Chapter 6
Six
Three weeks after the bachelor party and three days before the wedding, Claire was ready to hit Send on the email that had lain dormant for over a month in her Drafts folder.
She had the funds ready for transfer. All he had to do was electronically sign on the dotted line, and he had no reason not to.
She reread the email a final time, though by now there couldn’t possibly be any typos.
Hello Tai,
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Claire Vanderlaan
Founder and Proprietor
Slake It Off, LLC
Yep, typo-free. Just as it had been when she proofread it last week for the fourth time.
She hit Send. Let out a soft hiss of satisfaction. This was it. Cutting ties to Tai. She laughed at the phrasing, then got back to work serving the breakfast crowd. Many vampires took their necessary daily slaking of blood first thing in the morning.
Only Teresa was on the schedule this morning, but she’d worked for Claire for almost a year now, and she knew how to keep a line moving.
Between the two of them, no one had to wait more than a few minutes to be served.
Most people were on their way to work, so the booths and tables didn’t fill up the way they did in the evenings, when couples and groups showed up to socialize over drinks—additional servings their bodies didn’t require but which still tasted delightful to the vampire palate and gave them a brief energy buzz.
Around eleven the crowd dwindled, and as if on cue, one of her favorite customers walked in. Claire waved Teresa off and took down a glass to fill it with type B+, Peter Updike’s favorite.
She held out the same drink he’d been ordering every Monday and Wednesday for the last year and a half. “Good morning, Peter.”
“Morning, Claire. Thank you.” Peter drained the glass and smiled, showing his fangs. “Thanks.”
Two thank-you’s from Peter could mean trouble. She leaned her arms on the bar and studied him until he gave a low chuckle.
“I’m all right. Well, I mean I’m decent. I had a rough anniversary this week.”
For a two-hundred-seventy-nine-year-old vampire, a rough anniversary could mean almost anything. Claire set her hand on his, and he looked up with pure honesty in his peridot eyes.
“When you say ‘decent,’ do you mean…I should worry?” She spoke quietly, though Peter had told her about his struggle at this very counter when he first began coming in.
“No, kid, I’ve been careful. You know I’m always careful.”
She nodded. He had to be, in a way other vampires didn’t. Peter was one in a thousand, a vampire whose thirst raged so hard it could overwhelm his control, cause him to crave blood from the vein.
“It’ll ease up in a few days,” he said. “Until then I’ve just got to be extremely regimented, no more than twenty hours between slaking.”
Curiosity tugged her mouth into a frown that she tried to hide behind cleaning a few glasses.
She wanted to understand this rare affliction better, mostly because Peter had grown to matter to her.
Hazard of the job—most customers mattered over time, as they told little snippets of their life to her over their drinks.
“You can ask me, you know,” he said with a smile—fangless now that he’d finished slaking.
“Do you actually…?” No, better not to ask. He was a customer as well as a friend.
“Do I actually look at humans as prey, when the thirst gets bad?”
She stared at him and allowed her mouth to fall open.
He chuckled, a low musical sound, and shrugged. “It’s an obvious question, kid.”
“You don’t have to answer it,” Claire said.
“The answer is yes.”
Oh. She bit her lip, looked away, didn’t want to judge…
but humans were not prey. They were people, no less than vampires and wolves were people, regardless of their physical vulnerability.
Yeah, she razzed Ember sometimes, called her vanilla which wasn’t the most polite term.
But she could never view humans as…a slaking source.
A pumping heart, veins and arteries filled with what she needed to quench the thirst.
No. Never. She’d never been that thirsty in her life, even one winter night her car had spun out into a ditch, and the ensuing hassle had caused her a full twenty-seven hours between slakings.
“That’s what it means, being a bloodfiend,” Peter said quietly. “I could sugarcoat it for you, but…” He shrugged.
“Sugarcoating isn’t my style.”
“Exactly.”
“I’m glad you told me, Peter. Really. I’m glad to know you better, and…and if you ever feel…”
“Dangerous?” He glanced around the room, but at the moment he was the only customer.
He leaned toward her across the bar, his eyes flashing like gemstones, his brown hair curling around his ears, his hands tucked into his elbows as he propped his arms to mirror Claire’s pose.
