Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set

by Charlaine Harris

  I couldn’t pick up his name, which would have greased the skids, and I didn’t know what to say to him. But this was a person who should be brought to Sophie-Anne’s attention. Someone had used him against her.

  “Hello,” I said, giving them my biggest smile. The wife smiled back, a little cautiously, because the sedate couple weren’t normally approached by young single women (she’d glanced at my left hand) during glamorous parties. The weather witch’s smile was more on the frightened side. “Are you all enjoying the party?” I asked.

  “Yes, quite an evening,” the wife said.

  “My name is Sookie Stackhouse,” I said, oozing charm.

  “Olive Trout,” she replied, and we shook hands. “This is my husband, Julian.” She had no idea what her husband was.

  “Are you all from around here?” I was scanning the crowd as unobtrusively as possible. I had no idea what to do with them now that I’d found them.

  “You haven’t watched our local stations,” Olive said proudly. “Julian is the Channel 7 weatherman.”

  “How interesting,” I said, with absolute sincerity. “If you two would just come with me, I know someone who’d just love to meet you.” As I dragged the two through the crowd, I began to have second thoughts. What if Sophie-Anne intended retribution? But that wouldn’t make sense. The important fact was not that there was a weather witch; the important fact was that someone had hired Julian Trout to predict the weather outlook for Louisiana and had somehow postponed the summit until Katrina had wreaked its havoc.

  Julian was bright enough to figure out something was wrong with my enthusiasm, and I was afraid they’d both balk. I was mighty relieved to spot Gervaise’s blond head. I called his name in a hearty voice as if I hadn’t talked to him in a coon’s age. By the time I reached him I was almost out of breath from herding the Trouts with such speed and anxiety.

  “Gervaise, Carla,” I said, depositing the Trouts in front of the sheriff as if I’d drug them out of the water. “This is Olive Trout and her husband, Julian. The queen’s been anxious to meet someone like Julian. He’s really into the weather.” Okay, not subtle. But Julian’s face turned white. Yeah, a little knowledge of wrongdoing definitely present in Julian’s conscience.

  “Honey, are you sick?” Olive asked.

  “We need to go home,” he said.

  “No, no, no,” Carla said, leaping into the conversation. “Gervaise, honey, you remember Andre said if we heard of anyone who was really a weather authority, he and the queen especially wanted to have a word with ’em?” She tucked her arms around the Trouts and beamed at them. Olive looked uncertain.

  “Of course,” said Gervaise, the lightbulb finally switching on above his head. “Thank you, Sookie. Please, come with us.” And they guided the Trouts away.

  I felt a little giddy with the pleasure of having been proved right.

  Looking around, I spotted Barry sticking a little plate on an empty tray.

  “You wanna dance?” I asked, because the Dead Man Dance Band was playing a great cover of an old Jennifer Lopez song. Barry looked reluctant, but I pulled him by his hand, and pretty soon we were shaking our bonbons all over the place and having a great time. Nothing’s like dancing for relaxing tension and losing yourself, just for a little while. I wasn’t as good as Shakira at muscle control, but maybe if I practiced once in a while . . .

  “What are you doing?” Eric asked, and he wasn’t being facetious. He was glacial with disapproval.

  “Dancing, why?” I gave a wave to signal Eric to scoot. But Barry had stopped, already, and given me a little good-bye wave.

  “I was having a good time,” I protested.

  “You were twitching your assets in front of every male in the room,” he said. “Like a . . .”

  “You hold up, buddy! You stop right there!” I held up a finger, warning him.

  “Take your finger out of my face,” he said.

  I inhaled to say something unforgivable, welcoming the tide of anger with actual delight—I was not tied to him at the waist—when a strong, wiry arm clamped around me, and an unfamiliar Irish-accented voice said, “Dance, darling?” As the red-haired dancer who’d opened the night’s shindig swung me off in a more sedate but complicated set of steps, I spotted his partner seizing Eric’s wrist to do the same.

  “Just follow while you calm down, girl. I’m Sean.”

