Definitely Dead

said, very precisely, in a tone that could have sliced a diamond. The short man, his childish face blank, was by her side in a jiffy, extending his arm so she could have his assistance in rising. I guessed he was Andre.
    The atmosphere was cuttable. Oh, I so wished I were somewhere else.
    “I would feel more at ease if I knew Jade Flower was with you,” the king said. He motioned toward the woman in red. Jade Flower, my ass: she looked more like Stone Killer. The Asian woman’s face didn’t change one iota at the king’s offer.
    “But that would leave you with no one,” the queen said.
    “Hardly true. The building is full of guards and loyal vampires,” Peter Threadgill said.
    Okay, even I caught that one. The guards, who belonged to the queen, were separate from the loyal vampires, whom I guessed were the ones Peter had brought with him.
    “Then, of course, I would be proud to have a fighter like Jade Flower accompany me.”
    Yuck. I couldn’t tell if the queen was serious, or trying to placate her new husband by accepting his offer, or laughing up her sleeve at his lame strategy to ensure that his spy was at the ectoplasmic reconstruction. The queen used the intercom to call down—or up, for all I knew—to the secure chamber where Jake Purifoy was being educated in the ways of the vampire. “Keep extra guards on Purifoy,” she said. “And let me know the minute he remembers something.” An obsequious voice assured Sophie-Anne that she’d be the first to know.
    I wondered why Jake needed extra guards. I found it hard to get real concerned about his welfare, but obviously the queen was.
    So here we went—the queen, Jade Flower, Andre, Sigebert, Wybert, and me. I guess I’ve been in company just as assorted, but I couldn’t tell you when. After a lot of corridor tromping, we entered a guarded garage and piled into a stretch limo. Andre jerked his thumb at one of the guards, indicating that the guard should drive. I hadn’t heard the baby-faced vampire utter a word, so far. To my pleasure, the driver was Rasul, who felt like an old friend compared to the others.
    Sigebert and Wybert were uncomfortable in the car. They were the most inflexible vampires I’d ever met, and I wondered if their close association with the queen hadn’t been their undoing. They hadn’t had to change, and changing with the times was the key vampire survival technique before the Great Revelation. It remained so in countries that hadn’t accepted the existence of vampire with the tolerance America had shown. The two vampires would have been happy wearing skins and hand-woven cloth and would have looked perfectly at home in handmade leather boots, carrying shields on their arms.
    “Your sheriff, Eric, came to speak to me last night,” the queen told me.
    “I saw him at the hospital,” I said, hoping I sounded equally offhanded.
    “You understand that the new vampire, the one that was a Were—he had no choice, you understand?”
    “I get that a lot with vampires,” I said, remembering all the times in the past when Bill had explained things by saying he couldn’t help himself. I’d believed him at the time, but I wasn’t so sure any more. In fact, I was so profoundly tired and miserable I hardly had the heart to continue trying to wrap up Hadley’s apartment and her estate and her affairs. I realized that if I went home to Bon Temps, leaving unfinished business here, I’d just sit and brood when I got there.
    I knew this, but at the moment, it was hard to face.
    It was time for one of my self-pep talks. I told myself sternly I’d already enjoyed a moment or two of that very evening, and I would enjoy a few more seconds of every day until I built back to my former contented state. I’d always enjoyed life, and I knew I would again. But I was going to have to slog through a lot of bad patches to get there.
    I don’t think I’ve ever been a person with a lot of illusions. If you can read minds, you don’t have many doubts about how bad even the best people can be.
    But I sure hadn’t seen this coming.
    To my horror, tears began sliding down my face. I reached into my little purse, pulled out a Kleenex, and patted my cheeks while all the vamps stared at me, Jade Flower with the most identifiable expression I’d seen on her face: contempt.
    “Are you in pain?” the queen asked, indicating my arm.
    I didn’t think she really cared; I was sure that she had schooled herself to give the correct human