by Kat Cotton
He sat on the bed and put his arm around me. He never said mean things, like how I’d spent the last week overeating to compensate for my time in jail. That was what made him so much better than Nic or the mayor.
“I’ll never let them take you again,” he said. “And they aren’t doing experiments on you, either. That pizza really does smell good.”
He grabbed a slice. I loved him and all, but my stomach had totally psyched itself up for eating a whole pizza on my own. Now, it was a whole pizza minus a slice.
Before he put it in his mouth, he turned to me. “You can have it back,” he said.
“I never said a word.”
“Your face did.”
I hadn’t even eaten half of that pizza when Nic came back with the mayor.
“Hand it over, Starr,” Nic said. He tried to sound intimidating, but it took more than a stern voice to get pizza off me.
“No way. You snooze, you lose, vampire. Anyway, I paid for it.”
“Oh, so I’m not allowed to eat something you paid for? How does that work?”
Nic was obviously trying to act cool in front of his buddy, the mayor, with his sarcasm and all. He didn’t understand that I had limited money and no earning potential at the moment. I wasn’t getting paid for this alchemist thing. Francine and the girls did seem to bring in some decent money, at least, so I wouldn’t starve.
I moved the pizza box away from Nic so he couldn’t snatch it from me. He was full of dirty tricks. Still, he came at me, knocking me back on the bed.
“Share the pizza,” he hissed at me.
“No way.”
I had to protect that pizza with my life. It was mine. Not Nic’s.
But that bastard started tickling me. I squealed and kicked out at him. The kick connected but didn’t stop him. With one smooth move, he had me pinned to the bed, and his face came close to mine. Way too close.
He was going to kiss me? Right here? In front of Kisho and the mayor?
I tried to squirm out from under him, but he was too strong for me. My heart pounded. God, he was hot sometimes, but pizza came before lust. And why wasn’t Kisho protecting my honor instead of just laughing at us? More importantly, why wasn’t he protecting my pizza?
Pizza. Where had my pizza gone? I raised my head.
The bloody mayor was sitting at the desk, munching on my pizza. I’d kill him. But before I could do that, Nic licked the pizza grease off my mouth. That was gross and kind of sexy at the same time.
“Mayor,” I muttered, finally getting the word out. Nic turned.
“Bastard,” he hissed.
Nic jumped up and snatched the pizza box off the mayor. Now I had two of them eating my pizza. Three, if you counted Kisho. Damn them all. I’d starve to death.
“Clem, I think you should get ready to go out,” Nic said.
“I’m ready.”
“The mayor wants to take us to a fancy bar.”
It was then that I noticed that both he and the mayor did look rather dapper. How had he convinced the mayor to go out drinking and gotten all fancied up like that in the time it took the pizza to arrive?
“Well, you won’t want pizza grease on your fancy clothes, then,” I said. But it was too late. That pizza was gone. “Also, I don’t think I have anything fancy.”
Nic grabbed my backpack and started plunking clothes out of it.
“Hey, Kisho just tidied that mess up!”
But that didn’t stop Nic.
“You really don’t have any decent clothes, but put on this black skirt and black top. It might look okay in dim lighting. At least decent enough not to embarrass me. You really do dress like a slob most of the time.”
I hated that vampire sometimes.
Chapter 15 Drinking
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT the bar, we were shown to a table. It really was some kind of swanky bar. Thick carpets and lush furniture muffled any noise. No fights, no drunks knocking into you. They played that non-intrusive background music.
I really didn’t feel comfortable here. I wouldn’t be able to speak above a whisper.
We were shown to a booth in the corner with studded leather benches.
“Nice,” I said. “Real fancy.” I ran my hand over the leather.
The mayor consulted with the server.
“Try to go easy,” Nic said to me. “I don’t want to have to carry you back to the hotel.”
As if. I could hold my booze.
“Absinthe,” the mayor said. “This is the best bar for it in Prague. I really want to try it here.”
