The bar was small, dimly lit—and packed. Not terribly surprising for a Saturday night. I managed to squeeze in at the end of the bar although I had to stand. The lady bartender eventually realized she had a new customer and came over.
“What’s your pleasure?” she asked, blatantly looking me over.
“Your best red wine.”
She snorted and then rattled off my options, adding, “Honestly, none of them’s anything to write home about.”
I ordered a dry red and she took off, returning several minutes later to set a glass in front of me while saying, “You new here?”
“In the bar or the neighborhood?” I replied.
“Both.”
“Yes. I just bought a house a few blocks from here.”
“Nice. You’ll like the area.”
I laughed. “I hope so, since I’m sort of stuck here, now.”
With a smile, she wandered away to take care of other customers. I sipped my wine, which was passable at best. As I did, I checked out the people. Most of them were couples, male-female, male-male, and at the far end of the bar two females who obviously belonged together from the way they were looking at each other. There were several single men as well, most of them intent on their drinks and what was playing on the TVs high on the walls in two corners of the room.
I’d barely set my empty glass down and was trying to get the bartender’s attention when a man said from behind me, “You’re new here.”
I turned to look at him, nodding. “First time in here.”
He lifted his beer bottle, saying, “Welcome.”
“Thanks.” I tried flagging the woman down, again, with no luck.
“Milly,” the man shouted, “My friend here needs a refill.”
She rolled her eyes and came over, grumbling, “You don’t have to shout, Dex. I’m not blind, just overworked.”
“Billy needs to hire more help,” Dex said.
“No shit.” She picked up my glass, returning a couple of minutes later with a new, full one.
“So what brings you here?” Dex asked, leaning against the wall next to me.
“I moved into the neighborhood and decided to see what’s what.”
He grinned. “This is what. The best bar in the area unless you’re into college-aged kids and sports bars. In that case, there’s the one about six blocks that way.” He pointed toward Eighth Avenue.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” I replied, taking a sip of my wine. As I did, I probed to find out if he was merely being friendly or if there was more to his chatting me up. I smiled to myself when I picked up on his interest in me as a man. He wasn’t, to use Milly’s words, anything to write home about, but he wasn’t bad-looking either if you like the rugged sort. “I take it you’re a regular,” I said.
He waggled a hand. “I’m not a barfly, but I come in pretty often on the weekends to kill time and see who’s around.”
I took a stab in the dark, well sort of, having read his thoughts. “To go home with?”
“You’re jumping to conclusions,” he retorted.
“But I’m right, yes?”
He raked his gaze over me, took a long drink, and then answered my question. “You are. That bother you?”
“Why would it?”
“You never know.” Again he looked me over, as if wondering if he should make a move.
I solved his problem by asking, “Do you live near here?” with a knowing look.
“Yeah. A couple of blocks down. The place is pretty nice. You want to see it?”
“Sure, after we finish our drinks.” I picked up my wine. It wouldn’t do to seem too eager. The last time I had been I’d ended up with a new and very different life.
He tipped back his bottle, emptying it with one long pull, and set it down on the bar. Taking my cue from him, I gulped down my wine, tossed some cash on the bar to pay for it, and we took off.
I paused when we got to the door to his apartment.
“Having second thoughts?” he asked. When I smiled and shook my head, he said, “Then come on in.” The invitation was what I needed in order to enter.
His place was a lot nicer than I’d expected, and I told him so as we undressed. It had been way too long since I’d had sex so my staying power wasn’t what it should have been. In the end it didn’t seem to matter to him. Despite his rugged looks, it turned out he was a bottom. That worked for me, being a natural top, or so I’d been told in the distant past.
When we were finished, I began to get dressed.
“You can stay, if you like,” he said, watching me.
“Thanks for the offer, but no. I have to be up at the crack of dawn.” Not the truth, obviously, because when dawn came I’d be dead to the world until sunset. I couldn’t say that, of course. “Maybe next time?”
He nodded. “Next weekend?”
“Sure.” It wouldn’t happen. Coming home with him again, that is. The next time we met would be over supper, with him being the main course.
He walked me to the door, we said our goodnights, and I left.
