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  Vampire Punk

  A Daughters of Hecate Companion Novella

  Meredith Medina

  FireHive Media

  Copyright © 2018 by Meredith Medina

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Daughters of Hecate

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  8. Epilogue

  Also by Meredith Medina

  SNEAK PEEK ~ Twice Cursed ~ Chapter 1

  About the Author

  Daughters of Hecate

  Each of the novels in the Daughters of Hecate series is a standalone part of the series.

  * * *

  To read in order:

  Witchmark - Prequel (Ophelia’s history)

  Sticks & Stones - Book 1 (Ophelia’s story)

  Moonlight Burns - Book 2 (Maia’s story)

  Power of Three - Book 3 (Lacey’s story)

  Vampire Punk (Eli’s Story) ~ available to newsletter subscribers only

  Coming Soon:

  Haven - Book 4

  1

  I knew that coming to New York City in the dead of winter wasn’t the sharpest thing I’d ever done, but I was 21 and no one could tell me shit about what I was doing with my life.

  That’s what I liked about Sid. He didn’t give a fuck.

  He was like me.

  I knew if we met we’d be great pals. He might even introduce me to his friends… his manager. I was a singer too, it might be the ‘in’ I needed. Sid had gotten into the Pistols just by being in the room… I could do that too. I’d played in bands since I was a teenager, school bands, garage bands, if someone gave me a mic and a stage, I’d sing for them until they kicked my ass or kicked me out. There was just one problem. Staying in one place wasn’t getting me anywhere fast.

  Hitching up to Brooklyn wasn’t a problem, I’d seen most of the eastern seaboard that way. The rules are simple: watch your ass, watch your mouth, never take food from strangers and always say ‘thanks for the lift,’ like your mother taught you. Easy.

  The Pistols had split up two weeks into their tour, and if I was going to get anything done, I’d have to get to New York and into Sid’s inner circle faster than I’d planned. Maybe he’ll need a backup singer. That’s what my friend’s had said. They lent me money for food and told me to remember them when I got famous.

  Sure. Anything for you guys.

  I’m a really bad liar. I’d forgotten them as soon as I snagged my first ride.

  * * *

  I’d only been in the city for a few days, and found my way to Brooklyn without knowing where the hell I was going. The clubs were full of rumors.

  Sid was in jail for murder… he’d killed his girlfriend, Nancy.

  Maybe it was drugs, maybe it wasn’t. Maybe someone else had done it. Maybe it was suicide. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe it was all bullshit.

  Whatever the truth was, Sid wasn’t performing, and no one knew when he’d be out.

  A day later I heard he was out on bail and ready to party, and on a night like that, the only place to be was the Spiral Club, a (literally) underground punk club with one entrance, one exit, drug dealers hiding in plain sight, and some of the toughest bouncers in the city.

  This was my chance, and nothing in the world could have kept me from standing in line freezing my ass off while I waited for Spiral’s doors to open on that February night so that I could meet the man who could make or break my career.

  “What are you doing here,” the bouncer growled as he glared down at me.

  “What does it look like?”

  He didn’t scare me. Sure he was big, but I’d seen bigger. I’d stared down scarier.

  The bouncer’s expression didn’t change, but his eyebrow lifted slightly over the edge of his Ray Ban’s. “I don’t see you on my list.”

  “That’s because I don’t need to be on no fucking list,” I snapped. Sometimes all it took was bravado and balls to get what you wanted, and I had enough of both. Act like you own the place and it’s yours.

  A slender man in leather pants and blue tinted sunglasses leaned against a tree nearby. Watching. I hate ‘watchers,’ but any audience was a good enough audience for me.

  His hair was long, blond and softly curled, grown out ringlets that the owner didn’t quite know how to tame. He smirked in my direction and I felt a little bolder.

  “Look,” I said in a conspiratorial tone. “If you let me in, I’ll mention you to Sid, maybe he can get you a little something…”

  “The bouncer’s eyebrow rose higher and I wished that I could see the expression in his eyes as he processed what I’d said. I was talking out of my ass, obviously, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Sid, huh,” he replied after a moment. He looked me up and down before speaking again, in the same conspiratorial tone that I’d used on him. “You’ve got a pretty high opinion of yourself, don’t you?”

  I grinned as he reached down to unhook the rope that blocked the club’s only entrance. I looked back over my shoulder as I passed him. “Wouldn’t you?”

  * * *

  The stairs that led down into the club looked ancient, but the music was loud, and the whole room thundered with bass and the sound of stomping feet. I felt a smile creep across my face. This is the only place that I felt really alive; crushed against people trying to get closer to the stage, listening to the crowd scream along with the band. It was primal. There was nothing that could compare to the rush I felt when I was performing.

  I’d tried my share of drugs, sure. But they didn’t do anything for me… not like the roar of the crowd. It didn’t matter how small the venue, or how sparse the attendance, if I could move people, that’s all that mattered.

  What feeds you ultimately destroys you.

