Drink, Slay, Love

Chapter Three

Five nights later, Pearl surveyed the "perfect" location that Mother had found for the ceremony: wine cellars beneath one of Greenbridge's historical sites. Leading the tour, Mother swept through the cellars. Her trench coat brushed against the barrels. Pearl eyed the cobwebs that draped across the wine racks. They were so thick they looked like cotton strung up as a Halloween decoration.

"Bit dank and dark," Pearl said. "Even for us."

Daddy smiled. He'd been jovial ever since his announcement. "You haven't met His Majesty," he said. "He has a flare for the dramatic."

Cousin Antoinette snapped her gum. "Massive understatement."

"Indeed," Mother said. As she strode ahead, her entourage of Pearl's aunts, uncles, and cousins fanned out behind her. "We can install sconces on the walls. . ."

"Only if you want to burn the place down," Uncle Felix said, "which wouldn't be a bad idea." He slapped one of the timbers. It shuddered, and dust sprinkled down on them. "Except, of course, that we'd burn too. Immolating oneself is not particularly festive."

Raising an eyebrow at him, Mother dusted flecks of dirt from her shoulder.

"Sorry," he said, unrepentant. "But this place is in shambles."

"Then we shall build it up," Mother said. "Once we clear the racks, wash the floor, and remove the rats, it will be perfect."

Antoinette flicked a spider off her arm. "Perfect," she said drily.

Pearl wrinkled her nose. Here? This was supposed to be where she attended her first ball, where she would become an adult in the vampire world, where they'd feast? She tried and failed to imagine the cellar transformed into splendor worthy of a vampire cotillion. Granted, if you shifted the wine racks to the walls, the vast chamber rivaled the size of a high school gymnasium, but the floor was sticky with grime. It felt like a solid layer of chewing tobacco, and it stank like a Porta-Potty in August.

She had to admit that the mansion above the wine cellar was nice. The Family had purchased it two centuries ago-just one of the hundreds of properties that the Family owned. Daddy had had plans to have it bulldozed and replaced by condos, but the town had declared it a historic landmark. Daddy had failed to defeat the motion, mostly because the town meetings had been held in daylight. So they employed a squadron of landscapers and a cleaning service. An elderly woman gave tours on a regular basis, and they rented out the place for an obscene amount of money to wealthy humans who wanted an elegant location for their fashionable soirees. The tours and the events paid for the upkeep. But that upkeep obviously didn't extend to the cellars.

"We would need to pay the cleaners a bonus to have this place scoured within a year, much less before the ceremony," Aunt Rose said. She eyed the grime as if daring it to touch her starched white blouse.

Antoinette snorted. "Even humans wouldn't wade willingly into this filth."

Who said they had to be willing? Pearl tiptoed around a gummy patch on the floor. "Threaten to feed a few of their children to the rats," she suggested.

Mother planted her hands on her hips. "It will be done by us," she said. "We cannot afford to risk any security leaks."

Hosting the ceremony was sounding less glamorous by the moment.

Mother pointed to three of Pearl's uncles and two aunts. "You, move the wine racks and clear the tunnel entrance. We need to open the underground access for our more paranoid guests. You and you, collect trash. Sponges for the floor are"-another cousin tromped down the stairs with an armload of sponges-"here."