Greg, Margarita Drinker (Wink)

Isla didn't reply to my millionth text. I needed to stop. This was bordering on psychopathic. Stalkerish. Lovesick looney. Like Dmitri. I gagged and tossed the phone onto my couch. Naturally, as I did, it rang.

Groaning, I dug the stupid device out from the cushions and hit speaker.

"You were right," Phoebe chimed like this was just a normal night on a normal case. "She's got a record. This time" — she snorted — "but here's the kicker, it's a decade old and partially sealed. Pleaded guilty to vague conjuring and negligence charges for a minor. Which, I don't know about you, but that sounds an awful lot like plea deal to me. The Madame was a criminal mademoiselle, once upon a time."

Phoebe seemed to find something about what she said funny and laughed heartily. Wished I knew exactly where in the room she lurked, spying on me without care. I pictured her perched on my desk, fidgeting, and tapping her foot as she shuffled through papers. Could almost hear the rhythmic click of her invisible heel on the floor through the phone line.

Which was incredibly aggravating. I'd had a persistent headache since my run in with Octavius. Hunger ached fiercely in my veins. Despite returning to death with every sunrise, I still felt like I hadn't slept in days. The afterimage of Isla's glowing form, hovering like a goddess above us, was imprinted on the backs of my eyelids. As Phoebe recounted the frustratingly unsurprising and limited details of Isla's criminal record, I found myself absently doodling her face in my notebook. Floating hair. Dancing carnations. Glowing skull beneath her skin. Dark eyes. Full lips. Adding that mole in just the right spot on her cheek.

I snapped the notebook shut.

"Thanks, Phoebe," I mumbled, sliding deeper into the couch.

"That's it? Just a thanks? Nothing snarky? No new errands that would definitely be better suited for a solid pair of hands you want to make me run? Took me gallons of energy to work the fax machine, by the way."

Nothing you can't figure out for yourself, Octavius had said.

"No."

"She's the real deal," said Phoebe, a twinge of almost admiration in her voice.

"What, you like her now?"

"Gives me the heebie jeebies, actually! But whatever skills she picked up, according to her records, the Madame did so long before the library reported cursed books stolen only a few days ago, in broad daylight."

Ugh. Those fanging books. What were those titles again? I flipped through my notes, careful to avoid staring too long at silly doodles. Few pages back I'd written: The Black Book of the Dead, English Translation by E. O'Connell 1923. Guidebook for theUnexpectedly Demised , 1988 edition. Necronomicon, Bound in Human Flesh, 2nd edition translation. Dark arts. Necromancy. Conjuring. Dark magic. All taken. All in daylight.

Wait, broad daylight? I hadn't written that down.

"You called the library?"

Phoebe tsked. "You kept forgetting to pay them a visit."

"You sure it was broad daylight?"

"No wards tripped," she whistled. "Wasn't a creature. Some plain old person to just waltzed in and grabbed it off a shelf. You spooky magic types really don't give any thought to us normal folks, huh?"

Interesting.

Stolen books. Stolen bones. Isla's glowing bones. She passed for a plain old person easily enough, hadn't she? Well, plain, no. Not ever plain, old boy, don't lie to yourself like that, or else you're more the fool than Dmitri. Isla was infatuating. Intriguing. Infuriating. Irresistible.

I gave Phoebe a noncommittal throat clearing.

"Ah, also, don't hang up this time, but Mrs. Cabroni keeps calling. She—"

"I need a drink," I said and hung up on her.

Phone rang again in an instant.

"I said I need a drink, Phoebe!" I snapped, voice echoing off the walls of my empty office.

The ringing died.

Fine. Good. I didn't need to talk about the case—cases—however many— right now. Dmitri had attempted to contact me as many times as Isla in the last day, leaving me with no direction on that end either. I needed a break. There were bags under my eyes. Even my teeth ached. If I didn't have a sip—the echo of Isla's silkiness soaked my tongue— soon I'd waste away like he did.

So I put on a clean shirt and aftershave and slipped out into the night without telling Phoebe where I was going.

A few paces out the door, a string of texts came through. Didn't bother to unlock my phone. Knew they from Phoebe. The previews urged me to take the Cabroni call. Something about the werewolf missus' new suspicions about her scoundrel husband. Not coming home at night. Yada yada. All the same bologna Mrs. Cabroni fed me the first time she hired me, and then promptly fanged off without paying her bill. She could wait another few hours.

