I bought a rather sad looking sandwich from the convenience store on my walk home. It cost six lousy bucks, so I made sure I ate it all even though it tasted closer to the cardboard it was packaged in rather than the chicken salad it claimed to be.
Earlier at the meeting, Desmond had informed Ryker I would need time to decide, so the President Alpha had left, taking his merry band of federal agents with him. I'd then managed to work a couple futile hours at my desk, trying and failing to prepare a legal memo for a new case Desmond had taken the previous week. I was not the best at them on a good day; today was worse. While my fingers were willing and able to work, my brain was failing to respond… All I could think about was the meeting with Ryker. About being stuck in the center of another war, and having FBI agents poking their noses in my business again. And worse, all I could see was the Lydia's face, gaunt and drained. A gothic Snow White princess.
Desmond eventually stuck his head out from his office and told me my thoughts were a distraction and to come back in the morning. "Sleep," he said. "You have a big decision to make."
I wasn't sure if I wanted to laugh or cry. What decision? How could you say no to one of the most powerful supes in North America? His only reply to this thought was a sympathetic smile.
Diantha had disappeared straight after the meeting and wasn't home when I got back in. I crossed the threshold and let out a sigh of relief. The mental background noise of the city muted to a soft mumble as soon as I crossed the ward. Silence was golden. I kicked my heels off onto the mat and collapsed on the couch. It was lumpy and the fabric was starting to pill on the cushions, but it was comfy as all heck. I'm just gonna lay here for a small moment, I told myself, just a teeny little moment to rest my eyes, then I'll get out of my work clothes. While my black pencil skirt did wonders for my figure, it pinched the heck out of my hips. I undid the zip at my hip.
When I opened my eyes again it was dark. I groaned and dragged myself upright. I rubbed my face blearily. Even in my dreams, the vision of the poor girl's body followed me. It felt like morning, though the clock on the TiVo informed me it wasn't long after nine pm. What a way to waste a paid day off.
I showered and got into a fresh set of pajamas and sat on the couch with some reheated leftovers and a glass of unsweetened tea. I distractedly managed to get through half an episode of Friends before turning it off.
I opened my work laptop and scoured the news headlines for articles on Lydia's murder. The police had only released the basics. Lydia Ryker was found drained in her apartment. There was a person of interest, a relatively young vampire by the name of Floyd Chapman, who was wanted for questioning. There was an accompanying photo of him—a license photo, judging by the look of it. It depicted a stern-faced vampire, he looked as though he was turned in his twenties. He had deep set eyes and a mouth like a pale red slash. Was this who she was living with? I was interested to note that Lydia was Ryker's third child, which mean she was not a twoey. Only the first borns were two-natured.
I searched for Lydia on Facebook, but her profile was private. Next, I did a web search for both her and Floyd Chapman's name at the same time. Half-way down the second page, after all the news headlines, I got a hit. I clicked the link. It was an article for a Tulane University art show from the year before. Lydia and Floyd were pictured together, both smiling with another group of people, their names listed underneath as attendees on the opening night. It was hard to tell, but they might've been a couple, simply judging by how close they stood shoulder-to-shoulder. Her eyes were alive with mirth, her smile sweet and broad. Was Floyd the live-in boyfriend?
Ryker had discussed the possibility of his daughter's murder sparking a war between the local weres and vampires. It frightened me. What if war was the intention, though? Maybe this vampire Floyd targeted Lydia—pursued her—with the intention of killing her to incite a war between weres and vampires? It felt like a reach. Or was he instead abusive and their relationship troubled? Which motive was worse? Did it even matter? This young woman was dead either way. And maybe more would die too.
I closed the laptop and slumped back into the couch. I could hear residents down in the courtyard pool, splashing and laughing. It was end of June and hotter than Hades. The pool technically closed at 9pm on weeknights but management seemed pretty loose with the rules over summer and let the lights stay on a little later for residents who wanted to use the grill facilities and linger around the pool to cool off. It was pleasant background noise, though I had to actively block out their thoughts. Amelia's wards only lowered the mental volume of the thoughts of my neighbors while in their condos. She had told me she could mute the minds of anyone on the grounds more or less completely, but it was a security risk... and not one I was willing to take. If there was someone lurking on the street or even on the condo grounds, I wanted to know about it.
