Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(57)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Uh, ‘scuse me, you might, but the rest of us don’t, and we want to know," Bob said. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he ought to be shaking in his sandals in the queen’s presence.

There was something kind of likable about the geeky witch. And all four had worked so hard; if they wanted to know the rest of the story, there wasn’t any reason they couldn’t hear it. The queen raised no objection. Even Jade Flower, who had resheathed her sword, looked faintly interested.

"The next night, Waldo lured Hadley to the cemetery with the story of the Marie Laveau grave and the vampire tradition that the dead can raise the dead – in this case, the voodoo priestess Marie Laveau. Hadley wanted Marie Laveau to answer her questions, which Waldo had told Hadley the ghost could, if the correct ritual was followed. Though Waldo gave me a reason Hadley agreed to do this on the night I met him, now I know he was lying. But I can think of several other reasons she might have agreed to go with Waldo to St. Louis Cemetery," I said. The queen nodded silently. "I think she wanted to find out what Jake would be like when he rose," I said. "I think she wanted to find out what to do with him. She couldn’t let him die, you saw that, but she didn’t want to admit to anyone that she had created a vampire, especially one that had been a Were."

I had quite an audience. Sigebert and Wybert were squatting on either side of the queen, and they were wrapped up in the story. This must be like going to the movies, for them.

All the witches were interested in hearing the backstory on the events they’d just witnessed. Jade Flower had her eyes fixed on me. Only Andre seemed immune, and he was busy doing his bodyguard job, constantly scanning the courtyard and the sky for attack.

"It’s possible, too, that Hadley might have believed the ghost could give her advice on how to regain the queen’s affections. No offense, ma’am," I added, remembering too late that the queen was sitting three feet away from me in a folding lawn chair with the Wal-Mart price label still hanging on a plastic loop.

The queen waved her hand in a negligent gesture. She was sunk in thought, so deeply that I wasn’t even sure she heard me.

"It wasn’t Waldo who drained Jake Purifoy," the queen said, to my amazement. "Waldo could not have imagined that when he succeeded in killing Hadley and reported it to me, blaming it on the Fellowship of the Sun, this clever witch would obey the order to seal the apartment very literally, including a stasis spell. Waldo already had a plan. Whoever killed Jake had a separate plan – perhaps to blame Hadley for Jake’s death and his rebirth… which would condemn her to jail in a vampire cell. Perhaps the killer thought that Jake would kill Hadley when he rose in three days… and possibly, he would have."

Amelia tried to look modest, but it was an uphill battle. It should have been easy, since the only reason she’d cast the spell was to prevent the apartment from smelling like garbage when it finally was reopened. She knew it, and I knew it. But it had been a pretty piece of witchcraft, and I wasn’t about to burst her bubble.

Amelia burst it all by herself.

"Or maybe," she said blithely, "someone paid Waldo to get Hadley out of the picture, by one means or another."

I had to shut down my shields immediately, because all the witches began broadcasting such strong panic signals that being around them was unbearable. They knew that what Amelia had said would upset the queen, and when the Queen of Louisiana was agitated, those around her tended to be even more agitated.

The queen shot out of her chair, so we all scrambled to our feet, hastily and clumsily. Amelia had just gotten her legs tucked underneath her, so she was especially awkward, which served her right. Jade Flower took a couple steps away from the rest of the vampires, but maybe she wanted more room in case she had to swing her sword. Andre was the only one who noticed that, besides me. He kept his gaze fixed on the king’s bodyguard.

I don’t know what would have happened next if Quinn hadn’t driven through the gate.

He got out of the big black car, ignored the tense tableau as if it didn’t even exist, and strode across the gravel to me. He casually draped an arm over my shoulders and bent to give me a light kiss. I don’t know how to compare one kiss to another. Men all kiss differently, don’t they? And it says something about their character. Quinn kissed me as if we were carrying on a conversation.

"Babe," he said, when I’d had the last word. "Did I get here at a good time? What happened to your arm?"

The atmosphere relaxed a bit. I introduced him to the people standing in the courtyard. He knew all the vampires, but he hadn’t met the witches. He moved away from me to meet and greet. Patsy and Amelia had obviously heard of him and tried hard not to act too impressed at meeting him.

I had to get the rest of the evening’s news off my chest. "My arm got bitten, Quinn," I began. Quinn waited, his eyes intent on my face. "I got bitten by a… I’m afraid we know what happened to your employee. His name was Jake Purifoy, wasn’t it?" I said.

"What?" In the bright lights of the courtyard, I saw that his expression was guarded. He knew something bad was coming; of course, seeing the assembled company, anyone would guess that.

"He was drained and left here in the courtyard. To save his life, Hadley turned him. He’s become a vampire."

Quinn didn’t comprehend, for a few seconds. I watched as realization dawned as he grasped the enormity of what had happened to Jake Purifoy. Quinn’s face became stony. I found myself hoping he never looked at me like that.

"The change was without the Were’s consent," the queen said. "Of course, a Were would never agree to become one of us." If she sounded a little snarky, I wasn’t too surprised. Weres and vamps regarded each other with scarcely concealed disgust, and only the fact that they were united against the normal world kept that disgust from flaring into open warfare.

"I went by your house," Quinn said to me, unexpectedly. "I wanted to see if you’d gotten back from New Orleans before I drove down here to look for Jake. Who burned a demon in your driveway?"

"Someone killed Gladiola, the queen’s messenger, when she came to deliver a message to me," I said. There was a stir among the vampires around me. The queen had known about Gladiola’s death, of course; Mr. Cataliades would have been sure to tell her. But no one else had heard about it.

"Lots of people dying in your yard, babe," Quinn said to me, though his tone was absent, and I didn’t blame him for that being on his back burner.

"Just two," I said defensively, after a quick mental rundown. "I would hardly call that a lot." Of course, if you threw in the people who’d died in the house… I quickly shut off that train of thought.