True Blood Book Four Chapters 7-9

Chapter 7
The next morning, the sun was shining outside when I woke. I lay in bed in a mindless pool of contentment. I was sore, but pleasantly so. I had a little bruise or two—nothing that would show. And the fang marks that were a dead giveaway (har-de-har) were not on my neck, where they'd been in the past. No casual observer was going to be able to tell I'd enjoyed a vampire's company, and I didn't have an appointment with a gynecologist—the only other person who'd have a reason to check that area.
Another shower was definitely called for, so I eased out of bed and wobbled across the floor to the bathroom. We'd left it in something of a mess, with towels tossed everywhere and the shower curtain half-ripped from its plastic hoops (when had that happened?), but I didn't mind picking it up. I rehung the curtain with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.
As the water pounded on my back, I reflected that I must be pretty simple. It didn't take much to make me happy. A long night with a dead guy had done the trick. It wasn't just the dynamic sex that had given me so much pleasure (though that had contained moments I'd remember till the day I died); it was the companionship. Actually, the intimacy.
Call me stereotypical. I'd spent the night with a man who'd told me I was beautiful, a man who'd enjoyed me and who'd given me intense pleasure. He had touched me and held me and laughed with me. We weren't in danger of making a baby with our pleasures, because vampires just can't do that. I wasn't being disloyal to anyone (though I'll admit I'd had a few pangs when I thought of Bill), and neither was Eric. I couldn't see the harm.
As I brushed my teeth and put on some makeup, I had to admit to myself that I was sure that the Reverend Fullenwilder wouldn't agree with my viewpoint.
Well, I hadn't been going to tell him about it, anyway. It would just be between God and me. I figured God had made me with the disability of telepathy, and he could cut me a little slack on the sex thing.
I had regrets, of course. I would love to get married and have babies. I'd be faithful as can be. I'd be a good mom, too. But I couldn't marry a regular guy, because I would always know when he lied to me, when he was angry with me, every little thought he had about me. Even dating a regular guy was more than I'd been able to manage. Vampires can't marry, not yet, not legally; not that a vampire had asked me, I reminded myself, tossing a
washcloth into the hamper a little forcefully. Perhaps I could stand a long association with a Were or a shifter, since their thoughts weren't clear. But there again, where was the willing Were?
I had better enjoy what I had at this moment—something I've become quite good at doing. What I had was a handsome vampire who'd temporarily lost his memory and, along with it, a lot of his personality: a vampire who needed reassurance just as much as I did.
In fact, as I put in my earrings, I figured out that Eric had been so delighted with me for more than one reason. I could see that after days of being completely without memories of his possessions or underlings, days lacking any sense of self, last night he had gained something of his own—me. His lover.
Though I was standing in front of a mirror, I wasn't really seeing my reflection. I was seeing, very clearly, that—at the moment—I was all in the world that Eric could think of as his own.
I had better not fail him.
I was rapidly bringing myself down from "relaxed happiness" to "guilty grim resolution," so I was relieved when the phone rang. It had a built-in caller ID, and I noticed Sam was calling from the bar, instead of his trailer.
"Sookie?"
"Hey, Sam."
"I'm sorry about Jason. Any news?"
"No. I called down to the sheriff's department when I woke up, and I talked to the dispatcher. She said Alcee Beck would let me know if anything new came up. That's what she's said the last twenty times I've called."
"Want me to get someone to take your shift?"
"No. It would be better for me to be busy, than to sit here at home. They know where to reach me if they've got anything to tell me."
"You sure?"
"Yes. Thanks for asking, though."
"If I can do anything to help, you let me know."
"There is something, come to think of it."
"Name it."
"You remember the little shifter Jason was in the bar with New Year's Eve?"
Sam gave it thought. "Yes," he said hesitantly. "One of the Norris girls? They live out in Hotshot."
"That's what Hoyt said."
"You have to watch out for people from out there, Sookie. That's an old settlement. An inbred settlement."
I wasn't sure what Sam was trying to tell me. "Could you spell that out? I'm not up to unraveling subtle hints today."
"I can't right now."
"Oh, not alone?"
"No. The snack delivery guy is here. Just be careful. They're really, really different."
"Okay," I said slowly, still in the dark. "I'll be careful. See you at four-thirty," I told him, and hung up, vaguely unhappy and quite puzzled.
I had plenty of time to go out to Hotshot and get back before I had to go to work. I pulled on some jeans, sneakers, a bright red long-sleeved T-shirt, and my old blue coat. I looked up Crystal Norris's address in the phone book and had to get out my chamber of commerce map to track it down. I've lived in Renard Parish my whole life, and I thought I knew it pretty well, but the Hotshot area was a black hole in my otherwise thorough knowledge.
I drove north, and when I came to the T-junction, I turned right. I passed the lumber processing plant that was Bon Temps's main employer, and I passed a reupholstering place, and I flew past the water department. There was a liquor store or two, and then a country store at a crossroads that had a prominent COLD BEER AND BAIT sign left over from the summer and propped up facing the road. I turned right again, to go south.
The deeper I went into the countryside, the worse the road seemed to grow. The mowing and maintenance crews hadn't been out here since the end of summer. Either the residents of the Hotshot community had no pull whatsoever in the parish government, or they just didn't want visitors. From time to time, the road dipped in some low-lying areas
as it ran between bayous. In heavy rains, the low spots would be flooded. I wouldn't be surprised at all to hear folks out here encountered the occasional gator.
Finally I came to another crossroads, compared to which the one with the bait shop seemed like a mall. There were a few houses scattered around, maybe eight or nine. These were small houses, none of them brick. Most of them had several cars in the front yard. Some of them sported a rusty swing set or a basketball hoop, and in a couple of yards I spotted a satellite dish. Oddly, all the houses seemed pulled away from the actual crossroads; the area directly around the road intersection was bare. It was like someone had tied a rope to a stake sunk in the middle of the crossing and drawn a circle. Within it, there was nothing. Outside it, the houses crouched.
In my experience, in a little settlement like this, you had the same kind of people you had anywhere. Some of them were poor and proud and good. Some of them were poor and mean and worthless. But all of them knew each other thoroughly, and no action went unobserved.
On this chilly day, I didn't see a soul outdoors to let me know if this was a black community or a white community. It was unlikely to be both. I wondered if I was at the right crossroads, but my doubts were washed away when I saw an imitation green road sign, the kind you can order from a novelty company, mounted on a pole in front of one of the homes. It read, HOTSHOT.
I was in the right place. Now, to find Crystal Norris's house.
With some difficulty, I spotted a number on one rusty mailbox, and then I saw another. By process of elimination, I figured the next house must be the one where Crystal Norris lived. The Norris house was little different from any of the others; it had a small front porch with an old armchair and two lawn chairs on it, and two cars parked in front, one a Ford Fiesta and the other an ancient Buick.
When I parked and got out, I realized what was so unusual about Hotshot.
No dogs.
Any other hamlet that looked like this would have at least twelve dogs milling around, and I'd be wondering if I could safely get out of the car. Here, not a single yip broke the winter silence.
I crossed over the hard, packed dirt of the yard, feeling as though eyes were on every step I took. I opened the torn screen door to knock on the heavier wooden door. Inset in it was a pattern of three glass panes. Dark eyes surveyed me through the lowest one.
The door opened, just when the pause was beginning to make me anxious.
Jason's date from New Year's Eve was less festive today, in black jeans and a cream-colored T-shirt. Her boots had come from Payless, and her short curly hair was a sort of dusty black. She was thin, intense, and though I'd carded her, she just didn't look twenty-one.
"Crystal Norris?"
"Yeah?" She didn't sound particularly unfriendly, but she did sound preoccupied.
"I'm Jason Stackhouse's sister, Sookie."
"Oh, yeah? Come in." She stood back, and I stepped into the tiny living room. It was crowded with furniture intended for a much larger space: two recliners and a three-cushion couch of dark brown Naugahyde, the big buttons separating the vinyl into little hillocks. You'd stick to it in the summer and slide around on it in the winter. Crumbs would collect in the depression around the buttons.
There was a stained rug in dark red and yellows and browns, and there were toys strewn in an almost solid layer over it. A picture of the Last Supper hung above the television set, and the whole house smelled pleasantly of red beans and rice and cornbread.
A toddler was experimenting with Duplos in the doorway to the kitchen. I thought it was a boy, but it was hard to be sure. Overalls and a green turtleneck weren't exactly a clue, and the baby's wispy brown hair was neither cut short nor decorated with a bow.
"Your child?" I asked, trying to make my voice pleasant and conversational.
"No, my sister's," Crystal said. She gestured toward one of the recliners.
"Crystal, the reason I'm here . . . Did you know that Jason is missing?"
She was perched on the edge of the couch, and she'd been staring down at her thin hands. When I spoke, she looked into my eyes intently. This was not fresh news to her.
"Since when?" she asked. Her voice had a pleasantly hoarse sound to it; you'd listen to what this girl had to say, especially if you were a man.
"Since the night of January first. He left my house, and then the next morning he didn't show up for work. There was some blood on that little pier out behind the house. His pickup was still in his front yard. The door to it was hanging open."
"I don't know nothing about it," she said instantly.
She was lying.
"Who told you I had anything to do with this?" she asked, working up to being bitchy. "I got rights. I don't have to talk to you."
Sure, that was Amendment 29 to the Constitution: Shifters don't have to talk to Sookie Stackhouse.
"Yes, you do." Suddenly, I abandoned the nice approach. She'd hit the wrong button on me. "I'm not like you. I don't have a sister or a nephew," and I nodded at the toddler, figuring I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right. "I don't have a mom or a dad or anything, anything, except my brother." I took a deep breath. "I want to know where Jason is. And if you know anything, you better tell me."
"Or you'll do what?" Her thin face was twisted into a snarl. But she genuinely wanted to know what kind of pull I had; I could read that much.
"Yeah, what?" asked a calmer voice.
I looked at the doorway to see a man who was probably on the upside of forty. He had a trimmed beard salted with gray, and his hair was cut close to his head. He was a small man, perhaps five foot seven or so, with a lithe build and muscular arms.
"Anything I have to," I said. I looked him straight in the eyes. They were a strange golden green. He didn't seem inimical, exactly. He seemed curious.
"Why are you here?" he asked, again in that neutral voice.
"Who are you?" I had to know who this guy was. I wasn't going to waste my time repeating my story to someone who just had some time to fill. Given his air of authority, and the fact that he wasn't opting for mindless belligerence, I was willing to bet this man was worth talking to.
"I'm Calvin Norris. I'm Crystal's uncle." From his brain pattern, he was also a shifter of some kind. Given the absence of dogs in this settlement, I assumed they were Weres.
"Mr. Norris, I'm Sookie Stackhouse." I wasn't imagining the increased interest in his expression. "Your niece here went to the New Year's Eve party at Merlotte's Bar with my brother, Jason. Sometime the next night, my brother went missing. I want to know if Crystal can tell me anything that might help me find him."
Calvin Norris bent to pat the toddler on the head, and then walked over to the couch where Crystal glowered. He sat beside her, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands dangling, relaxed, between them. His head inclined as he looked into Crystal's sullen face.
"This is reasonable, Crystal. Girl wants to know where her brother is. Tell her, if you know anything about it."
Crystal snapped at him, "Why should I tell her anything? She comes out here, tries to threaten me."
"Because it's just common courtesy to help someone in trouble. You didn't exactly go to her to volunteer help, did you?"
