True Blood Book Four Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4
The detective hustled me off after that, telling me he was going to get the crime scene officer out to the house, and he'd be in touch. I got the idea, right out of his brain, that there was something he didn't want me to see, and that he'd thrown Carla Rodriguez at me to distract me.
And I thought he might take the shotgun away, since he seemed much more sure now he was dealing with a crime, and the shotgun might be part of some bit of evidence. But Alcee Beck didn't say anything, so I didn't remind him.
I was more shaken than I wanted to admit to myself. Inwardly, I'd been convinced that, though I needed to track my brother down, Jason was really okay—just misplaced. Or mislaid, more likely, ho ho ho. Possibly he was in some kind of not-too-serious trouble, I'd told myself. Now things were looking more serious.
I've never been able to squeeze my budget enough to afford a cell phone, so I began driving home. I was thinking of whom I should call, and I came up with the same answer as before. No one. There was no definite news to break. I felt as lonely as I ever have in my life. But I just didn't want to be Crisis Woman, showing up on friends' doorsteps with trouble on my shoulders.
Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted my grandmother back. I pulled over to the side of the road and slapped myself on the cheek, hard. I called myself a few names.
Shreveport. I'd go to Shreveport and confront Dovie and Carla Rodriguez. While I was there, I'd find out if Chow and Pam knew anything about Jason's disappearance—though it was hours until they'd be up, and I'd just be kicking my heels in an empty club, assuming there'd be someone there to let me in. But I just couldn't sit at home, waiting. I could read the minds of the human employees and find out if they knew what was up.
On the one hand, if I went to Shreveport, I'd be out of touch with what was happening here. On the other hand, I'd be doing something.
While I was trying to decide if there were any more hands to consider, something else happened.
It was even odder than the preceding events of the day. There I was, parked in the middle of nowhere at the side of a parish road, when a sleek, black, brand-new Camaro pulled onto the shoulder behind me. Out of the passenger's side stepped a gorgeous woman, at
least six feet tall. Of course, I remembered her; she'd been in Merlotte's on New Year's Eve. My friend Tara Thornton was in the driver's seat.
Okay, I thought blankly, staring into the rearview mirror, this is weird. I hadn't seen Tara in weeks, since we'd met by chance in a vampire club in Jackson, Mississippi. She'd been there with a vamp named Franklin Mott; he'd been very handsome in a senior-citizen sort of way, polished, dangerous, and sophisticated.
Tara always looks great. My high school friend has black hair, and dark eyes, and a smooth olive complexion, and she has a lot of intelligence that she uses running Tara's Togs, an upscale women's clothing store that rents space in a strip mall Bill owns. (Well, it's as upscale as Bon Temps has to offer.) Tara had become a friend of mine years before, because she came from an even sadder background than mine.
But the tall woman put even Tara in the shade. She was as dark-haired as Tara, though the new woman had reddish highlights that surprised the eye. She had dark eyes, too, but hers were huge and almond-shaped, almost abnormally large. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her legs were as long as a stepladder. She was quite gifted in the bosom department, and she was wearing fire engine red from head to toe. Her lipstick matched.
"Sookie," Tara called. "What's the matter?" She walked carefully up to my old car, watching her feet because she was wearing glossy, brown leather, high-heeled boots she didn't want to scuff. They'd have lasted five minutes on my feet. I spend too much of my time standing up to worry about footwear that only looks good.
Tara looked successful, attractive, and secure, in her sage green sweater and taupe pants. "I was putting on my makeup when I heard over the police scanner that something was up at Jason's house," she said. She slid in the passenger's seat and leaned over to hug me. "When I got to Jason's, I saw you pulling out. What's up?" The woman in red was standing with her back to the car, tactfully looking out into the woods.
I'd adored my father, and I'd always known (and my mother herself definitely believed) that no matter what Mother put me through, she was acting out of love. But Tara's parents had been evil, both alcoholics and abusers. Tara's older sisters and brothers had left home as fast as they could, leaving Tara, as the youngest, to foot the bill for their freedom.
Yet now that I was in trouble, here she was, ready to help.
"Well, Jason's gone missing," I said, in a fairly level voice, but then I ruined the effect by giving one of those awful choking sobs. I turned my face so I'd be looking out my window. I was embarrassed to show such distress in front of the new woman.
Wisely ignoring my tears, Tara began asking me the logical questions: Had Jason called in to work? Had he called me the night before? Who had he been dating lately?
That reminded me of the shifter girl who'd been Jason's date New Year's Eve. I thought I could even talk about the girl's otherness, because Tara had been at Club Dead that night. Tara's tall companion was a Supe of some kind. Tara knew all about the secret world.
But she didn't, as it turned out.
Her memory had been erased. Or at least she pretended it had.
"What?" Tara asked, with almost exaggerated confusion. "Werewolves? At that nightclub? I remember seeing you there. Honey, didn't you drink a little too much and pass out, or something?"
Since I drink very sparingly, Tara's question made me quite angry, but it was also the most unremarkable explanation Franklin Mott could have planted in Tara's head. I was so disappointed at not getting to confide in her that I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see the blank look on her face. I felt tears leaving little paths down my cheeks. I should have just let it go, but I said, in a low, harsh voice, "No, I didn't."
"Omigosh, did your date put something in your drink?" In genuine horror, Tara squeezed my hand. "That Rohypnol? But Alcide looked like such a nice guy!"
"Forget it," I said, trying to sound gentler. "It doesn't really have anything to do with Jason, after all."
Her face still troubled, Tara pressed my hand again.
All of a sudden, I was certain I didn't believe her. Tara knew vampires could remove memory, and she was pretending Franklin Mott had erased hers. I thought Tara remembered quite well what had happened at Club Dead, but she was pretending she didn't to protect herself. If she had to do that to survive, that was okay. I took a deep breath.
"Are you still dating Franklin?" I asked, to start a different conversation.
"He got me this car."
I was a little shocked and more than a little dismayed, but I hoped I was not the kind to point fingers.
"It's a wonderful car. You don't know any witches, do you?" I asked, trying to change the subject before Tara could read my misgivings. I was sure she would laugh at me for asking her such a question, but it was a good diversion. I wouldn't hurt her for the world.
Finding a witch would be a great help. I was sure Jason's abduction—and I swore to myself it was an abduction, it was not a murder—was linked to the witches' curse on Eric. It was just too much coincidence otherwise. On the other hand, I had certainly experienced the twists and turns of a bunch of coincidences in the past few months. There, I knew I'd find a third hand.
"Sure I do," Tara said, smiling proudly. "Now there I can help you. That is, if a Wiccan will do?"
I had so many expressions I wasn't sure my face could fit them all in. Shock, fear, grief, and worry were tumbling around in my brain. When the spinning stopped, we would see which one was at the top.
"You're a witch?" I said weakly.
"Oh, gosh, no, not me. I'm a Catholic. But I have some friends who are Wiccan. Some of them are witches."
"Oh, really?" I didn't think I'd ever heard the word Wiccan before, though maybe I'd read it in a mystery or romance novel. "I'm sorry, I don't know what that means," I said, my voice humble.
"Holly can explain it better than I can," Tara said.
"Holly. The Holly who works with me?"
"Sure. Or you could go to Danielle, though she's not going to be as willing to talk. Holly and Danielle are in the same coven."
I was so shocked by now I might as well get even more stunned. "Coven," I repeated.
"You know, a group of pagans who worship together."
"I thought a coven had to be witches?"
"I guess not—but they have to, you know, be non-Christian. I mean, Wicca is a religion."
"Okay," I said. "Okay. Do you think Holly would talk to me about this?"
"I don't know why not." Tara went back to her car to get her cell phone, and paced back and forth between our vehicles while she talked to Holly. I appreciated a little respite to allow me to get back on my mental feet, so to speak. To be polite I got out of my car and spoke to the woman in red, who'd been very patient.
"I'm sorry to meet you on such a bad day," I said. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse."
"I'm Claudine," she said, with a beautiful smile. Her teeth were Hollywood white. Her skin had an odd quality; it looked glossy and thin, reminding me of the skin of a plum; like if you bit her, sweet juice would gush out. "I'm here because of all the activity."
"Oh?" I said, taken aback.
"Sure. You have vampires, and Weres, and lots of other stuff all tangled up here in Bon Temps—to say nothing of several important and powerful crossroads. I was drawn to all the possibilities."
"Uh-huh," I said uncertainly. "So, do you plan on just observing all this, or what?"
"Oh, no. Just observing is not my way." She laughed. "You're quite the wild card, aren't you?"
"Holly's up," Tara said, snapping her phone shut and smiling because it was hard not to with Claudine around. I realized I was smiling from ear to ear, not my usual tense grin but an expression of sunny happiness. "She says come on over."
"Are you coming with me?" I didn't know what to think of Tara's companion.
"Sorry, Claudine's helping me today at the shop," Tara said. "We're having a New Year's sale on our old inventory, and people are doing some heavy shopping. Want me to put something aside for you? I've got a few really pretty party dresses left. Didn't the one you wore in Jackson get ruined?"
Yeah, because a fanatic had driven a stake through my side. The dress had definitely suffered. "It got stained," I said with great restraint. "It's real nice of you to offer, but I don't think I'll have time to try anything on. With Jason and everything, I've got so much to think about." And precious little extra money, I told myself.
"Sure," said Tara. She hugged me again. "You call me if you need me, Sookie. It's funny that I don't remember that evening in Jackson any better. Maybe I had too much to drink, too. Did we dance?"
"Oh, yes, you talked me into doing that routine we did at the high school talent show."
"I did not!" She was begging me to deny it, with a half smile on her face.
"'Fraid so." I knew damn well she remembered it.
"I wish I'd been there," said Claudine. "I love to dance."
"Believe me, that night in Club Dead is one I wish I'd missed," I said.
"Well, remind me never to go back to Jackson, if I did that dance in public," Tara said.
"I don't think either of us better go back to Jackson." I'd left some very irate vampires in Jackson, but the Weres were even angrier. Not that there were a lot of them left, actually. But still.
Tara hesitated a minute, obviously trying to frame something she wanted to tell me. "Since Bill owns the building Tara's Togs is in," she said carefully, "I do have a number to call, a number he said he'd check in with while he was out of the country. So if you need to let him know anything . . . ?"
