Hard Bitten (21 page)

Colin pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door. The office was small—barely large enough to hold a metal desk and beat-up file cabinet. Every free surface was covered in papers—magazines, notes, checks, tax returns, pages from yellow legal pads, folded newspapers, sports programs, invoices, take-out menus.

The walls were also covered, although the content was much less kid-friendly. Posters and calendars featuring pinups from the last seventy years were plastered like wallpaper across the room, busty blondes and brunettes in tiny shorts and three-inch heels smiling down at us coquettishly. It looked like the office you might find in a service station or quick-lube shop. Not exactly the kind of place that made it comfortable to be a woman, but then again, I wasn’t the target audience.

“Nice digs,” I politely said.

“We like it,” he said. “Get the door, would you?”

I closed it, which lowered the volume just enough to allow us to talk instead of screaming.

Colin slid around the desk and pulled open the top drawer of the file cabinet. He slipped a small metal flask out of the drawer, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.

“Booze?” I wondered aloud.

“Type O. My own special concoction.” He offered it to me, but I shook him off. I needed a clear head, and I wasn’t confident Colin’s

“special concoction” was going to keep me in a business-minded place.

“No, thank you.”

The flask still in one hand, he pulled out an ancient desk chair, the back cushion covered by more duct tape than fabric, and took a seat.

“Now, Ms. Sentinel, what can I do for you?”

“Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary around here lately?”

He made a sarcastic sound. “Once upon a time, this was a bar for vampires. For the fanged and their kith and kin. Since we came out of the closet, I’ve been serving humans who think male vamps are brooding, romantic heroes and female vamps have a secret weight-loss formula. I’m also occasionally serving humans who think vamps are trash and the harbingers of the apocalypse. So out of the ordinary? Yes, Sentinel. I’d say so.”

By the end of the rant, his words had sped up, and the faster he talked, the more pronounced his accent became. I’d never been to Ireland, but I could hear green hills in his voice.

He also had a point, but I was looking for something a little more specific, so I got to mine.

“We think vamps are using the bar to find humans for a new kind of rave. Anything like that ring a bell?”

He took a sip from his flask. “Like I said, plenty of humans want to spend time with vampires. I’m not sure I’d recognize the difference between a vamp hitting on a human and a vamp inviting a human to attend a drinking party of some type.”

“Fair enough.” I gnawed my lip for a moment, disappointed he hadn’t given me any breakthrough information. “Okay, how about drugs? Something called V? It might be used to make humans susceptible to glamour.”

His brows lifted with interest. “You don’t say.

Are we so unskilled at glamour these days that we have to resort to pharmaceuticals to do the job?”

“We’re not sure yet about how it works—just that it’s been found at a party.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “This is a bar; drugs are par for the course. I haven’t heard about any new drugs being passed around, but that doesn’t mean it’s not happening.”

Strike three for the Sentinel, but I tried again.

“What about familiar characters? Anyone hanging around the bar a lot more than usual?

Anyone out of place, or anyone who pops up over and over?”

Colin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, the flask nestled beneath his arms like a doll. “I don’t want to rain on your parade, and I appreciate everything you do for the House as Sentinel. But to be frank, I spend my time trying to ensure the vampires and humans in this bar are well tended and entertained and have an opportunity to burn off a little of the steam that builds up through the workweek. But if you’re asking me if I’ve seen anything suggesting Temple Bar is the new HQ

for some kind of rave movement? Then no, I have not.”

Deflated, I sighed. I’d figured the guy who spent most of his time at the bar was going to have the best insight into what Sarah had thought was going on at Temple Bar. But he had a point; he might have had the access, but he also had plenty else to do.

I nodded. “Thanks for the honesty. Get in touch if you think of anything?”

He offered a wink. “Rest assured, Sentinel.”

With no more information in hand, I excused Colin and headed back into the bar.

And that was when I got surprise number two.

I knew Lindsey had been born in Iowa. I knew her father was a pork producer. I knew she’d lived in New York and had an allegiance toward the Yankees that I, as a loyal Cubs fan, could only assume was the result of some sort of low-grade vampire insanity.

