“How was your date last night?” she probed.
“Uh…great.”
We passed an enigmatic figure lurking in the shadows. A few votives lining the floor in an adjacent alcove next to the mysterious person cast a speck of light on a pair of motorcycle boots.
I glanced back as we continued to walk ahead. The figure remained hidden in the shadows.
We ducked underneath a sunken archway and entered a lounge called Torture Chamber. An electric chair, a rack, and a stockade were prominently displayed there. A huge circular wooden platform with half a dozen tables on it revolved ever so slowly. A freestanding bar, the size found at a wedding reception, was off to the side. We sat down at the only unoccupied table.
“Why don’t you bring your boyfriend here?” Scarlet asked.
“I’m not sure if he would like this club.”
“Is he a mortal?” Onyx inquired.
The two girls waited on edge for my response. But it was I who was most anxiously awaiting the words to flow from my lips. “No, my boyfriend is not a mortal. He is a vampire,” I said. It was the first time I’d ever admitted that my boyfriend was immortal (except once to Becky and she thought I was trying to make her laugh). I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, and it was exhilarating. “My boyfriend is a vampire,” I repeated proudly.
“Then you have to bring him here,” Onyx suggested. “The whole point of this club is for us to have a place we can call our own.”
“And that might change,” Scarlet said secretively.
“Why?” I asked.
“We’ve heard rumblings that someone is planning to take over the club.”
One person—who I’d seen having secret meetings—sprang to mind. I remembered Phoenix talking to his henchmen. He was magnetically alluring and mysteriously dangerous. I could see his followers heeding his every command. “Phoenix—,” I said in a whisper.
“What?” Scarlet asked. “I can’t hear you above the music.”
I felt the hairs on the ends of my neck stand up. I glanced back and Phoenix was sitting in the electric chair, staring right at me.
My heart sank to my stomach. Though I was surrounded by two friendly vampires, I was deathly afraid of the one behind me.
“Never mind,” I said. Even though he was out of earshot and the club music was pulsing faster than my beating heart, I sensed he could hear every word.
“The club has been a great hangout,” Scarlet began.
“The whole reason the club exists is so that we can be ourselves peacefully,” Onyx said.
“There are many of us who don’t want a new direction. The club is being torn apart,” Scarlet admitted, shaking her head.
I had to know more. I leaned into the girls as closely as I could. “What’s his story?” I whispered to Onyx.
“Whose story?” She scooted closer.
“What?” Scarlet asked, tossing her luscious locks over her shoulder. “I can’t hear you.”
“She’s interested in some guy,” Onyx said.
“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Scarlet added.
Onyx nudged her best friend, then eagerly asked me, “Which one?”
I placed my index finger over my lips. In my softest whisper I began, “I’m not interested…I mean I am…but not that way. Don’t look now…but the guy behind me, sitting in the electric chair…”
Onyx did her best to check him out without being too noticeable, but Scarlet glared toward the stockade. “Who, him? That’s the bartender.”
I shook my head. “No, not him.”
“No, she means over there,” Onyx corrected. “But there’s no one in or near the electric chair.”
I spun around. The electric chair was empty.
“Who were you interested in?” Scarlet asked.
“Uh…no one really.”
“Tell us,” Onyx pried.
“The biker dude with purple hair,” I confessed.
“He’s your type, huh?” Onyx continued. “Hot, mysterious, and dangerous?”
“No—I have a boyfriend. It just seems he’s always hiding in the shadows and watching me.”
“I haven’t gotten the scoop on him yet. But I’d stay away,” Scarlet warned.
“Yeah, he’s always having meetings with really gnarly types,” Onyx confirmed. “Maybe he’s the one—”
The bartender approached our table with a tray of three red martinis.
“We didn’t order these,” Scarlet said.
“They are from the two guys sitting in the corner,” the waiter stated.
The two guys who’d let me in the Dungeon a few nights before raised their goblets to us.
“Two dudes for three girls? How obnoxious,” Scarlet remarked.
“It’s okay. I have a boyfriend,” I said.
“But it’s the point,” she charged. “They don’t know that.”
“I’ve heard if you accept a stranger’s drink, then it’s an invitation to your table,” I whispered to the girls. “Thanks anyway,” I said to the bartender, declining the martini.
“I never refuse a free drink,” Onyx said. The two girls laughed and gladly accepted the bloody drinks.
But I wasn’t interested in freebies. I wanted the scoop about the inner workings of the club.
“So will the club close?” I asked.
“We hope not!” Onyx began, drawing near. “We’ve met so many fabulous people here.”
“And where else could we hang out and be ourselves? A coffee shop?”
“They certainly don’t sell AB-negative lattes.” Both girls laughed.
Scarlet scooted close. “Do you know Jagger Maxwell?”
I nodded. “He’s legendary. What about him?”
“Since he opened this club a few months ago, he created a safe haven for us to be ourselves and party,” Scarlet said in a whisper.
“He even gave all the out-of-town members a place to crash here,” said Onyx.
“But now that’s not good enough for some,” Scarlet added. “So the buzz is that Jagger has another plan.”
“He doesn’t want us to be a secret,” Onyx said.
“But that will blow the whole purpose of the Dungeon,” Scarlet continued.
“To be visible—but only to us immortals.”
“Jagger and his crew think that it’s a vampire’s true nature to lurk among the mortals.”
“So many of us believe just the opposite. It’s best to keep our blood pure and separate from mortals.”
“If we reveal our true identity,” Scarlet warned, “then we obviously pose as much of a threat to mortals as they do to us.”
“Jagger is on a power trip. He wasn’t happy enough being the leader of the Dungeon. He doesn’t have our best interest in mind. He has his own.”
“What do you believe? What kind of vampire are you?” Onyx asked with conviction.
I was taken aback. Two vampiresses, one flashing an onyx on her fang, were asking me what kind of vampire I was? I certainly couldn’t say that I was neither kind—and in fact, not a vampire at all.
“We should remain private and pure,” I answered emphatically. “In the end, will mortals really accept us as we are? I think it’s best we remain true to ourselves so we don’t lose our identity. We are who we are for a reason. We don’t fit into their world, so why should we try?”
I was talking as much about vampires as I was about myself.
The girls grinned in agreement.
We sensed someone listening to our conversation. We peered up and the two guys were standing behind us.
“See,” I said through a fake smile.
“Do you mind if we sit down?” the blond asked.
“Of course not,” Scarlet said.
It was then I spotted tousled dark purple hair in the chamber across from us.