Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (218 page)

With an almost painful reluctance, I pulled away from Eric. His face had a focused air, as if he was sampling something and deciding if it was good enough to keep.

“Eric,” I said, and my voice was shaking. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t know why we’re having all this drama.”

“Are you Quinn’s now?” His eyes narrowed.

“I’m my own,” I said. “I choose.”

“And have you chosen?”

“Eric, this is beyond gall. You haven’t been dating me. You haven’t given me any sign that was on your mind. You haven’t treated me as though I had any significance in your life. I’m not saying I would have been open to those things, but I’m saying in their
absence
I’ve been free to find another, ah, companion. And so far, I like Quinn just fine.”

“You don’t know him any more than you really knew Bill.”

That sliced down where it hurt.

“At least I’m pretty damn sure he wasn’t ordered to get me in bed so I’d be a political asset!”

“It’s better that you knew about Bill,” Eric said.

“Yes, it’s better,” I agreed. “That doesn’t mean I enjoyed the process.”

“I knew that would be hard. But I had to make him tell you.”

“Why?”

Eric seemed stumped. I don’t know any other way to put it. He looked away, off into the darkness of the woods. “It wasn’t right,” he said at last.

“True. But maybe you just wanted to be sure I wouldn’t ever love him again?”

“Maybe both things,” he said.

There was a sharp moment of silence, as if something big was drawing in breath.

“Okay,” I said slowly. This was like a therapy session. “You’ve been moody around me for months, Eric. Ever since you were . . . you know, not yourself. What’s up with you?”

“Ever since that night I was cursed, I’ve wondered why I ended up running down the road to your house.”

I took a step or two back and tried to pull some evidence, some indication of what he was thinking, from his white face. But it was no use.

It had never occurred to me to wonder why Eric had been there. I’d been so astounded over so many things that the circumstances of finding Eric alone, half naked, and clueless, early in the morning on the first day of the New Year, had been buried in the aftermath of the Witch War.

“Did you ever figure out the answer?” I asked, realizing after the words had left my mouth how stupid the question was.

“No,” he said in a voice that was just short of a hiss. “No. And the witch who cursed me is dead, though the curse was broken. Now she can’t tell me what her curse entailed. Was I supposed to look for the person I hated? Loved? Could it have been random that I found myself running out in the middle of nowhere . . . except that nowhere was on the way to your house?”

A moment of uneasy silence on my part. I had no idea what to say, and Eric was clearly waiting for a response.

“Probably the fairy blood,” I said weakly, though I had spent hours telling myself that my fraction of fairy blood was not significant enough to cause more than a mild attraction on the part of the vampires I met.

“No,” he said. And then he was gone.

“Well,” I said out loud, unhappy with the quiver in my voice. “As exits go, that was a good one.” It was pretty hard to have the last word with a vampire.

“
M
Y BAGS ARE PACKED . . .” I SANG.

“Well, I’m not so lonesome I could cry,” Amelia said. She’d kindly agreed to drive me to the airport, but I should have made her promise to be pleasant that morning, too. She’d been a little broody the whole time I was putting on my makeup.

“I wish I was going, too,” she said, admitting what had been sticking in her craw. Of course, I’d known Amelia’s problem before she’d said it out loud. But there wasn’t a thing I could do.

“It’s not up to me to invite or not invite,” I said. “I’m the hired help.”

“I know,” she said grumpily. “I’ll get the mail, and I’ll water the plants, and I’ll brush Bob. Hey, I heard that the Bayou State insurance salesman needs a receptionist, since the mom of the woman who worked for him got evacuated from New Orleans and has to have full-time care.”

“Oh, do go in to apply for that job,” I said. “You’ll just love it.” My insurance guy was a wizard who backed up his policies with spells. “You’ll really like Greg Aubert, and he’ll interest you.” I wanted Amelia’s interview at the insurance agency to be a happy surprise.

Amelia looked at me sideways with a little smile. “Oh, is he cute and single?”

“Nope. But he has other interesting attributes. And remember, you promised Bob you wouldn’t do guys.”

“Oh, yeah.” Amelia looked gloomy. “Hey, let’s look up your hotel.”

Amelia was teaching me how to use my cousin Hadley’s computer. I’d brought it back with me from New Orleans, thinking I’d sell it, but Amelia had coaxed me to set it up here at the house. It looked funny on a desk in the corner of the oldest part of the house, the room now used as a living room. Amelia paid for an extra phone line for the Internet, since she needed it for her laptop upstairs. I was still a nervous novice.

