Chapter 8 What I’d Give for a Mobile Blood Bank Right Now
I MIGHT HAVE TAKEN BULAN’S and Hanry’s assurances that a vampire’s bark is worse than their bite a little too much to heart.
My gallows walk across the ballroom to Dark Dave takes about five seconds, and to my dismay, it’s rudely anticlimactic.
I don’t have a life-flashing-before-my-eyes montage the way you should with a harbinger of death.
Dave’s prostrate, pale form and twitching leg make me think less of wolves and dangerous doom and more of beached porpoises.
In fact, the only scary thought bothering me now is what I’ll do if the wedding fails so spectacularly that Dave and Amanda decide I won’t get paid.
“Hi, Dave,” I say, squatting to join the vampire groom where he lies despondently on the floor. “How are you doing? Excited for your big da—night? Your big night?”
He runs trembling hands through his jet-black bangs. “It’s terrible!” he says. “Disastrous!”
“I hear you. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“The light!” Dark Dave curls into a fetal position. “It’s too bright.”
“I’ll blow out some candles. Anything else?”
He gestures limply toward the ballroom.
“What’s that noise?”
“I think our bands are having a showdown. A battle of the bands, if you will.” After a brief show of interest, Dave moans and curls up tighter.
This is going nowhere fast, and I don’t have time.
“Listen, Dave. Let’s focus on why we’re here.
For your wedding. To Amanda. The love of your life!
And when everyone celebrates you together tonight, it’s going to be spectacular. ”
“Did you just say spook-tacular?”
“I—no?”
“Like your last name? Spük? It’s very clever. Spük-tacular.”
Dave’s expression clears. Rather than looking like he wishes for his second death, he now looks like he’s wishing for a darker corner to sulk in. It’s a marked improvement.
“There’s something else,” I say, nursing the onset of positive vibes. “Your friend Hanry has been helping us. He made the wedding arch look awesome.”
“He’s here already? I’m honored. What a prince.”
There! That’s the flamboyance I was aiming for.
“Yeah, he’s in the ballroom, see him? He came early. Almost like… like…” I trail off, rather than say aloud what I’m thinking: that Hanry knew I’d need him here. “Never mind that. Let’s get you to the room where you and your groomsmen will chill before the ceremony.”
“What room is that?”
I shrug. “No idea. Wanna choose?”
It takes ten minutes for Dave to find a dusky room to his liking. By that point, I’m getting nerves. I don’t have my phone, but I know the wedding ceremony’s starting soon, and the ceremony room isn’t ready. Plus, I don’t know where Amanda is.
Speaking of, I don’t even know where I am.
The chasmic mansion’s pitch-black hallways obscure everything. Annoyed and lost, using the extended toe of my foot to keep track of the walls, I bump into something small and soft. It could be a giant rat, except the noise it makes is way too gleeful. Just going to ignore that.
Fortunately, the next thing I bump into is less bizarre: the wedding officiant. Thank god or whatever he believes in, he’s got a phone. And he seems human?
“I’ve got to say, it seems hazardous to have low lighting to this degree,” the officiant says, guiding us down the hall.
“Not my circus, not my monkeys. Though I convinced the groom to include some lighting for his non-vamp—his more light-inclined guests. See?”
Up ahead, a light emanates from a door. I think it’s the ballroom.
“Good thinking,” the man says. “Huh! What a nice-sounding band.”
He’s not wrong. The sound leaking into the hallway is unexpectedly harmonic. I’m not sure how that’s possible. I didn’t recommend James’s band for their vocal abilities.
I crack the door open, discovering this is the ballroom.
But Hanry and Bulan are nowhere in sight.
More importantly, the ghosts haven’t decamped.
Instead, they’ve taken positions onstage around the Vampire Weekenders—some at microphones, several with guitars they’ve pretend-plugged into amps.
One ghost has a bongo strapped to its chest. Surprisingly, James, Eric, and Remy sport wide-ass smiles on their faces.
James greets me in his typically bright-eyed fashion. “We’ve decided to play together,” he says. “They bring a sort of—I don’t know. Dimension to our sound.”
“A je ne sais quoi,” says Eric, styling James’s fauxhawk distractedly.
