A Touch of Dead

small cooler, taking great care to keep it level.
    “The Royalty,” Pam explained in a neutral voice.
    “Can I see?” I asked.
    Eric lifted the lid and showed me the contents: two blue bottles (for the blue blood, I presumed), with labels that bore the logo of a tiara and the single word “Royalty” in gothic script.

    “Very nice,” I said, underwhelmed.
    “He’ll be so pleased,” Eric said, sounding as happy as I’d ever heard him.
    “You sound oddly sure that the—that Dracula will be coming,” I said. The hall was crowded, and we began moving to the public part of the club.
    “I was able to have a business discussion with the Master’s handler,” he said. “I was able to express how much having the Master’s presence would honor me and my establishment.”
    Pam rolled her eyes at me.
    “You bribed him,” I translated. Hence Eric’s extra excitement this year, and his purchase of the Royalty.
    I had never suspected Eric harbored this depth of hero worship for anyone except himself. I would never have believed he would spend good money for such a reason, either. Eric was charming and enterprising, and he took good care of his employees; but the first person on Eric’s admiration list was Eric, and his own well-being was Eric’s number one priority.
    “Dear Sookie, you’re looking less than excited,” Pam said, grinning at me. Pam loved to make trouble, and she was finding fertile ground tonight. Eric swung his
head back to give me a look, and Pam’s face relaxed into its usual bland smoothness.
    “Don’t you believe it will happen, Sookie?” he asked. From behind his back, Lyle rolled his eyes. He was clearly fed up with Eric’s fantasy.
    I’d just wanted to come to a party in a pretty dress and have a good time, and here I was, up a conversational creek.
    “We’ll all find out, won’t we?” I said brightly, and Eric seemed satisfied. “The club looks beautiful.” Normally, Fangtasia was the plainest place you could imagine, besides the lively gray and red paint scheme and the neon. The floors were concrete, the tables and chairs basic metal restaurant furnishings, the booths not much better. I could not believe that Fangtasia had been so transformed. Banners had been hung from the club’s ceiling. Each banner was white with a red bear on it: a sort of stylized bear on its hind legs, one paw raised to strike.
    “That’s a replica of the Master’s personal flag,” Pam said in answer to my pointed finger. “Eric paid an historian at LSU to research it.” Her expression made it clear she thought Eric had been gypped, big-time.
    In the center of Fangtasia’s small dance floor stood
an actual throne on a small dais. As I neared the throne, I decided Eric had rented it from a theater company. It looked good from thirty feet away, but up close . . . not so much. However, it had been freshened up with a plump red cushion for the Dark Prince’s der riere, and the dais was placed in the exact middle of a square of dark red carpet. All the tables had been covered with white or dark red cloths, and elaborate flower arrangements were in the middle of each table. I had to laugh when I examined one of the arrangements: in the explosion of red carnations and greenery were miniature coffins and full-size stakes. Eric’s sense of humor had surfaced, finally.
    Instead of WDED, the all-vampire radio station, the sound system was playing some very emotional violin music that was both scratchy and bouncy. “Transylva nian music,” said Lyle, his face carefully expressionless. “Later, the DJ Duke of Death will take us for a musical journey.” Lyle looked as though he would rather eat snails.
    Against one wall by the bar, I spied a small buffet for beings who ate food, and a large blood fountain for those who didn’t. The red fountain, flowing gently down several tiers of gleaming milky glass bowls,
was surrounded by crystal goblets. Just a wee bit over the top.
    “Golly,” I said weakly as Eric and Lyle went over to the bar.
    Pam shook her head in despair. “The money we spent,” she said.
    Not too surprisingly, the room was full of vampires. I recognized a few of the bloodsuckers present: Indira, Thalia, Clancy, Maxwell Lee, and Bill Compton, my ex. There were at least twenty more I had only seen once or twice, vamps who lived in Area Five under Eric’s authority. There were a few bloodsuckers I didn’t know at all, including a guy behind the bar who must be the new