Chapter 3
CHAPTER 3
SANTA
Despite having Thursday night off, I went into work, same as usual. I offered to work at the bar until midnight, and Jameson agreed. We were short a bouncer, and he possessed the face and build of an avenging angel. He was also one of our best mixologists, which kept him behind the bar most of the time. He liked it so much, he named himself after the whiskey.
Still, everyone could use a break now and then. He'd already given a threatening look to a group of college students that sent them running back into the cold.
At precisely eight, Colette walked through the door. She gave a slight head nod to Jameson and made a beeline for the bar, to-go cup in hand.
When she arrived, I handed her a warm glass straight from the dishwasher to replace her cup. The boss forbade advertisements for other vendors, including Blood Drive, which supplied half our stock.
"He's late," she mused after taking her first sip from the unmarked glass. She wore her usual power suit, though the cut had changed over the years. She started wearing pants long before they were in style. The heather gray suit offset her deep blue eyes and dampened the brightness of her golden curls.
"Go easy on him," I said. "He's new."
"Oh, I know." She grinned wolfishly over the rim of her glass. "I interviewed him. I may have done a little digging for the empress."
While our empress ran a team dedicated to world economic policy and the advancement of vampires, hiring entry level humans seemed beneath her. "Why?"
"She hates turnover. She'd like to make him a permanent addition to our staff."
Empress Marcella wanted to make Boz a vampire, in other words.
"What if he doesn't want that?"
Colette took another sip from her glass before answering. "He's human. They all want that, eventually. They fear mortality. He was especially concerned about dying a virgin." She leaned in and sniffed me, as though checking to see if I had been working the VIP room before she arrived. "Is that why we're here tonight? Are you trying to remedy that? "
I shrugged. "Maybe."
"He'll be a lot for you to handle, especially if you try to keep it casual."
"Why do you say that?" I already had a hunch, but Colette was a much better judge of character than I was. That was why she was Empress Marcella's regional recruiter.
"I told you, the empress wants him for a lifetime position. Don't break him, or you'll have hell to pay."
"She wants him because he's loyal," I guessed, and she nodded. "Logical." She took it for the guess it was and nodded again. "Boring."
Her nose scrunched when she grinned. "Yes, but he might be exactly what you need."
"Me?" I tried to look doe-eyed and innocent, but her laugh indicated I'd failed. "I'm not quitting my job for any human."
"Maybe not," she said with a shrug. "Sometimes I see threads between people. Harley and Key had a thread back in 1901 when I saw them on the dance floor. You are tethered to that man." She pinched her thumb and forefinger together on an invisible string and moved her hand as though she followed it away from me. I followed her movements to Boz as he sidestepped the sparse crowd on his way to the bar.
"See?" she asked.
"I believe you see it," I said. "That doesn't mean it's real. "
"Oh, Santa. All you have to do is believe in yourself. Then, you would know I'm right. He's perfect for you."
I couldn't see it. He was hot, yes, and the sweetest variation of awkward I wanted to protect from the world. As I watched him approach, I felt like a dirty old man. I loved the way his eyes lit up when he saw me, though he didn't seem to recognize Colette.
"You interviewed him?" I asked under my breath.
"I was capturing intel for the empress," she hissed. "I wiped his mind afterward."
It always freaked me out that Empress Marcella could pass her gifts of mind reading, mind control, and compulsion to other vampires across such a distance. Her powers gave her advantage over much older vampires, which was how she'd risen through the ranks to become the head of the western vampire council in Rome.
If I had to guess, Boz had interviewed in the late afternoon, when it was already dark in Rome. The empress would have awakened Colette and given her the power to read the job candidates' minds. The empress herself had picked Boz, which meant he was as smart as I'd first thought.
Smart, but awkward. When I introduced him to Colette, he tripped and almost spilled her drink in an attempt to shake her hand.
