You Only Live Twice - Emma Cole, John Stoker

Emma tries not to look too closely at the deep gash in her forearm as she unwinds the bandage around it.
It’s nothing. She’s had worse.
She’s had worse enough times, as a hunter, to know when it’s getting infected.
It’s not bad enough for blood.
She washes it out, smears on the expired but probably still viable antiseptic cream, wraps a fresh bandage around it, then rifles through the clothes hanging from the exposed pipe that doubles as a sort of makeshift closet for a long-sleeved dress that isn’t one of the ones she’s worn the past three days. 
She’s not going to give anyone anything to talk about. She can’t afford to.
She’s only had this club eight months. Any sign of weakness, any misstep, could land her in the same position as its former owner.
So could the hunter who shows up less than half an hour after opening.
He stands out in the crowd, between the silver-laced bullwhip coiled on his hip, the massive knife sheath hanging from his belt, and the vivid crimson scars on his neck. She descends the stairs from the balcony where she’s been keeping an eye on the club business (she usually mingles more, but last night someone brushed against her arm, and she hissed, and despite being able to pass it off as being insulted at the lack of apology given on her own turf, she doesn’t want to make it a habit).
By the time she reaches the main floor, the hunter in question is sitting at the bar. He’s got a glass in front of him, but he’s not actually drinking it. A trick she’s seen him use a hundred times. Makes him a customer, so the owner can’t ask him to actually order something or leave, but he won’t get in trouble for drinking on the job.
“Stoker.”
“Heard you were moving up in the world. The industrial grunge vibe is kind of cutting-edge fashion for an upscale place. Missing that warehouse you used to party in already? Myself, I’d get some steer horns on the wall, a little space in the middle of the floor for some line dancing, and a couple vintage Eastwood western posters on the walls, but that’s just me.” 
“I didn’t ask for an interior decoration consultation.”
“You sure? I think “A Fistful of Dollars” would look perfect over that corner table.”
Coven rivalry heating up due to outside agitation. And at least one of the vamps at that table is an instigator. She has to admit, she wasn’t a fan of his classic western team bonding movie nights, but it did offer them a whole coded language to use in the field. 
Apparently, he still thinks they’re some sort of team.
But she’s on a coven borderline, and if someone ties the vamps stirring up trouble to her bar, she’ll have a lot more to worry about than a wound that won’t heal and being seen talking to a hunter. 
“I never was much of a fan of that movie. Out of town gunslingers shouldn’t be poking their noses in a town’s affairs.”
She’ll take care of the problem. Which she’s pretty sure Stoker knew would happen. He’s not appealing to a sense of justice the human Emma used to have. He’s appealing to her new nature’s self preservation instincts. 
He’s always been smarter than he looks. 
She moves to get up, but he catches her wrist, just below the bandage on her arm.
She bares her teeth.
“I’d like to see the upstairs too. Might have some pointers for that.”
There’s plenty up there for a hunter to object to. Private soundproofed rooms for parties. Emma’s put her foot down hard on any hosting happening here, and all her employees are people she trusts to do the same, but the simple fact that she left those rooms in this building could be cause for a conscientious hunter to run her in to the agency. 
“I can ask, or I can come back with justifiable cause. We’ve raided this place back when it was Corbin’s. He had host parties going on on the balcony level. Looks to me like you’ve still got doors closed up there.”
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“I think you do.”
He’s not looking at the doors.
He’s looking at her cheek.
Damn that tic. She chews the inside of her cheek when she’s in pain, and it makes a dimple-like divot. He’d learned a long time ago to recognize that for what it was, around the same time he benched her for a busted ankle she was insisting was a sprain. 
Apparently, some of her human habits carried over into this version.
“Fine. I’ll let you put your mind at ease so my customers don’t need to be subjected to a raid team over nothing.” She makes him go first up the stairs. No matter how much they used to trust each other, no one with a stake is getting behind her in her blind spot.
“I’m going to need to inspect each of these rooms for any residual blood,” John says, pulling a spectrum light from his pocket. Emma steps back from the glow. UV is unpleasant to be around at the best of times. It’s making her genuinely nauseous right now. 
Checking the smaller rooms, which she’s now using mostly as storage space, takes very little time. But the big room, the one she still actually does rent out to vamps who want a little more exclusivity than mingling on the first floor, is going to take a little longer.
John steps inside, then motions to her to join him and close the door.
