Blaze: Underground Encounters 6 Read online

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  It was a good distraction, keeping me from dwelling on Mike. Each time my phone buzzed, I hoped it was him, so we could make things right between us. But, it was never him. I must have pissed him off enough that he was all set. Served me right.

  Several times, I’d picked up the phone to call him. With all the help he’d given me, I should invite him to the opening at the least. But, what the heck would I say?

  In addition, I had issues with my friend. After a few days of avoiding Lily, I started to come to terms with what she had shown me. It wasn’t easy to discover your friend spent time loping around as a mountain lion in the forests. The universe had expanded with more possibilities than I could ever understand.

  I finished up teaching my classes at the gym, saying goodbyes and dropping plugs about my new venture. Lily and I had been promoting the heck out of the opening. Well, mostly Lily. She contacted the media, posted on social media, and ran ads. She was amazing. Maybe her dual nature made her sharper than most humans.

  When I entered my office, I logged onto the program Mike had set up for me. He was right. I could do so much more and be more efficient using this one system than all my paper files and other software. The software was robust, designed specifically for yoga studios.

  Lily had suggested an opening day special where visitors could have a vast discount if they signed up on the spot. For two days, I’d tried to figure out how to make this adjustment in the system as it kept tallying the regular price. Frustrating as hell. I ended up calling the support team.

  It would’ve been easier to call Mike. He could have helped me out in two minutes flat. How many times I fantasized about calling him, having him help me through my issue, and then thanking him in a physical way. Maybe starting it off with a little strip tease.

  But, it was too late. Too much time had passed and the distance between us grew with each passing day. I doubted he even wanted to speak to me at this point.

  Well, for today’s opening, I’d figured out enough to accomplish simple tasks. Sigh. Mike would have been proud.

  A couple of hours later, Lily showed up with helium balloons printed with my logo, which she set free all over the studio. She tied many to the placard out front. Damn, she knew how to draw attention. I doubt anyone would drive by without noticing.

  “You sure we don’t need one of those inflatable figures swaying around in the wind,” I teased.

  “Ooh, that’s a good idea. We could arrange it in a yoga position. That would garner plenty of second glances.”

  “Thank you, Lily,” I said. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

  “Nonsense. Of course you could. You’re just better with me. Just like I’m better with you.” She grinned.

  I laughed. “We’re a good team. I’m glad I scheduled the opening on a day you could be here.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She smirked and added, “Except a full moon.”

  The rest of the day went by in a whirlwind. While my fear was that nobody would show, foreshadowing an inevitable end to this whole idea of a studio, the opposite happened. Many attendees of my yoga and Pilates classes stopped by to wish me well and some even signed up for classes. Besides that, tons of strangers walked in. Some were in the neighborhood and noticed the eye-catching balloons. Others saw newspaper ads and announcements, and many read about the grand opening on social media. Lily was stellar at getting the word out online. She ran social media ads, and she had a contest for free classes for those who spread a post on the opening.

  Clients and potential clients offered variations of “Congratulations.”

  I thanked them all and welcomed them to the studio, offering them a free class.

  Once Lily’s promo machinations had worked to good effect, she said, “I’m going to head out, okay?”

  “Of course. I owe you dinner and drinks tonight,” I said.

  “I hope you don’t want it to end there,” she said. “I thought we’d go out tonight to celebrate.”

  “As long as I don’t crash,” I replied. “I’ll be pooped after this!”

  “I’m getting you a latte to keep you going.” She grinned. “With all that caffeine and the excitement of the day trust me, you’re going to want to burn off some excess energy, so you’ll even be able to sleep tonight.”

  “Where to? Go into Boston? Cambridge?”

  “Why drive in there when we have such a great club nearby?”

  “Vamps?” My eyes widened with amusement. “Wow, that place has really grown on you. I remember you sulking the first time I took you there.”

  “Since you took me there, my life has changed significantly.” Lily’s eyes took on that sparkle whenever she spoke of Nico.

  “Where you met a dashing computer geek masquerading as a rock star.”

  She laughed. “Who doesn’t love a sexy nerd?” My face must have dropped. When she saw my face, she said. “Sorry, did I hit a nerve? Make you think of him?”

  “It’s just—well—with all the help he did,” I waved my hand around the studio, stopping at my office as I tried to formulate the feelings into words. “He should be here. Know what I mean?”

  “Want me to call him?” Lily pulled out her phone.

  “No!” I reached for the phone to stop her. “It’s too late.”

  She put her phone away. “I don’t think so.” She studied me. “But I’m wondering—what do you want from him? Just to thank him out of feeling obligated? Or is it something more?”

  A tightness burned in my chest, one I finally recognized.

  Longing.

  After closing my eyes, I shook my head. “I think I made a huge mistake.”

  Chapter 15

  Mike

  Vamps was closed for a couple of nights, and I didn’t know any other way how to find Danton. My online searches yielded nothing of value.

  When the weekend came around, I headed to Vamps. With his head of long blond hair towering over the crowd, he’d be easy to spot. He didn’t appear to be at the club, but it was still early, maybe he’d show later.

