Everyone quietly chuckled.
The power went out, cutting off the noise from the TV and the lights. Christian could see just fine, but the others looked at Gem’s dress until their eyes adjusted.
Christian grabbed a stake and moved to the doorway. He cracked the door, listening to the murmurs and complaints coming from nearby rooms. Others were oblivious as the cries of passion and skin slapping against skin continued on.
A door opened. “Cheap-ass hotel,” an older man grumbled as he looked around the hall. “You get what you pay for.”
They had counted on people briefly emerging from their rooms, and the added noise in the hallways would make it easier to slip out. Christian scanned the hall and then made a break for the stairwell with Claude. Gem lingered behind, an innocent look on her angelic face and a stake hidden behind her back.
When they reached the stairwell, Christian opened the door and adopted his best Southern accent. “I swear, if it ain’t one thing, it’s something else. First the phones, then I can’t even watchGunsmoke.” He peered over the railing at the floors above. It looked clear up as well, so he patted Claude on the shoulder and they parted ways.
“I’m gonna give that son of a bitch downstairs a piece of my mind,” Christian went on. “Come all the way from San Antone and can’t even get electricity. What kind of shit show are they runnin’?”
The simplest approach could throw off suspicion. If any Vampires were lurking in the stairwell, they would assume he was human. A Vampire couldn’t always identify another Vampire in the dark since everyone’s pupils were dilated. Each time Christian reached a landing, he stopped and listened. Someone belched—probably that Bible-thumping buzzard who lived in the stairwell.
A light flickered a few times along with the scraping sound of a flint wheel.
“There you are!” the old man cried out. “From the darkness into the light. Save your soul! Save your soul!”
“Change your underpants.”
“Told them where you were. Told them, I did. Now the cockroaches scurry about! The exterminators have come.”
Christian stopped midstep and turned a sharp gaze to the disheveled drunk. “What was that?”
The old buzzard waved his lighter, the flame dancing.
As tempting as it was to locate the nearest demon statue and glue that man to it, Christian turned away. Snitches were the worst. Sometimes lowlifes who knew about Breed earned money or alcohol by acting as spies, reporting any unusual Breed activity in the human district.
Shouting erupted from the lobby—guests wanting their power restored, others demanding a refund.
The only person with a flashlight was the guy behind the desk.
“You’re going to have to wait,” the man announced, his hand beneath the counter. “Go back upstairs. There’s nothing I can do. I reported the outage, and I can’t get anyone out until tomorrow morning anyhow.”
“Honey, I’ll keep you company in the dark,” a scantily clad lady purred as she sidled up to a tall man in a long coat.
The hotel clerk stood and knocked on the barrier between them. “That’s enough of that. Take your business on the street before you get me arrested. Not inside the lobby. You know the rules.”
The lady scoffed. “We both know that theonlyreason this hotel is still running is because of the business we bring in, but if you want to be an asshole, I can take a hint. I can also take my business over to Hector’s.” She sashayed across the lobby and made a dramatic exit with her fake mink stole.
Christian eyed all the humans. When he didn’t spot any Vampires, he discreetly made his way to the back hall. He searched the bathrooms, laundry room, and supply room. The ground floor reminded him of older apartment buildings—clearly it wasn’t designed for people of class. Christian remembered the tenements in the 1900s that kept the downtrodden in squalor. Rooms were no bigger than the ones they had. The only difference was some had stovepipes in the center for cooking.
He looped back around to the lobby and then down the center hall, past the elevators. At the end, the hall split left and right. The first floor didn’t have as many rooms as the upper floors, probably because nobody wanted a ground-floor view of the back alley. The doors along the central wall were few and far between, likely storage rooms. He focused on locating accessible windows or exit doors since those would be the entry points a Vampire would guard.
Christian moved like liquid through the darkness, sliding through the shadows without making a sound. He was so attuned to his Vampire gifts that he could hardly remember what it was like to be human. At least, not until Lenore’s apple cider from hell. When he reached the end of the hall, he noticed a door with anExitsign over it. A vertical window on the door revealed a short hall with a door on the other end that led outside. There didn’t appear to be anyone in there, but he decided to investigate since the grimy glass didn’t provide him with a clear view.
Before he turned the knob, someone tackled him from the side. They struck the wall, and Christian snapped the Vampire’s arm in three places. He stepped away from the wall to see what he was dealing with. A short man with curly hair flexed his fingers as his arm healed. Then he moved on Christian like a speeding bullet.
Christian swirled around him and glided up the wall before kicking off. He body-slammed the man to the ground. Then he gouged out his eyes. The Vampire shrieked, threatening to call attention to everyone within earshot. Christian found his impalement stick and quickly drove it through his neck.
“Jaysus. You’re a noisy lad.”
Christian dragged him to the exit. The exit hall was good enough for temporary storage until it came time to dispose of the bodies. After wiping his bloody thumbs on the man’s shirt, he dipped back into the hall. Just as the door shut, another Vampire casually walked toward him from the right. This one had pale hair and features like a Nordic.
If only there were an axe conveniently hanging on the wall.
“Your friend just stepped out.” Christian gestured to the pieces of the man’s eyes on the floor. “I guess he didn’t see you.”