“Hey, if you’re paying, I’m trying,” I said. “Sounds good to me.”
Nic glared at me. What? Just because it was absinthe didn’t mean I couldn’t handle it. It was probably just green-colored vodka anyway. This city was full of absinthe scams. I’d read that much in the mayor’s travel guides.
The waiter came back to the table. He had this fancy water that he set up on the table with four little taps around it. He then carried a tray to the table and set four glasses of green liquid down. He placed a spoon on top of each glass, ornate silver spoons at that, and on each spoon, he placed a sugar cube.
Water drip, drip, dripped onto the sugar. We sat and watched the drips. Tiny little orbs slowly melting the sugar.
I had no idea what to do next. I assumed someone would tell me. This seemed like an overly complicated system just to get a drink.
“Is that suit from my tailor?” the mayor said to Nic.
“It sure is,” Nic replied. “Thanks for the tip.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have given you his details. That suit looks way too good on you.”
“You look pretty nifty yourself.”
While they chatted, I grabbed Kisho’s hand under the table. At that moment, I felt so happy. Having Kisho’s hand in mine and free booze and not being locked up—that was more than enough for me. Nic could bang on about his tailor as much as he liked. I wouldn’t even say anything snarky about it.
The mayor handed me a glass.
“Bottoms up,” I said, and knocked it back.
“It might be a good idea to sip it, Clementine,” the mayor said.
“Oops.”
Warmth spread through my body. Life really was good. Sure, I had some stuff to worry about, but that could wait until later.
And, hey, at least being arrested by the Council meant a free trip to Prague. I’d been here once before, when I was training, but that had cost me a pretty penny.
I rested my head on Kisho’s shoulder and let life buzz around me.
The mayor handed me another glass.
“Thanks, Mayor,” I said. I tipped my glass at him.
I didn’t know what the mayor had said to Nic, but Nic had the giggles. I guessed he had to pretend to be a bit tipsy or the mayor would get suspicious, but he didn’t have to lay it on like he was a seventeen-year-old girl.
“Nic, thank you so much for coming to rescue me,” I said. “Even if you failed, it was really brave of you, knowing that there’s that ‘kill vampires on sight’ order and all.”
Nic sprawled across the table. “As if I’d let you rot in prison, Clem. You’re like family, and really pretty at times, and… what was I saying?”
Maybe he’d never actually been drunk for reals and had only seen drunks in movies, because that was way over the top. I mean, he’d been a virgin for three hundred years. What had his life been like before he turned, anyway? He never talked about it, so it wasn’t impossible that he’d never been drunk before.
I leaned back in the seat. That was some fancy chandelier, and the lights were so pretty, reflecting rainbow colors over the pressed iron ceiling. I kind of zoned out for a while, watching those lights, but then something Kisho said got my attention.
“And then he called her a siren, or a nymph.”
What the hell? He couldn’t tell them that!
“Kisho!” I slapped him on the leg.
I’d never told Nic that part of our battle with the
Vampire King, and I really didn’t want the mayor hearing it. But Kisho just grinned at me in a cute but crazy way, like a cocker spaniel puppy. Was he drunk? Nic had said vampires couldn’t get drunk, but Kisho was only half-vampire. Still, he had no excuse for blabbing that.
“Sorry, Clem,” he said, ducking his head in that way that was normally so adorable. He could say he was sorry, but he’d be even sorrier. That cute look didn’t work when he’d done something so shitty.
I shuffled along the seat, away from him. Revenge would be mine. “Hey, Nic, I’ve got a great story for you.”
Nic looked at me with that same lopsided grin. “Tell me.”
Was it my imagination, or had Nic and the mayor moved closer to each other? Like, their legs must be touching, they were sitting so close.
“Remember when we were in Tokyo, chasing that kitsune? You wanted to know how we found her, right?”
My grin was pure evil. Nic’s answering smile wasn’t so innocent, either.
“Hell, yeah. There’s a story behind it, isn’t there?”
“I’ll show you.”
