True Blood Book Two Chapters 9-11

Chapter 9
We'd fought before, Bill and I. I'd gotten fed up before, tired of the vampirey stuff I had to learn to accommodate, frightened of getting in deeper. Sometimes, I just wanted to see humans for a while.
So for over three weeks, that was what I did. I didn't call Bill; he didn't call me. I knew he was back from Dallas because he left my suitcase on my front porch. When I unpacked it, I found a black velvet jeweler's box tucked in the side pocket. I wish I'd had the strength to keep from opening it, but I didn't. Inside was a pair of topaz earrings, and a note that said, "To go with your brown dress." Which meant the taupe knit thing I'd worn to the vampires' headquarters. I stuck my tongue out at the box, and drove over to his house that afternoon to leave it in his mailbox. He'd finally gone out and bought me a present, and here I had to return it.
I didn't even try to "think things through." I figured my brain would clear up in a while, and then I would know what to do.
I did read the papers. The vampires of Dallas and their human friends were now martyrs, which probably suited Stan down to the ground. The Dallas Midnight Massacre was being touted in all the newsmagazines as the perfect example of a hate crime. Legislatures were being pressured to pass all kinds of laws that would never make it onto the books, but it made people feel better to think they might; laws that would provide vampire-owned buildings with federal protection, laws that would permit vampires to hold certain elected positions (though no one yet suggested a vampire could run for the U.S. Senate or serve as a representative). There was even a motion in the Texas legislature to appoint a vampire as legal executioner of the state. After all, a Senator Garza was quoted as saying, "Death by vampire bite is at least supposed to be painless, and the vampire receives nutrition from it."
I had news for Senator Garza. Vampire bites were only pleasant by the will of the vampire. If the vampire didn't glamour you first, a serious vampire bite (as opposed to a love nip) hurt like hell.
I wondered if Senator Garza was related to Luna, but Sam told me that "Garza" was as common among Americans of Mexican descent as "Smith" was among Americans of English stock.
Sam didn't ask why I wanted to know. That made me feel a little forlorn, because I was used to feeling important to Sam. But he was preoccupied these days, on the job and off. Arlene said she thought he was dating someone, which was a first, as far as any of us could remember. Whoever she was, none of us got to see her, which was strange in and of itself. I tried to tell him about the shapeshifters of Dallas, but he just smiled and found an excuse to go do something else.
My brother, Jason, dropped by the house for lunch one day. It wasn't like it had been when my grandmother was alive. Gran would have a huge meal on the table at lunchtime, and then we'd
just eat sandwiches at night. Jason had come by pretty frequently then; Gran had been an excellent cook. I managed to serve him meatloaf sandwiches and potato salad (though I didn't tell him it was from the store), and I had some peach tea fixed, which was lucky.
"What's with you and Bill?" he asked bluntly, when he was through. He'd been real good about not asking on the drive back from the airport.
"I got mad at him," I said.
"Why?"
"He broke a promise to me," I said. Jason was trying hard to act like a big brother, and I should try to accept his concern instead of getting mad. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that possibly I had a pretty hot temper. Under some circumstances. I locked my sixth sense down firmly, so I would only hear what Jason was actually saying.
"He's been seen over in Monroe."
I took a deep breath. "With someone else?"
"Yes."
"Who?"
"You're not going to believe this. Portia Bellefleur."
I couldn't have been more surprised if Jason had told me Bill had been dating Hillary Clinton (though Bill was a Democrat). I stared at my brother as if he'd suddenly announced he was Satan. The only things Portia Bellefleur and I had in common were a birthplace, female organs, and long hair. "Well," I said blankly. "I don't know whether to pitch a fit or laugh. What do you make of that?"
Because if anyone knew about man-woman stuff, it was Jason. At least, he knew about it from the man's point of view.
"She's your opposite," he said, with undue thoughtfulness. "In every way that I can think of. She's real educated, she comes from an, I guess you'd call it, aristocratic background, and she's a lawyer. Plus, her brother's a cop. And they go to symphonies and shit."
Tears prickled at my eyes. I would have gone to a symphony with Bill, if he'd ever asked me.
"On the other hand, you're smart, you're pretty, and you're willing to put up with his little ways." I wasn't exactly sure what Jason meant by that, and thought it better not to ask. "But we sure ain't aristocracy. You work in a bar, and your brother works on a road crew." Jason smiled at me lopsidedly.
"We've been here as long as the Bellefleurs," I said, trying not to sound sullen.
"I know that, and you know that. And Bill sure knows that, because he was alive then." True enough.
"What's happening about the case against Andy?" I asked.
"No charges brought against him yet, but the rumors are flying around town thick and fast about this sex club thing. Lafayette was so pleased to have been asked; evidently he mentioned it to quite a few people. They say that since the first rule of the club is Keep Silent, Lafayette got whacked for his enthusiasm."
"What do you think?"
"I think if anyone was forming a sex club around Bon Temps, they woulda called me," he said, dead serious.
"You're right," I said, struck again by how sensible Jason could be. "You'd be number one on the list." Why hadn't I thought of that before? Not only did Jason have a reputation as a guy who'd heated up many a bed, he was both very attractive and unmarried.
"The only thing I can think of," I said slowly, "Lafayette was gay, as you well know."
"And?"
"And maybe this club, if it exists, only accepts people who are all right with that."
"You might have a point there," Jason said.
"Yes, Mr. Homophobe."
