He glanced down without actually moving his head and arched one eyebrow. “Yes?” His deep voice vibrated through my body like Lurch from the Addams family.
I cocked my hip and tossed my hair over my shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the ends of my hair slap Beth in the eye.
Oh, damn.
Ignoring her flinches and movements behind me, I tried to look up coyly at the man. “How are you?”
He finally moved his head to look down at me, his dark eyes raking over my face as though trying to figure out what I was up to. “Fine.”
“A man of few words, eh?” I asked. “I like that.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I managed to choke on air and stray spit and had to turn away, so I could hack up a lung without it being right in the bouncer's face. The next thing I knew, Lurch was pounding on my back so hard I was afraid that the hacking up a lung thing would actually happen. His large hand smacked against my back again as I finally got myself under control.
“Are you okay?”
Oh, geez. His voice never rose in tone. It stayed that deep, flat intonation that resonated.
Pulling myself upright, I wheezed through a raw throat. “I’m fine.”
Wow, he actually seemed concerned. Go Lurch. He’d liked my flirting. Excellent. “So, I’m looking for my brother, Henry. Do you know him? He’s good at cards.”
Lurch froze and pressed at his ear. I hadn't even noticed he was wearing an earpiece until that moment, and I wasn't sure I'd have been able to tell if it wasn't for the tiny cord that appeared from behind his ear and disappeared around his neck. He turned his head away from me so I couldn't hear what he said, but the vibrations of his voice were apparent, like hearing the bass line of a song but not the lyrics. He was talking to someone.
A few seconds later, the black leather door behind him opened and two men walked out, fangs peeking through their lips. There was something about the vamps that sent a chill down my spine even with the whiskey warming my belly. It was as if my instincts were screaming that these creatures could seriously hurt me.
In any other life, at any other time, I don’t think I could have faced them. But I was Henry’s protector. I always had been. Today wasn’t any different.
“This way,” one of them said.
And even though I was scared out of my mind, I straightened my spine. Scary vampires or not, I was going to get my brother back. God protect anyone who gets in my way.
Lurch winked at me as I passed him, the gesture oddly animated for a man who had barely even raised his eyebrow earlier. “Have fun,” he drolled.
Beth and I followed the vampires, practically glued at the hip.
“So, you’ve been down here before?” I whispered to Beth.
She made a little sound. “Notexactly, but I have heard a lot about it.”
Oh man, that was not what I wanted to hear. Beth seemed so confident about tonight. It sounded like she came here every other weekend. But then again, it probably would’ve been smarter for me to have asked her rather than just assuming it.
But rather than entering some creepy serial killer’s basement, we found ourselves on stairs that were well lit, with wooden walls that the woman from the home and garden channel would’ve loved. Ship-something decor. I didn’t have a clue. I wanted to ask Beth more about what she heard about the vampires and this part of the club, but I figured it wasn’t a good idea, with the bouncers a few feet in front of us.
Once we got downstairs, I stopped in shock at what I was seeing. The stairs had seemed to last longer than I'd expected and now I understood why. The first thing I noticed was how the air had changed. It didn't have that sweaty alcohol and sex smell that the club had upstairs. It was cooler, fresher.
It was like an old-school speakeasy. There were large oval tables that were surrounded by leather booths at the entrance then as the room opened up it became almost a hodgepodge of designs, as though it had been around too long to just have one aesthetic.
One of the alcoves off to the right was basically a library. The walls were lined with books and the tables were the same as the others but this time the booths were made of crushed red velvet. Another alcove was all flocked damask wallpaper and material draping from the ceiling with lanterns reminiscent of the kind you'd see at a Turkish bazaar. The booths in that alcove were lower to the ground, just like the tables, and had intricate patterns on the large, overstuffed cushions. Yet another looked more like someone's living room with leather couches and a low coffee table in the middle.
On the side opposite the alcoves was a long bar that was styled like a pub with its own ceiling and everything. Glasses hung from the racks overhead and bottles of all kinds lined the wall. There were more than just a few of each kind of alcohol; there had to be hundreds of bottles there. The glossy black surface of the bar was spotless. I could see that even from here.
The tables in the center of the room were what held my attention the most, though. Dealers and gamblers lined each one. A few of the tables had that distinctive green felt that I'd only ever seen on casino tables before, while others were dark wood and still others were glass.
The vampires we’d been following turned and stared at us. Oh, shit. We looked like a couple of idiots. I sprang away from Beth and straightened my skirt before tossing my hair. “Lead the way, good men,” I said in a formal voice that came out completely ridiculous.
But they just nodded and carried on past the tables of people playing cards, toward some booths that were tucked away and dimly lit. I hadn't even been able to see them from the entrance. There were a few other doors and staircases that peeled off from the room, which had been roped off. I glanced up to see rooms above us with glass fronts, the kind of two-way mirror where whoever was in there could see out but we couldn’t see in.
That explained why the staircase was so long. We were more like two stories down. It also explained why the bar had its own section of lowered ceiling.
