"Where is Niall?" I asked, picking up my mug, which (amazingly) hadn't broken. After I put it by the sink, I got a wad of paper towels to mop up the spilled coffee.
"Still in Faery," Claude said, ostensibly concentrating on the paper. "Oh, did you like your friend's act at Hooligans? Your human friend?"
"JB. Well, his wife and I were sure surprised. Him being the only human, and her not knowing he was doing it and all."
"He needed a job, and I remembered the pretty lady who was with child," Claude said. "See, I did a good thing. I'm not so bad."
"I never said you were."
"You look at me, though, from time to time, as if you can't understand why I get to breathe the same air you do."
I was genuinely staggered. "Claude, I'm so sorry if I've ever given the impression I thought you were worthless. Certainly I don't feel that way." Or did I? No, I didn't. I thought he was selfish and charmless and maybe guilty of murder, but that was different.
"You don't want to have sex with me. If you had more fae blood, you certainly would want it."
"But I don't. You're gay. I'm in love with someone else. I don't believe in having sex with relatives. We've had this conversation before. I really, really don't want to have it again."
The feeling of wrongness and badness kept growing; especially after my experience with the rogue Weres, I knew better than to ignore it. I also knew Claude was stronger than I was, and I assumed he had skills I'd never seen.
"Okay," he said. "You're trying to let me know that my kith and kin are hunting at night? Is that the point of giving me this newspaper?"
"Yes, Claude. That's the point. Dermot's about been nuts, trying to keep them in line. Did Niall get the letter I sent?"
"I don't know," Claude said.
I was bewildered. "I thought you went back with Niall to investigate who'd cast the crazy spell on Dermot," I said. "He's been spending lots of nights at the club and trying real hard to keep things running." I was frightened for myself, of course, but I was frightened for Dermot, too. I hoped Dermot was awake by now; Claude wouldn't take my word for it that Dermot wasn't there. He'd go up to check.
"So what have you been doing in Faery? Did you ever find out who cast the spell?"
"Niall and I have had some disagreements," Claude said, his beautiful dark eyes flashing up to meet mine. "I'm sorry to say that Niall believes it was me who cursed Dermot."
I was left with no response, since I was by now pretty sure myself that Claude was the culprit. "I think that's awful," I said, with absolute sincerity. He could take it as he chose. "I'm gonna go open the shades in the living room. Have some more coffee. I think I've got some Toaster Strudels in the freezer if you're hungry." I walked down the hall to the living room, trying not to hurry, trying to make my footsteps regular and nonchalant. I even went directly to one of the front windows and raised the blind. "It's gonna be a pretty day," I called, turned, and in one gesture swept up the cluviel dor and put it in my nightshirt pocket. Dermot was halfway down the stairs.
He said, "Did I hear Claude's voice?" and made as if to hurry past me. Apparently, he hadn't even looked at what I'd picked up, which was a relief-but not at the top of my list of problems just at the moment.
"Yes, he's home," I said, in what I hoped was a natural voice, but I gripped Dermot's arm as he went by me. I looked at him with as much warning as I could pack into my eyes.
Dermot's blue eyes, so like Jason's, widened in shock. There was no gesture I could make that would clearly translate as "I think he wants to do something awful to us! He killed Kym Rowe for some reason I can't fathom, and I think he cursed you!" but at least Dermot understood that caution was called for.
"I told him you weren't here," I whispered. He nodded.
"Claude," he called. "Where have you been? Sookie didn't hear me come in last night, she says. The other fae are champing at the bit to hear your news." He started toward the kitchen.
But he met Claude coming into the living room. I didn't think Claude had witnessed our silent colloquy, but at this point I wouldn't put money on anything good. Yesterday had been my good day, apparently, even though it had ended as badly as I thought it could have. I'd been wrong! Claude could have returned last night. Yep, that would have been worse.
"Dermot," said Claude. His voice was so cold it stopped Dermot dead. I went on and opened the other blind.
"What's wrong? Why have you returned without Father?" Dermot said.
