Chapter 6
The Black Sheep Beanery was bustling as she stepped through the door the following afternoon, the smell of coffee reaching her before she’d even crossed the street. Violet felt a flare of nerves at being the only human in the room that she could see, feeling vulnerable without the protective coverings that her scrubs at the farm provided. Half of Cambric Creek seemed to be packed into the tight space: goblins and trolls and elves and gnolls, crowding around low tables and high tops, laughing over steaming paper cups as they pressed into armchairs, and standing at the long oak bar. She let out a ragged breath as she hesitantly joined the queue, half-wishing she’d stuck to the coffee shop in the little strip mall.
The sheep-faced man working the espresso machine never looked up from the line of labeled cups before him, his long dreadlocks gathered in a neat tie at the nape of his neck, swinging down his back as he efficiently added foamed milk to the tops of several of the cups before they were capped by an ivory-skinned elf who called out the names on the labels for the waiting patrons. Beside them, a tiefling with curling horns manned the cold drinks, shaking teas and iced lattes as if she were slinging high-end cocktails. She watched as a sleek-scaled lizard-woman claimed her cup once her name was called, barking into her cell phone the whole time, and Violet’s eyes tracked her progress through the press of bodies, squeezing past a towering orc in a white lab coat and disappearing out the door.
The man in the queue ahead of her might have been human, she realized, studying his broad, well-muscled back, encased in a snug blue polo, tucked into uniform pants of the same color. The cashier was laughing at the conversation they had as she passed him his receipt, and as Violet watched, an employee from the backroom carried out two carafe boxes, passing them over the counter to the dark-haired man.See? You’re not the odd human out, it’s fine. No one here even cares about that, probably.When he turned, she had a smile ready, eager for the solidarity of shared species-hood, but there was something in the man’s eye that made her shrink, her smile falling away. He wasridiculouslyhandsome, his thick dark hair matched by his bittersweet chocolate eyes, a square jaw with a wide mouth, automatically turning up in a grin, a dimple appearing in his cheek . . . but the silver gleam in those dark eyes marked him as something other, more in common with the elves and goblins than her. His polo bore the emblem of the local firehouse, she saw, her eyes dropping, heat warming her cheeks as he nodded to her, the blinding white of his teeth obliterating everything else in the room.
“There’s cream and sugar in the bag, Trapp!” the ewe-faced woman behind the counter said as he waved, the dreadlocked man behind the counter called out his own goodbye to the man before turning back to his espresso machine.
“What can we get for you today?”
Violet realized with a jolt that there was no one in front of her before the till, and that a smiling ewe-faced woman waited expectantly.
“Oh! Oh, um . . .” She’d been so wrapped up in watching the non-human residents, she had never glanced up to the menu, realizing too late that she had no idea what she wanted to order. The menu above was huge, she saw with a sinking heart, huge and unfamiliar, full of strange-sounding options that catered to the varied clientele. Her eyes zigzagged back and forth over menu items, absorbing none of it, her ability to read fleeing in her panic. Her brain seemed to freeze, grasping for something to blurt, her normal coffee order in the city, the mucky drink she’d tried at the little strip mall shop, anything at all that might break her muteness, but her mouth came up empty.Just say something!“I–um . . .”
“Is this your first time here?” the woman behind the counter asked kindly, perhaps intuiting that the human before her had completely lost her grasp of the common tongue, too wrapped up in gawking to even manage basic speech, smiling gently when Violet nodded with a flush.Gee, is it that obvious?“The honeycomb latte is the most popular thing on our menu, that’s what I’d recommend. It’s our house espresso roast and the honeycomb comes from one of the local farms.”
“Honey . . . that-that sounds perfect.” She sagged in relief, face burning in mortification, thankful for the woman’s patience. “I’ll try that, thank you.”
