1-800-Psychic Hotline

Chapter Seven

The cab driver gave her a funny look. He took one glance at the address on the business card she handed him, glanced at her, and handed it back to her. Lydia seated herself in the back of the taxi waiting for it to get going. She spent literally an hour and a half finding an outfit to wear. Most would consider her a modest maintenance person; she may have been happiest in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Going out and clubbing weren't her favorite hobbies and the last time she wore a dress she'd been attending a funeral. And don't get started on shoes. A mountain of sneakers and Chuck Taylors covered her closet floor, with one pair of short black pumps out of the whole lot. Stylish enough to wear out in public and a heel that was conservative enough to walk comfortably in, Lydia purchased them for job interviews and they remained the only pair she owned since high school prom.

The cab driver glanced at her through the rear-view mirror, shaking his head. He reset the machine on his dashboard before pulling out into traffic. Lydia checked her purse for the umpteenth time since she started planning this little venture. She cared less that the blacks of her outfit didn't match rather than she did the contents of her purse. Cell phone, plug-in charger, a secret stash of cash hidden in one of the pockets, a wallet stuffed with fake money and credit cards, and her real wallet were to be found easily. She included in her miniature survival kit a pocket knife gifted by her brother, the can of pepper spray from her father, moist toilettes, and a pair of tweezers because you might never know what you get into when you're in the city. Lydia put the business card in her real wallet as she tried to relax.

Outside, the city flew by them at a snail's pace. She recognized some of the streets the taxi drove down, but her mind travelled elsewhere. Lydia couldn't stop her brain from replaying that awful night, the last time she would ever see Daniel. She hated her own guts. All he ever did was be the perfect man her old man would have wanted her to marry, and now Danny was dead. Maybe even because of her.

Guilt felt like a lead weight in her stomach. How it twisted and churned her insides up in knots. Tears burned in the corner of her eyes, but she fought them back. Lydia dabbed her eyes gently with a tissue she also packed in her over-sized bag; she wouldn't want to arrive at Nicholas's place of business looking like a tear-stained schmuck. The last thing she needed was to look desperate. Then Nicholas could use it to his advantage to get more out of the bargain than she did.

Lydia leaned against the window as she watched the city slowly by them. The further they travelled, the more the cityscape became upscale. Far from her imagination of finding the place at a dead-end street in the bad part of town, the driver cleared through the Upper East Side. Rather than seeing brownstones with broken glass windows and graffiti walls, Lydia was provided a much nicer view. Sky scrapers greeted her. Shopping centers that she'd never be able to step into opened their doors wide for customers who could afford just blowing their nose in their general direction. Lydia lived in New York for her entire life; she'd seen all this stuff before. She just didn't think that she would see it on her way to aa vampire's establishment.

As if she were viewing the city for the first time, the drive felt like an eyeopener. This seemed to be the first time she really took in the sights. Lydia felt like a tourist sitting in the back of the cab. She watched the lights, the people, and the cars zoom past her. The cab seemed to be the only thing moving in slow motion. It gave her time to think about a lot of things, about everything.

Her stomach churned. Not with guilt but with tension. The muscles in her legs cramped. Finally, she looked at the time on her phone. She sighed when she realized that she'd been riding for almost over twenty minutes. Lydia nearly asked the driver how much longer it would be until he pulled to a sudden stop.

"The Graveyard is about a block away from here. You can manage walking that far, can't you?" He rapped his beefy fingers on the steering wheel.

Lydia glared at him. She looked out the windows. The streets around them appeared perfectly safe, so in theory he might have been right. However, he seemed to have forgotten that in New York anything could happen. Just because the streets seemed nice didn't always mean that they were safe. She looked out and caught sight of a couple of tall shadows wandering up and down the street. Lydia turned back and sneered.

"I thought you're supposed to take me to the address I give you, not a block away from it!"

"Look, lady, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not comfortable around that joint. The fact that I drove you this far deserves a little more gratitude, don't you think?" The greasy driver scratched his head. Lydia could see the fat droplets of sweat beating down his thick brow.

"And a lot can happen to woman on a block!" Lydia growled. "Is this how you treat the rest of your customers or are women special?"