  “Sookie.”

  “Pleased to meet you, young woman. You’re a fine dancer.”

  “Thank you. That’s a high compliment, coming from you. I really enjoyed your routine earlier.” I could feel the rush of anger draining away.

  “It’s my partner,” he said, smiling. It didn’t look easy for him, that smile, but it transformed him from a thin-faced freckled man with a blade of a nose to a man with sexiness to spare. “My Layla is a dream to dance with.”

  “She’s very beautiful.”

  “Oh, yes, inside and out.”

  “How long have you been partners?”

  “In dancing, two years. In life, over a year.”

  “From your accent, I guess you came here in a roundabout way.” I glimpsed Eric and the beautiful Layla. Layla had an easy smile on her lips, and she was talking to Eric, who was still looking sort of grim. But not angry.

  “You could say so,” he agreed. “Of course, I’m from Ireland, but I’ve been over here for . . .” His brow furrowed in thought, and it was like watching marble ripple. “Been here for a hundred years, anyway. From time to time, we think about moving back to Tennessee, where Layla’s from, but we haven’t made up our minds.”

  This was a lot of conversation from a quiet-looking guy. “You’re just getting tired of living in the city?”

  “Too much anti-vampire stuff going around lately. The Fellowship of the Sun, the Take the Night from the Dead movement: we seem to breed ’em here.”

  “The Fellowship is everywhere,” I said. The very name made me feel gloomy. “And what’ll happen when they get to hear about Weres?”

  “Aye. And I think that’ll be soon. I keep hearing from Weres that it’s just around the corner.”

  You’d think, that out of all the supes I knew, one of them would let me know what was up. Sooner or later the Weres and the shifters would have to let the world in on their big secret, or they’d get outed by the vampires, either intentionally or unintentionally.

  “There might even be a civil war,” Sean said, and I forced my mind back to the topic at hand.

  “Between the Fellowship and the supes?”

  He nodded. “I’m thinking that could happen.”

  “What would you do in that case?”

  “I’ve been through a few wars, and I don’t want to go through another one,” he said promptly. “Layla hasn’t seen the Old World, and she would enjoy it, so we’d go to England. We could dance there, or we could just find a place to hide out.”

  As interesting as this was, it wasn’t getting me any closer to solving the numerous problems facing me right at the moment, which I could count off on my fingers. Who had paid Julian Trout? Who had planted the Dr Pepper bomb? Who had killed the rest of the Arkansas vampires? Was it the same person who’d had Henrik killed, the employer of the rogue vamp?

  “What was the result?” I said out loud, to the red-haired vamp’s confusion.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Just talking to myself. It’s been a pleasure to dance with you. Excuse me; I have to go find a friend.”

  Sean danced me to the edge of the crowd, and we parted ways. He was already looking for his mate. Vampire couples didn’t stay together for long, as a rule. Even the hundred-year marriages of kings and queens required only a once-a-year nuptial visit. I hoped Sean and Layla would prove to be the exception.

  I decided I should check on Quinn. That might be a lengthy process, since I had no idea where the Weres had taken him. I was so confused by the effect Eric was having on me, all mixed up with the beginnings of affection for Quinn. But I knew
whom I was beholden to. Quinn had saved my life tonight. I started my search by calling his room but got no answer.

  If I was a Were, where would I take a wounded tiger? Well, nowhere public, because Weres were secretive. They wouldn’t want the hotel staff to catch a word or a phrase that would tip them off to the existence of the other supes. So they’d take Quinn to a private room, right? So, who had a private room and was sympathetic to the Weres?

  Jake Purifoy, of course—former Were, current vamp. Quinn could be there—or he could be down in the hotel garage somewhere, or in the security chief ’s room, or in the infirmary, if there was such a thing. I had to start somewhere. I inquired at the front desk, where the clerk didn’t seem to have any problem releasing the room number to me, though it’s true Jake and I were flagged as being members of the same party. The clerk was not the one who’d been so rude when we’d checked in. She thought my dress was very pretty, and she wanted one just like it.

