AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With a groan—couldn’t I have one moment without incident tonight?—I pushed along the hal and entered the main bar. Derrick was standing there with the shotgun out, pointed at a group of about five leather-clad bikers. Chrysandra had the telephone in hand, eyeing Viper, one of the bikers who had been a customer off and on over the past year. He was pointing a Natchez bowie knife at her heart, barely touching her chest. The blade itself was over eleven inches long and it gleamed, sharp and ready to pierce.
“I see we have a standoff,” I said, coming up beside Derrick. No doubt they had a few stakes in their packs, just waiting for the likes of me. “Whatcha doing, Viper? Why are you threatening my waitress?”
His gaze flickered toward me. “Menol y . . . It’s you we want. Come along quietly and everyone else earns a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Oh joy, just what I needed. A Buffy-wannabe in a biker suit.
“Can’t we have a civil conversation? I haven’t done a damned thing to bother you. You’ve sat at my counter, drinking booze and talking to me, and yet tonight you come into my bar and threaten me, my staff, and my patrons? What’s wrong with this picture, dude?”
He gave me a once-over, and I saw exactly what he thought of vampires. At least now. Good ol’
boys were transparent as hel , whether they wore overal s or leather and chains. Viper and his buddies had no doubt heard the news and decided to help the cops by kil ing every vampire in the area.
“How many of us are you planning on dusting? How many do you think you can possibly get through before we get to you? You can get away with murdering us, but when we hurt you, at least self-defense wil play into our trial. You have no excuse. Here I am, running a legitimate business that’s bringing in money for the city, and you boys just can’t wait to spoil things.”
I leaped up to land on the bar. Staring them down, I gave Chrysandra a faint shake of the head.
Stand still, don’t try anything. I hoped she caught my meaning. “What happened? You just hear the news that there’s a vampire serial kil er out there—a male, I might add—and decide that every vamp has to pay?”
He shuffled his feet, and color began to rise in his cheeks.
“You’re a regular reader of the Seattle Tattler, too. Am I right? You hooked up with Andy Gambit and Taggart Jones?”
Mr. Bowie Knife blinked. “Those freaks? No. They don’t like us, either.”
“I see. So you haven’t run away and joined the Earthborn Brethren? Or Freedom’s Angels? Or one of the numerous other hate groups?” If they weren’t part of the movement against the Fae, I might be able to reason him off his high horse. I turned on my glamour. Hel , I’d use every trick in the book to protect Chrysandra and my bar.
Viper blinked again. “Um . . . no. What’s that got to do with anything?”
I let out a long breath, for effect, and a loud one. “How many times do the cops come by and harass your group? How often do you guys get thrown in jail just for hanging around the wrong side of town? After al , aren’t all bikers troublemakers and lawbreakers?”
He stared at me for a moment and I saw the knife waver. I was making an inroad. I crossed my arms and stared him down, wil ing him to lower the knife. As he slowly acceded—he was easy enough to take on once I’d gotten his attention—I leaped lightly off the bar and walked toward him, holding out my hand.
“Put the knife in my hand, slowly, hilt first.”
“Viper, what are you doing, man?” One of his buddies started forward, but I gave him a look and motioned toward Derrick with my head. “Move and he blows you out of the water, dude. And Humpty won’t even be able to find al of the pieces, let alone put himself together again.”
He froze, and Viper slowly handed over the knife. I examined it. Nice blade. “Now the sheath.”
He obeyed, and I strapped it to my belt, then slid the bowie knife in and snapped it shut. “Good boy.”
Chrysandra lithely stepped out of the way, and I put my finger on Viper’s chest. “Snap out of it.
Now.”
As he blinked and saw me standing there, wearing his knife, with Derrick aiming for his chest, Viper sucked in a deep breath. “Oh shit.”
“Oh shit is right.” I smacked him across the face. Hard. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, dude? You want to help out in the investigation, you don’t do it that way, you idiot.”
Frowning now, he cocked his head. “Are you looking for the kil er?”
“Hel yes! He’s giving a bad name to al vamps. Just look: I put a gate on my bar and I never had to think about it before. And you come in here, bent on kil ing me? You think we don’t want him caught for al the trouble he’s causing? You’re al jacked up the wrong way, bro.”
Viper blushed again and stared at his feet, looking for al the world like a giant teddy bear. “I’m sorry, Menol y. I didn’t think . . .”
“No. You didn’t. You reacted instead, and that’s usual y a bad idea. In this case, you were lucky.
Do you real y think that I couldn’t stop you from hurting my waitress? And if you’d tried, I would have ripped your throat out. You got it? You don’t bother me or mine. You leave the vampire hunting to me, and you make sure word gets through to your eager-beaver brethren before some idiot gets himself fanged to death. Because I’m more patient than most vampires. Got it?”