"Thanks," I said, not sure if I felt thankful at all. "He told me he left a number on a pad by the phone in his house." There was a kind of finality to Bill's being out of the country, unreachable. I hadn't even thought of trying to get in touch with him about my predicament; out of all the people I'd considered calling, he hadn't even crossed my mind.
"It's just that he seemed pretty, you know, down." Tara examined the toes of her boots. "Melancholy," she said, as if she enjoyed using a word that didn't pass her lips often. Claudine beamed with approval. What a strange gal. Her huge eyes were luminous with joy as she patted me on the shoulder.
I swallowed hard. "Well, he's never exactly Mr. Smiley," I said. "I do miss him. But . . ." I shook my head emphatically. "It was just too hard. He just . . . upset me too much. I thank you for letting me know I can call him if I need to, and I really, really appreciate your telling me about Holly."
Tara, flushed with the deserved pleasure of having done her good deed for the day, got back in her spanky-new Camaro. After folding her long self into the passenger seat, Claudine waved at me as Tara pulled away. I sat in my car for a moment longer, trying to remember where Holly Cleary lived. I thought I remembered her complaining about the closet size in her apartment, and that meant the Kingfisher Arms.
When I got to the U-shaped building on the southern approach to Bon Temps, I checked the mailboxes to discover Holly's apartment number. She was on the ground floor, in number 4. Holly had a five-year-old son, Cody. Holly and her best friend, Danielle Gray, had both gotten married right out of high school, and both had been divorced within five years. Danielle's mom was a great help to Danielle, but Holly was not so lucky. Her long-divorced parents had both moved away, and her grandmother had died in the Alzheimer's wing of the Renard Parish nursing home. Holly had dated Detective Andy Bellefleur for a few months, but nothing had come of it. Rumor had it that old Caroline Bellefleur, Andy's grandmother, had thought Holly wasn't "good" enough for Andy. I had no opinion on that. Neither Holly nor Andy was on my shortlist of favorite people, though I definitely felt cooler toward Andy.
When Holly answered her door, I realized all of a sudden how much she'd changed over the past few weeks. For years, her hair had been dyed a dandelion yellow. Now it was matte black and spiked. Her ears had four piercings apiece. And I noticed her hipbones pushing at the thin denim of her aged jeans.
"Hey, Sookie," she said, pleasantly enough. "Tara asked me if I would talk to you, but I wasn't sure if you'd show up. Sorry about Jason. Come on in."
The apartment was small, of course, and though it had been repainted recently, it showed evidence of years of heavy use. There was a living room—dining room—kitchen combo, with a breakfast bar separating the galley kitchen from the rest of the area. There were a few toys in a basket in the corner of the room, and there was a can of Pledge and a rag on the scarred coffee table. Holly had been cleaning.
"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said.
"That's okay. Coke? Juice?"
"No, thanks. Where's Cody?"
"He went to stay with his dad," she said, looking down at her hands. "I drove him over the day after Christmas."
"Where's his dad living?"
"David's living in Springhill. He just married this girl, Allie. She already had two kids. The little girl is Cody's age, and he just loves to play with her. It's always, 'Shelley this,' and 'Shelley that.'" Holly looked kind of bleak.
David Cleary was one of a large clan. His cousin Pharr had been in my grade all through school. For Cody's genes' sake, I hoped that David was more intelligent than Pharr, which would be real easy.
"I need to talk to you about something pretty personal, Holly."
Holly looked surprised all over again. "Well, we haven't exactly been on those terms, have we?" she said. "You ask, and I'll decide whether to answer."
I tried to frame what I was going to say—to keep secret what I needed to keep secret and ask of her what I needed without offending.
"You're a witch?" I said, embarrassed at using such a dramatic word.
"I'm more of a Wiccan."
"Would you mind explaining the difference?" I met her eyes briefly, and then decided to focus on the dried flowers in the basket on top of the television. Holly thought I could read her mind only if I was looking into her eyes. (Like physical touching, eye contact does make the reading easier, but it certainly isn't necessary.)
"I guess not." Her voice was slow, as if she were thinking as she spoke. "You're not one to spread gossip."
"Whatever you tell me, I won't share with anyone." I met her eyes again, briefly.
"Okay," she said. "Well, if you're a witch, of course, you practice magic rituals."
She was using "you" in the general sense, I thought, because saying "I" would mean too bold a confession.
"You draw from a power that most people never tap into. Being a witch isn't being wicked, or at least it isn't supposed to be. If you're a Wiccan, you follow a religion, a pagan religion. We follow the ways of the Mother, and we have our own calendar of holy days. You can be both a Wiccan and a witch; or more one, or more the other. It's very individualized. I practice a little witchcraft, but I'm more interested in the Wiccan life. We believe that your actions are okay if you don't hurt anyone else."
Oddly, my first feeling was one of embarrassment, when I heard Holly tell me that she was a non-Christian. I'd never met anyone who didn't at least pretend to be a Christian or who didn't give lip service to the basic Christian precepts. I was pretty sure there was a synagogue in Shreveport, but I'd never even met a Jew, to the best of my knowledge. I was certainly on a learning curve.
"I understand. Do you know lots of witches?"
"I know a few." Holly nodded repeatedly, still avoiding my eyes.
I spotted an old computer on the rickety table in the corner. "Do you have, like, a chat room online, or a bulletin board, or something?"
"Oh, sure."
"Have you heard of a group of witches that's come into Shreveport lately?"
Holly's face became very serious. Her straight dark brows drew together in a frown. "Tell me you're not involved with them," she said.
"Not directly. But I know someone they've hurt, and I'm afraid they might've taken Jason."
"Then he's in bad trouble," she said bluntly. "The woman who leads this group is out-and-out ruthless. Her brother is just as bad. That group, they're not like the rest of us. They're not trying to find a better way to live, or a path to get in touch with the natural world, or spells to increase their inner peace. They're Wiccans. They're evil."
"Can you give me any clues about where I might track them down?" I was doing my best to keep my face in line. I could hear with my other sense that Holly was thinking that if the newly arrived coven had Jason, he'd be hurt badly, if not killed.
Holly, apparently in deep thought, looked out the front window of her apartment. She was afraid that they'd trace any information she gave me back to her, punish her—maybe through Cody. These weren't witches who believed in doing harm to no one else. These were witches whose lives were planned around the gathering of power of all kinds.
"They're all women?" I asked, because I could tell she was on the verge of resolving to tell me nothing.
"If you're thinking Jason would be able to charm them with his ways because he's such a looker, you can think again," Holly told me, her face grim and somehow stripped down to basics. She wasn't trying for any effect; she wanted me to understand how dangerous these people were. "There are some men, too. They're . . . these aren't normal witches. I mean, they weren't even normal people."
I was willing to believe that. I'd had to believe stranger things since the night Bill Compton had walked into Merlotte's Bar.
Holly spoke like she knew far more about this group of witches than I'd ever suspected . . . more than the general background I'd hoped to glean from her. I prodded her a little. "What makes them different?"
"They've had vampire blood." Holly glanced to the side, as if she felt someone listening to her. The motion creeped me out. "Witches—witches with a lot of power they're willing to use for evil—they're bad enough. Witches that strong who've also had vampire blood are . . . Sookie, you have no idea how dangerous they are. Some of them are Weres. Please, stay away from them."
Werewolves? They were not only witches, but Weres? And they drank vampire blood? I was seriously scared. I didn't know how could you get any worse. "Where are they?"
"Are you listening to me?"
"I am, but I have to know where they are!"
"They're in an old business not awful far from Pierre Bossier Mall," she said, and I could see the picture of it in her head. She'd been there. She'd seen them. She had this all in her head, and I was getting a lot of it.
"Why were you there?" I asked, and she flinched.
"I was worried about talking to you," Holly said, her voice angry. "I shouldn't have even let you in. But I'd dated Jason. . . . You're gonna get me killed, Sookie Stackhouse. Me and my boy."
"No, I won't."
"I was there because their leader sent out a call for all the witches in the area to have, like, a summit. It turned out that what she wanted to do was impose her will on all of us. Some of us were pretty impressed with her commitment and her power, but most of us smaller-town Wiccans, we didn't like her drug use—that's what drinking vampire blood amounts to—or her taste for the darker side of witchcraft. Now, that's all I want to say about it."
"Thanks, Holly." I tried to think of something I could tell her that would relieve her fear. But she wanted me to leave more than anything in the world, and I'd caused her enough upset. Holly's just letting me in the door had been a big concession, since she actually believed in my mind-reading ability. No matter what rumors they heard, people really wanted to believe that the contents of their heads were private, no matter what proof they had to the contrary.
I did myself.
I patted Holly on the shoulder as I left, but she didn't get up from the old couch. She stared at me with hopeless brown eyes, as if any moment someone was going to come in the door and cut off her head.
That look frightened me more than her words, more than her ideas, and I left the Kingfisher Arms as quickly as I could, trying to note the few people who saw me turn out of the parking lot. I didn't recognize any of them.
I wondered why the witches in Shreveport would want Jason, how they could have made a connection between the missing Eric and my brother. How could I approach them to find out? Would Pam and Chow help, or had they taken their own steps?
And whose blood had the witches been drinking?
Since vampires had made their presence known among us, nearly three years ago now, they'd become preyed upon in a new way. Instead of fearing getting staked through the heart by wanna-be Van Helsings, vampires dreaded modern entrepreneurs called Drainers. Drainers traveled in teams, singling out vampires by a variety of methods and binding them with silver chains (usually in a carefully planned ambush), then draining their blood into vials. Depending on the age of the vampire, a vial of blood could fetch from $200 to $400 on the black market. The effect of drinking this blood? Quite unpredictable, once the blood had left the vampire. I guess that was part of the attraction. Most commonly, for a few weeks, the drinker gained strength, visual acuity, a feeling of robust health, and enhanced attractiveness. It depended on the age of the drained vampire and the freshness of the blood.
Of course, those effects faded, unless you drank more blood.
A certain percentage of people who experienced drinking vampire blood could hardly wait to scratch up money for more. These blood junkies were extremely dangerous, of course. City police forces were glad to hire vampires to deal with them, since regular cops would simply get pulped.
Every now and then, a blood drinker simply went mad—sometimes in a quiet, gibbering kind of way, but sometimes spectacularly and murderously. There was no way to predict who would be stricken this way, and it could happen on the first drinking.