There were 12 duplex condos that made up the complex, and all were occupied, except the one we shared a wall with (which remained perpetually empty), and as far as I could tell everyone was human except for Diantha—and me, if I wanted to get technical. It was nice to surround myself in normality. Because the abnormal seemed to have a pesky habit of seeking me out. I experienced a flash of self-pity. I firmly squashed it like a bug.
A poor girl was dead, and I was the one moping around because it affected me? How disgraceful could I be? I stood up and got dressed.
•───── ─────•
A tall werewolf, his neck as wide as my thigh, steered me through the main entrance of the local pack's headquarters. I hurried to keep pace alongside his broad strides. The building was sparsely furnished and cold like a government office. We passed a darkened open-plan room filled with office cubicles and another room that was eerily similar to the conference room at work. At the end of the hall, we paused in front of a set of reinforced double doors where two guards dressed in black nodded to us. They unlocked the doors, which involved releasing a series of steel interlocking bars and opened them.
We climbed a set of wide stairs and came to a stop. I gasped softly as the huge were gestured for me to continue forward. It was an indoor amphitheater, easily the size of half a city block. It closely resembled the pits where I'd once visited with Quinn, and it stank something awful. Like blood, swampy sweat and suffering. The seating area was covered in darkness, but the circular arena was lit by several spotlights.
Agent Weiss, her young agent accomplice whose name I'd forgot, plus President Alpha Ryker and a couple of twoeys were positioned around a chair where a vampire sat slumped. A vampire I recognized. Floyd Chapman. Though his face was pulpy, beaten and bloody, and his wrists and ankles were chained with manacles attached to the floor. Dark, ruby red blood pooled around the chair legs, moving in thick rivers toward a drain in the center of the room. The fact his face wasn't healing meant one of two things: either his beating had been so severe his body could no longer keep up, or he'd been so drained of blood to the point he was unable to heal. I swallowed the ball of apprehension that had gathered in my throat. Every instinct told me to turn, run, leave.
All eyes turned to me as I descended the stairs alone, my were escort disappearing from whence he came. Ryker acknowledged me with a deep nod before introducing me to the group of weres present. There was Fernanda, the pack master for New Orleans' Shadow Run pack, and two additional pack members, Josiah and Nathan. I came to a standstill by the group and my gaze moved past the weres and blank-faced FBI agents to search the darkened rows of seating behind them.
Ryker made a small gesture toward the back corner of the room and floodlights illuminated the seating with a clap of sound. I sucked in a soft breath. There sat a cool-faced Felipe de Castro. Beside him was Thalia, broad sword strapped to her back, and several seats to Felipe's right sat a slim woman with dark, braided hair and the same glamoured-blank expression as the agents.
I lowered my head and bowed immediately to Ryker and then showed the same respect for Felipe. Working for Mr. C had well and truly rid me of any social improprieties when it came to dealing with supes, particularly supes who held rank. Well… it rid me of most of them. I wasn't so confident my mouth could be taught to capitulate. In fact, my whole body trembled with restrained anger. It was the first time I'd seen Felipe de Castro since Louisiana's vampire king had burned down my bar. Correction, since he arranged to have it burned down. It took everything in me not to jump across the seats and wring his neck and scream in his face.
"Thank you for joining us, Miss Stackhouse," said Ryker.
"Yes," said Felipe folding his hands, one over the other, delicately across his knees. "We thank you, Meez Stackhouse."
"No thanks necessary," I said, managing to swallow back the chokehold anger currently held me in. "I want to help."
With a deep breath, I forced my mind away from Felipe and past events and focused on what was in front of me. I waved a hand in front of Agent Weiss' face and she gazed on, unblinking.
"Why are the agents even here?" I asked Ryker.
