Definitely Dead

The next morning, Tanya showed up at my house. It was Sunday, and I was off work, and I felt pretty cheerful. After all, Crystal was healing, Quinn seemed to like me, and I hadn't heard any more from Eric, so maybe he would leave me alone. I try to be optimistic. My gran's favorite saying from the Bible was, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." She had explained that that meant that you don't worry about tomorrow, or about things you can't change. I tried to practice that philosophy, though most days it was hard. Today it was easy.

The birds were tweeting and chirping, the bugs were buzzing, and the pollen-heavy air was full of peace as if it were yet another plant emission. I was sitting on the front porch in my pink robe, sipping my coffee, listening to Car Talk on Red River Radio, and feeling really good, when a little Dodge Dart chugged up my driveway. I didn't recognize the car, but I did recognize the driver. All my peacefulness vanished in a puff of suspicion. Now that I knew about the proximity of a new Fellowship conclave, Tanya's inquisitive presence seemed even more suspicious. I was not happy to see her at my home. Common courtesy forbade me from warning her off, with no more provocation than I'd had, but I wasn't giving her any welcoming smile when I lowered my feet to the porch and stood.

"Good morning, Sookie!" she called as she got out of her car.

"Tanya," I said, just to acknowledge the greeting.

She paused halfway to the steps. "Um, everything okay?"

I didn't speak.

"I should have called first, huh?" She tried to look winsome and rueful.

"That would have been better. I don't like unannounced visitors."

"Sorry, I promise I'll call next time." She resumed her progress over the stepping stones to the steps. "Got an extra cup of coffee?"

I violated one of the most basic rules of hospitality. "No, not this morning," I said. I went to stand at the top of the steps to block her way onto the porch.

"Well... Sookie," she said, her voice uncertain. "You really are a grump in the morning."

I looked down at her steadily.

"No wonder Bill Compton's dating someone else," Tanya said with a little laugh. She knew immediately she'd made an error. "Sorry," she added hastily, "maybe I haven't had enough coffee myself. I shouldn't have said that. That Selah Pumphrey's a bitch, huh?"

Too late now, Tanya. I said, "At least you know where you stand with Selah." That was clear enough, right? "I'll see you at work."

"Okay. I'll call next time, you hear?" She gave me a bright, empty smile.

"I hear you." I watched her get back into the little car. She gave me a cheerful wave and, with a lot of extra maneuvering, she turned the Dart around and headed back to Hummingbird Road.

I watched her go, waiting until the sound of the engine had completely died away before I resumed my seat. I left my book on the plastic table beside my lawn chair and sipped the rest of my coffee without the pleasure that had accompanied the first few mouthfuls.

Tanya was up to something.

She practically had a neon sign flashing above her head. I wished the sign would be obliging enough to tell me what she was, who she worked for, and what her goal might be, but I guessed I'd just have to find that out myself. I was going to listen to her head every chance I got, and if that didn't work - and sometimes it doesn't, because not only was she a shifter, but you can't make people think about what you need to them to, on demand - I would have to take more drastic action.

Not that I was sure what that would be.

In the past year, somehow I'd assumed the role of guardian of the weird in my little corner of our state. I was the poster girl for interspecies tolerance. I'd learned a lot about the other universe, the one that surrounded the (mostly oblivious) human race. It was kind of neat, knowing stuff that other people didn't. But it complicated my already difficult life, and it led me into dangerous byways among beings who desperately wanted to keep their existence a secret.

The phone rang inside the house, and I stirred myself from my unhappy thoughts to answer it.

"Hey, babe," said a warm voice on the other end.

"Quinn," I said, trying not to sound too happy. Not that I was emotionally invested in this man, but I sure needed something positive to happen right now, and Quinn was both formidable and attractive.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, sitting on my front porch drinking coffee in my bathrobe."

"I wish I was there to have a cup with you."

Hmmm. Idle wish, or serious "ask me over"?

"There's plenty in the pot," I said cautiously.

"I'm in Dallas, or I'd be there in a flash," he said.

Deflation. "When did you leave?" I asked, because that seemed the safest, least prying question.

"Yesterday. I got a call from the mother of a guy who works for me from time to time. He quit in the middle of a job we were working on in New Orleans, weeks ago. I was pretty pissed at him, but I wasn't exactly worried. He was kind of a free-floating guy, had a lot of irons in the fire that took him all over the country. But his mom says he still hasn't shown up anywhere, and she thinks something's happened to him. I'm looking around his house and going through his files to help her out, but I'm reaching a dead end. The track seems to have ended in New Orleans. I'll be driving back to Shreveport tomorrow. Are you working?"

"Yes, early shift. I'll be off around five-ish."

"So can I invite myself over for dinner? I'll bring the steaks. You got a grill?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's pretty old, but it works."

"Got coals?"

"I'd have to check." I hadn't cooked out since my grandmother had died.

"No problem. I'll bring some."

"Okay," I said. "I'll fix everything else."

"We have a plan."

"See you at six?"

"Six it is."

