On reflex, Ginny covered both of her ears, so she could only partially hear the exchange between Roksana and the bald, tawny-skinned man in a white leather vest who stood in front of them, the top of his head brushing the doorframe.
“Knew you’d be back,” he shouted, giving the slayer an appreciative once-over. “I don’t see the flamethrower you stole last time we hung out.”
“I’m having it dry cleaned.”
He cracked a laugh, before sliding his attention to Ginny. “You usually travel solo. Who’s the fresh meat?”
“Her meat is off limits, Luther. We’re just here to drink. Is that allowed?”
“I suppose that can be arranged.” He shifted to the side and jerked his chin toward the apparent mayhem that lay on the other side of the door. “Welcome to Enders. Save me a dance, Roks.”
“No.”
Luther threw back his head and laughed.
The eye-rolling slayer took Ginny’s hand and led her inside. With so many lights flashing in time with the bass, it was impossible to make out everything while being shuffled forward by a protective Roksana, but she saw enough to know the place was packed to the gills with fit-looking people who seemed in competition with each other to keep their backs closest to the wall. Symbols Ginny didn’t recognize had been spray painted in bright neon greens and whites onto brick, single blacklight bulbs hung from the ceiling, men and women danced on elevated platforms in next to nothing.
“I don’t feel so underdressed in my skirt and tank top now.”
“Oh good. I was so worried,” Roksana deadpanned, situating Ginny in the very corner of the bar. “Stay put until I make a mental list of everyone here.”
“You said we were safe in this place. What are you worried about?”
“Ginny, you need to learn no one is ever safe. Not anywhere. At any time.”
Ginny took the words to heart. Wasn’t it true that she’d been living in one dimension of this world that actually had two dimensions? Maybe more? Several times today when she’d closed her eyes, she’d thought of Seymour floating down from the roof into the alleyway. Her body being transported across the night sky. It was possible that safety was nothing more than a laughable notion.
Especially for humans like herself.
“Get you a drink?”
Ginny had been in the process of taking off her jacket when the bartender approached. Now, she swiveled on her stool to face him, whipping off her jacket at the same moment—and immediately slipped into the skin of one of her film stars. Elizabeth Taylor, perhaps, in A Place in the Sun. Yes. Ginny could see her now, the way she entered the glitzy party and cocked a hip on the pool table with a glass in her hand. “I’ll have champagne.”
The bartender stared back blankly.
Roksana coughed. “Two beers.” When the bartender was out of sight, she turned to Ginny. “If they have champagne in this place, it tastes like piss.”
“Another time, then.”
The slayer’s lips hopped at one end. “Sure.”
Ginny cozied into her stool and scanned the room, averting her gaze when she made eye contact with two patrons mid-lip lock. “So what happened between you and Luther? He seems nice.”
“Yes, that was the problem.” Roksana slapped money on the bar in exchange for their beers and drained half of her bottle. “He wanted to set us up on double slaying dates and such things. I would rather slay myself.”
Ginny sipped her drink and sighed over the ice-cold bitterness in her throat. “I think this is the same beer Tucker gave me. Or maybe they all taste the same.”
“Tucker gave you beer? And Jonas allowed him to keep his head?”
“Jonas knows…” She stopped short, trying to find the right words. “It’s a little odd now that I think about it, but Jonas knows I couldn’t have an interest in anyone else as long as he exists. Or as long as I’m aware that he exists, anyway. And I know the same about him. Somehow that goes unsaid.”
A vein ticked in Roksana’s temple. “Da, that is how it would be,” she said, low enough that Ginny wondered if she’d heard correctly. “What about before you met your…Jonas? Were there boyfriends?”
“No. I had one date with Gordon and I think he’d like another, but—”
“Turn him down.” She shrugged. “If you’d like him to live, that is.”
“I would,” Ginny said quickly. “You’re not saying Jonas would—”
“I am saying that.”
