“I need to give you lessons, child, as I should have done before. Isn’t it nice that we’re finally getting to know one another? I regret that it takes a huge crisis to impel me to make this offer.”
I nodded faintly. I was glad to learn something about my telepathy from my sponsor, but it was kind of daunting to think of Desmond Cataliades becoming part of my everyday life. Of course, he knew what I was thinking, so I said hurriedly, “Please tell me what happened next.”
“When Diantha thought of questioning Bertine, Bertine realized what she had done. Far from giving a human a useless bit of information about old fairy lore, she had revealed a secret. She came to me while I was recuperating, and I finally understood why I’d been pursued.”
“Because …” I tried to arrange my thoughts. “Because you’d kept secret the existence of a cluviel dor?”
“Yes. My friendship with Fintan, whose name your grandmother mentioned in the letter, was no secret. Stupid Callaway Googled Fintan, too, and though he didn’t find out anything about the real Fintan, the conjunction of the two searches sent out an alarm that eventually reached … the wrong ears. The fact that Fintan was your grandfather is no secret, either, since Niall found you and chose to honor you with his love and protection. It would not take much to put these snippets together.”
“This is the only cluviel dor left in the world?” Awesome.
“Unless one lies lost and forgotten in the land of the fae. And believe me, there are plenty who search every day for such a thing.”
“Can I give it away?”
“You’ll need it if you’re attacked. And you will be attacked,” Mr. Cataliades said, matter-of-factly. “You can use it for yourself, you know; loving yourself is a legitimate trigger of its magic. Giving it to someone else would seal their death warrant. I don’t think you’d want that, though my knowledge of you is inadequate.”
Gee. A lot of swell news.
“I wish Adele had used it herself, to save her own life or the life of one of her children, to take the burden from you. I can only suppose that she didn’t believe in its power.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. And if she had, she almost certainly felt that using it would not be a Christian act. “So, who’s after the cluviel dor? I guess you know, by now?”
“I’m not sure that knowledge would be good for you,” he said.
“How come you can read my mind, but I can’t read yours?” I asked, tired of being transparent. Now I knew how other people must feel when I plucked a thought or two from their brains. Mr. Cataliades was a master at this, while I was very much a novice. He seemed to hear everything, and it didn’t seem to bother him. Before I’d learned to shield, the world had been a babble of talk inside my head. Now that I could block those thoughts for the most part, life was easier, but it was frustrating when I actually wanted to hear: I seldom got a full thought or understood its context. It was surprisingly deflating to realize that it wasn’t how much I heard that was amazing, it was how much I missed.
“Well, I am mostly a demon,” he said apologetically. “And you’re mostly only human.”
“Do you know Barry?” I asked, and even Mr. Cataliades looked a little surprised.
“Yes,” he said, after a perceptible hesitation. “The young man who can also read minds. I saw him in Rhodes, before and after the explosion.”
“If I came to be telepathic because of your—well, essentially, your baby shower present—how come Barry is telepathic?”
Mr. Cataliades pulled himself straight and looked anywhere but at me. “Barry is my great-great-grandson.”
“So, you’re much older than you look.”
This was taken as a compliment. “Yes, my young friend, I am. I don’t neglect the boy, you know. He doesn’t really know me, and of course he doesn’t know his heritage, but I’ve kept him out of a lot of trouble. Not the same thing as having a fairy godmother as you had, but I’ve done my best.”
“Of course,” I said, because it hadn’t been my intent to accuse Mr. Cataliades of ignoring his own kin. I’d just been curious. Time to change the subject, before I told him that my own fairy godmother had gotten killed defending me. “Are you gonna tell me who’s after the cluviel dor?”
He looked profoundly sorry for me. There was a lot of that going around. “Let’s get rid of this body first, shall we?” he said. “Do you have any disposal suggestions?”