  “What can I get you?” The pink-haired bartender was wearing a tight black corset that showed generous cleavage. She’d told me her name in the past, but I couldn’t remember it, as usual. I’d once tried to get in her pants, but she’d blown me off.

  “How about a Rusty Nail?”

  After she brought my drink, I sat on a stool and waited, scanning the club. Scantily clad bodies dressed mostly in black writhed to a pounding mix the DJ created with Halestorm’s Freak Like Me chorus blended in. That song fit. This club was a total freak magnet. Not that I ever minded the view—women revealing pale skin in their skin-tight black outfits or fetish wear. You wouldn’t hear many guys complaining about the scenery. With my acute sense of smell, I picked up the distinct scents of bodies warmed up from dancing as well as various scents of alcohol and fruity drinks.

  We’d played Vamps many times before and the gargoyles perched around the club were one of the key features that made it stand out in my mind. Now I studied them in more detail. It had to be more than a coincidence that I’d met Danton in a club with gargoyle statues, when he himself was one.

  After twenty minutes, I began to pace, my boots sticking to beer-sloshed areas on the floor. I started to doubt whether this guy would ever show.

  “Do you know Danton?” I asked the bartender. “I think he’s a bouncer here.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you want with him?”

  “I want to talk to him about something he brought up earlier.”

  She continued to eye me with suspicion. “You’re Chee Keydood. From the Velvet Cocks, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll let him know you’re looking for him.”

  She pulled out her phone and began texting.

  “He might know me as Mike.”

  When she glanced up at me from over her phone, she smiled. “He’ll be glad to hear from y
ou.”

  She appeared to know more about Danton—and me—than she’d let on.

  Danton arrived as I finished my drink. He wore all black as usual, as did most of the crowd tonight.

  “Mike.” He nodded and sat next to me at the bar.

  “Thanks for coming to talk to me,” I said. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “I’ve got it already,” the bartender said. She put down a glass filled with dark amber liquid on ice.

  “Merci, cherie,” he said.

  “I wanted to ask you about that night backstage,” I said. “When you told me to get the blonde out of there.”

  “Yes?” His eyebrows rose in question.

  “That woman. I think you called her Nike. I never remember names, but hers stood out. You know, like sneakers.”

  Danton stared at me. “Sneakers?” he questioned. “Nike is the goddess of victory.”

  My reference clearly went over his head. “Anyway,” I continued. “She bit Allana. I saw the blood. I thought they were just into freaky vampire-play shit, but what my grandfather said made me think otherwise.”

  “What did he say?” His eyes shined with curiosity while his face remained impassive. Similar to what I’d seen in Papa.

  “That vampires exist.”

  “Ah.” With his other hand, he tapped his fingers on his glass. “Yes. They do,” he replied matter-of-factly.

  “Is Nike a vampire?”

  Danton ran his hands over his chin. “Not exactly. She was attacked by a nightwalker and has experienced an unusual reaction.”

  Nightwalker? What the hell was that? “But, she was trying to drink Allana’s blood.”

  “So it seemed. That’s why I told you to get the woman out of there.”

  My heart pounded with a faster tempo. “Is Allana in danger?”

  He studied me. “What do you think?”

  I considered what I knew. Intuition told me she was in trouble. “I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like she is.”

  Danton nodded and took a sip, glancing at the gargoyle statues. “That makes sense.”

  He was so cryptic it was starting to get old. “How?” My tone flared with annoyance.

  “Let’s get back to that. Have you thought at all about what I suspected about your family?”

  “Yes. I met with my family.” I kept my voice low so only he would hear, although I doubted anyone else could over the music pounding around us. It was Freakshow by the Cure, something that seemed more à propos as of late. “My grandfather is what you are. You were right. I have that blood.”

  He nodded at me “I found out about your family name and looked into the history. You descend from an old family.”

  “What does this mean about me? I’m only one-quarter,” I leaned in and whispered, “gargoyle.”

  “Fractions don’t matter. It can have a stronger presence in some over others. Have you had any compulsion to shift to stone?”

  I stepped back. “No, of course not.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you won’t.”

  “I hope not.” My eyes bulged. “Why do you?”

  “To rest and observe. I’ve spent much time in stone form, but my case is unique. A witch cursed me, and I was only able to break it when I bonded with a human and took the gargoyle oath.” He glanced at the bartender and smiled. She couldn’t hear what we were saying over the volume of the music, but she winked back at him.

  What the hell? Now there were witches in the world who could curse gargoyles into stone? “You were cursed?”

  “Yes, but that’s not what’s important right now. Being in stone form is a natural state for us. We’re designed to watch over others, protecting them. When our protection is needed, we transform into human form. But, perhaps you’ll feel compelled to protect others.”

  His statement reminded me of the odd compulsion I felt about Allana. “You remember Allana, the woman Nike bit backstage?”

  Dante’s eyes fixed on mine. “Yes.”

  “Sometimes I’m consumed wondering about her. If she’s happy, if she’s safe. If she’s in trouble and I should be protecting her. When I’m not around her, all I do is think about her.” I ran my hand over my beard. “It’s driving me insane. Like an obsession.”