Even with my shields kept high, Ryker's emotions were roiling like lava, though his outer demeanor gave off absolutely nothing. It was impressive. It reminded me a little of those few times I'd tapped into a vampire's mind. So much going on under a cool exterior surface.
"They wished to be present for the interrogation," said Felipe, still not bothering to move from his seat in the audience. "And so in body they are here, though perhaps not in mind." O-kay then. It took in the scene around me. It occurred to me then that Felipe was sitting in the audience because he wanted to stay out of the splash zone.
"So what have y'all found out?"
Fernanda pulled Floyd's head back with a vicious tug. "He says he didn't do it," she said with an accented snarl. The vampire's eyeballs turned my direction. They were flat and devoid of emotion. "Says he was with that human," she continued. That human. She meant the dark-haired woman in the stands.
"Have you questioned her?" I directed to Ryker.
He nodded, folding his arms across his chest. "She has no memory of this piece of shit. He claims he glamoured her to forget their time together."
"Convenient," I said, and Ryker nodded in agreement.
"Lydia wanted monogamy," Floyd rasped from his awkward position. "I glamour away the memory of all my meals. It's better that way."
Ryker growled and Fernanda snarled, tugging his head back further.
"Better for whom?" I asked.
"For her, of course."
I scoffed and mirrored Ryker's cross-armed stance. "More like it's better for you. Easier to placate your human when she doesn't know you're cheating." I thought of Bill. He's been unfaithful to me with his maker. But I wouldn't be surprised if that behavior didn't extend to humans too.
"Can you see if any memory exists?" Ryker asked. Well, I could try. I crossed the floor and moved up into the row of seating alongside the young woman. I took her hand in mine.
"I shall slowly release my glamour," Felipe said. "She is most unpleasant. A screamer." I nodded and gently guided the girl's chin so that she was facing me. She blinked once, and I offered her a warm smile.
"Hey, hon. Please don't panic. You're safe." Right on cue, she began sobbing and crawled backward up her seat attempting to get far away as possible from the bloody mess on display center-stage.
"Wait, wait, wait," I said, squeezing her hand as it threatened to slip from my grasp. "I have some questions. No one will hurt you. Answer my questions and we'll let you go. Isn't that right, your majesty?"
Despite the withering stare sent my way, Felipe agreed. He clearly believed he had better places to be and more important things to do. I mean why else would someone wear a cape to an interrogation?
"Why am I here?" she whimpered.
"That man there?" I said pointing to Floyd behind me. "He says you're his alibi. His girlfriend died last night."
"Wife!" Floyd called.
There was a roar and a clatter behind me and I spun in time to see Ryker slam Floyd to the ground. "You lie! No child of mine would ever marry a corpse!"
Fernanda and one of the other twoeys dragged Ryker away from a laughing Floyd.
"Check the registry, if you don't believe me," Floyd said. "We married in January. You think she cared that I was a vampire? She fucking loved it. She begged me to bite her. She wanted me to turn her."
Ryker roared again and with a sickening gloopy sound he transformed. He escaped the hold of the weres and leaped at Floyd in his enormous black-and-gray-haired wolf-form. The girl beside me screamed, so earnest and shrill that it took me back to the good old days of Ginger at Fangtasia. Thalia appeared center-stage in a blur, her sword pressed against Ryker's neck.
Felipe stood up and clapped once. The sound echoed, authoritative. Screaming ceased. The screamer was under the force of his glamour again.
"Enough," Felipe commanded. "You are not to kill him. That is not your decision to make."
Ryker growled and the leaders had some sort of silent stare down before Ryker finally transformed back to human, Thalia's sword still to his neck, his eyes as yellow as a rising moon. "You call this working cooperatively? Is this the so-called respeto mutuo you promised?" he snarled.
It was quite a sight to see the president of all two-natured folk on his hands and knees nude, Thalia's blade at his throat.
"I tire of overt displays of machismo that result in nothing. There is one way to confirm if the vampire tells the truth." Felipe lifted his finger and gestured to Thalia. She released Ryker and moved to Floyd in a blur too fast to catch. Her sword traveled through the air in a swift arc of silver. Floyd's head fell to the floor with a dull thud and rolled away to join a puddle of his own blood. And then promptly disintegrated into a pile of sludge.
