Sin City Vampire Club

by Kristen Strassel

  Rainey tried her damnedest to go back to sleep, so I stepped out on the balcony. I was half-dressed and half-shielded by concrete. As long as I didn’t catch the attention of our creepy neighbor, no one would notice.

  “Hi,” I said when Callie answered the phone. Sleep-dazed and shaky, her silence threw me. “It’s Holly. Holly Octane. I’m returning your call.”

  My manager did earn his fifteen percent after all. I sounded like an idiot.

  “Thanks for calling me back so quickly. I talked to Tristan about what you suggested, and he’s game.” She sounded as surprised as I was.

  “That’s amazing.” And probably too good to be true. She didn’t say what he was game for, and I hadn’t elaborated on what I wanted, either. I put forth a threat instead of a plan. But it worked so I wasn’t complaining. “When can I meet with you?”

  She sighed. “Tonight would be good. But don’t wait too long. Tristan gets bored and distracted easily.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  TRISTAN TREVOSIER THRIVED on chaos, and he suffered from the newfound peace the New Year ushered in. Even though he did it on purpose. His eyes were sunken, like a vampire could be denied sleep. I wasn’t sure if he’d run a brush through his hair since he’d come off stage days ago, but if that were the case, it would be matted with clumps of blood. Tristan cleaned up better than that.

  We were too late. Tristan had already stamped his ticket to oblivion for the evening.

  Not that I was in much better shape as I took my seat at the round table in his home office. Rainey protested this trip, insisting I take some time to prepare for the meeting—like I had any idea what I was prepping for. But she came. We threw ourselves together, wiping smudges of the previous night’s date with Blade away and picking clothes up off the floor. Only the best would do when my future was on the line.

  “Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice.” Tristan leaned forward, his eyes glassy. It was just the four of us, their word against ours. “Callie said you had some ideas for a new show.”

  “I do.” I wondered if he even realized what had happened to his bandmates just nights before. Vampires didn’t have much use for remorse, but they mourned. When forever was taken away, it was final. And it had to make him consider his own immortality. I shivered when I realized he could’ve arranged the hit. I wondered if that was how all his contracts ended.

  I mentally took back everything I ever said about my agent.

  The silence sucked the oxygen from the room. I had a feeling Tristan had some ideas, too. We were both afraid to show our hand. I made the first move. Sort of. “Did you have plans for another show when Immortal Dilemma closed?”

  “Yeah and no. I wanted to do things on my own terms, but I hadn’t come up with a solid plan yet. I wanted to take my time and get it right. But without the show, I’m starving.” He slurred his words. “Didn’t think that would happen.”

  “The energy stayed strong for a couple of days,” Callie added. Purple rimmed her green eyes. Most days she could pass for human, but not tonight. “While the fans held vigil, waiting for news. It wasn’t good energy, and we fought the whole time, but it was enough to keep us going.”

  Her gaze slid to Tristan, and they shared a smile. Any couple would agree the best part of fighting was making up.

  “The fans are gone. Not enough energy down here to sustain us.” He propped his head up in his hand. Talking seemed strenuous for him. The Alta Vista was at the far end of the Strip, away from the huge hotels and the throngs of tourists. The implosion of The Riviera created an extra void.

  He was scaring me. I chalked his condition up to being wasted, like all the gossip reports said. He probably was, but this was much more than that. His hunger was eating him from the inside out, and it had a voracious appetite. As a vampire, Tristan had been weaned on crowd hysteria. It was like an apple a day for him. Going cold turkey was the worst thing he could’ve done.

  “What’s your plan?” What I should’ve asked was, how am I involved?

  “I ended Immortal Dilemma because I hated it. We didn’t play our own music, we had cameras trailing our every move, and we had to follow a fucking script. We signed shitty contracts because they told us they had everything we wanted. It was my dad’s lawyers. They should’ve been looking out for me, but I didn’t know any better back then. Bullshit. It’s the other way around. We have what they want.” He slammed his open palm on the table.