"I told you, I don't like that place. I ain't gonna be responsible for taking you some place where I know a lot a nasty things are gonna happen to a pretty girl like you. Take my advice, turn back. Don't go near that place. Hell, I'm even willin' to take you someplace else, free of charge."

She shook her head, "I've got business here." She gave him the largest bill she had in her wallet. Her driver became awfully quiet afterwards.

Lydia climbed out of the taxi. The driver rolled down his window long enough for him to say, "Don't say I didn't warn ya, lady!"

Slamming the door home, she left the car behind her. At eight P.M, the streets were just barely dark enough for the street lights to flicker on. Lydia heard the taxi pull out and disappear back into busy traffic. Scowling, she realized that he wouldn't likely come back for her nor would anybody else pick her up. She huffed, shaking her head. Lydia continued down the street even though she had half a mind to turn back while she still had the chance.

The buildings surrounding her were kept in pristine condition. Mostly brick and mortar structures lined the street on either side, but Lydia almost shuddered at the sight of the windows. No lights flickered. The owners pulled the curtains closed. From either to shut the world out or to shut themselves in, they left Lydia to guess. Street lamps were taken care of with equal care as the tall buildings. Their light cast a yellowish glow against the gray concrete. Lydia could make out maybe one or two figures down the street, yet she had not come across any other figure. Those that passed her walked along the opposite side heading towards the regular pedestrian traffic, towards the safety of the wholesome city lights.

Lydia watched them out of the corners of her eyes. She watched them move like shadows as they glided against the brick buildings. In and out they flickered in between the street lamplight. They walked hunched over with long black coats with hats or scarves covering most of their heads. Autumn drew near but it was nowhere near time to don the latest fall apparel yet. If they took notice of her, the strangers made no move to point her out. They minded their own business just as she minded her own. Once the others were out of sight, Lydia focused her sights on her destination.

In the distance, she spotted unusual lights glowing against the concrete. Lydia swallowed hard. That must have been the Graveyard. Quickly, she stole a glance up and down the street. Besides the street lamps, Lydia could find no other discernable light. She took several steps closer. The familiar buzz of fluorescent, neon lights flickering, pulsing drew nearer. A dark building, painted deep black on all sides that made it look like it was made of the essence of the night itself, sat at the corner of the lonesome street. A purple canopy stood over the short walk-way into the club. Beneath this, a young woman sat in a stool. A book propped open in her hand, she didn't seem very alert.

Sucking in a deep breath, Lydia sped up and approached what she assumed to be the bouncer. With the bright neon lights, Lydia couldn't say that the bouncer was a young woman. Not even fully grown, the bouncer had the appearance of a girl no older than sixteen or seventeen. Flowing loose, strands of flaming red hair contrasted the black of her clothes. Lydia looked at her again. The girl's legs looked lean and slender, but not very long. Standing up, she couldn't have been more than five feet-four inches, if that. Lydia shook her head; she had zero time to wonder how tall or how old the bouncer was.

Focused on her book, Lydia didn't think the bouncer would take notice of her. She tried to glide past her to get to the front door when an arm like an iron bar jammed its way across her stomach. The girl glanced away from her book, slammed it shut, and glared at her. Piercing blue eyes stared back at her. The girl stood up from her stool. She came up to Lydia's chest. She extended her pale hand towards Lydia and made that 'gimme' gesture. Lydia's brows furrowed. She pulled out her driver's license and handed it over.

The bouncer scanned the card, gave it back, and continued to glare at Lydia.

"Your invitation," she said gruffly. Her French accent sounded so thick you could spread it across a baguette like butter.

Shaking her head, Lydia stuttered through her reply, "I-I don't have an invitation."

"No invitation. No entry. Au revoir."

"But he sent me over here. He gave me his business card. This is the Graveyard, isn't it? Look, just tell Nicholas that I'm here. Okay?" Lydia chewed her lip. She dug into her purse for the blasted thing and handed over the business card to the bouncer.

She took it without another word. She examined it as if expecting to find a counterfeit in her hands. Back and forth, back and forth, Lydia watched the outrageously young bouncer flip the card over. She even held it up to the light like one would look for a water mark on a dollar bill. Lydia stood there, suffering through this, until she was handed the business card.

