“I’m hearing you loud and clear.”
“Fabulous.” She hooked an elbow through Ginny’s and took a sharp right, sending them down a narrow street lined with closed garages and a shallow gully of sewer water running down the middle. “I find I’m feeling guilty for calling you goth Bo Peep earlier. Please say something insulting to me, so I can move on.”
“Oh no, I don’t want to—”
“I insist.”
Ginny inflated one of her cheeks and let the air out slowly. “You’re alarmingly violent?”
“I asked for an insult. Not a commendation.” Roksana sucked her tongue. “Never mind, we’re almost there. Quick rundown, the owner is an ex-boyfriend and he still thinks there is a shot. There is not. Do not mention Jonas, Elias or Tucker. Say nothing of vampires whatsoever or you’ll get us both killed.”
“Should we just go to a Fridays?”
“This is a slayer bar.” Something unsettled traipsed across her face. “We’re safest here. Unless—”
“Unless I mention our primary reason for knowing one another. Got it.”
“Sassy. I like it.” She guided Ginny between two garages and down a set of steep stairs. “Those clothes are already doing their job.”
They stopped outside a metal door at the very bottom of the staircase. It was a regular old door no one would look twice at. One might assume it led to a place to which only the electrical company had access. Not one sound could be heard on the other side. In fact, Ginny was getting ready to ask Roksana if they were in the right place when the metal creaked open—and blasting hip hop music nearly rendered her deaf.
On reflex, Ginny covered both of her ears, so she could only partially hear the exchange between Roksana and the bald, tawny-skinned man in a white leather vest who stood in front of them, the top of his head brushing the doorframe.
“Knew you’d be back,” he shouted, giving the slayer an appreciative once-over. “I don’t see the flamethrower you stole last time we hung out.”
“I’m having it dry cleaned.”
He cracked a laugh, before sliding his attention to Ginny. “You usually travel solo. Who’s the fresh meat?”
“Her meat is off limits, Luther. We’re just here to drink. Is that allowed?”
“I suppose that can be arranged.” He shifted to the side and jerked his chin toward the apparent mayhem that lay on the other side of the door. “Welcome to Enders. Save me a dance, Roks.”
“No.”
Luther threw back his head and laughed.
The eye-rolling slayer took Ginny’s hand and led her inside. With so many lights flashing in time with the bass, it was impossible to make out everything while being shuffled forward by a protective Roksana, but she saw enough to know the place was packed to the gills with fit-looking people who seemed in competition with each other to keep their backs closest to the wall. Symbols Ginny didn’t recognize had been spray painted in bright neon greens and whites onto brick, single blacklight bulbs hung from the ceiling, men and women danced on elevated platforms in next to nothing.
“I don’t feel so underdressed in my skirt and tank top now.”
“Oh good. I was so worried,” Roksana deadpanned, situating Ginny in the very corner of the bar. “Stay put until I make a mental list of everyone here.”
“You said we were safe in this place. What are you worried about?”
“Ginny, you need to learn no one is ever safe. Not anywhere. At any time.”
Ginny took the words to heart. Wasn’t it true that she’d been living in one dimension of this world that actually had two dimensions? Maybe more? Several times today when she’d closed her eyes, she’d thought of Seymour floating down from the roof into the alleyway. Her body being transported across the night sky. It was possible that safety was nothing more than a laughable notion.
Especially for humans like herself.
“Get you a drink?”
Ginny had been in the process of taking off her jacket when the bartender approached. Now, she swiveled on her stool to face him, whipping off her jacket at the same moment—and immediately slipped into the skin of one of her film stars. Elizabeth Taylor, perhaps, in A Place in the Sun. Yes. Ginny could see her now, the way she entered the glitzy party and cocked a hip on the pool table with a glass in her hand. “I’ll have champagne.”
The bartender stared back blankly.
Roksana coughed. “Two beers.” When the bartender was out of sight, she turned to Ginny. “If they have champagne in this place, it tastes like piss.”
“Another time, then.”
The slayer’s lips hopped at one end. “Sure.”
Ginny cozied into her stool and scanned the room, averting her gaze when she made eye contact with two patrons mid-lip lock. “So what happened between you and Luther? He seems nice.”
“Yes, that was the problem.” Roksana slapped money on the bar in exchange for their beers and drained half of her bottle. “He wanted to set us up on double slaying dates and such things. I would rather slay myself.”