“Russell’s getting married?” I smiled. I wondered if he’d be the bride or the groom, or a little bit of both.
“Yeah, but don’t tell anyone yet. They’re announcing it tonight.”
“So when are we gonna talk?”
“I’ll come to your room when the vamps are in bed for the day. Where are you?”
“I have a roommate.” I gave him the room number anyway.
“If she’s there, we’ll find somewhere else to go,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Listen, don’t worry; everything’s okay.”
I wondered what I should be worrying about. I wondered where another dimension was, and how hard it would be to bring over bodyguards from it. I wondered why anyone would go to the expense. Not that Batanya hadn’t seemed pretty damn effective; but the extreme effort Kentucky had gone to, that sure seemed to argue extreme fear. Who was after him?
My waist buzzed at me, and I realized I was being summoned back up to the queen’s suite. Barry’s pager went off, too. We looked at each other.
Back to work, he said, as we went toward the elevator. I’m sorry if I caused trouble between you and Quinn.
You don’t mean that.
He glanced at me. He had the grace to look ashamed. I guess I don’t. I had a picture built up of how you and me would be, and Quinn kind of intruded on my fantasy life.
Ah . . . ah.
Don’t worry—you don’t have to think of something to say. It was one of those fantasies. Now that I’m really with you, I have to adjust.
Ah.
But I shouldn’t have let my disappointment make me a jerk.
Ah. Okay. I’m sure Quinn and I can work it out.
So, I kept the fantasy screened from you, huh?
I nodded vigorously.
Well, at least that’s something.
I smiled at him. Everyone’s got to have a fantasy, I told him. My fantasy is finding out where Kentucky got that money, and who he hired to bring that woman here. Was she not the scariest thing you’ve ever seen?
No, Barry answered, to my surprise. The scariest thing I’ve ever seen . . . well, it wasn’t Batanya. And then he locked the communicating door between our brains and threw away the key. Sigebert was opening the door into the queen’s suite, and we were back at work.
After Barry and his party left, I kind of waved my hand in the air to let the queen know I had something to say if she wanted to listen. She and Andre had been discussing Stan’s motivation in paying the significant visit, and they paused in identical attitudes. It was just weird. Their heads were cocked at the same angle, and with their extreme pallor and stillness, it was like being regarded by works of art carved in marble: Nymph and Satyr at Rest, or something like that.
“You know what Britlingens are?” I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
The queen nodded. Andre just waited.
“I saw one,” I said, and the queen’s head jerked.
“Who has gone to the expense to hire a Britlingen?” Andre asked.
I told them the whole story.
The queen looked—well, it was hard to say how she looked. Maybe a little worried, maybe intrigued, since I’d garnered so much news in the lobby.
“I never knew how useful I’d find it, having a human servant,” she said to Andre. “Other humans will say anything around her, and even the Britlingen spoke freely.”
Andre was perhaps a tad jealous if the look on his face was any indication.
“On the other hand, I can’t do a damn thing about any of this,” I said. “I can just tell you what I heard, and it’s hardly classified information.”
“Where did Kentucky get the money?” Andre said.
The queen shook her head, as if to say she hadn’t a clue and really didn’t care that much. “Did you see Jennifer Cater?” she asked me.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What did she say?” asked Andre.
“She said she’d drink my blood, and she’d see you staked and exposed on the hotel roof.”
There was a moment of utter silence.
Then Sophie-Anne said, “Stupid Jennifer. What’s that phrase Chester used to use? She’s getting too big for her britches. What to do . . . ? I wonder if she would accept a messenger from me?”
She and Andre looked at each other steadily, and I decided they were doing a little telepathic communication of their own.
“I suppose she’s taken the suite Arkansas had reserved,” the queen said to Andre, and he picked up the in-house phone and called the front desk. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the king or queen of a state referred to as the state itself, but it seemed a really impersonal way to refer to your former husband, no matter how violently the marriage had ended.