  Rainey and I jumped.

  “Cash screwed me over, too,” I said. Cash rearranged Cirque Macabre to suit him, but until now, I was too embarrassed to admit that my own father would take money out of my pocket. And worse, I didn’t know it was happening until I got my paycheck. But the same thing happened to Tristan. It made me feel a little bit better about placing my trust in the wrong hands. “They had to add shows because people came to see me. They chanted my name when the lights went down.”

  I fed from energy, too. Maybe that’s what it was—the electricity between Rainey, Blade and me that caused the spark the night before.

  Was that last night? I’d lost all track of time, which I considered a good thing. Time was a concept that had always confused me, since I had the ability to dance around it like it was my plaything. My powers were coming back. It was a whimper instead of a bang, but I’d take whatever I could get. If I could time travel again, I prayed my fire wasn’t far behind.

  “Exactly. People came from all over the world to see me. I put money in so many people’s pockets.... Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hurting financially. But I’m gonna do it different this time.” He closed his eyes for too long, swaying in his seat. “I don’t want any fucking rules. I want to give people what they want—and what they paid for. The most insane show Las Vegas has ever seen. No more teasing. We give it to them full throttle.”

  I had absolutely no idea what that meant as far as Tristan was concerned. I did a quick scan of the room. Callie beamed with pride. Rainey looked like she might barf on the table.

  “That’s what I want, too.” The words surprised me as they came out of my mouth, but they shouldn’t have. I wanted it all. “But I haven’t performed for months. Since—”

  “The show closed,” Rainey interrupted before I reminded the vampires of what they took from me.

  “I need to practice.” I forced a smile. “And come up with some new routines. Once we figure out what my role will be.”

  “Yeah, we need to write songs.” Tristan’s smile was much more genuine. “I’ve already come up with some great stuff, especially when the fans were still here. I channeled all of that—real balls to the wall, no holds barred—and let the notes pour on the page. Best stuff I’ve ever come up with.”

  “You need to get the crowds back,” Rainey said.

  “We will. That’s the last thing you should be worrying about. There’s been... Never mind.” Callie pulled her phone out of her pocket and checked the screen. She raised her eyebrows at whatever she saw but didn’t respond to the message. “The clan can’t last without a show. Everywhere else with extreme energy is overloaded with vampires. It’s a recipe for disaster. It will work for a little while, but it will turn into a hostile environment. Survival of the fittest.”

  She had to be talking about Blade’s donor parade at Embrace. A room full of hungry vampires, and only so much blood to go around. They could get new donors, but after a while, the humans would understand that they weren’t replacing people who quit.

  I raised an eyebrow. Callie’s gaze settled on me, and she was looking for a fight. Whatever she saw on her phone didn’t make her relax. Her body was rigid like rigor mortis had started to settle in. “You think you’ve got the secret to making this work?”

  “I do.” She leaned back in her chair. “Humans. You have to have more humans than vampires to balance the energy.”

  “You need to create good energy.” Rainey jumped in to referee. “You can’t have them leaving scared, like Cash did. They have to feel good at th
e end of the show, and not be able to get enough, so they keep coming back for more.”

  Tristan pointed at her. “Fuck yeah. That’s it.”

  Callie relaxed. “Good. We all seem to be on the same page.”

  I still had a lot of questions. “Who will be in your band?”

  Tristan’s condition had improved. The little thumps of energy that our heartbeats provided helped him. “I’d love to team up with the guys in Soul Divider.”

  Oh. Hell. No.

  “Game over. I won’t work with Noah.” I didn’t have to tell Rainey to get up. We were out of here. He was one of the first vampires I had any up close and personal dealings with, and he violated my trust in every way possible. My fire was a byproduct of his attack. Sort of. I always had it, but I’d never been fully engulfed until that horrible night that he raped me.

