Rasul popped up at my elbow. He smiled when I jumped. Those vamps. Gotta love their sense of humor.
I'd only seen Rasul in SWAT gear, and he'd looked good in that. Tonight he was wearing another uniform, but it was also pretty military looking, in a kind of Cossack way. He wore a long-sleeved tunic and tailored pants in a deep plum with black trim and bright brass buttons. Rasul was deeply brown, quite naturally, and had the large, dark liquid eyes and black hair of someone from the Middle East.
"I knew you were supposed to be here, so it's nice to run into you," I said.
"She sent Carla and me ahead of time," he said lightly in his exotic accent. "You are looking lovelier than ever, Sookie. How are you enjoying the summit?"
I ignored his pleasantries. "What's with the uniform?"
"If you mean, whose uniform is it, it's the new house uniform of our queen," he said. "We wear this instead of the armor when we're not out on the streets. Nice, huh?"
"Oh, you're stylin'," I said, and he laughed.
"Are you going to the ceremony?" he said.
"Yeah, sure. I've never seen a vampire wedding. Listen, Rasul, I'm sorry about Chester and Melanie." They'd been on guard duty with Rasul in New Orleans.
For a second, all the humor left the vampire's face. "Yes," he said after a moment of stiff silence. "Instead of my comrades, now I have the Formerly Furred." Jake Purifoy was approaching us, and he was wearing the same uniform as Rasul. He looked lonely. He hadn't been a vampire long enough to maintain the calm face that seemed to be second nature to the undead.
"Hi, Jake," I said.
"Hi, Sookie," he said, sounding forlorn and hopeful.
Rasul bowed to both of us and set off in another direction. I was stuck with Jake. This was too much like grade school for my taste. Jake was the kid who'd come to school wearing the wrong clothes and packing a weird lunch. Being a combo vamp-Were had ruined his chances with either crowd. It was like trying to be a Goth jock.
"Have you had a chance to talk to Quinn yet?" I asked for lack of anything better to say. Jake had been Quinn's employee before his change had effectively put him out of a job.
"I said hello in passing," Jake said. "It's just not fair."
"What?"
"That he should be accepted no matter what he's done, and I should be ostracized."
I knew what ostracized meant, because it had been on my Word of the Day calendar. But my brain was just snagging on that word because the bigger meaning of Jake's comment was affecting my equilibrium. "No matter what he's done?" I asked. "What would that mean?"
"Well, of course, you know about Quinn," Jake said, and I thought I might jump on his back and beat him around the head with something heavy.
"The wedding begins!" came Quinn's magnified voice, and the crowd began streaming into the double doors he'd indicated earlier. Jake and I streamed right along with them. Quinn's bouncy-boobed assistant was standing just inside the doors, passing out little net bags of potpourri. Some were tied with blue and gold ribbon, some with blue and red.
"Why the different colors?" the whore asked Quinn's assistant. I appreciated her asking, because it meant I didn't have to.
"Red and blue from the Mississippi flag, blue and gold from the Indiana," the woman said with an automatic smile. She still had it pasted on her face when she handed me a red-and-blue tied bag, though it faded in an almost comical way when she realized who I was.
Jake and I worked our way to a good spot a bit to the right of center. The stage was bare except for a few props, and there were no chairs. They weren't expecting this to take very long, apparently. "Answer me," I hissed. "About Quinn."
"After the wedding," he said, trying not to smile. It had been a few months since Jake had had the upper hand on anyone, and he couldn't hide the fact that he was enjoying it. He glanced behind us, and his eyes widened. I looked in that direction to see that the opposite end of the room was set up as a buffet, though the main feature of the buffet was not food but blood. To my disgust, there were about twenty men and women standing in a line beside the synthetic blood fountain, and they all had name tags that read simply, "Willing Donor." I about gagged. Could that be legal? But they were all free and unrestrained and could walk out if they chose, and most of them looked pretty eager to begin their donation. I did a quick scan of their brains. Yep, willing.
