SEVEN
“Seriously? If this is some kind of weird joke, I’m never going to let myself forget it.”
Delaney’s time with Augusten had come to an end shortly after her agreement that she would do what it was he was asking from her. It was like whatever magical tie that had made things seem so effortless in the conversation between two people from such drastically different walks of life had already begun to dissolve now that things had been decided.
She could feel it, and when she looked at Augusten, she was sure that he felt the same thing: it was the need to be away from each other. She had stayed only long enough to take down the information on where she should be going to begin the agreed-upon adventure and had then left with a sigh of relief and a promise to return when she had something interesting to tell.
She had gone home with a check in her hands, something she never in her life would have expected to happen. Even when he told her he was going to compensate her for her time, it hadn’t crossed her mind that she would be leaving his sprawling, falling down home with a check tucked into her purse. Fifteen hundred dollars.
He had written her a check for fifteen hundred dollars, and when she’d protested that it was far too much money, he’d told her not to under value herself. It had been that simple for him. “Don’t under value yourself, and take the check like a good little girl.”
And of course, that was exactly what she had done. It had made her uncomfortable, there was no doubt about that, and for a moment she had wanted to call the whole thing off. She felt like she was being bought, which was the last thing she wanted.
But she was also a pretty practical girl, and she was a practical girl without any kind of job and bills that still needed paying. That money would go a long way toward paying them and so she’d taken it and driven back to her apartment with a head full of questions.
She’d fallen into a fitful sleep almost immediately upon walking through her front door and not woken up until it had already begun to get dark outside. The sky going black was like some sort of alarm for her and she sat up with a start and a racing feeling in her chest. In her mind’s eye, she saw the name of the club she was supposed to go to flashing on and off like a neon sign: The Blood. She got up and got dressed, hoping against hope that she didn’t look too terribly out of place for a vampire club with a name like that.
Then again, how the hell was she supposed to know? It wasn’t like she’d ever been to a place like that before. It wasn’t like she knew what she was supposed to wear the first time she saw actual vampires. And it didn’t exactly help that she was so nervous she felt like she might just throw up all over herself.
The nerves were so intense that she was far more scatter-brained than was typical for her, which is why it didn’t cross her mind until she was standing in front of the club that this whole thing might be some kind of bizarre prank. Maybe that was the real adventure. Maybe what Augusten Grady really wanted was to see if he could manipulate the people around him to do whatever strange thing he chose.
“What am I doing?” she asked herself in a harsh whisper. “I must be out of my mind.”
She might have just turned on her heel and left right then and there if it hadn’t been for the door guy. She thought about that a lot later on, when she had experienced the full effect of what her choice would mean for her. She thought about what things would have been like if she’d just gone home and called the whole thing off.
She could have returned the check and offered a sheepish apology, then gone about her life the way that most other people did. She would have found another job and then gone about the business of trying to forget the exciting life she had almost chosen to lead. She really might have done just that thing, if it hadn’t been for the door guy calling out to her and roping her in.
“Hey there, sweetheart, you feeling a little lost?”
“Who, me?”
“Of course, you.” The guy gave an easy laugh, tossing the hair out of his face in an easy, careless gesture. “You see anyone else just standing in the parking lot?”
“Is this what you call a parking lot? Because it looks a lot like a field to me.”
“Ha! That’s good, I like that. You’re a feisty girl, ain’t ya? You know I thought that straight away? Right when I saw you?”
“Did you now? That’s very observant of you.”
The guy laughed again and, without making an actual decision to do so, Delaney took a few slow steps forward. Was it her imagination running away from her, or were his incisor teeth just a little bit too long to belong to a normal human being? And his skin, that looked a little off, too. He looked like he belonged in the movies, maybe as one of those really small roles that got killed off too early for a person to get attached to but whose good looks still made him noticeable.
He was sort of staring at her, too, a carnivorous, predatory look on his face. His eyes gleamed with a merriment that struck her as somehow malicious and it made her wish she hadn’t stepped even one step closer to him. If this was the kind of guy she was going to if she be dealing with if she stepped through The Blood’s front door, she might be better off forgetting the whole thing. Even as she thought this, however, the guy laughed again, a sound that managed to be both harsh and melodic at the same time.
