All Together Dead

me enough blood now that I qualified, hemoglobin-wise, as being close to a vampire; and my strange gift had slopped over into fatal territory. I wasn’t reading Henrik’s lawyer’s mind. I was reading Henrik’s.
    “Then come tell me what I must do,” said the Ancient Pythoness with a sarcasm so sharp it could have sliced a meat loaf.
    I needed a week or two to get over the shock of my terrible suspicion, and I had a renewed conviction that I really ought to kill Andre, and maybe Eric, too, even if a corner of my heart would weep for the loss.
    I had all of twenty seconds to process this.
    Cleo gave me a sharp pinch. “Cow,” she said furiously. “You will ruin everything.” I edged left out of the row, stepping over Gervaise as I did so. I ignored his glare and Cleo’s pinch. The two were fleas compared to the other powers that might want a piece of me first. And Eric stepped up behind me. My back was covered.
    As I moved closer to the platform, it was hard to tell what Sophie-Anne was thinking of this new turn in her unexpected trial. I concentrated on Henrik and his lawyer.
    “Henrik thinks that the queen decided to have him killed. He was told that, so he would testify against her in self-defense,” I said.
    Now I was behind the judges’ chairs on the floor, with Eric by my side.
    “The queen didn’t decide to have me killed?” Henrik said, looking hopeful, confused, and betrayed all at the same time. That was a tall order for a vampire, since facial expressions are not their foremost means of communication.
    “No, she didn’t. She was sincere in offering you a place.” I kept my eyes fixed on his, trying to drill my sincerity into his frightened brain. I’d moved almost squarely in front of him now.
    “You’re probably lying, too. You’re in her pay, after all.”
    “Perhaps I might have a word?” the Ancient Pythoness said, with acid sarcasm.
    Oops. There was a silence that was just chilling.
    “Are you a seer?” she asked, speaking very slowly so that I could understand her.
    “No, ma’am, I’m a telepath.” This close, the Ancient Pythoness looked even older, which I wouldn’t have thought possible.
    “You can read minds? Vampire minds?”
    “No, ma’am, those are the only ones I can’t read,” I said very firmly. “I pieced all this together from the lawyer’s thoughts.”
    Mr. Maimonides was not happy about that.
    “All this was known to you?” the Ancient P. asked the lawyer.
    “Yes,” he said. “I did know that Mr. Feith felt he was threatened with death.”
    “And you knew the queen had offered to accept him into her service?”
    “Yes, he told me she said so.” That was said in so doubtful a tone that you didn’t have to be an A.P. to read between the lines.
    “And you did not believe the word of a vampire queen?”
    Okay, that was a stumper for Maimonides. “I felt it my duty to protect my client, Ancient Pythoness.” He struck just the right note of humble dignity.
    “Hmmm,” said the A.P., sounding as skeptical as I felt. “Sophie-Anne Leclerq, it is your turn to present your side of the story. Will you proceed?”
    Sophie-Anne said, “What Sookie has said is true. I offered Henrik a place with me and protection. When we get to call witnesses, Ancient One, you will hear that Sookie is my witness and was there during the final fight between Peter’s people and mine. Though I knew that Peter married me with a secret agenda, I didn’t lift a hand against him until his people attacked on the night of our celebratory feast. Due to many circumstances, he didn’t get to pick his best moment to go after me, and as a result, his people died and most of mine lived. He actually began the attack when there were others there not of our blood.” Sophie-Anne managed to look shocked and saddened. “It has taken me all these months to be sure the accounts were hushed.”
    I thought I’d gotten most of the humans and Weres out before the slaughter started, but apparently there’d been some around.
    Probably they weren’t “around” anymore.
    “In the time since that night, you have suffered many other losses,” the Ancient Pythoness observed. This sounded quite sympathetic.
    I began to sense that the deck had been stacked in Sophie-Anne’s favor. Was it significant that Kentucky, who’d been courting Sophie-Anne, was the council member in charge of the proceedings?
    “As you say, I’ve had many losses—both in terms of my people and in terms of my