She does, and the thumping bass from downstairs dies off. It’s nothing more than a heartbeat in here, a faint echo of the one she can hear from her former partner’s chest.
“Show me.”
“I don’t answer to you anymore.”
“I know that.”
She shakes her head but rolls up her sleeve. The bandage is starting to turn brown and yellow. 
“Some scumbag objected to being thrown out for harassing my bartender. I’ve had worse.”
“You’ve had worse as a human. Have you been hurt as a vampire before?”
“How do you think I got this place? That Corbin just walked away?”
“Heard about a raid on a blood bank two days before you took over. Whoever pulled it off got away clean. Took only one bag of the most common types, left anything rare and the universal donor.” He frowns. “Almost like they were minimizing the damage they did. Even left just enough evidence to point out the flaw in security where they got in, but not enough to be IDed.”
“I’ve heard you talk confessions out of people too many times, Stoker.”
“Not my point. My point is, you had blood. That’s why you healed. Your body isn’t going to put itself back together on its own anymore. You’re a dead woman walking, Em.” He looks at her arm. “Dead bodies don’t have an immune system. They decay.”
“So what is this? Tricking me into doing something you can run me in for? If you can prove I’m drinking human blood, it’s at best six months in your holding cells detoxing. No way I keep the club if I’m away from it that long.”
“No way you keep it if you go into a coma while some bacteria eats away at your corpse either.”
He’s got a point, as much as she hates it.
“I told you. I don’t drink human blood anymore.”
“And I don’t smoke anymore. But if an undercover calls for it, I’m gonna light up a cigarette.”
“That’s different.”
“Maintaining a cover keeps me alive. Drinking a little genuine blood is going to do the same for you. If you don’t, I guarantee you, within a day or two you won’t be able to get out of your coffin. Infections spread a lot faster in a body that can’t fight them.”
She’d seen the burgundy streaks running up and down her arm away from the wound, as much as she’d tried to ignore them.
“Thanks for the advice. You’ve given it. Now get the hell out of my club.”
“You’re stubborn enough not to take it.” Stoker reaches for his knife. She tenses, until he shrugs the shoulder of his leather jacket down his other arm and then makes a neat slice along the inside of his forearm.
Blood wells up, bright, tangy, tempting. Overpowering.
“Well, you better do something, or this is going to get all over the floor and my spectrum light is gonna turn it into a Christmas tree.”
“Blackmailer.”
“Mule-headed idiot.”
She missed that insult.
She dives forward and catches the first falling drop of blood in her palm a fraction of a second before it hits the ground.
She keeps her hands cupped below his arm as she cleans up the overflow of blood, but in moments it’s a manageable trickle. She can feel her arm putting itself back together, an agonizing ache somewhere between being burned and having glass shards pulled out of her skin one at a time, but she can also feel her body forcing out the infection.
She hadn’t realized how awful she was feeling until she isn’t anymore.
A hand holding a white sterile compress slips between her tongue and his skin, and she almost snarls and bites down on it, but she forces herself back with all her re-acquired strength. 
She’s left enough indelible marks on Stoker’s skin.
“That should hold you. You’ll get a delivery tomorrow night. A little congratulations on the new place gift from an old friend. Make sure to chill it well, it’s best served that way.”
When they leave the room together, it looks like the whole club is holding the collective breath most of them no longer actually need to take. And when Stoker opens the door, then turns to yell back, “You got away with it this time, Cole, but someday, we’re going to nail you, mark my word,” before vanishing into the night, there’s a moment’s silence and then a collective cheer.
Emma descends the stairs with her accustomed grace, simply nodding at the congratulations on surviving her first surprise inspection by hunters.
“I have nothing to hide,” she says to those who ask what cleaning service she’s getting in.
It’s true until the next night, five minutes before opening, when an unmarked van parks at the back door and rings the delivery bell. 
Carlos has to call Emma back personally to sign for the damn thing. Someone sent it certified delivery.
She waits until the club opens and her staff are busy filling orders and watching the crowd before she opens it in the privacy of her personal office.
Inside is a cold-storage pack, and inside that are two bags of shelf-stabilized blood, stamped with the O- type marker and a string of ID numbers. 
SJ 79110806007.
Only John Stoker would have been issued a double-oh-seven ID number by sheer luck of the draw.
Next time he shows up, she’s going to have a poster of “You Only Live Twice” hanging over the end of the bar.
It’ll clash with the aesthetic a little, but the sentiment fits just fine.