"I didn't think he was just missing. I thought he—" And her voice cut short as she realized her tongue had led her into trouble.
Calvin's whole body tensed. He hadn't expected that Crystal actually knew anything about Jason's disappearance. He had just wanted her to be polite to me. I could read that, but not much else. I could not decipher their relationship. He had power over the girl, I could tell that easily enough, but what kind? It was more than the authority of an uncle; it felt more like he was her ruler. He might be wearing old work clothes and safety boots, he might look like any blue-collar man in the area, but Calvin Norris was a lot more.
Packmaster, I thought. But who would be in a pack, this far out in the boondocks? Just Crystal? Then I remembered Sam's veiled warning about the unusual nature of Hotshot, and I had a revelation. Everyone in Hotshot was two-natured.
Was that possible? I wasn't completely certain Calvin Norris was a Were—but I knew he didn't change into any bunny. I had to struggle with an almost irresistible impulse to lean over and put my hand on his forearm, touch skin to skin to read his mind as clearly as possible.
I was completely certain about one thing: I wouldn't want to be anywhere around Hotshot on the three nights of the full moon.
"You're the barmaid at Merlotte's," he said, looking into my eyes as intently as he'd looked into Crystal's.
"I'm a barmaid at Merlotte's."
"You're a friend of Sam's."
"Yes," I said carefully. "I am. I'm a friend of Alcide Herveaux's, too. And I know Colonel Flood."
These names meant something to Calvin Norris. I wasn't surprised that Norris would know the names of some prominent Shreveport Weres—and he'd know Sam, of course. It had taken my boss time to connect with the local two-natured community, but he'd been working on it.
Crystal had been listening with wide dark eyes, in no better mood than she had been before. A girl wearing overalls appeared from the back of the house, and she lifted the toddler from his nest of Duplos. Though her face was rounder and less distinctive and her figure was fuller, she was clearly Crystal's younger sister. She was also just as apparently pregnant again.
"You need anything, Uncle Calvin?" she asked, staring at me over the toddler's shoulder.
"No, Dawn. Take care of Matthew." She disappeared into the back of the house with her burden. I had guessed right on the sex of the kid.
"Crystal," said Calvin Norris, in a quiet and terrifying voice, "you tell us now what you done."
Crystal had believed she'd gotten away with something, and she was shocked at being ordered to confess.
But she'd obey. After a little fidgeting, she did.
"I was out with Jason on New Year's Eve," she said. "I'd met him at WalMart in Bon Temps, when I went in to get me a purse."
I sighed. Jason could find potential bedmates anywhere. He was going to end up with some unpleasant disease (if he hadn't already) or slapped with a paternity suit, and there was nothing I could do about it except watch it happen.
"He asked me if I'd spend New Year's Eve with him. I had the feeling the woman he'd had a date with had changed her mind, 'cause he's not the kind of guy to go without lining up a date for something big like that."
I shrugged. Jason could have made and broken dates with five women for New Year's Eve, for all I knew. And it wasn't infrequent for women to get so exasperated by his earnest pursuit of anything with a vagina that they broke off plans with him.
"He's a cute guy, and I like to get out of Hotshot, so I said yeah. He asked me if he could come pick me up, but I knew some of my neighbors wouldn't like that, so I said I'd just meet him at the Fina station, and then we'd go in his truck. So that's what we did. And I had a real good time with him, went home with him, had a good night." Her eyes gleamed at me. "You want to know how he is in bed?"
There was a blur of movement, and then there was blood at the corner of her mouth. Calvin's hand was back dangling between his legs before I even realized he'd moved. "You be polite. Don't show your worst face to this woman," he said, and his voice was so serious I made up my mind I'd be extra polite, too, just to be safe.
"Okay. That wasn't nice, I guess," she admitted, in a softer and chastened voice. "Well, I wanted to see him the night after, too, and he wanted to see me again. So I snuck out and went over to his place. He had to leave to see his sister—you? You're the only sister he's got?"
I nodded.
"And he said to stay there, he'd be back in a bit. I wanted to go with him, and he said if his sister didn't have company, that woulda been fine, but she had vamp company, and he didn't want me to mix with them."
I think Jason knew what my opinion of Crystal Norris would be, and he wanted to dodge hearing it, so he left her at his house.
"Did he come back home?" Calvin said, nudging her out of her reverie.
"Yes," she said, and I tensed.
"What happened then?" Calvin asked, when she stopped again.
"I'm not real sure," she said. "I was in the house, waiting for him, and I heard his truck pull up, and I'm thinking, 'Oh, good, he's here, we can party,' and then I didn't hear him come up the front steps, and I'm wondering what's happening, you know? Of course all the outside lights are on, but I didn't go to the window, 'cause I knew it was him." Of course a Were would know his step, maybe catch his smell. "I'm listening real good," she went on, "and I hear him going around the outside of the house, so I'm thinking he's going to come in the back door, for some reason—muddy boots, or something."
I took a deep breath. She'd get to the point in just a minute. I just knew she would.
"And then, to the back of the house, and farther 'way, yards away from the porch, I hear a lot of noise, and some shouting and stuff, and then nothing."
If she hadn't been a shifter, she wouldn't have heard so much. There, I knew I'd think of a bright side if I searched hard enough.
"Did you go out and look?" Calvin asked Crystal. His worn hand stroked her black curls, as if he were petting a favorite dog.
"No sir, I didn't look."
"Smell?"
"I didn't get close enough," she admitted, just on the good side of sullen. "The wind was blowing the other way. I caught a little of Jason, and blood. Maybe a couple of other things."
"Like what?"
Crystal looked at her own hands. "Shifter, maybe. Some of us can change when it's not the full moon, but I can't. Otherwise, I'd have had a better chance at the scent," she said to me in near-apology.
"Vampire?" Calvin asked.
"I never smelled a vampire before," she said simply. "I don't know."
"Witch?" I asked.
"Do they smell any different from regular people?" she asked doubtfully.
I shrugged. I didn't know.
Calvin said, "What did you do after that?"
"I knew something had carried Jason off into the woods. I just . . . I lost it. I'm not brave." She shrugged. "I came home after that. Nothing more I could do."
I was trying not to cry, but tears just rolled down my cheeks. For the first time, I admitted to myself that I wasn't sure I'd ever see my brother again. But if the attacker's intention was to kill Jason, why not just leave his body in the backyard? As Crystal had pointed out, the night of New Year's Day there hadn't been a full moon. There were things that didn't have to wait for the full moon. . . .
The bad thing about learning about all the creatures that existed in the world besides us is that I could imagine that there were things that might swallow Jason in one gulp. Or a few bites.
But I just couldn't let myself think about that. Though I was still weeping, I made an effort to smile. "Thank you so much," I said politely. "It was real nice of you to take the time to see me. I know you have things you need to do."
Crystal looked suspicious, but her uncle Calvin reached over and patted my hand, which seemed to surprise everyone, himself included.
He walked me out to my car. The sky was clouding over, which made it feel colder, and the wind began to toss the bare branches of the large bushes planted around the yard. I recognized yellow bells (which the nursery calls forsythia), and spirea, and even a tulip tree. Around them would be planted jonquil bulbs, and iris—the same flowers that are in my grandmother's yard, the same bushes that have grown in southern yards for generations. Right now everything looked bleak and sordid. In the spring, it would seem almost charming, picturesque; the decay of poverty gilded by Mother Nature.
Two or three houses down the road, a man emerged from a shed behind his house, glanced our way, and did a double take. After a long moment, he loped back into his house. It was too far away to make out more of his features than thick pale hair, but his grace was phenomenal. The people out here more than disliked strangers; they seemed to be allergic to them.
"That's my house over there," Calvin offered, pointing to a much more substantial home, small but foursquare, painted white quite recently. Everything was in good repair at Calvin Norris's house. The driveway and parking area were clearly defined; the matching white toolshed stood rust-free on a neat concrete slab.
I nodded. "It looks real nice," I said in a voice that wasn't too wobbly.
"I want to make you an offer," Calvin Norris said.
I tried to look interested. I half turned to face him.
"You're a woman without protection now," he said. "Your brother's gone. I hope he comes back, but you don't have no one to stand up for you while he's missing."
There were a lot of things wrong with this speech, but I wasn't in any mood to debate the shifter. He'd done me a large favor, getting Crystal to talk. I stood there in the cold wind and tried to look politely receptive.
"If you need some place to hide, if you need someone to watch your back or defend you, I'll be your man," he said. His green and golden eyes met mine directly.
I'll tell you why I didn't dismiss this with a snort: He wasn't being superior about it. According to his mores, he was being as nice as he could be, extending a shield to me if I should need it. Of course he expected to "be my man" in every way, along with protecting me; but he wasn't being lascivious in his manner, or offensively explicit. Calvin Norris was offering to incur injury for my sake. He meant it. That's not something to get all snitty about.
"Thanks," I said. "I'll remember you said that."
"I heard about you," he said. "Shifters and Weres, they talk to each other. I hear you're different."
"I am." Regular men might have found my outer package attractive, but my inner package repelled them. If I ever began to get a swelled head, after the attention paid me by Eric, or Bill, or even Alcide, all I had to do was listen to the brains of some bar patrons to have my ego deflated. I clutched my old blue coat more closely around me. Like most of the two-natured, Calvin had a system that didn't feel cold as intensely as my completely human metabolism did. "But my difference doesn't lie in being two-natured, though I appreciate your, ah, kindness." This was as close as I could come to asking him why he was so interested.
"I know that." He nodded in acknowledgment of my delicacy. "Actually, that makes you more . . . The thing is, here in Hotshot, we've inbred too much. You heard Crystal. She can only change at the moon, and frankly, even then she's not full-powered." He pointed at his own face. "My eyes can hardly pass for human. We need an infusion of new blood, new genes. You're not two-natured, but you're not exactly an ordinary woman. Ordinary women don't last long here."
Well, that was an ominous and ambiguous way to put it. But I was sympathetic, and I tried to look understanding. Actually, I did understand, and I could appreciate his concern. Calvin Norris was clearly the leader of this unusual settlement, and its future was his responsibility.
He was frowning as he looked down the road at the house where I'd seen the man. But he turned to me to finish telling me what he wanted me to know. "I think you would like the people here, and you would be a good breeder. I can tell by looking."
That was a real unusual compliment. I couldn't quite think how to acknowledge it in an appropriate manner.
"I'm flattered that you think so, and I appreciate your offer. I'll remember what you said." I paused to gather my thoughts. "You know, the police will find out that Crystal was with Jason, if they haven't already. They'll come out here, too."
"They won't find nothing," Calvin Norris said. His golden green eyes met mine with faint amusement. "They've been out here at other times; they'll be out here again. They never learn a thing. I hope you find your brother. You need help, you let me know. I got a job at Norcross. I'm a steady man."
"Thank you," I said, and got into my car with a feeling of relief. I gave Calvin a serious nod as I backed out of Crystal's driveway. So he worked at Norcross, the lumber processing plant. Norcross had good benefits, and they promoted from within. I'd had worse offers; that was for sure.
As I drove to work, I wondered if Crystal had been trying to get pregnant during her nights with Jason. It hadn't seemed to bother Calvin at all to hear that his niece had had sex with a strange man. Alcide had told me that Were had to breed with Were to produce a baby that had the same trait, so the inhabitants of this little community were trying to diversify, apparently. Maybe these lesser Weres were trying to breed out; that is, have children by regular humans. That would be better than having a generation of Weres whose powers were so weak they couldn't function successfully in their second nature, but who also couldn't be content as regular people.