So there were men with glittering mad eyes in padded cells and there were electrifying movie stars who equally owed their condition to the Drainers. Draining was a hazardous job, of course. Sometimes the vampire got loose, with a very predictable result. A court in Florida had ruled this vampire retaliation justifiable homicide, in one celebrated case,
because Drainers notoriously discarded their victims. They left a vampire, all but empty of blood, too weak to move, wherever the vamp happened to fall. The weakened vampire died when the sun came up, unless he had the good fortune to be discovered and helped to safety during the hours of darkness. It took years to recover from a draining, and that was years of help from other vamps. Bill had told me there were shelters for drained vamps, and that their location was kept very secret.
Witches with nearly the physical power of vampires—that seemed a very dangerous combination. I kept thinking of women when I thought of the coven that had moved into Shreveport, and I kept correcting myself. Men, Holly had said, were in the group.
I looked at the clock at the drive-through bank, and I saw it was just after noon. It would be full dark by a few minutes before six; Eric had gotten up a little earlier than that, at times. I could certainly go to Shreveport and come back by then. I couldn't think of another plan, and I just couldn't go home and sit and wait. Even wasting gas was better than going back to my house, though worry for Jason crawled up and down my spine. I could take the time to drop off the shotgun, but as long as it was unloaded and the shells were in a separate location, it should be legal enough to drive around with it.
For the first time in my life, I checked my rearview mirror to see if I was being followed. I am not up on spy techniques, but if someone was following me, I couldn't spot him. I stopped and got gas and an ICEE, just to see if anyone pulled into the gas station behind me, but no one did. That was real good, I decided, hoping that Holly was safe.
As I drove, I had time to review my conversation with Holly. I realized it was the first one I'd ever had with Holly in which Danielle's name had not come up once. Holly and Danielle had been joined at the hip since grade school. They probably had their periods at the same time. Danielle's parents, cradle members of the Free Will Church of God's Anointed, would have a fit if they knew, so it wasn't any wonder that Holly had been so discreet.
Our little town of Bon Temps had stretched its gates open wide enough to tolerate vampires, and gay people didn't have a very hard time of it anymore (kind of depending on how they expressed their sexual preference). However, I thought the gates might snap shut for Wiccans.
The peculiar and beautiful Claudine had told me that she was attracted to Bon Temps for its very strangeness. I wondered what else was out there, waiting to reveal itself.
Chapter 5
Carla Rodriguez, my most promising lead, came first. I'd looked up the old address I had for Dovie, with whom I'd exchanged the odd Christmas card. I found the house with a little difficulty. It was well away from the shopping areas that were my only normal stops in Shreveport. The houses were small and close together where Dovie lived, and some of them were in bad repair.
I felt a distinct thrill of triumph when Carla herself answered the door. She had a black eye, and she was hungover, both signs that she'd had a big night the night before.
"Hey, Sookie," she said, identifying me after a moment. "What're you doing here? I was at Merlotte's last night, but I didn't see you there. You still working there?"
"I am. It was my night off." Now that I was actually looking at Carla, I wasn't sure how to explain to her what I needed. I decided to be blunt. "Listen, Jason's not at work this morning, and I kind of wondered if he might be here with you."
"Honey, I got nothing against you, but Jason's the last man on earth I'd sleep with," Carla said flatly. I stared at her, hearing that she was telling me truth. "I ain't gonna stick my hand in the fire twice, having gotten burnt the first time. I did look around the bar a little, thinking I might see him, but if I had, I'd have turned the other way."
I nodded. That seemed all there was to say on the subject. We exchanged a few more polite sentences, and I chatted with Dovie, who had a toddler balanced on her hip, but then it was time for me to leave. My most promising lead had just evaporated in the length of two sentences.
Trying to suppress my desperation, I drove to a busy corner filling station and parked, to check my Shreveport map. It didn't take me long to figure out how to get from Dovie's suburb to the vampire bar.
Fangtasia was in a shopping center close to Toys "R" Us. It opened at six P.M. year-round, but of course the vampires didn't show up until full dark, which depended on the season. The front of Fangtasia was painted flat gray, and the neon writing was all in red. "Shreveport's Premier Vampire Bar," read the newly added, smaller writing under the exotic script of the bar's name. I winced and looked away.
Two summers before, a small group of vamps from Oklahoma had tried to set up a rival bar in adjacent Bossier City. After one particularly hot, short August night, they'd never been seen again, and the building they'd been renovating had burned to the ground.
Tourists thought stories like this were actually amusing and colorful. It added to the thrill of ordering overpriced drinks (from human waitresses dressed in trailing black "vampire" outfits) while staring at real, honest-to-God, undead bloodsuckers. Eric made the Area Five vampires show up for this unappealing duty by giving them a set number of hours each week to present themselves at Fangtasia. Most of his underlings weren't enthusiastic about exhibiting themselves, but it did give them a chance to hook up with fang-bangers who actually yearned for the chance to be bitten. Such encounters didn't take place on the premises: Eric had rules about that. And so did the police department. The only legal biting that could take place between humans and vampires was between consenting adults, in private.
Automatically, I pulled around to the rear of the shopping center. Bill and I had almost always used the employee entrance. Back here, the door was just a gray door in a gray wall, with the name of the bar put on in stick-on letters from WalMart. Right below that, a large, black, stenciled notice proclaimed STAFF ONLY. I lifted my hand to knock, and then I realized I could see that the inner dead bolt had not been employed.
The door was unlocked.
This was really, really bad.
Though it was broad daylight, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Abruptly, I wished I had Bill at my back. I wasn't missing his tender love, either. It's probably a bad indicator of your lifestyle when you miss your ex-boyfriend because he's absolutely lethal.
Though the public face of the shopping center was fairly busy, the service side was deserted. The silence was crawling with possibilities, and none of them was pleasant. I leaned my forehead against the cold gray door. I decided to get back in my old car and get the hell out of there, which would have been amazingly smart.
And I would have gone, if I hadn't heard the moaning.
Even then, if I'd been able to spot a pay phone, I would've just called 911 and stayed outside until someone official showed up. But there wasn't one in sight, and I couldn't stand the possibility that someone needed my help real bad, and I'd withheld it because I was chicken.
There was a heavy garbage can right by the back door, and after I'd yanked the door open—standing aside for a second to avoid anything that might dart out—I maneuvered the can to hold the door ajar. I had goose bumps all over my arms as I stepped inside.
Windowless Fangtasia requires electric light, twenty-four/seven. Since none of these lights were on, the interior was just a dark pit. Winter daylight extended weakly down the hall that led to the bar proper. On the right were the doors to Eric's office and the bookkeeper's room. On the left was the door to the large storeroom, which also contained the employee bathroom. This hall ended in a heavy door to discourage any fun lovers from penetrating to the back of the club. This door, too, was open, for the first time in my memory. Beyond it lay the black silent cavern of the bar. I wondered if anything was sitting at those tables or huddled in those booths.
I was holding my breath so I could detect the least little noise. After a few seconds, I heard a scraping movement and another sound of pain, coming from the storeroom. Its door was slightly ajar. I took four silent steps to that door. My heart was pounding all the way up in my throat as I reached into the darkness to flip the light switch.
The glare made me blink.
Belinda, the only half-intelligent fang-banger I'd ever met, was lying on the storeroom floor in a curiously contorted position. Her legs were bent double, her heels pressed against her hips. There was no blood—in fact, no visible mark—on her. Apparently, she was having a giant and perpetual leg cramp.
I knelt beside Belinda, my eyes darting glances in all directions. I saw no other movement in the room, though its corners were obscured with stacks of liquor cartons and a coffin that was used as a prop in a show the vampires sometimes put on for special parties. The employee bathroom door was shut.
"Belinda," I whispered. "Belinda, look at me."
Belinda's eyes were red and swollen behind their glasses, and her cheeks were wet with tears. She blinked and focused on my face.
"Are they still here?" I asked, knowing she'd understand that I meant "the people who did this to you."
"Sookie," she said hoarsely. Her voice was weak, and I wondered how long she'd lain there waiting for help. "Oh, thank God. Tell Master Eric we tried to hold them off." Still role-playing, you notice, even in her agony: "Tell our chieftain we fought to the death"—you know the kind of thing.
"Who'd you try to hold off?" I asked sharply.
"The witches. They came in last night after we'd closed, after Pam and Chow had gone. Just Ginger and me . . ."
"What did they want?" I had time to notice that Belinda was still wearing her filmy black waitress outfit with the slit up the long skirt, and there were still puncture marks painted on her neck.
"They wanted to know where we'd put Master Eric. They seemed to think they'd done . . . something to him, and that we'd hidden him." During her long pause, her face contorted, and I could tell she was in terrible pain, but I couldn't tell what was wrong with her. "My legs," she moaned. "Oh
"But you didn't know, so you couldn't tell them."
"I would never betray our master."
And Belinda was the one with sense.
"Was anyone here besides Ginger, Belinda?" But she was so deep into a spasm of suffering that she couldn't answer. Her whole body was rigid with pain, that low moan tearing out of her throat again.
I called 911 from Eric's office, since I knew the location of the phone there. The room had been tossed, and some frisky witch had spray painted a big red pentagram on one of the walls. Eric was going to love that.
I returned to Belinda to tell her the ambulance was coming. "What's wrong with your legs?" I asked, scared of the answer.
"They made the muscle in the back of my legs pull up, like it was half as long. . . ." And she began moaning again. "It's like one of those giant cramps you get when you're pregnant."
It was news to me that Belinda had ever been pregnant.
"Where's Ginger?" I asked, when her pain seemed to have ebbed a little.
"She was in the bathroom."
Ginger, a pretty strawberry blonde, as dumb as a rock, was still there. I don't think they'd meant to kill her. But they'd put a spell on her legs like they'd done to Belinda's, it looked like; her legs were drawn up double in the same peculiar and painful way, even in death. Ginger had been standing in front of the sink when she'd crumpled, and her head had hit
the lip of the sink on her way down. Her eyes were sightless and her hair was matted with some clotted blood that had oozed from the depression in her temple.
There was nothing to be done. I didn't even touch Ginger; she was so obviously dead. I didn't say anything about her to Belinda, who was in too much agony to understand, anyway. She had a couple more moments of lucidity before I took off. I asked her where to find Pam and Chow so I could warn them, and Belinda said they just showed up at the bar when it became dark.
She also said the woman who'd worked the spell was a witch named Hallow, and she was almost six feet tall, with short brown hair and a black design painted on her face.
