable, a couple of years after it came out.”
“Groundhog Day?” Len echoed. “So that’s why you said the eye thing wouldn’t work on her? Huh. Complicated.”
“It’s something about the necklace, apparently,” Leonides said. “Haven’t figured it out yet, but it’s only an issue when she’s wearing it.”
My hand moved unsteadily to my neck, fingers fumbling until they closed around the familiar pendant. “What’re you two... talking about?” I asked warily.
Leonides’ gaze pinned mine. “The supernatural is real, and you’re bound up in it somehow. The first time you discovered that, you chose to forget and go back to your normal life like nothing happened. You can choose the same thing this time, too—but I can’t guarantee you won’t get pulled in again. Especially working at this place.”
I blinked at him, trying to sort through the words.
“You know,” I said, “you get really frowny when you’re concentrating. Where’s Kat? Is she okay?”
“Sally took her home,” Len said. He looked at Leonides. “You’re not going to get a sober answer from her tonight, you know.”
Our boss sighed. “Evidently not. Can you give her a ride home?”
“Sure, why not?” Len said. “I guess if she pukes, the pimpmobile is cheaper to clean than your limo.”
“I don’t own a limo,” Leonides said, with the air of someone who’d had that particular conversation more than once.
The word pimpmobile registered properly after a short lag, and I pushed upright, swaying a bit.
“Hey! I’m not a whore!” I snapped.
“That’s not what he meant,” Leonides said patiently. “Len’s car...” He waved a hand. “Eh. You’ll understand when you see it. Anyway, come back and talk to me as soo
n as the hangover’s under control in the morning.”
Len made a scoffing sound. “Or, y’know, run for the hills. That’s another option.”
Leonides shrugged and headed for the elevators at the back of the club. “She won’t run,” he tossed over his shoulder, not looking back.
Another belch rumbled up, and this time I had to swallow bile down in its wake.
I steadied myself against the edge of the bar. “Um... I really don’t feel so great all of the sudden,” I warned.
Len only sighed.
* * *
Len’s car was red. Well, mostly. Some of it was more like... rust. It was also big. Ridiculously, hilariously big. And riding in it was like riding inside a giant marshmallow. We hit a dip in the road, and I snickered as the suspension rocked up and down, up and down.
Len shot me a sideways glance in the intermittent glare of the streetlights sliding past. “It was cheap,” he said. “Stop laughing.”
A sudden image of bloody froth streaming from his mouth and nose flashed in front of my mind’s eye, and I stopped laughing abruptly.
“I don’t envy you a few hours from now,” he said. “But if it’s any consolation, I’ve been there—both on the hangover front, and on the ‘oh, shit, vampires and demons are real’ front.”
“’S just a dream,” I muttered, frowning. “I’m dreaming.”
Len nodded. “Uh-huh. Try telling yourself that in the morning. Who knows? It might work.”
A familiar building swam into view, and I jabbed a finger toward it. “This is me,” I told him.
He pulled into the lot and parked in my assigned spot when I pointed it out to him. Then he walked me to my apartment door, making sure I had all my stuff with me and made it inside safely. Once the door was locked and he was gone, I tossed my bag on the kitchen table before collapsing onto the living room couch’s creaking springs.
I lay there, staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes. The apartment was eerily quiet without Jace, and it seemed unfair that I should feel so awful if I was dreaming. Again, an image of blood pooling on the sidewalk assailed me.
Vampire Bound: Book One Page 6
