“She knows,” the albino vampire said, and the only way I can describe his voice is heartbroken. I shivered. He loved his queen, really loved her.
“Yes,” the big man said, almost gently. “She sent Valentine and Charity to the cemetery immediately, when you rushed in with your news. They found no traces of human attack on what was left of Hadley. Only your smell, Waldo”
“She sent me here with you,” Waldo said, almost whispering.
“Our queen wanted Hadley’s kin to have the right of execution,” Mr. Cataliades said.
I came closer to Waldo, until I was as close as I could get. The silver had weakened the vampire, though I had a feeling that he wouldn’t have struggled even if the chain hadn’t been made of the metal that vampires can’t tolerate. Some of the fire had gone out of Waldo, though his upper lip drew back from his fangs as I put the tip of the stake over his heart. I thought of Hadley, and I wondered, if she were in my shoes, could she do this?
“Can you drive the limo, Mr. Cataliades?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am, I can.”
“Could you drive yourself back to New Orleans?”
“That was always my plan.”
I pressed down on the wood, until I could tell it was hurting him. His eyes were closed. I had staked a vampire before, but it had been to save my life and Bill’s. Waldo was a pitiful thing. There was nothing romantic or dramatic about this vampire. He was simply vicious. I was sure he could do extreme damage when the situation called for it; and I was sure he had killed my cousin Hadley.
Bill said, “I’ll do it for you, Sookie.” His voice was smooth and cold, as always, and his hand on my arm was cool.
“I can help,” Bubba offered. “You’d do it for me, Miss Sookie.”
“Your cousin was a bitch and a whore,” Waldo said, unexpectedly. I met his red eyes.
“I expect she was,” I said. “I guess I just can’t kill you.” My hand, the one holding the stake, dropped to my side.
“You have to kill me,” Waldo said, with the arrogance of surety. “The queen has sent me here to be killed.”
“I’m just gonna have to ship you right back to the queen,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
“Get your whoremonger to do it, he’s more than willing.”
Bill was looking more vampiric by the second, and he tugged the stake from my fingers.
“He’s trying to commit suicide by cop, Bill,” I said.
Bill looked puzzled, and so did Bubba. Mr. Cataliades’s round face was unreadable.
“He’s trying to make us mad enough, or scared enough, to kill him, because he can’t kill himself,” I said. “He’s sure the queen will do something much, much worse to him than I would. And he’s right.”
“The queen was trying to give you the gift of vengeance,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Won’t you take it? She may not be happy with you if you send him back.”
“That’s really her problem,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
“I think it might be very much your problem,” Bill said quietly.
“Well, that just bites,” I said. “You…” I paused, and told myself not to be a fool. “You were very kind to bring Waldo down here, Mr. Cataliades, and you were very clever in steering me around to the truth.” I took a deep breath and considered. “I appreciate your bringing down the legal papers, which I’ll look over at a calmer moment.” I thought I’d covered everything. “Now, if you’d be so good as to pop the trunk open, I’ll ask Bill and Bubba to put him in there.” I jerked my head toward the silver-bound vampire, standing in silence not a yard away.
At that moment, when we were all thinking of something else, Waldo threw himself at me, jaws open wide like a snake’s, fangs fully extended. I threw myself backward, but I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Those fangs would rip open my throat and I would bleed out here in my own yard. But Bubba and Bill were not bound with silver, and with a speed that was terrifying in itself, they gripped the old vampire and knocked him to the ground. Quicker than any human could wink, Bill’s arm rose and fell, and Waldo’s red eyes looked down at the stake in his chest with profound satisfaction. In the next second, those eyes caved in and his long thin body began the instant process of disintegration. You never have to bury a really dead vampire.
For a few long moments, we stayed frozen in the tableau; Mr. Cataliades was standing, I was on the ground on my butt, and Bubba and Bill were on their knees beside the thing that had been Waldo.
Then the limo door opened, and before Mr. Cataliades could scramble to help her out, the queen of Louisiana stepped out of the vehicle.
She was beautiful, of course, but not in a fairy-tale princess sort of way. I don’t know what I expected, but she wasn’t it. While Bill and Bubba scrambled to their feet and then bowed deeply, I gave her a good once-over. She was wearing a very expensive midnight-blue suit and high heels. Her hair was a rich reddish brown. Of course she was pale as milk, but her eyes were large, tilted, and almost the same brown as her hair. Her fingernails were polished red, and somehow that seemed very weird. She wore no jewelry.
Now I knew why Mr. Cataliades had kept the privacy glass up during the trip north. And I was sure that the queen had ways of masking her presence from Waldo’s senses, as well as his sight.