"Okay, good-bye then."

Actually, I would have liked to talk to him longer, but I wasn't sure what to say, since I'd never had the experience of much idle chitchat with boys. My dating career had begun last year, when I'd met Bill. I had a lot of catching up to do. I was not like, say, Lindsay Popken, who'd been Miss Bon Temps the year I graduated from high school. Lindsay was able to reduce boys to drooling idiots and keep them trailing after her like stunned hyenas. I'd watched her at it often and still could not understand the phenomenon. It never seemed to me she talked about anything in particular. I'd even listened to her brain, but it was mostly full of white noise. Lindsay's technique, I'd concluded, was instinctive, and it was based on never saying anything serious.

Oh well, enough of reminiscence. I went into the house to see what I needed to do to get it ready for Quinn's visit the next evening and to make a list of necessary purchases. It was a happy way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I'd go shopping. I stepped into the shower contemplating a pleasurable day.

A knock at my front door interrupted me about thirty minutes later as I was putting on some lipstick. This time I looked through the peephole. My heart sank. However, I was obliged to open the door.

A familiar long black limo was parked in my drive. My only previous experience with that limo led me to expect unpleasant news and trouble.

The man - the being - standing on my front porch was the personal representative and lawyer for the vampire queen of Louisiana, and his name was Mr. Cataliades, emphasis on the second syllable. I'd first met Mr. Cataliades when he'd come to let me know that my cousin Hadley had died, leaving her estate to me. Not only had Hadley died, she'd been murdered, and the vampire responsible had been punished right before my eyes. The night had been full of multiple shocks: discovering not only that Hadley had left this world, but she'd left it as a vampire, and she'd been the favorite of the queen, in a biblical sense.

Hadley had been one of the few remaining members of my family, and I felt her loss; at the same time, I had to admit that Hadley, in her teenage years, had been the cause of much grief to her mother and much pain to my grandmother. If she'd lived, maybe she'd have tried to make up for that - or maybe she wouldn't. She hadn't had the chance.

I took a deep breath. I opened the door. "Mr. Cataliades," I said, feeling my anxious smile stretch my lips unconvincingly. The queen's lawyer was a man composed of circles, his face round and his belly rounder, his eyes beady and circular and dark. I didn't think he was human - or perhaps not wholly human - but I wasn't sure what he could be. Not a vampire; here he was, in broad daylight. Not Were, or shifter; no red buzz surrounding his brain.

"Miss Stackhouse," he said, beaming at me. "What a pleasure to see you again."

"And you also," I said, lying through my teeth. I hesitated, suddenly feeling achy and jumpy. I was sure Cataliades, like all the other supes I encountered, would know I was having my time of the month. Just great. "Won't you come in?"

"Thank you, my dear," he said, and I stepped aside, filled with misgivings, to let this creature enter my home.

"Please, have a seat," I said, determined to be polite. "Would you care for a drink?"

"No, thank you. You seem to be on your way somewhere." He was frowning at the purse I'd tossed on my chair on my way to the door.

Okay, something I wasn't understanding, here. "Yes," I said, raising my eyebrows in query. "I had planned on going to the grocery store, but I can put that off for an hour or so."

"You're not packed to return to New Orleans with me?"

"What?"

"You received my message?"

"What message?"

We stared at each other, mutually dismayed.

"I sent a messenger to you with a letter from my law office," Mr. Cataliades said. "She should have arrived here four nights ago. The letter was sealed with magic. No one but you could open it."

I shook my head, my blank expression telling him what I needed to say.

"You are saying that Gladiola didn't get here? I expected her to arrive here Wednesday night, at the latest. She wouldn't have come in a car. She likes to run." He smiled indulgently for just a second. But then the smile vanished. If I'd blinked, I would have missed it. "Wednesday night," he prompted me.

"That was the night I heard someone outside the house," I said. I shivered, remembering how tense I'd been that night. "No one came to the door. No one tried to break in. No one called to me. There was only the sense of something moving, and all the animals fell silent."

It was impossible for someone as powerful as the supernatural lawyer to look bewildered, but he did look very thoughtful. After a moment he rose ponderously and bowed to me, gesturing toward the door. We went back outside. On the front porch, he turned to the car and beckoned.

A very lean woman slid from behind the wheel. She was younger than me, maybe in her very early twenties. Like Mr. Cataliades, she was only partly human. Her dark red hair was spiked, her makeup laid on with a trowel. Even the striking outfit of the girl in the Hair of the Dog paled in comparison to this young woman's. She wore striped stockings, alternating bands of shocking pink and black, and her ankle boots were black and extremely high-heeled. Her skirt was transparent, black, and ruffled, and her pink tank top was her sole upper garment.

She just about took my breath away.

"Hi, howareya?" she said brightly, her smile revealing very sharp white teeth a dentist would fall in love with, right before he lost a finger.

"Hello," I said. I held out my hand. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse."

She covered the ground between us very speedily, even in the ridiculous heels. Her hand was tiny and bony. "Pleasedtameetya," she said. "Diantha."

