The Coffin Club vk-5

by Эллен Шрайбер

  Aunt Libby was exhausted before I was and asked if we could take a break. We sat for a few moments on the coffin-shaped couches, catching our breath, then hit the mini–flea market on the other side of the club. Aunt Libby was in artsy heaven. She didn’t know which seller or reader to approach first.

  “Let’s buy you some jewelry.” Aunt Libby cased the rows of rings, pendants, bracelets made from pewter, crystals, and beads.

  “You don’t have to buy me anything.”

  “But I want to…I’m your aunt. Everything here is handmade. Pick something you like.”

  A bracelet did catch my eye. It was a skinny beaded bracelet with a charm—a petite bottle of love potion.

  I placed it on my arm, along with my hidden plastic club bracelet, and gave my aunt a huge “Thank you” squeeze.

  Then something caught her eye. “Tarot cards!” she exclaimed. “Let’s get our cards read.”

  “Sounds like a great idea. You go first.”

  When my aunt sat down, I realized that this was my chance to revisit the underground club. I hated to ditch her, especially after she’d just bought me a special gift, but it would only be for a few minutes—no more time than it would take to go to a crowded restroom and back. I knew if I ever wanted to see the club again, this was my only chance. The secret door was hiding somewhere in close proximity and I had to investigate the club further. It would take only a few minutes, and by the time my aunt finished having her future and past lives read, I’d have already returned.

  “I have to go the ghouls room. Don’t worry if I’m gone for a few. These drinks go right through me.”

  Aunt Libby wasn’t bothered. She’d already begun talking to the spiritually gifted woman as if she were her longtime therapist.

  I tried to retrace my steps the night I’d stumbled upon the hidden entrance. I was heading for the ghouls room when I’d become distracted from the dry-ice fog. I stood near the bar, closed my eyes, and spun around, trying to disorient myself. Then I pushed through the teens and headed for the ghouls room. When I discovered I was heading in the opposite direction, I figured I was on target. I saw a wall obscured by the shadows. I slid my hand along it, combing the pine for the secret door, when I found what appeared to be a broom closet. Bull’s-eye.

  I turned the knob of the small coffin-shaped door and pushed with all my might. When it opened into a darkened corridor, I knew I’d found my way. I quickly followed the narrow hallway and hurried down the plunging staircase. When I reached the coffin lid marked DEAD END I tried to push it open.

  Of course, I found it locked.

  I didn’t have a choice. I knocked.

  I banged and banged, but no one answered. I paced for a moment, hoping someone would soon descend the staircase. But when a few minutes went by and I remained alone, I became antsy.

  I imagined Onyx and Scarlet kicking it up on the dance floor, drinking bloody drinks and gossiping about their nightlife activities. My new vampire buddies, Onyx and Scarlet. Why hadn’t I thought of them sooner?

  I grabbed my cell from my purse. I scrolled through my Friends List until it hit Scarlet, then I pressed the Send button.

  I waited for a moment for the phone to connect. There was so much concrete and stone surrounding me, it was impossible to get a signal. I raced back up the staircase and pressed the Send button again. Ring…Ring…Ring…

  “Come on, Scarlet,” I said to myself. “Pick up.” I was sure she wouldn’t be able to hear the phone above the club music. I was just a coffin lid away from being back into the vampire club of my dreams.

  “Hello?” a girl’s voice answered.

  “Scarlet?” I asked excitedly.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Raven.”

  “Raven. What’s going on?”

  “I’m right outside the Dungeon door. I forgot my key.”

  “I’ll be there in a sec.”

  A few moments later, the door creaked open and Onyx and Scarlet were standing behind the medieval-looking Dragon.

  Each girl took me by the hand and led me through the slit in the curtain, past the crowded bar, and out onto the dance floor.

  Strangely, the already dangerous and otherworldly underground club now seethed with tension. The clubsters who once appeared seductive and inviting now eyed one another skeptically, whispering in private meetings.

  Onyx and Scarlet, however, seemed unchanged. Scarlet placed a skeleton key in my hand and closed my fingers shut.

