Wayward Son (Simon Snow, #2)(60)

It’s nothing like the club that Simon and I visited in London. Those vampires were lying low. These vampires want to be seen—and admired. They aren’t especially beautiful. (Though some are.) That’s a myth, I think—vampire beauty. What they are is especially rich. And especially … liquid. They move like oil, like shadows. Like cats.

Is this what I look like? Like I don’t have any parts that stick?

Everyone is drinking. So I look for the bar and find it along the wall. I pour myself something golden, just to have something to do with my hands.

I told Simon I’d be fine here, and I will be. I’ve been to a hundred of my parents’ parties—I know how to stand around wealthy people and look bored. Though these people don’t look bored.…

A few of them are dancing. There isn’t a dance floor; they’re just dancing wherever they happen to be standing. Two women are kissing very passionately in one of the window seats.

There are Normals here, too. At least a few. I smell their heartbeats. If Penelope and Simon were here, that’d be it—they’d do whatever they had to do to save the Normals.

But I want to save Agatha.

And I want to crush these NowNext people before they take hold. The dragon was right, vampires mustn’t learn to Speak—no one should be allowed to be both.

I walk up to a group of four or five people, hoping to introduce myself, but they break up shortly after I join them. I stand there for a moment staring down at my drink, pretending I intended it to go that way.

A very beautiful woman—a girl my age—stumbles past me, laughing. There’s blood streaked down her neck, and she isn’t wearing shoes. My nostrils burn. A few of the other vampires turn away from their conversations to glance at her. Four hands catch her by the waist and pull her into the crowd.

“Hello,” someone says over my shoulder. I turn away from the girl’s scent.

It’s a man. Well, it’s a vampire. Like me. Though not exactly like me.… Shorter, slighter, a different shade of pale. His eyes are sparkling, like I’ve already done something to amuse him. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asks.

I hold up my still-full glass.

The vampire tilts his head and smiles. “You’re … not from around here, are you?”

I try to sparkle back. “Is it that obvious?”

He smiles, but there’s a flash of something else. “It is now. London?”

“By way of Hampshire.”

“I know it well.” He holds out his hand. “Lamb.”

I take it. “Chaz.” (Bunce thought I should use something that sounds like my real name, so I’d still turn my head if I heard it.) His hand strikes me as cold, but it isn’t really—it’s only as cold as mine. I clear my throat. “You’ve been to Hampshire?”

He feigns heartbreak. “Have I been gone so long? Do I pass as an American now?”

“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I take it back.” He seems utterly American to me. Or maybe I just mean utterly vampire—with his periwinkle shirt and his unfashionably extravagant auburn hair. It’s cut all at one length, loose and shiny, just below the tips of his ears. He pushes it out of his face, and it falls silkily back. He’s clearly one of those vampires contributing to the myth of beauty.

“I can already tell you’re going to be good for me, Chaz. Round out my vowels, firm up my t’s.… What brings you so far from home?”

“I’m here on holiday. I’ve always wanted to see Las Vegas.”

“That’s a long flight,” Lamb says. “Did you fill your shampoo bottles with O-negative—or make intimate friends with the person sitting next to you on the plane?”

I laugh, hoping it’s at least partly a joke. “I fasted. It helps with the jet lag.”

To my relief, he laughs, too.

“You must have made the trip yourself,” I say.

“Indeed. Though it was a long boat ride then.” He takes a drink. “Next time”—he nods at the door—“wrangle an invitation before you drop into a party. You know how we are, no one around here trusts a new face. And you’re ‘new’ for at least the first hundred years.…”

“Shame that I’ve only got two weeks before I’m due home.” I take a drink, first trying hard not to gape. (Hundred years? Boats? Did he come over on the Titanic?) And then trying harder not to gag. (What the devil am I drinking, lamp oil?)

I mean, I’ve wondered, of course I’ve wondered—do vampires grow old? Can they live forever?

How old is this Lamb? He looks older than me—30, maybe 35. Could he be one hundred and thirty-five?

I try to steady myself. Keep it light, Basilton. Keep it casual.

“So why did you decide to talk to me?” I ask him, not ready to look up from my drink. “Was it pity? Or is it your job to send me on my way?”

“Not at all,” he says. “I appreciate a new face.…”

I look up and meet his eyes.

He’s waiting for that—he smiles. “So. You have two weeks to sample our famous Las Vegas charm.”

I nod.

“Honestly, Chaz, I don’t know why you’d ever go home. I haven’t.”

“Is it so good here?”