by Pearl Cleage
“We’ll stay for the benefit,” Serena said slowly, the idea not yet fully formed, but good enough to share.
“What benefit?”
Serena tried to remember the details of her brief exchange with Regina before some unscripted conversation about Blue Hamilton’s eyes threw everything out of whack. “He hosts a big benefit once a year to raise money for a worthy cause. Everybody who is anybody shows up. We’ll buy a couple of tables and promise a great big check.”
“What good does that do?”
“He’s not going to run us out of town on a rail if we’re his biggest contributors. We’ll call the press and say we’re going to make our first charity appearance.”
“You think he’ll believe in our sudden philanthropic urges?”
“Of course not. All I’m trying to do is shine a little more light on us so people will want to know where we’ve gone if we suddenly disappear.”
Scylla looked at Serena and narrowed her eyes. “He doesn’t have that kind of power.”
“He’s had more than five lifetimes, remember? Who knows what kind of power he’s got?”
“Okay,” Scylla said reluctantly. “We’ll go to the benefit. When is it?”
“On Saturday, the same night we’re taking off with the guys. It would be a perfect place to meet them. Keeps down confusion if they’re all in one place.”
“They’re not going to come voluntarily,” Scylla said. “They’re already scared shitless.”
“That’s why they’ll be there,” Serena said, seeing it more clearly by the second. “So they can be under Hamilton’s protection.”
“But he can’t protect them.”
“Exactly.”
Scylla hissed softly, recognizing a good plan when she heard one.
“I’ve got the plane lined up to meet us at the airport Saturday night at eleven thirty,” Serena said, sipping her drink delicately. “We’ll be gone before midnight.”
“Fine.” Scylla nodded, but she sounded unconvinced.
Serena stood up gracefully and headed for the door. Scylla didn’t move.
“Do me one favor,” she said. “The next time you go see Blue Hamilton, take me with you.”
Serena turned, her hand on the doorknob. “Don’t you trust me alone with him?”
Scylla raised her eyebrows slowly. “No.”
Serena’s expression didn’t change. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good.”
As she pulled the door open, Serena realized that Scylla was still sitting on the couch, watching, but making no move to join her. “Aren’t you coming?”
“I don’t think so,” Scylla said softly. “I’ve had enough bullshit for one day.”
Serena looked at her for a long moment and then stepped out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind her.
Scylla sat motionless as if listening for the words they hadn’t said. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Finally, she stood up, sighed, stretched, grabbed her bag, stepped back into her stilettos, and opened the door. They were too close to the end of this long, strange journey for her to let Serena get distracted by some blue-eyed immortal with a godfather complex.
She picked up her pace, moving toward the elevator quickly with the awkward grace of a long-legged seabird running to take flight. If she hurried, she’d get to Sasha’s room before they ordered, which was a good thing. The girls didn’t like sharing their sushi.
Chapter Twenty-three
Wolf Bane and a Garlic Necklace
“When were you going to tell me they were vampires?” Regina said, as Blue bent down to kiss her at the front door. Her tone brought him up short, but Blue being Blue, he answered the question as directly as she had asked it.
“When it was time for you to know,” he said, as she stepped inside and tossed her purse on the hall table.
She couldn’t believe her ears. He was going to play this like a scene from The Godfather, but she wasn’t feeling like a good Mafia wife at the moment. She was feeling like a righteously indignant African American woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
“How can you not tell me I’m doing business with the undead?”
Her voice sounded high and tight, but there was nothing she could do about that. On the way home, she had worked herself up with a potent mixture of fear, confusion, and anger. She definitely needed a better answer than that.
Blue closed the front door and stood watching her, but offered no further explanation, which only increased her agitation.
“If Sweetie was here, would you have told me?” she said. “Or would you have let our daughter hang around with them, too?”
“They’re not dangerous, Gina.”
“How can they not be dangerous?” She heard her voice go up another octave. “Don’t they live on—”
Blue cut her off quickly. “Not anymore. Now they drink tomato juice.”
“Tomato juice?” Regina didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Are they really vampires?”
He nodded. “Yes, baby, they are.”
“Like Dracula?”
“Sort of.”
Suddenly she felt dizzy and confused and she swayed on her feet like she was about to faint. Putting his arm around her waist quickly, Blue guided her over to the couch and sat down beside her as she leaned back and closed her eyes.
“Why don’t you just bring me some wolf bane and a garlic necklace?” Regina said, opening her eyes.
“You know I would never expose you or Sweetie to any danger,” Blue said quietly. “They are not here to do harm to random humans.”
The phrase random humans did nothing to reassure her. “What do you call making a bunch of college students their sex slaves?”
“That hasn’t got anything to do with you,” he said. “Those guys made a deal as grown men. Now they have to take responsibility for it as grown men.”
