Chapter 37
The word ’Pub’ is almost too kind for this place. It’s more of a dingy dive bar, full of stressed out mages and thirsty looking vampires, even at noon. I guess time is mostly irrelevant when you’re living underground.
We find ourselves a nice table in the corner, and a smiling young server comes over almost immediately, fresh vampire bites visible on her neck and a glazed look in her eyes.
"Hello ladies, what can I get you to drink" it looks like an automatic response, but she doesn’t seem to be processing anything. I ask her for two pints of the Safe House’s home brewed beer.
"I think we need to talk to Narishma" Lala whispers to me, and I see my relaxing day fading into a distant dream.
I send a quick message on the base messaging app, telling the boss to drop what she’s up to, as she’s needed here asap, but I get no immediate response. There’s a large table full of vampires in the corner, flirting with the waitress as she goes to get our drinks, and I’m trying not to judge them too harshly. Ingrained prejudices and all, I don’t want to go overboard just because they’re blood suckers. Maybe she’s one of their girlfriends and it’s all within the realm of respectable?
Despite not messaging me back, Ari is joining us at our table in under a minute. She just sits quietly as the waitress brings our drinks and apparently doesn’t notice her, returning to her duties.
"I’ve hidden my presence from the other vampires. I heard the new arrivals were causing trouble, but it’s only been 2 days, I haven’t managed to catch them in the act yet. Looks like they’ve fully mind controlled the waitress though, she can only follow their orders. They don’t see me, so she can’t react to me."
"Want me to cause trouble?" I ask with a little grin. Oh how I like causing trouble with vampires.
"If it’s not too much trouble. Don’t start anything, let them dig their own graves. Pardon the pun."
A bouncy new R&B song I’ve never heard comes on and I drag Lala out to the dance floor.
"You know how to dance right?"