I so seldom had to dispose of a human body myself, I was at a loss. Fairies turned into dust, and vampires flaked away. Demons had to be burned. Humans were very troublesome.
Mr. Cataliades, picking up on that thought, turned away with a small smile. “I hear Diantha coming,” he remarked. “Maybe she’ll have a plan.”
Sure enough, the skinny girl glided into the room from the back door. I hadn’t even heard her enter or detected her brain. She was wearing an eye-shattering combination: a very short yellow-and-black striped skirt over royal blue leggings, and a black leotard. Her black ankle boots were laced up with broad white laces. Today, her hair was bright pink. “Sookieyoudoingokay?” she asked.
It took me a second to translate, and then I nodded. “We got to get rid of this,” I said, pointing to the body, which was absolutely obvious in a kitchen the size of mine.
“Thatshutsonedoor,” she said to her uncle.
He nodded gravely. “I suppose the best way to proceed is to load him into the trunk of his car,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Diantha, do you think you could assume his appearance?”
Diantha made a disgusted face but quickly bent to Donald Callaway’s face and stared into it. She plucked a hair from his head, closed her eyes. Her lips moved, and the air had that magic feel I’d noticed when my friend Amelia had performed one of her spells.
In a moment, to my shock, Donald Callaway was standing in front of us staring down at his own body.
It was Diantha, completely transformed. She was even wearing Callaway’s clothes, or at least that was the way she appeared to my eyes.
“Fuckthisshit,” Callaway said, and I knew Diantha was in charge. But it was beyond strange to see Mr. Cataliades and Donald Callaway carrying out Callaway’s body to his car, unlocked with the keys extracted from the corpse’s pocket.
I followed them out, watching carefully to make sure nothing fell or leaked from the body.
“Diantha, drive to the airport in Shreveport and park the car there. Call a cab to pick you up, and have it drop you off at … at the police station. From there, find a good place to change back, so they’ll lose the trail.”
She nodded with a jerk and climbed into the car.
“Diantha can keep his appearance all the way to Shreveport?” I said, as she turned the car around with a grind of the wheel. She (he) waved gaily as she took off like a rocket. I hoped she made it back to Shreveport without getting a ticket.
“She won’t get a ticket,” Mr. Cataliades answered my thought.
But here came Jason in his pickup.
“Oh, hell,” I said. “His sweet potatoes aren’t ready.”
“I need say good-bye, anyway,” Mr. Cataliades said. “I know there are some things I haven’t told you, but I must go now. I may have taken care of the hellhounds, but yours aren’t my only secrets.”
“But …”
I might as well not have spoken. With the startling speed he’d shown when the hellhounds were chasing him, my “sponsor” disappeared into the woods.
“Hey, Sis!” Jason bounded out of his truck. “Did you just have a visitor? I passed a car. You got my sweet potatoes ready?”
“Ah, not quite,” I said. “That was a drop-in I didn’t expect, a guy wanting to sell me life insurance. You come in and sit, and they’ll be ready in about forty-five minutes.” That was an exaggeration, but I wanted Jason to stay. I was scared to be alone. That was not a familiar feeling, or one I liked.
Jason was willing enough to come in and gossip with me while I stood at the kitchen counter adding ingredients to the sweet pota
toes, mashing them, pouring them over the prepared crust, and putting the dish in the oven.
“How come there’s water everywhere?” Jason said, getting up from the chair to mop it off with a dry dish towel.
“I dropped a pitcher,” I said, and that was the end of Jason’s curiosity. We talked about the suggested wedding dates, the du Rone babies, Hoyt and Holly’s marriage and Hoyt’s idea that they have a double ceremony (I was sure Holly and Michele would nix that), and the big reconciliation between Danny and Kennedy, who had been spotted kissing passionately in public at the Sonic.
As I was pulling the casserole out of the oven and preparing to add the final layer, Jason said, “Hey, I guess you heard that all our old furniture got busted up? That stuff the antiques dealer took? What was her name, Brenda? I hope you got money up front. It wasn’t on consignment or nothing, right?”