I did not know she was bartender

extraordinaire.

I found Lindsey behind the bar and a crush of vamps fourdeep, dollars in hand, shouting her name like she’d just won them a pennant.

Girl was a
phenomenon
. She spun a cocktail shaker horizontally in one hand and a bottle of blue alcohol in the other. The crowd let out a

“Woot!” when she flipped the bottle over her shoulder and caught it again in the palm of her hand, then dumped the contents of both containers into a martini glass. The bottle and shaker hit the top of the bar, and then the glass was in her hand and headed for the vampire in front of her. She tidily plucked cash from the vamp’s extended fingers and pushed it into a jar.

The crowd around her let out a round of applause; Lindsey made a little bow and then began prepping a drink for the next vamp in line.

The vamps at the bar watched her movements with shifting eyes as if they were waiting for a once-in-a-lifetime sip of rare and limited wine.

Personally, I didn’t understand the appeal, but I wasn’t much of a drinker.

I turned at the tap on my shoulder and found Christine at my side.

“Anything to report?”

She gestured toward the boys. “Our new favorite fraternity brothers are here at least once a week, usually on weekends. Last Friday, they were smoking in the alley when a man approached them, made some overtures about trying out a new vampire experience. As it turns out, while our fraternity brothers were brave enough to venture into a vampire bar, they weren’t quite brave enough for anything more than that.” She gave me a knowing smile.

“Drinking at a bar with vamps apparently gives them a taste of danger without the calories, so to speak. They didn’t get a good look at the man, but—”

I held up a hand to stop her, satisfaction warming my blood. I really did enjoy the moment when the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.

“Let me guess—he was short, older, dark hair?”

Her eyes widened in surprise. “How did you know?”

“My witness was taking a breather outside when she was approached by a man with the same description.”

“And he’s using Temple Bar as his own personal recruiting ground?”

“That might be the case.”

Rowdy applause split the air near the bar. I looked over just in time to see Lindsey finish up another drink and clap her hands together like a Vegas dealer.

“And now, for my next trick,” she said, sliding me a glance, “something vampires never get to see. I will make your House social chair do my bidding!”

With the encouragement of the crowd, she beckoned me over. I rolled my eyes, but the crowd apparently appreciated the humor, so I did my part and slid behind the bar.

She immediately began bossing me around, pointing to medium-sized glasses. “Give me seven of those and line ’em up along the bar.”

When I did as directed, Lindsey grabbed a clean cocktail shaker and began pouring alcohol into it. After she’d layered five or six kinds of booze, she put the bottles down again and capped the shaker.

“You know what I miss?” she asked the crowd. “Clouds. Sunshine. That weird moment when it rains but the sun’s still out. Sunrises.

Sunsets—until after the fact, of course.”

The crowd chuckled appreciatively.

“But you know what I miss most of all?” she continued. “Rainbows, like a handful of Skittles thrown across the sky. So for all of you lovely Cadogan vamps, here’s a rainbow, one color at a time.”

With a flick of her wrist, Lindsey began pouring the liquid in a cascade over the glasses.

She filled the first glass with blue and, as soon as each glass was full, switched to the next. Like magic, the alcohol she’d layered into the cocktail shaker became a rainbow across the glasses, from turquoise to a bright shade of pink. When she was finished, there were seven glasses of liquid that stood on the bar like a perfect, wet rainbow.

“And that,” she said, putting the shaker back on the bar, “is how vampires make rainbows.”

The bar burst into applause. I had to admit, it was a pretty sweet trick. The drinks might not taste especially good—they looked like sci-fi movie props, to be honest—but they looked phenomenal.

Lindsey glanced over at me and grinned. “Not bad for a Yankees fan, eh?”

“Not bad at all,” Colin said, stepping behind the bar again. “You did us proud.”

He apparently hadn’t been the only one impressed. The vamps along the bar, a mix of men and women, began jostling for position to get at one of the seven drinks.

“It’s just booze, ladies and gents,” Colin said with a chuckle, wiping up the excess alcohol Lindsey had spilled.

