Bite Marks (Neon Immortals)

1. Vi

vi

. . .

“How many interviews are you going to flunk before you just take the fucking job?” Kaylee asked as she popped a coffee pod into the machine. With the press of a French-manicured finger, it groaned to life. The smell of the beans like a siren song to my undercaffeinated soul.

Sleep had been avoiding me like an ex at a mutual friend’s wedding ever since I lost my job eight months ago. The insomnia only got worse when I had to choose between rent and my mom’s medical bills and ended up crashing on Kaylee’s couch in her tiny one-bedroom walk-up.

We made it work, but I knew that both of us were eager to have our own spaces again.

“Dunno,” I muttered, scrolling through Monstra—the country’s leading job-finding website—for what had to be the millionth time in the last several months.

Position after position sailed past. Half of them were fucking scams in the first place and the other half… I was either over or underqualified for. Annoying didn’t even begin to cover my feelings.

Irate was probably closer, but naming the emotion didn’t make it go away. If anything it only made me more annoyed that I had to spend any time thinking about it at all.

It felt like we had this entirely unhelpful conversation every. Single. Day. “And I’m not flunking them, Kaylee. The job market is competitive as fuck right now?—”

“ Annnnd you still think you’re too good to work at a sex club,” she replied with a heavy roll of her green eyes. “Heard, Vi.”

“That’s not true,” I argued as my computer froze on an ad for a job I’d applied for ten times in the last six months.

Ten. Times.

I swore to God half of these companies were advertising and they didn’t even need anybody, which made exactly zero sense. Wasn’t looking at resumes they didn’t need just a huge waste of time for their HR department?

Realistically, it was hard to feel too good for anything while crashing on my best friend’s sofa with my entire life’s worth of stuff collecting dust in a storage unit I could barely afford.

Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I’d been looking for a job for a long time. If I didn’t find something soon, sacrifices were gonna need to be made.

It wasn’t the first time Kaylee and I’d been roommates—that credit went to our time in the college dorms and the creaky, semi-mouldy old house we’d rented with half a dozen other girls after. But, unlike when we’d been fresh-faced juniors, this time—tragically—I didn’t have my own room.

Fucking. Brutal.

I was trying real fucking hard not to let her bottomless generosity feel like a backslide. A task made continually more difficult the more my back ached from the pullout, or whenever she floated the idea of me coming to work with her at O again .

Never mind that Kaylee herself only started working at the place, a glorified orgy bar dressed in burlesque speakeasy’s clothing, because she hadn’t managed to score any roles while auditioning for musicals in the Upper City.

Nostalgia for my years bartending to pay my way through school be damned, I wasn’t interested.

I could handle sleeping on her stupidly trendy, creamy cloud couch for a few more months until I found something in my field. It wasn’t a bad thing that I wanted to hold out for a job I’d be at for a while. It was smart. Responsible .

At least that’s what I told myself. In reality, it was getting harder to avoid the truth—my ego, feeble as it was, couldn’t take it.

There was nothing wrong with being a bartender, but a little part of me hoped that I didn’t waste all that time and money on college. That I’d gotten my education and, economic crash be damned, I’d eventually be back at the table as a creative director.

But… another part of me craved my own space almost as much as I missed waking up to something other than the sound of Pleasers on the honey-coloured hardwood. Kaylee might be graceful on stage but off it? Bambi fared better on the frozen pond.

The cold, hard truth was that if things kept on like this, I’d have no choice but to accept her offer anyway. My credit cards were getting dangerously close to the limit with little funds to make any kind of meaningful payment and my mom’s medical bills… I’d gotten to the point that picking up the mail from her postal box had become the source of so much anxiety that I couldn’t eat before unless I wanted to watch my lunch have a return trip.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kaylee said breezily, screwing on the lid of her travel mug and tipping it over the sink to make sure it wouldn’t leak in her bag.

“Do you mind throwing one of those on for me?” I asked, tapping my trackpad impatiently as the laptop slowly began to load again. I closed Monstra to open my email, if only to stop myself from turning on another episode of Coffin Hunters International.