Amelia clicked on Google and typed in “Pyramid of Gizeh hotel.” We stared at the picture that popped up on the screen. Most of the vampire hotels were in large urban centers, like Rhodes, and they were also tourist attractions. Often called simply “the Pyramid,” the hotel was shaped like one, of course, and it was faced with bronze-colored reflective glass. There was one band of lighter glass around one of the floors close to the base.

“Not exactly . . . hmmm.” Amelia looked at the building, her head tilted sideways.

“It needs to slant more,” I said, and she nodded.

“You’re right. It’s like they wanted to have a pyramid, but they didn’t really need enough floors to make it look right. The angle’s not steep enough to make it look really grand.”

“And it’s sitting on a big rectangle.”

“That, too. I expect those are the convention rooms.”

“No parking,” I said, peering at the screen.

“Oh, that’ll be below the building. They can build ’em that way up there.”

“It’s on the lakefront,” I said. “Hey, I get to see Lake Michigan. See, there’s just a little park between the hotel and the lake.”

“And about six lanes of traffic,” Amelia pointed out.

“Okay, that, too.”

“But it’s close to major shopping,” Amelia said.

“It’s got an all-human floor,” I read. “I’ll bet that’s this floor, the one that’s lighter. I thought that was just the design, but it’s so humans can go somewhere to have light during the day. People need that for their well-being.”

“Translation: it’s a law,” Amelia said. “What else is there? Meeting rooms, blah blah blah. Opaque glass throughout except for the human floor. Exquisitely decorated suites on the highest levels, blah blah blah. Staff thoroughly trained in vampires’ needs. Does that mean they’re all willing to be blood donors or fuck buddies?”

Amelia was so cynical. But now that I knew who her father was, that kind of made sense.

“I’d like to see the very top room, the tip of the pyramid,” I said.

“Can’t. It says here that that’s not a real guest floor. It’s actually where all the air conditioner stuff is.”

“Well, hell. Time to go,” I said, glancing at my watch.

“Oh, yeah.” Amelia stared gloomily at the screen.

“I’ll only be gone a week,” I said. Amelia was definitely a person who didn’t like to be by herself. We went downstairs and carried my bags to the car.

“I got the hotel number to call in case of emergency. I got your cell phone number, too. You pack your charger?” She maneuvered down the long gravel driveway and out onto Hummingbird Road. We’d go right around Bon Temps to get to the interstate.

“Yeah.” And my toothbrush and toothpaste, my razor, my deodorant, my hair dryer (just in case), my makeup, all my new clothes and some extras, lots of shoes, a sleeping outfit, Amelia’s traveling alarm clock, underwear, a little jewelry, an extra purse, and two paperbacks. “Thanks for loaning me the suitcase.” Amelia had contributed her bright red roller bag and a matching garment bag, plus a carry-on I’d crammed with a book, a crossword puzzle compendium, a portable CD player, and a headset, plus a small CD case.

We didn’t talk much on the drive. I was thinking how strange it was going to be, leaving Amelia alone in my family home. There had been Stackhouses in residence on the site for over a hundred and seventy years.

Our sporadic conversation died by the time we neared the airport. There didn’t seem to be anything else to be said. We were right by the main Shreveport terminal, but we were going to a small private hangar. If Eric hadn’t booked an Anubis charter plane weeks ago, he would’ve been up a creek, because the summit was definitely taxing Anubis’s capabilities. All the states involved were sending delegations, and a big hunk of Middle America, from the Gulf to the Canadian border, was included in the American Central division.

A few months ago, Louisiana would have needed two planes. Now one would suffice, especially since a few of the party had gone ahead. I’d read the list of missing vampires after the meeting at Fangtasia, and to my regret, Melanie and Chester had been on it. I’d met them at the queen’s New Orleans headquarters, and though we hadn’t had time to become bosom buddies or anything, they’d seemed like good vamps.

There was a guard at the gate in the fence enclosing the hangar, and he checked my driver’s license and Amelia’s before he let us in. He was a regular human off-duty cop, but he seemed competent and alert. “Turn to the right, and there’s parking by the door in the east wall,” he said.

