"It would have helped if we had known he was in there!"
"It would have helped if your ho of a cousin hadn't killed him in the first place!"
We both screeched to a halt in our dialogue. "Are you sure that's what happened?" I asked. "Claudine?"
"I don't know," she said, her voice placid. "I'm not omnipotent or omniscient. I just pop in to intervene when I can. You remember that time you fell asleep at the wheel and I got there in time to save you?"
And she'd nearly given me a heart attack in the process, appearing in the front seat of the car in the blink of an eye. "Yes," I said, trying to sound grateful and humble. "I remember."
"It's really, really hard to get somewhere that fast," she said. "I can only do that in a real emergency. I mean, a life-or-death emergency. Fortunately, I had a bit more time when your house was on fire…"
Claudine was not going to give us any rules, or even explain the nature of the rule maker. I'd just have to muddle through on my belief system, which had helped me out all my life. Come to think of it, if I was completely wrong, I didn't want to know.
"Interesting," said Amelia. "But we have a few more things to talk about."
Maybe she was being so hoity-toity because she didn't have her own fairy godmother.
"What do you want to talk about first?" I asked.
"Why'd you leave the hospital last night?" Her face was tight with resentment. "You should have told me. I hauled myself up these stairs last night to look for you, and there you were. And you'd barricaded the door. So I had to go back down the damn stairs again to get my keys, and let myself in the French windows, and hurry—on this leg—to the alarm system to turn it off. And then this dooms was sitting by your bed, and she could have done all of that."
"You couldn't open the windows with magic?" I asked.
"I was too tired," she said with dignity. "I had to recharge my magical batteries, so to speak."
"So to speak," I said, my voice dry. "Well, last night, I found out…" and I stopped dead. I simply couldn't speak of it.
"Found out what?" Amelia was exasperated, and I couldn't say as I blamed her.
"Bill, her first lover, was planted in Bon Temps to seduce her and gain her trust," Claudine said. "Last night, he admitted that to her face, and in front of her only other lover, another vampire."
As a synopsis, it was flawless.
"Well… that sucks," Amelia said faintly.
"Yeah," I said. "It does."
"Ouch."
"Yeah."
"I can't kill him for you," Claudine said. "I'd have to take too many steps backward."
"That's okay," I told her. "He's not worth your losing any brownie points."
"Oh, I'm not a brownie," Claudine explained kindly. "I thought you understood. I'm a full-blooded fairy."
Amelia was trying not to laugh, and I glared at her. "Just let it go, witch," I said.
"Yes, telepath."
"So what next?" I asked, in general. I would not talk any more about my broken heart and my demolished self-worth.
"We figure out what happened," the witch said.
"How? Call CSI?"
Claudine looked confused, so I guessed fairies didn't watch television.
"No," Amelia said, with elaborate patience. "We do an ectoplasmic reconstruction."
I was sure that my expression matched Claudine's, now.
"Okay, let me explain," Amelia said, grinning all over. "This is what we do."
Amelia, in seventh heaven at this exhibition of her wonderful witch powers, told Claudine and me at length about the procedure. It was time- and energy-consuming, she said, which was why it wasn't done more often. And you had to gather at least four witches, she estimated, to cover the amount of square footage involved in Jake's murder.
"And I'll need real witches," Amelia said. "Quality workers, not some hedgerow Wiccan." Amelia went off on Wiccans for a good long while. She despised Wiccans (unfairly) as tree-hugging wannabes—that came out of Amelia's thoughts clearly enough. I regretted Amelia's prejudice, as I'd met some impressive Wiccans.
Claudine looked down at me, her expression doubtful. "I'm not sure we ought to be here for this," she said.
"You can go, Claudine." I was ready to experiment with anything, just to take my mind off the big hole in my heart. "I'm going to stay to watch. I have to know what happened here. There are too many mysteries in my life, right now."