Regina’s thoughts were swirling around in her head so fast, she couldn’t pick just one to bring forward. The whole scene was surreal. She never argued with Blue, and here she was acting like she had just discovered he had a girlfriend stashed somewhere in Buckhead. They had found a way to talk about everything from rehab (her) to reincarnation (him), and all manner of things in between without ever forgetting that they were on the same side. If Blue hadn’t told her something this important, he must have a good reason. All she had to do was stop freaking out long enough to let him tell her what it was.
“Okay,” she said, “remember when you first told me about how you could remember some of your past lives, not to mention a couple of mine, and it took me a minute to deal with it?”
Blue nodded.
“This is like that. I need you to walk me through exactly what we’re talking about.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “Can I make you some tea while we talk?”
She nodded. His arm stayed around her waist as they walked to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry that however you have heard this, it was not the way you would have heard it from me.”
“Then let’s pretend I haven’t heard a thing,” she said. “Let’s just let this be an ordinary Saturday at the Hamilton house. Begin at the beginning.…”
Chapter Twenty-four
Stupider and Stupider
“What kind of shit have you got me in now?” Peachy said when Blue opened the door to him and Abbie an hour later. Peachy was carrying a huge cooler and trying to sound casual. “Baptiste sent his respects and enough food to feed the neighborhood. I’ll put it in the back.”
Blue reached out to take Abbie’s hand and drew her in for a hug. He could feel the tension in her body as she leaned into his embrace.
“How you doin’?” he said, closing the door behind her, but keeping one arm lightly around her shoulders.
“I’m okay. Where is everybody?”
“Sweetie’s on a sleepover and Gina’s upstairs changing.”
“What did she say when you told her?”
“I didn’t. She ran into so
me Morehouse guys on campus and they told her before I had a chance.”
“Oh, no!” Abbie said, imagining how shocked her niece must have been to hear such a thing from strangers. “How did she take it?”
“Pretty well,” Blue said, walking her into the living room.
Abbie didn’t believe that for a second. She sat down on the couch while he took his usual seat in the big chair near the fireplace where he used to sit and smoke a nightly cigar, but which had now become his daughter’s favorite place to curl up in his lap for a bedtime story. Abbie looked tired, but she tried to smile so he wouldn’t see how worried she was.
“So what’s the plan?” Peachy said, coming in from the kitchen with a bottle of red wine and a corkscrew in one hand and four glasses in the other. He handed the wine to Blue, put the glasses on the coffee table, and took a seat on the couch.
“I’m working on it,” Blue said, opening the wine and pouring three glasses. “What did Baptiste say?”
Abbie accepted the glass Peachy offered her and tucked her feet up under her purple crinkle skirt. Peachy looked over at her and patted the cushion next to him.
“Come closer, sweet thing,” he said gently. “This ain’t no time to keep your distance.”
Abbie moved a few inches closer, and Peachy made up the difference with a graceful slide in her direction, careful not to spill the wine.
“Shouldn’t I wait for Gina?”
Blue shook his head. “No, go ahead. We’ll catch her up when she comes down.”
Abbie took a deep breath. “Louie said years ago there was a family of women who had suffered at the hands of men for generations, so their mother got a potient from Marie Laveau, trying to protect them.”
“The voodoo queen?”
Abbie nodded. “Except the potion made them use men sexually, and then … and then …” She hesitated, searching for the right way to say it.
“They bite their heads off?” Blue said.
“You knew?” Peachy took a big swallow of his wine.
“Five guys from Morehouse came by the West End News. Said they’d signed a contract.”
“A contract where you agree to let somebody take your head off at the end?” Peachy sounded incredulous.
“That’s right.”
“No, that’s crazy,” Peachy said. “What did they get for their trouble?”
“Full scholarships and four years of unlimited porn, ESPN, and vampire sex.”
“That’s all?”
Blue nodded. “That’s it.”
Peachy shook his head. “That is some stupid shit, you know that?”
“How did they ever get them to agree to such a thing?” Abbie said.
“They didn’t read the fine print,” Blue said, leaning to refill Peachy’s glass.
“Stupider and stupider,” Peachy muttered.
“What do they want you to do?”
“Protect them from the vamps.”
“What did you tell them?”
Blue looked at Abbie and chose his words carefully. “I told them I would consider their request, but as far as I could see, I had no role in the dispute.”
“But you can’t just let them go!” Abbie said, shocked that he would even consider washing his hands of the whole thing.
Before he could answer, Gina walked into the room and looked at Abbie like she was a stranger. “I can’t believe you knew about this and didn’t tell me.”
“Blue told me just before I left for the island,” Abbie said. “He … we were sort of hoping that they would clear out before we had to tell you anything about their proclivities.”
“So if I hadn’t heard it on the street, you were just going to let me keep doing business with a bunch of vampires?
“We should have told you before,” Blue said. “I’m sorry.”
She looked at Abbie and then back to Blue, still too confused to be scared and too scared to be angry. There were so many questions she wanted to ask as soon as she was sure she could handle the answers.
