Dead to the World

“But she’s not available. Right, Claudine?” I aimed my voice back over my shoulder.
    “Not available to a vampire,” the fairy said. “My blood is intoxicating to a vampire. You don’t want to know what they’d be like after they had me.” But she still sounded cheerful.
    So I hadn’t been too far wrong with the chocolate metaphor. Probably this was why I hadn’t encountered any fairies before; I was too much in the company of the undead.
    When you have thoughts like that, you know you’re in trouble.
    “Claudine, I guess we need you to step outside now,” I said a little desperately. Eric was pushing against me, not testing me seriously yet (or I’d be flat on my back), but I’d had to retreat a step already. I wanted to hear what Claudine had to tell the Weres, but I realized separating the vamps from the fairy was top priority.
    “Just like a big petit four,” Pam sighed, watching Claudine twitch her white-spangled butt all the way out the front door with Colonel Flood close behind her. Eric seemed to snap to once Claudine was out of sight, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Vamps really like fairies, huh?” I said nervously.
    “Oh, yeah,” they said simultaneously.
    “You know, she saved my life, and she’s apparently helping us out on this witch thing,” I reminded them.
    They looked sulky.
    “Claudine was actually quite helpful,” Colonel Flood said as he reentered, sounding surprised. The door swung shut behind him.
    Eric’s arm went around me, and I could feel one kind of hunger being morphed into another.
    “Why was she in their coven headquarters?” Alcide asked, more angrily than was warranted.
    “You know fairies. They love to flirt with disaster, they love to role-play.” The packmaster sighed heavily. “Even Claudine, and she’s one of the good ones. Definitely on her way up. What she tells me is this: This Hallow has a coven of about twenty witches. All of them are Weres or the larger shifters. They are all vampire blood users, maybe addicts.”
    “Will the Wiccans help us fight them?” asked a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and a couple of chins.
    “They haven’t committed to it yet.” A young man with a military haircut—I wondered if he was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base—seemed to know the story on the Wiccans. “Acting on our packmaster’s orders, I called or otherwise contacted every Wiccan coven or individual Wiccan in the area, and they are all doing their best to hide from these creatures. But I saw signs that most of them were heading for a meeting tonight, though I don’t know where. I think they are going to discuss the situation on their own. If they could mount an attack as well, it would help us.”
    “Good work, Portugal,” said Colonel Flood, and the young man looked gratified.
    Since we had our backs to the wall, Eric had felt free to let his hand roam over my bottom. I didn’t object to the sensation, which was very pleasant, but I did object to the venue, which was too darn public.
    “Claudine didn’t say anything about prisoners who might have been there?” I asked, taking a step away from Eric.
    “No, I’m sorry, Miss Stackhouse. She didn’t see anyone answering your brother’s description, and she didn’t see the vampire Clancy.”
    I wasn’t exactly surprised, but I was very disappointed. Sam said, “I’m sorry, Sookie. If Hallow doesn’t have him, where can he be?”
    “Of course, just because she didn’t see him, doesn’t mean he’s not there for sure,” the colonel said. “We’re sure she took Clancy, and Claudine didn’t catch sight of him.”
    “Back to the Wiccans,” suggested the red-haired Were. “What should we do about them?”
    “Tomorrow, Portugal, call all your Wiccan contacts again,” Colonel Flood said. “Get Culpepper to help you.”
    Culpepper was a young woman with a strong, handsome face and a no-nonsense haircut. She looked pleased to be included in something Portugal was doing. He looked pleased, too, but he tried to mask it under a brusque manner. “Yes, sir,” he said snappily. Culpepper thought that was cute as hell; I was lifting that directly from her brain. Were she might be, but you couldn’t disguise an admiration that intense. “Uh, why am I calling them again?” Portugal asked after a long moment.
    “We need to know what they plan to do, if they’ll share that with us,” Colonel Flood said. “If they’re not with us, they can at least stay out of the