passed the group. A few called out their ‘hey’ of
disapproval, but Nick ignored them. He knew the owners
after all and never had to wait at the door.
Two women stood together. A pretty blond and
even prettier brunette stood in their short leather
jackets. Black nylons under short skirts leading to their
high heels were not the best idea for a wait in winter. The
girls noticed his glance and smiled at him. Taking pity on
them and deciding that he would like some company
tonight, Nick gestured for the two to follow. At the stairway, Nick held up his hand to the girls
and kept moving until he leaped up using the top of the
rail to finish propelling him up and over onto the concrete
landing. The bouncers merely raised their eyebrows at his
audacity. “Do me a favor and let my friends down there in
for me, Brian.”
The big bouncer tried to look menacing as he
lowered his voice threateningly. “Don’t call me, Brian.
You know I go by Hawk when I’m bouncing here.”
With a sharp laugh, Nick retorted, “Hawk? Maybe
an ox or bear, I don’t know about some little bird for a
nickname. You’re kind of selling yourself short, aren’t
you?”
Scrubbing his face with a growled groan, the
bouncer finished by pointing to the two girls and
gestured for them to come up. Several voices raised in
protest. “Knock it off or you can go home!” the big man
shouted them down angrily. He turned a warm smile on the two girls as they climbed the stairs noting how pretty
they were. “Ladies,” he nodded appreciatively.
Nick nodded to the second man holding the door
open for the women. “Brad,” he acknowledged the man.
“You know you two make killer B’s right?”
The second man, almost as big as Hawk, joined
his partner in a groan. Brad had some sort of nickname
also, Nick thought as he passed the man, but like Hawk’s
it escaped him. The second bouncer didn’t bother to
correct him before the three were inside and quickly
enveloped by the sounds and sights within the club.
Leading the girls to the bar, Nick bought a round
before finding an open table. The bouncers weren’t being
exclusive by keeping the line waiting. There were few
tables open and the dance floor was crowded with
undulating dancers moving to the beats thrown out by
the dj in his box. Most of the tables surrounded the dance floor
from an area raised by a half dozen stairs. Two bars on
either side of the building kept up a steady business as
the partiers lined up for their drinks. A kitchen served
from the bar left of the doors, while the one to the right
was mainly a wet bar.
The girls were flirting with him even as they eyed
the dance floor. These were the type of girls to dance the
night away. It was an admirable goal, especially
considering their high heels that Nick figured had to be
relatively uncomfortable. They coaxed him out to dance.
The girls were good, not just your typical sorority girls
shifting weight, but near professional choreography. Nick
knew some steps but was definitely out of his league
with these two. The girls didn’t seem to care. They
laughed and urged him to try some of their fancier steps.
Several songs later they retreated to their drinks.
“You’re not too bad, Nick,” the brunette,
Michelle, said with a smile. “Yes, you kept up pretty well,” Alicia, the blond
added.
Chuckling and knowing they were being nice,
Nick replied, “Well, you’re being kind, but I can tell you
two are quite a bit better than me.”
Michelle reached over to ruffle his hair as she
cooed, “Aw, you’re not that bad. It’s like you’ve been
dancing for years. Alicia and I used to take classes
though and now we teach.”
“Ah, so you are professionals. Now I don’t feel so
bad, since I know you’re ringers.”
The girls laughed. Nick’s eyes wandered to the
far side of the bar, not for the first time. Marek and his
clan were usually around somewhere. In fact, his senses
told him at least a few vampires were nearby. For
Nicholas, finding vampires was as easy for him as a
compass pointing north. Such instincts made him good at
finding strays as well as those he knew. “Nicky! Are you trying to make me jealous?” a
familiar voice spoke from behind him even as cold fingers
found his back sliding up to his shoulder and then played
with his hair trailing above his neck. His new friends’
eyes turned to the girl attached to the voice looking
nearly jealous themselves. They also looked to him like
they feared he was playing them.
Turning on his stool to face the woman, who was
the second of the day to think he made a good ‘Nicky’, he
greeted the blond with her gray piercing eyes, “Hello,
Nicola, I see you’re looking well.”
“Well, I try not to change, you know,” the
vampiress stated it like an inside joke. The two humans
could not know that Nick had known her for nearly eighty
years. She was a later convert by Marek. Her beauty had
drawn him in and the vampire could not help himself.
Nick had not been as involved with Marek and
his clan at that time. Vivian had still held onto him at that
point. “These are my new friends, Michelle and Alicia.