"But you have to go to the queen's tonight," Claudine said. "You missed last night. Visiting the queen is a dress-up occasion. I have to take you shopping. You don't want to wear any of your cousin's clothes."
"Not that my butt could get into them," I said.
"Not that your butt should want to," she said, equally harshly. "You can cut that out right now, Sookie Stackhouse."
I looked up at her, letting her see the pain inside me.
"Yeah, I get that," she said, her hand patting me gently on the cheek. "And that sucks big-time. But you have to write it off. He's only one guy."
He'd been the first guy. "My grandmother served him lemonade," I said, and somehow that triggered the tears again.
"Hey," Amelia said. "Fuck him, right?"
I looked at the young witch. She was pretty and tough and off-the-wall nuts, I thought. She was okay. "Yeah," I said. "When can you do the ecto thing?"
She said, "I have to make some phone calls, see who I can get together. Night's always better for magic, of course. When will you go pay your call to the queen?"
I thought for a moment. "Just at full dark," I said. "Maybe about seven."
"Should take about two hours," Amelia said, and Claudine nodded. "Okay, I'll ask them to be here at ten, to have a little wiggle room. You know, it would be great if the queen would pay for this."
"How much do you want to charge?"
"I'd do it for nothing, to have the experience and be able to say I'd done one," Amelia said frankly, "but the others will need some bucks. Say, three hundred apiece, plus materials."
"And you'll need three more witches?"
"I'd like to have three more, though whether I can get the ones I want on this short notice… well, I'll do the best I can. Two might do. And the materials ought to be…" She did some rapid mental calculations. "Somewhere in the ballpark of sixty dollars."
"What will I need to do? I mean, what's my part?"
"Observe. I'll do the heavy lifting."
"I'll ask the queen." I took a deep breath. "If she won't pay for it, I will."
"Okay, then. We're set." She limped out of the bedroom happily, counting off things on her fingers. I heard her go down the stairs.
Claudine said, "I have to treat your arm. And then we need to go find you something to wear."
"I don't want to spend money on a courtesy call to the vampire queen." Especially since I might have to foot the bill for the witches.
"You don't have to. It's my treat."
"You may be my fairy godmother, but you don't have to spend money on me." I had a sudden revelation. "It's you who paid my hospital bill in Clarice."
Claudine shrugged. "Hey, it's money that came in from the strip club, not from my regular job." Claudine co-owned the strip club in Ruston, with Claude, who did all the day-today running of the place. Claudine was a customer service person at a department store. People forgot their complaints once they were confronted with Claudine's smile.
It was true that I didn't mind spending the strip club money as much as I would have hated using up Claudine's personal savings. Not logical, but true.
Claudine had parked her car in the courtyard on the circular drive, and she was sitting in it when I came down the stairs. She'd gotten a first aid kit from the car, and she'd bandaged my arm and helped me into some clothes. My arm was sore but it didn't seem to be infected. I was weak, as if I'd had the flu or some other illness involving high fever and lots of fluids. So I was moving slowly.
I was wearing blue jeans and sandals and a T-shirt, because that was what I
had.
"You definitely can't call on the queen in that," she said, gently but decisively. Whether she was very familiar with New Orleans or just had good shopping karma, Claudine drove directly to a store in the Garden District. It was the kind of shop I'd dismiss as being for more sophisticated women with lots more money than I had, if I'd been shopping by myself. Claudine pulled right into the parking lot, and in forty-five minutes we had a dress. It was chiffon, short-sleeved, and it had lots of colors in it: turquoise, copper, brown, ivory. The strappy sandals that I wore with it were brown.
All I needed was a membership to the country club.
Claudine had appropriated the price tag.
"Just wear your hair loose," Claudine advised. "You don't need fancy hair with that dress."
"Yeah, there is a lot going on in it," I said. "Who's Diane von Furstenburg? Isn't it real expensive? Isn't it a little bare for the season?"
"You might be a little cool wearing it in March," Claudine conceded. "But it'll be good to wear every summer for years. You'll look great. And the queen will know you took the time to wear something special to meet her."
