Dead in the Family

empire at the right time, I wonder if you ever saw Jesus?”
    The Roman was staring at the hallway, willing Alexei to reappear. “The carpenter? No, I didn’t see him,” Appius said, and I could tell he was making an effort to be courteous. “The Jew died right around the time I was changed. As you will appreciate, I had many other things to think of. In fact, I didn’t hear the whole myth until some time later when the world began to change as a result of his death.”
    That would really have been amazing, talking to a creature who’d seen the living God . . . even if he called him a “myth.” And I went back to fearing the Roman—not for what he’d done to me, or what he’d done to Eric, or even what he was doing to Alexei, but for what he might do to all of us, if he took a mind to. I had always tried to find the good in people, but the best I could say of Appius was that he had good taste in those he picked to become vampires.
    While I brooded, Appius was explaining to Eric how conveniently it had worked out in the cellar in Ekaterinburg. Alexei had almost bled out from his wounds, so he’d given the boy a big gulp of his blood—moving at superspeed, and therefore invisible to the execution squad. Then he’d watched from the shadows while the bodies were thrown down a well. The next day, the royal family was dug up again since the murderers feared the uproar that might follow the deaths of the Romanovs.
    “I followed them the minute the sun set the next day,” Appius said. “They’d stopped to rebury them. Alexei and one of his sisters . . .”
    “Maria,” Alexei said softly, and I jumped. He had reappeared silently in the living room, standing behind Appius’s chair. “It was Maria.”
    There was a silence. Appius looked hugely relieved. “Yes, of course, dear boy,” Appius said, and he did manage to sound as though he cared. “Your sister Maria was completely gone, but there was a tiny spark in you.” Alexei put his hand on Appius Livius’s shoulder, and Appius Livius reached up to pat him.
    “They had shot him many times,” he explained to Eric. “Twice in the head. I put my blood directly in the bullet holes.” He turned his head to look at the boy behind him. “My blood worked well, since you had lost so much of yours.” It was like he was recollecting happy times. Hoo, boy. The Roman turned back to look at Eric and me, and he smiled proudly. But I could see Alexei’s face.
    Appius Livius genuinely felt that he’d been a savior to Alexei. I wasn’t so sure Alexei was totally convinced of that.
    “Where’s your brother?” Appius Livius suddenly asked, and I pushed to my feet to go find him. I had put two and two together, and I understood that Eric’s maker wanted to be sure Alexei hadn’t drained Jason and left him out in the yard.
    Jason came into the living room just then, slipping his cell phone into his pocket. He narrowed his eyes. Jason was not a nuance kind of guy, but he could tell when I was unhappy. “Sorry,” he said. “Talkin’ to Michele.”
    “Hmmm,” I said. I made a mental note that Appius Livius was worried about Alexei being alone with humans, and I knew that should scare me quite a bit. The night was growing older, and I had things to find out. “I hate to change the subject, but there are a few things I need to know.”
    “What, Sookie?” Eric asked, looking directly at me for the first time since Old Master had popped up. He was pouring caution down the bond between us.
    “I just have a couple of questions,” I said, smiling as sweetly as I could. “Have you been in this area for any length of time?”
    I met the ancient dark eyes again. It was hard to take Appius all in, somehow; I found I couldn’t look at him as a cohesive individual. He scared the shit out of me.
    “No,” he said mildly. “We have not. We’ve come here from the south-west, from Oklahoma, and we have only just arrived in Louisiana.”
    “So you wouldn’t know anything about the new body buried at the back of my land?”
    “No, nothing. Would you like us to go dig it up? Unpleasant, but doable. You are wanting to see who it is?”
    That was an unexpected offer. Eric was looking at me very oddly. “I’m sorry, honey,” I told him. “I was trying to tell you when our unexpected guests showed up.”
    “Not Debbie,” he said.
    “No, Heidi says there’s a new burial. But we do need to know who it is, and we need to find out who put it there.”
    “The