The Coffin Club (Vampire Kisses 5)

Yes, this club has tripled in size in the last few months. And so has the attitude, Poison added.

The line inched forward, and before I knew it we were presenting the burly bouncer with our IDs.

The gatekeeper immediately stamped the image of a bat on Primus`s and Poison`s hands and strapped barbed-wire-shaped bracelets on their wrists, but he scrutinized my card like he was checking a passport at an international airport. Poison doubled back and got right in the bouncer`s face. She comes here all the time, she said. I can`t believe you don`t remember her.

The bouncer lifted his gaze back to me, his expression one of disdain, then shifted it to the waiting line, sporting streaks in various colors of the gothic rainbow.

I had blue hair last time, I said.

Oh, that was you? he asked seriously.

He stamped my hand with the Coffin Club bat and wrapped a band around my wrist. I had gained passage to the Coffin Club. We slipped behind the bouncer, headed past the bloodred carpet and rope and two skeleton greeters, and before I knew it I was walking through the black wooden coffin-shaped doors.

Thanks, I said to Poison. Everyone says I look younger than I am. I bet you get that a lot, since you have such flawless skin.

Poison`s ghost white face lit up. She put her arm around me. I`ll buy the first round, she said.

The Coffin Club was still morbidly magical. Neon headstones flashed against black spray-painted cement walls. Pale mannequins, dressed in antique clothing or Victorian suits or bound in leather, hung from the rafters. Music pulsed hard throughout the club as if the DJ were trying to wake the dead. A balcony, the place where I`d first encountered Alexander`s nemesis, Jagger, loomed over the vampire-wannabe crowded dance floor, blood-filled amulets swinging from necks like Olympic medals.

But Primus was right. The Coffin Club had changed in the last few months. The club was packed, black wall to black wall, with clubsters. The thick dry ice permeated the air like a Jack the Ripper London fog, making it difficult to see. And where, as last time, I got stares as I ventured through the club, this time the clubsters were intensely partying and seemingly uninterested in a newbie.

I followed Primus and Poison to the bar, but other eager patrons pushed their way in front of me, leaving me to fall behind. I could see their heads above the crowd as I squeezed between the clubsters. When I thought I`d finally reached them, I realized I`d been following another couple the entire time. I popped out at the mini�flea market, where for a small price a clubster could buy anything from an amulet to a sit-down with a numerologist. The packed dance floor was next to the row of sellers, but the bar was nowhere in sight.

I squeezed my way back between the dancing and drinking clubsters, past the giant tombstone-shaped restroom doors marked MONSTERS and GHOULS. I finally saw a wall filled with bottles, spiderwebs clinging to them. I knew I had found the holy grail. But the bar was so jammed with thirsty customers it was impossible to see who was bartending or where Primus and Poison were located. I squished my way through. Just as a girl was sliding off a tombstone- shaped barstool, I jumped on it.

A guy sitting next to me spun around. He was wearing more eyeliner than Alice Cooper, and it didn`t look as good on him as it did on the elder rocker.

I`ll buy you whatever you want, he said, slurring his way into my face and space.

I spotted the bartender, Romeo, but neither my barmate nor I attracted his attention.

Romeo responded to every wave of a ten-dollar bill but continued to ignore us. When he passed by for the hundredth time, I leaned over the bar and grabbed his tattooed arm.

Since Alexander and Jameson had been mum about all things Maxwell, I thought this was my chance to get some inside scoop. Did Jagger go back to Romania? I asked. Romeo, holding a beer in each hand, glared at me. The mention of Jagger`s name gave him pause. Like Primus and Poison, he didn`t recognize me.

Who wants to know? he asked suspiciously.

Raven. Is he in town? Or did he go back to Romania?

Raven...Your name sounds familiar.

I realized I shouldn`t have let Romeo know I was looking for Jagger. I wasn`t a regular clubster; I was the girlfriend of Jagger`s nemesis. Alexander had already reunited Valentine with him. Now it appeared as if I was stirring up trouble. How could I have been so stupid?

I`ll have a Medieval Massacre, and the lady will have--, my barmate began.

I`ll be right back, I said, knowing I wouldn`t return.

It was time to call it a night. I`d lost Primus and Poison. I`d been asking about locations of nefarious vampires. And I was an underage girl alone at a bar. I`d better arrive at Old Town before this black-fingernailed Cinderella turned into a pumpkin.

Fatigue set in as I headed for the entrance doors. It was starting to hit me that when I`d woken up this morning, I was in Dullsville. I began to feel dizzy as I pushed and squeezed my way through the fog-filled club, my safety pins getting tangled on other clubsters` chains. When I glanced up, I`d reached a wall that was unfamiliar but had a coffin-shaped door. I tried to open it, but it was stuck. I turned the knob and pushed my body against it.

The door flung open and I stumbled into a barely lit area. It took me several steps before I realized that instead of exiting into the street, I had entered a dimly lit corridor.

I would have turned back, but I heard music (different from the song being played in the Coffin Club) pulsing from the other end. Perhaps it was coming from Jagger`s apartment--the very one he had shown me when I visited the club on my last trip. It would take only a moment for me to find out. A single overhead naked bulb lit the cryptic corridor, and graffiti lined the cement walls like an urban overpass. When I reached the end of the corridor, I discovered another smaller tunnellike path, with arched stone walls and a very narrow, steep staircase that plummeted into darkness. I let the rusty handrail go untouched and crept down the stairs. They led to a single wooden dungeon door. Written in bloodred spray-painted letters was: DEAD END.

Was this someone`s office? Or perhaps another entrance to the apartment Jagger had been living in?

I pressed my ear to the coffin-lid door. I could hear a mixture of music and voices.

I slowly turned the knob and pushed the door, but it wouldn`t budge. I heard some voices behind me and the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. It was a dead end--I had nowhere to go. I knew at any moment I might be kicked out of the club and perhaps Hipsterville altogether--if I lived to tell.

Two guys with the complexion of corpses, one blond, one redhead, confronted me. Can`t get in? the blond one asked.

I forgot my key, I said flippantly.

It`s okay, I have mine.

He unclipped a skeleton key swinging from a chain attached to his studded belt.