Damned and Cursed (Book 2): Witch's Kurse (22 page)

The rest of the staff trickled in over the next twenty minutes, except one.
 
Marie gathered everyone for a quick talk.
 
Her heart pounded when she realized the person missing was the other female bartender scheduled to work next to Rob.
 
She was either going to be late without calling, never a good sign, or simply not bother showing up.

She eyed up the crew.
 
Rob and his missing partner were the bartenders, Jerry the short order cook.
 
Nia and Marie would do a little of everything, fill in where needed.
 
Take orders, deliver food, pour drinks.

It certainly sounded simple enough.

"Okay, guys," Marie said.
 
"Are you ready for this?"

"Hey," Nia said.
 
"Where's the other chick?"

"Has anyone seen her?" Marie asked.

No one answered.

"Well, then, we'll just have to handle it with the four of us."

Rob rubbed his hands together.
 
"This will be fun."

A couple walked in, a man and woman, five minutes earlier than they were scheduled to open the doors.

"Is this place open?" the woman asked.

Marie smiled.
 
"It is now."

*****

An hour passed.
 
The sun was slowly setting, leaving the sky a beautiful shade of orange and purple.
 
Something amazing happened that Marie had hoped for, yet still had her doubts.

The place was packed.

A group of men gathered around one of the TVs, watching the college football game.
 
Two couples alternated partners in a game of pool, laughing and flirting.
 
The bar itself was full, every stool taken.
 
Nearly half of the booths were occupied, and Nia had to help Jerry to keep up.
 
Marie held up her end, helping Rob behind the bar.
 
She also made the social rounds when she could, checking in on customers and taking orders.

Her staff was doing great.
 
Rob was clearly having the time of his life, talking to the occasional woman without a wedding ring.
 
Jerry's cooking was a hit with the crowd.
 
Nia was barely twenty-one years old, and there was a moment Marie worried about her work ethic, but the young woman proved her wrong.
 
During a short lull, Nia played a game of pool with three men around her age.
 
The bar was still crowded, but it was one of those rare moments no one needed a drink, everyone that wanted food had it.
 
Marie wasn't so sure she liked Nia taking a break to flirt with three men, but it turned out she knew what she was doing, and wasn't on break at all.
 
After the game, just before Marie went to talk to her, she led the three men back to the bar.
 
Everyone ordered drinks, staying longer than they would have, thanks to Nia.

Everything was going wonderfully.

A part of her also couldn't wait for the night to end.
 
There was one small thing she didn't even think about.
 
She felt foolish as she hid in the back corner of the kitchen, away from everything she worked so hard to build.

Marie was a werewolf.
 
She'd been a werewolf the past fifty years, longer than she'd been human.
 
Werewolves had extraordinary hearing and smell, and she was in a medium-sized building with loud, smelly humans.

Even at the far end of the building, she could hear and smell them.
 
Jerry's cooking, as lovely as it was, blended with the human scents and alcohol.
 
She heard chunks of their conversations, mixed with laughter, cheering, and both TVs.
 
It was almost sensory overload.

"No way!
 
That wasn't a first down!"

"This place is pretty goddamn cool."

"Where's that gorgeous bartender with those tight-ass jeans?"

"Get me another beer."

"Hey!
 
I told you, no ass touching until later."

Marie took deep breaths.
 
Her vampire pen-pal once told her the overload was easier to handle with practice.
 
The problem was she didn't make it a habit to hang out with a bunch of people in a room.

"What the hell was I thinking?" she said, holding her head.

"Marie?
 
Hey, you back here?"

She looked up to see Rob leaning around the corner, waving.

"We're starting to drown up here," he said.

"Okay, okay.
 
Sorry.
 
Just needed a second."

"Hey, we're busy.
 
Busy is good."

She joined him and walked through the kitchen.
 
"Yeah.
 
Busy is good."

Busy was about the right word.
 
There were two rows of people waiting to get a drink.
 
Nia was helping, but she was a bit slower than Rob.

Marie dove in with a smile.
 
An elderly gentleman by himself wanted a shot of bourbon, and she reflected for a moment as she poured it.
 
Her hands were five years old once again, her mother behind her.

"It's good to see this place open again," the gentleman said.

She gave the gentleman her attention, even as she served other drinks.

"Oh yeah?"

"It used to be a bar a long time ago.
 
When I was a kid, on the way home from school, I'd poke my head in, more as a joke than anything else.
 
The owners, a wonderful couple, would chase me off."

"They were just looking out for you," Marie said with a wink.

"They had a daughter, too.
 
You look like her, a little, but you're far prettier."

"Well, thank you very much.
 
Are you trying to get free drinks out of me?"

The old man smiled mischievously.
 
"Is it working?"

"Not yet."

He snapped his fingers in mock frustration.
 
"Oh, darn."
 
He finally downed his bourbon.
 
"Yeah, it was a real shame when the nice couple was murdered."

Marie froze.
 
She was well aware there were older people in Sandy Cliffs, with long memories.
 
She thought she was prepared, but as the elderly man paid for his drink and left a nice tip, the emotions flooded back.

"Marie?
 
Hey, Marie?"
 
Rob shook her shoulder.
 
"Are you okay?"

She blinked and shook her head, landing back in the present.

"Yeah, yeah.
 
All good."

Busy was slowly turning into overwhelming.
 
They were barely keeping up with orders, but with three of them handling drinks, the food side was beginning to suffer.
 
Nia would run out to a booth to take a food order, deliver it to Jerry, then run back to help with drinks before delivering their food.
 