I didn’t know what was more depressing, the contents of my inbox or spending my days looking at houses I’d never be able to afford in countries I’d never visit.

Rejection. Rejection. Rejection . And— Oh! How exciting! —Another rejection.

My job search was quickly leaving slightly desperate to dive straight into hopeless territory .

“Sorry,” Kaylee replied, using her fingernail to sharpen her eyeliner in the circular mirror beside the door. You’d never be able to tell we’d put the thing up with about fifteen Command hooks. The stylishly crumbling, vintage brick walls of her apartment were cute in theory but a nightmare to actually hang anything on. “Last one. Oh ! I have an idea! Why don’t you peel yourself off the sofa for something other than a job interview and go grab one downstairs? Fuel for more j ob board doom scrolling.”

I groaned, tossing a light pink, heart-shaped cushion in the direction of her head playfully. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole.”

She laughed as she caught the plush projectile, throwing it back at me. I wasn’t as quick as Kaylee, so the pillow smacked my shoulder before bouncing to the trendy, low-pile area rug.

Fucking dancer reflexes.

I was only a little jealous of her for getting the grace since getting the brains was a pretty solid deal.

At least I’d thought so. These days, it seemed like Kaylee had more marketable skills than I did.

Ouch, there was that ego again—bruised this time.

She grabbed her bag off the hook beside the mirror, the profile of her sun-and-bronzer-kissed face illuminated by a mix of the warm glow of the sunlamps dotting every flat surface and the neon lights slipping through the blinds from outside.

It didn’t matter that it was only nine in the morning; here in the Lower City, darkness was a perk of the zip code for the same exact reason it was a hot spot for vampires—digital shaders that covered the city, plunging us into perpetual, night-child-safe gloom.

Fuck, I missed my old place in the Upper City. Or at least I missed the bay windows—coffee always tasted better sitting in a sunbeam.

“This could be so easy, Vi. O is great, you’d love?—”

“I told you, I really don’t wanna go back to being a shot girl. I went to college?—”

“To become a marketing professional. Yeah, yeah, I know.” Kaylee waved me off, laughing as she tugged on her sneakers. “Seriously, girl, I’m just saying?—”

“And I’m just saying I have an interview today that I’m going to crush, so I won’t need to go back to mixing martinis at two in the fucking morning and working weekends to pay my bills.”

“Yeah, yeah. How’re you going to go to the farmers’ market if you’re working until four a.m.?” she said with some snark, scrunching her nose with her grin.

“I have a good feeling about this,” I pushed. “My senior internship was with Golden Dragon. The hiring manager and I know each other! It’s in the bag!”

Golden Dragon was one of the biggest marketing firms in the world. If I could just nail this interview, everything would change for me. Even if I didn’t get this job, maybe they’d have something, anything else?—

“I remember,” Kaylee said with a groan. “You talked about it nonstop for like four months into the application process. I practically slept in the library so that you couldn’t corner me to rant about how good it would be for your resume again. How’s that treating you, by the way?”

“God, you’re such an asshole sometimes,” I muttered, the chime of my email pulling my attention back to my laptop screen like a dog with a whistle.

“Guilty,” she replied, swiping on a fresh coat of lip gloss with a loud smack that made me smile.

This exchange was practically bible for us by now, the sort of thing that became natural after a lifetime of being best friends. We’d been inseparable since the first time we’d met on our first day of kindergarten. Turns out that you can find true love in the pickup line. It just so happened that for us it was platonic.

Despite my conviction that I was going to nail this next interview, I was nervous. I’d already been to half a dozen this week, none of which landed me a new gig.

I was either overqualified, underqualified, or too queer for the stuffy department heads. But, I had to hope it was all going to turn around—ideally before another fucking bill was due. I’d had enough savings to float myself a couple of months, but then my mom got sick and my dad fucked off, and now things were getting… dicey. Even with my mom safely staying with her sister in Florida and unemployment’s help, I needed to find a job, like, last month .

