Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(40)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I stifled a snort of disbelief. She sure didn’t know anything about me. I didn’t know what she and Hadley had talked about, but it hadn’t been Hadley’s family, for sure. When that idea crossed my mind, a bell rang in the back of my head, one that said that avenue of thought should be explored. But I put it aside to think of later. Right now, I needed to deal with Amelia Broadway.

"So you would say you have a strong supernatural ability?" I said.

I could feel her stifle the rush of pride. "I have some ability," she said modestly. "For example, I laid a stasis spell on this apartment when I couldn’t finish cleaning it. And though it’s been shut up for months, you don’t smell anything, do you?"

That explained the lack of odor wafting from the stained towels. "And you do witchcraft for supernaturals, you read fortunes off Jackson Square, and you lead tour groups sometimes. Not exactly regular office jobs," I said.

"Right." She nodded, happy and proud.

"So you make up your own schedule," I said. I could hear the relief bouncing through Amelia’s mind, relief that she didn’t have to go into an office any more, though she’d done a stint at the post office for three years until she’d become a full-fledged witch.

"Yes."

"So will you help me clean out Hadley’s apartment? I’ll be glad to pay you."

"Well, sure I’ll help. The sooner all her stuff is out, the sooner I can rent the place. As for your paying me, why don’t we wait to see how much time I can give it? Sometimes I get, like, emergency calls." Amelia smiled at me, a smile suitable for a toothpaste ad.

"Hasn’t the queen been paying the rent since Hadley passed?"

"Yeah, she has. But it’s given me the creeps, thinking of Hadley’s stuff up here. And there’ve been a couple of break-in attempts. The last one was only a couple of days ago." I gave up any pretense of smiling.

"I thought at first," Amelia burbled on, "that it might be like when someone dies and their death notice is in the paper, you get break-ins during the funeral. Course, they don’t print obituaries for vampires, I guess because they’re already dead or because the other vampires just don’t send one to the paper… that would be interesting, to see how they handled it. Why don’t you try sending in a few lines about Hadley? But you know how vamps gossip, so I guess a few people heard she was definitely dead, dead for the second time. Especially after Waldo vanished from the court. Everyone knows he didn’t care for Hadley. And then, too, vamps don’t have funerals. So I guess the break-in wasn’t related. New Orleans does have a pretty high crime rate."

"Oh, you knew Waldo," I said, to interrupt the flow. Waldo, once the queen’s favorite – not in bed, but as a lackey, I thought – had resented being supplanted by my cousin Hadley. When Hadley remained in favor with the queen for an unprecedented length of time, Waldo lured her to St. Louis Cemetery Number One with the ruse of pretending they were going to raise the spirit of Marie Laveau, the notorious voodoo queen of New Orleans. Instead, he’d killed Hadley and blamed it on the Fellowship of the Sun. Mr. Cataliades had nudged me in the right direction until I’d figured out Waldo’s guilt, and the queen had given me the opportunity to execute Waldo myself – that was the queen’s idea of a big favor. I’d taken a pass on that. But he was finally, definitely dead, now, just like Hadley. I shuddered.

"Well, I know him better than I want to," she said, with the frankness that seemed to be Amelia Broadway’s defining characteristic. "I hear you using the past tense, though. Dare I hope that Waldo has gone to his final destination?" "You can," I said. "Dare, that is." "Oo-wee," she said happily. "My, my, my." At least I’d brightened someone’s day. I could see in Amelia’s thoughts how much she’d disliked the older vampire, and I didn’t blame her. He’d been loathsome. Amelia was a single-minded kind of woman, which must make her a formidable witch. But right now she should have been thinking about other possibilities involving me, and she wasn’t. There’s a downside to being focused on a goal.

"So you want to clear out Hadley’s apartment because you think your building won’t be targeted any more? By these thieves who’ve learned that Hadley’s dead?"

"Right," she said, taking a final gulp of her coffee. "I kind of like knowing someone else is here, too. Having the apartment empty just gives me the creeps. At least vampires can’t leave ghosts behind."

"I didn’t know that," I said. And I’d never thought about it, either.

"No vamp ghosts," Amelia said blithely. "Nary a one. Got to be human to leave a ghost behind. Hey, you want me to do a reading on you? I know, I know, it’s kind of scary, but I promise, I’m good at it!" She was thinking that it would be fun to give me a touristy-type thrill, since I wouldn’t be in New Orleans long; she also believed that the nicer she was to me, the quicker I’d clean out Hadley’s place so she could have the use of it back.

"Sure," I said slowly. "You can do a reading, right now, if you want." This might be a good measure of how gifted a witch Amelia really was. She sure didn’t bear any resemblance to the witch stereotype. Amelia looked scrubbed and glowing and healthy, like a happy suburban housewife with a Ford Explorer and an Irish setter. But quick as a wink, Amelia extricated a Tarot pack from a pocket of her cargo shorts and leaned over the coffee table to deal them out. She did this in a quick and professional way that didn’t make a bit of sense to me.

After poring over the pictures for a minute, her gaze stopped roaming over the cards and fixed on the table. Her face reddened, and she closed her eyes as if she were feeling mortified. Of course, she was.

"Okay," she said at last, her voice calm and flat. "What are you?"

"Telepath."

"I’m always making assumptions! Why don’t I learn!"

"No one thinks of me as scary," I said, trying to sound gentle, and she winced.

"Well, I won’t make that mistake again," she said. "You did seem more knowledgeable about supes than the ordinary person."

"And learning more every day." Even to myself, my voice sounded grim.

"Now I’ll have to tell my advisor that I blew it," my landlady said. She looked as gloomy as it was possible for her to look. Not very.

"You have a… mentor?"

"Yeah, an older witch who kind of monitors our progress the first three years of being a professional."

"How do you know when you’re a professional?"

"Oh, you have to pass the exam," Amelia explained, getting to her feet and going over to the sink. In a New York minute, she had washed the coffeepot and the filter apparatus, put them neatly in the drainer, and wiped out the sink.