Sin City Vampire Club

by Kristen Strassel

  Holly. Holly. Holly. It was the sound of my heart beating.

  Tristan had changed to a double-necked guitar. The spotlight glinted off the slide on his fingers as he moved them up and down the neck as seductively as if it were a woman. It was easy to get lost in watching him play, the way he moved his hands, his pure reverence for his instrument, and the expression on his face—eyes closed, mouth slightly open. I was perfectly happy with my current arrangement, as fucked up as it was, but it didn’t escape me that Callie was one lucky bitch.

  I high-stepped to the middle of the stage, running my fingers along my thighs as I moved. This was the type of music I begged to dance to at Cirque Macabre. Only a fool would try to limit an artist. My body had been made to move to this song.

  I stopped at the edge of the stage, pulling a glove off with my teeth. Smoke rose in its wake. A spark erupted when I ripped the other glove away. I didn’t expect that, and neither did the crowd. They roared in appreciation. I sent my jacket skidding across the stage before continuing my journey over to Tristan. When I placed my top hat on his head, he winked at me, getting shrieks of approval and jealousy from the crowd. No one would have noticed the basket of flaming irons behind him. My mouth watered with craving as I tipped my head back.

  Nope, this time was a tease. I pranced over to the pole, swinging with my arm extended, the flame intensifying. I spun down to the ground, holding onto the pole and licking the tip of the iron.

  I wasn’t stalling. I blew a fiery little kiss in Tristan’s direction before swallowing the iron.

  There was no time to waste as the fire manifested inside me. I propelled myself around the pole. Oxygen was my friend as I rose higher and higher. Sparks fell from my fingers as I reached up, climbing the pole. Soon, fire was everywhere, crawling down my arm, engulfing my body.

  I wanted to grab Tristan’s microphone and scream, I fucking have my fire back. But I kept my cool. This was so awesome. I’d forgotten what it was like to be fully engulfed, to let the power wash over me and command my every move. I spent so long trapped in my human body, I had to get used to being me again.

  I extended my body, and to the crowd, I would’ve looked like a fireball, circling the pole. The fire accelerated things. But there was only so long I could burn. I slid to the bottom of the pole, comforted by the darkness and the blanket the production assistant draped over me.

  They kept their arms around me tightly as they walked me off the stage. I couldn’t form words, everything was so raw. Worse than ever because I wasn’t used to it anymore. I tried to wriggle free, but somebody didn’t get the memo that I needed to be left alone after I ignited.

  “I’m so proud of you.” It wasn’t a production assistant that held me hostage. It was my Rainey. “I know you want to be alone. Let me stay with you tonight. We don’t know what happens next anymore.”

  I managed a nod and let her lead me to the dressing room. Rainey couldn’t conceal her concern, and possible disgust, when I shrugged the blanket away from my body. It was a shock to see myself in the mirror. Raw and covered in soot, all my grace and beauty burned away. This was me. The person I couldn’t hide.

  Rainey handed me a glass of lettuce tea when I collapsed on the couch. I couldn’t look in the mirror anymore. The fear that this was permanent—that everyone would see me for the person I really was—wouldn’t go away. She placed a single red rose on the table in front of me.

  “Can I kiss you?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “Not yet.” In this state, the voices in Rainey’s head would be loud enough to haunt me.

  No one seemed to understand my Don’t Bother Me After I’ve Ignited clause. People kept knocking on the door, trying to urge me to come out for the encore. Rainey assured them that yes, I was okay, but there was no way in Hell I’d go back on stage.

  “Listen.” She kept the door open, and the chants echoed through the hallway.

  Holly! Holly! Holly!

  It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

  She sat on the far end of the couch, a program in her hand. I motioned for her to hand it to me, but I dropped it immediately. My throat was raw, and I couldn’t hear my own screams. It didn’t matter, I wasn’t one to give up, and I kept at it until Rainey came to me. Normally she would’ve wrapped her arms around me, done something, anything to offer some comfort. But she’d been in this place before. She knew better.

