From Dead to Worse (Sookie Stackhouse #8)(54)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"We bring you greetings from our grandfather," Claude said. His voice was so quiet and liquid that I was sure no one else would be able to hear it. Possibly Sam could, but he was always good for discretion.

"He wonders why you haven’t called," Claudine said, "especially considering the events of the other night, in Shreveport."

"Well, that was over with," I said, surprised. "Why tell him about something that had already turned out okay? You were there. But I did try to call him the other night."

"It rang once," Claudine murmured.

"However, a certain person broke my phone so I couldn’t complete the call. He told me it was the wrong thing to do, that it would start a war. I lived through that, too. So that was okay."

"You need to talk to Niall, tell him the whole story," Claudine said. She smiled across the room at Catfish Hennessy, who put his beer mug down on the table so hard that it slopped over. "Now that Niall’s made himself known to you, he wants you to confide in him."

"Why can’t he pick up the phone like everyone else in the world?"

"He doesn’t spend all his time in this world," Claude said. "There are still places for only our kind."

"Very small places," Claudine said longingly. "But very special."

I was glad to have kin, and I was always glad to see Claudine, who was literally my lifesaver. But the two sibs together were a little overpowering, overwhelming – and when they stood so close with me crowded between them (even Sam was having a visual from that), their sweet smell, the smell that made them so intoxicating to vampires, was drowning my poor nose.

"Look," Claude said, mildly amused. "I think we have company."

Arlene was sidling nearer, looking at Claude as if she’d spied a whole plate of barbecue and onion rings. "Who’s your friend, Sookie?" she asked.

"This is Claude," I said. "He’s my distant cousin."

"Well, Claude, nice to meet ya," Arlene said.

She had some nerve, considering the way she felt about me now and how she’d treated me since she’d started going to the Fellowship of the Sun services.

Claude looked massively uninterested. He nodded.

Arlene had expected more, and after a moment of silence, she pretended to hear someone from one of her tables calling her. "Gotta go get a pitcher!" she said brightly, and bustled off. I saw her bend over a table, talking very seriously to a couple of guys I didn’t know.

"It’s always good to see you two, but I am at work," I said. "So, did you just come to tell me my… that Niall wants to know why I called once and hung up?"

"And never called thereafter to explain," Claudine said. She bent down to kiss my cheek. "Please call him tonight when you get off work."

"Okay," I said. "I still wish he’d called me himself to ask." Messengers were all well and good, but the phone was quicker. And I’d like to hear his voice. No matter where my great-grandfather might be, he could wink back into this world to call if he really was that taxed about my safety.

I thought he could, anyway.

Of course, I didn’t know what being a fairy prince entailed. Write that down under "problems I know I’ll never face."

After another round of hugs and kisses, the twins sauntered out of the bar, and many wistful eyes followed them on their progress out the door.

"Hoo, Sookie, you got some hot friends!" Catfish Hennessy called, and there was a general tide of agreement.

"I’ve seen that guy at a club in Monroe. Doesn’t he strip?" said a nurse named Debi Murray who worked at the hospital in nearby Clarice. She was sitting with a couple of other nurses.

"Yeah," I said. "He owns the club, too."

"Looks and loot," said one of the other nurses. Her name was Beverly something. "I’m taking my daughter next ladies’ night. She just broke up with a real loser."

"Well…" I debated explaining that Claude wouldn’t be interested in anyone’s daughter, then decided that wasn’t my responsibility. "Have a good time," I said instead.

Since I’d taken time out with my sort-of cousins, I had to hustle to sweeten everyone up. Though they hadn’t had my attention during the visit, they had had the entertainment of the twins, so no one was really miffed.

Toward the end of my shift, Copley Carmichael walked in.

He looked funny alone. I assumed Marley was waiting in the car.

In his beautiful suit and with his expensive haircut, he didn’t exactly fit in, but I got to give him credit: he acted like he came into places like Merlotte’s all the time. I happened to be standing by Sam, who was mixing a bourbon and Coke for one of my tables. I explained to Sam who the stranger was.

I delivered the drink and nodded at an empty table. Mr. Carmichael took the hint and settled in.

"Hey! Can I get you a drink, Mr. Carmichael?" I said.

"Please get me a single malt scotch," he said. "Whatever you’ve got will be fine. I’m meeting someone here, Sookie, thanks to your phone call. You just tell me the next time you need anything, and I’ll do everything in my power to make it happen."

"Not necessary, Mr. Carmichael."

"Please, call me Cope."

"Um-hmmm. Okay, let me get your scotch."

I didn’t know a single malt scotch from a hole in the ground, but Sam did, of course, and he gave me a shining clean glass with a very respectable shot of it. I serve liquor, but I seldom drink it. Most folks around here drink the real obvious stuff: beer, bourbon and Coke, gin and tonic, Jack Daniel’s.

I set the drink and cocktail napkin on the table in front of Mr. Carmichael, and I returned with a little bowl of snack mix.

Then I left him alone, because I had other people to tend to. But I kept track of him. I noticed Sam was keeping a careful eye on Amelia’s dad, too. But everyone else was too involved in their own conversations and their own drinking to give much mind to the stranger, one not nearly as interesting as Claude and Claudine.

In a moment when I wasn’t looking, a vampire joined Cope. I don’t think anyone else knew what she was. She was a real recent vamp, by which I mean she’d died in the past fifty years, and she had prematurely silver hair that was cut in a modest chin-length style. She was small, maybe five foot two, and she was round and firm in all the right places. She was wearing little silver-rimmed glasses that were sheer affectation, because I’d never met a vampire whose eyesight wasn’t absolutely perfect and in fact sharper than any human’s.

"Can I get you some blood?" I asked.

Her eyes were like lasers. Once she was really giving you her attention, you were sorry.