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  Tina led us all into a parlor (there were at least four; don't get me started) and the first thing Sophie did when we were all seated was hand me a copy of that day'sStar Tribune . “Would you please sign your article?” she asked pleasantly in the charming French accent she had never lost, not even after all these years here inMinnesota .

  Eric muttered something under his breath that, luckily for him, I didn't catch. I had a weekly “Dear Betsy” column for vampires. It was supposed to be published in an undead-​only newsletter, but someone had leaked it to theTrib . The editor had thought it was hilarious and published it. Most people who read it thought it was a tongue-​in-​cheek thing. This was the only thing that spared me from Eric and Tina's wrath.

  “I'd be glad to,” I said. “Uh…” Tina handed me a pen. I never had a pen, a leash, or a stopwatch when I needed one. “Thanks.” I scribbled my signature on the latest (“Dear Betsy, my friends keep insisting on having their book club meeting during daylight hours. Should I tell them what my problem is, or lie?”) and handed it back.

  “Heh,” Liam said. “Bet the librarian didn't like that much.”

  He was talking about Marjorie, who ran the vampire library down in the warehouse district, and the column, which was in a paper anybody could read, anytime. And he was right. She had been furious. She was still trying to track down who'd given my columns to theTrib editor. I didn't think it was a deep dark plot or anything; accidents happened. I was alone in this theory. Which was why I kept writing the columns, no matter how irritated everyone got.

  “Never mind,” Tina said hastily. “How are you both?”

  “We're real good,” Liam replied in his flat Midwestern drawl. Looking at him, you'd never know he was rich. His dad had invented the first pocket calendars with three-​hole punches, or some such thing. “Real good. And you're looking good. The same, in fact.”

  “Oh, well.” I modestly patted my hair. There were a few advantages to being a vampire, and not looking my age was big number one. I'd never need highlights again. “What can I say? How're things up in Embarrass?” What a dorky name for a town.

  “The same.” Not real chatty, this guy.

  “Majesties,” Sophie offered. “We have a reason for stopping by, if you don't mind.”

  “And miss all the scintillating small talk?” Jessica muttered from the back of the room. She had used her brief time upstairs to freshen her jack-​o'-lantern lipstick.

  “Truth be told,” Liam said, ignoring the snarky comment, “it's about me. And my age. Sophie's—well, you know—but I'm not exactly standing still. We were thinking about her turning me. We wanted to know, er, urn, well, what you thought about that.”

  At first I had no idea what he was talking about. “Turning you into what? A Republican?”

  “A vampire, dumb shit,” Jessica said. I bit my tongue and let that one pass, but made a mental note to get her alone and find out just what had made the incredible upward journey deep into her large intestine.

  My jaw went slack with horror as I turned back to the happy couple. “Why would you want to dothat ?”

  They looked at each other, then at me. “Not everyone has the same view of the undead as you do, my queen,” Sophie said. “And I have lost too many lovers to death.”

  “Oh,” I said, because nobody else was saying anything. “Well, that's a shame. Uh. Liam? You, uh, think this is a good idea, do you? Because loving a vampire and being a vampire—those are two very different things. One can be very nice. The other can be pure hell.” Eric moved perceptibly at this comment, but didn't say anything.

  “I'm not real keen on giving up salmon hash and fried eggs,” Liam replied. “But I'm less keen on giving up Sophie. The idea of eternal love—it's… well, it's—”

  “He's dying,” she explained.

  “What?” Jessica and I squawked in unison.

  “He's only got thirty, forty years left—assuming he doesn't get run over by a bus or hit by lightning.” Or have a heart attack from all the fried eggs. For the first time, her smooth face was anxious. “I don't think we dare wait much longer.”

  Leave it to a vampire to think a healthy guy in his late thirties or early forties was on his deathbed. “Uh… Sophie…”

  Eric spoke up for the first time. “Dr. Trudeau, you know the risks.”

  She nodded.

  “Right,” I said. “The risks. The many, many risks. Let us count the risks. Such as.” I coughed, stalling for time. “Well, the risks are… very risky.”

