All Together Dead

unattractive skin flaw. Claudine still looked perfect.
    I wasn’t sure I would ever understand Claudine and her thinking about the world, and I still knew frighteningly little about her life; but I felt quite sure that she had devoted herself to my well-being, for whatever reason, and that she was really afraid for me. And yet I knew I was going to Rhodes with the queen, and Eric, and the abjured one, and the rest of the Louisiana contingent.
    Was I just curious about what the agenda might be at a vampire summit? Did I want the attention of more undead members of society? Did I want to be known as a fangbanger, one of those humans who simply adored the walking dead? Did some corner of me long for a chance to be near Bill without seeking him out, still trying to make some emotional sense of his betrayal? Or was this about Eric? Unbeknownst to myself, was I in love with the flamboyant Viking who was so handsome, so good at making love, and so political, all at the same time?
    This sounded like a promising set of problems for a soap opera season.
    “Tune in tomorrow,” I muttered. When Claudine looked at me askance, I said, “Claudine, I feel embarrassed to tell you I’m doing something that really doesn’t make much sense in a lot of ways, but I want the money and I’m going to do it. I’ll be back here to see you again. Don’t worry, please.”
    Amelia clomped back into the room, began making herself some more tea. She was going to float away.
    Claudine ignored her. “I’m going to worry,” she said simply. “There is trouble coming, my dear friend, and it will fall right on your head.”
    “But you don’t know how or when?”
    She shook her head. “No, I just know it’s coming.”
    “Look into my eyes,” muttered Amelia. “I see a tall, dark man…”
    “Shut up,” I told her.
    She turned her back to us, made a big fuss out of pinching the dead leaves off some of her plants.
    Claudine left soon after. For the remainder of her visit, she didn’t recover her normal happy demeanor. She never said another word about my departure.

Chapter 6
    On the second morning after Jason’s wedding, I was feeling much more myself. Having a mission helped. I needed to be at Tara’s Togs right after it opened at ten. I had to pick out the clothes Eric said I needed for the summit. I wasn’t due at Merlotte’s until five thirty or so that night, so I had that pleasant feeling of the whole day stretching ahead of me.
    “Hey, girl!” Tara said, coming from the back of the shop to greet me. Her part-time assistant, McKenna, glanced at me and resumed moving clothes around. I assumed she was putting misplaced items back into their correct positions; clothing store employees seem to spend a lot of time doing that. McKenna didn’t speak, and unless I was much mistaken, she was trying to avoid talking to me at all. That hurt, since I’d gone to see her in the hospital when she’d had her appendix out two weeks ago, and I’d taken her a little present, too.
    “Mr. Northman’s business associate Bobby Burnham called down here to say you needed some clothes for a trip?” Tara said. I nodded, trying to look matter of fact. “Would casual clothes be what you needed? Or suits, something of a business nature?” She gave me an utterly false bright smile, and I knew she was angry with me because she was scared for me. “McKenna, you can take that mail to the post office,” Tara told McKenna with an edge to her voice. McKenna scuttled out the back door, the mail stuffed under her arm like a riding crop.
    “Tara,” I said, “it’s not what you think.”
    “Sookie, it’s none of my business,” she said, trying hard to sound neutral.
    “I think it is,” I said. “You’re my friend, and I don’t want you thinking I’m just going traveling with a bunch of vampires for fun.”
    “Then why are you going?” Tara’s face dropped all the false cheer. She was deadly serious.
    “I’m getting paid to go with a few of the Louisiana vamps to a big meeting. I’ll act as their, like, human Geiger counter. I’ll tell them if a human’s trying to bullshit them, and I’ll know what the other vamps’ humans are thinking. It’s just for this one time.” I couldn’t explain more fully. Tara had been into the world of the vampires more heavily than she needed to be, and she’d almost gotten killed. She wanted nothing more to do with it, and I couldn’t blame her. But she still couldn’t tell me what to do.