Jeanne Stein - Cloud City

He doesn’t leave his room either. I hear the tap of fingers on a keyboard and guess he’s working. He makes no calls and about five thirty, comes the sound of running water from the shower. I duck out of my room a few minutes after I hear Prendergast leave and head for the bar.

The Calloway is what you’d expect in a bar in a vintage hotel. Dark, lots of wood, lots of brass. I pass through and see Sophie and Prendergast, their heads together, talking quietly. Neither looks up as I pass by. I pick a bar stool close to the door and nurse a beer. Sophie’s demeanor is calm, relaxed, unthreatened. Prendergast has changed into jeans and an open-neck shirt under a leather jacket. Much more appropriate attire for Leadville. His expression is serious but I’m not getting any warning vibes to alert me that Sophie is in immediate danger. Obviously, she isn’t either. There’s too much ambient noise for me to zero in on their conversation. At one point, Sophie looks up and spies me at the bar. Her eyes flick away and back and Jonathan’s voice is in my head.

Interesting development. Go on to the restaurant. We’ll meet you there.

There’s a halting quality to his words that makes me uneasy. What’s going on?

No reply. The conduit between us is shut.

So at six forty-five, I leave for The Matchless. Like everything else along the main drag, The Matchless is a throwback to the days when Leadville was a booming mining town. Brick front, dark, shuttered windows. When I push through the door, I’m greeted with the smell of grilling beef and a hundred years of cigar and cigarette smoke. Mementos, mining paraphernalia, and gilded photos of a couple named Tabor line the walls and the back of the bar. A glance at one of them and the origin of the bar’s name becomes clear. Evidently this couple had a mine in Leadville named The Matchless.

The bar stretches along one wall. The rest of the place is filled with a dozen tables and booths. All are occupied. I hope Prendergast made reservations.

I take a seat at the bar, one of only two left. The place buzzes with conversation and laughter. From what I pick up, this is a popular place with the locals.

The bartender is a grizzled, grey-haired guy of indeterminate age. He’s wearing overalls and a flannel shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He wanders down to my end of the bar and slaps a coaster in front of me. No smile, but he’s not glowering at me either.

“What’ll it be?”

I peruse the draft handles, surprised at the number of German brews available. I would have pegged this for a Millers or Budweiser kind of place. “Paulaner Oktoberfest.”

He does a quick about face and expertly fills a glass.

“Nice pour.”

His mouth twitches. A hint of blossoming good will? He moves away from me, to the middle of the bar, before I can be sure.

I’ve taken two appreciative swallows of my beer when the door swings open.

Sophie and Prendergast enter, pausing just inside the vestibule. Sophie looks around and then does the last thing I expect. She walks right up to me.

“Anna,” she says. “Please join us. I’ve told Steven all about you.”

I’m sure I must have a deer in headlight expression on my face. Sophie pretends not to notice. When I try to reach Jonathan to find out what the hell is going on, I get nothing.

The bartender joins us. “You folks have a reservation?”

Prendergast nods. “Prendergast. I called this afternoon. For two.” A vague look in my direction. “Seems we now have three.”

“No problem. Right this way.”

I look around. I didn’t see any empty tables when I came in, but he leads us to a booth partly hidden behind a screen in the back. It’s a big, dark mahogany booth upholstered in burgundy leather and shaped like a horseshoe. I let Sophie slip into the middle and Prendergast and I take the ends, facing each other. He has yet to meet my gaze.

Prendergast looks to the bartender. “Menus?”

“Only serve one thing here. Steak. Any cut, cooked any way you like it except well-done. Cook refuses to burn a good steak. Comes with baked potato, salad, bread. What’s your pleasure, folks?”

Sophie orders a filet, medium rare. Jonathan must be delighted. One of the things he likes most about his strange predicament is that he no longer needs blood. He is able to enjoy food again through Sophie.

Who used to be a vegetarian.

I raise an eyebrow at her and she shrugs.

Prendergast orders the same and asks about wine. The bartender recites a list and he chooses a merlot.

Then the bartender looks at me. I raise my glass. “No dinner, thanks. Just beer.”

The brief moment of cordiality we shared at the bar is over. “You sure? Best steaks in Colorado.”

“Thanks, but I’m sure. I had a late lunch.”

He ambles off, clucking his tongue and mumbling something about damned vegetarians.

If he only knew.

Sophie looks at Prendergast, I look at Sophie. I send Jonathan a message asking just what did Sophie mean when she said she told the editor all about me? But he’s not responding. I don’t get even a glimmer of recognition. It’s as if Jonathan has been pushed deep into Sophie’s subconscious and she’s not letting him resurface.

A new trick she’s learned?

Sophie finally swivels in my direction. The steel hardness in her eyes makes a shiver of trepidation run up my spine. “Steven knows all about you, Anna,” she says.

I lean forward, frowning. “What does he know about me?”

Prendergast’s tone is as cold as Sophie’s eyes. “I know you’re a vampire,” he says. “And I know Sophie’s story is really your own.”

Once again, I’m knocked off balance. I lock onto Sophie’s face with a steely gaze of my own. “What are you doing?”

She raises her shoulders. “Getting my life back.”

The bartender arrives with the wine and our conversation comes to a halt. I try to reach Jonathan. Once again I’m met with an impenetrable curtain of silence. Sophie has a half-smile on her face, as if she knows exactly what I’m doing.

I don’t know what game she’s playing, but the vampire is quickly tiring of it.

When the bartender leaves us, I grab Sophie’s arm. “Where’s Jonathan?”

“Who?” she asks.

My grip tightens and she flinches away. Prendergast reaches for my hand but he quickly finds he can’t dislodge my fingers. Vampire shows her face and he shrinks against the seat. Still holding Sophie’s arm, I growl at him.

“What did Sophie tell you?”

Prendergast looks at Sophie with wide eyes. “She told me she got the story from you. She knows all about your connection to my family. That you were the vampire that turned my great-grandmother. She admitted the book was all your idea and it was just a crazy coincidence that it landed on my desk.”

“And you believe her?”

“Why shouldn’t I? She’s not a vampire. She couldn’t have known so much about my great-grandmother without hearing it from someone who was there.”

“What made you so sure Sophie wasn’t a vampire?”

He gives me a look that’s half astonishment I’d ask such a simple-minded question and half amusement. “We ate lunch together.” He waves a hand in my direction. “She ordered more than beer.”

I close my eyes for a minute to swallow down the irritation rising like bile because this jerk had to point out something that should have been so obvious to me. Then, “So you followed her to Denver and tried to kill her. What was the point of that?”

“That was rash, I admit.” Prendergast sinks down in his chair. “I was angry. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I thought if I scared her badly enough, she’d do what she just did. Tell me about you. I’ve been searching for proof that vampires were real since I was old enough to read the family journals. This book was the proof I needed.”