Charlaine Harris - Many Bloody Returns

This is dedicated to

Joss Whedon,

who may never read it,

and his enthusiastic fans known as the

Buffybuds, who will.

We thank Marty and John at Tekno Books for their inspiration, encouragement, and full-service smoothing of the way; our agents, Joshua Bilmes (Charlaine) and Joan Brandt (Toni); and finally, Ginjer Buchanan at Ace, who agreed this might be a good idea. We also want to thank the authors who contributed their stories to this anthology though they knew their editors were novices. That’s trust for you.

When we were approached about editing this anthology, we were like two kids with a new toy. We had some wonderful planning sessions about the theme. We decided to pick two apparently unrelated concepts—vampires (the dead) and birthdays (celebrations of life)—and see what different ways some very talented writers could combine the two.

After the great fun of drawing up a dream list of contributors and receiving their stories, we had to buckle down to the actual work of editing. We imagined the work would be tedious, or nerve-wracking, or possibly (horrors) boring. But it wasn’t. Every day a new story arrived was like—well, like a birthday.

It’s amazing what creative minds can do with the same theme. None of these stories are the same. Some of them are funny, and some of them are tragic, but all of them are fascinating. Read and enjoy.

CHARLAINE HARRIS

TONI L. P. KELNER

Charlaine Harris, New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie Stackhouse series, also writes books about Harper Connelly, a lightning-struck corpse locator. Charlaine has won the Anthony, the Sapphire, and two Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice awards. She lives in a small town in Arkansas with her husband, a duck, three dogs, and three children. Her website is simply www.charlaineharris.com, and she tries real hard to keep it up-to-date.

I found the invitation in the mailbox at the end of my driveway. I had to lean out of my car window to open it, because I’d paused on my way to work after remembering I hadn’t checked my mail in a couple of days. My mail was never interesting. I might get a flyer for Dollar General or Wal-Mart, or one of those ominous mass mailings about pre-need burial plots.

Today, after I’d sighed at my Entergy bill and my cable bill, I had a little treat: a handsome, heavy, buff-colored envelope that clearly contained some kind of invitation. It had been addressed by someone who’d not only taken a calligraphy class but passed the final with flying colors.

I got a little pocketknife out of my glove compartment and slit open the envelope with the care it deserved. I don’t get a lot of invitations, and when I do, they’re usually more Hallmark than watermark. This was something to be savored. I pulled out the stiff folded paper carefully, and opened it. Something fluttered into my lap: an enclosed sheet of tissue. Without absorbing the revealed words, I ran my finger over the embossing. Wow.

I’d strung out the preliminaries as long as I could. I bent to actually read the italic typeface.

ERIC NORTHMAN

AND THE STAFF OF FANGTASIA

REQUEST THE HONOR OF YOUR PRESENCE

AT FANGTASIA’S ANNUAL PARTY

TO CELEBRATE THE BIRTHDAY OF

THE LORD OF DARKNESS

PRINCE DRACULA

ON FEBRUARY 8, 10:00 P.M.

MUSIC PROVIDED BY THE DUKE OF DEATH

D RESS FORMAL RSVP

I read it twice. Then I read it again.

I drove to work in such a thoughtful mood that I’m glad there wasn’t any other traffic on Hummingbird Road. I took the left to get to Merlotte’s, but then I almost sailed right past the parking lot. At the last moment, I braked and turned in to navigate my way to the parking area behind the bar that was reserved for employees.

Sam Merlotte, my boss, was sitting behind his desk when I peeked in to put my purse in the deep drawer in his desk that he let the servers use. He had been running his hands over his hair again, because the tangled red-gold halo was even wilder than usual. He looked up from his tax form and smiled at me.

“Sookie,” he said, “how are you doing?”

“Good. Tax season, huh?” I made sure my white T-shirt was tucked in evenly so the “Merlotte’s” embroidered over my left breast would be level. I flicked one of my long blond hairs off my black pants. I always bent over to brush my hair out so my ponytail would look smooth. “You not taking them to the CPA this year?”

“I figure if I start this early, I can do them myself.”

He said that every year, and he always ended up making an appointment with the CPA, who always had to file for an extension.

“Listen, did you get one of these?” I asked, extending the invitation.

He dropped his pen with some relief and took the sheet from my hand. After scanning the script, he said, “No. They wouldn’t invite many shifters, anyway. Maybe the local packmaster, or some supe who’d done them a significant service…like you.”

“I’m not supernatural,” I said, surprised. “I just have a…problem.”

“Telepathy is a lot more than a problem,” Sam said. “Acne is a problem. Shyness is a problem. Reading other peoples’ minds is a gift.”

“Or a curse,” I said. I went around the desk to toss my purse in the drawer, and Sam stood up. I’m around five foot six, and Sam tops me by maybe three inches. He’s not a big guy, but he’s much stronger than a plain human his size, since Sam’s a shapeshifter.

“Are you going to go?” he asked. “Halloween and Dracula’s birthday are the only holidays vampires observe, and I understand they can throw quite a party.”

“I haven’t made up my mind,” I said. “When I’m on my break later, I might call Pam on my cell.” Pam, Eric’s second-in-command, was as close to a friend as I had among the vampires.

I reached her at Fangtasia pretty soon after the sun went down. “There really was a Count Dracula? I thought he was made up,” I said after telling her I’d gotten the invitation.

“There really was,” Pam said. “Vlad Tepes. He was a Wallachian king whose capital city was Târgovişte, I think.” Pam was quite matter-of-fact about the existence of a creature I’d thought was a joint creation of Bram Stoker and Hollywood. “Vlad III was more ferocious and bloodthirsty than any vampire, and this was when he was a live human. He enjoyed executing people by impaling them on huge wooden stakes. They might last for hours.”

I shuddered. Ick.

“His own people regarded him with fear, of course. But the local vamps admired Vlad so much they actually brought him over when he was dying, thus ushering in the new era of the vampire. After monks buried him on an island called Snagov, he rose on the third night to become the first modern vampire. Up until then, the vampires were like…well, disgusting. Completely secret. Ragged, filthy, living in holes in cemeteries, like animals. But Vlad Dracul had been a ruler, and he wasn’t going to dress in rags and live in a hole for any reason.” Pam sounded proud.

I tried to imagine Eric wearing rags and living in a hole, but it was almost impossible. “So Stoker didn’t just dream the whole thing up based on folktales?”

“Just parts of it. Obviously, he didn’t know a lot about what Dracula, as he called him, really could or couldn’t do, but he was so excited at meeting the prince that he made up a lot of details he thought would give the story zing. It was just like Anne Rice meeting Louis: an early Interview with the Vampire. Dracula really wasn’t too happy afterward that Stoker caught him at a weak moment, but he did enjoy the name recognition.”