Muttering angrily in French, the bouncer waved her off. For a moment, Lydia stood there, dumb as a stump. She looked at the bouncer and then at the street. Crowds passed the opposite end of the road. Life was happening in the city all the while this darkened little corner slept, or seemed to. Lydia looked to the bouncer, unsure of what to do. Did she mean for Lydia to go inside or find somewhere else to be? The bouncer made herself as comfortable as she could get in her tall stool, propped open her book, and started reading again. Her eyes flickered across the pages as if she hadn't been interrupted.

Lydia took a hesitant step towards the entrance. The bouncer made no further to move to stop her. She took a couple more steps and looked over her shoulder. The bouncer remained where she sat beneath the canopy. Looking ahead of her, Lydia made her way to the door, pried it open, and crossed the threshold.

She wasn't sure what hit her first, the heady masculine spice of burning incense or the force of psychic energy giving her a sucker punch. Lydia stumbled back into the door after taking one swing. Eyes watering, ears ringing, head spinning, it took every bit of strength she had not to collapse on the floor. She found herself near collapsing with her knees just about to buckle underneath her. Black spots flashed in front of her eyes before she could blink them away. Lydia blacked out for a moment, not that she seemed to cause much of a scene. The other patrons were too busy nursing their habits, flirting, or conversing to bother looking in her general direction. When she could manage, Lydia shambled her way over to the bar. Her pale, shaking hands grabbed a hold of a seat. Pulling herself up to the stool and slowly sitting down on it, Lydia held her head in her hands and didn't care how pathetic she must have looked to the others in the room. At this moment, she just wanted the buzzing to stop in her ears before she became concerned how much of a heart-broken, desperate woman she must have looked like to anybody else in this joint.

The burning incense, just where was it coming from? Her head swam too much, too fast for her to determine where exactly the smell came from. She couldn't call it unpleasant; rather, it gave her all sorts of good sensations coursing through her body and pool into her lower abdomen. Its intoxicating scent made her want to find the nearest cute guy and invite him to stay the night in bed with her. Lydia shook her head and pulled out her hair. No, no, no! Wrong answer. Now is not the time. Whatever this place was, the taxi driver seemed to be right. The Graveyard was not a place for women like her.

Lydia rubbed her eyes. Taking short breaths, she decided to make a retreat. For now. Slowly, Lydia started to pull out of her seat. Once she got one foot back on the floor, her head suddenly didn't feel so flighty anymore. Lifting it up, Lydia couldn't believe it. Everything was gone. Everything went back to normal. The incense, or whatever that scent was, she could only get a faint whiff of it now. Looking up, she also found something that certainly hadn't been there when she sat at the bar.

She expected some crotched, gray-haired veteran who had seen too much to be standing behind the bar. Why not? It's usually theme with bars in most of the places she'd been to. The standards were different in Nicholas's world, apparently. Neither gray-haired nor old enough to be a curmudgeon, he smirked at her from across the bar.

In a way, he looked very much like Nicholas with his dark hair and gleaming eyes. However, while Nicholas bore the marks of an ancient Greek Adonis-figure, this man looked like he hailed from somewhere else, somewhere very far away. He had bronzed, swarthy skin and similar features not unlike a modern Arabian, but something in the back of her mind screamed at her that the bar tender was far older than that. Clean-shaven, yes, Lydia couldn't help but picture him with a full, thick black beard and his hair in tight ringlets. It was as if she looked at an image of a young man from a Babylonian relief. He smiled just the same despite her staring. He must have known…no, wait. He did know. Why else would he keep smiling like that? The bar tender knew that what thoughts were bouncing around in her head. No matter how hard she tried to keep them hidden, his dark eyes pried inside her pretty little head and pulled those secret thoughts out.

"If you must know, it's rude to ask someone how old they are. In this place, at least. I wouldn't recommend it."

Blinking as if falling out from the spell he cast on her, Lydia gawked at him for a moment longer than she should have. She opened her mouth yet found her tongue to be in her knots and stuck in the back of her throat. Just as quickly, she shut her trap before she said anything that would land her in serious trouble. He had a nice-looking face, to say the least, however she liked to think she had more common sense than insult the bar tender. Nicholas could stand to look a little less handsome too. It should have been a punishable offense to be that attractive. And he was a vampire. If there was one lesson Lydia wanted to drill home was that nothing was it seemed and no matter how pretty the man might be, he could just as easily rip her throat out or commit some other vile horrors upon her body.