“There is plenty more where that came from,”

she added, “and I’m sure Colin would be happy to take your money for it.”

Colin chuckled, but the jostling for Lindsey’s drinks hit me as odd. Essentially, they were booze poured by a member of the House whom the vamps could have seen any night of the week—and in a bar they could have visited any night of the week.

My senses on edge, I moved back to the end of the bar, and caught Lindsey’s glance from the corner of my eye. She’d watched me move, and ever the savvy guard, she gave the vamps the same once-over, saw them nudging one another to get to the alcohol.

That meant we were both watching the moment a little pushing erupted into a full-blown fight.

TELEVISED

“I
saw it first,” said a vamp at the end of the bar with dreadlocks pushed back under a beret-style hat.

“I was reaching for it when you put your meaty hand out there,” said a second, a slender, brown-haired man wearing a dark T-shirt and khakis. They looked more like poetry-slam or coffeehouse guys than Temple Bar scrappers . . .

until they began punching each other in the face.

“What the shit?” Lindsey exclaimed as I jumped around the bar to pull them apart. I grabbed T-shirt by his arm and yanked him backward. He stumbled a few feet before hitting the bar floor on his butt. Dreadlocks—still in the heat of passion—swung out at me—but I caught his fist and swung his arm around, leveraging his weight so that he went to his knees.

And then I looked into his eyes. His pupils were tiny, his silvered irises diamond-bright rings around them.

I muttered a curse. They were acting like the rave vamps had acted—trigger-happy and anger-prone—and they had the same enlarged irises.

My stomach sank in warning, and I feared the worst. Was this the next stage of a vampire mass hysteria?

I gave Dreadlocks a shot to the neck that cut off some oxygen and put him out on the floor.

Unfortunately, by the time I made it to my feet again, a dozen more vamps had succumbed to whatever ailed them. Furious fists and insults were hurled around, the vamps pounding at one another as if their lives—and not a cheap glass of cheaper alcohol—were on the line.

The irritation spread like a virus. Each vamp that lashed out and inadvertently bumped another started a second round, and the violence rippled through the crowd accordingly.

With no better option than to jump into the fray, I looked at Lindsey, shared a nod of agreement with her, and made my move. My goal wasn’t to win the fight, but to separate the fighters. I began by jumping between the two closest to me. I took a punch in the shoulder for my trouble, but managed to rip the two vamps away from each other. I tossed them in opposite directions and headed for the next pair.

Lindsey did the same, hopping over the bar—spilling the rainbow drinks in the process—and pulling vamps apart.

Unfortunately, they weren’t willing to go.

Whatever had possessed them took them over, kept them raking their nails at one another, eager to continue a fight over nothing substantial.

Fortunately, the ones who weren’t affected—a handful of men and women that I’d seen around the House—helped us separate the contenders.

We became a team. Fighting against our own, unfortunately, but still fighting for the good of the cause.

I appreciated the effort, even if it wasn’t enough. With each pair I separated, another seemed to pop up, until the swell of fighting vampires crashed through the door to the bar.

Over the background roar of brawling, I could hear the nearing wail of sirens. Someone had called the cops about the fight. This was about to get even uglier; it was time for a new plan.

I glanced around, looking for Lindsey, and found her at my left, dragging a squalling vampire by the ankle.

“Lindsey, I’m going to get the humans out of the bar!” I yelled, pushing one vamp off me and turning to avoid another’s boot stomp.

Cops wouldn’t be thrilled if vamps were fighting other vamps, but they’d be downright pissed if humans got caught in the cross fire.

With Tate already on the warpath, I’m not sure we could make it through that kind of scandal with the House intact, much less without a receiver.

“I’m on my way,” she replied, dumping her vamp a few tables away. Another Cadogan vamp took over for her, holding that vamp back while she rushed back to me and yanked back the vamp who’d tried to kick me into submission.

“You’re a doll,” I told her, hurdling a knot of wrestling vampires as I ran for the door. I started by building a vamp chute by grabbing the nearest table and sliding it toward the door. Three more made a faux retaining wall between the exit and the rest of the bar, which kept the fighting vamps corralled and gave the humans a clear path.