  Tristan grabbed my arm. “No Noah. He’s an asshole.” He grinned as the tension drained from my body. “Ryder’s vocals blow his away. Plus we don’t need so many guitarists.”

  I sat again. Noah simply wasn’t needed, but I liked to think that karma got the best of him. Finally.

  “I want equal billing.” It was the only way I could ensure that I wouldn’t get screwed again. Handshakes with vampires never ended well for me.

  Rainey gasped, and Callie sucked in a breath she didn’t need to take in the first place. Tristan put his hand on her arm and shook his head. For someone who was billed as a notorious wild child, he was much more even-tempered than The Mistress. At least he was when he wanted something. Everyone in Las Vegas had their own agenda, myself included, but the more I talked to Tristan, the more I realized he actually cared about the people around him. Out of all the vampires, he was the only one willing to help without wanting something in return.

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” he said.

  “Tristan, no.” Callie shifted away from him. “Don’t agree to anything like that until a lawyer looks at a contract. You were the one with the show. You’re the one that everyone’s going batshit crazy over now that you’re gone. No one cares that she isn’t performing anymore.” She waved at me dismissively.

  “What did you just say?” I clung to the edge of the table to keep myself from throttling her. “You’ve been to Cirque Macabre. You heard them chant for me.”

  “They aren’t anymore.” Callie crossed her arms over her chest. I wanted to smack that smug look of satisfaction off her face. But that was no better than throttling her. I didn’t need another visit with the Alta Vista security team.

  But her claim hurt because it was true. “That’s because I wasn’t fucking everything that moves.”

  She jumped back in her chair. The truth was much more powerful than a physical altercation. “All I’m saying is you shouldn’t make promises you might not want to keep until a lawyer looks things over.”

  “Fuck lawyers.” Tristan leaned back, totally relaxed like a catfight wasn’t on the verge of breaking out in front of him. “All they do is screw things up beyond all recognition. The reason Immortal Dilemma was so successful is because we relied on my dad’s name and his money. We had amazing marketing. Holly got screwed. Twice. She got shoved into a horrible deal, and punished when it didn’t work for her.”

  He was officially my favorite. Thank you didn’t seem to be the right words to say.

  He winked at me. “If you’d been given the same arsenal of tools I had, you’d be the most famous dancer in the world. You still did pretty fucking all right, considering all the shit you had to deal with.”

  “Do you still have those tools?” I asked. The Mistress was up in arms about lawyers, but I’d be a fool not to capitalize on the currency that no lawyer could regulate—emotion. No matter what Callie thought, Tristan wanted to work with me. My goal was to walk away from this meeting with a plan. The seed had already planted and I’d give Tristan everything he needed to make it grow. So when it came time to involve lawyers or managers or whoever we deemed worth of taking a cut, I’d be sure to get what I wanted.

  “You bet your ass I do.” He sat up straighter, and he didn’t look fucked up anymore. I realized my energy healed him. We already made an excellent team. “Give me an idea of what you’re thinking. If you could do whatever you wanted on stage, what would it be?”

  I closed my eyes, visualizing myself coming down a staircase in nothing but stilettos, a thong, and a flaming headdress. Flames dripping from my fingers like I sliced them open and I bled on each step. I had to figure out how to incorporate what I knew how to do with what I wanted. “Something more classic,” I said. “Sophisticated and sexy as hell.”

  “Yes!” Tristan slapped the table and leaned in closer to me. He needed everything I had to give tonight. “My own music is nothing like what I did with Immortal Dilemma. I’ve mostly played it acoustic, and I haven’t put it together with a band yet. I want to write songs for you. A soundtrack that makes all of us shine.”

  “Can we talk about this?” Callie nudged him. “Alone.”

  “There are no secrets here, beautiful. This is what I wanted. Holly gets it.”

  Callie groaned.

  “How will this work?” Rainey asked. “By the nature of what Holly does, she can’t perform for an hour and a half straight. It would take too much energy.”

