Deadlocked (Sookie Stackhouse #12)(73)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"My dearest sister," Bellenos said. He smiled that disconcerting smile at me. He looked especially toothy today, and since there was blood between some of those teeth, the effect was not reassuring.

"Hi, y’all," was the best I could do, but they all grinned back, and Gift gave Dermot an enthusiastic kiss. Her extra eyelid flickered down and up again, almost too fast for me to note.

In the meantime, Claude was lying on the floor in a panting, bloody bundle. There was still plenty of fight in him, from the glares he was throwing around, but he was so clearly outnumbered that it seemed he’d given up … at least temporarily. The ticket taker was sitting on his legs, and the two strippers were each pinning one arm.

Gift came to sit by me; I’d collapsed on the couch. She put her arm around me. "Claude was trying to incite us to rebel against Niall," she said kindly. "Sister, I’m surprised he didn’t try to test your loyalty, too."

"Well, he wouldn’t have gotten very far!" I said. "I would have thrown him out in a New York minute!"

"Then see, that was intelligent of you, Claude," said Bellenos, bending over to speak to Claude face-to-face. "One of the few intelligent things you did." Claude glared at him.

Dermot shook his handsome head. "All this time I thought I must try to emulate Claude, because he had been so successful out here in the human world. But I realized that when he thought people were pleased with him, he didn’t perceive that it was only because he is beautiful. Much more often, when he talked to people, they came to regard him with dislike. I couldn’t believe it, but he’d done well in spite of himself, not because of his own talents."

"He does like children," I said weakly. "And he’s nice to pregnant women."

"Yes, that’s true," the policeman stripper said. "By the way, you can just call me Dirk, my stripping name. Siobhan is sitting on Claude’s legs. And this is Harley. I’m sure you remember Harley."

"Oh, yeah, who could forget Harley?" I said. Even under the circumstances, I had a gratifying flashback of how Harley’s straight black hair and coppery red body had looked under the lights at Hooligans. Harley tried to bow from a crouching position, which isn’t easy, and Siobhan grinned at me. "So … Claude really was locked out of Faery, along with you-all? That wasn’t a lie?"

"No, not a lie," said Dermot sadly. "My father hated me because he thought I’d always worked against him. But I was cursed. I thought he’d done the cursing, but I see now it must have been Claude all along. Claude, you betrayed me and then kept me trotting behind you like a dog."

Claude began to speak in another language, and then the fae moved with an unbelievable speed. Gift yanked off her bra top, and Harley stuffed it in Claude’s mouth. It would have been petty of me to take any notice of Gift’s bare chest, so I rose above it.

"That was a secret fairy language?" I hated to ask, but I just wanted to know. My days of ignorance were over.

Dirk nodded. "We speak to each other that way; it’s what we have in common: full fairy, demon, angel, all the half-breeds."

"Dermot, did you and Claude really come here because of my fairy blood?" I asked Dermot. Claude’s mouth was otherwise occupied.

"Yes," Dermot said uncertainly. "Though Claude said there was something here that attracted him, and he spent hours when you were gone searching your house. When he couldn’t find what he wanted here, he thought perhaps it was in the furniture you sold. He went to that shop and broke in to examine all the furniture again."

I felt a little bubble of rage float to the top of my brain. "Though I was nice enough to let him live with me. He searched my house. Went through my stuff. While I was gone."

Dermot nodded. From the guilty glance he gave me, I was pretty damn sure Claude had enlisted my great-uncle in his search.

"What was he looking for?" Harley asked curiously.

"He sensed a fairy object in Sookie’s house, a fairy influence."

They all looked at me, simultaneously, with sharp attention.

"Gran-you-all know my fairy blood comes from my grandmother and Fintan, right?" They all nodded and blinked. I was sure glad I hadn’t been trying to keep that a secret. "Gran was friends with Mr. Cataliades, through Fintan." They nodded again, more slowly. "He left something here, but when he stopped by a few days ago, he picked it up."

They appeared to accept that pretty well. At least no one leaped up to say, "You liar, you have it in your pocket!"

Claude thrashed on the floor. Clearly, he wanted to put in his two cents’ worth, and I was glad the bra was in his mouth.

"If I’m getting to ask questions …" I said, waiting for Bellenos to interrupt, to tell me my time was up. But that didn’t happen.

"Claude, I know you tried to sabotage me and Eric. But I don’t know why."

Dirk raised interrogative eyebrows. Did I want him to remove the gag?

"Maybe you can just let me know if I get something right," I suggested, hoping that the gag stayed in. "Did you go to Jannalynn for help because you wanted to enlist a shifter of some kind?"

Glaring at me, Claude nodded.

"Who’s that?" Dermot whispered, as if the air would answer him.

"Jannalynn Hopper is the second of the Long Tooth pack in Shreveport," I said. "She’s been dating my boss, Sam Merlotte. But she hates me, which is a long story for some other time, though it’s pretty boring. Anyway, I knew she’d love to do me a bad turn if she could. And the young woman who got murdered in Eric’s front yard turned out to be a half-Were with a death wish and severe financial problems, ripe for a desperate plan, I figure. Claude, you gave her some of your blood to make her alluring to Eric, I think?"

The fae all looked absolutely aghast. I couldn’t have said anything more abhorrent to them. "You gave your sacred blood to a mongrel?" hissed Gift, and kicked Claude heartily.

Claude closed his eyes and nodded.

Maybe he wanted them to kill him on the spot. Kym Rowe hadn’t been the only person to develop a wish to die.

"So I get how you did it … but why? Why did you want Eric to lose control? What benefit to you?"

"Oh, I know that one!" Dermot said brightly.

I sighed. "Maybe you would explain."

"Claude told me several times that if we could get Niall to return to your side, we could attack him here in the human world, where he wouldn’t be surrounded by his supporters," Dermot said. "But I ignored his scheming. I was sure Niall wouldn’t return and couldn’t return, because he was firm in his resolution to stay in Faery. But Claude argued that Niall loves you so much that if something happened to you, he’d come to your side. So he tried to ruin Eric, thinking that at best you and Eric would fight and Eric would hurt you. Or you’d be arrested for murdering him, and you’d need your great-grandfather. At the very least, you would throw Eric aside and your misery would bring Niall running."