Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [758]
At that very opportune moment, a vampire flung open the door from the stairs and hurtled toward the death suite. But Baruch was just as swift, and he barred the way so that the new vampire bounced off him and onto the floor. The small vamp was up in a movement so quick my eyes couldn’t break it down and was making a desperate effort to get Baruch out of the doorway.
But the newcomer couldn’t, and finally he took a step away from the hotelier. If the smaller vampire had been human, he’d have been panting, and as it was his body shook with tremors of delayed action. He had brown hair and a short beard, and he was wearing a suit, a regular old JCPenney one. He looked like an ordinary guy until you saw his wide eyes and realized that he was some kind of lunatic.
“Is it true?” he asked, his voice low and intent.
“Jennifer Cater and her companions are dead,” Christian Baruch said, not without compassion.
The small man howled, literally howled, and the hair on my arms stood up. He sank to his knees, his body swaying back and forth in a transport of grief.
“I take it you are one of her party?” the queen said.
“Yes, yes!”
“Then now I am your queen. I offer you a place at my side.”
The howling stopped as if it had been lopped off by a pair of scissors.
“But you had our king killed,” the vampire said.
“I was the spouse of your king, and as such, I’m entitled to inherit his state in the event of his death,” Sophie-Anne said, her dark eyes looking almost benevolent, almost luminous. “And he is undoubtedly dead.”
“That’s what the fine print said,” Mr. Cataliades murmured in my ear, and I barely suppressed a yelp of astonishment. I’d always thought that what people said about big men moving lightly was total bullshit. Big people move bigly. But Mr. Cataliades walked as lightly as a butterfly, and I had no idea he was nearby until he spoke to me.
“In the queen’s wedding contract?” I managed to say.
“Yes,” he said. “And Peter’s attorney went over it very thoroughly indeed. The same applied in the event of Sophie-Anne’s death, too.”
“I guess there were a lot of clauses hanging on that?”
“Oh, just a few. The death had to be witnessed.”
“Oh, gosh. That’s me.”
“Yes, indeed it is. The queen wants you in her sight and under her thumb for a very good reason.”
“And other conditions?”
“There could be no second-in-command alive to take the state over. In other words, a great catastrophe had to occur.”
“And now it has.”
“Yes, it seems that it has.” Mr. Cataliades appeared quite pleased about that.
My mind was tumbling around like one of those wire bins they draw bingo numbers from at the fair.
“My name is Henrik Feith,” the small vamp said. “And there are only five vampires left in Arkansas. I am the only one here in Rhodes, and I am only alive because I went down to complain about the towels in the bathroom.”
I had to slap a hand over my own mouth to keep from laughing, which would have been, shall we say, inappropriate. Andre’s gaze remained fixed on the man kneeling before us, but somehow his hand wandered over and gave me a pinch. After that it was easy to not laugh. In fact, it was hard not to shriek.
“What was wrong with the towels?” Baruch said, completely sidetracked by this slur on his hotel.
“Jennifer alone used up three,” Henrik began explaining, but this fascinating byway was cut short when Sophie-Anne said, “Enough. Henrik, you come with us to my suite. Mr. Baruch, we look forward to receiving updates from you on this situation. Mr. Donati, are you intending to call the Rhodes police?”
It was polite of her to address Donati as though he actually had a say in what was done. Donati said, “No, ma’am, this seems like a vampire matter to me. There’s no body to examine now, there’s no film since there’s no security camera in the suite, and if you’ll look up . . .” We all did, of course, to the corner of