Definitely Dead

state. I was the poster girl for interspecies tolerance. I’d learned a lot about the other universe, the one that surrounded the (mostly oblivious) human race. It was kind of neat, knowing stuff that other people didn’t. But it complicated my already difficult life, and it led me into dangerous byways among beings who desperately wanted to keep their existence a secret.
    The phone rang inside the house, and I stirred myself from my unhappy thoughts to answer it.
    “Hey, babe,” said a warm voice on the other end.
    “Quinn,” I said, trying not to sound too happy. Not that I was emotionally invested in this man, but I sure needed something positive to happen right now, and Quinn was both formidable and attractive.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Oh, sitting on my front porch drinking coffee in my bathrobe.”
    “I wish I was there to have a cup with you.”
    Hmmm. Idle wish, or serious “ask me over”?
    “There’s plenty in the pot,” I said cautiously.
    “I’m in Dallas, or I’d be there in a flash,” he said.
    Deflation. “When did you leave?” I asked, because that seemed the safest, least prying question.
    “Yesterday. I got a call from the mother of a guy who works for me from time to time. He quit in the middle of a job we were working on in New Orleans, weeks ago. I was pretty pissed at him, but I wasn’t exactly worried. He was kind of a free-floating guy, had a lot of irons in the fire that took him all over the country. But his mom says he still hasn’t shown up anywhere, and she thinks something’s happened to him. I’m looking around his house and going through his files to help her out, but I’m reaching a dead end. The track seems to have ended in New Orleans. I’ll be driving back to Shreveport tomorrow. Are you working?”
    “Yes, early shift. I’ll be off around five-ish.”
    “So can I invite myself over for dinner? I’ll bring the steaks. You got a grill?”
    “As a matter of fact, I do. It’s pretty old, but it works.”
    “Got coals?”
    “I’d have to check.” I hadn’t cooked out since my grandmother had died.
    “No problem. I’ll bring some.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I’ll fix everything else.”
    “We have a plan.”
    “See you at six?”
    “Six it is.”
    “Okay, good-bye then.”
    Actually, I would have liked to talk to him longer, but I wasn’t sure what to say, since I’d never had the experience of much idle chitchat with boys. My dating career had begun last year, when I’d met Bill. I had a lot of catching up to do. I was not like, say, Lindsay Popken, who’d been Miss Bon Temps the year I graduated from high school. Lindsay was able to reduce boys to drooling idiots and keep them trailing after her like stunned hyenas. I’d watched her at it often and still could not understand the phenomenon. It never seemed to me she talked about anything in particular. I’d even listened to her brain, but it was mostly full of white noise. Lindsay’s technique, I’d concluded, was instinctive, and it was based on never saying anything serious.
    Oh well, enough of reminiscence. I went into the house to see what I needed to do to get it ready for Quinn’s visit the next evening and to make a list of necessary purchases. It was a happy way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I’d go shopping. I stepped into the shower contemplating a pleasurable day.
    A knock at my front door interrupted me about thirty minutes later as I was putting on some lipstick. This time I looked through the peephole. My heart sank. However, I was obliged to open the door.
    A familiar long black limo was parked in my drive. My only previous experience with that limo led me to expect unpleasant news and trouble.
    The man—the being—standing on my front porch was the personal representative and lawyer for the vampire queen of Louisiana, and his name was Mr. Cataliades, emphasis on the second syllable. I’d first met Mr. Cataliades when he’d come to let me know that my cousin Hadley had died, leaving her estate to me. Not only had Hadley died, she’d been murdered, and the vampire responsible had been punished right before my eyes. The night had been full of multiple shocks: discovering not only that Hadley had left this world, but she’d left it as a vampire, and she’d been the favorite of the queen, in a biblical sense.
    Hadley had been one of the few remaining members of my family, and I felt her loss; at the same time, I had to admit that Hadley, in her teenage years,