  “Holly, what’s wrong?” She picked up the program and frowned at it. “You look absolutely incredible in this picture. The best part of it is it still looks like you. I was worried they’d make you look like a cartoon.”

  I shook my head. My lips trembled and I couldn’t form the words. It gave this thing gravity.

  “You know you can tell me anything, right?” Rainey settled as close as she could get without touching me, gripping the bottom of my robe. I had to tell her before she thought she did something wrong.

  “The picture.” I could barely stand to look at it. “It’s exactly the same as the one I saw in my vision.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I’D NEVER RECOVER FROM spontaneous combustion enough to attend any vampire party in the same night.

  “You can’t wear sweats.” Rainey shook her head. “It sounds like an official event. Which means cameras and investors and a whole lot of crap you don’t want to deal with.”

  “All I have at the theater are sweats and my costumes. Everyone’s already seen me topless, I suppose I could go like that.” I was totally calling her bluff. I expected her jaw to drop. “I won’t. They can’t put me on camera after the show. It’s in my contract. I’ll go, congratulate everyone, and leave.” I wanted to go home, drink tea, and snuggle with Rainey. I knew how to party.

  Rainey bit her lip. She probably had some bomb to drop on my plan. She handled the production end of things, and ignorance was bliss, until she filled me in. I didn’t need the gift of Vision to know that stupid TV show would wrench my plans.

  I understood how hypocritical it was for someone who lived for the roar of the audience to hate being the star of a TV show, but they were two different kinds of attention. The crowd loved me for me. The people who filmed the TV show loved me for what I could do for them. It polluted the energy, and all of us with vamp blood running through our veins needed to proceed with caution until the show got up and running. We couldn’t let a human rule our clan.

  “Fine, I’ll put something else on.” Makeup was out of the question, my skin was still raw. I winced in pain as I dug through my suitcase and found a tank top. I paired it with shorts and over-the-knee socks. No need to ask Rainey if she approved. It was the only thing that made the outfit tolerable. The fabric smarted against my healing skin.

  “I have a surprise for you,” Rainey said. Of course she did. “I cast a spell tonight.”

  “What spell?” The only way I’d be disappointed was if it had to do with my fire. It needed to be all me. The bad things were coming true, some of the good things had to be, too.

  She opened the door, shit-eating grin still spread over her face. “I wanted Blade to see your performance. He’s a part of this. It wasn’t fair to leave him out.”

  A standard-issue security guard arrived at the door. Hands behind his back, blond hair, fighting a grin—otherwise he was unrecognizable as Blade. I wrapped my arms around my waist to keep myself from touching him. No guard who wanted to keep his job would dare touch me, and Blade knew better.

  “Tell me one thing about you no one else would know,” I said.

  “I used to live in an old ranch house south of the city.” Those sad, blue eyes could only belong to Blade, but it didn’t last. “I saw my brother.”

  “You did? Tell me more.” All of this was good news. What Rainey had done was risky as hell. If any of the vampires in charge realized an enemy was in their midst, chaos would erupt. Callie, Rachel, and Blade didn’t only talk the talk, the walked the walk. They proved their vengeance enough times that no one dared questio
n them.

  That night, of all nights, with my fire back in my possession, I welcomed good news. Anything that brought the processions of my horrible vision to a screeching halt. I urged Blade to reconnect with his brother ever since I met him. They were close when Blade was alive, and I knew some of his pain was directly related to missing him. If he could have him back in his life, it would mean better things for all of us.

  “I showed up at the bar he works at unannounced.” He sounded like Blade now. “Thought he shit his pants. Dropped the bottle he was holding. We talked.”

  “How’d it go?” This had to have been a recent thing. Last time Rainey and I were at Embrace, he had a bed in the office. Unless he kept it there for... I didn’t want to think about that. I’d stick with being happy for him.

  “Awkward. Dave hates vampires. We’d had a long talk when Talis originally asked me to join Immortal Dilemma, because even though the bitch wanted to kill me, it was an amazing fucking opportunity. My brother’s like Rainey. He knew. He said, ‘it’s all gonna go to shit.’ And he was right.”

