"Yes, quite an evening," the wife said.
"My name is Sookie Stackhouse," I said, oozing charm.
"Olive Trout," she replied, and we shook hands. "This is my husband, Julian." She had no idea what her husband was.
"Are you all from around here?" I was scanning the crowd as unobtrusively as possible. I had no idea what to do with them now that I'd found them.
"You haven't watched our local stations," Olive said proudly. "Julian is the Channel 7 weatherman."
"How interesting," I said, with absolute sincerity. "If you two would just come with me, I know someone who'd just love to meet you." As I dragged the two through the crowd, I began to have second thoughts. What if Sophie-Anne intended retribution? But that wouldn't make sense. The important fact was not that there was a weather witch; the important fact was that someone had hired Julian Trout to predict the weather outlook for Louisiana and had somehow postponed the summit until Katrina had wreaked its havoc.
Julian was bright enough to figure out something was wrong with my enthusiasm, and I was afraid they'd both balk. I was mighty relieved to spot Gervaise's blond head. I called his name in a hearty voice as if I hadn't talked to him in a coon's age. By the time I reached him I was almost out of breath from herding the Trouts with such speed and anxiety.
"Gervaise, Carla," I said, depositing the Trouts in front of the sheriff as if I'd drug them out of the water. "This is Olive Trout and her husband, Julian. The queen's been anxious to meet someone like Julian. He's really into the weather." Okay, not subtle. But Julian's face turned white. Yeah, a little knowledge of wrongdoing definitely present in Julian's conscience.
"Honey, are you sick?" Olive asked.
"We need to go home," he said.
"No, no, no," Carla said, leaping into the conversation. "Gervaise, honey, you remember Andre said if we heard of anyone who was really a weather authority, he and the queen especially wanted to have a word with 'em?" She tucked her arms around the Trouts and beamed at them. Olive looked uncertain.
"Of course," said Gervaise, the lightbulb finally switching on above his head. "Thank you, Sookie. Please, come with us." And they guided the Trouts away.
I felt a little giddy with the pleasure of having been proved right.
Looking around, I spotted Barry sticking a little plate on an empty tray.
"You wanna dance?" I asked, because the Dead Man Dance Band was playing a great cover of an old Jennifer Lopez song. Barry looked reluctant, but I pulled him by his hand, and pretty soon we were shaking our bonbons all over the place and having a great time. Nothing's like dancing for relaxing tension and losing yourself, just for a little while. I wasn't as good as Shakira at muscle control, but maybe if I practiced once in a while...
"What are you doing?" Eric asked, and he wasn't being facetious. He was glacial with disapproval.
"Dancing, why?" I gave a wave to signal Eric to scoot. But Barry had stopped, already, and given me a little good-bye wave.
"I was having a good time," I protested.
"You were twitching your assets in front of every male in the room," he said. "Like a..."
"You hold up, buddy! You stop right there!" I held up a finger, warning him.
"Take your finger out of my face," he said.
I inhaled to say something unforgivable, welcoming the tide of anger with actual delight - I was not tied to him at the waist - when a strong, wiry arm clamped around me, and an unfamiliar Irish-accented voice said, "Dance, darling?" As the red-haired dancer who'd opened the night's shindig swung me off in a more sedate but complicated set of steps, I spotted his partner seizing Eric's wrist to do the same.
"Just follow while you calm down, girl. I'm Sean."
"Sookie."
"Pleased to meet you, young woman. You're a fine dancer."
"Thank you. That's a high compliment, coming from you. I really enjoyed your routine earlier." I could feel the rush of anger draining away.
"It's my partner," he said, smiling. It didn't look easy for him, that smile, but it transformed him from a thin-faced freckled man with a blade of a nose to a man with sexiness to spare. "My Layla is a dream to dance with."
"She's very beautiful."
"Oh, yes, inside and out."
"How long have you been partners?"
"In dancing, two years. In life, over a year."
"From your accent, I guess you came here in a roundabout way." I glimpsed Eric and the beautiful Layla. Layla had an easy smile on her lips, and she was talking to Eric, who was still looking sort of grim. But not angry.
"You could say so," he agreed. "Of course, I'm from Ireland, but I've been over here for..." His brow furrowed in thought, and it was like watching marble ripple. "Been here for a hundred years, anyway. From time to time, we think about moving back to Tennessee, where Layla's from, but we haven't made up our minds."
This was a lot of conversation from a quiet-looking guy. "You're just getting tired of living in the city?"
"Too much anti-vampire stuff going around lately. The Fellowship of the Sun, the Take the Night from the Dead movement: we seem to breed 'em here."
"The Fellowship is everywhere," I said. The very name made me feel gloomy. "And what'll happen when they get to hear about Weres?"
"Aye. And I think that'll be soon. I keep hearing from Weres that it's just around the corner."
You'd think, that out of all the supes I knew, one of them would let me know what was up. Sooner or later the Weres and the shifters would have to let the world in on their big secret, or they'd get outed by the vampires, either intentionally or unintentionally.
"There might even be a civil war," Sean said, and I forced my mind back to the topic at hand.
"Between the Fellowship and the supes?"
He nodded. "I'm thinking that could happen."
"What would you do in that case?"
"I've been through a few wars, and I don't want to go through another one," he said promptly. "Layla hasn't seen the Old World, and she would enjoy it, so we'd go to England. We could dance there, or we could just find a place to hide out."
As interesting as this was, it wasn't getting me any closer to solving the numerous problems facing me right at the moment, which I could count off on my fingers. Who had paid Julian Trout? Who had planted the Dr Pepper bomb? Who had killed the rest of the Arkansas vampires? Was it the same person who'd had Henrik killed, the employer of the rogue vamp?