  Dante lowered his voice. “Gargoyles protect others, especially humans. Sometimes they gravitate to one human in particular.”

  “But, what does that mean?” I rubbed my temples. “My feelings for her are because I have gargoyle blood flowing in my veins, so I’m programmed in some way? Or is it more? I was falling for her, or at least I thought I was. Now I don’t know what to feel. If my feelings are even my own.”

  Dante nodded as if he understood, which gave me some assurance I wasn’t losing my damn mind.

  He took a sip of his drink. “The connection between a human and a gargoyle is powerful. As powerful as true, lasting love. And they are often intertwined.”

  I was starting to feel like a clueless young apprentice being schooled by a master. “How do I know if it’s love or just an infatuation?”

  “Ah, the mysteries of love,” Danton said with a slight smile. “How can anyone truly know? Part of the mystery is having faith in what you feel.”

  “If there’s ever been a point where I’d doubt my feelings, it would be now,” I replied. “Since I met her, I’ve felt different. I’m wound up so tight, about to spring like a coil at any moment. To kill anyone who hurts her.”

  “That is consistent with our nature, yes.” He ended his statement with a question, the way Papa did. “What else have you discovered?”

  I contemplated the recent changes I’d noticed. Ones I’d been aware of, but now took greater prominence. “I’m stronger, faster. My vision and hearing have always been better than others, but now they are even more acute. And I can smell—well, everything, it seems. There’s some serious freaking perspiration going on here.”

  Danton eyed me with an unreadable expression. Whether he was sizing me up or deciding what to tell me, I didn’t know.

  “When gargoyles take on the call to protect someone, it is a magical experience,” he said, emphasizing the last phrase. “I’m wondering if sort of a switch was flipped on inside you when I asked you to take care of Allana.”

  I stared at him. Switch? What the? I wasn’t a machine.

  “When I took the gargoyle oath with my love,” he continued, “it awakened powers I never would have imagined while in stone form.”

  “An oath?” I repeated.

  “Gargoyles are able to take a sacred oath that binds them to one person, to love and protect for all their days.”

  Whoa, that was intense. Like a commitment on steroids. It was the least of all the confusing aspects I’d learned recently.

  “I don’t know who I am anymore,” I said. “I’m not stone like you and I’m not the human I thought I was.”

  Danton peered at me intently. “You are more than you ever thought you could be.” He stood up and raised his chin. “We can talk again, if you wish to learn more.”

  He walked away, slipping into the shadows of the crowd until only his blond hair showed. My phone buzzed. When I read the text, it was from Nico.

  Meet me at Vamps?

  Weird. I texted back. I’m already here.

  Doing what? Never mind. Stay there.

  Ally

  “Cheers,” Lily raised her glass. “To wild success for you and the studio, where you will change lives—and net a nice income.”

  We clinked glasses, her Fruits of Temptation cocktail with my Anything Goes. “Thanks. I hope so.”

  We took a sip and then I glanced around the club from the bar. Tonight’s theme was Wicked Freaky. The DJ played a number of songs with “freak” in the title or any song that would encourage the masses to dance like freaks. I Walk the Line by Alien Sex Fiend inspired many black-clad bodies to join the frenzy on the dance floor.

  “We were celebrating your success not too long ago,” I pointed out.

&nb
sp; The first night I’d dragged Lily here for a night of dancing to celebrate a promotion at the company she no longer worked at, the Velvet Cocks played.

  “I remember that night well,” she said. “When I met Nico.” She gazed off into the crowd, lost in her memory.

  I envied her at the moment. Well, maybe not. She had that full moon issue to contend with every month—something I could never comprehend. Still, she was happy, head over heels with the man she loved. What did I keep doing wrong to end up alone? I ran from risks in my romantic life, as guarded as a maximum-security prison.

  Was I causing my own heartache by closing myself off and not taking chances?

  Just as I was about to sink into self-pity, I Fink You Freeky by Die Antwood came on. This wasn’t the place to wallow.

  I jumped off my stool. “Come on, let’s dance.”

  Mike

  After I entered Vamps, I found Nico and John at the bar. Something was up.

  “Why did you want to meet up here?”

  “Do I need a reason to meet up with my bros for a drink?” Nico sported a mischievous grin.

  “Dude, I see you all the time. We share an office. We’re in a band together. You’re always telling me how you’re sick of seeing my ugly mug.”

  “Ah, you know I’m just ribbing you.” He grabbed John’s and my shoulders. “You blokes are my best buds.”

  I raised my eyebrow to indicate my skepticism. Sure, we were bros, but we gave each other shit on a routine basis. That’s what bros did.

  John added wryly, “Thanks for dragging me out. As if I don’t spend enough time in clubs. On a night off, I want to sit home and chill.”

  “You can watch the Syfy channel later,” Nico replied. “I have some news. Let’s get some drinks first.”

  After we ordered a few Sam Adams drafts, we leaned back at the bar and watched the crowd. They were dancing like they were hyped on Red Bull and vodka. I glanced up at the gargoyles perched around the club. Danton said he’d watched this club in stone for many years. I suspected there was something behind those hard, gray eyes. Something alive.