Home > Shadow Hunter (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #1)(7)

Shadow Hunter (Rosie O'Grady's Paranormal Bar and Grill #1)(7)
Author: B.R. Kingsolver

Sam chuckled and I relaxed a little. “Seen some strange things in my life.” He gestured to the painting of Rosie that hung on the wall. “She claimed to be part Elf, which I guess would mean I’ve got Elf blood. But I’ve never met one.”

I blinked at him, then turned to give the painting a closer inspection than I had before. Sam looked nothing like the woman in the painting, although Jenny had told me that Rosie was Sam’s mother.

“How do you know the muggers you met last night weren’t vampires?” Sam asked.

I turned back to him. “Alcohol on their breath. One of them anyway. They were slow, too.”

“Yeah, we don’t do much business with vamps. They don’t drink booze, and we don’t serve blood. One will come in with a girl once in a while so she can get something to eat. I don’t encourage it.”

Blair showed up after midnight looking tired.

“Coffee or a beer, Lieutenant?” I asked.

“Beer and a shot,” he replied.

After a few days, I had figured out what people expected for that order. I poured his drinks and set them in front of him.

“Something to eat? Or are you drinking on an empty stomach?”

He gave me a hard look, but it softened when I didn’t flinch. “I should probably eat something.”

“Stew,” I said, and walked away to put in the order.

He called after me, “Suppose I don’t like stew?”

I gave him a wink. “Momma knows best. Shut up and eat what you’re served.”

“You’re too young to be a mother.”

“You’re too tired to argue with me.”

He chuckled. “You got me there.”

Donny brought the stew from the kitchen almost immediately. I took it and set it down in front of Blair just as the door opened and the group I’d labeled the three mouseketeers came in—Josh, Jolene, and Trevor.

“Hey, pretty lady,” Josh almost shouted. “What’s shakin tonight?”

Even with the bar between us, I could smell his breath. “Got a special on coffee,” I said.

“Coffee? Hell, I don’t want no coffee. Gimme a rusty nail.”

I looked over at Jolene and Trevor. Jolene swayed a little, but Trevor looked like he still had some of his faculties.

“Why don’t you guys get a table and I’ll bring your order out to you?” I suggested, looking at Trevor directly, then shifting my eyes toward Blair.

“Just tryin to get rid of me?” Josh asked.

“Providing extra-special service,” I said.

“Come on,” Trevor said, grabbing both of his buddies by the arms and dragging them away.

Blair looked up from his dinner and watched them go, then looked at me.

I took a deep breath and turned into the kitchen.

“Steve, I’ve got a couple of drunks out here that I don’t want to serve,” I said.

“Regulars?” he asked, flipping a burger, then looking at me.

“Josh, Jolene, and Trevor. Trevor looks okay, but the other two are wasted, and Josh’s getting belligerent.”

Dworkin sighed. “Let me show you a trick.” He took me back out behind the bar and opened the small refrigerator. Picking up a potion bottle, he said, “Put half of this in Josh’s drink. He’ll be asleep in five minutes, and then we can call a taxi for him.”

I looked at the label. VHH. “Won’t hurt him?” I asked.

“Nope, but don’t let the cop see you do it.”

I also cut the rusty nail half-and-half with cola, figuring Josh was so out of it that he wouldn’t notice. I poured the other half of the potion in Jolene’s beer. Trevor had taken my advice and ordered coffee.

Emily came up to the bar and said, “Are those special for our problem children?”

“Yeah. I told them I’d bring their drinks out to them.”

She nodded. I picked up the tray, and as I crossed the room, I noticed that she paralleled me, stopping out of Josh’s line of sight and about five feet behind him.

“Last call,” I said as I set their drinks on the table. “I think you guys have had enough fun for the night.”

“Nope,” Josh said. “Not as much fun as I could have with you.”

As I put Trevor’s coffee on the table, Josh reached around, grabbed my ass, and squeezed. I straightened and looked down at his drunken smile. I smiled back and reached for his wrist.

“I’m not going to break it,” I said, holding his wrist in my hand. “But the next time I will. Do you understand me?”

The tables around us grew quiet, but Josh didn’t notice.

“Fine piece of ass.” He squeezed harder—hard enough to hurt. “When do you get off? I wanna get off, too.”