Ladies, this is Nicola, an old friend.”
The vampire sighed loud enough to be heard over
the music. Her hands moved to his arm drawing his hand
towards her mouth. “Only because you wouldn’t let me be
more,” Nicola stated seductively. Feigning a kiss of his
hand, the vampire actually bit into the flesh between
thumb and forefinger. The woman was a flirt and even
worse with men. Nearly eight decades as a vampire had
barely tempered such characteristics. If not for Marek
and Nick’s guidance, the woman would probably have
been put down for her appetites.
After two quick draws of his blood, Nicola looked
to the man’s face. “Mmmm, you still taste good,” she
managed to smile without any blood showing in her
teeth. The other two women looked disgusted at her
antics and they had missed that she drew blood. They
leaned to whisper to each other. Nicola’s eyes narrowed
slightly as her keen ears caught their words. Nick’s hearing wasn’t that of a vampire, but he
could tell that the words weren’t kind. He squeezed her
hand drawing her eyes back to him and gently shook his
head.
“Marek’s not here yet, Nicky, if you were looking
for him,” she stated the fact leaving out the words of
what he might be up to this late at night. Nighttime was a
vampire’s day. They made the most of the time they had
out of the light that burned them as they had become.
Many nights Marek and his clan patrolled their territory.
They weren’t the only vampires in the world and probably
> not even in the city. Troublemakers needed to be dealt
with swiftly. Marek and his people took the defense of
their territory and their secret lives very seriously.
“Will you let me know when he arrives?” He felt
the gaze of his new friends as Nicola began to withdraw.
The vampire’s mood seemed to cool as she became more
businesslike. Returning his attention back to his guests,
Nick tried to let the situation fade away. “Well, your friend’s quite… interesting,” Alicia
commented to Michelle’s nod.
“She’s part owner here,” Nick admitted causing
the girls’ faces to show surprise. “You just have to let her
get it out of her system sometimes. Anyway, are you
ladies ready to dance some more?”
Diverting their attention back to the dance floor,
the three returned to the activity and soon the ladies’
moods returned to what they were before Nicola’s
interruption. Nick’s attention, however, never fully left
the vampiress or the door that might see Marek’s return.
Knowing the vampire, they would probably use a less
obvious entrance, but the man could only watch what he
could see. His extra sense that could find vampires was
more likely to be the one that noticed the man’s return
anyway.
An hour later, he felt them. Nicola’s signaling to
him came soon afterward. Begging his partners’
forgiveness, Nick tried to excuse himself away. “Sorry, ladies, my friend has returned. We need to talk business
for awhile.”
Raising a brow curiously, the dark haired
Michelle asked, “Are you part owner here also?”
Nick let a slight smile touch his lips as he
replied, “In a way.
“Well, until we meet again. I have your numbers
after all.” He kissed first one then the other.
Blushing slightly, Alicia responded, “And we have
yours, Nick. Thanks for the nice night.”
Michelle nodded looking equally flush and
holding the slip of paper with his number on it up for
proof.
With a last nod of his head and a smile, the man
moved off to find Marek. The back room was considered a V.I.P. area.
Simple red drapes barred the general public’s view and
bouncers manned those outside. On the other side of that
room, however, was another doorway obscured by more
drapes. Mirrors and pictures lined the walls all around
them, the seating was intimate and could probably have
been enough for their conversation, but they moved
through the second door.
“Hello, my friend,” Marek greeted him from a
plush couch. His second in command, Jake, a dark haired
man with shadowy brown eyes, when they weren’t white
from using his vampire powers, sat beside him with a
glass filled with what appeared to be red wine.
Around the room still dressed in their jackets,
the other two men from the scouting party, Marcus, a
thin black man with a shaved head and sporting a
goatee, and Edgar, a slightly shorter though stockier man
of Hispanic origin. Both had glasses similar to Jake’s.
Nicola sat on Marek’s other side. Despite her flirting, the woman was Marek’s on again, off again girlfriend and
one of his confidantes.
“Two nights in a row? Should I assume that you
missed me or have you simply come back for more
business?” the vampire asked with a smile.
The others smiled at the joke. Despite their many
years of alliance, their relationship had always been sixty
percent business. Give or take. “How could I not miss you
and yours? A cold winter makes friends want to get
together after so many days indoors.”
Marek snorted derisively. “I wouldn’t know about
the cold days. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the
sun.”
