There’s something very odd about a cinema in a bar, though I had to admit that the idea of kid-free movie viewing piqued my interest. As I went down the stairs, the smell of perfect popcorn wafted up. If only they had played old noir films, I’d have been in heaven. I had a fleeting vision of popcorn, beer, and Bogey—or even a comedy like Bringing Up Baby—on a big screen and smiled.
The lobby was the bar with a few seating areas defined by collections of sofas, chairs, and tables like tiny living rooms without walls. The lighting was diffused and made the predominant golds and greens of the décor look rich and inviting. The soft effect dimmed the layers of time so the space seemed less haunted than most—which pleased me even more. A few potted palms were wound with colored lights. A handful of couples were snuggling and sipping drinks in various spots among the furniture, but I couldn’t hear their conversations even at the relatively small distances in the room. Apparently the soundproofing for the theater had been extended into the rest of the space as well, and there was no leakage of the swing dance band from El Gaucho’s bar, either. I saw a couple of doors at the far end of the room and figured them for the theater and private meeting rooms.
The bartender glanced my way, smiling, and invited me to get my ticket, order a drink, and go on into the theater, since the show was just about to start. I returned the smile and said I was looking for some friends…
“Harper!”
I turned and saw Cameron coming my way from nearer the theater doors at the back. He bypassed the bar and came to my side.
He hadn’t changed much in the past two months. He was wearing a black dress shirt over a gleaming white tee and gray trousers, his white-gold hair was still spiky short, and the darkness of his vampiric aura was still mild. I guessed he hadn’t done in anyone else since his slip in October, which had left him in debt to me. I wished I wasn’t calling in that marker. Although I still had a fondness for Cam, his developing habits and talents put me off. I had to reevaluate my feelings about the dead-guy incident, if I was going to be fair. I’d been disgusted and upset and wanted to distance myself from him over it, but going to the morgue on his behalf had introduced me to Fish the first time, and that was turning out to be helpful. I wasn’t going to let him completely off the hook, though. Call me a stickler, but I still disapproved of killing people.
“Hi, Cam.”
He grinned, flashing fangs. “I’m fetching drinks. What do you want?”
I hesitated.
“It’s just a drink. You can buy the second round,” he said.
What the hell, it seemed like a day that deserved a drink—to drown it in. “All right,” I agreed. “Bushmills, neat.”
He flashed the smile again and headed for the bar, and somehow no one asked me to buy a ticket. Bracing myself, I walked across the lobby and down three small steps to the den to meet Carlos.
The space was a small nook beside the theater wall with one large couch and an armless upholstered chair. There was also a small, glass-topped bamboo table and a sort of rattan ottoman lurking like a cat that hopes to get underfoot. Carlos—big, dark, and scary as always—had one corner of the sofa, which left me with the choice of sitting next to him—not too attractive—or of taking the least comfortable seat, which also put my back to the stairs but gave me more options if anything blew up. I took the chair.
Carlos nodded to me and the tiniest of smiles twitched one corner of his mouth.
He looked healthier than I’d ever seen him and I hated knowing how he’d gotten that way. I nodded back and he seemed amused by my apparent discomfort. Neither of us had a chance to say anything before Cameron returned with his hands full of glasses, which he distributed on the table. Then he threw himself into the other corner of the couch. He’d had a college student’s tendency to slouch and sprawl when we’d met, but now he lounged like a young tiger and picked up his martini. I wasn’t surprised that Carlos’s drink was red wine.
Cameron leveled his violet gaze on me and asked, “So, what did you want to know?”
“How crass can I be without losing a limb?”
Cameron snorted a laugh without actually choking on his drink and quickly put it down. He pinched his nostrils together and glanced at Carlos. “Oh, man. Alcohol up my nose still hurts.”
Carlos raised one black eyebrow. “Lack of breathing through it didn’t change the nature of your nose, boy.”
“I’ll remember that,” Cameron replied in a dry tone, rubbing the end of his nose and wrinkling his face as if about to sneeze. In a moment, he turned his attention back to me. “I think I’m shockproof, so ask what you want.”
I took a deep breath and plunged in. “When you were worried about your dead man, you said he might come back as something other than a vampire—if he came back at all. Would that have been some kind of zombie?”
Silence.
They both gave me blank stares and I felt the temperature in the room drop. Carlos turned his head and shot Cameron a look that could have flayed skin. Cam flinched.
“I don’t know anything about zombies,” Cameron said. “And after what didn’t happen last time,” he added, shooting a defiant glance back at Carlos that left a wake of red annoyance through the Grey, “I wouldn’t have anything to do with any that might be wandering around Seattle. I assume you’re not asking because you want to make a movie or something. Have you seen a zombie around here?”
Too late to back out, I nodded and explained in a low voice. Their expressions grew intense and frightening as they listened. I had to shift my glance between them as I spoke to avoid the slightly sickening sensation that came with locking eyes with either of them for long. “Yeah. I… uh… was presented with one a couple of nights ago. The… creature that brought it wanted me to… umm… The corpse’s spirit was still trapped in it and it wanted me to let it out. It was pretty messy.”
I didn’t say there’d been a witness. I suspected Carlos would insist on doing something to Will if he knew, and while Will and I weren’t together anymore, I didn’t like the things Carlos did when he felt that his world needed protecting.
I may have been angry with Will, but I didn’t wish that on him.
Carlos leaned forward, ignoring his wine, and put his hands flat on the table.
The bamboo groaned and I heard a sound like thin ice cracking underfoot. “Tell us what happened. What did you do and see?”
I felt the press of his will on me and squirmed away from it, pulling the edge of the Grey between us to cut it off. “You don’t have to compel me,” I growled.
Cameron sat back with pretended cool, pulling up his knees and resting his drink on them. “Hey, yeah. Bad form, Teach.”
Carlos’s furious glare was worse than before, but this time Cameron didn’t cringe. He glared back. “What’s that movie,” he asked me without shifting his eyes from Carlos, “where Paul Newman says, ‘You don’t treat your friends like marks’?”
“The Sting,” I replied.
“Right.” His voice took on a strange resonance. “I remember Mara said the same thing to me when we met.”
Carlos’s glare narrowed further, and then he turned his head aside with a derisive snort, breaking the glance between them. “Improving,” he muttered.
Cameron made a raspberry noise. “Sore loser.”
Carlos cast a hooded glance back at him that hit Cameron like a blow. The younger vampire’s head jerked forward and knocked against his tented knees, sending his drink to the floor. Carlos watched without expression until Cameron sat back up, putting his feet flat on the floor again.
Cam was parchment white. He closed his eyes and ducked his head, saying, “I apologize.”