  Jessica rolled her eyes, but Tina kindly jumped in. “Sophie, Liam, as Her Majesty is trying to explain, vampirism is a virus—and some people don't catch it. They just die. And young vampires are feral—they don't know themselves, or anyone. Only the thirst. The Queen here is the exception.”

  “Which is why she's the boss lady around here,” Liam said. “But it's a risk I wanna take. I don't much care for the other choice.”

  “Dr. Trudeau, you may do as you wish,” Eric said, not bothering to consult with me, as usual. “It's not for us to deny you a chance to be with your love.”

  “Good luck,” Tina added.

  “Whoa, whoa!” I cried. “That's it? We're not going to talk about it for, I dunno, more thantwenty seconds ? I mean, they did come to consult withme , didn't they?” Facing dubious looks from my friends, I turned desperately to the new arrivals. “Liam, come on! We're talking about your potential death by maiming, here! Sophie, think about it—how you'll feel if it doesn't work out.”

  “Of course, if Her Majesty orders us not to do it, we won't do it,” Sophie said stiffly.

  “I don't give out orders like that,” I said, appalled. What was it about vampires, they couldn't take care of themselves anymore, make their own decisions? “I'm just saying, think it over. Liam doesn't look like he's going to keel over, you know, right this second. What's the rush?”

  “I think Betsy's right,” Jessica said. Everybody squinted at her, and she continued. “Sorry, I know this is vampire business, and I'm just a mangy human, but from my point of view, it seems like maybe you could think it over a little longer. You've only known each other a few months. Lots of people get married after that long, and then divorce. This seems like an even deeper commitment. What happens if the two of you outgrow each other?”

  “No chance of that,” Liam said.

  “Sophie…” I trailed off. I tried to imagine how I'd feel if Eric was human, and I knew I'd outlive him. Possibly by centuries. Could I face him getting old and dying on me? If there was any way to prevent it—“Sophie, it's not for me to tell you yes or no.”

  “Of course it is,” she said, surprised. “You're the queen.”

  “Right, right. And I really appreciate you coming here…” And dumping this ginormous problem in my lap. “But you guys are adults, it's your choice. If you want to go ahead and bite him, it's up to you. I'm just saying—” Whatwas I saying? Think it over? Wait for Liam to get older? Who was I to tell them no? I was sort of shocked they'd stopped by to ask my permission about something that was so completely none of my business. “I don't know,” I finished, giving up. “Do what you think is best. I'll back you up, whatever you decide. And I believe my fiancé has already agreed with my edict,” I added with a sidelong glance at Eric, who held his tongue.

  “Thank you, my queen. We will be going forward, I think, but your support means the world to us.”

  “Yup,” Liam said.

  “And—”

  The sonorous, long door chime rang again.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Trudeau.” Eric turned to me. “Our other guests have arrived.”

  Great. More vampire fun and games. Tina got up. “I'll see them in, Your Majesty. Dr. Trudeau. Liam.” She excused herself, leaving a nice awkward silence for the rest of us.

  “So, uh, when are you going to do it?” I asked. I looked nervously at the plush carpeting, the ornate upholstery, the beautiful tapestries. What if they decided to do itright here , right now?

&
nbsp; “Soon,” Sophie replied.

  “Do you want to, uh, stay here while Liam, uh, recovers?”

  “Thank you, my queen, but I think we'll be best suited at our home.”

  “Okay. And you'll, uh, make sure he doesn't hurt anybody when he's, you know, nutty and out of his mind with blood lust?” For the next ten years?

  Liam winced (well, he blinked), but Sophie soldiered on. “My queen, I have experience in these matters. Guarding young vampires—I—all will be as you wish.”

  Yeah, right. That'd be a fucking first.

  “Guess we'd better hit the road, hon,” Liam said, standing. Sophie stood. We all stood.

  “Thank you for your time, Majesties, and your counsel.”

  “Are you heading straight back to Embarrass?”

  “Tomorrow. Sophie don't like to leave the animals too long.”

  “Best of luck, Dr. Trudeau.” Instead of bowing as he usually did, Eric held out his hand and, surprised, she shook it. “Please keep us posted.”

  “Thank you, Majesty. We will, Majesty.”

