Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (231 page)

I’d done my nails while Water Woman was in the shower, and I put on my lipstick and had a final look in the mirror.

Carla said, “You look real pretty, Sookie.”

“Thanks.” I knew I was smiling a big smile. There’s nothing like dressing up once in a while. I felt like my prom date was picking me up with a corsage to pin to my dress. JB had taken me to my senior prom, though other girls had asked him because he would look so good in the photographs. My aunt Linda had made my dress.

No more homemade dresses for me.

A knock at the door had me looking anxiously in the mirror. But it was Gervaise, checking to see if Carla was ready. She smiled and turned around to garner the admiration due her, and Gervaise gave her a kiss on the cheek. I wasn’t too impressed with Gervaise’s character, and he wasn’t my cup of tea physically, either, with his broad, bland face and his light mustache, but I had to hand it to him for generosity: he fastened a diamond tennis bracelet around Carla’s wrist then and there, with no further ado than if he were giving her a bauble. Carla tried to restrain her excitement, but then she cast that to the winds and threw her arms around Gervaise’s neck. I was embarrassed to be in the room, because some of the pet names she used while thanking him were sort of anatomically correct.

After they left, well pleased with each other, I stood in the middle of the bedroom. I didn’t want to sit down in my dress until I had to, because I knew it would wrinkle and lose that perfect feeling. That left me with very little to do, other than trying not to get miffed about the chaos Carla had left on her side and feeling a bit at a loss. Surely Quinn had said he’d come by the room to get me? We hadn’t been supposed to meet downstairs, right?

My purse made a noise, and I realized I’d stuck the queen’s pager in there. Oh, surely not!

“Get down here,” read the message. “Trial is now.”

At the same moment, the room phone rang. I picked it up, trying to catch my breath.

“Babe,” said Quinn. “I’m sorry. In case you hadn’t heard, the council has decided that the queen will have to go on trial, right now, and you gotta hustle down here. I’m sorry,” he said again, “I’m in charge of setting up. I gotta work. Maybe this won’t take long.”

“Okay,” I said weakly, and he hung up.

So much for my glamorous evening with my new guy.

But, dammit, I wasn’t going to change into anything less festive. Everyone else would have party clothes on, and even if my role in the evening had altered, I deserved to look pretty, too. I rode down on the elevator with one of the hotel employees, who couldn’t tell if I was a vampire or not. I made him very nervous. It always tickles me when people can’t tell. To me, vampires sort of glow, just a bit.

Andre was waiting for me when I got off the elevator. He was as flustered as I’d ever seen him; I could tell because his fingers were clenching and unclenching, and his lip was bloody where he’d bitten it, though it healed as I watched. Before last night, Andre had just made me nervous. Now I loathed him. But it was evident I had to put personal issues aside until another time.

“How could this happen?” he asked. “Sookie, you need to learn everything you can about this. We have more enemies than we knew.”

“I thought there wouldn’t be a trial after Jennifer got killed. Since she was the queen’s chief accuser—”

“That’s what we all thought. Or, if there was a trial, it would be an empty form, staged simply so the charges could be dismissed. But we got down here tonight and they were waiting for us. They’ve put off the start of the ball to do this. Take my arm,” he said, and I was so taken by surprise that I slid my arm through his.

“Smile,” he said. “Look confident.”

And we walked into the convention hall with bold faces—me and my good buddy Andre.

It was lucky I’d had plenty of practice in insincere smiling, because this was like the marathon of Saving Face. All the vampires and their human entourages parted way for us. Some of them were smiling, too, though not pleasantly, and some looked concerned, and some just looked mildly anticipatory, as if they were about to watch a movie that had gotten good buzz.

And the rush of thoughts engulfed me. I smiled and walked on automatic while I listened in.
Pretty . . . Sophie-Anne’ll get what’s coming to her . . . maybe I can call her lawyer, see if she’s open to an approach from our king . . . nice boobs . . . my man needs a telepath . . . hear she’s fucking Quinn . . . hear she’s fucking the queen and Baby Boy Andre . . . found her at a bar . . . Sophie-Anne’s washed up, serves her right . . . hear she’s fucking Cataliades . . . stupid trial, where’s the band? . . . hope they have some food at the dance, people food . . .

