Eugene was the worst name for a vampire he'd ever heard heard. Mack eyed the crumpled creature at the end of the bar, keenly aware of how the bloodsucker's eyes tracked every step his new tavern wench took.

"That's going to be a problem," he muttered, polishing a tumbler. He'd been cleaning the same glass for a solid ten minutes.

"With that curse hanging over her like an executioner's axe? No, couldn't be a problem at all," drawled a slightly slurred voice beside him.

Mack quirked his brow, glancing down at the thoroughly sloshed Cesario. "Your mustache is falling off."

There was much swearing and tweaking as the Shakespearean refugee righted the offending facial hair.

Calponia's first day on the job produced several interesting results, including the revelation of the cross dressing young woman before him. For five years, Cesario drank his bourbon and never breathed a word about it until trouble on two legs started her first shift. The odd thing was, even though Cesario's identity as a woman had been revealed, she continued to dress and act as a man, much to the amusement of the tavern's clientele. Mack wondered about that, but it was personal policy to not pry into the private lives of his patrons.

'Never get involved'. A motto he'd upheld without difficulty for too many years than he'd readily admit.

Calponia grabbed another couple handfuls of tankards from the bar for the table of pirates, taking extra care in the over-sized loafers Mack loaned her. She made it all of three steps before her feet tangled over each other. Beer and wench went flying, straight to the floor. Eugene leaned back in a movement as casual as it was fast, snagging the back of her shirt before she slammed into the ground.

She 'oofed' hovering above the mess, her hair dragging through beer as the vampire slowly eased her up. The shirt ripped, right at his fingers.

"Good grief," said Mack, pinching the bridge of his nose. The vampire caught her a second time, hauling her up before the universe intervened. The main room fell rather silent, collectively holding its breath to see what other mishaps unfolded. When nothing exploded, they returned to their conversations.

Calponia stared at her feet, a right dripping mess. Mack frowned at her. Was she cringing? He set the glass down, nabbing a fresh towel to drape over her head. The way she flinched made him decidedly uncomfortable. She appeared to expect something awful to happen to her again. Not that he could do much to reassure her. The damn curse ensured that.

He set a hand on her shoulder, producing a key from the ring on his belt. "Upstairs, first door on the left. Go clean up girl," he said, resisting the urge to shake her out of her mopey mood. Her eyes darted up, quick, nothing more than a flash. His frown deepened. She took the key as if the metal burned her, hurrying up the stairs.

She slipped twice, pausing for a moment to recover her breath as she scrambled up out of sight. Mack shook his head.

Don't get involved. He turned the words over, pointedly not glancing back to the stairs. He shook his head, unable to dislodge his current train of thought. The vampire scowled at him from across the bar. Eugene was rather good at it, with the fangs in all, but Mack had spat in the face of much more frightening demons. He simply waited.

The vampire broke first, lightly placing his hands on the bar top. "What's wrong with her?"

Mack snorted. "Pretty sure she's cursed lad."

He rolled his eyes, a flicker of red betraying the depth of his ire. "Emperor's Oath, she's your only employee, Mack. She looks like someone skinned and ate her puppy."

"Frankly, Eugene, that is an awful comparison," said Cesario, looking slightly green around the edges.

"Oh you know what I mean," snapped the vampire.

Mack opened his mouth to defend himself when his attention slipped to the drunken pirate swabbing up puddles of split beer with the tavern mop. The man shrugged at Mack's notice. "Poor girl's having a rough go," he mumbled through his impressively grizzled beard.

As if one of Ravelock's crew swabbing his floor wasn't enough to boggle his mind, the pirate captain himself set the empty tankards on the bar, giving Mack a pointed look.

"You should have a care, mate," said the captain, absently twining his mustache. He spun around one of the tankards for Mack to see. "She was holding this one when she fell."

The group at the bar stared at the warped metal, blackened and bubbled, as if touched by Chaos itself. No simple curse could do that.

Mack folded his arms and gnashed his teeth. "Bugger."

**

Admittedly, Calponia expected a rustic, slightly Ren faire getup for a room. The style of the main floor smacked of a generic Fantasy role playing game, with its warm wood and worn seating. Not that she didn't love it, but she thought the decor would carry through the rest of the tavern. This was not the case.

She blinked at the room before her: cream walls, polished hardwood floors. Everything neat and clean and sturdy. Warm sunlight back lit the gauzy curtains, a mystery since the tavern was surrounded by a constant shifting fog.

The trim and curtains were a distinctive Robin's Egg blue that made her eyes water. Straight out of her childhood fantasies where she once dreamed of owning a cottage, alone in the woods. Where her bad luck couldn't hurt anyone. Drawn to the window, she peeked out, swallowing hard at the sight of sun soaked pines.

For a second, the scene made her angry. Furious, certain the undefinable entity of the Edgewise plucked these details from her head. That emotion lasted all of two seconds, when she noticed the vase of sunflowers on the night stand. Her favorites, though she hadn't been able to afford the superfluous expense of fresh flowers for years. The tavern was comforting her.

She sniffled, gagging slightly at the reek of beer. Where on Earth did Mack get his brew? The proof made her eyes water. She sneezed.

The vase wobbled and fell, spilling sunflowers on the floor.

It was the final straw that broke her.

"I'll clean it up," she whispered, dragging herself to the bathroom. There was a bar of soap, wrapped in brown paper, and two glass bottles sitting of the bathroom counter. She didn't trust herself with the glass, settling on the soap, which smelt just like honeysuckles.

For a tavern that didn't exist, the water pressure was divine, blasting her knotted shoulders until the ache of the day's stress eased.

She stayed under the water until her fingers were pruned, relishing what could be her last shower for a while.

What was she going to do?

She had no family to stay with. On top of her timely eviction notice, her day in court revealed her parents left no will and their untimely passing left a mountain of debt to their next of kin. Debt accumulated from her life spent in and out of hospitals for various injuries. The Edgewise's attempt to cheer her up left a bitter aftertaste. It was a miracle Mack hadn't fired her after her first day on the job.

The biggest rule of the Edgewise: do not leave the door open. Its mystical nature meant all kinds of things could and would go wrong. Not only had she failed to heed that rule, but something had snuck in. A monstrous beast of a man, who nearly killed her and everyone there. It took the whole room to take him down. And she nearly set fire to the place.

If the patrons hadn't vouched for her, or hid most of the incident from Mack's scrutiny, she'd be out on her ass. She shut off the water.

They had covered for her.

No one ever covered for her. Blame found her, even when she wasn't responsible for what happened. She doubted any of them would take the risk of living with her. Maybe she could break into her ex apartment. The pirates could probably teach her to pick locks.

Calponia opened the curtain to find her clothes neatly folded by the sink. Cleaned. She dried herself as best she could, leaving her long damp mass of black hair hanging down her back as she brought the towel into the outer room.

The vase of sunflowers sat untouched on the nightstand.