Эллен Шрайбер - The Coffin Club

“What?” Scarlet asked. “I can’t hear you above the music.”

I felt the hairs on the ends of my neck stand up. I glanced back and Phoenix was sitting in the electric chair, staring right at me.

My heart sank to my stomach. Though I was surrounded by two friendly vampires, I was deathly afraid of the one behind me.

“Never mind,” I said. Even though he was out of earshot and the club music was pulsing faster than my beating heart, I sensed he could hear every word.

“The club has been a great hangout,” Scarlet began.

“The whole reason the club exists is so that we can be ourselves peacefully,” Onyx said.

“There are many of us who don’t want a new direction. The club is being torn apart,” Scarlet admitted, shaking her head.

I had to know more. I leaned into the girls as closely as I could. “What’s his story?” I whispered to Onyx.

“Whose story?” She scooted closer.

“What?” Scarlet asked, tossing her luscious locks over her shoulder. “I can’t hear you.”

“She’s interested in some guy,” Onyx said.

“I thought you had a boyfriend,” Scarlet added.

Onyx nudged her best friend, then eagerly asked me, “Which one?”

I placed my index finger over my lips. In my softest whisper I began, “I’m not interested…I mean I am…but not that way. Don’t look now…but the guy behind me, sitting in the electric chair…”

Onyx did her best to check him out without being too noticeable, but Scarlet glared toward the stockade. “Who, him? That’s the bartender.”

I shook my head. “No, not him.”

“No, she means over there,” Onyx corrected. “But there’s no one in or near the electric chair.”

I spun around. The electric chair was empty.

“Who were you interested in?” Scarlet asked.

“Uh…no one really.”

“Tell us,” Onyx pried.

“The biker dude with purple hair,” I confessed.

“He’s your type, huh?” Onyx continued. “Hot, mysterious, and dangerous?”

“No—I have a boyfriend. It just seems he’s always hiding in the shadows and watching me.”

“I haven’t gotten the scoop on him yet. But I’d stay away,” Scarlet warned.

“Yeah, he’s always having meetings with really gnarly types,” Onyx confirmed. “Maybe he’s the one—”

The bartender approached our table with a tray of three red martinis.

“We didn’t order these,” Scarlet said.

“They are from the two guys sitting in the corner,” the waiter stated.

The two guys who’d let me in the Dungeon a few nights before raised their goblets to us.

“Two dudes for three girls? How obnoxious,” Scarlet remarked.

“It’s okay. I have a boyfriend,” I said.

“But it’s the point,” she charged. “They don’t know that.”

“I’ve heard if you accept a stranger’s drink, then it’s an invitation to your table,” I whispered to the girls. “Thanks anyway,” I said to the bartender, declining the martini.

“I never refuse a free drink,” Onyx said. The two girls laughed and gladly accepted the bloody drinks.

But I wasn’t interested in freebies. I wanted the scoop about the inner workings of the club.

“So will the club close?” I asked.

“We hope not!” Onyx began, drawing near. “We’ve met so many fabulous people here.”

“And where else could we hang out and be ourselves? A coffee shop?”

“They certainly don’t sell AB-negative lattes.” Both girls laughed.

Scarlet scooted close. “Do you know Jagger Maxwell?”

I nodded. “He’s legendary. What about him?”

“Since he opened this club a few months ago, he created a safe haven for us to be ourselves and party,” Scarlet said in a whisper.

“He even gave all the out-of-town members a place to crash here,” said Onyx.

“But now that’s not good enough for some,” Scarlet added. “So the buzz is that Jagger has another plan.”

“He doesn’t want us to be a secret,” Onyx said.

“But that will blow the whole purpose of the Dungeon,” Scarlet continued.

“To be visible—but only to us immortals.”

“Jagger and his crew think that it’s a vampire’s true nature to lurk among the mortals.”

“So many of us believe just the opposite. It’s best to keep our blood pure and separate from mortals.”

“If we reveal our true identity,” Scarlet warned, “then we obviously pose as much of a threat to mortals as they do to us.”

“Jagger is on a power trip. He wasn’t happy enough being the leader of the Dungeon. He doesn’t have our best interest in mind. He has his own.”

“What do you believe? What kind of vampire are you?” Onyx asked with conviction.

I was taken aback. Two vampiresses, one flashing an onyx on her fang, were asking me what kind of vampire I was? I certainly couldn’t say that I was neither kind—and in fact, not a vampire at all.

“We should remain private and pure,” I answered emphatically. “In the end, will mortals really accept us as we are? I think it’s best we remain true to ourselves so we don’t lose our identity. We are who we are for a reason. We don’t fit into their world, so why should we try?”

I was talking as much about vampires as I was about myself.

The girls grinned in agreement.

We sensed someone listening to our conversation. We peered up and the two guys were standing behind us.

“See,” I said through a fake smile.

“Do you mind if we sit down?” the blond asked.

“Of course not,” Scarlet said.

It was then I spotted tousled dark purple hair in the chamber across from us.

“Uh…I’m feeling dizzy,” I admitted, referring to the revolving floor. “I’ll be right back.”

It was my chance to spy on Phoenix. I snuck out into the hall and hid in the shadows next to their lounge.

Phoenix, along with a gang of ominous-looking guys, was hovering around a stone table. Phoenix was quite popular. When he wasn’t slinking in the shadows, he was surrounded by club members. “Jagger doesn’t know the true meaning of being a vampire,” one said.

“It’s time he steps down,” added another.

“And you are just the dude to take over,” the first one said to Phoenix.

“Yes,” they all said in unison.

“Tomorrow night, then,” a voice declared.

“I’ll meet him at the crop circle. It will be done,” Phoenix finished.

I leaned back as far as I could into the shadows as Phoenix left the chamber and the menacing clubsters followed him.

Phoenix was planning a revolt of his own. What would happen if he led the vampire club? Was he the kind of vampire who thought it necessary to lurk among the mortals? If he was planning to meet Jagger in the open, he was surely risking exposure himself.

I felt a vibration in my purse. I pulled out my cell. It was Aunt Libby.

“Raven? Where are you?” she asked, her voice concerned. “I just checked the ghouls room and you weren’t there.”

“I took a wrong turn. I’m a few yards from the dance floor,” I said truthfully, only it wasn’t the same dance floor she was thinking of.

“I’m done with my reading. She said marriage is in the cards.”

“I’ll meet you at the tarot card booth.”

I hung up. If the tarot card reader had been truly psychic, she would have informed my aunt of my real location. Fortunately her powers were really only good for taking other people’s money.

I returned to find the girls still immersed in cozy conversation with the martini guys.

“Where did you go?” Onyx said.

“I got turned around. Even a ghost could get lost in these tombs.” The blond beamed. A tiny drop of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth. Onyx wiped it off with her martini napkin.