* * * *
I, to use detective parlance, staked out his place for the next few nights—invisibly of course. He seemed to be a homebody because it wasn’t until Thursday night that he left after arriving home. He was surprised to see me when I approached, apparently happily so from his expression. “I’m heading out for supper, if you want to join me,” he said, telling me there was a restaurant he liked a couple of miles down Colorado Boulevard, so he was driving. “There’s exercise, and then there’s ‘exercise’,” he added with a grin. “A two-mile hike? Umm, no way.”
I hesitated before replying, “Sounds good to me.”
He tried to quiz me about what I did for a living as we drove. I fended off his question by asking the same thing of him. It turned out he worked construction, which didn’t particularly surprise me. He looked the type.
We were almost to the restaurant when I put my hand on his leg. He looked at me, grinning, and I enthralled him. Then, I told him where to go—to a spot in the mountains well out of the city that I’d discovered during my earlier explorations. When we got there, I walked him deep into the trees at the side of the two-lane highway, fed well, and then used my fangs and claws to shred what was, I’ll be the first to admit, a very impressive torso. Not that I gave a damn. He was a human, he’d fallen into my clutches, and now he was dead. That was all that mattered.
Retrieving his keys and wallet from his pockets, I went back to the car. Twenty minutes later I left it sitting at the curb in the same area where I’d gotten rid of Comstock’s. I took what money was in the wallet to add to my funds and then dropped the wallet in a Dumpster on my way to the bus stop.
Saturday night, I returned to the bar. It was busy, but I was able to grab the one vacant seat at the end of the bar.
“Your usual?” Milly asked when she came over.
I chuckled. “This is only my second time here, so I’m not sure that applies, but yes, the red wine.”
“You got it.” She hustled away, returned quickly with a glass of wine that she set in front of me. “How do you like the neighborhood, now that you’ve been here for…a week?”
“A little over, and I like it,” I replied. “I haven’t met many people but the ones I have seem friendly enough.”
“Like Dex.” She grinned.
“Yeah.” I made a point of looking around. “Has he been in tonight?”
“Not yet. It’s early though, so give him time.” She winked before moving down the bar to take care of someone else.
I could give him all the time in the world and he still wouldn’t show up, but I couldn’t say as much. She wouldn’t believe me if I did.
Scanning the room, I saw several people I remembered from the last time I’d stopped in. Not terribly surprising as it was a neighborhood bar, unlike the one in New Orleans where I’d worked, or the ones there where I’d hung out. I caught a couple of guys glancing at me but ignored them. One thing I knew for certain, I should be very careful about connecting with them unless it was only for sex. My loathing of humans made it too easy for me to kill one without a second thought. Hell, given the chance I’d willingly eliminate everyone sitting there without a qualm.
Why did these weaklings have the right to live a full life while I, being their superior in every way, was consigned to the dark because of what I am?
Angrily, I tossed back the last of my wine and got to my feet.
“Not waiting for Dex?” I heard Milly say.
I turned to look at her, bit back my immediate response, and smiled. “Nope. If he shows, tell him I said to call, would you?”
“Sure. He’s got your number? Never mind, of course he does.” She gave me a lewd wink and returned to her chores.
“Don’t mind her,” a man said as he slid onto the stool I’d vacated before someone else beat him to it. “She’s a matchmaker at heart.”
“Lots of luck with me,” I muttered. “I’m not looking.”
He laughed. “That’s not going to stop her.”
I shrugged, and left. I’d walked to the bar, having decided I needed the exercise. Yeah, I know. Vampire here. We don’t gain weight, or get out of shape, or what have you. It still felt good to pretend it was something I should do. The bike was for going farther away, like downtown to find supper. My neighbors—presuming they paid any attention to my comings and goings—and as far as I could tell they didn’t—probably wondered why I took off soon after sundown and returned an hour or so later without bringing back take-out.
Thankfully, they didn’t seem into the whole ‘welcome to the neighborhood’ thing. I’d gotten a wave or two when I went by one of their homes, but that was it.
It was almost ten when I got home. The first thing I did was get online to check the local news. I’d done that last night, to see if Dex’s body had been found, which it hadn’t, it seemed. Tonight was a different story. After the national news, the anchorman said, “In breaking news, the body of a man was found early this afternoon by a couple hiking in the mountains above Highway 6, between Golden and Black Hawk. According to one of the state patrol officers our reporter talked to it appears the victim was attacked by a wild animal, or animals, although it’s up to the medical examiner to verify that. The victim had no ID on him, but his fingerprints identify him as one Dexter Wilde of Denver.”
