All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7)(28)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"True," I said. I’d finished unpacking, so I went over to our window and looked out. The glass was so heavily tinted that it was hard to make out the landscape, but it was seeable. I wasn’t on the Lake Michigan side of the hotel, which was a pity, but I looked at the buildings around the west side of the hotel with curiosity. I didn’t see cities that often, and I’d never seen a northern city. The sky was darkening rapidly, so between that and the tinted windows I really couldn’t see too much after ten minutes. The vampires would be awake soon, and my workday would begin.

Though she kept up a sporadic stream of chatter, Carla didn’t ask what my role was at this summit. She assumed I was there as arm candy. For the moment, that was all right with me. Sooner or later, she’d find out what my particular talent was, and then she’d be nervous around me. On the other hand, now she was a little too relaxed.

Carla was getting dressed (thank God) in what I thought of as "classy whore." She was wearing a glittery green cocktail dress that almost didn’t have a top to it, and f**k-me shoes, and what amounted to a see-through thong. Well, she had her working clothes, and I had mine. I wasn’t too pleased with myself for being so judgmental, and maybe I was a little envious that my working clothes were so conservative.

For tonight, I had chosen a chocolate brown lace handkerchief dress. I put in my big gold earrings and slid into brown pumps, put on some lipstick, and brushed my hair really well. Sticking my keycard into my little evening purse, I headed to the front desk to find out which suite was the queen’s, since Mr. Cataliades had told me to present myself there.

I had hoped to run into Quinn along the way, but I didn’t see hide nor hair of him. What with me having a roommate, and Quinn being so busy all the time, this summit might not promise as much fun on the side as I’d hoped.

The desk clerk blanched when he saw me coming, and he looked around to see if Diantha was with me. While he was scrawling the queen’s room number on a piece of notepaper with a shaking hand, I looked around me with more attention.

There were security cameras in a few obvious locations, pointed at the front doors and at the registration desk. And I thought I could see one at the elevators. There were the usual armed guards – usual for a vampire hotel, that is. The big selling point for any vampire hotel was the security and privacy of its guests. Otherwise, vampires could stay more cheaply and centrally in the special vampire rooms of mainstream hotels. (Even Motel 6 had one vampire room at almost every location.) When I thought about the protesters outside, I really hoped the security crew here at the Pyramid was on the ball.

I nodded at another human woman as I crossed the lobby to the central bank of elevators. The rooms got ritzier the higher up you went, I gathered, since there were fewer on the floor. The queen had one of the fourth floor suites, since she’d booked for this event a long time ago, before Katrina – and probably while her husband was still alive. There were only eight doors on her floor, and I didn’t have to see the number to know which room was Sophie-Anne’s. Sigebert was standing in front of it. Sigebert was a boulder of a man. He had guarded the queen for hundreds of years, as had Andre. The ancient vampire looked lonely without his brother, Wybert. Otherwise, he was the same old Anglo-Saxon warrior he’d been the first time I’d met him – shaggy beard, physique of a wild boar, missing a tooth or two in crucial places.

Sigebert grinned at me, a terrifying sight. "Miss Sookie," he said by way of greeting.

"Sigebert," I said, carefully pronouncing it "See-yabairt." "Are you doing okay?" I wanted to convey sympathy without dipping into too-sentimental waters.

"My brother, he died a hero," Sigebert said proudly. "In battle."

I thought of saying, "You must miss him so much after a thousand years." Then I decided that was exactly like reporters asking the parents of missing children, "How do you feel?"

"He was a great fighter," I said instead, and that was exactly what Sigebert wanted to hear. He clapped me on the shoulder, almost knocking me to the ground. Then his look got a little absent, as if he were listening to an announcement.

I’d suspected that the queen could talk to her "children" telepathically, and when Sigebert opened the door for me without another word, I knew that was true. I was glad she couldn’t talk to me. Being able to communicate with Barry was kind of fun, but if we hung out together all the time I was sure it would get old in a hurry. Plus, Sophie-Anne was a heck of a lot scarier.

The queen’s suite was lavish. I’d never seen anything like it. The carpet was as thick as a sheep’s pelt, and it was off-white. The furniture was upholstered in shades of gold and dark blue. The slanting slab of glass that enclosed the outside wall was opaque. I have to say, the large wall of darkness made me feel twitchy.

In the midst of this splendor, Sophie-Anne sat curled on a couch. Small and extremely pale, with her shining brown hair swept up in a chignon, the queen was wearing a raspberry-colored silk suit with black piping and black alligator heels. Her jewelry was heavy, gold, and simple.

Sophie-Anne would have looked more age-appropriate wearing a Gwen Stefani L.A.M.B. outfit. She’d died as a human when she’d been maybe fifteen or sixteen. In her time, that would have made her a fully-grown woman and mother. In our time, that made her a mall rat. To modern eyes, her clothes were too old for her, but it would take an insane person to tell her so. Sophie-Anne was the world’s most dangerous teenager, and the second most dangerous had her back. Andre was standing right behind Sophie-Anne, as always. When he’d given me a thorough look, and the door had closed behind me, he actually sat beside Sophie-Anne, which was some kind of signal that I was a member of the club, I guess. Andre and his queen had both been drinking TrueBlood, and they looked rosy as a result – almost human, in fact.

"How are your accommodations?" Sophie-Anne asked politely.

"Fine. I’m rooming with a…girlfriend of Gervaise’s," I said.

"With Carla? Why?" Her brows rose up like dark birds in a clear sky.

"The hotel’s crowded. It’s no big thing. I figure she’ll be with Gervaise most of the time, anyway," I said.

Sophie-Anne said, "What did you think of Johan?"

I could feel my face harden. "I think he belongs in jail."

"But he will keep me out of it."

I tried to imagine what a vampire jail would be like, gave up. I couldn’t give her any positive feedback on Johan, so I just nodded.

"You are still not telling me what you picked up from him."

"He’s very tense and conflicted."