Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [659]
Hadley threw herself out of the car. She was weeping, and from the looks of her face, she’d been weeping for some time. Jake Purifoy emerged from his side and stood there, his hands on the top of his door, talking across the roof of the car at Hadley.
For the first time, the queen’s personal bodyguard spoke. Andre said, “Hadley, you have to cut this out. People will notice, and the new king will do something about it. He’s the jealous kind, you know? He doesn’t care about—” Here Andre lost the thread, and shook his head. “He cares about keeping face.”
We all stared at him. Was he channeling?
The queen’s bodyguard switched his gaze to the ectoplasmic Hadley. Andre said, “But Jake, I can’t stand it. I know she has to do this politically, but she’s sending me away! I can’t take it.”
Andre could read lips. Even ectoplasmic lips. He began speaking again.
“Hadley, go up and sleep on it. You can’t go to the wedding if you’re going to create a scene. You know that would embarrass the queen, and it would ruin the ceremony. My boss will kill me if that happens. This is the biggest event we’ve ever worked.”
He was talking about Quinn, I realized. Jake Purifoy was the employee Quinn had told me was missing.
“I can’t stand it,” Hadley repeated. She was shrieking, I could tell from the way her mouth moved, but luckily Andre saw no need to imitate that. It was eerie enough hearing the words come out of his mouth. “I’ve done something terrible!” The melodramatic words sounded very strange in Andre’s monotone.
Hadley ran up the stairs, and Terry automatically moved out of the way to let her pass. Hadley unlocked the (already open) door and stormed into her apartment. We turned to watch Jake. Jake sighed, straightened up, and stepped away from the car, which vanished. He flipped open a cell phone and punched in a number. He spoke into the phone for less than a minute, with no pause for an answer, so it was safe to assume he’d gotten voice mail.
Andre said, “Boss, I have to tell you I think there’s going to be trouble. The girlfriend won’t be able to control herself on the day.”
Oh my God, tell me Quinn didn’t have Hadley killed! I thought, feeling absolutely sick at the thought. But even as the idea formed fully, Jake wandered over to the rear of the car, which appeared again as he brushed against it. He ran his hand lovingly along the line of the trunk, stepping closer and closer to the area outside the gate, and suddenly a hand reached out and grabbed him. The witches’ area did not extend beyond the walls, so the rest of the body was absent, and the effect of a hand materializing from nowhere and seizing the unsuspecting Were was as scary as anything in a horror movie.
This was exactly like one of those dreams where you see danger approaching, but you can’t speak. No warnings on our part could alter what had already happened. But we were all shocked. The brothers Bert cried out, Jade Flower drew her sword without my even seeing her hand move, and the queen’s mouth fell open.
We could see only Jake’s feet, thrashing. Then they lay still.
We all stood and looked at each other, even the witches, their concentration wavering until the courtyard began to fill with mist.
“Witches!” Amelia called harshly. “Back to work!” In a moment, everything had cleared up. But Jake’s feet were still, and in a moment, their outline grew still more faint; he was fading out of sight like all the other lifeless objects. In a few seconds, though, my cousin appeared on the gallery above, looking down. Her expression was cautious and worried. She’d heard something. We registered the moment when she saw the body, and she came down the stairs with vampiric speed. She leaped through the gate and was lost to sight, but in a moment she was back in, dragging the body by the feet. As long as she was touching it, the body was visible as a table or chair would have been. Then she bent over the corpse,