  “This way you’ll never be locked out,” she said.

  “But—”

  “No need to argue—we’re here all the time.”

  “And when we aren’t here, we’re together,” Onyx added.

  I placed my new prized possession in my purse before they changed their mind.

  “We were hoping you would come,” Onyx said, leading me to the bar. “Want some refreshment? Tonight is buy one, get one free.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  My fantasy was to be a vampire—to live the immortal life, be seduced by the night, to love Alexander for eternity. What I hadn’t envisioned was guzzling down a goblet filled with blood as if it were chocolate milk. “I can’t stay long tonight, but I wanted to pop in and say hello.”

  “We’re so glad you did,” Scarlet said. “So much is happening.” Arm in arm, we zigzagged through the catacombs. I tried to remember which path we were taking by making mental notes of the landmarks in the tunnels. We passed a girl bridled with passion, leaning against a tomb, her date kissing her on the neck. A few dozen skulls lined the walls. A group of clubsters were lying in some of the hollowed graves. Then I was distracted as Onyx began to ask me questions.

  “How was your date last night?” she probed.

  “Uh…great.”

  We passed an enigmatic figure lurking in the shadows. A few votives lining the floor in an adjacent alcove next to the mysterious person cast a speck of light on a pair of motorcycle boots.

  I glanced back as we continued to walk ahead. The figure remained hidden in the shadows.

  We ducked underneath a sunken archway and entered a lounge called Torture Chamber. An electric chair, a rack, and a stockade were prominently displayed there. A huge circular wooden platform with half a dozen tables on it revolved ever so slowly. A freestanding bar, the size found at a wedding reception, was off to the side. We sat down at the only unoccupied table.

  “Why don’t you bring your boyfriend here?” Scarlet asked.

  “I’m not sure if he would like this club.”

  “Is he a mortal?” Onyx inquired.

  The two girls waited on edge for my response. But it was I who was most anxiously awaiting the words to flow from my lips. “No, my boyfriend is not a mortal. He is a vampire,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever admitted that my boyfriend was immortal (except once to Becky and she thought I was trying to make her laugh). I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and it was exhilarating. “My boyfriend is a vampire,” I repeated proudly.

  “Then you have to bring him here,” Onyx suggested. “The whole point of this club is for us to have a place we can call our own.”

  “And that might change,” Scarlet said secretively.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “We’ve heard rumblings that someone is planning to take over the club.”

  One person—who I’d seen having secret meetings—sprang to mind. I remembered Phoenix talking to his henchmen. He was magnetically alluring and mysteriously dangerous. I could see his followers heeding his every command. “Phoenix—,” I said in a whisper.

  “What?” Scarlet asked. “I can’t hear you above the music.”

  I felt the hairs on the ends of my neck stand up. I glanced back and Phoenix was sitting in the electric chair, staring right at me.

  My heart sank to my stomach. Though I was surrounded by two friendly vampires, I was deathly afraid of the one behind me.

  “Never mind,” I said. Even though he was out of ear
shot and the club music was pulsing faster than my beating heart, I sensed he could hear every word.

  “The club has been a great hangout,” Scarlet began.

  “The whole reason the club exists is so that we can be ourselves peacefully,” Onyx said.

  “There are many of us who don’t want a new direction. The club is being torn apart,” Scarlet admitted, shaking her head.

  I had to know more. I leaned into the girls as closely as I could. “What’s his story?” I whispered to Onyx.

  “Whose story?” She scooted closer.

  “What?” Scarlet asked, tossing her luscious locks over her shoulder. “I can’t hear you.”

  “She’s interested in some guy,” Onyx said.

  “I thought you had a boyfriend,” Scarlet added.

  Onyx nudged her best friend, then eagerly asked me, “Which one?”

  I placed my index finger over my lips. In my softest whisper I began, “I’m not interested…I mean I am…but not that way. Don’t look now…but the guy behind me, sitting in the electric chair…”

  Onyx did her best to check him out without being too noticeable, but Scarlet glared toward the stockade. “Who, him? That’s the bartender.”

