The clerk went over our reservations very slowly and deliberately, as if to keep us on exhibit in the lobby for as long as possible. Mr. Cataliades dealt with him with his usual elaborate courtesy, though even that was getting strained after ten minutes.
I'd been standing at a discreet distance during the process, but when I could tell the clerk - fortyish, recreational drug user, father of three - was just f**king us over to entertain himself, I took a step closer. I laid a hand on Mr. C's sleeve to indicate that I wanted to join in the conversation. He interrupted himself to turn an interested face toward me.
"You give us our keys and tell us where our vamps are, or I'll tell your boss that you're the one selling Pyramid of Gizeh items on eBay. And if you bribe a maid to even touch the queen's panties, much less steal 'em, I'll sic Diantha on you." Diantha had just returned from tracking down a bottle of water. She obligingly revealed her sharp, pointed teeth in a lethal smile.
The clerk turned white and then red in an interesting display of blood flow patterns. "Yes, ma'am," he stammered, and I wondered if he would wet himself. After my little rummage through his head, I didn't much care.
In very short order, we all had keys, we had a list of "our" vampires' resting places, and the bellman was bringing our luggage in one of those neat carts. That reminded me of something.
Barry, I said in my head. You here?
Yeah, said a voice that was far from the faltering one it had been the first time I'd heard it. Sookie Stackhouse?
It's me. We're checking in. I'm in 1538. You?
I'm in 1576. How are you doing?
Good, personally. But Louisiana...we've had the hurricane, and we've got the trial. I guess you know all about that?
Yeah. You saw some action.
You could say that, I told him, wondering if my smile was coming across in my head.
Got that loud and clear.
Now I had an inkling of how people must feel when they were faced with me.
I'll see you later, I told Barry. Hey, what's your real last name?
You started something when you brought my gift out into the open, he told me. My real name is Barry Horowitz. Now I just call myself Barry Bellboy. That's how I'm registered, if you forget my room number.
Okay. Looking forward to visiting with you.
Same here.
And then Barry and I both turned our attention to other things, and that strange tickling feeling of mind-to-mind communication was gone.
Barry's the only other telepath I've ever encountered.
Mr. Cataliades had discovered that the humans - well, the non-vampires - in the party had each been put in a room with another person. Some of the vampires had roommates, too. He hadn't been pleased that he himself was sharing a room with Diantha, but the hotel was extremely crowded, the clerk had said. He may have been lying about a lot of other things, but that much was clearly true.
I was sharing a room with Gervaise's squeeze, and as I slid the card into the slot on the door, I wondered if she'd be in. She was. I'd been expecting a woman like the fangbangers who hang around at Fangtasia, but Carla Danvers was another kind of creature entirely.
"Hey, girl!" she said, as I entered. "I figured you'd be along soon when they brought your bags up. I'm Carla, Gerry's girlfriend."
"Nice to meet you," I said, shaking hands. Carla was a prom queen. Maybe she hadn't been, literally; maybe she hadn't made homecoming queen, either, but she'd surely been on the court. Carla had dark brown chin-length hair, and big brown eyes, and teeth that were so straight and white that they were an advertisement for her orthodontist. Her br**sts had been enhanced, and her ears were pierced, and her belly button, too. She had a tattoo on her lower back, some black vines in a vee pattern with a couple of roses with green leaves in the middle. I could see all this because Carla was naked, and she didn't seem to have the slightest idea that her nudity was a little on the "too much information" side to suit me.
"Have you and Gervaise been going together long?" I asked to camouflage how uncomfortable I was.
"I met Gerry, let's see, seven months ago. He said it would be better for me to have a separate room because he might have to have business meetings in his, you know? Plus, I'm going shopping while I'm here - retail therapy! Big city stores! And I wanted someplace to store my shopping bags so he won't ask me how much it all costs." She gave me a wink I can only say was roguish.
"Okay," I said. "Sounds good." It really didn't, but Carla's program was hardly my business. My suitcase was waiting for me on a stand, so I opened it and started to unpack, noting that my hanging bag with my good dresses was already in the closet. Carla had left me exactly half the closet space and drawer space, which was decent. She had brought about twenty times more clothes than I had, which made her fairness all the more remarkable.
"Whose girlfriend are you?" Carla asked. She was giving herself a pedicure. When she drew up one leg, the overhead light winked on something metallic between her legs. Completely embarrassed, I turned away to straighten my evening dress on the hanger.
"I'm dating Quinn," I said.
I glanced over my shoulder, keeping my gaze high.
Carla looked blank.
"The weretiger," I said. "He's arranging the ceremonies here."
She looked marginally more responsive.
"Big guy, shaved head," I said.
Her face brightened. "Oh, yeah, I saw him this morning! He was eating breakfast in the restaurant when I was checking in."
"There's a restaurant?"
"Yeah, sure. Though of course it's tiny. And there's room service."
"You know, in vampire hotels there often isn't a restaurant," I said, just to make conversation. I'd read an article about it in American Vampire.
"Oh. Well, that makes no sense at all." Carla finished one set of toes and began another.
"Not from a vampire point of view."
Carla frowned. "I know they don't eat. But people do. And this is a people world, right? That's like not learning English when you emigrate to America."
I turned around to check out Carla's face, make sure she was serious. Yeah, she was.
"Carla," I said, and then stopped. I didn't have any idea what to say, how to get across to Carla that a four-hundred-year-old vamp really didn't care very much about the eating arrangements of a twenty-year-old human. But the girl was waiting for me to finish. "Well, it's good that there's a restaurant here," I said weakly.
She nodded. "Yeah, 'cause I need my coffee in the morning," she said. "I just can't get going without it. Course, when you date a vamp, your morning is liable to begin at three or four in the afternoon." She laughed.