She turns back toward the heart of the room. “I hope to see you on the other side of the red door, Eloise.”
She drifts off toward the crowd. I watch her go, noticing how people rotate from one table to another. Speed dating for blood brothels. I take a deep breath and choose.
At the first table I try, an older woman with the lanky build and perfect posture of a former ballerina speaks in a heavy German accent. She addresses a man in line ahead of me. “Tell me why you want to work in Night Haven.”
The man scratches his scruff of a beard. Tattoos cover both his exposed arms, extend under his black T-shirt and up the left side of his neck. He’s thin with dark shadows under his eyes and a few tracks on the inside of his arm that look like they might be infected.
“No place for me topside anymore. Served my time, but no one will hire me,” he says.
“What were you in for?”
“Robbery and involuntary manslaughter,” he mumbles.
I think back to what Olivia said, that everyone here is seeking death. Maybe she’s right. This guy looks like he’s seen better days.
“And what is your tolerance for pain?” the madam asks him.
The question causes me to stiffen. Why is that a necessary question?
He offers her a shaky smile. “As high as it needs to be.”
Without warning, the madam snatches the man’s hand off the table and holds his arm over the candle at its center. He doesn’t even flinch. Doesn’t try to pull away. Just stares at her with dead eyes as the smell of burning hair and flesh blossoms around us. That has to hurt. Fuck, she’s burning him alive.
My stomach clenches.
My eyes dart between him and the madam, growing wider as the torture goes on and on.
A noise of disgust in my throat causes her to cast a reproachful glance in my direction.
She releases him just as his skin starts to blister.
“Harissa’s will have you.” She flips through her clipboard and writes his name on her roster. “Take your things and go wait by the red door.”
He slings a duffel over his shoulder and heads toward the back of the room where others wait with their bags. The madam raises her eyes to me, but I just shake my head and move toward the next table. Jesus, what have I gotten myself into? Am I going to be burned or otherwise tortured before I find a way to get to Damien?
I steady my breath. No, Cassius would have warned me if that were the case. I lift my chin and focus again on Damien. He’s probably being tortured right now because he refuses to give up my name. I have to be brave. Cassius said to try for Marabella’s. Which table is Marabella’s?
I stroll through the room, listening as I pass each table. I pause when a heavyset woman with the voice of a drill sergeant announces, “Be aware, Marabella’s only has two openings this time around, and we already have over twenty interested candidates.”
A few people leave the line to take their chances with another house. I get into line.
The madam of Marabella’s is an older brunette, mid-forties, with an ample bosom and a hearty laugh. Dressed in a plaid shirt and black leggings with her curls sloppily clipped behind her head, she looks more like a neighborhood mom than the manager of a blood brothel. I watch her quickly dismiss the five women in front of me one by one. At least she isn’t burning anyone. But I swallow down nerves anyway. I need Marabella’s. I have to get to Night Haven. I can’t wait another month.
“Next!” She flips the paper on her clipboard.
My palms are sweating. She has to choose me. Somehow I need to make it through that red door, and I trust Cassius that Marabella’s will make my mission easier. I step up to the table.
“Name?” She scans my hair, my face, then shifts so she can see my body behind the table. She didn’t do that with the others. Will she weigh me and check my teeth too?
“Eloise Harcourt,” I say.
“Marabella,” she says by way of introduction. “Have you been a donor before?”
“Only for my boyfriend.”
She looks up at me, narrowing her eyes. “We can’t have jealous vampires storming our doors all hours of the night.”
Fuck. Why did I say my boyfriend? She’s going to dismiss me. “You won’t. He’s… no more.” I swallow.