Getting to Merlotte's was like driving from one century into another. I wondered how long the people of Hotshot had been clustered around the crossroads, what significance it had originally held for them. Though I couldn't help but be a little curious, I found it was a real relief to discard these wonderings and return to the world as I knew it.
That afternoon, the little world of Merlotte's Bar was very quiet. I changed, tied on my black apron, smoothed my hair, and washed my hands. Sam was behind the bar with his arms crossed over his chest, staring into space. Holly was carrying a pitcher of beer to a table where a lone stranger sat.
"How was Hotshot?" Sam asked, since we were alone at the bar.
"Very strange."
He patted me on the shoulder. "Did you find out anything useful?"
"Actually, I did. I'm just not sure what it means." Sam needed a haircut, I noticed; his curly red-gold hair formed an arc around his face in a kind of Renaissance-angel effect.
"Did you meet Calvin Norris?"
"I did. He got Crystal to talk to me, and he made me a most unusual offer."
"What's that?"
"I'll tell you some other time." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to phrase it. I looked down at my hands, which were busy rinsing out a beer mug, and I could feel my cheeks burning.
"Calvin's an okay guy, as far as I know," Sam said slowly. "He works at Norcross, and he's a crew leader. Good insurance, retirement package, everything. Some of the other guys from Hotshot own a welding shop. I hear they do good work. But I don't know what goes on in Hotshot after they go home at night, and I don't think anyone else does, either. Did you know Sheriff Dowdy, John Dowdy? He was sheriff before I moved here, I think."
"Yeah, I remember him. He hauled Jason in one time for vandalism. Gran had to go get him out of jail. Sheriff Dowdy read Jason a lecture that had him scared straight, at least for a while."
"Sid Matt told me a story one night. It seems that one spring, John Dowdy went out to Hotshot to arrest Calvin Norris's oldest brother, Carlton."
"For what?" Sid Matt Lancaster was an old and well-known lawyer.
"Statutory rape. The girl was willing, and she was even experienced, but she was underage. She had a new stepdad, and he decided Carlton had disrespected him."
No politically correct stance could cover all those circumstances. "So what happened?"
"No one knows. Late that night, John Dowdy's patrol car was found halfway back into town from Hotshot. No one in it. No blood, no fingerprints. He hasn't ever been seen since. No one in Hotshot remembered seeing him that day, they said."
"Like Jason," I said bleakly. "He just vanished."
"But Jason was at his own house, and according to you, Crystal didn't seem to be involved."
I threw off the grip of the strange little story. "You're right. Did anyone ever find out what happened to Sheriff Dowdy?"
"No. But no one ever saw Carlton Norris again, either."
Now, that was the interesting part. "And the moral of this story is?"
"That the people of Hotshot take care of their own justice."
"Then you want them on your side." I extracted my own moral from the story.
"Yes," Sam said. "You definitely want them on your side. You don't remember this? It was around fifteen years ago."
"I was coping with my own troubles then," I explained. I'd been an orphaned nine-year-old, coping with my growing telepathic powers.
Shortly after that, people began to stop by the bar on their way home from work. Sam and I didn't get a chance to talk the rest of the evening, which was fine with me. I was very fond of Sam, who'd often had a starring role in some of my most private fantasies, but at this point, I had so much to worry about I just couldn't take on any more.
That night, I discovered that some people thought Jason's disappearance improved Bon Temps society. Among these were Andy Bellefleur and his sister, Portia, who stopped by Merlotte's for supper, since their grandmother Caroline was having a dinner party and they were staying out of the way. Andy was a police detective and Portia was a lawyer, and they were both not on my list of favorite people. For one thing (a kind of sour-grapey thing), when Bill had found out they were his descendants, he'd made an elaborate plan to give the Bellefleurs money anonymously, and they'd really enjoyed their mysterious legacy to the hilt. But they couldn't stand Bill himself, and it made me constantly irritated to see their new cars and expensive clothes and the new roof on the Bellefleur mansion, when they dissed Bill all the time—and me, too, for being Bill's girlfriend.
Andy had been pretty nice to me before I started dating Bill. At least he'd been civil and left a decent tip. I'd just been invisible to Portia, who had her own share of personal woes. She'd come up with a suitor, I'd heard, and I wondered maliciously if that might not be due to the sudden upsurge in the Bellefleur family fortunes. I also wondered, at times, if Andy and Portia got happy in direct proportion to my misery. They were in fine fettle this winter evening, both tucking into their hamburgers with great zest.
"Sorry about your brother, Sookie," Andy said, as I refilled his tea glass.
I looked down at him, my face expressionless. Liar, I thought. After a second, Andy's eyes darted uneasily away from mine to light on the saltshaker, which seemed to have become peculiarly fascinating.
"Have you seen Bill lately?" Portia asked, patting her mouth with a napkin. She was trying to break the uneasy silence with a pleasant query, but I just got angrier.
"No," I said. "Can I get you all anything else?"
"No, thanks, we're just fine," she said quickly. I spun on my heel and walked away. Then my mouth puckered in a smile. Just as I was thinking, Bitch, Portia was thinking, What a bitch.
Her ass is hot, Andy chimed in. Gosh, telepathy. What a blast. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I envied people who only heard with their ears.
Kevin and Kenya came in, too, very carefully not drinking. Theirs was a partnership that had given the people of Bon Temps much hilarity. Lily white Kevin was thin and reedy, a long-distance runner; all the equipment he had to wear on his uniform belt seemed almost too much for him to carry. His partner, Kenya, was two inches taller, pounds heavier, and fifteen shades darker. The men at the bar had been putting bets down for two years on whether or not they'd become lovers—of course, the guys at the bar didn't put it as nicely as that.
I was unwillingly aware that Kenya (and her handcuffs and nightstick) featured in all too many patrons' daydreams, and I also knew that the men who teased and derided Kevin the most mercilessly were the ones who had the most lurid fantasies. As I carried hamburger baskets over to Kevin and Kenya's table, I could tell that Kenya was wondering whether she should suggest to Bud Dearborn that he call in the tracking dogs from a neighboring parish in the search for Jason, while Kevin was worried about his mother's heart, which had been acting up more than usual lately.
"Sookie," Kevin said, after I'd brought them a bottle of ketchup, "I meant to tell you, some people came by the police department today putting out posters about a vampire."
"I saw one at the grocery," I said.
"I realize that just because you were dating a vampire, you aren't an expert," Kevin said carefully, because Kevin always did his best to be nice to me, "but I wondered if you'd seen this vamp. Before he disappeared, I mean."
Kenya was looking up at me, too, her dark eyes examining me with great interest. Kenya was thinking I always seemed to be on the fringes of bad things that happened in Bon Temps, without being bad myself (thanks, Kenya). She was hoping for my sake that Jason was alive. Kevin was thinking I'd always been nice to him and Kenya; and he was thinking he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. I sighed, I hoped imperceptibly. They were
waiting for an answer. I hesitated, wondering what my best choice was. The truth is always easiest to remember.
"Sure, I've seen him before. Eric owns the vampire bar in Shreveport," I said. "I saw him when I went there with Bill."
"You haven't seen him recently?"
"I sure didn't abduct him from Fangtasia," I said, with quite a lot of sarcasm in my voice.
Kenya gave me a sour look, and I didn't blame her. "No one said you did," she told me, in a "Don't give me any trouble" kind of voice. I shrugged and drifted away.
I had plenty to do, since some people were still eating supper (and some were drinking it), and some regulars were drifting in after eating at home. Holly was equally busy, and when one of the men who worked for the phone company spilled his beer on the floor, she had to go get the mop and bucket. She was running behind on her tables when the door opened. I saw her putting Sid Matt Lancaster's order in front of him, with her back to the door. So she missed the next entrance, but I didn't. The young man Sam had hired to bus the tables during our busy hour was occupied with clearing two tables pulled together that had held a large party of parish workers, and so I was clearing off the Bellefleurs' table. Andy was chatting with Sam while he waited for Portia, who'd visited the ladies' room. I'd just pocketed my tip, which was fifteen percent of the bill to the penny. The Bellefleur tipping habits had improved—slightly—with the Bellefleur fortunes. I glanced up when the door was held open long enough for a cold gust of air to chill me.
The woman coming in was tall and so slim and broad-shouldered that I checked her chest, just to be sure I'd registered her gender correctly. Her hair was short and thick and brown, and she was wearing absolutely no makeup. There was a man with her, but I didn't see him until she stepped to one side. He was no slouch in the size department himself, and his tight T-shirt revealed arms more developed than any I'd ever seen. Hours in the gym; no, years in the gym. His chestnut hair trailed down to his shoulders in tight curls, and his beard and mustache were perceptibly redder. Neither of the two wore coats, though it was definitely coat weather. The newcomers walked over to me.
"Where's the owner?" the woman asked.
"Sam. He's behind the bar," I said, looking down as soon as I could and wiping the table all over again. The man had looked at me curiously; that was normal. As they brushed past me, I saw that he carried some posters under his arm and a staple gun. He'd stuck his hand through a roll of masking tape, so it bounced on his left wrist.
I glanced over at Holly. She'd frozen, the cup of coffee in her hand halfway down on its way to Sid Matt Lancaster's placemat. The old lawyer looked up at her, followed her stare to the couple making their way between the tables to the bar. Merlotte's, which had been on the quiet and peaceful side, was suddenly awash in tension. Holly set down the cup without burning Mr. Lancaster and spun on her heel, going through the swinging door to the kitchen at warp speed.
I didn't need any more confirmation on the identity of the woman.
The two reached Sam and began a low-voiced conversation with him, with Andy listening in just because he was in the vicinity. I passed by on my way to take the dirty dishes to the hatch, and I heard the woman say (in a deep, alto voice) ". . . put up these posters in town, just in case anyone spots him."
This was Hallow, the witch whose pursuit of Eric had caused such an upset. She, or a member of her coven, was probably the murderer of Adabelle Yancy. This was the woman who might have taken my brother, Jason. My head began pounding as if there were a little demon inside trying to break out with a hammer.
No wonder Holly was in such a state and didn't want Hallow to glimpse her. She'd been to Hallow's little meeting in Shreveport, and her coven had rejected Hallow's invitation.
"Of course," Sam said. "Put up one on this wall." He indicated a blank spot by the door that led back to the bathrooms and his office.
Holly stuck her head out the kitchen door, glimpsed Hallow, ducked back in. Hallow's eyes flicked over to the door, but not in time to glimpse Holly, I hoped.
I thought of jumping Hallow, beating on her until she told me what I wanted to know about my brother. That was what the pounding in my head was urging me to do—initiate action, any action. But I had a streak of common sense, and luckily for me it came to the fore. Hallow was big, and she had a sidekick who could crush me—plus, Kevin and Kenya would make me stop before I could get her to talk.
It was horribly frustrating to have her right in front of me and at the same time be unable to discover what she knew. I dropped all my shields, and I listened in as hard as I could.
But she suspected something when I touched inside her head.
She looked vaguely puzzled and glanced around. That was enough warning for me. I scrambled back into my own head as quickly as I could. I continued back behind the bar,
passing within a couple of feet of the witch as she tried to figure out who'd brushed at her brain.
