Everyone was looking at them, and Felicity bowed her head. “Why can’t I find just one decent man? Just one?”
From across the room, her father stood. “Damn you, Felicity. I said no,” he said, pointing directly at two young men. “Take him. Dump enough wine down his throat to get him across. I want this one as an object lesson.”
“No!” Felicity stood in a panic, and Cooper blinked up at her, heart pounding. “If you won’t allow me a new husband from the families, I’ll make one!”
“I won’t allow you a new husband because I decided your line should die out, you stupid cow!” her father exclaimed, and the remaining dancers began to leave the dance floor and gather their things, skulking to stay out of his sight. “You and the ill-gotten spawn that ignorant sidestepper engendered. Who do you think closed the veil to him?”
“Papa!” she shrieked, her eyes shifting to a pale green. “You? You killed my husband?”
Cooper tensed, eyeing the door. It looked too far away with too many people between him and it. But no one was looking at him. Sweat broke out. They were animals, feeding on people. Feeding on him. Feeding on his cat!
In sudden impulse, he grabbed the animal. Emily shrieked and Felicity turned, tears slipping from her eyes. Grunting, Cooper shoved them both at the two men coming for him. Amid yells and screams, they all went down. Heart pounding, he ran for the polished bar.
The kitten tucked under his arm didn’t move. He hoped it was still alive as he shoved a woman of incredible beauty out of his way. A cry of outrage followed by a laugh went up, and his tired legs found strength. Hands grasped him, but he slipped them all, jumping onto the bar and running down it, scrambling to avoid the reaching hands.
“Someone catch him!” the old man demanded. Felicity was crying at his feet and Emily was curled into a ball, sobbing for her kitten.
Cooper jumped from the end of the bar, fumbling for his car keys knowing he’d have precious few seconds to get in and get it started. Feeling like he might make it, Cooper hit the door at a run, slamming into the lever, but the door didn’t move. Panic hit him. The thick wood took his pounding, giving nothing. The lever rattled up and down, but nothing happened. Through the smoked glass, the moon shown through the trees—tall, huge pine trees green in the snow and moonlight. It wasn’t the parking lot.
He stared, jerked out of his shock when someone touched him. “No!” he shouted as he was yanked backward into the room, grunting as he hit the floor and curled up to avoid crushing the kitten. His keys went flying, the Harley bell that his grandmother had given him ringing clear and sharp as it pinged across the floor.
As one, every single vampire cowered, howling in pain. He froze, seeing the little bell roll in a circle to become silent. First one, then another black head rose to look at him, pain still etched on their faces.
Cooper surged after his keys, scrambling on the floor until the little key chain with the Florida emblem and the Harley biker bell that his grandmother said would keep him from hitting potholes was back in his grasp. “You’re animals!” he shouted, shaking it to make it ring, and they all fell back in pain. Only Felicity’s father stood tall at the far end of the room. Blood trickled from the man’s ear, and Cooper remembered the bells on the shop door hadn’t rung when Emily and Felicity crossed the threshold.
With a renewed hope, he ran for the door. “Let me out! Let me through!” he screamed, pounding on it.
A crack split the air, throwing him back into the bar. The lights went out as he hit the floor, landing awkwardly so he wouldn’t hurt the kitten still in his arms. The door swung out and open, and the cold night smelling of exhaust spilled in: gray snow, frozen slush, leafless trees, and the lights from the gas station across the street illuminating the parking lot that held a scattering of cars.
Standing beside his snow-covered Volvo, staring at the bar with her feet spread wide and her hands on her hips, was Kay.
Scrambling, Cooper lunged for the door as it began to close.
“Cooper!” Kay cried, her red scarf flying as she ran forward. “Don’t let the door shut! For God’s sake, keep it open! Keep it open!”
Cooper scrambled out onto the threshold, breathing in the smell of exhaust and cold snow. The people in line waiting to get in were gone. Behind him, the bar was filled with angry howls and screams. The moon was down. It had to be almost dawn. Felicity’s cry of pain jerked him straight and he looked behind him into the darkness. She was a monster. Why should he care? She wanted to turn him into a goddamned dancing fey, bloodsucking vampire!