The woman screamed again, and this time I grabbed both her wrists to prevent her from running. Felipe quickly stole her gaze and glamoured her back into silence. Evidently whatever hold he'd put her under hadn't been enough.
"You killed him!" I said, bewildered more than anything else.
"So it would appear, Miss Stackhouse." Felipe, with a flourish, he tossed his cape back and joined Ryker on the arena floor. I gently led the girl in the same direction.
"The FBI will ask questions. The media will too," Ryker remarked, not looking at all troubled by the disintegrating vampire on the floor. I tried not to look. "Killing him was excessive."
And not cruel enough, seemed to be the unspoken follow up to his statement.
"He was willfully impeding a royal investigation," Felipe said. "Regardless, his presence here this evening was unnecessary. Your trackers scented him and no others at your daughter's residence. Now the question of his whereabouts will be put to rest by this young woman."
"If the knowledge hasn't been completely wiped," I said.
"The claim of his glamour likely fade now that he has met the true death."
"Well, I can't question this woman until you lift your hold on her, your majesty," I said. "And you can't lift your hold on her in the current circumstances." The current circumstances being the bloody, ashy sludge spread all over the floor that was once a vampire.
We moved to a locker room off to the side of the arena and, at my insistence, I was left alone with the woman and Thalia. With a stern word I convinced Thalia to sheathe her bloody sword, and she then gently eased away the King's hold of glamour. The woman, her eyes the same fawn color as her skin, turned this way and that trying to take in the new surrounds.
"What's going on?" she asked, hands fluttering to take hold of the silver cross hanging around her neck. "Where am I?"
"You're on your way home," I said. "We just had to stop by here quickly so I can ask you a couple questions."
A vague sort of confused uncertainty pinched her features. "What questions…?"
"Do you remember where you were last night? What you were doing?" I touched her arm reassuringly and slid into her thoughts. Glamour existed there, but it was as translucent as watercolor paint. It took several minutes but the truth sat dormant in her mind as if waiting to be read; she spilled everything she knew. It was funny how glamour worked like that, sometimes memories were completely erased by a vampire, other times they were just lost and waiting to be found.
I shared a significant look with Thalia. "They were together. Have the authorities determined Lydia's time of death?" I asked. Ryker appeared at my shoulder. He'd been listening at the door. He was decent again, back in his suit pants and black button up.
"Rigor mortis hadn't set in when you found her," he said and I nodded. I wasn't quite sure of its significance in terms of her time of death.
"Haley here says she met Floyd on campus grounds soon after dark. Eight-thirty-ish. She took him back to her dorm room and he didn't leave till after midnight. I don't think this is the first time they've hooked up."
Ryker shook his head, confusion and incredulity sparring for dominance within him. "No, that time can't be right. How sure are you?"
"Sure," I said.
"100%?"
"I'm 100% sure that was her memory of last night's events." Memory was as malleable as play-doh. I couldn't guarantee what exactly had happened, but I could guarantee what she remembered to have happened.
Ryker slammed an open palm against the side of a locker. I jumped. His hand left a dent in the metal. The woman refrained from screaming again, largely because Thalia had glamoured her once more.
"If they lived together, he still could've had time to kill her," I said. Eric often used to rise before sunset. Many vampires were capable of that.
"No, he couldn't," Ryker said. The muscles in the corner of his square jaw ticked. "Lydia spoke with her brother on the phone at ten-thirty last night."
I let that sink in for a beat. "So, he couldn't have done it. And Felipe killed Floyd for no reason." I turned to Thalia in exasperation. "Floyd's likely the one link to Lydia and the murderer. And now we have nothing to go on."
"The King's prerogative," Thalia said. She spoke in a calm, neutral manner but her expression told a much different story. Rage flew off her like sparks from a bonfire.
"How could there have been no other scents in the apartment?" Ryker questioned, more to himself than to me or Thalia.
I struggled to conceive a situation where that could possibly occur. "Identical twin vampire brother we don't know about?"