  “Liam.” They shook. They were about the same size, though Liam was a lot narrower through the shoulders.

  Liam smiled at us, and the corners of his eyes went all crinkly. I thought of him as a nutty thirsty ignorant young vampire and wanted to cry. But maybe it would work out. Maybe, ten or twenty or a hundred years from now, everything would be fine and they'd be happy together.

  And maybe we'd be going north for a funeral in a few days.

  “Well, uh, talk to you soon.” Maybe.And if you get out, I'll be staking you soon. But never mind .

  “Yup,” he said, typically laid back.Yup . Like being chomped and turned was as routine as fixing the wood-​chipper out by the cabin.

  “Are you sure you don't need anything?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  Tina came in just in time to prevent my hysterical sobbing. Which was just as well; I had nothing else to contribute. She was trailed by half a dozen stately vampires. I knew from Tina's briefing—and by the way they held themselves now—that they were very old, very powerful dead guys (and two gals). The youngest was something like eighty-​seven. Which was about as old as Eric.

  It was hard to take them all in at once—I saw a bald guy with dark skin, a couple of brunettes, a redhead with freckles (an undead Howdy Doody!)—

  “Majesties,” Tina began, gesturing to the group that had filed into the room. “May I present our European brethren: Alonzo, Christophe Benoit, David Edourd, Carolina Alonzo—”

  Tina did not get the chance to introduce the last two; uponCarolina 's introduction, Sophie shot across the parlor and was upon Alonzo in a hot fury of teeth and claws.

  Chapter 3

  I barely had time to get a look at Alonzo—a blade-​thin, fine-​looking guy with skin the color of good espresso and yellowish eyes, before Sophie was doing her level best to claw his face off. Her speed was devastating. I think only Sinclair could have stopped her but he just watched. All he said was, “The French,” with a shrug.

  So, as usual, I was the one stuck with the moral high ground. “Stop, stop!” I shrieked. “Sophie, what are you doing? Get off him!”

  Meanwhile, Sophie was going for his eyes and a stream of presumably impolite French was pouring from her spittle-​ridden mouth. Alonzo did not appear immediately hurt, and appeared able to fend her off. However, she consumed enough of his attention that he did not say a word.

  Liam took a step forward—to restrain the love of his life, or help her, no one knew—but Tina wisely knocked him back onto the couch. Jessica scanned the room for something to throw, or, perhaps more sensibly, hide behind. Eric watched, Tina alongside, and the other vampires observed the skirmish anxiously, chatting to themselves in various European languages. (I think they were European languages. Hell, it could have been Asian, or Antarctican. What am I, a linguist?)

  Liam got up off the couch, looked at Sophie and said, “Hon, don't do that,” and started forward again. I tried to grab one of them and got an elbow in the cheek for my pains, which would have given me a massive shiner in the old days, and that's when Eric finally said something.

  “Enough.”

  In the movies, everybody would have stopped; Alonzo did, but Sophie was still shrieking and clawing at him, and I saw her tear a huge strip of skin off his shaved scalp.

  Eric stepped forward, grabbed her by the right elbow, and tossed her away from Alonzo as easily as I'd have tossed a cardboard box. She caromed off the wall and looked ready to keep rumbling despite herself, but I gamely recovered and stood by Eric's side. I tucked my hands into my armpits so no one could see how they were shaking and piped up loyally, if shakily, “Sophie, he said enough. These are guests in my home.”

  “Ourhome,” Jessica piped up, glaring at me and ignoring all of Eric's previous advice on the care and handling of ancient European vampires.

  “Bastard!” Sophie was as wild-​eyed as a rabid cat; I'd never even heard her raise her voice, never mind totally lose it like she'd done.

  Alonzo calmly pulled the hanging flap of skin off his head(blurrrggghhh!) and said in a pleasant Spanish accent, “The pleasure is mine, señorita.”

  “You dare, youdare speak to me? You dare look at me, be in the same room with me, and not beg my forgiveness?”

  “We have met?” I couldn't believe how mild-​mannered this guy was. And his very voice suggested a man who could sing, dance, and swordfight all at once—yum. I mean, boo!