That should make her easy to identify.
"She told me she was as strong as a vampire, too," Belinda gasped. "You see . . ." Belinda pointed beyond me. I whirled, expecting an attack. Nothing that alarming happened, but what I saw was almost as disturbing as what I'd imagined. It was the handle of the dolly the staff used to wheel cases of drinks around. The long metal handle had been twisted into a U.
"I know Master Eric will kill her when he returns," Belinda said falteringly after a minute, the words coming out in jagged bursts because of the pain.
"Sure he will," I said stoutly. I hesitated, feeling crummy beyond words. "Belinda, I have to go because I don't want the police to keep me here for questioning. Please don't mention my name. Just say a passerby heard you, okay?"
"Where's Master Eric? Is he really missing?"
"I have no idea," I said, forced to lie. "I have to get out of here."
"Go," Belinda said, her voice ragged. "We're lucky you came in at all."
I had to get out of there. I knew nothing about what had happened at the bar, and being questioned for hours would cost me time I couldn't afford, with my brother missing.
Back in my car and on my way out of the shopping center, I passed the police cars and the ambulance as they headed in. I'd wiped the doorknob clean of my fingerprints. Other than that, I couldn't think of what I'd touched and what I hadn't, no matter how carefully I reviewed my actions. There'd be a million prints there, anyway; gosh, it was a bar.
After a minute, I realized I was just driving with no direction. I was overwhelmingly rattled. I pulled over into yet another filling station parking lot and looked at the pay phone
longingly. I could call Alcide, ask him if he knew where Pam and Chow spent their daytime hours. Then I could go there and leave a message or something, warn them about what had happened.
I made myself take some deep breaths and think hard about what I was doing. It was extremely unlikely that the vamps would give a Were the address of their daytime resting place. This was not information that vampires passed out to anyone who asked. Alcide had no love for the vamps of Shreveport, who'd held his dad's gambling debt over Alcide's head until he complied with their wishes. I knew that if I called, he'd come, because he was just a nice guy. But his involvement could have serious consequences for his family and his business. However, if this Hallow really was a triple threat—a Were witch who drank vampire blood—she was very dangerous, and the Weres of Shreveport should know about her. Relieved I'd finally made up my mind, I found a pay phone that worked, and I got Alcide's card out of its slot in my billfold.
Alcide was in his office, which was a miracle. I described my location, and he gave me directions on how to reach his office. He offered to come get me, but I didn't want him to think I was an utter idiot.
I used a calling card to phone Bud Dearborn's office, to hear there was no news about Jason.
Following Alcide's directions very carefully, I arrived at Herveaux and Son in about twenty minutes. It was not too far off I-30, on the eastern edge of Shreveport, actually on my way back to Bon Temps.
The Herveauxes owned the building, and their surveying company was its sole occupant. I parked in front of the low brick building. At the rear, I spotted Alcide's Dodge Ram pickup in the large parking lot for employees. The one in front, for visitors, was much smaller. It was clear to see that the Herveauxes mostly went to their clients, rather than the clients coming to them.
Feeling shy and more than a little nervous, I pushed open the front door and glanced around. There was a desk just inside the door, with a waiting area opposite. Beyond a half wall, I could see five or six workstations, three of them occupied. The woman behind the desk was in charge of routing phone calls, too. She had short dark brown hair that was carefully cut and styled, she was wearing a beautiful sweater, and she had wonderful makeup. She was probably in her forties, but it hadn't lessened her impressiveness.
"I'm here to see Alcide," I said, feeling embarrassed and self-conscious.
"Your name?" She was smiling at me, but she looked a little crisp around the edges, as if she didn't quite approve of a young and obviously unfashionable woman showing up at Alcide's workplace. I was wearing a bright blue-and-yellow knit top with long sleeves under my old thigh-length blue cloth coat, and aged blue jeans, and Reeboks. I'd been worried about finding my brother when I dressed, not about standing inspection by the Fashion Police.
"Stackhouse," I said.
"Ms. Stackhouse here to see you," Crispy said into an intercom.
"Oh, good!" Alcide sounded very happy, which was a relief.
Crispy was saying into the intercom, "Shall I send her back?" when Alcide burst through the door behind and to the left of her desk.
"Sookie!" he said, and he beamed at me. He stopped for a second, as if he couldn't quite decide what he should do, and then he hugged me.
I felt like I was smiling all over. I hugged him back. I was so happy to see him! I thought he looked wonderful. Alcide is a tall man, with black hair that apparently can't be tamed with a brush and comb, and he has a broad face and green eyes.
We'd dumped a body together, and that creates a bond.
He pulled gently on my braid. "Come on back," he said in my ear, since Ms. Crispy was looking on with an indulgent smile. I was sure the indulgent part was for Alcide's benefit. In fact, I knew it was, because she was thinking I didn't look chic enough or polished enough to date a Herveaux, and she didn't think Alcide's dad (with whom she'd been sleeping for two years) would appreciate Alcide taking up with a no-account girl like me. Oops, one of those things I didn't want to know. Obviously I wasn't shielding myself hard enough. Bill had made me practice, and now that I didn't see him anymore, I was getting sloppy. It wasn't entirely my fault; Ms. Crispy was a clear broadcaster.
Alcide was not, since he's a werewolf.
Alcide ushered me down a hall, which was nicely carpeted and hung with neutral pictures—insipid landscapes and garden scenes—which I figured some decorator (or maybe Ms. Crispy) had chosen. He showed me into his office, which had his name on the door. It was a big room, but not a grand or elegant one, because it was just chock-full of work stuff—plans and papers and hard hats and office equipment. Very utilitarian. A fax
machine was humming, and set beside a stack of forms there was a calculator displaying figures.
"You're busy. I shouldn't have called," I said, instantly cowed.
"Are you kidding? Your call is the best thing that's happened to me all day!" He sounded so sincere that I had to smile again. "There's something I have to say to you, something I didn't tell you when I dropped your stuff off after you got hurt." After I'd been beaten up by hired thugs. "I felt so bad about it that I've put off coming to Bon Temps to talk to you face-to-face."
Omigod, he'd gotten back with his nasty rotten fiancée, Debbie Pelt. I was getting Debbie's name from his brain.
"Yes?" I said, trying to look calm and open. He reached down and took my hand between his own large palms.
"I owe you a huge apology."
Okay, that was unexpected. "How would that be?" I asked, looking up at him with narrowed eyes. I'd come here to spill my guts, but it was Alcide who was spilling his instead.
"That last night, at Club Dead," he began, "when you needed my help and protection the most, I . . ."
I knew what was coming now. Alcide had changed into a wolf rather than staying human and helping me out of the bar after I'd gotten staked. I put my free hand across his mouth. His skin was so warm. If you're used to touching vampires, you'll know just how roasty a regular human can feel, and a Were even more so, since they run a few degrees hotter.
I felt my pulse quicken, and I knew he could tell, too. Animals are good at sensing excitement. "Alcide," I said, "never bring that up. You couldn't help it, and it all turned out okay, anyway." Well, more or less—other than my heart breaking at Bill's perfidy.
"Thanks for being so understanding," he said, after a pause during which he looked at me intently. "I think I would have felt better if you'd been mad." I believe he was wondering whether I was just putting a brave face on it or if I was truly sincere. I could tell he had an impulse to kiss me, but he wasn't sure if I'd welcome such a move or even allow it.
Well, I didn't know what I'd do, either, so I didn't give myself the chance to find out.
"Okay, I'm furious with you, but I'm concealing it real well," I said. He relaxed all over when he saw me smile, though it might be the last smile we'd share all day. "Listen, your office in the middle of day isn't a good time and place to tell you the things I need to tell you," I said. I spoke very levelly, so he'd realize I wasn't coming on to him. Not only did I just plain old like Alcide, I thought he was one hell of a man—but until I was sure he was through with Debbie Pelt, he was off my list of guys I wanted to be around. The last I'd heard of Debbie, she'd been engaged to another shifter, though even that hadn't ended her emotional involvement with Alcide.
I was not going to get in the middle of that—not with the grief caused by Bill's infidelity still weighing heavily on my own heart.
"Let's go to the Applebee's down the road and have some coffee," he suggested. Over the intercom, he told Crispy he was leaving. We went out through the back door.
It was about two o'clock by then, and the restaurant was almost empty. Alcide asked the young man who seated us to put us in a booth as far away from anyone else as we could get. I scooted down the bench on one side, expecting Alcide to take the other, but he slid in beside me. "If you want to tell secrets, this is as close as we can get," he said.
We both ordered coffee, and Alcide asked the server to bring a small pot. I inquired after his dad while the server was puttering around, and Alcide inquired after Jason. I didn't answer, because the mention of my brother's name was enough to make me feel close to crying. When our coffee had come and the young man had left, Alcide said, "What's up?"
I took a deep breath, trying to decide where to begin. "There's a bad witch coven in Shreveport," I said flatly. "They drink vampire blood, and at least a few of them are shifters."
It was Alcide's turn to take a deep breath.
I help up a hand, indicating there was more to come. "They're moving into Shreveport to take over the vampires' financial kingdom. They put a curse or a hex or something on Eric, and it took away his memory. They raided Fangtasia, trying to discover the day resting place of the vampires. They put some kind of spell on two of the waitresses, and one of them is in the hospital. The other one is dead."
Alcide was already sliding his cell phone from his pocket.
"Pam and Chow have hidden Eric at my house, and I have to get back before dark to take care of him. And Jason is missing. I don't know who took him or where he is or if he's . . ." Alive. But I couldn't say the word.
Alcide's deep breath escaped in a whoosh, and he sat staring at me, the phone in his hand. He couldn't decide whom to call first. I didn't blame him.
"I don't like Eric being at your house," he said. "It puts you in danger."
I was touched that his first thought was for my safety. "Jason asked for a lot of money for doing it, and Pam and Chow agreed," I said, embarrassed.
"But Jason isn't there to take the heat, and you are."
Unanswerably true. But to give Jason credit, he certainly hadn't planned it that way. I told Alcide about the blood on the dock. "Might be a red herring," he said. "If the type matches Jason's, then you can worry." He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes focused inward. "I've got to make some calls," he said.
"Alcide, are you the packmaster for Shreveport?"
"No, no, I'm nowhere near important enough."
That didn't seem possible to me, and I said as much. He took my hand.