There was a dive a few blocks down, just past the live poultry joint, spitting distance from the neon mecca of Pat's and Geno's. Nothing special. Not from the looks of it, at least. But the human owner was on the level, I knew. Wasn't hard to find somebody donating on the side or just nice enough to not mind a little neck play in those kinds of places. Or, on the chance I couldn't find a willing partner without draining my pockets, there'd at least be a cretin. Some lowlife mortal on the prowl. Types of fellas that make us vamps actually seem like a decent alternative. There're always those cretins lurking in dives. Call me hypocritical, but I didn't have qualms with killing cretins, when the occasion called for it. Not ideal, but sometimes it just is what it is. Probably needed to drain a whole linebacker to get back in shape at this point anyway.

And I wasn't off the mark. Crowd had already formed at The Birthday Bar by the time I snuck inside, clinging to the walls like a flower. Place stank of stale beer and cheap perfumes. Mostly groups of college kids stuck to the tables. A few older gentlemen nursed their Buds and Yuengling from one, looking cranky. Pulses and heartbeats all thrummed in an erratic harmony. Bar seats were nearly full. A party of young women took up one side. Circling them on the outside was a lone guy. Shifty eyed and ogling at every pair of legs that passed by. I watched him from my perch, nobody else really seeming to notice the other lone creep lingering menacingly against one wall.

After a few minutes of pure lurking, it seemed ole Shifty-eyed zeroed in on a target. He did little to hide the gross leer gushing over his lips, practically drooling at the fluffed up and unawares wild cat in the leopard print coat. Sweet fanging hell. What was she doing here?

Shifty-Eyed ordered himself an extra drink. A cheap beer.

Ha. Nice try, pal.

I slid into the empty seat beside Isla so quick ole Shifty spilled his beers on his Polo.

"Well, if it isn't my lucky penny."

Isla blinked at me. Her heart jumped a beat, but she said nothing for an agonizingly long moment. Probably contemplating how to respond to the absolutely trash pick-up line that spewed from my mouth faster than that time I puked in her toilet. Did she even remember calling herself that when she surprised me at Irwin's? Probably not, you idiot. Wipe the damn grin stretching your face off. Bet your fangs are showing.

She took a slow sip of wine—bottom shelf swill by the smell of it—as she looked me up and down like the hungry cat she was. Her throat trembled as she swallowed. Pale pink lipstick stained the rim of the glass.

"Tonight I'm a bad one," Isla purred in that husky voice of hers.

A bad one. Something in my gut got all twisty at that. Same feral instinct urging me to keep her my sweet little secret from Octavius. The same feeling that flared when her taste hit my tongue. She slumped in her seat, smirking, teasing me to test her. A bad one. I failed to stifle the low growl that crawled up my throat at the thought of how I could make her such a good, good girl for me. She knew I could. I could feel the excitement in her pulse. With one strong enough glance, barely a hint of a suggestion, she was so susceptible and willing—

No. Don't give in to those thoughts. That's dangerous.

Ask if she's alright instead. How she got home. Why didn't she return your calls. What the hell was she doing here. What happened during that séance. Was that normal. What counted as normal for a séance. Did she even remember any of it. Did she see Sloane's attacker. Was she Sloane's attacker.

So many questions for her swarmed inside me they lodged into my throat, and I managed to say absolutely nothing at all.

"Anyway, you clean up nice," she said, returning attention to her wine.

"Don't act so surprised."

"Not surprised, impressed."

There it was again, that damn grin I can't seem to slap off my face. "That means you're surprised."

She laughed. It was boisterous and clumsy and she spit a tiny dribble of wine onto the bar. I blotted it up with a napkin while Isla shrugged out of her coat. She wore a white dress. Studded with black polka dots, tightly hugging every curve around her hips, pencil skirt eventually giving way to sheer stockings, also adorned with black polka dots. Her neckline was so low it struggled to contain her cleavage. Gooseflesh sprung to life over her chest, tattling on my roaming eyes. I only wanted to see if she was unhurt. Her séance was... different from what I'm used to, to say the least. I wasn't sure how one of those things were supposed to work. That and there was broken glass everywhere in that room.

"You alright?" I asked, finally. "You haven't returned my calls."

"For the first time all week I haven't wanted to."

"Why?"

"You left me!" she shouted, then, as a blush spread over her cheeks, she lowered her voice. "You left me in a vampire den! How could you just up and ditch!"

A felt a little sting in my pride.

"There was a thief in the house."

"No shit, Sher-knock off. They staked Sloane."

