All Together Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #7)(57)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"What was the result?" I said out loud, to the red-haired vamp’s confusion.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just talking to myself. It’s been a pleasure to dance with you. Excuse me; I have to go find a friend."

Sean danced me to the edge of the crowd, and we parted ways. He was already looking for his mate. Vampire couples didn’t stay together for long, as a rule. Even the hundred-year marriages of kings and queens required only a once-a-year nuptial visit. I hoped Sean and Layla would prove to be the exception.

I decided I should check on Quinn. That might be a lengthy process, since I had no idea where the Weres had taken him. I was so confused by the effect Eric was having on me, all mixed up with the beginnings of affection for Quinn. But I knew whom I was beholden to. Quinn had saved my life tonight. I started my search by calling his room but got no answer.

If I was a Were, where would I take a wounded tiger? Well, nowhere public, because Weres were secretive. They wouldn’t want the hotel staff to catch a word or a phrase that would tip them off to the existence of the other supes. So they’d take Quinn to a private room, right? So, who had a private room and was sympathetic to the Weres?

Jake Purifoy, of course – former Were, current vamp. Quinn could be there – or he could be down in the hotel garage somewhere, or in the security chief ‘s room, or in the infirmary, if there was such a thing. I had to start somewhere. I inquired at the front desk, where the clerk didn’t seem to have any problem releasing the room number to me, though it’s true Jake and I were flagged as being members of the same party. The clerk was not the one who’d been so rude when we’d checked in. She thought my dress was very pretty, and she wanted one just like it.

Jake’s room was a floor up from mine, and as I raised my hand to knock on the door, I casually scanned inside to count the brains. There was the hole in the air that marked a vampire brain (that’s the best way I can describe it), and a couple of human signatures. But I picked up on a thought that froze my fist before it had a chance to touch the door.

…they should all die, came the faint fragment of thought. Nothing followed it, though – no other thought that clarified or elaborated on that malign idea. So I knocked, and the pattern in the room changed instantly. Jake answered the door. He didn’t look welcoming.

"Hi, Jake," I said, making my smile as bright and innocent as I could. "How you doing? I came by to check if Quinn was with you."

"With me?" Jake sounded startled. "Since I turned, I’ve hardly talked to Quinn, Sookie. We just don’t have anything to talk about." I must have looked disbelieving, because he said in a rush, "Oh, it’s not Quinn; it’s me. I just can’t bridge the chasm between who I was and who I am now. I’m not even sure who I am." His shoulders slumped.

That sounded honest enough. And I felt a lot of sympathy for him. "Anyway," Jake said, "I helped carry him to the infirmary, and I bet he’s still there. There’s a shifter called Bettina and a Were called Hondo with him."

Jake was holding the door shut. He didn’t want me to see his companions. Jake didn’t know that I could tell that he had people in his room.

It wasn’t any of my business, of course. But it was disquieting. Even as I thanked him and turned to leave, I was thinking the situation over. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was to cause the troubled Jake any more problems, but if he was somehow involved in the plot that seemed to be snaking through the halls of the Pyramid of Gizeh, I had to find out.

First things first. I went down to my room and called the desk to get directions to the infirmary, and I carefully wrote them on the phone pad. Then I sneaked back up the stairs to stand outside Jake’s door again, but in the time I’d been gone, the party had begun to disperse. I saw two humans from the rear. Strange; I couldn’t be certain, but one of them looked like the surly Joe, the computer-consulting employee from the luggage area. Jake had been meeting with some of the hotel staff in his room. Maybe he still felt more at home with humans than he did with vampires. But surely Weres would have been his choice….

As I stood there in the corridor, feeling sorry for him, Jake’s door opened and he stepped out. I hadn’t checked for blank spots, only live signatures. My bad. Jake looked a bit suspicious when he saw me, and I couldn’t blame him.

"Do you want to go with me?" I asked.

"What?" He looked startled. He hadn’t been a vampire long enough to get the inscrutable face down pat.

"To see Quinn?" I said. "I got directions to the infirmary, and you said you hadn’t talked to him in a while, so I thought you might want to go with me if I’d kind of smooth the way?"

"That’s a nice idea, Sookie," he said. "I think I’ll pass. The fact is, most shifters don’t want me around anymore. Quinn is better than most, I’m sure, but I make him uneasy. He knows my mom, my dad, my ex-girlfriend; all the people in my former life, the ones who don’t want to hang with me now."

I said impulsively, "Jake, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry Hadley turned you if you would rather have passed on. She was fond of you, and she didn’t want you to die."

"But I did die, Sookie," Jake said. "I’m not the same guy anymore. As you know." He picked up my arm and looked at the scar on it, the one he’d left with his teeth. "You won’t ever be the same, either," he said, and he walked away. I’m not sure he knew where he was going, but he just wanted to get away from me.

I watched him until he was out of sight. He didn’t turn to look back at me.

My mood had been fragile anyway, and that encounter pretty much started it on the downslope. I trudged to the elevators, determined to find the damn infirmary. The queen hadn’t buzzed me, so presumably she was hobnobbing with other vampires, trying to find out who had hired the weather witch, and generally reveling in her relief. No more trial, a clear inheritance, the chance to put her beloved Andre in power. Things were coming up roses for the Queen of Louisiana, and I tried not to be bitter. Or did I have a right to be? Hmmm, let’s see. I’d helped stop the trial, though I hadn’t counted on it stopping as finally and completely as it had for, say, the hapless Henrik. Since she’d been found innocent, she’d get the inheritance as promised in her marriage contract. And who’d had the idea about Andre? And I’d been proved right about the witch. Okay, maybe I could be a little bitter at my own unbenevolent fortune. Plus, sooner or later I’d have to choose between Quinn and Eric, through no fault of my own. I’d stood holding a bomb for a very long time. The Ancient Pythoness was not a member of my fan club, and she was an object of reverence to most of the vampires. I’d almost been killed with an arrow.