And on and on. Some of it pertaining to me, the queen, and/or Andre, some of it the simple thoughts of people who are tired of waiting and want to get the party started.

We strolled the gauntlet until it terminated in the room where the wedding had been held. The crowd in this room was almost 100 percent vampire. A notable absence: human servers, and any other human hotel staff. The only ones circulating with drinks trays were vampires. Things were going to happen in this room that weren’t for human consumption. If it was possible for me to feel more anxious, I did.

I could see Quinn had been busy. The low platform had been rearranged. The giant ankh had been put away, and two lecterns had been added. On the spot where Mississippi and his loved one had taken their vows, about midway between the two lecterns, there sat a thronelike chair. In it was an ancient woman with wild white hair. I had never seen a vampire who had been turned when she was so old, and though I’d sworn I wasn’t going to speak to him, I said as much to Andre.

“That is the Ancient Pythoness,” he said absently. He was scanning the crowd, trying to find Sophie-Anne, I supposed. I spotted Johan Glassport, who was going to get his moment in the limelight after all, and the rest of the Louisiana contingent was with the murderous lawyer—all except the queen and Eric and Pam, whom I’d glimpsed standing near the stage.

Andre and I took our seats at the right front. On the left front was a clump of vampires who were no fans of ours. Chief among them was Henrik Feith. Henrik had transformed himself from a panicky scaredy-cat to a ball of wrath. He glowered at us. He did everything but throw spitballs.

“What crawled up his ass and died?” muttered Cleo Babbitt, dropping into the seat to my right. “The queen offers to take him under her wing when he’s alone and defenseless, and this is the thanks she gets?” Cleo was wearing a traditional tuxedo, and she looked pretty darn good in it. The severity of it suited her. Her boy toy looked much more feminine than she did. I wondered at his inclusion in the crowd, which was all supe and overwhelmingly vampire. Diantha leaned forward from the row behind us to tap me on the shoulder. She was wearing a red bustier with black ruffles and a black taffeta skirt, also ruffled. Her bustier didn’t have much bust to fill it. She was clutching a handheld computer game. “Goodtoseeya,” she said, and I made the effort of smiling at her. She returned her attention to the computer game.

“What will happen to us if Sophie-Anne is found guilty?” Cleo asked, and we all fell silent.

What
would
happen to us if Sophie-Anne were convicted? With Louisiana in a weakened position, with the scandal surrounding Peter’s death, we were all at risk.

I don’t know why I hadn’t thought this through, but I hadn’t.

In a moment, I understood that I hadn’t even thought about worrying because I’d grown up a free United States human citizen; I wasn’t used to worrying about my fate being in question. Bill had joined the little group surrounding the queen, and as I peered across the room at them, he knelt, along with Eric and Pam. Andre leaped up from his seat to my left, and in one of his lightning moves he crossed the room to kneel with them. The queen stood before them like a Roman goddess accepting tribute. Cleo followed my gaze, and her shoulder twitched. Cleo wasn’t going to go do any kneeling.

“Who’s on the council?” I asked the dark-haired vamp, and she nodded to the group of five vampires seated right before the low stage, facing the Ancient Pythoness.

“The King of Kentucky, the Queen of Iowa, the King of Wisconsin, the King of Missouri, the Queen of Alabama,” she said, pointing to them in order. The only one I’d met was Kentucky, though I recognized the sultry Alabama from her conversation with Sophie-Anne.

The lawyer for the other side joined Johan Glassport on the stage. Something about the Arkansans’ lawyer reminded me of Mr. Cataliades, and when he nodded in our direction, I saw Mr. Cataliades nod back.

“They related?” I asked Cleo.

“Brothers-in-law,” Cleo said, leaving me to imagine what a female demon would look like. Surely they didn’t all look like Diantha.

Quinn leaped up on the stage. He was wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and tie, and he carried a long staff covered with carvings. He beckoned to Isaiah, King of Kentucky, who floated onto the stage. With a flourish, Quinn handed the staff to Kentucky, who was dressed much more stylishly than he had been earlier. The vampire thudded the staff against the floor, and all conversation ceased. Quinn retreated to the back of the stage.

