hair and piercing eyes that he simply couldn’t take off of Jinx, who sat next to him, smiling, staring straight ahead but occasionally leaning towards him to whisper confidentially. Cinnamon sat between Jinx and me… which, not coincidentally, put me and Savannah about as far apart across the table as we could get.
“I don’t get it,” Cinnamon said. “Who’s Caiaphas? And why’s a vampire lord in the Bible?” Savannah spit up her Bloody Mary and Cinnamon hissed at her. “Don’t you be funning me—”
“Went up my nose,” Savannah said.
“Caiaphas wasn’t a vampire. He was the high priest who tried Jesus,” I said. I got some surprised looks and shrugged. “Bible Bowl, eighth grade champion. Why ever did you pick—”
“I have no idea,” Calaphase said, smiling at the girl leaning on his shoulder. “Like I said, thought I’d made it up. I only found out months later when a new recruit—”
“Present.” Revenance raised his hand.
“—asked, ‘Aren’t you spelling Caiaphas wrong?’”
“To which Cal says, ‘Don’t worry, it’s easy to get a screen name for a misspelling!’ “
Calaphase shrugged. “Started a tradition—now the whole clan does that with our vampire names—”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Don’t tell me the big bad vampire biker gang picks their names based on how easy it is to get a Gmail account?”
“But it is easier if it’s a made-up word,” Calaphase protested. “Consider it an intelligence test. Who’s going to take seriously a vampire named BloodSucker17?”
“Or AtlantaNosferatu2,” Savannah said, grinning.
“What?” Darkrose said, putting her drink down. “Oi! That’s my screen name—”
“Can I get you guys anything else?” the waitress said. Annie was a blackhaired punkish girl who kept checking out my tats—and from the way she also kept checking out Revenance and Doug, it was safe to assume I had a potential customer and not a suitor on my hands.
“I’ll have a Guinness,” Jinx said. A boy at the table beside us looked over when she said that, raising a Guinness of his own. His eye fell on me, on my tats, and he smiled; I responded with a polite bob of my Sprite, but filed him away in the “suitor” category. He was with a group, and turned back to his conversations.
“I’ll have one too,” Cinnamon said, grinning wickedly. “And I’ll see your ID’s,” Annie said. Clearly she’d been around the waitress block enough to spot a fake ID, because she tossed Cinnamon’s back without a word—but then she handed Jinx’s ID back too. “I don’t think so.”
“Hey,” Cinnamon said.
“Gee, thanks,” Jinx said in shock.
“Don’t be surprised,” I told Jinx. “In that getup you look about twelve. Annie, I met orange-hair yesterday,” I said, pointing at the outraged little werecat, “but her I’ve known since grade school. Jinx is twenty-six.”
“I can vouch for that,” Savannah said. “I’ve known her since kindergarten.”
The waitress frowned. “All right, but I’d better not see you slipping that kitten a sip. Honey, can I get you another Sprite?”
“Fine,” Cinnamon said, slumping over the table. “Rub it in—”
I leaned back in my chair, laughing, and bumped into Guinness-boy behind me. His eyes caught mine and lit up briefly, but he rolled back into his story without missing a beat—something about how a spilled Guinness had led to a bar fight in Colorado and a bit of kung-fu fighting.
“So,” Jinx said, drawing my attention back to our own table just as she was putting her Guinness down, “on the note of old friends getting together… it’s really good to see you two together again.” Both Savannah and I spluttered, and Jinx raised her gloved hand. “I meant, at the same time.”
I stared at the table, at the Sprite, then slowly looked up at Savannah, who was doing the same hunched, guilty thing. “Yeah,” I said.
“Me too,” Savannah said.
“So… can we stop the ‘friends having to choose sides thing’… Dakota?”
I looked sharply at Jinx. I wanted to say something. But she was right. “Sure,” I said.
“Well, if this is about to become domestic,” Calaphase said, scooting back his chair.
“Wait. There is one more thing.”
“Shoot,” Calaphase said.
“I have a message for the Marquis,” I said, putting my hand on Cinnamon’s shoulder. “I’ve given it to Cinnamon but… I’d like you to make sure that he and the Bear King get it.”
Calaphase scowled. “Ladies,” he said, cocking his head at his and Revenance’s new squeezes. “Could you excuse us for a minute?”
“Oh, hon, do you have to?” the girl on his arm said.
“I’m fraid I do, Cheri,” Calaphase said. “Wait by the bar, if you would.”