The Obscurati (26 page)

The priest said he would be honored to say a nuptial mass for Pierre and Hamlet.

“‘Love’ is just one of the four-letter words you hear in a marriage,” the priest continued.

“What are the others?” Pierre asked with some hesitation. He was catching on.

“Let’s see… um… ‘soap’ and ‘dust’ and ‘iron’ and…”

“Ach du lieber, Vater,” Hamlet said.

I didn’t think Catholics were okay with same-gender marriage, but the priest reminded us that he was Catholic but not
Roman
Catholic. He assured me that nobody in the Old Catholic Church would mind.

“They don’t mind vampires, for crying out loud,” he assured us. “A couple of guys in love won’t even be a blip on their screens.”

“How’s Ludwig?” I asked. When Hamlet looked puzzled, I explained it was a guy that the priest was dating.

“Gone,” the priest said. “We were just friends, you know.”

“Whatever you say, Father.”

We found that some of the pews needed to be repaired and kneelers needed to be re-covered. We scolded the priest gently for not telling us about what needed to be done. He tried to pass it off because the church doesn’t pay rent, but we got him to promise to let Lonny know when things needed attention.

Lonny and Oberon got a full crew in the chapel. There were painters and carpenters. Electricians completely rewired everything and installed new hanging light fixtures. They hired other workers to replace broken tiles on the roof and other electricians to attach solar electricity panels to the top.

Stone workers repaired or replaced broken areas of the outside wall. They also finished carving the figures that were in the original plans for the chapel but had never been done. Sandblasters came to clean all the muck from the outside walls.

Glassworkers replaced or repaired all of the stained-glass windows that needed attention. A lot of the lead beading on the windows was missing or damaged and had to be fixed. One window had nothing but frosted glass, even though it was obviously designed for stained glass. Lonny got the glassworkers to get together with the priest to come up with a design that would fit with the other windows. They had it installed within just a few days, so I think they cobbled together something out of glass they already had.

The steeple had room for three church bells, but only one was there. Oberon found two additional bells and had them installed. The priest said a bishop came by to bless the church bells. That happened during the day, and we didn’t get to meet the bishop. Apparently church bells are a big deal and get special treatment before they are installed. I don’t know how the priest explained everything to the bishop. I think Father Johannes only comes out at night, but I’m not absolutely sure. Whatever.

Work on the chapel went around the clock because we didn’t have much time. There were no nearby neighbors to complain. By the time the workers had finished, it was a very quick but thorough makeover.

Our human staff decorated the chapel a few days before the service. There were candles everywhere. The day before the wedding, they added truckloads of flowers. Oberon put flowers up where humans couldn’t reach, but I never saw any raised eyebrows. The priest and the locals probably thought we used really tall ladders.

“There are so many flowers,” I told Lonny, “that I don’t see why we needed to paint the interior. You can’t see the friggin’ walls.”

Oberon slapped me. “Don’t say ‘friggin’ inside a church. And what’s that sign at the highway entrance?”

“You saw my sign?”

“No, but five or six people have made sure that I knew what you did.”

“Lechmont Manor,” I said.

“Take it down,” he said as he slugged me.

“Ouch! It’s a stone sign,” I said. “Very understated and proper.”

“There’s nothing proper about that name. Oh, never mind, but don’t come crying to me if Menz comes back to haunt you. I may help him.”

I hired a chamber orchestra to play in the chapel and then to have some background music in the library. They played one of the Bach concerti that Hamlet and Pierre had heard on their first date. The entrance song was the “Canon in D” by Johann Pachelbel, followed by Jeremiah Clarke’s “Prince of Denmark March” (usually called “Trumpet Voluntary”), but with strings instead of trumpets. And the closing music was sort of Oberon’s theme song: the “Wedding March” from Felix Mendelssohn’s music for
A
Midsummer Night’s Dream
. I know Hamlet is a character in a completely different play, but the Mendelssohn music is traditional. I learned more about wedding music that I ever wanted to know. Just ask me. That “here comes the bride, all fat and wide” song is really from an opera by Richard Wagner, but I nixed using it as the opening song because I know Hamlet detests opera. The chamber orchestra said it was traditional, but I told them we would have to change tradition for this one. I was paying the bill, so I got my way.

