Page 38 of Soft Flannel Hank

“That’s different.”

“So ye do ken how to make such a thing?”

“Of course,” she’d scoffed.

“That’s settled then. Ye’re hired. When can ye start?”

She made the potions, the purpose of which was to give the drinker a feeling of euphoria and balance. Happiness in a bottle, her grandmother had called it. It wasn’t, of course, but it would make the brain believe it for an hour or so.

Esther made large bottles of the potions and kept them on the back bar, where they glowed blue and pink and yellow in the backlighting, depending on how she flavored them. She had created three signature cocktails: the Bluebird of Happiness, the Genie’s Lamp, and the Gremlin Canary, all named by a fae who also tended bar.

The drinks were meant to be like secret coffee shop menu items. If you knew about them, you knew what went into them. Weeks had passed with Esther making the potions at home in the afternoon and then bringing them to the club, where she worked from six o’clock in the evening, prepping the bar until it opened at nine, until three o’clock in the morning, when it closed.

The money was good, and Esther liked her coworkers, all supernatural creatures like herself, hiding in plain sight. The clientele was mostly a blend of vampires and humans, mingling and dancing while the DJ played music with a bass so loud that Esther could feel it in her feet.

But tonight felt different. She didn’t know why. Perhaps it was her first parade night at the bar, her first St. Patrick’s Day. Or maybe she was just tired. She’d been up all night after Shannon had sent her a cryptic text about keeping her eyes wide open at work that night. Whatever that meant.

Esther moved down the bar to the next customer, a man in a shabby leprechaun costume that was missing pieces. He smelled as if he’d marched in the parade and then gone through a slip-n-slide of green beer after. He held a ten-dollar bill pinched between two fingers. Esther helped him next, keeping the Lucky Charms girls in her line of sight as she did. They were still talking to the vampire with the artfully mussed dirty blond hair.

About a half hour later, the girl with the rainbow on her shirt waved Esther over.

“Can we get five Gremlin Canaries, please?” she shouted over the music.

Esther narrowed her eyes at the vampire. He’d told them about the drink. They had been talking to him this entire time.

“You sure you don’t want another cosmo?” Esther shouted back.

“Give the ladies what they asked for,” the vampire said. He didn’t shout, and yet Esther heard him all the same.

Unease prickled at the back of Esther’s neck, but she made the drinks, garnishing them with a lemon twist before sliding them across the bar. Again, the vampire held his card out, pinched between two fingers.

She continued to pour drinks at a frantic pace and watched as the girls made their way onto the dance floor. The mussed vampire had friends that arrived just then, and they paired off, grinding against one another to the steady beat of the music.

Fine. Not her business.

And it really wasn’t.

She pulled draft beers dyed green, and made countless Dublin Drops. She was pouring Irish whiskey into a shot glass when she noticed the group of vampires leading the Lucky Charms girls away from the dance floor to the far back corner of the club and down the hallway that led to the bathrooms.

“I need to use the restroom,” she told the barback, who nodded and rang up the Dublin Drop. She quickly walked away from the bar, threading her way through the crush of drunk patrons, following the vampires and girls. They passed the bathrooms, passed the employee locker room, and went into a door at the very end of the hallway that Esther had always assumed was a utility room.

She had assumed that because the sign on the door said “Utility Room.”

She caught the door silently before it closed behind the last man and waited a few breaths so that she wouldn’t be noticed. Upon opening the door, she saw a stairwell that led down below the club. Esther tiptoed down the stairs, which opened into a large, lush space with carpets and upholstered walls and couches. The Lucky Charms girls were in various places and positions, but each one had a vampire latched onto her throat.

Esther froze on the spot. She then looked around and saw other vampires drinking from humans, and another vampire carrying a human out another door, the human’s body limp and swaying in the vampire’s arms.

She was about the scream when Callum’s huge shape filled her vision as he stepped in front of her. She swallowed the sound.

“Esther? Ye are nae supposed to be down here.” His voice was hard, his jaw clenched, and Esther felt the power radiating off of him. He was ancient. He was powerful. And he was so very close.

“Is this club just a front so you can feed?”

He tilted his head to the side slightly, as if the answer was obvious.

“Those girls just ordered signature drinks.”

“Aye,” he replied. “The mood elevation makes it a more pleasant experience for all parties involved.”