Chapter 7
Nick goes behind the bar, grabs a bottle of Maker’s Mark and a couple of glasses, and pours two shots. Then he slides one across the counter to me.
Now, I’m not much of a drinker. Alcohol is nothing but empty calories. Plus, it dries out your skin. Not exactly an aspiring screen actor’s friend. So unless it’s a girls’ night with Liv and Heather or a special occasion, I mostly stick with water.
But tonight’s already been something of an occasion. And looking at Nick, I have the strong feeling it’s about to get even more… special . So I pick up the glass.
“Cheers,” says Nick.
“Cheers,” I return.
Nick knocks back the whole shot, but I just take a sip. The bourbon is sweet and smooth and leaves me with a warm feeling inside. But I don’t let myself relax into the warmth. I think I’m going to need to stay alert and keep my wits about me.
“So what is it that you need to warn me about?” I ask.
Nick puts his hands flat on the bar and leans forward, and I can’t help noticing how the tendons beneath his guitar tattoo ripple as they tense. “Here’s the deal,” he says. “Before I became a vampire—before I even knew Quentin and Zach were vampires, back when we were just playing music together—I kind of complained to them about this woman who was always on my case.”
Waiting for him to continue, I don’t say anything. But after a few moments, his brows shoot up, and he gives me a pointed look.
“Me?” I ask. “You were talking about me?”
“Who else would I be talking about?”
“I’m not always on your case.”
“Oh no?” he asks, challenging. He stands up straight and puts his hands on his hips. “Nick, break’s over,” he says in a high-pitched, whiny voice that I guess is supposed to be me, although from my perspective, his acting is way over the top. “Nick, don’t forget to lock up. Nick, you’re wasting beer.”
“Well, you were wasting beer,” I say. “You’re always wasting beer. If you would just tilt the mug so the beer pours down along the inside of the glass…” I see that Nick is smirking at me, and I realize I’m kind of proving his point, so I don’t bother finishing my sentence. And I drop my hands, which yes, have somehow made their way onto my hips.
Annoyed, I pick up the tumbler of Maker’s Mark again. This time, I take a bigger swallow.
“So now my bandmates are suspicious of you,” says Nick. “They know that if my making triggered a new slayer, it has to be you.”
“Why does it have to be me?” I ask.
“Because the slayer is always someone the vampire doesn’t get along with,” he says. “And I get along with pretty much everybody else.”
“You do not,” I say.
“Sure I do,” he says with a shrug.
“That’s impossible,” I say, even though I’ve seen the way he is with the customers. “No one gets along with everyone.”
“Seriously?” he says. “You’re even going to get on my case about this?”
I scowl at him. Then—screw it—I pick up the bourbon and drain the glass.
“Okay,” I say. “For the sake of argument, let’s say your vampire buddies figure out that I’m the new slayer in town. What’s the big deal? Then they’ll just know to stay away from me.”
“No,” says Nick.
“No?”
He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work like that, Carrie,” he says. “Think about it. As long as you’re out there, every vampire in Los Angeles is in danger. I mean, you did just try to kill me in the alleyway.”
“Sorry,” I say—a little belatedly, I know. “But it wasn’t about you, exactly. And I wasn’t me, exactly. There are all these unnatural urges…”
“I know,” Nick says, nodding. “I get it, believe me. I know all about unnatural urges.”
I guess he would, considering the new addition to his personal drink menu.
“It was like I had no control,” I hear myself confess to him.
“I know,” he says. There’s real empathy in his voice. “But, Carrie? You need to get control. Fast.”
Nick picks up the bottle and refills our glasses. And that pretty much tells me that I’m not going to like where this conversation is going.
“The thing is,” he says, “Quentin and Zach are going to be watching you. And if they see what you are? Well, they’ll take action to eliminate you before you can eliminate us.”
My slayer perks up at that. I do too.
“Hold on,” I say. “Are you saying they’ll kill me?”
“Yes.”
“ Kill me?”
“’Fraid so.”
“As in…”
“They’re great guys,” he says. “But they’re not really guys, you know? They’re vampires. Old vampires. And the way they see it, when it comes to your kind, it’s slay or be slain.”
What?
“And it’s not just them,” says Nick. “Arlo from the Vampire Council is still here. And apparently, he’s not going back to New York until the slayer question is…uh… resolved . One way or another.”
That’s it. Rage explodes in me. It’s slayer rage—but Carrie rage too.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me!” I shout. “First, you make a choice that turns my whole life upside down. And now you’re saying I could lose my life altogether?”
“Carrie…”
Bloodred mist clouds my vision.
“Carrie!”
Nick’s fangs have reappeared, and before I know it, I’m wielding my sword of fire again.
“Carrie, stop!” shouts Nick. “You could burn down Pete’s!”
I could burn down Pete’s.
He’s right. I could. With the wooden tables and chairs, bar and barstools—not to mention all the alcohol? The place could go up like a tinderbox.
I feel my flaming blade waver.
“You don’t want to burn down Pete’s!” he shouts.