That should cause a stir at the bar, I figured, almost tempted to return to see how people were reacting. Of course they might not have the news on, since the TVs seemed to be permanently set to one sports channel or another. I refrained, going down to the basement instead to work on my panic room. I’d already removed the rec room door and was in the process of covering the hole with bricks I’d removed from the wall behind the furnace. I was being careful, even though I was the only one who’d see they were gone as I had no intention of bringing anyone down to the basement—and I wouldn’t use the panic room unless there was a true emergency. For that, I would leave a barely perceptible gap at the top so that I could mist in. I’d left the sofa, table, and chairs, and brought down a few books from my collection to give me something to keep me occupied if I had to stay inside for more than a few hours.
I’d found a half bag of plaster under the workbench in the garage, as well as a small tub, so I mixed up a batch and set to work. There was something satisfying about falling into the rhythm of layering the bricks one by one. When I was finished, I’d have to distress the plaster so it matched what was in the rest of the visible basement. Then, voila, no way to know that there was a well-hidden panic room which I hoped I’d never have to use.
* * * *
I’d just gotten back from feeding Sunday evening when there was a knock on the front door, immediately followed by the sound of the doorbell. When I went to see who was there, I was faced by a middle-aged woman holding a cake on a paper plate, covered with plastic wrap.
“Hello.” She smiled brightly. “I know I’m way late, but I have tried before, but you weren’t home, I guess. At least not during the day which is when I tried. Anyway, welcome to the neighborhood.” She shoved the cake at me. “I’m Mrs. Franklin but you can call me Eleanor. Me and my husband live in the house across the street—” She pointed to one across and down two from mine. “Can I come in?” She didn’t wait for a reply, walking into the living room while I juggled the cake to keep from dropping it in my surprise at her boldness.
“Looks almost the same as before,” she commented, walking around the room. “He didn’t take much with him.”
“No, ma’am,” I replied as I set the cake down on the dining table. “He said he didn’t need most of it, which was lucky for me.”
“Eleanor, please, umm…” She tilted her head in question.
“Lucas—”
I didn’t get to finish as she said, “So, Lucas, tell me all about yourself.”
I resisted rolling my eyes, or doing something worse like taking her downstairs to kill and bury. Okay, burying in the basement wasn’t happening, but damn it was a tempting idea.
“Not much to tell. I moved to Denver a couple of weeks ago after contacting Mr. Comstock about buying his house. He was glad to get out from under, or so he said, so he facilitated the sale and here I am.”
“That sounds like him,” she replied. “He was real antsy to get moved down to Arizona. Do you have a job?”
“Not yet. That’s next on my agenda.”
“Doing what?” She picked up the picture of me and my family sitting on the bookshelf. “Lovely people. You take after your father.”
“So I’ve been told,” I agreed. “Not sure what sort of job I can find. I guess I’ll find out.”
“What did you used to do?”
“Bartending.”
She laughed. “God only knows there’s enough of them in the city. You should be able to find something. I can ask my husband. He’s a cab driver so he might know.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I protested. I had the feeling if she did, she’d be back every night to pass on suggestions. Not something I wanted to deal with.
She waved my words away, saying, “It no trouble at all. Neighbors have to stick together.”
I knew I should have taken one of those remote cabins in the mountains even if they were falling to pieces. Not really, but…
“I’d better get out of your hair before my husband thinks you’ve seduced me,” she said, grinning. “Don’t eat all of that in one sitting.” She waved toward the cake before going to the door.
“I won’t, I promise.” As if, although it did look good.
I let her out, and then took the cake into the kitchen, sticking it, in lonely splendor, in the refrigerator. I debated checking the online news to see if they’d come up with any new theories about Dex’s death. “What the hell,” I muttered, opening the laptop and turning it on. A fast search let me know the coroner had determined Dex must have run into a cougar, startling it, and the cat had attacked rather than retreating. That worked for me. The detective from the state patrol office only had one problem with his death—the fact his car was nowhere in the vicinity and his keys and wallet were missing.
The detective’s theory as quoted on the site? ‘Mr. Wilde was carjacked, knocked out, and his attacker dragged him into the trees where his body was found. He ran into the cougar after he came to and started back to the road.’ “Close, but no cigar,” I said before closing out the site to look for a movie on Netflix.