"Pretty name," I said, after I figured out it wasn't another run-on sentence.

"Thankya."

"Diantha," Mr. Cataliades said, "I need to you to conduct a search for me."

"To find?"

"I'm very afraid we are looking for Glad's remains."

The smile fell from the girl's face.

"No shit," she said quite clearly.

"No, Diantha," the lawyer said. "No shit."

Diantha sat on the steps and pulled off her shoes and her striped tights. It didn't seem to bother her at all that without the tights, her transparent skirt left nothing to the imagination. Since Mr. Cataliades's expression didn't change in the least, I decided I could be worldly enough to ignore it, too.

As soon as she'd disencumbered herself, the girl was off, moving low to the ground, sniffing in a way that told me she was even less human than I'd estimated. But she didn't move like the Weres I'd observed, or the shape-shifting panthers. Her body seemed to bend and turn in a way that simply wasn't mammalian.

Mr. Cataliades watched her, his hands folded in front of him. He was silent, so I was, too. The girl darted around the yard like a demented hummingbird, vibrating almost visibly with an unearthly energy.

For all that movement, I couldn't hear her make a sound.

It wasn't long before she stopped at a clump of bushes at the very edge of the woods. She was bent over looking at the ground, absolutely still. Then, not looking up, she raised her hand like a schoolchild who'd discovered the correct answer.

"Let us go see," Mr. Cataliades suggested, and in his deliberate way he strode across the driveway, then the grass, to a clump of wax myrtles at the edge of the woods. Diantha didn't look up as we neared, but remained focused on something on the ground behind the bushes. Her face was streaked with tears. I took a deep breath and looked down at what held her attention.

This girl had been a little younger than Diantha, but she too was thin and slight. Her hair had been dyed bright gold, in sharp contrast with her milk chocolate skin. Her lips had drawn back in death, giving her a snarl that revealed teeth as white and sharp as Diantha's. Oddly enough, she didn't seem as worse for wear as I would have expected, given the fact that she might have been out here for several days. There were only a few ants walking over her, not at all the usual insect activity... and she didn't look bad at all for a person who'd been cut in two at the waist.

My head buzzed for a minute, and I was little scared I would go down on one knee. I'd seen some bad stuff, including two massacres, but I'd never seen anyone divided like this girl had been. I could see her insides. They didn't look like human insides. And it appeared the two halves had been separately seared shut. There was very little leakage.

"Cut with a steel sword," Mr. Cataliades said. "A very good sword."

"What shall we do with her remains?" I asked. "I can get an old blanket." I knew without even asking that we would not be calling the police.

"We have to burn her," Mr. Cataliades said. "Over there, on the gravel of your parking area, Miss Stackhouse, would be safest. You're not expecting any company?"

"No," I said, shocked on many levels. "I'm sorry, why must she be... burned?"

"No one will eat a demon, or even a half demon like Glad or Diantha," he said, as if explaining that the sun rises in the east. "Not even the bugs, as you see. The ground will not digest her, as it does humans."

"You don't want to take her home? To her people?"

"Diantha and I are her people. It's not our custom to take the dead back to the place where they were living."

"But what killed her?"

Mr. Cataliades raised an eyebrow.

"No, of course she was killed by something cutting through her middle, I'm seeing that! But what wielded the blade?"

"Diantha, what do you think?" Mr. Cataliades said, as if he were conducting a class.

"Something real, real strong and sneaky," Diantha said. "It got close to Gladiola, and she weren't no fool. We're not easy to kill."

"I have seen no sign of the letter she was carrying, either." Mr. Cataliades leaned over and peered at the ground. Then he straightened. "Have you got firewood, Miss Stackhouse?"

"Yessir, there's a good bit of split oak in the back by the toolshed." Jason had cut up some trees the last ice storm had downed.

"Do you need to pack, my dear?"

"Yes," I said, almost too overwhelmed to answer. "What? What for?"

"The trip to New Orleans. You can go now, can't you?"

"I... I guess so. I'll have to ask my boss."

"Then Diantha and I will take care of this while you are getting permission and packing," Mr. Cataliades said, and I blinked.

"All right," I said. I didn't seem to be able to think very clearly.

"Then we need to leave for New Orleans," he said. "I'd thought I'd find you ready. I thought that Glad had stayed to help you."

I wrenched my gaze from the body to stare up at the lawyer. "I'm just not understanding this," I said. But I remembered something. "My friend Bill wanted to go to New Orleans when I went to clean out Hadley's apartment," I said. "If he can, if he can arrange it, would that be all right with you?"

"You want Bill to go," he said, and there was a tinge of surprise in his voice. "Bill is in favor with the queen, so I wouldn't mind if he went."

"Okay, I'll have to get in touch with him when it's full dark," I said. "I hope he's in town."

I could have called Sam, but I wanted to go somewhere away from the strange funeral on my driveway. When I drove off, Mr. Cataliades was carrying the limp small body out of the woods. He had the bottom half.

A silent Diantha was filling a wheelbarrow with wood.