“I am the elected master-at-arms of this judicial session,” Kentucky announced in a voice that carried easily to the corners of the room. He held the staff up so it could not be ignored. “Following the traditions of the vampire race, I call you all to witness the trial of Sophie-Anne Leclerq, Queen of Louisiana, on the charge that she murdered her signed and sealed spouse, Peter Threadgill, King of Arkansas.”

It sounded very solemn, in Kentucky’s deep, drawling voice.

“I call the lawyers for the two parties to be ready to present their cases.”

“I am ready,” said the part-demon lawyer. “I am Simon Maimonides, and I represent the bereaved state of Arkansas.”

“I am ready,” said our murderous lawyer, reading from a pamphlet. “I am Johan Glassport, and I represent the bereaved widow, Sophie-Anne Leclerq,
falsely
charged with the murder of her signed and sealed spouse.”

“Ancient Pythoness, are you ready to hear the case?” Kentucky asked, and the crone turned her head toward him.

“Is she blind?” I whispered.

Cleo nodded. “From birth,” she said.

“How come she’s the judge?” I asked. But the glares of the vampires around us reminded me that their hearing hardly made whispering worthwhile, and it was only polite to shut up.

“Yes,” said the Ancient Pythoness. “I am ready to hear the case.” She had a very heavy accent that I couldn’t begin to identify. There was a stirring of anticipation in the crowd.

Okay. Let the games begin.

Bill, Eric, and Pam went to stand against the wall, while Andre sat by me.

King Isaiah did a little staff-pounding again. “Let the accused be brought forth,” he said with no small amount of drama.

Sophie-Anne, looking very delicate, walked up to the stage, escorted by two guards. Like the rest of us, she’d gotten ready for the ball, and she was wearing purple. I wondered if the royal color had been a coincidence. Probably not. I had a feeling Sophie-Anne arranged her own coincidences.

The dress was high-collared and long-sleeved, and it actually had a train.

“She is beautiful,” said Andre, his voice full of reverence.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had more on my mind than admiring the queen. The guards were the two Britlingens, probably pressed into service by Isaiah, and they had packed some dress armor in their interdimensional trunks. It was black, too, but it gleamed dully, like slowly moving dark water. It was just as figure-hugging as the first set of armor. Clovache and Batanya lifted Sophie-Anne onto the low platform and then retreated a bit. This way, they were close to both the prisoner and their employer, so it worked out great, I suppose, from their point of view.

“Henrik Feith, state your case,” Isaiah said with no further ado.

Henrik’s case was long and ardent and full of accusations. Boiled down, he testified that Sophie-Anne had married his king, signed all the usual contracts, and then immediately began maneuvering Peter into his fatal fight, despite the king’s angelic temperament and his adoration of his new queen. It sounded like Henrik was talking about Kevin and Britney, rather than two ancient and crafty vampires.

Blah blah blah. Henrik’s lawyer let him go on and on, and Johan did not object to any of Henrik’s highly colored statements. Johan thought (I checked) that Henrik would lose sympathy by being so fervent and immoderate—and boring—and he was quite right, if the slight movements and shifts in body language in the crowd were anything to go by.

“And now,” Henrik concluded, faint pink tears running down his face, “there are only a handful of us left in the whole state. She, who killed my king and his lieutenant Jennifer, she has offered me a place with her. And I was almost weak enough to accept, for fear of being rogue. But she is a liar and she will kill me, too.”

“Someone told him that,” I murmured.

“What?” Andre’s mouth was right by my ear. Keeping a conversation private in a group of vampires is not an easy thing.

I held up a hand to request his silence. No, I wasn’t listening to Henrik’s brain but to Henrik’s lawyer’s, who didn’t have as much demon blood as Cataliades. Without realizing I was doing it, I was leaning forward in my seat and craning toward the stage to hear better. Hear with my head, that is.

Someone had told Henrik Feith that the queen planned to kill him. He had been willing to let the lawsuit slide, since Jennifer Cater’s murder had taken out the chief complainant. He had never rated high enough in the ranks to take up the mantle of leadership; he didn’t have the wit or the desire. He would rather go into the service of the queen. But if she really meant to kill him . . . he would try to kill her first by the only means he might survive, and that was through the law.