This had never happened to me before. No one, no one, had ever suspected I was listening in. I squatted behind the bar to get the big container of Morton Salt, straightened, and carefully refilled the shaker I'd snatched from Kevin and Kenya's table. I concentrated on this as hard as anyone can focus on performing such a nothing little task, and when I was through, the poster had been mounted with the staple gun. Hallow was lingering, prolonging her talk with Sam so she could figure out who had touched the inside of her head, and Mr. Muscles was eyeing me—but only like a man looks at a woman—as I returned the shaker to its table. Holly hadn't reappeared.
"Sookie," Sam called.
Oh, for goodness sake. I had to respond. He was my boss.
I went over to the three of them, dread in my heart and a smile on my face.
"Hey," I said, by way of greeting, giving the tall witch and her stalwart sidekick a neutral smile. I raised my eyebrows at Sam to ask him what he'd wanted.
"Marnie Stonebrook, Mark Stonebrook," he said.
I nodded to each of them. Hallow, indeed, I thought, half-amused. "Hallow" was just a tad more spiritual than "Marnie."
"They're looking for this guy," Sam said, indicating the poster. "You know him?"
Of course Sam knew that I knew Eric. I was glad I'd had years of concealing my feelings and thoughts from the eyes of others. I looked the poster over deliberately.
"Sure, I've seen him," I said. "When I went to that bar in Shreveport? He's kind of unforgettable, isn't he?" I gave Hallow—Marnie—a smile. We were just gals together, Marnie and Sookie, sharing a gal moment.
"Handsome guy," she agreed in her throaty voice. "He's missing now, and we're offering a reward for anyone who can give us information."
"I see that from the poster," I said, letting a tiny hint of irritation show in my voice. "Is there any particular reason you think he might be around here? I can't imagine what a Shreveport vampire would be doing in Bon Temps." I looked at her questioningly. Surely I wasn't out of line in asking that?
"Good question, Sookie," Sam said. "Not that I mind having the poster up, but how come you two are searching this area for the guy? Why would he be here? Nothing happens in Bon Temps."
"This town has a vampire in residence, doesn't it?" Mark Stonebrook said suddenly. His voice was almost a twin of his sister's. He was so buff you expected to hear a bass, and even an alto as deep as Mamie's sounded strange coming from his throat. Actually, from Mark Stonebrook's appearance, you'd think he'd just grunt and growl to communicate.
"Yeah, Bill Compton lives here," Sam said. "But he's out of town."
"Gone to Peru, I heard," I said.
"Oh, yes, I'd heard of Bill Compton. Where does he live?" Hallow asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice.
"Well, he lives out across the cemetery from my place," I said, because I had no choice. If the two asked someone else and got a different answer than the one I gave them, they'd know I had something (or in this case, someone) to conceal. "Out off Hummingbird Road." I gave them directions, not very clear directions, and hoped they got lost out in somewhere like Hotshot.
"Well, we might drop by Compton's house, just in case Eric went to visit him," Hallow said. Her eyes cut to her brother Mark, and they nodded at us and left the bar. They didn't care whether this made sense or not.
"They're sending witches to visit all the vamps," Sam said softly. Of course. The Stonebrooks were going to the residences of all vampires who owed allegiance to Eric—the vamps of Area Five. They suspected that one of these vamps might be hiding Eric. Since Eric hadn't turned up, he was being hidden. Hallow had to be confident that her spell had worked, but she might not know exactly how it had worked.
I let the smile fade off my face, and I leaned against the bar on my elbows, trying to think real hard.
Sam said, "This is big trouble, right?" His face was serious.
"Yes, this is big trouble."
"Do you need to leave? There's not too much happening here. Holly can come out of the kitchen now that they're gone, and I can always see to the tables myself, if you need to get home. . . ." Sam wasn't sure where Eric was, but he suspected, and he'd noticed Holly's abrupt bolt into the kitchen.
Sam had earned my loyalty and respect a hundred times over.
"I'll give them five minutes to get out of the parking lot."
"Do you think they might have something to do with Jason's disappearance?"
"Sam, I just don't know." I automatically dialed the sheriff's department and got the same answer I'd gotten all day—"No news, we'll call you when we know something." But after she said that, the dispatcher told me that the pond was going to be searched the next day; the police had managed to get hold of two search-and-rescue divers. I didn't know how to feel about this information. Mostly, I was relieved that Jason's disappearance was being taken seriously.
When I hung up the phone, I told Sam the news. After a second, I said, "It seems too much to believe that two men could disappear in the Bon Temps area at the same time. At least, the Stonebrooks seem to think Eric's around here. I have to think that there's a connection."
"Those Stonebrooks are Weres," Sam muttered.
"And witches. You be careful, Sam. She's a killer. The Weres of Shreveport are out after her, and the vamps, too. Watch your step."
"Why is she so scary? Why would the Shreveport pack have any trouble handling her?"
"She's drinking vampire blood," I said, as close to his ear as I could get without kissing him. I glanced around the room, to see that Kevin was watching our exchange with a lot of interest.
"What does she want with Eric?"
"His business. All his businesses. And him."
Sam's eyes widened. "So it's business, and personal."
"Yep."
"Do you know where Eric is?" He'd avoided asking me directly until now.
I smiled at him. "Why would I know that? But I confess, I'm worried about those two being right down the road from my house. I have a feeling they're going to break into Bill's place. They might figure Eric's hiding with Bill, or in Bill's house. I'm sure he's got a safe hole for Eric to sleep in and blood on hand." That was pretty much all a vampire required, blood and a dark place.
"So you're going over to guard Bill's property? Not a good idea, Sookie. Let Bill's homeowners insurance take care of whatever damage they do searching. I think he told me he went with State Farm. Bill wouldn't want you hurt in defense of plants and bricks."
"I don't plan on doing anything that dangerous," I said, and truly, I didn't plan it. "But I do think I'll run home. Just in case. When I see their car lights leaving Bill's house, I'll go over and check it out."
"You need me to come with you?"
"Nah, I'm just going to do damage assessment, that's all. Holly'll be enough help here?" She'd popped out of the kitchen the minute the Stonebrooks had left.
"Sure."
"Okay, I'm gone. Thanks so much." My conscience didn't twinge as much when I noticed that the place wasn't nearly as busy as it'd been an hour ago. You got nights like that, when people just cleared out all of a sudden.
I had an itchy feeling between my shoulder blades, and maybe all our patrons had, too. It was that feeling that something was prowling that shouldn't be: that Halloween feeling, I call it, when you kind of picture something bad is easing around the corner of your house, to peer into your windows.
By the time I grabbed my purse, unlocked my car, and drove back to my house, I was almost twitching from uneasiness. Everything was going to hell in a handbasket, seemed to me. Jason was missing, the witch was here instead of Shreveport, and now she was within a half mile of Eric.
As I turned from the parish road onto my long, meandering driveway and braked for the deer crossing it from the woods on the south side to the woods on the north—moving away from Bill's house, I noticed—I had worked myself into a state. Pulling around to the back door, I leaped from the car and bounded up the back steps.
I was caught in midbound by a pair of arms like steel bands. Lifted and whirled, I was wrapped around Eric's waist before I knew it.
"Eric," I said, "you shouldn't be out—"
My words were cut off by his mouth over mine.
For a minute, going along with this program seemed like a viable alternative. I'd just forget all the badness and screw his brains out on my back porch, cold as it was. But sanity
seeped back in past my overloaded emotional state, and I pulled a little away. He was wearing the jeans and Louisiana Tech Bulldogs sweatshirt Jason had bought for him at WalMart. Eric's big hands supported my bottom, and my legs circled him as if they were used to it.
"Listen, Eric," I said, when his mouth moved down to my neck.
"Ssshh," he whispered.
"No, you have to let me speak. We have to hide."
That got his attention. "From whom?" he said into my ear, and I shivered. The shiver was unrelated to the temperature.
"The bad witch, the one that's after you," I scrambled to explain. "She came into the bar with her brother and they put up that poster."
"So?" His voice was careless.
"They asked what other vampires lived locally, and of course we had to say Bill did. So they asked for directions to Bill's house, and I guess they're over there looking for you."
"And?"
"That's right across the cemetery from here! What if they come over here?"
"You advise me to hide? To get back in that black hole below your house?" He sounded uncertain, but it was clear to me his pride was piqued.
"Oh, yes. Just for a little while! You're my responsibility; I have to keep you safe." But I had a sinking feeling I'd expressed my fears in the wrong way. This tentative stranger, however uninterested he seemed in vampire concerns, however little he seemed to remember of his power and possessions, still had the vein of pride and curiosity Eric had always shown at the oddest moments. I'd tapped right into it. I wondered if maybe I could talk him into at least getting into my house, rather than standing out on the porch, exposed.
But it was too late. You just never could tell Eric anything.
Chapter 8
"Come on, lover, let's have a look," Eric said, giving me a quick kiss. He jumped off the back porch with me still attached to him—like a large barnacle—and he landed silently, which seemed amazing. I was the noisy one, with my breathing and little sounds of surprise. With a dexterity that argued long practice, Eric slung me around so that I was riding his back. I hadn't done this since I was a child and my father had carried me piggyback, so I was considerably startled.
Oh, I was doing one great job of hiding Eric. Here we were, bounding through the cemetery, going toward the Wicked Witch of the West, instead of hiding in a dark hole where she couldn't find us. This was so smart.
At the same time, I had to admit that I was kind of having fun, despite the difficulties of keeping a grip on Eric in this gently rolling country. The graveyard was somewhat downhill from my house. Bill's house, the Compton house, was quite a bit more uphill from Sweet Home Cemetery. The journey downhill, mild as the slope was, was exhilarating, though I glimpsed two or three parked cars on the narrow blacktop that wound through the graves. That startled me. Teenagers sometimes chose the cemetery for privacy, but not in groups. But before I could think it through, we had passed them, swiftly and silently. Eric managed the uphill portion more slowly, but with no evidence of exhaustion.
We were next to a tree when Eric stopped. It was a huge oak, and when I touched it I became more or less oriented. There was an oak this size maybe twenty yards to the north of Bill's house.
Eric loosened my hands so I'd slide down his back, and then he put me between him and the tree trunk. I didn't know if he was trying to trap me or protect me. I gripped both his wrists in a fairly futile attempt to keep him beside me. I froze when I heard a voice drifting over from Bill's house.
"This car hasn't moved in a while," a woman said. Hallow. She was in Bill's carport, which was on this side of the house. She was close. I could feel Eric's body stiffen. Did the sound of her voice evoke an echo in his memory?
"The house is locked up tight," called Mark Stonebrook, from farther away.
"Well, we can take care of that." From the sound of her voice, she was on the move to the front door. She sounded amused.
They were going to break into Bill's house! Surely I should prevent that? I must have made some sudden move, because Eric's body flattened mine against the trunk of the tree. My coat was worked up around my waist, and the bark bit into my butt through the thin material of my black pants.
I could hear Hallow. She was chanting, her voice low and somehow ominous. She was actually casting a spell. That should have been exciting and I should have been curious: a real magic spell, cast by a real witch. But I felt scared, anxious to get away. The darkness seemed to thicken.
"I smell someone," Mark Stonebrook said.
Fee, fie, foe, fum.
"What? Here and now?" Hallow stopped her chant, sounding a little breathless.
I began to tremble.
"Yeah." His voice came out deeper, almost a growl.
"Change," she ordered, just like that. I heard a sound I knew I'd heard before, though I couldn't trace the memory. It was a sort of gloppy sound. Sticky. Like stirring a stiff spoon through some thick liquid that had hard things in it, maybe peanuts or toffee bits. Or bone chips.