I turned to the platform, only eighteen inches high, which Mississippi and Indiana had just mounted. They'd put on elaborate costumes, which I remembered seeing before in a photo album at the shop of a photographer who specialized in recording supernatural rituals. At least these were easy to put on. Russell was wearing a sort of heavy brocade, open-fronted robe that fit over his regular clothes. It was a splendid garment of gleaming gold cloth worked in a pattern of blue and scarlet. Bart, King of Indiana, was wearing a similar robe in a copper brown color, embroidered with a design in green and gold.
"Their formal robes," Rasul murmured. Once again, he'd drifted to my side without me noticing. I jumped and saw a little smile twitch the corners of his generous mouth. To my left, Jake sidled a little closer to me, as if he were trying to hide from Rasul by concealing himself behind my body.
But I was more interested in this ceremony than I was in vampire one-upmanship. A giant ankh was the prop at the center of the group onstage. Off to one side, there was a table bearing two thick sheaves of paper with two plumed pens arranged between them. A female vampire was standing behind the table, and she was wearing a business suit with a knee-length skirt. Mr. Cataliades stood behind her, looking benevolent, his hands clasping each other across his belly.
Standing on the opposite side of the stage from the table, Quinn, my honey (whose background I was determined to learn pretty shortly), was still in his Aladdin's genie outfit. He waited until the crowd's murmur died to nothing and then he made a great gesture to stage right. A figure came up the steps and onto the platform. He was wearing a cloak of black velvet, and it was hooded. The hood was drawn well forward. The ankh symbol was embroidered in gold on the shoulders of the cloak. The figure took its position between Mississippi and Indiana, its back to the ankh, and raised its arms.
"The ceremony begins," Quinn said. "Let all be silent and witness this joining."
When someone tells a vampire to be quiet, you can be sure the silence is absolute. Vampires don't have to fidget, sigh, sneeze, cough, or blow their nose like people do. I felt noisy just breathing.
The cloaked figure's hood fell back. I sighed. Eric. His wheat-colored hair looked beautiful against the black of the cloak, and his face was solemn and commanding, which was what you want in an officiant.
"We are here to witness the joining of two kings," he said, and every word carried to the corners of the room. "Russell and Bart have agreed, both verbally and by written covenant, to ally their states for a hundred years. For a hundred years, they may not marry any other. They may not form an alliance with any other, unless that alliance is mutually agreed and witnessed. Each must pay the other a conjugal visit at least once a year. The welfare of Russell's kingdom shall come second only to his own in Bart's sight, and the welfare of Bart's kingdom shall come second only to his own in Russell's sight. Russell Edgington, King of Mississippi, do you agree to this covenant?"
"Yes, I do," Russell said clearly. He held out his hand to Bart.
"Bartlett Crowe, King of Indiana, do you agree to this covenant?"
"I do," Bart said, and took Russell's hand. Awwww.
Then Quinn stepped forward and knelt, holding a goblet under the joined hands, and Eric whipped out a knife and cut the two wrists with two movements too quick to separate.
Oh, ick. As the two kings bled into the chalice, I chided myself. I might have known that a vampire ceremony would include a blood exchange.
Sure enough, when the wounds closed, Russell took a sip from the chalice, and then handed it to Bart, who drained it dry. Then they kissed, Bart holding the smaller man tenderly. And then they kissed some more. Evidently the mingled blood was a real turn-on.
I caught Jake's eye. Get a room, he mouthed, and I looked down to hide my smile.
Finally, the two kings moved on to the next step, a ceremonious signing of the contract they'd agreed upon. The business-suit woman turned out to be a vampire lawyer from Illinois, since a lawyer from another state had to draw up the contract. Mr. Cataliades had been a neutral lawyer, too, and he signed the documents after the kings and the vampire lawyer.
Eric stood in his black-and-gold glory while all this was done, and once the pens were back on their elaborate stands, he said, "The marriage is sacred for one hundred years!" and a cheer went up. Vampires aren't big on cheering, either, so it was mostly the humans and the other supes in the crowd who did the hurrahing, but the vampires all made an appreciative murmur – not as good, but the best they could do, I guess.