  Rainey was right. We hadn’t discussed how much we’d perform, only what. It could very well be a deal-breaker.

  “I can probably do four routines, if we spread them throughout the show.” I wouldn’t overpromise and under-deliver. I’d seen what happened to the last group of people who couldn’t satisfy Tristan’s creativity.

  “Works for me. You open the show, do two numbers at intermission, and then come back to close the show. We’ll write it as a concept album.” He practically glowed as the ideas came to him. My energy had done him some good. Take that, Callie. “It’ll be our story. How we got chewed up and spit out but at the end, we fucking win.”

  “That’s amazing.” I had no idea what to expect from this meeting. It hadn’t mattered if I prepared for weeks, I would’ve still walked in totally blind. I didn’t think I would’ve come up with something this good on my own. I would’ve psyched myself up and not had the balls to ask for what I deserved.

  I was no fool. It wouldn’t be this easy. But having Tristan on Team Holly was a huge step in the right direction. He may not have been in charge, but he was the reason the vampires had a foothold on this city. Without him, they’d still be in the shadows, stealing energy from people who wouldn’t be missed.

  If The Mistress knew what was good for her, she’d come around.

  “How about you work on your stuff, and I’ll work with the band. We do this again in a couple weeks so we can see what we’ve come up with, put it together, and kick some major ass.” As far as Tristan was concerned, this was a done deal.

  “Sounds good.” Too good. My heart was pounding so hard it had to be distracting both of them.

  Callie seethed, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see steam rise from her skin. I wondered which one of them got their way in the relationship. It was never equal.

  “What’s the target date to open the show?” Rainey asked. Someone had to be the voice of reason. Tristan and I were nothing but dreams and adrenaline.

  “As soon as possible.” Tristan couldn’t sit still. I bet he was anxious to get back to his guitar. If he was feeling the same way I was, a thousand ideas were running through his head, and he needed to catch them like fireflies and keep them in a jar until he could use them.

  “Sin City Vampire Club is empty. The faster we get a show in there, the better—”

  “You can’t rush art, beautiful. It will be crap,” he interrupted, oblivious to her nuclear glare. She was the one who usually got her way. “We’ll work out any kinks, and then we drop it on them. Welcome to The Afterlife.”

  “Is that what we’re calling it?” I asked. It did fit. The Immortal Dilemma camp was still spinning the show’s closure as the b
and being dead.

  He shrugged. “We can use it as a working title.”

  The clock was ticking. I wouldn’t show any fear. I stood and held my hand out to Tristan. “I look forward to working with you.”

  He kissed it and winked at me. “We’re going to blow their fucking minds.”

  I practically floated to the door, holding Rainey’s hand for much-needed gravity. Tristan and Callie were perfect hosts, showing us out. “One thing before you go.” Callie surprised everyone. “We agree to nothing until you prove you can hold up your end of the bargain. If I find out Blade Bennett has anything to do with this, I’ll make sure the closest you get to fire is lighting cigarettes for the roadies in Noah’s trailer.”

  That little bitch. “You said no Noah.”

  A smile slid across her face, but nothing was friendly about it. “Exactly.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “IT’S A TRAP,” RAINEY said as soon as the apartment door closed behind her. She left her spell books spread all over the living room floor, with crystals and herb sacks scattered throughout like little spiritual landmines. “Don’t do anything without a lawyer. There’s no way he’ll give what he says he will. The Mistress won’t let him.”

  She’d been smart to wait until we were in the relative safety of our own home, but the truth was I hadn’t given her a chance to say anything as I rambled on about how I saw the show playing out in my head. I geeked out over the little things, like details on costumes and syncing dance moves with a piece of music to convey exactly what I wanted to say without using a word.

  I wanted her to be excited with me. But I needed her to be the voice of reason. Reason was something I’d never been up close and personal with. It made my skin itch.