Page 6 of Whispers From The Dark

“Gotta go, boys!” she calls, turning on a heel and almost skipping down the path. Last Drop is just on the other side of the park on Milwaukee Avenue, and I watch her swaying hips as she leaves.

“You gotta help me save Last Drop. Except for Sanguivita, all the other blood bars in Chicago are full-service. Girls like Petra shouldn’t have to sell sex to⁠—”

“You’re barking up the wrong tree about selling sex.” I frown at Dmitri. Then, “Fine. I’ll give you the cash.”

He frowns. It’s not normal for me to hand over funds without a deal, and he’s wondering if I’ll be taking his soul. But it’s not his I’m interested in.

“Let me do my business within your establishment, and you won’t need to worry about Bjorn.”

“Deal.”

“Her mom was really abusive, I think,” says the girl with sapphire-blue hair. She’s cutting lemons behind the bar, doing a favor for her bartender boyfriend. Her soul is loud in a different way than Petra’s. It’s boisterous, and it reminds me of Lucifer.

“Oh?” I ask.

“She has cigarette burns on her shoulder and thighs.”

That kind of physical torment would be the fault of Satanus, twin prince to Lucifer.

My brothers are inseparable. Since the sins of pride and wrath are almost the antithesis of lust, I often butt heads with them. My brothers’ influence is far more overt than my own. There is no subtlety. No yearning. My brothers prefer brute force over a deft touch, and it often yields a mess. Though I can’t understand how humans will forsake me for my siblings when orgasms exist, I suppose there is pleasure in vengeance. Sometimes, I can appreciate Satanus’ wrath, despite his lack of restraint.

“Mom did what?” Petra asks, walking behind me and around the bar. Her lime-green dress clings to her skin. The fishnets she’s wearing will leave tiny imprints on her thick, muscled thighs. Dmitri was right about her tits—though it’s a bit too early for the vampires to gaze upon her body with admiration. She’d do well in one of those full-service vampire bars Dmitri seems to look down upon. She frowns at her phone before delicately holding it up to her ear. When a small chunk of glass falls free, she winces, and I hear the voice of a young boy—the little brother her coworker spoke of.

“Hang on, Jack. Let me call you right back.” Petra hangs up, gets waved down by a patron asking for a Michelob Ultra, delivers it with a smile and a kind word, then looks for the phone behind the bar.

But it’s nowhere to be found. I’m pretty sure a bartender is using it to call her plug to meet her out back. Petra attempts to tuck her hair behind her ear, but the dark, thick silk falls forward, just a bit too short. The glossy waves suit her well.

“Need to use mine?” I ask, sliding my cell across the slick bar top.

She smiles at me, thick dark brows gathering in the center. “You sure?”

I nod, and her grateful smile is beautiful. I don’t understand it. Her soul vibrates on a frequency that speaks of ghastly living conditions—stress, frustration, sadness—but I wouldn’t know it from observing her. By all accounts, her life is terrible, and yet she seems positive and upbeat. Perhaps it’s the nature of my business, but it is rare for me to interact with a mortal who holds such willful joy despite their conditions. Human life in general isn’t great, but hers seems especially shit. For a moment, I consider her sickening optimism might be caused by observance of a religion full of people who wouldn’t care about her suffering. That maybe blind faith is to blame for her sunny outlook. But I don’t entertain that idea for long. She wouldn’t be working here if that were the case.

I still don’t know why I recognize her, and it’s driving me mad.

She nibbles on her lip as she dials a phone number. When the boy shouts the second she answers, I listen with rapt attention.

“Mom left! She said she was getting a hotel room near the airport so you don’t need to worry about getting her there. Petra, she was being freakin’ weird.”

“What do you mean?”

She lowers her voice, so I have to strain to hear. That doesn’t work for me. I tilt my head, and the second I wish for it, my phone’s speaker turns on.

“She brought me an ice cream sandwich, and she was in a really good mood.”

“No.” Petra’s expression fades before she notices me watching. The demure smile she gives when she notices my attention seems bashful, almost shy. She fumbles to turn the speaker off, and it’s the only thing that gives away her true feelings.

I don’t bother hiding my raised brow, and she turns, giving me her back. She has a few moles interspersed amongst freckled skin, and a tattoo on the back of her neck I can’t make out.

“Okay, buddy. Just—just go back to bed. I’ll be home soon. No. No, you don’t have to eat the—I know it’s gross. Just throw it away.”

Petra hangs up and takes a deep breath before turning to face me. That dazzling smile has returned, though she’s gone pale. When she slides my phone back over, I let my fingertips linger on her wrist. There’s a scar there, jagged and long. And it hits me.

That’s how I know her soul. Years ago at The Crossroads, when she’d watched me through a slit in a bathroom stall. Desperation oozes from her now, just as it did back then.

Swallowing, I can’t help but stare. It was likely a decade ago when she came to my bar. Hopeless and afraid, she’d been cowering in the bathroom while waiting for one of my servers to stitch her up. From the little I’d learned that night, I would have anticipated a different outcome for Petra. But she’s not strung out or in a psych ward, which is more than I can say for many people who started out just like her.

Somehow, she seems happy.