Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [776]
“Okay,” Quinn said, holding out his hand. “Give it to me.”
I’d never wanted to do anything more in my life.
“Not till we know what it is,” I said. “Maybe it’s a camera. Maybe some tabloid is trying to get insider shots of the big vampire summit.” I tried to smile. “Maybe it’s a little computer, counting vampires and humans as they go by. Maybe it’s a bomb Jennifer Cater planted before she got offed. Maybe she wanted to blow up the queen.” I’d had a couple of minutes to think about this.
“And maybe it’ll take your hand off,” he said. “Let me take it, babe.”
“You sure you want to do that, after tonight?” I asked dismally.
“We can talk about that later. Don’t worry about it. Just give me the damn can.”
I noticed Todd Donati wasn’t offering, and he already had a fatal disease. Didn’t he want to go out as a hero? What was wrong with him? Then I was ashamed of myself for even thinking that. He had a family, and he’d want every minute with them.
Donati was sweating visibly, and he was white as a vampire. He was talking into the little headset he wore, relaying what he was seeing to . . . someone.
“No, Quinn. Someone with one of those special suits on needs to take it,” I said. “I’m not moving. The can’s not moving. We’re okay. Till one of those special guys gets here. Or special gal,” I added in the interest of fairness. I was feeling a little light-headed. The multiple shocks of the night were taking their toll on me, and I was beginning to tremble. Plus, I thought I was nuts for doing this; and yet here I was, doing it. “Anyone got X-ray vision?” I asked, trying to smile. “Where’s Superman when you need him?”
“Are you trying to be a martyr for these damn things?” Quinn asked, and I figured the “damn things” were the vampires.
“Ha,” I said. “Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, ’cause they love me. You see how many vampires are up here? Zero, right?”
“One,” said Eric, stepping out of the stairwell. “We’re bound a bit too tightly to suit me, Sookie.” He was visibly tense; I couldn’t remember ever seeing Eric so notably anxious. “I’m here to die right along with you, it seems.”
“Good. To make my day absolutely effing complete, here’s Eric again,” I said, and if I sounded a little sarcastic, well, I was due. “Are you all completely nuts? Get the hell out of here!”
In a brisk voice, Todd Donati said, “Well, I will. You won’t let anyone take the can, you won’t put it down, and you haven’t blown up yet. So I think I’ll go downstairs to wait for the bomb squad.”
I couldn’t fault his logic. “Thanks for calling in the troops,” I said, and Donati took the stairs, because the elevator was too close to me. I could read his head easily, and he felt deep shame that he hadn’t actually offered to help me in any more concrete way. He planned to go down a floor to where no one could see him and then take the elevator to save his strength. The stairwell door shut behind him, and then we three stood by ourselves in a triangular tableau: Quinn, Eric, and me. Was this symbolic, or what?
My head was feeling light.
Eric began to move very slowly and carefully—I think so I wouldn’t be startled. In a moment, he was at my elbow. Quinn’s brain was throbbing and pulsating like a disco ball farther to my right. He didn’t know how to help me, and of course, he was a bit afraid of what might happen.
Who knew, with Eric? Aside from being able to locate him and determine how he was oriented to me, I couldn’t see more.
“You’ll give it to me and leave,” Eric said. He was pushing his vampire influence at my head with all his might.
“Won’t work, never did,” I muttered.
“You are a stubborn woman,” he said.
“I’m not,” I said, on the verge of tears at being first accused of nobility, then stubbornness. “I just don’t want to move it! That’s safest!”
“Some might think you suicidal.”
“Well, ‘some’ can stick it up their ass.”
“Babe, put it down on the urn. Just lay it down re-a-a-llll easy,” Quinn said, his voice very gentle. “Then I’ll get