  Any nervousness I might have felt at the possibility of meeting my idol faded away as soon as my foot hit the top stair. The club was bathed in red light, and the roiling crowd called to me. Shoulders back, I came down the stairs, fascinated by what I saw. The band that was on stage wasn’t terrible, but they weren’t great either. Opening bands rarely were. They were fodder to get the crowd riled up, but in this case, the audience just felt on edge. The whole room bristled.

  I pushed my way through to the bar and demanded a beer from a guy who looked like there was more bones in his body than anything else. His cheekbones looked like they could cut glass and his stare was cold and expressionless. I pulled out a crumpled bill to pay him, but he waved me away and beckoned to the person behind me instead.

  Free beer? I could handle that.

  I watched the band from the edge of the makeshift dance floor. The lead singer was too pretty to be in a punk band, and he knew it, trying to hide the fact that he didn’t belong by shouting and swearing at the audience and downing bottle after bottle of beer. In this world, there was punk, and there was punk. And this guy was just a punk.

  The band looked uncomfortable, but they kept playing, pounding out the notes and pretending that the singer was keeping up.

  Valiant effort, boys.

  The set dragged, and I kept drinking free beer and watching the crowd. I spotted the club’s dealers right away. They didn’t even bother to keep their transactions discrete here. Money and drugs changed hands without anyone batting an eyelash. This place was a trip.

  “Anarchy in the U.S.A!” the singer shouted lamely at the crowd. They booed him ener
getically and someone threw a bottle. A rain of projectiles followed and I couldn’t help but laugh as I watched the singer dodge bottles, highball glasses, and even a pair of shoes. “You fucks are crazy!” he screamed into the mic, his voice cut off by a beer bottle crashing into the side of his head.

  That was one way to do it.

  The speakers screamed with feedback as the singer slumped to the stage and people ran from the wings to assist him. That was my cue.

  With a wide grin on my face, I pushed through the crowd and jumped up on stage, snatching the mic out of the limp hand of the singer. He was face down on the boards and the bottle had opened his eyebrow. Blood pooled under his head.

  “He’ll be fine,” I said into the mic. The crowd roared and surged expectantly as the band stared at me in disbelief. It was obvious that they didn’t really like him either.

  Behind me, the roadies dragged the unconscious singer off the stage and I smiled wider before remembering that I was standing on a stage in front of a bunch of punk kids who were already on edge. A bottle spun through the air towards me and I stepped easily out of the way and lifted the microphone to my mouth.

  “Right! Now!” I shouted, and then let my laughter fill the club.

  The drummer clued in before the rest of the band, but that was all I needed and with just the drum behind me and the chanting of the crowd in front of me, this was all I needed. If Sid was in the club tonight, he’d sure as shit be paying attention to me.

  “I am an antichrist,” I shouted. The bassist woke up and joined in.

  “I am an anarchist!” The crowd shouted back and the band was with me.

  A fight broke out at the front of the stage and the crowd surged forward.

  “Don’t know what I want but I know how to get it…”

  I looked out over the crowd, my eyes lingering on a man sitting at one of the velvet upholstered booths. He was dressed like he should have been having drinks at the hotel down the street and not sitting in the ruby lit bowels of a grimy club. The slender man with long hair I’d seen outside the club was sitting next to him. They were both staring at me.

  Let them stare. The room was mine.

  It was after 1am when they dragged me off that stage.

  The band demanded that I come back to the green room with them, girls, booze, drugs… they had it all waiting for me. It was like they didn’t even care that their actual singer had been dragged away bleeding all over everything.

  The band room was full of everything they’d promised. Eager girls who were definitely just on the edge of twenty clamoured for my attention, and the band’s manager was in my face asking me all about my plans for my time in New York.

  “I haven’t really decided. I really only came here for one thing…”

  “What’s that?” The question didn’t come from the band manager who hovered at my elbow. It came from the slender man with long blond hair that had smirked at me outside the club and watched me from the booth.

  “That what?”

  “That one thing you came here to do?”

  I flashed him a smile and pushed my hair out of my eyes. “I came to meet Sid Vicious. He’s supposed to be here tonight.”

  The man smirked and came closer. His approach made the girls hanging off me scatter and the band manager next to me swallowed nervously.

  “What if I told you that Sid Vicious is dead?” he said smoothly.

  “I’d say you were full of shit. He just got out on bail!” I snapped. There was no way. He had to be fucking with me.

  “I don’t lie,” the man replied, adjusting his blue tinted glasses. “Telling the truth is so much more fun.”

  “Meridian,” the band manager said in a hushed voice. “You’re not serious are you?”

  But the man with blond hair wasn’t looking at the weasel beside me, he was staring at me, never breaking eye contact.

  “So, Eli,” Meridian said quietly. “Does that spoil your plans?”

