A Touch of Dead

of thin air. “Sign,” he told Rita, and I handed him a pen that had been on the counter beneath the phone.
    “You’re taking the bar in return for your sister’s life,” she said, expressing her incredulity at what I considered a very bad moment.
    “Sure.”
    She gave the two fairies a look of contempt. With a flash of her rings, she took up the pen and signed the contract. She pushed up to her feet, smoothed the skirt of her dress across her round hips, and tossed her head. “I’ll be going now,” she said. “I own another place in Baton Rouge. I’ll just live there.”
    “You’ll start running,” Claude said.
    “What?”
    “You better run. You owe us money and a hunt for the death of our sister. We have the money, or at least the means to make it.” He pointed at the contract. “Now we need the hunt.”

    “That’s not fair.”
    Okay, that disgusted even me.
    “Fair is only part of fairy as letters of the alphabet.” Claudine looked formidable: not sweet, not dotty. “If you can dodge us for a year, you can live.”
    “A year!” Rita’s situation seemed to be feeling more and more real to her by then. She was beginning to look desperate.
    “Starting . . . now.” Claude looked up from his watch. “Better go. We’ll give ourselves a four-hour handicap.”
    “Just for fun,” Claudine said.
    “And, Rita?” Claude said, as Rita made for the door. She paused, looked back at him.
    Claude smiled at her. “We won’t use lemons.”

DRACULA NIGHT

    I found the invitation in the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I had to lean out of my car window to open it, because I’d paused on my way to work after remembering I hadn’t checked my mail in a couple of days. My mail was never interesting. I might get a flyer for Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or one of those ominous mass mailings about pre-need burial plots.
    Today, after I’d sighed at my Entergy bill and my cable bill, I had a little treat: a handsome, heavy, buff-colored envelope that clearly contained some kind of invitation. It had been addressed by someone who’d not only taken a calligraphy class but passed the final with flying colors.

    I got a little pocketknife out of my glove compartment and slit open the envelope with the care it deserved. I don’t get a lot of invitations, and when I do, they’re usually more Hallmark than watermark. This was something to be savored. I carefully pulled out the stiff, folded paper and opened it. Something fluttered into my lap: an enclosed sheet of tissue. Without absorbing the revealed words, I ran my finger over the embossing. Wow.
    I’d strung out the preliminaries as long as I could. I bent to actually read the italic typeface.
    Eric Northman
and the Staff of Fangtasia
    Request the honor of your presence
at Fangtasia’s annual party
to celebrate the birthday of
the Lord of Darkness
     
    Prince Dracula
    On January 13, 10:00 p.m.
music provided by the Duke of Death
Dress Formal RSVP
    I read it twice. Then I read it again.
    I drove to work in such a thoughtful mood that I’m glad there wasn’t any other traffic on Humming-bird Road. I took the left to get to Merlotte’s, but then I almost sailed right past the parking lot. At the last moment, I braked and turned in to navigate my way to the parking area behind the bar that was reserved for employees.
    Sam Merlotte, my boss, was sitting behind his desk when I peeked in to put my purse in the deep drawer in his desk that he let the servers use. He had been running his hands over his hair again, because the tangled red gold halo was even wilder than usual. He looked up from his tax form and smiled at me.
    “Sookie,” he said, “how are you doing?”
    “Good. Tax season, huh?” I made sure my white T-shirt was tucked in evenly so that the MERLOTTE’S embroidered over my left breast would be level. I flicked one of my long blond hairs off my black pants. I always bent over to brush my hair out so my ponytail would look smooth. “You not taking them to the CPA this year?”
    “I figure if I start this early, I can do them myself.”
    He said that every year, and he always ended up
making an appointment with the CPA, who always had to file for an extension.
    “Listen, did you get one of these?” I asked, extending the invitation.
    He dropped his pen with some relief and took the sheet from my hand. After scanning the script, he said, “No. They wouldn’t invite many shifters, anyway. Maybe the local packmaster, or some