Vampire Cafe

Kit has only two rules for her employees.

1. Do not fall for the immortal customers.

2. If you break rule no. 1, don't come crying to her.

I laughed, out loud, when she told me those rules on my first day. Because who in their right mind would fall for one of the undead customers that frequents a cafe on the border of our worlds? Kit's Cafe is the edge, the precipice of the humans and the unnatural creatures that rule the night. Shelly in accounting is grabbing a twenty ounce, extra hot white mocha, with two pumps of hazelnut at eight in the morning before a day of numbers and spreadsheets. While Count Von Trucci is downing a double espresso iced creme brûlée latte at midnight so he has enough energy to haunt aristocrats. I should also note that Count Trucci will eat at least one human during a haunt, Shelly just has her kale crunch and half an apple to get her through the day.

Four years later and I still wasn't over the fact that we regularly served boogie man. He was much less boogie than I'd assumed, but I have gotten over his terrible drink orders. Some other undead creature told him at one point that we have a secret menu, we do. But he thinks the point of that menu is to order obscene things and slurp them down while I quietly gag behind the counter.

"Annnd... cottage cheese for the Boogie Man." The boogie man growled out the last ingredient and I nodded with pursed lips. I smiled through his third person speech every day.

"Burnt beans. Salami. And cottage cheese?" I asked again in disbelief. The sandwiches were already made for the day, I'd have to take one apart just to collect the damn salami.

"Yesss." And the boogie man attempted a smile. I collected a handful of gold coins and popped them into our undead till before turning to start on the drink. "Thanks, Deli."

I gave him a tight lipped smile. Yes, my name is Deli. Like the deli meat I'm currently swiping from the sandwiches I prepped at six this morning when I opened. Shelby called out sick again, so Kit asked me to close. But when half of your customers are only awake at night, your hours are a little different. I glanced at the clock, half past one in the morning. Thirty minutes until we closed. I could make it.

I plopped the slices of meet in the bottom of the glass and placed it under the machine. I poured a double serving of our oldest roast, set out on the counter just for creatures like the boogie man, and let it drip. Steam sizzled alongside the pour and I dug in the fridge for the cottage cheese.

"Secret menu," I scoffed to myself. "With this one he's lucky if he even makes it to his haunt before he's behind a tree in the woods of Norway spilling his guts."

"That would be unfortunate, wouldn't it?" A smooth voice jerked me from my thoughts and I moved too fast, knocking my head on the counter as I stood up.

"Oof!" My hand flew to the back of my head and I fisted it to keep from scolding the customer.

He watched my struggle with little amusement in his red rimmed eyes. Perfect lips tilted into a smirk and I wondered if he could smell the swelling in my brain, or if he was just enjoying my suffering.

"I'll have–."

"Yes, double shot, hot, half a pump of caramel, raw milk." I waved a hand in his general direction. I was too tired for the formalities that Kit tried to enforce on us.

Usually I was much better. More put together, smiles, little to no sarcastic quips, but they caught me on a bad day. The worst actually, because today was the day I would hear back about the audition that I'd worked all year for. And instead of being at home, in my studio apartment with my comfort food, a bottle of cheap rose, and my baby blanket, I was here. My phone stuffed so deep in my purse I hoped it found itself the door to another dimension and disappeared. I refused to check it, willing myself to wait until I was done work.

No crying in the customer's coffee, Deli. I took a deep breath and turned to start making the King's drink. He watched from the counter as he always did. The first few times he'd made comments about my technique, and the quivering girl I'd been had nearly passed out under his assessing gaze. Twenty-eight and I'd never been studied so carefully by a man–alive or undead.

Kit new very little about the King, and I hadn't learned much else since I'd started working here. He wasn't a regular, but we saw him on occasion, a sort of demanding presence. Like life redirected toward him. Kit explained him as a sort of vampire, but as I'd watched him I knew he was much more deadly.

Nothing seemed to agitate him. In fact he seemed to enjoy chaos. Crying baby goblins, coffee that was too hot, not even a sliced finger that spilt blood and caused a commotion for a group of teenage girl zombies. He escorted them out and thanked me for his drink while I wrapped my finger in a bandage of white rose petals, a natural repellent of the undead.

I was pouring the hot milk into the black to-go cup and I almost missed the slight twitch in his right eye. He was staring at the cup, his lips pressed into a thin line and I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

"Something wrong?" I asked.

"That umm... Is there delicatessen meat in my drink?" The King pointed to the cup and I look down.

