Sookie 07 All Together Dead (10 page)

"Of course, none of us imagined it would end that way." I thought of Wybert's head flying through the air surrounded by a mist of blood, and I shuddered.

"You are the witness," Johan said unexpectedly. He slipped a bookmark into his book and closed it. His pale eyes, magnified behind his glasses, were fixed on me. From being dog poop on his shoe, I had been transformed into something quite interesting and remarkable.

"Yeah. I'm the witness."

"Then we must talk, now."

"I'm a little surprised, if you're representing the queen at this very important trial, that you haven't gotten around to talking to me before," I said in as mild a voice as I could manage.

"The queen had trouble contacting me, and I had to finish with my previous client," Johan said. His unlined face didn't exactly change expression, but it did look a bit tenser.

"Johan was in jail," Diantha said very clearly and distinctly.

"Oh, my goodness," I said, truly startled.

Johan said, "Of course, the charges were completely unfounded."

"Of course, Johan," Mr. Cataliades said with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

"Ooo," I said. "What were those charges that were so false?"

Johan looked at me again, this time with less arrogance. "I was accused of striking a prostitute in Mexico."

I didn't know much about law enforcement in Mexico, but it did seem absolutely incredible to me that an American could get arrested in Mexico for hitting a prostitute, if that was the only charge. Unless he had a lot of enemies.

"Did you happen to have something in your hand when you struck her?" I asked with a bright smile.

"I believe Johan had a knife in his hand," Mr. Cataliades said gravely.

I know my smile vanished right about then. "You were in jail in Mexico for knifing a woman," I said. Who was dog poop now?

"A prostitute," he corrected. "That was the charge, but of course, I was completely innocent."

"Of course," I said.

"Mine is not the case on the table right now, Miss Stackhouse. My job is to defend the queen against the very serious charges brought against her, and you are an important witness."

"I'm the only witness."

"Of course – to the actual death."

"There were several actual deaths."

"The only death that matters at this summit is the death of Peter Threadgill."

I sighed at the image of Wybert's head, and then I said, "Yeah, I was there."

Johan may have been lower than pond scum, but he knew his stuff. We went through a long question and answer session that left the lawyer knowing more about what had happened than I did, and I'd been there. Mr. Cataliades listened with great interest, and now and then threw in a clarification or explained the layout of the queen's monastery to the lawyer.

Diantha listened for a while, sat on the floor and played jacks for half an hour, then reclined her seat and went to sleep.

The Anubis Airline attendant came through and offered drinks and snacks from time to time on the three-hour flight north, and after I'd finished my session with the trial lawyer, I got up to use the bathroom. That was an experience; I'd never been in an airplane bathroom before. Instead of resuming my seat, I walked down the plane, taking a look at each coffin. There was a luggage tag on each one, attached to the handles. With us in the plane today were Eric, Bill, the queen, Andre, and Sigebert. I also found the coffin of Gervaise, who'd been hosting the queen, and Cleo Babbitt, who was the sheriff of Area Three. The Area Two sheriff, Arla Yvonne, had been left in charge of the state while the queen was gone.

The queen's coffin was inlaid with mother-of-pearl designs, but the others were quite plain. They were all of polished wood: no modern metal for these vamps. I ran my hand over Eric's, having creepy mental pictures of him lying inside, quite lifeless.

"Gervaise's woman drove ahead by night with Rasul to make sure all the queen's preparations were in place," Mr. Cataliades's voice said from my right shoulder. I jumped and shrieked, which tickled the queen's civil lawyer pink. He chuckled and chuckled.

"Smooth move," I said, and my voice was sour as a squeezed lemon.

"You were wondering where the fifth sheriff was."

"Yes, but you were maybe a thought or two behind."

"I'm not telepathic like you, my dear. I was just following your facial expressions and body language. You counted the coffins and began reading the luggage tags."

"So the queen is not only the queen, but the sheriff of her own area."

"Yes; it eliminates confusion. Not all the rulers follow that pattern, but the queen found it irksome to constantly consult another vampire when she wanted to do something."

"Sounds like the queen." I glanced forward at our companions. Diantha and Johan were occupied: Diantha with sleep, Johan with his book. I wondered if it was a dissection book, with diagrams – or perhaps an account of the crimes of Jack the Ripper, with the crime scene photographs. That seemed about Johan's speed. "How come the queen has a lawyer like him?" I asked in as low a voice as I could manage. "He seems really... shoddy."

"Johan Glassport is a great lawyer, and one who will take cases other lawyers won't," said Mr. Cataliades. "And he is also a murderer. But then, we all are, are we not?" His beady dark eyes looked directly into mine.