  My gaze slid over to Rainey. She did a dangerous, deceptive thing by bringing Blade here. I didn’t believe he was recalling a memory. Blade cut his fangs on revenge. He saw tonight as an opportunity.

  I wondered if Rainey did, too.

  No, the good energy had to win. The type of stuff ticketholders ushered in when they took their seats. What Rainey had been sent to me to protect. I didn’t fear a petty argument. I worried about the future of the city. How I’d fare without Rainey, or The Afterlife. Only Blade and darkness.

  But I steeled myself, Blade would drink my fear like it came with a straw.

  “Will you move in with him again?” I hoped the answer would be yes. Blade needed normal; more importantly he needed a place where he belonged. We didn’t have many moments of peace deep in the trenches of Vampirelandia.

  “No. It’s not my home anymore.” Blade wouldn’t look at me. He assumed the role of a guard well, scanning the hallway. Thankfully, all activity had moved to the penthouse. I wondered if it was standard operating procedure for guests to arrive with security detail.

  “He’s your brother.” I’d never turn Rainey away, no matter what happened. And I stuck by Blade through his parade of hideous behavior. So this Dave guy, as far as I was concerned, had zero excuse not to welcome his brother back into his life.

  “I’m dead to him.” He shut down and the conversation was over. Now I knew why he never told me about this meeting, and why he slept on a bloody blow-up mattress on the floor of a nightclub. I wished I was ready to touch him. I knew what that kind of rejection felt like.

  I hated that we had to go to that stupid party when all I wanted to do was go home and lick Blade’s wounds for him. The ones that no one could see; the ones he probably convinced himself didn’t exist because they tore his heart into fragments. It was a good thing he didn’t need it anymore. I’d never understand vampires. They fed from emotion, yet their emotional centers were black holes. No wonder they were such sponges, soaking in whatever was around them, constantly hungry for more.

  It did make sense. The extremes, the addictive behavior, the dependency. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that love could fix this, but most of Vampirelandia could benefit from a good hug.

  My next move was dangerous. “Will you be coming to the party with us?”

  “Damn straight I am.” He had one foot out the door as he tossed his jacket on the couch. Whoever Rainey had spelled him as was ripped. Good work, girl. But there was no way he missed the look on my face.

  “I came for you, Holly. And you were incredible tonight. Everyone around me jumped out of their seats when you caught fire. They were screaming, but it was for you. And the way you moved... everyone wanted to be you. It was fucking breathtaking. I promise I won’t start trouble. I won’t have to.”

  “That’s what worries me.” I took a chance and put my hand on his arm. His borrowed muscles tensed under my grip. It was probably better that he borrowed a body than brought his own, since the energy would seep into my healing body. “Don’t screw this up.”

  “You were the show. You don’t need those assholes.” He shook his head and turned to walk out of the room.

  I grabbed Rainey’s arm and followed him, getting more nervous by the second as his hair reclaimed some of its length and curl. Blade would emerge from his cocoon any second, and my plus one for the party was a contract violation with fangs and a vendetta.

  “Wait.” I pulled the elastic out of my hair and motioned to his. “You need this.”

  He pulled back his hair and winked at me. Whiskers were showing. Great.

  No one noticed us enter Callie and Tristan’s apartment. It sat at the top of the Alta Vista, a glass enclosed penthouse that overlooked the city. Music thumped against every surface in the room. I usually avoided this stuff like the plague. My plans were to shake hands with the producers, give Tristan a hug, and get the hell out of there before Blade revealed himself.

  He made good on his promise so far, nodding to people as he passed, but I swear he shrunk since we left my dressing room. His formerly skin-tight shirt was baggy at the waist. I missed the muscles already. “Can you do the spell again?” I whispered to Rainey, which was really stupid in a room full of vampires. They could hear everything, even over the music and conversation.

