Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (232 page)

“She doesn’t want to kill you,” I called, hardly knowing what I was doing.

I wasn’t even aware I’d gotten to my feet until I felt the eyes of everyone in the audience on me. Henrik Feith was staring at me, his face stunned, his mouth still open. “Tell us who told you that, and we’ll know who killed Jennifer Cater, because—”

“Woman,” said a stentorian voice, and I was drowned out and shut up very effectively. “Be silent. Who are you and what right do you have to intrude on these solemn proceedings?” The Pythoness was surprisingly forceful for someone as frail as she appeared. She was leaning forward on her throne, glaring in my direction with her blind eyes.

Okay, standing in a roomful of vampires and interrupting their ritual was a pretty good way to get bloodstains all over my beautiful new dress.

“I don’t have any right in the world, Your Majesty,” I said, and from a few yards to my left, I heard Pam snicker. “But I know the truth.”

“Oh, then I have no role in these proceedings, do I?” croaked the Ancient Pythoness in her heavily accented English. “Why should I have come forth from my cave to give judgment?”

Why, indeed.

“I may hear the truth, but I don’t have the juice to get justice done,” I said honestly.

Pam snickered again. I just knew it was her.

Eric had been standing to the side of the room with Pam and Bill, but now he moved forward. I could feel his presence, cold and steady, very near to me. He gave me some courage. I don’t know how. I felt it, though, felt a rising strength where there had been only my shaking knees. A shocking suspicion hit me with the force of a Mack truck. Eric had given me enough blood now that I qualified, hemoglobin-wise, as being close to a vampire; and my strange gift had slopped over into fatal territory. I wasn’t reading Henrik’s lawyer’s mind. I was reading
Henrik’s.

“Then come tell me what I must do,” said the Ancient Pythoness with a sarcasm so sharp it could have sliced a meat loaf.

I needed a week or two to get over the shock of my terrible suspicion, and I had a renewed conviction that I really ought to kill Andre, and maybe Eric, too, even if a corner of my heart would weep for the loss.

I had all of twenty seconds to process this.

Cleo gave me a sharp pinch. “Cow,” she said furiously. “You will ruin everything.” I edged left out of the row, stepping over Gervaise as I did so. I ignored his glare and Cleo’s pinch. The two were fleas compared to the other powers that might want a piece of me first. And Eric stepped up behind me. My back was covered.

As I moved closer to the platform, it was hard to tell what Sophie-Anne was thinking of this new turn in her unexpected trial. I concentrated on Henrik and his lawyer.

“Henrik thinks that the queen decided to have him killed. He was told that, so he would testify against her in self-defense,” I said.

Now I was behind the judges’ chairs on the floor, with Eric by my side.

“The queen didn’t decide to have me killed?” Henrik said, looking hopeful, confused, and betrayed all at the same time. That was a tall order for a vampire, since facial expressions are not their foremost means of communication.

“No, she didn’t. She was sincere in offering you a place.” I kept my eyes fixed on his, trying to drill my sincerity into his frightened brain. I’d moved almost squarely in front of him now.

“You’re probably lying, too. You’re in her pay, after all.”

“Perhaps I might have a word?” the Ancient Pythoness said, with acid sarcasm.

Oops. There was a silence that was just chilling.

“Are you a seer?” she asked, speaking very slowly so that I could understand her.

“No, ma’am, I’m a telepath.” This close, the Ancient Pythoness looked even older, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.

“You can read minds? Vampire minds?”

“No, ma’am, those are the only ones I can’t read,” I said very firmly. “I pieced all this together from the lawyer’s thoughts.”

Mr. Maimonides was not happy about that.

“All this was known to you?” the Ancient P. asked the lawyer.

“Yes,” he said. “I did know that Mr. Feith felt he was threatened with death.”

“And you knew the queen had offered to accept him into her service?”

“Yes, he told me she said so.” That was said in so doubtful a tone that you didn’t have to be an A.P. to read between the lines.

“And you did not believe the word of a vampire queen?”

Okay, that was a stumper for Maimonides. “I felt it my duty to protect my client, Ancient Pythoness.” He struck just the right note of humble dignity.

“Hmmm,” said the A.P., sounding as skeptical as I felt. “Sophie-Anne Leclerq, it is your turn to present your side of the story. Will you proceed?”

