Page 73 of Magic and Muffins

“Sorry about this, Ev,” she said a second before she pulled a pin from the cuff of her shorts and stabbed my leg with it.

I jumped to my feet, calling attention to us. Vena yanked me back to my chair, but it was too late. If we hadn’t been recognized before, we were then. People turned to look, and recognition flashed in their gazes.

“We’re not enemies of anyone,” Vena said, holding up her hands. “We haven’t even finished college yet.”

She sounded so dumb and clueless that it convinced a few. Not the guy on the stage, though.

“Bar the doors!” he yelled.

We watched the drivers run out of the room, and I turned to look at Vena.

“Breathe, Ev,” she said softly. “We’ll be okay.”

An alarm went off. Not the emergency kind but like a timer.

“If you’re here to find a sponsor, please stand,” the man said. “Our benefactors have arrived.”

The side doors, which had been closed, opened suddenly, and people poured in. The first one inhaled deeply, and his eyes went black. He grabbed the first person standing.

“Welcome to the night life,” he said a second before biting into the man’s neck.

The room exploded into chaos as vampires swarmed the people standing and started a frenzied feeding. Those of us sitting remained glued to our chairs in shock.

I was so focused on the spectacle that I was unprepared for the hands that closed around my arms and lifted me out of my seat.

“Orphia wants to speak with you, Everly,” a woman said with manic glee in her voice.

“Fuck you!” Vena yelled, springing to her feet lashing out with her lucky knife.

The woman dropped me and gripped her bleeding arm. Her eyes were pitch black, and the surrounding skin was a web of veins as she looked at my best friend.

“Orphia isn’t interested in you, though.” She opened her mouth, hissing at Vena and showing her teeth a second before she lunged.

Vena dodged and swung out with the knife, again. This time, the woman avoided it and smiled slowly.

People were screaming and crying. The scent of blood laced the air. Panic and fear boiled inside me. Desperately, I scanned the area to find a way to help Vena. Overturned chairs lay scattered everywhere. So I picked one up and hit the woman across the back like I was a professional wrestler.

Unlike a pro, when she turned toward me unaffected, I dropped the chair in fright and held up my hands.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Is there any chance I can have a do-over?”

The vampire woman laughed in a cruel and creepy way and slowly shook her head.

“That’s too bad,” I said as Vena took the opportunity to stab her in the back, right into her heart. The woman gasped and stumbled a step with the knife still embedded in her.

Vena dodged around her and grabbed me. She dragged me around feeding vampires and backed me into a wall.

“Didn’t you bleed?” she asked.

I looked down at my thigh where she stuck me and didn’t see anything.

“I don’t know. Aren’t your glasses working?”

“I don’t know.” She pulled a small knife from her bra strap. “We can’t risk it.”

Without another word, my best friend for life nicked me with her blade.

The squeal I made was similar to a pig being led to market. And the reaction of the vampires around us was instantaneous.

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