Chapter 17 #2
When they reached the truck, Cody looked into the windows of Hollow Grounds, but Robin and two other servers were busy behind the counter, with customers waiting four deep.
“Business is booming everywhere,” he said as he pressed the unlock button.
A group of four twenty-somethings loped past, laughing and shrieking.
A boy wore the ever-popular werewolf ears headband, and two of the girls wore plastic fangs.
The group stopped at a bench under a tree, and a boy not wearing a headband or fangs pulled a small glass vial from his pocket.
It was filled with a dark liquid, and he uncapped it, pressed a fingertip to the opening and quickly upended it.
As he passed the vial to another member of his group, he sucked the liquid off his finger, then tipped his head back and howled at the cloudy sky.
Demmy met Cody’s eye over the hood of the truck. “Do you think that’s Fang?”
The rest of the Gen Zers howled, and then the group took off again, skipping and leaping and dancing down the sidewalk.
“I’d bet money on it.”
“Where did they get it?”
“Had to be from Bastian, right?” Cody said. “Which brings up a whole other list of questions, like how’d they meet him, did they pay in cash or blood? And have they been out to that bar? Come on.”
The drive to Clarabell’s was short, and Cody parked at the curb in front of her two-story brick building.
Clarabell’s Kia Soul sat in one of the garage spaces underneath the deck opening off her apartment, and based on the other cars parked along the curb, they were the last to arrive.
They pressed the intercom button and were quickly buzzed in.
Her apartment door was unlocked, and they climbed the stairs to her place.
The French doors to the deck were closed, and the air conditioning was keeping the space nicely cooled, even with the number of people gathered.
“Here they are,” Clarabell said. “The stars of the show.”
Cody approached his brother, Dave, and delivered a hug. “I want to talk to my manager about the size of my dressing room.”
Clarabell laughed, and most everyone else chuckled.
After giving Ollie a playful nudge, Cody took in the room, taking a headcount.
Dave and Ollie stood by the island. Zenona and Tracey sat on a loveseat, while Lucia shared the sofa with Jugs and Agatha.
When Cody nodded to Lucia, she gave him a cool stare in response. Zenona dropped her gaze.
“All right, Bonker, what more do you have to tell us that I had to drive all the way back to Spooky Hollow tonight?” Jugs said.
Demmy took a breath and let it out. “We’ve learned some things over the weekend that we needed to share with all of you.” He paused, then said, “We have another vampire problem.”
The response from Demmy’s statement was as Cody expected.
Even though he’d told Jugs about everything that morning, Jugs was leaning into the drama of it, Agatha trying to get him to calm down as she asked more questions herself.
Tracey, Clarabell, and Ollie were all professionally curious, and Lucia and Zenona sat stoically tight-lipped.
Cody’s brother, Dave, got up and stood beside him.
“How bad is it?” Dave asked in a low voice.
“Better than last time in some ways. Worse in others.”
“That’s a hell of a non-answer, big brother.”
Cody gave him a half-smile. “It’s a very fluid situation.”
“Is that a blood joke?”
“You didn’t like it?”
“I’ve heard better.” Dave paused before saying, “It was a bad blood joke.”
Cody groaned.
“Okay, everybody,” Demmy finally said, raising his hands for the group’s attention. “Here are the details as we know them.”
Cody watched him as Demmy explained about The Rusty Screw, the rules Marlowe had for the place, and how she strictly enforced them. Demmy was in his element, delivering information and keeping everyone aligned and on task. How the hell had a football knucklehead like himself gotten so lucky?
“Can this Marlowe be trusted?” Agatha asked.
“Can any vampire be trusted?” Jugs said with a harsh bark of a laugh.
He caught Cody giving him an intense look and frowned, not understanding.
Cody flicked his eyes toward Zenona, who had averted her eyes from them all, then he stared harder at Jugs.
When he understood, Jugs swallowed and sank back into the couch.
“We have had a vampire ally in the past,” Demmy said. “Dr. Michael Graham gave his life helping us stop Xavier and Aldrik from taking over the town.”
Cody checked on Zenona. She was now looking at her hands knotted in her lap. He needed to talk with her soon. He didn’t like how they’d left things between them.
“What does Marlowe want?” Ollie asked. “And how many vampires does she…” He made a face and gave a little shrug. “Serve, I guess?”
“I don’t know much about her or The Rusty Screw,” Demmy admitted.
“Except that it’s been there for over a hundred years, and Marlowe has a unique arrangement with the owner of the neighboring farm.
” Demmy looked at Zenona, but she wouldn’t meet his eye.
After a few seconds, Demmy said, “Zenona, would you like to fill the group in on what you know?”
Everyone’s attention zeroed in on her. Zenona bit her lower lip and shook her head a couple of times, but finally raised her eyes to meet Demmy’s. “You’re going to make me do it?”
“I’m not forcing anyone to do anything,” Demmy replied, a bit of an edge to his voice that surprised, impressed, and, to be honest, turned Cody’s crank. “I asked if you would be willing to tell us all what you’ve learned about Marlowe and the bar since you found out about it yourself.”
She looked around the room and, with a sigh, she slid to the edge of the love seat.
Tonight, her hair didn’t have as much body as it had the night before, and she’d pulled it back into a small bun low on the back of her head.
Her skin was paler, and her energy definitely felt lower.
He wondered if being off Fang caused withdrawal symptoms.
“After Michael died last year, I felt pretty lost. I had become very close with him.”
“Zenona…” Tracey said, rubbing a hand up and down her back. “Why didn’t you talk with us?”
She laughed bitterly. “And say what? I was grieving a vampire I’d fallen in love with?”
“Oh, damn,” Jugs said quietly. “In love?”
“That’s exactly what you should have said,” Clarabell said. “Because we’re your friends, and we want to know how you’re feeling.”
Demmy had stepped closer to Cody when Zenona started speaking, and now he took his hand and squeezed. Cody saw tears shining in his eyes, and he squeezed back, feeling his own eyes burning.
“Well, I didn’t think you’d…I mean, I did think about talking about it, I just didn’t think anyone wanted to hear it.” Zenona cleared her throat. “Anyway, I found a journal he’d been keeping.”
“That must be a hell of a read,” Jugs said. “How old was he?”
Zenona laughed quietly. “Hundreds of years. And, yeah, it was a hell of a read. He kept dozens of these journals. I haven’t had the energy to read through them all.” She looked at them in turn, then gestured to her own head. “I keep reading them in his voice, you know?”
“He had a great voice,” Clarabell said. “That accent.”
“He was really smart,” Tracey added, still rubbing Zenona’s back as she nodded to Clarabell. “He’d seen so much history.”
“He was hot, too,” Ollie said, then blushed when everyone looked at him. “What? He was!” He saw Dave’s raised eyebrows and leaned into him. “I mean, he was no data analyst, but he was attractive in his own way.”
“Hell of a save, Ollie,” Cody said, shaking his head.
“Is that where you learned about Marlowe and her bar?” Demmy asked, getting the conversation back on track, as usual.
“Yes. And I was curious about it. Michael had found comfort in the bar, in knowing Marlowe and meeting someone who had the same beliefs as him.”
“What beliefs?” Agatha asked.
“Marlowe, like Michael, is what the vampire community calls a vegetarian.”
“No meat?” Jugs said with a frown.
“No human blood,” Zenona said.
“Oh.” Jugs paled slightly.