Faith Hunter: Have Stakes Will Travel

I opened the meeting with a few vampire terms and their meanings, including the devoveo and the doloro, the insanity of freshly turned vamps and the insanity of vamps who suffered the loss of a close loved one. I explained that witches were seldom successfully turned vamp, remaining in the devoveo forever, and ended with a plea for both sides to find a way to end the rift between the races and find a way for the lovers to be together. It was a lot of words for me, with even more mmms and hmms and uhs, and ahs. I’m not a public speaker. Not at all. It’s easier to shoot first and divide up the dead later, but maybe I was growing up.

When I was done, Clermont stood and spoke to Lucky Landry. Lucky was tied to a chair and to the porch railing, just in case, but he listened far better than I expected, maybe because Clermont opened with the words, “I tired a this war between coonass and coonass.”

Despite himself, Lucky chuckled and looked down. He took a deep breath and said, “I tired a it too.” He looked at his daughter, sitting on the floor, hand-in-hand with Gabe, love and determination in her eyes. “You want dis suck— You want dis vampire? You love him for real?”

“I do,” Shauna said. Her chin came up defiantly. “And I’m carrying his baby.”

Lucky pulled in a breath and the flames danced along his bound arms.

“I love him, Daddy. If you hurt him, I’ll never forgive you. Not. Ever. And I’ll spend the rest of my life keeping your grandchild away from you.”

Lucky looked at me. “Suc— Vampires can have babies like human and witch do? Despite we different races? Dem babies not be mule?”

“So far as I know, vamps can have babies, though it’s very, very rare. Whether the children are sterile I don’t know.”

Clermont said, “Dem babies not easy to have in de human way. Vampires treasure dem few. Dey can have babies of dere own, and dey special to us. Special power dey all has. Dis be first vampire-and-witch baby we have. Make him better and more special, I’m thinking.”

Lucky studied his daughter. “He say he . You carrying my first grandson, for real?”

Shauna placed a hand on her belly. “I don’t know how I know, but I know. All you other children has girls, so yes, dis boy be your first. And we already named him.” She looked at Gabe and he lifted their fisted hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers gently. Everyone on the porch said, or had to restrain a soft, “Awwww,” of delight.

“We name our baby by family name and alphabet,” Gabe said, which confused me until they went on.

“Hem be Clermont Jérôme Landry Doucette,” Shauna said, “and we call him Clerjer.” It came out “Clarshar,” and it sounded pretty on her tongue.

Laundry looked at Clermont and said, “Why not JerCler?”

“Dat not alphabet,” the vampire said, deadpan.

Both men laughed softly, measuring one another.

“What we can do to stop killin and killin?” Lucky asked.

“Baptize dis baby in church,” Clermont said. And everyone, even the vamps, took a deep, shocked breath. “Marry dem two in front a de church first, a course.”

Lucky nodded slowly. “Vampire can go in de church?”

“Not so much. But in de yard, yeah, we can do dat. You talk to de priest first, make hem see reason.”

“If he don’ see reason, den dey can marry in my church,” a voice said from the far reaches of the porch. “I marry dem. No need for no priest.”

“Who dat is?” Lucky asked.

A skinny man stood at the back, his face resolute, if pale.

“Preacher Michael? You a blood-slave to dese suckheads?” Lucky said, horror in his voice.

“Dey heal me a cancer wid dey blood. It take a lot a blood, and many month a time,” Preacher Michael said. “I give back to dem when dey need.”

Lucky made a Gaelic-sounding snort. “Well I be dam—uh, I be a monkey’s uncle.”

“And a grandfather,” Shauna said.

A goofy smile lit Lucky’s face. He looked at his erstwhile enemy again and pursed his lips to make the smile less obvious. “But how you keep my girl not crazy?”

Clermont said, “Blood-kin, we call dem. Gabe make her blood-kin. She live mebe two hundred years. She have good long life, here wid my son and wid us, and in town wid you and yours.” He held out his hand and said, “Dat a good enough start for me. Dat good start for you?”

Lucky Landry slapped his hand into Clermont’s and the men shook. “Dat a start. But first ting is, dem two been living in sin. Dey gets marry tonight.”

“Done, my brother. How about now and here? Brother Michael can marry dem in eyes of de church and God and dem get license later what for de state.”

Lucky started to speak and stopped, his mouth open. After a long pause he said, “My wife kill me she not here. . Shauna’s sisters too. No. Dem two gets marry tomorrow night, in town at church. Yes?”

“I say yes,” Clermont said, the men’s hands still clasped.

“Don’t I get a say?” Shauna demanded.

“No!” both men stated. And everyone on the porch laughed.

Twenty-four hours later, the first vampire-witch marriage in Bayou Oiseau took place in the yard of the Catholic church. A second ceremony followed in the churchyard of the Pentecostal Holiness, One God, King James Church. In both ceremonies, Shauna was wearing her mother’s wedding dress, a creamy satin, full-skirted, hooped gown with puffy sleeves. With it she wore a hat shaped a bit like a satin cowboy hat with a poof of veil on top. She looked stunning, glowing with happiness. Gabe wore a black tuxedo, his long hair in braids and love in his eyes. Just before the start of the first ceremony, he met his bride in the back of church with two dozen roses to carry down the aisle. As he gave them to her he said, “Dese here roses are twelve red and twelve white. Together dem symbol of union between vampire and witch. Every single rose I done clip off its thorn, to symbolize the way I protect you from all harm. Dis for my whole un-dead life.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the church yard.

To finish the night off properly, Leo Pellissier, Master of the City of New Orleans and most of the Southeast, gave his blessing over my cell phone, in the yard of the Pentecostal church. Everyone in Bayou Oiseau heard it, and heard his invitation to Clermont to come to New Orleans and parley as equals once the baby was born.

Clermont looked at me when the phone call was done and said, “You do dis thing? Set up dis parley?”

I shrugged, smiled, and walked away. What I’d done is tell Leo he was an idiot and to get off his butt and fix this stupid situation with Clermont and the Doucette Clan or I would. What the heck. It seemed to work.

Once all the official stuff was done, the entire town turned out to eat, drink, and dance the night away. Not that it was perfect. There was a fistfight between a small group of humans and witches against an even smaller group of vampires, but the clan leaders broke it up and made an example of them to the rest. It wasn’t deadly but it wasn’t pretty either. There was another moment of tension when a vampire asked a human woman to dance, but that too got smoothed over, and I didn’t ask how. Most vamps can dance like nobody’s business, and once the human women saw that vamps were willing partners, there wasn’t an empty dance floor for the rest of the party.

I pulled Derek onto the dance floor and kept him there for two numbers. That man can dance !

It was a good night, a better party, with fantastic food and energetic dancing. A great solution to a problem that had been simmering in the Louisiana backwaters for decades. As the locals might say, “Dem coonass clans Doucette and Landry? Dem family now, yeah dey is.” Heck of a lot better than any old Romeo and Juliet –style ending.