"No," said Thalia. "Scent would be different, enough for were tracker to distinguish. Feeding from different sources, residing in different locations. It alters the vampire's scent."
"And y'all are sure it's a vampire?"
"You saw her," Ryker said flatly. "Puncture marks. Completely drained."
We joined the rest of the group. Felipe was sitting back in the audience seating, his knees crossed and completely absorbed in his cell phone. I'd long given up on the idea of receiving any sort of compensation from him. What I wanted to ask instead was where Louisiana's Regent was. I'd had dealings with Rasul a handful of times at work in the last year, though only in peripheral ways. But this was his domain. He should've been here with Felipe. I kept my questions to myself. The less I knew the better.
I left the Shadow Run headquarters with Ryker's assurance that he would call if and when he required my assistance. I suggested he consult with a witch to perform an ectoplasmic reconstruction, though I didn't specifically name Amelia's business. Conflict of interest and all. He could ask Mr. Cataliades, who would give him a list of witches and covens to consult. I caught the next bus back through downtown and across the river to home.
How many showers in a single day were too many? I wanted to scrub the image of Floyd's detached head hitting the floor from my mind. I wanted to scrub the decay of the arena off my skin. I wanted to scrub myself raw.
Instead, I got off the bus and took a street car east toward nightlife and parked my derrière on the first stool at the first bar I came across on Canal Street. It was before midnight and reasonably quiet for the French quarter, with maybe ten or so warm bodies inside. Blues music and conversation drowned out the sound of my own racing thoughts. I ordered a glass of wine. Not red wine. No, thank you. Nope. Definitely nothing red.
I ordered a basket of fries and tried to absorb the normality of human life around me. An older couple, mid-fifties maybe, danced the boogie woogie, laughing and shaking their hips. The man kept clasping her hand to swing her around as she laughed and protested. Three college-aged jocks from out of town sat further down the bar from me, drunk on beer and excitement of their vacation in the Big Easy. I felt removed. Totally dissociated from the scene.
It took the entire glass of wine and half of the next one before my brain caught up to my body. Life wasn't all supernatural intrigue, death and decapitated heads. There was also normality. Normal folk doing normal things. Enjoying life. That had been my life, right up until yesterday.
I took a street car back home. It ran every few minutes, even this time of night. The benefits of living in a tourist destination. It was a relatively short trip, twenty or so minutes down St Charles Ave and then a few minutes by foot back to the gated complex. Some days I felt like I needed to pinch myself in order to believe that this was my life. Little Sookie Stackhouse, crazy small-town girl who no one ever expected to amount to more than a barmaid. And here I was living in uptown NOLA, Faubourg Delassize.
Faubourg Delassize bordered the more famous Garden District but was just as leafy and charming as its neighbor. Small antebellum mansions enclosed by ornate wrought iron fencing, and apartments in all manner of styles—not the pontalba apartments famous in the French quarter—but a unique array architecture: Mediterranean palazzos, Greek revival mansions, creole townhouses, all in a differing palette of colors. And then not so far from my place: the Christ Church Cathedral. It stood tall and white with delicately arched windows that pointed heavenward, so pretty it made your heart ache. Sunday morning you could hear the bells toll and Monday nights throughout the neighborhood you heard them as the bell ringers practiced.
Yes, some days I could pinch myself. New Orleans was a city unto its own.
Other days I longed for my old farmhouse with such strength it stole the breath from me. I missed the winding empty roads of Renard parish, missed the cicadas and crickets that were once my only neighbors. I missed hanging my sheets on a windy day so that I could sleep between their sun-kissed sweetness at night. I missed the swinging loveseat and the creaky porch steps, and how crisp and bright the stars appeared when they weren't marred by light pollution.
I turned the corner into Pleasant Street and into relative darkness. There were no street lights in this section, but I was getting used to living with so many brains buzzing around me. The blanket of humidity and minds all around me gave me a sense of community and comfort that I never quite got to experience living isolated in Bon Temps. I swept the street for people and came across no minds… until I tripped over a blank spot half a block behind me. A vampire.
