“The what?”
“The Watering Hole. It’s a club down on three. There’s a songbird performing tonight. Should be good.”
“I have a son.”
“The daycare will watch him,” Drey cut in. “Didn’t they tell you about personal time?”
They had. Kaitlin could leave Jay in daycare for up to five hours a week, either a little at a time or all at once. She just hadn’t used any of it because she didn’t want to leave him alone. Or maybe she was the one who didn’t want to be alone.
“Everyone deserves a night to party every once in a while,” Janelle said.
“You know you can use it,” Drey said, looking at her in a way that reminded her of Aileen. Reminded her that he was an empath. There was something peculiar in that look, something a little unsettling.
But he was right, too. She did need to escape for a night. And whatever Hideyuki said about not trusting people, she could use a friend here.
“All right. What time?”
* * *
The Watering Hole was on the third level underground, one floor below the kitchen. The third floor was the entertainment level, where Kaitlin had spent precious little time aside from the one movie she’d gone to see. She knew that she was welcome to join in any number of activities there, some free, some of which she would have to spend her precious pay on. The movies were free, even the newest releases. They only showed one at a time since they only had the one theater. They also had bowling, miniature golf, basketball, a swimming pool, a fully functioning gym which included several workout classes, an arcade, a game room, and the Watering Hole – a bar that also apparently played live music sometimes.
She heard the band long before she reached the Watering Hole, and had to fight not to grimace. They played a techno beat, which she had never loved. Maybe she would have if she’d been city-bred, but as a rural girl, she’d take country and western any day.
Janelle waited for her just inside the door, wearing clothes so tight they left nothing to the imagination. Worst of all, she could pull of the look beautifully. She had a well-rounded butt and a tiny waist that Kaitlin would have killed for. Kaitlin’s best feature was her long, lean legs, but they went with a long, thin body she considered too skinny.
The bar was packed with men and women from eighteen to eighty, though the age curve clearly peaked around twenty-five. From her trolley duties, Kaitlin dimly recognized many of the people sitting at the bar or at tables, or undulating on the dance floor. There were several hunters clustered around the bar, including Hideyuki. She smiled at him in greeting, but he frowned.
Kaitlin’s smile faltered, then fell completely when she noticed the two hunters with him eying her openly. She recognized one of them, a too-handsome-for-his-own-good blond by the name of Eli. He’d hit on her before, though she’d ignored him. She had no interest in hunters. Actually, she hadn’t felt much interest in anyone at all since her arrival, but she wanted about as much to do with the hunters as the vampires they sought to exterminate.
“This way,” Janelle said, pulling her past the bar where the hunters sat.
Kaitlin followed, tearing her eyes away from Hideyuki and her mind away from translating his frown. She had come here to have fun for the first time in longer than she cared to remember. And she was determined to do just that.
A large contingent from security had pulled together several tables, though fully half of them were out on the dance floor. There were also healers, clerks, janitors, a handful of Alexander’s personal security detail, and a group from magical research, some of whom were clustered around the lighting controls. After a minute one of them pumped his fist in the air and the usual crisscrossing lasers that lit the dance floor sort of emerged from their lamps and twisted like snakes around the dancers.
That’s when Kaitlin started to notice the other details that weren’t at all like the honky-tonk she used to visit back home. Above her, pitchers of beer and glasses of mixed drinks floated lazily towards their recipients while empty glasses made the return trip back to the bar. The two waitresses seemed more like traffic conductors than anything else.
Not everyone undulating on the dance floor was doing so on the ground, either. Some of them were literally dancing on air. Every so often something would flash or bang, and Kaitlin would catch sight of one of the men or women showing off for the rest. She spotted a man dancing through the others instead of around them, making her think at first that he was a ghost. But when he solidified on the far end of the dance floor he tripped and fell, knocking over another man. The two fell gracelessly against a table and a pitcher of beer spilled over the pair of them. The first man stumbled to his feet and apologized, but the second man surged to his feet and struck a powerful blow at the first. The fist went straight through the other man, putting the puncher off-balance enough to fall through him. His fist hit a woman Kaitlin recognized as a healer, who had been enjoying a drink with two of her coworkers. It must have been a powerful blow because she fell backward off her chair and screamed loudly enough to be heard over the music. When she came back up, her nose was broken and bleeding freely. The man by her side touched her face gently and the bleeding stopped, but the blood remained.
“There’s no place to sit,” Kaitlin said.
“What?” Janelle asked. Kaitlin didn’t hear the word so much as read it off her lips.
Kaitlin gestured at the tables. “Full!”
“Oh. Don’t worry.”
Kaitlin found out why an instant later when the three men who had been playing with the lights came by to invite them to join their group. Or at least, Kaitlin sensed, they wanted Janelle to join and they didn’t mind if she did too. Within a minute Janelle had three drinks in front of her and half a dozen dance offers.
