Dead and Gone

simply lethal. “Burn’em,” Diantha said. I sat up and raised my eyebrows to show I didn’t understand.
    Diantha turned her hand up and looked at the palm. A tiny flicker of flame hovered right above it.
    “I didn’t know you could do that,” I said. I was not a little impressed. I reminded myself to always stay on Diantha’s good side.
    “Little,” she said, shrugging. I deduced from that that Diantha could make only a small flame, not a large one. Gladiola must have been taken completely by surprise by the vampire who’d killed her, because vampires were flammable, much more so than humans.
    “Do fairies burn like vamps?”
    She shook her head. “Buteverything’llburn,” she said, her voice certain and serious. “Sooner, later.”
    I suppressed a shiver. “Do you want a drink or something to eat?” I asked.
    “Naw.” She got up from the ground, dusted off her brilliant outfit. “Igottago.” She patted me on the head and turned, and then she was gone, running faster than any deer.
    I lay back down on the chaise to think about all this. Now Niall had warned me, Mr. Cataliades had warned me, and I felt well and truly scared.
    But the warnings, though timely, didn’t give me any practical information about how to guard against this threat. It might materialize at any time or in any place, as far as I could tell. I could assume the enemy fairies wouldn’t storm Merlotte’s and haul me out of there, since the fae were so secretive; but other than that, I didn’t have a clue about what form the attack would take or how to defend myself. Would locked doors keep fairies out? Did they have to be granted entry, like vampires? No, I couldn’t recall having to tell Niall he could come in, and he’d been to the house.
    I knew fairies weren’t limited to the night, as the vamps were. I knew they were very strong, as strong as vampires. I knew the fae who were actual fairies (as opposed to the fae who were brownies or goblins or elves) were beautiful and ruthless; that even vampires respected the ferocity of the fairies. The oldest fairies didn’t always live in this world, as Claudine and Claude did; there was somewhere else they could go, a shrinking and secret world they found vastly preferable to this one: a world without iron. If they could limit their exposure to iron, fairies lived so long that they couldn’t keep track of the years. Niall, for example, tossed around hundreds of years in his conversational chronology in a very inconsistent way. He might describe some event as being five hundred years ago, when another event that predated it was earmarked two hundred years ago. He simply couldn’t keep track of the passage of time, maybe partly because he didn’t spend most of that time in our world.
    I wracked my brain for any other information. I did know one other thing, and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it even momentarily. If iron is bad for fairies, lemon juice is even worse. Claude and Claudine’s sister had been murdered with lemon juice.
    Now that I thought of them, I thought it might be helpful for me to talk to Claude and Claudine. Not only were they my cousins, but Claudine was my fairy godmother, and she was supposed to help me. She’d be at work at the department store where she handled complaints and wrapped packages and took layaway payments. Claude would be at the male strip club he now owned and managed. He’d be easier to reach. I went inside to look up the number. Claude actually answered the phone himself.
    “Yes,” he said, managing to convey indifference, contempt, and boredom in the one word.
    “Hi, sweetie!” I said brightly. “I need to talk to you face-to-face. Can I run over there, or are you busy?”
    “No, don’t come here!” Claude sounded almost alarmed at the idea. “I’ll meet you at the mall.”
    The twins lived in Monroe, which boasted a nice mall.
    “Okay,” I said. “Where and when?”
    There was a moment of silence. “Claudine can get off late for lunch. We’ll meet you in an hour and a half in the food court, around Chick-fil-A.”
    “See you there,” I said, and Claude hung up. Mr. Charm. I hustled into my favorite jeans and a green and white T-shirt. I brushed my hair vigorously. It had gotten so long I found it a lot of trouble to deal with, but I couldn’t bring myself to cut it.
    Since I’d exchanged blood with Eric several times, not only had I not caught so much as a cold, but I didn’t even have split ends. Plus,