I grabbed my phone and scrolled through the photos, but I couldn’t find the one I wanted.
Kisho laughed. “I deleted it.”
I laughed louder. Did he think I was a complete idiot? “I saved it to the Cloud. And why were you going through my phone?”
“Because I knew you’d taken photos of me.”
He tried to snatch my phone, but I twisted away from him. It took longer than I’d expected to find that photo. The absinthe had turned my fingers to sausages and my brain to mash, but nothing would stop me from my mission.
Voila!
I held the camera out to Nic. He needed to see Kisho in that maid outfit. I’d known that photo would come in handy one day.
Nic’s eyes widened. “No way. A maid café? Wow, Kisho, you look smoking.” He laughed. “I need that photo. I want to make it my wallpaper.”
Kisho slumped back, groaning. “He’s going to send it to the pack group email.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “No one reads those mails, anyway. I think everyone blocked them after Nic got crazy obsessed with posting Vlad’s gymnastic videos.”
“I need to see,” the mayor said.
“Nope. This is for my eyes only,” Nic replied.
I still didn’t know what was going on with Nic and the mayor, but the mayor slapped Nic on the arm. Then Nic slapped him back, and the next minute, it’d turned into a full-on slap fight. Nic kept giggling, and the mayor actually growled like a tiger.
I grabbed my phone back and pressed record. Oh yeah, future blackmail material. Nic acted way too drunk. Hell, really too drunk. Like he wasn’t even acting. I mean, that flushed red face couldn’t be fake.
I did a search: “vampires and absinthe”.
Sweet Jesus, we were screwed. Nic was not acting, and it wasn’t the half-vampire thing making Kisho act weird, either. Absinthe really fucked vampires up. Didn’t Nic know that? I’d get no sense out of him tonight. Why hadn’t we stuck to beer? Prague was famous for beer.
Had the mayor known about the absinthe thing? Nic had said the mayor wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but right now, Nic was so plastered, he was a spork.
The slap fight had gotten worse. Nic squealed, and the mayor growled louder. He even did tiger-claw hands.
Before I could think of a way out of this, the waiter came over.
“Our other patrons have complained about the noise. I’m sorry, but we have strict rules about behavior.” He said it all with that snotty waiter face, like we were too low for him to handle.
“We’re just having a little fun,” the mayor said. He tried his “swell guy” grin, but it just ended up making him look even drunker and a little insane.
Then Nic grinned, and even that had lost its charm.
This was priceless. Nic and the mayor so drunk, we were being kicked out of the bar.
I held up my phone up. I so needed a record of this. Luis and Shelley would love it.
“Can you say that again?” I asked. “And make sure you say Nic and the mayor, not Clem Starr, who is the model of decorum.”
The waiter just shook his head. “You have five minutes to vacate the premises.”
Beside me, Kisho gave a loud snore. So much for Nic’s plan.
Chapter 16 Absinthe
“THIS BAR LOOKS OKAY,” Nic said. “Come on. We can’t walk around all night trying to find a place. It’s got mega drinks. Mega drinks!”
The first two bars we’d been in were full of drunken idiots on stag party weekends. The third place had been empty except for two old men who glared at us. We’d left all three of them quick smart, although it’d been hard to drag Nic away.
“I think we should go back to the hotel,” I said.
I didn’t want to say anything, but I had a creepy feeling that someone lurked in the shadows. Maybe I was being overly jumpy, but a drunken Nic and Kisho couldn’t do much to defend themselves. Although if anyone was following us that obviously, they were probably just a pickpocket or a creeper, not from the Council.
As we stumbled along the twisting streets, Kisho tried to slip his hand into mine. I pulled my hand away, then felt bad about it.
“I’m sorry I said that,” he said. “It kind of slipped out.”
Hell, it wasn’t like I’d never said stupid things when I was drinking. I couldn’t stay mad at Kisho forever.
“I’m sorry I showed Nic the photo of you dressed as a maid,” I said. “Well, to be honest, I’m not that sorry about doing it, but I’m sorry if it upset you. You did look really hot, though. I’m never deleting it.”
