"You know what Britlingens are?" I asked, stumbling over the unfamiliar word.

The queen nodded. Andre just waited.

"I saw one," I said, and the queen's head jerked.

"Who has gone to the expense to hire a Britlingen?" Andre asked.

I told them the whole story.

The queen looked – well, it was hard to say how she looked. Maybe a little worried, maybe intrigued, since I'd garnered so much news in the lobby.

"I never knew how useful I'd find it, having a human servant," she said to Andre. "Other humans will say anything around her, and even the Britlingen spoke freely."

Andre was perhaps a tad jealous if the look on his face was any indication.

"On the other hand, I can't do a damn thing about any of this," I said. "I can just tell you what I heard, and it's hardly classified information."

"Where did Kentucky get the money?" Andre said.

The queen shook her head, as if to say she hadn't a clue and really didn't care that much. "Did you see Jennifer Cater?" she asked me.

"Yes, ma'am."

"What did she say?" asked Andre.

"She said she'd drink my blood, and she'd see you staked and exposed on the hotel roof."

There was a moment of utter silence.

Then Sophie-Anne said, "Stupid Jennifer. What's that phrase Chester used to use? She's getting too big for her britches. What to do...? I wonder if she would accept a messenger from me?"

She and Andre looked at each other steadily, and I decided they were doing a little telepathic communication of their own.

"I suppose she's taken the suite Arkansas had reserved," the queen said to Andre, and he picked up the in-house phone and called the front desk. It wasn't the first time I'd heard the king or queen of a state referred to as the state itself, but it seemed a really impersonal way to refer to your former husband, no matter how violently the marriage had ended.

"Yes," he said after he'd hung up.

"Maybe we should pay her a visit," the queen said. She and Andre indulged in some of that silent to and fro that was their way of conversing. Probably like watching Barry and me, I figured. "She'll admit us, I'm sure. There'll be something she wants to say to me in person." The queen picked up the phone, but not as if that was something she did every day. She dialed the room number with her own fingers, too.

"Jennifer," she said charmingly. She listened to a torrent of words that I could hear only a bit. Jennifer didn't sound any happier than she'd been in the lobby.

"Jennifer, we need to talk." The queen sounded much more charming and a lot tougher. There was silence on the other end of the line. "The doors are not closed to discussion or negotiation, Jennifer," Sophie-Anne said. "At least, my doors aren't. What about yours?" I think Jennifer spoke again. "All right, that's wonderful, Jennifer. We'll be down in a minute or two." The queen hung up and stood silent for a long moment.

It seemed to me like going to visit Jennifer Cater, when she was bringing a lawsuit against Sophie-Anne for murdering Peter Threadgill, was a real bad idea. But Andre nodded approvingly at Sophie-Anne.

After Sophie-Anne's conversation with her archenemy, I thought we'd head to the Arkansas group's room any second. But maybe the queen wasn't as confident as she'd sounded. Instead of starting out briskly for the showdown with Jennifer Cater, Sophie-Anne dawdled. She gave herself a little extra grooming, changed her shoes, searched around for her room key, and so on. Then she got a phone call about what room service charges the humans in her group could put on the room bill. So it was more than fifteen minutes before we managed to leave the room. Sigebert was coming out of the staircase door, and he fell into place with Andre at the waiting elevator.

Jennifer Cater and her party were on floor seven. There was no one standing at Jennifer Cater's door: I guessed she didn't rate her own bodyguard. Andre did the knocking honors, and Sophie-Anne straightened expectantly. Sigebert hung back, giving me an unexpected smile. I tried not to flinch.

The door swung open. The interior of the suite was dark.

The smell that wafted from the door was unmistakable.

"Well," said the Queen of Louisiana briskly. "Jennifer's dead."

Chapter 10

"Go see," The Queen told me.

"What? But all y'all are stronger than I am! And less scared!"

"And we're the ones she's suing," Andre pointed out. "Our smell cannot be in there. Sigebert, you must go see."

Sigebert glided into the darkness.

A door across the landing opened, and Batanya stepped out.

"I smell death," she said. "What's happened?"

"We came calling," I said. "But the door was unlocked already. Something's wrong in there."

"You don't know what?"

"No, Sigebert is exploring," I explained. "We're waiting."

"Let me call my second. I can't leave Kentucky's door unguarded." She turned to call back into the suite, "Clovache!" At least, I guess that was how it was spelled, it was pronounced "Kloh-VOSH."

A kind of Batanya Junior emerged – same armor, but smaller scale; younger, brown-haired, less terrifying... but still plenty formidable.

"Scout the place," Batanya ordered, and without a single question Clovache drew her sword and eased into the apartment like a dangerous dream.

We all waited, holding our breaths – well, I was, anyway. The vamps didn't have breath to hold, and Batanya didn't seem at all agitated. She had moved to a spot where she could watch the open door of Jennifer Cater's place and the closed door of the King of Kentucky. Her sword was drawn.

The queen's face looked almost tense, perhaps even excited; that is, slightly less blank than usual. Sigebert came out and shook his head without a word.

Clovache appeared in the doorway. "All dead," she reported to Batanya.

Batanya waited.

"By decapitation," Clovache elaborated. "The woman was, ah" – Clovache appeared to be counting mentally – "in six pieces."

"This is bad," the queen said at the same moment Andre said, "This is good." They exchanged exasperated glances.

"Any humans?" I asked, trying to keep my voice small because I didn't want their attention, but I did want to know, very badly.

"No, all vampires," Clovache said after she got a go-ahead nod from Batanya. "I saw three. They're flaking off pretty fast."

"Clovache, go in and call that Todd Donati." Clovache went silently into the Kentucky suite and placed a call, which had an electrifying effect. Within five minutes, the area in front of the elevator was crammed with people of all sorts and descriptions and degrees of living.

A man wearing a maroon jacket with Security on the pocket seemed to be in charge, so he must be Todd Donati. He was a policeman who'd retired from the force early because of the big money to be made guarding and aiding the undead. But that didn't mean he liked them. Now he was furious that something had happened so early in the summit, something that would cause him more work than he was able to handle. He had cancer, I heard clearly, though I wasn't able to discern what kind. Donati wanted to work as long as he could to provide for his family after he was gone, and he was resentful of the stress and strain this investigation would cause, the energy it would drain. But he was doggedly determined to do his job.

When Donati's vampire boss, the hotel manager, showed up, I recognized him. Christian Baruch had been on the cover of Fang (the vamp version of People) a few months ago. Baruch was Swiss born. As a human, he'd designed and managed a bunch of fancy hotels in Western Europe. When he'd told a vampire in the same line of business that if he was "brought over" (not only to the vampire life but to America), he could run outstanding and profitable hotels for a syndicate of vampires, he'd been obliged in both ways.