“Yes,” he said after he’d hung up.
“Maybe we should pay her a visit,” the queen said. She and Andre indulged in some of that silent to and fro that was their way of conversing. Probably like watching Barry and me, I figured. “She’ll admit us, I’m sure. There’ll be something she wants to say to me in person.” The queen picked up the phone, but not as if that was something she did every day. She dialed the room number with her own fingers, too.
“Jennifer,” she said charmingly. She listened to a torrent of words that I could hear only a bit. Jennifer didn’t sound any happier than she’d been in the lobby.
“Jennifer, we need to talk.” The queen sounded much more charming and a lot tougher. There was silence on the other end of the line. “The doors are not closed to discussion or negotiation, Jennifer,” Sophie-Anne said. “At least, my doors aren’t. What about yours?” I think Jennifer spoke again. “All right, that’s wonderful, Jennifer. We’ll be down in a minute or two.” The queen hung up and stood silent for a long moment.
It seemed to me like going to visit Jennifer Cater, when she was bringing a lawsuit against Sophie-Anne for murdering Peter Threadgill, was a real bad idea. But Andre nodded approvingly at Sophie-Anne.
After Sophie-Anne’s conversation with her archenemy, I thought we’d head to the Arkansas group’s room any second. But maybe the queen wasn’t as confident as she’d sounded. Instead of starting out briskly for the showdown with Jennifer Cater, Sophie-Anne dawdled. She gave herself a little extra grooming, changed her shoes, searched around for her room key, and so on. Then she got a phone call about what room service charges the humans in her group could put on the room bill. So it was more than fifteen minutes before we managed to leave the room. Sigebert was coming out of the staircase door, and he fell into place with Andre at the waiting elevator.
Jennifer Cater and her party were on floor seven. There was no one standing at Jennifer Cater’s door: I guessed she didn’t rate her own bodyguard. Andre did the knocking honors, and Sophie-Anne straightened expectantly. Sigebert hung back, giving me an unexpected smile. I tried not to flinch.
The door swung open. The interior of the suite was dark.
The smell that wafted from the door was unmistakable.
“Well,” said the Queen of Louisiana briskly. “Jennifer’s dead.”
10
“GO SEE,” THE QUEEN TOLD ME.
“What? But all y’all are stronger than I am! And less scared!”
“And we’re the ones she’s suing,” Andre pointed out. “Our smell cannot be in there. Sigebert, you must go see.”
Sigebert glided into the darkness.
A door across the landing opened, and Batanya stepped out.
“I smell death,” she said. “What’s happened?”
“We came calling,” I said. “But the door was unlocked already. Something’s wrong in there.”
“You don’t know what?”
“No, Sigebert is exploring,” I explained. “We’re waiting.”
“Let me call my second. I can’t leave Kentucky’s door unguarded.” She turned to call back into the suite, “Clovache!” At least, I guess that was how it was spelled, it was pronounced “Kloh-VOSH.”
A kind of Batanya Junior e
merged—same armor, but smaller scale; younger, brown-haired, less terrifying . . . but still plenty formidable.
“Scout the place,” Batanya ordered, and without a single question Clovache drew her sword and eased into the apartment like a dangerous dream.
We all waited, holding our breaths—well, I was, anyway. The vamps didn’t have breath to hold, and Batanya didn’t seem at all agitated. She had moved to a spot where she could watch the open door of Jennifer Cater’s place and the closed door of the King of Kentucky. Her sword was drawn.
The queen’s face looked almost tense, perhaps even excited; that is, slightly less blank than usual. Sigebert came out and shook his head without a word.
Clovache appeared in the doorway. “All dead,” she reported to Batanya.
Batanya waited.
“By decapitation,” Clovache elaborated. “The woman was, ah”—Clovache appeared to be counting mentally—“in six pieces.”
“This is bad,” the queen said at the same moment Andre said, “This is good.” They exchanged exasperated glances.