The little shop might need to be an only once-in-a-while luxury, she thought after swiping her card, the charge she just added to her bank card being pricier than even the chain near her apartment with the burnt coffee. The pick-up area was a press of bodies: small goblins and huge ogres, a graceful deer woman and a harpy with iridescent black feathers. The noise level was near deafening and Violet felt herself shrink, feeling awkward and out of place, wondering why she thought this was a good idea. She was going to find a corner to hide in, planned to grab her coffee and leave the moment her name was called . . . when an arm slipped through hers. A heady rush of perfume invaded her nostrils, bright white flowers and thick patchouli, the arm tugging her close with a determined strength, the clack and slide of several dozen bangles pressing into her forearm where she was gripped.
“Here you are, love! Come on, I got us a table already.”
The girl’s hair was bleached a silvery platinum blonde, spiky and shaved around her right ear, swinging long and silky past her left shoulder. Her piercing blue eyes were heavily lined in black with frosty white shadow, and they fixed on Violet with a heated intensity. She had no idea who this strange woman was, nor why she was acting like they were old acquaintances, but allowed herself to be pulled by the arm, too elated over not be the only human in attendance to care as the girl weaved through the packed pick-up area until they reached a tiny crescent of empty table, the spilled out contents of a well-worn black shoulder back holding it for their arrival. For the next seven minutes, she listened to the chattering woman tell an animated story about a man named Byron and his lack of common sense, his terrible sense of direction, and his inexplicable fear of water bears.
“I swear to fucking Dagda, I don’t understand how anyone can be that thick after an extra hundred and forty years to sort themselves.”
Violet nodded, utterly engrossed, despite not having any idea who Byron was, who this woman was or why she was acting as if they were old friends, nor what an extra hundred and forty years even meant. Her name was called at that moment by the elf at the counter, her eyes darting to the steaming cup that had been placed at the pick-up station amid half a dozen others and back to her unlikely companion, uncertain if she was allowed to leave.
“ ‘s’at you? Violet?” The girl stretched in her seat, craning her neck to see around a cluster of patrons at the bar, sagging in relief a moment later. “Perfect timing, that. He’s gone. Would you be a luvvie and snag mine while you’re up there? It’s the lavender Earl Grey for Gilly.”
Despite her earlier self-consciousness, Violet settled into her seat, the non-stop chatter and hum of the perpetually busy coffee shop settling into a pleasant white noise as she sipped her drink and listened to the girl. Her name was Geillis, and her pedestrian life as a university student had ended the night she was turned outside of a London concert hall in 1982. Violet had never met a vampire before, hadn’t considered that vampires might be out and about in the middle of the day or drinking tea, had certainly never dreamt that she’d be shanghaied by one, but as she savored the velvety smoothness of her drink—the rich, malty coffee sweetened with a thick cutting of golden honeycomb and turned rich with cream—listening to to girl’s heavily accented patter, she was incredibly grateful that she had been.
“Sorry ‘bout all that waffle, thanks a ton for playing along, love. I hate running into folks from work outside the context, you know?”
She nodded again, pretending that she had any commensurate experience with that sort of thing, imagining the oddly-dressed vampire to be some sort of businesswoman, not wanting to make small talk with the boss on her off hours. “Did one of your co-workers come in?”
“Not strictly speaking, one of our donors. It’s one thing to keep them entertained while you’re draining them, quite another to have to suffer a chin wag on your own time. If that numpty-headed Byron had come in I’d have—”
“Donors?” Violet interrupted, unable to help herself, straightening in her seat. Her stomach flip-flopped at Geillis’s words, trying to imagine making small talk with one of the Good Little Cows in the coffee line. “What-what do you mean donors? Draining them?”
“Right, at the restaurant. You ought to come by sometime, there’s a side menu for you bleeders, so everyone is happy. The whole menu isethically sourced, Ennis likes us to call it. The donors are screened every two weeks, no smoking, no drugs, clean eating for the duration of their contracts. About half of them are an easy go, just hook up the lines and have a chat. It’s the other half you have to bloody worry over. Think the second the needle goes into their skin is the perfect time to have a wank. It’s a fetish, being a feeder bleeder. Half the time they’ve got their pants open before I even get the tourniquet out.”
