* * *
After three hundred years, Alistair Prescott Pennington was accustomed to being the center of attention at social events. He was young when he was ushered into unlife, barely over twenty years and having seen little of the world past his small English village. His artistic talents caught the eye of a passing ancient, who swept him away into the macabre grandeur of the undying society of the night. Alistair willingly gave up his life’s blood to transcend his drab, common mortal existence.
At first, he knew only emotional turmoil and angst-oh, the angst! — but with time, Alistair adapted to the realities of unlife. His artistic and social acumen served him well, both in mortal circles and among the undead. His unending youth also worked to great advantage. Alistair’s eternally young face and voice allowed him to keep current and blend in with the mortal world. He found little difficulty in feeding.
His current dalliance was Brittany, a lovely, buxom young blonde college student enchanted by Alistair’s deeply thoughtful eyes and his dark, mysterious styles. Alistair arrived outside her window an hour past sunset. Tonight she asked, breathlessly dazzled as always by his dark charms, if he would accompany her to a party.
Brittany’s eyes shimmered with joy when he said he would love to meet her friends. She knew he would be a great hit, being so worldly and magnetic and talented. Alistair knew it, too…
…until they arrived, and hardly anyone noticed him. Oh, he and Brittany made an entrance. He came through the door, brooding and enigmatic with the lovely, innocent blonde on his arm. Heads turned. Conversations fell to murmurs. Brittany’s grip on his forearm tensed as she realized with excitement that all eyes were on her-well, on him, anyway. But she was with him and that was exciting enough in its own right.
Then someone pressed through the crowd and said, “Ohmygosh, Brittany, you’re here! You’ve gotta see! There’s fire dancing outside!”
Brittany hardly hesitated. The vampire’s skin paled an extra shade lighter as people rose from the foyer and the living room, all headed to the rear of the house. Alistair let his date pull free from him. He wanted nothing to do with terrible, dreadful flames.
He stood in the foyer alone as VNV Nation began blasting outside and party guests began to whistle and cheer. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Alistair followed out into the spacious backyard. He was quite content to lurk at the rear of the crowd, eventually finding a planter upon which he could stand balanced with his inhuman grace.
That grace, he found, was quickly put to shame.
She was beautiful, clad in a tiny, flattering black party dress, a black pearl choker and a charming, confident, arousing smile. Her long black hair was swept back in a simple ponytail. In her hands spun contact juggler’s sticks, burning at each end. To either side of her in the damp grass sat small jars of some slow-burning fuel.
He overheard from someone in the crowd that this was entirely improvised. Sherri, the hostess, happened to have a few of the right toys; the rest was all thrown together from her absent family’s camping gear. Someone brought the stereo system down from an upstairs bedroom. Had Alistair not heard that, he’d never have imagined that this could be unrehearsed.
The vampire couldn’t get over her appalling comfort with fire. She spun those sticks terrifyingly close to her flesh, tossing and catching them even at their burning tips and twirling them between and around her limbs, her waist and even her neck. Her legs extended and bent and swayed with mesmerizing sensuality.
Her performance went through a single song, thrilling the mortals but leaving Alistair shaken. Someone cued up the next song as she twirled the sticks with great speed to blow out the flames. Then she reached out her hand to someone else in the audience who provided a can of some clear liquid-more fuel, of course-and two thinner sticks with their tips wrapped with cloth or pitch or some other covering that would hold a flame.
Another song by the same band began. She dipped her sticks in the fuel, then in the flame of a jar next to her, and her performance grew doubly unsettling to the vampire. As she danced, she would trace one end of a stick across her flesh-an arm, a leg, even across the top of that magnificent chest-and leave the trail of fuel on her skin burning for a second or two before rubbing it out with a single, smooth swipe of her hand.
Alistair had seen such things before, but rarely so close. It wasn’t the sort of thing that the undead looked upon with keen interest. His kind, for all their resilience, was at least as flammable as mortal man.
“My love!” she called out, her face glowing with an alluring smile, “Do you trust me?”
The answer came from within the audience: “With my life,” said a young man in jeans and a black button-down shirt. Catcalls and whistles erupted from the crowd.
She took full advantage of the innuendo suggested by her audience, beckoning him forward. “Come to me, my love,” she urged him, fixing him with a smoldering gaze that got the audience howling. Her fingers twirled a flaming stick even as they gestured to him. The young man obeyed confidently, standing still before her at her direction. Alistair found him passably handsome and acceptably dressed, but not particularly stylish. He seemed strikingly ordinary next to her.
The dancer slid around him, bending and twisting and even grinding. Her lover seemed to understand that he served mostly as a prop for her performance. He had the rhythm and confidence to fit with her, and had good instincts for when to slip an arm around her waist or along whichever leg she threw around his hips, but he did nothing to distract the audience from her. The flames swept all around him, often coming very close. Alistair would have fled in terror in the first seconds, but this youth seemed to put his life in the dancer’s hands with genuine comfort.
Then she escalated to fire-eating, which sent a shudder through Alistair’s undead body. She doused one flaming side of her thin stick in her mouth. She extinguished another the same way… until it became clear that she had only allowed the still-burning fuel to drip into her mouth. With a puff, she re-ignited her torch. She teased the crowd with this twice, and in the end with her back to her lover she dripped and dripped flaming liquid onto her tongue before she extinguished the last of her sticks.
She turned her lover, ensuring that they both stood side-on to the audience, and pulled him close while the flame burned on her tongue. It went out with their kiss, which was long, deep and loudly encouraged by the audience.
The performance set a tone for the night. Late arrivals would only be swept away by the energy. Alistair realized that for once he would not likely be the center of attention.
* * *
“I believe I saw a vampire enter,” observed a voice coming from over Rachel’s shoulder.
The angel sat on a rooftop overlooking the party, her legs gathered up against her chest with her arms around them. “Yeah. Saw ‘im.”
“You are not concerned?” Hannah asked.
“Short bus kids of the supernatural,” Rachel snorted. “If Alex can’t handle one of them on his own, let alone Lorelei, then I’ve misjudged this whole situation so badly I’ll apologize to everyone and take every shit job that comes down the pike for the next hundred years.”
The older angel smiled at Rachel fondly before taking a seat beside her. “You are not prone to making apologies.”
“Nope.”
“Yet you’ve always been proactive. I’m surprised you don’t go deal with him anyway.”
“I want them to have this weekend together. You saw them in the backyard just now, didn’t you?” Rachel’s tone was wistful. “I’ve been watching them since last night. They’re beautiful together.”
“Yet you sound sad. Are you bothered by this morning?”
“No,” Rachel said. “Michael wasn’t mad. You’re not mad. Everyone else can eat me.”