CHAPTER 1
Nicki Jones rushed into the Long Beach Diner's backdoor and quietly put down her purse and tied an apron around her waist. She grabbed her check pad and crept towards the silver flip doors, hoping that "Boss" wouldn't notice her being a half an hour late. But of course she did.
"Jones!"
Nicki cringed. "Yeah, boss?" She asked tentatively.
"You think I pay you to lie around and slur your words?" Boss' frizzy gray hair stuck up in all directions and her sharp blue eyes held Eugenie's nervous stare.
"Boss, with all do respect, I don't drink." I'm sixteen and a virgin, you think I drink? Nicki thought bitterly, but she kept her teetering composure and bit her lip.
Boss grunted, "Get out there 'fore I change my mind."
"Thanks boss." Nicki said, grateful for the relief sans the end of the lecture. Eugenie hurried out the door, heading to her section of the diner.
No one was in need of getting his or her order in, so Nicki walked to the register and to where a man was waiting to pay his bill.
"Hello sir, can I help you?" She asked in her best cheery voice.
The man looked up from staring at the menu stuck under the glass tabletop, Nicki's breath caught slightly. "Can I have a cup of warm synth?" He asked plainly.
Her breath puffed out in a whoosh. He was a vampire. Synth was synthetic blood; at least he wasn't drinking the real stuff, Nicki shivered. She hadn't had one of the vamps in a couple of weeks and she wasn't expecting them for some reason.
The vamp cleared his throat.
Nicki started. "Synth, right coming up." On her way to the freezer, Eugenie took a deep breath and thought of all the vamps who had come in, they had been way more aggressive than Fang up front, and she had lived through that. He couldn't be bad, he was too passive, maybe that was the problem.
Nicki shook her head, these thoughts she was having were unneeded, so she shook them off and opened the freezer. She grabbed the freshest synth bag and grabbed a mug. She unclipped notch and let the blood fill to just under the brim. She carefully clipped the bag back and walked it back to the freezer. She snagged the mug from the counter, and almost dropped it, her hands were so sweaty. She set it back and tried to quickly gather her jangling nerves. She wiped her palms on her apron and then wrapped her fingers around the mug slowly.
Nicki bumped the door with butt, and then walked to the front to give the vamp his synth.
He wasn't there. She looked around and spotted him across the room in a small booth in her section. He was now wearing a black baseball hat, pulled down low over his face. His fingers were drumming the table and Genie could clearly tell he was impatient; she hurried the mug to the table and set it down in front of him. "Will that be all?" Nicki froze as she realized what she just said. She was supposed to set the mug down, not make eye contact, and then walk away. Vamps couldn't have human food. Fuck, Eugenie thought angrily. Why did I have to say that, Nicki mentally cursed herself.
The vamp looked up with a common look of disbelief and one eyebrow raised. Her own look of amazement must have shown because his lip twitched in the vampire's form, or closest thing to it, of a smile.
Nicki mentally panicked and stood frozen, unable to decide what to do.
The vamp sniffed the air, "I can smell your fear." He said it bluntly and without a trace of bloodlust.
Nicki found herself even more shocked than before, and that somehow put her brain into gear and she turned around walked away, fast.
Nicki hurried into the kitchen and, her friend, Darla noticed her agitation. "'Sup, babe?" Darla flipped her long dark locks over her shoulder and snapped her gum.
Nicki answered softly, "Nothin', darlin'" She smiled faintly.
Darla always let that one go, because she didn't like to push, so she turned grabbed a dish Boss handed her and walked out the kitchen doors.
Nicki heard the doors open again and turned around to see what Darla had forgotten. "Did you forget somethin' darlin'?" Nicki turned and blushed furiously. It was him. He had his mug in hand and that made Nicki imagine all the reasons he had come in here with. Maybe he wanted her blood.
He calmly walked towards her, "I asked for it warm." He said simply.
Crap, she thought, I forgot to warm it up. "Oh, I'm so sorry; I'll get that for you." She held her hand for the cup, thankful it didn't shake.
He handed it to her, for one moment their fingers touched, a zing of electricity zoomed up Nicki's arm and she winced.
He noticed it but didn't acknowledge it.
Thank god for that, Nicki thought as she placed the cup in the zapper. How does he have this much patience, why hasn't he drained me? By legal Washington law he has the right to drain me, since I disgraced him. Nicki shook off the thought, "disgrace" was a strong word, and watched the mug of red synth spin around slowly. The microwave beeped and she removed the mug and turned, he was still there. "Here you go sir, I'm sorry for the mistake about your synth." She kept he jaw clenched so she wouldn't feel tempted to say something more stupid than what she had already said.
