Sin City Vampire Club

by Kristen Strassel

  I can’t give them what they want. I don’t belong to them. I never expected his words to be a premonition, but they certainly felt like it now. I managed to do something, hoping the fire masked the fact my rhythm was gone. I’d been knocked off kilter.

  I’d get my shit together the next night. Eternity did exist, because the show was already sold out until the end of it. A production assistant ushered me off the stage, and even though the cameraman knew better than to follow us, she didn’t tell him to fuck off. I couldn’t speak. If I opened my mouth, fire and bile would fall out.

  She left me alone in the darkness of my dressing room. I curled into a ball in the middle of the floor, wrapped in the filthy blanket. There was nothing I could do to stop the future from coming.

  A knock at the door seemed like a light at the end of the tunnel. It had to be Rainey. I expected to see her holding a single rose, but it wasn’t her. It was Callie.

  I wasn’t ready for her. Nor was she ready for me, backing away and curling her lip in disgust. No big surprise. I looked like I’d been crushed in an ashtray.

  “Clean yourself up and put your clothes on. After that performance, you can’t skip the encore.”

  “Not yet.” The words hurt as they passed my lips.

  “The sooner you do it, the sooner we get out of here.” She made a point I couldn’t argue with. The dress I wore to the press conference lay on the back of my chair. I threw it on and followed her. She might’ve thought she won the battle, but I was only following her to see if Rainey had returned to her seat.

  “She can’t go out like this.” Ryder held his hand up, not letting me step on stage when he saw me. “She’s a mess.”

  “We’ll write it into the show.” Callie’s gaze darted between the two of us. “We’ll explain it as an equipment malfunction. No one thinks it’s real.”

  Which made it all too real.

  I was in a daze, and Tristan and Ryder each took one of my hands, holding them up above my head as they practically dragged me to the center of the stage. The crowd gasped at my appearance. I looked like I crawled out of a grave.

  The emcee announced me, and another chant broke out. I wondered if anyone knew how much this hurt.

  Someone had taken much more than Rainey’s seat. Gabriel rose with the crowd, giving me a standing ovation. That motherfucker had her, and he stayed behind to gloat.

  Electricity surged through my body, and Ryder and Tristan dropped my hands. I shocked them. I fell to a heap in the middle of the stage.

  Callie would never force me out for the encore again. She’d probably change the lock on my dressing room.

  None of it mattered.

  I lost my show and my fire once before and I survived. I used to think it made me stronger. Strong enough to deal with inevitable. But nothing could prepare me for having my heart ripped out of my chest, especially when it had been wrapped in sparkly fishnet on what should’ve been one of the happiest nights of my life.

  I would die without Rainey.

  THANK YOU!

  I had so much fun writing Sin City Vampire Club. The future of Las Vegas depends on Holly getting Rainey back. But where is she?

  Don’t miss Queen of the Night Time World! One click to keep reading!

  If you’re curious about the rest of the Vegas Vampires, make sure to check out The Night Songs Collection. The story starts with Because the Night. Callie takes us on a wild and crazy ride, and we see how she, Tristan, Blade, Lennon, and the Soul Divider crew came together.

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  Turn the page for an excerpt from Queen of the Night Time World...

  Queen of the Night Time World

  The only light on Las Vegas Boulevard was a fire that didn’t belong to me. Like the entire city mourned Rainey’s disappearance. And they should. She took everything worth living for—sunshine, hope, and those glittery fishnet stockings—with her.

  I’d been warned countless times this day would come. Mostly by Rainey herself, as well as the mysterious angel named Gabriel who whisked her away, tucking her safely in an untouchable place until she was ready for her next assignment. It didn’t matter what they’d told me, or how many times they said it, I wasn’t prepared. I refused to believe I could actually lose her. I selfishly insisted she needed me as much as I needed her.

  “Holly.” The voice of the vampire who’d taken everything else from me—my powers and my father—stopped me dead in my tracks. Rachel. She dressed for battle, all in black leather, her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Flames flickered on her fully made up face, and she wasn’t only surviving the darkness, she was making it her bitch. “I know where she is.”

  I fell to my knees, gravel scraping my bare skin. My skimpy dress did me no favors, and neither would Rachel. I wouldn’t beg her for information. I got up, rubbing my skin to dislodge the rocks that had embedded themselves, not expecting for my fingers to come away bloody.

  The embers glowed red, and for a moment, I could pretend it belonged to me. I had no idea how long I’d been without it. Rachel licked her lips at the sight of my blood, and I wasn’t sure how long she’d gone without, either.

  “Can I taste it?” she asked, her voice weak, gaze frozen on my bloody fingers.

  It wasn’t like Rachel to ask for what she wanted. Stealing was more her style. I cradled my hand against my chest. “Will you bring me to her?”

  “It’s not that easy.” Typical Rachel, refusing to tell me how to solve a problem. “Gabriel’s put her to work, and it’s a battle she can’t lose.”

  “You sound just like her, trying to give me the prophecy in some sort of riddle. Look around you.” I held my bloody hand up to the dark sky. “This is the battle she lost. We need her light.”

  “Actually, we need for the darkness to be stronger than the light. Then we can all thrive.” Rachel took a step closer to me. She worked alone, as far as I could tell. It was the first time it had been only me and her. We were family, sort of. My father made her a vampire and then tossed her aside when she no longer suited his needs. Even though he didn’t waste a second of his time training her, she shared many of his most lurid desires—chaos, destruction, and most importantly, domination. She managed to put a woman’s touch on it. It was no big surprise she’d had a hand in his demise.

