Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [662]
I had to get the rest of the evening’s news off my chest. “My arm got bitten, Quinn,” I began. Quinn waited, his eyes intent on my face. “I got bitten by a . . . I’m afraid we know what happened to your employee. His name was Jake Purifoy, wasn’t it?” I said.
“What?” In the bright lights of the courtyard, I saw that his expression was guarded. He knew something bad was coming; of course, seeing the assembled company, anyone would guess that.
“He was drained and left here in the courtyard. To save his life, Hadley turned him. He’s become a vampire.”
Quinn didn’t comprehend, for a few seconds. I watched as realization dawned as he grasped the enormity of what had happened to Jake Purifoy. Quinn’s face became stony. I found myself hoping he never looked at me like that.
“The change was without the Were’s consent,” the queen said. “Of course, a Were would never agree to become one of us.” If she sounded a little snarky, I wasn’t too surprised. Weres and vamps regarded each other with scarcely concealed disgust, and only the fact that they were united against the normal world kept that disgust from flaring into open warfare.
“I went by your house,” Quinn said to me, unexpectedly. “I wanted to see if you’d gotten back from New Orleans before I drove down here to look for Jake. Who burned a demon in your driveway?”
“Someone killed Gladiola, the queen’s messenger, when she came to deliver a message to me,” I said. There was a stir among the vampires around me. The queen had known about Gladiola’s death, of course; Mr. Cataliades would have been sure to tell her. But no one else had heard about it.
“Lots of people dying in your yard, babe,” Quinn said to me, though his tone was absent, and I didn’t blame him for that being on his back burner.
“Just two,” I said defensively, after a quick mental rundown. “I would hardly call that a lot.” Of course, if you threw in the people who’d died in the house . . . I quickly shut off that train of thought.
“You know what?” Amelia said in a high, artificially social voice. “I think we witches will just mosey on down the street to that pizza place on the corner of Chloe and Justine. So if you need us, there we’ll be. Right, guys?” Bob, Patsy, and Terry moved faster than I’d thought they were able to the gate opening, and when the vampires didn’t get any signal from their queen, they stood aside and let them by. Since Amelia didn’t bother retrieving her purse, I hoped she had money in one pocket and her keys in another. Oh well.
I almost wished I were trailing along behind them. Wait a minute! Why couldn’t I? I looked longingly at the gate, but Jade Flower stepped into the gap and stared at me, her eyes black holes in her round face. This was a woman who didn’t like me one little bit. Andre, Sigebert, and Wybert could definitely take me or leave me, and Rasul might think I wouldn’t be a bad companion for an hour on the town—but Jade Flower would enjoy whacking off my head with her sword, and that was a fact. I couldn’t read vampire minds (except for a tiny glimpse every now and then, which was a big secret) but I could read body language and I could read the expression in her eyes.
I didn’t know the reason for this animosity, and at this point in time I didn’t think it mattered a heck of a lot.
The queen had been thinking. She said, “Rasul, we shall go back to the house very shortly.” He bowed and walked out to the car.
“Miss Stackhouse,” she said, turning her eyes on me. They shone like dark lamps. She took my hand, and we went up the stairs to Hadley’s apartment, Andre trailing behind us like something tied to Sophie-Anne’s leg with string. I kept having the unwise impulse to yank my hand from the queen’s, which of course was cold and dry and strong, though she was careful not to squeeze. Being so close to the ancient vampire made me vibrate like a violin string. I didn’t see