She turned away from him, toward the source of all the sound. The blood brothel was grander and more garish than the other buildings in town, painted a deep, obvious red.
“Vampire blood’s the only true cure for addiction. The sheriff won’t consider any evidence I find against the Fairfields without Nigel’s approval, and Nigel won’t take me serious if I don’t get sober, not after what happened last time I accused a man of being a cannibal.” They tethered their horses at the watering post in front of the saloon and crossed the street to the brothel. “Since Big Fish won’t help me, I have no other choice than to go through with this. Besides, I don’t think I can face Lavina and Hubbard again without a drink. I need them at the ball. Only way to get evidence of their crimes is to get as close to them as possible.”
Human women, naked from the waist up, with pale anemic skin and gaunt features, slumped against the balcony on the second floor, their heads hanging like dying tulips. Alistair pulled his hat over his face to shield his view, but Westie looked anyway. There was no life left in their eyes, and yet they lived. Vampires knew how to drain just enough blood to keep from killing. The women’s faces were slack, their lips parted, too wasted away to call to folks who walked by.
Westie shook her head, wondering why anyone would subject themselves to being drained of their blood until they were nothing more than shriveled slugs. Rumor had it that the venom vampires injected from their fangs before opening a vein was intoxicating, but so was whiskey, and she preferred the latter.
Two vampire guards stood at the front doors of the brothel, blocking their way.
“We’d like admittance. We have money.” Westie pulled out a sack of coins from the pocket of her duster and let them jingle.
“All our girls are busy now,” a big vamp with a lazy eye said.
“I just saw them.” Westie looked up, but the girls she’d seen before were gone.
“We don’t cater to friends of the mayor.” The smaller, stocky vamp whistled through missing teeth. Without them his fangs looked far too long for his mouth.
Westie made a sour face. “We’re not friends with the mayor, and we’re not here for any of your half-dead skinny girls either. I’m here to see Costin.”
“Every bloody human girl is here to see Costin. He’s busy, now go away.”
Alistair reached for Westie’s hand. She pushed him away and grabbed the big vamp by the throat with her machine, sending him to his knees. Alistair’s six-shooters were in the smaller vamp’s face before Westie had time to blink.
“Now that I have your attention, I’d like to see Costin, if you please,” she said, trying to mimic Isabelle’s society politeness.
Costin’s voice drifted out the brothel doors to find his guards. “Let her in,” he said. “The boy stays out.”
“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said.
Westie released the big vamp and watched him cough and shrink into a ball on the ground. Alistair put his guns back in their holsters and grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. He shook his head at her, his brows drawn, eyes pleading.
“I’ll be fine,” she said.
She stepped over the big vamp. He looked up at her and hissed. Alistair tried to enter the building with her, but a group of guards emerged from the building and formed a wall to block his way.
“Wait for me by the horses.” Westie was pulled into the building, and the doors shut behind her before she could get out another word.
She was pushed into the center of the room by the guards. The overwhelming scent of perfume went straight to her head and made the spot just above her left eye throb.
Heavy black tapestries embellished with gold tassels hung at the windows. The walls were covered with black-and-white floral-patterned wallpaper, and the floors were blanketed in lush red carpet. To her right was the bar. It was well stocked with bottles of both whiskey and blood.
It looked much like any other high-end gentlemen’s club except for the soiled doves—as wives liked to call the human women working for the vamps—sitting around tables waiting for either their next customer or their next fix. And then, of course, there was the rumpus of fornication coming from the curtained partitions upstairs and the swings hanging from the ceiling.
“Come,” she heard Costin say.
She followed his voice to a dark corner of the enormous room, blinking to adapt her vision to her hazy surroundings. Costin was slumped in an oversize chair like a heartbroken king, hair pooling around his shoulders. He had beautifully long limbs and perfect symmetry. She thought about him helping her home from the Tight Ship, his hands on her stomach, his cool lips on hers when they kissed, and started to feel giddy with nervousness.