Kaitlin wasn’t exactly being ignored, but it was obvious that the men saw something more in Janelle than they saw in her. Probably that she had some magic. Or was younger, prettier, and came with less baggage. Everyone knew Kaitlin had a son. She’d heard that men hesitated to get involved with a single mom, although having lived with a vampire since giving birth, she hadn’t really been able to put that rumor to the test. Maybe that’s what was happening now.
Kaitlin sank into a chair, feeling a bit like a dried-out old maid chaperoning a younger relative, when Eli and his friend edged over from the bar. She hesitated, looking around for some sign – any sign – that someone else might rescue her from these two, but no one did.
“Would you like to dance?” they asked together.
Honestly, no. But she’d come here to have a good time, and she wasn’t ready to be the dried-up old chaperon yet, even if there was no way in hell she’d leave with either of these two. Maybe if she started dancing with them, someone else would notice and take an interest. She danced well, even if she did say so herself.
Smiling, and feeling more confident, Kaitlin rose to her feet and followed the hunters onto the dance floor. She decided the best way to play this was not to single one of them out, so she took both of their hands and rose gracefully to her feet. She was more used to line dancing than this techno sway, but it didn’t exactly look hard. Moments later, the three of them were in the middle of the mass of bodies, swaying in time to the music.
Kaitlin managed to lose herself a bit over the next few minutes, letting her troubles slide away while she lived in the now. She didn’t like the music, she wasn’t enthusiastic about the hunters who had offered to keep her company, and she was unnerved by the four people who chose to dance a few feet above everyone else, but at least she didn’t have to talk or think.
After a few minutes the song came to an end and the lead singer approached the microphone to a chorus of enthusiastic cheers from the room at large. Janelle had managed to work her way to Kaitlin’s side and they stood together as the applause died down enough for the singer to speak.
“I see Ted’s already drunk.” The singer looked at the man who had fallen off the stage and started the earlier fight. A few people laughed appreciatively. “We’ve still got all night, folks. How about something to get your feet moving?”
A united cheer erupted from the crowd and Janelle elbowed Kaitlin in the ribs. “Songbird,” she mouthed.
Kaitlin studied the man at the mic. If he was a songbird, he wasn’t as strong as her friend Madison. Either that, or the fact that she didn’t care for techno music was getting in the way. But when he started singing, “I Gotta Feeling,” she did find her hips swaying.
Kaitlin smiled as Janelle was swept away in a crowd of male admirers, even though it left her more or less alone with Eli and the other hunter, whose name she hadn’t yet managed to figure out over the volume of music.
Eli started to dance in front of her, the other hunter behind. Kaitlin frowned, discomforted by their nearness and by the trapped feeling welling up inside her. But when she looked around, she saw that everyone in the bar – everyone – was up on his or her feet dancing. Since the dance floor wasn’t large enough to hold them all, some were dancing on tables and a few more had taken to the air. Bodies were pressed together so tightly that Kaitlin could barely breathe, and the two hunters surrounding her weren’t making things easier. The man behind her grabbed her ass – he didn’t brush against it, he groped her. She had been around enough men to know the difference. Meanwhile, Eli had his hands on her ribs, his thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts through her shirt and lace bra.
Kaitlin jerked backwards, only to find herself ramming right into the ass groper, who pulled her against him firmly enough that she felt his erection at her back through his jeans.
I’m not ready for this. At one time she might have known how to deal with them, perhaps with a light flirtation to put them off. Or more likely, invite them in. She hadn’t always been the most discriminating girl.
Slut. Did they sense it in her, even if she wasn’t feeling it herself?
She was so done here. Kaitlin tried to slip sideways past the pair, but Eli forestalled her with the strong arm of a hunter. She went the other way, but again he stopped her.
“Let me go!” Kaitlin yelled as loudly as she could, hoping to be heard over the music.
Eli frowned and shook his head; Kaitlin looked for help from the other dancers, but they were too caught up in the music to have noticed anything amiss.
A real panic began to build up inside her. What was happening here? How far would they go, out here in public? Would anyone notice? Would anyone care?
Kaitlin began to twist and writhe, stomping on Eli’s foot and then slapping him hard across the face – or trying to. He stopped her hand mid-swing and frowned even more.
Suddenly Hideyuki was there, pulling the hunters away. Kaitlin was so relieved that she didn’t even stop to think; she just ran off the dance floor and out of The Watering Hole, pausing outside in the empty corridor where the music was no longer pounding in her eardrums.
Hideyuki joined her there a minute later. “Sorry. It was the songbird. But I told you not to trust the hunters.”
“We were just dancing.”
“You stopped dancing.” Hideyuki shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why?”
“Was anyone else not dancing?”
Kaitlin shook her head, frowning. Then she looked at the blank white walls of the corridor as she had been unable to do since Hideyuki’s earlier warning. What was going on here? Was this something like the wall?
“What do you see?” Hideyuki asked, following her gaze.
“Bright colors,” Kaitlin lied.
“An African Jungle. Now go, and hope no one noticed you leaving the dance floor.”
