Hotel Sanguinaria

Chapter Four

Shiloh groaned softly.  Her head was throbbing, her neck ached like nobody’s business and her eyes felt like they were on fire in their sockets.

“Mhnnn…” she mumbled, rubbing her face and scrubbing her hand through her short hair.  “Ouch.”

The previous evening was still fresh in her mind.  It wasn’t like she’d conveniently forgotten overnight.  Well…she was a vampire now.  Right.  That was something she’d have to learn a bit more about.  Then there was the weird happenings with vampires in London, her parents, her belongings…Renée had mentioned the other night that she could stay permanently at the Hotel – Hotel Sanguinaria, she’d been told – and so she presumed there’d be a way to get all her stuff from her old flat where they’d all lived and bring it here.

New Orleans.  Wow.  She was halfway across the globe in a city she’d never been before – hell, on a continent she’d never been before – and living in a hotel for vampires.  Cool.  She groaned again and swung her legs off of the bed.  The clock on the little table beside the bed read 21:54 in simple red numbers.  She’d slept almost twenty-two hours.

She stumbled over to the door and pulled it open.  By some miracle, she could remember the route she had followed Renée on up to the room.  If her logic hadn’t been somehow damaged by her newfound vampiric nature, she reasoned that she would be able to find her way back down by the same path.  She didn’t notice the almost invisible dusting of soft, golden sand just outside her door.

Staggering out into the pub-like entrance room below on shaky legs, her eyes aching, Shiloh looked around.  A stunning Native American girl in a bright pink t-shirt with a blue Chinese dragon on the front jostled past her.  The lights glinted on her long, dark French plait and the three rings in her upper part of her left ear.

“Sorry,” she muttered.  The crowd parted just enough for Shiloh to catch a glimpse of her ripped, faded denim jeans and well-worn converse sneakers as she moved away.  Feeling utterly lost, Shiloh watched her leave.

Someone behind her said something in a language she didn’t know.  Turning around, Shiloh found a pair of eyes – one pale, wintry sky-blue, the other dark, mahogany brown – fixed curiously upon her.  Set into a pretty pale face framed by chestnut curls streaked at random with white, the eyes regarded her quietly.

“Hey.  You okay?” she asked, and as she leaned over the bar Shiloh realised it was the bartender she’d been watching the night before.  She shook her head, and the woman beckoned her to come forward.  She looked to be maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, but she seemed somehow older, more experienced.  Then again, mused Shiloh, in a world of vampires, she could several centuries old.

“I’d ask if I could buy you a drink, but I’m kind of serving.  What’s your poison?”

“Uh… just water, if that’s okay?”

“Sure.  Man, you’ve gotta be new – wait.  Aren’t you the kid who arrived last night?”

“I might be,” Shiloh said, taking the glass of water that was slid across to her.  “I’m Shiloh.”

“Rachael,” her companion replied.  “And yeah, you are.  You were watching me, weren’t you?”

“I hadn’t got much else to do,” Shiloh admitted.

“True.  But your language gives you away,” Rachael smiled.

“Language?  What’s wrong with English?” Shiloh felt herself bristle.

“It’s not the official language, that’s what.  Latin is.  It’s what I started talking to you in the first time.”

“You speak in Latin normally?” she asked, incredulous.