"You can't go with me?" I asked, feeling a little wistful. "No, of course, you can't." Vampires buzz around fairies like hummingbirds around sugar water.
"I might not survive," she said, managing to sound embarrassed that such a possibility would keep her from my side.
"Don't worry about it. After all, the worst thing has already happened, right?" I spread my hands. "They used to threaten me, you know? If I didn't do thus and such, they'd take it out on Bill. Hey, guess what? I don't care any more."
"Think before you speak," Claudine advised. "You can't mouth off to the queen. Even a goblin won't mouth off to the queen."
"I promise," I said. "I really appreciate your coming all this way, Claudine."
Claudine gave me a big hug. It was like an embrace with a soft tree, since Claudine was so tall and slim. "I wish you hadn't needed me to," she said.
Chapter 17
The queen owned a block of buildings in down-town New Orleans, maybe three blocks from the edge of the French Quarter. That tells you what kind of money she was pulling in, right there. We had an early dinner—I realized I was really hungry—and then Claudine dropped me off two blocks away, because the traffic and tourist congestion were intense close to the queen's headquarters. Though the general public didn't know Sophie-Anne Leclerq was a queen, they knew she was a very wealthy vampire who owned a hell of a lot of real estate and spent lots of money in the community. Plus, her bodyguards were colorful and had gotten special permits to carry arms in the city limits. This meant her office building/living quarters were on the tourist list of things to see, especially at night.
Though traffic did surround the building during the day, at night the square of streets around it was open only to pedestrians. Buses parked a block away, and the tour guides would lead the out-of-towners past the altered building. Walking tours and gaggles of independent tourists included what the guides called "Vampire Headquarters" in their plans.
Security was very evident. This block would be a natural target for Fellowship of the Sun bombers. A few vampire-owned businesses in other cities had been attacked, and the queen was not about to lose her life-after-death in such a way.
The vampire guards were on duty, and they were scary-looking as hell. The queen had her own vampire SWAT team. Though vampires were simply lethal all on their own, the queen had found that humans paid more attention if they found the silhouettes recognizable. Not only were the guards heavily armed, but they wore black bulletproof armor over black uniforms. It was lethal-killer chic.
Claudine had prepared me for all this over dinner, and when she let me out, I felt fully briefed. I also felt as if I were going to the Queen of England's garden party in all my new finery. At least I didn't have to wear a hat. But my brown high heels were a risky proposition on the rough paving.
"Behold the headquarters of New Orleans's most famous and visible vampire, Sophie-Anne LeClerq," a tour guide was telling his group. He was dressed colorfully in a sort of colonial outfit: tricorn hat, knee breeches, hose, buckled shoes. My goodness. As I paused to listen, his eyes flickered over to me, took in my outfit, and sharpened with interest.
"If you're calling on Sophie-Anne, you can't go in casual," he told the group, and gestured to me. "This young lady is wearing proper dress for an interview with the vampire… one of America's most prominent vampires." He grinned at the group, inviting them to enjoy his reference.
There were fifty other vampires just as prominent.
Maybe not as publicly oriented or as colorful as Sophie-Anne Leclerq, but the public didn't know that.
Rather than being surrounded with the appropriate air of exotic deadliness, the queen's "castle" was more of a macabre Disneyland, thanks to the souvenir peddlers, the tour guides, and the curious gawkers. There was even a photographer. As I approached the first ring of guards, a man jumped in front of me and snapped my picture. I was frozen by the flash of light and stared after him—or in what I thought was his direction—while my eyes adjusted. When I was able to see him clearly, I found he was a small, grubby man with a big camera and a determined expression. He bustled off immediately to what I guessed was his accustomed station, a corner on the opposite side of the street. He didn't offer to sell me a picture or tell me where I could purchase one, and he didn't give me any explanation.
I had a bad feeling about this incident. When I talked to one of the guards, my suspicion was confirmed.
