Page 60 of Skin Trade

“I can’t get out that way. It’s too busy.” She peered over the server’s shoulder to the way she was sure Seth had brought her in. “Is there another door? Over there?”

The server glanced over her shoulder first. “There is, but that is VIP only. I can’t let you through there.”

“Not even to just go outside?”

“No, not even to the outside. The guards are on patrol out front tonight. You’d be best going back out the main doors and acquiring an escort to a car. Safer tonight. If I let you out that VIP door, you’ll be shredded. Those thirsty have gone crazy.”

Payton blew out a breath and nodded. “Okay. I guess I’ll have to try that then.”

“If you wait an hour, it clears a little. It’s always like this on Friday’s. Go and sit at the bar, get a drink, enjoy the show a little while, and when everything has died down, go outside and grab a ride.”

“Sure,” Payton said. She forced a smile to her lips, bending them out of place in a stiff way that felt unnatural. But there was no way she was getting back out of this room and to the main lobby. She’d have to shoehorn herself through the crowd, and half of them were vampires. She’d not stand a chance.

The server led Payton to the bar area. “Bobby will look after you,” she said. She pushed the device sticking out of her ear. “Another one? That’s three tonight.” She gave Payton a wave without looking and then was gone, lost in the sea of people as she chattered into the thing attached to her head.

“What’ll it be?” the barman asked Payton. He was about Payton’s age, broad shouldered. He looked like he’d probably have been the popular boy at school. The one all the girls would have competed over. She would have kept her competition a secret, scrawling his name in the backs of books.

“I … um.” So many choices. The glass shelves behind him were laden with bottles of God knows what. Bar optics hung in the middle. She sure as hell didn’t want any of that. Her experience of alcohol was the wine people gave her, assuming she liked it. But she’d missed the normal rite of passage with alcohol that usually came in those teenage years, when everything was about sneaking the booze behind parents’ backs and promising Mum and Dad,no. I’m not drunk.

“What do you recommend that is sweet?”

“Sweet?”

“Yeah.”

He leant on the bar, strong arms either side of the beer tap. “Hhmmm. So many to choose from.” He angled his head as if he could read Payton and what drink would suit her was written on her face.

“Nothing strong.”

“Nothing strong. Okay.” He rubbed a hand along his chin and nodded. “Got it. Wait a second.” He went to the fridge behind him and pulled out two dark bottles. One had a picture of strawberries on the front and the other had cherries. “Either of these suit you?”

“What drink is that?”

“Cider. Not too strong on the alcohol front, sweet too. Personally, I like the cherry one, but it depends on your fruit of choice.”

“Sure,” she said. “Cherry sounds good.”

The man grabbed a glass from under the bar, uncapped the bottle and poured half of the fizzy yellow liquid into her glass. When he put it down, it bubbled up, little pops of cider bounced up and out of the glass.

“Five fifty.”

“Five fifty?”

He nodded. “For the drink. It’s five fifty.” He put a hand on the glass, ready to take it back if she didn’t pay.

“No charge on this one,” came the answer from beside the barman. Seth nodded to Payton and then to the young man near to them. “Hand me my whiskey bottle, would you? I’ve had one heck of an evening, and I’ve not been awake that long.”

Payton pulled the glass to her, her eyes on Seth as he took the bottle from the barman and poured his own drink. He knocked the first one back in two gulps and poured himself a second. “I hate meetings,” he said. “They always make me feel like I’m boxed in. Make me forget who I am.”

“My father liked his meetings.” Or at least he seemed to. He seemed excited to go to them. Said it made him feel important. Like he could command everyone there.

“Your father is welcome to them.”

“Sir.” A woman came up behind Seth, rested her hand on his shoulder and tapped him so she could speak into his ear. At least at the bar area the music was at an acceptable level. Loud enough to enjoy it, to feel it inside, but not too loud that even shouting was useless, and they’d have to spend the night lip reading and getting everything wrong. Not that Payton could hear what the woman was saying. Just Seth’s expressions, the way he nodded his head.

“Would you excuse me, Payton? It seems I’m not the only one with a thirst tonight.” He crouched down to get something from under the bar, and when he came back, he had a box, which he placed beside his empty glass. Inside it was a gun, small and silver, but it was nothing like any gun she’d ever seen. Not that she’d seen real ones. Just guns on police shows when she was a kid. This one had something clear where the bullets were meant to go. It was filled with small liquid-filled pellets. Were these the bullets Sky had mentioned? “Tell Mathias to meet me around back,” he said to the woman. “I shall be back in a moment.”

Instead of coming to the other side of the bar and leaving through the entrance back through the masses of people, Seth slipped out through a door behind the bar. Before it closed, she managed to see that it led to some stairs. Seth bounded down them and away.

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