CHAPTER 2

– CHAPTER 2 –

At the same time Santo stood in his dark parlor. The undergrad he spoke with earlier in the week waited to take the stage at the Davenport Gentlemen's Club. Neither knew the other more than in passing. At least, not yet. But that didn't matter. The winds of destiny have an odd way of blowing people together when they least expect it and tonight the winds were threatening a gale force storm.

Haley Felton was a werewolf. She was born a werewolf and came to hate being one at an early age of 14. The night she witnessed her older sister change for the first time and try to kill her family. But luckily that didn't happen. Instead, her father and brother overpowered Madison and brought her to a doctor who administered a treatment to prevent such losses of control. Ever since that night, Haley had taken the injections, preventing the changes. Haley had never experienced a full transformation and, as a result, did not know what it meant to be a werewolf or how to use her abilities. Some extremists in the packs called her condition dope blind. The drugs didn't remove the werewolf; they prevented a complete emergence.

Haley had danced on slow evenings before, but tonight was shaping up to be the absolute pits. She stood behind the rear stage curtain, peeking out at Janet, dancing for a less than packed audience. Hell, the room was nearly empty. There couldn't have been more than a dozen people sitting in the audience, and some of them were at the rear bar area with their backs to the stage. Like that's not disrespectful. You don't go to a strip club to look at the bartender.

For the first time since they hired Janet, Haley noticed Janet wore an expression of utter boredom. Haley hoped her last show would go better than Janet's. But she doubted it would. At least the last act will bring a merciful end to a dead night, she thought.

Unbeknownst to Haley, most of the patrons and the rest of the crew working in the club tonight, the evening was about to become quite exciting. Thanks to the coming Luna de sangre- the Blood Moon- tonight was shaping up to be a real scream fest. And only one patron in the sparse crowd had the slightest inkling of what was coming.

Later that evening, when Haley passed through the rear stage curtain, an almost empty audience of only three patrons greeted her. Most of the people who had been sitting around the stage and all except one at the back bar had dematerialized without a trace. Not even their empty glasses remained. Other than them, the only other people still in the room were the perpetually horny bartender and a few milling waitstaff who had no one to serve. Fucking Blood Moon, she thought. They all left to go run around in the moonlight. Morons.

One of the three remaining audience members was a lanky brunette Haley had never seen in the club before. She sat at a small round table in the back bar area, peering down the long corridor leading to the rear employee exit. She felt angry as she saw they couldn't even face the stage.

The two other patrons in the front row were regulars. Haley knew all too well. Big spenders with grabby hands and deep pockets. Exactly the type of patrons management loved best. As for the dancers, not so much. Haley knew the two men better than she wanted. At least she knew their hands. They were local businessmen; bigshots in some pharmaceutical manufacturing company uptown. They showed up every Friday night. Both sported wedding bands that neither man seemed to remember was on his hand. Both of them were human.

She wondered what excuses they gave their wives to come home late and blitzed out their minds every Friday night. Then she decided she really didn't give a shit. Although, every time she saw them staring up at her from the audience, she was glad she was still single.

Christ, she thought, is that going to be you in twenty years? Waiting at home for a fat, balding guy with a drinking problem. No way. Tonight was no different. The two men were getting hammered and making fools of themselves, as usual. Christ, they're fucking hooting and cat-calling like 15-year-olds.

She had noticed the two men always wore the same expensive suits. Expensive, but off the rack sets. Nothing tailor-made. They had money, but not enough to live like kings. Their slightly oversized suit jackets did a mediocre job of cloaking the paunchy, unexercised bellies found on most middle-aged men. Nothing new about either of these assholes. They came in, sat down, ordered a stiff drink, harassed the dancers for a while, and then popped a blue pill and went out back to prove they weren't getting old. But they were getting old, and they knew it. If it wasn't obvious even to them, why the need for Viagra?

Out back was where the owners made all their money. The Davenport Gentlemen's Club was a high end strip club and discrete brothel catering to wealthy patrons. Patrons with kinky fantasies, they paid a great deal for.

As for the third patron, she sat so far from the stage Haley could barely get a good look at her face. She wore a black one piece pencil dress highlighting her statuesque figure and was strikingly tall for a woman. Even sitting down, Haley could tell she was tall. Haley was 6 feet, but the woman in black would tower over her.

