“I’m glad you think so.”
“Lotsa places are classy,” Dolly said, reaching into a jar on the bar and helping herself to some maraschino cherries, plucking them up with her long (and probably dirty) fingernails. “But they’re fake classy, you know? This seems real classy. You got good wine. Like that stuff.”
She indicated the cut-rate champagne Magnus was holding and pouring into a glass for her. The bottle, like the others in the tub, was certainly nice, but they’d all been filled with fizzed-up cheap wine and cunningly recorked. Vampires could drink quite a lot and could be expensive to have around, and he felt certain she would not be able to tell the difference. He was right. She drained half the glass in the first sip and held it out for a top-up.
“Well, Dolly,” Magnus said, refilling her glass, “I certainly don’t care what you get up to on the street or anywhere else, but I do like my clientele. I consider it a matter of good service to make sure vampires don’t eat them under my roof.”
“I didn’t come here to eat,” she said. “We go down to the Bowery for that. I was told to come down here and ask about you.”
The shoes did bear out the Bowery story. Those downtown streets could be filthy.
“Oh? And who is so kind as to inquire about little me?”
“Nobody,” the girl said.
“Nobody,” Magnus said, “is one of my favorite names.”
This caused the vampire girl to giggle and spin on her stool. She drained off the glass and held it out for more. Magnus refilled it once again.
“My friend . . .”
“Nobody.”
“Nobody, yeah. I just met h—this person, but this person is one of mine, ya know?”
“A vampire.”
“Right. Anyways, they want to tell you something,” she said. “They said you gotta get out of New York.”
“Oh really? And why is that?”
In reply, she giggled and half slid, half fell from the stool and broke into a shuffling and drunken private Charleston to the music that came pounding through the wall.
“See,” she said, as she did her little dance, “things are about to get dangerous. Something about the mundie money and how it’s an omen. See, it’s all going to break, or something. All the money. And when it does, it means that the world is going to end. . . .”
Magnus sighed internally.
The New York Downworld was one of the most ridiculous places he had ever been, which was partly the reason he now spent his time serving illegal alcohol to mundanes. And still, he couldn’t avoid this nonsense. People came to bars to talk, and so did Downworlders. The werewolves were paranoid. The vampires were gossips. Everyone had a story. Something was always about to happen, something big. It was just part of the mood of the time. The mundanes were making absurd amounts of money on Wall Street and spending it on fripperies and moving pictures and booze. These were things Magnus could respect. But the Downworld dealt in half-baked omens and pointless rivalries. Clans were fighting one another for control of small, inconsequential patches of ground. The fey kept to themselves as ever, occasionally snatching the stray human from outside the Central Park Casino and luring them down to their world with the promise of a party they would never forget.
At least a pretty flapper vampire talking nonsense was better than a slobbering drunk werewolf. Magnus nodded as if listening and mentally counted the bottles of brandy and rum in the storage shelves below the bar.
“These mundies, see, they’re trying to raise a demon. . . .”
“Mundanes do that all too frequently,” Magnus said, moving a misplaced bottle of gold rum that had been put in with the spiced. “Right now, they also enjoy sitting on the top of flagpoles and walking on the wings of airborne biplanes. This is the age of stupid hobbies.”
“Well, these mundies mean business.”
“They always mean business, Dolly,” Magnus said. “It always ends messily. I’ve seen enough mundanes splattered on walls to last me—”
Suddenly a bell on the wall started ringing feverishly. This was followed by a loud, deep call from the main room.
“RAID!”
This was followed by a lot of screaming.
“Excuse me a moment,” Magnus said. He set the bottle of cheap champagne on the bar and indicated that Dolly should help herself, as he was sure she would even without permission. He went back through into the main bar, where an atmosphere of general madness had taken over. The band didn’t pack up, but they had stopped playing. Some people were gulping back drinks, others running for the door, still others crying and panicking.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” he called. “Please simply set your drinks on the tables. All will be well. Remain seated.”
Magnus had enough regulars now that there was somewhat of an established routine. These people were sitting down and cheerfully lighting cigarettes, barely turning to look at the axes that were already picking their way through the door.