I turned, reached for the lock on the door,
then
stiffened.
Male voices.
Several of them.
Coming from high up.
I squinted through the dark and saw dim light glinting off an open transom window near the ceiling. I heard water splashing.
The window must be between the two restrooms
, I thought.
“…see those legs?” I heard one guy ask.
“Jesus, Dino,” a second voice said. “We don’t have time for that now. New Year’s Eve is right around the corner. We’ve got plans to finalize.”
Then the words hit me:
Dino.
We.
New Year’s Eve
, I thought. Could I possibly be eavesdropping on the Bat Pack? But surely that didn’t make any sense. Blanchard had claimed they were low-level losers, and he had never steered me wrong. Someone else was speaking now, but I couldn’t catch his words. Blanchard might not deliberately
steer
me wrong. That wasn’t the same as saying he couldn’t
be
wrong.
I need to get closer to that window
, I thought.
The toilet.
Grabbing the top of the marble walls of the stall, I set one shoe on the seat,
then
hoisted myself up. I balanced precariously, straining my ears to listen.
“…when we finish at the
Sher
” came through, clear as a bell.
“Why does it have to be the
Sher
?” a voice I hadn’t heard before complained. “Why can’t it be
New York
–
New York
? I like that one better.”
“Because it’s not up to you, buddy boy.
And if you want to be a player in this town, you’ll do things
his
way, or pretty soon you won’t be doing them at all.”
“After what goes down at the
Sher
, things are going to go
our
way,” the guy who had wanted
New York
–
New York
gloated. “You watch. The power in this town is
gonna
change. We’re
gonna
count down to midnight in style.”
I felt sick. The vamp at the
Sher
had been telling the truth. Al’s instincts had been right, and mine wrong. The rumors were more than rumors. They were fact. There was a major con set to go down at the
Sher
on New Year’s Eve, and vampires were very definitely involved.
Something moved in the faint reflection on the transom. Acting purely on instinct, I ducked. I knew it was the wrong move the second I made it. My heel slid off the seat, banging into porcelain.
The voices stopped at once. There was a beat of silence.
“Check the ladies’ room.” One of them gave the order.
Shit! Now I’d done it.
I slipped out of the stall and inched open the outer door, peering out as the music thudded in, wondering if I could simply make a run for it. The trouble was
,
I didn’t know which direction to go. There was no way out except along a narrow corridor that led to both bathrooms. How in hell did I find my way here in the first place? If I had been thinking, I would have noticed how easily I could be trapped.
But I hadn’t been thinking, I had been reacting, and now I was just plain fucked. I heard the sound of a door—it had to be the door to the men’s room—swinging open. I couldn’t pass them without being seen. That left just one option: bluff. If I could make them think I was just a dumb human who had wandered into Taste by mistake, I might still get out of this alive.
I slid the silver stakes from my hair, allowing my curls to tumble down around my shoulders. I palmed the stakes in my right hand. I didn’t want to fight in such a restricted space, but I would if forced to make that choice. On sudden inspiration, I eased the door closed silently, took two steps to the closest sink and turned the water on. My one bit of luck was that it wasn’t the kind controlled by a motion detector.
Just a good old-fashioned faucet.
I hoped it would prove a good omen. I needed one.
Taking a deep breath, praying it wouldn’t be among my last, I pushed open the door. I knew what was waiting for me on the other side—or I hoped I did.
There were four of them waiting in the hallway.
All male.
All dressed like refugees from the old Sands Hotel. Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter
Lawford
, Dean Martin.
“Cool chick,” the one who looked like Sinatra said. He leered at me, casually flicking ashes off his cigarette. If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, I might have laughed. These guys really got into their roles.
“What are you doing back here all by yourself, doll face?” the Sammy Davis clone inquired.
“Waiting for my friend,” I replied. “She’s in the ladies’ room.” I leaned back against the door, cracking it ever so slightly to make sure they could hear the water running. “You know the rule, don’t you? No woman can go to the restroom alone.” I was babbling like an idiot, not that I cared. The stupider they thought I was, the better my chance of outsmarting them.
“So you were in there?” The Peter
Lawford
clone stepped closer. They all followed suit.
“Isn’t that a little personal to ask someone you don’t know?”
“That all depends,” said the one who looked like Dean Martin.
“On what?”
“On how much better we can get to know you.”
They laughed then, all four, in unison, and I knew I was in really, really big trouble. These guys were pack animals, and they were having a good time. The Dean Martin Bat Packer—he even held a martini in one hand—swayed toward me. I tried to make myself small against the wall, but it was pretty clear these guys weren’t going to let me go. Not yet. They were having too much fun.
“Hey, baby!” Dean tilted his glass as if he were going to take a sip,
then
grabbed my arm.
I twisted out of his grip and shoved him back in the same motion. His drink splattered into my face and dripped down the front of my shrug, soaking through to the lace camisole.