“I did this week. But we’re careful, all of us who go through this. ”
“Because you know so many of you?” She cocked an eyebrow. If they were one in a thousand, there might be ten total in the entire city.
“I know two others. We’re not local to each other, but we’ve formed a long-distance support group.”
“Oh wow, really?” She reached out again, this time to squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry, Peter. I don’t mean to be such an annoying cynic about everything.”
“A little cynicism doesn’t bother me, kid. You’re pretty much a natural at this bartending thing, you know. Getting even us relics to open up our life stories.” He grinned.
Claire rolled her eyes. “If I serve so many relics, then y’all aren’t opening up to me at all. A measly half-dozen of you have come clean in my bar.”
“Am I your oldest patron?” He waggled his eyebrows.
She let her laugh chime over the bar. She could always be her whole self here, even the loudest version of her laugh, and with people like Peter, sharing herself felt so…
right. So good. “Y’all relics are all alike, I swear.
‘I won’t tell you how old I am, but I’m very very old and very very mysterious and very very wise. ’”
“I told you exactly how old I am,” he said with a protesting finger jab in her direction.
“Okay, yes, you did.” Only fair to concede that one. “But your fellows tend to allude and tease without ever telling the whole story, including their specific ages.”
“Some vampires take themselves too seriously,” Peter said.
Then they were quiet for a minute while Claire removed his glass from the bar and set it into the crate to be bussed back to the dishwashers. When she faced him again, he was somber.
“Peter?”
“What you began to say… If I ever feel dangerous. I know, Claire. I know I can come here in need at any time, and you’ll serve me without questions.”
“Absolutely.”
“And that matters a great deal to me. To many of us, some of whom you may not even know right now. Not bloodfiends, but other relics. We know you’re here for us.”
A lump rose in her throat. To be regarded as safe in her community, even by those she hadn’t met yet… “I’m glad to know that, Peter. Thanks.”
The emotion stayed with her after Peter left, while she served several others who didn’t make time for long conversations.
Still she wondered about each of them. She couldn’t guess from appearance who among her kind had lived for centuries; once they turned thirty, they all continued to look more or less the same age for the rest of their lives.
But to know she was trusted even if they never said so aloud— This was why Slake It Off mattered, why a human-friendly music store that sold records and instruments with a coffee bar on the side came in second place.
She’d tried to tell him. For a month, she’d texted and left voice mails and even stalked Tai at one of his fancy fundraisers.
“I can see it all, Tai, and it’s going to be so important, and I want you to do this with me. Your way with people is special. You’ll add so much to the community I’m trying to build.”
Nothing she could say had made a difference to him.
When her customers dwindled, Claire wandered to her phone, left charging in a nook behind the bar, and searched her preferred news sites for any mention of Max Forton’s arrest or her recent Saturday night activities.
Nothing. Had he even been charged? Had they bothered to collect his DNA from the envelope?
She knew not to hope, that her attempts were never guaranteed to change anything. Still she tightened her grip on her phone at the thought of Max Forton walking free out of the police station, her body cam recording disregarded as insufficient evidence.
An email chimed into her phone, and she swiped to read it.
Hi Claire,
If this is your preference, I’ll cooperate. I would prefer not to sign electronically. Please let me know a convenient day we can meet at the office of my personal title company. Address attached.
Regards,
Tai Kristiansen
Director of Fundraising
Josie Strong Foundation for Rare Disorders
Already tense, now Claire’s jaw clenched like a sprung trap.
She drew a breath through her nose to avoid breaking a tooth.
In person? She’d seen enough of him three weeks ago to last her a year.
Enough of his lean body in swim shorts, his eyes glinting in the dimness of the waterfall cave, his obviously deep emotions as he studied pieces of art that spoke to him, his nonchalance admitting to Philippa that he played not only the piano (which Claire had known) but also violin and guitar (which she hadn’t), his vocal enjoyment of dinner and the slow return of his toes-curling laugh from down the table after an hour no longer facing her judgment.
Enough of Tai. Enough. Enough.
She thumb-typed a response, not caring how it formatted from her phone’s email app.
Tai,
That’s unnecessary. You can sign this with a tap of your finger. Please do so at your earliest convenience.
Thanks,
Claire
His reply came within a minute.
Claire,
If you want to buy me out, meet me at the given address. They’re open until six on Mondays.
Thanks,
Tai