Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [689]
Quinn had the queen’s card to show to the guards at the gate, but still they called up to the main house. Quinn looked uneasy, and I hoped he was as concerned as I was about the extreme security and the fact that Threadgill’s vampires had worked so hard to distinguish themselves from the queen’s adherents. I was thinking hard about the queen’s need to offer the king’s vamps a reason she would go upstairs with me at Hadley’s. I thought of the anxiety she displayed when she asked about the bracelet. I thought of the presence of both camps of vampires at the main gate. Neither monarch trusted the spouse to provide protection.
It seemed like a long time before we were given leave to pass through. Quinn was as quiet as I while we waited.
The grounds seemed to be beautifully landscaped and kept, and they were certainly well lit.
“Quinn, this is just wrong,” I said. “What’s going on here? Do you think they’d let us leave?” Unfortunately, it seemed as though all my suspicions were true.
Quinn didn’t look any happier than I was. “They won’t let us out,” he said. “We have to go on now.” I clutched my little evening bag closer to me, wishing there was something more lethal in it than a few small items like a compact and a lipstick, and a tampon. Quinn drove us carefully up the winding drive to the front of the monastery.
“What did you do today, besides work on your outfit?” Quinn asked.
“I made a lot of phone calls,” I said. “And one of them paid off.”
“Calls? Where to?”
“Gas stations, all along the route from New Orleans to Bon Temps.”
He turned to stare at me, but I pointed just in time for Quinn to apply the brakes.
A lion strolled across the drive.
“Okay, what’s that? Animal? Or shifter?” I was edgier by the minute.
“Animal,” Quinn said.
Scratch the idea of dogs roaming the enclosure. I hoped the wall was high enough to keep the lion in.
We parked in front of the former monastery, which was a very large two-story building. It hadn’t been built for beauty, but for utility, so it was a largely featureless structure. There was one small door in the middle of the façade, and small windows placed regularly. Again, fairly easy to defend.
Outside the small door stood six more vampires, three in fancy but unmatching clothes—surely Louisiana bloodsuckers—and three more from Arkansas, in their glaringly garish outfits.
“That’s just butt-ugly,” I said.
“But easy to see, even in the dark,” Quinn said, looking as if he were thinking deep, significant thoughts.
“Duh,” I said. “Isn’t that the point? So they’ll instantly . . . oh.” I mulled it over. “Yeah,” I said. “No one would wear anything close to that, on purpose or by accident. Under any circumstances. Unless it was really important to be instantly identifiable.”
Quinn said, “It’s possible that Peter Threadgill is not devoted to Sophie-Anne.”
I gave a squawk of laughter just as two Louisiana vampires opened our car doors in a move so coordinated it must have been rehearsed. Melanie, the guard vampire I’d met at the queen’s downtown headquarters, took my hand to help me from the car, and she smiled at me. She looked a lot better out of the overwhelming SWAT gear. She was wearing a pretty yellow dress with low heels. Now that she wasn’t wearing a helmet, I could see her hair was short, intensely curly, and light brown.
She took a deep, dramatic breath as I passed, and then made an ecstatic face. “Oh, the odor of the fairy!” she exclaimed. “It makes my heart sing!”
I swatted at her playfully. To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Vampires, as a whole, are not noted for their sense of humor.
“Cute dress,” Rasul said. “Kind of on the daring side, huh?”
Chester said, “Can’t be too daring for me. You look really tasty.”
I thought