Deadlocked

Bil had been right. Mustapha had been right. This was not a place I should be. Despite what Pam had said, I couldn’t believe any of the vampires would have missed me. They were al too busy.

But then the man watching the dancer turned his head to look at me. I realized that he was a ful y clothed (thank you, God) Felipe de Castro. He smiled at me, his sharp white fangs glistening in the overhead light. Yes, he’d been enjoying the dancing.

“Miss Stackhouse!” he said lazily. “I’d been afraid you wouldn’t come tonight. It’s been too long since I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you.” Since Felipe had a thick accent, my name sounded more like “Meees Stekhuss!” The first time I’d met him, the king had been wearing an honest-to-God cape. Tonight he’d dressed conservatively in a gray shirt, silver vest, and black pants.

“It’s been a while, Your Majesty,” I said, which was simply al I could think of to say. “I’m so sorry I’m a bit late to greet you. Where is Eric?”

“He’s in one of the bedrooms,” Felipe said, stil smiling. His mustache and chin strip were perfectly black and perfectly groomed. The King of Nevada, Arkansas, and Louisiana was not a tal man. He was strikingly handsome. He possessed a vitality that was hugely attractive—though not to me, and not tonight. Felipe was also quite the politician, I’d heard, and he was certainly a businessman. No tel ing how much money he’d amassed in his long life.

I smiled back at the king in a frozen way. I was mighty put out. The Nevada visitors weren’t acting any better than, say, smal -town firemen attending a convention in New Orleans. That these visitors were from Las Vegas and yet felt it necessary to misbehave in Shreveport … wel , it didn’t speak wel for them.

“In one of the bedrooms” didn’t sound good, but of course that was what Felipe had intended. “I’d better tel him I’m here,” I said, and turned to Pam. “Let’s go, girlfriend.”

Pam took my hand, and it was a measure of the evening that I actual y found that comforting. Her face was stil as wax.

As we navigated through the room (the muscular man wasn’t actual y having sex with his companion, but it wasn’t far in the future), Pam hissed,

“Did you see that? The blood wil never come out of the upholstery.”

“It won’t be as hard to clean up as the night Alexei went nuts here,” I said, trying to get perspective. “Or the club, after we did—that thing.” I didn’t want to say “kil ed Victor” out loud.

“But that was fun.” Pam was practical y pouting.

“This isn’t, for you?”

“No, I like my pleasures more personal and private.”

“Oh, me, too,” I said. “Why is Eric back here instead of out there?”

“I don’t know. I just came back from a liquor run,” she said briefly. “Mustapha insisted we needed some more rum.”

She was doing Mustapha’s bidding now? But I pressed my lips shut. It was no business of mine.

By that time we’d reached the door of the bedroom I used at Eric’s, since I didn’t want to be shut downstairs with him al day in his light-tight sleeping room. Pam, a step ahead of me, pushed open the door and stiffened. Eric was there, and he was sitting on the bed, but he was feeding off someone—a dark-haired woman. She was sprawled across his lap, her bright summer dress twisted around her body, one hand gripping his shoulder and kneading it while he sucked from her neck. Her other hand was … she was pleasuring herself.

“You asshole,” I said, and I reversed on the spot. Getting the hel out of there was my al -consuming desire. Eric raised his head, his mouth bloody, and his eyes met mine. He was … drunk.

“You can’t go,” Pam said. She gripped my arm now, and I could tel it would break before she’d release me. “If you run out now, we’l look weak, and Felipe wil react. We’l al suffer. Something’s wrong with Eric.”

“I real y don’t give a damn,” I told her. My head felt oddly light and distant from the shock. I wondered if I would faint or throw up or leap on Eric and choke him.

“You need to leave,” Eric told the woman. His words were slurred. What the hell?

“But we were just getting around to the good part,” she said, in what she thought was a seductive voice. “Don’t make me go, baby, before the big payoff. If you want her to join in, that’s al right with me, sugar.” It took al her effort to get the words out. She was white as a sheet. She’d lost a lot of blood.

“You must go,” Eric said, a bit more clearly. His voice had the shove in it vampires use to get humans moving.

Though I refused to look at the brunette, I knew when she got off the bed, and Eric. I knew when she staggered and almost fel . Now I can keep my car, she thought.

I was so startled to hear this that I turned to look at her. She was younger than me, and she was skinny. Somehow that made Eric’s offense worse. After a second I could glimpse, past my agitation, that she had a lot of sickness in her head. The stuff churning around in her mind was both awful and confusing. Self-loathing made her thoughts al tinged with gray, as if she were rotting from her core out. The surface stil looked pretty, but it wouldn’t be for long.

The girl also had twoey blood, though I couldn’t tel what kind … maybe werewolf. One of her parents was the real deal. That made sense, given Eric’s condition. Twoey blood packed a punch for vampires, and she’d amped it up somehow to make herself more intoxicating.

Pam said, “I don’t know who you are or how you got in here, girl, but you must leave now.”

The girl laughed, which neither Pam nor I had expected. Pam jerked, and I felt a solar flare go off in my head. I’d added rage to disgust.

Laughing! My eyes met the girl’s. The smirk vanished from her lips, and she blanched.

I was no vampire, but I guess I looked pretty threatening.