I even suggested “Wedding Bell Blues” by the Fifth Dimension or Laura Nero, but Oberon smacked me on the head. I guess that would have been out of place.

“Hey, it’s a pretty song,” I complained.

“Yeah, but it is about
not
getting married,” he said. “Shut up and quit being such a poop.”

I asked Lonny and Schmidt to see if they could find a small pipe organ for the chapel. It wasn’t for the wedding, because a whole balcony would have to be built, but I thought it would be nice for the parishioners to have a musical instrument with pipes.

“Proper pipes with proper suction,” Father Johannes said. “You can come play my organ any time you want.”

I understood why Ludwig had left.

B
ECAUSE
Pierre knew almost every vampire in the world, we would be having vampire royalty. Security was an issue. He brought along an assistant who took charge of the hovering crew of vampires. A couple dozen vampire warriors joined the group. Pierre got everyone trained and situated a week before the actual ceremony so he would be free to concentrate on his wedding.

It was going to be Lonny’s first look at vampire security. I think he was excited but didn’t want to join that detail. He was happy running the estate: our little empire. Pierre and Lonny worked with the security staff so our guests could get through the invisible bubble over the estate without setting off alarms.

The groundskeepers went out of their way to make the grounds look great. By the time of the wedding, flowers were blooming throughout the garden, and not a blade of grass was out of place. The chapel is about a kilometer from the main house, and we had a new walkway installed. They repaved the parking lot by the chapel too.

Our library and dining room were both laid out for the reception. There were snacks in the dining room and flowers all over the library. We opened up a wing of the mansion that rarely saw use because some of the visiting vampires might want to stay the night. When the carpenters were finished with the chapel, they moved to the unused bedrooms to make repairs in the unused parts of the mansion.

I tried to get a handle on what this was costing us, but Oberon told me that I couldn’t count that high.

“I was a math major,” I said.

“Yeah, but that was a hundred years ago. They’ve invented new numbers since then. We can afford it, so shut up. It’s for Hamlet.”

“Do I get the bride on my birthday?”

“The bride? You mean Hamlet? Nein, you get no such thing. You already had Hamlet. He topped you once, and all you have left are memories.”

“Ouch!” I said. “Quit hitting me.”

“Quit being disgusting,” Oberon said. Somewhere along the way, he had stopped being my oversexed lover who wanted to screw everything in sight. This was borderline fuddy-duddy for Oberon.

O
N
THE
day of the wedding, Oberon had us wearing matching white ties, white vests, and tailcoats. I was ready to bop him if he tried to get me into a top hat, but that never came up. The queen sent ahead three white carnations for us to wear. She included Lonny, which I thought was sweet. It made Lonny feel really good, even though he wasn’t part of the wedding itself. Point for the queen.

“I hope she didn’t send flowers for the church,” I told Oberon.

“Why?”

“The foundation will crack under the weight of so many flowers.”

I barely stepped out of Oberon’s fist as it aimed at my arm. If vampires had been able to bruise, then I would have been black and blue everywhere.

Pierre came wearing a tuxedo, very traditional, very Pierre. He looked exactly like everyone would expect a groom to look. He was always proper and understated.

Hamlet was a whole different story. He was wearing something like a tuxedo, but it was obviously custom-made just for him out of midnight blue brocade and black satin. There were frilly things on each shoulder, but they were simple for Hamlet. They looked like twisted pipe cleaners or metallic worms, but they were frilly with glitter. He was trying to tone things down, but he had found the edge of tradition where he could go no further. He was absolutely Hamlet, but Pierre had convinced him to turn the volume down a few ticks. Hamlet cut his hair and had it gelled to make spikes, not quite a faux-hawk, but along those lines. He had somebody add highlights to his hair, and I saw a faint trace of glitter in his hair and on his face. I had to admit that Hamlet was stunning.