  Rachel turned away from a group conversation and stared at us. Her devious smirk confirmed my fear. She finger waved to Blade and turned back to the guys in the band, laughing.

  I have dirt on Callie, I reminded myself. And this was the perfect time to go public with it, when the press was sure to have questions about Tristan’s former bandmates. I wondered how Immortal Forever would address that.

  “Hey.” Tristan emerged from the crowd. Between that bitch Rachel and Blade’s metamorphosis, I didn’t see him coming. His hug was off balance and sloppy, and he reeked of vanilla. Venom. “You were amazing.”

  “So were you.” I pulled away from him enough to confirm he was trashed. Tristan didn’t give himself the buffer he needed to recover after the show. The impact of the crash from being the center of the universe to being nobody hurt. He needed to find his safe place. It wasn’t at this party.

  “The way you interact with the crowd is incredible. Totally different than rehearsals. It’s like you come alive.” He looked past me, squinting when his gaze landed on Rainey’s fading spell. I didn’t want to know how much Blade looked like himself at this point. Tristan grasped my shoulders. “I came up with a whole bunch of shit watching you on stage tonight. I can’t wait to work on it.” He kissed my cheek.

  “Why didn’t you come back out for the encore?” Callie put her arm around Tristan’s waist.

  “Because I just ignited.” I had to check my attitude. We hadn’t discussed the encore, and it was a perfectly reasonable question. My emotions were still out of whack from the fire. “I wasn’t ready.”

  “The audience was disappointed. They were calling for you.” At least she acknowledged that.

  “Holly needs time after the fire. It’s like when a vampire is injured. The audience doesn’t need to see that.” Tristan knew what it was like to burn, courtesy of Blade.

  Callie nodded. “Maybe we can get a stand-in for you.”

  “No.”

  Any goodwill she’d had toward me faded. “What do you mean, no? The audience will never know the difference. You make them happy, they come back. They keep coming back, you keep making money. It’s pretty simple.”

  “Because I don’t want anyone laying claim to what I do.” The most dangerous part of the night wasn’t having Callie and Blade within strangling distance of each other—it was that he heard this conversation. He knew damn well I couldn’t ignite without him. I needed to keep him on my good side or be at his mercy.

  “Then let the cameras follow you.” She put up her hand when I started to object. And she bared her fangs for good measure. “So people understand why you c
an’t come on stage again.”

  “It’s common sense.” The lesser of two evils was to let her dress someone up like me. But there was only one Holly Octane. “They watched me burn. Put a spell over them. You must be strong enough to do that. Tell the audience what they see.”

  “I could do that.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Or maybe I’ll get Rachel to have a little heart to heart with your girlfriend.”

  I grasped Rainey’s arm. She meant to steal her power. “You do it and I’ll let everyone know you’re a murderer.”

  The little bitch had the nerve to laugh. “Have you been paying any attention to what’s happening in the city? A missing person epidemic. Wonder where they’ve all been going. Oh yeah, Embrace. It would be really easy to pin all of that on a certain someone we both know and used to love. At least I put him in an underground jail. You think vampires are cruel. Think about what humans will do to him.”

  Blade hissed. The façade was gone. “I don’t even have to bother destroying you. I can sit back and watch you do it yourself.”

  “What the fuck?” Tristan scowled. “Holly, I fucking trusted you.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  THERE WAS NONE OF THAT awkward I can explain crap. Guards, real ones, escorted the three of us out. We got off easy. Vampire justice was usually swift and unforgiving.

  “I’m sorry,” Rainey said for the hundredth time from the backseat of Blade’s car. He was the only one not too rattled to operate heavy machinery. “There was so much going on. I couldn’t keep the spell going. I’ve never done it on another person before.”

  “It’s not your fault.” I pressed the side of my face against the window, relishing the coolness. The heat that shot through me was feverish and unsatisfying. I wished I had the wherewithal to grab a bottle of Venom on the way out. We needed to get drunk. Although, we probably didn’t have that luxury. Just because Callie had given us a head start didn’t mean there wouldn’t be any retaliation.