Death's Excellent Vacation - By Charlaine Harris & Toni L. P. Kelner Page 0,4

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