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I’m still scanning the crowd when a flash of red hair and a wildly familiar naughty pirate catches my eye.
It’s Mom and Georgie. And they’re smack in the middle of the dance floor, surrounded by vampires. Not one vampire, or two. Five of them, to be exact.
Five fully grown men in black capes, slicked-back hair, plastic fangs, and enough pale face makeup between them to stock a haunted house.
And every last one of them seems to be under Georgie’s spell.
Figures.
Georgie is dancing in the center of their little circle, her pirate costume billowing around her as she shakes everything she was born with and a few things I’m not entirely sure she should still be shaking at her age.
She throws both hands over her head and gives a shimmy that has two vampires cheering.
Oh my word.
I don’t know whether to rescue her or start charging admission.
Mom is trapped along the outer edge of the circle, and her contribution to the festivities consists mostly of clutching her purse against her chest while taking tiny steps from side to side. Every few seconds, she glances around as if hoping a trapdoor might open beneath her feet and whisk her to safety.
No such luck.
One of the vampires swoops in and takes Georgie by the hand. “Give me a spin, gorgeous!”
“You better believe it, Fang Boy!”
He twirls her beneath his arm, and Georgie lets out a whoop loud enough to compete with the DJ.
“Again!” she shouts.
He spins her a second time, and her gray tumbleweed of hair nearly achieves liftoff.
She’s magnificent, Duchess muses with unmistakable admiration.
She’s going to take a tumble, Fish counters.
I scoop the two of them up so that no one takes a tumble on them.
If she tumbles near the food table, I can help, Sherlock offers. I’m very good in emergencies involving food.
How do I get out of this? Mom thinks desperately. I’m too old to do the twist with the undead. Leave it to Georgie to make me want to murder a couple of immortals. Or maybe she’s the one I should do in?
I make a face at the homicidal confession.
Georgie, meanwhile, is eyeing the vampire men like they’re items on a dessert menu.
I wonder how they’d taste dipped in chocolate? she muses internally.
And why am I not surprised?
“Bizzy!” Macy pops up in front of me with a box of candles and a whole lot of enthusiasm. She’s wearing a short red frilly dress that makes her look like someone who belongs in a bordello, so basically no costume at all.
“Can I set up near the bar? I could move fifty candles tonight easy.”
“Sure,” I say, still scanning the crowd.
“JORDY! WE’RE IN BUSINESS!”
Jordy appears with another armload of supplies dressed as a handyman, which is what he is every year and every day, for that matter.