Sophie-Anne said, “What Sookie has said is true. I offered Henrik a place with me and protection. When we get to call witnesses, Ancient One, you will hear that Sookie is my witness and was there during the final fight between Peter’s people and mine. Though I knew that Peter married me with a secret agenda, I didn’t lift a hand against him until his people attacked on the night of our celebratory feast. Due to many circumstances, he didn’t get to pick his best moment to go after me, and as a result, his people died and most of mine lived. He actually began the attack when there were others there not of our blood.” Sophie-Anne managed to look shocked and saddened. “It has taken me all these months to be sure the accounts were hushed.”

I thought I’d gotten most of the humans and Weres out before the slaughter started, but apparently there’d been some around.

Probably they weren’t “around” anymore.

“In the time since that night, you have suffered many other losses,” the Ancient Pythoness observed. This sounded quite sympathetic.

I began to sense that the deck had been stacked in Sophie-Anne’s favor. Was it significant that Kentucky, who’d been courting Sophie-Anne, was the council member in charge of the proceedings?

“As you say, I’ve had many losses—both in terms of my people and in terms of my income,” Sophie-Anne agreed. “This is why I need my inheritance from my husband, to which I’m entitled as part of our marriage covenant. He thought he would inherit the rich kingdom of Louisiana. Now I will be glad if I can get the poor one of Arkansas.”

There was a long silence.

“Shall I call our witness?” Johan Glassport said. He sounded very hesitant and uncertain, for a lawyer. But in this courtroom, it wasn’t hard to understand why. “She’s already right here, and she was witness to Peter’s death.” He held out his hand to me, and I had to mount the platform. Sophie-Anne looked relaxed, but Henrik Feith, a few inches to my left, was gripping the arms of his chair.

Another silence. The wild white hair of the ancient vampire hung forward to hide her face as she stared at her own lap. Then she looked up, and her sightless eyes went unerringly to Sophie-Anne. “Arkansas is yours by law, and now yours by right. I declare you innocent of conspiring to murder your husband,” the Ancient Pythoness said, almost casually.

Well . . .
yippee
. I was close enough to see that Sophie-Anne’s eyes widened with relief and surprise, and Johan Glassport gave a private little grin to his lectern. Simon Maimonides looked down at the five judges to see how they’d take the A.P.’s pronouncement, and when none of them voiced a word of protest, the lawyer shrugged.

“Now, Henrik,” croaked the Ancient Pythoness, “your safety is assured. Who has told you lies?”

Henrik hardly looked assured. He looked scared witless. He rose to his feet to stand by me.

Henrik was smarter than we were. There was a flash through the air.

The next time an expression crossed his face, it was utter horror. He looked down, and we all followed his eyes. There was a thin wooden shaft protruding from his chest, and as soon as his eyes identified it, Henrik’s hand rose to touch it, and he swayed. A human crowd would have erupted in chaos, but the vampires threw themselves on the floor in near silence. The only person who shrieked was the blind Ancient Pythoness, who demanded to know what had happened and why everyone was so tense. The two Britlingens leaped across the stage to Kentucky and stood in front of him, their weapons in their hands and ready. Andre literally flew out of his seat in the audience to land in front of Sophie-Anne. And Quinn leaped across the stage to knock me down, and he took the second arrow, the insurance arrow, that was meant for Henrik. It was quite unnecessary. Henrik was dead when he hit the floor.

B
ATANYA KILLED THE ASSASSIN WITH A THROWING star. She was facing the crowd, so she saw the vampire left standing after all the others had prudently hit the floor. This vampire wasn’t firing the arrows from a bow; he was
throwing
them, which was why he’d managed to remain inconspicuous. Even in that group, someone carrying in a bow would have attracted a certain amount of attention.

Only a vampire could throw an arrow and kill someone. Perhaps only a Britlingen could throw a razor-sharp star in such a way as to decapitate a vampire.

I’ve seen vampires decapitated before, and it’s not as messy as you’d think; not like cutting off the head of a human. But it’s not pleasant, either, and as I watched the head topple off the shoulders, I had a moment of knee-knocking nausea from my position on the floor. I scrambled to my knees to check on Quinn.