I think Oberon had us dress alike and tone everything down so we wouldn’t compete with Hamlet. Oberon is the one who usually turns heads, and his Goth clothing helps emphasize everything that makes him attractive. But this night belonged to Hamlet and Pierre, and Oberon didn’t want to detract from that. He didn’t even wear lipstick, but I did see faint traces of guy-liner. I guess not even Oberon was able to go “cold turkey” on makeup after a hundred years of wearing it.

Security had all the visiting vampires land in a clearing a hundred or so meters from the chapel. The clearing was hidden from the chapel by a tall hedgerow. It was mainly for the benefit of the regular members of the church. They were invited, and they were absolutely welcome, because we thought of them as family.

The chapel was packed: church members, our human blood donors, groundskeepers, and visiting vampires. Queen Cécile was treated like Hamlet’s mother. She wore a dark dress with white lace and a tasteful and understated tiara. She caught Hamlet eyeing her tiara covetously and wagged her finger at him.

Oberon stood with Pierre as the best man, and I stood with Hamlet as the other best man. It was standing room only, and plenty of people were standing two or three deep on the sides of the chapel and way in the back.

The actual marriage rite, according to the priest, was the adelphopoiia rite, a same-gender rite from an Orthodox church. He said the translation he would be using dated to 1647. I had no idea that Orthodox Christians, at least some of them, were okay with gay marriage. Good to know. Point for them.

The priest started, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us. Glory to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages.”

Everyone in the church said, “Amen.”

“All-Holy Trinity, have mercy on us,” the priest continued.

“Lord forgive our sins,” said the congregation, human and vampire alike. They were reading from little booklets that we had printed. Oberon and I just stood there because we had forgotten to get booklets for ourselves.

The priest asked Pierre and Hamlet to put their left hands on a large Bible while holding candles in their right hands.

“Be careful, Hamlet,” I thought. “We don’t need you to sizzle on your wedding day.”

“I can hear you,” the queen said in my head.

“Yes, ma’am,” I thought. “Sorry, ma’am.”

“Let us pray to the Lord,” the priest said. “Lord our God, who has granted us all things for salvation and who has commanded us to love one another and to forgive each others’ transgressions, now you yourself, Master and lover of mankind, to these your servants who have loved each other with spiritual love, and who approach your holy temple to be blessed by you, grant to them a faith unashamed, a love unfeigned. And as you gave your holy disciples your own peace, also grant these all the petitions for salvation, and eternal life. For you are a merciful and loving God, and to you we ascribe glory, to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let us pray to the Lord.”

“Wow, this is really happening,” Hamlet said in my head.

“Lord our God,” the priest said, “the omnipotent, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, who made man according to your image and likeness, who was well-disposed to your holy martyrs Sergius and Bacchus becoming brothers, not bound by the law of nature but by the example of faith of the Holy Spirit; Master, do send down your Holy Spirit upon your servants, who have approached this temple to be blessed. Grant them a faith unashamed, a love unfeigned, and that they may be without hatred and scandal all the days of their lives through the prayers of your immaculate mother and of all the saints. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages.”

Father Johannes took the gospel and put it on a table. Then he continued, “By the union of love, the apostles join in the praying to the Master of all; themselves committed to Christ, they extended their beautiful feet, announcing the good news of peace to everyone.”

The congregation said, “Have mercy on us, O God.”

We really should have gotten books, but Father Johannes switched to a more familiar liturgy for the wedding vows.

“I do.”

“I do.”

And so forth.

“I now pronounce you….”

And so on.

Hamlet and Pierre knelt in front of the altar. Oberon and I went to sit on the first row of pews. The priest then said Mass using a really old version of that liturgy. I had seen it before, but I figured he only used the old liturgy for midnight Mass. My bad.

Father Johannes made it clear that members and nonmembers were all welcome to join in Holy Communion. Plenty of vampires got into the communion line, and none burst into flames. I wanted to write a story for some newspaper or magazine so I could watch all the fundamentalists get worked up over vampires taking part at church.