Venor, p.1
Venor, page 1
Copyright ©2024 by Halli Starling
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Contents
Author's Note & Content Warnings
1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
Acknowledgements
Also By Halli Starling
About the Author
Author's Note & Content Warnings
VENOR was originally meant to be a true paranormal thriller/romance novel. In typical fashion for my planning and writing, it quickly developed into something unexpected. While the issue of addiction is something addressed by some paranormal stories (vampires addicted to blood, werewolves fighting against the urge/addiction to turn, etc.), I don't see many tackling the issue outside of that viewpoint.
Renzo is an addict. This is indisputable, and he is very aware that addiction is an uncurable disease. Many of Renzo's experiences are inspired by my reading and research, but also by my family history. Our understanding of addiction is constantly changing, and I encourage anyone interested in the science to read books like In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté and The Urge by Carl Erik Fisher. There are many, many books and websites out there claiming to help you treat addiction, and I implore you to be very careful about whose advice you trust.
Please note: I am not an expert in any way about addiction. This book tackles issues around addiction and often goes down dark paths. Please take care while reading.
Other content warnings:
Gore
Body horror (including teeth, eyeballs, viscera, and more)
Detailed violence/violent scenes
Discussions of mental health and suicide
VENOR
to chase, hunt, pursue game/quarry
“What strange phenomena we find in a great city, all we need do is stroll about with our eyes open. Life swarms with innocent monsters.”
― Charles Baudelaire
RENZO
The steady rhythm of a typical Wednesday night at The Silver Crow Pub was a balm to Renzo’s frazzled nerves. The “after” (dinner, a show, or the combo) crowd had just arrived, and between easy pulls for pitchers of beer, untwisting caps on bottles of table red, and tasting boards hauled over to chipped tables by steady hands, he could almost forget the fight he’d just had. Over money. Because it was always about money with Cas, and because Cas held the majority stake in the bar, that made Renzo and his opinions only partially invested.
Because you’re only part-owner, he reminded himself, the words bitter with scorched memories. He tried to keep from frowning as he rang out the couple snuggled so tightly they looked like some kind of conjoined twin. They might have been joined at the hip, but they’d tipped nicely, so as Simon, one of the staff, passed by, Renzo slid the bills into his hand. The kid looked stunned to be holding a tip in the double digits.
“Looks like Simon’s buying the closing round,” Violet said as she ducked between them, her tray packed with dirty glasses.
Simon turned on Renzo, clutching the money tightly. “Yes! I’ve been wanting to do that since I started.”
The kid’s enthusiasm was a mile wide and an ocean deep, and Renzo was glad he was settling in after a few hard weeks. Simon had one of those faces that made everyone want to talk to him, and since the pub had a tendency to draw a slightly older crowd, he often had a few clingers on every shift, so Renzo had decided to send Simon out to the floor tonight. Win-win. Simon got better tips with tables, Renzo got to handle the bar, and Violet could back them both up with her unflappable “No, fuck you” attitude that made her a favorite with the regulars. They worked well together. As a team. Like they should have.
“Busy for a Wednesday.”
Renzo froze at the voice behind him. “I’m surprised you’re still here, Cas. Don’t you usually skulk out before seven?”
Cas laughed and put a hand on Renzo’s shoulder. “I figured after some deliberation that I should take your advice, Rez. See how good your staff is. The ones you’re always bragging about. I’m just curious if they hold up to my standards.”
Renzo had a quick, but satisfying, daydream about dumping an entire pitcher of beer over Cas’s head, then shook it off to move down the bar, putting him out of his ex’s reach. Two new patrons had just taken up stools beside each other, but Renzo hadn’t seen them walk in together. Something about their body language told him they were strangers. So he slid napkins to them both and worked on two waters while he greeted them separately. The person on his right, though, was the only one to acknowledge him. The other, a woman with short red hair, stared studiously down at the drink menu.
So of course Cas interjected himself into the moment. He sidled up beside Renzo (because he couldn’t take a fucking hint about Renzo wanting space) and addressed the woman. “Welcome to the Silver Crow. Been in before?”
The line was way too polite for a dive like this, and Cas said it with all the enthusiasm of an MLM salesperson, so Renzo cut his losses and focused on the other patron. They were also staring down at the menu of cocktail specials like it could tell them the secret to life and the universe, but had the basic decency to look up at Renzo when he approached.
Instantly, Renzo sized them up and knew he’d have to ask for ID. It was too hard to tell their age; their shock of dark blond hung over their forehead, obscuring any signs of age, and their square-rimmed tortoise shell glasses told him nothing. So he launched into the usual pitch.
“The specials are good, all made in-house, no mixers.” Renzo twirled a finger in the air, watching his patron’s green eyes track it. Hadn’t come in blasted, so that was good. “Wine list is on the back, beers on tap below that, and if you want a drink not on the menu, chances are I can make it.”
“I do like a challenge.” They had a soft, gravelly voice, enunciating so clearly that Renzo could hear them easily over the churn of a packed bar. “You know, I haven’t had a Pink Lady in ages.”
