"So you're now trying to match your entourage to Stan's?" Peter Threadgill asked his wife, in a distinctly unfond kind of way. From the many clues thrown my way, I'd gotten the picture that this wasn't a love match. If you asked me to cast a vote, I would say it wasn't even a lust match. I knew the queen had liked my cousin Hadley in a lusty way, and the two brothers on guard had said she'd rocked their world. Peter Threadgill was nowhere near either side of that spectrum. But maybe that only proved the queen was omnisexual, if that was a word. I'd have to look it up when I went home. If I ever got home.

"If Stan can see the advantage in employing such a person, I can certainly consider it—especially since one is easily available."

I was in stock.

The king shrugged. Not that I had formed many expectations, but I would have anticipated that the king of a nice, poor, scenic state like Arkansas would be less sophisticated and folksier, with a sense of humor. Maybe Threadgill was a carpetbagger from New York City. Vampire accents tended to be all over the map—literally—so it was impossible to tell from his speech.

"So what do you think happened in Hadley's apartment?" the queen asked me, and I realized we'd reverted to the original subject.

"I don't know who attacked Jake Purifoy," I said. "But the night Hadley went to the graveyard with Waldo, Jake's drained body landed in her closet. As to how it came there, I couldn't say. That's why Amelia is having this ecto thing tonight."

The queen's expression changed; she actually looked interested. "She's having an ectoplasmic reconstruction? I've heard of those, but never witnessed one."

The king looked more than interested. For a split second, he looked extremely angry.

I forced my attention back to the queen. "Amelia wondered if you would care to, ah, fund it?" I wondered if I should add, "My lady," but I just couldn't bring myself to do it.

"That would be a good investment, since our newest vampire might have gotten us all into a great deal of trouble. If he had gotten loose on the populace… I will be glad to pay."

I drew a breath of sheer relief.

"And I think I'll watch, too," the queen added, before I could even exhale.

That sounded like the worst idea in the world. I thought the queen's presence would flatten Amelia until all the magic was squished out. However, there was no way I was going to tell the queen she was not welcome.

Peter Threadgill had looked up sharply when the queen had announced she'd watch. "I don't think you should go," he said, his voice smooth and authoritative. "It will be hard for the twins and Andre to guard you out in the city in a neighborhood like that."

I wondered how the King of Arkansas had any idea what Hadley's neighborhood was like. Actually, it was a quiet, middle-class area, especially compared to the zoo that was vampire central headquarters, with its constant stream of tourists and picketers and fanatics with cameras.

Sophie-Anne was already preparing to go out. That preparation consisted of glancing in a mirror to make sure the flawless facade was still flawless and sliding on her high, high heels, which had been below the edge of the table. She'd been sitting there barefoot. That detail suddenly made Sophie-Anne Leclerq much more real to me. There was a personality under that glossy exterior.

"I suppose you would like Bill to accompany us," the queen said to me.

"No," I snapped. Okay, there was a personality—and it was unpleasant and cruel.

But the queen looked genuinely startled. Her husband was outraged at my rudeness—his head shot up and his odd gray eyes fixed me with a luminous anger—but the queen was simply taken aback by my reaction. "I thought you were a couple," she said, in a perfectly even voice.

I bit back my first answer, trying to remember who I was talking to, and said, almost in a whisper, "No, we are not." I took a deep breath and made a great effort. "I apologize for being so abrupt. Please excuse me."

The queen simply looked at me for a few seconds longer, and I still could not get the slightest indication of her thoughts, emotions, or intentions. It was like looking at an antique silver tray—a shining surface, an elaborate pattern, and hard to the touch. How Hadley could have been adventurous enough to bed this woman was simply beyond my comprehension.

"You are excused," she said finally.

"You're too lenient," her husband said, and his surface, at least, began to thin somewhat. His lips curled in something closely approaching a snarl, and I discovered I didn't want to be the focus of those luminous eyes for another second. I didn't like the way the Asian gal in red was looking at me, either. And every time I looked at her haircut, it gave me the heebie-jeebies. Gosh, even the elderly lady who'd given my gran a permanent three times a year would have done a better job than the Mad Weed Whacker.

"I'll be back in an hour or two, Peter," Sophie-Anne said, very precisely, in a tone that could have sliced a diamond. The short man, his childish face blank, was by her side in a jiffy, extending his arm so she could have his assistance in rising. I guessed he was Andre.

The atmosphere was cuttable. Oh, I so wished I were somewhere else.

"I would feel more at ease if I knew Jade Flower was with you," the king said. He motioned toward the woman in red. Jade Flower, my ass: she looked more like Stone Killer. The Asian woman's face didn't change one iota at the king's offer.

"But that would leave you with no one," the queen said.

"Hardly true. The building is full of guards and loyal vampires," Peter Threadgill said.

Okay, even I caught that one. The guards, who belonged to the queen, were separate from the loyal vampires, whom I guessed were the ones Peter had brought with him.

"Then, of course, I would be proud to have a fighter like Jade Flower accompany me."

Yuck. I couldn't tell if the queen was serious, or trying to placate her new husband by accepting his offer, or laughing up her sleeve at his lame strategy to ensure that his spy was at the ectoplasmic reconstruction. The queen used the intercom to call down—or up, for all I knew—to the secure chamber where Jake Purifoy was being educated in the ways of the vampire. "Keep extra guards on Purifoy," she said. "And let me know the minute he remembers something." An obsequious voice assured Sophie-Anne that she'd be the first to know.

I wondered why Jake needed extra guards. I found it hard to get real concerned about his welfare, but obviously the queen was.

So here we went—the queen, Jade Flower, Andre, Sigebert, Wybert, and me. I guess I've been in company just as assorted, but I couldn't tell you when. After a lot of corridor tromping, we entered a guarded garage and piled into a stretch limo. Andre jerked his thumb at one of the guards, indicating that the guard should drive. I hadn't heard the baby-faced vampire utter a word, so far. To my pleasure, the driver was Rasul, who felt like an old friend compared to the others.

Sigebert and Wybert were uncomfortable in the car. They were the most inflexible vampires I'd ever met, and I wondered if their close association with the queen hadn't been their undoing. They hadn't had to change, and changing with the times was the key vampire survival technique before the Great Revelation. It remained so in countries that hadn't accepted the existence of vampire with the tolerance America had shown. The two vampires would have been happy wearing skins and hand-woven cloth and would have looked perfectly at home in handmade leather boots, carrying shields on their arms.

"Your sheriff, Eric, came to speak to me last night," the queen told me.

"I saw him at the hospital," I said, hoping I sounded equally offhanded.

"You understand that the new vampire, the one that was a Were—he had no choice, you understand?"