I don’t want to burn down Pete’s.
He’s right again. I don’t. I may want to burn his goddamn vampire ass to the ground, but I don’t want to destroy my employer’s livelihood. Or destroy my own livelihood, for that matter. Right now, with no potential acting gig in the offing, I can’t exactly afford to do a slay job at my day job.
My fiery weapon retreats. My vision returns to normal. And even though there’s been no battle, I kind of feel defeated. Not to go feeling all sorry for myself or anything, but why am I the one who’s always got to be reining things in? Goddammit, it’s like these superpowers are making me more vulnerable than ever.
“You suck,” I tell Nick. “You know that? You totally, totally suck.”
“I do,” he says with an amused grin. His fangs have retracted, I notice. I guess they must pop out as some reaction to my slayer form. Just like my blazing sword seems to show up in response to him.
He pushes the second shot of bourbon a little closer to me. But I don’t need more alcohol. What I need is…
Well, actually, I’m not sure what I need.
“So what am I supposed to do?” I ask. “Obviously, I’m not in control. So if Dracula’s Army is watching me, eventually they’re going to see what I am.”
“Maybe not,” says Nick. “I have an idea, if you’re game.”
I eye him warily, through the legs of the stools stacked between us. “Go on,” I say. “I’m listening.”
“We work on it together,” he says. “I’ll help you to restrain your slayer and get control.”
All at once, I realize that’s exactly what I need. Help. Except…
“How can you help me?” I ask. “You’re a vampire. You’re what sets me off and makes me want to slay.”
“But I also managed to get through to you and make you stop,” he counters. “Out back in the alley. And then again just now.”
I think about this for a moment. I guess he’s not wrong.
“We can have, like, nightly training sessions,” says Nick. “I can try to provoke you, and you can try to hold your shit together.”
“Sounds like a typical shift at Pete’s,” I mutter.
He laughs at that. After a beat, I reluctantly smile back.
“And I suppose they’d have to be night sessions?” I ask.
He points at himself. “Vampire,” he says. “So yes.”
“Right.”
Once again, vampire mythology holds true.
Just then, it occurs to me that there’s all this well-known lore about vampires but virtually nothing about vampire slayers. I know that Nick can’t go out in the sunlight, but I know nothing about myself. Or my new self, I should say. I mean, I didn’t even know what I was until he told me. And suddenly, it all just seems so… unfair .
“You all right?” asks Nick, crashing the private little pity party I’ve got brewing.
“Fine,” I say. “I’m fine.” I’m not fine, of course. Not even close. But goddammit, I’m not going to start crying to him about it. “So you were saying…?”
He eyes me for a long beat before he continues.
“A week from tonight,” he says finally, “Dracula’s Army has a gig at the Whisky on Sunset.”
“That’s impressive,” I say, a little thrown. For one thing, I’d always figured that if Nick’s stupid garage band ever managed to score a gig, it’d be at some unknown little hole-in-the-wall, not at one of LA’s most historic music venues. And for another thing, well…I just don’t see what the band’s show at Whisky a Go Go next Wednesday night has to do with my current predicament. “Congratulations.”
“Arlo will be there. Along with a bunch of other vampires,” says Nick. “I’m thinking you should come too.”
“What?” I ask. “You want to get me killed?”
“No, listen,” he says. “That’s what we’ll be training for. What you’ll be training for. I’ll put you on the VIP list, and you can come backstage. You can meet Quentin and Zach and Arlo and the others. And when they see you not making with the slayer rage around all that undead energy, they’ll think you didn’t turn. They’ll think you’re just an ordinary human. They won’t have any reason to kill you, so they’ll leave you alone. And Arlo can go back to New York and report that no slayer was created during the making of”—he gestures at himself with both thumbs—“this vampire. Problem solved.”
Nick looks at me like he’s just handed me a gift and he’s waiting to see if I like it.
I don’t want to seem ungrateful. Certainly, I appreciate the gesture. But I can’t overlook the obvious flaws here.
First off, this plan involves the two of us spending the next week together. And it’s bad enough just working the bar with Nick. But hanging out afterward? And on our nights off? We’ll be lucky if we don’t kill each other. Literally.
And even if I can learn to put my slayer on a leash around Nick, who knows what’ll happen in a room filled with other vampires? This has the potential to end badly. Really badly.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask. “What if I can’t get control?”
Nick shrugs. “Then you’re no worse off than you are right now,” he says. “And neither are any of us.”
That’s the second time he’s said us , I notice. Because he’s a vampire. He’s one of them.
“But why even help me?” I ask. “Won’t your bandmates be pissed if they learn you’re consorting with the enemy.”
“If we pull this off,” he says, “they’ll never have to know.”
“But you could get hurt,” I say.
“I could get hurt anyway,” he says with a wry smile. “I can deal.”
“But why risk it?” I ask. “You don’t even like me.”
Nick starts to say something, but then he hesitates. He stares down at his drink, frowning. The silence stretches out to a point where it starts to get awkward.