His lip twitched again.
What was so goddamn amusing about a girl screwing up everything she does, just because he asked for some blood and gave her some human-like looks. As the vamp walked out of the kitchen, Nicki glanced at the clock. 10:30pm, it was hard to believe that she had only been here a half an hour and she had already set herself her death date. Swell.
Nicki gathered her wits and walked out into the dining area to take orders from the usual late night snackers. Nicki walked to the register and looked at the diner populous. There was Joey- the guy who always came to ask Darla out, Gary- the middle-aged science nerd, Anthony- the Italian who liked Boss' greasy burgers, and then there was the vamp again- he was seated at the counter now, not far from where she stood.
Suddenly, the door came open with a whoosh of air and the Clayton kids who dealt drugs in the main alleys walked in. Dave, Connor, Patrick, and Kenny.
They considered the diner their turf and no one who didn't work there or were regulars had to go through them to get permission to come, no one really did though.
The kids, who really weren't kids-they were really like twenty-five years old, walked up to the counter and cleared their throats.
Nicki walked up to them, assuming they were alerting her to come to them. They just looked at her. She took that time to hand them plastic menus. Patrick-the fat one-cocked his head at the vamp sitting a couple seats down.
The vamp wasn't paying any attention to the Clayton and so Nicki inconspicuously put her hand on her neck and pinched the skin between her nails.
Connor-the asshole-got up and walked up to the vamp and spun his chair so he could effectively put his face up in the vamps-gutsy, and stupid. "You think you can come up in here and trespass our joint?" He accused.
The vamp stayed silent but Nicki could tell he didn't like being made a fool of.
Kenny got up and seconded his brother. In the course of five more seconds Dave and Patrick- dumb and dumber, got up and copied Kenny. They all got up in the vampire's face and taunted him.
Nicki looked around; everyone was hunched over their food and silent. They obviously didn't want a part of fucking up the peace between vamps and humans.
What confused her was that the Clayton's were getting in the vamp's face and they, to put very bluntly, were being stupid- they thought the vamp wasn't a vamp and just another faker. He obviously was.
The vamp's jaw flexed.
"Guys, don't be doin' that in here. I don't want to be responsible for a fight in my diner." Boss finally spoke up from being silent in the kitchen, the safest place to be.
Nicki finally realized that being still and useless was not the best thing to do. She carefully turned her head and spotted Darla seated next to Joey, gripping his hand.
The Claytons all backed off of the vamp and got cocky as they walked out the door. "Freak." Then they were gone.
Nicki had a feeling they'd be back, she risked a glance at the vamp and was relieved to see that he was not charging after the Wirkala's and was just sitting at the counter.
He still seemed to be tense but slowly as time went on, he relaxed.
After everyone had paid and left, Nicki checked the clock, it was 12:45am, and started to clean up. She was just throwing away all the used check papers when she felt a presence, again. She turned tiredly and wasn't surprised to see the vamp. She finally had time to analyze him and realized he was really hot. His hair was an icy blonde and his bangs were lazily drooping into his eyes to give him that shaggy and sexy look. His hair was very long; it passed his collar and was elegantly braided down to between his shoulder blade's. His cheekbones high, his chin a perfect cleft, he was tall but not bulky, his lean muscles rippled under his skintight cotton shirt. Since he was giving her the once over too, Nicki had the chance to look down at his long legs, sheathed in a pair of nicely faded jeans. She quickly looked up, he looked to be in his mid twenties, in human age, but the wisdom in his eyes told her his age was way older. Like maybe one-hundred or older. She was never good at guessing, but she knew it was all in the eyes.
Nicki thought of what she must look like, she had short black hair gelled back against her skull with edgy red streaks through it, she was taller than an average woman, bumping up against 5-11 which made her realize that this guy had to be at least 6'8", considering she had to tip her head considerably to see his face. Her eyes had always been the weird part of her, a purplish-blue where they iris met the pupil and ending a creepy purple-black on the outside. She wasn't overly thin, but her butt was like a homing beacon to all mankind's hands. Her boobs had always been annoying, uncooperative to stay in bras, damn all double-Ds.
Eugenie got back down to business. "Can I help you sir?" Eugenie was tired, but he was a vamp and could snap her neck with his thumbs if she disrespected him- strange behavior from the night before excluded.
He answered in a way no vamp usually answered. He smiled. "Thanks for being human."
Huh?
Without an explanation of his statement, he walked out the door and into a wall of angry Clayton druggies.
