All Together Dead

do. But Pam was actually smiling. Maybe she was enjoying the break in her routine. HAPPY BIRTHDAY PRESS PRESENTS: SANGUINARY SOUP FOR THE SOUL was the sign over the next booth, at which sat a bored and lonely vampire with a stack of books in front of her.
    The next exhibit took up several spaces and needed no explanation. “You should definitely upgrade,” an earnest salesman was telling a black vampire whose hair was braided and tied with a thousand colored strings. She listened intently, eyeing one of the sample miniature coffins open in front of her. “Certainly, wood’s biodegradable and it’s traditional, but who needs that? Your coffin is your home; that’s what my daddy always said.”
    There were others, including one for Extreme(ly Elegant) Events. That one was a large table with several price brochures and photo albums lying open to tempt the passersby. I was ready to check it out when I noticed that the booth was being “manned” by Miss Snooty Long-Legs. I didn’t want to talk to her again, so I sauntered on, though I never lost sight of the queen. One of the human waiters was admiring Sophie-Anne’s ass, but I figured that wasn’t punishable by death, so I let it go.
    By that time the queen and Andre had met with the sheriffs Gervaise and Cleo Babbitt. The broad-faced Gervaise was a small man, perhaps five foot six. He appeared to be about thirty-five, though you could easily add a hundred years to that and be closer to his true age. Gervaise had borne the burden of Sophie-Anne’s maintenance and amusement for the past few weeks, and the wear and tear was showing. I’d heard he’d been renowned for his sophisticated clothing and debonair style. The only time I’d seen him before, his light hair had been combed as smooth as glass on his sleek round head. Now it was definitely disheveled. His beautiful suit needed to go to the cleaner, and his wing tips needed polishing. Cleo was a husky woman with broad shoulders and coal black hair, a wide face with a full-lipped mouth. Cleo was modern enough to want to use her last name; she’d been a vampire for only fifty years.
    “Where is Eric?” Andre asked the other sheriffs.
    Cleo laughed, the kind of deep-throated laugh that made men look. “He got conscripted,” she said. “The priest didn’t show up, and Eric’s taken a course, so he’s going to officiate.”
    Andre smiled. “That’ll be something to watch. What’s the occasion?”
    “It’ll be announced in a second,” Gervaise said.
    I wondered what church would have Eric as a priest. The Church of High Profits? I drifted over to Bill’s booth and attracted Pam’s attention.
    “Eric’s a priest?” I murmured
    “Church of the Loving Spirit,” she told me, bagging three copies of the CD and handing them to a fangbanger sent by his master to pick them up. “He got his certificate from the online course, with Bobby Burnham’s help. He can perform marriage services.”
    A waiter somehow outmaneuvered all the guests around the queen and approached her with a tray full of wineglasses brimming with blood. In the blink of an eye Andre was between the waiter and the queen, and in the blink of another eye, the waiter swiveled and walked in another direction.
    I tried to look in the waiter’s mind but found it perfectly blank. Andre had grabbed control of the guy’s will and sent him on his way. I hoped the waiter was okay. I followed his progress to a humble door set in a corner until I was sure that he was going back to the kitchen. Okay, incident averted.
    There was a ripple in the currents of the display hall, and I turned to see what was happening. The King of Mississippi and the King of Indiana had come in together hand in hand, which seemed to be a public signal that they’d concluded their marriage negotiations. Russell Edgington was a slight, attractive vampire who liked other men—exclusively and extensively. He could be good company, and he was a good fighter, too. I liked him. I was a little anxious about seeing Russell, since a few months before I’d left a body in his pool. I tried to look on the bright side. The body was a vampire’s, so it should have disintegrated before the pool covering had been removed in the spring.
    Russell and Indiana stopped in front of Bill’s booth. Indiana, incidentally, was a big bull-like guy with brown curly hair and a face I thought of as no-nonsense.
    I drifted closer, because this could be trouble.
    “Bill, you look good,”