I sure wanted to find out more about how Eric had qualified as a priest, or whatever they called the officiant, but first I was going to make Jake tell me about Quinn. He was trying to wriggle away in the crowd, but I caught up with him pretty quick. He wasn't a good enough vampire yet to get away from me.
"Spill," I said, and he tried to act like he didn't know what I was talking about, but he saw from my face I wasn't buying it.
So, while the crowd eddied around us, trying not to speed toward the open bar, I waited for Quinn's story.
"I can't believe he hasn't told you this himself," Jake said, and I was tempted to slap him upside the head.
I glared at him to let him know I was waiting.
"Okay, okay," he said. "I heard all this when I was still a Were. Quinn is like a rock star in the shifter world, you know. He's one of the last weretigers, and he's one of the most ferocious."
I nodded. So far, that paralleled my knowledge of Quinn.
"Quinn's mom was captured one full moon when she changed. A bunch of hunters were out camping, set up a trap because they wanted a bear for their illegal dogfights. Something new to bet on, you know? A pack of dogs versus a bear. This was somewhere in Colorado, and snow was on the ground. His mom was out on her own, and somehow she fell into the trap, didn't sense it."
"Where was his dad?"
"He had died when Quinn was little. Quinn was about fifteen when this happened."
I had a feeling worse was coming, and I was right.
"He changed, of course, the same night, soon as he found she was missing. He tracked them to the camp. His mom had turned back into a woman under the stress of the capture, and one of them was raping her." Jake took a deep breath. "Quinn killed them all."
I looked down at the floor. I couldn't think of anything to say.
"The campsite had to be cleaned up. There wasn't a pack around to step in – course, tigers don't hang in packs – and his mother was hurt bad and in shock, so Quinn went to the local vampire nest. They agreed to do the job, if he'd be indebted to them for three years." Jake shrugged. "He agreed."
"What exactly did he agree to do?" I asked.
"To fight in the pits for them. For three years or until he died, whichever came first."
I began to feel cold fingers moving up my spine, and this time it wasn't creepy Andre... it was just fear. "The pits?" I said, but if he hadn't had vampire hearing, he wouldn't have been able to make my words out.
"There's a lot of bets placed on pit fighting," Jake said. "It's like the dogfights the hunters wanted the bear for. Humans aren't the only ones who like to watch animals kill each other. Some vamps love it. So do some other supes."
My lips curled in disgust. I felt almost nauseated.
Jake was looking at me, troubled by my reaction, but also giving me time to understand the sad story was not at an end. "Obviously Quinn survived his three years," Jake said. "He's one of the few who've lived that long." He looked at me sideways. "He kept winning and winning. He was one of the most savage fighters anyone's ever seen. He fought bears, lions, you name it."
"Aren't they all really rare?" I asked.
"Yeah, they are, but I guess even rare Were creatures need money," Jake said with a toss of his head. "And you can make big bucks pit fighting, when you've earned enough to bet on yourself."
"Why did he stop?" I asked. I regretted more than I could say that I had been curious about Quinn. I should have waited until he volunteered all this. He would have, I hoped. Jake caught a human servant walking by and snagged a glass of synthetic blood off the tray. He drained it in one gulp.
"His three years ended, and he had to take care of his sister."
"Sister?"
"Yeah, his mom got pregnant that night, and the result was the dyed blonde who gave us the potpourri bags at the door. Frannie gets into trouble from time to time, and Quinn's mother can't handle her, so she sends her to stay with Quinn for a while. Frannie turned up here last night."
I'd had as much as I could stomach. I turned in one quick movement and walked away from Jake. And to his credit, he didn't try to stop me.
I was so anxious to get out of the crowd in the wedding hall that I collided with a vampire, who whirled and grabbed my shoulders in a blur of darkness. He had a long Fu Manchu mustache and a mane of hair that would have done a couple of horses credit. He was wearing a solid black suit. At another time, I might have enjoyed the total package. Now I just wanted him to move.
"Why in such a hurry, my sweet maid?" he asked.
"Sir," I said politely, since he must be older than I, "I really am in a hurry. Excuse me for bumping into you, but I need to leave."
"You're not a donor, by any chance?"
