From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)(44)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I thought about Sam, wished I could call him and talk to him for just a minute. But I wouldn’t drag him into this for the world, because that would mean his sure death. I closed my eyes and said good-bye to him.

There was a sound outside the door, and it took me a moment to interpret it as a tiger’s noise. Quinn wanted in.

Eric looked at me, and I shook my head. This was bad enough without throwing Quinn into the mix. Amelia whispered, "Sookie," and pressed her hand against me. It was the hand with the knife.

"Don’t," I said. "It won’t do any good." I hoped Victor didn’t realize what her intent was.

Eric’s eyes were wide and fixed on the future. They blazed blue in the long silence.

Then something unexpected happened. Frannie snapped out of the trance, and she opened her mouth and began to scream. When the first shriek ripped out of her mouth, the door began to thud. In about five seconds Quinn splintered my door by throwing his four hundred and fifty pounds against it. Frannie scrambled to her feet and ran for it, seizing the knob and yanking it open before Victor could grab her, though he missed her by half an inch.

Quinn bounded into the house so quickly he knocked his sister down. He stood over her, roaring at all of us.

To his credit Victor showed no fear. He said, "Quinn, listen to me."

After a second, Quinn shut up. It was always hard to say how much humanity was left in the animal form of a shifter. I’d had evidence the Weres understood me perfectly, and I’d communicated with Quinn before when he was a tiger; he’d definitely comprehended. But hearing Frannie scream had uncorked his rage and he didn’t seem to know where to aim it. While Victor was paying attention to Quinn, I fished a card out of my pocket.

I hated the thought of using my great-grandfather’s Get Out of Jail Free card so soon ("Love ya, Gramps – rescue me!"), and I hated the thought of bringing him without warning into a room full of vampires. But if ever there was a time for fairy intervention, that time would be now, and I might have left it too late. I had my cell phone in my pajama pocket. I pulled it out surreptitiously and flipped it open, wishing I’d put him on speed dial. I looked down, checking the number, and began to press the buttons. Victor was talking to Quinn, trying to persuade him that Frannie was not being hurt.

Did I not do everything right? Did I not wait until I was sure I needed him before I called? Had I not been so clever to have the card on me, to have the phone with me?

Sometimes, when you do everything right, it still turns out all wrong.

Just as the call went through, a quick hand reached around, plucked the phone from my hand, and dashed it against the wall.

"We can’t bring him in," Eric said in my ear, "or a war will start that will kill all of us."

I think he meant all of him, because I was pretty sure I would be okay if Great-grandpa started a war to keep me that way, but there was no help for it now. I looked at Eric with something very close to hatred.

"There’s no one you can call who would help you in this situation," Victor Madden said complacently. But then he looked a little less pleased with himself, as if he was having second thoughts. "Unless there is something I don’t know about you," he added.

"There is much you don’t know about Sookie," Bill said. It was the first time he’d spoken since Madden had entered. "Know this: I will die for her. If you harm her, I’ll kill you." Bill turned his dark eyes on Eric. "Can you say the same?"

Eric plainly wouldn’t, which put him behind in the "Who Loves Sookie More?" stakes. At the moment, that wasn’t so relevant. "You must also know this," Eric said to Victor. "Even more pertinently, if anything happens to her, forces you can’t imagine will be set into motion."

Victor looked deeply thoughtful. "Of course, that could be an idle threat," he said. "But somehow, I believe you are serious. If you’re referring to this tiger, though, I don’t think he’ll kill us all for her, since we have his mother and his sister in our grasp. The tiger already has a lot to answer for, since I see his sister here."

Amelia had moved over to put her arm around Frannie, both to sooth her and to include herself in the tiger’s circle of protection. She looked at me, thinking very clearly, Should I try some magic? Maybe a stasis spell?

It was very clever of Amelia to think of communicating this way with me, and I thought about her offer furiously. The stasis spell would hold everything exactly as it was. But I didn’t know if her spell could encompass the vampires waiting outside, and I couldn’t see the situation would be much improved if she froze only all of us in the room except for herself. Could she be specific about whom the spell affected? I wished that Amelia were telepathic, too, and I’d never wished that on anyone before. As things lay, there was just too much I didn’t know. Reluctantly I shook my head.

"This is ridiculous," Victor said. His impatience was calculated. "Eric, this is the bottom line and my last offer. Do you accept my king’s takeover of Louisiana and Arkansas, or do you want to fight to the death?"

There was another, shorter pause.

"I accept the sovereignty of your king," Eric said, his voice flat.

"Bill Compton?" Victor asked.

Bill looked at me, his dark eyes dwelling on my face. "I accept," he said.

And just like that, Louisiana had a new king, and the old regime was gone.

Chapter 13

I felt the tension whoosh out of me like the air out of a punctured tire.

Eric said, "Victor, call your people off. I want to hear you tell them."

Victor, beaming harder than ever, whipped a tiny cell phone from his pocket and called someone named Delilah to give her his orders. Eric used his own cell to phone Fangtasia. Eric told Clancy about the change in leadership.

"Don’t forget to tell Pam," Eric said very clearly, "lest she kill off a few more of Victor’s people."

There was an awkward pause. Everyone was wondering what came next.

Now that I was pretty sure I was going to live, I hoped Quinn would change back to his human form so I could talk to him. There was a lot to talk about. I wasn’t sure I had a right to feel this, but I felt betrayed.

I don’t think the world is about me. I could see he’d been forced into this situation.

There was always a lot of forcing around vampires.

As I saw it, this was the second time his mother had set Quinn up, quite inadvertently, to take her fall with the vamps. I got that she wasn’t responsible; truly, I did. She’d never wanted to be raped, and she hadn’t chosen to become mentally ill. I’d never met the woman and probably never would, but she was surely a loose cannon. Quinn had done what he could. He’d sent his sister ahead to warn us, though I wasn’t exactly sure that had ended up helping so very much.