I put my hand into Kisho’s back pocket. It was nice, being able to feel the curve of his butt. We really should ditch these two losers and get back to the hotel.
“Absinthe, absinthe, we need more absinthe,” Nic sang as he walked along the street.
Then the mayor joined in with him. Damn. I couldn’t leave those two alone. They kept knocking into each other as they walked.
It’d gotten to the point where I couldn’t even be bothered getting my phone out to film them. I had enough footage to blackmail Nic for life.
Finally, we found a bar that looked okay. It wasn’t fancy, but there were no drunken stag partiers. We grabbed a table.
“More absinthe,” Nic said.
“I think we should stick to beer.”
I couldn’t believe I was the one being the voice of reason here. Walking around in the cold air had sobered me quite a bit. Now, I just felt tired.
Nic and the mayor looked at each other and rushed to the bar. I guessed they were adults and could look after themselves, so I called out for them to get me a beer.
God, what were they doing? They had shot glasses, and there were flames. Did anyone over the age of sixteen drink a shot that was on fire? This would not end well. I didn’t need psychic powers to know that.
The mayor tipped water on the flames. “Bottoms up,” he said.
He and Nic chuckled like that was the funniest thing ever. If they didn’t stop, I’d strain my eye muscles from rolling them so hard. Why were they so drunk?
Kisho was napping at the table while I sat here, bored and stuck with those two drunks.
The two of them returned to the table with more bright-green drinks and my beer.
“Thanks,” I said. “Are you sure you should drink more of those things? They look a bit… wrong.”
“Are you my mother?” Nic asked. “Lighten up, Clem Starr. You’re way too uptight.”
They giggled again. This was most definitely like being out with a pair of teenage girls, and I’d hated that even when I was a teenage girl myself.
Nic and the mayor leaned against each other, propping themselves up.
“So, these cuffs,” I said to the mayor. “How exactly do they work?”
“I don’t know the tech-tech-technical details.” The mayor sprawled across the table, almost spilling
my beer. “But they’re real high-tech. The only way to remove them—”
“More drinks!” Nic said.
Damn him. He was too drunk to even remember the plan.
“I’ll get them,” Kisho said, sitting up.
Good on him. He’d hopefully have the sense to get them something non-alcoholic. After his nap, he seemed a bit brighter.
“The only way to remove them—” The mayor stopped and looked at Nic as though seeing him for the first time. “God, you’re beautiful. I mean it. You’re really beautiful. If you were a woman, I’d totally go for you.”
Nic covered his mouth and giggled. Where was the snarky comeback? I was going to give the mayor a lecture on arbitrary gender roles, but I wanted to keep him on track.
“The cuffs?” I prompted. k-1-2
“They’re so great,” the mayor said. “What about you, Clem? You think he’s pretty, right? I mean, he’s a stunning man.”
Then he hiccupped.
“Of course she does, or she’d have never slept with me,” Nic said.
Oh my God. Kill me now. I put my head in my hands. The mayor looked from Nic to Kisho to Nic again.
“Do the two of you share her?” he asked.
Gross. Just gross.
“No, they don’t,” I said. “Sleeping with Nic was—” God, how could I even explain it?
Hopefully, the mayor would forget this by morning. All the secrets were coming out tonight except the one that mattered: how to remove these damn cuffs.
“Your eyes. They are just amazing. And your skin—it glows,” the mayor said. To Nic, not to me.
The mayor needed to lay off the booze. Nic’s eyes weren’t even real. They were colored contacts.
“You have that incredibly suave wavy hair,” Nic said.
I’d vomit soon, and not from drinking. Even though I wanted to stick around to make sure Nic was safe, this was getting to be too much. They’d be singing again, then vomiting in the gutter. There was a limit to how far I’d go for blackmail material, and I sure as hell wouldn’t get any useful information out of the mayor now.
“Want to go back to the hotel?” I asked Kisho.