Drown Under Earth - Shadows of the Night 3

Chapter 8

Hi!

Barely managed to finish editing this one in time. I definitely need more sleep and more time, or a second life  ;-)  

Anyway, I hope you like it!

Lara

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Chapter 8

We stepped into the club wordlessly. The sense of déjà vu slipped underneath my skin like a sharp, acid-filled needle. The tang of smoke, sweat, and barely contained excitement hit first. When you tour Crimson district regularly, you get used to certain things. Your mind adjusts to watching the darker sides of the city without blinking. You learn to ignore some of the more nefarious kind because they can and have to be ignored.

Not so here. Warning flags flashed up and bit into my mind each time I entered one of the clubs that served to undead customers.

Bad Blood was no exception. The power of the grave saturated the space with dark smudges of nothingness that moved and swirled in second sight. It was not as bad as in Ryon Club, Alexander's kingdom of undead entertainment, but this still felt like jostling into a walk-in sardine can. Among the dark smudges I spotted other colors. Other auras. Goose-bumps peaked on my skin.

The club was also frequented by non-vampiric clientele. The last time I walked through Bad Blood, I got the apparently wrong impression that Bad Blood was another vampire-exclusive business, just like Ryon Club. I was too distracted by other things, like being dragged along by the head vampire of New York, to notice back then.

I detected at least three sparely dressed human girls – all wearing the same, almost non-existent red cloth. Walking blood bags. Anorexic, white skinned adolescents lingered at the bars, staring at the undead around them with hollow, kajal-rimmed eyes.

No, Bad Blood wasn't exclusive. Not by far.

The hostile, eager gazes of the undead clientele bothered me more than I liked to admit. I averted my eyes, concentrated on other things and details. Even though it was not as posh, as flashy and shiny as Ryon Club, Bad Blood was more like a real bar or club. The bar itself was kept in deep red, almost-black colors – a tribute to the club's name. In the back dozens of bottles of what I hoped was merely booze were lined up like brave little soldiers waiting to be made use of.

Red couches with small black tables; then the dance floor. It was crammed with people moving clumsily to the pounding sounds blaring from the loudspeakers. Neovamp House. I'd heard that kind of music somewhere in the Crimson District before, but my human ears still couldn't get used to it. It sounded like a nervous switchblade flicking open in quick-beat-succession. No way was I going to get used to that.

No matter which kind of music, to me all the dance floors in the Crimson District looked the same. People were doing funny things with their bodies. Whether it looked good or not had nothing to do with the music or the club. I shook my head. The longer I looked at the club, the more it reminded me of Ryon. And I didn't like it.

Cole managed to blend into the crowd from the very first moment we stepped into the club. It was all in the subtle inclination of his eyes, the way he casually turned to the right to step past one of the humans. You didn't even notice that he was scanning the scene with the eye of a PI on psychedelic drugs. It looked like working for the FBI did pay up after all.

Zack's gait was sure, determined. He knew where he was going. Apparently he was headed to some spot further in the back of the club. I got the feeling that people knew who Zack was. Even the non-vamps let us through without complaining. I tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible, trotting behind the two of them like a sheep.