“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 emerged—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 consider 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.”
The word
remaining
possibly got a little extra emphasis. Donati definitely knew the queen’s history.
Christian Baruch raised a thick, dark brow. “I do know my own people, Donati.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sophie-Anne’s nose might have wrinkled delicately with distaste.
His own people, my ass,
that nose said. Baruch was at most four years old, as a vampire.
“Who’s been in to see the bodies?” Baruch asked.
“Neither of us,” Andre said promptly. “We haven’t set foot in the suite.”
“Who did?”
“The door was unlocked, and we smelled death. In view of the situation between my queen and the vampires of Arkansas, we thought it was unwise to go inside,” Andre said. “We sent Sigebert, the queen’s guard.”
Andre simply omitted Clovache’s exploration of the suite. So Andre and I did have something in common: we could skirt the truth with something that wasn’t quite a lie. He’d done a masterful job.
As the questions continued—mostly unanswered or unanswerable—I found myself wondering if the queen would still have to go to trial now that her main accuser was dead. I wondered whom the state of Arkansas belonged to; it was reasonable to assume that the wedding contract had given the queen some rights regarding Peter Threadgill’s property, and I knew Sophie-Anne needed every bit of income she could claim, since Katrina. Would she still have those rights to Arkansas, since Andre had killed Peter? I hadn’t thought through how much was hanging over the queen’s head at this summit.
But after I’d finished asking myself all these questions, I realized that the most immediate issue had yet to be addressed. Who’d killed Jennifer Cater and her companions? (How many Arkansas vamps could be left, after the battle in New Orleans and today’s slaughter? Arkansas wasn’t that big a state, and it had very few population centers.)
I was recalled to the here and now when Christian Baruch caught my eyes. “You’re the human who can read minds,” he said so suddenly that I jerked.
“Yes,” I said, because I was tired of sirring and ma’aming everyone.
“Did you kill Jennifer Cater?”
I didn’t have to fake astonishment. “That’s giving me a lot of credit,” I said. “Thinking I could have gotten the drop on three vampires. No, I didn’t kill her. She came up to me in the lobby this evening, talking trash, but that’s the only time I ever even saw her.”
He looked a little taken aback, as if he’d expected another answer or maybe a humbler attitude.
The queen took a step to stand beside me, and Andre mirrored her, so that I was bracketed by ancient vampires. What a warm and cozy feeling. But I knew they were reminding the hotelier that I was their special human and not to be harassed.
At that very opportune moment, a vampire flung open the door from the stairs and hurtled toward the death suite. But Baruch was just as swift, and he barred the way so that the new vampire bounced off him and onto the floor. The small vamp was up in a movement so quick my eyes couldn’t break it down and was making a desperate effort to get Baruch out of the doorway.
But the newcomer couldn’t, and finally he took a step away from the hotelier. If the smaller vampire had been human, he’d have been panting, and as it was his body shook with tremors of delayed action. He had brown hair and a short beard, and he was wearing a suit, a regular old JCPenney one. He looked like an ordinary guy until you saw his wide eyes and realized that he was some kind of lunatic.