"He's a Fellowship spy," said the vampire, nodding in the little man's direction. He'd located my name on a checklist clamped to a clipboard. The guard himself was a sturdy man with brown skin and a nose as curved as a rainbow. He'd been born somewhere in the Middle East, once-upon a time. The name patch attached with Velcro to his helmet said RASUL.
"We're forbidden to kill him," Rasul said, as if he were explaining a slightly embarrassing folk custom. He smiled at me, which was kind of disconcerting, too. The black helmet came down low on his face and the chinstrap was the kind that actually rounded his chin, so I could see only a little bit of his face. At the moment, that bit was mostly sharp, white, teeth. "The Fellowship photographs everyone who goes in and out of this place, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it, since we want to keep the goodwill of the humans."
Rasul correctly assumed I was a vampire ally, since I was on the visitors list, and was treating me with a camaraderie that I found relaxing. "It would be lovely if something happened to his camera," I suggested. "The Fellowship is hunting me already." Though I felt pretty guilty, asking a vampire to arrange an accident to another human being, I was fond enough of my own life to want it saved.
His eyes gleamed as we passed under a streetlight. The light caught them so that for a moment they shone red, like people's eyes sometimes do when the photographer is using a flash.
"Oddly enough, a few things have happened to his cameras already," Rasul said. "In fact, two of them have been smashed beyond repair. What's one more accident? I'm not guaranteeing anything, but we'll do our best, lovely lady."
"Thank you so much," I said. "Anything you can do will be much appreciated. After tonight, I can talk to a witch who could maybe take care of that problem for you. Maybe she could make all the pictures turn out overexposed, or something. You should give her a call."
"That's an excellent idea. Here is Melanie," he said, as we reached the main doors. "I'll pass you on to her, and return to my post. I'll see you when you exit, get the witch's name and address?"
"Sure," I said.
"Did anyone ever tell you that you smell enchantingly like a fairy?" Rasul said.
"Oh, I've been with my fairy godmother," I explained. "She took me shopping."
"And the result was wonderful," he said gallantly.
"You flatterer." I couldn't help but smile back at him. My ego had taken a blow to the solar plexus the night before (but I wasn't think
ing about that), and a little thing like the guard's admiration was just what I needed, even if it was really Claudine's smell that had triggered it.
Melanie was a delicate woman, even in the SWAT gear. "Yum, yum, you do smell like fairy," she said. She consulted her own clipboard. "You are the Stackhouse woman? The queen expected you last night."
"I got hurt." I held my arm out, showing the bandage. Thanks to a lot of Advil, the pain was down to a dull throb.
"Yes, I heard about it. The new one is having a great night tonight. He received instructions, he has a mentor, and he has a volunteer donor. When he feels more like his new self, he may tell us how he came to be turned."
"Oh?" I heard my voice falter when I realized she was talking about Jake Purifoy. "He might not remember?"
"If it's a surprise attack, sometimes they don't remember for a while," she said, and shrugged. "But it always comes back, sooner or later. In the meantime, he'll have a free lunch." She laughed at my inquiring look. "They register for the privilege, you know. Stupid humans." She shrugged. "There's no fun in that, once you've gotten over the thrill of feeding, in and of itself. The fun was always in the chase." Melanie really wasn't happy with the new vampire policy of feeding only from willing humans or from the synthetic blood. She clearly felt the lack of her former diet.
I tried to look politely interested.
"When the prey makes the first advance, it's just not the same," she grumped. "People these days." She shook her little head in weary exasperation. Since she was so small that her helmet almost wobbled on her head, I could feel myself smiling.
"So, he wakes up and you all herd the volunteer in? Like dropping a live mouse into a snake's tank?" I worked to keep my face serious. I didn't want Melanie to think I was making fun of her personally.
After a suspicious moment, Melanie said, "More or less. He's been lectured. There are other vampires present."
"And the volunteer survives?"
"They sign a release beforehand," Melanie said, carefully.
I shuddered.
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