Violet gaped. The girl was so matter-of-fact, so blasé about the tawdrier aspects of her apparent job, a job that sounded suspiciously similar to Violet’s own. “Okay, wait . . . start over. Tell me everything.”
La Vie Rouge was a vampire-centric restaurant in Cambric Creek’s business district, she learned, catering to a fanged patronage, with a small menu of charcuterie boards and fruit plates for the regular clientele’s “dinner guests.” The proprietor, Ennis, had been a banker in his previous life; a respected member of his Victorian community with a wife and several children, before he’d been turned by a member of his church, a man with whom he’d had several sexual dalliances. Geillis told the story in a hushed voice, leaning over her cup of tea with bright, expressive eyes, and Violet was certain she could smell the petrichor from the rainy night she described, could see the steam rising off the pavement beneath the yellow glow of gas lamps as the man was bitten during a clandestine, back-alley assignation. The numpty-headed Byron was his partner, clinically inept and a disgrace to vampires everywhere, according to Geillis.
“I’m telling you, he must be bloody fucking brilliant in bed, tha’s the only reason I can think of for Ennis to have decided ‘wotcher, I’ve the whole world to pick from, but this gormless muppet is me true love.’ It’s the only explanation.”
“And you take the blood from the menu donors?” Violet went on, undeterred, a bubble of giddiness rising within her, “and sometimes they’rejerking off?!”
The two goblins at the adjacent table paused their conversation to glance up at her enthusiastic exclamation, as an orc at the table across from theirs raised a thick, dark eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of his full lips around his tusks. Heat burned up her neck, but she was too excited to be mortified.She has a job just like yours!Before the vampire could even respond, Violet was continuing, overwhelmed with the need to get it all out, to tell someone, to tell her everything.
“I work at Morning Glory Milking Farm, have you heard of it? I–we milk minotaurs. That’s-that’s my job. I’m a milking technician.”
Geillis’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ of surprise for several beats before her darkly-lined lips broke into a wolfish smile, showing off her pointed canines. “Minotaurs don’t have udders, not that I’m aware of . . . so what exactly is it you’re milking?” Violet didn’t need to answer, for the other girl had already dissolved into laughter, her platinum head dropping to the table.
“Well, that’s the best gig in town, innit? You at least get to work with big, beefy minotaurs. I’m stuck with humans! Mmmm, I’ll bet that’s some prime beef you get to manhandle . . .”
“Grade A certified,” she giggled, elation wiping out the previous afternoon’s melancholy. “Can you believe that’s a job?! Although, I would never have guessed being a literal menu item was a job either. I love it here, it’s just . . . it’s so different from everything I’m used to! The job pays really well, so I have no complaints.”
“Cheers to that,” the smiling vampire said, raising her paper cup. “This town is full of some odd ducks, but it’s nice having neighbors who aren’t rounding up pitchforks over every little thing. I can complain about Byron until Crackadam, but Ennis and the restaurant . . . it’s a good place to be. Promise you’ll come by some time!”
Violet tapped her nearly empty cup against the side of the other girls’, beaming. Shedidwant to visit the vampire restaurant, wanted to get a glimpse of the infamous Byron and learn what sorts of dishes were on the menu for the vampire clientele. She wanted to see what that intriguing little shop was with the stained glass windows and learn what a talon dip entailed at the nail salon; wanted to explore all of the interesting corners of Cambric Creek—which to her, would be all of it. There was nothing like this back home in her human neighborhood, nothing like this eclectic little coffee shop, catering to all of the different members of the community, and she’d certainly never have the chance to befriend a vampire if she were sitting there making stilted conversation with Carson Tinsley from up the street. She was glad she’d met Geillis, glad she’d made the time to come, Violet decided.He was right. It was worth it.