I returned the look for a long moment. "In defense of my own life or the life of someone I loved, I would kill an attacker," I said, thinking before every word left my mouth.

"What a diplomatic way to put it, Miss Stackhouse. I can't say the same for myself. Some things I have killed, I tore apart for the sheer joy of it."

Oh, ick. More than I wanted to know.

"Diantha loves to hunt deer, and she has killed people in my defense. And she and her sister even brought down a rogue vampire or two."

I reminded myself to treat Diantha with more respect. Killing a vampire was a very difficult undertaking. And she could play jacks like a fiend.

"And Johan?" I asked.

"Perhaps I'd better leave Johan's little predilections unspoken for the moment. He won't step out of line while he's with us, after all. Are you pleased with the job Johan is doing, briefing you?"

"Is that what he's doing? Well, yes, I guess so. He's been very thorough, which is what you want."

"Indeed."

"Can you tell me what to expect at the summit? What the queen will want?"

Mr. Cataliades said, "Let's sit and I'll try to explain it to you."

For the next hour, he talked, and I listened and asked questions.

By the time Diantha sat up and yawned, I felt a bit more prepared for all the new things I faced in the city of Rhodes. Johan Glassport closed his book and looked at us, as if he were now ready to talk.

"Mr. Glassport, have you been to Rhodes before?" Mr. Cataliades asked.

"Yes," the lawyer answered. "I used to practice in Rhodes. Actually, I used to commute between Rhodes and Chicago; I lived midway between."

"When did you go to Mexico?" I asked.

"Oh, a year or two ago," he answered. "I had some disagreements with business associates here, and it seemed a good time to... "

"Get the heck out of the city?" I supplied helpfully.

"Run like hell?" Diantha suggested.

"Take the money and vanish?" Mr. Cataliades said.

"All of the above," said Johan Glassport with the faintest trace of a smile.

It was midafternoon when we arrived in Rhodes. There was an Anubis truck waiting to onload the coffins and transport them to the Pyramid of Gizeh. I looked out the limo windows every second of the ride into the city, and despite the overwhelming presence of the chain stores we also saw in Shreveport, I had no doubt I was in a different place. Heavy red brick, city traffic, row houses, glimpses of the lake... I was trying to look in all directions at once. Then we came into view of the hotel; it was amazing. The day wasn't sunny enough for the bronze glass to glint, but the Pyramid of Gizeh looked impressive anyway. Sure enough, there was the park across the six-lane street, which was seething with traffic, and beyond it the vast lake.

While the Anubis truck pulled around to the back of the Pyramid to discharge its load of vampires and luggage, the limo swept up to the front of the hotel. As we daytime creatures scooted out of the car, I didn't know what to look at first: the broad waters or the decorations of the structure itself.

The main doors of the Pyramid were manned by a lot of maroon-and-beige uniformed men, but there were silent guardians, too. There were two elaborate reproductions of sarcophagi placed in an upright position, one on each side of the main lobby doors. They were fascinating, and I would have enjoyed the chance to examine both of them, but we were swept into the building by the staff. One man opened the car door, one examined our identification to make sure we were registered guests – not human reporters, curiosity seekers, or assorted fanatics – and another pushed open the door of the hotel to indicate we should enter.

I'd stayed in a vampire hotel before, so I expected the armed guards and the lack of ground floor windows. The Pyramid of Gizeh was making more of an effort to look a bit like a human hotel than Dallas's Silent Shore had; though the walls held murals imitating Egyptian tomb art, the lobby was bright with artificial light and horribly perky with piped-in music – "The Girl from Ipanema" in a vampire hotel.

The lobby was busier than the Silent Shore's, too.

There were lots of humans and other creatures striding around purposefully, lots of action at the check-in desk, and some milling around the hospitality booth put up by the host city's vampire nest. I'd gone with Sam to a bar supply convention in Shreveport once when he was shopping for a new pump system, and I recognized the general setup. Somewhere, I was sure, there would be a convention hall with booths, and a schedule of panels or demonstrations.

I hoped there would be a map of the hotel, with all events and locations noted, in our registration packet. Or were the vampires too snooty for such mundane aids? No, there was a hotel diagram framed and lit for the perusal of guests and scheduled tours. This hotel was numbered in reverse order. The top floor, the penthouse, was numbered 1. The bottom, largest floor – the human floor – was numbered 15. There was a mezzanine between the human floor and lobby, and there were large convention rooms in the annex to the northern side of the hotel, the rectangular windowless projection that had looked so odd in the Internet picture.