“Am I scaring you, darling? I’m sorry about that. Just say something, put me in my place, you know? You wouldn’t be the first one to do it. I tend to piss people off, that’s for sure. That’s the effect I have on the women I meet. Freaks them out something fierce.”
“You don’t say?”
“I do say. And now why don’t you do some talking of your own?”
“What do you want me to talk about? I don’t really have anything to say. Nothing that’ll be interesting to you, I don’t think.”
“You’d be surprised, sugar. I spend a hell of a lot of time sitting out here on this damned stool. You could say I’m always on the lookout for entertainment.”
“I’m sure, but I really don’t have anything entertaining to offer. I’m just checking the place out.”
“You are, aren’t you? I can see that. Yes, I can, I can see that. Nothing wrong with it, either, although I’d love to hear how you heard about us.”
“Huh?”
“Aw, come on now. Don’t get shy with me. Not just when we were starting to have fun. How’d you figure on this place for killing your Saturday night?”
“I don’t know, I just did. There wasn’t really any planning involved. Just thought I’d check it out.”
“Is that right? Can’t say I get that response a lot.”
“Really? Well, as long as we’re confessing things, I can’t say I’ve ever had a bouncer ask me these kinds of questions.”
“I don’t, at least not usually I don’t.”
“Then how come you’re asking me?”
“Because. You don’t look like most of the girls who come around here. You don’t look like most of the folks who come around here, period. You look a little too... wholesome.”
Crap. Crap! She knew she wasn’t going to be dressed right! No matter what she put on, what makeup she put on or attitude she tried to adopt, she knew she wasn’t going to look right to fit into a vampire club. Despite the extreme interest she’d always had in that sort of thing, she hadn’t ever been friends with the kinds of people she knew of that shared those interests.
She didn’t feel like she had anything in common with them, whether it seemed like it on the surface or not. She didn’t know where she fit, but it wasn’t with them. If she’d had any confusion about that, it was very clear to her now.
“Come on, I wasn’t trying to hurt your feelings or nothing. Nobody said wholesome was a bad thing, right?”
“Sure. Right.”
“I’m sure you’ll be plenty popular with the regulars. No need to worry your pretty head about that.”
“Thanks, that’s... sweet.”
“So, you gonna come inside or what? Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying the company, but I don’t think it’s quite the experience you’re looking for. Know what I mean?”
“Sure, I guess. Look, I don’t think I’m gonna come in.”
“Shit, you’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking. Pulling my leg or something like that.”
“No, I don’t think I am. Maybe some other time. I just realized I’ve got to get up early for something in the morning. Totally forgot about it.”
“I’m guessing that’s a bunch of bullshit, but that’s just me. Hey, if you ain’t ready, you ain’t ready. I’ll tell you though, whenever you decide you’re ready for it, you should come on back and see us. It’s the kind of place you don’t find just anywhere.”
“I’m sure.”
“And if you’ve heard rumors of any establishments like ours, with reputations for our kind frequenting them, don’t believe it. This is the best you’re going to find, I can swear to you on that one. And you don’t have to worry. We don’t bite. Not unless you want us to, that is.”
“Cool. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She turned and walked in the opposite direction as quickly as she could with her hands shoved deep into her pockets. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage and for some reason, she was sure the guy sitting at the door could hear it. The idea of it gave her goose bumps and she did her best to increase her speed. She had been so sure she could do it, that she could just waltz into this club and act like she owned the place.
When Augusten Grady had spoken to her of adventure, she’d had no doubt in her mind that it was something she could handle. When she’d left his house with that check in her purse, she’d been so sure that she was up for anything, which was what she’d led the strange and famous man to believe.
But now? Now she felt something else mingled in with her excitement and determination. Now she felt a healthy dose of fear, which was something she should probably have felt before she’d ever gotten into her car. This wasn’t something to play around with. This was real. She had already believed that before showing up at The Blood, but she knew it now in a whole other way. She knew it now because she had seen it.