"Grandfather has issues he must deal with," Claude snarled. "In Faery."
"What did you do?" Dermot asked. He was brave. I was trying to unobtrusively creep into my room to retrieve my cell phone. I didn't know whom I would call; I didn't know who could deal with a fairy. "What did you do, Claude?"
"I thought that when I went back with him, I would find support for our program," Claude said.
Uh-oh. I didn't like the sound of that. I took two more steps to my left. Hooligans! I'd call the fae at Hooligans! Wait. Unless they were backing Claude in whatever the hell his program was. Shit. What should I do? Dermot wasn't armed. He was wearing sleep pants and no shirt.
My shotgun was in the closet by the front door. Maybe the closet should be my goal, instead of the cell phone. Did I have Hooligans on speed dial? How long would it take the police to get out here if I hit 911? Would Claude kill them?
"And you didn't?" Dermot said. "I'm not sure what program you mean, Claude?"
"You naive simpleton," Claude said scathingly. "How hard have you worked at ignoring what was going on all around you, so you could stay with us?"
Claude was just being mean now. If I'd had any sleep, I wouldn't have snapped then, but I hadn't, and I did. "Claude Crane, you are just being an A-number-one asshole," I exploded. "And you shut up right now!"
I'd succeeded in startling Claude, and he turned his gaze on me for just a second, but Dermot took advantage of that second to hit Claude as hard as he could, which proved to be plenty hard. Claude lurched to his right, and Dermot kept punching. Of course, the element of surprise was gone after the first blow. Claude had another skill besides stripping. He could fight dirty.
The two launched into it, two beautiful men doing something so ugly I could hardly bear to watch.
The heaviest thing around was a lamp that had belonged to my great-grandmother. With a flash of reluctance I picked it up. I proposed to bash Claude's head in, if I got the opportunity.
But then my back door flew open and Bellenos bounded through my kitchen and down the hall. He had a true sword in his hand, instead of his deer-hunting spear. Gift was with him, long knives in both her hands. Three more of the Monroe fae were with them: two of the strippers, the fairy "policeman" and the part demon who'd worn leather when he'd come onstage. The curvy ticket taker followed. She hadn't bothered with looking human today.
"Help Dermot!" I yelled, hoping that was what they'd come to do. To my overwhelming relief, they whooped with excitement and threw themselves into the brawl. There was a lot of unnecessary punching and biting, but when they were sure Claude was subdued, they all began laughing. Even Dermot.
At least I was able to put the lamp back on the table.
"Would someone tell me what's going on?" I asked. I felt (as usual with the supes) two steps behind the crowd, and no telepath enjoys feeling that way. I was going to have to hang around with humans for a long time to make up for this sad ignorance.
"My dearest sister," Bellenos said. He smiled that disconcerting smile at me. He looked especially toothy today, and since there was blood between some of those teeth, the effect was not reassuring.
"Hi, y'all," was the best I could do, but they all grinned back, and Gift gave Dermot an enthusiastic kiss. Her extra eyelid flickered down and up again, almost too fast for me to note.
In the meantime, Claude was lying on the floor in a panting, bloody bundle. There was still plenty of fight in him, from the glares he was throwing around, but he was so clearly outnumbered that it seemed he'd given up ... at least temporarily. The ticket taker was sitting on his legs, and the two strippers were each pinning one arm.
Gift came to sit by me; I'd collapsed on the couch. She put her arm around me. "Claude was trying to incite us to rebel against Niall," she said kindly. "Sister, I'm surprised he didn't try to test your loyalty, too."
"Well, he wouldn't have gotten very far!" I said. "I would have thrown him out in a New York minute!"
"Then see, that was intelligent of you, Claude," said Bellenos, bending over to speak to Claude face-to-face. "One of the few intelligent things you did." Claude glared at him.
Dermot shook his handsome head. "All this time I thought I must try to emulate Claude, because he had been so successful out here in the human world. But I realized that when he thought people were pleased with him, he didn't perceive that it was only because he is beautiful. Much more often, when he talked to people, they came to regard him with dislike. I couldn't believe it, but he'd done well in spite of himself, not because of his own talents."
