Page 6 of Below the Shadow of the City

“Girls,” a rough male voice interrupts us gossiping about work. I smell the man before I see him. Some vaguely familiar, very expensive cologne has completely assaulted our senses. “Could I buy you two shots? Lemon drops? Green tea? Whatever you want.”

I flinch at him calling us girls, but realize that Margo may have been correct in thinking we could pass for intern age. I don’t think that classifies as a win.

She whips around on her barstool to the man standing beside us and narrows her eyes at him. He’s roughly my dad’s age with smooth olive skin, greasy hair, and an expensive suit jacket that’s a smidge too small. His mouth twitches downward when he sees her tattoos creeping across her chest. She’s always had plenty, but I’d noticed more appeared in the years since her divorce. “Man repellent,” she had called them.

Margo grimaces, no, scowls at the man. “Beat it bozo, can’t you see we’re trying to have a conversation here?” I feel a smile form on my face subconsciously. Margo Savine is one of the only people I’ve met who could make talking like a fifties crime show detective sound even remotely cool.

The man bristles at her comment. “That’s no way to talk to a gentleman, hon.” I’m tempted to ask the bartender for a bag of popcorn to watch this interaction unfold.

Her red lips contort into a devilish grin. “Aw, you think that ogling my best friend’s boobs while gripping your hand around the crotch of your too tight khakis is gentlemanly behavior? Do us both a favor and buzz off before I tell the manager of this place to kick you out.” Hook, line, and sinker.

The man mutters a few unintelligible sentences that I pull the words “bitch” and “millennials” from as he fades away into the crowd.

My eyes track the faces mingling around the bar to see if there’s any sign of the man. He’s all but vanished completely, definitely for the best. If he’d lingered Margo would uphold her threat of getting him kicked out.

“Damn, you’re good. Cruel, but good.” I laugh dryly before taking another sip of my half priced margarita.

She shrugs. “Guy was a creep. I acted accordingly. Can you fault me?”

“You have a talent,” I chuff.

“It’s a shame I can’t get paid to do it.” She swirls her straw in her drink casually. As if moments before she didn’t tell a stranger to fuck off. Her direct demeanor and blunt way of speaking are traits I admire. She wears her emotions on her sleeve, good and bad. What you see is what you get. If only I could steal away even a quarter of that energy, I’d probably be a lot better off.

“Was he really staring at my tits?” I ask, shifting in my chair.

“I thought he was going to black out from how locked in he was.” Men can be absolute monsters sometimes.

I look down and adjust my top. “Gross.”

Margo and I had first met seven years ago at a similar bar. I was freshly twenty-one, she was a year and a half older. I was doing the adult thing of having a drink after a particularly frustrating mid afternoon shift, and she was just getting off of work as a Marketing Assistant at Holonatech and wanted to delay her return to her husband. She complimented my necklace, asked what I was drinking, and talked my ear off for the next hour. No one had been as outgoing or friendly to me in the city, especially no one as cool as her. We exchanged numbers and a promise to get drinks. I’d assumed the outing would never materialize since promises to hang out rarely did, but two days later she texted me.

That was the first thing I learned about Margo, she was genuinely kind, not superficially so just to placate people’s emotions. Yes, she was blunt. I’d seen as much when she shouted to the bartender that he was ignoring me when I was trying to order. But she would drop everything for the people she cared about, it was an added bonus that she happened to care for a lot of people. She could make friends with anyone in ninety seconds and enemies just as quickly.

“What was I about to tell you again?” Margo taps her fingers against her temple in an attempt to conjure the memory. “Oh! I think Ralph is totally a vampire.”

I nearly choke on my drink laughing. Ralph is weird. Not mythical creature weird, though. “Ralph, our boss, a vampire? Just because he gives off heavy Carlisle Cullen vibes it doesn’t mean he’s a vampire. First of all, vampires aren’t real.”

“I have a friend of a friend⁠—”

“No way, three degrees of separation don’t count.”

“If you’d listen to me,” she raises her palm to force me to pause. “I have a friend of a friend who’s really into these avant garde alternative nightclubs. She said there have been instances where she’s run into people who are very much not human. Vampires being one of them. And Ralph totally has a tell.”

“He’s gone outside in the daylight, though. Isn’t that a vampire thing? No sunlight?” I attempt to remember any instance where he may have adversely reacted to the sun or garlic bread or anything that I assume fend off vampires.

Margo shakes her head like she has a predetermined retort. “He always wears sunglasses, and he only goes between his car and the building. The cars always have tinted windows and our office windows are treated with UV protection film. So it’s possible he’s just good at dodging it.”

“That’s purely anecdotal.” I laugh. “Most buildings have tinted windows and most cars have them too. Once again, I reiterate, vampires aren’t real.”

“I think I saw fangs.”

I choke on my drink again. “You saw fangs? Why didn’t you lead with that? And why are you watching our boss’ teeth?” We’re towing the line of fantasy now. Vampires aren’t real, just like any other mythical creature. I’d long been a skeptic, and Margo’s always been more open minded. But come on, vampires? In New York?

“It sounds crazier than the sunlight thing! I wasn’t looking at his teeth intentionally, there was just a weird little flash. Anyways I’m telling my friend to tell her friend to look for him at that nightclub.”

“Why don’t you just go yourself?” Margo has connections all over the city and as a result has secured invites for us to just about any event imaginable, Broadway previews, nightclub openings, exclusive galleries, it doesn’t seem too outside the norm that she’d be able to get into this nightclub with “vampires.”

The look she gives me is one of complete bafflement. “You think someone can just invite themselves into something like that? It’s crazy exclusive. I don’t even scratch the surface of knowing the right people to get an invite.” Apparently I’d overestimated her pull in the city. To her benefit, I’d assumed that she could flash a bouncer her radiant smile and crash even the most exclusive of parties.