“Great,” I say. “Just don’t touch them.”
“What?” Remy rubs down his arms with a shiver.
Since there’s no time to explain, and frankly, I doubt it would help anyway, I take James’s phone, leave them to their practice, and whisk the officiant to the greenhouse.
It’s a glorious sight: lit up by Bulan, who’s holding a flashlight in his mouth, Hanry puts away power tools. Behind him is a towering, masterfully nailed-together Gothic black arch.
“What do you think?” Hanry calls out.
My gratitude hits so hard, I can’t help being honest. “It looks great.”
“Thanks!” say Hanry and Bulan in unison.
“I’m going to put up as many flowers as I can. Hanry, can you set up chairs? Rev, you can do your… priesty things.”
“Got it!” says Hanry.
“I’m actually not religious,” the officiant says. “Be that as it may, I’ll search for Amanda and ensure she has her vows ready. If there are any problems, I’ll return. Good luck, all!”
I stride into the room and begin decorating the arch.
Standing on an upside-down bucket, I drape wilted and dry, brittle vines over the black-stained wood, attaching a spray of bloodred rose blooms on the left side.
This is a nod to the only color Dark Dave can probably stand.
Admittedly, I’m going for a less-dense design than I’d originally planned, since easily half my dried flowers shook off their petals in transit—but “light and airy” is totally a look.
Also, it’s a good thing I’m not overly invested, because while I carry out the last of the buckets of unused stems and Hanry places down the final row of chairs, the first wedding guests arrive.
They flood into the greenhouse, dragging feather boas, lacy parasols, and more questionably bad fashion decisions to their seats.
How many of them are vampires, I can’t say.
At least one appears to be a lion. When the beast crushes two chairs in the process of settling into his row, Hanry cautiously re-seats himself farther away. Can’t blame him.
“Sabby,” Bulan whispers from beneath my arm. “I think you’re supposed to go back outside.”
“I like this little corner,” I retort. It is, in fact, less of a corner and more of an open tool closet with a small seat. “Why do I need to go anywhere?”
“Because you’re the wedding planner.”
“In name only. And I’ve finished my planning.”
“Suit yourself.”
The ceremony begins with music outside my hearing range.
Said music is provided courtesy of a flock of bats.
I’m unclear on whether they’re regular bats or vampire bats, but the guests’ head-nods and rapturous sighs tell me it doesn’t really matter and I’m missing out on some goddamned glorious Bat-hoven.
After that, the quiet continues. Long enough that the guests start muttering aloud. They seem to be wondering what’s going on. At the end of the aisle, where he waits beneath the now-magnificent arch, the officiant raises his eyebrows in my direction—like he’s prompting me to do something.
And now he’s adding a little pleading into the crinkle of his eyes. Oh, come on.
“The groom’s supposed to enter ahead of the bridal procession, right?” Bulan whispers at me, again. “I think Dave needs direction. One a wedding planner might provide.”
What I’m realizing he needed was a rehearsal. And I hadn’t pushed it, because I’m not an expert at this wedding business; I’m a human pretending to be a potted plant in a tool closet.
But since I’m on the hook, I allow myself one last resigned sigh before I dash for the hallway.
Past the greenhouse’s double doors, a few barely visible, hissing male vampires creep about.
I catch some staring at the walls, some defying the laws of gravity by walking on said walls, and a few fluttering their hands uselessly. I don’t distinguish Dave among them.
“Where’s our groom?” I ask the closest, best-dressed figure.
With a flash of fangs and bubble gum, he hisses, “In the back.”
“Back of where? I need him up front, stat.”
At my command, an onyx-black coffin is moshed forward and nearly strikes me in the head.
I’m not sure how exactly it’s levitating.
Or how it got to the venue. What’s more important is, I’m positive it contains Dave.
Meaning he’s been with us in the hallway this whole damn time.
I’ve no idea why his groom-vamps didn’t bring him into the ceremony yet.
Maybe they thought Dave crawled inside of his deathbed to escape the light?
Poor Dark Dave! He’s surrounded himself with the worst problem-solvers this side of the Berkshires.
“All right, groomsmen, let’s get ready to carry Dave in!