“Cooper, don’t let the door shut!”
He flung out his free hand at the last moment, the heavy wood pinching his fingers before he pushed it open again. Inside, someone was screaming his name. “Kay?” he stammered as she slid to a breathless halt beside him, her eyes bright and her red scarf falling off her neck. Her fur-tufted boots were leaving clumps of snow on the swept front, and she looked alive, thrilled. “What are you doing here?” he asked, then yanked her back when she tried to go in. “Stop!” he shouted. “It’s a flesh club! I saw one take a chunk out of someone!”
Kay jerked her attention from the dark opening, grinning. A strong scent of pine wafted over him, clearing his head, and the kitten in his arms stirred. “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Don’t let go of the door,” she added as she put his hand on the door. “Promise me you’ll keep the door open for me. Please, Cooper. I don’t know how, but you got the door open. You can hold it. Just give me five minutes. That’s all I want. Five minutes.”
“You can’t go in there!” he exclaimed.
“I can now,” she said, flashing him a savage smile. And then she ran, screaming as she dove through the opening and vanished in the darkness of the bar.
A second later, a flash of red light lit the room, glittering scarlet in the chandeliers and turning the gold on the bar to a burgundy sheen. Shocked, he stared at the cowering forms and savage snarls. His hand slipped from the door, but he caught the edge before it shut again, grunting when he needed to put all his weight behind it to pull it back open. He almost let it go again in surprise when two cats raced over the threshold, their coats smoking as they ran into the snow. When he looked back, the stage was on fire.
No one was trying to get out. Figures slumped across tables or on the floor. The people still moving were screaming in outrage—snarling as they circled the stage and tried to get into an inky black spot at the back of it. It hung behind a smoky gray figure wielding a bright sword. Whenever someone would try for the fog, the apparition would attack, cutting them down with three swipes and a horrific, satisfied scream. That others would slip in behind it and escape while their brethren died was not going unnoticed, but the sword wielder didn’t seem to care as long as someone was dying.
“It’s on fire,” he whispered as he realized the sword wasn’t glowing red from reflecting flame. The sword was really on fire.
Blood slicked the stage and dripped to the floor with each new sweep of the blade and falling body kicked off the sword. Feeling ill, Cooper slumped, almost letting the door slip shut as a wave of nausea hit him. “Kay?” he warbled, finally sitting down on the cold cement to prop the door open. It felt as if his energy, his stamina, was being sucked into the bar. “Kay? I can’t hold it . . .” he whispered, his hands still cradling the kitten, now a shivering ball. His fingers were so cold he couldn’t feel the softness of fur, and he hunched into himself, holding the door open with his deadweight as the screams grew fewer, more distinct, and finally, ended.
“Kay,” he whispered, not altogether conscious when someone smelling like a pine tree wedged a shoulder under him and lifted.
“God save you, Cooper,” he heard Kay whisper, and he felt them start to move. “I told you it was slippery tonight.”
“The people,” he muttered, unable to lift his head as he shuffled over frozen ruts, kitten cradled in his arms.
“I couldn’t save them,” she said, her voice lacking her usual war
mth. “I don’t even know how you got out.”
“Didn’t eat the food,” he said, shambling forward. “Grandma told me not to eat food with dancing . . . fairies.”
A boom of sound shoved them forward as the bar exploded, and by the light of it burning, Kay got his passenger-side door open. She practically shoved him in and slammed the door shut. It seemed like forever before the driver’s-side door opened, and he blearily watched her grunt at his key ring, giving the bell a little tap. “That might explain it,” she said. “Cooper, you are one lucky bastard,” she added as she revved the engine and left Gateways to burn to ash behind them.
THREE
Shivering violently, Cooper waited in Kay’s office for her to come back, a feminine shawl that smelled like flowers draped over his shoulders as he practically sat on the space heater. It roared as it kicked out the heat, but he still shook with cold and shock. His shiny shoes squished with snow melt, and his slacks were soaked from it. A soft bundle of fur cowered in his lap, and he curved a hand about the little black kitten as if it was a talisman. What the hell happened? he thought, flexing his free hand to see his strength returning. He’d say he had gotten some weird drug into him and had hallucinated the entire thing if not for the changes in Kay’s appearance—changes she didn’t seem to know he saw.
