What beggars cannot be

Those half-goats should have come with a Drink Responsibly warning. Night's fleeting in a warm and fuzzy, trippy kind a way. You know the sort, where you don't feel the cold and if only you had some more of the stuff, that pesky sober voice inside will shut up about the risks of hypothermia. Kaif, that's how alkash die in the Moskva winter.

Oh wait, vampires don't freeze to death, mainly because we're dead already. But obviously we can get all spacey.

I wonder if demon half-goat's blood can be used in cake, while we zigzag towards the winking neon sign of the 'Trucker Traktir', past graffiti in werewolf blood, as if we didn't already know this was a bad neighbourhood. Loud heavy metal escapes when a drunk stumbles out, something oldskool like Alisa or whatever. I know exactly what we can expect inside: meaty bikers, and the pungencies of stale beer, old sweat and tobacco caught in leather. But beggars...

Lex and me are the first in, as the others dilly-dally on the threshold. Hence we're also the first to get that funny feeling us vampires get when sensing kindred. Seems all the food's spoken for, and about 20 vampires with bad hairdos and metal Tees leer at us, at least until Nat and Nika enter; Anastas, he's talking to the bum that came stumbling out, because of the noise, you see. He's got delicate ears.

Anyways, inside, there's staring and squinting and gauging. Lex whistles that thingie from Morricone under his breath. I pull down my top till my tits nearly pop out and sashay over to a couple of them at a table, and go in my best nightclubbian: "Hi, mind if I join?"

See, dawn is coming and I need something to eat and I need someplace to sleep. Dermo, it's not like I haven't done worse when I still had a pulse. So the guys share their food, and Anastas shakes off his clingy junkie bum and braves the noise, and even prissy Nat has a taste of truckdriver.

Now, there's still some time till morning, and since we're obviously not involved with the Moscow Masquerade (like whatever, go with the flow), Black Oleg here's happy to introduce us poor wandering souls to his leader. I've got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, my spidey-sense all tingly. Alone I'd cop out right here and brave the fucking dawn on my own. But I'm not alone, and I'm still spaced out on half-goat, and really now, how bad can it get?