Then I heard a real howl. It wasn't human at all. Mark had changed, and it wasn't the full moon. This was real power. The night suddenly seemed full of life. Snuffling. Yipping. Tiny movements all around us.
I was some great guardian for Eric, huh? I'd let him sweep me over here. We were about to be discovered by a vampire-blood drinking Were witch, and who knows what all else, and I didn't even have Jason's shotgun. I put my arms around Eric and hugged him in apology.
"Sorry," I whispered, as tiny as a bee would whisper. But then I felt something brush against us, something large and furry, while I was hearing Mark's wolfy sounds from a few feet away on the other side of the tree. I bit my lip hard to keep from giving a yip myself.
Listening intently, I became sure there were more than two animals. I would have given almost anything for a floodlight. From maybe ten yards away came a short, sharp bark. Another wolf? A plain old dog, in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Suddenly, Eric left me. One minute, he was pressing me against the tree in the pitch-black dark, and the next minute, cold air hit me from top to bottom (so much for my holding on to his wrists). I flung my arms out, trying to discover where he was, and touched only air. Had he just stepped away so he could investigate what was happening? Had he decided to join in?
Though my hands didn't encounter any vampires, something big and warm pressed against my legs. I used my fingers to better purpose by reaching down to explore the animal. I touched lots of fur: a pair of upright ears, a long muzzle, a warm tongue. I tried to move, to step away from the oak, but the dog (wolf?) wouldn't let me. Though it was smaller than I and weighed less, it leaned against me with such pressure that there was no way I could move. When I listened to what was going on in the darkness—a lot of growling and snarling—I decided I was actually pretty glad about that. I sank to my knees and put one arm across the canine's back. It licked my face.
I heard a chorus of howls, which rose eerily into the cold night. The hair on my neck stood up, and I buried my face in the neck fur of my companion and prayed. Suddenly, over all the lesser noises, there was a howl of pain and a series of yips.
I heard a car start up, and headlights cut cones into the night. My side of the tree was away from the light, but I could see that I was huddled by a dog, not a wolf. Then the lights moved and gravel sprayed from Bill's driveway as the car reversed. There was a moment's pause, I presumed while the driver shifted into drive, and then the car screeched and I heard it going at high speed down the hill to the turnoff onto Hummingbird Road. There was a terrible thud and a high shrieking sound that made my heart hammer even harder. It was the sound of a pain a dog makes when it's been hit by a car.
"Oh, Jesus," I said miserably, and clutched my furry friend. I thought of something I could do to help, now that it seemed the witches had left.
I got up and ran for the front door of Bill's house before the dog could stop me. I pulled my keys out of my pocket as I ran. They'd been in my hand when Eric had seized me at my back door, and I'd stuffed them into my coat, where a handkerchief had kept them from jingling. I felt around for the lock, counted my keys until I arrived at Bill's—the third on the ring—and opened his front door. I reached in and flipped the outside light switch, and abruptly the yard was illuminated.
It was full of wolves.
I didn't know how scared I should be. Pretty scared, I guessed. I was just assuming both of the Were witches had been in the car. What if one of them was among the wolves present? And where was my vampire?
That question got answered almost immediately. There was a sort of whump as Eric landed in the yard.
"I followed them to the road, but they went too fast for me there," he said, grinning at me as if we'd been playing a game.
A dog—a collie—went up to Eric, looked up at his face, and growled.
"Shoo," Eric said, making an imperious gesture with his hand.
My boss trotted over to me and sat against my legs again. Even in the darkness, I had suspected that my guardian was Sam. The first time I'd encountered him in this transformation, I'd thought he was a stray, and I'd named him Dean, after a man I knew with the same eye color. Now it was a habit to call him Dean when he went on four legs. I sat on Bill's front steps and the collie cuddled against me. I said, "You are one great dog." He wagged his tail. The wolves were sniffing Eric, who was standing stock-still.
A big wolf trotted over to me, the biggest wolf I'd ever seen. Weres turn into large wolves, I guess; I haven't seen that many. Living in Louisiana, I've never seen a standard wolf at all. This Were was almost pure black, which I thought was unusual. The rest of the wolves were more silvery, except for one that was smaller and reddish.
The wolf gripped my coat sleeve with its long white teeth and tugged. I rose immediately and went over to the spot where most of the other wolves were milling. We were at the outer edge of the light, so I hadn't noticed the cluster right away. There was blood on the ground, and in the middle of the spreading pool lay a young dark-haired woman. She was naked.
She was obviously and terribly injured.
Her legs were broken, and maybe one arm.
"Go get my car," I told Eric, in the kind of voice that has to be obeyed.
I tossed him my keys, and he took to the air again. In one available corner of my brain, I hoped that he remembered how to drive. I'd noted that though he'd forgotten his personal history, his modern skills were apparently intact.
I was trying not to think about the poor injured girl right in front of me. The wolves circled and paced, whining. Then the big black one raised his head to the dark sky and howled again. This was a signal to all the others, who did the same thing. I glanced back to be sure that Dean was keeping away, since he was the outsider. I wasn't sure how much human personality was left after these two-natured people transformed, and I didn't want anything to happen to him. He was sitting on the small porch, out of the way, his eyes fixed on me.
I was the only creature with opposable thumbs on the scene, and I was suddenly aware that that gave me a lot of responsibility.
First thing to check? Breathing. Yes, she was! She had a pulse. I was no paramedic, but it didn't seem like a normal pulse to me—which would be no wonder. Her skin felt hot, maybe from the changeover back to human. I didn't see a terrifying amount of fresh blood, so I hoped that no major arteries had been ruptured.
I slid a hand beneath the girl's head, very carefully, and touched the dusty dark hair, trying to see if her scalp was lacerated. No.
Sometime during the process of this examination, I began shaking all over. Her injuries were really frightening. Everything I could see of her looked beaten, battered, broken. Her eyes opened. She shuddered. Blankets—she'd need to be kept warm. I glanced around. All the wolves were still wolves.
"It would be great if one or two of you could change back," I told them. "I have to get her to a hospital in my car, and she needs blankets from inside this house."
One of the wolves, a silvery gray, rolled onto its side—okay, male wolf—and I heard the same gloppy noise again. A haze wrapped around the writhing figure, and when it dispersed, Colonel Flood was curled up in place of the wolf. Of course, he was naked, too, but I chose to rise above my natural embarrassment. He had to lie still for at least a minute or two, and it was obviously a great effort for him to sit up.
He crawled over to the injured girl. "Maria-Star," he said hoarsely. He bent to smell her, which looked very weird when he was in human form. He whined in distress.
He turned his head to look at me. He said, "Where?" and I understood he meant the blankets.
"Go in the house, go up the stairs. There's a bedroom at the head of the stairs. There's a blanket chest at the foot of the bed. Get two blankets out of there."
He staggered to his feet, apparently having to deal with some disorientation from his rapid change, before he began striding toward the house.
The girl—Maria-Star—followed him with her eyes.
"Can you talk?" I asked.
"Yes," she said, barely audibly.
"Where does it hurt worst?"
"I think my hips and legs are broken," she said. "The car hit me."
"Did it throw you up in the air?"
"Yes."
"The wheels didn't pass over you?"
She shuddered. "No, it was the impact that hurt me."
"What's your full name? Maria-Star what?" I'd need to know for the hospital. She might not be conscious by then.
"Cooper," she whispered.
By then, I could hear a car coming up Bill's drive.
The colonel, moving more smoothly now, sped out of the house with the blankets, and all the wolves and the one human instantly arrayed themselves around me and their wounded pack member. The car was obviously a threat until they learned likewise. I admired the colonel. It took quite a man to face an approaching enemy stark naked.
The new arrival was Eric, in my old car. He pulled up to Maria-Star and me with considerable panache and squealing brakes. The wolves circled restlessly, their glowing yellow eyes fixed on the driver's door. Calvin Norris's eyes had looked quite different; fleetingly, I wondered why.
"It's my car; it's okay," I said, when one of the Weres began growling. Several pairs of eyes turned to fix on me consideringly. Did I look suspicious, or tasty?
As I finished wrapping Maria-Star in the blankets, I wondered which one of the wolves was Alcide. I suspected he was the largest, darkest one, the one that just that moment turned to look me in the eyes. Yes, Alcide. This was the wolf I'd seen at Club Dead a few weeks
ago, when Alcide had been my date on a night that had ended catastrophically—for me and a few other people.
I tried to smile at him, but my face was stiff with cold and shock.
Eric leaped out of the driver's seat, leaving the car running. He opened the back door. "I'll put her in," he called, and the wolves began barking. They didn't want their pack sister handled by a vampire, and they didn't want Eric to be anywhere close to Maria-Star.
Colonel Flood said, "I'll lift her." Eric looked at the older man's slight physique and lifted a doubtful eyebrow, but had the sense to stand aside. I'd wrapped the girl as well as I could without jarring her, but the colonel knew this was going to hurt her even worse. At the last minute, he hesitated.
"Maybe we should call the ambulance," he muttered.
"And explain this how?" I asked. "A bunch of wolves and a naked guy, and her being up here next to a private home where the owner's absent? I don't think so!"
"Of course." He nodded, accepting the inevitable. Without even a hitch in his breathing, he stood with the bundle that was the girl and went to the car. Eric did run to the other side, open that door, and reach in to help pull her farther onto the backseat. The colonel permitted that. The girl shrieked once, and I scrambled behind the wheel as fast as I could. Eric got in the passenger side, and I said, "You can't go."
"Why not?" He sounded amazed and affronted.
"I'll have twice the explaining to do if I have a vampire with me!" It took most people a few minutes to decide Eric was dead, but of course they would figure it out eventually. Eric stubbornly stayed put. "And everyone's seeing your face on the damn posters," I said, working to keep my voice reasonable but urgent. "I live among pretty good people, but there's no one in this parish who couldn't use that much money."
He got out, not happily, and I yelled, "Turn off the lights and relock the house, okay?"
"Meet us at the bar when you have word about Maria-Star!" Colonel Flood yelled back. "We've got to get our cars and clothes out of the cemetery." Okay, that explained the glimpse I'd caught on the way over.
As I steered slowly down the driveway, the wolves watched me go, Alcide standing apart from the rest, his black furry face turning to follow my progress. I wondered what wolfy thoughts he was thinking.
The closest hospital was not in Bon Temps, which is way too small to have its own (we're lucky to have a WalMart), but in nearby Clarice, the parish seat. Luckily, it's on the outskirts of the town, on the side nearest Bon Temps. The ride to the Renard Parish Hospital only seemed to take years; actually, I got there in about twenty minutes. My passenger moaned for the first ten minutes, and then fell ominously silent. I talked to her, begged her to talk to me, asked her to tell me how old she was, and turned on the radio in attempt to spark some response from Maria-Star.
I didn't want to take the time to pull over and check on her, and I wouldn't have known what to do if I had, so I drove like a bat out of hell. By the time I pulled up to the emergency entrance and called to the two nurses standing outside smoking, I was sure the poor Were was dead.
She wasn't, judging from the activity that surrounded her in the next couple of minutes. Our parish hospital is a little one, of course, and it doesn't have the facilities that a city hospital can boast. We counted ourselves lucky to have a hospital at all. That night, they saved the Were's life.
The doctor, a thin woman with graying spiked hair and huge black-rimmed glasses, asked me a few pointed questions that I couldn't answer, though I'd been working on my basic story all the way to the hospital. After finding me clueless, the doctor made it clear I was to get the hell out of the way and let her team work. So I sat in a chair in the hall, and waited, and worked on my story some more.
