the norm woman sitting next to her. The woman squealed and jumped off her stool, brushing at her clothes like they were on fire, while Axel leaned over the bar to pound the coughing zombie on the back.
She shuddered and gasped and eventually stopped coughing. She drained her glass of wine, then looked around unhappily. “Sorry,” she said, and hiccupped.
Axel refilled the zombie’s wineglass. She picked it up and promptly spilled it down the front of her orange dress.
The college boys howled with laughter and high-fived each other. Kane looked ready to toss them out of the bar—he could’ve done it without wrinkling his suit—but he must have decided they weren’t worth bothering with, because he merely smoothed his jacket and waited while the makeup girl dealt with the flustered zombie, blotting her dress and applying more powder.
“Let’s get it right this time, people. You guys at the bar—no eating, no drinking. Just sit there and smile while Mr. Kane speaks. All right? Okay, go. Take two.”
The camera began rolling again, and Kane repeated his speech. He made it past the first cut, and continued: “The previously deceased
Husky Boy leaped to his feet, pumping his fist in the air and yelling, “Baldwin for Governor! Woo-hoo! Yeah!” His friend, laughing, added a couple of rebel yells. The two of them made so much noise I could barely hear the director’s “Cut!” over their racket.
Kane glared at them. Juliet rolled her eyes. The tourist slid off her bar stool and returned to her table. The zombies looked lost. When Kane started toward the college boys wearing his scary face—an expression that was way more werewolf than public-relations exec—I followed. This looked like a situation where a little backup couldn’t hurt.
By the time I got there, the less drunk kid was holding the other one back. Husky Boy was red-faced, shouting at Kane. “It’s a free goddamn country, and I’ll say whatever I goddamn please.” Drops of spittle, lit up by the TV lights, sprayed from his mouth. “Humans got freedom of speech, ya know!”
“I think it’s time you boys went back to the dorm.” Kane took an arm in each hand. The students tried to shake him off, but he was too strong, which only made Husky Boy yell louder and add more obscenities to his words. Kane ignored him, propelling them both toward the door.
“Lemme go!” Husky Boy struggled, jerking his arm around and dragging his feet. Kane kept moving toward the door; the kid had no choice but to go with him.
I opened the door for the trio. Kane pitched both norms onto the sidewalk, just hard enough to make his point. Husky Boy, who’d lost his baseball cap, lay on his back and shouted, “You let goddamn freakin’ zombies in there an’ throw out real Americans!” As I closed the door, his friend was saying, “C’mon, man, let’s just go.”
Kane was halfway across the room when the door burst open and the angry kid came after him, waving a broken beer bottle. Kane turned, swinging his arm out, and Husky Boy ran smack into it, nose to elbow. He went down like someone had kicked his legs out from under him. His nose spouted a fountain of blood, and he’d cut his own arm on the broken bottle.
The moment the smell of blood hit the air—real blood, and lots of it—everything went still. For a long moment, nobody uttered a sound, nobody flicked an eyelid.
Then Juliet licked her lips.
Vampires rose to their feet. Both zombies sniffed the air and looked at Husky Boy, who’d rolled on his side and was trying to get up. As if hypnotized, they got down from their stools and staggered toward him.
I grabbed a handful of napkins and handed them to the kid. “Here,” I said, “you’d better stop that bleeding.” I raised him to his feet, but his knees kept buckling. So I picked him up like a child and turned to carry him out the door. Six vampires, their eyes glowing, blocked our way. Behind us, heavy zombie footsteps came closer.
“Kane!” I yelled, but even he was staring at the bleeding college student with a gleam in his eye. Even the most assimilated PAs can get stirred up by the smell of fresh blood.
To make things worse, the kid I was holding started flailing around. He still clutched the broken bottle, and I had to drop him to avoid being cut. He lashed out as he went down, slashing the leg of a norm tourist sitting next to us. Great—more blood. A woman screamed. A man jumped up, yelling, “Back off, you damn monsters!”
One of the zombies—the male, I think—bumped me from behind. A greenish arm reached around me, grasping, trying to get at one of the bleeders. I shoved backward so he crashed into the other zombie. I heard twin grunts as they hit the floor. From the front, a female vampire levitated, then flew straight at Husky Boy, fangs bared. I picked him up and threw him over my shoulder in a fireman’s carry, then grabbed the bleeding tourist with my other hand. “Follow me,” I shouted.
A dozen humans stampeded for the door. Kane had gotten himself under control and was growling at the vampires, hackles raised, in an effort to convince them that eating these norms would be a bad idea. I glanced behind us to see where the zombies were; both of them had crawled to the spot where the student went down and were licking his blood from the floor.
“Axel!” I yelled on my way out. “Toss the zombies some pretzels.” Once their hunger gets stirred up, zombies have to eat—they have no choice.
Outside, Husky Boy’s friend had snagged a taxi. I put both bleeders in the back and ordered the driver to take them to Mass General. I didn’t think either one was really hurt, but better safe than sorry. And better still to get them out of here as fast as possible. The taxi took off with a screech as the bar door flew open and three vampires leaped outside. Someone else came out behind them, but I couldn’t see who it was. I had three hungry vampires to calm down.
“Stop right there, all of you. There’s no food here,” I said.
The humans who’d run out with me had all disappeared. Either they’d taken off in their cars or had run for the human-controlled part of Boston, where the worst thing they’d face was a mugger with a gun. They might get robbed and killed, but at least they wouldn’t get eaten.
The vampires sniffed the air. Suddenly one was right in my face, thanks to that superfast now-you-don’t- see-’em, now-you-do movement they do. I knew this guy; he was one of Juliet’s friends.
“They’re gone, Gregor.”
“You smell like blood.” His eyes glowed like a cat’s.
I looked down at my clothes. Husky Boy had bled all over me, down my front and probably down the back, too. Blood streaked my sweater and was beginning to stiffen the leather of my jeans. I was covered in the stuff.
“It’s not mine, Gregor. I’m not human; I’m a shapeshifter, remember? Juliet’s roommate?”
He blinked, as if my face had just come into focus. The light in his eyes faded. Vampires won’t drink shifter or werewolf blood. They don’t like how it affects them. Those old legends that tell of vampires becoming bats and wolves? They’re not legends. That’s what happens when a vampire drinks the wrong kind of blood.
Gregor didn’t apologize—I’d never met a vampire who apologized for anything. He just turned and walked back toward the bar. The other two followed him. They stopped briefly to sniff at the other person who’d come out. It was the cameraman, still filming. I hadn’t realized it before, but the cameraman must’ve been a werewolf, because after a couple of sniffs the vampires left him and went back inside. He followed, camera on his shoulder.
Great. Footage like that would really boost Kane’s pro-monster PR campaign.
When the door opened, frantic yelling erupted from inside. I heard Kane’s voice: “Stop, damn it! Get off him!” Apparently, the fun wasn’t over yet. I ran back inside.
In the middle of the room stood the director, screaming. He had a vampire hanging off his neck; the female zombie chewed on his ankle. Kane held the zombie by her feet and was trying to pull her away. Her green toes wiggled in his hands. One of her shoes had fallen off and lay on its side. Zombie Cinderella, dragged kicking and screaming from the ball.
Looked like the vampire was my job. With vampires, the trick is to get them to pull off voluntarily, so their fangs don’t make hamburger out of the victim’s flesh. The way the director was thrashing around, he was in danger of having some serious damage done to his neck.
Axel stood behind the vampire, holding a silver stake. A silver stake would immobilize a vampire but not kill