“Hey, Peachy,” she said, as if seeing him for the first time.
“Hey, darlin’,” he said, pouring her a glass of wine. “You look like you could use this.”
She took the wine and walked over to the window. Outside, Aretha’s bright red truck pulled up in the front of the house. “Have you told Aretha yet?”
Blue shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Well,” she said, going to answer the bell, “now’s your chance.”
Chapter Twenty-five
Speak of the Devil
Aretha took it better than they thought she would. Once she understood that the tomato juice really worked, she stopped being scared and started being mad. She was mad at Blue for not telling them the minute the boys came to see him. Then she was made at Mayflower and company for having the nerve to think they could come waltzing into West End, pluck out five young black men, and leave without expecting consequences.
They settled in at the kitchen table because Regina said that nothing could be really scary in the room where they had all shared so much love and laughter, and because Peachy had the restaurateur’s faith in the soothing power of good food. Two hours later, they were still sitting there over coffee, but no closer to any real understanding.
“They’re checking out of their hotel on Saturday,” Blue said, passing on the information Henry had gathered. “So I guess they intend to wrap up their business here by next week.”
“Their business is done now as far as I’m concerned,” Aretha said. “Let’s call the police.”
All three heads turned in her direction. They didn’t know exactly what was going to happen next, but Blue Hamilton wasn’t about to call the Atlanta Police Department and ask for their assistance running some vampires out of West End.
“Call them and say what, darlin’?” Peachy spoke for the group. “This ain’t exactly what they taught ’em at the police academy.”
“We’ve got to do something,” Regina said, putting down her cup. “Those kids were worried sick. You should have seen them. They were literally shaking in their shoes.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Blue said, and the coldness in his voice surprised her. “They didn’t strike me as particularly courageous.”
“Later for them,” Aretha said. “It’s their fault we’re even dealing with this madness. How do you think I feel? Taking pictures of vampires all day? That’s why they didn’t want to get too close to Dr. King’s statue. That much evil can’t stand to be too close to anybody that good. I should have known right then! Jesus!”
“Calm down,” Abbie said gently. “No reason to get all excited until we get a better handle on things.”
“Too late,” Aretha snapped. “I’m way past all excited and moving right into semihysterical.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the last of their coffee cooling in their cups.
“What are you going to do?” Regina finally said.
“I’ve already taken care of security for you and Aretha until they leave,” Blue said. “And I’ve got somebody at their hotel twenty-four hours. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah, right,” Aretha said. “How exactly are we supposed to do that?”
“I mean, what are you going to do about the boys?” Regina said.
Blue’s voice was a low rumble. “Did they tell you what they wanted me to do specifically?”
“They want you to stop the vampires, of course.”
“But did they tell you how I’m supposed to do that?”
“If they knew that, I don’t think they would have been following me all over the parking lot.”
“How do you stop a vampire anyway?” Peachy said. “If you had to do it for some reason.”
Aretha stood up suddenly and started clearing dishes off the table. “Well, in the movies, they just pry open their earth-filled coffins and drive a stake through their hearts. How about that?”
She dropped the dishes in the sink with a clatter, but before anyone could
protest or propose a less-violent alternative, Regina’s cellphone chirped on the counter. The recently added ringtone was the theme song from The Addams Family.
“Speak of the devil,” Aretha said, checking to make sure she hadn’t actually broken anything but noticing a couple of saucers had been chipped.
Regina looked at Blue. Without a strategy, how much information was she supposed to give away? Her last exchange with Serena had been to tell her that the portfolio was off, and they had not parted well.
“Answer it,” Blue said. “And don’t tell her anything you didn’t know last time you two had a conversation. Okay?”
She nodded and cleared her throat. “Ms. Mayflower? What can I do for you?”
As she listened, the others tried unsuccessfully to imagine the other half of the conversation. Returning to her seat, Aretha laid her hand lightly on Blue’s shoulder in passing by way of apology, but there was no need. No reaction to the news they had shared today could be called extreme, and what were a few chipped saucers among friends for life?
“Yes, this coming Saturday night,” Regina said.
Peachy raised his eyebrows. There was nothing going on around here this Saturday night but the benefit and they all knew it.
“Yes, there are a few tables left,” Regina said. “They seat six.”
Aretha leaned even closer to the phone, but Serena’s speaking voice was a soft hum even face-to-face. It was impossible to eavesdrop.
“Well, yes, of course, certainly. Yes, it is a very worthy cause and I’m sure they’ll know how to put your contribution to good use. Thank you. Yes, I will. Thank you.”
Regina just sat there for a minute like she hadn’t quite absorbed the conversation, and then she looked at Blue and shook her head slowly.
“What, baby?”
“She said there’s no hard feelings about Aretha changing her mind, and since they’re going to be here for another week doing a couple of music gigs, they wondered if there were any tables left for the benefit.”