"Whoa, easy there, sweetness." I leaned across the bar to help him onto the stool and filled a glass with seltzer. "Drink this."
He took a sip. "Thank you."
"Colette tells me you've already met.”
I said it to cause chaos, but Colette surprised me by smiling at him. "You don't remember me, do you?"
He blinked. "Now that you mention it … the proficiency test. How did I pass? I thought I failed."
"No, Boz. You were the only candidate who passed. Empress Marcella was quite pleased with you."
"She’s real?" He glanced at me. I’d mentioned her in a text, but he still didn’t believe.
Colette leaned toward him conspiratorially. "We rarely tell employees this before they sign the NDA on the first day of training, but yes, she’s very real.”
"I work for …" his voice lowered to a whisper, "vampire royalty?"
She laughed. "Oh, you are too precious. Yes, darling, Empress Marcella in Rome and Empress Chu Hua in Shanghai are the head of Imperial Accounting, but Empress Marcella oversees all activity in the Americas and Europe. It's rare for them to put so much stock into hiring accountants, but the empress wanted some new blood after an … unfortunate incident earlier this year. We fired several long-term employees because they helped a council member hide some scandalous behavior." From her tone, I doubted the terminated employees' hearts still beat in their chests .
Now it all made sense, to me at least. Councilor Dobbins had been a shady motherfucker, and we were all glad to see him gone. If he'd corrupted even the humans working for the empress, she probably wanted to turn all her loyal staff to vampires, if she hadn't already done so.
"How soon?" I asked.
"He starts a week from Monday," Colette said. "He's got six months of training and a state board test to pass, and then we'll look into making the position more permanent."
Colette knew exactly what I was asking, but Boz seemed oblivious. "I took the state board exam Tuesday," he said.
"Fabulous. You're ahead of the game!"
"Right. You've finished your finals, too," I said. "What would you like for your celebratory drink?"
"How about an attitude adjustment? Or a Bahama mama?"
"We don't have all the fruit here, but I can make you a mean attitude adjustment." I reached for the ice scoop.
He placed his hand over mine. "Neat, please."
How could I resist those hazel eyes? He really was gorgeous in a nerdy, unconscious way. He wasn't my usual type, but I found myself not caring as I poured alcohol into his glass, layer on layer, and topped it with grenadine and an orange slice .
"Here you go."
"Thanks." He slammed the drink back and downed it in two gulps like it was a shot, after all my hard work to get it perfect.
"I'm not making you another. You're drinking straight whiskey shots or nothing at all, college boy."
He laughed. "That was the plan. The attitude adjustment makes the whiskey go down sweeter."
Fuck. He really was a man after my own heart. "Pick your poison."
"Black Velvet?"
"Gods, why? That stuff is terrible," Colette said. "I don't want to lose all respect for you."
"That's the only kind of whiskey I know!" He sounded so cute when he whined.
"Let me pick the whiskey," I said. "On the house." I didn't normally pay for more than one drink, but he needed an education, and I would give it to him. It worked to my advantage, since I wanted an excuse for him to see the fully furnished apartment two floors above mine. Purely business reasons. He would have a steady income from the empress, and I had an apartment for rent, simple as that.
Except it got complicated, the more Boz drank. With lowered inhibitions came animated expressions and arm movements so wide he almost fell off his bar stool.
Colette had asked him a question about accounting. She was still staring at him like he spouted the secret of life.
He'd lost me somewhere between ledger and data sort, but he mesmerized me with his gestures and gorgeous eyes peeking above the wire rims of his glasses. Yes, I was the vampire in this relationship, but he had fully charmed me.
Some bar patrons took notice, and not in a good way. A pushy vampire I recognized but couldn't place shoved his way through a bachelorette party. The screaming women didn't slow Boz down. He continued with his story, even as the vampire reached for his shoulder.
The world blurred around me as I hopped the bar and grabbed his wrist. I shoved him back toward the shouting women, and Jameson caught up to us, grabbing him in a full nelson.