That bouncer, he hadn’t been like her. Even as the rational part of her brain told her that wasn’t possible, the part of her that ran purely on instinct knew she was right. Her hands shook so badly that she could hardly get her key into the ignition, let alone turn it so she could drive away. Once she got that done, it took a whole lot of effort on her part not to peel out and leave gravel kicking up in her wake. It wasn’t until she was back behind the surprisingly large building that she stopped the car. She stopped it so abruptly that it threw her head forward, then put the car in park and left in running.
“What the hell am I doing?”
This was exactly what she had been waiting for. This kind of break, this kind of chance, was the thing she’d been looking for all her life. What would she be if she ran away? Where would that leave her?
“I’d be just like him,” she whispered to herself with a throat that felt like it was closing up. “I would be exactly like him.”
That idea managed to be more terrifying than walking into a building with a bunch of vampires. From the outside, it looked like Augusten Grady was a reasonably happy guy. She hoped he was, for his sake. But he was also a guy who had chosen to almost entirely remove himself from the world at large, choosing instead to invent worlds of his own. They were good worlds, too, but they weren’t real. He lived in a house made of fantasy, and that wasn’t something she was interested in doing.
He had spoken to her about adventures, and when he’d done that he’d had a wistful tone in his voice and eyes slightly glassed over with something she couldn’t see. A man who spent most of his waking hours coming up with adventure and never lived a lick of it himself. Delaney just knew that if she drove away from The Blood, it wouldn’t only be the money she would be giving up.
She would also be giving up her opportunity to live her adventures out in real time instead of only in her thoughts. Although she couldn’t be sure, she had a suspicion that each time a person let fear win out of desire for action, it got a little bit easier to do it again the next time. If you made that kind of choice enough times, eventually it was the only kind of choice you knew how to make. She wasn’t willing to choose that for herself. Not now. Not yet. She was going to choose her adventure, whether it was scary or not.
She got out of the car, careful to shut the door as quietly as possible. What she definitely didn’t want was for the bouncer to hear something suspicious and come looking to see what it was. She waited for a moment, her whole body pumping with adrenaline and ready to fling herself back into the car should anything appear to be out of the ordinary. When she heard nothing that made her think someone was coming for her, she walked quietly towards the unassuming looking building that housed the club called The Blood.
It really was a massive building, one that looked like it had been a warehouse in its previous life. From inside its depths, she could hear the thumping of base and the distinct sound of people trying to speak over the music. It sounded like any other club she might have stumbled upon in Austin.
She had actually seen clubs touting themselves as “vampire clubs” in the city, more and more of them popping up seemingly every day, but she’d never considered that they might actually be legitimate. Now she had to wonder if they weren’t all real, something that kind of blew her mind.
“Where? There’s got to be a way in…”
She had begun to talk to herself with alarming frequency at this point, but she hardly even noticed. She was too intent on finding a way inside. She had no interest in going through the front door. Even if she hadn’t wanted the element of surprise on her side, just in case there was something terrible and dangerous waiting for her inside, she would have gone through the back.
No way in hell did she want to talk to that door guy again, not after how strange that first conversation had been. She just couldn’t imagine the kind of things he’d say if he saw her strolling back up to him again. No thank you to that. No, she’d take her chances sneaking around in the back, looking for some alternative way in and maybe a little bit of luck. She was sure she wasn’t going to find either, but it didn’t hurt to look.
After a surprisingly short amount of time, she found her way in. It came in the form of a metal door partially obscured by a large black dumpster full to the brim and spilling out some of its vile contents. She slid herself between the dumpster and the muted red brick of the club’s exterior, sure the door would be locked before ever putting her hand on the knob.
She was so sure, in fact, that she tugged with more force than was actually needed, which sent her stumbling backwards and into the dumpster, knocking some of the trash loose to rain down on top of her.
“Gross!” she hissed, swatting at the debris with a look of disgust on her face. It took her a full minute to realize that the door was still open and waiting or her to enter. For the second time, she looked around her, sure that someone must be watching her every move. When she found nobody there, she stepped inside. She looked over her shoulder, affording one long glance at the place where her car still sat, waiting for her to drive away. Then, without giving herself time to reconsider, she shut the door and entered her alternate world.