Lydia fought the urge to look too deeply into his eyes. Instead, she glanced around. Avoiding his gaze became her top priority.

"You must be special. We don't get your kind here very often," the bar tender chuckled.

"What exactly do you mean by that? Your kind, I mean." Lydia swallowed hard. She chewed on her lip while she continued to look anywhere but at the bar tender.

"Humans."

On any other day, Lydia would have been stunned by his blunt and seemingly unusual answer. Given the fact that she had been interviewed by a vampire and kidnapped by a…whatever species of supernatural creature Henry belonged to, nothing surprised her anymore. The bar tender's answer didn't so much as cause her heart to skip a beat, though he was doing perfectly fine before.

"Is that so?" She asked. Avoiding his gaze became a Herculean task all on its own. His aura was practically palpable and it was getting harder and harder to find interest in the ceiling tiles.

"Nicholas doesn't hand out his cards like candy, you know. You must be special. He's made it a rule never to allow humans inside without his consent. It's a rare event. Some of us can't control ourselves. You make it so easy," he answered, his voice like a lullaby.

The incense became stronger all over again. Lydia's head started swimming. Thoughts racing, she couldn't focus on avoiding his gaze. In a moment of weakness brought about by that heady scent, Lydia took a dangerous chance and turned her eyes towards the bar tender. Caught in the trap, Lydia felt her heart stop beating. Everything behind her, beside her, everything else that had nothing to do with the bar tender evaporated. POOF!

"With a little flick of my wrist, I'd have you against the wall in the dirty back alley behind the bar like a common w***e and have my way with you, however I wanted to. I'd steal all that precious life-energy pent up while giving you the most mind-blowing orgasm you've ever had in your short, miserable existence. And the best part is, you'd still thank me for it. I'd let you wander back into the streets, weak and defenseless, and you'd still thank me for showing you a good time."

"C-can you show me a good time?" Lydia's mouth moved without her permission. The words tumbled out of her as if somebody else had stepped inside her brain and forced the words to come out. She wasn't here for that! She had to see Nicholas! Lydia could feel her heart pounding again, but she couldn't resist. She felt her body move without her. In one moment, she sat at the stool. In the next, she leaned over the counter and reached towards the bar tender.

He wore a wicked smirk. The bar tender looked like he had won the grand prize. Despite her body not cooperating, Lydia struggled to put the reigns back under her control. She could see his dazzling smile and his smooth lips whispering sweet nothings across the bar as he leaned towards her. Trapping her with his stare, he could say or do pretty much anything at this point. But not if she had anything left to say about it!

Lydia reached into the back of her mind, dragging herself back to her mission. She pulled at her memories trying to find something to snap herself out of this spell. Digging through them, Danny's face was pulled from the misty compartments of her brain. Just before she lost all control, Lydia tried to remember the reason she came here in the first place. She pictured Daniel's face and dragged it to the forefront of her mind. His hair, his smile, his eyes, how could she forget those eyes that always seemed happy to see her even when she was angry? Those adoring eyes she'll never get to meet again because of her own damn stubbornness and pride.

The bar tender had nothing on Danny's eyes. Lydia blinked. She shot out of her stool so fast, she toppled it over. She looked around the place to find all eyes staring at her. Jaw hanging open, panting and sweating, Lydia stared back with her eyes the size of saucers. She stared back as she tried to regain her composure. She'd been so busy trying to collect herself—as if that would happen—that she almost failed to recognize a stronger presence approaching. Almost.

As if stopping the music and the sound of the bar altogether, a slow clap echoed throughout the room. Nobody joined in, so Lydia's audience of one clapped alone. She whipped around. It wouldn't have surprised her in the least if Nicholas turned a spot light on him as he entered the room. He wore an expensive yet casual suit with his shirt unbuttoned down to his collar bone. A fair-skinned model strode up beside him in a sparkly pink dress. She wore a smile on her lips that could melt even a tyrant's heart. However, it wasn't her disarming smile that had eyes turned her way. Even Lydia found herself envious of the woman's generous chest.

"Not many humans can say they've escaped an incubus's trap. You're a lot stronger than I thought!" Nicholas sauntered over to the bar.

"An…incubus?" Lydia turned to look back at the bar keep. He leaned on the counter with his chin resting on his hand and gave her a wink.

