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The minute the sun sank, Eric was out of the couest-bedroohly I&039;d already warulped it down
"Who is the child?" he asked
"Hadley&039;s son," I said Eric hadwith Sophie-Anne Leclerq, the now-finally-deceased Queen of Louisiana
"She was married to a breather?"
"Yes, before she uy na scent of fairy?"
Uh-oh "Yes, Re hio to a faood place to take a kid" I didn&039;t bring up Hunter&039;s little problem The feho knew about it, the better, and that included Eric
"And?"
"I ht," I said "My cousin Claude?"
Eric nodded
"He asked if he could stay here for a while, because he&039;s lonely in his house with both his sisters dead"
"You are letting a ry - ry, if you knohat I e in his voice
"Believe h I had a guilty flash of hiuys"
"I know you are fully aware of how to take care of a fairy who gives you trouble," Eric said, after an appreciable silence
I&039;d killed fairies before I hadn&039;t particularly wanted to be reminded of that "Yes," I said "And if it&039;ll un loaded with lemon juice on my bedside table" Lemon juice and iron - the fairy weaknesses
"That would make me feel better," Eric said "Is it this Claude that Heidi scented on your land? I felt you were very worried, and that&039;s one reason I caht"
The blood bond was hard at work "She says neither of the fairies she tracked was Claude," I said, "and that really worries me But - "
"It worries me, too" Eric looked down at the es you should know"
"Oh" I&039;d been about to tell him about the fresh corpse I was sure he would have led off the discussion with the body if Heidi had mentioned it, and it seemed pretty i interrupted Eric gave me a sharp look
Okay, I was at fault, excuseto be chock-full of inforotiate the hts I&039;d have been delighted to learn ht, after the unusual stresses and strains of Hunter care, what I&039;d wanted was (again, excuse me) to tell hi screw
Norht, apparently
We sat opposite each other at the kitchen table I tried not to sigh out loud
"You remember the summit at Rhodes, and how a sort of strip of states froan
I nodded This didn&039;t sound too proent Not to mention the sex
"Once we had ventured from one side of the New World to another, and the white breathing population roup of usof our own population"
"Were there any Native American vampires here when you came? Hey, were you on the Leif Ericson expedition?"
"No, not h, there were very few Native American vampires And the ones that were here were different in several ways"
Now, that was pretty interesting, but I could tell Eric wasn&039;t going to stop and fill in the blanks
"At that first national reements" Eric looked very, very serious
"No, really?" Va? I could yawn
And he didn&039;t appreciate my sarcaso on and get to the point? Or are you going to give "
"Instead of dividing the country the way humans would, we included some of the north and soht it would keep the cross-representation going So the easternmost division, which is mostly the coastal states, is called Moshup Clan, for the Native Aure, and its sylazed at that point "Look it up on the Internet," Eric said impatiently "Our clan - the states that yptian system, and our symbol is a feather, because Amun wore a feathered headdress Do you remember that we all wore little feather pins there?"
Ah No I shook my head
"Well, it was a busy summit," Eric conceded
What with the bombs, and the explosions, and all
"To our west is Zeus, from the Roman system, and a thunderbolt is their syreement Eric ave me a stern look "Sookie, this is important As et into that tonight "Okay, go ahead," I said
"The fourth clan, the West Coast division, is called Narayana, from early Hinduism, and its symbol is an eye, because Narayana created the sun and s I&039;d like to ask, like "Who the hell sat around and picked the stupid nah my inner censor, each one sounded snarkier than the last I said, "But there were some vampires at the summit in Rhodes - the Aood! There are visitors at the summits, if they have some vested interest in a topic under discussion Or if they are engaged in a lawsuit against so to marry someone in the division whose time it is to have a summit" His eyes crinkled at the corners with his smile of approval Narayana created the sun froht I smiled back
"I understand," I said "So, how come Felipe conquered Louisiana, since we&039;re Amun and he&039;sAh, is Nevada in Narayana or Zeus?"
"Narayana He took Louisiana because he wasn&039;t as frightened of Sophie-Anne as everyone else He planned, and executed quickly and with precision after the governingboardof Narayana Clan approved his plan"
"He had to present a plan before he s and queens of Narayana wouldn&039;t want their territory weakened if Felipe failed and Sophie-Anne ed to take Nevada So he had to outline his plan"
"They didn&039;t think weabout that plan?"
"Not their concern If we&039;re weak enough to be taken, then we are fair gaood leader, and ed eak enough to attack Stan&039;s lieutenant in Texas has struggled these past few months since Stan was injured in Rhodes, and it&039;s been hard for him to hold on to Texas"
"Hoould they kno hurt Sophie-Anne was? How hurt Stan is?"
"Spies We all spy on each other" Eric shrugged (Big deal Spies)
"What if one of the rulers in Narayana had owed some favor to Sophie-Anne and decided to tip her off to the takeover?"
"I&039;m sure some of them considered it But with Sophie-Anne so severely wounded, I suppose they decided that the odds lay with Felipe"
This was appalling "How do you trust anyone?"
"I don&039;t There are two exceptions You, and Pa like that "That&039;s awful, Eric"
I thought he&039;d shrug that off But instead, he regarded ood"
"Do you knoho the spies in Area Five are?"
"Felicia, of course She is weak, and it&039;s not much of a secret that she must be in the pay of someone; probably Stan in Texas, or Freyda in Oklahoma"
"I don&039;t know Freyda" I&039;d met Stan "Is Texas in Zeus or Amun?"
Eric beamed at me I was his star pupil "Zeus," he said "But Stan had to be at the suo in with Mississippi on a resort development"
"He sure paid for that," I said "If they have spies, we have spies, too, right?"