“Why?” I asked, though I wasn’t real sure I wanted to know.

“Have you ever seen ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’?”

I stopped in my tracks. “Sure,” I said. “Have you?”

“Oh, yes,” Pam said calmly. “Many times.” She gave me a minute to absorb that. “Eric is like that on Dracula Night. He thinks, every year, that this time Dracula will pick his party to attend. Eric fusses and plans; he frets and stews. He sent the invitations back to the printer twice so they were late going out. Now that the night is actually here, he’s worked himself into a state.”

“So this is a case of hero worship gone crazy?”

“You have such a way with words,” Pam said admiringly. We were outside Eric’s office, and we could both hear him bellowing inside.

“He’s not happy with the new bartender. He thinks there are not enough bottles of the blood the count is said to prefer, according to an interview in American Vampire.”

I tried to imagine the Vlad Tepes, impaler of so many of his own countrymen, chatting with a reporter. I sure wouldn’t want to be the one holding the pad and pencil. “What brand would that be?” I scrambled to catch up with the conversation.

“The Prince of Darkness is said to prefer Royalty.”

“Ew.” Why was I not surprised?

Royalty was a very, very rare bottled blood. I’d thought the brand was only a rumor until now. Royalty consisted of part synthetic blood and part real blood—the blood of, you guessed it, people of title. Before you go thinking of enterprising vamps ambushing that cute Prince William, let me reassure you. There were plenty of minor royals in Europe who were glad to give blood for an astronomical sum.