by Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc

Chapter 1

It was a typical night for Ivana. She came into the bar and sat alone. Few people would dare to walk the streets of this part of New York alone. Then again, Ivana was not typical.

Sadness hit her as she looked around the bar and realized that she no longer knew anyone who came and went to this once happy place in her life. It seemed that all the regulars she had loved so much and had such fun with over the years had gone on to more mature pastures. Occasionally, another die-hard such as herself, would come and visit their old hangout and keep her company, but those times were becoming more and more scarce. She couldn’t blame them. Even the die-hards had decided that they needed a change.

She was stubborn, set in her ways. No matter how many friends she said goodbye to she wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t leave. There were too many memories for her here, good and bad, to simply leave. This place, a simple neighborhood pub, had brought too much life into her otherwise dull existence for her to abandon it just because the crowd was younger and more rambunctious. 

It was true that she was now one of the elders here, but it didn’t bother her. The young punk kids just out to get a piece of ass were easily spotted, and she blew them all off. What did she want with a kid? She couldn’t even stand men her own age, let alone a kid?

Ivana stopped in mid-thought and smiled. Men her own age, she mused. Like there was such a thing.

With a silent huff, she became indignant, as happened every time she thought about the tavern. It used to be a nice, local bar where all her mortal friends, mortals she had so willingly embraced, came to while the nights away. Now it was a dive for barely legal ‘kids’ who thought that ‘kill the keg’ nights and fights were the way to have fun.

Ivana looked up absently, hoping that no one had seen the scowl that she knew decorated her face. Almost as if in afterthought she reached into her cape, pulled out her goblet, and set it down on the bar in front of her. She ran her finger around the outside of the rim. She figured that she was the only person in the bar to bring her own goblet, but this chalice was special to her and was one of her most prized possessions. It had traveled with her throughout time and always would, she hoped.

The bartender on this night was different. She had seen him before but had never spoken to him. Maybe she would tonight. As if reading her thoughts, he walked up to her. He looked strangely at the goblet, then at her, and she answered his expression of confusion with a simple smile. The daytime bartender also looked at her oddly when she opened her cape and removed the silver etched goblet from its safe compartment, the small pocket sewn within her cape. She knew that anyone who saw her reach into her cape would give her an odd look. Some capes had pockets sewn into them, but most people wouldn’t know that.

She knew what they had to be thinking. Where did she pull that glass from? Ivana stifled a laugh. If the bartender looked at her strangely now, what would he think if she suddenly started laughing for no reason? At least she had grown used to the other bartender looking at her strangely. She didn’t want to give this one any more reason to worry than he already had.

Yes, why not let more people see that you carry your own goblet, Ivana, that way everyone can think you are a weirdo, she thought in disgust. 

Now that he had seen her with her strange bauble, she would have to break in yet another bartender. She sighed, her mind wanting to drift back to a time long ago when that goblet had found its way into her possession. She smiled tightly as the bartender filled her cup without even so much as a smile. 

Screw him she thought. She didn’t have to speak to him. The tip she wouldn’t leave would reflect his lack of kindness. Jerk. Why was it so difficult to hire people who could be nice? Dante would have never, ever, allowed this type of attitude in his pub. But then again, it was no longer Dante’s pub and hadn’t been for quite some time. Ivana sipped her drink and let her mind wander…

Currently available in paperback on kindle and audbible soon to be

released in hardback https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZPGNZ6J