I’d frozen after lifting out the dish halfway, but I made myself continue with my task. It helped that Dermot came in then, and since he and Jason looked so much alike, Jason got the biggest kick out of telling Dermot how good he was looking, every single time he saw our great-uncle.
“No, I already got cash for that stuff,” I said, when the mutual admiration society had had its moment. And I got the distinct impression from Jason’s head that he’d already forgotten that he’d asked me.
By the time I’d finished my work and sent Jason on his way with the hot dish, Dermot had volunteered to fix hamburgers for our supper. Cooking was something else that he was interested in now, thanks to the Food Network and Bravo. While Dermot was frying the burgers and getting out anything we might want to put on the buns, I looked around the kitchen very carefully to make sure there weren’t any traces of the incident.
Oh, come on, I said to myself. Donald Callaway’s murder. “Incident,” my round, rosy ass. It turned out to be a good thing I checked, because under the kitchen table I spied a pair of dark glasses that must have fallen out of Callaway’s shirt pocket. Dermot didn’t comment when I straightened and slid them into a drawer.
“I don’t guess you’ve heard from Claude or Niall,” I said.
“No. Maybe Niall has killed Claude, or maybe now that Claude is in Faery, he just doesn’t care anymore about those of us left here,” Dermot said, sounding simply philosophical.
I really couldn’t argue with him that those scenarios were impossible, because I knew enough about fairies and enough about Claude to know that they were actually likely. “Are some of the guys coming to run out in the woods tonight?” I said. “I guess Bellenos and Gift told you about last night.”
“Those two won’t be here tonight,” Dermot said, rather grimly. “I am making them work tonight as punishment. They hate cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, so that’s their duty after the club closes. They may come tomorrow night if they behave themselves. I’m sorry about your car, Niece.”
All the fae were calling me Sister now, and Dermot almost always called me Niece. There were a lot worse names they could have chosen, but all this familial terminology felt awfully intimate. “The car’s running okay,” I said, though I’d have to get the bumper fixed sooner or later. Probably later. The seat belt had to be replaced pronto. And I was a little taken aback that Dermot was punishing the sharp-toothed elf and his running buddy as he would little children, giving them the unpopular cleanup duty. But out loud I said, “At least they were able to get the car out of the ditch. I’m only worried they’ll get spotted on someone else’s land or that they’ll run into Bill.”
“He loves you,” Dermot said, turning over the hamburgers in the skillet.
“Yeah, I know.” I got out two plates and a bowl of mixed fruit. “There’s nothing I can do about it but be his friend, though. I used to love him back, and I gotta say there are moments when I feel the old attraction, but I’m not in love with Bill. Not anymore.”
“You love the blond one?” Dermot had been sure about Bill, but he didn’t sound so sure about Eric.
“Yes.” But I no longer felt the surge of love and lust and excitement I’d had before the past few weeks. I hoped I might feel all that again, but I was so emotionally battered that I’d gone a little numb. It was a curious feeling—as if my hand were asleep, but I expected it would be all pins and needles at any second. “I love him,” I said, but even to my own ears I didn’t sound happy about it.
Chapter 11
You may wonder why I was willing to eat in the kitchen where I’d just witnessed a violent death. The fact is, Donald Callaway’s demise was not the worst thing that had happened in my kitchen—not by a long shot. Maybe that was another thing I was getting numb to.
Just before our food was ready, when Dermot’s back was turned, I slid open the drawer and extricated the dead man’s sunglasses, sliding them into my apron pocket. I admit, I can’t say my legs were too steady when I excused myself to go to the bathroom. When I was safely shut inside, I put my hands over my face and sat on the edge of the tub to take a few deep breaths. I got up, dropping Donald Callaway’s dark glasses onto the bath mat. I stomped on them three times, quickly. Without stopping to think, I held the bath mat over the waste can in a funnel shape and shook it gently until all the pieces were safely at the bottom of the plastic bag acting as a liner.
