Page 13 of Her Vampire, His Ruin

“Absolutely not. We’re not giving up now,” she responds, picking up her glass of wine and pacing the room, the shiny black business card still gripped in her hand. “We’re missing something here. Something important.”

“Yes, a few brain cells. I don’t even know if it was him who left it. It’s probably got nothing to do with him.”

“You’re telling me a man dressed all in black, with slicked back hair, tattoos, and the darkest brown eyes they were almost obsidian—your words not mine—doesn’t have business cards as fancy and mysterious as this?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” I let my voice trail off and wipe my hands on a paper towel. “Either way, just forget about it. We’ll chalk this whole experience up to excellent masturbation fodder and leave it at that.”

“So you did fancy him then,” Henrietta says, sloshing her wine as she flops back into the seat next to me.

“I never said I didn’t.”

“You never said you did either. This makes all the difference. Now I’m absolutely determined to find out what this bloody means,” she says, chucking the business card onto the table.

“This isn’t you already being determined?” I ask, flicking on the UV lamp and shaking my head as I look across at her. “Let’s just do our nails and forget about all of this. Do you want to go first?”

Henrietta’s eyes widen, her mouth popping open as she lets out a surprised giggle. “Oh, fuck.”

“What on earth is wrong with you? I swear you are the biggest lightweight,” I say, trying to snatch the glass of wine from her hand. She slaps my hand away, grabs my chin and repositions my face so that I’m looking at the business card that seems to have something glowing on its surface.

“It’s fluorescent ink,” Henrietta squeals, releasing my face and shoving the card further under the UV lamp.

Sure enough, the light reveals some kind of emblem. It’s the image of a crow perched on an ornate mirror, droplets of blood dripping from the thick thorny vine wrapped around it. Beneath it is a row of numbers.

“Oh, this is exciting.” Henrietta grins, flipping over the card. On the reverse, in curling letters, is the word Avant Garde.

“That’s his nightclub,” I whisper.

“When I looked his club up earlier, the site was password protected. This must be the password,” Henrietta screeches, placing her wine glass on the table, and quickly pulling up the Avant Garde website on my laptop.

“He tried to convince me it’s a cabaret and not a sex club,” I mutter, my heart pounding as Henrietta carefully types in the fifteen digit code. “I didn’t believe him. We’ve all heard the rumours. Avant Garde is most definitely a sex club. Why all the cloak and dagger stuff if it wasn’t?”

“Does it matter? It’s exclusive as fuck, and if this is what I think it is, you’ve got an invite to it.”

“I’ve got a password to the website, you mean? Which is a little odd, don’t you think? If he wanted me to go to the club to hook up, why didn’t he just send me a text or something?”

“Because you didn’t give him your number, silly,” she reminds me.

“Ah, yes. I take your point.”

She nudges me with her shoulder and winks, her cheeks flush from the alcohol as we wait for something to happen. “This is exciting.”

“What’s it doing?” I ask, peering closer at the screen as the very same emblem on the business card starts spinning in a circle so fast that I have to angle the laptop away from me so I don’t throw up. “Actually, I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Oh, damn,” she whispers a moment later.

“What now?”

“You’re going to want to look at this,” Henrietta says as she starts wiggling around in her seat. Any minute now, she’s either going to start singing some random 90’s tune like she normally does when she’s over stimulated, or pass out from too much alcohol.

“Oh for crying out loud. What on earth could be so riveting?” I ask.

“Please tell me he’s your gangster,” Henrietta says, as she slowly twists the laptop back in my direction and shuffles closer to my side. “Because if he isn’t yours, I want him.”

Chapter 4

Edie

“Oh shit,” I mumble, eyes wide as Dorian stares back at me, a slow smile pulling up his lips.