There was no way I could be useful here, and the glaring fluorescent lights and the gleaming linoleum made a harsh, unfriendly environment. I tried to read a magazine, and tossed it on the table after a couple of minutes. For the seventh or eighth time, I thought of skipping out. But there was a woman stationed at the night reception desk, and she was keeping a close eye on me. After a few more minutes, I decided to visit the women's room to wash the blood off my hands. While I was in there, I took a few swipes at my coat with a wet paper towel, which was largely a wasted effort.
When I emerged from the women's room, there were two cops waiting for me. They were big men, both of them. They rustled with their synthetic padded jackets, and they creaked with the leather of their belts and equipment. I couldn't imagine them sneaking up on anyone.
The taller man was the older. His steel gray hair was clipped close to his scalp. His face was carved with a few deep wrinkles, like ravines. His gut overhung his belt. His partner was a younger man, maybe thirty, with light brown hair and light brown eyes and light brown
skin—a curiously monochromatic guy. I gave them a quick but comprehensive scan with all my senses.
I could tell the two were both prepared to find out I'd had a hand in the injuries of the girl I'd brought in, or that I at least knew more than I was saying.
Of course, they were partially right.
"Miss Stackhouse? You brought in the young woman Dr. Skinner is treating?" the younger man said gently.
"Maria-Star," I said. "Cooper."
"Tell us how you came to do that," the older cop said.
It was definitely an order, though his tone was moderate. Neither man knew me or knew of me, I "heard." Good.
I took a deep breath and dove into the waters of mendacity. "I was driving home from work," I said. "I work at Merlotte's Bar—you know where that is?"
They both nodded. Of course, police would know the location of every bar in the parish.
"I saw a body lying by the side of the road, on the gravel of the shoulder," I said carefully, thinking ahead so I wouldn't say something I couldn't take back. "So I stopped. There wasn't anyone else in sight. When I found out she was still alive, I knew I had to get to help. It took me a long time to get her into the car by myself." I was trying to account for the passage of time since I'd left work and the gravel from Bill's driveway that I knew would be in her skin. I couldn't gauge how much care I needed to tell in putting my story together, but more care was better than less.
"Did you notice any skid marks on the road?" The light brown policeman couldn't go long without asking a question.
"No, I didn't notice. They may have been there. I was just—after I saw her, all I thought about was her."
"So?" the older man prompted.
"I could tell she was hurt real bad, so I got her here as fast as I could." I shrugged. End of my story.
"You didn't think about calling an ambulance?"
"I don't have a cell phone."
"Woman who comes home from work that late, by herself, really ought to have a cell phone, ma'am."
I opened my mouth to tell him that if he felt like paying the bill, I'd be glad to have one, when I restrained myself. Yes, it would be handy to have a cell phone, but I could barely afford my regular phone. My only extravagance was cable TV, and I justified that by telling myself it was my only recreational spending. "I hear you," I said briefly.
"And your full name is?" This from the younger man. I looked up, met his eyes.
"Sookie Stackhouse," I said. He'd been thinking I seemed kind of shy and sweet.
"You the sister of the man who's missing?" The gray-haired man bent down to look in my face.
"Yes, sir." I looked down at my toes again.
"You're sure having a streak of bad luck, Miss Stackhouse."
"Tell me about it," I said, my voice shaking with sincerity.
"Have you ever seen this woman, the woman you brought in, before tonight?" The older officer was scribbling in a little notepad he'd produced from a pocket. His name was Curlew, the little pin on his pocket said.
I shook my head.
"You think your brother might have known her?"
I looked up, startled. I met the eyes of the brown man again. His name was Stans. "How the heck would I know?" I asked. I knew in the next second that he'd just wanted me to look up again. He didn't know what to make of me. The monochromatic Stans thought I was pretty and seemed like a good little Samaritan. On the other hand, my job was one educated nice girls didn't often take, and my brother was well known as a brawler, though many of the patrol officers liked him.
"How is she doing?" I asked.
They both glanced at the door behind which the struggle to save the young woman went on.
"She's still alive," Stans said.
"Poor thing," I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I began fumbling in my pockets for a tissue.
"Did she say anything to you, Miss Stackhouse?"
I had to think about that. "Yes," I said. "She did." The truth was safe, in this instance.
They both brightened at the news.
"She told me her name. She said her legs hurt worst, when I asked her," I said. "And she said that the car had hit her, but not run her over."
The two men looked at each other.
"Did she describe the car?" Stans asked.
It was incredibly tempting to describe the witches' car. But I mistrusted the glee that bubbled up inside me at the idea. And I was glad I had, the next second, when I realized that the trace evidence they'd get off the car would be wolf fur. Good thinking, Sook.
"No, she didn't," I said, trying to look as though I'd been groping through my memory. "She didn't really talk much after that, just moaning. It was awful." And the upholstery on my backseat was probably ruined, too. I immediately wished I hadn't thought of something so selfish.
"And you didn't see any other cars, trucks, any other vehicles on your way to your house from the bar, or even when you were coming back to town?"
That was a slightly different question. "Not on my road," I said hesitantly. "I probably saw a few cars when I got closer to Bon Temps and went through town. And of course I saw more between Bon Temps and Clarice. But I don't recall any in particular."
"Can you take us to the spot where you picked her up? The exact place?"
"I doubt it. There wasn't anything to mark it besides her," I said. My coherence level was falling by the minute. "No big tree, or road, or mile marker. Maybe tomorrow? In the daytime?"
Stans patted me on the shoulder. "I know you're shook up, miss," he said consolingly. "You done the best you could for this girl. Now we gotta leave it up to the doctors and the Lord."
I nodded emphatically, because I certainly agreed. The older Curlew still looked at me a little skeptically, but he thanked me as a matter of form, and they strode out of the
hospital into the blackness. I stepped back a little, though I remained looking out into the parking lot. In a second or two, they reached my car and shone their big flashlights through the windows, checking out the interior. I keep the inside of my car spanky-clean, so they wouldn't see a thing but bloodstains in the backseat. I noticed that they checked out the front grille, too, and I didn't blame them one little bit.
They examined my car over and over, and finally they stood under one of the big lights, making notes on clipboards.
Not too long after that, the doctor came out to find me. She pulled her mask down and rubbed the back of her neck with a long, thin hand. "Miss Cooper is doing better. She's stable," she said.
I nodded, and then I closed my eyes for a moment with sheer relief. "Thank you," I croaked.
"We're going to airlift her to Schumpert in Shreveport. The helicopter'll be here any second."
I blinked, trying to decide if that were a good thing or a bad thing. No matter what my opinion was, the Were had to go to the best and closest hospital. When she became able to talk, she'd have to tell them something. How could I ensure that her story jibed with mine?
"Is she conscious?" I asked.
"Just barely," the doctor said, almost angrily, as if such injuries were an insult to her personally. "You can speak to her briefly, but I can't guarantee she'll remember, or understand. I have to go talk to the cops." The two officers were striding back into the hospital, I saw from my place at the window.
"Thank you," I said, and followed her gesture to her left. I pushed open the door into the grim glaring room where they'd been working on the girl.
It was a mess. There were a couple of nurses in there even now, chatting about this or that and packing away some of the unused packages of bandages and tubes. A man with a bucket and mop stood waiting in a corner. He would clean the room when the Were—the girl—had been wheeled out to the helicopter. I went to the side of the narrow bed and took her hand.
I bent down close.
"Maria-Star, you know my voice?" I asked quietly. Her face was swollen from its impact with the ground, and it was covered with scratches and scrapes. These were the smallest of her injuries, but they looked very painful to me.
"Yes," she breathed.
"I'm the one that found you by the side of the road," I said. "On the way to my house, south of Bon Temps. You were lying by the parish road."
"Understand," she murmured.
"I guess," I continued carefully, "that someone made you get out of his car, and that someone then hit you with the car. But you know how it is after a trauma, sometimes people don't remember anything." One of the nurses turned to me, her face curious. She'd caught the last part of my sentence. "So don't worry if you don't remember."
"I'll try," she said ambiguously, still in that hushed, faraway voice.
There was nothing more I could do here, and a lot more that could go wrong, so I whispered "Good-bye," told the nurses I appreciated them, and went out to my car. Thanks to the blankets (which I supposed I'd have to replace for Bill), my backseat wasn't messed up too bad.
I was glad to find something to be pleased about.
I wondered about the blankets. Did the police have them? Would the hospital call me about them? Or had they been pitched in the garbage? I shrugged. There was no point worrying about two rectangles of material anymore, when I had so much else crammed on my worry list. For one thing, I didn't like the Weres congregating at Merlotte's. That pulled Sam way too far into Were concerns. He was a shifter, after all, and shifters were much more loosely involved with the supernatural world. Shifters tended to be more "every shifter for himself," while the Weres were always organized. Now they were using Merlotte's for a meeting place, after hours.
And then there was Eric. Oh, Lord, Eric would be waiting for me at the house.
I found myself wondering what time it was in Peru. Bill had to be having more fun than I was. It seemed like I'd gotten worn out on New Year's Eve and never caught up; I'd never felt this exhausted.
I was just past the intersection where I'd turned left, the road that eventually passed Merlotte's. The headlights illuminated flashes of trees and bushes. At least there were no more vampires running down the side . . .
"Wake up," said the woman sitting by me on the front seat.
"What?" My eyelids popped open. The car swerved violently.
"You were falling asleep."
By this time, I wouldn't have been surprised if a beached whale had lain across the road.
"You're who?" I asked, when I felt my voice might be under my control.
"Claudine."
It was hard to recognize her in the dashboard light, but sure enough, it seemed to be the tall and beautiful woman who'd been in Merlotte's New Year's Eve, who'd been with Tara the previous morning. "How did you get in my car? Why are you here?"
"Because there's been an unusual amount of supernatural activity in this area in the past week or two. I'm the go-between."
"Go between what?"
"Between the two worlds. Or, more accurately, between the three worlds."
Sometimes life just hands you more than you take. Then you just accept.
"So, you're like an angel? That's how come you woke me up when I was falling asleep at the wheel?"
"No, I haven't gotten that far yet. You're too tired to take this in. You have to ignore the mythology and just accept me for what I am."
I felt a funny jolt in my chest.
"Look," Claudine pointed out. "That man's waving to you."
Sure enough, in Merlotte's parking lot there stood a semaphoring vampire. It was Chow.
"Oh, just great," I said, in the grumpiest voice I could manage. "Well, I hope you don't mind us stopping, Claudine. I need to go in."
"Sure, I wouldn't miss it."
Chow waved me to the rear of the bar, and I was astonished to find the employee parking area jam-packed with cars that had been invisible from the road.
"Oh, boy!" Claudine said. "A party!" She got out of my car as if she could hardly restrain her glee, and I had the satisfaction of seeing that Chow was absolutely stupefied when he took in all six feet of her. It's hard to surprise a vampire.
"Let's go in," Claudine said gaily, and took my hand.
Chapter 9
Every supe I'd ever met was in Merlotte's. Or maybe it just seemed like that, since I was dead tired and wanted to be by myself. The Were pack was there, all in human form and all more or less dressed, to my relief.
Alcide was in khakis and an unbuttoned shirt in green and blue plaid. It was hard to believe he could run on four legs. The Weres were drinking coffee or soft drinks, and Eric (looking happy and healthy) was having some TrueBlood. Pam was sitting on a barstool, wearing an ash green tracksuit, which she managed to make prim-but-sexy. She had a bow in her hair and beaded sneakers on her feet. She'd brought Gerald with her, a vampire I'd met once or twice at Fangtasia. Gerald looked about thirty, but I'd heard him refer to Prohibition once as if he'd lived through it. What little I knew of Gerald didn't predispose me to getting closer to him.
