“Nay, I never heard of anyone actually calling up a demon,” he said. “Heard lots of ugly stories about human sacrifices by people who’ve tried, but never heard of one succeeding. Doesn’t mean idiots don’t keep trying. The interesting thing about your story is that the mage or witch had a vampire helping him.”
“I thought that was strange,” I said, “but Trevor just mentioned the vampire, and then I got distracted.”
Sam chuckled. “I heard about you breaking up a fight. You might find people are walking a little softly around you.”
I felt my face grow warm. “If they follow the rules, I’m sweetness and light.”
“Charlie Watson is six-foot-four and two hundred forty pounds,” Sam said about the shifter. “I heard you picked him up like a feather.”
“Not hardly. Emily could have done better. I misjudged and dropped them.” Emily, one of the waitresses who worked evenings with me, was an aeromancer who often entertained the customers by floating trays of food around the bar.
Sam roared with laughter.
In spite of my ears burning, I said, “The thing about last night was no one I talked to knew who the guy playing darts with Charlie was. Remember the wannabe vampire hunter who came in the other night? It seems like I’m seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces in here.”
He gave me a squinty-eyed look, then leaned on the back bar with a far-away expression. “You know, now that you mention it, business has been up lately. Not really normal for this time of year. The time between Samhain and Thanksgiving is usually pretty slow.”
I hadn’t been in town long enough to know what was normal, but it seemed that in the past two or three weeks I was seeing a lot of faces I hadn’t seen in my first month working at Rosie’s. Of course, I didn’t necessarily see all the people sitting at the tables, especially those with their backs to me.
That evening, I made an effort to pay attention and counted at least a dozen people—all but one of them men—who I was fairly sure I’d never seen before. That didn’t include the dart cheater and the vampire hunter I’d met before, who were also there.
Around ten o’clock, a vampire pushed through the ward on the door, looked around for a minute, then strode directly to the bar. Two of his fellows followed him and took up flanking positions one stool over from him on both sides.
He was around five-ten, with sandy hair that fell over his collar. The tailored suit was probably worth my month’s wages. He was handsome, enough so that I doubted he ever got lonely, but it was his deep emerald-green eyes that captivated me. I wanted to fall into them.
I pushed a menu across the bar to each of them. The two wingmen paid more attention to the other people in the bar, but Mr. Beautiful scanned the top shelf liquors. His eyes fell from the expensive spirits to my face and lingered there, then did a brief dip down my body, and dropped to the menu.
When he looked up again, he said with an Irish accent, “A pint of Murphy’s, if you please, and a shot of Midleton.”
I managed to tear myself away from gazing at his eyes and cocked an eyebrow at his friends, both of whom shook their heads. I poured his drinks and set them in front of him.
“The specials are a baked half chicken with potatoes au gratin and asparagus, and a halibut steak with snow peas and crab risotto,” I said, then caught myself, feeling my face flame. “I guess you’re probably not interested,” I lamely finished.
“No, but it sounds wonderful,” he said. “I’m Harold Gallagher, but my friends call me Harry. Do I have the pleasure of meeting the infamous Mistress Erin McLane?”
The accent combined with the eyes left me speechless, so I just nodded. No man in my entire life had affected me like that. I shuddered, then turned away, and walked to the other end of the bar where Jenny waited on me.
“What do you need?” I asked, relieved for the excuse to get away from him.
She gave me her drink order, then said, “Haven’t seen him in here before.”
“Me neither. Do you know who he is? Harold Gallagher?”
“Oh, aye. One of Lord Carleton’s. Handsome lad, isn’t he?”
I tried not to look back at him. “Incredible green eyes,” I managed to say.
There were four of Carleton’s children—vamps he had turned and held in thrall—and I should have figured out that Gallagher was one of them. He had my head all messed up, and I couldn’t understand why.
Jenny smirked. “He’s Irish. From what I’ve heard, he has a generous portion of the gift of gab, or blarney, as some would say.” She leaned close. “Don’t go thinkin with your hormones, lassie. Remember he’s a vampire.”
While I fixed her drinks, I took deep breaths and tried to calm myself. Jenny was right, and I’d never had that kind of problem with any vampire before. I was normally immune to a vampire’s persuasion.
I wandered back to where Gallagher was sitting, picked up the fifty he had laid on the bar, and then gave him his change.
