The vampire groans and rolls over, bleeding everywhere. The red liquid drains down the sidewalk and over the curb, into the street in a ruby wave.
“On sixteen counts of broken House Verenim covenants, I sentence you, Lenora of House Sullivan, to death.” I fire another shot into the woman’s head as she snarls at me, dropping her limp and lifeless to the pavement. Unsheathing the falchion blade from my back—this one’s name is Ricky Ricardo because I’m not a particularly inventive person—I set about the gruesome task of beheading a royal vampire.
Welcome to a night in the life of Cameron Darke, dhampir, vampire hunter, and in desperate need of a drink.
The Dragonfly is this seedy little bar not two blocks from my place, this shithole apartment above a Chinese restaurant called Dog Town. It’s surprising how many customers that place has considering the questionable use of the word ‘dog’ in their name, and the even more questionable state of their meat.
I waltz into The Dragonfly at half-past eight, having disposed of the PINK-wearing vampire noble and her kills at the cemetery that’s two blocks in the opposite direction of my place. Yeah, I live a charmed life—Chinese food, crappy twenty-four bars, and cemeteries all within walking distance!
“Hey, Harry,” I say, slumping onto a stool and feeling confident in the knowledge that this is the sort of disgusting, underhanded joint where you can walk in with bloodstains on your clothes and nobody gives a fuck.
“Morning, Cam,” the bartender, Harry, says, setting this bright green mixed drink in front of me with a grin. “I was waiting for you. Taste this one—I call it the Chameleon.” I wrinkle my nose. Harry fancies himself a mixologist, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that first off, his mixed drinks suck. Or second, that this dump is never going to be the sort of place where somebody orders a twelve-dollar drink called the Chameleon. “Watch this,” he continues, swirling the straw and turning the liquid from green to purple.
Oh.
That’s nice.
“Okay, this is now officially my favorite of your creations,” I say with a grin to match his. Lifting the drink up, I toast the air and then slip the thin red straw into my mouth. The issue with all of Harry’s drinks is that they basically taste like gin and tequila mixed...ugh. Okay, yup. This is the same as all the rest. I force myself to swallow, reminding my sore body that booze is booze and as a dhampir, I have to drink a fuck of a lot of it to get buzzed. “Yum,” I choke out and Harry slams his palm on the counter top with a whoop of triumph.
I’m probably being a crap friend by not telling him the truth, but despite the ragged burn scars on his face and the permanent angry scowl plastered to his mouth because of them, Harry is not as tough as he looks.
“Rough night?” he asks, frowning at a spatter of blood on my tattooed right arm. I glance over and noticed some gore stuck to my ghost girl tattoo, the one with the blank eyes and the tiger mask on her forehead.
“You could say that,” I hedge, grabbing a cocktail napkin as Harry fetches me a glass of water. I dip the corner in and then dab my skin clean. “Low-ranking noble with bad manners and a taste for dhampir blood.”
I point at the bandage on my neck, but don’t touch it. If I do, it’ll release another wave of vamp pheromones and I’ll end up on my back on the dirty floor mid-orgasm. Yuck. It feels so violating, to come from an unwanted vampire bite. I hate it.
Now, a willing vampire bite? With my partner fucking me at the same time? Ugh, heaven. Pure heaven. If I had to choose a way to die, that’d be it for sure.
“Looks like she gave you some trouble.” Harry gestures to my head and I reach up, cursing when my fingertips come away stained with blood.
“Just a bit,” I scowl, wiping my fingers off on the napkin. I have a cracked skull and a massive migraine, a random assortment of bruises and scratches, and two fucked-up kneecaps. I need blood—preferably vampire blood—and sex. Maybe I can get both from the same person? Harry serves vamp blood on tap, but holy shit it’s expensive, and I’ve been poor since birth.
My mother did the best she could, but I’ve never had a goddamn cent to my name. The only reason I’m here drinking at all is because Harry gives booze to me for free. Five years ago, right after my mother was murdered and just before I started working for the Verenim Family House, I literally stumbled on Harry getting his throat torn out by another dhampir.
I saved his life and got free alcohol for the rest of mine.
Pretty sweet deal.
Also, Harry’s half-ogre and half-human, so I’m fairly certain he’ll outlive me. Not because ogres generally live longer than vampires, but just because they’re peaceful, hardy, and stay out of trouble. Vamps...they stir shitstorms up for fun.
“Any prospective fucks in here tonight?” I ask and Harry laughs, straightening his white t-shirt and casting a look over my shoulder that says he’s totally scoping out a girl to take home when his co-owner and best friend takes over bar tending duties at noon. We’re on opposite schedules, Harry and me. He ends work at noon and I start it. I like that since it means he’s always around to give me my free drinks.
“There’s a beautiful ogre girl I wouldn’t mind taking home,” he grumbles, and I do my best not to cringe. Ogre girls never want to go home with Harry. Since he’s a half-breed, he’s also about half the size. Half the size. And that includes below the belt, apparently. I’ve never seen for myself, but I have heard from a few disgruntled ogre women. If he would just switch his focus to non-ogre women, they’d be pleasantly surprised instead of bitterly disappointed. “But for you...” He shrugs and shakes his head.
With a sigh, I turn around and survey the room. It’s slim pickins in here this morning. Usually there are a handful of vamps, maybe even a dhampir or two, some humans stupid enough to stumble into a supernatural bar despite the wards sweeping over them and making them feel sick and uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be a deterrent, but eh...sometimes humans are too dense for it to work.
They’re usually left alone unless they cause trouble or if they see something they’re not supposed to see...
“Fuck,” I curse, rolling my eyes and wondering which of the horrid vamp bars I’ll have to drop in on to find a partner. There are dozens in the city, and they’re all equally horrid. Dark, dangerous, reeking of blood. And the cover charge? Holy shit, the cover charge for dhampirs is like so astronomical I’m surprised the Houses haven’t passed a unanimous law to cap them. “Why don’t you give—” I start, about to order a pint of royal vamp blood when the door swings open and a tsunami of power washes over me.
A man walks in, dressed in tall black buckled boots and leather pants covered in pockets. He’s smoking a cigarette with his tattooed hands, a heavy trench coat slung over his broad shoulders. His hair is a layered nightmare of turquoise, blue, and purple, spiked up and styled into a messy faux hawk. And his eyes? Blood-red pools of secrets and pain.
I want to dive into them and drown.
“Holy shit, Harry, cancel that order, my morning entertainment just walked in.”
I turn back to my friend with a grin, chuck the tiny red straw from my drink and down the rest of it with a clinking of ice cubes.
“Him?” Harry asks, giving the vampire a distrustful sort of look. “I’ve never seen him in before.”
“So?” I ask, feeling goose bumps prickle my skin. There’s so much magic surrounding this guy that I can feel it inside of me, hot and bright as the sun. He smells incredible, like sour candy and blood (hey, I’m a dhamp and that metallic shimmer in my nostrils totally gets me off) and the way he moves speaks to me on a primal level.
Old, cocky, living vampire.