"Nope, sorry."
Abruptly he let go of my shoulders and turned back to the conversation I'd interrupted. With a great wave of relief, I continued to pick my way through the assemblage, though with more care now that I'd already had one tense moment.
"There you are!" Andre said, and he almost sounded cross. "The queen needs you."
I had to remind myself that I was there to work, and it really didn't matter how much inner drama I was experiencing. I followed Andre over to the queen, who was in conversation with a knot of vamps and humans.
"Of course I am on your side, Sophie," said a female vampire. She was wearing an evening gown of pink chiffon joined at one shoulder with a big broach sparkling with diamonds. They might be Swarovski crystals, but they looked real to me. What do I know? The pale pink looked real pretty against her chocolate skin. "Arkansas was an asshole, anyway. I was only astonished that you married him in the first place."
"So if I come to trial, you will be kind, Alabama?" Sophie-Anne asked, and you would have sworn she wasn't a day over sixteen. Her upturned face was smooth and firm, her big eyes gleamed, her makeup was subtle. Her brown hair was loose, which was unusual for Sophie-Anne.
The vamp seemed to soften visibly. "Of course," she said.
Her human companion, the designer-clad fangbanger I'd noticed earlier, thought, That'll last ten minutes, until she turns her back on Sophie-Anne. Then they'll be plotting again. Sure, they all say they like crackling fires and long walks on the beach by moonlight, but whenever you go to a party, it's maneuver, maneuver, maneuver, and lie, lie, lie.
Sophie-Anne's gaze just brushed mine, and I gave a tiny shake of my head. Alabama excused herself to go congratulate the newlyweds, and her human tagged along. Mindful of all the ears around us, most of which could hear far better than I could, I said, "Later," and got a nod from Andre.
Next to court Sophie-Anne was the King of Kentucky, the man who was guarded by Britlingens. Kentucky turned out to look a lot like Davy Crockett. All he needed was a ba'ar and a coonskin cap. He was actually wearing leather pants and a suede shirt and jacket, fringed suede boots, and a big silk kerchief tied around his neck. Maybe he needed the bodyguards to protect him from the fashion police.
I didn't see Batanya and Clovache anywhere, so I assumed he'd left them in his room. I didn't see what good it was to hire expensive and otherworldly bodyguards if they weren't around your body to guard it. Then, since I didn't have another human to distract me, I noticed something odd: there was a space behind Kentucky that stayed constantly empty, no matter what the flow of the crowd might be. No matter how natural it would be for someone passing behind Kentucky to step in that area, somehow no one ever did. I figured the Britlingens were on duty, after all.
"Sophie-Anne, you're a sight for sore eyes," said Kentucky. He had a drawl that was thick as honey, and he made a point of letting Sophie-Anne see his fangs were partially out. Ugh.
"Isaiah, it's always good to see you," Sophie-Anne said, her voice and face smooth and calm as always. I couldn't tell whether or not Sophie-Anne knew the bodyguards were right behind him. As I drew a little closer, I found that though I couldn't see Clovache and Batanya, I could pick up their mental signatures. The same magic that cloaked their physical presence also muffled their brain waves, but I could get a dull echo off both of them. I smiled at them, which was really dumb of me, because Isaiah, King of Kentucky, picked up on it right away. I should have known he was smarter than he looked.
"Sophie-Anne, I want to have a chat with you, but you gotta get that little blond gal out of here for the duration," Kentucky said with a broad grin. "She pure-dee gives me the willies." He nodded toward me, as if Sophie-Anne had lots of blond human women trailing her.
"Of course, Isaiah," Sophie-Anne said, giving me a very level look. "Sookie, please go down to the lower level and fetch the suitcase the staff called about earlier."
"Sure," I said. I didn't mind a humble errand. I'd almost forgotten the gruff voice on the phone earlier in the evening. I thought it was stupid that procedure required us to come down to the bowels of the hotel, rather than allowing a bellman to bring us the suitcase, but red tape is the same everywhere you go, right?
