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Simon
A staticky thud followed by faint pops prompts Baz to fumble for his wand and cast turn it on its head, to flip and restart the album. We’ve been at this all week. Entwined on the sofa in the velvet dark of our flat. Breathing each other’s air and listening to Baz’s childhood in music. We are drifting through his goth rock phase tonight. The haunting, melodic heaves and swirls of the Cure. The dripping sensuality of Siouxsie and the Banshees.
I squirm a bit to knock Baz out of whatever memory he’s wrapped his head around. “Let’s listen to something more upbeat,” I murmur into his neck. “The Dead Milkmen were fun yesterday, albeit rather weird and stunningly offensive at times.” I roll on top of him so I can catch his undivided attention. “Oh, I know! Let’s revisit your dirty dirty Taylor Swift obsession.”
“You promised we would never speak of that again, you nightmare,” he drawls, hooking his leg around mine.
“I can’t help it if I love the fact that my dark, intimidating, vampire husband is a Swiftie.”
“I am not a Swiftie,” he growls. “I simply believe that Tay Tay is a brilliant singer songwriter and her tunes are catchy.”
“Whatever, love, I’ll pretend not to notice that you own hard copies of all of her albums.”
“They are all limited editions. It’s an investment, Snow. I’m looking after our future.”
“Such a good provider. I’m so lucky to have a vampire sugar daddy.” Before he can say something snarky, I kiss him soundly to emphasize my appreciation. “Now,” I ask, “what’s on your mind?”
“Hm?” He asks, taking a moment to catch up to the detour in conversation.
I tap his forehead with my index finger. “Your brain. The gears are turning. I can feel tension emanating from you like heat.” I pause, “Well, if you emanated heat, that is. I mean, you’re smoking hot but tend to run cool.” My gaze drifts to the middle distance as I think about all the times I’ve gotten to warm Baz with my body. “I love that about you,” I say a little dreamily. I snap my eyes back to Baz, “Have I mentioned that?”
Baz shares his sharp, wry grin. I love it when he smiles. Especially this one—it’s just for me. “So happy you enjoy the finer aspects of my condition.” He slides his hands to my back, massaging the joint of wing to shoulder.
I nip his chin, “Spill, Pitch. What’s bothering you?”
“It’s nothing.” He nuzzles my neck, “It’s rather stupid, actually.” He pauses to catch my eye, “Mordelia’s band has a gig.”
“Like an actual gig at an actual venue? Like, not someone’s office party or a street corner?” I pull back in surprise, “Isn’t that a good thing?”
“It is a good thing,” Baz slides his lips along my collar bone. I think he’s trying to distract himself as much as he’s distracting me. “The problem,” Baz pauses his ministration and sighs, “is that she’s playing at The Dirty Rooster.”
“Oh,” I say quietly.
“Exactly,” mutters Baz, sounding both annoyed and dejected.
I lay my head back down on Baz’s chest, needing a moment to think about this one. The Dirty Rooster is the most notorious bar in London, and the site of an alarming number of Normal disappearances. The Coven has been investigating them for over a year on account of the widely held belief that the Dirty Rooster is a front for a UK vampire crime syndicate. (You would think they’d put their headquarters somewhere nicer than a shitty bar in Hackney.) I tilt my head so I can look up at him again, “So are we going on a mission to protect your little sister?”
“I suppose, although I don’t relish experiencing another vampire bar. I would much rather pawn this off on Fiona.”
I snort.
“Don’t start—” Baz warns.
“Imagine you’re a vampire hunter.” I can’t help but grin, “I know it’s distasteful, but imagine—you’re a vampire hunter, and you marry a vamp—”
“I’m begging you, stop.” Baz tries to cover my mouth with his hands, but I wiggle around him.
“You marry a vampire,” I’m laughing as this moment devolves into a wrestling match, “and you go to Transylvania for your honeymoon.”
“Simon Snow, you’re an insufferable git.” He rolls to pin me, but the sofa won’t accommodate that, so we fall in a heap to the floor.
“Ouch,” I grumble.
“I’m not sorry.” Baz grumbles back from somewhere near my shoulder.
I disentangle myself from our pile and stand up, reaching a hand out to Baz. He takes it and hauls himself up beside me.
Still holding his hand, I pull him towards the bedroom. “Let’s go pick out your Dirty Rooster outfit. When is the blessed event?”
“Tomorrow night,” Baz sighs, slouching behind me. “That bar is such a dive, I’m not sure my wardrobe can accommodate the appropriate level of homeless chic required to blend in.” He sounds so defeated.
I brighten, “Well, you’ll just have to wear my clothes then, won’t you?”