A jolt of panic ran through me.
I kept walking and gripped my purse tightly to my chest. I rounded the corner and paused beside the locked wrought iron gates to the condo complex. I couldn't beat a vampire in terms of speed. By the time I had my key in the gate latch, the vampire would be on me. My heart hammered. I could, however, try and buy a little time.
I crouched, as if to adjust the strap on my sandals, and slipped a hand into my purse. I took hold of my keys in one hand and passed a small bottle of colloidal silver mace to the other. I stood just as the void closed in. The vampire grabbed me, and I dug my heel into his foot, socked him in the stomach with my key-clenching hand then sprayed him directly in the face with the mace.
He yowled and stumbled backward. I dived for the gate, inserting and turning the key with one seamless move. I flung the gate open and tried to leap over the threshold into the no-invitation safety of the condo grounds. A vice-like grip grasped my elbow and held me in place.
I kicked and thrashed like a feral cat, a rough cry ripping loose from my throat. He pinned up me up against the fencing, the bars dug into my back. Safety lay so close, just beyond those darned metal bars. I continued thrashing, even tried to headbutt my attacker but his hand grabbed my jaw and held my head in place.
"Stop it!" he yelled, and I stilled. His voice was familiar. Panting, I squinted into the near complete darkness until his features came into focus. I stood eye to eye with my attacker, whose eyes, incidentally, were streaming with blood from the mace spray.
"Rasul?"
The vampire wiped his cheeks against the shoulders of his shirt. "I'm letting you go, and you will not hurt me," he told me. Rasul Aldashir, Regent of Louisiana, was by no means a big man but commanding none the less. I immediately stopped thrashing.
His chiseled face narrowed to a slight, defined chin with a nose to match. He reminded me of an owl with his sharp assessing gaze. He released his hold of me without waiting for my answer, and I held up the vampire mace.
"It's not necessary," he said.
"You attacked me." I really didn't think this needed to be pointed out, but apparently so.
"And for that you have my sincere apologies. Please put it down, you know I do not wish to hurt you."
"I won't put it away. But I won't use it unless you threaten or hurt me."
His corner of his lip quirked upward in grudging acceptance. I dropped my arm. His eyes still ran with blood and he rubbed at them again, leaving his hands and cheeks a damp, bloody mess.
"Oh, come on then," I said. Though his flinched at my touch, he let me lead him by the elbow to a garden faucet in the yard next door. I turned it on, and he splashed his eyes for some minutes. "Better?" I asked when he turned it off.
"Yes, thank you." His words were kind, though something stubborn glinted in his eyes. No matter how kind or gallant the vampire, none like to be bested. Particularly by a human woman. Well, almost-human woman.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"What happened tonight?" he replied instead.
"Shouldn't Felipe be filling you in?" His expression turned stony. Whoops. Hit a sore spot. I walked to the curb and sat down and motioned for him to join me. "I'm not sticking my neck out for you," I told him once he'd sat down. "Not when it can get chopped."
"I overheard him mention he had met with you and the President Alpha."
"So rather than discuss it directly with your monarch, you decide to attack me in the street?"
He grimaced and shook his head slightly. "I saw you readying to attack as I approached. You make it very obvious—you should work on this, by the way. I was concerned you had a stake. We have a good accord, Sookie, I'd really rather you didn't stake me."
We did have a good accord. We went way back to when I used to help the Shreveport vampires out, and he'd originally been in Sophie-Anne's retinue. Out of all the vampires I'd come to know, Rasul was one of the few whose top three personality traits didn't include the descriptors unfeeling, sociopathic, and stone-cold murderer. In fact, Rasul was charming kind of like a foreign prince from a fairy tale and with occasional bouts of humor to rival even Eric's.
"I promise not to stake you." I patted his knee and he smiled broadly in return. "So tell me why Felipe is keeping you in the dark."
"He sent me off tonight, chasing up unregistered vampires. This is not within the scope of my role. This is for area sheriffs to address. It is not the first time he has done this when visiting the state, given me meaningless tasks."