The familiar soft sounds of her feet filled him with new foreboding, and he managed an uneasy smile as she pushed past the hanging sheets of milky plastic to hand him a cup of coffee. “Better?” she asked as she sat on the edge of her flower-decaled desk and sipped her own hot chocolate.
Cooper set the cup down, the heat from it seeming to burn his cold-soaked fingers. Kay was sitting almost as close as he was to the heater, not wearing her coat but still having her scarf around her neck to make her look kind of trendy—in a petite, preppy, sword-wielding-warrior, pet-shop-owner kind of way. “Yeah,” he croaked out, feeling his throat. “Tell me that didn’t happen.”
The woman gave him a toothy smile. “What, you getting drunk and me having to spend your Christmas bonus on bail money? You owe me, Cooper. You owe me a week of Sundays in the store, and don’t think I’m not going to take advantage of it.”
Cooper’s lips parted. “Jail?” he said, one hand around the kitten, the other circling the hot coffee. “I was at a dance club. They were vampires, and you broke down the door and slaughtered them.” He didn’t believe it, but that’s what he’d seen, and he risked a glance at her, her eyes crinkled up in laughter as she sat on the desk like she was a normal person—a little closed and reserved perhaps, but normal.
Her laughter dying away, Kay brought a knee to her chin and wrapped her arms around it. “Vampires,” she said as she rested her head on her knee. “That’s what the cop said you were raving about. Drink your coffee,” she said, glancing at it. “It will make everything all better.”
A quiver went through Cooper at her words even as he lifted the mug, his grandmother’s words echoing in his thoughts again. Feeling Kay’s eyes on him, he dutifully brought the hot coffee to his lips, letting it touch his lips and nothing more—faking it. Sure enough, a hint of bitterness blossomed, reminding him of that sloppy, little-girl kiss that Emily had left on his lips. He hadn’t eaten anything, but what if that kiss had changed him? It might explain how he got the door open and could see the changes he now saw in Kay, things that had been under his nose for three years, but he hadn’t seen until now.
“Better?” she asked, all innocence and light, and he pretended to take another drink, sneaking looks at her and wanting to be sure what he was seeing was real. “You take the cake, Cooper,” she said as she slid from the desk and stretched to make Cooper look away fast. “It’s not every boss who will come down at two in the morning to bail out an employee. It’s a good thing you got drunk enough to be hauled out, though. The place burned down an hour later. You were lucky. No one made it out. They’d bolted all the doors to keep out the riffraff, and everyone inside died. Terrible. Just terrible.”
“Yeah, lucky.” Looking past the clear plastic curtain, Cooper had a view of the bus stop on the opposite side of the street. Under the slatted bench was a straggly black cat with a bedraggled kitten. They’d been there for the last fifteen minutes. Felicity and Emily? Cooper had been waiting for them to do something, but all they did was stare malevolently at the store. He was not going out until they left—or had a dog with him.
He shivered, and Kay touched his shoulder. The warmth of her hand came through the blanket to feel like the sun itself. “You okay?” she asked in concern, but he couldn’t look at her, afraid she might notice where his eyes were drawn to.
“Fine,” he said, his gaze on the old oak floorboards. “I need to warm up before I go home.”
She turned away and reached for some paperwork. “Sure, go ahead. I can take you home when I pick up the puppies.”
“Mind if I pick one out?” he said, and Kay hesitated in her reach for a pencil. “I’ve been wanting to get a dog for a long time,” he said, carefully not looking at her. “I can keep it here at the store with me in the day, and take it home at night. Besides, it will give Ember here someone to grow up with,” he added, petting the kitten still curled up in a frightened ball against him. He couldn’t call her Happy—that was a name of a snack cake.
“That’s a great idea.” Kay stuck the pencil behind her ear and headed to the front of the store with a clipboard to do the year-end inventory.
