Pretty When She Dies (Pretty When She Dies #1)(37)

Austin was still suffering growing pains as it evolved from a college town to a full blown city. The capital city of Texas was finally stepping fully into its role. The downtown was growing rapidly with new high rises being built and the suburbs and surrounding towns were expanding rapidly. Its high tech industries were still a huge draw to countless people looking not only for a good place to live, but a high paying job. And yet, it was still a music capital, college town, and magnet for the artistic and wild at heart.

As she had driven past the University of Texas, she had felt a pang of remorse as she remembered her short time there as a student. If any time in her life had actually seemed good, it was the year she had spent in Austin attending the university.

She loved Austin and the old landmarks welcomed her. The UT Tower was illuminated orange and the dome of the Capitol Building glowed white in the darkness.

Just as early morning traffic had started up, she had found a hotel near downtown and paid for three nights in advance. As she had before, she duct taped the curtains to the wall, then hung up another blanket over it. This time she remembered the sunlight creeping in under the door and laid a rolled up towel up against the bottom of it.

She had slept soundly and without interruption.

Tonight, when she had woken up, she had known she needed to feed soon. Her heart was sluggishly beating and she felt the growing need in the core of her. Rolling out of bed, she had wandered past the covered mirror into the bathroom for a shower. Staring at the toilet, she realized she hadn't used one in days and it appeared she never would. With a shrug, she closed it and sat down on the cold lid. She contemplated her plans for the night.

Get something...err...someone to eat.

Go to the Goth club.

Find a vampire.

See, Sergio, she thought. I can make a plan.

After a quick shower, she found a black skirt with a skeleton dancing down the side of it buried at the bottom of her bag. It had a cool look: as if it strips of cloth had been sewn together just randomly. The skeleton glittered on it with a big grin and she loved it. A black lace tank top, black bra, and her high-heeled Mary Janes seemed like a good combo for a goth club. People mistook her for goth anyway with her black hair and fetish for black. Normal people never knew the difference between all the subcultures anyway.

Dressing quickly, she decided to try to put on makeup. She immediately realized it would not be an easy task. The mascara was relatively easy, but the eyeliner was a total bitch. She hoped it looked okay, because it felt wrong. Trying to figure out how much of her rose blush was too much was another challenge. Staring into the empty compacts was very disconcerting and she finally tossed the makeup back into her bag and tucked her money into her bra.

After pulling the furniture away from the door, she let herself out of the hotel room and headed to her car. There was actually quite a lot of people in the parking lot. A lot of them were young people that were probably in town for a concert or just to party. Walking to the Lincoln, she pulled out her lipstick from between her breasts and soon her lips were bright red. Tucking the tube back in her bra, she unlocked her car and got in.

Traffic to downtown Austin was picking up as people headed out to Austin's famous 6th Street to party away Hump Day. She knew from the past that the clubs had all sorts of specials throughout the week to keep people coming out even if they did have work in the morning. It would not be as crazy as it was Friday and Saturday night when the clubs and bars on both 6th Street and Warehouse District were overwhelmed by throngs of people heading out for fun.



She also knew from experience exactly where the Goth club, Elysium, was. She had hung out there a few times, when she was in college, with a few friends that skirted between all the alternative scenes.

Pulling into a parking lot a block from the club, she waited for a guy in the wheelchair to come over. Once she paid, he would hand her the slip of paper to put on her dashboard that would keep her car from being towed. He had a fistful of money and handed her the pink slip with a smile. Smiling back, she tucked it into a visible place on the dashboard, and then slid out of the car.

“Busy tonight?”

“Not like Saturday. That' s five dollars,” he answered.

She fished a twenty out of her bra and handed it to him. Nonplussed by this, he counted out her change, and handed it to her. “Be careful.”

“Will do,” she assured him, and walked up the cracked sidewalk toward the club. Elysium sat on the corner a block from 6th Street and was painted entirely black. Ignoring the comments from the guys lurking outside the Salvation Army homeless shelter, she straightened her shoulders and prepared herself.

Maybe it was a cliché, but the only place she could think of to find a vampire was the Goth club. It just seemed like a place an undead f*cker would hang out. Of course, she could be horribly wrong and he could be up at the cowboy club on Burnet street, but Elysium seemed like a good place to start.

When she reached the large imposing bouncer sitting on his stool outside the club, she gave him a fierce look, and said, “I'm over twenty-one.”

“Let me see your license,” he answered.

Shit.

Her powers weren't working. And she was getting hungrier.

Sighing, she fished it out of her bra and handed it to him. She was terrified he would recognize her as the girl who was missing from the supposed Satanic massacre. He glanced at it and handed it back to her with a bored look on his face. She scurried inside as soon as he tagged her with a wrist band of orange florescent yuckiness and paid a pretty girl behind the counter to enter the club.