"We'd lose control over our lives," Barry said. "I like my life."

"I guess I could be saving a lot of people," I said. I'd just never thought about it before. I'd never been faced with a situation like the one we'd faced the previous day. I hoped I never was again. How likely was it I would ever be on-site again at a disaster? Was I obligated to give up a job I liked, among people I cared about, to work for strangers in far away places? I shivered when I thought of it. I felt something harden within me when I realized that the advantage Andre had taken of me would only be the beginning, in situations like that. Like Andre, everyone would want to own me.

"No," I said. "I won't do it. Maybe I'm just being selfish and I'm damning myself, but I won't do it. I don't think we're exaggerating how bad that would be for us, not a bit."

"Then going to the hospital is not a good idea," Cataliades said.

"I know, but I have to, anyway."

"Then you can stop by on your way to the airport."

We sat up straighter.

"There's an Anubis plane flying out in three hours. It'll go to Dallas first, then Shreveport. The queen and Stan are paying for it jointly. It'll have all the survivors of both parties on it. The citizens of Rhodes have donated used coffins for the trip." Mr. Cataliades made a face, and honestly, I couldn't blame him. "Here's all the cash we can spare," he continued, handing me a short stack of bills. "Make it to the Anubis terminal in time, and you'll both go home with us. If you don't make it, I'll assume something happened to stop you and you'll have to call to make some other arrangement. We know we owe you a great debt, but we have wounded to get home ourselves, and the queen's credit cards and so on were lost in the fire. I'll have to call her credit company for emergency service, but that won't take much time."

This seemed a little cold, but after all, he wasn't our best friend, and as the daytime guy for the queen, he had a lot to do and many more problems to solve.

"Okay," I said. "Hey, listen, is Christian Baruch at the shelter?"

His face sharpened. "Yes. Though somewhat burned, he's hanging around the queen in Andre's absence as if he would take Andre's place."

"He wants to, you know. He wants to be the next Mr. Queen of Louisiana."

"Baruch?" Cataliades could not have been more scornful if a goblin had applied for the job.

"No, he's gone to extreme lengths." I already told Andre about this. Now I had to explain again. "That's why he planted that Dr Pepper bomb," I said about five minutes later.

"How do you know this?" Mr. Cataliades asked.

"I figured it out, from this and that," I said modestly. I sighed. Here came the yucky part. "I found him yesterday, hiding underneath the registration desk. There was another vampire with him, badly burned. I don't even know who that one was. And in the same area was Todd Donati, the security guy, alive but hurt, and a dead maid." I felt the exhaustion all over again, smelled the awful smell, tried to breathe the thick air. "Baruch was out of it, of course."

I was not exactly proud of this, and I looked down at my hands. "Anyway, I was trying to read Todd Donati's mind, to find out how hurt he was, and he was just hating Baruch and blaming him, too. He was willing to be frank, this time. No more job to worry about. Todd told me he'd watched all the security tapes over and over again, and he'd finally figured out what he was seeing. His boss was leaping up to block the camera with gum so he could plant the bomb. Once he'd figured that out, Donati knew that Baruch had wanted to alarm the queen, make her insecure, so she'd take a new husband. And that would be Christian Baruch. But guess why he wants to marry her?"

"I can't imagine," said Mr. Cataliades, thoroughly shocked.

"Because he wants to open a new vampire hotel in New Orleans. Blood in the Quarter got flooded and closed, and Baruch thought he could rebuild and reopen."

"But Baruch didn't have anything to do with the other bombs?"

"I sure don't think so, Mr. Cataliades. I think that was the Fellowship, just like I said yesterday."

"Then who killed the vampires from Arkansas?" Barry asked. "I guess the Fellowship did that, too? No, wait... why would they? Not that they'd quibble at killing some vampires, but they'd know the vampires would probably get killed in the big explosion."

"We have an overload of villains," I said. "Mr. Cataliades, you got any ideas about who might have taken out the Arkansas vampires?" I gave Mr. Cataliades a straight-in-the-eyes stare.

"No," Mr. Cataliades said. "If I did, I would never say those ideas out loud. I think you should be concentrating on your man's injuries and getting back to your little town, not worrying about three deaths among so many."

I wasn't exactly worried about the deaths of the three Arkansas vampires, and it seemed like a really good idea to take Mr. Cataliades's advice to heart. I'd had the odd moment to think about the murders, and I'd decided that the simplest answer was often the best.

Who'd thought she had a good chance of skipping a trial altogether, if Jennifer Cater was silenced?

Who'd prepared the way to be admitted to Jennifer's room, by the simple means of a phone call?

Who'd had a good long moment of telepathic communication with her underlings before she began the artificial flurry of primping for the impromptu visit?

Whose bodyguard had been coming out of the stairway door just as we were exiting the suite?

I knew, just as Mr. Cataliades knew, that Sophie-Anne had ensured Sigebert would be admitted to Jennifer Cater's room by calling down ahead and telling Jennifer she herself was on her way. Jennifer would look out the peephole, recognize Sigebert, and assume the queen was right behind him. Once inside, Sigebert would unsheath his sword and kill everyone in the place.

Then he would hurry back up the stairs to appear in time to escort the queen right back down to the seventh floor. He'd enter the room again so there'd be a reason for his scent to be on the air.

And at the time I'd suspected absolutely nothing.

What a shock it must have been to Sophie-Anne when Henrik Feith had popped up alive; but then the problem had been solved when he accepted her protection.

The problem reasserted itself when someone talked him into accusing her anyway.

And then, amazingly, problem solved again: the nervous little vampire had been assassinated in front of the court.

"I do wonder how Kyle Perkins was hired," I said. "He must have known he was on a suicide mission."

"Perhaps," Mr. Cataliades said carefully, "he had decided to meet the sun anyway. Perhaps he was looking for a spectacular and interesting way to go, earning a monetary legacy for his human descendants."

"It seems strange that I was sent looking for information about him by a member of our very own party," I said, my voice neutral.

"Ah, not everyone needs to know everything," Mr. Cataliades said, his voice just as neutral.

Barry could hear my thoughts, of course, but he wasn't getting what Mr. Cataliades was saying, which was just as well. It was stupid that it made me feel better, Eric and Bill not knowing the queen's deep game. Not that they weren't capable of playing deep games themselves, but I didn't think Eric would have sent me on the wild goose chase for the archery range where Kyle Perkins had trained if Eric had known the queen herself had hired Perkins.

The poor woman behind the counter had died because the queen hadn't told her left hand what her right hand was doing. And I wondered what had happened to the human, the one who'd thrown up on the murder scene, the one who'd been hired to drive Sigebert or Andre to the range... after I'd so thoughtfully left a message to tell them when Barry and I were going back to collect the evidence. I'd sealed the woman's fate myself by leaving that phone message.