A Taste of the Nightlife by Sarah Zettel

Something about Midnight Moon and Joshua Blake. He was going to say that Nightlife was just another of my screwups.
    “Are we going to keep paying our people?” he asked.
    I paused with my hand on the doorframe. “Yes. If we’re going down, we’re going down doing the right thing.”
    I was out the door and on my way down the hall. I did not take the time to apologize. I most especially did not say, “You didn’t kill Dylan Maddox, but you know who did, don’t you?” I could not even suspect that. Not of my little brother. Never. Because if I did, it meant that my screwups were much, much bigger than I feared.
    On the sidewalk, light spilled from clubs and restaurants where people ate other chefs’ food and had a good time in other people’s homes. Music and voices and all the special energy that thrums through the cty after sundown filled the air, wrapping close and warm around everybody but me.
    I jaywalked across the street, trying not to think about anything beyond heading up to Bleecker to the subway.
    The earthy smell of fresh truffles reached me. At the same time, something tickled the back of my neck, like water dripping from an awning.
    Or like somebody watching me.
    Pale skin flashed in the shadows of the sunken English porch next to me. I froze.
    Anatole Sevarin looked up at me from those shadows and smiled.

9

    “Good evening, Chef Caine.” Sevarin’s teeth gleamed very white in the city’s proto-dark. “Would you care to join me?” He gestured around the little rectangle of space that he shared with the trash and recycle bins.
    “You’re kidding.”
    “Never in life.” He stretched out his hand, as if I might need help down the stairs. He had worn black for the occasion—black slacks, black turtleneck under long black jacket that could almost have been an old-fashioned frock coat. The final touch came in the form of a black fedora pulled down low to mask his red-blond hair.
    He looked dangerous, and ridiculously edible, and he invited me to come down there next to him.
    I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. “Sorry. Lurking in doorways with the undead is against the health code.”
    “You’ll miss the show.”
    The gleam in his green eyes made me hesitate. I am going to regret this.
    “I’m still uncertain whether it will be tragicomic or a bedroom farce,” Anatole went on. “But it should be interesting in either case.”
    “You’ve got to get better seats next time. Just what show are you talking about?”
    He nodded toward the front door of my brother’s building.
    “You’re spying on Chet?” I snapped, but Sevarin just shrugged.
    “Why should we limit the fun to the family?”
    “I wasn’t spying!”
    “No. You were interrogating. Please.” He held out his hand again. When he saw my murderous glare, he rolled his eyes, looking for any patience that might have been dropped in a dark corner. “If it makes you feel better, let us say I am not spying on your brother. I am spying on anyone who might potentially be arriving to tempt him into further ill-considered behaviors, a set of people whom, as his loving sister, you also should be interested in.”
    Damn vampire logic. This wasn’t what I should be spending time on. Detective O’Grady knew what he was doing, and Chet wasn’t under suspicion anymore, which meant Nightlife wasn’t under suspicion anymore, right? Right. Time to get these weird Agatha Christie impulses under control. I just needed to wait out the bureaucracy and meet with my damage control expert and worry about building my business back up.
    “Not tonight. I’ve got a headache.” I turned my back and started walking. Then I had a thought. I didn’t want it. I sped up, trying to leave it behind me, but it wouldn’t go.
    I stopped, swore, turned and walked back. There stood Sevarin, leaning casually against the wall, and—smart-ass vamp that he was—watching me like he’d never looked away.
    He touched the brim of his hat. I opened my mouth.