Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(56)
Author: Charlaine Harris

We all stared at him. Was he channeling?

The queen’s bodyguard switched his gaze to the ectoplasmic Hadley. Andre said, "But Jake, I can’t stand it. I know she has to do this politically, but she’s sending me away! I can’t take it."

Andre could read lips. Even ectoplasmic lips. He began speaking again.

"Hadley, go up and sleep on it. You can’t go to the wedding if you’re going to create a scene. You know that would embarrass the queen, and it would ruin the ceremony. My boss will kill me if that happens. This is the biggest event we’ve ever worked."

He was talking about Quinn, I realized. Jake Purifoy was the employee Quinn had told me was missing.

"I can’t stand it," Hadley repeated. She was shrieking, I could tell from the way her mouth moved, but luckily Andre saw no need to imitate that. It was eerie enough hearing the words come out of his mouth. "I’ve done something terrible!" The melodramatic words sounded very strange in Andre’s monotone.

Hadley ran up the stairs, and Terry automatically moved out of the way to let her pass. Hadley unlocked the (already open) door and stormed into her apartment. We turned to watch Jake. Jake sighed, straightened up, and stepped away from the car, which vanished. He flipped open a cell phone and punched in a number. He spoke into the phone for less than a minute, with no pause for an answer, so it was safe to assume he’d gotten voice mail.

Andre said, "Boss, I have to tell you I think there’s going to be trouble. The girlfriend won’t be able to control herself on the day."

Oh my God, tell me Quinn didn’t have Hadley killed! I thought, feeling absolutely sick at the thought. But even as the idea formed fully, Jake wandered over to the rear of the car, which appeared again as he brushed against it. He ran his hand lovingly along the line of the trunk, stepping closer and closer to the area outside the gate, and suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed him. The witches’ area did not extend beyond the walls, so the rest of the body was absent, and the effect of a hand materializing from nowhere and seizing the unsuspecting Were was as scary as anything in a horror movie.

This was exactly like one of those dreams where you see danger approaching, but you can’t speak. No warnings on our part could alter what had already happened. But we were all shocked. The brothers Bert cried out, Jade Flower drew her sword without my even seeing her hand move, and the queen’s mouth fell open.

We could see only Jake’s feet, thrashing. Then they lay still.

We all stood and looked at each other, even the witches, their concentration wavering until the courtyard began to fill with mist.

"Witches!" Amelia called harshly. "Back to work!" In a moment, everything had cleared up. But Jake’s feet were still, and in a moment, their outline grew still more faint; he was fading out of sight like all the other lifeless objects. In a few seconds, though, my cousin appeared on the gallery above, looking down. Her expression was cautious and worried. She’d heard something. We registered the moment when she saw the body, and she came down the stairs with vampiric speed. She leaped through the gate and was lost to sight, but in a moment she was back in, dragging the body by the feet. As long as she was touching it, the body was visible as a table or chair would have been. Then she bent over the corpse, and now we could see that Jake had a huge wound in his neck. The wound was sickening, though I have to say that the vamps watching did not look sickened, but enthralled.

Ectoplasmic Hadley looked around her, hoping for help that didn’t come. She looked desperately uncertain. Her fingers never left Jake’s neck as she felt for his pulse.

Finally she bent over him and said something to him.

"It’s the only way," Andre translated. "You may hate me, but it’s the only way." We watched Hadley tear at her wrist with her own fangs and then put her bleeding wrist to Jake’s mouth, watched the blood trickle inside, watched him revive enough to grip her arms and pull her down to him. When Hadley made Jake let go of her, she looked exhausted, and he looked as if he were having convulsions.

"The Were does not make a good vampire," Sigebert said in a whisper. "I’ve never before seen a Were brought over."

It was sure hard for poor Jake Purifoy. I began to forgive him the horror of the evening before, seeing his suffering. My cousin Hadley gathered him up and carried him up the stairs, pausing every now and then to look around her. I followed her up one more time, the queen right behind me. We watched Hadley pull off Jake’s ripped clothes, wrap a towel around his neck until the bleeding stopped, and stow him in the closet, carefully covering him and closing the door so the morning sun wouldn’t burn the new vampire, who would have to lie in the dark for three days. Hadley crammed the bloody towel into her hamper. Then she stuffed another towel into the open space at the bottom of the door, to make sure Jake was safe.

Then she sat in the hall and thought. Finally she got her cell phone and called a number.

"She asks for Waldo," Andre said. When Hadley’s lips began moving again, Andre said, "She makes the appointment for the next night. She says she must talk to the ghost of Marie Laveau, if the ghost will really come. She needs advice, she says." After a little more conversation, Hadley shut her phone and got up. She gathered up the former Were’s torn and bloody clothing and sealed it in a bag.

"You should get the towel, too," I advised, in a whisper, but my cousin left it in the hamper for me to find when I arrived. Hadley got the car keys out of the trouser pockets, and when she went down the stairs, she got into the car and drove away with the garbage bag.

Chapter 18

"Your Majesty, we have to stop," Amelia said, and the queen gave a flick of her hand that might have been agreement.

Terry was so exhausted she was leaning heavily against the railing of the stairs, and Patsy was looking almost as haggard out on the gallery. The nerdy Bob seemed unchanged, but then he’d wisely seated himself in a chair to start with. At Amelia’s wordless signal, they began undoing the spell they’d cast, and gradually the eerie atmosphere lessened. We became an ill-assorted bunch of weird people in a courtyard in New Orleans, rather than helpless witnesses to a magical reenactment.

Amelia went to the corner storage shed and pulled out some folding chairs. Sigebert and Wybert did not understand the mechanism, so Amelia and Bob set the chairs out.

After the queen and the witches sat, there was one remaining seat, and I took it after a silent to and fro between me and the four vampires.

"So we know what happened the next night," I said wearily. I was feeling a little silly in my fancy dress and high-heeled sandals. It would be nice to put on my regular clothes.