I popped him on the head with the tray I was holding in my other hand. It sounded a little like a cheap gong. His eyes crossed, he let go of my butt and swayed in his chair. I bent over until my face and his were only inches apart.

“Next time, I break your wrist,” I said, and hit him with the tray again. He slid out of his chair under the table. I looked up and said, “Emily, can you please call Josh a taxi? I don’t think he should be driving. Jolene? You going to split the cab with him?”

“Uh, yeah. Yes ma’am.”

I looked at Trevor, who gave me a bit of a smile as he took a sip of his coffee and shook his head. “I’ll take the bus.”

I put Jolene’s and Josh’s drinks back on the tray and took them back to the bar. A lot of the other customers were clapping and cheering, and my face felt like it was about to combust.

“I don’t think you’ll get much crap from now on,” Steve said as he ducked into the kitchen.

“From anyone,” Blair said, holding up his shot in salute and then downing it.

Chapter 6

Before he left, Blair dropped the fact that another vampire had lost his head, and two werewolves were found in the same condition. He didn’t use the terms vampire and werewolf, of course, but I figured it out from his description of the victims.

“It seems all the murders are being committed between closing time and dawn,” Blair said.

I gave him a long skeptical look, then said, “I guess that narrows it down to a bartender, a waitress, or a taxi driver. Just look for someone carrying a guillotine around.”

He gave me a sour expression in return.

“Seriously,” I said. “Have you ever tried to cut the head off anything? A chicken, a rabbit? It isn’t easy. Do all the dead people know each other? Are they part of the same criminal gang or something?”

“You ask questions like a cop.”

I laughed. “I just watch too much TV.” Which was a lie. I didn’t own a TV or a computer. Just nine years of Hunter training with the Masters giving me random pieces of information and telling me to put the picture together. And why in the hell was he coming around talking to me about murdered vampires?

“Lieutenant Blair, why are you coming around talking to me about this shit? Do you think I get off work and go hunting for people with fangs?” I shook my head. “I’m truly baffled. Do I look like the kind of person who enjoys beheading people?” I threw up my hands and said, “Hell, do I look like the kind of girl who gets off on talking about that kind of gruesome shit? I need to work on my image.”

He had the good grace to look embarrassed. He put his head down, looking at his lap, but he didn’t answer me. What Emily said earlier popped into my brain.

I leaned across the bar. “If you want to ask me out, making me feel like a suspect is the wrong way to go about it. I’m really a normal girl. Talk to me about flowers and bunnies and sunsets.”

I was about as far from normal as a girl could be, but an article I read in a magazine at the bus station in Dallas said I should have goals. And living a normal life sounded like a great goal to me.

Blair’s head popped up, and he gave me a deer-in-the-headlights look. I turned and walked away, back into the kitchen where I didn’t have to deal with him.

“What’s up?” Steve Dworkin asked.

“Getting away from the cop,” I answered. “I don’t know what his problem is.”

Dworkin snorted, and Donny made a rude gesture with his pelvis.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “That’s just what I need after dealing with Josh tonight.”

They both blushed and I lost it.

“How the hell would you like it if a bunch of drunk, horny fools came back here and started fondling you? Well?” It only took three steps for me to push Donny against the wall, my hand on his crotch. “You like it? You like having someone force themselves on you? Feels good to get groped, doesn’t it?” His expression told me all I needed to know.

Whirling about, I was on Steve in an instant, bending him back against the grill, my hand squeezing his crotch hard and my mouth against his. “Feels great, huh? Like a dream come true. Gee, ain’t it great to have a woman jumping your bones?”

I stepped back. They stood frozen, their expressions shocked.

“Think about it,” I said. “I put up with that shit every night, and everyone thinks it’s funny. Jenny and Emily put up with it. It isn’t funny. Fuck you. Fuck men. Fuck the world. You’re lucky I don’t start killing people tonight, because I’m tempted.”

I spun around and went back to my station behind the bar. Blair was still there, his money sitting on the check. I picked it up and rang up the transaction, then gave him his change with the receipt.

“I apologize,” Blair said. “I didn’t mean to make you feel like I suspected you of anything.”

I was still pissed off. “Suspected? Like suspected that I might say yes if you asked me out? Or suspected I might be a serial killer?”

He stared at me for a moment, then said, “If I suspected you would say yes, then I would ask you to dinner on your next night off. But so far, you haven’t given me any clue that you might be interested.”

   
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