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The waitress nodded and moved off into the crowd.
Finn took a drink of his martini. "About time you showed up. I've been here almost an hour already. "
I shrugged. "I had to work late at the Pork Pit. We were slammed with party orders. "
A few days before Christmas, and every business in Ashland was rushing to cram in their office party before everyone took off for the holiday. Sophia Deveraux and I had been cooking nonstop today, whipping up dozens of barbecue beef and pork platters, gallons of beans, mounds of French fries, buckets of coleslaw, and more. In addition to serving our regular walk-in customers.
I loved cooking, loved playing with the never-ending combinations of sweet and salty and sour. The simple process of stirring ingredients together to create something new soothed me the way that mixing bright colors would a painter. But as much as I enjoyed cooking and running the restaurant, even I was a little sick right now of peeling potatoes, shredding cabbage, and making vats of Fletcher Lane's secret barbecue sauce.
The waitress came back with my drink. I tasted the gin, feeling the cold liquor slide down my throat before it started its slow, sweet burn in my stomach.
Finn, Roslyn, and I sipped our drinks. The music of the club thumped around us, and the smell of smoke, sweat, and sex filled the air.
"So," I said after I'd drained the rest of my gin. "How are you, Roslyn?"
The vampire arched one of her perfect eyebrows. "You're actually pausing and making small talk first? Instead of immediately demanding to know everything that I know about Vinnie Volga? You're getting soft in your old age, Gin. "
I winced. I hadn't always been kind to Roslyn in the past, mainly because I'd been too upset about Fletcher Lane's murder to cut the vampire much slack. The vamp talking about my being an assassin to the wrong people was one of the things that had led to the old man's death. But we'd bonded while I'd been plotting on how best to kill Elliot Slater, and I'd started thinking of Roslyn as a friend. I didn't have many of those, so each one was important to me. Looked like she didn't feel the same way, though. The knowledge stung a little more than I thought it would. So did the sharp bit of longing that went with it. It wasn't an emotion I often experienced, mainly because it always made me feel weak and needy-two things that I absolutely hated.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "If you want to get right down to things . . . "
A small smile lifted Roslyn's lips. "Relax. I'm just teasing you, Gin. "
Her soft voice somehow made me feel even worse than before.
The vampire took a sip of her blood and leaned back against the booth. "As for how I'm doing, okay, I guess. Still trying to figure things out. Some days, I'm fine. Others, I can't even breathe. And nightmares. I'm having a lot of nightmares. Most of them involve Slater walking through the front door of the club, grabbing me, and beating me to death on the dance floor. "
Roslyn's voice was cold, flat, and calm, just the way it had been the day that she'd told me that Slater was stalking her, that the giant was making her pretend to be his girlfriend while he worked himself up to raping and killing her. It made my heart ache for her that much more.
I knew all about nightmares. I'd had more than my share over my years, but especially since Fletcher's murder a few months ago. Living on the streets, Fletcher taking me in, my earliest days with the old man and Finn. I'd dreamed about all that and more. It was like the old man's death had opened up a floodgate of emotion deep inside me, one that I could close during the day but still had problems dealing with at night-at least until I woke up in a cold sweat, my mouth open in a silent scream.
"It'll get better. " An easy lie that I'd told too many times to too many people over the years-especially myself.
"Really?" Roslyn whispered, doubt filling her toffee eyes.
I shrugged. "Well, Slater's dead and burning in hell right now. He's never going to bother you again, so it's not going to get worse. I can promise you that much. "
She gave me another small smile. "I guess that will have to do for now. "
It always did in Ashland.
We sat there for a few more minutes. My eyes scanned the crowd, looking through the faces, before moving on to whom I was really here to see tonight-Vinnie Volga.
One of the main features at Northern Aggression was the elaborate Ice bar that took up a good portion of one of the walls. The bar was a single, solid sheet of elemental Ice with a variety of runes carved into the frosty surface. Suns and stars mostly, symbolizing life and joy. The runes glittered like diamond chips in the Ice, making it seem more like a beautiful work of art than a functional, working bar. But the Ice more than held up to all the people who sat next to and leaned on it, and the others who clustered three deep in some places waiting to get their latest round of liquid courage.
My gaze locked onto the man standing behind the bar-the Ice elemental responsible for making sure his creation stayed in one piece for the night.
Vinnie Volga had swarthy features-tan skin and a mop of curly hair that could only be described as dirty brown. A neat, trimmed goatee covered his pointed chin, although his mouth and forehead both had a pinched look to them, as though he was constantly worried about something. Vinnie was short for a guy, only about my height, five seven or so, with a thin, wiry body.
But the most striking thing about Vinnie was his eyes, which glowed blue-white in the semidarkness, thanks to his elemental magic. Vinnie held on to his Ice power at all times, even while mixing and serving up drinks. He had to keep feeding a small, steady trickle of magic into the bar, or his creation would start to melt, given all the bodies and heat packed into the club.
It's rare that an elemental can use his magic without other elementals sensing it, and Vinnie wasn't trying to hide what he was doing. Even across the room, I could feel the cool caress of his power call out to me. It made me want to reach for my own Ice magic and let the cold energy fill every part of my being, but I pushed the longing aside. I wasn't letting the bartender know that I had any kind of magic-until it was too late.
"So tell me about Vinnie," I asked Roslyn.
The vampire's eyes tracked my gaze across the club to where the bartender stood, shaking up another round of martinis. She shrugged. "Not much to tell. He's worked for me for a couple of years now. Emigrated here from Russia with his daughter. The mother died in Russia before they came to the States. Very quiet, keeps to himself. A hard worker. Always on time. Doesn't seem that interested in my girls, but he'll go out with one occasionally. I've never had any problems with him. He comes in, makes sure the bar is in one piece, mixes drinks, takes a few quick breaks to go check on his daughter, and leaves. He's the best bartender that I've ever had. I'd really hate to lose him. "
I gave her a cool look. After a moment, Roslyn nodded.