"Oh, so that wasn't you?"

Isla exaggerated a gasp, slapping her hand to chest to clutch the pearls she wasn't wearing. Her jaw practically hung off its hinges. "Prick! I pulled it out of her, if you must know. More than you did."

Bit my lip to keep from lashing out myself. I was doing my best to solve a case here. Hadn't eaten in days I'd gotten so caught up in working this case. The case she hired me for. The case Isla kept spinning me through loop-de-loops for, like I was a performing seal. "I ran after the thief, cause somehow, despite being hired not once, but twice to track down this pesky barista I seem to be the only who cares about following leads to find the gal."

"When you're not following bribes."

My nostrils flared. "That was for y—"

"No, it was to make yourself feel better about the wild accusations you've been hurling at me. I never asked you to help me pay my rent. Catch 'em?"

"What? Who?"

"The thief."

My shoulders sagged. "No. Fell off a fire escape, actually. They took the rest of Rosemond's remains from the crypt. I was coming back for you." She cast me an incredulous side eye as she swirled her wine. "I promised I would."

"When?"

"Ah," I gulped, "you were unconscious."

"Conversations don't count when one person is unconscious, Greggy."

Isla downed the rest of her bathtub wine in a single swig, throwing her head back, tossing her hair to reveal her slender neck. She wore those earrings again. The gold hoops. To match, a tiny, golden and blue eye shaped pendent was caught snuggly in the hollow of her throat. Her own wine-like taste, rich and smooth and earthy, flooded my mouth. Rolled my tongue over my teeth to keep my fangs from popping out in public—and catching the chain of that necklace between them.

She did say I had pretty teeth.

"How 'bout you?" she said.

"Huh?"

"Are you okay? From falling out the window, or off the fire escape, whatever it was."

"Yeah," I said, a soft warmth growing in my chest. "I'll unlive."

"Good. You're still a prick."

Together Isla and I bit back our giggles, each pretending we didn't notice the other smiling like a fool. But when the moment faded we were left in an awkward silence, surrounded by the growing ruckus of the bar and its patrons. It had gotten busier. I couldn't even hail the bartender for my own drink. Not that they'd have a vein on tap, this place was too mortal for such direct service, and I highly doubted I was giving up the best seat in the house to sniff out an under the casket donor tonight after all.

"Did you get a look at the one who staked Sloane?" the question slipped off my tongue before I could stop it.

"Nope. Too busy running for my life after my escort abandoned me in the home of an unstable vampire himbo," Isla held up a finger, immediately gaining the attention of the bartender. "She going to be okay?"

I shrugged. "Don't suppose you fit the bones from the séance into your purse either?"

Isla jumped off her stool. "Alrighty, have a nice night, Mr. Detective, don't let the doorstop stake you on the way out."

"Okay, I get it, I'm a prick and I'll take that as a no. Sit down, I'll buy you a better drink."

I grabbed her wrist. Hadn't meant to. Not sure what I meant to do, I just didn't want her to leave yet. Because she needed to be questioned. Of course. That was it. That was why I rubbed my thumb over the soft, gently throbbing veins in her wrist, enjoying the hum of her quickening pulse against my skin.

She sat.

When I didn't release her wrist quickly enough, Isla pulled it back with a gentle tug.

"What," I cleared my throat. "What's your poison?"

"Well water," she traced the path I made along her inner wrist with her opposite fingers, seemingly unconsciously. "You?"

You. I bit my lip. You. You. I wanted to drink you. Every brain cell I possessed was screaming at me, that's a bad idea old boy, but still I wanted to taste every inch, every sip of you so badly my teeth hurt. Which was stupid. I hardly knew you. But I was so thirsty and you're so beautiful and funny and mysterious and I was absolutely fucked—

The bartender answered Isla's signal, though I ordered the margaritas for us both. He eyed me suspiciously, only backing off after Isla cast him a subtle nod (interesting), lips pursed to restrain her smirk at my drink of choice.

My drink of choice wasn't very good here. Shouldn't have expected it to be. But they were strong. Pretty sure the salt was the same kind currently melting the ice off the sidewalk and I'm not sure what burned more going down, the tequila or cheap sour mix. With my tank running as low as it was, the fuzz of tipsiness assaulted me almost instantly.

"I think they were wolves," I said, toying with my lime wedge. "The thieves."

Isla licked salt off her glass (damn that tongue of yours, woman). "Of course they were."