"Constantine acts like our second line of defense. Humans who can't withstand his paralyzing attacks are much too weak to be parading themselves around here. I can't allow that. I would be as if I tied a bloody, juicy steak around your neck and put you inside the zoo's wolf enclosure," Nicholas picked up the stool that had fallen at Lydia's feet and righted it. "You've must have made an impression on our Cossette. If she doesn't like your smell, you can't in at all."

"The kid outside?" Lydia gestured towards the front door. "That's your bouncer? She doesn't look any more of a threat than a high school bully."

Nicholas nodded his head in a pensive way. Sighing, "Yes, it's part of Cossette's curse. She is one of many supernatural creatures that appear younger than they are. You humans think that eternal youth and beauty is such a gift, but in actuality, it's rather inconvenient."

Lydia rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sure. Looking young and beautiful must be so hard."

Nicholas stepped closer. Too close. Lydia froze right where she stood, unable to move. Her body became so racked with nerves, it didn't know what to do. The bar tender Constantine's spell left her weak and in no state to put up a fight.

"I wouldn't mock it, if I were you darling. When you look between your twenties and thirties, it's not so bad, but do tell me this," he wrapped his hands on her shoulders and guided her down the bar, "If you live to be over a hundred years old but you're stuck with the appearance of a teenage girl, how would you feel to be unable to walk about the streets in broad daylight without being harassed by truancy officers? Or never be able to walk into a bar or liquor store? Smoke a cigarette in public? Get a tattoo? What would you call that?"

Lydia opened her mouth. She shut it and started chewing on her lip. She glanced away from Nicholas's prying gaze. With the way he put it, Lydia never thought of it like that. It made her think, and worse yet it made her feel sorry for the poor girl—uh. That is the poor woman standing guard outside the bar. All in a few words, Nicholas took away all the glamor of immortality and eternal youth. It frightened her to realize that he made a point. She never realized how many privileges being an adult mortal gave her. The thought of being stuck in a state of perpetual puberty sent a shiver down her spine. Once in a life time felt more than enough. Lydia daren't think about if she had to suffer through it for hundreds of years.

"Suffering," she murmured.

"This may not have occurred to you before but for some eternal youth makes living in the modern world a hardship despite their otherworldly gifts. You'll come to find that creatures such as myself or Constantine, we're considered lucky. Cossette," Nicholas shook his head. "Not so much."

"I'm sorry. I didn't…I didn't know." Lydia started again.

"Of course, you didn't, darling. You're in my world now, not your world. These are the things you'll come to know and understand." Nicholas crossed her path in front of her. His strong hands took Lydia by the shoulders. "And now that you know, there's very little chance of escaping."

"Why's that?" Lydia asked, surly. She hated answering so many of his questions when he asked so few. She was chomping at the bit to get this deal over with.

"Because I would either have to erase your memories to the point of no return or kill you." Did everyone answer questions so bluntly?

Lydia swallowed hard. "Let's not do either of those things."

"Don't give me a reason to," Nicholas chuckled as if glamouring her mind into oblivion or murder were things to laugh about.

Lydia was about to say something else when she felt something swat at the back of her thigh. She whipped around to see the tall blonde that had been strutting beside Nicholas now stood at her side. Lydia felt another swat to the back of her thigh. She caught it this time in her hand. What she held in her hand appeared to be a…cow tail?

Lydia's eyes followed the bushy end of the tail to where it met the model's spine. Finding where it ended, Lydia unhanded the tail. The woman saw it all and her face turned tomato-red. She clasped her cheeks to hide the blush, but it was already too late. Heat spread from her cheeks to her upper chest.

"I am so sorry. I'm so sorry!" She cried, virtually on the point of breaking down in tears. "I swear it has a mind of its own! Oh, I am so embarrassed."

Lydia was hardly paying attention enough to accept or refuse her apologies. Vampires, incubi, cow ladies? Is this what the supernatural world actually looked like? Not even realizing what she was doing, Lydia kept her eyes glued to the bovine tail flicking back and forth behind the woman as if chasing away gadflies. Lydia could hardly keep her eyes away. Nicholas had to be the one to intervene. He grabbed Lydia's shoulders once more and spun her around to face him.

"It's rude in this establishment to stare at other people's appendages," he gently reprimanded.