” I tell the group, waving James’s phone above my head like an aircraft marshal with glowy orange sticks.
“Gather up single file and stand next to Dave’s coffin in a line.
On the… right.” I wiggle my arm to clarify which side “right” is.
“You, in the moth-eaten cravat. Tell the bats to make more music.”
“You smell good, but your voice is fearsome,” the vampire says to me.
“No one put on our boutonnieres,” another whines.
Since at this point I have no idea where my boutonnieres went, I scrounge up a few leftover roses from a bucket in the hallway, pull a pincushion from my apron pocket, and work quickly on a backup solution.
When I finish, Dave’s coffin is jostled forward, and the groomsmen parade into the greenhouse, flaunting their little skewed roses on their lapels and hissing with delight.
The next to process in ought to be Amanda and her gang, but naturally they are nowhere to be found.
Since the officiant never told me he’d had problems finding Amanda, I assume she’s in the haunted house somewhere.
Sure enough, I discover the undead bridesmaids in the bathroom, toying with a mousetrap, while a coffin lays abandoned in the adjacent powder room.
Sensing these vamps need instruction too, I arm them with bouquets, push them over to the greenhouse, and in the end, they too send Amanda and her coffin down the aisle with only a minor delay.
At last, the big reveal: at the front of the room, beneath the surprisingly aesthetic black arch, the relieved officiant says a few words.
The coffins wiggle and creak. Then the lids pop open.
Dave and Amanda emerge, rising into the air through a shower of dust and feathers.
Amanda’s corseted, mildew-gray wedding dress hangs off her like an old lady’s tablecloth.
Her hands are clasped around her dead-and-dying bouquet.
A swan-feather boa-noose trails ruthlessly down to the floor.
As they meet midair, Amanda smiles. Dave gazes back into her pale-as-a-moon, necrotic face with a dour expression.
He seems almost pleased. They both do. Because they’re in love.
My god. I’ve done it—I’ve pulled off the wedding.
Once the couple returns earthside, their toes tapping down, the officiant intones blessings.
I gather there won’t be any praying, kneeling, or singing during the ceremony.
Floored and flummoxed and out of breath, I watch the whole thing from the door.
At last, Dave and Amanda are pronounced married, till second death do they part.
Sharing kisses, the couple traipses back down the aisle, this time with their coffins following behind like obedient, floating dogs.
As they pass me, the audience claps and hisses politely. Bulan rolls into my heels.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“What are you doing?”
“Wondering why you’re still standing here when there’s work to be done.”
I groan. Of course there’s more. “Let me guess. I’m supposed to go to the reception hall?”
Bulan nods. And you know what, fine. It’d be good to check on James anyway.
I pop Bulan onto my shoulder and carry him to the ballroom. As if my entrance is the signal, James leaps into motion and kicks off his patchwork band.
Letting guests trickle in, I sink into the shadows and survey the scene.
The ghosts jamming, the curtains drooping, the floral arrangements holding artful poses on the shabby-not-chic tablecloths.
Yet, I think something’s wrong. Something is…
missing, only I can’t put my finger on the problem as easily as I could during the wedding ceremony. I’m going to have to guess.
I glance at Bulan, my acting shoulder angel. Mostly I’m looking at his bright orange hair, but that’s not the point. I need to surreptitiously draw his attention to the dance floor.
“Is it bad etiquette for couples to start dancing before the bride and groom enter?” I ask.
Bulan’s reply comes uncertainly. “Maybe,” he says. “Amanda and Dave didn’t tell us when they wanted to have their first dance.”
“True. So if you and I get blamed for breaking the wedding code, we have plausible deniability.” At least one would hope. “Do you think the dancing’s what’s wrong, or something else?”
“What do you mean?”
“Sabby!”
The new voice belongs to Hanry. If James and his band have allowed a treacherous deviance from wedding etiquette, Hanry seems unaware. In fact, he’s smiling so winsomely, I let him lift Bulan from my shoulder, put him on the ground, and take my hand.
“I need to show you something,” he says, tugging me out of the shadows. “Quick!”
I brace myself. I knew it, I knew something was wrong. “What? Show me what?”
“That I’m a good dancer,” he says, and drags my stiff, confused body in among the couples and breakdancing circles.