Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(39)
Author: Charlaine Harris

All this, for a vampire who didn’t really need a kitchen in the first place.

"Hadley’s coffeepot is right there," Amelia said, and I spotted it. It was black and it kind of blended in. Hadley had always been a coffee freak, so I’d figured that even as a vampire she’d kept a supply of her favorite beverage. I opened the cabinet above the pot, and behold – two cans of Community Coffee and some filters. The silvery seal was intact on the first one I opened, but the second can was open and half full. I inhaled the wonderful coffee smell with quiet pleasure. It seemed amazingly fresh.

After I fixed the pot and punched a button to set it perking, I found two mugs and set them beside it. The sugar bowl was right by the pot, but when I opened it, I found only a hardened residue. I pitched the contents into the trash can, which was lined but empty. It had been cleaned out after Hadley’s death. Maybe Hadley had had some powdered creamer in the refrigerator? In the South, people who don’t use it constantly often keep it there.

But when I opened the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator, I found nothing but five bottles of TrueBlood.

Nothing had brought home to me so strongly the fact that my cousin Hadley had died a vamp. I’d never known anyone before and after. It was a shock. I had so many memories of Hadley, some of them happy and some of them unpleasant – but in all of those memories, my cousin was breathing and her heart was beating. I stood with my lips compressed, staring at the red bottles, until I’d recovered enough to shut the door very gently.

After a vain search in the cabinets for Cremora, I told Amelia I hoped she took her coffee black.

"Yes, that’ll be fine," Amelia said primly. She was obviously trying to be on her better behavior, and I could only be grateful for that. Hadley’s landlady was perched on one of Hadley’s spindle-legged armchairs. The upholstery was really pretty, a yellow silky material printed with dark red and blue flowers, but I disliked the fragile style of the furniture. I like chairs that look as though they could hold big people, heavy people, without a creak or a groan. I like furniture that looks as though it won’t be ruined if you spill a Coke on it, or if your dog hops up on it to take a nap. I tried to settle myself on the loveseat opposite the landlady’s. Pretty, yes. Comfortable, no. Suspicion confirmed.

"So what are you, Amelia?"

"Beg pardon?"

"What are you?"

"Oh, a witch."

"Figured." I hadn’t caught the sense of the supernatural that I get from creatures whose very cells have been changed by the nature of their being. Amelia had acquired her "otherness." "Did you do the spells to seal off the apartment?"

"Yes," she said rather proudly. She gave me a look of sheer evaluation. I had known the apartment was warded with spells; I had known she was a member of the other world, the hidden world. I might be a regular human, but I was in the know. I read all these thoughts as easily as if Amelia had spoken them to me. She was an exceptional broadcaster, as clear and clean as her complexion. "The night Hadley died, the queen’s lawyer phoned me. Of course, I was asleep. He told me to shut this sucker up, that Hadley wouldn’t be coming back, but the queen wanted her place kept intact for her heir. I came up and began cleaning early the next morning." She’d worn rubber gloves, too; I could see that in her mental picture of herself the morning after Hadley had died.

"You emptied the trash and made the bed?"

She looked embarrassed. "Yes, I did. I didn’t realize ‘intact’ meant ‘untouched.’ Cataliades got here and let me have it. But I’m glad I got the trash out of here, anyway. It’s strange, because someone went through the garbage bin that night, before I could put it out for pickup."

"I don’t guess you know if they took anything?"

She cast me an incredulous look. "It’s not like I inventory the trash," she said. She added, reluctantly, "It had been treated with a spell, but I don’t know what the spell was for."

Okay, that wasn’t good news. Amelia wasn’t even admitting it to herself; she didn’t want to think about the house being the target for supernatural assault. Amelia was proud because her wards had held, but she hadn’t thought to ward the garbage bin.

"Oh, I got all her potted plants out and moved them down to my place for easier care, too. So if you want to take ’em back to Hole-in-the-Road with you, you’re welcome."

"Bon Temps," I corrected. Amelia snorted. She had the born city dweller’s contempt for small towns. "So you own this building, and you rented the upstairs to Hadley when?"

"About a year ago. She was a vamp already," Amelia said. "And she was the queen’s girlfriend, had been for quite a while. So I figured it was good insurance, you know? No one’s going to attack the queen’s honeybun, right? And no one’s going to break into her place, either."

I wanted to ask how come Amelia could afford such a nice place herself, but that was just too rude to get past my lips. "So the witch business supports you?" I asked instead, trying to sound only mildly interested.

She shrugged, but looked pleased I’d asked. Though her mother had left her a lot of money, Amelia was delighted to be self-supporting. I heard it as clearly as if she’d spoken it out loud. "Yeah, I make a living," she said, aiming for a modest tone and just missing. She’d worked hard to become a witch. She was proud of her power.

This was just like reading a book.

"If things get slow, I help out a friend who has a magic shop right off Jackson Square. I read fortunes there," she admitted. "And sometimes I do a magic tour of New Orleans for the tourists. That can be fun, and if I scare ’em enough, I get big tips. So between one thing and another, I do okay."

"You perform serious magic," I said, and she nodded happily. "For who?" I asked. "Since the regular world doesn’t admit it’s possible."

"The supes pay real well," she said, surprised I had to ask. I didn’t really need to, but it was easier to direct her thoughts to the right information if I asked her out loud. "Vamps and Weres, especially. I mean, they don’t like witches, but vamps especially want every little advantage they can gain. The rest aren’t as organized." With a wave of her hand she dismissed the weaker ones of the supernatural world, the werebats and the shape-shifters and so on. She discounted the power of the other supes, which was a mistake.

"What about fairies?" I asked curiously.

"They have enough of their own magic," she said, shrugging. "They don’t need me. I know someone like you might have a hard time accepting that there’s a talent that’s invisible and natural, one that challenges everything you were taught by your family."