Chapter 9
JASON AWOKE TO THE SOUND OF a large explosion at the rear of the house. He lay still in his dark basement bedroom, knowing better than to do anything to draw attention to himself after one of Xavier’s experiments had failed. In a few minutes he would leave for a hunt, returning near dawn after Xavier (hopefully) calmed down.
Sara (that was the nanny’s name) screamed. Damn it. She’d gotten past her wanting to die thing, but when Xavier was in one of his moods – and he would be – drawing his attention could prove deadly.
Sure enough, a second later Xavier’s rapid footfalls crashed down the basement stairs. He wasn’t even trying for stealth – he was angry and wanted the world to know it. He’d probably been up half the afternoon, when he should have been sleeping. Jason and Xavier could both survive the daylight, but they still needed sleep. And the night was stronger.
The footfalls flew past Jason’s room straight to Sara’s, and her door banged open so loudly it might have cracked.
“Stupid bitch! Can’t you at least be quiet while I’m working?”
Sara didn’t reply.
“Well? Are you mute now too? What was I thinking when I turned you?”
Jason had to make a decision – defend Sara or stay out of it. But actually, it was no decision at all. These last few weeks with Sara for company had been the most pleasant of his afterlife. He’d taught her to run properly – mostly. She was still useless through thick trees. He’d taught her to hunt without killing. And they shared a hatred for Xavier.
“He didn’t ask if I wanted to turn,” Sara had told Jason once. “Did he ask you?”
“After a fashion.” Jason had chosen this. In retrospect, he probably could have killed his flesh father without going to this extreme, but he hadn’t known that at the time. He did wonder – would always wonder – if Xavier hadn’t manipulated him in some way. Played mind games. He had definitely isolated Jason from his family and friends for months before the choice. Before the turning.
“No answer, huh?” Xavier was saying from the next room. “Well, I know why I turned you – to help Jason and his failing plan to plant Kaitlin inside Alexander’s compound. But come to think of it, I don’t need you for that now.”
Jason was out of bed and in the doorway of the next room in a flash, drawing Xavier’s attention to him instead. “Stop taking your failure out on her. What happened this time, anyway?”
“Lost three subjects,” Xavier snarled. “Two were hunters.”
Jason only picked up on the last word. “Hunters? Should we move?”
“No! I want Kaitlin back. Never should have let my only success go free.”
“She can’t help you. You’ve got her blood. Skin tissue samples. X-Rays. MRI. Cat Scan.”
“And it’s not helping! I can’t reproduce my results. Look what happened tonight!”
“What did happen tonight?” Jason sidled into the room, putting himself as unobtrusively as possible between Xavier and Sara.
“One of the hunters became a telepath. Had to kill him before he became a problem, although I’ve got his body in the freezer. I used a combination of the gene splicing potions and the vampire venom extract...” He trailed off. “That was an interesting result. I wonder...”
“What?” Jason asked, despite himself.
Xavier shook his head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
More likely, Xavier was afraid that telling Jason would make him an even greater threat. And he’d be right. Jason had never exactly had free time to experiment with potions, but he wasn’t half bad at brewing them and he understood many of the underlying principles involved.
“The one who wasn’t a hunter was a vampire,” Xavier continued. “Miserable failure, just like any other time I’ve tried with a vampire.”
That was probably when Xavier had let his temper get the better of him – and caused the explosion. After all, the whole point of these experiments was to make Xavier himself stronger so he could take down Alexander.
“I want Kaitlin back,” Xavier said. “I
never should have let you talk me into using her like this to begin with.”
“It was a great idea,” Jason lied. Well, not exactly lied – it had been a great idea to get Jay out from under Xavier’s thumb. And if she happened to be able to use her immunity to mind magic in some useful way while she was there... the compound had to be swimming in illusions.
“I don’t think she has the guts or the curiosity to figure out what Alexander’s up to. And if she does, she’ll probably get caught.”
“So what? No harm done. You were more than half ready to kill her anyway. And if she succeeds, you find out just how effectively immune she is.”
“I need to be alone. To think. Go hunting.” Xavier shot a look past Jason. “Take her with you.”
“Of course.”
* * *
“What would happen if I ran away?” Sara asked that night after feeding from some campers who wouldn’t remember a thing.
“Xavier would hunt you down and use you in an experiment.”
“What if you came with me? Why do you stay with him?”
Jason didn’t answer. The truth was too complicated, and he didn’t know if he had the words. In part, he wanted a chance to kill Xavier, but he doubted that would come for a long, long time. Jason was a young vampire – they were all young these days. The hunters had systematically stamped out almost every vampire older than a century, and most of the ones older than half a century.
It didn’t just make Xavier the most powerful vampire, though. Power wasn’t directly related to age – that just helped. It was more than Xavier seemed to be the only vampire left who knew what the hell a vampire was. Or so he said. Maybe he was lying about that too.
None of which was more important than one simple truth, so he said, “It wouldn’t work. Xavier would hunt both of us down if we ran away.”
“You? You’re so strong.”
Not strong enough. But he could be patient. He had eternity, after all. And a flesh child who would grow in power over a mere fifteen or twenty years.
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