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"Wicked, wretched, or damned?"

Dark furrowed eyebrows and green eyes flickering in confusion is the only response I get.

"Well?" I prompt, taping my nails on the bar top impatiently. "Which are you?"

The patron blinks. "None of the above?" he answers, and it sounds more like a question. He pauses. "I hope."

I chuckle, finding his reply amusing. "If you're coming to The Shadow Empire, you're definitely one of them. So, what will it be?"

His eyes widen, as if he had just arrived at the gates of heaven and been turned away. Or maybe more accurately, at the gates of hell and been given a warm welcome.

"Oh, quit messing with the boy, Jade." My gaze slides to the right of the man who can't decide what kind of cursed he is, where Oliver tsks in disapproval. "He's new blood."

My lips curl up. "New blood, yeah? Let's hope not. The damned have quite a taste for that."

Oliver sighs, turning in his stool to face the new blood, who's eyes are peeled wide open. "You'll have to pardon Jade, she takes the role of the surly bartender a bit too seriously."

"Surly bar owner," I correct, lazily propping my elbow on the bar table. The new blood is lucky—or unlucky, rather—that it's slow enough for me to have the spare time to mess with him.

"Surly bar owner who also makes the drinks," Oliver amends, rolling his eyes as he looks back to the new guy. "Surly and rude as she is, she's correct. If you're here, you're one of them."

"How am I supposed to know?" New Blood asks with a twinge of exasperation.

Oliver shrugs. "Are you a vampire, werewolf, or witch?"

New Blood does a double take. If he's not careful, his eyes will pop out of his head, and I certainly won't be the one to put them back in. "Vampire, I guess."

"You guess or you are?"

Oliver groans in annoyance. "C'mon, Jade. This conversation is getting tedious, even for someone will an eternity's worth of time to waste vexing people."

"To be fair, I hex as much as I vex," I say mildly, running a damp rag over the bar table while we get this sorted.

"If that's the case, I feel bad for the city of Blackhelm, because you're always vexing people."

I wag a finger at him scoldingly. "Watch it, or I'll hex you."

He waves a thin white napkin in the air. "Alright, I surrender. But if you don't give the poor boy some help, he'll never be able to order."

"Is there a menu?" New Blood interjects hopefully.

"No." Why in God's cursed name would we have a menu? It would be more than suspicious if one left the building and a human saw a cup of blood offered at my respectable establishment.

"Just tell her if you're wicked, wretched, or damned and she'll make you something you'll like." Oliver nods in approval as he finishes his own glass of a little creation I call the Whitney Gobbler: a sweet whiskey garnished with seasonal fruit.

And, of course, blood.

"I don't know which one I am," New Blood practically yells.

I'm about to tell him not to yell at me in my own bar when a regular patron, Jackson, approaches and claps his broad shoulder. "He's a wretched, of course. One of ours."

One of ours. No doubt, New Blood is in the same pack as Jackson.

"No wonder he's so annoying," I mutter under my breath before turning away to mix him a drink.

"I heard that!" Jackson calls out.

"No shit, you can hear everything!" I shout back as I pour two half-full glasses of moonshine. A normal enough drink, but when I slide the two glasses in front of the wretched, I flick my hand and the liquor begins to glow like moonlight.

New Blood's mouth drops open as he stares, entranced.

"If you drool over the counter, I'll make you clean it up," I warn, wiping my hands with the washcloth before tucking it into one of my beltloops.

Jackson downs half his moonshine in one swig, smacking his lips. "For someone who hates our kind, you sure do make us the best drinks."

"Can't say no to good profit margins," I respond drily while refilling Oliver's cup. Truth be told, as the only supernatural bar in the city, I couldn't not include werewolves. Well, I could, but then they would go to human bars, which is beyond dangerous for the humans. Werewolves have tempers, drinking exacerbates bad tempers, and at least in here, the bargoers stand a chance against fighting them.

Though I usually try stopping the fights before they get too bloody, as I'm not a big fan of cleaning.

New Blood still seems perplexed. "If you're a wretched, why do you hate us?"

I grimace in disgust. "I'm not a wretched, obviously. I'm a wicked."

"Only werewolves are wretched," Oliver explains helpfully. "Vampires, such as myself, are damned. Witches, like the surly bartender—sorry, bar owner—are wicked."

"Why?"

Jackson's empty glass flies out of his hand and into my waiting one. While I refill it, Oliver answers simply, "Why, it's our very natures, of course."

Once I hand Jackson his drink, he grips New Blood's shoulder and begins steering him away. "Let's go, Curtis. We have a table in the back." We, meaning their wolf pack, of course. They're quite clique-y like that.

Curtis follows after Jackson, stealing quick, baffled looks back at me.

"You could have been a little—" Oliver readies to launch into his lecture when someone much louder begins shouting.

"I'm not listening to another Michael Jackson song!"

Oliver and I's heads snap to the side, where two tall men are standing in front of the jukebox. Not any ordinary jukebox, but one spelled to contain every song ever made.

The lighter-haired one throws his arms up. "It's Billie Jean, dude! That's the best song ever made!"

"No, I'm sick of listening to oldies every night!" the other one shouts back. "Not everyone here was born a million years ago!"

"Two hundred! I was born two hundred years ago!"

"That's two hundred years too many!"

"Stupid bloody mongrel, I ought to—"

I was watching with amusement, arguments not being uncommon in a bar with hotheaded werewolves, condescending vampires, and downright sneaky witches and warlocks, but I don't particularly like when things get physical.

Which they often do. Like now, for example.

The werewolf swings his fist at the vampire, who ducks, but rises to smash his glass on the werewolf's head. It shatters, sending bloodied glass shards everywhere. The wolf roars ferociously, shoving the vampire so hard he flies back into a luckily empty table, which breaks in half upon impact.

"Hey!" I yell hotly at them. They ignore it and begin to charge at each other, fists extended.

"I said hey!"

One minute, they're running at each other, bloodlust in their eyes, and the next, they're curled into balls on the ground, like rollie pollies.

I walk out from behind the bar, shoving my way through the group of people huddled around them, one hand outstretched in front of me, my fingers slightly bent. My other hand is also up and to the side of me defensively, in case any of the other patrons decide to get in on the fight.

Wisely, they choose not to.

The brawling vampire and werewolf are still balled up on the ground in fetal positions, their hands on their ears to block out the high pitched sound nobody but them can hear.

"What are the two rules of The Shadow Empire?" I ask no one in particular.

"Don't tell humans about it and no fighting in it," almost everyone answers in unison.

"And why is there a no fighting rule?"

"You don't like cleaning up!" they holler.

"Exactly, I fucking hate cleaning up!" I throw the washcloth into the small surrounding crowd in annoyance.

The patrons start whooping and clinking their glasses together, a few yelling things like: "Throw 'em out, Jade!" and "Get 'em, babe!"

"You two are banned for the rest of the week. If I see you before then, I'll shrink you to the size of my pinkie, turn you into a keychain, and sell you on Etsy. Understood?"

I straighten my curled fingers and the brawlers groan as their spines straighten. The werewolf grumbles something about how I always stop the fight before it gets fun, but hands a wad of cash to me before leaving, followed by some of his packmates.

The vampire gives me a bashful smile. "Jade?"

Sighing, I go behind the bar and get him a mixed drink to-go. "I fucking hate you all."

"No, you don't," he sings on his way out, clutching his foam cup. "See ya next week!"

Oliver grins at me, having not left his seat. He's a regular; he's not phased or interested in the slightest by the near-daily altercations. "Never a boring night at The Shadow Empire."

"Never," I agree.