Horror washed over me as I realized I'd picked up the boogie man's cup and started pouring the raw milk over his unfinished drink. I stopped the pour and glanced over at the boogie man who was none the wiser and staring out the cafe window at the drizzling rain. I shot another look and threatening stare at the King as I scooped a plop of cottage cheese and added it to the drink. There, all the ingredients, no charge for the raw milk.

"Boogie Man," I called and placed a lid on the top.

He spun around and stalked toward the counter. In one swipe the drink was in his hand, and another it was being loudly gurgled and sloshed around inside whatever flesh made up his body. I turned away before the scent could hit me again and returned to the King's drink.

"My King!" The boogie man noticed the other customer and dropped to a knee with a bow. I watched as the King raised a palm in thanks then and ordered him to stand again. "Congratulations on the developments in the Ether Realm–."

The King raised a finger to his lips and then pointed at me. The boogie man pressed his lips together and raised two hands in apology.

"Boogie Man meant no harm, my liege." The boogie man croaked in submission.

"No harm fallen. Happy haunting, Bartholomew." The King dismissed him.

"That one might be a Boogie Man favorite, Deli." The boogie man hissed and tossed his cup in the trash bin. "Let Boogie know next time it is on the secret menu." He called over his shoulder before he slipped out into the rain and then dissipated into a mist of shadows.

I shook my head in disbelief. He truly comprehended nothing.

"Secret menu?" The King lifted a perfectly trimmed silver brow a single millimeter and I wondered if I imagined it. I'd be lying and dumb if I said he wasn't gorgeous, but I would expect that from the King of the Undead. Except he was more than gorgeous. A jaw and cheekbone that looked carved from marble, and the only undead that even resembled having a tan. The red glint of his eyes was delicious, like rich wine, and the spiky tips of his silver hair were so different from the blondes and brunettes of the human world. Chiseled muscle flexed even under the tight layers of his suit and dark trench coat.

Someone cleared their throat and I snapped my eyes shut. "Not fair." I grumbled.

"I had very little to do with it, Deliic–I mean Deli." The King replied, using my preferred nickname.

I knew he had very little to do with it, he couldn't help it. One look in those eyes, and the string of thoughts that could keep you there amplified. The first time I'd looked in them it had been fear. Blood and gore had threatened to drag me under but Kit had been there and helped shake me out of it. It was a part of his biology, his eyes were a web and I'd been trapped more times than I cared to admit.

"Was it bad?" Something like concern laced the words.

Horrible. I wanted to say. Because I should have seen nightmares but instead I'd seen red rooms and whispered promises in the night.

"Can you see the things you make us see?" I half-laughed. Dread winding in my gut.

"Only if I feed on you afterward." He admitted with a soft shrug.

"Good to know." I muttered under my breath and poured the new steamed milk in his drink. "The secret menu is a real menu, but he has the concept for confused and when he comes in he just lists random ingredients and I put it in a cup." I watched the concern etch into the corners of the King's eyes and then it was gone. "The boogie man's real name is Bartholomew?" I handed him the cup, careful to avoid his skin, fearing it would send me into another fit of dreams.

"One of them," he sipped the hot drink. I didn't wait for any approval, I knew it wouldn't come from him.

"One?"

"Yes. One of the boogie men is named Bartholomew. There is also Brutus, Backslaw, Bolifond, Bulb–."

"There are more?!" I almost shrieked.

"Yes," The flash of concern on his face told me that it should be obvious. "They are all frequent customers."

Four years and I'd never noticed. "So that's why they never remember what they ordered. Do they all speak in third person?"

"Yes. I suppose they are quite co-dependent. They would prefer to like what the other likes, coffee is no different."

I had many questions, but I wasn't sure the King was the right person to ask so I just nodded and turned to cleaning the machine. It was unusually quiet tonight, and the King and I had already exchanged more words than we ever had. I expected he'd slip out into the woods and disappear before I looked up again.

When I glanced at the place where he had been my mouth popped open, because for whatever reason he was still there. Amused curiosity on his face and I quickly looked away.

"Was there something else I could get for you?" I asked.

"Would Kit discharge you if I asked you to join me in a booth?" His head was tilted to one side and I knew I couldn't reject his invitation.

"Do you mean fire me?" I laughed. "No, I'm one of the few willing to make the drive out here at five in the morning each day for you coffee addicts."

It's true, not very many were willing to drive this far into the borderlands of our worlds. There was always the possibility that I could get stomped on by Bigfoot, chased by werewolves, or eaten by giant worm. But the pay was good, and Kit was family. When she first told me about the cafe, I'd just dropped out of my Master's english lit program. Of course I didn't believe her, but with no plan and a dry market for literature graduates, I had no where else to go.