“It’s not that bad. I’ve been dancing there for a year, and I’ve never had a problem with the hours or creeps or anything. Plus, Dana is a super chill boss. Aaaaand we get unlimited paid time o?—”

Honestly, we’d had this talk so many times that I tuned her out.

“Not interested,” I interrupted, refreshing the browser.

“You’ve been unemployed for like eight months, Vi. You’re getting cabin fever.”

“Seven months. I’m not getting cabin fever,” I grumbled. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“What?”

“They cancelled the interview and went with an internal candidate.”

Kaylee sighed. “So treat yourself to a coffee and apply for something else while sitting downstairs for a bit. Shame to waste a full face of makeup, right?”

It was only a little pathetic that I’d had so little reason to get ready lately that she’d noticed I put it on in the first place.

I groaned. “Fine, point taken. I will leave the house today.”

“Good,” she praised, grabbing her keys from the stylish dish atop the little wooden credenza by the door. “I’m half worried that if you don’t move your butt soon, you’ll start growing mushrooms or something.”

“Asshole,” I sing-songed after her.

“Guilty,” she sang back, opening the door. “I gotta run by the garage and then have rehearsal; have a good day, okay?”

“Yeah, you too. Don’t let the horny vamps bite,” I teased in the same cadence of the old nursery rhyme, offering a wave.

“Not more than I want them to,” she returned with a wink, the door swinging shut cutting off her warm, familiar laugh.

I snapped my laptop shut, setting it onto the black-and-brass vintage steamer trunk Kaylee used as a coffee table, and peeled myself off the couch to get dressed.

As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point: the longer I’d been unemployed, the more reclusive I’d become. The only reason I even went to the gym anymore was because my sibling worked there and scored me a free membership. But even I couldn't call fighting for my life in my twice-weekly kickboxing class socialising .

More like obligatory visitation. If my sibling, Danny, didn’t see me a couple of times a week, they’d call Mom, and then Mom would worry, and it’d be a whole mess that I’d just have to clean up anyway. Besides, a girl could only watch so many reality TV reruns.

Maybe a coffee and a quick walk around the block were exactly what I needed.

I didn’t consider my lack of urgency in hauling my butt down four flights of stairs meant that by the time I was opening the door to The Drip, it was in the middle of the lunch rush.

From the outside, the café that took up the ground floor of my temporary home wasn’t anything special. Grey cinder-block siding and blacked-out windows made it look more like a dispensary than a coffee shop. Not that windows in the Lower City would offer any sunlight anyway, it was still something to get used to, the choice to not have any at all. Especially since in the last few weeks, I’d become pretty fond of the neon lights dotting the skyline like stars.

But it was hard to care about what the outside looked like once you were inside the café. Beyond the blacked-out front door, it was like something out of an influencer’s wet dream. Concrete floors and walls were expertly paired with medium-toned wood and chrome accents provided by the open ducting overhead, interspersed with plants hanging from the ceiling or tucked into massive terracotta pots in the corners of the cozy seating area. Yellow metal chairs lined tables for two, with long wooden benches and counters along the ‘ windows’ —electronic panels engineered to look like the street outside if it was cast in mid-afternoon sunlight.

They were the real highlight of the place. For a minute, it was like being in the Upper City again.

Normal. Or at least my normal.

Behind the counter, the barista, a man with a shaved head that I’d seen working every time I’d been in here, was pulling espresso shots. I got in line, half people-watching as I waited for my turn. Busy business professionals who worked in the highrises just a block over and mingling with students from the nearby computer college—well, mingling was a little far. More like they lived in a state of stressed symbiosis as they hunched over laptops and sipped lattes.

My phone buzzed where I’d tucked it into the pocket of my jacket, and I pulled it out, rolling my eyes as I silenced the ringer.

The bank.

They’d been calling me non-fucking-stop for weeks. But if I had to choose between credit card minimums or my mom’s pills? Yeah, I’d choose the pills every fucking time.

It wasn’t long until I was at the front of the line, just as many people behind me as I’d had ahead of me as I came in. I’d get my drink and disappear back upstairs, the café too noisy to really focus on anything.

