Dead Reckoning

happy where I am; I have even put forward our marriage as a bar. And as my regent, Victor could plead that his wishes supersede those of Ocella, and that I’m too useful to him to leave the state.”
    “Oh, no.” I found myself finally able to speak, though only in a whisper.
    “Oh, yes,” Eric said bitterly. “I’ve appealed to Felipe, but I haven’t heard from him. Oklahoma is one of the rulers eyeing his throne. He may want to placate her. In the meantime, she calls me every week, offering me a share of her kingdom if I’ll come to her.”
    “So, she’s met you face-to-face.” My voice was a little stronger.
    “Yes,” he said. “She was at the summit in Rhodes to make a deal with the King of Tennessee about a prisoner exchange.”
    Did I remember her? When I was calmer, I might. There’d been several queens there, and not an ugly one among ’em. There were a thousand questions crowding to get out of my head and into my mouth, but I clamped my lips shut. This was not a time to speak, but a time to listen.
    I believed this arrangement hadn’t been his idea. And now I understood what Appius had told me when he was about to die. He’d told me I’d never keep Eric. He’d died happy about that, that he’d arranged such an advantageous connection for his beloved son, one that would take Eric away from the lowly human he loved. If he’d been in front of me, I’d have killed Appius again and enjoyed it.
    In the middle of this brooding, and while Eric was saying everything all over again, a white face peered in the kitchen window. Eric could see from my face that something was behind him, and he whipped around so quickly I didn’t see him move. To my relief, the face was familiar.
    “Let him in,” I said, and Eric went to the back door.
    Bubba was in the kitchen a second later, bending over to kiss my hand. “Hey, pretty lady,” he said, beaming at me. Bubba had one of the most recognizable faces in the world, though his heyday had been fifty years before.
    “Good to see you,” I said, and I meant it. Bubba had some bad habits, because he was a bad vampire; he’d been too soaked in drugs when he’d been brought over, and the spark of life had been almost extinct. Two seconds later, it would have been too late. But a morgue attendant in Memphis, a vampire, had been so overwhelmed at seeing him that he’d brought the King over. Then, vampires had been secret creatures of the night, not on the cover of every other magazine the way they are now. Under the name “Bubba” he’d been passed around from kingdom to kingdom, given simple tasks to do to earn his keep, and every now and then on memorable nights, he wanted to sing. He was very fond of Bill, less attached to Eric, but Bubba understood the protocol well enough to be polite.
    “Miss Pam is outside,” Bubba said, looking sideways at Eric. “You and Mr. Eric doing okay in here?”
    Bless his heart, he suspected Eric was hurting me, and he’d come in to check. Bubba was right; Eric was hurting me but not physically. I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a cliff, narrowly avoiding taking the step off the edge. I was pretty numb, but that wasn’t going to last.
    At this interesting moment a knock at the front door announced the arrival of (I hoped) Audrina and Colton, our co-conspirators. I went to the door, the two vampires behind me. Feeling absolutely secure in doing so, I opened the front door. Sure enough, the human couple was standing on the front porch waiting, and each of them was gripped by a dripping, grim Pam. Pam’s blond straight hair was darker with rain and hanging in rattails. She looked like she could spit nails.
    “Please come in,” I said politely. “And you, too, Pam.” After all, it was my house and she was my friend. “We need to put our heads together.” I thought of adding, “Though not literally,” when I flashed on the heads of Hod and Kelvin, but Audrina and Colton looked pretty frightened already. It was one thing to talk big in your trailer all alone. It was another thing to meet with desperate and terrifying people in a lonely house out in the woods. As I turned away to lead them to the kitchen, I decided to put out some drinks, a bucket of ice, and maybe a bowl of chips and dip.
    It was time to get this assassination party started.
    I’d think about other deaths later.

Chapter 13
    Audrina and Colton obviously couldn’t decide what was more amazing: the threat of a sodden and beautiful