I eyed people scurrying through the lobby – maids, bodyguards, valets, bellmen... Here we were, all us little human beavers, scurrying around to get things ready for the undead conventioneers. (Could you call them that, when this was billed as a summit? What was the difference?) I felt a little sour when I wondered why this was the order of things, when a few years ago, the vampires were the ones doing the scurrying, and that was back into a dark corner where they could hide. Maybe that had been the more natural way. I slapped myself mentally. I might as well go join the Fellowship, if that was how I really felt. I'd noticed the protesters in the little park across the street from the Pyramid of Gizeh, which some of the signs referred to as "The Pyramid of Geezers."

"Where are the coffins?" I asked Mr. Cataliades.

"They're coming in through a basement entrance," he said.

There had been a metal detector at the hotel door. I'd tried hard not to look when Johan Glassport had emptied his pockets. The detector had gone off like a siren when he'd passed through. "Do the coffins have to go through a metal detector, too?" I asked.

"No. Our vampires have wooden coffins, but the hardware on them is metal, and you can't empty the vampires out to search their pockets for other metal objects, so that wouldn't make any sense," Mr. Cataliades answered, for the first time sounding impatient. "Plus, some vampires have chosen the modern metal caskets."

"The demonstrators across the street," I said. "They have me spooked. They'd love to sneak in here."

Mr. Cataliades smiled, a terrifying sight. "No one will get in here, Miss Sookie. There are other guards that you can't see."

While Mr. Cataliades checked us in, I stood to his side and turned to look around at the other people. They were all dressed very nicely, and they were all talking. About us. I felt instantly anxious at the looks we were getting from the others, and the buzzing thoughts from the few live guests and staff reinforced my anxiety. We were the human entourage of the queen who had been one of the most powerful vampire rulers in America. Now she was not only weakened economically, but she was going on trial for murdering her husband. I could see why the other flunkies were interested – I would've found us interesting – but I was uncomfortable. All I could think about was how shiny my nose must be, and how much I wanted to have a few moments alone.

The clerk went over our reservations very slowly and deliberately, as if to keep us on exhibit in the lobby for as long as possible. Mr. Cataliades dealt with him with his usual elaborate courtesy, though even that was getting strained after ten minutes.

I'd been standing at a discreet distance during the process, but when I could tell the clerk – fortyish, recreational drug user, father of three – was just fucking us over to entertain himself, I took a step closer. I laid a hand on Mr. C's sleeve to indicate that I wanted to join in the conversation. He interrupted himself to turn an interested face toward me.

"You give us our keys and tell us where our vamps are, or I'll tell your boss that you're the one selling Pyramid of Gizeh items on eBay. And if you bribe a maid to even touch the queen's panties, much less steal 'em, I'll sic Diantha on you." Diantha had just returned from tracking down a bottle of water. She obligingly revealed her sharp, pointed teeth in a lethal smile.

The clerk turned white and then red in an interesting display of blood flow patterns. "Yes, ma'am," he stammered, and I wondered if he would wet himself. After my little rummage through his head, I didn't much care.

In very short order, we all had keys, we had a list of "our" vampires' resting places, and the bellman was bringing our luggage in one of those neat carts. That reminded me of something.

Barry, I said in my head. You here?

Yeah, said a voice that was far from the faltering one it had been the first time I'd heard it. Sookie Stackhouse?

It's me. We're checking in. I'm in 1538. You?

I'm in 1576. How are you doing?

Good, personally. But Louisiana... we've had the hurricane, and we've got the trial. I guess you know all about that?

Yeah. You saw some action.

You could say that, I told him, wondering if my smile was coming across in my head.

Got that loud and clear.

Now I had an inkling of how people must feel when they were faced with me.

I'll see you later, I told Barry. Hey, what's your real last name?

You started something when you brought my gift out into the open, he told me. My real name is Barry Horowitz. Now I just call myself Barry Bellboy. That's how I'm registered, if you forget my room number.

Okay. Looking forward to visiting with you.

Same here.

And then Barry and I both turned our attention to other things, and that strange tickling feeling of mind-to-mind communication was gone.

Barry's the only other telepath I've ever encountered.

Mr. Cataliades had discovered that the humans – well, the non-vampires – in the party had each been put in a room with another person. Some of the vampires had roommates, too. He hadn't been pleased that he himself was sharing a room with Diantha, but the hotel was extremely crowded, the clerk had said. He may have been lying about a lot of other things, but that much was clearly true.

I was sharing a room with Gervaise's squeeze, and as I slid the card into the slot on the door, I wondered if she'd be in. She was. I'd been expecting a woman like the fangbangers who hang around at Fangtasia, but Carla Danvers was another kind of creature entirely.

"Hey, girl!" she said, as I entered. "I figured you'd be along soon when they brought your bags up. I'm Carla, Gerry's girlfriend."