"I wanted to buy him a drink." The sound of his gravelly voice was enough to jar my memory. This was the same vampire I'd kicked out of the bar the other night.
"Hands off," I said.
"There's nothing in your bar rules that says we can't touch a human to get their attention, worm."
Worm was definitely worse than whore, in my opinion. At least I was a whore. I’d never been and never would be a worm.
"No," Jameson said, "but there is a rule about causing commotion, and you've upset these lovely ladies."
They were still swearing up a storm. Apparently, he'd disrupted a dance routine they were filming.
"Let me take care of this riffraff, and then we'll ask the DJ to play your song again," Jameson reassured them. He nodded at me, and I returned to the bar.
"Wow," Boz said. "What was that all about?" He didn't recognize his admirer from the other night.
"Do you know that guy?" I asked Colette while Boz downed his last shot of five I'd poured for him.
She shook her head. "No. Could be a newbie who thinks they can fill a power vacuum. The new council's hands are full."
"Another round?" Boz asked. After five shots and an attitude adjustment, he already slurred his words.
Colette rolled her eyes and finished her glass. "I've got to get going. I have a meeting with the council to discuss the empress's plans for the next election. You'll make sure this one gets home?"
I grinned and passed Boz another seltzer. "Sure thing."
Thanks to the earlier scuffle, I scared off vampires and humans alike from getting too close with only a glare. Boz ignored everyone around him, telling his beguiling tale of spreadsheets and group projects to me alone.
I poured and served drinks on automatic, nodding here and there to show him I was still listening. I was, but I had no clue what he was going on about. It had been at least twenty years since I'd last graced the halls of an academic institution, and that had been to drain the coeds of their blood.
Twenty years. That's how long the synthetic stuff had been around. It changed our eating habits, hell, our lives, completely. We'd come out of the shadows and let humans know of our existence. With that came willing donors and places like Blood Drive.
There had always been vampire bars, but now we served alcohol, too. Once, this place had been a juice bar, a front for human/vampire hookups. Now, the humans came to be entertained without being on the menu, and that was fine with me.
I wouldn't be draining anyone of blood tonight, especially not Boz. He was the only interesting human seated at the bar with me, and he was too intoxicated.
By midnight, the dance floor was almost empty, thanks to the bachelorette party moving on to another establishment and most of our usual patrons making their way to the tables and booths. Jameson surprised me by snatching the bar towel from my shoulder. He gave me a playful swat on the ass with it. "Take your little genius home."
"Genius?" I asked.
"Every vampire in this bar can hear him ranting about his group projects. No wonder the empress snatched him up."
I tried not to make it obvious as I glanced around the room. Jameson was right. Several vampires were listening to Boz's story with far more understanding than I could give him.
"Do you think we'll have any trouble?" I made my way to the bridge and swung it open, the correct way to enter and leave the bar instead of hopping over it the way I'd done earlier. Mr. Caynik, my boss, would probably give me a stern talking-to later.
"I don't see anyone that foolhardy in here, but you never know." Jameson shrugged. "Everyone saw him with Colette." He winked. "Not to mention the way you handled that jerk from the other night."
I sidled up to Boz and almost swooned from his scent. I hadn't drank any blood yet tonight, which meant another trip to Blood Drive before I took him apartment hunting.
"What jerk?" Boz asked, tuning in at the last moment.
"He didn't want to pay for his drink," I lied. "Are you ready to see the apartment?"
"What? No. I should catch the train back to the dorms."
He slid off the bar stool and his knees gave. To steady him and guide him toward the door, I grabbed him by the shoulder and slid my arm around his waist .
"I told you not to worry about the trains," I whispered in his ear. "I'll show you the apartment, and then I'll drive you home."
I wanted him and his delicious scent to stay the night, but I didn't trust myself. Boz was in no state to give consent, and the longer I was in his presence, the harder it was to behave.