Previously in the story: Alphine was a librarian in New Orleans who yearned to enter the dangerous world of vampires found in the French Quarter.
This was Friday, and Alphine sighed as she drove home from the library. She had lived all her life at home with her parents in one of the respectable neighborhoods of New Orleans. Alphine had always obeyed every rule set down by her devout parents. They warned her never, under any circumstances, venture into the French Quarter. Evil people lived there who did evil things. After graduating from Tulane University with a degree in library science, Alphine got a job with the New Orleans library system. Her parents approved. Nothing bad ever happened in libraries, her parents told her. Alphine knew better. She asked to be assigned to the branch nearest the French Quarter. Her parents did not approve. After they had some time to adjust to that decision, Alphine announced she was going to rent her own apartment and live her own life. After all, she was twenty-four years old now. They told her she was a delicate flower that would wither without their protection.
Living in a greenhouse was not living. She had become one of the undead she read so much about. If she were to be undead Alphine would rather be undead away from her parents.
“Mom, Dad, it is unhealthy for you to watch me be undead, so for your own good I’ll go be undead elsewhere.”
Before her mother and father could make any sense out of her proclamation she had moved to an apartment in the garden district, the perfect location to be gloriously undead. However, after a year of living alone, she had yet to venture near the dangers of the French Quarter after dark. Now she was twenty-five years old. How she loathed her cowardice.
At the next intersection, she turned left instead of right. She knew where the vampire boutiques were. They sold the black slinky shrouds, the long black wigs, the death-white makeup and the blood red lipstick needed to integrate into the role-playing shadowy existence of New Orleans underworld nightclubs of vampires.
Vamporium was a black brick store cloaked in dead vines. A tickling bell announced her arrival, and an antique buxom woman wearing a tight, low-cut purple velour gown greeted Alphine. A pile of electric pink hair crowned her head. Her skin was a wrinkled testament to a life spent drinking too much bourbon. Her crimson lips opened in a smile, revealing aged, yellow teeth.
“Entre, my dear. I am Madame De Baucherie. And may I be the first to congratulate you for escaping the stultifying world of suburbia. Welcome to sin.”
Hearing that pronouncement, Alphine wanted to bolt out of the establishment devoted to decadence, but she felt she had gone too far to turn back.