“That’s a fine thing to do. Killing off my only potential suitor when he’s so dead set on taking my memories and hitting the bricks.”
“Killing a man for getting too close to you would be an involuntary thing, Ginny—” Roksana broke off, taking a long pull of her beer. “Beer gives me a loose tongue.”
Reluctant to badger Roksana on their night out, Ginny turned in her stool to face the room, noticing the dance floor for the first time where it was tucked in the back corner beneath a neon yellow chandelier. Bodies moved fluidly, together and apart, hips rocking, hands seeking. What would it be like to dance with Jonas like that? With his mouth in her hair and his leg pressed between her thighs?
The bartender completed an order with the group to Roksana’s right and before he could leave to service another customer, Roksana tapped his elbow. “Two shots, please. Patrón.”
“Yeah,” he grunted, skulking away.
Ginny took a deep breath, bracing for her first shot of actual alcohol and felt a ramble coming on, due to her nerves. “How do slayers find this place?”
“Enders has been here for a century. I guess word got around. For me, I ran into Luther when we were stalking the same vamp in Gravesend. He’s sort of the unofficial manager. No one has ever met the owner, but there are rumors.”
“What kind?”
“They say she is savage. That in her office, she displays the heads of slayers who didn’t pay their bar tab. Some say she is a mafia princess. No one knows the truth.” Their shots were set down in front of them. Roksana slid one in front of Ginny before hoisting her own. “To your health.”
The tequila burned going down. Lord, it burned. Ginny didn’t find it unpleasant, though. It spread into a lake of warmth in her belly and gave her a relaxed sense of optimism. “Let’s go dance.”
Roksana winced. “Can I convince you to dance in your seat?”
Ginny gave her a sorry, Charlie headshake. “I don’t even know how to dance, so this should be fun.”
“Copy me, only. Not the ones humping.”
“Deal.”
They hopped off their stools and started to weave through the high top tables and groups of people. A step away from the dance floor, Ginny’s vision doubled. The music expanded, the words stretching out interminably, like her footsteps. Was she even moving? Were the lights getting brighter?
That’s when the pain struck.
“Oh,” she heaved, her knees landing on the ground, sending pain shooting up her thighs. But it was nothing compared to the stabbing agony in her stomach. A sharp twist she could only liken to a hot fireplace poker ramming into her gut made her fall sideways and curl into the fetal position. She squeezed tightly into a ball but that only made the pain worse. Nothing helped. Nothing helped.
Oh Lord, make it stop.
“Ginny!” Roksana was beside her, running hands all over her body, her touch leaving fire in its wake. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” she gasped, a terrible throb beginning in her throat. There was the sense that she needed something. A cure. Now now now. What was happening to her? She couldn’t withstand the torture much longer—and all she could think of was Jonas. She needed him there. He’d stop the pain.
Distantly, she realized people were gathering around them. Barstools were shuffled aside and the music trailed off. Roksana’s voice reached her, along with a tinny, yet familiar, one. As if it was coming over the phone.
“Bitch at me later,” Roksana shouted. “There’s something wrong with her
…I don’t know! If I knew, I wouldn’t be calling you. She’s in pain, but there’s no injury. God, she’s…it’s like she’s dying. Tell me what to do! No. He made me promise I wouldn’t.” There was a heavy pause. “N-no, you can’t come here. You can’t—”
Ginny’s pain finally subsided, leaving her gasping and weak on the sticky ground, shaking violently. She couldn’t even speak to tell Roksana that she was fine. She wouldn’t have had time to say a word, anyway, because that’s when the door of the bar blasted open and pandemonium ensued.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What a pair of goddamn idiots,” Roksana muttered.
Ginny struggled into a sitting position and only caught the quickest glimpse of Elias and Tucker in the entrance of the bar when Roksana dragged her into a corner and ordered her not to move. With her jaw in the vicinity of her lap, she watched every slayer in the establishment whip out a stake.
