Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set

by Charlaine Harris

  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.

  17

  THE QUEEN OWNED A BLOCK OF BUILDINGS IN DOWNTOWN 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.

  “O
h, 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 thinking 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.

  Rasul had escorted me from the other side of the street to the main entrance to the queen’s domain. It was a three-story office building, perhaps dating from the fifties, and extending a whole city block. In other places, the basement would have been the vampires’ retreat, but in New Orleans, with its high water table, that was impossible. All the windows had received a distinctive treatment. The panels that covered them were decorated in a Mardi Gras theme, so the staid brick building was pepped up with pink, purple, and green designs on a white or black background. There were iridescent patches on the shutters, too, like Mardi Gras beads. The effect was disconcerting.

  “What does she do when she throws a party?” I asked. Despite the shutters, the prosaic office rectangle was simply not festive.

  “Oh, she owns an old monastery,” Melanie said. “You can get a brochure about it before you go. That’s where all the state functions are held. Some of the old ones can’t go into the former chapel, but other than that . . . it’s got a high wall all around, so it’s easy to patrol, and it’s decorated real nice. The queen has apartments there, but it’s too insecure for year-round living.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I doubted I would ever see the queen’s state residence. But Melanie seemed bored and inclined to chat. “You were Hadley’s cousin, I hear?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Strange, to think of having living relatives.” For a moment, she looked far away, and as wistful as a vampire can look. Then she seemed to kind of shake herself mentally. “Hadley wasn’t bad for one so young. But she seemed to take her vampire longevity a little too much for granted.” Melanie shook her head. “She should never have crossed someone as old and wily as Waldo.”

  “That’s for damn sure,” I said.

  “Chester,” Melanie called. Chester was the next guard in line, and he was standing with a familiar figure clothed in the (what I was coming to think of as) usual SWAT garb.

  “Bubba!” I exclaimed, as the vampire said, “Miss Sookie!” Bubba and I hugged, to the vampires’ amusement. Vampires don’t shake hands, in the ordinary course of things, and hugging is just as outré in their culture.

  I was glad to see they hadn’t let him have a gun, just the accoutrements of the guards. He was looking fine in the military outfit, and I told him so. “Black looks real good with your hair,” I said, and Bubba smiled his famous smile.

  “You’re mighty nice to say so,” he said. “Thank you very much.”

  Back in the day, everyone in the world had known Bubba’s face and smile. When he’d been wheeled into the morgue in Memphis, a vampire attendant had detected the tiniest flicker of life. Since the attendant was a huge fan, he had taken on the responsibility for bringing the singer over, and a legend had been born. Unfortunately, Bubba’s body had been so saturated with drugs and physical woes that the conversion hadn’t been entirely successful, and the vampire world passed Bubba around like the public relations nightmare he was.

  “How long have you been here, Bubba?” I asked.

  “Oh, a couple of weeks, but I like it real well,” he said. “Lots of stray cats.”

  “Right,” I said, trying not to think about that too graphically. I really like cats. So did Bubba, but not in the same way.

  “If a human catches a glimpse of him, they think he’s an impersonator,” Chester said quietly. Melanie had gone back to her post, and Chester, who’d been a sandy-haired kid from the backwoods with poor dentition when he was taken, was now in charge of me. “That’s fine, most often. But every so now and then, they call him by his used-to-be name. Or they ask him to sing.”

  Bubba very seldom sang these days, though every now and then he could be coaxed into belting out a familiar song or two. That was a memorable occasion. Most often, though, he denied he could sing a note, and he usually got very agitated when he was called by his original name.

  He trailed along after us as Chester led me further into the building. We had turned, and gone up a floor, encountering more and more vampires—and a few humans—heading here or there with a purposeful air. It was like any busy office building, any weekday, except the workers were vampires and the sky outside was as dark as the New Orleans sky ever got. As we walked, I noticed that some vampires seemed more at ease than others. I observed that the wary vamps were all wearing the same pins attached to their collars, pins in the shape of the state of Arkansas. These vamps must be part of the entourage of the queen’s husband, Peter Threadgill. When one of the Louisiana vampires bumped into an Arkansas vampire, the Arkansan snarled and for a second I thought there would be a fight in the corridor over a slight accident.

  Jeesh, I’d be glad to get out of here. The atmosphere was tense.

  Chester stopped before a door that didn’t look any different from all the other closed doors, except for the two whacking big vampires outside it. The two must have been considered giants in their day, since they stood perhaps six foot three. They looked like brothers, but maybe it was just their size and mien, and the color of their chestnut hair, that sparked the comparison: big as boulders, bearded, with pony-tails that trailed down their backs, the two looked like prime meat for the pro wrestling circuit. One had a huge scar across his face, acquired before death, of course. The other had had some skin disease in his original life. They weren’t just display items; they were absolutely lethal.

  (By the way, some promoter had had the idea for a vampire wrestling circuit a couple of years before, but it went down in flames immediately. At the first match, one vamp had ripped another’s arm off, on live TV. Vamps don’t get
the concept of exhibition fighting.)

  These two vampires were hung with knives, and each had an ax in his belt. I guess they figured if someone had penetrated this far, guns weren’t going to make a difference. Plus their own bodies were weapons.

  “Bert, Bert,” Chester said, nodding to each one in turn. “This here’s the Stackhouse woman; the queen wants to see her.”

  He turned and walked away, leaving me with the queen’s bodyguards.

  Screaming didn’t seem like a good idea, so I said, “I can’t believe you both have the same name. Surely he made a mistake?”

  Two pairs of brown eyes focused on me intently. “I am Sigebert,” the scarred one said, with a heavy accent I couldn’t identify. He said his name as See-ya-bairt. Chester was using a very Americanized version of what must be a very old name. “Dis my brodder, Wybert.”

  This is my brother, Way-bairt? “Hello,” I said, trying not to twitch. “I’m Sookie Stackhouse.”

  They seemed unimpressed. Just then, one of the pinned vampires squeezed past, casting a look of scarcely veiled contempt at the brothers, and the atmosphere in the corridor became lethal. Sigebert and Wybert watched the vamp, a tall woman in a business suit, until she rounded a corner. Then their attention switched back to me.

  “The queen is . . . busy,” Wybert said. “When she wants you in her room, the light, it will shine.” He indicated a round light set in the wall to the right of the door.

  So I was stuck here for an indefinite time—until the light, it shone. “Do your names have a meaning? I’m guessing they’re, um, early English?” My voice petered out.

  “We were Saxons. Our fadder went from Germany to England, you call now,” Wybert said. “My name mean Bright Battle.”