"Packmasters are usually older than me," he said. "And you have to be really tough. Really, really tough."
"Do you have to fight to get to be packmaster?"
"No, you get elected, but the candidates have to be very strong and clever. There's a sort of—well, you have a test you have to take."
"Written? Oral?" Alcide looked relieved when he saw I was smiling. "More like an endurance test?" I said.
He nodded. "More like."
"Don't you think your packmaster should know about this?"
"Yes. What else?"
"Why would they be doing this? Why pick on Shreveport? If they have that much going for them, the vampire blood and the will to do really bad things, why not set up shop in a more prosperous city?"
"That's a real good question." Alcide was thinking hard. His green eyes squinted when he thought. "I've never heard of a witch having this much power. I never heard of a witch being a shifter. I tend to think it's the first time this has ever happened."
"The first time?"
"That a witch has ever tried to take control of a city, tried to take away the assets of the city's supernatural community," he said.
"How do witches stand in the supernatural pecking order?"
"Well, they're humans who stay human." He shrugged. "Usually, the Supes feel like witches are just wanna-bes. The kind you have to keep an eye on, since they practice magic and we're magical creatures, but still . . ."
"Not a big threat?"
"Right. Looks like we might have to rethink that. Their leader takes vampire blood. Does she drain them herself?" He punched in a number and held the phone to his ear.
"I don't know."
"And what does she shift into?" Shape-shifters had a choice, but there was one animal each shifter had an affinity for, her habitual animal. A shape-shifter could call herself a "were-lynx" or a "were-bat," if she was out of hearing range of a werewolf. Werewolves objected very strenuously to any other two-natured creatures who termed themselves "Were."
"Well, she's . . . like you," I said. The Weres considered themselves the kings of the two-natured community. They only changed into one animal, and it was the best. The rest of the two-natured community responded by calling the wolves thugs.
"Oh, no." Alcide was appalled. At that moment, his packmaster answered the phone.
"Hello, this is Alcide." A silence. "I'm sorry to bother you when you were busy in the yard. Something important's come up. I need to see you as soon as possible." Another silence. "Yes, sir. With your permission, I'll bring someone with me." After a second or two, Alcide pressed a button to end the conversation. "Surely Bill knows where Pam and Chow live?" he asked me.
"I'm sure he does, but he's not here to tell me about it." If he would.
"And where is he?" Alcide's voice was deceptively calm.
"He's in Peru."
I'd been looking down at my napkin, which I'd pleated into a fan. I glanced up at the man next to me to see him staring down at me with an expression of incredulity.
"He's gone? He left you there alone?"
"Well, he didn't know anything was going to happen," I said, trying not to sound defensive, and then I thought, What am I saying? "Alcide, I haven't seen Bill since I came back from Jackson, except when he came over to tell me he was leaving the country."
"But she told me you were back with Bill," Alcide said in a very strange voice.
"Who told you that?"
"Debbie. Who else?"
I'm afraid my reaction was not very flattering. "And you believed Debbie?"
"She said she'd stopped by Merlotte's on her way over to see me, and she'd seen you and Bill acting very, ah, friendly while she was there."
"And you believed her?" Maybe if I kept shifting the emphasis, he'd tell me he was just joking.
Alcide was looking sheepish now, or as sheepish as a werewolf can look.
"Okay, that was dumb," he admitted. "I'll deal with her."
"Right." Pardon me if I didn't sound very convinced. I'd heard that before.
"Bill's really in Peru?"
"As far as I know."
"And you're alone in the house with Eric?"
"Eric doesn't know he's Eric."
"He doesn't remember his identity?"
"Nope. He doesn't remember his character, either, apparently."
"That's a good thing," Alcide said darkly. He had never viewed Eric with any sense of humor, as I did. I'd always been leery of Eric, but I'd appreciated his mischief, his single-mindedness, and his flair. If you could say a vampire had joie de vivre, Eric had it in spades.
"Let's go see the packmaster now," Alcide said, obviously in a much grimmer mood. We slid out of the booth after he'd paid for the coffee, and without phoning in to work ("No
point being the boss if I can't vanish from time to time"), he helped me up into his truck and we took off back into Shreveport. I was sure Ms. Crispy would assume we'd checked into a motel or gone to Alcide's apartment, but that was better than Ms. Crispy finding out her boss was a werewolf.
As we drove, Alcide told me that the packmaster was a retired Air Force colonel, formerly stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, which flowed into Shreveport. Colonel Flood's only child, a daughter, had married a local, and Colonel Flood had settled in the city to be close to his grandchildren.
"His wife is a Were, too?" I asked. If Mrs. Flood was also a Were, their daughter would be, too. If Weres can get through the first few months, they live a good long while, barring accidents.
"She was; she passed away a few months ago."
Alcide's packmaster lived in a modest neighborhood of ranch-style homes on smallish lots. Colonel Flood was picking up pine cones in his front yard. It seemed a very domestic and peaceable thing for a prominent werewolf to be doing. I'd pictured him in my head in an Air Force uniform, but of course he was wearing regular civilian outdoor clothes. His thick hair was white and cut very short, and he had a mustache that must have been trimmed with a ruler, it was so exact.
The colonel must have been curious after Alcide's phone call, but he asked us to come inside in a calm sort of way. He patted Alcide on the back a lot; he was very polite to me.
The house was as neat as his mustache. It could have passed inspection.
"Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Hot chocolate? Soda?" The colonel gestured toward his kitchen as if there were a servant standing there alert for our orders.
"No, thank you," I said, since I was awash with Applebee's coffee. Colonel Flood insisted we sit in the company living room, which was an awkwardly narrow rectangle with a formal dining area at one end. Mrs. Flood had liked porcelain birds. She had liked them a lot. I wondered how the grandchildren fared in this room, and I kept my hands tucked in my lap for fear I'd jostle something.
"So, what can I do for you?" Colonel Flood asked Alcide. "Are you seeking permission to marry?"
"Not today," Alcide said with a smile. I looked down at the floor to keep my expression to myself. "My friend Sookie has some information that she shared with me. It's very important." His smile died on the vine. "She needs to relate what she knows to you."
"And why do I need to listen?"
I understood that he was asking Alcide who I was—that if he was obliged to listen to me, he needed to know my bona fides. But Alcide was offended on my behalf.
"I wouldn't have brought her if it wasn't important. I wouldn't have introduced her to you if I wouldn't give my blood for her."
I wasn't real certain what that meant, but I was interpreting it to assume Alcide was vouching for my truthfulness and offering to pay in some way if I proved false. Nothing was simple in the supernatural world.
"Let's hear your story, young woman," said the colonel briskly.
I related all I'd told Alcide, trying to leave out the personal bits.
"Where is this coven staying?" he asked me, when I was through. I told him what I'd seen through Holly's mind.
"Not enough information," Flood said crisply. "Alcide, we need the trackers."
"Yes, sir." Alcide's eyes were gleaming at the thought of action.
"I'll call them. Everything I've heard is making me rethink something odd that happened last night. Adabelle didn't come to the planning committee meeting."
Alcide looked startled. "That's not good."
They were trying to be cryptic in front of me, but I could read what was passing between the two shifters without too much difficulty. Flood and Alcide were wondering if their—hmmm, vice president?—Adabelle had missed the meeting for some innocent reason, or if the new coven had somehow inveigled her into joining them against her own pack.
"Adabelle has been chafing against the pack leadership for some time," Colonel Flood told Alcide, with the ghost of a smile on his thin lips. "I had hoped, when she got elected my second, that she'd consider that concession enough."
From the bits of information I could glean from the packmaster's mind, the Shreveport pack seemed to be heavily on the patriarchal side. To Adabelle, a modern woman, Colonel Flood's leadership was stifling.
"A new regime might appeal to her," Colonel Flood said, after a perceptible pause. "If the invaders learned anything about our pack, it's Adabelle they'd approach."
"I don't think Adabelle would ever betray the pack, no matter how unhappy she is with the status quo," Alcide said. He sounded very sure. "But if she didn't come to the meeting last night, and you can't raise her by phone this morning, I'm concerned."
"I wish you'd go check on Adabelle while I alert the pack to action," Colonel Flood suggested. "If your friend wouldn't mind."
Maybe his friend would like to get her butt back to Bon Temps and see to her paying guest. Maybe his friend would like to be searching for her brother. Though truly, I could not think of a single thing to do that would further the search for Jason, and it would be at least two hours before Eric rose.
Alcide said, "Colonel, Sookie is not a pack member and she shouldn't have to shoulder pack responsibilities. She has her own troubles, and she's gone out of her way to let us know about a big problem we didn't even realize we had. We should have known. Someone in our pack hasn't been honest with us."
Colonel Flood's face drew in on itself as if he'd swallowed a live eel. "You're right about that," he said. "Thank you, Miss Stackhouse, for taking the time to come to Shreveport and to tell Alcide about our problem . . . which we should have known."
I nodded to him in acknowledgment.
"And I think you're right, Alcide. One of us must have known about the presence of another pack in the city."
"I'll call you about Adabelle," Alcide said.
The colonel picked up the phone and consulted a red leather book before he dialed. He glanced sideways at Alcide. "No answer at her shop." He had as much warmth radiating from him as a little space heater. Since Colonel Flood kept his house about as cold as the great outdoors, the heat was quite welcome.
"Sookie should be named a friend of the pack."
I could tell that was more than a recommendation. Alcide was saying something quite significant, but he sure wasn't going to explain. I was getting a little tired of the elliptical conversations going on around me.
"Excuse me, Alcide, Colonel," I said as politely as I could. "Maybe Alcide could run me back to my car? Since you all seem to have plans to carry out."
"Of course," the colonel said, and I could read that he was glad to be getting me out of the way. "Alcide, I'll see you back here in, what? Forty minutes or so? We'll talk about it then."
Alcide glanced at his watch and reluctantly agreed. "I might stop by Adabelle's house while I'm taking Sookie to her car," he said, and the colonel nodded, as if that were only pro forma.
"I don't know why Adabelle isn't answering the phone at work, and I don't believe she'd go over to the coven," Alcide explained when we were back in his truck. "Adabelle lives with her mother, and they don't get along too well. But we'll check there first. Adabelle's Flood's second in command, and she's also our best tracker."
"What can the trackers do?"
"They'll go to Fangtasia and try to follow the scent trail the witches left there. That'll take them to the witches' lair. If they lose the scent, maybe we can call in help from the Shreveport covens. They have to be as worried as we are."