**
Baz looks stunning in my thrift store jeans and hoodie.
**
Baz
The Dirty Rooster lives up to its name. It’s dirty. Vile. Disgusting. Every surface in this place is sticky. The floor, the walls, the series of cracked leather couches near the bar. If you can catch a venereal disease from touching a surface, this is the place. I wish I brought sanitizer.
“Caterpillar Moustache comes on at ten,” Simon shouts into my ear, “after Gate Latch and Pensive Beagle.” We’re tucked into an alcove, against a black wall plastered with gig leaflets.
“What happened to normal band names that make sense?” I shout back at Snow. “Like The Beatles, The Who, or The Police? What’s with the nonsensical random words?”
“What?” Simon's eyes scrunch as he strains to hear me.
I shake my head, “Nevermind.” I crowd into Simon so I can derive some comfort from his sheer mass. This is going to be a long night. Leave it to my stupid sister to drag us into a bleeding vampire bar in the middle of nowhere. This entire situation is all my fault. I thought Mordelia was old enough, at seventeen, to handle knowledge of my issue. Little did I know it would kick off an obsessive need to learn about all things vampire.
“It’s like doing a DNA test and finding out you’re part Mongolian,” She insisted. “I want to learn about my roots!”
“You are not part vampire, Mordelia!”
“I am by association!” She shouted. It’s always a shouting match with her. “It’s so cool!”
“It is not cool!” I yelled, but at that point, she defaulted to Dramatic Exit Mode and stomped out of the room.
So now we’re here in this disgusting fucking bar, where she can play bass with her grotty fucking band and hobnob with shifty fucking vampires.
**
Finding the bar was a challenge. Simon’s nav kept cutting out, resulting in multiple wrong turns through successively grimier streets and alleys until we found the graffiti encrusted building. A small wooden sign that looked like it was written in Sharpie indicated that this was The Durty Rooster. Apparently proper spelling is not punk.
Now we’re here, and the quantity of air molecules available for respiration diminishes steadily as bodies fill the tiny venue. At least Simon looks comfortable. Pint in hand, at ease with the crush of people around us. Neon lights and cell phone screens provide minimal illumination. Darkness clouds the faces that surround me, the suffocating crush of humans, vampires, and Merlin knows what else. The air smells of tobacco, weed, hops, and sweat. A melee of sound assaults my ears, rendering my hearing worthless. It’s all too much. A howling mixture of simultaneous sensory overload and deprivation. Once again, I am grateful for all the years of cultivating a neutral facade, a cool, unperturbed exterior. Simon, as usual, is totally clueless that inside, I’m a roiling maelstrom of raw nerves and that I’m barely holding it together.
Simon
Baz is barely holding his shit together. He thinks I can’t tell, but I’m a scholar in the many moods of T. Basilton Pitch. I reckon all this noise and darkness is taking him back to that numpty coffin. I need to get him out of here.
“Hey Baz,” I poke his ribs with my finger, “Let’s go backstage.” He lets me push him along the edge of the crowd toward the front of the venue.
We reach a hallway that leads behind the stage, people carrying gear and instruments dodge around us. Baz stops short. “We are not going back there.”
“Come on,” I urge. “It’s quieter and we can say hi to your sister.”
“We are not saying hi to my sister,” Baz growls. At least he seems to be calming down. The knot of muscle at his jaw, and the creases around his eyes are loosening. His posture is less rigid.
“Why not? Isn’t that why we’re here?”
He rolls his eyes, “No, Snow. We’re here to protect her from being murdered by the vampire mafia while she learns about her roots.” (Oh good: rolling disdain and sarcasm. Baz is back to normal then.)
“All the more reason to say hi.” I take his hand and start walking.
“Absolutely not. The last thing she needs is to see her nerdy brother.”
“What?” I stop short. “You’re not a nerd.”
Baz sneers, like I’m an extra special idiot. “She’s seventeen. Anyone over the age of thirty is a nerd.”
“Oh for fucks sake,” I resume dragging him along. “Let’s go.”
A high peal of laughter draws our attention down the hall. A tiny figure in a short red dress, and combat boots, emerges from a room. She’s arm in arm with a tall bloke wearing a black leather jacket emblazoned with the words, “The Abdominal Ones,” in gothic font.
Baz and I look at each other, eyes wide.
“Mordelia,” we say in unison.
We follow her as stealthily as one can in a narrow hallway dotted with scruffy musicians and vaguely menacing vampires. Mordelia shrieks as the vamp in the jacket opens a door and hustles her into another room.
Fuck stealthy. We run after her.
