“My witness was taking a breather outside when she was approached by a man with the same description.”
“And he’s using Temple Bar as his own personal recruiting ground?”
“That might be the case.”
Rowdy applause split the air near the bar. I looked over just in time to see Lindsey finish up another drink and clap her hands together like a Vegas dealer.
“And now, for my next trick,” she said, sliding me a glance, “something vampires never get to see. I will make your House social chair do my bidding!”
With the encouragement of the crowd, she beckoned me over. I rolled my eyes, but the crowd apparently appreciated the humor, so I did my part and slid behind the bar.
She immediately began bossing me around, pointing to medium-sized glasses. “Give me seven of those and line ’em up along the bar.”
When I did as directed, Lindsey grabbed a clean cocktail shaker and began pouring alcohol into it. After she’d layered five or six kinds of booze, she put the bottles down again and capped the shaker.
“You know what I miss?” she asked the crowd. “Clouds. Sunshine. That weird moment when it rains but the sun’s still out. Sunrises.
Sunsets—until after the fact, of course.”
The crowd chuckled appreciatively.
“But you know what I miss most of all?” she continued. “Rainbows, like a handful of Skittles thrown across the sky. So for all of you lovely Cadogan vamps, here’s a rainbow, one color at a time.”
With a flick of her wrist, Lindsey began pouring the liquid in a cascade over the glasses.
She filled the first glass with blue and, as soon as each glass was full, switched to the next. Like magic, the alcohol she’d layered into the cocktail shaker became a rainbow across the glasses, from turquoise to a bright shade of pink. When she was finished, there were seven glasses of liquid that stood on the bar like a perfect, wet rainbow.
“And that,” she said, putting the shaker back on the bar, “is how vampires make rainbows.”
The bar burst into applause. I had to admit, it was a pretty sweet trick. The drinks might not taste especially good—they looked like sci-fi movie props, to be honest—but they looked phenomenal.
Lindsey glanced over at me and grinned. “Not bad for a Yankees fan, eh?”
“Not bad at all,” Colin said, stepping behind the bar again. “You did us proud.”
He apparently hadn’t been the only one impressed. The vamps along the bar, a mix of men and women, began jostling for position to get at one of the seven drinks.
“It’s just booze, ladies and gents,” Colin said with a chuckle, wiping up the excess alcohol Lindsey had spilled.
“There is plenty more where that came from,” she added, “and I’m sure Colin would be happy to take your money for it.”
Colin chuckled, but the jostling for Lindsey’s drinks hit me as odd. Essentially, they were booze poured by a member of the House whom the vamps could have seen any night of the week—and in a bar they could have visited any night of the week.
My senses on edge, I moved back to the end of the bar, and caught Lindsey’s glance from the corner of my eye. She’d watched me move, and ever the savvy guard, she gave the vamps the same once-over, saw them nudging one another to get to the alcohol.
That meant we were both watching the moment a little pushing erupted into a full-blown fight.
“I saw it first,” said a vamp at the end of the bar with dreadlocks pushed back under a beret-style hat.
“I was reaching for it when you put your meaty hand out there,” said a second, a slender, brown-haired man wearing a dark T-shirt and khakis. They looked more like poetry-slam or coffeehouse guys than Temple Bar scrappers . . . until they began punching each other in the face.
“What the shit?” Lindsey exclaimed as I jumped around the bar to pull them apart. I grabbed T-shirt by his arm and yanked him backward. He stumbled a few feet before hitting the bar floor on his butt. Dreadlocks—still in the heat of passion—swung out at me—but I caught his fist and swung his arm around, leveraging his weight so that he went to his knees.
And then I looked into his eyes. His pupils were tiny, his silvered irises diamond-bright rings around them.
I muttered a curse. They were acting like the rave vamps had acted—trigger-happy and anger-prone—and they had the same enlarged irises.
My stomach sank in warning, and I feared the worst. Was this the next stage of a vampire mass hysteria?
I gave Dreadlocks a shot to the neck that cut off some oxygen and put him out on the floor.
Unfortunately, by the time I made it to my feet again, a dozen more vamps had succumbed to whatever ailed them. Furious fists and insults were hurled around, the vamps pounding at one another as if their lives—and not a cheap glass of cheaper alcohol—were on the line.
The irritation spread like a virus. Each vamp that lashed out and inadvertently bumped another started a second round, and the violence rippled through the crowd accordingly.
With no better option than to jump into the fray, I looked at Lindsey, shared a nod of agreement with her, and made my move. My goal wasn’t to win the fight, but to separate the fighters. I began by jumping between the two closest to me. I took a punch in the shoulder for my trouble, but managed to rip the two vamps away from each other. I tossed them in opposite directions and headed for the next pair.
Lindsey did the same, hopping over the bar—spilling the rainbow drinks in the process—and pulling vamps apart.
Unfortunately, they weren’t willing to go.
Whatever had possessed them took them over, kept them raking their nails at one another, eager to continue a fight over nothing substantial.
Fortunately, the ones who weren’t affected—a handful of men and women that I’d seen around the House— helped us separate the contenders.
We became a team. Fighting against our own, unfortunately, but still fighting for the good of the cause.
I appreciated the effort, even if it wasn’t enough. With each pair I separated, another seemed to pop up, until the swell of fighting vampires crashed through the door to the bar.
Over the background roar of brawling, I could hear the nearing wail of sirens. Someone had called the cops about the fight. This was about to get even uglier; it was time for a new plan.
I glanced around, looking for Lindsey, and found her at my left, dragging a squalling vampire by the ankle.
“Lindsey, I’m going to get the humans out of the bar!” I yelled, pushing one vamp off me and turning to avoid another’s boot stomp.
Cops wouldn’t be thrilled if vamps were fighting other vamps, but they’d be downright pissed if humans got caught in the cross fire.
With Tate already on the warpath, I’m not sure we could make it through that kind of scandal with the House intact, much less without a receiver.
“I’m on my way,” she replied, dumping her vamp a few tables away. Another Cadogan vamp took over for her, holding that vamp back while she rushed back to me and yanked back the vamp who’d tried to kick me into submission.
“You’re a doll,” I told her, hurdling a knot of wrestling vampires as I ran for the door. I started by building a vamp chute by grabbing the nearest table and sliding it toward the door. Three more made a faux retaining wall
