Definitely Dead

looked longingly at the gate, but Jade Flower stepped into the gap and stared at me, her eyes black holes in her round face. This was a woman who didn’t like me one little bit. Andre, Sigebert, and Wybert could definitely take me or leave me, and Rasul might think I wouldn’t be a bad companion for an hour on the town—but Jade Flower would enjoy whacking off my head with her sword, and that was a fact. I couldn’t read vampire minds (except for a tiny glimpse every now and then, which was a big secret) but I could read body language and I could read the expression in her eyes.
    I didn’t know the reason for this animosity, and at this point in time I didn’t think it mattered a heck of a lot.
    The queen had been thinking. She said, “Rasul, we shall go back to the house very shortly.” He bowed and walked out to the car.
    “Miss Stackhouse,” she said, turning her eyes on me. They shone like dark lamps. She took my hand, and we went up the stairs to Hadley’s apartment, Andre trailing behind us like something tied to Sophie-Anne’s leg with string. I kept having the unwise impulse to yank my hand from the queen’s, which of course was cold and dry and strong, though she was careful not to squeeze. Being so close to the ancient vampire made me vibrate like a violin string. I didn’t see how Hadley had endured it.
    She led me into Hadley’s apartment and shut the door behind us. I didn’t think even the excellent ears of the vampires below us could hear our conversation now. That had been her goal, because the first thing she said was, “You will not tell anyone what I am about to tell you.”
    I shook my head, mute with apprehension.
    “I began my life in what became northern France, about . . . one thousand, one hundred years ago.”
    I gulped.
    “I didn’t know where I was, of course, but I think it was Lotharingia. In the last century I tried to find the place I spent my first twelve years, but I couldn’t, even if my life depended on it.” She gave a barking laugh at the turn of phrase. “My mother was the wife of the wealthiest man in the town, which meant he had two more pigs than anyone else. My name then was Judith.”
    I tried hard not to look shocked, to just look interested, but it was a struggle.
    “When I was about ten or twelve, I think, a peddler came to us from down the road. We hadn’t seen a new face in six months. We were excited.” But she didn’t smile or look as if she remembered the feeling of that excitement, only the fact of it. Her shoulders rose and fell, once. “He carried an illness that had never come to us before. I think now that it was some form of influenza. Within two weeks of his stay in our town, everyone in it was dead, excepting me and a boy somewhat older.”
    There was a moment of silence while we thought about that. At least I did, and I suppose the queen was remembering. Andre might have been thinking about the price of bananas in Guatemala.
    “Clovis did not like me,” the queen said. “I’ve forgotten why. Our fathers . . . I don’t remember. Things might have gone differently if he had cared for me. As it was, he raped me and then he took me to the next town, where he began offering me about. For money, of course, or food. Though the influenza traveled across our region, we never got sick.”
    I tried to look anywhere but at her.
    “Why will you not meet my eyes?” she demanded. Her phrasing and her accent had changed as she spoke, as if she’d just learned English.
    “I feel so bad for you,” I said.
    She made a sound that involved putting her top teeth on her lower lip and making the extra effort to intake some air so she could blow it out. It sounded like “fffft!” “Don’t bother,” the queen said. “Because what happened next was, we were camped in the woods, and a vampire got him.” She looked pleased at the recollection. What a trip down memory lane. “The vampire was very hungry and started on Clovis first, because he was bigger, but when he was through with Clovis, he could take a minute to look at me and think it might be nice to have a companion. His name was Alain. For three years or more I traveled with Alain. Vampires were secret then, of course. Their existence was only in stories told by old women by the fire. And Alain was good at keeping it that way. Alain had been a priest, and he was very fond of surprising priests in their beds.” She smiled reminiscently.
    I found my sympathy diminishing.
    “Alain