“Oh dear,” Ginny whispered. “Those are terrible odds.”
Had Elias and Tucker come to Enders because of her? What could they possibly do to alleviate whatever was wrong with her? Surely she needed a human doctor and not two vampires. Even as the thought ran through her mind, she was levering herself up to see the door, hoping Jonas would walk in behind them. Begging him to.
He didn’t.
She ignored the rush of disappointment and focused on the here and now—and the very real possibility that something horrible was about to happen. Her friends could be hurt because of her. Surely they couldn’t take on an entire room of professional vampire slayers between the two of them.
The room was divided in two.
Vampires on one side, slayers on the other.
Roksana stopped in between the two sides and hesitated, her gaze swinging from the the pair to her colleagues. So to speak.
“Go,” Elias rasped, his face partially hidden by a low-brimmed baseball cap. It was clear to Ginny he was speaking to Roksana, but the slayers around her muttered their speculations. “Go!”
Roksana remained frozen.
A male slayer with myriad piercings in the front row lunged, his stake raised high above his head and a battle cry pierced the air. He was headed straight for Elias when Roksana blindsided him with a kick, sending him crashing into a row of tables, sending bottles and candles crashing to the ground.
Roksana stared at the stunned slayer with a torn expression, slowly shifting her attention to the crowd of disgusted slayers.
Luther stepped out of the pack, betrayal etched into his features. “Am I reading this correctly? You protect…a vampire?”
Going from nonplussed to bored, she shrugged. “Just trying to even the odds. No one likes a shutout.”
“You’re not welcome here ever again,” Luther spat.
Roksana sighed. “Does this mean the offer to meet your parents is off the table?”
Elias released a low growl and stepped in front of Roksana.
The slayers bristled.
Ginny slowly got to her feet and made eye contact with Tucker. He shook his head at her almost imperceptibly, so she stayed put, even though her instinct was to sprint toward the exit. That way they could follow her and avoid what was sure to be a deadly altercation. If anything happened to her friends because of her, she wouldn’t be able to live with the sadness or guilt.
What could she do, though? She didn’t have superhuman capabilities and probably couldn’t beat someone whose professional job title was vampire slayer on their worst day, unless maybe they were playing checkers. She had no choice but to wait and watch.
Luther pointed in her direction. “That one arrived with Roksana. Bring her to the back room.”
Change of plans.
Ginny had no time to think as two glowering slayers started closing in immediately. She’d never wished for athleticism harder in her life as when she took a running jump, leapt onto her vacated bar stool and ran across the bar. She only made it five feet before her ankle was captured. She was just gearing up to kick her assailant in the face—probably while apologizing—when a blur of color snatched her off the bar and transported her to the exit.
“Hang on, sweetheart.”
Tucker.
He set her onto watery legs and pushed her toward the door. “Go. Run home. We’ll meet you there.”
Without waiting for her response, he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and swaggered up beside a battle-ready Elias and Roksana. “Been a while since I had a decent bar fight,” he drawled. “Who’m I fuckin’ up first?”
All hell broke loose.
The explosion of the battle threw Ginny’s back up against the wall and for a moment, she could only gape and marvel at Roksana’s skill. She took on slayers two at a time, fighting back to back with Elias, her limbs moving in graceful and deadly blurs. Tucker whooped his way through a string of bar patrons, twisting and dodging with the speed of a hurricane. He plucked stakes from their hands and launched them up at the ceiling where they got stuck, enraging the slayers.
I should go.
Tucker had told her to go, but she couldn’t seem to move. All three of her friends were there because of her. Roksana had come to celebrate Ginny’s birthday and Jonas’s friends were there because of her mysterious illness. She couldn’t just leave them to their fate. Not without trying to help.
Even now, the circle of slayers around Elias and Roksana was closing in. They had the upper hand for now, but for how long? Every time they felled one of their opponents, another one stepped in to take their place.