Marie felt sorry for the poor girl.

Panic was just around the corner.
 
When a customer, while nice and patient, had to come up to the bar to place an order for a burger, she knew they were in trouble.
 
It was only a matter of time before people left, or perhaps stuck out the night, but would never return.

Anger and relief swept over her when she saw her last employee finally walk through the front door.

"Erica!" Marie called.
 
She couldn't help the sarcasm.
 
"Thank you so much for showing up."

She regretted her comment as soon as Erica's face turned red.
 
It was obvious the young woman was having a bad day, and felt horrible.
 
Marie didn't dive into her employees' lives.
 
They all shared some laughs when they were learning to mix drinks, but the only thing she knew about Erica was she'd just moved to Sandy Cliffs from the east coast.
 
She was starting over, just like Marie.

Erica was certainly dressed to make a tip or two.
 
Short skirt, spaghetti-strap tank top.
 
She wore her hair differently than the past few weeks, more forward.
 
Marie realized it was an attempt to cover the old scar on her cheek.

"I'm
so
sorry," Erica said, stepping behind the bar.
 
"My car broke down just when I left my damn apartment.
 
I had to walk."

"You
walked
here?"

Erica nodded.

"Shit, Erica.
 
Just call me next time.
 
One of us would have picked you up."

"I don't have a phone in my apartment."

"No cell phone?"

Marie saw a shift in her expression.
 
She'd triggered something.

"No cell phone either.
 
I, uh, had to cancel my old number."

Marie was intrigued.
 
Was Erica hiding from something?
 
Running from someone?
 
Just hated technology?

"Okay, well, as you can see, more people showed up than I thought.
 
Can you handle the bar with Rob?"

Erica cast Rob a half smile.
 
"I'm better than Rob."

Rob laughed and flexed an arm, drawing light cheers from the ladies on his side.
 
"You ain't better than this."

Marie smiled and laughed herself.
 
It was good to see her staff getting along.
 
Those playful laughs and smiles would carry the mood to the customers.

She let her young, attractive staff work as she drifted through the bar.
 
She took more orders, checked in on customers, even took advice from some of them.
 
With Erica's help, things finally moved from overwhelming to busy to manageable.
 
The game ended, taking some of the crowd with it, but Marie was still happy with the numbers.

She was in the middle of taking a food order when errant words found her ears from the other side of the bar.

"…Please, I'm trying to be nice, here.
 
Leave me alone…."

Marie scanned the floor as she slowly walked to the kitchen doorway.
 
She saw the small disturbance, not far from the front door.
 
A group of college-aged women stood in a group, laughing and talking.
 
A man who obviously had one too many was being a nuisance.
 
He leaned in close, invaded their personal space.
 
The group was handling it as best they could, but Marie could see the situation ending badly.
 
The last thing she wanted was for a drunk to ruin the good atmosphere they had going on.

She handed the order off to Nia to deliver to Jerry.
 
Resting her elbows on the bar, she kept an eye on the man, trying to decide what to do.

Rob leaned in close.
 
"I guess that's one person you didn't think about hiring.
 
A security guard."

"Yeah.
 
I see it, too."

"Want me to go talk to him?
 
See if I can urge him out the door gently?"

"No, that's okay.
 
I'll handle it."

He looked up her and down.
 
"You?
 
Uh, boss lady, he looks pretty big."

"Don't let the feminine physique fool you."

Rob let out that crooked smile, obviously enjoying admiring her.
 
"Oh, believe me, I won't."

There was a small shriek, followed by some cursing.
 
The drunk had spilled some of his drink on one of the women.
 
She marched angrily to the bathroom to clean up while her friends argued with the man.

"You'd better use that feminine physique in a hurry, boss lady."

"I'm on it.
 
And stop calling me boss lady."

Marie took a deep breath as she approached.
 
She could rip the man limb from limb if necessary, but that probably wouldn't encourage repeat business from the patrons nearby.
 
Subtlety would be required.

She laughed to herself.
 
A werewolf with subtlety.

She looked at the group of women first.
 
"I'm so sorry," she said, frowning.
 
"I just noticed what was going on."
 
She eyed the drunk, who barely kept his balance as he leaned against the wall.
 
"Sir, I think you've had enough for the night."

"Bullshit," he said, slurring his words.
 
"I'm just getting started."

Placing a hand on his shoulder, she tried to gently steer him toward the door.
 
"Let's go.
 
Give me your keys, and we'll sit you in your car.
 
I'll call a taxi."

He tried to smack her hand away.
 
"Don't you touch me!"

Marie caught his wrist easily, bending the thumb back in a direction it wasn't meant to go.
 
He dropped his beer, which she snatched as it left his hand.

"Holy shit," one of the young women said.
 
"You gotta show us how to do that."

She simply smiled and held up the beer.
 
"Would you mind putting this on that table next to you?"

After one hand was free, she held it out to the drunk.

"Keys, please."

He obediently fished out his keys and dropped them in her hand.
 
The group of women clapped, the last thing Marie wanted.
 
Attention she didn't want funneled her way as she led the man outside.

*****

Rob watched from behind the bar as Marie expertly handled the drunk.
 
It was definitely impressive.
 
Truth be told, he was impressed with everything she'd accomplished.
 
Turning a dump into a bar, a bar that people actually came to, was nothing short of amazing.
 
Part of him felt the whole thing would crash and burn, that opening night would bring zero people.
 
But the atmosphere of the place told him people were definitely coming back.
 
He wouldn't complain one bit.
 
He'd already made more in tips in a few hours than he made at the part-time job he'd just quit.