"Are you trying to be a martyr for these damn things?" Quinn asked, and I figured the "damn things" were the vampires.
"Ha," I said. "Oh, ha-ha. Yeah, 'cause they love me. You see how many vampires are up here? Zero, right?"
"One," said Eric, stepping out of the stairwell. "We're bound a bit too tightly to suit me, Sookie." He was visibly tense; I couldn't remember ever seeing Eric so notably anxious. "I'm here to die right along with you, it seems."
"Good. To make my day absolutely effing complete, here's Eric again," I said, and if I sounded a little sarcastic, well, I was due. "Are you all completely nuts? Get the hell out of here!"
In a brisk voice, Todd Donati said, "Well, I will. You won't let anyone take the can, you won't put it down, and you haven't blown up yet. So I think I'll go downstairs to wait for the bomb squad."
I couldn't fault his logic. "Thanks for calling in the troops," I said, and Donati took the stairs, because the elevator was too close to me. I could read his head easily, and he felt deep shame that he hadn't actually offered to help me in any more concrete way. He planned to go down a floor to where no one could see him and then take the elevator to save his strength. The stairwell door shut behind him, and then we three stood by ourselves in a triangular tableau: Quinn, Eric, and me. Was this symbolic, or what?
My head was feeling light.
Eric began to move very slowly and carefully - I think so I wouldn't be startled. In a moment, he was at my elbow. Quinn's brain was throbbing and pulsating like a disco ball farther to my right. He didn't know how to help me, and of course, he was a bit afraid of what might happen.
Who knew, with Eric? Aside from being able to locate him and determine how he was oriented to me, I couldn't see more.
"You'll give it to me and leave," Eric said. He was pushing his vampire influence at my head with all his might.
"Won't work, never did," I muttered.
"You are a stubborn woman," he said.
"I'm not," I said, on the verge of tears at being first accused of nobility, then stubbornness. "I just don't want to move it! That's safest!"
"Some might think you suicidal."
"Well, 'some' can stick it up their ass."
"Babe, put it down on the urn. Just lay it down re-a-a-llll easy," Quinn said, his voice very gentle. "Then I'll get you a big drink with lots of alcohol. You're a real strong gal, you know that? I'm proud of you, Sookie. But if you don't put that down now and get out of here, I'm gonna be real mad, hear me? I don't want anything to happen to you. That would be nuts, right?"
I was saved from further debate by the arrival of another entity on the scene. The police sent up a robot in the elevator.
When the door swooshed open we all jumped, because we'd been too wrapped up in the drama to notice the noise of the elevator. I actually giggled when the stubby robot rolled off the elevator. I started to hold the bomb out to it, but I figured the robot wasn't supposed to take it. It seemed to be operating on remote control, and it turned slightly right to face me. It remained motionless for a couple of minutes to have a good look at me and what was in my hand. After a minute or two of examination, the robot retreated onto the elevator, and its arm jerkily reached up to punch the correct button. The doors swished shut, and it left.
"I hate modern technology," Eric said quietly.
"Not true," I said. "You love what computers can do for you. I know that for a fact. Remember how happy you got when you saw the Fangtasia employee roster, with all the work hours filled in?"
"I don't like the impersonality of it. I like the knowledge it can hold."
This was just too weird a conversation for me to continue under the circumstances.
"Someone's coming up the stairs," Quinn said, and opened the stair door.
Into our little group strode the bomb disposal guy. The homicide squad might not have boasted any vampire cops, but the bomb squad did. The vampire wore one of those space suit-looking outfits. (Even if you can survive it, I guess getting blown up is not a good experience.) Someone had written "BOOM" on his chest where a name tag would normally be. Oh, that was so funny.
"You two civilians need to leave the floor to the lady and me," Boom said, moving slowly across the floor to me. "Take a hike, guys," he said when neither man moved.
"No," said Eric.
"Hell, no," said Quinn.
It isn't easy to shrug in one of those suits, but Boom managed. He was holding a square container. Frankly, I was in no mood to have a look at it, and all I cared about was that he opened the lid and held it out, carefully placing it under my hands.
Very, very carefully I lowered the can into the padded interior of the container. I let it go and brought my hands out of the container with a relief that I can't even describe, and Boom closed the container, still grinning merrily through his clear face guard. I shuddered all over, my hands trembling violently from the release of the position.
Boom turned, slowed by the suit, and gestured to Quinn to open the stairwell door again. Quinn did, and down the stairs the vampire went: slowly, carefully, evenly. Maybe he smiled all the way. But he didn't blow up, because I didn't hear a noise, and I've got to say we all stood frozen in our places for a good long while.
"Oh," I said, "Oh." This was not brilliant, but I was in about a thousand emotional pieces. My knees gave way.
Quinn pounced on me and wrapped his arms around me. "You idiot," he said. "You idiot." It was like he was saying, "Thank you, God." I was smothered in weretiger, and I rubbed my face against his E(E)E shirt to wipe up the tears that had leaked from my eyes.
When I peered under his arm, there was no one else in the area. Eric had vanished. So I had a moment to enjoy being held, to know that Quinn still liked me, that the thing with Andre and Eric hadn't killed all feeling he had begun to have for me. I had a moment to feel the absolute relief of escaping death.
Then the elevator and the stair door opened simultaneously, and all manner of people wanted to talk to me.
Chapter 13
"IT WAS A BOMB," TODD DONATI SAID. "A QUICK, crude bomb. The police will be telling me more, I hope, after they've finished their examination." The security chief was sitting in the queen's suite. I had finally gotten to stow the blue suitcase by one of her couches, and, boy, was I glad to be rid of it. Sophie-Anne hadn't bothered to thank me for its return, but I hadn't really expected her to, I guess. When you had underlings, you sent them on errands and you didn't have to thank them. That's why they were underlings. For that matter, I wasn't sure the stupid thing was even hers.