Here Comes the Vampire (14 page)

I’ve had the fantasy.

No, I’m not talking the one about winning the lottery or being Jax Teller’s old lady (have I mentioned I’m a huge Sons of Anarchy fan?) or being a rock star/Dallas Cowboys cheerleader/Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model.

I’m talking
the
fantasy.

The one with the white doves and the sprays of pink roses and the ice sculpture shaped like my favorite pair of Manolo Blahniks. MAC Sweet Dreams lip gloss favors for the women, Gucci tie clips for the men. A Bentley draped in crepe paper and tied with tin cans. A multi-tiered cake covered in pale pink fondant with edible cherry blossoms and sugared tea roses.

I know, I know. I’m a vampire who can’t eat solid food. What the hell am I doing envisioning a wedding cake? But they smell scrumptious and you can’t have a kickass wedding without a kickass cake, right?

Since I was someday hoping for my own waltz down the proverbial aisle, I couldn’t help but be excited as we neared the familiar storefront in Queens.

A neon white Wedding Wonderland sign blinked above the double glass doors and tulle draped the display windows.

Pushing inside, I quickly found myself surrounded by big, poofy dresses, fake flowers, and the smell of potpourri. An instrumental version of
Wind Beneath My Wings
flowed from a CD player near an ancient cash register.

Mandy and The Ninas sat on a white velvet sofa in front of a coffee table overflowing with bridal magazines.

“You’re here,” Nina One declared, touching a protective hand to her bulging belly. “This little bugger is kicking up a storm what with all the polyester in here. It’s a mistake, right?” She glanced around. “This has to be the wrong address.”

“I like this place,” Mandy declared. “This is where I got my wedding dress.”

“I rest my case,” Nina One said.

“I bet they’ve got some great deals,” N {t d whereina Two declared. Have I mentioned that she’s committed to an accountant?

“This is the right place,” I announced, settling down on one of the sofas. Remy moved to turn, but I yanked him down so fast that wood cracked and the sofa nearly buckled.

I eyeballed my mother who stood as if afraid to touch anything until she finally sank down to the very edge of a nearby chair.
Let the games begin.

“All right, ladies. And gentlemen.”
Clap, clap.
“Since everybody’s here, let’s get started.” The announcement came from the shop’s owner, Shirley Cannoli. “While I don’t mind staying late, I’ve got two poodles and a pit bull waiting at home. Oh, and I just added two new lab puppies to the mix,” declared the store’s proprietor.

Shirley had bright bleached-blond hair, enough eye makeup to impress Marilyn Manson, and blood-red nails about three inches long. She wore gold-rimmed glasses that hung from a chain around her neck and bright red lipstick. Black spandex pants hugged her thighs and a red, white and gold abstract top hugged the biggest pair of breasts I’ve ever seen (which says a lot since I’ve been around for more than five hundred years). She smelled of hair spray and Italian sausage. Her accent dripped Jersey.

She was divorced with two grown daughters. While she didn’t normally stay after hours because of her “babies” i.e. pets, she was doing me a solid on account of I’d sent her several customers over the past six months and she was
this
close to paying for a much-needed facelift.

One more hoity toity wedding and she was going under the knife. Guaranteed.

“Before we get started,” Shirley went on, “can I interest anyone in a little refreshments?”

Remy’s hand shot into the air. “I’ll have a Scotch.”

“Italian Virgin, here,” my mother waved a hand. “The drink will do,” she added, when I gave her the Evil eye, “though the real thing would be a hell of a lot better.”

“Don’t be silly. I don’t have a fully stocked bar. Just a microwave and a fridge,” Shirley told everyone. “That means Jell-O shots.”

“I’ll have one,” I announced. My gaze shot to my mom who looked ready to bolt. “We all will.”

“I do NOT drink Jell-O,” my mother told me when Shirley disappeared to retrieve a platter full of goodies. “We should be sipping imported blood.”

“We had plenty of blood at Renoit’s. Just loosen up and try it. You might like it.”

“I would sooner sit through the Broadway version of
An American Werewolf in London
,” my mother muttered.

“Fine.” I did some muttering of my own. “If you don’t want to do this, we’ll just forget it. It’s over.”

“Wonderful,” my mother remarked.

“Done with,” I fired back.

