"I need a fucking cigarette," Sally McKenna mutters as she stalks down the street, glaring at anyone that dared to stand in her way. James March had kicked her out of the hotel again, to find a new toy for Devils' Night. God, she wants to pull his stupid little mustache right off his face! And she would, damn the consequences, if it wasn't for that goddamn thing under his control. Stupid, smug little shit.
Sally passes the bars she usually stalks her prey in, and walks to the cemetery. It's pretty far away from the Cortez, and her feet hurt from all the errands March and his minions have her running around this time of the year, but it's worth it to feel the fresh night air on her face. If she closes her eyes, she can drown out the shouting of little brats in Halloween costumes. She'd trade all the crack in the world for the electricity that just being outside gives her.
The cemetery is empty, as it usually is at night. Sally rests her ass on a marble pedestal and glares up at the marble angel, eyes closed and arms spread, above her, serene and perfect. Wanted. "Why are you so goddamn happy," she says, as if it's a normal thing for her to go to a cemetery on the busiest night of the year and talk to inanimate objects.
She puts a new cigarette between her lips and digs around in her messy purse for a lighter, but another person's hand holds up their lighter to her cigarette.
"I'm digging your aesthetic," the girl says before Sally can speak. "Very nineties-grunge. You don't see a lot of that these days."
She's more woman than girl, actually, mid-twenties if Sally had to guess, with straight brown hair in a high ponytail and brown eyes that sparkle out of kohl-stained eyelids, and she wears a black dress that outlines every damn curve in her body.
"I don't know half of what you just said," Sally says around her cigarette. The woman laughs and perches on a nearby gravestone, taking out her own cigarette and lighting it.
"I never used to smoke," she says. "But in my defense, if you knew what I have to deal with…anyway, it's worth that little bitch getting mad at me for."
Sally takes a drag. "Rough night?"
"Rough year."
Then she takes a chance. "Rough eternity?" and a grin breaks out on the woman's face.
"How'd you know I was dead?"
Sally preens, takes her time answering. "You been around long enough, you get a sense for this sorta thing." She holds out her hand with the matte black nail polish and the diamond bracelet hanging off her slender wrist, and the ghost woman takes it with a smirk. She's wearing dark purple press-on nails and no jewelry except for earrings, and her hands are soft like she's never worked in her life, her bare arms clear of track marks.
"Sally McKenna," Sally purrs.
"Hayden McClaine," the woman returns with a smile that's almost challenging.
Sally holds onto Hayden's hand for a moment longer than is polite before letting go. "And what is troubling you on the best night of the year -well, for us anyway -Miss Hayden McClaine?"
Hayden laughs. "God, where do I begin? My one true love, who not only rejected and killed me, is stuck in the same house that I'm in, except he's with his beautiful fucking wife and daughter and even a little goddamn baby. My baby was never born because of that son of a bitch, and he gets to have an eternity of happiness! How is that fair?"
"It's not," Sally agrees. "Men suck."
"Amen to that, girl."
"They say they're never going to leave you," Sally continues. "They say that they're going to stay, that they love you, that they'll leave it all for you, that you've got them wrapped around your goddamn middle finger. And then they put their pants back on and they leave me." She blinks back tears. "Why do they always leave me?"
Hayden puts a comforting hand on Sally's shoulder. "You deserve better than whatever asshole broke your heart, honey," she says, like she actually believes it's true.
Sally's crying now. "And if I don't get back to my boss with, with some fucking mortal for his guests to kill, It's going to come back, and I can't, I can't…"
"Sweetie, you're hyperventilating," Hayden's face blurs briefly before coming into focus. She's kneeling in front of Sally now, so their faces are level. "Everything is going to be okay," this woman who wasn't probably even a thought when Sally was alive, says with absolute certainty. Sally sniffles and wipes away her mascara-stained tears.
"I don't know why," she says with a weak little smile. "But when you say that, I almost believe it."
Hayden kisses her, and she tastes like licorice and bubblegum, which should not be enticing and yet Sally's pretty goddamn enticed. Hayden pulls away first, naturally, but instead of saying something like "this was a mistake", she offers her hand to Sally, like some old-fashioned gentleman.(She doesn't remember the last time she met one of those who wasn't a bloodthirsty dipshit). "What do you say?" Hayden says with a conspiratorial smile. "You, me, the hottest club in L.A., and then later, your room."
Sally kisses her again, long and languid, as if they have all the time in the world. "I'd love that," she whispers against the taller woman's lips, feeling ten years younger. "But we should probably go to yours. My place is…busy at this time of year."
Hayden laughs. "Same here, hon. We'll find some shitty motel to stay at?"
"That sounds amazing." Sally slips her hand into Hayden's, and the other woman clutches it, and Sally belongs to someone, even if it's only for a night.
"I should warn you," Hayden says. "I've never actually had sex with another girl before —not that I don't want to, it's just…"
Sally quiets her with a finger to her gorgeous lips. "It's a learning process," she murmurs. "And we've got time before the clock strikes midnight. I'll be happy to teach you."
Hayden grins, and then they're kissing again, as if they're in love, as if they have more meaning than the last wisps of a useless drug dealer and a crazy bitch, and it's a lie (of course it's a lie, nobody ever really wants Sally for more than a night, they always come on the tits when it's a whore, and honey that's all you're ever gonna be) but fuck if Sally isn't going to pretend it's the goddamn truth for as long as she can.