  Jake’s room was a floor up from mine, and as I raised my hand to knock on the door, I casually scanned inside to count the brains. There was the hole in the air that marked a vampire brain (that’s the best way I can describe it), and a couple of human signatures. But I picked up on a thought that froze my fist before it had a chance to touch the door.

  ... they should all die, came the faint fragment of thought. Nothing followed it, though—no other thought that clarified or elaborated on that malign idea. So I knocked, and the pattern in the room changed instantly. Jake answered the door. He didn’t look welcoming.

  “Hi, Jake,” I said, making my smile as bright and innocent as I could. “How you doing? I came by to check if Quinn was with you.”

  “With me?” Jake sounded startled. “Since I turned, I’ve hardly talked to Quinn, Sookie. We just don’t have anything to talk about.” I must have looked disbelieving, because he said in a rush, “Oh, it’s not Quinn; it’s me. I just can’t bridge the chasm between who I was and who I am now. I’m not even sure who I am.” His shoulders slumped.

  That sounded honest enough. And I felt a lot of sympathy for him. “Anyway,” Jake said, “I helped carry him to the infirmary, and I bet he’s still there. There’s a shifter called Bettina and a Were called Hondo with him.”

  Jake was holding the door shut. He didn’t want me to see his companions. Jake didn’t know that I could tell that he had people in his room.

  It wasn’t any of my business, of course. But it was disquieting. Even as I thanked him and turned to leave, I was thinking the situation over. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to cause the troubled Jake any more problems, but if he was somehow involved in the plot that seemed to be snaking through the halls of the Pyramid of Gizeh, I had to find out.

  First things first. I went down to my room and called the desk to get directions to the infirmary, and I carefully wrote them on the phone pad. Then I sneaked back up the stairs to stand outside Jake’s door again, but in the time I’d been gone, the party had begun to disperse. I saw two humans from the rear. Strange; I couldn’t be certain, but one of them looked like the surly Joe, the computer-consulting employee from the luggage area. Jake had been meeting with some of the hotel staff in his room. Maybe he still felt more at home with humans than he did with vampires. But surely Weres would have been his choice. . . .

  As I stood there in the corridor, feeling sorry for him, Jake’s door opened and he stepped out. I hadn’t checked for blank spots, only live signatures. My bad. Jake looked a bit suspicious when he saw me, and I couldn’t blame him.

  “Do you want to go with me?” I asked.

  “What?” He looked startled. He hadn’t been a vampire long enough to get the inscrutable face down pat.

  “To see Quinn?” I said. “I got directions to the infirmary, and you said you hadn’t talked to him in a while, so I thought you might want to go with me if I’d kind of smooth the way?”

  “That’s a nice idea, Sookie,” he said. “I think I’ll pass. The fact is, most shifters don’t want me around anymore. Quinn is better than most, I’m sure, but I make him uneasy. He knows my mom, my dad, my ex-girlfriend; all the people in my former life, the ones who don’t want to hang with me now.”

  I said impulsively, “Jake, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry Hadley turned you if you would rather have passed on. She was fond of you, and she didn’t want you to die.”

  “But I did die, Sookie,” Jake said. “I’m not the same guy anymore. As you know.” He picked up my arm and looked at the scar on it, the one he’d left with his teeth. “You won’t ever be the same, either,” he said, and he walked away. I’m not sure he knew where he was going, but he just wanted to get away from me.

  I watched him until he was out of sight. He didn’t turn to look back at me.