Even in such a company, my entrance with Claudine was nothing short of sensational. In the improved lighting of the bar, I could see that Claudine's strategically rounded body was packed into an orange knit dress, and her long legs ended in the highest of high heels. She looked like a scrumptious slut, super-sized.
Nope, she couldn't be an angel—at least, as I understood angels.
Looking from Claudine to Pam, I decided it was massively unfair that they looked so clean and appealing. Like I needed to feel unattractive, in addition to being worn out and scared and confused! Doesn't every gal want to walk into a room side by side with a gorgeous woman who practically has "I want to fuck" tattooed on her forehead? If I hadn't caught a glimpse of Sam, whom I'd dragged into this whole thing, I would've turned around and walked right out.
"Claudine," said Colonel Flood. "What brings you here?"
Pam and Gerald were both staring at the woman in orange intently, as if they expected her to take off her clothes any second.
"My girl, here"—and Claudine inclined her head toward me—"fell asleep at the wheel. How come you aren't watching out for her better?"
The colonel, as dignified in his civvies as he had been in his skin, looked a little startled, as if it was news to him that he was supposed to provide protection for me. "Ah," he said. "Uh . . ."
"Should have sent someone to the hospital with her," Claudine said, shaking her waterfall of black hair.
"I offered to go with her," Eric said indignantly. "She said it would be too suspicious if she went to the hospital with a vampire."
"Well, hel-lo, tall, blond, and dead," Claudine said. She looked Eric up and down, admiring what she saw. "You in the habit of doing what human women ask of you?"
Thanks a lot, Claudine, I told her silently. I was supposed to be guarding Eric, and now he wouldn't even shut the door if I told him to. Gerald was still ogling her in the same stunned way. I wondered if anyone would notice if I stretched out on one of the tables and went to sleep. Suddenly, just as Pam's and Gerald's had done, Eric's gaze sharpened and he seemed fixed on Claudine. I had time to think it was like watching cats that'd suddenly spotted something skittering along the baseboards before big hands spun me around and Alcide gathered me to him. He'd maneuvered through the crowd in the bar until he'd reached me. Since his shirt wasn't buttoned, I found my face pressed against his warm chest, and I was glad to be there. The curly black hair did smell faintly of dog, true, but otherwise I was comforted at being hugged and cherished. It felt delightful.
"Who are you?" Alcide asked Claudine. I had my ear against his chest and I could hear him from inside and outside, a strange sensation.
"I'm Claudine, the fairy," the huge woman said. "See?"
I had to turn to see what she was doing. She'd lifted her long hair to show her ears, which were delicately pointed.
"Fairy," Alcide repeated. He sounded as astonished as I felt.
"Sweet," said one of the younger Weres, a spiky-haired male who might be nineteen. He looked intrigued with the turn of events, and he glanced around at the other Weres seated at his table as if inviting them to share his pleasure. "For real?"
"For a while," Claudine said. "Sooner or later, I'll go one way or another." No one understood that, with the possible exception of the colonel.
"You are one mouthwatering woman," said the young Were. To back up the fashion statement of the spiked hair, he wore jeans and a ragged Fallen Angel T-shirt; he was barefoot, though Merlotte's was cool, since the thermostat was turned down for the rest of the night. He was wearing toe rings.
"Thanks!" Claudine smiled down at him. She snapped her fingers, and there was the same kind of haze around her that enveloped the Weres when they shifted. It was the haze of thick magic. When the air cleared, Claudine was wearing a spangled white evening gown.
"Sweet," the boy repeated in a dazed way, and Claudine basked in his admiration. I noticed she was keeping a certain distance from the vampires.
"Claudine, now that you've shown off, could we please talk about something besides you?" Colonel Flood sounded as tired as I felt.
"Of course," Claudine said in an appropriately chastened voice. "Just ask away."
"First things first. Miss Stackhouse, how is Maria-Star?"
"She survived the ride to the hospital in Clarice. They're airlifting her to Shreveport, to Schumpert hospital. She may already be on her way. The doctor sounded pretty positive about her chances."
The Weres all looked at one another, and most of them let out gusty noises of relief. One woman, about thirty years old, actually did a little happy dance. The vampires, by now almost totally fixated on the fairy, didn't react at all.
"What did you tell the emergency room doctor?" Colonel Flood asked. "I have to let her parents know what the official line is." Maria-Star would be their first-born, and their only Were child.
"I told the police that I found her by the side of the road, that I didn't see any signs of a car braking or anything. I told them she was lying on the gravel, so we won't have to worry about grass that isn't pressed down when it ought to be. . . . I hope she got it. She was pretty doped up when I talked to her."
"Very good thinking," Colonel Flood said. "Thanks, Miss Stackhouse. Our pack is indebted to you."
I waved my hand to disclaim any debt. "How did you come to show up at Bill's house at the right time?"
"Emilio and Sid tracked the witches to the right area." Emilio must be the small, dark man with huge brown eyes. There was a growing immigrant Mexican population in our area, and Emilio was apparently a part of that community. The spike-haired boy gave me a little wave, and I assumed he must be Sid. "Anyway, after dark, we started keeping an eye on the building where Hallow and her coven are holed up. It's hard to do; it's a residential neighborhood that's mostly black." African-American twins, both girls, grinned at each
other. They were young enough to find this exciting, like Sid. "When Hallow and her brother left for Bon Temps, we followed them in our cars. We called Sam, too, to warn him."
I looked at Sam reproachfully. He hadn't warned me, hadn't mentioned the Weres were heading our way, too.
Colonel Flood went on, "Sam called me on my cell to tell me where he figured they were heading when they walked out of his bar. I decided an isolated place like the Compton house would be a good place to get them. We were able to park our cars in the cemetery and change, so we got there just in time. But they caught our scent early." The colonel glared at Sid. Apparently, the younger Were had jumped the gun.
"So they got away," I said, trying to sound neutral. "And now they know you're on to them."
"Yes, they got away. The murderers of Adabelle Yancy. The leaders of a group trying to take over not only the vamps' territory, but ours." Colonel Flood had been sweeping the assembled Weres with a cold gaze, and they wilted under his stare, even Alcide. "And now the witches'll be on their guard, since they know we're after them."
Their attention momentarily pulled from the radiant fairy Claudine, Pam and Gerald seemed discreetly amused by the colonel's speech. Eric, as always these days, looked as confused as if the colonel were speaking in Sanskrit.
"The Stonebrooks went back to Shreveport when they left Bill's?" I asked.
"We assume so. We had to change back very quickly—no easy matter—and then get to our cars. A few of us went one way, a few another, but we caught no glimpse of them."
"And now we're here. Why?" Alcide's voice was harsh.
"We're here for several reasons," the packmaster said. "First, we wanted to know about Maria-Star. Also, we wanted to recover for a bit before we drive back to Shreveport ourselves."
The Weres, who seemed to have pulled their clothes on pretty hastily, did look a little ragged. The dark-moon transformation and the rapid change back to two-legged form had taken a toll on all of them.
"And why are you here?" I asked Pam.
"We have something to report, too," she said. "Evidently, we have the same goals as the Weres—on this matter, anyway." She tore her gaze away from Claudine with an effort. She and Gerald exchanged glances, and as one, they turned to Eric, who looked back at them blankly. Pam sighed, and Gerald looked down at his booted feet.
"Our nest mate Clancy didn't return to us last night," Pam said. Hard on this startling announcement, she focused once again on the fairy. Claudine seemed to have some overwhelming allure for the vampires.
Most of the Weres looked like they were thinking that one less vampire was a step in the right direction. But Alcide said, "What do you think has happened?"
"We got a note," Gerald said, one of the few times I'd ever heard him speak out loud. He had a faint English accent. "The note said that the witches plan to drain one of our vampires for each day they have to search for Eric."
All eyes went to Eric, who looked stunned. "But why?" he asked. "I can't understand what makes me such a prize."
One of the Were girls, a tan blonde in her late twenties, took silent issue with that. She rolled her eyes toward me, and I could only grin back. But no matter how good Eric looked, and what ideas interested parties might have about the fun to be had with him in bed (and on top of that, the control he had over various vampire enterprises in Shreveport), this single-minded pursuit of Eric rang the "Excessive" alarm. Even if Hallow had sex with Eric, and then drained him dry and consumed all his blood—Wait, there was an idea.
"How much blood can be got from one of you?" I asked Pam.
She stared at me, as close to surprised as I'd ever seen her. "Let me see," she said. She stared into space, and her fingers wiggled. It looked like Pam was translating from one unit of measurement to another. "Six quarts," she said at last.
"And how much blood do they sell in those little vials?"
"That's . . ." She did some more figuring. "Well, that would be less than a fourth of a cup." She anticipated where I was heading. "So Eric contains over ninety-six salable units of blood."
"How much you reckon they could charge for that?"
"Well, on the street, the price has reached $225 for regular vampire blood," Pam said, her eyes as cold as winter frost. "For Eric's blood . . . He is so old. . . ."
"Maybe $425 a vial?"
"Conservatively."
"So, on the hoof, Eric's worth . . ."
"Over forty thousand dollars."
The whole crowd stared at Eric with heightened interest—except for Pam and Gerald, who along with Eric had resumed their contemplation of Claudine. They appeared to have inched closer to the fairy.
"So, do you think that's enough motivation?" I asked. "Eric spurned her. She wants him, she wants his stuff, and she wants to sell his blood."
"That's a lot of motivation," agreed a Were woman, a pretty brunette in her late forties.
"Plus, Hallow's nuts," Claudine said cheerfully.
I didn't think the fairy had stopped smiling since she'd appeared in my car. "How do you know that, Claudine?" I asked.
"I've been to her headquarters," she said.
We all regarded her in silence for a long moment, but not as raptly as the three vampires did.
"Claudine, have you gone over?" Colonel Flood asked. He sounded more tired than anything else.
"James," Claudine said. "Shame on you! She thought I was an area witch."
Maybe I wasn't the only one who was thinking that such overflowing cheer was a little weird. Most of the fifteen or so Weres in the bar didn't seem too comfortable around the fairy. "It would have saved us a lot of trouble if you'd told us that earlier than tonight, Claudine," the colonel said, his tone frosty.
"A real fairy," Gerald said. "I've only had one before."
"They're hard to catch," Pam said, her voice dreamy. She edged a little closer.
Even Eric had lost his blank and frustrated mien and took a step toward Claudine. The three vamps looked like chocaholics at the Hershey factory.
"Now, now," Claudine said, a little anxiously. "Anything with fangs, take a step back!"
Pam looked a bit embarrassed, and she tried to relax. Gerald subsided unwillingly. Eric kept creeping forward.
Neither of the vampires nor any of the Weres looked willing to take Eric on. I mentally girded my loins. After all, Claudine had awakened me before I could crash my car.
"Eric," I said, taking three quick steps to stand between Eric and the fairy. "Snap out of it!"
"What?" Eric paid no more attention to me than he would to a fly buzzing around his head.
"She's off limits, Eric," I said, and Eric's eyes did flicker down to my face.
"Hi, remember me?" I put my hand on his chest to slow him down. "I don't know why you're in such a lather, fella, but you need to hold your horses."
