"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, had been the cause of much grief to her mother and much pain to my grandmother. If she'd lived, maybe she'd have tried to make up for that - or maybe she wouldn't. She hadn't had the chance.
I took a deep breath. I opened the door. "Mr. Cataliades," I said, feeling my anxious smile stretch my lips unconvincingly. The queen's lawyer was a man composed of circles, his face round and his belly rounder, his eyes beady and circular and dark. I didn't think he was human - or perhaps not wholly human - but I wasn't sure what he could be. Not a vampire; here he was, in broad daylight. Not Were, or shifter; no red buzz surrounding his brain.
"Miss Stackhouse," he said, beaming at me. "What a pleasure to see you again."
"And you also," I said, lying through my teeth. I hesitated, suddenly feeling achy and jumpy. I was sure Cataliades, like all the other supes I encountered, would know I was having my time of the month. Just great. "Won't you come in?"
"Thank you, my dear," he said, and I stepped aside, filled with misgivings, to let this creature enter my home.
"Please, have a seat," I said, determined to be polite. "Would you care for a drink?"
"No, thank you. You seem to be on your way somewhere." He was frowning at the purse I'd tossed on my chair on my way to the door.
Okay, something I wasn't understanding, here. "Yes," I said, raising my eyebrows in query. "I had planned on going to the grocery store, but I can put that off for an hour or so."
"You're not packed to return to New Orleans with me?"
"What?"
"You received my message?"
"What message?"
We stared at each other, mutually dismayed.
"I sent a messenger to you with a letter from my law office," Mr. Cataliades said. "She should have arrived here four nights ago. The letter was sealed with magic. No one but you could open it."
I shook my head, my blank expression telling him what I needed to say.
"You are saying that Gladiola didn't get here? I expected her to arrive here Wednesday night, at the latest. She wouldn't have come in a car. She likes to run." He smiled indulgently for just a second. But then the smile vanished. If I'd blinked, I would have missed it. "Wednesday night," he prompted me.
"That was the night I heard someone outside the house," I said. I shivered, remembering how tense I'd been that night. "No one came to the door. No one tried to break in. No one called to me. There was only the sense of something moving, and all the animals fell silent."
It was impossible for someone as powerful as the supernatural lawyer to look bewildered, but he did look very thoughtful. After a moment he rose ponderously and bowed to me, gesturing toward the door. We went back outside. On the front porch, he turned to the car and beckoned.
A very lean woman slid from behind the wheel. She was younger than me, maybe in her very early twenties. Like Mr. Cataliades, she was only partly human. Her dark red hair was spiked, her makeup laid on with a trowel. Even the striking outfit of the girl in the Hair of the Dog paled in comparison to this young woman's. She wore striped stockings, alternating bands of shocking pink and black, and her ankle boots were black and extremely high-heeled. Her skirt was transparent, black, and ruffled, and her pink tank top was her sole upper garment.
She just about took my breath away.
"Hi, howareya?" she said brightly, her smile revealing very sharp white teeth a dentist would fall in love with, right before he lost a finger.
"Hello," I said. I held out my hand. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse."
She covered the ground between us very speedily, even in the ridiculous heels. Her hand was tiny and bony. "Pleasedtameetya," she said. "Diantha."
"Pretty name," I said, after I figured out it wasn't another run-on sentence.
"Thankya."
"Diantha," Mr. Cataliades said, "I need to you to conduct a search for me."