“Don’t leave me,” he said. “We just met.”
“Fuck, please don’t make me kill you tonight,” Nora said. “I’m busy.”
Unfortunately, the kid was strong. And he had a whole lotta liquid courage in him. He pulled her back against him once more, and Nora decided she was ready to break a law or two—especially when two of the boy’s “boys” noticed what was happening and started to cheer him on.
“Nice catch, man,” one said.
“Dude, don’t get us arrested,” a slightly sober one said.
Arrest was the least of their troubles. Nora raised her foot, fully intending to bring her high heel down on the boy’s toe.
And break it.
In many pieces.
She hoped he played football or soccer, that he was a prodigy, in fact…just so she could ruin his future.
Then one of the frat boys went flying.
Really, seriously, flying. One second, he was standing. The next second, he traveled through the air at a high velocity and landed a good ten feet away on the street. Bourbon Street. Which meant he was about to get a very nasty bacterial infection just from touching the concrete.
The frat boy let Nora go so fast, she stumbled again, this time against Cyrus who threw a protective arm around her.
“She fell, man,” the frat boy said. “I was just helping her.”
“Nora?”
“He grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go even after I told him twice,” Nora said.
Cyrus reached for the frat boy who tried to duck away but was just too drunk. Cyrus had him by the arms. “Where you from, jackass?” Cyrus demanded. He gave the boy a little shake.
“Back off, fuck. She fell.”
“You fall, Nora?”
“He hit me by accident, grabbed me on purpose.”
Cyrus shook the boy again.
“Where. You. From. Jack. Ass.” Cyrus spoke in terrifyingly calm and deliberate tones. Even Nora was a little nervous at what he’d do. She wished she had popcorn. This was a good show. A small crowd had gathered to watch it. Luckily they seemed to be on her and Cyrus’s side.
“California, man. Pasadena. Back the fuck off me!”
“Pasadena in the house!” Cyrus said. “Let me ask you something, Pasadena. You ever see me in California fucking with your California girls?”
“What?” The question didn’t seem to penetrate the boy’s brain.
“Did you? Ever. See me in California? Fucking with your California girls?”
“I never seen you,” the boy said.
“Right. Cause I don’t go to other towns and fuck with their ladies. So you don’t come to my town and fuck with our ladies. You come to my town and fuck with our ladies, we fuck you up. We fuck you up New Orleans-style. We fuck you up until you can’t get un-fucked. You got it?”
“Fuck off, bro.”
Nora slapped the boy on his sweaty pink cheek.
“That’s fuck off, sir, to you,” she said. Cyrus cackled a little.
“I’ll let you go,” Cyrus said. “But I see you fuck with one more New Orleans lady, I will absolutely kill you. Kill you all the way gone. They gonna find you floating in the Mississippi, and when the cops ask me why I did it, I’ll tell ’em you got rough with one of our ladies. And then they’ll say, ‘Sorry to bother you.’ That’s how we do it down here. You got it, son? You got it?”
“I got it, I got it.”
Cyrus let the boy go.
Nora, however, did not. Before he could take one drunken step away, she brought her heel down on his toe.
And the jackass was wearing Birkenstocks. On Bourbon Street. Where public urination was nearly as common as public intoxication. Kid had it coming.
The boy screamed redrum, and there was no doubt in Nora’s mind she had broken the holy living shit out of his toe.
Cyrus looked at her, his eyes wide as two shot glasses.
“I was just trying to scare him,” Cyrus said.
“Yeah, well, I was just trying to break his fucking foot so he can never walk straight again.”
“You fucking bitch,” the boy keened in his delightful agony. His face was blood red and he was writhing in pain. “What’s wrong with you, you psycho?”
“Do you have all night?” Nora asked him. “Five bucks says he calls me a cunt next,” Nora said. “Wait for it.”
She won the bet.
Cyrus oh-so graciously allowed Pasadena’s two drunk friends to pick him up and cart him off.
“Bye, boys,” Nora called after them.
Cyrus couldn’t help himself. He’d been wanting to try it since yesterday. As the boys carted their limping comrade off, he made the “shooing” hand gesture.
“It does work,” he said, nodding.
When they walked off, nobody got in their way.
Chapter Nineteen
The bartender told them the vampire in question was on a tour right now, but would be back in fifteen or twenty minutes. In the meantime, Cyrus bought them a second round. He had another beer, and Nora had another rum and Coke, hold the Coke.
Cyrus took a long deep draw on his beer.
“Can I say something?” He put his beer bottle on the bar.
“Say it,” she said.
“You are one crazy bitch.”
Nora laughed deep and low and hard. She took his statement in the spirit intended—as a compliment.
“Weren’t you scared back there?” he asked.
“In the moment, you’re more mad than scared. That’s all adrenaline.”
“You scared now?”
“I’m glad they’re gone, I’ll say that. I’ve been manhandled a lot in my life. You never get used to it. And it’s never fun.”
He picked up his beer again. “Fuck is wrong with kids these days.”
“You were really good there.” Nora rested her head on her fist, elbow on the bar. “They teach you that in cop school? How to scare the shit out of drunk frat boys?”
“We learn a few tricks. Not your tricks. That was a helluva trick.”
“It was either his foot or his balls. Which would you rather have busted?”
“What if he’s really hurt, though? Like for real. That bother you?”
“He could have hurt me for real. You think I should feel guilty?”
“Oh, fuck no.”
“And this,” she said, “is why we’re friends.”
They clinked glasses.
And that’s when the vampire arrived.
No missing the man. He stood nearly seven feet tall in his leather platform boots and top hat. He wore gobs of black eyeliner, and when he grinned hungrily at her, she saw he’d filed his canine teeth into points. Leather jacket, of course. Long black hair, of course. Black fingernails filed into points as sharp as he teeth, of course. He was about as scary as a vampire in a kids’ cartoon.
Nora liked him immediately.
Cyrus took a long deep drink of his beer, put the bottle down on the counter, and said, “Be right back.”
The vampire tour guide stood near the doorway of the darkened bar with his arms crossed over his chest.
Cyrus turned and pointed to Nora. The vampire grinned. Then he lightly slapped Cyrus on the shoulder and walked over to her.