“I’m not bad,” he said instantly. “Not bad. It’s in my shoulder, not my heart.” He rolled over to lie on his back. The Louisiana vamps had all leaped up to the platform to circle the queen, just a second behind Andre. Once they were sure the threat was over, they clustered around us.

Cleo threw off her tuxedo jacket and ripped off the pleated white shirt. She folded it into a pad in movements so fast I could hardly follow them. “Hold this,” she said, pressing it into my hand and placing my hand close to the wound. “Prepare to press hard.” She didn’t wait for me to nod. “Hold on,” she said to Quinn. And she put her strong hands on his shoulders to hold him still while Gervaise pulled the arrow out.

Quinn bellowed, not too surprisingly. The next few minutes were pretty bad. I pressed the pad against the wound, and while Cleo pulled on the tuxedo jacket over her black lace bra, she directed Herve, her human squeeze, to donate his shirt, too. I’ve got to say, he whipped it right off. There was something really shocking about seeing a bare hairy chest in the middle of all this evening finery. And it was beyond weird that I would note that, after I’d just seen a guy’s head separated from his body.

I knew Eric was beside me before he spoke, because I felt less terrified. He knelt down to my level. Quinn was concentrating on not yelling, so his eyes were shut as though he was unconscious and there was still lots of action going on all around me. But Eric was next to me, and I felt . . . not exactly calm, but not as upset. Because he was there.

I just hated that.

“He’s going to heal,” Eric said. He didn’t sound especially happy about it, but not sad, either.

“Yes,” I said.

“I know. I didn’t see it coming.”

“Oh, would you have flung yourself in front of me?”

“No,” Eric said simply. “Because it might have hit me in the heart, and I would die. But I would have dived in and tackled you to take you out of the arrow’s path if there had been time.”

I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“I know you may come to hate me because I spared you the bite of Andre,” he said quietly. “But I really am the lesser of two evils.”

I glanced sideways at him. “I know that,” I said, Quinn’s blood staining my hands as it soaked through the makeshift pad. “I wouldn’t have rather died than get bit by Andre, but it was a close thing.”

He laughed, and Quinn’s eyes flickered. “The weretiger is regaining consciousness,” Eric said. “Do you love him?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Did you love me?”

A team of stretcher bearers came over. Of course, these weren’t regular paramedics. Regular paramedics wouldn’t have been welcome in the Pyramid of Gizeh. These were Weres and shifters who worked for the vamps, and their leader, a young woman who looked like a honey bear, said, “We’ll make sure he gets healed in record time, lady.”

“I’ll check on him later.”

“We’ll take care of him,” she said. “Among us, he’ll do better. It’s a privilege to take care of Quinn.”

Quinn nodded. “I’m ready to be moved,” he said, but he was clenching the words between his teeth.

“See you later,” I said, taking his hand in mine. “You’re the bravest of the brave, Quinn.”

“Babe,” he said, biting his lower lip from the pain. “Be careful.”

“Don’t you be worrying about her,” said a black guy with a short, clipped Afro. “She’s got guardians.” He gave Eric a cool look. Eric held out his hand and I took it to stand up. My knees were aching a little after their acquaintance with the hard floor.

As they got him onto the stretcher and lifted him, Quinn seemed to lose consciousness. I started forward, but the black guy held out his arm. It looked like carved ebony, the muscles were so defined. “Sister, you just stay here,” he said. “We’re on the job now.”

I watched them carry him off. Once he was out of sight, I looked down at my dress. Amazingly, it was all right. Not dirty, not bloody, and the wrinkles were at a minimum.

Eric waited.

“Did I love you?” I knew Eric wasn’t going to give up, and I might as well figure out an answer. “Maybe. Sort of. But I knew all along that whoever was with me, it wasn’t the real you. And I knew sooner or later you’d remember who you were and what you were.”

“You don’t seem to have yes or no answers about men,” he said.

“You don’t exactly seem to know how you feel about me, either,” I said.

“You’re a mystery,” he said. “Who was your mother, and who was your father? Oh, I know, you’ll say they raised you from a child and died when you were a little girl. I remember you telling me the story. But I don’t know if it’s exactly true. If it is, when did the fairy blood enter your family tree? Did it come in with one of your grandparents? That’s what I’m supposing.”