  My jaw snapped shut. Fuck. It kind of did. My ‘plans’ hadn’t really been plans at all, and they kind of stopped at meeting Sid. If he really was dead…

  “I thought so,” he said. Meridian planted a long, pale hand in the middle of the band manager’s chest and slid his arm across my shoulders. “Do you have a place to crash tonight?”

  Woah.

  “I’ve got a place to crash,” I said, shrugging his arm away. The bassist from the band I’d played with nodded in my direction. “Taken care of.”

  “Suit yourself… come back tomorrow night. Bishop wants to talk to you. We’ve got a... gig for you.”

  “Whatever, man.” Not like I hadn’t heard that before. I strightened my shoulders, trying to shake off the feeling of his arm.

  “I’m serious, Maddern,” Meridian said with a slow smile. “You want a place to sleep, all expenses... come back and talk to us.”

  I shook my head and turned away, the air in the room had gotten real stale, real fast, and all I wanted to do was run up the stairs and get outside where it was freezing fucking cold and no one knew my name. I pushed through the crowd, who all wanted to talk to me, to buy me a drink, to fuck me... I brushed their hands away, my heart hammering in my chest with every step. Finally, I got to the stairs.

  The wooden rail was smooth under my hand, something solid to ground me. I tried to take a breath, my eyes on the red light at the top of the stairs. Not much farther.

  “You wanted to meet Sid, but I can help you be Sid...” Meridian’s voice whispered in my ear, and I whirled around, determined to punch him right in that smug mouth of his.

  But I was alone on the stairs, and Meridian was on the other side of the room, leaning against the door to the band room. He adjusted his glasses and smiled at me lazily.

  “Fucking creep,” I muttered.

  I need to get the fuck out of here.

  My boots pounded up the stairs, and then I was outside, gulping down lungfuls of frigid air.

  “Have a good time, hot shot? Didja meet your idol? Pass along a good word for me?” The bouncer was stonefaced as he spoke, watching me from under his dark glasses.

  What was with everyone and sunglasses?

  “Little late for shades, isn’t it, pops?”

  I didn’t wait for the man’s reply, but I did check over my shoulder to make sure he wasn’t coming after me to ‘teach me a lesson’ with the back of his meaty hand. But he hadn’t moved, he just stood there, bathed in the red light of Spiral Club’s neon sign.

  Ding, Ding. Round One, Maddern.

  2

  I won’t lie. I spent the night on someone’s floor, one of the band members, maybe. I couldn’t remember. I lay on my back on smelly couch cushions staring up at the ceiling and replaying Meridian’s whispered words in my mind.

  “You can’t meet your idol, but I can help you be him. I can give you what you’ve always wanted.”

  If this was the start of my career, so be it. Rolling Stone would eat it up.

  * * *

  Are you really going to go back there?”

  We were standing in a sorry excuse for a kitchen drinking beer that had been sitting in the window instead of the fridge. The ancient refrigerator probably hadn’t run properly since 1972, and was currently acting as a hothouse for the start of a nice marijuana crop.

  I looked at the beer in my hand, at the dirty kitchen with the sink piled high with discarded take out, beer cans and empty whiskey bottles. “Yeah,” I replied with a shrug. “Why not? It’s just talking, right? If I don’t like what they say, I’ll high tail it. No big deal.”

  “Nah, man… it’s kind of a big deal.” The guy stepped closer, as though he didn’t want to be overheard by any of the bodies snoring in various positions around the apartment. “These guys at Spiral, they don’t play around.” He paused to slug his beer while I stared at him casually. “They tried to sign us a few months ago, but our manager said the contract was bullshit.”

  “Your manager?” I looked over my shoulder at th
e destroyed living room. “You mean the guy passed out naked on the couch?”

  The guy nodded and took another sip of his warm beer. “Yeah, he’s been with us since the beginning, he always looks out for us.”

  I set my empty beer on the edge of the sink and pulled a fresh one out of the box on the windowsill. “Yeah, I can see that. Did he let you see the contract?” The guy shook his head and tossed the bottle into the overflowing sink. The clatter of glass and boxes roused a few weak protests from the living room, and then it was quiet again.

  “Nah, we didn’t want to see it. If Bobby said something’s not right? Something’s not right. He’s never steered us wrong before.”

  That sounded all too familiar. A manager/best friend/high school buddy who was just looking out for you, protecting your interests. In my experience, that meant he was out for himself. The contract with Spiral probably cut him out and left him with nothing but the memory of all the time and effort he’d put into the band before they hit it big and left him choking in the dust.

  They were all the same.

  “I’m tellin’ you, man, it’s weird down there. I mean, it’s a hot room, but it gives me the creeps, y’know?” He rubbed his arm, as though finally realizing he wasn’t wearing anything but boxer shorts and the window was wide fucking open.

  “I hear ya,” I said. But I wasn’t really listening.

  I could hear the crackle of Spiral’s neon sign as it flickered to life. Spiral opened its doors late… and I was waiting, watching the heavyset bouncer with the thick neck as he set up the ropes that would keep the crowd in check while they waited to go in.