Shut up, I told the voice.
It wasn’t that I was happy about the assault. It was... the validation, I guess. All my life, I’d had this nebulous feeling, like there was something dangerous hidden beneath the fabric of the world. Something more than what you could see on the surface.
Some reason for my mother’s senseless death, besides the delusions of a madman with a gun raving about people being possessed by demons.
In my darker moments, I found myself flirting with conspiracy theories in an attempt to force the world to make sense. Nothing too outrageous—no lizard people from outer space or little gray aliens abducting people for anal probes. Just... things that might explain why the world seemed so fucked up, and why the people who seemed most passionate about making things better so often ended up with their blood splattered across a stage.
I had absolutely no clue whatsoever how the existence of supernatural beings with a hunger for O-positive tied into humanity in general being a raging dumpster fire. I just knew that what I had seen yesterday proved beyond a doubt that there was more to the world than what we’d been told.
Or, y’know, it meant my mind had finally snapped in the wake of childhood trauma, and I’d become delusional. One of those things or the other.
The question was—what was I supposed to do next? So far, my response to this great revelation had been to sleep a whole lot, take a shower, and go to work. Somehow, I doubted Buffy would approve. But, realistically, what else was I going to do right now? The bills still needed to be paid. I also had absolutely no way to track my neck-raping Hugh Grant knockoff, unless vampires were in the habit of visiting the ER to get their gaping gunshot wounds sewn up.
Given the guy’s lack of a heartbeat, I was going with no on that one.
So here I was, pulling up to my stop with a headache, a vague sense of validation, and not much else to show for my brief walk on the paranormal wild side. I got off the bus and trudged to AJ’s.
It was a slow afternoon.
My mind wandered as I stood at the drink station, staring at the practically empty seating area. I hated this shift—especially on Tuesdays. I usually angled for night shifts or lunch shifts since those were the busiest and had the best payoffs, but for whatever reason, I kept getting stuck with the crappy shifts like this one lately. The time in-between lunch and dinner when pretty much nobody came in.
There were only a handful of tables occupied, mostly booths along the back wall of the restaurant. The décor was not extravagant here, but it was pleasant enough. A bar and grill, AJ’s was undeniably on the upscale side, but it wasn’t a stuffy haute cuisine joint. It could get a little noisy here on the weekend nights. Never rowdy, but people still enjoyed themselves.
Brass hardware adorned posts painted a happy shade of Copenhagen blue. Gold and tan accents pointed the way to the well-stocked bar on the right side of the seating area. Mirrors gleamed behind hundreds of bottles, glassware, and the bartender making drinks for a couple of patrons seated along the barstools.
“Zorah, I seated two for you. Table twenty-six.” The hostess said as I bussed one of my empty tables. Sure, we had bussers, but during the slow shifts they sometimes got sent home. And when they were gone, I cleaned my own tables, like today.
After emptying the dirty dishes into a plastic bin back in the kitchen, I washed my hands then returned to the floor and glanced at twenty-six to see what I had to work with.
One man was dressed in a suit and tie, while the other one, whose back was to me, looked more casual. Suits were generally decent tippers. I called them suits. In fact, I had been at this so long, I had a whole system in place for ranking customers in terms of their likely tipping levels. Call it profiling if you like, but without it, I’d probably never survive financially.
Of course, suits or no, making customers wait was not a good way to get tipped. I quickly grabbed the small tablet from my apron pocket, then checked my appearance and made my way over to the new table.
The pair sat across from each other. The one facing me as I approached was a handsome black man around the age of forty, dressed like a typical businessman—probably an insurance guy or a stockbroker, or something like that.
“Afternoon, gentlemen,” I greeted them as I wrote the table number and scribbled some notes. “Can I get you started with some drinks?”
“We’re ready to order, thanks,” the suit answered. “I’ll have a whiskey sour, and the lamb chops, medium, with steamed vegetables and a loaded potato.” As I jotted the order, I couldn’t help but get caught by his eyes. Though nothing unusual came through in his voice, those eyes were sad. Almost haunted.
“Very good,” I said, finishing with my notepad before looking at the second man. “And for you?”
“Just a glass of Clos du Bois Merlot for me,” he said in a familiar English accent.
I froze, my eyes widening.
My undead Hugh Grant looked up, meeting my gaze and lifting a swept brow. He looked a lot less... dead... than he had yesterday. In fact, he looked a hell of a lot better than I felt this afternoon. I wondered how much of that had to do with my unplanned blood donation.
“Problem?” he asked in a cool, urbane tone.
My eyes narrowed.
I wavered, considering my options, unsure whether I was willing to make a scene at a job I couldn’t afford to lose. A million questions and accusations flew through my head while fake Hugh Grant just sat there, looking at me calmly as several different expressions flitted across my face.
For the most part, I was pretty good at figuring out what
