The Vampire Always Bites Twice | Wattys 2022 Grand Prize Winner

41

Isla, Is in Double, Double Toil and Trouble

I didn't recognize the baristas on duty when I hobbled into the Bean & Brew around four in the morning. But then again, if it wasn't Mason's shift, I wasn't really paying attention. But one girl must've recognized me, even from under the wide brim of her uniform's ballcap pulled low over her face, because she slid an extra hot red eye across the counter at me.

Or maybe I just looked like a hag who needed it.

I was freezing. My coat didn't zip anymore. And I could just feel how knotty and frizzed out my hair was, and the sting of mascara smeared into my eye. My velvet dress was hiked up and twisted in all the wrong places around my curves, but that's what happens when you jog all the way home from Old City. In pumps. My toes hurt more than a mermaid trying to shove her fin into ballet slippers, but hey, I'd made it.

Just in time to catch the paper cup before it splashed onto the floor too.

"Thanks," I mumbled, unable to keep the exhaustion from my voice. "What, uh, do I owe?"

But that barista was already gone. Probably shuffled off into the basement storeroom or the pisser. Her cohort wasn't paying attention, earbuds blaring K-pop and engrossed in some manga.

Guess that means it's on the house, right? Not stealing if they just give it to you. I'll tip them good later. When I had the cash to spare. After I covered what I already owed Mason, naturally. Pinky promise. Right now, I just needed to crawl upstairs, take a boiling hot bath to wash the vampire spittle off me, and sleep till three in the afternoon.

I'd almost made it to the side door into the apartment foyer too when the café bell jingled, and a snake hissed.

"Isla," said Nazira, not bothering to wait for me to turn around. "Come here."

My breath lodged in my throat.

Merman's gils.

I was in trouble.

She was in her pajamas. Or at least loungewear. The Society of Other, Worldly, and Otherworldly Creatures didn't keep the same office hours as the human world, but even for us, four in the morning was well past happy hour and bordering on bedtime. Case and point, Nazira wasn't wearing any makeup. And her normally flawless color palette was struggling, her pink and bronze hijab not totally vibing with her powder blue silken pants, like she'd thrown the former on in hurry to get out the door.

I probably interrupted her children's bedtime story. Crap.

"Hey Nazira. Two visits in twenty-four hours? Woah, what do I owe the pleasure, ha ha?"

The chair she pulled out and smacked the seat of scraped loudly over the tiled floor.

She waited till my ass was firmly planted in it, the ricketiest chair in the whole damn café, before cradling her belly and daintily taking a seat across from me. I couldn't even look her in the eye. Out of shame, not fear of being turned to stone. Er, well, those may be synonymous at this point. I really screwed up this time. Why'd I have to do that séance? The bad juju got way out of hand and now Nazira was making a house call in her jammies to arrest me.

I'd never get to pay Mason back for that tip I borrowed after all.

Who'd take care of Grumpkin? My sisters? He'd hate that.

Can't believe I was going back to jail without even making it to third base with Greg, that prick. More than my thumb still throbbed from the memory of his fang gently tearing me open, and that dark, hungry look in his eye as he massaged a few drops of blood from me with his tongue, like he was 'guess what else I can do with this?' kind of teasing me.