As I turned to go, Andre's face was quite blank, as usual, but when I was almost out of earshot, he said, "Excuse me, your majesty, we didn't tell the girl about your schedule for the night." In one of those disconcerting flashes of movement, he was right beside me, hand on my arm. I wondered if he'd gotten one of those telepathic communications from Sophie-Anne. Without a word, Sigebert had moved into Andre's place beside Sophie-Anne, a half step back.
"Let's talk," said Andre, and quick as a wink he guided me to an EXIT sign. We found ourselves in a blank beige service corridor that extended for maybe ten yards, then made a right-angle turn. Two laden waiters came around the corner and passed us, giving us curious glances, but when they met Andre's eyes they hurried away on their task.
"The Britlingens are there," I said, assuming that was why Andre had wanted to talk to me in private. "They're trailing right behind Kentucky. Can all Britlingens become invisible?"
Andre did another movement that was so fast it was a blur, and then his wrist was in front of me, dripping blood. "Drink," he said, and I felt him pushing at my mind.
"No," I said, outraged and shocked at the sudden movement, the demand, the blood. "Why?" I tried to back away, but there was no place to go and no help in sight.
"You have to have a stronger connection to Sophie-Anne or me. We need you bound to us by more than a paycheck. Already you've proved more valuable than we'd imagined. This summit is critical to our survival, and we need every advantage we can get."
Talk about brutal honesty.
"I don't want you to have control over me," I told him, and it was awful to hear my voice going wavery with fear. "I don't want you to know how I'm feeling. I got hired for this job, and after it, I'm going back to my real life."
"You don't have a real life anymore," Andre said. He didn't look unkind; that was the weird, and most frightening, thing. He looked absolutely matter-of-fact.
"I do! You guys are the blip on the radar, not me!" I wasn't totally sure what I meant by that, but Andre got my drift.
"I don't care what your plans are for the rest of your human existence," he said, and shrugged. Phooey for your life. "Our position will be strengthened if you drink, so you must. I've explained this to you, which I wouldn't bother to do if I didn't respect your ability."
I pushed at him, but it was like shoving an elephant. It would work only if the elephant felt like moving. Andre didn't. His wrist came closer to my mouth, and I clamped my lips together, though I was sure Andre would break my teeth if he had to. And if I opened my mouth to scream, he'd have that blood in my mouth before you could say Jack Robinson.
Suddenly there was a third presence in the stark beige corridor. Eric, still wearing the black velvet cape, hood thrown back, was standing right by us, his face uncharacteristically uncertain.
"Andre," he said, his voice sounding deeper than usual. "Why are you doing this?"
"Are you questioning the will of your queen?"
Eric was in a bad place, because he was definitely interfering with the execution of the queen's orders – at least, I assumed the queen knew about this – but I could only pray he stayed to help me. I begged him with my eyes.
I could name several vamps I'd rather have a connection to than Andre. And, stupidly, I couldn't help but feel hurt. I'd given Andre and Sophie-Anne such a good idea about him being King of Arkansas, and this was the way I got repaid. That would teach me to keep my mouth shut. That would teach me to treat vampires like they were people.
"Andre, let me offer a suggestion," Eric said in a much cooler, calmer voice. Good. He was keeping his head together. One of us needed to. "She must be kept happy, or she won't cooperate anymore."
Oh, crap. Somehow I knew his suggestion wasn't going to be, "Let her go or I'll break your neck," because Eric was way too canny for that. Where was John Wayne when you needed him? Or Bruce Willis? Or even Matt Damon? I would be glad to see Jason Bourne right now.
"We've exchanged blood several times, Sookie and I," Eric said. "In fact, we've been lovers." He took a step closer. "I think she wouldn't be so balky if I were the blood giver. Would that suit your purposes? I'm under oath to you." He bowed his head respectfully. He was being careful, so careful. That made me more frightened of Andre.
Andre let me go while he pondered. His wrist had almost healed up, anyway. I took a few long, shaky breaths. My heart was racing.
Andre looked at Eric, and I thought I could detect a certain amount of distrust in his gaze. Then he looked at me.