"I want her," Eric said, his blue eyes blazing down into mine.
"Well, she's gorgeous," I said, striving for reasonable, though actually I was a little hurt. "But she's not available. Right, Claudine?" I aimed my voice back over my shoulder.
"Not available to a vampire," the fairy said. "My blood is intoxicating to a vampire. You don't want to know what they'd be like after they had me." But she still sounded cheerful.
So I hadn't been too far wrong with the chocolate metaphor. Probably this was why I hadn't encountered any fairies before; I was too much in the company of the undead.
When you have thoughts like that, you know you're in trouble.
"Claudine, I guess we need you to step outside now," I said a little desperately. Eric was pushing against me, not testing me seriously yet (or I'd be flat on my back), but I'd had to retreat a step already. I wanted to hear what Claudine had to tell the Weres, but I realized separating the vamps from the fairy was top priority.
"Just like a big petit four," Pam sighed, watching Claudine twitch her white-spangled butt all the way out the front door with Colonel Flood close behind her. Eric seemed to snap to once Claudine was out of sight, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
"Vamps really like fairies, huh?" I said nervously.
"Oh, yeah," they said simultaneously.
"You know, she saved my life, and she's apparently helping us out on this witch thing," I reminded them.
They looked sulky.
"Claudine was actually quite helpful," Colonel Flood said as he reentered, sounding surprised. The door swung shut behind him.
Eric's arm went around me, and I could feel one kind of hunger being morphed into another.
"Why was she in their coven headquarters?" Alcide asked, more angrily than was warranted.
"You know fairies. They love to flirt with disaster, they love to role-play." The packmaster sighed heavily. "Even Claudine, and she's one of the good ones. Definitely on her way up. What she tells me is this: This Hallow has a coven of about twenty witches. All of them are Weres or the larger shifters. They are all vampire blood users, maybe addicts."
"Will the Wiccans help us fight them?" asked a middle-aged woman with dyed red hair and a couple of chins.
"They haven't committed to it yet." A young man with a military haircut—I wondered if he was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base—seemed to know the story on the Wiccans. "Acting on our packmaster's orders, I called or otherwise contacted every Wiccan coven or individual Wiccan in the area, and they are all doing their best to hide from these creatures. But I saw signs that most of them were heading for a meeting tonight, though I don't know where. I think they are going to discuss the situation on their own. If they could mount an attack as well, it would help us."
"Good work, Portugal," said Colonel Flood, and the young man looked gratified.
Since we had our backs to the wall, Eric had felt free to let his hand roam over my bottom. I didn't object to the sensation, which was very pleasant, but I did object to the venue, which was too darn public.
"Claudine didn't say anything about prisoners who might have been there?" I asked, taking a step away from Eric.
"No, I'm sorry, Miss Stackhouse. She didn't see anyone answering your brother's description, and she didn't see the vampire Clancy."
I wasn't exactly surprised, but I was very disappointed. Sam said, "I'm sorry, Sookie. If Hallow doesn't have him, where can he be?"
"Of course, just because she didn't see him, doesn't mean he's not there for sure," the colonel said. "We're sure she took Clancy, and Claudine didn't catch sight of him."
"Back to the Wiccans," suggested the red-haired Were. "What should we do about them?"
"Tomorrow, Portugal, call all your Wiccan contacts again," Colonel Flood said. "Get Culpepper to help you."
Culpepper was a young woman with a strong, handsome face and a no-nonsense haircut. She looked pleased to be included in something Portugal was doing. He looked pleased, too, but he tried to mask it under a brusque manner. "Yes, sir," he said snappily. Culpepper thought that was cute as hell; I was lifting that directly from her brain. Were she might be, but you couldn't disguise an admiration that intense. "Uh, why am I calling them again?" Portugal asked after a long moment.
"We need to know what they plan to do, if they'll share that with us," Colonel Flood said. "If they're not with us, they can at least stay out of the way."
"So, we're going to war?" This was from an older man, who seemed to be a pair with the red-haired woman.
"It was the vampires that started it," the redheaded woman said.
"That is so untrue," I said indignantly.
"Vamp humper," she said.
I'd had worse things said about me, but not to my face, and not from people who intended me to hear them.
Eric had left the floor before I could decide if I was more hurt or more enraged. He had instantly opted for enraged, and it made him very effective. She was on the ground on her back and he was on top of her with fangs extended before anyone could even be alarmed. It was lucky for the red-haired woman that Pam and Gerald were equally swift, though it took both of them to lift Eric off the redheaded Were. She was bleeding only a little, but she was yelping nonstop.
For a long second, I thought the whole room was going to erupt into battle, but Colonel Flood roared, "SILENCE!" and you didn't disobey that voice.
"Amanda," he said to the red-haired woman, who was whimpering as though Eric had removed a limb, and whose companion was busy checking out her injuries in a wholly unnecessary panic, "you will be polite to our allies, and you will keep your damn opinions
to yourself. Your offense cancels out the blood he spilled. No retaliation, Parnell!" The male Were snarled at the colonel, but finally gave a grudging nod.
"Miss Stackhouse, I apologize for the poor manners of the pack," Colonel Flood said to me. Though I was still upset, I made myself nod. I couldn't help but notice that Alcide was looking from me to Eric, and he looked—well, he looked appalled. Sam had the sense to be quite expressionless. My back stiffened, and I ran a quick hand over my eyes to dash away the tears.
Eric was calming down, but it was with an effort. Pam was murmuring in his ear, and Gerald was keeping a good grip on his arm.
To make my evening perfect, the back door to Merlotte's opened once again, and Debbie Pelt walked in.
"Y'all are having a party without me." She looked at the odd assemblage and raised her eyebrows. "Hey, baby," she said directly to Alcide, and ran a possessive hand down his arm, twining her fingers with his. Alcide had an odd expression on his face. It was as though he was simultaneously happy and miserable.
Debbie was a striking woman, tall and lean, with a long face. She had black hair, but it wasn't curly and disheveled like Alcide's. It was cut in asymmetrical tiny clumps, and it was straight and swung with her movement. It was the dumbest haircut I'd ever seen, and it had undoubtedly cost an arm and a leg. Somehow, men didn't seem to be interested in her haircut.
It would have been hypocritical of me to greet her. Debbie and I were beyond that. She'd tried to kill me, a fact that Alcide knew; and yet she still seemed to exercise some fascination for him, though he'd thrown her out when he first learned of it. For a smart and practical and hardworking man, he had a great big blind spot, and here it was, in tight Cruel Girl jeans and a thin orange sweater that hugged every inch of skin. What was she doing here, so far from her own stomping grounds?
I felt a sudden impulse to turn to Eric and tell him that Debbie had made a serious attempt on my life, just to see what would happen. But I restrained myself yet again. All this restraint was plain painful. My fingers were curled under, transforming my hands into tight fists.
"We'll call you if anything more happens in this meeting," Gerald said. It took me a minute to understand I was being dismissed, and that it was because I had to take Eric back to my house lest he erupt again. From the look on his face, it wouldn't take much. His eyes were
glowing blue, and his fangs were at least half extended. I was more than ever tempted to . . . no, I was not. I would leave.
"Bye, bitch," Debbie said, as I went out the door. I caught a glimpse of Alcide turning to her, his expression appalled, but Pam grabbed me by the arm and hustled me out into the parking lot. Gerald had a hold of Eric, which was a good thing, too.
As the two vampires handed us out to Chow, I was seething.
Chow thrust Eric into the passenger's seat, so it appeared I was the designated driver. The Asian vamp said, "We'll call you later, go home," and I was about to snap back at him. But I glanced over at my passenger and decided to be smart instead and get out of there quickly. Eric's belligerence was dissolving into a muddle. He looked confused and lost, as unlike the hair-trigger avenger he'd been only a few minutes before as you can imagine.
We were halfway home before Eric said anything. "Why are vampires so hated by Weres?" he asked.
"I don't know," I answered, slowing down because two deer bounded across the road. You see the first one, you always wait: There'll be another one, most often. "Vamps feel the same about Weres and shifters. The supernatural community seems to band together against humans, but other than that, you guys squabble a lot, at least as far as I can tell." I took a deep breath and considered phraseology. "Um, Eric, I appreciate your taking my part, when that Amanda called me a name. But I'm pretty used to speaking up for myself when I think it's called for. If I were a vampire, you wouldn't feel you had to hit people on my behalf, right?"
"But you're not as strong as a vampire, not even as strong as a Were," Eric objected.
"No argument there, honey. But I also wouldn't have even thought of hitting her, because that would give her a reason to hit me back."
"You're saying I made it come to blows when I didn't need to."
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
"I embarrassed you."
"No," I said instantly. Then I wondered if that wasn't exactly the case. "No," I repeated with more conviction, "you didn't embarrass me. Actually, it made me feel good, that you felt, ah, fond enough of me to be angry when Amanda acted like I was something stuck to her shoe. But I'm used to that treatment, and I can handle it. Though Debbie's taking it to a whole different level."
The new, thoughtful Eric gave that a mental chewing over.
"Why are you used to that?" he asked.
It wasn't the reaction I'd expected. By that time we were at the house, and I checked out the surrounding clearing before I got out of the car to unlock the back door. When we were safely inside with the dead bolt shot, I said, "Because I'm used to people not thinking much of barmaids. Uneducated barmaids. Uneducated telepathic barmaids. I'm used to people thinking I'm crazy, or at least off mentally. I'm not trying to sound like I think I'm Poor Pitiful Pearl, but I don't have a lot of fans, and I'm used to that."
"That confirms my bad opinion of humans in general," Eric said. He pulled my coat off my shoulders, looked at it with distaste, hung it on the back of one of the chairs pushed in under the kitchen table. "You are beautiful."
No one had ever looked me in the eyes and said that. I found I had to lower my head. "You are smart, and you are loyal," he said relentlessly, though I waved a hand to ask him to quit. "You have a sense of fun and adventure."
"Cut it out," I said.
"Make me," he said. "You have the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. You're brave." I put my fingers across his mouth, and his tongue darted out to give them a quick lick. I relaxed against him, feeling the tingle down to my toes. "You're responsible and hardworking," he continued. Before he could tell me that I was good about replacing the garbage can liner when I took the garbage out, I replaced my fingers with my lips.
"There," he said softly, after a long moment. "You're creative, too."
For the next hour, he showed me that he, too, was creative.
It was the only hour in an extremely long day that I hadn't been consumed with fear: for the fate of my brother, about Hallow's malevolence, about the horrible death of Adabelle Yancy. There were probably a few more things that made me fearful, but in such a long day it was impossible to pick any one thing that was more awful than the other.
As I lay wrapped up in Eric's arms, humming a little wordless tune as I traced the line of his shoulder with an idle finger, I was bone-deep grateful for the pleasure he'd given me. A piece of happiness should never be taken as due.
"Thank you," I said, my face pressed to his silent chest.
He put a finger under my chin so I would raise my eyes to his. "No," he said quietly. "You took me in off the road and kept me safe. You're ready to fight for me. I can tell this about you. I can't believe my luck. When this witch is defeated, I would bring you to my side. I will share everything I have with you. Every vampire who owes me fealty will honor you."
Was this medieval, or what? Bless Eric's heart, none of that was going to happen. At least I was smart enough, and realistic enough, not to deceive myself for a minute, though it was a wonderful fantasy. He was thinking like a chieftain with thralls at his disposal, not like a ruthless head vampire who owned a tourist bar in Shreveport.
"You've made me very happy," I said, which was certainly the truth.