  A sluggish trickle of blood inched toward his eyes, and one of the vampires behind him handed him a spotless white handkerchief. Of course, anybody else would be slipping on a gigantic puddle of their own blood (head wounds in particular looked so frightening), but not a vampire. And certainly not this vampire. He calmly blotted his head for a moment, watching Sophie with his cat eyes.

  “You don't remember, swine, bastard, monster?”

  He shrugged with suave innocence.

  “August 1, 1892? You were visitingParis . You went to a tavern. You—”

  “Oh,” he said carelessly. “The bar girl.”

  “Don't tell me,” I said.

  Sophie pointed a trembling finger at Alonzo. “He killed me. Hemurdered me.”

  “Oh, hell,” Jessica said, which exactly echoed my sentiments.

  Chapter 4

  Eric and Tina had steered the Europeans into another parlor; I'd grabbed Sophie and hustled her upstairs. Jessica had followed us. Our last view of Alonzo was an indifferent cock of an eyebrow as he watched her hiss at him on her way out of the room.

  “Okay,” I said when I finally had her settled in a spare bedroom, and then I realized I had no idea what else to say. “Okay, uh. Sophie. Okay. You okay?”

  Sophie dropped to her knees, as startling a thing as had happened in the last twenty minutes, and it was already one for the diary. “Majesty,” she said, her fingers digging into my thighs, actually ripping through my jeans, and she didn't notice. “I beg you to kill him—or let me kill him.”

  I grabbed her wrists and tried to pull her to her feet. Her wavy dark hair had come undone from the bun and was flying everywhere, pouring down her back like a black river. Her eyes stared wildly past my own, into some other space. “Sophie, come on. Please get up. Listen, I can't just—you know. He's—part of a delegation.”

  I couldn't believe it: I had turned into a politician.

  “Oh yes, I see,” she said bitterly, staring at the floor. “Diplomatic immunity and all.”

  “Look, we'll get to the bottom of this. I promise. We'll—”

  “There is nothing to get to the bottom of.” She climbed slowly to her feet. “He murdered me and you will either punish him or you won't.”

  “It's just that he's—they're—important. I can't just march down there and, you know, punch him in the brain. Sophie?”

  Too late; I was talking to her back. Jessica gave me a wide-​eyed look and followed.

  We found the correct parlor
in short order. Just about everyone was seated comfortably, except Liam. He was standing in a corner and looking at Alonzo with a look that bordered on predatory.

  “We are going now,” Sophie was saying. If Liam looked like a pissed-​off panther, she was looking downright murderous.

  “Adios,” Alonzo said amiably. If he had had a drink in his hand, I am sure he would have raised it.

  “Alonzo,” Sinclair said, with a small note of reprimand.

  “I will seeyou ,” Sophie promised, “again.”

  They left. I glared at Alonzo, who shrugged and smiled politely.

  “Tina, perhaps you could get our guests something to drink,” I practically snapped. Tina stared at me for a short moment, but then quickly nodded and left the room. Good—she understood I needed to assert authority here. Jessica remained comfortable on a velvet chaise longue, but that didn't bother me—I didn't need the Europeans to see me bossing around a “sheep.”

  I turned to Alonzo. “This is quite a spot you've put me in.”

  “Us,” Sinclair said.

  “Right. Did you do it?”

  Alonzo shrugged again. His scalp had grown back. Pretty quick, for a vampire—to get that kind of healing, most of us had to feed first. “I'm sure she's right,” he said. “I don't remember everyone I've—”

  “Murdered?”

  “—bitten, any more than a man of romance can remember all the women he has slept with. But I do not dispute her account.”

  “Then we have a serious problem. You may have wasted your time making this trip.”

  “With all respect, Your Majesty, killing people—making vampires—is what vampiresdo .”

  “I'ma vampire,” I corrected him sharply, “and I haven't done anything of the kind.”

  “You are young,” one of the women—Carolina, it was—spoke up.

  “Don't patronize me, you arrogant Spanish bitch.” Sinclair's fingers closed over my upper arm and squeezed; I yanked away. “You have already insulted one of my subj—one of my friends, and you've been here, what? Five minutes?”