Charlaine Harris: Death's Excellent Vacation

It was lovely to shut the door of my room and enjoy the silence. I threw myself down on the bed and closed my eyes. It wouldn’t be long until Pam rose.

Sure enough, she knocked on the door thirty minutes later. “Did you get some tickets?” she asked.

“Hi, Pam, good to see you. Yes, I had an interesting day,” I said. “I got us tickets to the Mucho Macho contest.”

“What?”

“It’s a strongman competition. I wasn’t sure you’d like any of the music acts. The groups I actually knew, they were all sold out for tonight. So I got tickets to see big strong guys. I thought you’d like that? You like guys too, right?”

“I like men,” Pam agreed guardedly.

“Well, we have an hour before the show,” I said. “You want to go get some warm blood?”

“Yes,” she said, and followed me to the elevator, still looking dubious.

While Pam drank a couple of bottles of TrueBlood Type A, I had a bowl of ice cream. (Calories don’t count while you’re on vacation.) Then we went to the casino next door to watch the Mucho Macho contestants do their manly thing. I got to say, I really enjoyed it: muscular guys lifting heavy weights, swinging big hammers, pulling farm equipment with their teeth. No, I’m just kidding about the teeth. They used a rope harness.

It was like monster trucks, but with men. Even Pam got into the spirit, yelling encouragement to Billy Bob the Brawler from Yazoo City as he harnessed up for his second attempt to move the tractor a yard across the floor.

Of course, Pam herself could have done it easily.

She got a call on her cell phone as we were leaving the show.

“Yes, Eric. Oh, we’ve just finished watching big, muscular, sweaty men move large things around. Sookie’s idea.”

Her eyes went sideways to meet mine. She grinned at me. “I’m sure you could, Eric. You could probably do it without your hands!” She laughed. Whatever Eric said next got her serious attention. “All right, then. We’ll go now.” She handed the phone to me. I didn’t like the compressed lips and narrowed eyes. Something was up.

“Hey,” I said. I felt a surge of lust down to my toenails just knowing that Eric was on the other end of the connection.

“I miss you,” he said.

I pictured him in his office at Fangtasia, the nightclub he and Pam owned. He’d be sitting in his leather office chair, his thick golden hair falling in a waving curtain past his shoulders, and he’d be wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Eric had been a Viking, and he looked like it.

“I miss you, too,” I whispered. I knew he could hear me. He could hear a cricket fart at twenty paces.

“When you return, I’ll show you how much.”

“I look forward to that,” I said, trying to sound brisk and businesslike, since Pam could hear the conversation.

“You’re not in any danger tonight,” he said, sounding more businesslike himself. “Victor insisted you go with Pam. The vampire you’re meeting has a human companion. You will know if Michael is dealing with us in good faith or not.”

“Can you tell me what this is about?”

“Pam will brief you on the way. I wish I’d had time to discuss it with you myself, but this opportunity came up very quickly.” He sounded, just for a second, like he was wondering why it had come up so quickly.

“Is something funny about that?” I asked. “Funny strange, I mean?”

“No,” he said, “I was considering that . . . but no. Let me talk to Pam again.”

I handed the phone back. A glimmer of surprise crossed Pam’s face. “Sir?” she said.

Whatever transpired in the rest of the conversation was lost to me, because the Ittabena Hulk plowed through the crowd in his street clothes, looking neither to the right nor the left. He was intent on the stacked brunette who was waiting for him by the “wait to be seated” sign at the entrance to yet another buffet. She curved in all the right places. She was wearing a tight leopard-print stretch top and a black leather miniskirt grazing the tops of her tan legs. Four-inch black heels completed the ensemble.

“Wow,” I said, in genuine tribute. “I wish I had the guts to wear something that bold.” The cumulative effect was literally stunning.

“I would look excellent in that,” Pam said, a simple statement of fact.

“But would you want to?”

“I see what you mean.” Pam looked down at her own silk blouse and well-cut pants, her low heels and conservative jewelry.

“So where are we going?” I asked, after the valet had retrieved Pam’s car. We turned north on 61. The traffic was heavy. Though it was a weekday, everyone seemed to be in a great hurry to lose their hard-earned cash and experience something a little different from their everyday lives.

“We’re going to a club that’s just west of this highway, about ten miles north of here,” Pam said. “It’s called Blonde, and it’s owned by a vampire named Michael.”

I remembered my conversation with the couple on the bus. “This would be a ‘gentleman’s club’?”

Pam looked massively sardonic. “Yes, that’s what they call it.”

“Why are we going there? Eric said a vampire runs it. We’re across the state line in Russell Edgington’s territory.” Russell Edgington was the vampire king of Mississippi. Though most humans didn’t know it, there were other systems of government in the USA besides the one in Washington, D.C.

Not every state has its own vampire ruler; some states are populous enough to have two or even more. (New York City has its own king, I understand.) Visiting vamps were supposed to check in when they had to cross into another vamp’s territory. I’d met Russell, and he was no joke.

“This must go no further, you understand?” Pam gave me a very meaningful look before turning her attention back to the road. The oncoming traffic heading south from Memphis was moving easily, but it was also nonstop.

“I understand,” I said. I didn’t sound enthusiastic. Vampire secrets are unpleasant and dangerous.

“Our new masters have been chipping away at Edgington’s control of Mississippi,” Pam said.

This was very bad news. Louisiana, where Bon Temps lay, had been taken over from its previous management by the vampires of Nevada. Since Arkansas had previously allied with Louisiana (long story), the king of Nevada (Felipe de Castro) had gotten two states for the price of one. His ambitious lieutenant, Victor Madden, had apparently decided to go for the trifecta.

“Why would they want to do that?” Felipe owned two poor states. If he added Mississippi, he’d have the equivalent of one prosperous state, but his people would be spread thin.

“The casinos,” Pam said.

Of course. The big business in Nevada was casinos, and there were lots of casinos in Mississippi. Felipe had already acquired casinos in Louisiana, and had the state of Arkansas thrown in for free.

“Vampires can’t own casinos,” I said. “It’s against the law.” A powerful human lobby had pushed that legislation.

“Do you imagine that Felipe doesn’t control what happens at the casinos in Las Vegas? At least in large part?”

“No,” I admitted. I’d met Felipe.

“In fact, our king is bringing a lawsuit to challenge that legislation through the human courts, and I’m confident he’ll win,” Pam said. “In the meantime, Victor told Eric to use us as an advance team.”

I had seen Victor much more often than the king himself. Victor Madden was Felipe de Castro’s man on the ground in Louisiana, while Felipe stayed at his castle in Las Vegas. “Ah, Pam, do you think this is all on the up-and-up?”

“What do you mean?”

I thought she knew perfectly well what I meant. “Victor specified us. Why do we have this top secret mission, instead of someone better at negotiation? Not that you’re not a great fighter,” I added quickly. “But you’d think if we’re trying to pinch off parts of Mississippi, Victor would send Eric himself.” Eric was the only remaining sheriff that the previous ruler had put in place. All the others were dead. I remembered Victor’s adorable, smiling face, and I got worried. “You sure this Michael is willing to ditch Russell?”