"You look like a rabbit hiding under a bush while the fox tracks her," he said. There was a long pause. "You did do my queen and me a large service," he said. "More than once. If the end result will be the same, why not?"
I started to say, "And I'm the only witness to Peter Threadgill's death," but my guardian angel shut my mouth to seal in the words. Well, maybe it wasn't my actual guardian angel, but my subconscious, which told me not to speak. Whatever. I was grateful.
"All right, Eric," Andre said. "As long as she's bonded to someone in our kingdom. I've only had a drop of her blood, to find out if she was part fae. If you've exchanged blood with her more than once, the bond is already strong. Has she answered well to your call?"
What? What call? When? Eric had never called me. In fact, I'd out and out defied him before.
"Yes, she heels nicely," Eric said without a blink of an eye. I about choked, but that would have ruined the effect of Eric's words, so I looked down at my chest as if I was embarrassed by my thralldom.
"Well, then," Andre said with an impatient gesture of his hand. "Go on."
"Right here? I'd prefer somewhere more private," Eric said.
"Here and now." Andre was not going to compromise any further.
Eric said, "Sookie." He looked at me intently.
I looked right back at him. I understood what that one word was saying. There was no way out of this. No struggling or screaming or refusal would prevent this procedure. Eric might have spared me from submitting to Andre, but that was as far as he could go.
Eric raised one eyebrow.
With that arched eyebrow, Eric was telling me that this was my best bet, that he would try not to hurt me, that being tied to him was infinitely preferable to being tied to Andre.
I knew all this not only because I wasn't stupid, but because we were bound together. Both Eric and Bill had had my blood, and I theirs. For the first time, I understood there was a real connection. Didn't I see the two of them as more human than vampire? Didn't they have the power to wound me more than any others? It wasn't only my past relationships with the two that kept me tied to them. It was the blood exchange. Maybe because of my unusual heritage, they couldn't order me around. They didn't have mind control over me, and they couldn't read my thoughts; and I couldn't do any of those things to them. But we did share a tie. How often had I heard their lives humming away in the background, without realizing what I was listening to?
It takes way longer to tell this than it did to think it.
"Eric," I said, and tilted my head to one side. He read as much from the gesture and word as I had from his. He stepped over to me and extended his arms to hold the black cloak out as he leaned over me, so the cloak and the hood could give us some illusion of privacy. The gesture was hokey, but the idea was nice. "Eric, no sex," I said in a voice as hard as I could make it. I could tolerate this if it wasn't like a lovers' blood exchange. I wouldn't have sex in front of another person. Eric's mouth was in the bend of my neck and shoulder, and his body pressed against mine. My arms slid around him, because that was simply the easiest way to stand. Then he bit, and I couldn't choke back a gasp of pain.
He didn't stop, thank God, because I wanted to get this over with. One of his hands stroked my back as if he was trying to soothe me.
After a long few seconds, Eric licked my neck to be sure his coagulant-laden saliva had coated the little wounds. "Now, Sookie," he said right into my ear. I couldn't reach his neck unless we were lying down, not without him bending over awkwardly. He started to hold his wrist up to my mouth, but we'd have to rearrange ourselves for that to work. I unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it open. I hesitated. I always hated this part, because human teeth are not nearly as sharp as vampire teeth, and I knew it would be messy when I bit. Eric did something that surprised me, then; he produced the same small ceremonial knife he'd used in marrying Mississippi and Indiana. With the same quick motion he'd used on their wrists, Eric sliced a cut in his chest right below his nipple. The blood oozed out sluggishly, and I took advantage of the flow to latch on. This was embarrassingly intimate, but at least I didn't have to look at Andre, and he couldn't see me.
Eric moved restlessly, and I realized he was getting aroused. There was nothing I could do about it, and I held our bodies apart that crucial couple of inches. I sucked hard, and Eric made a small noise, but I was strictly trying to get this over with. Vampire blood is thick and almost sweet, but when you think about what you're actually doing and you're not sexually aroused, it's not pleasant at all. When I thought I'd done it long enough, I let go and rebuttoned Eric's shirt with unsteady hands, thinking this little incident was over and I could hide somewhere until my heart stopped pounding.