Haley thought she had to be at least 6' 3" or maybe even 6' 4". Either way; she was in no need of the blood red stilettos adorning her willowy feet. What would that make her? Haley thought. 6'-8"? 6'-9"? Because that's not ridiculous. Venus de Milo completed her ensemble with a blood red silk scarf, a matching red wrap and a pair of red Prada sunglasses.

"Other than vamps, who the fuck wears sunglasses at a strip club?" Haley said to herself. She often talked to herself when she danced. No one could hear her over the blaring music. Except, the woman in black turned and looked at her when she spoke. "Cause that's not creepy." Haley said to herself. "Not even the wolves could hear her over the techno."

It wasn't unusual to see women in the crowd at the Davenport. A lot of humans got off on bringing their wives or dates to watch the shows. But this woman was alone. Some women even came because they enjoyed watching as much as the men did. Some even paid to go out back. Hey, different strokes, she thought. Sure. Fuck a werewolf. Fuck a vampire. She looked down at the two men and one of them made a crude gesture, and she said, "And fuck you."

Haley saw the woman behind the man and thought there was something odd about her sitting in the back. Haley got the distinct impression, whoever this woman was, she was no vamp. She knew a lot of the vamps that came into the club. Not well enough to trust them outside the club. But some dancers were vamps, and they were her friends. She trusted them and was sure none of them would ever try to drain like a walking blood bag. Not that vamps liked the taste of wolf blood. But some vamps just hated her kind and that meant when strange vamps were around, you kept your eyes open wide.

The newcomer had moved to a quieter table in the back corner and taken to chatting up the bartender as if they were old friends. Hell, it looked like they were best friends.

She held a smoldering cigarette clasped between the middle and forefinger of her right hand. Although the half-burned cigarette never seemed to burn down or find its way to her lips. Haley thought it was probably fortunate the cigarette never got near her face. Because even from the other side of the room, she could see the woman's pale fingers were 8 inches long and her black onyx nails added another two inches to the tips. It was the woman's inhuman fingers that held Haley's attention. They definitely weren't human hands. But they weren't wolf or vampire hands, either.

"Who the hell are you, lady?" Haley asked, and the two men in the front hooted at her because they assumed she was speaking to them. "Oh, fuck off, will you?"

The woman looked at Haley and laughed.

"You can hear me, can't you?" Haley said, and the woman turned back to the bartender.

One of the club's signature cocktails sat on the table in front of the woman, but like the cigarette, the cocktail went nowhere near her mouth. The drink was a Bloody Mary. Pun intended. It substituted iced O-negative for the tomato juice. Vamps loved them.

The more Haley watched the woman, the more she was certain the lady in black was no vamp. She was doing a good job of putting on a show of her own, but it was all an act. That's why she's wearing the sunglasses, Haley thought. She doesn't want anyone to see that her eyes are normal. Vamps have freaky eyes. The kind you could never miss. Unless you can't see them and just assume there are vamp eyes behind those dark lenses.

The woman was spending a lot of time wrapping the bartender around her little finger. He hadn't left her table in 15 minutes. Not that there were any customers at the bar. As for the two men in the front row. They were already hammered.

"What are you up to? It's not like you want Jimmy, the bartender. Besides, if you actually wanted to play with boys, you'd just go to a club downtown. But you're not a real vamp, are you? If you were, you'd go feed on the boys down there."

The woman leaned forward, whispered something into the bartender's ear, caressed his cheek with the back of an alabaster hand and then turned to look at her. Jimmy the bartender didn't seem to mind.

As Haley side stepped back and forth unenthusiastically, not really caring about the performance or looking sexy in the slightest. She didn't feel sexy; she felt curious about the woman and maybe a little bored. But then she decided she'd had enough of the ongoing bar romance and just wanted the night to be over so she could go home and forget tonight ever happened.

Haley couldn't stop watching the woman and got the distinct impression the woman was actually paying more attention to her than her boy-toy. Probably not for the same reason the pervs in the front were leering at her. But unlike her somewhat juvenile admirers, Haley got the impression the woman in black was neither drunk nor harmless. She was in the club with a purpose. And that wasn't to get laid by Jimmy the bartender. Haley didn't know why the woman was there, but it was obvious she hadn't come for the shows, either.

The woman leaned forward, whispered something in Jimmy's ear, and he nodded politely and got up. He went back behind the bar, shot Halley a coy grin, and gave her a thumbs up. Haley rolled her eyes and thought, you do not know what you're getting yourself into, Jimmy. Turn around and run away while you still can.