“What is your problem?” I let my voice rise in an outraged whine. “Do you have any idea what liquor will do to cashmere?” I adjusted the stakes in my hand. I didn’t want to use them. There were too many vampires in the club, and I was too far from the door.
“How clumsy of me,” he crooned in a perfect Dino drawl. “Let me help you clean that off.”
“No thanks.”
“I insist.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and ran his tongue along where the drink had splashed on my cheek.
“Get off me!” I gave the Dino a shove. He rocked back and laughed. Could vampires get drunk? He sure was acting that way. Then I remembered that appearing slightly sloshed had been Dean Martin’s act.
In the next moment, he abandoned staying in character. He was all
vampire
now.
Leaping toward me, pressing me back against the wall.
Not with his hands this time, but his whole body. Low level or not, his cock was high and hard. Even in the dim light, I could see the fiery glow of anticipation in his eyes.
Wait for it, Candace
, I thought, even as my skin crawled, the voice in my head an echo of every self-defense class I had ever taken, and there had been a lot.
Give your foe a chance to reveal what he intends before you act. Then you’ll know which way to move to block him. And if you’re outnumbered, wait for a chance to take your best shot
.
Dino’s thumb came up to brush against my wet camisole. He found my breast, then my nipple. He squeezed.
Hard.
I didn’t want to cry out, give him what he wanted, but I knew it was my safest course of action.
“Please…please don’t hurt me,” I gasped out.
“Then stop making me, baby,” he crooned, in character again now. “Relax. You might like it.”
He bent toward me once more. He ran his tongue along my neck, licking off the martini. Disgust welled up in me as his tongue slid lower, over the curve of my breast, then back up toward my throat. I felt the smooth enamel of his teeth against my neck. Cold sweat broke out across my skin. Unable to stop myself, I put my left hand to his chest and pushed back, hard. He fell into his buddies. They laughed. The Dean Martin vampire narrowed his eyes. He took a step, but the Sammy Davis Jr. clone cut him off.
“My turn,” Sammy said. “Watch this technique, cats. Let me show you how it’s done.”
Entirely without warning, the vampire pretending to be Frank Sinatra made a disparaging sound.
“You boys stay and play if you want to,” he said. “I got better things to do with my time.”
There was a moment of humming silence. Then, the vampire dressed as Dean Martin shrugged and straightened his shirt cuffs. “I’m with you,” he said.
Without another word, they turned and walked off. I sagged against the wall, hardly able to believe my good luck. If they had wanted to scare the hell out of me, they had succeeded. They’d also shown me which way was out.
Bursting back into the club, I skirted the dance floor once, then a second time. I wanted to go home and take a shower and wash away all memory of those undead fingers and lips and teeth on me.
But not until I found
Bibi
.
I was seriously considering a foray onto the dance floor itself, when I spotted a familiar figure over by the bar.
“Theo, where’s
Bibi
?” I demanded. He gave a shrug.
“Gone.
She thought you left, so she went home, too.”
“Are you sure?”
He gave another shrug. “That’s what she said,” he replied. “She was a little pissed off, if you want to know. She thought you’d cut out on her so she said she was going to call it a night. That’s all I know.”
As if to make clear he considered our conversation over, he turned away from me and melted back into the crowd of dancers.
Okay. Well, that’s that
, I thought.
Bibi
was on her way home.
Time to cut my losses and get out of Dodge.
I made for the front door.
It was cold outside Taste, but I was warmer with every step I put between me and the vampire club. I pulled out my cell and pressed speed-dial for
Bibi
. She didn’t pick up. I left her a message apologizing for the misunderstanding. Then hit the button to call for my voice mail. Sure enough, there was a message from
Bibi
, left almost an hour ago. I hadn’t realized my encounter with the Bat Pack had taken so long. I had to play
Bibi’s
message several times, the club noise in the background was so loud. It was garbled, but I could clearly make out the words “Going home.”
No doubt that’s where she was, sleeping off the excesses of the night. There was no sense swinging by her place to make sure she was all right. I would only wake her up, piss her off even more.
Walking toward the Strip where I could find a cab wasn’t fun in high heels. I slipped my shoes off and kept going. When I saw the lights of the
Rio
casino coming up, I hurried toward it, knowing I could get a cab there. Fifteen minutes later, I was in a taxi that smelled of old cigars. For once the smell didn’t bother me. All that mattered was that the cab was taking me home.
My house was dark when I stepped out of the cab. I never leave lights on. What I worry about could be waiting in light just as easily as in shadows. I didn’t bother to turn on the lights as I locked the door behind me, staggered down the hall to the bathroom, stripped off my clothes, showered quickly, then reached for the soft flannel nightshirt that hung on the inside of the bathroom door. I was cleaner, definitely a plus, but my head still ached, as if the music had followed me home from the club.