  I shook my head. “No, not him.”

  “No, she means over there,” Onyx corrected. “But there’s no one in or near the electric chair.”

  I spun around. The electric chair was empty.

  “Who were you interested in?” Scarlet asked.

  “Uh…no one really.”

  “Tell us,” Onyx pried.

  “The biker dude with purple hair,” I confessed.

  “He’s your type, huh?” Onyx continued. “Hot, mysterious, and dangerous?”

  “No—I have a boyfriend. It just seems he’s always hiding in the shadows and watching me.”

  “I haven’t gotten the scoop on him yet. But I’d stay away,” Scarlet warned.

  “Yeah, he’s always having meetings with really gnarly types,” Onyx confirmed. “Maybe he’s the one—”

  The bartender approached our table with a tray of three red martinis.

  “We didn’t order these,” Scarlet said.

  “They are from the two guys sitting in the corner,” the waiter stated.

  The two guys who’d let me in the Dungeon a few nights before raised their goblets to us.

  “Two dudes for three girls? How obnoxious,” Scarlet remarked.

  “It’s okay. I have a boyfriend,” I said.

  “But it’s the point,” she charged. “They don’t know that.”

  “I’ve heard if you accept a stranger’s drink, then it’s an invitation to your table,” I whispered to the girls. “Thanks anyway,” I said to the bartender, declining the martini.

  “I never refuse a free drink,” Onyx said. The two girls laughed and gladly accepted the bloody drinks.

  But I wasn’t interested in freebies. I wanted the scoop about the inner workings of the club.

  “So will the club close?” I asked.

  “We hope not!” Onyx began, drawing near. “We’ve met so many fabulous people here.”

  “And where else could we hang out and be ourselves? A coffee shop?”

  “They certainly don’t sell AB-negative lattes.” Both girls laughed.

  Scarlet scooted close. “Do you know Jagger Maxwell?”

  I nodded. “He’s legendary. What about him?”

  “Since he opened this club a few months ago, he created a safe haven for us to be ourselves and party,” Scarlet said in a whisper.

  “He even gave all the out-of-town members a place to crash here,” said Onyx.

  “But now that’s not good enough for some,” Scarlet added. “So the buzz is that Jagger has another plan.”

  “He doesn’t want us to be a secret,” Onyx said.

  “But that will blow the whole purpose of the Dungeon,” Scarlet continued.

  “To be visible—but only to us immortals.”

  “Jagger and his crew think that it’s a vampire’s true nature to lurk among the mortals.”

  “So many of us believe just the opposite. It’s best to keep our blood pure and separate from mortals.”

  “If we reveal our true identity,” Scarlet warned, “then we obviously pose as much of a threat to mortals as they do to us.”

  “Jagger is on a power trip. He wasn’t happy enough being the leader of the Dungeon. He doesn’t have our best interest in mind. He has his own.”

  “What do you believe? What kind of vampire are you?” Onyx asked with conviction.

  I was taken aback. Two vampiresses, one flashing an onyx on her fang, were asking me what kind of vampire I was? I certainly couldn’t say that I was neither kind—and in fact, not a vampire at all.

  “We should remain private and pure,” I answered emphatically. “In the end, will mortals really accept us as we are? I think it’s best we remain true to ourselves so we don’t lose our identity. We are who we are for a reason. We don’t fit into their world, so why should we try?”

  I was talking as much about vampires as I was about myself.

  The girls grinned in agreement.

  We sensed someone listening to our conversation. We peered up and the two guys were standing behind us.

  “See,” I said through a fake smile.

  “Do you mind if we sit down?” the blond asked.

  “Of course not,” Scarlet said.

  It was then I spotted tousled dark purple hair in the chamber across from us.

  “Uh…I’m feeling dizzy,” I admitted, referring to the revolving floor. “I’ll be right back.”

  It was my chance to spy on Phoenix. I snuck out into the hall and hid in the shadows next to their lounge.