He made two cocktails, delivered them to the two men in the front row, and then gestured towards the woman in the back. They swiveled around, almost toppling out of their seats, and waved. The woman in the back waved them over. To Haley's shock, tweedle-dee and tweedle dumber got up, turned their backs on Haley's underwhelming performance, and staggered away, braving the minefield of empty chairs and tables. Haley stopped sidestepping completely and stared at the grabby regulars with a look that screamed your dicks. She was certain the woman laughed at her.

The two men stopped beside the tall woman, presumably thanking her for the drinks and introducing themselves. She stood up, leaned down, hugged the closest man, and then hugged the second. They looked like chubby dwarfs in the embrace of a pale ice giant. If Haley had not already been red faced and near snarling, the scene would have been comical. As it was, with the floor show lights blaring in her face, Haley couldn't see well. She thought the woman looked over the second man's shoulder and gave her a gloating fangy smile that looked like she had a mouth full of shark teeth. The effect was instantly galvanizing as it produced an equally fangy sneer that transformed Haley's face into an analog of the wolf. Neither Haley nor any of the male patrons saw the momentary coming and going of the wolf. But the woman in black certainly saw it. And from the expression of amusement on her face, she seemed quite pleased with herself.

For the next 30 minutes, Haley danced. while the paying customers paid more attention to each other than her performance. Although the woman in black kept throwing her an occasional sideways glance just to see if Haley was still watching her.

Just before the lackluster performance came to a merciful close, Jimmy returned to his original position behind the bar. He began hurriedly wiping down the bar top with a towel he hadn't either noticed or probably didn't care was filthy. He had other things on his mind and didn't look happy to be away from his new friends. But the front of the house and back bar was closing in 15 minutes and as bar manager, it was his responsibility to see it was done. From the frantic way Jimmy was breaking down the bar, lemon wedges flying, bar glasses clinking roughly, ice cubes spreading across the floor, Haley thought the quartet must have plans for later in the evening. Haley didn't know how right she was. The woman in black most definitely had plans for later.

Jimmy threw the bar rag in the still draining sink. The escaping water sucked it to the bottom, where it immediately clogged the drain. Jimmy didn't notice. He just walked over to a long bank of wall switches, placed both hands above them, and flicked everything off at once. The room went dark, and the music shut off with a disrespectful burst of feedback that made Haley flinch.

Haley stopped in her tracks, hands on her hips, and stared in disbelief. In all the time she had danced at the Davenport, no one had ever interrupted one of her performances.

Jimmy flashed the house lights three times, signaling the front of the house was closed. From the sound of chairs' legs scraping across the wood floors, he wasn't the only one ready to leave. Jimmy pointed at the two waitstaff, looking through the tiny windows leading into the kitchen doors and waved them off. They disappeared.

One man held up the woman's red wrap, signaling his desire to help. She turned around to let him slip it over her shoulders and the much shorter man barely got the wrap over her shoulders without having to stand on his chair to do it.

Bloody hell, Haley thought. She's nearly 7 feet tall.

The woman turned to Haley, slid her dark glasses down her nose with a long, thin finger, and showed her huge wolf-like eyes. What also surprised Haley about the woman's eyes was that wolves only had those eyes when they were in wolf form, and this woman had a wolf's eyes when in human form. That never happened. And there was something else about the woman's eyes. The woman's eyes were not the customary gold of a wolf; they were a glowing pink, as if the woman were an albino. The woman winked.

"Shows over folks. Everybody out." Jimmy yelled, talking more to Haley than anyone else.

One of the very inebriated businessmen offered Haley an impolite comment about her less than enthusiastic energy level on the stage. Not that he had looked at the stage since joining the lady in black's party. In fact, the little man didn't take his eyes off her once. An immediate response entered Haley's mind, but she kept it to herself. Well. Vocally, that is. There may have been an inappropriate hand gesture when their backs were to her. No one saw it.

The lady in black raised her arms and allowed her two sidekicks to walk under them. She wrapped her long arms around them, ushering them towards the back entrance as Jimmy followed on their heels. "Come on, Jimmy." she said. "The fun's just about to start." Jimmy ran around the bar, following the unlikely trio down the back hallway. A moment later, they were gone, leaving Haley to ponder her own sour thoughts.

Haley jammed her hand through the center slit in the stage curtain and yanked it to the side, nearly tearing it down. Before leaving the stage, she shot a final sour glance at the rear door and muttered something beneath her breath. As the curtain closed behind her, something heavy struck the rear exit. She didn't hear the commotion outside; she was too busy listening to her own thoughts.