Hard Bitten (Chicagoland Vampires 4)

I took her point, but countered with my own.

"We're nocturnal, and he probably works the bar until sunup. I'm not sure there would be a good time to tear him away, and we need to find out what's going on."

We bypassed the two-deep crowd of humans and vamps in front of the bar and went directly to the end of it. I waited until Colin moved toward us, wiping his hands on a towel stuck into his belt, before I popped the question.

"Can we talk in private for a few minutes?"

With a dubious expression, Colin turned to grab two beers out of a small refrigerator, then put them on the bar and grabbed the cash a vamp had dropped there. "Busy tonight. Can it wait?"

"Um, hello?" Lindsey asked, moving beside me and propping an elbow on the bar. "I'm here. I can watch the bar."

Colin frowned at her. "Are you up for it?"

"Honey, I spent a decade of my rather glorious life pouring shots in the East Village. These people will be both drunk and entertained by the time you get back, or I'm not one of the top ten hotties of Cadogan House. Seriously," she added with a glance at me. "There's a list, and we're both on it."

"Nice," I said. Not bad for a former library-bound grad student.

From hottie to barmaid, Lindsey didn't waste any time sidling behind the bar and slapping a white towel over her shoulder.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she announced, "who needs a drink?"

When the crowd let out an appreciative hoot, Colin put his hand at my back and steered me toward the other end of the bar. "Let's go to the office. It's a little quieter back there."

I followed as he made a loop through the bar.

He worked the room like a seasoned politician: checking on drinks, kissing pretty girls on the cheek, recommending pizza toppings at the joint next door, and inquiring after the parents of apparently human friends. I didn't know Colin much at all, but he was clearly well liked, as much a fixture of the bar as the Cubs gear and vampires.

When we made it across the room, we stopped in the photograph-covered back hallway - and past a picture of Ethan and Lacey Sheridan, his former flame - and into a small room at the end.

Colin pulled a key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door. The office was small - barely large enough to hold a metal desk and beat-up file cabinet. Every free surface was covered in papers - magazines, notes, checks, tax returns, pages from yellow legal pads, folded newspapers, sports programs, invoices, take-out menus.

The walls were also covered, although the content was much less kid-friendly. Posters and calendars featuring pinups from the last seventy years were plastered like wallpaper across the room, busty blondes and brunettes in tiny shorts and three-inch heels smiling down at us coquettishly. It looked like the office you might find in a service station or quick-lube shop. Not exactly the kind of place that made it comfortable to be a woman, but then again, I wasn't the target audience.

"Nice digs," I politely said.

"We like it," he said. "Get the door, would you?"

I closed it, which lowered the volume just enough to allow us to talk instead of screaming.

Colin slid around the desk and pulled open the top drawer of the file cabinet. He slipped a small metal flask out of the drawer, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.

"Booze?" I wondered aloud.

"Type O. My own special concoction." He offered it to me, but I shook him off. I needed a clear head, and I wasn't confident Colin's "special concoction" was going to keep me in a business-minded place.

"No, thank you."

The flask still in one hand, he pulled out an ancient desk chair, the back cushion covered by more duct tape than fabric, and took a seat.

"Now, Ms. Sentinel, what can I do for you?"

"Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary around here lately?"

He made a sarcastic sound. "Once upon a time, this was a bar for vampires. For the fanged and their kith and kin. Since we came out of the closet, I've been serving humans who think male vamps are brooding, romantic heroes and female vamps have a secret weight-loss formula. I'm also occasionally serving humans who think vamps are trash and the harbingers of the apocalypse. So out of the ordinary? Yes, Sentinel. I'd say so."

By the end of the rant, his words had sped up, and the faster he talked, the more pronounced his accent became. I'd never been to Ireland, but I could hear green hills in his voice.

He also had a point, but I was looking for something a little more specific, so I got to mine.

"We think vamps are using the bar to find humans for a new kind of rave. Anything like that ring a bell?"

He took a sip from his flask. "Like I said, plenty of humans want to spend time with vampires. I'm not sure I'd recognize the difference between a vamp hitting on a human and a vamp inviting a human to attend a drinking party of some type."

"Fair enough." I gnawed my lip for a moment, disappointed he hadn't given me any breakthrough information. "Okay, how about drugs? Something called V? It might be used to make humans susceptible to glamour."

His brows lifted with interest. "You don't say. Are we so unskilled at glamour these days that we have to resort to pharmaceuticals to do the job?"

"We're not sure yet about how it works - just that it's been found at a party."

He shrugged one shoulder. "This is a bar; drugs are par for the course. I haven't heard about any new drugs being passed around, but that doesn't mean it's not happening."

Strike three for the Sentinel, but I tried again.

"What about familiar characters? Anyone hanging around the bar a lot more than usual?

Anyone out of place, or anyone who pops up over and over?"

Colin leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, the flask nestled beneath his arms like a doll. "I don't want to rain on your parade, and I appreciate everything you do for the House as Sentinel. But to be frank, I spend my time trying to ensure the vampires and humans in this bar are well tended and entertained and have an opportunity to burn off a little of the steam that builds up through the workweek. But if you're asking me if I've seen anything suggesting Temple Bar is the new HQ for some kind of rave movement? Then no, I have not."

Deflated, I sighed. I'd figured the guy who spent most of his time at the bar was going to have the best insight into what Sarah had thought was going on at Temple Bar. But he had a point; he might have had the access, but he also had plenty else to do.

I nodded. "Thanks for the honesty. Get in touch if you think of anything?"