Not that I had any insanely important work that needed doing anyway. Pressing apply really was less involved than just about, well, anything .

The barista grinned as I stepped up to the register, waving his coworker over to trade places with him so he could take my order. I must’ve left a good impression, since he’d remembered my name from the first time I’d come in.

I really should’ve put in more effort to remember his.

Tom? No that wasn’t quite right..

It felt good, being a regular somewhere. Comfortable. Even if this place would only temporarily be my coffee shop. Soon I’d be employed and back on the sunny side of town where I belonged. Leaving behind the endless darkness of the Lower City for sunshine, and if I was lucky, the ability to wear my favourite foundation again.

I hoped. The damn stuff was like sixty-five bucks a bottle and me dropping into a new, even paler shade range wasn’t doing me any favours.

“Back again already?” the barista asked with a grin that showed off his slightly crooked—and dull—human teeth.

My eyes dipped to his name tag with a soft laugh, fishing in my bag for my bank card. “Well, when you make a flat white like that, how am I supposed to stay away, Todd?”

I knew it started with a ‘t’!

“Flatterer,” he shot back, though it held no heat. “What can I get you? Your usual?”

“Yes, please.”

“Todd,” called the dishwater blonde vampire behind the counter he’d traded with. “The steamer isn’t working again. Can you help me?”

“You got it, let me just ring her up quick,” he called back to her, tapping away at the touchscreen. “One flat white for Vi. That’ll be four twenty-five.”

Todd turned the payment terminal toward me before moving to help the vampire with the machine. A man behind me shifted impatiently in his suit, huffing as he glanced at the sparkling platinum watch on his wrist, making me keenly aware of just how long I’d been taking as I continued to fish in my purse.

The bell hanging from the top of the door chimed, warning that someone else had entered the café just as my fingers came into contact with my bank card at the bottom of my bag, along with a thin layer of crumbs, a few receipts, and— score !—a few coins, and I pulled it out, brushing it off on my jacket before tapping it against the terminal.

“Hey, Ren! Usual will be up in five!” the female barista called as someone brushed past me to wait at the other side of the bar where they put finished drinks and mobile orders.

I had to pick my jaw up off the floor.

Usually, I wasn’t the type of girl to full-on ogle somebody in a coffee shop, but for Ren, I was keen to make an exception.

She was tall, most of a foot taller than my five-foot-four, with long, tattooed-covered fingers wrapped around the leather shoulder strap of her bag. Every scrap of skin I could see was tattooed, with art peeking from the collar of her shirt and the cuffs of her sleeves. Contrasted by the round, delicate features of her face, the effect was downright alluring.

The flattened bridge of her nose and dark, kohl-lined mono-lidded eyes reminded me a bit of the K-pop stars Kaylee liked to obsess over when we were younger, androgynous in a way that made it hard for me to decide if I thought she was beautiful or handsome. Either way, fucking gorgeous fit the bill.

When I finally managed to peel my eyes away from the tattoos on her fingers back to her face it was to find her already looking back at me, gaze dark and heavy where it touched my quickly pinking cheeks. Our eyes met, the corner of her mouth twitching upwards to reveal her lightly pointed fangs, sending my heart into a juddering sprint.

A vampire.

I was so distracted that when Dishwater Blonde cleared her throat to get my attention, it made me jump.

“Lady, the payment didn’t go through,” she said loudly, deflating my embarrassment for being caught staring and replacing it with something else entirely. “Do you have another card?”

Heat raced up the back of my neck as my eyes flicked between her and Ren, who ran a hand through her overgrown pixie cut in a way that made the jewellery dotting the shell of her ear catch in the lights, and back to the terminal.

Fuck .

I’d been pretty good at keeping an eye on what’d been left in my account, but maybe I’d miscalculated… My hand immediately went back into my bag, hunting for the change I’d felt earlier, the sound of my belongings rustling while I looked was quickly accompanied by an annoyed sigh behind me.

“Can you hurry it up a little, sugar?” a male voice jeered. “Some of us have places to be.”

How did I let things get this bad?

