Dark Harvest (Darkling Mage 2)

“The front half is mundane,” Gil said, leaning on his elbow and bending over the table so I could hear. “See? The public seating area, it’s for scrubs, hangers-on, mortals. Those who aren’t in the know.”

It definitely felt that way. We were in scrubland, for sure, at tables clustered so tightly together on a floor not far from the Amphora’s entrance. The decor was done up in deep red swathes of velvet draped across brass fixtures, complimented by dim lighting that was meant to evoke firelight.

Scratch that, it was actual fire, on closer inspection, the magical, smokeless kind, like the ones at the hideout and the Lorica, suspended in censers and braziers. Also there was ivy. Lots and lots of ivy, snaking in and around columns and posts, working its way over and under the railings at the bar, like it had been allowed to grow that way, choking the establishment in garlands of green.

Sterling stared over the rim of his cup as he drank, gray eyes focused on the other end of the room. I’d learned that vampires could actually partake of food and drink if they wanted, not for sustenance, but pure enjoyment. He might have mentioned that their bodies didn’t process calories the way humans do, either, which, admittedly, gave me pause. Did that mean he could eat as many burgers as he wanted?

But back to the point. Sterling was examining the Amphora’s other half – the better one, as things went with these fancy shmancy places.

“To the untrained eye,” Sterling muttered, nudging his cup at me – gee, thanks – “that would be a regular old VIP area, like you’d see anywhere else. But you’ll notice that there are no velvet ropes, no bouncers to keep the riffraff out.”

I looked closer. He was right. The VIP area was elevated, set higher than the rest of the place and sectioned off behind some very fine, sheer curtains that were designed to separate Ipanema from us commoners.

“Anyone could get in, then,” I said. “That means anyone could just walk in and do what they want. That’s pretty ballsy of him.”

Him being Dionysus, manifested in the Amphora’s VIP section as what I took to be his favored form: that of a handsome youth, so impetuous and vital that he nearly looked too young to be there. He wore a shirt that opened down to his navel, sipping from a cup that never seemed to empty, spread out languorously on a velvet divan as he took in the revelers and dancers around him.

Oh. Did I not mention the dancers? Dozens of them, men and women alike, stripped to their waists or worse, writhing with reckless abandon to the curious crash-bang of cymbals and drums and flutes, like electronic dance music gone especially, horribly wrong. It would have felt like a strip joint except that I knew that almost none of these sweat-glazed, wine-crazed dancers worked there. These were regular, if incredibly attractive people in off the street, thrill-seekers who had wandered into the Amphora looking for a good night, and ending up spellbound under Dionysus’s thrall.

He seemed to have that effect on everyone around him, and he watched on in half-bored amusement as breasts and bare chests writhed and wriggled involuntarily for his entertainment. A few pairs of revelers, I noticed between the billowing of the curtains, had moved on from dancing to other, even sweatier activities on the mountains of cushions deeper in the VIP section.

“Crazy shit, isn’t it?” Sterling made an odd sort of smile and looked off among the curtains. “Like the good old days.”

I looked away, cleared my throat, and tugged on my collar. “Imagine if the cops got wind of this place. They’d be shut down in a minute.”

“That’ll never happen,” Gil said. “The place is warded. Anyone Dionysus doesn’t want knowing about the stuff behind the curtains simply won’t see or remember. And speaking of the curtains.”

“Yeah. I could just step in there, couldn’t I?” And by that, I meant shadowstepping. All I needed was a pool of shadow big enough to accommodate my body, and I could jaunt through and jump out of another shadow. Again, like teleportation, except that I preferred to be able to see where I was going. I didn’t like the idea of stepping blind. You ever drive with your eyes closed? Yeah. Exactly.

“Nope.” Sterling shook his head. “They’re warded, too. You try stepping in there and you’ll probably be shredded into pieces. You ever try stepping from our world to theirs?”

I shook my head. Shredded to pieces? Holy shit.

“See? That’s why he’s so overconfident about this. Anyone who tries and teleports in there won’t make it. Domicile rules are in effect. So no need for any guards, no ropes to keep people out.”

“So how are we expected to commune?” I looked between the two of them. “Wait. We didn’t even bring an offering, did we?”

“Pssh,” Sterling said, shrugging off his leather jacket. “Watch this.”

He was wearing something skintight underneath, which, combined with the nut-busting tightness of his jeans meant that he fit right in with the kind of wanton, slinking supermodel types that Dionysus kept in his wriggling retinue. Sterling downed the rest of his wine, pounded his empty cup on our table, then strutted over to the curtains.

Which promptly stiffened, forming a solid, sheer barrier between the two halves of the Amphora. No one on our side seemed to notice, but I caugh

t two of Dionysus’s serving girls tittering as they watched from his divan. Dionysus himself gave Sterling an apologetic smirk, and shrugged. The vampire tested the curtain, pushing on it with his fingers, and when it refused to nudge, he made a U-turn and stalked back to our table, his face furiously red for someone already dead. Gil was reddening too, hand clamped over his mouth to stifle his laughter.

“Oh wow,” I said. “That’s pretty harsh, dude. Ancient Greek god turned you down because you weren’t good enough to be a go-go boy? Super harsh.”

“Shut the fuck up, Graves.” Face like thunder, brows creased, Sterling snapped his fingers, calling for another wine. A server showed up with a fresh goblet, her hair just enough of an artfully curled mess to cover the smirk on her lips. So someone had noticed after all. Sterling took his cup and glared at her reproachfully as he sipped.

“Thanks kindly,” Gil said. “You can put that on our tab, but, if you don’t mind.”

He slipped a bill under our server’s tray, making sure her fingers made contact with the money. Her eyes lit up and she palmed the twenty, secreting it under the folds of the revealingly altered toga everyone who worked at the Amphora wore as a uniform.

She grinned. “And how can I help you boys this evening?”

“We’d really like to get into the VIP area, please.” Classic Gil. Brusque, but polite.

“I’m so sorry,” our server said, twirling her hair around the end of one finger. “It’s just that it’s by invitation only, and whatever the boss says, goes.” She nodded in Dionysus’s direction, and I noticed that he was still watching our table, a half smile playing on his lips.