Finally, he peers back up at me.
“It’s like you said,” he says carefully. “I chose to become a vampire. But you didn’t choose this. You didn’t choose to be a slayer. You’re in this mess because of me. So I feel like I owe you. I just want to make things right.”
Not for the first time tonight, Nick surprises me. It’s not like him to step up and take responsibility this way. Or at least I didn’t think it was like him.
“So what do you say?” he asks. He picks up his glass and raises it to me. “Frenemies?”
I start to think about it, but really, what is there even to think about? If what Nick is saying is true, I’m in some pretty deep shit here, and he might be throwing me the one and only rope to help me climb my way out.
Plus, the damage is done. I’m a slayer now, and it doesn’t seem like there’s any way to change that. So if I’m ever going to have the career I want—the life I want—I need to learn how to control these new impulses. I can’t continue to live with the fear, day in and day out, that I might become an accidental arsonist. Auditions are stressful enough without the added worry that I might burn the freaking casting office down.
So I raise my glass and clink it against Nick’s. “Frenemies.”
“Oh, and, Carrie?”
I stop with the glass halfway to my lips. “Yeah?”
He gives me a contrite smile that accentuates those dimples again. “I really am sorry you don’t get to be J.Lo’s bartender.”
***
About an hour later, keys and cell phone in hand, I’m walking back to my car. It’s not even midnight, but the street is deserted. It’s one of the things I’ve had to get used to since I moved to LA.
In Philadelphia, where I grew up, and in New York City, where I went to college, there’s foot traffic at all hours. Even late at night, you always find people walking home, walking to the bus stop or the subway station, or sometimes just walking for the hell of it. But nobody walks in LA. It’s too spread out. Everyone drives everywhere. The only place anyone walks to is their car. So once the shops and the bars and the restaurants close, the streets are a virtual ghost town.
But as the heels of my booties pound the pavement of Melrose Avenue and my footsteps echo eerily through the darkness, I don’t really feel afraid. After all, I’ve got pepper spray on my key chain and 911 on speed dial. And I guess I’ve got a flaming blade of supernatural destruction at my beck and call too. So I’m good.
Or am I?
Continuing along to my Prius, I feel something that makes my muscles tense. The back of my neck starts to prickle. My slayer radar goes on full alert.
Someone is definitely watching me. Someone not human. And not Nick.
I know it as surely as I know my own name. A vampire is observing me from somewhere in the shadows. If I had any doubts about what Nick just told me, they evaporate at once into the balmy night air. Dracula’s Army is on the lookout.
I’m not exactly thrilled to realize that one of Nick’s blood-drinking bandmates is spying on me. But my inner slayer is absolutely livid about it. Anger starts to gather like a ball of fire in my gut, but I know I can’t let that fire explode. I can’t show what I am. Not after Nick’s warning. Not unless I want to provoke a supernatural fight to the finish. A fight that might well finish me.
So like a nauseous person trying to make it to the bathroom before getting sick, I try to make it to my car before my eyes flash and my flaming blade materializes, outing me to my enemies. I pick up my pace, but I try not to run. I don’t want to arouse any suspicions.
The fire in my belly is gaining strength though. That now-familiar bloodred haze is teasing the periphery of my field of vision. I’m right on the verge of being completely overwhelmed by a murderous hatred for this vampire voyeur.
But it’s only half a block to the car. Only half a block to go. I just need to keep my slayer in check for a little while longer.
To combat the rising wave of hate, I try to concentrate on all the things that I like. I think of my girls, Liv and Heather. Hazelnut coffee with a splash of oat milk. The way Nick’s eyebrow piercing glimmers in the moonlight.
The way Nick’s eyebrow piercing glimmers in the moonlight?
Why on earth am I thinking about that?
My slayer is just as thrown as I am. But as it turns out, that’s a good thing. The confusion is a distraction, and the fire inside me starts to dim. Just a few feet from my Prius now, I press the unlock button on my key fob. With a chirp-chirp , the headlights blink on. I quickly open the driver’s side, climb inside, and pull the door closed after me.
In the relative safety of my car, I lean back in my seat, close my eyes, and let out a breath that I didn’t realize I was holding. I send my feelers out into the dark night, but I don’t sense anything. I don’t think I have an undead observer anymore. For now, at least, I seem to be alone.
I open my eyes, toss my stuff onto the passenger seat, and punch the hybrid’s start button. As the engine rumbles to life, I buckle up. To keep from thinking too much about vampire assassins lying in wait—or vampire bartenders with silver piercings in their brows—I turn on the radio and crank up the volume.
“A-Punk” by Vampire Weekend blares out at me. The universe, it seems, has a sense of humor.
I hit the gas and begin the drive home. But even the loud, frenetic music can’t keep me from wondering what my own upcoming vampire weekend will be like. Well, vampire week , really.
Sounds like a promo on the Discovery Channel.
Except, incredibly, this upcoming week of vampire games isn’t some must-see ratings grabber of a reality show. How in the actual hell did this become my reality?