“Once we had ventured from one side of the New World to another, and the white breathing population migrated across, too—we were the first explorers—a large group of us met to divide things up, for better governing of our own population.”

“Were there any Native American vampires here when you came? Hey, were you on the Leif Ericson expedition?”

“No, not my generation. Oddly enough, 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’t going to stop and fill in the blanks.

“At that first national meeting, about three hundred years ago, there were many disagreements.” Eric looked very, very serious.

“No, really?” Vampires arguing? I could yawn.

And he didn’t appreciate my sarcasm, either. He raised blond eyebrows, as if to say, “Can I go on and get to the point? Or are you going to give me grief?”

I spread my hands: “Keep on going.”

“Instead of dividing the country the way humans would, we included some of the north and some of the south in every division. We thought it would keep the cross-representation going. So the easternmost division, which is mostly the coastal states, is called Moshup Clan, for the Native American mythical figure, and its symbol is a whale.”

Okay, maybe I looked a little glazed at that point. “Look it up on the Internet,” Eric said impatiently. “Our clan—the states that met in Rhodes compose this one—is Amun, a god from the Egyptian 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 symbol, of course.”

Sure. I nodded in profound agreement. Eric may have sensed that I was not exactly on board, by then. He gave me a stern look. “Sookie, this is important. As my wife, you must know this.”

I wasn’t even going to get 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 moon from his eyes.”

I thought of things I’d like to ask, like “Who the hell sat around and picked the stupid names?” But when I ran my questions through my inner censor, each one sounded snarkier than the last. I said, “But there were some vampires at the summit in Rhodes—the Amun Clan summit—that should be in Zeus, right?”

“Yes, good! 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 someone in that division. Or if they’re going 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 from his eyes, I thought. I smiled back.