She fiddled with one of her earrings. The lights in the bar were dim and ugly, but occasionally the gold of her jewelry caught them just enough to gleam. It conjured the sight of her illuminated form, clutching my hand and burning like liquid gold flowing free as a spring under her skin.

"You sure you're alright?"

"Fine." Her brows furrowed. Why?"

"The séance... it... you looked..."

Isla grimaced. "Yeah, it was terrible—"

"Stunning." I said, regretting it as she winced and squirmed uncomfortably on her bar stool.

"I don't usually do ménage à trois like that."

I choked on tequila. The liquor stung my throat.

"I, uh, wasn't sure if that's how you normally operated." I instinctively flexed my hand. "Was afraid to break your circle."

"Maybe we should come up with a safe word for next time."

I spilled my drink all over my jacket. To her credit, Isla held her serious façade for several long seconds as I dabbed my sleeve with toilet tissue thin napkins before she burst into a short fit of laughter.

But the seconds of silence that stretched between after seemed to span an eternity. "Haven't seen Pearl in nearly a hundred years," I said, straining to fill her—fill her silence.

"Is there a creature in this city you don't know?" she gave her voice a grating, nasally tone. "Let me guess, you used dance all hotsy-totsy at the speakeasy, drinking your backyard moonshine and swooning over Al Capone, see?"

"Hate to disappoint, but I never met Al Capone."

"Pfft, what are you good for then? Oh, I got it. Had that dumb song of hers stuck in my head all day. Give me five bucks for the jukebox to rectify that?"

She held her palm out to me. I'd have ripped my own tonsils out and served them to her on a platter if it meant touching her warm hand again, so I dished out the five singles slowly, taking care to trail my fingertips across the throbbing blue veins and faded scars on her wrist, over her soft palm, down to the fresh cut on the pad of her thumb (was that from my fang?). She didn't complain, but soon as I'd paid up, Isla hopped off the barstool onto pink heels and sauntered to the digital jukebox.

Within seconds the first few bars of TLC's No Scrubs entranced the bar.

Isla returned to her seat, humming and swaying and without any change.

"Your favorite song."

"Oh yes son, I'm talking to you," she tapped me on the nose—my whole body seized, unsure of how to react and therefore seeming to shut down completely. "How'd you guess?"

"You were practically hanging out the passenger side of your best friend's ride, hollering it at me at Irwin's the other night."

She laughed again. Good. I wanted to her to. I wanted to keep hearing that melodic laugh for as long as I unlived.

"Caught me red handed, Officer. One point for you," Isla sipped her drink. "It's on shuffle. Double or nothing you can't guess all my picks."

"What're we wagering?"

"One bajillion dollars and bragging rights, obviously."

"In that case."

I flipped my trusty notebook to a blank page, careful to shield my doodles and case notes as I did. Dividing the page into two columns, I jotted my name on one side and hers on the other, adding her song choice right beneath it.

"Two can play at this game."

Fishing more singles from my wallet, and followed her path to the jukebox, glancing over my shoulder once to catch her staring at my backside. The pace at which I returned to our little oasis was slow and agonizing. I wanted to rush to her. To be by her side in an instant, before she could blink. But the bar was crowded with human patrons, and I needed to blend in.

"Hurt your leg?"

I hadn't been paying much attention to soreness that occasionally returned to my knee after fasting for too long. Just used to it. "Old injury."

"Thought you vamps always healed all shiny and new?"

"It's from before—" bit my lip. I didn't have a lot of things left from before. Pretty ridiculous that the one thing I managed to carry around for two hundred years and across the Atlantic Ocean was a bum knee.

Isla's mouth formed a little O, and she didn't, thankfully, pry further.

"You've got worse handwriting than a doctor."

Oh fangs.

My throat tightened at the sight of her fingers delicately flicking through the pages of my notebook. To my relief, she seemingly hadn't spied on the notes I'd taken about her. My suspicions and fears and perplexities put to paper. Instead, to my great horror, she'd found the portrait I drew.

"Glad you did break the circle by the way. I was—" she gnawed on her lip, seeming to bite back her words. "Watching. Kind of, I don't know, out-of-body experience like? I was very gracefully kicking and screaming and nobody heard me."

"That the usual?"

"It was... new. Weird." Oh, wow she scrunched her nose. Oh, that was cute. "It's—normally I just relay messages. Like Phoebe! But, uh, I've not been possessed before. They handled my body like I was sock puppet. My neck is still sore."

Suppose that did classify as not usual then.