“That’s my girl,” came my ma.

“No poofy dress,” I went on.

“Music to my ears.”

“No pool full of blood.”

“Great—wait a second.” My mother glared. “What are you saying?”

“No tiny, bat-shaped bottles of bubbles,” I rushed on. “No fancy place settings or elegant candelabras. No eight hundred guests—“

“Jell-O shots will be fine,” she cut in. “Just fine.” But fifteen minutes later she’d yet to touch the Strawberry Serenade sitting in front of her.

I, on the other hand, had already sucked down three thanks to the fact that Jell-O didn’t count as a solid and I needed to be super inebriated just to sit amid so much taffeta and tulle.

No, seriously.
Taffeta
.

“Now this is my number-one seller,” Shirley announced when she returned from the back, a dress overflowing her arms.

It was white.

It was beaded.

It was lacy.

It was scary.

“Number one, huh?” my mother asked, eyeballing the busy confection. “Surely, you must be kidding. Why, it’s ridiculous—“

“—that this hasn’t already sold,” I chimed in, jumping to my feet to round the coffee table and get closer to the nightmare. “It’s absolutely beautiful.” I turned back to Jacqueline. “So
perfect
, right?”

A stricken look crossed Jacqueline Marchette’s face and a rush of guilt went through me.

Only because my mother had been making excuses for yours truly for four hundred and eighty years, and she was still going strong every month at her Connecticut Huntress meeting. This was her moment. Her chance to bask in the satisfaction of
finally
hooking up her daughter, and here I was threatening to turn that satisfaction into pure embarrassment.

I tamped down the feeling and held tight to my survival instincts. “I’ll take it,” I told Shirley.

My mother bolted to her feet. “But what about all the others,” she blurted, motioning to the wall-to-wall racks of white surrounding us. “You should try on a few before you make such a big decision. Better yet, you should visit several dress shops. Why, I’ll call Vera Wang right now and make an appointment. It’s short notice, but I know Vera will make an exception since your father and I donated a hefty amount to her last charity endeavor.”

Me? At Vera Wang? Picking out dresses? With
the
Vera-freakin’-Wang?

Let’s go.

That’s what I wanted to say. But then I saw the disappointment on Shirley’s face. “No Vera—“ My throat closed around her last name and I grabbed another Jell-O shot for some much needed lubrication. “This is it.” I touched the dress. Stroked it. “I know it. I feel it. You like it, don’t you, Remy?”

He looked startled for a split-second, before his own survival instincts kicked in and he remembered the past four hours at the house of blood. “I don’t just like it, dear. I love it,” he declared.

“It’s settled then,” I told my mother. My gaze went to Shirley who was mentally calculating how much more she needed to sell in order to fund a little lipo to go with the facelift. “I want this dress.”

“Great choice. I’ll have to charge a rush fee since the event is this weekend.”

“No problem. Money is not an object.

“Frickin’ A.” Shirley beamed as she turned and hung the monstrosity on a nearby hook. “Do you want to go ahead and try it on now for alterations? There will be a rush charge for that, too.”

“I’ll try it on later.” I waved a hand. “Let’s look at more dresses.”

Shirley’s eyes gleamed with hope. “For the bridesmaids?”

“Not just yet.” I turned back to my mother. “Let’s find an outfit for the Mother-of-the-bride first.”

Nina One sighed with relief because, hey, she was pregnant and stuffing a pregos body into a formal was right up there with running naked through Times Square.

Ditto for Mandy.

Nina Two? She was good either way because a) she loved a good bargain and b) Wilson was out of town at an auditing convention.

Remy, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as relieved at the notion of looking at more dresses. He groaned.

I smiled.

And my mother sucked down the first of
many
Jell-O shots.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“We have another hour until sunrise,” I told Remy whe ~ng tht size="+2n he walked me to the front door at my parents’ house. After six hours and twenty-nine minutes at Wedding Wonderland, that is.

I stared at him with hopeful eyes. “We could pick out table linens for the reception.”

“Gotta run.” He was little more than a blur as he high-tailed it back to the car.

“I have swatches,” I called after him.

The door slammed. The engine revved. Tires squealed. And just like that, I found myself alone.

With the exception of the large female werewolf squatting about twenty feet away.