Chewing on her bottom lip, Ginny surveyed the room. The odds were not in their favor, but maybe she could do something to even them up.
Create a diversion. That always worked in the movies, didn’t it?
We see as well in the pitch black as we do in the light.
As soon as Jonas’s words came drifting back to Ginny, she was sliding along the wall toward the bar, hoping her movements remained undetected. Thankfully, the bartender had joined the fray, so there was no one to stop her from going behind the bar and searching for the light switches. There. They were right behind the cash register, beside the fire alarm.
Ginny smacked off the lights and immediately, roars of dismay reached her from the barroom floor. Hoping her friends would use the confusion as a chance to leave, she turned to leave, but changed her mind and pulled the fire alarm for good measure. A liquid sputter preceded a deluge of water raining down from the ceiling—and then the blaring siren started, muffling the exclamations and bodies running into one another.
She wasted no more time sprinting down to the open hatch of the bar and hooking a quick right, praying she didn’t trip in the darkness on her way to the door—and she didn’t. Because someone picked her up and broke land records on their way out of the bar, up the staircase and onto the street. She was assuming that was the chosen route, anyway. Ginny saw nothing but whipping colors until they were beneath a flickering street lamp on the opposite side of the alley.
Trying to recover from the rush of wind in her ears, Ginny braced her hands on her knees and took a breathless head count. All of them were there and despite a scrape on Roksana’s cheek, unharmed. Thank the Lord.
“Nice assist, sweetheart,” Tucker chuckled, giving Ginny a high five. “You’ve got some trouble in your blood, don’t you?”
“Speaking of blood…” Elias said from the shadow just outside the circle of light cast by the streetlight. “We should get moving now.”
Roksana cursed in Russian. “We’re not taking her there. I promised him.”
“If he knew the separation was going to cause her pain, too, do you really think he’d want you to keep that promise?”
The slayer’s mouth formed a grim line.
“Exactly.” Elias paused, before coming back with a terse, “You going to fix that cut on your cheek or just stand there and bleed to death?”
“I don’t exactly have a first-aid kit handy.”
“Maybe your boyfriend in the bar has one.”
Elias caught her by the elbow mid-step. “Don’t even try it.”
Ginny sidestepped in between them. “What did you mean?” she breathed, her pulse spiking. “What did you meant, cause her pain too? Is Jonas in pain?”
“Now there’s an understatement,” Elias rasped, letting go of Roksana’s arm.
He started to say more but slayers rushed into the alley fifty yards away, clearly searching for their foursome to continue to battle. “There they are,” someone shouted.
“Five more minutes, Mom?” Tucker whined, cracking his knuckles.
“Please,” Ginny pleaded. “I need answers.”
Elias sighed. “We’ll talk when we get there.” He gave his back to Roksana and she climbed on with an eye roll. Ginny did the same with Tucker. “Stick to the alleys. The last thing we need is to get caught accelerating.”
They skyrocketed into the night, traveling at such a high rate of speed that this time, Ginny definitely didn’t even need a blindfold. Her eyes couldn’t settle on one landmark before it vanished in their wake. One second they were powering down the street and the next, she was being set down in the elevator of Jonas’s building, surrounded protectively by Roksana, Elias and Tucker. All three of them watched the split of the metal doors warily, balancing on the balls of their feet.
Why?
Ginny’s breath started to come faster and faster, the hair on the nape of her neck standing on end. A ding let them know they’d arrived at the basement floor when an earsplitting bellow of denial rent the air.
Jonas?
Ginny’s entire being quite simply demanded to be taken in the direction of Jonas’s howl. He’s suffering, he’s suffering, he’s suffering. Her brain was not part of the operation. Her heart and possibly something baser and elemental jolted her toward the apartment door, her fingers wrapping around the door handle. She was only given the opportunity to yank once and find it locked before Roksana wrestled her back. Away from the place she needed to be.
Reborn Yesterday Page 15