"But she has a tail."

"And I have fangs. What is your point?"

"But she has a tail. A cow tail!" Lydia stared at him.

"Birgitta is a special kind of creature not usually found outside of her natural habitat. She is what they call a huldra, a Nordic siren. Sometimes they have fox tails which they must hide while hunting unsuspecting woodsmen or farmers. Some of them happen to have cow tails. And I recommend you keep the ensuing cow jokes to yourself. Cossette wouldn't appreciate you insulting her," Nicholas warned.

"Why would Cossette care?"

Nicholas sighed as if exasperated by her questions. "You'll find out soon enough. Now tell me," he went to her side.

One hand wormed its way to her waist. He pulled her uncomfortably close; Lydia knew he could hear her heart pounding against her rib cage. She knew the effect he had on her, and wanted to gloat about it.

"What made you change your mind so quickly about my offer?" He asked with a sly smile. The glimmer of triumph gave his gold-flecked green eyes an extra ounce of pride. Nicholas didn't even have the common courtesy to hide it.

"It was nothing you did, I can assure you of that." She might have said it, but Lydia didn't believe it herself. Not entirely. Daniel may have been the first reason. However, she had been thinking about Nicholas's offer before she heard that her former lover died.

"Then what was it? Or are you lying and you just wanted to see me again?"

At that moment, Lydia wanted nothing more than to punch him so hard in the jaw. Two things wrong with this idea. First, as a vampire Nicholas would not only have super strength. Her punch would feel like butterfly kisses. Add the reflexes faster than any known living creature and attacking him had disaster written all over it. Second, Lydia liked to think she was much smarter and had more common sense than to hit somebody in their house or place of business, especially in front of their employees. She knew nothing about incubi or huldra, but she could assume that they wouldn't take her hitting their boss too lightly.

Lydia closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly through her nose. When she opened them, Nicholas had taken a step back as if waiting for an answer. She didn't reconsider her opinion of him, though, through this small gesture. You could dress a tiger in a pink satin dress, but it'll still try to eat you. Swallowing hard, Lydia looked him in the eye, never wavering.

"Someone very close to me is now dead. I want to know who and how. You scratch my back, I scratch yours," she managed to say without stuttering even though she had all sorts of butterflies swarming inside of her guts right about now.

Nicholas's eyebrows shot up. His eyes went wide for a moment or two before slowly returning to normal. He leaned against the nearest empty table and stroked his chin as if considering her words. In a torturous limbo, he left Lydia hanging there. She had the distinct feeling he was baiting her or making yet another power play. Showing her who's boss. His eyes stared back at her. She saw shadows dancing there in his eyes, and it took everything remaining inside her not to look away, to give him any hope that he affected her in some way.

At long last, Nicholas stood straight up again. He smiled, but it was hardly one that belonged to that of the angelic choir. No, Lydia knew better than that. She knew that she would be making a deal with the devil before she entered the Graveyard. Everything comes at a price. It always does. Even if he made her walk over glass, she'd do it. Daniel deserved better than to be buried and forgotten. Perhaps, that's what she told herself as she waited for Nicholas's answer, holding her breath. Her lungs ached desperately for air.

"Very well. It sounds like a fair trade," said Nicholas.

Lydia gasped, for relief and of joy. Well, despite the regret souring her stomach.

"Who was this someone of yours, by the by? Brother, cousin, friend? Lover?" He teased.

Her face went red. Lydia cast her eyes down and away. Nicholas certainly knew how to talk to the ladies, didn't he? "That's not really any of your concern, now is it?"

Nicholas stood directly in front of her in a heartbeat. He stood so close to her, he might as well just stand on her toes. His hand reached and grabbed her by the chin, forcing her to look at him. She found his eyes swimming with emotions that made Lydia considerably uncomfortable. Just by looking at him, Lydia felt all sorts of things she knew she shouldn't. Not for the vampire at least. A different kind of guilt filled her almost like she should've been ashamed of asking him for such a favor. For all his winning glances, ageless charm, and good looks, Nicholas had yet to prove he could be trusted with her life. He took what he wanted, and he hardly seemed to be the kind of man—vampire?—to give up the hunt very easily. He could reject her offer and force her to do his bidding. In either case, Lydia placed herself in one of the most treacherous position one could think of. In the hands of an actual vampire.

