“I’m here to get Eric’s car,” he said.
“Could you come in for a minute? I made coffee.”
“Oh, good,” Dermot muttered, and headed for the kitchen. I heard him talking to someone and deduced that Amelia and/or Bob were staggering around. Good. I wanted a word with my buddy Amelia.
“I don’t drink coffee,” Mustapha said. “I don’t take stimulants of any kind.”
“Then would you like a glass of water?”
“No, I’d like to head back to Shreveport. I got a long list of things to do for Mr. High and Mighty Dead Guy.”
“How come you took the job if you think so little of Eric?”
“He ain’t bad, for a vamp,” Mustapha said grudgingly. “Bubba’s okay, too. The rest of ’em?” He spat. Subtle, but I got his drift.
“Who’s your buddy?” I asked, tilting my head at the Harley.
“You want to know a lot,” he said.
“Uh-huh.” I stared right back at him, not backing down.
“Come here a minute, Warren,” Mustapha called, and the small man hopped off the Harley and came over.
Warren proved to be about five foot seven, pale and freckled, and missing a few teeth. But when he took off his goggles, his eyes were clear and steady, and I didn’t see any fang marks on his neck.
“Ma’am,” he said politely.
I reintroduced myself. Interesting that Mustapha had a real friend, a friend he didn’t want anyone (well, me) to know about. While Warren and I were exchanging comments on the weather, the muscular Were was having a hard time reining in his impatience. Claude drifted away, uninterested in Warren and losing hope of interesting Mustapha.
“Warren, how long have you been in Shreveport?”
“Oh my gosh, I been there all my life,” Warren said. “’Cept when I was in the army. Course, I was in the army fifteen years.”
Easy to find out about Warren, but Eric had wanted me to check out Mustapha. So far the Blade wannabe wasn’t cooperating. Standing in the doorway was not a good way to have a relaxing conversation. Oh, well. “So you and Mustapha have known each other for a while?”
“Few months,” Warren said, glancing at the taller man.
“Twenty Questions over?” Mustapha said.
I touched his arm, which was like touching an oak branch. “KeShawn Johnson,” I said thoughtfully, after a little rummage in his head. “Why’d you change your name?”
He stiffened, and his mouth was grim. “I have reinvented myself,” he said. “I am not the slave to a bad habit who was named KeShawn. I am Mustapha Khan, and I am my own man. I own myself.”
“Okeydokey,” I said, doing my best to sound agreeable. “Nice to meet you, Mustapha. You and Warren have a safe trip back to Shreveport.”
I’d learned as much as I was going to today. If Mustapha Khan was going to be around Eric for a while, I’d gradually catch enough glimpses into his head to piece him together. Oddly enough, I felt better about Mustapha after I’d met Warren. I was sure Warren had had some very hard times and maybe done some very hard things, but I also thought at his core he was a reliable man. I suspected the same might be true of Mustapha.
I was willing to wait and see.
Bubba liked him, but that wasn’t necessarily such a recommendation. After all, Bubba drank cat blood.
I turned away from the door, bracing myself to face my next set of problems. In the kitchen, I found Claude and Dermot cooking. Dermot had found a cylinder of Pillsbury biscuits in the refrigerator, and he’d mastered opening the can and putting them on a baking sheet. The oven had even preheated. Claude was cooking eggs, which was kind of amazing. Amelia was getting out plates and Bob was setting the table.
I hated to interrupt such a domestic scene.
“Amelia,” I said. She’d been suspiciously focused on the plates. She looked up as sharply as if she’d heard me pump my shotgun. I met her eyes. Guilty, guilty, guilty. “Claude,” I said even more sharply, and he glanced at me over his shoulder and smiled. No guilt there. Dermot and Bob simply looked resigned.
“Amelia, you told my business to a werewolf,” I said. “Not just any werewolf, but the packmaster of Shreveport. And I’m sure you did that on purpose.”
Amelia flushed red. “Sookie, I thought with the bond broken, maybe you’d want someone else to know about that, and you’d talked about Alcide, so when I met him, I thought . . .”
“You went there on purpose to make sure he knew,” I said relentlessly. “Otherwise, why pick that bar out of all other bars?” Bob looked as though he were about to speak, and I raised my index finger and pointed it at him. He subsided. “You told me you were going to the movies in Clarice. Not to a werewolf bar in the opposite direction.” Having finished with Amelia, I turned to the other culprit.
“Claude,” I said again, and his back stiffened, though he kept on cooking eggs. “You let someone into the house, my house, without me here, and you gave him permission to get in my bed. That’s inexcusable. Why would you do such a thing to me?”
Claude carefully moved the frying pan off the burner, turning it off as he did so. “He seemed like a nice guy,” Claude said, “and I thought you might like to make love with something with a pulse for once.”
I actually felt something snap inside me. “Okay,” I said in a very level voice. “Listen up. I’m going to my room. You all eat the food you’ve cooked, then you pack up and leave. All of you.” Amelia started crying, but I wasn’t going to soften my stance. I was royally pissed off. I looked at the clock on the wall. “In forty-five minutes, I want this house empty.”
I went in my room, shutting the door with exquisite quietness. I lay on my bed with a book and tried to read. After a few minutes there was a knock at the door. I ignored it. I had to be resolute. People staying in my home had done things they knew damn good and well they ought not to do, and they needed to know I wouldn’t tolerate such interference, no matter how well intended (Amelia) or simply mischievous (Claude). I buried my face in my hands. It was hard to keep up this level of indignation, especially since I wasn’t used to it — but I knew it would be very bad to give in to my craven impulse to throw open the door and allow them all to stay.
When I tried to imagine myself doing that, it felt so wrong and bad that I knew I genuinely wanted them out of the house.
I’d been so happy to see Amelia. I’d been so pleased that she was willing to rush up from New Orleans to do magical repairs on my protection. And I’d been so startled she’d actually found a way to break the bond that I’d let myself be rushed into actually doing it. I should have called Eric first, warned him. No excuse for doing it so brutally, except I’d been sure he’d talk me out of it. That was just as poorly done as letting myself be persuaded to take the shaman’s drugs at Alcide’s pack meeting.
Those two decisions were my fault. They were mistakes I had made.
But this impulse of Amelia’s to try to manipulate my love life had been a bad one. I was an adult woman, and I had earned the right to make my own decisions about who I wanted to be with. I had wanted to remain Amelia’s friend forever, but not if she was going to manipulate events in an attempt to try to turn my life into one she liked better.
And Claude had been playing a Claude sort of joke, a sly and naughty trick. I didn’t like that, either. No, he needed to go.
When the forty-five minutes were up and I emerged from my room, I was a bit surprised to find that they’d actually done what I’d told them to. My houseguests were gone . . . except for Dermot.
My great-uncle was sitting on the back steps, his bulging sports bag beside him. He didn’t try to draw attention to himself in any way, and I guess he’d have sat there until I opened the back door to leave for work if I hadn’t happened to go out on the back porch to move the sheets from the washer to the dryer.
“Why are you here?” I asked in the most neutral voice I could summon.
“I’m sorry,” he said, words that had been sorely lacking until now.