"Busywork," I said. "He just wants you out of his hair."
"Yes, busywork. So rather than consult with me—a vampire who has localized knowledge and a true understanding of the dynamics and inner-workings of the New Orleans' population, he sends me away." He flexed his fingers before squeezing them into tight fists. "And if it's like any other visit, when I return tonight, he will have made sweeping changes, sweeping decisions that affect my work and perhaps the existence and livelihoods of my vampires—all without my consult."
"Why? He doesn't like you?"
"He believes he knows best."
"Or perhaps he's threatened by you?" I asked. He lifted his head then to regard me. "Well, didn't he send you to spy for Michigan to get you out of his proverbial hair after the take over?"
"Yes..."
"And when Victor died and things fell over here financially, what did he do? He had to bring you back to assist him as regent. I don't know Felipe so well, but I'm willing to bet that appointing a vampire from Sophie-Anne's cortege to a position of rank would've been a last choice—or a choice made purely out of desperation."
Rasul didn't agree with this, but he didn't disagree either, so I pressed on. "And how are the state of thing here now?"
"Quite good. They could be better... but much improved."
"So you've righted much of the mess that Victor had left."
"And some of the over-zealous spending of Sophie-Anne's," he added.
Work had given me a little insight into the current climate of vampires and politics in the city. I'd never given it much thought or any interest back in Bon Temps, but now this was what I was paid to know and understand.
"The state is finally in the black," Rasul admitted.
"So you did what he and Victor—and, heck, even the previous monarch—were not able."
He smiled then and gave me a squeeze around the shoulders. "You are right of course, and delightful as ever." I rolled my eyes. That was me. Cheerleader and spirit-raiser for defeated vampires sitting on curbs everywhere. All I really wanted to do was to crawl into bed and forget the day had even happened.
"So perhaps he sees you as a threat to the throne," I said, pressing on. Time to wrap this pep-talk up. "Or a threat to his reputation, or even his self-esteem. So he keeps you out of the loop."
"His own folly."
"Exactly." Rasul looked at me expectantly waiting for me to say more. Specifically, more on what had occurred in the last twenty-four hours. I sighed. "Rasul...I don't want to die…"
I was quite fond of my life. I'd barely managed to survive the first thirty. Another thirty might be asking a bit much, but I'd at least like to make a decent go of it.
"You will not die." We regarded one another for a few silent moments. I felt a pang of pity for him. Or maybe I'd just drunk too much wine.
"Felipe killed Floyd Chapman," I said.
A stream of curse words exploded from Rasul's mouth, all in his native tongue.
"I have my doubts that Floyd committed the murder."
"I could've have told him this," he spat. "He was loyal to his bonded. Would never drain her!" I grimaced and thought of Floyd's young female companion. He wasn't that loyal. I said as much.
"He lived with her. Married her. Bonded with her. That is loyal."
I waved off the remark, it was neither here nor there. "There were no other scents at the scene," I said, "so the culprit hasn't been identified."
"We must contact your friend Amelia, set about doing a crime scene reconstruction."
"That's Ryker's decision to make."
Rasul stood and placed a cool kiss to the back of my hand. "Thank you, Sookie."
"Don't make me regret telling you this," I said. What was the old saying? Loose lips dig fast graves? No, that that wasn't quite right. Whatever it was, I'd done far too much of it in the last twenty four hours.
"You will not." He gently released my hand and smiled at me warmly. "I assume you are keeping up with the developments in Oklahoma. Interesting times, indeed."
"Pardon?" I asked but Rasul was gone.
I dusted myself off and went inside. My brain was at its limit. I didn't need anything else filling up my plate. As far as I was concerned, anything that happened in Oklahoma was none of my business.
I kicked my shoes off once I got in and immediately headed for the bathroom. Turns out three showers in one day was not in fact one or even two too many. As I got under the hot water, I caught sight of my back in the foggy bathroom mirror. I could see thick red lines running down my back from where Rasul had pushed me against the wrought iron fence. Just great. Bruises would make a nice addition to my low-backed birthday dress.