It wasn’t Viola, but I did recognize her as one of the NUNS I’d hooked up. I waved. She smiled.

“Don’t mind me,” I called out. “But just so you know, he’s got a chainsaw.” I slipped inside the house and headed upstairs to my room, grateful that my mother had already arrived—she’d taken her own car, remember?—and barricaded herself in her room along with my father, his chainsaw, and the pale yellow dress I’d forced her into buying at the bridal shop. It was a two piece number with taffeta roses and a great big bow smack dab on the ass.

Which explained the whirring of the chainsaw and the
ripppp
of fabric that echoed down the hallway.

My smile lasted all of five minutes before I realized that while I’d pissed off a lot of people tonight, I was no closer to solving my problems.

The reception was still on and I was still committed.

For now.

I held tight to the hope, changed into a pair of smiley face boxers and a Donna Karan silk cami, and pulled out the client folders I’d brought from the office. I powered up my database.

While my own afterlife might be falling apart, I still had work to do. Mr. Fairweather had gone to dinner with Carol Levine and I needed an update. I also needed to find a prospect for Erica Godfrey and, last but not least, a brunette with loose morals for Ash.

“How did it go?” I asked Mr. Fairweather when he finally picked up the phone.

“She brought donuts.”

“That’s good. You like donuts.”

“The cake kind with sprinkles. I hate sprinkles.”

“Well, hopefully you had fun anyway.”

“She can’t cook worth a damn and she wears dentures. I need somebody with their own teeth. I told you that. Why, that was a useless waste of time. I want my money back.”

“Carol was just the warm-up,” I told him. “To get you back in the swing of things for the real date.”

“Which is?”

“Caroline Theodora Janske,” I blurted the first name I could think of. “She loves animals,” I added, noting that he’d checked the animal lover box on his questionnaire. Mrs. Janske had about a zillion cats. She couldn’t get more animal lover than that.

“Animals are good. So long as she ain’t got no dad-blasted cats. I hate cats.”

“Sounds like a match made in heaven.”

Not
, but I had all of four senior citizens in my database at the moment. Mr. Fairweather, Mrs. Janske, Carol Levine and Herbert Pinsky. Since Mr. Fairweather wasn’t batting for the opposite team, I was stuck with the only other female. Better to send him on a date with Mrs. Wrong than risk a refund. Besides, he still had a third prospect left. He and Mrs. Janske could go out, hate each other for a few hours, and it would buy me some time to find him another date.

The right date.

I gave him the time, date and place for the next date—coffee at a small diner across the street from the new pet spa Mrs. Janske had been eyeing—and then called her to say I’d arranged an afternoon of beauty for her babies. She could drop them off and wait across the street with a cup of coffee and a nice gentleman.icefternoon My way of saying thank you for taking care of Killer for me.

“Just so you know, this doesn’t clear the air. I’m still not cat sitting for you anymore.”

“I know. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you.”

Next, I came up with a tax lawyer for Erica Godfrey.

“What are his qualifications?” she asked when I phoned her with the news.

“He’s decent looking. Nice eyes. Great physique.”

“Not those qualifications. What did he make on his bar exam? What tax bracket does he fall into? And how many hours per week does he work? Because if it’s anything less than sixty, I’m not interested. I need a career oriented man to impress my partners.”

“Don’t worry. He aced the exam, falls into a six figure tax bracket, and he practically sleeps at his office. Your bosses will love him.”

Once I’d given Erica the information on their first meet and greet, I turned my attention to Ash and his quest for the perfect sacrificial victim.

I hit pay dirt with one of the English teachers I’d yet to hook up. She’d put herself through college waitressing at Hooters. While I knew that didn’t guarantee she was a major slut, the odds were definitely in my favor.

I sent her a text with the information that she was about to meet the man of her dreams—what? Ash
was
a succubus and while I knew the date wouldn’t end in happily-ever-after, it might end with a really good orgasm which Sally Chessfield desperately needed since she’d been walking the straight and celibate as a middle school teacher since her Hooters’ days.

I called Ash next and got his voice mail. “Tomorrow night. The Sports Guild. Eight o’clock. Bring flowers.” The Sports Guild was a bar smack dab in the middle of Madison Square Garden. While I knew Sally didn’t meet the sacrificial criteria, I wasn’t taking any chances. The more witnesses, the better.