From Dead to Worse

got a comprehensive hug from Claudine. To my amazement, Claude followed suit. I figured he was playing to the audience, which was pretty much the whole bar. Even Sam was goggling; together, the fairy twins were overwhelming.
    We stood at the bar with me sandwiched between them, each with an arm around me, and I heard brains light up all around the room with little fantasies, some of which startled even me, and I’ve seen the most bizarre things people can imagine. Yep, it’s all there for lucky me to see in living color.
    “We bring you greetings from our grandfather,” Claude said. His voice was so quiet and liquid that I was sure no one else would be able to hear it. Possibly Sam could, but he was always good for discretion.
    “He wonders why you haven’t called,” Claudine said, “especially considering the events of the other night, in Shreveport.”
    “Well, that was over with,” I said, surprised. “Why tell him about something that had already turned out okay? You were there. But I did try to call him the other night.”
    “It rang once,” Claudine murmured.
    “However, a certain person broke my phone so I couldn’t complete the call. He told me it was the wrong thing to do, that it would start a war. I lived through that, too. So that was okay.”
    “You need to talk to Niall, tell him the whole story,” Claudine said. She smiled across the room at Catfish Hennessy, who put his beer mug down on the table so hard that it slopped over. “Now that Niall’s made himself known to you, he wants you to confide in him.”
    “Why can’t he pick up the phone like everyone else in the world?”
    “He doesn’t spend all his time in this world,” Claude said. “There are still places for only our kind.”
    “Very small places,” Claudine said longingly. “But very special.”
    I was glad to have kin, and I was always glad to see Claudine, who was literally my lifesaver. But the two sibs together were a little overpowering, overwhelming—and when they stood so close with me crowded between them (even Sam was having a visual from that), their sweet smell, the smell that made them so intoxicating to vampires, was drowning my poor nose.
    “Look,” Claude said, mildly amused. “I think we have company.”
    Arlene was sidling nearer, looking at Claude as if she’d spied a whole plate of barbecue and onion rings. “Who’s your friend, Sookie?” she asked.
    “This is Claude,” I said. “He’s my distant cousin.”
    “Well, Claude, nice to meet ya,” Arlene said.
    She had some nerve, considering the way she felt about me now and how she’d treated me since she’d started going to the Fellowship of the Sun services.
    Claude looked massively uninterested. He nodded.
    Arlene had expected more, and after a moment of silence, she pretended to hear someone from one of her tables calling her. “Gotta go get a pitcher!” she said brightly, and bustled off. I saw her bend over a table, talking very seriously to a couple of guys I didn’t know.
    “It’s always good to see you two, but I am at work,” I said. “So, did you just come to tell me my . . . that Niall wants to know why I called once and hung up?”
    “And never called thereafter to explain,” Claudine said. She bent down to kiss my cheek. “Please call him tonight when you get off work.”
    “Okay,” I said. “I still wish he’d called me himself to ask.” Messengers were all well and good, but the phone was quicker. And I’d like to hear his voice. No matter where my great-grandfather might be, he could wink back into this world to call if he really was that taxed about my safety.
    I thought he could, anyway.
    Of course, I didn’t know what being a fairy prince entailed. Write that down under “problems I know I’ll never face.”
    After another round of hugs and kisses, the twins sauntered out of the bar, and many wistful eyes followed them on their progress out the door.
    “Hoo, Sookie, you got some hot friends!” Catfish Hennessy called, and there was a general tide of agreement.
    “I’ve seen that guy at a club in Monroe. Doesn’t he strip?” said a nurse named Debi Murray who worked at the hospital in nearby Clarice. She was sitting with a couple of other nurses.
    “Yeah,” I said. “He owns the club, too.”
    “Looks and loot,” said one of the other nurses. Her name was Beverly something. “I’m taking my daughter next ladies’ night. She just broke up with a real loser.”
    "Well...” I debated