Chicks Kick Butt by Nancy Holder, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Vincent, Rachel Caine, Jeanne C. Stein, Susan Krinard, Lilith Saintcrow, Cheyenne McCray, Carole Nelson Douglas, Jenna Black, L. A. Banks, Elizabeth A. Vaughan

were thinking. And I could speak to the mind of one vamp in particular.
    This had led to some awkward situations, as the vamp in question, Louis-Cesare, was also my … well, I didn’t know what to call him. We weren’t lovers, exactly, at least not yet. And we were only friends in the way that we yelled at each other a lot. But there was definitely an attraction there. And for a few intimate, wine-fueled moments, I’d felt closer to him than to anyone else I’d ever known.
    I didn’t know if he could pick up my thoughts from this far away, as we’d never done any actual experimentation with our connection. But a long shot is better than no shot at all. I downed the second shot and thought,
Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!
    Fifteen minutes and a full bottle later, it became obvious that Louis-Cesare was not hurrying. I licked numb lips and decided there was a silver lining. At this rate, I wouldn’t be able to feel it whenever they got around to shooting me. “You owe me,” Ray hissed into my ear as I sat staring resentfully at my tenth or fifteenth or twentieth shot. I’d lost count. But it basically added up to too many.
    “Nowhere near this much,” I muttered, trying not to slur my words.
    “Oh, so now we’re putting a price on friendship?”
    “We’re not friends,” I told him darkly. I’d just seen Cheung toss back another shot. He’d lost his suit coat and loosened his tie, but other than that, he looked exactly the same as when I’d come in. The damn vampire wasn’t even sweating.
    “Don’t talk,” Ray said, putting a glass in my hand. “Drink.”
    I wasn’t aware that I’d been talking. That probably wasn’t a good sign. But at least I was still sitting straight. Cheung had started to list a little.
    “That’s you,” Ray said, hauling me upright and handing me another glass.
    “Hey!” I protested. “He has to drink first.”
    “He just did.”
    “I didn’t see.”
    “It’s difficult to see anything when one’s eyes are crossed,” Cheung said. And then he giggled.
    I know I wasn’t imagining it, because his vamps’ heads all swiveled in his direction, expressions of incredulity on their faces. Scarface scowled at them and they quickly looked away. But a few were coughing and one had to abruptly leave the room.
    I downed another shot and grinned at Cheung. “I c’n do this all night,” I told him. “And you’re already drunk.”
    Cheung gave me a superior look and tried to pick up his glass. He missed.
    “He may be drunk,” Scarface said, “but you’re about to fall on your ass. And as soon as you do, that son of a bitch is ours.” He scowled at Ray, as if his boss’s loss of dignity were all his fault. Ray must have interpreted it that way, too, because he quickly sloshed some more liquid into the glasses.
    “I am not even close to being on my ass,” I said, offended. “And Ray’s gonna be fine.”
    “That’s right,” Ray said staunchly.
    Fifteen minutes later, I’d decided Ray really was toast.
    “It’s okay,” he said, massaging my shoulders. “You’re doing great. Just really, really good.”
    “How many more bottles are there?” I asked blearily. The way I felt, we must have gone through most of the case.
    “Nine.”
    “Nine?”
I did a little mental arithmetic, which was way harder than it should have been. “We’ve only been through
three
?”
    “Three and a half,” he said, and refilled my glass.
    “That wasn’t so bad,” I decided after downing the shot. Maybe I was getting my rhythm.
    “Because you threw it over your shoulder,” Scarface told me, looking smug.
    “Did not.” I looked behind me, only to see an outraged vamp with fey wine dripping down his face. “Oops.”
    “It was for luck,” Ray said defensively, wrapping both my hands around a glass. “Drink!”
    I drank.
    An indeterminate time later—my eyes couldn’t seem to focus on my watch anymore—someone slapped me across the face. “Big, bad dhampir, remember?”