Their eyebrows went up and Renzo smiled. He was already making the drink in his head, but had to ask, “Egg white or no egg white?”
They smiled back. “Omitting that would be as bad a sin as omitting the grenadine.”
“Got it. Can I see your ID?”
That got him a genuine smile, one that sucked Renzo right in. Shit. This person - a guy, he assumed - was his type: blonde, tanned, with pretty eyes. But the guy was super buttoned up, and his ensemble of tight and tucked in baby blue polo and gray slacks was clearly not from this side of town. And when a long-fingered hand held out a driver’s license, Renzo clocked the uptown address (decent part of town but not swanky), the age (34, which was mildly surprising given the guy looked a decade younger), and fucking white as hell name. Cedrick Byrne. It sounded like some rich asshole’s son; granted, an uncharitable thought about a stranger who had been nothing but polite, but Renzo was feeling a bit pessimistic tonight.
“Hopefully I pass muster,” Cedrick joked, giving Renzo a closed-lipped smile.
“You probably get the whole ‘got a baby face’ thing all the time,” Renzo said as he handed the ID back.
Cedrick’s smile grew. Renzo found he liked it, an easy smile Cedrick probably gave strangers all the time. “Every now and then. It started to fall off when I hit 30. People always like to judge based on looks alone.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Bit too close to home?” Cedrick’s gaze scraped over Renzo. It felt like that one time he’d had a massage and at the end, the masseuse had taken a weird, dull metal blade tool to his skin. Strange and uncomfortable, but not painful. “I imagine you get pinned as a type.”
Renzo had to chuckle at that. This guy seemed sharp, and he always did like the quick ones. “Was it my long hair, or the beard, or the jewelry that gave it away?”
Cedrick shook his head, the motion stirring the dark blonde hair over his brow. Dude looked like he needed a haircut, which was an odd little detail in his otherwise buttoned-up image. “It’s more the vibe, though the hair helps.” He leaned in and whatever was in the look he gave Renzo, it shot through him like tequila. “For what it’s worth, I like it.”
“This how you usually tend the bar, Rez?” Cas said from his right. “There are people waiting.”
Renzo tapped the bar and said, “I’ll be right back with that Pink Lady” before wheeling on Cas, who backed up a few steps. Renzo crowded over him, disguising the move by plucking up a bottle of grenadine from the back shelves. “Don’t,” Renzo said softly. “If you had any idea of how to actually run this place, you’d be down here with us. Instead, you spend all shift upstairs doing fuck all –”
“I’m managing the business side of this shit,” Cas snapped back. “You know, the money? The marketing? The fucking building so we don’t have a roof cave on top of our heads? I’m doing what we agreed upon, Rez.”
“Yeah, well, you’re shit at it. And don’t call me that,” Renzo said, voice dropped down into a harsh whisper. Cas’s eyes flashed, but Renzo pressed forward. Time was, he would have never pushed when Cas was like this, all riled up like an alley cat fighting over territory. What a picture his ex made, messy beach wave hair and too-tight clothing and all the ridiculous chunky jewelry; but the picture was false, manicured to make Cas seem cool and aloof. Cas was a brawler, not some hippie type.
“Move,” Renzo said evenly as Cas spluttered, body gone tense. “I’m not doing this now. Either help, or go back upstairs.”
Cas moved and Renzo did everything he could to ignore him. He was proud that his hands didn’t shake as he made the Pink Lady. Every bit of the drink was perfect, he knew that, and watching Cedrick close his eyes with the first sip helped to bring his heart rate down a little.
It only jumped back up when Cedrick said, “I’m glad I got you,” and tipped his head toward the far end of the bar.
Renzo turned to see Cas leaning over the bar in his “I’m chatting you up like a real player” stance – shirt half open so the patron got an eyeful of bronze skin and tattoos as Cas all but crawled over the bar into the patron’s lap. It was absurd and exaggerated, just like Cas. The patron didn’t seem to mind at all, their eyes full of the portrait Cas made, because while his ex was vain, it was for a good reason. And when Cas had you in his sights, it was hard to focus on anything or anyone else. Renzo had been that focus for a long time and, for a moment, the sounds of the bar threatened to seep in too far, to make his head spin and ring the way fluorescent lights and red wine did. There had been a lot of bad with Cas, but a lot of good, too.
But as Renzo watched his ex ooze all over the polished wood counter, he scrounged around, past the initial burst of frustration and anger only to find…next to nothing. It was strange, after so much animosity between them these last several months, that Renzo found himself void of caring. Cas was annoying and vain and selfish, yes, and he made some shitty decisions as a business owner and he never listened to Renzo until it was too late. But all that anger and loneliness Renzo had felt after their split seemed to be slowly evaporating.
It was an odd sensation, but not an unwelcome one.
Reality slid back into place, with a roar and the touch of a hand to his arm. “You okay?” Violet asked, staring up at him with concern etched across her face. “You go distant for a sec?”
He had, actually, but if he’d said it out loud, Violet would get even more worried and make him stand in the walk-in until his body and brain were back in sync. When these “separations” occurred, it always took a shock to the system to reboot things. “I’m good, no need,” he said, gently removing her hand with his. “Was just thinking about Cas and somehow managed to not stay angry.”
