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I pull off my jacket, laying it over my arm and keeping it away from my dress as I finally reach the staircase that will take me into the depths of his kingdom. Most people, natural and supernatural alike, treat this place like a night club combined with a sex dungeon. What it really is, I remind myself as I descend below street level and into the catacombs, is a spider’s web meant to trap the desperate.
Slow, sensual rock music fills the front room, the volume low enough to hold conversations without the need to shout. Black couches, chairs, and half-circular booths are filled with people, and the bar along one side is lined with others vying for the bartender’s attention. No one looks up at my entrance, save the bored-looking woman sitting behind a podium that wouldn’t be out of place in a high school auditorium.
“Cover is ten bucks or blood,” she says, clearly used to the routine. “Coat check is another five.”
I pull my wallet from the damp coat pocket and hand a twenty and my coat to her. She takes it, opening a gray tin box and shoving the bill in and returning a crinkled five for my change along with a numbered ticket for my coat. She goes back to her phone, dismissing me, and I clear my throat.
She raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
This is it. “I’d like to meet with Ambrose d’Vil.”
Her bored expression turns to one of intrigue and she looks me up and down again. Is she a vampire too? Her eyes are golden but at places like these, humans like to wear color contacts. “Is he expecting you?”
I shake my head once. “No,” I say. “But I was told he takes audiences on Thursdays?”
She studies me for a minute longer, as if attempting to discern why I want to see the so-called king of vampires. Then she shrugs and raises her hand above her head, snapping loudly. “Oi, Lion,” she calls over her shoulder to someone out of my sight. “We got a humie wanting to see the king.”
I jump when a tall man appears beside me, as if he’d melted from the shadows and taken corporeal form. The woman inclines her head towards me and the man—very clearly a vampire—studies me. I refuse to be intimidated even if the man is a monster capable of killing me in moments. Vampires, it turns out, aren’t like the old black and white films humans made at the turn of the twentieth century. Some may have been humans at first, but the old ones, really old ones, were born as vampires. As monsters.
“He’s busy,” the vampire tells the woman before turning away. She shrugs again and jerks her head towards the bar.
“You’re welcome to wait, but I can’t say how long the wait will be.”
I press my lips into a line but nod. “Is there any way someone can come get me when he’s ready to see me?”
“Sit at the bar and someone will.”
I thank her but she’s already ignoring me, her attention on the latest people who’ve come down the stairs. Pulling down the dress I borrowed out of Deidre’s closet, I make my way over to the bar, doing my best to ignore the looks sent my way. I don’t know if it’s because the dress isn’t meant for someone with curves like mine or because I scream human to any vampires. I have to stay focused on my goal, and that’s seeing the vampire who runs the Barrows.
I claim an empty bar stool at the end of the bar and try to keep my back to the wall with the club in front of me. Nerves pulse in my stomach in beat with the music and when the bartender finally makes his way to me, I rush out an order.
“A lemon drop, please.” I hadn’t planned on drinking tonight, but I need something to steel my nerves. Water isn’t going to cut it. I slide my card over to him, mentally calculating how much I have in my account.
“Open or closed?” he asks, indifferent. His eyes are a dark hazel, revealing his humanity. What is it like working surrounded by creatures who could bleed you dry in minutes?
“Closed for now.” I glance down the bar, my foot bouncing on the rail of the barstool. I hate being so exposed and I pull out my phone, desperate for any type of distraction.
My background photo has my resolve returning. It’s Deidre and me at the waterfront, powdered sugar on our faces from gorging ourselves on beignets. Some even speckled the dark hair framing her face, where mine escaped such treatment, pulled back into my usual tight ponytail. Compared to her, I’ve always felt like a plain Jane—not that she’d ever let me talk about myself that way. She was the best...is the best, I correct myself.
I smile in thanks to the bartender when he drops off the martini glass and receipt. I sign it, ignoring the obscene price of the drink, and try it. It might be the price of a fifth of bottom-shelf vodka, but at least it tastes good.
Mollified at the quality of my chosen drink, I take in the bar again. It isn’t much different than any other bar I’ve been to, so long as I ignore the fact that half of the patrons aren’t drinking from glasses. Clubs in general aren’t my scene, but Deidre has dragged me to enough of them that I have my standards.
Is anyone using Rapture? I can’t tell just by looking, but I wouldn’t be surprised if so. Rapture is a favorite drug in the Barrows, for humans and supernatural alike. For humans, it supposedly gives them a taste of power that some say is magic. For supernaturals, it’s like pot, mellowing while cranking the dial to ten on their pleasure receptors.
Ambrose d’Vil controls the creation and distribution with an iron fist. The drug is the reason Deidre’s missing, so her disappearance is on his hands.
“You look in need of company.”
I jolt at the smooth voice beside me. How did I not notice his approach? When I meet the man’s eyes, I know exactly why. He’s a vampire, and a hungry one at that if the red ring around his golden iris is any indication. I take a sip of the sweet and sour drink to buy time.
“I’m waiting on someone,” I answer at last, holding his gaze. In The Barrows, you’re either a monster or you’re prey, and I’m not looking to wind up as anyone’s dinner.
I admit he’s beautiful, but all vampires seem to be. He wears a vest over a white button-up and suit pants, but has foregone a tie and, overall, has a generally rumpled casual appearance. It would have made anyone else look slovenly, but with his sharp cheekbones and wicked mouth, he looks positively rakish.
I stiffen when he drags his fingertip down my shoulder to my wrist. His touch is cold against my warm skin.
“I’m more than happy to keep you company until then,” he murmurs, somehow his voice reaching me over the sound of the music.