After supper, I planned to take the bag out to the big garbage can that we had to wheel out to the road every Friday.
When I heard Dermot calling me, I washed my hands and my face and left the bathroom, making myself stand straight. As I passed through my bedroom, I slipped the cluviel dor into my pocket, where the sunglasses had been. I couldn’t leave it alone in my room. Not anymore.
The hamburgers were good, and I managed to eat mine and some fruit salad, too. Dermot and I were quiet together, which suited me fine. As we did the dishes, Dermot told me shyly that he had a date and would be going out after he showered.
“Oh my gosh!” I grinned at him. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Linda Tonnesen.”
“The doctor!”
“Yes,” he said a little doubtfully. “I think that’s what she said she did. Treats human ailments?”
“Oh, that’s a big deal, really, Dermot,” I said. “Doctors get a lot of respect in our society. I guess as far as she knows, you’re human?”
He flushed. “Yes, she thinks I’m a very attractive human. I met her at the bar three nights ago.”
It would be pretty stupid for me to comment further. He was handsome, sweet natured, and strong. What more could a woman want?
Besides, considering the confused state of my own love life, I could hardly pass out dating tips.
I told Dermot I’d finish the dishes so he could go get ready for his date, and by the time I was ensconced on the living room couch with a book, he came downstairs in navy slacks and a pale blue striped shirt with a button-down collar. He looked amazing, and I told him so. He grinned at me.
“I hope she’ll think so,” he said. “I love the way she smells.”
That was a very fairy compliment. Linda Tonnesen was a smart woman with a great sense of humor, but she was not what humans thought of as conventionally pretty. Her smell had scored her big points with Dermot. I’d have to remember that.
By the time Dermot left, dark had fallen. I got the bag containing Jannalynn’s jacket and went out the back door, on my way to Bill’s house. I felt a little better after I’d dropped the other little bag, the one containing the smashed dark glasses, into the garbage bin. I turned on my flashlight and strode to the woods. There was a little path; Bill came over often, probably far more often than I knew.
Just before I reached the cleared ground of the old cemetery, I heard a sound to my left. I stopped in my tracks. “Bill?” I said.
“Sookie,” he answered, and then he was right in front of me. He had his own little plastic sack looped over his left hand. We were all carrying bags around tonight.
“I brought Jannalynn’s jacket,” I said. “For you and Heidi.”
“
You stole her jacket?” He sounded amused.
“If that were the worst thing I’d done today, I’d be a happy woman.”
Bill let that pass, though I could almost feel him peering at me. Vampire eyesight is excellent, of course. He took my arm and we walked a few feet to get into the cemetery grounds. Even though there weren’t many lights there, there were a few, and I could see (faintly) that Bill was excited about something.
He opened my bag, put it to his face, and inhaled. “No, that’s not a scent I picked up at the gate in the backyard. Of course, considering all the scents around there and the length of time before we were able to investigate, that can’t be a definite no.” He handed it back.
I felt almost disappointed. Jannalynn made me so antsy that I would have liked to find her guilty of something, but I chided myself for being uncharitable. I should be glad Sam was dating an innocent woman. And I was. Right?
“You look unhappy,” Bill said. We were walking back to his house, and I’d tucked the plastic bag under my arm. I’d been thinking of how I’d return Jannalynn’s jacket to Sam’s office. I’d have to do it soon.
“I am unhappy,” I said. Then, because I didn’t want to explain my every inner qualm, I told Bill, “I listened to the news on the radio while I was cutting up sweet potatoes. That girl Kym, the police are trying to blame her murder on a vampire because she died in Eric’s front yard. Someone vandalized Fangtasia, threw white paint all over the exterior. Are Felipe and his crew still here? Why don’t they go home?”
Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel Page 22