Happy 4th of July!

Let me tell you, being in Boston on the 4th of July is super exciting. I can't wait to watch the fireworks!

In the meantime, here's a sample of what I've been working on lately. Sorry if the formatting's off...

            The bartender set a shot glass on the bar. It was made of black glass streaked through with lime green. Cory eyed it dubiously.

            “I’m surprised they let you in,” said the bartender gruffly. “We don’t get many of your kind around here.”

            Cory decided to play the thrill seeker. He grinned wolfishly. “I suppose not. But it’s just so much more exciting here, you know?” He punctuated the thought with a flash of fang. The girls went into raptures.

            The bartender just stared. “That’s what they all think,” he finally answered.

            Cory could feel that he was onto something, but asking too many questions too early would only arouse suspicion.

            A vampire couple slammed up against the bar to his left. They were so intertwined that he could barely see where one body ended and the other began. Even their body paint connected – the shimmering purple and silver dragon head which decorated the male’s face and chest flowed seamlessly into its counter part tail winding down the female’s arm. They broke apart for a second, long enough for the male to down Cory’s shot, and then they were gone, pulled back into the seething organism that inhabited the dance floor.

               The bartender looked disgusted. “I’ll pour you another.”

               “You don’t seem the type,” Cory said thoughtfully.

               The bartender turned, the vodka bottle in his hand. “Excuse me?”

               “You don’t seem the type to be bartending at a vampire club.”

He snorted. “The regular guy’s on break.” His tone didn’t invite further questions, and Cory let it drop.

The college girls were whispering now. One was trying to convince the other to go talk to him. The pheromones were coming off them in waves.

“You’d better watch out for them. These girls, they come to the vampire clubs because they think it’s ‘exciting’. They think it’s daring, or glamorous, or the cool thing to do. They don’t realize how dangerous it is.”

When an opening like that presents itself…Cory ran with it. “It is dangerous. I’m sure you’ve heard about the recent deaths – “

“Those bloodless corpses? Sure, we’ve all heard about that. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

Cory frowned. But before he could say anything more, someone down at the end of the bar hailed the bartender and he was gone.

Deep in thought, Cory downed his shot before he remembered that he didn’t like vodka.