"He does like children," I said weakly. "And he's nice to pregnant women."
"Yes, that's true," the policeman stripper said. "By the way, you can just call me Dirk, my stripping name. Siobhan is sitting on Claude's legs. And this is Harley. I'm sure you remember Harley."
"Oh, yeah, who could forget Harley?" I said. Even under the circumstances, I had a gratifying flashback of how Harley's straight black hair and coppery red body had looked under the lights at Hooligans. Harley tried to bow from a crouching position, which isn't easy, and Siobhan grinned at me. "So ... Claude really was locked out of Faery, along with you-all? That wasn't a lie?"
"No, not a lie," said Dermot sadly. "My father hated me because he thought I'd always worked against him. But I was cursed. I thought he'd done the cursing, but I see now it must have been Claude all along. Claude, you betrayed me and then kept me trotting behind you like a dog."
Claude began to speak in another language, and then the fae moved with an unbelievable speed. Gift yanked off her bra top, and Harley stuffed it in Claude's mouth. It would have been petty of me to take any notice of Gift's bare chest, so I rose above it.
"That was a secret fairy language?" I hated to ask, but I just wanted to know. My days of ignorance were over.
Dirk nodded. "We speak to each other that way; it's what we have in common: full fairy, demon, angel, all the half-breeds."
"Dermot, did you and Claude really come here because of my fairy blood?" I asked Dermot. Claude's mouth was otherwise occupied.
"Yes," Dermot said uncertainly. "Though Claude said there was something here that attracted him, and he spent hours when you were gone searching your house. When he couldn't find what he wanted here, he thought perhaps it was in the furniture you sold. He went to that shop and broke in to examine all the furniture again."
I felt a little bubble of rage float to the top of my brain. "Though I was nice enough to let him live with me. He searched my house. Went through my stuff. While I was gone."
Dermot nodded. From the guilty glance he gave me, I was pretty damn sure Claude had enlisted my great-uncle in his search.
"What was he looking for?" Harley asked curiously.
"He sensed a fairy object in Sookie's house, a fairy influence."
They all looked at me, simultaneously, with sharp attention.
"Gran-you-all know my fairy blood comes from my grandmother and Fintan, right?" They all nodded and blinked. I was sure glad I hadn't been trying to keep that a secret. "Gran was friends with Mr. Cataliades, through Fintan." They nodded again, more slowly. "He left something here, but when he stopped by a few days ago, he picked it up."
They appeared to accept that pretty well. At least no one leaped up to say, "You liar, you have it in your pocket!"
Claude thrashed on the floor. Clearly, he wanted to put in his two cents' worth, and I was glad the bra was in his mouth.
"If I'm getting to ask questions ..." I said, waiting for Bellenos to interrupt, to tell me my time was up. But that didn't happen.
"Claude, I know you tried to sabotage me and Eric. But I don't know why."
Dirk raised interrogative eyebrows. Did I want him to remove the gag?
"Maybe you can just let me know if I get something right," I suggested, hoping that the gag stayed in. "Did you go to Jannalynn for help because you wanted to enlist a shifter of some kind?"
Glaring at me, Claude nodded.
"Who's that?" Dermot whispered, as if the air would answer him.
"Jannalynn Hopper is the second of the Long Tooth pack in Shreveport," I said. "She's been dating my boss, Sam Merlotte. But she hates me, which is a long story for some other time, though it's pretty boring. Anyway, I knew she'd love to do me a bad turn if she could. And the young woman who got murdered in Eric's front yard turned out to be a half-Were with a death wish and severe financial problems, ripe for a desperate plan, I figure. Claude, you gave her some of your blood to make her alluring to Eric, I think?"
The fae all looked absolutely aghast. I couldn't have said anything more abhorrent to them. "You gave your sacred blood to a mongrel?" hissed Gift, and kicked Claude heartily.