A stone sunk into my gut. Hadn't you been there once, old boy? Not exactly. But I might as well've been a spirit outside my own body, watching myself get drained away sip by little sip, imprisoned so deep not a mortal soul for miles had a chance of hearing my screams.

I thought I'd felt something funny about that séance though, hadn't I? A pull on my neck. A soft whisper. A gentle pressure on my very being urging: break it.

Had that been Isla outside her own body?

"Were you... were you talking to me personally when you, ah..."

She flushed again. "You seemed like the only one who'd listen, so... thanks for that."

Huh. "Any time."

We cheersed our glasses together. Like a couple of chums.

"Rosemond sounds like a cunt, by the way," Isla said, finishing her margarita. "Explains the teapot she launched at my head when Lily rang her up."

Teapot???

"If," I said, waving at the bartender for a couple of refills. Isla groaned. "Hey, there's still a chance Lily could be Rosemond. The ghosts had no sense of time. No sense of when they each saw Rosemond's ghost on the property last. You couldn't contact her during your séance either."

Isla nodded a thanks as the bartender slid our refills down the bar at us. "Minotaur shit. I would know."

"Here we go again," I crunched onto my straw, snapping it in half. "How? How would you know? You ain't a licensed 'psychic entertainer.' What're you, some kind of witch? You don't—"

Isla raised a brow.

"You don't have that aura about you. For witchcraft."

She giggled a smidge. Sipped her drink. Didn't respond.

Maybe it was the alcohol creeping up on me like a prowler in a dark alley, but Octavius' unwelcomed words echoed through my fuzzy noggin. Nothing you can't figure out for yourself.

"The Magistrate came to the house looking for you."

"Yep. This you?"

"Ha! No, Elton John was not me. Drink."

Not sure when I decided to turn our little fun into a drinking game, but Isla obeyed without hesitation, taking a generous swig from her glass. It was just a word, but also, a cruel tease. What else would she do with only a word? How enthusiastically would my good girl toss her head back, reveal her throat for me, with a simple command? No compulsion needed, but she melted for me so quickly in her office I think she'd actually get off on it—

"What you tell them about me?"

I cleared me throat. "Nah, saving my pennies."

Her look, that one eyebrow quirked, told me she didn't believe me.

"Have nothing to tell," I said, willing my fangs to retract. "I don't know you. You're just a client."

"I'm a client again? Yay."

"Don't let it go to your head as quick as the tequila."

"I'm unlicensed."

"I know."

"No, if you want to know something about me, then that's why the Magistrate popped in. Because I do what I do and I'm unlicensed."

Now, I like to think I'm a decent judge of character. Got good instincts. Good at reading people, and not just because I can hear their pulses thrumming under all that skin and muscle and bone. Just good old-fashioned intuition. I searched Isla's face for a reason not to trust her. For the tell of another one of her lies. But her dark eyes were soft and vulnerable and pleading.

"How they know what you do if you're unlicensed?"

She swallowed a deep, shaky breath. "Cause I'm a felon."

You were a minor, I wanted to note, but restrained myself, for once. Good job, old boy.

"How?"

"Cause I'm un-fucking licensed, keep up, detective."

Yeah, there it was again. A fool's grin etched into my jaw. "The paperwork is so tedious," I said, echoing Dmitri the night he hired me.

"I summon one little unsolicited soul across the veil and all Society gets scared I'm going to spill the beans to every mortal from here to Pittsburgh that magic exists." Isla sighed, throwing a hand up into the air, the slow beats of sadness pumping in her chest. "I'm on probation, but I'm on my third strike so show's over. Curtains closed. Madame Margarita is retiring I guess."

"Pity. She really knew how to make an entrance."

Isla absently ran a hand across her chest, and I my tongue over my fangs as they absolutely ached to sink so deep into her.

"Well, for the record, my Yelp review'd say I was impressed."

"With my robe?" she squeaked.

I chomped on an ice cube. "The séance. Your magic. Never seen anything like that in almost three hundred years. Put me in my place for doubting you."

"Bet you like it when a lady puts you in your place," she said softly.

I tensed. I wasn't anybody's pet. But that wasn't casual bar chat, was it?

"Probably not as much as you'd like these pretty teeth in your place," I mumbled around my glass and immediately wanted to crawl into a coffin and be staked a thousand times. What was that, old boy? The hell did you even mean by that? You didn't make any sense, you starving, horny dumbass.

"Kinky," said Isla.

And I stopped worrying about making any sense of anything at all.