"Does it matter how he was to me? He's dead and what I want to know what happened to him. That's all you need to know," she sniped.

Nicholas held on for as long as he wanted. He searched her face for…something. When he came up with nothing, Nicholas released her. He gave her a melodramatic sigh although all that he was missing was a properly limp hand to press against his brow and a clove cigarette hanging from his mouth. His eyes grew dark, his lips formed a bittersweet grin.

"Allow me to walk you to your car," he said.

His tone sounded dry, unfeeling. It had set her back a bit. Lydia had figured Nicholas to be much more emotional than that. She glanced at him. A stern and detached air overshadowed his features. His eyes were not so bright, his grin not so smug, and it seemed he couldn't lift his shoulders. Lydia thought it wiser than to draw attention to his sudden change.

"I didn't drive here," she shook her head.

"Then allow me to drive you," Nicholas offered.

"I really don't—"

Her head became fuzzy again. She quickly glanced at the bar tender, but when she turned to look at him, Constantine merely shook his head. Lydia looked back finding Nicholas's eyes staring back at her.

"You want me to drive you home." Nicholas's smooth voice ran over her ears like water over crystal glass.

Lydia felt her lips move. She heard herself speak but it all sounded like she had her head underwater. The mist creeping along through her brain lifted. Once she regained clarity, Lydia then felt Nicholas's hand touching the small of her back and guiding her towards the front door. For an instant, she thought about fighting him, then immediately thought better. She could always take another taxi; however, she didn't want to spend any more money than she already had. And, sad to say, with a vampire, who would attack her?

The cooling night air hit her like a ton of bricks. The smell of the city with all its wondrous odors punched her in the nostrils. Somehow, some way, she managed to forget just how bad New York smelled. Constantine's weird perfume trick made her forget that she had wandered down this same murky street. Lydia became overwhelmed by this strange sense of wonder made her think twice about the world she lived in. If Nicholas's world could make her forget just how shitty her hometown smelled, how much more could she take entering back and forth without going crazy?

"Goodnight, Cossette," said Nicholas to the bouncer.

She lifted hand briefly to wave him off. Cossette's eyes were glued to the pages of her book. Lydia glanced over just to see what had garnered her attention so badly. It wasn't anything Lydia could read; her French teacher failed her twice. Nicholas dug into the pockets of his coat, pulling out a set of jingling keys.

"I'm not that far. It won't take long at all," said he.

Not used to heels—any kind of heels—the soles of Lydia's feet were beginning to ache. Pain shot from the in-step down to her heels. She couldn't tell by looking, but she was certain she already had blisters on her ankles. Fantastic.

With his hand still on her back, Nicholas guided her down the street. It felt so empty, like houses seated in a city of the dead. The unearthly quiet, she guessed, is what kept the taxi driver from going any further. Lydia now learned that the difference between simple stillness and silence. This was no ordinary quiet; this was the silence of the graves, of forlorn, abandoned and haunted houses. This street could not belong to anything with a pulse or human. She understood the driver's reluctance. Though it lacked the tell-tale signs of a bad neighborhood, Lydia understood why Nicholas's club was called the Graveyard. Because they were surrounded by the dead.

Not even the screeching of an alley-cat bounced off the brick walls. So, Lydia jumped when she heard the speeding engine hurtling towards them. A cacophonous roar echoed from one end of the street down to the other, disturbing the restless dead hiding in the shadows. She and Nicholas turned around. A cherry-red mustang charged down the street, high beams burning. Even from where they stood, the headlights were turned too high for them to see. The glaring lights successfully kept the driver's face from being discovered. The mustang sped down the street, gunning for them.

The car slowed in front of the Graveyard. Lydia could barely make out the passenger window rolling down. A long, clunky barrel struck out the window, aimed directly at the bouncer. Cossette glanced up in time to see the muzzle blast her three times in the chest. Lydia screamed before she was roughly pushed to the ground, shielded by Nicholas's body. The cherry red mustang pulled up beside them. Bullets rained against the walls, the concrete, and some went through Nicholas. He groaned and bled on top of her. He did not move until the vehicle had vanished.

Lydia lay on the sidewalk, blood seeping into her dress. Thankfully, none of it hers.

I hope.