All Together Dead

in armor.”
    “Hey, who doesn’t?” I grinned back.
    “And it was a weak bomb, if any bomb can be called weak. I’m not saying there wouldn’t have been damage. There would have. Maybe even someone killed, like you could have been. But the episode seems to be ineffective and ill-planned.”
    “Unless it was designed only to scare. Designed to be spotted. Designed to be disarmed.”
    Clovache shrugged.
    “I don’t understand,” I said. “If not the Fellowship, who? What does the Fellowship plan to do? Charge the lobby armed with sharpened baseball bats?”
    “The security here is not so good,” Clovache said.
    “Yeah, I know. When I was down in the basement, getting a suitcase for the queen, the guards were pretty lazy, and I don’t think the employees are searched as they come in, either. And they got a lot of suitcases mixed up.”
    “And the vampires hired these people. Unbelievable. On one level vampires realize they’re not immortal. They can be killed. On another, they’ve survived for so long, it makes them feel omnipotent.” Clovache shrugged. “Well, back to duty.” We’d reached the ballroom. The Dead Man Dance Band was still playing.
    The queen was standing very close to Andre, who no longer stood behind her but to her side. I knew this was significant, but it wasn’t plain enough to cause Kentucky to give up hope. Christian Baruch was also in close attendance. If he’d had a tail, it would have been wagging, he was so anxious to please Sophie-Anne. I glanced around the room at the other kings and queens, recognizable by their entourages. I hadn’t seen them in a room all together before, and I counted. There were only four queens. The other twelve rulers were males. Of the four queens, Minnesota appeared to be mated with the King of Wisconsin. Ohio had his arm around Iowa, so they were a couple. Besides Alabama, the only unmated queen was Sophie-Anne.
    Though many vampires tend to be elastic about the gender of their sexual partner, or at least tolerant of those who prefer something different, some of them definitely aren’t. No wonder Sophie-Anne was shining so brightly, even from under the lifted cloud of Peter Threadgill’s death. Vampires didn’t seem to be afraid of merry widows.
    Alabama’s boy toy scuttled his fingers up her bare back, and she shrieked in pretended fear. “You know I hate spiders,” she said playfully, looking almost human, clutching him close to her. Though he’d played at frightening her, she clung closer.
    Wait, I thought. Wait just a minute. But the idea wouldn’t form.
    Sophie-Anne noticed me lurking, and she beckoned. “I think most of the humans are gone for the night,” she said.
    A glance around the room told me that was true. “What did you think of Julian Trout?” I asked, to allay my fear that she’d do something awful to him.
    “I think he doesn’t understand what he did,” Sophie-Anne said. “At least to some extent. But he and I will come to an understanding.” She smiled. “He and his wife are quite all right. I don’t need you anymore tonight. Go amuse yourself,” she said, and it didn’t sound condescending. Sophie-Anne really wanted me to have a good time, though, granted, she wasn’t too particular about how I did it.
    “Thanks,” I said, and then recalled that I’d better dress that up a bit. “Thank you, ma’am, and you have a good night. See you tomorrow evening.”
    I was glad to get out of there. With the room chock full o’ vampires, the glances I was getting were a little on the pointy-toothed side. Individual bloodsuckers had an easier time of it sticking to the artificial blood than a group did. Something about the memory of the good ole days just made them want something warm from the source, rather than a liquid created in a lab and heated up in a microwave. Right on schedule, the crowd of Willing Donors returned through a back door and lined up, more or less, against the back wall. In very short order, they were all occupied, and (I suppose) happy.
    After Bill had taken my blood during lovemaking, he’d told me blood from the neck of a human—after a diet of TrueBlood, say—was like going to Ruth’s Chris Steak House after many meals at McDonald’s. I saw Gervaise nuzzling Carla off in a corner, and I wondered if she needed help; but when I saw her face, I decided not.
    Carla didn’t come in that night, either, and without the distraction of Quinn, I was kind of sorry. I had too much to