Charlaine Harris - Dead in the Family

Pam said, “Back to earth, monkey girl. Time is passing.”

I noted that she was blaming me and not Eric. I pulled away and gave him a special smile.

“Come, sit, and tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Do you want Pam to know, too?”

“Yes,” I said. I figured he’d tell her anyway.

The two vampires sat at opposite ends of the dark red couch, and I sat across from them on the gold and red love seat. In front of the couch was a very large square coffee table with inlaid woodwork on the top and elaborately carved legs. The table was scattered with things Eric had been enjoying recently: the manuscript of a book about the Vikings that he’d been asked to endorse, a heavy jade cigarette lighter (though he didn’t smoke), and a beautiful silver bowl with a deep blue enamel interior. I always found his selections interesting. My own house was kind of. cumulative. In fact, I hadn’t picked out anything in it but the kitchen cabinets and appliances—but my house was the history of my family. Eric’s house was the history of Eric.

I brushed a finger across the inlaid wood. “Day before yesterday,” I began, “I got a call from Alcide Herveaux.”

I wasn’t imagining that the two vampires had a reaction to my news. It was minute (most vampires aren’t given to extravagant expressions), but it was definitely there. Eric leaned forward, inviting me to continue my account. I did, telling them that I’d also met some of the new additions to the Long Tooth pack, including Basim and Annabelle.

“I’ve seen this Basim,” Pam said. I looked at her with some surprise. “He came to Fangtasia one night with another Were, another new one. that Annabelle, the brown-haired woman. She’s Alcide’s new. squeeze.”

Though I’d suspected as much, it was still a little astonishing to me. “She must have hidden assets,” I said, before I thought.

Eric raised an eyebrow. “Not what you thought Alcide would pick, my lover?”

“I liked Maria-Star,” I said. Like so many other people I’d met in the past two years, Alcide’s previous girlfriend had met an awful end. I’d grieved for her.

“But before that, he had long associated with Debbie Pelt,” Eric said, and I had to struggle to control my face. “You can see that Alcide’s catholic in his pleasures,” Eric continued. “He carried the torch for you, didn’t he?” Eric’s slight accent made the outmoded phrase sound exotic. “From a true bitch, to a startling talent, to a sweet photographer, to a tough girl who doesn’t mind visiting a vampire bar. Alcide has very variable taste in women.”

That was true. I’d never put it together before.

“He sent Annabelle and Basim to the club for a purpose. Have you been reading the newspapers lately?” Pam asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve been enjoying not reading the papers.”

“Congress is thinking of passing a bill requiring all the werewolves and shifters to register. Legislation and issues regarding them would then fall under the Bureau of Vampire Affairs, as laws and lawsuits pertaining to us, the undead, do now.” Pam was looking very grim.

I almost said, “But that’s not right !” Then I understood how that would sound—as if I thought it was okay to require the vampires to register, but Weres and shifters shouldn’t have to. Thank God I didn’t open my mouth.

“Not too surprisingly, the Weres are furious about this. In fact, Alcide has told me himself that he thinks the government has sent people to spy on his pack, the idea being that they would then give some kind of secret report to the people in Congress who are considering this bill. He doesn’t believe it’s only his pack that’s being singled out. Alcide has good sense.” Eric sounded approving. “But he believes he’s being watched.”

Now I understood why Alcide had been so concerned about the people camping on his land. He’d suspected they weren’t what they appeared to be.

“It would be awful to think your own government was spying on you,” I said. “Especially after you’d been thinking of yourself as a regular citizen your entire life.” The enormity of the impact of this piece of legislation was still sinking in. Instead of being a respected and wealthy citizen in Shreveport, Alcide (and the other members of his pack) would become like. illegal aliens. “Where would they have to register? Could the kids still go to school with all the other children? What about the men and women at Barksdale Air Force Base? After all these years! Do you think the bill really has a chance of passing?”

Pam said, “The Weres believe it does. Maybe it’s paranoia. Maybe they’ve heard something through the members of Congress who are two-natured. Maybe they know something we don’t know. Alcide sent this Annabelle and Basim al Saud to tell me they might be in the same boat with us soon. They wanted to know about the area representative for the BVA, what kind of woman she is, how they could deal with her.”

“Who is the rep?” I asked. I felt ignorant and ill-informed. Obviously I should have known this, since I was intimately involved with a vampire.

“Katherine Boudreaux,” Pam said. “She likes women somewhat more than men, like I do.” Pam grinned a toothy grin. “She also loves dogs. She has a steady lover, Sallie, who shares her house. Katherine is not interested in having a side affair, and she is unbribable.”

“You’ve tried, I take it.”

“I tried to interest her sexually. Bobby Burnham tried the bribe.” Bobby was Eric’s daytime man. We disliked each other intensely.

I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m real glad to know all this, but my real problem came after the Weres used my land.”

Eric and Pam were looking at me sharply and with great attention, all of a sudden. “You let the Weres use your property for their monthly run?”

“Well, yeah. Hamilton Bond said there were people camping out on the Herveaux land, and now that I’ve heard what Alcide’s told you—and I’m wondering why he didn’t tell me all this—I can see why he didn’t want to have a run on his own land. I guess he thought the campers were government agents. What would the new agency be called?” I asked. It wouldn’t be BVA, would it? If the BVA was still only “representing” vampires.

Pam shrugged. “The legislation going through Congress proposes it be called the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs.”

“Get back to your issues, my lover,” Eric said.

“Okeydokey. Well, when they were leaving, Basim came to the front door and told me he’d smelled at least one fairy and some other vampire traveling through my land. And my cousin Claude says he wasn’t the fairy.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Interesting,” Eric said.

“Very odd,” Pam said.

Eric ran his fingers over the manuscript on the coffee table as if it could tell him who’d been traipsing around my property. “I don’t know the credentials of this Basim, except that he was thrown out of the pack in Houston and Alcide took him in. I don’t know why he was expelled. I expect it was for some disruption. We’ll check on what Basim told you.” He turned to Pam. “That new girl, Heidi, says she’s a tracker.”

“You got a new vamp?” I asked.

“This is one sent us by Victor.” Eric’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Even from New Orleans, supposedly, Victor is running the state with a tight hand. He sent Sandy, who was supposed to be the liaison, back to Nevada. I suspect Victor thought he didn’t have enough control over her.”

“How can he get New Orleans up and running if he travels around the state as much as Sandy did?”

“I’m assuming he’s leaving Bruno Brazell in charge,” Pam said. “I think Bruno pretends Victor is in New Orleans, even when Victor isn’t. The rest of Victor’s people don’t know where he is half the time. Since he killed off all the New Orleans vampires he could find, we’ve had to rely on the information of our one spy who survived the massacre.”