All Together Dead

called the front desk. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard the king or queen of a state referred to as the state itself, but it seemed a really impersonal way to refer to your former husband, no matter how violently the marriage had ended.
    “Yes,” he said after he’d hung up.
    “Maybe we should pay her a visit,” the queen said. She and Andre indulged in some of that silent to and fro that was their way of conversing. Probably like watching Barry and me, I figured. “She’ll admit us, I’m sure. There’ll be something she wants to say to me in person.” The queen picked up the phone, but not as if that was something she did every day. She dialed the room number with her own fingers, too.
    “Jennifer,” she said charmingly. She listened to a torrent of words that I could hear only a bit. Jennifer didn’t sound any happier than she’d been in the lobby.
    “Jennifer, we need to talk.” The queen sounded much more charming and a lot tougher. There was silence on the other end of the line. “The doors are not closed to discussion or negotiation, Jennifer,” Sophie-Anne said. “At least, my doors aren’t. What about yours?” I think Jennifer spoke again. “All right, that’s wonderful, Jennifer. We’ll be down in a minute or two.” The queen hung up and stood silent for a long moment.
    It seemed to me like going to visit Jennifer Cater, when she was bringing a lawsuit against Sophie-Anne for murdering Peter Threadgill, was a real bad idea. But Andre nodded approvingly at Sophie-Anne.
    After Sophie-Anne’s conversation with her archenemy, I thought we’d head to the Arkansas group’s room any second. But maybe the queen wasn’t as confident as she’d sounded. Instead of starting out briskly for the showdown with Jennifer Cater, Sophie-Anne dawdled. She gave herself a little extra grooming, changed her shoes, searched around for her room key, and so on. Then she got a phone call about what room service charges the humans in her group could put on the room bill. So it was more than fifteen minutes before we managed to leave the room. Sigebert was coming out of the staircase door, and he fell into place with Andre at the waiting elevator.
    Jennifer Cater and her party were on floor seven. There was no one standing at Jennifer Cater’s door: I guessed she didn’t rate her own bodyguard. Andre did the knocking honors, and Sophie-Anne straightened expectantly. Sigebert hung back, giving me an unexpected smile. I tried not to flinch.
    The door swung open. The interior of the suite was dark.
    The smell that wafted from the door was unmistakable.
    “Well,” said the Queen of Louisiana briskly. “Jennifer’s dead.”

Chapter 10
    “Go see,” the queen told me.
    “What? But all y’all are stronger than I am! And less scared!”
    “And we’re the ones she’s suing,” Andre pointed out. “Our smell cannot be in there. Sigebert, you must go see.”
    Sigebert glided into the darkness.
    A door across the landing opened, and Batanya stepped out.
    “I smell death,” she said. “What’s happened?”
    “We came calling,” I said. “But the door was unlocked already. Something’s wrong in there.”
    “You don’t know what?”
    “No, Sigebert is exploring,” I explained. “We’re waiting.”
    “Let me call my second. I can’t leave Kentucky’s door unguarded.” She turned to call back into the suite, “Clovache!” At least, I guess that was how it was spelled, it was pronounced “Kloh-VOSH.”
    A kind of Batanya Junior emerged—same armor, but smaller scale; younger, brown-haired, less terrifying…but still plenty formidable.
    “Scout the place,” Batanya ordered, and without a single question Clovache drew her sword and eased into the apartment like a dangerous dream.
    We all waited, holding our breaths—well, I was, anyway. The vamps didn’t have breath to hold, and Batanya didn’t seem at all agitated. She had moved to a spot where she could watch the open door of Jennifer Cater’s place and the closed door of the King of Kentucky. Her sword was drawn.
    The queen’s face looked almost tense, perhaps even excited; that is, slightly less blank than usual. Sigebert came out and shook his head without a word.
    Clovache appeared in the doorway. “All dead,” she reported to Batanya.
    Batanya waited.
    “By decapitation,” Clovache elaborated. “The woman was, ah”—Clovache appeared to be counting mentally—“in six pieces.”
    “This is bad,” the queen said