"At Fangtasia, I'm afraid any scent might be obscured by all the emergency people," I said regretfully. That would have been something to watch, a Were tracking through the city. "And just so you know, Hallow has contacted all the witches hereabouts already. I talked to a Wiccan in Bon Temps who'd been called in to Shreveport to meet with Hallow's bunch."
"This is bigger than I thought, but I'm sure the pack can handle it." Alcide sounded quite confident.
Alcide backed the truck out of the colonel's driveway, and we began making our way through Shreveport once again. I was seeing more of the city this day than I'd seen in my whole life.
"Whose idea was it for Bill to go to Peru?" Alcide asked me suddenly.
"I don't know." I was startled and puzzled. "I think it was his queen's."
"But he didn't tell you that directly."
"No."
"He might have been ordered to go."
"I suppose."
"Who had the power to do that?" Alcide asked, as if the answer would enlighten me.
"Eric, of course." Since Eric was sheriff of Area Five. "And then the queen." That would be Eric's boss, the queen of Louisiana. Yeah, I know. It's dumb. But the vampires thought they were a marvel of modern organization.
"And now Bill's gone, and Eric's staying at your house." Alcide's voice was coaxing me to reach an obvious conclusion.
"You think that Eric staged this whole thing? You think he ordered Bill out of the country, had witches invade Shreveport, had them curse him, began running half-naked out in the freezing cold when he supposed I might be near, and then just hoped I'd take him in and that Pam and Chow and my brother would talk to each other to arrange Eric's staying with me?"
Alcide looked properly flattened. "You mean you'd thought of this?"
"Alcide, I'm not educated, but I'm not dumb." Try getting educated when you can read the minds of all your classmates, not to mention your teacher. But I read a lot, and I've read lots of good stuff. Of course, now I read mostly mysteries and romances. So I've learned many curious odds and ends, and I have a great vocabulary. "But the fact is, Eric would hardly go to this much trouble to get me to go to bed with him. Is that what you're thinking?" Of course, I knew it was. Were or not, I could see that much.
"Put that way . . ." But Alcide still didn't look satisfied. Of course, this was the man who had believed Debbie Pelt when she said that I was definitely back with Bill.
I wondered if I could get some witch to cast a truth spell on Debbie Pelt, whom I despised because she had been cruel to Alcide, insulted me grievously, burned a hole in my favorite wrap and—oh—tried to kill me by proxy. Also, she had stupid hair.
Alcide wouldn't know an honest Debbie if she came up and bit him in the ass, though backbiting was a specialty of the real Debbie.
If Alcide had known Bill and I had parted, would he have come by? Would one thing have led to another?
Well, sure it would have. And there I'd be, stuck with a guy who'd take the word of Debbie Pelt.
I glanced over at Alcide and sighed. This man was just about perfect in many respects. I liked the way he looked, I understood the way he thought, and he treated me with great consideration and respect. Sure, he was a werewolf, but I could give up a couple of nights of month. True, according to Alcide it would be difficult for me to carry his baby to term, but it was at least possible. Pregnancy wasn't part of the picture with a vampire.
Whoa. Alcide hadn't offered to father my babies, and he was still seeing Debbie. What had happened to her engagement to the Clausen guy?
With the less noble side of my character—assuming my character had a noble side—I hoped that someday soon Alcide would see Debbie for the bitch she truly was, and that he'd finally take the knowledge to heart. Whether, consequently, Alcide turned to me or not, he deserved better than Debbie Pelt.
Adabelle Yancy and her mother lived in a cul-de-sac in an upper-middle-class neighborhood that wasn't too far from Fangtasia. The house was on a rolling lawn that raised it higher than the street, so the driveway mounted and went to the rear of the property. I thought Alcide might park on the street and we'd go up the brick walkway to the front door, but he seemed to want to get the truck out of sight. I scanned the cul-de-sac, but I didn't see anyone at all, much less anyone watching the house for visitors.
Attached to the rear of the house at a right angle, the three-car garage was neat as a pin. You would think cars were never parked there, that the gleaming Subaru had just strayed into the area. We climbed out of the truck.
"That's Adabelle's mother's car," Alcide was frowning. "She started a bridal shop. I bet you've heard of it—Verena Rose. Verena's retired from working there full-time. She drops in just often enough to make Adabelle crazy."
I'd never been to the shop, but brides of any claim to prominence in the area made a point of shopping there. It must be a real profitable store. The brick home was in excellent shape, and no more than twenty years old. The yard was edged, raked, and landscaped.
When Alcide knocked at the back door, it flew open. The woman who stood revealed in the opening was as put-together and neat as the house and yard. Her steel-colored hair was in a neat roll on the back of her head, and she was in a dull olive suit and low-heeled brown pumps. She looked from Alcide to me and didn't find what she was seeking. She pushed open the glass storm door.
"Alcide, how nice to see you," she lied desperately. This was a woman in deep turmoil.
Alcide gave her a long look. "We have trouble, Verena."
If her daughter was a member of the pack, Verena herself was a werewolf. I looked at the woman curiously, and she seemed like one of the more fortunate friends of my grandmother's. Verena Rose Yancy was an attractive woman in her late sixties, blessed with a secure income and her own home. I could not imagine this woman down on all fours loping across a field.
And it was obvious that Verena didn't give a damn what trouble Alcide had. "Have you seen my daughter?" she asked, and she waited for his answer with terror in her eyes. "She can't have betrayed the pack."
"No," Alcide said. "But the packmaster sent us to find her. She missed a pack officer's meeting last night."
"She called me from the shop last night. She said she had an unexpected appointment with a stranger who'd called the shop right at closing time." The woman literally wrung her hands. "I thought maybe she was meeting that witch."
"Have you heard from her since?" I said, in the gentlest voice I could manage.
"I went to bed last night mad at her," Verena said, looking directly at me for the first time. "I thought she'd decided to spend the night with one of her friends. One of her girl friends," she explained, looking at me with eyebrows arched, so I'd get her drift. I nodded. "She never would tell me ahead of time, she'd just say, 'Expect me when you see me,' or 'I'll meet you at the shop tomorrow morning,' or something." A shudder rippled through Verena's slim body. "But she hasn't come home and I can't get an answer at the shop."
"Was she supposed to open the shop today?" Alcide asked.
"No, Wednesday's our closed day, but she always goes in to work on the books and get paperwork out of the way. She always does," Verena repeated.
"Why don't Alcide and I drive over there and check the shop for you?" I said gently. "Maybe she left a note." This was not a woman you patted on the arm, so I didn't make that natural gesture, but I did push the glass door shut so she'd understand she had to stay there and she shouldn't come with us. She understood all too clearly.
Verena Rose's Bridal and Formal Shop was located in an old home on a block of similarly converted two-story houses. The building had been renovated and maintained as beautifully as the Yancys' residence, and I wasn't surprised it had such cachet. The white-painted brick, the dark green shutters, the glossy black ironwork of the railings on the steps, and the brass details on the door all spoke of elegance and attention to detail. I
could see that if you had aspirations to class, this is where you'd come to get your wedding gear.
Set a little back from the street, with parking behind the store, the building featured one large bay window in front. In this window stood a faceless mannequin wearing a shining brown wig. Her arms were gracefully bent to hold a stunning bouquet. Even from the truck, I could see that the bridal dress, with its long embroidered train, was absolutely spectacular.
We parked in the driveway without pulling around back, and I jumped out of the pickup. Together we took the brick sidewalk that led from the drive to the front door, and as we got closer, Alcide cursed. For a moment, I imagined some kind of bug infestation had gotten into the store window and landed on the snowy dress. But after that moment, I knew the dark flecks were surely spatters of blood.
The blood had sprayed onto the white brocade and dried there. It was as if the mannequin had been wounded, and for a crazy second I wondered. I'd seen a lot of impossible things in the past few months.
"Adabelle," Alcide said, as if he was praying.
We were standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front porch, staring into the bay window. The CLOSED sign was hanging in the middle of the glass oval inset in the door, and Venetian blinds were closed behind it. There were no live brainwaves emanating from that house. I had taken the time to check. I'd discovered, the hard way, that checking was a good idea.
"Dead things," Alcide said, his face raised to the cold breeze, his eyes shut to help him concentrate. "Dead things inside and out."
I took hold of the curved ironwork handrail with my left hand and went up one step. I glanced around. My eyes came to rest on something in the flowerbed under the bay window, something pale that stood out against the pine bark mulch. I nudged Alcide, and I pointed silently with my free right hand.
Lying by a pruned-back azalea, there was another hand—an unattached extra. I felt a shudder run through Alcide's body as he comprehended what he saw. There was that moment when you tried to recognize it as anything but what it was.
"Wait here," Alcide said, his voice thick and hoarse.
That was just fine with me.
But when he opened the unlocked front door to enter the shop, I saw what lay on the floor just beyond. I had to swallow a scream.
It was lucky Alcide had his cell phone. He called Colonel Flood, told him what had happened, and asked him to go over to Mrs. Yancy's house. Then he called the police. There was just no way around it. This was a busy area, and there was a good chance someone had noticed us going to the front door.
It was surely a day for finding bodies—for me, and for the Shreveport police department. I knew there were some vampire cops on the force, but of course the vamps had to work the night shift, so we spoke to regular old human cops. There wasn't a Were or a shifter among 'em, not even a telepathic human. All these police officers were regular people who thought we were borderline suspicious.
"Why did you stop by here, buddy?" asked Detective Coughlin, who had brown hair, a weathered face, and a beer belly one of the Clydesdales would've been proud of.
Alcide looked surprised. He hadn't thought this far, which wasn't too amazing. I hadn't known Adabelle when she was alive, and I hadn't stepped inside the bridal shop as he had. I hadn't sustained the worst shock. It was up to me to pick up the reins.
"It was my idea, Detective," I said instantly. "My grandmother, who died last year? She always told me, 'If you need a wedding dress, Sookie, you go to Verena Rose's for it.' I didn't think to call ahead and check to see if they were open today."
"So, you and Mr. Herveaux are going to be married?"
"Yes," said Alcide, pulling me against him and wrapping his arms around me. "We're headed for the altar."
I smiled, but in an appropriately subdued way.
"Well, congratulations." Detective Coughlin eyed us thoughtfully. "So, Miss Stackhouse, you hadn't ever met Adabelle Yancy face-to-face?"