Amelia leaned forward a little as she drove, but the door was easy enough to see, and there were other cars parked there. It was about ten in the morning, and there was a touch of cool in the air, just below the surface warmth. It was an early breath of fall. After the hot, hot summer, it was just blissful. It would be cooler in Rhodes, Pam had said. She’d checked the temperatures for the coming week on the Internet and called me to tell me to pack a sweater. She’d sounded almost excited, which was a big deal for Pam. I’d been getting the impression that Pam was a wee bit restless, a bit tired of Shreveport and the bar. Maybe it was just me.

Amelia helped me unload the suitcases. Amelia had had to take a number of spells off the red Samsonite before she could hand it over to me. I hadn’t asked what would have happened if she’d forgotten. I pulled up the handle on the rolling bag and slung the carry-on bag across my shoulder. Amelia took the hanging bag and opened the door.

I’d never been in an airplane hangar before, but it was just like the ones in the movies: cavernous. There were a few small planes parked inside, but we proceeded as Pam had instructed to the large opening in the west wall. The Anubis Air jet was parked outside, and the coffins were being loaded onto the luggage belt by the uniformed Anubis employees. They all wore black relieved only by a stylized jackal’s head on the chest of the uniform, an affectation that I found irritating. They glanced at us casually, but no one challenged us or asked to see identification until we got to the steps leading up to the plane.

Bobby Burnham was standing at the foot of the steps with a clipboard. Of course, since it was daylight, it was obvious Bobby wasn’t a vamp, but he was nearly pale and stern enough to be one. I’d never met him before, but I knew who he was, and he certainly recognized me. I plucked that right from his brain. But his certainty didn’t stop him from checking my ID against his damn list, and he was giving Amelia the big glare, like she couldn’t turn him into a toad. (That was what Amelia was thinking.)

“He’d have to croak,” I murmured, and she smiled.

Bobby introduced himself, and when we nodded, he said, “Your name is on the list, Miss Stackhouse, but Miss Broadway’s isn’t. I’m afraid you’ll have to get your luggage up by yourself.” Bobby was loving the power.

Amelia was whispering something under her breath, and in a rush Bobby blurted, “I’ll carry the heavy bag up the stairs, Miss Stackhouse. Can you handle the other bag? If that’s not something you want to do, I’ll be back down in a minute and take them up for you.” The astonishment on his face was priceless, but I tried not to enjoy it too much. Amelia was playing a slightly mean trick.

“Thanks, I can manage,” I reassured him, and took the hanging bag from Amelia while he bumped up the stairs with the heavier piece of luggage.

“Amelia, you rascal,” I said, but not too angrily.

“Who’s the asshole?” she asked.

“Bobby Burnham. He’s Eric’s daytime guy.” All vamps of a certain rank had one. Bobby was a recent acquisition of Eric’s.

“What does he do? Dust the coffins?”

“No, he makes business arrangements, he goes to the bank, he picks up the dry cleaning, he deals with the state offices that are open only in the day, and so forth.”

“So he’s a gofer.”

“Well, yeah. But he’s an important gofer. He’s Eric’s gofer.”

Bobby was coming back down the steps now, still looking surprised that he’d been polite and helpful. “Don’t do anything else to him,” I said, knowing that she was considering it.

Amelia’s eyes flashed before she got the sense of what I was saying. “Yeah, petty of me,” she admitted. “I just hate power-mad jerks.”

“Who doesn’t? Listen, I’ll see you in a week. Thanks for bringing me to the plane.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She gave me a forlorn smile. “You have a good time, and don’t get killed or bitten or anything.”

Impulsively, I hugged her, and after a second’s surprise, she hugged me back.

“Take good care of Bob,” I said, and up the stairs I went.

I couldn’t help feeling a little anxious, since I was cutting my ties with my familiar life, at least temporarily. The Anubis Air employee in the cabin said, “Choose your seat, Miss Stackhouse.” She took the hanging bag from me and put it away. The interior of the aircraft was not like that of any human plane, or at least that was what the Anubis website had alleged. The Anubis fleet had been designed and outfitted for the transportation of sleeping vamps, with human passengers coming in second. There were coffin bays around the wall, like giant luggage bins, and at the front end of the aircraft there were three rows of seats, on the right three seats, and on the left two, for people like me . . . or, at least, people who were going to be helpful to the vamps at this conference in some capacity. At present, there were only three other people sitting in the seats. Well, one other human and two part-humans.