Violet leaned around him, got an eyeful of whatever Cas was now doing (and it was something salacious, given the few hoots and hollers rising up around the bar), and sighed. “Want me to accidentally dump ice over his head?”
“No. That would just be a waste of good ice and then he’d be pissy all night.”
“Yeah, but a pissy Cas is one that locks himself away in his office,” Violet countered.
It was tempting, but Renzo waved her off. “No need. He’ll fuck off eventually.”
“God, I hope so,” she muttered as she slipped by to snag an empty tray, leaving Renzo to finish a second and unasked-for Pink Lady with a flourish and place it before his customer.
A long fingered hand plucked up the glass almost as soon as he’d set it down. “These might be the most perfect drinks I’ve ever seen. And delivered up before I even had to request it,” Cedrick said, dark eyes gleaming in the purposefully golden lights overhead.
(They give off the right lighting for a bar, Renzo had argued when they’d refurbished the place eight years ago. You don’t want people in industrial lighting. You’ll make everyone look washed out. That had been the argument he’d concocted for Cas, instead of outright saying, The lights will give me a migraine, because Cas wouldn’t have been swayed by that.)
“Then to your health,” Renzo said as he swept away the empty steins left by two men who had been wearing the city’s hockey team jerseys. He turned to set them in a tub for Simon to take to the back, and then there was a dull thump, then someone cursing loudly. Renzo rolled his eyes; fights weren’t common, but they always seemed to happen on game nights.
Renzo turned with a sigh, resigning himself to breaking up a couple of drunk idiots, when he saw the crowd in the middle of the bar’s open space begin to part and Renzo caught a blur of movement.
Then all hell broke loose.
Someone yelled. Someone else screamed.
Metal flashed in a pale hand.
Renzo’s heart went into his throat but he kept his breathing calm. Automatically, he slammed his palm against the alarm button under the counter, grabbed his baseball bat, then dashed out from behind the bar to the middle of the chaos.
The seats around the bar had cleared out as people pushed for the front and alleyway exits. Off to the side, he caught sight of Simon pushing Violet back, throwing himself in front of her. Cas was frozen to his spot near the jukebox (Renzo hated that thing, it hardly ever worked and people complained about it all the time). And in front of him were two men grappling with each other. They were red-faced and spluttering, and the tall, thin guy on the left was already bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow. A cut made with the switchblade in the other guy’s hand. Switchblade guy was short and stocky and yelling something about being “fucking insulted.”
Then he saw it.
Blood-stained teeth as the guy on the right lunged forward, grinning. No, not blood. It was too dark for blood, too thick and viscous looking.
Black sumac
“Call the cops!” Renzo yelled as he dashed forward, bat raised high. He rounded on the guy on the right as the other one darted into the crowd. He needed to focus on this guy, who was clearly crazed and high as a kite. Black sumac would do that to you - an intense high, like you were flying, followed by brutal, bloodthirsty passion. Some people craved sex or food, others went looking for danger. And sometimes, black sumac made you the big, bad thing in the room. That shit was starting to become pervasive in certain parts of town and it didn’t help when the news kept calling it a designer drug. Those assholes just made it more alluring.
Renzo only hoped this guy’s violent state would burn out fast. He could fight, but there were too many people around who could get hurt. He couldn’t protect them all, but maybe he could delay until the cops showed up.
“You got your blood up, didn’t you?” he said to the guy. “You want to fight, you’re gonna have to do it with me.”
“That asshole — he — he…” The high-as-shit guy spluttered, sending black rivulets down his chin. Fuck. Dude looked like a horror movie extra.
“Nah, man, you don’t want him,” Renzo said as he stepped back, kicking a chair out of the way. His height and broadness would hopefully be appealing enough to this guy’s fritzing brain. People on black sumac who wanted a fight usually went for the biggest target, and Renzo’s six-foot-five was easy to spot. If he could get this guy to the alley, he could keep someone else from getting hurt.
This was going to suck. Gut instinct and experience told him that.
Renzo jabbed the bat toward the back door. “Come on, man, let’s go out to the alley. Fuckin’ brawl. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Something to sink your teeth into?” He spread his arms wide. “I’m a big, tough guy. Seen plenty of fights. Let’s take it outside, yeah?”
The high guy’s face contorted for a moment, then he squinted, fixing his bloodshot eyes on Renzo. His smile was stained black and the sight of his teeth made Renzo’s heart jump a little. He remembered seeing that smile in the mirror years ago and hating himself for being so goddamned weak.
Maybe he could add this to the list of ways he was trying to make up for the past. Cosmic balance and all that.
Slowly, Renzo started to back away, keeping his stare locked on the guy with the blade. It was an absurd comedy, him trying to lure this blitzed asshole to where he wouldn’t hurt anyone else while a bar full of people watched from the sidelines. Renzo knew the cops were already on their way, between the security alert and Violet and several others with phones to their ears. So if he was really lucky, this would all end before he had a knife shoved under his nose.