I pulled out the change, cringing as I realised what I’d hoped were quarters were three nickels and a lint-covered penny. My embarrassment tripling as Todd set my finished coffee on the pickup counter, my throat threatening to close around a humiliated sob.

Bank card declined.

No cards.

Cash in the sum of… six cents.

“Flat white for Vi!”

I’d just opened my mouth to ask if I could run upstairs to raid my pockets for change when Ren leaned over me, tapping her card against the reader. If she’d been human, she was so close I would’ve been able to feel her body heat. Instead, all I was left with was a lungful of her delicious musky perfume, leathery and salty and masculine as much as it was feminine.

She caught my eye as she pulled away, the heat from my embarrassment coiling between us like a living thing.

“Pretty girls like you shouldn’t have to pay for their coffee, anyway. It’s my treat.”

I swallowed the embarrassing girlish giggle trying to claw its way out of my chest, relief making me feel unsteady.

“Thank you, really, I?—”

“Can you please get out of the way?” Dishwater Blonde asked. “People are waiting.”

“Sarah, would you relax?” Todd said with an eye roll. “You’re interrupting a meet cute.”

“They’re not helping my line-long, long-line— whatever .”

I stepped aside, taking my cup, just as Todd placed a takeaway tray of four coffees onto the counter.

“Have we met before?” Ren asked as she swiped it up, “You look so familiar.”

“No!” I blurted, way too fast to sound normal. My attention had been so firmly on the dimple in her left cheek that appeared whenever she smiled, I’d barely heard the question.

Not that I wasn’t sure enough to respond decisively, if I’d come into contact with someone as good looking as this vampire before today I surely would’ve known about it.

“So, my mistake. Must have one of those faces,” she conceded with another lingering look. Her fingers twitched in a quick wave as she headed for the door, stopping with a hand wrapped around the doorframe as she turned to look back at me.

“See you around, Pet,” she called with a wink.

An honest to god, knee wobbling, boy band level, wink .

I stared after my stupidly hot saviour, blinking stupidly in the stretching silence that followed the chime of the bell as she disappeared onto the street.

“Hey, Vi?” Todd called with a conspiratorial grin, pulling my attention from the door.

“Um, yeah?”

“That was Ren, if you were curious. She’s one of the regulars. Always comes in around this time.”

“A-And you’re telling me this because…?” I asked, turning the cup over in my hands.

I didn’t dare to look at Todd, sure that his cheeks were stretched in a wide, toothy grin.

“Because I’ve been working here a long, long time and I’ve never seen her pay for anyone’s coffee but yours before,” he explained before returning to making drinks.

“Thanks for the tip,” I replied a little vaguely, my eyes darting to the door again.

There was nothing quite like hitting rock bottom in front of the hottest person I’d ever seen in my life.

Really living for the thrill there, Vi!

“See you tomorrow,” Todd said cheerily.

Dishwater Blonde—Sarah—scoffed irritably as she waited for the impatient businessman to pay.

“Yeah…” My voice trailed as I headed for the door. “See you tomorrow.”

The familiar sting of embarrassment too fresh to loiter, I escaped out the door and headed up the stairs to Kaylee’s apartment and the safety of her couch, where I opened my emails between sips of my coffee.

Okay, Vi. That could’ve been worse. Maybe today won’t be such a disaster after—fuck.

I scrolled through rejection after rejection, the momentary happiness— read: insanity —of a hot vampire buying me a coffee deflating like a balloon.

We regret to inform…

Unfortunately, we have moved on with another…

Application rejection…

In a fit of desperation, I flipped to my messaging app and opened my text chain with Kaylee. There was no more avoiding it; I needed a fucking job.

Any job.

I’ll check out the club. NO PROMISES. See you tonight.

Her reply came instantly.

Kaylee

Can’t wait to work together! Wear something sexy!

I rolled my eyes, telling myself that checking out the club did not mean I was agreeing to anything. I was just… exploring my options.

Yeah, that’s all it was.

I was just doing what any rational adult with no money and no job prospects would do—going to the most infamous vampire club in the city for a couple of cocktails.

What could go wrong?