Shrugging, Nick admitted, “Winter in Chicago,
there hasn’t been much sun to look at for the last few
months truthfully. You haven’t missed much lately
anyway.”
The vampires all chuckled at that. “I would also think that you haven’t spent nearly
every cold day inside either,” Marek added. “You tend to
patrol as often as we do. How often do you find strays I
wonder? I think that you’re better at finding them than
we are. I’ve always wondered at that. Do you have some
sixth sense for finding vampires?”
“My senses are hardly what yours are, I’m sure,”
the man replied vaguely. It wasn’t the first time that
Marek or one of his clan had asked the question. He
never told them a full lie about it. Having a sixth sense, or
whatever, for his kind was both accurate and hard to put
into exact words. It was also part of the mystery that
could help keep their group in check. They didn’t know
the range or true ability of his senses. That kept them
more honest.
The vampires all gave him a look that said they
knew he was avoiding a direct answer, but they had all
known each other for a long time. Nick was a man that
tended to keep his own counsel and kept such secrets to himself, even Vivian had never dragged the truth of his
full ability from him. She had her own secrets from him,
of course, so he didn’t feel bad about it.
“So what exactly brings you out on such a cold
night, my friend?” Marek asked getting right to the point
since Nick was obviously not going to give him a straight
answer.
“I had a vision. I believe that we may have a pack
of werewolves in the nearby area,” he stated it simply,
but the vampires all seemed surprised that he would
reveal what seemed like a typical secret that he might
keep to himself. Nick knew revealing that he might have
visions could seem like a personal thing to keep to
himself, but he wasn’t revealing all he had seen after all.
“Your clan may find evidence of them around soon.
There’s the possibility that you may even run into them. I
figured that I should warn you.” The five all became agitated and quick words
were exchanged between them. Nick waited for their
attention to inevitably return to him as the messenger.
Marek looked contemplative and that moment
led to Nicola speaking to him first. “You say it was a
dream? It couldn’t have just been a normal dream?”
Shaking his head, Nick explained, “I rarely sleep
and more rarely dream. This was a vision. It was too clear
and I could tell that it was more.”
“Did your vision give you a clue as to where they
might be?” Jake asked as Marek calmly let his people
speak. The questions were probably in the clan leader’s
mind as well.
“Just woods or a forest. It was vivid, but I didn’t
recognize any landmarks. I’ve begun researching the net
looking for any sightings of wolves in the area. So far it’s
mostly claims of coyotes, but it’s one thing for a ranger to make a statement based off of prints as opposed to some
family on a picnic that
sees movement in the forest.”
Jake added, “The humans see what they think
they should see. Most aren’t ready to see monsters. It’s
part of how vampires have only been portrayed as fiction
rather than reality.
“If they’re told that coyotes may be moving back
into the area, then that’s what they’ll believe first. Do you
plan to check out every story? Werewolves aren’t likely to
be bound just by a hunting territory. They are human as
well. I doubt that they will be found living in the woods.”
Nick shrugged. “I was thinking of following up on
the most likely reports. The ones involving forest rangers
should be most accurate. Once I find a likely area, then I
suppose I just have to stake out the area on a full moon?”
The vampires laughed at that. Marek explained
why as he said, “You don’t think they run around just on a
full moon, do you? Young werewolves may be bound to the cycles of the moon, but older ones learn to change
when they want. It’s why vampires can’t just hunt them
out when they would be in human form for twenty-seven
days. They are not that vulnerable.”
Seeing Nick’s surprise at their supposed
knowledge of werewolves, Nicola added, “We had a run
in with a pack a few decades ago and learned a lot. We
had seen the old movies. A few maybe even read horror
books, though I won’t name names,” her eyes glanced to
Marek. “Anyway, we found out that they could change
form by day and any night. Full moons are simply a night
they can’t control themselves.
“If you planned to stake out a full moon, you
might very well find them returning to the area, but they
are as intelligent as any human in either form. Well,
except the moon madness times, and then they still
retain at least some control. That means they could
realize they’ve been too obvious or noticed and then they
could change their haunts.” Nick leaned back into the couch in thought.
Being reminded that these weren’t just monsters was a
reason for coming. He had been thinking of the creatures
as just beasts, but still he had little more to go on for
finding a pack. If they didn’t have at least some of the
instincts and habits of the wolves they became, the voran
was going to have a near impossible time of finding them.
The Emperor’s Shadow War
Chapter 1
The High King: A Tale of Alus Page 54