"I may have met the older Mrs. Yancy when I was a little girl," I said cautiously. "But I don't remember her. Alcide's family knows the Yancys, of course. He's lived here all his life." Of course, they're also werewolves.
Coughlin was still focused on me. "And you didn't go in the shop none? Just Mr. Herveaux here?"
"Alcide just stepped in while I waited out here." I tried to look delicate, which is not easy for me. I am healthy and muscular, and while I am not Emme, I'm not Kate Moss either. "I'd seen the—the hand, so I stayed out."
"That was a good idea," Detective Coughlin said. "What's in there isn't fit for people to see." He looked about twenty years older as he said that. I felt sorry that his job was so tough. He was thinking that the savaged bodies in the house were a waste of two good lives and the work of someone he'd love to arrest. "Would either of you have any idea why anyone would want to rip up two ladies like this?"
"Two," Alcide said slowly, stunned.
"Two?" I said, less guardedly.
"Why, yes," the detective said heavily. He had aimed to get our reactions and now he had them; what he thought of them, I would find out.
"Poor things," I said, and I wasn't faking the tears that filled my eyes. It was kind of nice to have Alcide's chest to lean against, and as if he were reading my mind he unzipped his leather jacket so I'd be closer to him, wrapping the open sides around me to keep me warmer. "But if one of them is Adabelle Yancy, who is the other?"
"There's not much left of the other," Coughlin said, before he told himself to shut his mouth.
"They were kind of jumbled up," Alcide said quietly, close to my ear. He was sickened. "I didn't know . . . I guess if I'd analyzed what I was seeing . . ."
Though I couldn't read Alcide's thoughts clearly, I could understand that he was thinking that Adabelle had managed to take down one of her attackers. And when the rest of the group was getting away, they hadn't taken all the appropriate bits with them.
"And you're from Bon Temps, Miss Stackhouse," the detective said, almost idly.
"Yes, sir," I said, with a gasp. I was trying not to picture Adabelle Yancy's last moments.
"Where you work there?"
"Merlotte's Bar and Grill," I said. "I wait tables."
While he registered the difference in social status between me and Alcide, I closed my eyes and laid my head against Alcide's warm chest. Detective Coughlin was wondering if I was pregnant; if Alcide's dad, a well-known and well-to-do figure in Shreveport, would
approve of such a marriage. He could see why I'd want an expensive wedding dress, if I were marrying a Herveaux.
"You don't have an engagement ring, Miss Stackhouse?"
"We don't plan on a long engagement," Alcide said. I could hear his voice rumbling in his chest. "She'll get her diamond the day we marry."
"You're so bad," I said fondly, punching him in the ribs as hard as I could without being obvious.
"Ouch," he said in protest.
Somehow this bit of byplay convinced Detective Coughlin that we were really engaged. He took down our phone numbers and addresses, then told us we could leave. Alcide was as relieved as I was.
We drove to the nearest place where we could pull over in privacy—a little park that was largely deserted in the cold weather—and Alcide called Colonel Flood again. I waited in the truck while Alcide, pacing in the dead grass, gesticulated and raised his voice, venting some of his horror and anger. I'd been able to feel it building up in him. Alcide had trouble articulating emotions, like lots of guys. It made him seem more familiar and dear.
Dear? I'd better stop thinking like that. The engagement had been drummed up strictly for Detective Coughlin's benefit. If Alcide was anyone's "dear," it was the perfidious Debbie's.
When Alcide climbed back into the pickup, he was scowling.
"I guess I better go back to the office and take you to your car," he said. "I'm sorry about all this."
"I guess I should be saying that."
"This is a situation neither of us created," he said firmly. "Neither of us would be involved if we could help it."
"That's the God's truth." After a minute of thinking of the complicated supernatural world, I asked Alcide what Colonel Flood's plan was.
"We'll take care of it," Alcide said. "I'm sorry, Sook, I can't tell you what we're going to do."
"Are you going to be in danger?" I asked, because I just couldn't help it.
We'd gotten to the Herveaux building by then, and Alcide parked his truck by my old car. He turned a little to face me, and he reached over to take my hand. "I'm gonna be fine. Don't worry," he said gently. "I'll call you."
"Don't forget to do that," I said. "And I have to tell you what the witches did about trying to find Eric." I hadn't told Alcide about the posted pictures, the reward. He frowned even harder when he thought about the cleverness of this ploy.
"Debbie was supposed to drive over this afternoon, get here about six," he said. He looked at his watch. "Too late to stop her coming."
"If you're planning a big raid, she could help," I said.
He gave me a sharp look. Like a pointed stick he wanted to poke in my eye. "She's a shifter, not a Were," he reminded me defensively.
Maybe she turned into a weasel or a rat.
"Of course," I said seriously. I literally bit my tongue so I wouldn't make any of the remarks that waited just inside my mouth, dying to be spoken. "Alcide, do you think the other body was Adabelle's girlfriend? Someone who just got caught at the shop with Adabelle when the witches came calling?"
"Since a lot of the second body was missing, I hope that the body was one of the witches. I hope Adabelle went down fighting."
"I hope so, too." I nodded, putting an end to that train of thought. "I'd better get back to Bon Temps. Eric will be waking up soon. Don't forget to tell your dad that we're engaged."
His expression provided the only fun I'd had all day.
Chapter 6
I thought all the way home about my day in Shreveport. I'd asked Alcide to call the cops in Bon Temps from his cell phone, and he'd gotten another negative message. No, they hadn't heard any more on Jason, and no one had called to say they'd seen him. So I didn't stop by the police station on my way home, but I did have to go to the grocery to buy some margarine and bread, and I did have to go in the liquor store to pick up some blood.
The first thing I saw when I pushed open the door of Super Save-A-Bunch was a little display of bottled blood, which saved me a stop at the liquor store. The second thing I saw was the poster with the headshot of Eric. I assumed it was the photo Eric had had made when he opened Fangtasia, because it was a very nonthreatening picture. He was projecting winsome worldliness; any person in this universe would know that he'd never, ever bite. It was headed, "HAVE YOU SEEN THIS VAMPIRE?"
I read the text carefully. Everything Jason had said about it was true. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. That Hallow must be really nuts about Eric to pay that much, if all she wanted was a hump. It was hard to believe gaining control of Fangtasia (and having the bed services of Eric) would afford her a profit after paying out a reward that large. I was increasingly doubtful that I knew the whole story, and I was increasingly sure I was sticking my neck out and might get it bitten off.
Hoyt Fortenberry, Jason's big buddy, was loading pizzas into his buggy in the frozen food aisle. "Hey, Sookie, where you think ole Jason got to?" he called as soon as he saw me. Hoyt, big and beefy and no rocket scientist, looked genuinely concerned.
"I wish I knew," I said, coming closer so we could talk without everyone in the store recording every word. "I'm pretty worried."
"You don't think he's just gone off with some girl he met? That girl he was with New Year's Eve was pretty cute."
"What was her name?"
"Crystal. Crystal Norris."
"Where's she from?"
"From round Hotshot, out thataway." He nodded south.
Hotshot was even smaller than Bon Temps. It was about ten miles away and had a reputation for being a strange little community. The Hotshot kids who attended the Bon Temps school always stuck together, and they were all a smidge . . . different. It didn't surprise me at all that Crystal lived in Hotshot.
"So," Hoyt said, persisting in making his point, "Crystal might have asked him to come stay with her." But his brain was saying he didn't believe it, he was only trying to comfort me and himself. We both knew that Jason would have phoned by now, no matter how good a time he was having with any woman.
But I decided I'd give Crystal a call when I had a clear ten minutes, which might not be any time tonight. I asked Hoyt to pass on Crystal's name to the sheriff's department, and he said he would. He didn't seem too happy about the idea. I could tell that if the missing man had been anyone but Jason, Hoyt would have refused. But Jason had always been Hoyt's source of recreation and general amusement, since Jason was far more clever and inventive than the slow-moving, slow-thinking Hoyt: If Jason never reappeared, Hoyt would have a dull life.
We parted in the Super Save-A-Bunch parking lot, and I felt relieved that Hoyt hadn't asked me about the TrueBlood I'd purchased. Neither had the cashier, though she'd handled the bottles with distaste. As I'd paid for it, I'd thought about how much I was in the hole from hosting Eric already. Clothes and blood mounted up.
It was just dark when I got to my house and pulled the plastic grocery bags out of the car. I unlocked my back door and went in, calling to Eric as I switched on the kitchen light. I didn't hear an answer, so I put the groceries away, leaving a bottle of TrueBlood out of the refrigerator so he could have it to hand when he got hungry. I got the shotgun out of my trunk and loaded it, sticking it in the shadow of the water heater. I took a minute to call the sheriff's department again. No news of Jason, said the dispatcher.
I slumped against the kitchen wall for a long moment, feeling dejected. It wasn't a good thing to just sit around, being depressed. Maybe I'd go out to the living room and pop a movie into the VCR, as entertainment for Eric. He'd gone through all my Buffy tapes, and I didn't have Angel. I wondered if he'd like Gone with the Wind. (For all I knew, he'd been around when they were filming it. On the other hand, he had amnesia. Anything should be new to him.)
But as I went down the hall, I heard some small movement. I pushed open the door of my old room gently, not wanting to make a big noise if my guest wasn't yet up. Oh, but he was. Eric was pulling on his jeans, with his back to me. He hadn't bothered with
underwear, not even the itty-bitty red ones. My breath stuck in my throat. I made a sound like "Guck," and made myself close my eyes tight. I clenched my fists.
If there were an international butt competition, Eric would win, hands down—or cheeks up. He would get a large, large trophy. I had never realized a woman could have to struggle to keep her hands off a man, but here I was, digging my nails into my palms, staring at the inside of my eyelids as though I could maybe see through them if I peered hard enough.
It was somehow degrading, craving someone so . . . so voraciously—another good calendar word—just because he was physically beautiful. I hadn't thought that was something women did, either.
"Sookie, are you all right?" Eric asked. I floundered my way back to sanity through a swamp of lust. He was standing right in front of me, his hands resting on my shoulders. I looked up into his blue eyes, now focused on me and apparently full of nothing but concern. I was right on a level with his hard nipples. They were the size of pencil erasers. I bit the inside of my lip. I would not lean over those few inches.