"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking hands. Carla was a prom queen. Maybe she hadn't been, literally; maybe she hadn't made homecoming queen, either, but she'd surely been on the court. Carla had dark brown chin-length hair, and big brown eyes, and teeth that were so straight and white that they were an advertisement for her orthodontist. Her breasts had been enhanced, and her ears were pierced, and her belly button, too. She had a tattoo on her lower back, some black vines in a vee pattern with a couple of roses with green leaves in the middle. I could see all this because Carla was naked, and she didn't seem to have the slightest idea that her nudity was a little on the "too much information" side to suit me.

"Have you and Gervaise been going together long?" I asked to camouflage how uncomfortable I was.

"I met Gerry, let's see, seven months ago. He said it would be better for me to have a separate room because he might have to have business meetings in his, you know? Plus, I'm going shopping while I'm here – retail therapy! Big city stores! And I wanted someplace to store my shopping bags so he won't ask me how much it all costs." She gave me a wink I can only say was roguish.

"Okay," I said. "Sounds good." It really didn't, but Carla's program was hardly my business. My suitcase was waiting for me on a stand, so I opened it and started to unpack, noting that my hanging bag with my good dresses was already in the closet. Carla had left me exactly half the closet space and drawer space, which was decent. She had brought about twenty times more clothes than I had, which made her fairness all the more remarkable.

"Whose girlfriend are you?" Carla asked. She was giving herself a pedicure. When she drew up one leg, the overhead light winked on something metallic between her legs. Completely embarrassed, I turned away to straighten my evening dress on the hanger.

"I'm dating Quinn," I said.

I glanced over my shoulder, keeping my gaze high.

Carla looked blank.

"The weretiger," I said. "He's arranging the ceremonies here."

She looked marginally more responsive.

"Big guy, shaved head," I said.

Her face brightened. "Oh, yeah, I saw him this morning! He was eating breakfast in the restaurant when I was checking in."

"There's a restaurant?"

"Yeah, sure. Though of course it's tiny. And there's room service."

"You know, in vampire hotels there often isn't a restaurant," I said, just to make conversation. I'd read an article about it in American Vampire.

"Oh. Well, that makes no sense at all." Carla finished one set of toes and began another.

"Not from a vampire point of view."

Carla frowned. "I know they don't eat. But people do. And this is a people world, right? That's like not learning English when you emigrate to America."

I turned around to check out Carla's face, make sure she was serious. Yeah, she was.

"Carla," I said, and then stopped. I didn't have any idea what to say, how to get across to Carla that a four-hundred-year-old vamp really didn't care very much about the eating arrangements of a twenty-year-old human. But the girl was waiting for me to finish. "Well, it's good that there's a restaurant here," I said weakly.

She nodded. "Yeah, 'cause I need my coffee in the morning," she said. "I just can't get going without it. Course, when you date a vamp, your morning is liable to begin at three or four in the afternoon." She laughed.

"True," I said. I'd finished unpacking, so I went over to our window and looked out. The glass was so heavily tinted that it was hard to make out the landscape, but it was seeable. I wasn't on the Lake Michigan side of the hotel, which was a pity, but I looked at the buildings around the west side of the hotel with curiosity. I didn't see cities that often, and I'd never seen a northern city. The sky was darkening rapidly, so between that and the tinted windows I really couldn't see too much after ten minutes. The vampires would be awake soon, and my workday would begin.

Though she kept up a sporadic stream of chatter, Carla didn't ask what my role was at this summit. She assumed I was there as arm candy. For the moment, that was all right with me. Sooner or later, she'd find out what my particular talent was, and then she'd be nervous around me. On the other hand, now she was a little too relaxed.

Carla was getting dressed (thank God) in what I thought of as "classy whore." She was wearing a glittery green cocktail dress that almost didn't have a top to it, and fuck-me shoes, and what amounted to a see-through thong. Well, she had her working clothes, and I had mine. I wasn't too pleased with myself for being so judgmental, and maybe I was a little envious that my working clothes were so conservative.

For tonight, I had chosen a chocolate brown lace handkerchief dress. I put in my big gold earrings and slid into brown pumps, put on some lipstick, and brushed my hair really well. Sticking my keycard into my little evening purse, I headed to the front desk to find out which suite was the queen's, since Mr. Cataliades had told me to present myself there.

I had hoped to run into Quinn along the way, but I didn't see hide nor hair of him. What with me having a roommate, and Quinn being so busy all the time, this summit might not promise as much fun on the side as I'd hoped.

The desk clerk blanched when he saw me coming, and he looked around to see if Diantha was with me. While he was scrawling the queen's room number on a piece of notepaper with a shaking hand, I looked around me with more attention.