Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Thirteen - Dancing with Devils

The club was on the outskirts of Durham, in an industrial unit. The sign above the door called it 'Red Night: Event Planner and Microbrewery', but that front hid the truth. It was a mask to divert human interest for the truth; within its walls, monsters came out to play. The club's carpark sat behind high wall, shielding the patrons from watching eyes, but that wasn't the only line of defence.

"The perimeter wall is a back up," Alad explained as he parked. "This place has powerful sorcerers warding it. There's also a glamour in place that hides anything non-human behind a human face, at least to human eyes. Should anyone walk past the gates and peer in, Zhak would look like any other man. No red skin, no red wings..."

"No impressive size..." a low, rumbling voice said from the back.

Alad rolled his eyes at that, and continued, "It also acts as a bubble of soundproofing. The music doesn't travel outside the property line, so it can't attract undue interest nor draw legal heat for noise pollution. It keeps Ultraviolet B rays out too, and the worst of the Ultraviolet A, just like it keeps sound in, so vampires can come and go as they please as long as their vehicles have tinted windows for the rest of the journey. Best of all, humans can't even cross the perimeter without an invite. The only humans who get in here are those given formal permission; people who already know about our world and who are trusted to keep it secret."

Kalyna shifted in her seat, disconcerted by his implication.
"What constitutes a formal invite?" she asked.

Glancing her way, Alad admitted, "Nothing we've given you. It needs to come from one of the club's staff, or one of their sorcerers. If you were human, you would have passed out the moment we drove through the wards."
If she was human...

"I beat Eorl's record on the track," she blurted out, even though she wasn't sure she should reveal just how 'non-human' she was, but the revelations just kept tumbling off her tongue. "My visual acuity rivals vampires. My hearing is only marginally worse than Eorl's, and Pullman thinks that's more to do with my boredom during g the test, rather than because I'm genuinely sub-vampire. When he took my pulse and blood pressure, he looked torn between calling a medical emergency and declaring me a fascinating sub-species. In the pool, I accidentally seduced a room full of spectators and risked drowning them before I knew what I was doing. That's on top of instinctively going for Eorl's throat when I was dying. I'm not human. I was never human."

"Well... Welcome to the club," Alad offered, looking only mildly taken aback.

Isemay's head poked between them from the back of the van, adding, "Hold up... You ran faster than Dunstan Eorl?"

Shrugging, non-committal, Kalyna murmured, "It doesn't mean much. Not yet. His blood is still in me. We'll know more once we get a proper grasp of what I am. Everyone's on about retesting me in a week or so, just to make sure it's not a fluke... Or maybe so they can justify dosing me with vampire blood if there's ever a time that they need me to be more than I am by myself."

"Girl, you need to get drunk and ease up on the paranoia," Isemay interrupted. "You are what you are, and that's not a fluke. It might have only woken up when you needed the Sergeant's blood, but he didn't make you what you are. You need to accept that, then you can make all the higher ups accept it too."

"Sounds so simple," she murmured in response.

"It is," Isemay insisted. "Now, chin up. Walk into that club like you own it. Let what you are shine, because this is your world and you belong in it."

"I belong," she repeated, and to her surprise she realised it felt true... Or it felt possible, at least.

As they climbed out of Alad's van, the first rumbles of a bass line washed over them. The music swelled as they crossed the carpark, some unfamiliar metal track screaming into the night. When Zhak pushed open the exterior door of the club, the noise erupted, so loud that Kalyna's ears hurt. She felt the thrum of the music vibrating in her chest, overwhelming her heart until it seemed to pound in time with the beat. The din was a physical force, waves of pressure pulsing against her with enough power that she froze on the threshold, needing a moment to push through a sudden discombobulation. Her equilibrium stuttered and even her sense of balance abandoned her as she faltered on her stilt like heels.