"Excuse me," I said, speaking very softly. I was scared to speak loudly, or move at all. If I did, I might knock him down. "I didn't mean to walk in on you. I should have knocked."
"You have seen all of me before."
Not the rear view, bare. "Yes, but intruding wasn't polite."
"I don't mind. You look upset."
You think? "Well, I have had a very bad day," I said, through clenched teeth. "My brother is missing, and the Were witches in Shreveport killed the—the vice president of the Were pack there, and her hand was in the flowerbed. Well, someone's was. Belinda's in the hospital. Ginger is dead. I think I'll take a shower." I turned on my heel and marched into my room. I went in the bathroom and shucked my clothes, tossing them into the hamper. I bit my lip until I could smile at my own streak of wildness, and then I climbed into the spray of hot water.
I know cold showers are more traditional, but I was enjoying the warmth and relaxation the heat brought. I got my hair wet and groped for the soap.
"I'll do that for you," Eric said, pulling back the curtain to step into the shower with me.
I gasped, just short of a shriek. He had discarded the jeans. He was also in the mood, the same mood I was in. You could really tell, with Eric. His fangs were out some, too. I was
embarrassed, horrified, and absolutely ready to jump him. While I stood stock-still, paralyzed by conflicting waves of emotion, Eric took the soap out of my hands and lathered up his own, set the soap back in its little niche, and began to wash my arms, raising each in turn to stroke my armpit, down my side, never touching my breasts, which were practically quivering like puppies who wanted to be petted.
"Have we ever made love?" he asked.
I shook my head, still unable to speak.
"Then I was a fool," he said, moving one hand in a circular motion over my stomach. "Turn around, lover."
I turned my back to him, and he began to work on that. His fingers were very strong and very clever, and I had the most relaxed and cleanest set of shoulder blades in Louisiana by the time Eric got through.
My shoulder blades were the only thing at ease. My libido was hopping up and down. Was I really going to do this? It seemed more and more likely that I was, I thought nervously. If the man in my shower had been the real Eric, I would have had the strength to back off. I would have ordered him out the minute he stepped in. The real Eric came with a whole package of power and politics, something of which I had limited understanding and interest. This was a different Eric—without the personality that I'd grown fond of, in a perverse way—but it was beautiful Eric, who desired me, who was hungry for me, in a world that often let me know it could do very well without me. My mind was about to switch off and my body was about to take over. I could feel part of Eric pressed against my back, and he wasn't standing that close. Yikes. Yahoo. Yum.
He shampooed my hair next.
"Are you trembling because you are frightened of me?" he asked.
I considered that. Yes, and no. But I wasn't about to have a long discussion over the pros and cons. The inner debate had been tough enough. Oh, yeah, I know, there wouldn't be a better time to have a long yada-yada with Eric about the moral aspects of mating with someone you didn't love. And maybe there would never be another time to lay ground rules about being careful to be gentle with me physically. Not that I thought Eric would beat me up, but his manhood (as my romance novels called it—in this case the popular adjectives "burgeoning" or "throbbing" might also be applied) was a daunting prospect to a relatively inexperienced woman like me. I felt like a car that had only been operated by one driver . . . a car its new prospective buyer was determined to take to the Daytona 500.
Oh, to hell with thinking.
I took the soap from the niche and lathered up my fingers. As I stepped very close to him, I kind of folded Mr. Happy up against Eric's stomach, so I could reach around him and get my fingers on that absolutely gorgeous butt. I couldn't look him in the face, but he let me know he was delighted that I was responding. He spread his legs obligingly and I washed him very thoroughly, very meticulously. He began to make little noises, to rock forward. I began to work on his chest. I closed my lips around his right nipple and sucked. He liked that a lot. His hands pressed against the back of my head. "Bite, a little," he whispered, and I used my teeth. His hands began to move restlessly over whatever bit of my skin they could find, stroking and teasing. When he pulled away, he had decided to reciprocate, and he bent down. While his mouth closed over my breast, his hand glided between my legs. I gave a deep sigh, and did a little moving of my own. He had long fingers.
The next thing I knew, the water was off and he was drying me with a fluffy white towel, and I was rubbing him with another one. Then we just kissed for while, over and over.
"The bed," he said, a little raggedly, and I nodded. He scooped me up and then we got into a kind of tangle with me trying to pull the bedspread down while he just wanted to dump me on the bed and proceed, but I had my way because it was just too cold for the top of the bed. Once we were arranged, I turned to him and we picked back up where we'd left off, but with an escalating tempo. His fingers and his mouth were busy learning my topography, and he pressed heavily against my thigh.
I was so on fire for him I was surprised that flames didn't flicker out of my fingertips. I curled my fingers around him and stroked.
Suddenly Eric was on top of me, about to enter. I was exhilarated and very ready. I reached between us to put him at just the right spot, rubbing the tip of him over my nub as I did so.
"My lover," he said hoarsely, and pushed.
Though I'd been sure I was prepared, and I ached with wanting him, I cried out with the shock of it.
After a moment, he said, "Don't close your eyes. Look at me, lover." The way he said "lover" was like a caress, like he was calling me by a name no other man had ever used before or ever would after. His fangs were completely extended and I stretched up to run my tongue over them. I expected he would bite my neck, as Bill nearly always did.
"Watch me," he said in my ear, and pulled out. I tried to yank him back, but he began kissing his way down my body, making strategic stops, and I was hovering on the golden edge when he got all the way down. His mouth was talented, and his fingers took the place of his penis, and then all of a sudden he looked up the length of my body to make sure I was watching—I was—and he turned his face to my inner thigh, nuzzling it, his fingers moving steadily now, faster and faster, and then he bit.
I may have made a noise, I am sure I did, but in the next second I was floating on the most powerful wave of pleasure I'd ever felt. And the minute the shining wave subsided, Eric was kissing my mouth again, and I could taste my own fluids on him, and then he was back inside me, and it happened all over again. His moment came right after, as I was still experiencing aftershocks. He shouted something in a language I'd never heard, and he closed his own eyes, and then he collapsed on top of me. After a couple of minutes, he raised his head to look down. I wished he would pretend to breathe, as Bill always had during sex. (I'd never asked him, he'd just done it, and it had been reassuring.) I pushed the thought away. I'd never had sex with anyone but Bill, and I guess it was natural to think of that, but the truth was it hurt to remember my previous one-man status, now gone for good.
I yanked myself back into The Moment, which was fine enough. I stroked Eric's hair, tucking some behind his ear. His eyes on mine were intent, and I knew he was waiting for me to speak. "I wish," I said, "I could save orgasms in a jar for when I need them, because I think I had a few extra."
Eric's eyes widened, and all of a sudden he roared with laughter. That sounded good, that sounded like the real Eric. I felt comfortable with this gorgeous but unknown stranger, after I heard that laugh. He rolled onto his back and swung me over easily until I was straddling his waist.
"If I had known you would be this gorgeous with your clothes off, I would have tried to do this sooner," he said.
"You did try to do this sooner, about twenty times," I said, smiling down at him.
"Then I have good taste." He hesitated for a long minute, some of the pleasure leaving his face. "Tell me about us. How long have I known you?"
The light from the bathroom spilled onto the right side of his face. His hair spread over my pillow, shining and golden.
"I'm cold," I said gently, and he let me lie beside him, pulling the covers up over us. I propped myself up on one elbow and he lay on his side, so we were facing each other. "Let me think. I met you last year at Fangtasia, the vampire bar you own in Shreveport. And by the way, the bar got attacked today. Last night. I'm sorry, I should have told you that first, but I've been so worried about my brother."
"I want to hear about today, but give me our background first. I find myself mightily interested."
Another little shock: The real Eric cared about his own position first, relationships down about—oh, I don't know, tenth. This was definitely odd. I told him, "You are the sheriff of Area Five, and my former boyfriend Bill is your subordinate. He's gone, out of the country. I think I told you about Bill."
"Your unfaithful former boyfriend? Whose maker was the vampire Lorena?"
"That's the one," I said briefly. "Anyway, when I met you at Fangtasia . . ."
It all took longer than I thought, and by the time I had finished with the tale, Eric's hands were busy again. He latched onto one breast with his fangs extended, drawing a little blood and a sharp gasp from me, and he sucked powerfully. It was a strange sensation, because he was getting the blood and my nipple. Painful and very exciting—I felt like he was drawing the fluid from much lower. I gasped and jerked in arousal, and suddenly he raised my leg so he could enter me.
It wasn't such a shock this time, and it was slower. Eric wanted me to be looking into his eyes; that obviously flicked his Bic.
I was exhausted when it was over, though I'd enjoyed myself immensely. I'd heard a lot about men who didn't care if the woman had her pleasure, or perhaps such men assumed that if they were happy, their partner was, too. But neither of the men I'd been with had been like that. I didn't know if that was because they were vampires, or because I'd been lucky, or both.
Eric had paid me many compliments, and I realized I hadn't said anything to him that indicated my admiration. That hardly seemed fair. He was holding me, and my head was on his shoulder. I murmured into his neck, "You are so beautiful."
"What?" He was clearly startled.
"You've told me you thought my body was nice." Of course that wasn't the adjective he'd used, but I was embarrassed to repeat his actual words. "I just wanted you to know I think the same about you."
I could feel his chest move as he laughed, just a little. "What part do you like best?" he asked, his voice teasing.
"Oh, your butt," I said instantly.
"My . . . bottom?"
"Yep."
"I would have thought of another part."
"Well, that's certainly . . . adequate," I told him, burying my face in his chest. I knew immediately I'd picked the wrong word.
"Adequate?" He took my hand, placed it on the part in question. It immediately began to stir. He moved my hand on it, and I obligingly circled it with my fingers. "This is adequate?"
"Maybe I should have said it's a gracious plenty?"
"A gracious plenty. I like that," he said.
He was ready again, and honestly, I didn't know if I could. I was worn out to the point of wondering if I'd be walking funny the next day.
I indicated I would be pleased with an alternative by sliding down in the bed, and he seemed delighted to reciprocate. After another sublime release, I thought every muscle in my body had turned to Jell-O. I didn't talk anymore about the worry I felt about my brother, about the terrible things that had happened in Shreveport, about anything unpleasant. We whispered some heartfelt (on my part) mutual compliments, and I was just out of it. I don't know what Eric did for the rest of the night, because I fell asleep.
I had many worries waiting for me the next day; but thanks to Eric, for a few precious hours I just didn't care.