“So, what brings you in this evening?” I asked.
“Curious about you,” he answered. “George and Rodrick seem enamored with you, so I thought I should see what the fuss is about.”
I shook my head. “They’re both under the mistaken impression I’m a pawn to use against the other.”
Gallagher laughed. “I heard you were straightforward.”
“I think you mean blunt.”
He shrugged.
“So, you’re one of Carleton’s children,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
“I’ve heard there are four of you. Who’s the fourth?”
“Eileen Montgomery. She runs Necropolis.”
“So, Barclay occupies the castle, and Flynn and Montgomery have their nightclubs. Where do you hang out?”
“Ah. Well, I’m at the low end of the stick, so to speak,” he replied. “I run the company that picks up your garbage. I hang out, as you put it, at company headquarters and have a little apartment downtown. It’s modest, but it suits my needs. I throw parties occasionally. You should stop by sometime.”
Gallagher pulled out a business card and a stylish fountain pen. Flipping the card over, he wrote a phone number and address on the back, then handed it to me. The address meant nothing to me, and I thought I caught a trace of disappointment from him when I didn’t react.
“Thank you,” I said, “but I’m not in the habit of attending blood parties. I only have so much of it, and I like to keep what I have.”
“Such a small-minded attitude,” he said. “You should consider expanding your sensory experiences.”
“I’m just a small-town girl,” I said. “I can’t seem to wrap my mind around all your big-city ways.”
I moved away to check on the other customers sitting at the bar, and while I was occupied, Gallagher got up and left with his buddies. He left the change from the fifty sitting on the bar, along with a small gold disk on a chain and a note on a bar napkin.
Just a little gift so you’ll think of me. Consider it part of the tip.
Chapter 4
I had the next three days off, and as I sat around drinking my tea the morning after meeting Harry Gallagher, I thought about Westport’s vampire problems.
Lord Guy Carleton, the former Master of the City, had been an eighteenth-century aristocrat who fell in with the wrong crowd. He had come to Westport in the 1880s with four of his ‘children’—vampires he had personally turned.
Two or three months before I arrived in Westport, he had lost his head while engaged in a deadly dance with a member of the Hunters’ Guild. That created chaos in the city’s vampire society. Vampires, like the Illuminati, had a very structured hierarchy and didn’t do well without someone in authority.
From what everyone had told me, George Flynn and Rodrick Barclay were the two favorites to win out over their peers and take control over all the vampires in the city. My impression was that they were the oldest of Carleton’s children, and therefore, the most powerful. Meeting Gallagher challenged that assumption. Neither Flynn nor Barclay had felt as strong as Gallagher did, and they certainly hadn’t been able to influence me the way he did.
That got me to thinking about Eileen Montgomery. Her nightclub, Necropolis, was a very popular place where vamp groupies went to indulge in their fantasies.
That made me curious about Eileen. Men always assumed that in any competition a man would beat a woman. And of course, if three men and one woman competed to become the vampires’ Master of the City, the woman’s chances weren’t worth considering.
I had killed a lot of men who held that false assumption.
That kind of nightclub had as little appeal for me as Gallagher’s parties, but I wasn’t afraid of it. Vampires and mages tended to avoid each other. A vampire’s sensuality held little attraction for a mage. What mages would purposely weaken themselves by having their blood drained? The world was too dangerous a place to take that kind of chance. And since vampires’ powers of influence were fairly useless against a mage, the vamps didn’t waste their time on us.
Which brought me around to thinking about Gallagher again. Maybe Jenny was right, and it was simply my hormones reacting to a man who ticked off every single box on my attractiveness checklist. If he wasn’t a vamp, all he’d have to do was crook his finger, and I’d be in his bed.
Then it occurred to me that his bed might be pretty crowded. I certainly wasn’t playing in the same league that he was. His groupies were probably all super models. That thought dampened my enthusiasm, and I turned my attention back to Eileen Montgomery.
Going out to a goth bar didn’t require shopping for a new wardrobe. My Hunter’s uniform—skintight black top and pants—would work just fine. I had left the Illuminati with only the clothes on my back, and while I had abandoned my weapons, I had kept the clothes. With my black hair and pale complexion, I would be right in style. I figured a Monday night shouldn’t be too crowded and crazy, so I made plans to hit Necropolis that evening.