Death Becomes Him - 36

It took a week to pull everything together.  Flyers were printed, Phillip came through and brought six vampire acquaintances to the shop one evening. Sienna added two friends of hers, a pair of human women who were more than willing to work nights so they’d have their days free to spend with their children. After explaining exactly what was needed, and giving his new employees a crash course on what each of the three nightly tours would encompass, Rory handed everyone a folder containing stories about the local haunted buildings and where various vampires from the past were thought to have lived. He smiled to himself when a couple of the vampires scanned the information with more than a bit of disbelief. One of them, Alaine, or Alan as he was now known, took him aside after the briefing.

“This,” Alan tapped one of the pages in his folder, “is an unmitigated crock. There are no coffins that contain vampires in the attic of the convent.”  He smiled wickedly. “I should know. I was the last vampire to vacate the premises and that was in the late seventeen hundreds.”

Rory turned to look at Trent who had come up behind him to eavesdrop. “There goes another myth down the tubes. Still,” he returned his attention to Alan, “it makes a great story for the tourists, one of many, so try not to be too patronizing when you tell it.”

Alan laughed. “Far from it. I can make it seem more true than you can begin to imagine. Although,” he smiled, “I’ll try not to scare them away from the rest of the tour.”

“That would be nice of you,” Rory muttered, though he did smile too.

Sienna clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention before asking, “Is there anything else we need to know, Rory?”

“Not that I can think of. Timothy, Dahlia and Jackson, be here at six-thirty Friday evening, and remember—the tours supposed to be scary, but fun. We want people talking about us as the tour company to come to, not running in fear.”

Everyone laughed and cheered, and then left, either on foot or by just vanishing, something no one walking by would see as the shop windows were covered by dark curtains behind the displays and posters about the tours.

“You look happier than I’ve seen you in a long time,” Trent said as he and Rory were driving home.

“I am. I’ve got you, and new friends. Plus the start of a new tour company that I hope will become the most popular one in the city.”

“That’s important to you, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I know it’s not much in the grand scheme of things but at least it’s something I can do and do well.”

Reaching over to squeeze Rory’s thigh, Trent told him, “I suspect you’d do well at anything you put your mind to. It’s who you are. If a project means something to you, you go all out.”

Rory grinned. “If you didn’t have to be at work in a few hours I’d prove to you that’s true.”

“Well”—Trent grinned back quite wickedly—“I have been know to do my job on just a couple of hours of sleep, if staying up late the night before was worth it.”

“Believe me, love, I will definitely make it worth it.”

Trent stepped on the accelerator and they made it home in record time.