  I wondered if she figured out how to succeed on her own yet or if screwing up ran in the family.

  I always said without Rainey in my life, I’d be all dark side, all the time. I was only half-vampire, and it wasn’t enough. Rainey’s goodness completed me, gave me the desire to wake up every morning to see the sunshine on her face. Now all I had was my half-sister with whom I shared a healthy dose of hatred and a city on the verge of implosion.

  “Can I get her back?”

  Rachel nodded. “We need to collect all the energy we can. It’s the only way we’ll be strong enough to get into her realm.”

  “Realm?” When Rainey warned me Gabriel would give her a new assignment, I’d tried to prepare myself that it might not be in Las Vegas. The emptiness was too big for her to be nearby. But I never imagined he’d take her some place that I couldn’t get to her.

  I offered my hand to Rachel. There was no good reason to waste the blood, especially in an energy shortage. And even more so if helping her meant I might get Rainey back. No good deed went unnoticed and all that. She licked my skin clean, groaning and sighing like it was the best meal she had in far too long. I wouldn’t let it freak me out.

  Either her lipstick or my blood was smeared on her cheek. “The darkness isn’t everywhere.” Wit
h the strength I gave her, the sarcasm was back. “But we’re trapped in it.”

  I LAY ON THE FLOOR of my dressing room at Sin City Vampire Club. I hadn’t slept; I travelled. I had Rachel to thank for that snapshot into the future. Before she stole my powers from me, I always travelled back in time. It used to seem dangerous, but that was quaint now. As long as I left everything untouched, I could return to the present unscathed. When my travelling powers returned, they weren’t the same. My most recent trips were to a Hellscape called the future. But there were no postcards I could send as souvenirs, nothing to rely on but my own fuzzy recollection of the trip. And I almost always travelled alone.

  The first few times I visited the future, it scared the shit out of me. That Las Vegas wasn’t one that would be put on any travel site. In the future, there was an energy shortage; vampires had sucked it dry. But after my latest trip, I was tempted to send Rachel a thank you card. I’d been blindsided by premonitions before, and that was how I lost Rainey. I didn’t think I needed to fight, because I didn’t believe I’d actually lose her. Rachel gave me the blueprint for how to get her back.

  I convinced myself my future travels were much like Rainey’s visions—since they hadn’t happened yet, they were simply prophecies. It was fair warning, and I had a chance to change it.

  Even be so bold as to hope it wouldn’t happen.

  Earlier that night, I fully ignited as part of my new show, The Afterlife. It was a partnership with Tristan Trevosier and the remaining members of Soul Divider. The show excited me for many reasons, and the most important one was that I got to call my own shots. No manager, no lawyer, and according to many, no common sense. Whatever. I’d rather fail on my own terms than have someone set me up to do it and take ten percent of my paycheck.

  And if Rainey was really gone, I failed. She’d been sent to me as a guardian angel, only to be taken from me under one of two conditions—when the threat of darkness had been eradicated or I’d been deemed a lost cause. No big surprise that the latter won.

  Darkness was everywhere. And I didn’t want this. Neither did Rainey. Gabriel’s plan didn’t allow for anyone’s opinion but his own. Not cool. If he expected her to serve, it was in her best interest for her to be happy. If she wasn’t, she’d walk. She proven that before, but it never felt permanent. Until now.

  Vampires had no boundaries, and I’d been dragged on stage for an encore at the end of the show. My new coworkers didn’t understand that it took time to recover from the igniting. The flames had risen from a place deep inside, and I needed to heal. The screams and the emotions of those who got too close, still echoed in my head.

  Rainey’s purse sat in front of my mirror. I dug inside, terrified but encouraged that it was still here. She wouldn’t leave it behind. Her screensaver was a picture of us, but our faces were covered by notifications.

  There were dozens of them since it was opening night. She was set up for alerts every time I was mentioned online. Words like lukewarm and unexpected flashed as I scrolled through, looking for some clue of where the hell she was.

  Bad reviews usually crushed me. But these I deserved. I’d been distracted. Every second I performed, Rainey was further away. I couldn’t waste any more time. I threw the strap of her purse over my shoulder, grabbed my bag, and headed out of the dressing room.

  Only the auxiliary lights lit the hallways of Sin City Vampire Club. After midnight was the sweet spot for vampires, where they fulfilled their deepest, darkest desires. Angels operated on a completely different schedule. As far as I knew—they kept their secrets tucked safely under their wing. A quick sweep of the dressing rooms confirmed I was the only performer left in the theater.

  “Hey, doll.” Lennon practically gave me a heart attack when she rounded the corner. It wasn’t only that I was staring at my own face—the perfectly made up, pre-flame version—she looked exactly the same as she did before the show started. Only my whole world had changed in the span of a performance. No one elses. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Are you coming to the party?” she asked.

  Last time I went to an afterparty for The Afterlife, I’d been escorted out by security. Before Lennon mentioned it, tonight’s invite mysteriously had been lost in the mail.

  “Is Rainey there?” It was worth a shot.

  Lennon squinted in confusion. “She’s not with you?”

  “I have her purse, and...” Everything else was a conspiracy theory and a figment of my imagination. Lennon knew I could time travel, but she didn’t understand it. She was the only person who’d have the unbiased information I needed.

  “We need to get out of here.” I grabbed her arm, I didn’t have time to explain.

  “What’s wrong?” Lennon didn’t try to break free. The click of our heels echoed in the empty hallway as we headed out of the theater.

  “The Mistress is weak, and she’s under attack.” We wouldn’t do her any good if we were destroyed too.

  Keep reading Queen of the Night Time World!