“Any humans?” I asked, trying to keep my voice small because I didn’t want their attention, but I did want to know, very badly.
“No, all vampires,” Clovache said after she got a go-ahead nod from Batanya. “I saw three. They’re flaking off pretty fast.”
“Clovache, go in and call that Todd Donati.” Clovache went silently into the Kentucky suite and placed a call, which had an electrifying effect. Within five minutes, the area in front of the elevator was crammed with people of all sorts and descriptions and degrees of living.
A man wearing a maroon jacket with Security on the pocket seemed to be in charge, so he must be Todd Donati. He was a policeman who’d retired from the force early because of the big money to be made guarding and aiding the undead. But that didn’t mean he liked them. Now he was furious that something had happened so early in the summit, something that would cause him more work than he was able to handle. He had cancer, I heard clearly, though I wasn’t able to discern what kind. Donati wanted to work as long as he could to provide for his family after he was gone, and he was resentful of the stress and strain this investigation would cause, the energy it would drain. But he was doggedly determined to do his job.
When Donati’s vampire boss, the hotel manager, showed up, I recognized him. Christian Baruch had been on the cover of Fang (the vamp version of People) a few months ago. Baruch was Swiss born. As a human, he’d designed and managed a bunch of fancy hotels in Western Europe. When he’d told a vampire in the same line of business that if he was “brought over” (not only to the vampire life but to America), he could run outstanding and profitable hotels for a syndicate of vampires, he’d been obliged in both ways.
Now Christian Baruch had eternal life (if he avoided pointy wooden objects), and the vampire hotel syndicate was raking in the money. But he wasn’t a security guy or a law enforcement expert, and he wasn’t the police. Sure, he could decorate the hell out of the hotel and tell the architect how many suites needed a wet bar, but what good would he be in this situation? His human hireling looked at Baruch sourly. Baruch was wearing a suit that looked remarkably wonderful, even to inexperienced eyes like mine. I was sure it had been made for him, and I was sure it had cost a bundle.
I had been pushed back by the crowd until I was pressed against the wall by one of the suite doors—Kentucky’s, I realized. It hadn’t opened yet. The two Britlingens would have to guard their charge extra carefully with this mob milling around. The hubbub was extraordinary. I was next to a woman in a security uniform; it was just like the excop’s, but she didn’t have to wear a tie.
“Do you think letting all these people into this space is a good idea?” I asked. I didn’t want to be telling the woman her business, but dang. Didn’t she ever watch CSI?
Security Woman gave me a dark look. “What are you doing here?” she asked, as if that made some big point.
“I’m here because I was with the group that found the bodies.”
“Well, you just need to keep quiet and let us do our work.”
She said this in the snottiest tone possible. “What work would that be? You don’t seem to be doing anything at all,” I said.
Okay, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but she wasn’t doing anything. It seemed to me that she should be—
And then she grabbed me and slammed me into the wall and handcuffed me.
I gave a kind of yelp of surprise. “That really wasn’t what I meant you to do,” I said with some difficulty, since my face was mashed against the door of the suite.
There was a large silence from the crowd behind us. “Chief, I got a woman here causing trouble,” said Security Woman.
Maroon looked awful on her, by the way.
“Landry, what are you doing?” said an overly reasonable male voice. It was the kind of voice you use with an irrational child.
“She was telling me what to do,” replied Security Woman, but I could tell her voice was deflating even as she spoke.
“What was she telling you to do, Landry?”
“She wondered what all the people were doing here, sir.”
“Isn’t that a valid question, Landry?”
“Sir?”
“Don’t you think we should be clearing out some of these people?”
“Yes, sir, but she said she was here because she was in the party that found the bodies.”
“So she shouldn’t leave.”
“Right. Sir.”
“Was she trying to leave?”
“No, sir.”
“But you handcuffed her.”
“Ah.”