  Phoenix, along with a gang of ominous-looking guys, was hovering around a stone table. Phoenix was quite popular. When he wasn’t slinking in the shadows, he was surrounded by club members. “Jagger doesn’t know the true meaning of being a vampire,” one said.

  “It’s time he steps down,” added another.

  “And you are just the dude to take over,” the first one said to Phoenix.

  “Yes,” they all said in unison.

  “Tomorrow night, then,” a voice declared.

  “I’ll meet him at the crop circle. It will be done,” Phoenix finished.

  I leaned back as far as I could into the shadows as Phoenix left the chamber and the menacing clubsters followed him.

  Phoenix was planning a revolt of his own. What would happen if he led the vampire club? Was he the kind of vampire who thought it necessary to lurk among the mortals? If he was planning to meet Jagger in the open, he was surely risking exposure himself.

  I felt a vibration in my purse. I pulled out my cell. It was Aunt Libby.

  “Raven? Where are you?” she asked, her voice concerned. “I just checked the ghouls room and you weren’t there.”

  “I took a wrong turn. I’m a few yards from the dance floor,” I said truthfully, only it wasn’t the same dance floor she was thinking of.

  “I’m done with my reading. She said marriage is in the cards.”

  “I’ll meet you at the tarot card booth.”

  I hung up. If the tarot card reader had been truly psychic, she would have informed my aunt of my real location. Fortunately her powers were really only good for taking other people’s money.

  I returned to find the girls still immersed in cozy conversation with the martini guys.

  “Where did you go?” Onyx said.

  “I got turned around. Even a ghost could get lost in these tombs.” The blond beamed. A tiny drop of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Onyx wiped it off with her martini napkin.

  “I really have to go.”

  “So soon?” Scarlet asked.

  “Yes, I have to get back.”

  “You’ll have to join us tomorrow,” Onyx said, entwined with the redheaded guy.

  “Yeah, you’ll have to join us,” he repeated.

  I set o
ff on my quest to meet Aunt Libby. Once again, I was lost in the tombs. I didn’t remember which way Onyx, Scarlet, and I had entered or how far we’d walked. I couldn’t find the embedded skulls, or the clubsters hanging out in the hallowed graves. And there were dozens of girls in the labyrinth of tunnels with guys hanging from their necks.

  I entered an alcove filled with gamers playing Medieval Morticians, another with members having black widow races, and still another playing Spin the Bloody Bottle. All were dead ends.

  I was so lost I was ready to scream. I had to get back to Aunt Libby before she got worried and called the cops or, worse, my parents. At the end of one catacomb, I discovered a door. I hoped it led to the outside of the club and I’d head back through the main entrance. There wasn’t a knob anywhere to be found. In the darkness, I glided my hand along the unstained wood until I discovered a latch. I squeezed it and slid it open. The door didn’t exit into an alleyway but rather into someone’s apartment—a loft with dozens of medieval candelabras. For a moment I paused. Something looked familiar about it, and then I realized I’d been here before. It was Jagger’s apartment.

  I snuck inside, wondering what insights I might gain this time from the threatening vampire.

  The gray metal main door on the opposite side was open overhead. An aquarium, empty of water but filled with rocks and one deadly tarantula, remained near the radiator, as I’d remembered.

  In the far corner of the loft lay a coffin, adorned with gothic band stickers, encircled by dirt.

  I noticed a wooden stake caked with mud and grass, a spool of rope, and several long boards—similar to the tools I’d seen on a TV show about making a homemade crop circle.

  I sensed someone lingering at the door behind me. I slowly turned around.

  It was Phoenix. His sunglasses cast a shadow on his pale face, making it difficult to see his expression.

  “What is it you are looking for?” he asked in his thick Romanian accent.

  I felt alarmed. I knew I wasn’t supposed to be nosing around Jagger’s apartment, or the Dungeon, for that matter. Phoenix appeared to be watching me, always in the background, showing up unexpectedly in a blanket of darkness. My not knowing his motives made him especially intriguing and suspicious.