Alice

She froze and tried not to let her mind race. This was her coffee shop. She had let all these people get drunk and now they were panicking. Women were screaming. Thank goddess it was late and there were no children here anymore. Because, it looked like they all might die tonight.

In the darkness, she felt Drew’s arms around her. “It’s gonna be OK, babe. All the Sisters are here, plus you have me and the priestess. We can handle these guys.”

She tried to breathe in and out slowly. “Are you telling me they’re really vampires?”

She must have said it a little too loudly, because Jordan was right in front of her, still on the mic.

He was laughing maniacally. “Why yes, Virginia, vampires are real, and they are right here in Birchdale, if you can believe it. We’d like to give a special thanks to our boss, Alice, for giving us a chance and for making us feel truly welcome and special. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give our hostess a round of applause for having just the best instincts for hiring new people. Come on, give it up!”

Alice reached down and grabbed her wand, but as soon as she touched it, it clattered to the floor. In fact, she was having trouble feeling her hands at all.

“Bad news, Drew,” she said. “I think all the Sisters and the priests and you have all been poisoned. I can’t reach my wand. I can’t summon anything; my brain is just … so tired.”

And then there was screaming.

“They’ve started feeding,” Drew said. “I have to do something.”

“How is this possible? They weren’t even nocturnal. They worked morning shifts, day shifts…”

Jordan interrupted her again. He really did have bat hearing like a vampire. “Sweetie, don’t sweat the details, but if you really want to know, ask yourself if you ever saw us coming and going out the front door.”

Alice thought. No, she had not ever seen them using the front door during the daytime. “Which means…”

Jordan laughed again. “Which means…” And then he continued in a fake, over-the-top stage whisper, “Thanks for leaving the tunnels open. This really could not have worked out any better.”

“That’s enough,” said Drew, pulling Alice away from the stage and weaving through the crowd, his arms around her protectively.”

He spoke as he walked, seemingly about the history of the Les Paul guitar. Alice didn’t understand a single word.

“What are you doing?”

“Echo-locating. Everyone has their own vibration. I’m helping you look for the Sisters, as I appear to be the only person here not totally sapped of energy.”

Alice’s knees were wobbly and she giggled. “You’re telling me you don’t sleep upside down or grow wings, but you can echo-locate? That’s convenient.”

“Not helping,” he said.

Then Alice heard a very specific scream. It was coming from Birdie.

“Drew, they’re after the Sisters! I think they planned this so they could get to us. I think they’ve been watching you and they think we can give them more power by feeding on us.”

Drew growled. “You’re right. And they had to poison you and lock you indoors so you couldn’t overpower them. Cowards.”

Alice was starting to hyperventilate. “What are we going to do? Birdie!”

Just then, some light came back on. But it wasn’t electrical power.

It was a set of glowing eyes, and they were coming from the back of the room. It was an eerie blue light. And then the two eyes started to rise. Someone was using some extremely deep magic and now that someone was levitating.

After about a minute of everyone falling silent and watching this incredible sight, Alice realized she recognized the shape of those eyes.

“Morgan!”

Yes, it was Morgan, and she was about seven feet off the ground. The blue glow was actually the whites of her eyes, as they had rolled back in her head. She was chanting. It wasn’t anything Latin that Alice knew from the average grimoire. This was older than Latin. Despite the poison in the smoothie making her feel floppy from her scalp to her toes, Alice knew these new vampire assholes had messed with the wrong crowd.

“Yeah, bitch! You don’t mess with the pregnant lady. She’s not about to drink what you’re selling, but she is about to fuck you up!” Birdie’s speech was pretty slurred, but it made everyone cheer. Although Alice had to admit she was a little scared of Morgan at the moment.

And then Morgan lifted her arms, and there was a crackle, and something leaped off the tips of her fingers and landed on Alice and in several other spots in the crowd. The Sisters and Magda, their powers restored, took out their wands and in seconds, blasted the vampires. The one that had begun feeding off of Birdie stumbled backward. But then all of the bloodsuckers regained their footing and started grabbing more people to feed off of indiscriminately.

“Why isn’t this working?” Birdie grabbed her wand now that the vampire was off of her. Then Alice realized she had dropped hers on the floor by the stage.

She turned around and lunged for it, but it was too late.

“Oh shit.”