"Yeah, but don't tell anyone yet. They're announcing it tonight."
"So when are we gonna talk?"
"I'll come to your room when the vamps are in bed for the day. Where are you?"
"I have a roommate." I gave him the room number anyway.
"If she's there, we'll find somewhere else to go," he said, glancing at his watch. "Listen, don't worry; everything's okay."
I wondered what I should be worrying about. I wondered where another dimension was, and how hard it would be to bring over bodyguards from it. I wondered why anyone would go to the expense. Not that Batanya hadn't seemed pretty damn effective; but the extreme effort Kentucky had gone to, that sure seemed to argue extreme fear. Who was after him?
My waist buzzed at me, and I realized I was being summoned back up to the queen's suite. Barry's pager went off, too. We looked at each other.
Back to work, he said, as we went toward the elevator. I'm sorry if I caused trouble between you and Quinn.
You don't mean that.
He glanced at me. He had the grace to look ashamed. I guess I don't. I had a picture built up of how you and me would be, and Quinn kind of intruded on my fantasy life.
Ah...ah.
Don't worry - you don't have to think of something to say. It was one of those fantasies. Now that I'm really with you, I have to adjust.
Ah.
But I shouldn't have let my disappointment make me a jerk.
Ah. Okay. I'm sure Quinn and I can work it out.
So, I kept the fantasy screened from you, huh?
I nodded vigorously.
Well, at least that's something.
I smiled at him. Everyone's got to have a fantasy, I told him. My fantasy is finding out where Kentucky got that money, and who he hired to bring that woman here. Was she not the scariest thing you've ever seen?
No, Barry answered, to my surprise. The scariest thing I've ever seen...well, it wasn't Batanya. And then he locked the communicating door between our brains and threw away the key. Sigebert was opening the door into the queen's suite, and we were back at work.
After Barry and his party left, I kind of waved my hand in the air to let the queen know I had something to say if she wanted to listen. She and Andre had been discussing Stan's motivation in paying the significant visit, and they paused in identical attitudes. It was just weird. Their heads were cocked at the same angle, and with their extreme pallor and stillness, it was like being regarded by works of art carved in marble: Nymph and Satyr at Rest, or something like that.
"You know what Britlingens are?" I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.
The queen nodded. Andre just waited.
"I saw one," I said, and the queen's head jerked.
"Who has gone to the expense to hire a Britlingen?" Andre asked.
I told them the whole story.
The queen looked - well, it was hard to say how she looked. Maybe a little worried, maybe intrigued, since I'd garnered so much news in the lobby.
"I never knew how useful I'd find it, having a human servant," she said to Andre. "Other humans will say anything around her, and even the Britlingen spoke freely."
Andre was perhaps a tad jealous if the look on his face was any indication.
"On the other hand, I can't do a damn thing about any of this," I said. "I can just tell you what I heard, and it's hardly classified information."
"Where did Kentucky get the money?" Andre said.
The queen shook her head, as if to say she hadn't a clue and really didn't care that much. "Did you see Jennifer Cater?" she asked me.
"Yes, ma'am."
"What did she say?" asked Andre.
"She said she'd drink my blood, and she'd see you staked and exposed on the hotel roof."
There was a moment of utter silence.
Then Sophie-Anne said, "Stupid Jennifer. What's that phrase Chester used to use? She's getting too big for her britches. What to do...? I wonder if she would accept a messenger from me?"
She and Andre looked at each other steadily, and I decided they were doing a little telepathic communication of their own.
"I suppose she's taken the suite Arkansas had reserved," the queen said to Andre, and he picked up the in-house phone and called the front desk. It wasn't the first time I'd heard the king or queen of a state referred to as the state itself, but it seemed a really impersonal way to refer to your former husband, no matter how violently the marriage had ended.
"Yes," he said after he'd hung up.
"Maybe we should pay her a visit," the queen said. She and Andre indulged in some of that silent to and fro that was their way of conversing. Probably like watching Barry and me, I figured. "She'll admit us, I'm sure. There'll be something she wants to say to me in person." The queen picked up the phone, but not as if that was something she did every day. She dialed the room number with her own fingers, too.
"Jennifer," she said charmingly. She listened to a torrent of words that I could hear only a bit. Jennifer didn't sound any happier than she'd been in the lobby.
"Jennifer, we need to talk." The queen sounded much more charming and a lot tougher. There was silence on the other end of the line. "The doors are not closed to discussion or negotiation, Jennifer," Sophie-Anne said. "At least, my doors aren't. What about yours?" I think Jennifer spoke again. "All right, that's wonderful, Jennifer. We'll be down in a minute or two." The queen hung up and stood silent for a long moment.
It seemed to me like going to visit Jennifer Cater, when she was bringing a lawsuit against Sophie-Anne for murdering Peter Threadgill, was a real bad idea. But Andre nodded approvingly at Sophie-Anne.
After Sophie-Anne's conversation with her archenemy, I thought we'd head to the Arkansas group's room any second. But maybe the queen wasn't as confident as she'd sounded. Instead of starting out briskly for the showdown with Jennifer Cater, Sophie-Anne dawdled. She gave herself a little extra grooming, changed her shoes, searched around for her room key, and so on. Then she got a phone call about what room service charges the humans in her group could put on the room bill. So it was more than fifteen minutes before we managed to leave the room. Sigebert was coming out of the staircase door, and he fell into place with Andre at the waiting elevator.
Jennifer Cater and her party were on floor seven. There was no one standing at Jennifer Cater's door: I guessed she didn't rate her own bodyguard. Andre did the knocking honors, and Sophie-Anne straightened expectantly. Sigebert hung back, giving me an unexpected smile. I tried not to flinch.
The door swung open. The interior of the suite was dark.