Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [655]
But I sure hadn’t seen this coming.
To my horror, tears began sliding down my face. I reached into my little purse, pulled out a Kleenex, and patted my cheeks while all the vamps stared at me, Jade Flower with the most identifiable expression I’d seen on her face: contempt.
“Are you in pain?” the queen asked, indicating my arm.
I didn’t think she really cared; I was sure that she had schooled herself to give the correct human response for so long that it was a reflex.
“Pain of the heart,” I said, and could have bitten my tongue off.
“Oh,” she said. “Bill?”
“Yes,” I said, and gulped, doing my best to stop the display of emotion.
“I grieved for Hadley,” she said unexpectedly.
“It was good she had someone to care.” After a minute I said, “I would have been glad to know she was dead earlier than I did,” which was as cautiously as I could express it. I hadn’t found out my cousin was gone until weeks after the fact.
“There were reasons I had to wait to send Cataliades down,” Sophie-Anne said. Her smooth face and clear eyes were as impenetrable as a wall of ice, but I got the definite impression that she wished I hadn’t raised the subject. I looked at the queen, trying to pick up on some clue, and she gave a tiny flick of the eye toward Jade Flower, who was sitting on her right. I didn’t know how Jade Flower could be sitting in her relaxed position with the long sword strapped to her back. But I definitely had the feeling that behind her expressionless face and flat eyes, Jade Flower was listening to everything that transpired.
To be on the safe side, I decided I wouldn’t say anything at all, and the rest of the drive passed in silence.
Rasul didn’t want to take the limo into the courtyard, and I recalled that Diantha had parked on the street, too. Rasul came back to open the door for the queen, and Andre got out first, looked around for a long time, then nodded that it was safe for the queen to emerge. Rasul stood at the ready, rifle in his hands, sweeping the area visually for attackers. Andre was just as vigilant.
Jade Flower slithered out of the backseat next and added her eyes to those scanning the area. Protecting the queen with their bodies, they moved into the courtyard. Sigebert got out next, ax in hand, and waited for me. After I’d joined him on the sidewalk, he and Wybert took me through the open gateway with less ceremony than the others had taken the queen.
I’d seen the queen at my own home, unguarded by anyone but Cataliades. I’d seen the queen in her own office, guarded by one person. I guess I didn’t realize until that moment how important security was for Sophie-Anne, how precarious her hold on power must be. I wanted to know against whom all these guards were protecting her. Who wanted to kill the Louisiana queen? Maybe all vampire rulers were in this much danger—or maybe it was just Sophie-Anne. Suddenly the vampire conference in the fall seemed like a much scarier proposition than it had before.
The courtyard was well lit, and Amelia was standing on the circular driveway with three friends. For the record, none of them were crones with broomsticks. One of them was a kid who looked just like a Mormon missionary: black pants, white shirt, dark tie, polished black shoes. There was a bicycle leaning up against the tree in the center of the circle. Maybe he was a Mormon missionary. He looked so young that I thought he might still be growing. The tall woman standing beside him was in her sixties, but she had a Bowflex body. She was wearing a tight T-shirt, knit slacks, sandals, and a pair of huge hoop earrings. The third witch was about my age, in her mid- to late twenties, and she was Hispanic. She had full cheeks, bright red lips, and rippling black hair, and she was short and had more curves than an S turn. Sigebert admired her especially (I could tell by his leer), but she ignored all the vampires as if she couldn’t see them.
Amelia might have been startled by the