Free Dancing Nitely by Nancy A. Collins Page A

glowing
cursive: Dancing Nitely . All of the windows were boarded up and the front entrance
was guarded by a muscular vampire with biker tattoos swarming his
bare chest and forearms. The bouncer grunted and opened the
soundproofed door as Mavrides approached. Stale air and the
repetitive throb of electronic music washed onto the deserted
street. Someone inside screamed.
    Mavrides hurried inside. He
was missing the floor show!
    Once he crossed the
threshold, he saw he needn’t have worried. A nouveau undead had a waitress pinned
to a table and was busy trying to tear out her throat. The human
woman, naked except for the leather collar that protected her neck
and secured her to the length of chain that lead to the bar, kicked
and clawed at her assailant.
    As Mavrides watched, the
tattooed bouncer grabbed the drunken vampire and propelled him
toward the door. “That’s it, dead boy! I thought I told you to
leave!”
    The drunk, his face smeared
with saliva and blood, tried to break away. The bouncer casually
yanked the rowdy’s left arm off.
    “ Ow, man! That hurts! ” The nouveau whined.
    “ Too fuckin’ bad! Now get
out and stay out!” The bouncer snarled as he hurled the drunk out
the door. “And take this with you!” he added, throwing the
still-twitching severed limb into the street. Meanwhile one of the
club’s vampiric employees leaned over the savaged waitress, openly
licking his fingers as he checked her wounds.
    Mavrides shook his head in
disgust and wondered what the world was coming too. It wasn’t like
the Bad Old Days, when you had to be discrete in order to simply
survive. Today’s new breed of vampire didn’t have to worry about
waking up with a stake piercing their thorax, and the nouveau Undead were
barely a step or two from being human. Few of them could handle
their blood without getting sloppy. Most of them had a hard time
metabolizing the straight stuff, let alone tainted
juice.
    He shouldered his way to
the bar, eyeing the pale-skinned, hollow-cheeked Humans tethered to
the brass foot rail by spools of stainless steel chain. While
alcohol and other narcotics had no direct effect on vampires, the
tainted blood of addicts was a powerful intoxicant. While most
undead clubs offered only a handful of junkies and winos, Club Vlad
was famous for the quality of its cellar.
    A wispy, fair-haired youth,
bled to a pleasing marble white, smiled blearily at him and
languidly lifted his chin in ritual surrender. Mavrides shook his
head in polite refusal and continued until he came to a short,
darkish girl with sunken eyes. He ran his hand along the curve of
her shoulder. The waitress jerked at his touch like a startled
animal. Despite her wasted appearance, her eyes were hot and wet,
the drug forced into her veins making her pupils shimmer in the dim
light like candle flames. Mavrides motioned to the bartender, who
provided him with a large hypodermic syringe and a wine glass. He
stuck the syringe into the shunt implanted in the waitress’s elbow,
withdrawing a half pint of tainted juice. He squirted the coppery
liquid into a wine glass and quickly downed it before it had a
chance to cool and coagulate.
    “ Mavrides! Over
here!”
    He looked up, his head
already swimming from the drugs leeched from the waitress. It was
Wellman, waving at him from one of the booths near the dance floor.
He could see he had his ubiquitous portable mini-cam clutched in
one hand. Mavrides returned his old friend’s greeting and tossed a
couple of crumpled bills onto the bar.
    “ Shit, man! We thought you
weren’t going to make it!” Wellman said by way of
greeting.
    Mavrides shrugged. “I
overslept. Is Smith here?”
    Wellman grinned, exposing
his fangs. “Yeah, he’s checking out the talent.”
    Mavrides grunted as he slid
into the booth. He’d known both of them for decades. In fact,
Wellman had been one of his first converts. As for Smith, he had
been responsible for Mavrides’ own conversion behind