Charlaine Harris: Death's Excellent Vacation

“Victor says so.”

“And Michael has a human companion.”

“Yes, a man named Rudy.”

“This is dangerous, no matter what Victor told Eric. We’re in foreign territory. This isn’t a real vacation. We’re poaching .”

“Russell doesn’t know why we’re here.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I told his headquarters that I was having a weekend here, so they wouldn’t think my presence was caused by business of any kind.”

“And?”

“Russell himself came on the phone to extend his hospitality. He told me to feel free to enjoy myself in the area, that Eric’s second in command was always welcome.”

“And you don’t think that’s fishy?”

“If Russell had any idea what Felipe was considering, he would have counterattacked by now.”

Vampires pretty much wrote the book on chicanery, double dealing, and what you might call drastic politics. If Pam wasn’t worried, should I be?

Sure. Pam could take a lot more damage than I could.

Blonde was not an attractive edifice. No matter how much female beauty might be on the inside (and the billboards promised plenty), on the outside it was a metal building in the middle of nowhere. It had a huge parking lot, and there were at least forty vehicles there. The ground had risen as we approached Memphis and its bluffs, and the club stood on top of a hill with a deep ravine behind. The whole area outside the parking lot was covered with kudzu, like it had been carpeted in the plant. The trees were covered, too.

“We go to the back,” Pam said, and she drove around the building.

The back was even less appealing than the front. The parking lot was poorly lit. Michael was not too concerned for the safety of his workers. Of course, I told myself, maybe he walks each of the girls to her car every night . But I doubted it. “Pam, I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “I want to be on record as letting you know that.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Pam muttered, and I realized that she had more misgivings than she’d revealed. “But I have my orders and I have to do this.”

“Who issued those orders—Felipe, Victor, or Eric?”

“Victor called me into Eric’s office and told me what to do and to take you. Eric was present.”

“How do you think he feels about this?”

“He isn’t happy,” Pam said. “But he’s under new management, and he has to obey direct orders.”

“So we have to do this.”

“I have to. I am Eric’s to command.” Eric had made Pam a vampire. “You aren’t, though Eric pretends to Victor that you obey him in all things. You can leave. Or you can stay in the car and wait for me. There’s a pistol under the backseat.”

“What?”

“A pistol, a gun, you know? Eric thought you’d feel more comfortable with one, since we’re so much stronger than you.”

I hate guns. Having said that, I also have to admit that a firearm has saved my life in the past. “You’re not going in by yourself, armed or unarmed,” I said. I hesitated, because I was afraid. “Give it to me,” I said. We were parked at the very back of the lot, right by the kudzu. I hoped it wouldn’t take Pam’s car while we were inside.

Pam reached under the seat and drew out a revolver. “Point and shoot,” she said, shrugging. “Eric got it for you specially. He says it is called a Ruger LCP. It fires six shots, and there’s one in the chamber.”

It was about as big as a cell phone. Good God Almighty. “What if I need to reload?”

“If you have to shoot that much, we are dead.”

I got that feeling that had become familiar since I’d started hanging with vampires; the feeling that says, How the hell did I get into this? If you examined the process step by step, you could see how it had happened; but when you looked at where you’d ended up, you just had to shake your head. I was walking into a very dubious situation, and Eric thought I needed a gun. “Hey, at least we’ll match the décor,” I said at last.

Pam looked blank.

“Blondes,” I said helpfully. “Us.”

She almost smiled.

We got out of the car. I tucked the gun in the small of my back, and Pam checked to make sure it was covered by my fitted black jacket. I never looked as put-together as Pam, but since we’d been going to a show and then out, I’d worn my good black pants and a blue and black knit top with long sleeves. The jacket didn’t look ridiculous, since the temperature had fallen into the forties. Pam pulled on her white trench coat and belted it tightly around her waist, and then off she went.

I trotted along behind her, second-guessing myself every step of the way. Pam knocked once on the employee entrance. After a pause, the door opened, and I saw that the male holding it was a vampire. Not Michael, though, if I was any judge at all. This male had only been a vampire for a few years. He had a Mohawk, colored green and gelled to a high crest on his otherwise bald head. I tried to imagine going through the centuries like that, and I thought I might throw up.

“We’re here to see Michael,” Pam said, her voice especially cool and regal. “We’re expected.”

“You the ladies from Shreveport?”

“We are.”

“There’s a lot going on here tonight,” he said. “You going to try out after you talk to Michael? I’m in charge of the tryouts.” He was proud of that. “Just come right to this door when you’re ready.” He pointed at a door to the right that had a hand-lettered sheet of typing paper taped to it. Straggly letters spelled DANCERS IN HERE.

We didn’t say anything to that, and he cast a glance back at us that I couldn’t read.

“Let me see if the boss is ready,” Mohawk said.

When he’d knocked and been admitted through a door on the left, Pam said, “I can’t believe they let someone so deficient answer the door. In fact, I can’t believe anyone bothered to turn him. I think he’s slow.”

Mohawk popped back out of the door as quickly as he’d popped in.

“He’s ready for you,” he said, which I found an ominous way to put it.

Pam and I followed his sweeping gesture, which led into an unexpectedly luxurious office. Michael believed in treating himself well. The room was carpeted in dark blue and topped with a lovely Persian-style rug in cream, blue, and red. The furniture was dark and polished. The contrast with the bare corridor was almost painful.

Michael himself was a short, broad blond with a distinct Slavic look. Russian, maybe. A dull throb underlay all the polish of his office, and I realized the throb, which I’d been aware of since I entered the building, was the sound of the music playing in the club. The bass was turned up all the way. It was impossible to tell what the song was, not that the lyrics were the point.

“Ladies, be seated, please,” Michael said. He gestured toward the two very impressive guest chairs in front of his desk. He had a heavy accent and a bad suit. He was smoking. It smelled just as bad when a vampire did it. Of course, he wouldn’t suffer any consequences. An open bottle of Royalty Blended was on the desk by the ashtray. “This is my associate, Rudy,” Michael told us.

Rudy was standing behind Michael. He was the human I’d come to read. He was slim and black-haired, with an extensively scarred face. He looked as if he was eighteen, but I figured he was at least ten years older than that. He gave off a very strange mental signature. Maybe he wasn’t completely human. Everyone I know has a brain pattern: Humans have one kind, weres of all sorts have another, fairies are opaque but identifiable, and vampires leave a sort of void. Rudy didn’t fall into any of those categories.

“You can leave,” Michael said to Mohawk, his voice contemptuous. “Go back to organize the tryouts. We’ll be there soon.” Mohawk backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. The noise level abruptly dropped, thank God. The boss’s office was soundproofed. But the drumbeat was pulsing in my head, and I swore I could feel it through my feet even if I couldn’t hear it any longer.