Page 7 of The Shade of Things
We inched toward the bar and Eli nudged me, nodding at a dude with bulging muscles creating cocktails for a small but rapt audience.
The bartender flipped two martini shakers in the air, twirling and catching them behind his back to the spectators’ applause. For his finale, he poured the crimson contents into a series of cocktail glasses without spilling a drop.
Donors sat behind the mixologist. Each one had an IV line running from their arm, dripping blood into small brass basins that sat on a high, narrow table. These donors didn’t have signs around their necks, instead placards had been placed in front of each basin.
We sidled closer to read them. Grass-fed, all-protein diet, vodka-based (this in front of an Ohrist who listed precariously off his stool with a dopey smile), the undead bartender scooped out shots of blood to concoct his designer drinks.
A red-faced male vamp in a shiny suit pushed to the front of the throng, holding up his half-empty highball and asking for more citrus.
One of the Ohrists eagerly raised their hand. The bartender handed him a bottle of lemon juice and the Ohrist downed an enormous swig to cries of “Chug! Chug! Chug!”
My lips puckered, my stomach lurching and my mouth filling with saliva at the thought of swallowing all that tart liquid.
When he was finished, he wiped off his mouth.
The bartender grabbed the end of the IV line and dripped the donor’s blood into the glass of the vamp who’d requested the citrus top-up.
He shot it back then slammed the glass on the bar top. “Zesty!”
The crowd roared in approval, clamoring for their own citrus drinks.
My head reeled, and I grabbed on to Eli’s elbow for stability.
He sucked in a sharp breath. “Ian.”
Our quarry stood across the room just off the dance floor in a sea of vampires. Ian Carlyle had once been a ruggedly handsome man. Now he just looked haggard, twisting his hands as his eyes darted between the dancers and the two arguing bloodsuckers to his right.
From our vantage point, Eli and I couldn’t see the pair who was fighting, and though we could hear a man’s and woman’s raised voices, the music was too loud to make out their problem.
“I’m going to grab him,” Eli whispered.
I nodded, giving the invisibility shield around us a test flex to expand its hiding capacity. This was something I’d been training for, but training was vastly different than doing it in a stressful situation.
We hurried over to our target.
Eli snaked an arm around Ian’s waist, hauling him backward under the cloaking with us and clamping a hand over the man’s mouth. “Quiet,” Eli hissed.
Ian flinched, hunching his shoulders in like a whipped dog.
Eli wasn’t holding him tight enough to warrant that extreme reaction.
Checking to make sure no one had noticed our abduction, I found Damien.
He lounged in a throne-like chair, one leg dangling over an armrest that ended in a silver skull with rubies for eyes. He wore heavy skull rings adorned with gems on his middle fingers, his too-tight clothing an explosion of purple velvet and ruffles. The vampire’s face was twisted in a sneer as he yelled at his as-yet-unseen female opponent.
We had to tread carefully to extricate ourselves without drawing attention.
Before I could alert Eli—my ex and baby daddy, a respected detective and brawny tough guy—he let out a loud high-pitched yelp and a stream of cursing that I hadn’t heard since he stepped on a pile of our daughter’s Lego years ago.
It was impressive how fast an entire party could become quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Even the music cut out.
Eli shook out his hand, teeth marks in his red and puffy skin, while Ian tore free of the mesh.
“Celeste!” he cried, like he was falling from a cliff and she was his last lifeline. “Help me!”
Celeste? Nononononono! It had to be a different Celeste, right? Not Celeste BatSila, Zev’s great-great-great-something-granddaughter whom he’d had turned. Not only was she a total psycho who was jonesing for a taste of me, Delilah had almost killed her at our last encounter.
Celeste didn’t appreciate the importance of the word “almost” as much as I did, and in retaliation, she’d locked me up in a dungeon in Blood Alley. Zev had taken his sweet time rescuing me that night.
