Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [741]
I couldn’t help feeling a little anxious, since I was cutting my ties with my familiar life, at least temporarily. The Anubis Air employee in the cabin said, “Choose your seat, Miss Stackhouse.” She took the hanging bag from me and put it away. The interior of the aircraft was not like that of any human plane, or at least that was what the Anubis website had alleged. The Anubis fleet had been designed and outfitted for the transportation of sleeping vamps, with human passengers coming in second. There were coffin bays around the wall, like giant luggage bins, and at the front end of the aircraft there were three rows of seats, on the right three seats, and on the left two, for people like me . . . or, at least, people who were going to be helpful to the vamps at this conference in some capacity. At present, there were only three other people sitting in the seats. Well, one other human and two part-humans.
“Hi, Mr. Cataliades,” I said, and the round man rose from his seat, beaming.
“Dear Miss Stackhouse,” he said warmly, because that was the way Mr. Cataliades talked, “I am so very glad to see you again.”
“Pleased to see you, too, Mr. Cataliades.”
His name was pronounced Ka-TAL-ee-ah-deez, and if he had a first name, I didn’t know it. Sitting next to him was a very young woman with bright red spiked hair: his niece, Diantha. Diantha wore the strangest ensembles, and tonight she’d topped herself. Maybe five feet tall, bony thin, Diantha had chosen orange calf-length leggings, blue Crocs, a white ruffled skirt, and a tie-dyed tank top. She was dazzling to the eye.
Diantha didn’t believe in breathing while she talked. Now she said, “Goodtoseeya.”
“Right back at ya,” I said, and since she didn’t make any other move, I gave her a nod. Some supes shake hands, others don’t, so you have to be careful. I turned to the other passenger. With another human, I thought I was on firmer ground, so I held out my right hand. As if he’d been offered a dead fish, the man extended his own hand after a perceptible pause. He pressed my palm in a limp way and withdrew his fingers as if he could just barely refrain from wiping them on his suit pants.
“Miss Stackhouse, this is Johan Glassport, a specialist in vampire law.”
“Mr. Glassport,” I said politely, struggling not to take offense.
“Johan, this is Sookie Stackhouse, the queen’s telepath,” Mr. Cataliades said in his courtly way. Mr. Cataliades’s sense of humor was as abundant as his belly. There was a twinkle in his eye even now. But you had to remember that the part of him that wasn’t human—the majority of Mr. Cataliades—was a demon. Diantha was half-demon; her uncle even more.
Johan gave me a brief up-and-down scan, almost audibly sniffed, and returned to the book he had in his lap.
Just then, the Anubis stewardess began giving us the usual spiel, and I buckled myself into my seat. Soon after that, we were airborne. I didn’t have a twinge of anxiety, because I was so disgusted by Johan Glassport’s behavior.
I didn’t think I’d ever encountered such in-your-face rudeness. The people of northern Louisiana may not have much money, and there may be a high teen pregnancy rate and all kinds of other problems, but by God, we’re polite.
Diantha said, “Johan’sanasshole.”
Johan paid absolutely no attention to this accurate assessment but turned the page of his book.
“Thanks, dear,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Miss Stackhouse, bring me up to date on your life.”
I moved to sit opposite the trio. “Not much to tell, Mr. Cataliades. I got the check, as I wrote you. Thanks for tying up all the loose ends on Hadley’s estate, and if you’d reconsider and send me a bill, I’d be glad to pay it.” Not exactly glad, but relieved of an obligation.
“No, child. It was the least I could do. The queen was happy to express her thanks in that way, even though the evening hardly turned out like she’d planned.”
“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