Texas Hold 'Em by Patrick Kampman

between us. “Back off, scuzzball. No one’s tapping him but me!”
    “Fine, you want to do the honors?” Martin held out the makeshift jar to Katy, who smacked it out of his hand, sending it down to shatter on the floor. I closed my eyes as a couple of stray pieces of glass bounced off me.
    “That’s not what I meant! Find some other blood bag for Eric. I told you, this one’s mine.” I had to give it to Katy—outnumbered and significantly out-aged, which in vampire terms meant overpowered, she still wasn’t backing down.
    I tuned them out and looked for a way to escape while they squabbled. No luck. The place was obviously abandoned, and, being a theater, was probably soundproofed well enough so that if I did scream, no one but my captors was likely to hear it. By this point, Katy was screaming louder than I could anyway.
    Examining my immediate predicament, I found that what the duct-tape job lacked in professionalism was more than made up for by enthusiasm. Someone had used a lot of the tough silver stuff to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere.
    I did a quick inventory of my belongings. My guns and knife were missing, obviously. And Katy clearly had lifted my phone. My front pockets seemed empty, which meant my keys were probably gone as well. I was pretty sure I could feel my wallet in my back pocket, which was a relief; it had a couple of grand in it. Assuming, of course, they hadn’t taken the cash out of it and put it back. The thought made me sad.
    Nothing I had on me was of any particular use. I was about to suffer from a wave of serious despair until I spotted the glass remains of the broken liquor bottle on the floor next to me. If I could somehow manage to get to one of the larger pieces, I might be able to use it to cut myself free.
    Then what? After that my plan fell apart. My leg was literally shredded from what Sylvia had done to it. If I did make it out of this, I was probably going to limp forever, and at the very least I was going to need a rabies shot, or whatever the vampire equivalent was. So even if I made it out of this chair, I wasn’t going anywhere fast. Certainly not fast enough to outrun vampires.
    The sound of Martin backhanding Katy brought my focus back to my captors. Her defiance had finally worn out the other vampire’s patience.
    Katy’s head recoiled, then snapped back faster than my eye could catch. Her eyes promised murder. A trickle of fresh blood ran down from the corner of her mouth, creating a vibrant river over the crusted dried stuff.
    Her expression was furious, and by the way she held her hand, I got the feeling that if she’d had her axe, things would have gotten a lot more bloody very quickly. Instead, like the kid she used to be, she stomped her foot, wheeled around and stormed off.
    Martin chuckled, said something off-color about Katy’s ass, then stared down at the shattered glass and shook his head. He glanced around, and not seeing another suitable container, looked at Sylvia.
    “Can’t we let Eric drink from the guy?”
    Sylvia stood with her arms crossed, a look of displeasure making her appear even more like a schoolmarm than usual. “And what if he doesn’t stop, or goes too far? I’d rather not be the one responsible for denying Christian the pleasure of his re-acquaintance with the boy. Hurry up and go get another container. Eric needs blood.”
    Martin grunted something, then started searching for something else to put my precious bodily fluids in.
    “Actually, never mind—I’ll do that. You better go after Katy before she does something stupid,” Sylvia said.
    A leer crossed Martin’s face as he stopped his search and headed in the direction Katy had left. I wasn’t a psychic, but I predicted a bad end for Martin.
    “I’m hungry.”
    A pitiful whine brought my attention to what I assumed was Eric. He was dragging himself down an aisle. Between the meaty eye socket, the bullet holes in his head, and his tangled bowels, which he was trying