“Take the fucking handcuffs off her, Landry.”
“Yes, sir.” Landry was a flat pancake by now, no air left in her at all.
The handcuffs came off, to my relief, and I was able to turn around. I was so angry I could have decked Landry. But since I would’ve been right back in the handcuffs, I held off. Sophie-Anne and Andre pushed through the crowd; actually, it just kind of melted in front of them. Vampires and humans alike were glad to get out of the way of the Queen of Louisiana and her bodyguard.
Sophie-Anne glanced at my wrists, saw that they really weren’t hurt at all, and correctly diagnosed the fact that my worst injury was to my pride.
“This is my employee,” Sophie-Anne said quietly, apparently addressing Landry but making sure everyone there heard her. “An insult or injury to this woman is an insult or injury to me.”
Landry didn’t know who the hell Sophie-Anne was, but she could tell power when she saw it, and Andre was just as scary. They were the two most frightening teenagers in the world, I do believe.
“Yes, ma’am, Landry will apologize in writing. Now can you tell me what happened here just now?” Todd Donati asked in a very reasonable voice.
The crowd was silent and waiting. I looked for Batanya and Clovache and saw they were missing. Suddenly Andre said, “You are the chief of security?” in a rather loud voice, and as he did, Sophie-Anne leaned very close to me to say, “Don’t mention the Britlingens.”
“Yes, sir.” The policeman ran a hand over his mustache. “I’m Todd Donati, and this is my boss, Mr. Christian Baruch.”
“I am Andre Paul, and this is my queen, Sophie-Anne Leclerq. This young woman is our employee Sookie Stackhouse.” Andre waited for the next step.
Christian Baruch ignored me. But he gave Sophie-Anne the look I’d give a roast I was thinking of buying for Sunday dinner. “Your presence is a great honor to my hotel,” he murmured in heavily accented English, and I glimpsed the tips of his fangs. He was quite tall, with a large jaw and dark hair. But his small eyes were arctic gray.
Sophie-Anne took the compliment in stride, though her brows drew together for a second. Showing fang wasn’t an exactly subtle way of saying, “You shake my world.” No one spoke. Well, not for a long, awkward second. Then I said, “Are you all going to call the police, or what?”
“I think we must co
nsider what we have to tell them,” Baruch said, his voice smooth, sophisticated, and making fun of rural-southern-human me. “Mr. Donati, will you go see what’s in the suite?”
Todd Donati pushed his way through the crowd with no subtlety at all. Sigebert, who’d been guarding the open doorway (for lack of anything better to do), stood aside to let the human enter. The huge bodyguard worked his way over to the queen, looking happier when he was in proximity to his ruler.
While Donati examined whatever was left in the Arkansas suite, Christian Baruch turned to address the crowd. “How many of you came down here after you heard something had happened?”
Maybe fifteen people raised their hands or simply nodded.
“You will please make your way to the Draft of Blood bar on the ground level, where our bartenders will have something special for all of you.” The fifteen moved out pretty quickly after that. Baruch knew his thirsty people. Vamps. Whatever.
“How many of you were not here when the bodies were discovered?” Baruch said after the first group had left. Everyone raised a hand except the four of us: me, the queen, Andre, Sigebert.
“Everyone else may feel free to leave,” Baruch said as civilly as if he was extending a pleasant invitation. And they did. Landry hesitated and got a look that sent her hurtling down the stairs.
The area around the central elevator seemed spacious now, since it was so much emptier.
Donati came back out. He didn’t look deeply disturbed or sick, but he did look less composed.
“There’s only bits of them left now. There’s stuff all over the floor, though; residue, I guess you’d call it. I think there were three of them. But one of them is in so many pieces, that it might be two of them.”
“Who’s on the registration?”
Donati referred to a palm-held electronic device. “Jennifer Cater, of Arkansas. This room was rented to the delegation of Arkansas vampires. The remaining Arkansas vampires.”
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