  My mood had been fragile anyway, and that encounter pretty much started it on the downslope. I trudged to the elevators, determined to find the damn infirmary. The queen hadn’t buzzed me, so presumably she was hobnobbing with other vampires, trying to find out who had hired the weather witch, and generally reveling in her relief. No more trial, a clear inheritance, the chance to put her beloved Andre in power. Things were coming up roses for the Queen of Louisiana, and I tried not to be bitter. Or did I have a right to be? Hmmm, let’s see. I’d helped stop the trial, though I hadn’t counted on it stopping as finally and completely as it had for, say, the hapless Henrik. Since she’d been found innocent, she’d get the inheritance as promised in her marriage contract. And who’d had the idea about Andre? And I’d been proved right about the witch. Okay, maybe I could be a little bitter at my own unbenevolent fortune. Plus, sooner or later I’d have to choose between Quinn and Eric, through no fault of my own. I’d stood holding a bomb for a very long time. The Ancient Pythoness was not a member of my fan club, and she was an object of reverence to most of the vampires. I’d almost been killed with an arrow.

  Well, I’d had worse nights.

  I found the infirmary, which was easier to locate than I’d thought, because the door was open and I could hear a familiar laugh coming from the room. I stepped in to find that Quinn was talking to the honey bear-looking woman, who must be Bettina, and the black guy, who must be Hondo. Also, to my astonishment, Clovache was there. Her armor was not off, but she managed to give the impression of a guy who’d loosened his tie.

  “Sookie,” said Quinn. He smiled at me, but the two shape-changers didn’t. I was definitely an unwelcome visitor.

  But I hadn’t come to see them. I’d come to see the man who’d saved my life. I walked over to him, letting him watch me, giving him a little smile. I sat on the plastic chair by the bed and took his hand.

  “Tell me how you’re feeling,” I said.

  “Like I had a real close shave,” he said. “But I’m gonna be fine.”

  “Could you all excuse us a moment, please?” I was at my most polite as I met the eyes of the three others in the room.

  Clovache said, “Back to guarding Kentucky,” and took off. She might have winked at me before she vanished. Bettina looked a bit disgruntled, as if she’d been student teaching on her own and now the teacher had returned and snatched back her authority.

  Hondo gave me a dark look that held more than a hint of threat. “You treat my man right,” he said. “Don’t give him no hard time.”

  “Never,” I said. He couldn’t think of a way to stay, since Quinn apparently wanted to talk to me, so he left.

  “My fan base just gets bigger and bigger,” I said, watching them go. I got up and shut the door behind them. Unless a vampire, or Barry, stood outside the door, we were reasonably private.

  “Is this where you dump me for the vampire?” Quinn asked. All trace of good humor had vanished from his face, and he was holding very still.

  “No. This is where I tell you what happened, and you listen, and then we talk.” I said this as if I was sure he’d go along with it, but that was far from the case, and my heart was thudding in my throat as I waited for his reply. Finally he
nodded, and I closed my eyes in relief, clutching his left hand in both of mine. “Okay,” I said, bracing myself, and then I was off and running with my narrative, hoping that he would see that Eric really was the lesser of two evils.

  Quinn didn’t pull his hand away, but he didn’t hold mine, either. “You’re bound to Eric,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve exchanged blood with him at least three times.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know he can turn you whenever he feels like it?”

  “Any of us could be turned whenever the vampires feel like it, Quinn. Even you. It might take two of them to hold you down and one to take all your blood and give you his, but it still could happen.”

  “It wouldn’t take that long if he made up his mind, now that you two have swapped so often. And this is Andre’s fault.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that now. I wish there were. I wish I could cut Eric out of my life. But I can’t.”

  “Unless he gets staked,” Quinn said.

  I felt a pang in my heart that almost had me clapping a hand to my chest.

  “You don’t want that to happen.” Quinn’s mouth was compressed in a hard line.

  “No, of course not!”

  “You care about him.”

  Oh, crap. “Quinn, you know Eric and I were together for a while, but he had amnesia and he doesn’t remember it. I mean, he knows it’s a fact, but he doesn’t remember it at all.”

  “If anyone besides you told me that story, you know what I’d think.”

  “Quinn. I’m not anybody else.”

  “Babe, I don’t know what to say. I care about you, and I love spending time with you. I love going to bed with you. I like eating at the table with you. I like cooking together. I like almost everything about you, including your gift. But I’m not good at sharing.”

  “I don’t go with two guys at the same time.”

  “What are you saying?”