Baz
Simon and I burst into what appears to be a surprisingly posh conference room.
“What the fuck, Baz?” Mordelia sneers. She is seated at a large mahogany table next to leather jacket guy.
“What the fuck, Mordelia?” Simon echoes, entering the room behind me.
I take a step back, confused as I notice the items strewn across the table. A veritable hodgepodge of scented candles, wax bars and warmers, hand lotions, and more. “Seriously, Mordelia, what the hell is this?”
“Allow me,” says leather jacket guy. “My name is Orville Thompsen, I am the CEO and founder of Smellsey. The world’s most successful product consulting and sales experience. Would you like to join our dynamic family and make money on your own terms?”
Mordelia leans back in her chair and cocks my eyebrow at me. “Yes, boys, would you like to sell some candles?”
I glance at Simon, he looks as befuddled as I feel. “So you’re telling me that the Abdominal Ones, the Dirty Rooster— is just a front for—” I wave my hands over the junk on the table.
“A direct marketing scheme,” Simon fills in, wonderingly.
“We prefer the term, life changing money making opportunity,” says Orville.
“So, you don’t murder people?” I ask.
“Well, we used to,” Orville drawls, “but this is easier, and much more lucrative. Half the Coven are reps.”
“What about all the Normal disappearances?” Simon interjects.
“We have a monthly raffle for our top sellers,” Orville explains. “Winners get whisked away on a Caribbean cruise.” He purses his lips, “They almost always come back. I mean, some of those islands are rather lawless. I can’t account for wayward goblins and drug lords.”
I rub my temples, “This is ludicrous. Mordelia, let’s go. You are not selling garbage to Normals.”
“This isn’t garbage,” she pouts. “The scent blocks are only the tiniest bit cancerous.”
I struggle to make sense of this ridiculous situation. Orville smiles with all of his teeth. I bare mine at him for good measure. “Why? Mordelia, it’s not like you need the money.”
“Mum and Dad cut off my allowance,” she pouts.
“You stole her credit card!”
“DePop doesn’t take cash and I really wanted that vintage Nike crewneck,” she whines.
Simon slips an arm around my shoulders. “Just to be clear,” he says to Orville, “you are not planning to murder my sister-in-law and drain her dry?”
“What?” Orville sputters, incredulous. “No way, mate. She’s one of our best salespeople, and we love Caterpillar Moustache.” He looks at her with obvious admiration. “Plays bass like a banshee, this one.”
Mordelia smirks and leans back to prop her feet up on the table, black patent leather shining in the fluorescent light. “Yeah, so leave us to it, nerds.”
Simon tugs me towards the door. This feels very wrong. “Come on, love,” he murmurs to me.
“Break a leg, Mordy,” he says over his shoulder to her.
“Byeeee! Love you guys!” she calls out happily.
I feel a bit whiplashed by her mood swing. Teenagers are dire, inscrutable creatures. “Love you too,” I trail off, letting Simon lead me away.
We leave the venue and Simon crowds me against a wall in a decidedly dark and gloomy alley. After all the noise and lights and confusion of the club, this place is too quiet. My hearing is muffled, like my ears are filled with cotton. I feel out of sorts. A sliver of moon glowers overhead, it’s vague light interrupted by wisps of cloud. At least my night vision is fine, but all I need to see is Simon right now anyway.
“Are you ok?” he says.
I reach around and slide my hands into the pockets of his jeans to pull him closer. “I am now,” I say, “That was all a bit—much.”
“I thought you were going to have a panic attack earlier, in the bar.” He’s looking at me with concern, like I’m a lost thing, now found. I love it when he takes care of me.
“I think I was,” I whisper. “Thank you for—”
Simon’s eyes widen and he breaks into a mischievous grin. “You literally almost had a Panic!” he pauses, at the Disco!”
“Ohmygod you knob,” I shove him away, but not far.
Simon laughs, “We’re going to snog in this foul and dangerous alley now.”
“I think I’d rather snog at home.”
“Yeah, but that would ruin the aesthetic,” he grins, pushing me back against the wall and kissing me soundly.
“I suppose, if your aesthetic is grim street corners that smell like piss and old Chinese food, then go on I guess.”
He kisses me again, nipping my bottom lip. He smirks, “There’s danger around every corner, it’s like the good old days.”
“Simon, there’s literally a rat, sitting atop the dumpster to your right, watching us with his beady little eyes.”
“Ew, Basil.” Simon cringes, pulling me away. “Let’s go home. I’ll make us some hot cocoa and then we can snog in our warm bed.”
“That is my aesthetic,” I grin as he tugs me towards home.