The woman focused her eyes then on Timothy. “Well met, my young prince. You have chosen well with this young girl for she is sweetness and light. She will be good for you. Mores the pity, because I’d always hoped you’d come around to sharing my bed.”
Of course, I gasped at that, but for once I kept my mouth shut. There was something about the woman that told me she was not a person one should argue with. But to say something like that at a wedding! Or, publicly. Or, at all!
“Well thought,” the woman said, once more scanning me with her eyes.
I supposed she meant the part about my choosing not to argue with her. It certainly couldn’t be my opinion of her statement. (Thankfully, she didn’t react to my view of her openly expressed lust for Timothy. Could she have been joking?)
The woman suddenly spun about in a ballerina’s pirouette, which opened up her yellow taffeta dress like an unfurled cape. Silk and fluff enlarged to take twice the space of a moment before, and the dress lengthened and acquired a ballroom appearance. A myriad of diamonds brilliantly sprang into sparkle in a cascade of jewels that practically saturated her whole body. And on her head sat a crown so bespeckled with gems that it almost hurt to look at it.
The room where we had gathered was quite without any sunshine, and the lights were dim. What had livened the gown and the crown to star shine? But my thoughts were pummeled by the queenlike figure as she whirled to verbally pounce on Mr. Peterson.
“You,” she said, her left arm, outstretched, the fingers level and pointed at Mr. Peterson. “I cannot decide if you have enhanced the entertainment or disordered it. You have surely taken the tedium out of what might have been a dry ritual, yet your accusations are entirely unfounded and ludicrous. The prince is no vampire. Of that you can be assured, but that is neither here nor there. The truth of it is that you have greatly displeased me, Human. My court will tell you that such an attitude always carries retribution.”
Jack Peters looked frozen at that point. His eyes stared forward, his limbs appeared rigid and inflexible in their positioning. I think the woman had put him into some kind of stasis. Mr. Vampire Hunter blinked, which showed me that at least he was conscious, although I didn’t think any of the seated guests were. They were closed eyes, slumped over, and frozen in whatever position they’d been at the point of the woman’s bolting upward.