Page 28 of Just Fur Tonight
Chris lives in the cellar in one of the older houses in town. I knock on the old wood door in the ground. “Give me a second!” Chris’s voice calls.
I wait the customary three or four minutes, enough to let him get away from the door. I pull the door open and descend the wooden stairs. Chris’s space is lit with hanging kerosene lamps. His big-screen TV is displaying a paused video game. A twin brass bed is tucked into the darkest corner. Chris is seated in his captain-style gaming chair. He spins around to see who came down the stairs.
“Hey, Chet, what brings you here?” he greets.
The scent of dried blood tickles my nose. I glance over at the small dining table and the remains of a blood milkshake. “I want to give Gabriella a date tonight, but it’s a change night. I need all the help I can get. I was hoping you didn’t mind helping me out,” I explain.
Chris crosses his legs as he considers my request. I ignore the scurry of something with small legs. The wolf pulls a bit. He wants to chase it.You aren’t coming out until we get this settled.We have a healthy understanding. He backs down and I still wait for Chris’s answer.
“I’ll give you free rein of the place if you promise to spend more than one hundred dollars tonight,” he demands.
“Well let’s see a hundred bucks would cover a couple of bottles of your best wine wouldn’t it?”
“I won’t get out the good stuff for less than two hundred.”
“How about I give you two-fifty and you set us up with your nicest spread?” I offer.
Chris nods at our agreement. I leave him to the paused level of his game and get ready for the evening.
I enter Chris’s bar at the two-hour mark. Veronica has a massive box of red, pink, and white — whatever. Fred is clumsily twisting crepe paper across the ceiling. His hands secure the streamers. I worry they will fall to the floor, but they don’t by some miracle.
“I still don’t get what makes this stupid paper romantic,” he grumbles.
“We’re creating a mood here, streamers suggest fun to humans, and we want Gabriella to feel like she’s walking into a private party,” Veronica insists.
“Why don’t we just offer her a leash for the night? I’m sure she’d like a moonlit stroll with our boy,” Fred suggests.
“Moonlit walks come at the end of a date. We need to make sure the night has entertainment and plenty of food and drink.” She begins fumbling with a dainty tissue paper decoration. She finally unfolds a fluffy geometric heart.
“What the heck is that?” Fred cries.
Veronica looks just as bewildered as him. “It’s supposed to be a heart,” she replies.
“Do they not teach anatomy in human schools?Thatis not a heart. It doesn’t even have veins or chambers,” Frank observes.
Veronica shakes her head. She hangs it above one of Chris’s larger tables. She then begins shoving flimsy paper doilies on the tables. Next out of the box came red cardboard cutouts. They look like a chubby child with a bow and arrow. That one worries me.
“Is that a child with a weapon?” I try to hide the disapproval in my voice. The only time I deal with weapons is when a zealous hunter thinks he has me cornered.
“Apparently, these little gremlins go around stabbing people,” Veronica clarifies.
“Wow, and Gabriella thinks this place is weird,” Fred interjects.
“Why is there chocolate covered fungus in my fridge!” Chris demands. The vampire blows through his kitchen like we left his cellar door open in the afternoon. “Who did it?” he demands again.
“One of my buddies from my vegan-by-choice group says humans love things dipped in chocolate. Mold is delicious, the chocolate can only help,” Fred answers.
Chris’s eyes flare with a hot black tar intensity. For a second I expect the fangs. They don’t show.“Fred, don’t ever set foot inside my kitchen again. I’m the chef around here and I decide what gets served,” he snaps.
I approach the bar and Chris like I would a tiger in a cage. I slam down three hundred dollars on the bar. Chris looks at the money, then back at me. “I figured the extra fifty would grease the wheels a bit,” I explain.
Chris looks around his dining room. “If I’d known you were going to trash the place I would have asked for double it,” he mutters.
“It will be cleaned up by morning I swear,” I promise.
Chris takes the money and slides it into his till. “Look it took a bit of favor calling, but I finally got my hands on some pineapple for that funky pizza you want tonight,” he says. He wipes down his bar with a thick cloth.
“Great, is there enough for a pepperoni too?” I ask hopefully.