I met her here the next morning at six am on the dot. She'd explained the basics, like how our cafe has a portal hold on a cafe on the edge of the city center, a major traffic hub. A Portal hold means our cafe is there for us to hand the drinks over what our customers think is just a normal counter, but it's not. I'd asked her if she knew of any other portals in the human world and she had just made the locking her lips motion.

It made sense though, the cafe had to be in the land of the undead. They couldn't venture into the human world in their natural forms, it took too much power. They only summoned their forms for haunts, usually earned by the mortal. And everyone deserves to get their coffee in their natural form, that and most cafe's are closed when they all head to work.

"Sure," I shrugged and turned to hop over the counter. I untied my apron and tossed it on the counter before grabbing my own drink and sliding into a booth. "But you'll need to do something about the eyes." I added with my own hand covering mine.

"Of course," his deep voice almost sounds amused. "Better?" He asked and I peeked through my fingers. He had tied a black sash around his eyes and a smirk danced on his lips.

"That will work. So, what can I do for you, King of Nightmares, Ruler of the Darklands, Death and Darkness?"

A muscle feathered in his jaw and I watched it with too much attention. I really hoped he could not see through that sash.

"What do you know about the Ether Realm?"

My gut twisted. I was a fool. An absolute fool. He was not trying to chat with me, he wants to know what if I know anything about the information that boogie man let slip. My hands became slick with sweat and I sat up straighter.

"I don't really know anything. I mean I know it's a place, but where or what it is, I'm not sure." My hands fidgeted in my lap. Fool. I pinched my eyes shut again.

This was a man of grace, and a lethal predator. His entire being existed to tempt mortals into his arms, a meal. That is all humans were. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The women that tempted this man were probably goddesses among the dead. With their supernatural hair, unnerving eyes, and porcelain skin that could cut with just a touch.

I was not plain by normal standards, in fact I was quite proud of my natural red hair. It made me stand out in auditions. But compared to the ghostly beauties I saw in the cafe on a nightly basis, I was a dull heartbeat in a land of silent nightmares.

"Your heart has jumped and skipped several times since I asked you that question." The King's sash tilted slightly to one side and I imagined he was lifting a brow underneath it. "Do you speak the truth?"

"Yes!" I threw my hands on the table. "Can I not just be intimidated in your presence?" I rolled my eyes.

"You could. But I suspect there is another reason."

"Well it isn't the Ether." I crossed my arms. "In our world the Ether is sort of like a heaven. Paradise. That is the goal, make it to Ether and you live like an angel. Peace and bliss."

"Interesting." The King muttered. "And what do you think of the Darklands?"

"That's where you guys roam. Haunting and hunting. Lost souls, those who cross over, and the truly bad guys from my world."

He chuckled softly at that.

Instinctively I glanced at the clock on the wall. Ten more minutes and I can check my phone.

"Waiting for something?" The King stole my thoughts.

I shook my head. "Just ready for today to be over."

"You are not the only one." He sighed and stood, removing the sash. I caught the sight of those red irises before quickly looking away.

"Isn't your day just starting?" I stood up.

"My days are never ending and never starting." The King offered me a wicked smile and it made my skin crawl.

He slipped out into the rainy night and I decided we were closing early. Flipping the door locked and shutting the blinds I quickly cleaned up the cafe and checked that the sweeping I had done earlier was sufficient.

"Sorry, Kit." I muttered as I hung up my apron. "I'll do better tomorrow." I sighed and went to the hook where my jacket and purse were. I tossed the jacket on and grabbed my purse, my fingers flexing with each step to my car in the back. I locked the back door, and not sure I could confine myself to my small car just yet, I dug for my phone. The screen lit up, and I skimmed the email.

"YES!" I screeched and I didn't care which undead creature heard me. "I did it!" My eyes burned as I read it again, the congratulations and invitation in bold letters. Breath and words escaped me.

"Did what?" A voice appeared next to me and I cursed throwing a fist out as my heart hammered in my chest.

The King was looking at me with his head cocked to one side, silver hair wet from the mist and red eyes that slipped into my soul.

"The play," I gasped for air as I avoided his stare. "I got the part." I couldn't help the smile that burst onto my lips and I laughed again.

"Which play?" He asked.

"Romeo and Juliet. I'm Juliet." Saying it out loud was surreal. I'd done it.

But something uncoiled in me, like an eye cracking open as the King smirked once more and nodded before speaking.

"How fitting." His smile was made of nightmares, but for whatever reason, I was not afraid.