All Together Dead

“Then you’ll remain here. And you, too, Thalia. But you must promise me that you will be good in the bar.” Thalia’s required tour of duty in the bar, which simply consisted of sitting around being mysterious and vampiric a couple of evenings a week, did not always go by without incident.
    Thalia, perpetually sullen and broody, gave a curt nod. “I don’t want to go, anyway,” she muttered. Her round black eyes showed nothing but contempt for the world. She had seen too much in her very long life, and she hadn’t enjoyed herself in a few centuries, was the way I read it. I tried to avoid Thalia as much as possible. I was surprised she’d even hang with the other vamps; she seemed like a rogue to me.
    “She has no desire to lead,” Pam breathed into my ear. “She only wants to be left in peace. She was thrown out of Illinois because she was too aggressive after the Great Revelation.” The Great Revelation was the vampire term for the night that they’d gone on television all over the world to let us know that they actually existed and, furthermore, that they wanted to come out of the shadows and into the economic and social flow of human society.
    “Eric lets Thalia do what she wants as long as she follows the rules and shows up on time for her hours at the bar,” Pam continued in her tiny whisper. Eric was ruler of this little world, and no one was forgetting it. “She knows what the punishment will be if she steps out of line. Sometimes she seems to forget how little she would like that punishment. She should read Abby, get some ideas.”
    If you weren’t getting any joy out of your life, you needed to…oh, do something for others, or take up a new hobby, or something like that, right? Wasn’t that the usual advice? I flashed on Thalia volunteering to take the night shift at a hospice, and I shuddered. The idea of Thalia knitting, with two long, sharp needles, gave me another frisson of horror. To heck with the therapy.
    “So, the only ones attending the summit are Andre, our queen, Sookie, myself, Bill, and Pam,” Eric said. “Cataliades the lawyer and his niece as his runner. Oh, yes, Gervaise from Four and his human woman, a concession since Gervaise has been hosting the queen so generously. Rasul, as driver. And Sigebert, of course. That’s our party. I know some of you are disappointed, and I can only hope that next year will be a better year for Louisiana. And for Arkansas, which we now consider part of our territory.”
    “I think that’s all that we needed to talk about with all of you present,” Andre said. The rest of the stuff he and Eric had to discuss would be done in private. Andre didn’t touch me again, which was a good thing. Andre scared me down to my polished pink toenails. Of course, I should feel that way about everyone in the room. If I’d had good sense, I would move to Wyoming, which had the lowest vamp population (two; there’d been an article about them in American Vampire ). Some days I was sorely tempted.
    I whipped a little notepad out of my purse as Eric went over the date of our departure, the date of our return, the time our chartered Anubis Airline plane was arriving from Baton Rouge to pick up the Shreveport contingent, and a rundown of the clothes we would need. With some dismay, I realized I would have to go borrowing from my friends again. But Eric added, “Sookie, you wouldn’t need these clothes if it wasn’t for the trip. I’ve called your friend’s store and you have credit there. Use it.”
    I could feel my cheeks redden. I felt like the poor cousin until he added, “The staff has an account at a couple of stores here in Shreveport, but that would be inconvenient for you.” My shoulders relaxed, and I hoped he was telling the truth. Not one flicker of an eyelid told me any different.
    “We may have suffered a disaster, but we won’t go in looking poor,” Eric said, being careful to give me only a fraction of his stare.
    “Don’t look poor,” I made a note.
    “Is everyone clear? Our goals for this conference are to support the queen as she tries to clear herself of these ridiculous charges, and to let everyone know that Louisiana is still a prestigious state. None of the Arkansas vampires who came to Louisiana with their king survived to tell the tale.” Eric smiled, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile.
    I hadn’t known that before this night.
    Gosh, wasn’t that convenient.

Chapter 2
    “Halleigh, since you’re marrying a