The women cheered, and I covered my ears, almost falling over as my balance shifted. Steve took my elbow.
"Well, I was trying to go out on a date," Kisten said, dropping his head dramatically. "My first one in I don't know how long. You see her, over there by the stair?"
A huge spotlight slammed into me, and I winced, squinting. The heat from it made my skin tingle, and I straightened, almost falling when I waved. Steve caught my arm, and I smiled up at him. I leaned into him, and he shook his head good-naturedly, running a finger along the underside of my jaw before gently standing me upright.
"She's a little out of it tonight," Kisten said. "You are all enjoying yourself far too much, and it's rubbing off on her. Who knew witch runners needed to party like us?"
The noise redoubled, and the pace of the lights quickened, racing over the floor and up the walls and ceilings. My breath came faster as the beat of the music grew.
"But you know what they say," Kisten said over the rhythm. "The bigger they are—"
"The better it is," someone yelled.
"The more they need to party!" Kisten shouted over the laughs. "So take it easy on her, okay? She just wants to relax and have some fun. No pretenses. No games. I say any witch with enough balls to bring down Piscary and let him live has long enough fangs to party with. Are you all A-positive with that?"
The second floor exploded into sound, pressing me into Steve. My eyes warmed as my emotions swung from one extreme to the other. They liked me. How cool was that?
"Then let's get this party started!" Kisten yelled, spinning to the DJ nest behind him. "Mickey, give me the one I want."
The women screamed their approval, and I watched in slack-jawed surprise when the floor was suddenly covered in women, their eyes wild and their motions sharp. Short revealing dresses, high heels, and extravagant makeup was the rule, though there were a few older vampires dressed as classy as me. The living barely outnumbered the undead.
Music rolled from the speakers in the ceiling, loud and insistent. A heavy beat, a tinny snare drum, a corny synthesizer, and a raspy voice. It was Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl," and as I stared in disbelief, the varying motions of the clean-limbed and scantily clad female vamps shifted to the rhythmic, simultaneous movements of a choreographed dance.
They were line dancing. Oh—my—God. The vampires were line dancing.
Like a school of fish, they swayed and moved together, feet thumping with the strength to shake the dust from the ceiling. Not a one made a mistake or misstep. I blinked as Kisten did a Michael Jackson to move to the front, looking indescribably alluring in his confidence and suave movements, following it up with a Staying Alive. The women behind him followed him exactly after the first gesture. I couldn't tell if they had practiced or if their quicker reactions allowed them such a seamless improvisation. Blinking, I decided it didn't matter.
Lost in the power and intensity, Kisten all but glowed, riding the combined agreement of the vampires behind him. Numb from an overload of pheromones, music, and lights, I felt myself go hazy. Every motion had a liquid grace, every gesture was precise and unhurried.
The noise beat at me, and as I watched them party with a wild abandonment, I realized that it stemmed from the chance to be as they wanted to be without fear of anyone reminding them that they were vampires and therefore had to be dark and depressed and carry a mysterious danger. And I felt privileged to be respected enough to see them as they wished they could be.
Swaying, I leaned into Steve while the base line beat my mind into a blessed numbness. My eyelids refused to stay open. A thunder of noise shook through me, then subsided to mutate into a faster beat of different music. Someone touched my arm, and my eyes opened.
"Rachel?"
It was Kisten, and I smiled, giddy. "You dance good," I said. "Dance with me?"
He shook his head, glancing at the vampire who was holding me upright. "Help me get her outside. This is fucking weird."
"Bad, bad mouth," I slurred, my eyes closing again. "Watch your mouth."
A giggle escaped me, and it turned into a delighted shriek when someone picked me up to carry me cradled in his arms. I shivered as the noise lessened, and my head thumped into someone's chest. It was warm, and I snuggled closer. The thundering beat softened to casual conversation and the clatter of china. A heavy blanket covered me, and I made a sound of protest when someone opened a door and cold air hit me.
The music and laughter behind me subsided into an icy silence broken by twin steps crunching on grainy snow and the chiming of a car. "Do you want me to call someone?" I heard a man ask as an uncomfortably cold draft made me shiver.
"No. I think all she needs is some air. If she isn't right by the time we get there, I'll call Ivy."
"Well, take it easy, boss," the first voice said.
I felt a drop, and then the cold of a leather seat pressed against my cheek. Sighing, I snuggled deeper under the blanket that smelled of Kisten and leather. My fingers were humming, and I could hear my heartbeat and feel my blood moving. Even the thump of the door closing did nothing to stir me. The sudden roar of the engine was soothing, and as the car's motion pushed me into oblivion, I could have sworn I heard monks singing.
Twelve
The familiar rumble of driving over railroad tracks woke me, and my hand shot out to grab the handle before the door could jiggle open. My eyelids flashed apart when my knuckles smacked into the unfamiliar door. Oh yeah. I wasn't in Nick's truck; I was in Kisten's Corvette.
I froze, slumped and staring at the door with Kisten's leather coat draped over me like a blanket. Kisten took a slow breath, and the volume of the music dropped. He knew I was awake. My face warmed, and I wished I could pretend I was still passed out.
Depressed, I sat up and put Kisten's long coat on the best I could in the tight confines of the car. I wouldn't look at him, gazing out the window to try to place where in the Hollows we were. The streets were busy, and the clock on the dash said it was nearing two. I had passed out like a drunk in front of a fair slice of Cincinnati's upper-middle-class vampires, high on their pheromones. They must have thought I was a weak-willed, skinny witch who couldn't hold her own.
Kisten shifted in his seat as he eased to a halt at a light. "Welcome back," he said softly.
Lips pressed tight, I subtly felt my neck to make sure everything was the way I'd left it. "How long was I out?" I asked. This is going to do wonders for my reputation.
Kisten moved the gearshift out and back into first. "You didn't pass out. You fell asleep." The light changed and he inched up on the car in front of us to bully it into moving. "Passing out implies a lack of restraint. Falling asleep is what you do when you're tired." He glanced at me as we went through the intersection. "Everyone gets tired."
"No one falls asleep in a dance club," I said. "I passed out." My mind sifted through the memories, clear as holy water instead of mercifully blurred, and my face flamed. Sugared, he had called it. I had been blood-sugared. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home, crawl into the priest hole the pixies had found in the belfry stairway, and just die.
Kisten was silent, the tensing of his body while he drove telling me he was going to say something as soon as he double-checked it against his patronizing meter. "I'm sorry," he said, surprising me, but the admission of guilt fed my anger instead of pacifying it. "I was an ass for taking you into Piscary's before finding out if witches could get blood-sugared. It never occurred to me." His jaw clenched. "And it's not as bad as you think."
"Yeah, right," I muttered, hand searching under the seat until I found my clasp purse. "I bet it's halfway across the city by now. 'Hey, anybody want to go over to Morgan's tonight and watch her get sugared? All it takes is enough of us having fun and down she goes! Whoo hoo!' "