He watched her walk away, free to stare now that she wasn’t looking. Next to that long pointy ear of hers is probably a really good place to wedge things, he thought as he watched her floor-length, dexterous tail push aside the grimy plastic curtain so she could go through without touching it with her hands. It wasn’t that her pointy ears were especially big. Actually, they were kind of small and cute, but the little horns poking out right next to them cinched it. The pencil tucked between her ear and that cute little wedge of bone wasn’t going anywhere.
And neither was he, he decided, holding Ember close and breathing her fur smelling of pine and iron.
If you enjoyed Kim Harrison’s Pet Shop Boys, don’t miss her forthcoming story collection Into the Woods, coming October 2012, and read on for a sneak peek at her next novel in the Hollows series,
EVER AFTER
Coming in February 2013!
“This is close enough. Thanks,” I said to the cab driver, and he swerved to park at the curb, a block down from Carew Tower’s drop-off zone. It was Sunday night, and the trendy shops in the lower levels of the Cincinnati high-rise were busy—the revolving door never stopped as laughing couples and groups went in and out. The kids-on-art exhibit had probably brought in a few, but I’d be willing to bet that the stoic pair in the suit and sequined dress getting out of the black car ahead of me were going up into the revolving restaurant, as I was.
I fumbled for a twenty in my ridiculously small clutch purse, then handed it over the front seat. “Keep the change,” I said, distracted as I tugged my shawl closer, breathing in a faint lilac scent. “And I’m going to need a receipt, please.”
The cabby shot me a thankful glance at the tip, high maybe, but he’d come all the way out to the Hollows to pick me up. Nervous, I readjusted my shawl again and slid to the door. I could have taken my car, but parking was a hassle downtown on the weekends, and tawny silk and lace lost a lot of sparkle while getting out of a mini-cooper. Not to mention the wind off the river would wreck havoc with my carefully styled hair if I had to walk more than a block.
I doubted that tonight’s meeting with Quen was going to lead to a job, but I needed all the tax deductions I could get right now, even if it was just cab fare. Having skipped filing a year while they decided if I was a citizen or not had turned out to be the boon I had originally thought it was.
“Thanks,” I said as the man handed me the receipt, and I tucked it away. Taking a steadying breath, I sat with my hands in my lap, debating if I should change my mind and go home. It wasn’t that I didn
’t like Quen, but he was Trent’s number one security guy. I was sure it was a job offer, but probably not one I wanted to take.
Curiosity, though, had always been stronger in me than common sense, and when the cabby’s eyes met mine through his rearview mirror, I reached for the handle. “Whatever it is, I’m saying no,” I muttered as I got out, and the driver, a Were by the rough look of him, chuckled, having heard me even over the sound of traffic. The thump of the door barely beat the three loud teenagers dressed in Goth descending upon him.
My low heels clicked on the sidewalk, and I held my tiny clutch bag under my arm, the other hand on my hair. The bag was tiny, yes, but it was big enough to hold my street-legal splat gun stocked with sleepy-time charms. If Quen didn’t take no for an answer, I was going to shoot him and leave him facedown in his twelve-dollar-a-bowl soup.
Squinting through the wind, I held a hand to my hair and dodged the people loitering for their rides. Quen had asked me to dinner, not Trent. I didn’t like that he felt the need to talk to me at a five-star restaurant instead of a coffee shop, but maybe the man liked his whisky old.
One last gust pushed me into the revolving door, and a whisper of impending danger tightened my gut as the scent of old brass and dog urine rose in the sudden dead air. It expanded into the echoing noise of a wide lobby done in marble, and I shivered as I made for the elevators. It was more than the March chill.
The couple I’d seen at the curb were long gone by the time I got there, and I had to wait for the dedicated restaurant lift. Hands making a fig leaf with my purse, I watched the foot traffic, feeling out of place in my long sheath dress. It had looked so fabulous on me in the store that I’d bought it even though I couldn’t run in it. That I could wear it tonight was half the reason I had said yes to Quen. I often dressed up for work, but always with the assumption that I’d probably end the evening having to run from banshees or after vampires. Maybe Quen just wanted to catch up? But I doubted it.