Jason smiled and shrugged. "Everybody's got a weak point," he said. "Plus, as you know, I've been going out with Liz pretty steady. I think anyone with a brain would see Liz ain't about to share a napkin, much less a boyfriend."
He was right. Liz's family notoriously took "Neither a borrower nor a lender be" to a complete extreme.
"You are a piece of work, brother," I said, focusing on his shortcomings, rather than those of Liz's folks. "There are so many worse things to be than gay."
"Such as?"
"Thief, traitor, murderer, rapist . . ."
"Okay, okay, I get the idea."
"I hope you do," I said. Our differences grieved me. But I loved Jason anyway; he was all I had left.
I saw Bill out with Portia that same night. I caught a glimpse of them together in Bill's car, driving down Claiborne Street. Portia had her head turned to Bill, talking; he was looking straight ahead, expressionless, as far as I could tell. They didn't see me. I was coming from the automated teller at the bank, on my way to work.
Hearing of and seeing directly are two very different things. I felt an overwhelming surge of rage; and I understood how Bill had felt, when he'd seen his friends dying. I wanted to kill someone. I just wasn't sure who I wanted to kill.
Andy was in the bar that evening, sitting in Arlene's section. I was glad, because Andy looked bad. He was not clean-shaven, and his clothes were rumpled. He came up to me as he was leaving, and I could smell the booze. "Take him back," he said. His voice was thick with anger. "Take the damn vampire back so he'll leave my sister alone."
I didn't know what to say to Andy Bellefleur. I just stared at him until he stumbled out of the bar. It crossed my mind that people wouldn't be as surprised to hear of a dead body in his car now as they had been a few weeks ago.
The next night I had off, and the temperature dropped. It was a Friday, and suddenly I was tired of being alone. I decided to go to the high school football game. This is a townwide pastime in Bon Temps, and the games are discussed thoroughly on Monday morning in every store in town. The film of the game is shown twice on a local-access channel, and boys who show promise with pigskin are minor royalty, more's the pity.
You don't show up at the game all disheveled.
I pulled my hair back from my forehead in an elastic band and used my curling iron on the rest, so I had thick curls hanging around my shoulders. My bruises were gone. I put on complete makeup, down to the lip liner. I put on black knit slacks and a black-and-red sweater. I wore my black leather boots, and my gold hoop earrings, and I pinned a red-and-black bow to hide the elastic band in my hair. (Guess what our school colors are.)
"Pretty good," I said, viewing the result in my mirror. "Pretty damn good." I gathered up my black jacket and my purse and drove into town.
The stands were full of people I knew. A dozen voices called to me, a dozen people told me how cute I looked, and the problem was . . . I was miserable. As soon as I realized this, I pasted a smile on my face and searched for someone to sit with.
"Sookie! Sookie!" Tara Thornton, one of my few good high school friends, was calling me from high up in the stands. She made a frantic beckoning gesture, and I smiled back and began to hike up, speaking to more people along the way. Mike Spencer, the funeral home director, was there, in his favorite western regalia, and my grandmother's good friend Maxine Fortenberry, and her grandson Hoyt, who was a buddy of Jason's. I saw Sid Matt Lancaster, the ancient lawyer, bundled up beside his wife.
Tara was sitting with her fiancé, Benedict Tallie, who was inevitably and regrettably called "Eggs." With them was Benedict's best friend, JB du Rone. When I saw JB, my spirits began to rise, and so did my repressed libido. JB could have been on the cover of a romance novel, he was so lovely. Unfortunately, he didn't have a brain in his head, as I'd discovered on our handful of dates. I'd often thought I'd hardly have to put up any mental shield to be with JB, because he had no thoughts to read.
"Hey, how ya'll doing?"
"We're great!" Tara said, with her party-girl face on. "How about you? I haven't seen you in a coon's age!" Her dark hair was cut in a short pageboy, and her lipstick could have lit a fire, it was so hot. She was wearing off-white and black with a red scarf to show her team spirit, and she and Eggs were sharing a drink in one of the paper cups sold in the stadium. It was spiked; I could smell the bourbon from where I stood. "Move over, JB, and let me sit with you," I said with an answering smile.
"Sure, Sookie," he said, looking very happy to see me. That was one of JB's charms. The others included white perfect teeth, an absolutely straight nose, a face so masculine yet so handsome that it made you want to reach out and stroke his cheeks, and a broad chest and trim waist. Maybe not quite as trim as it used to be, but then, JB was human, and that was a Good Thing. I settled in between Eggs and JB, and Eggs turned to me with a sloppy smile.
"Want a drink, Sookie?"
I am kind of spare on drinking, since I see its results every day. "No, thank you," I said. "How you been doing, Eggs?"
"Good," he said, after considering. He'd had more to drink than Tara. He'd had too much to drink.
We talked about mutual friends and acquaintances until the kickoff, after which the game was the sole topic of conversation. The Game, broadly, because every game for the past fifty years lay in the collective memory of Bon Temps, and this game was compared to all other games, these players to all others. I could actually enjoy this occasion a little, since I had developed my mental shielding to such an extent I could pretend people were exactly what they said, since I was absolutely not listening in.
JB snuggled closer and closer, after a shower of compliments on my hair and my figure. JB's mother had taught him early on that appreciated women are happy women, and it was a simple philosophy that had kept JB's head above water for some time.
"You remember that doctor at that hospital, Sookie?" he asked me suddenly, during the second quarter.
"Yes. Dr. Sonntag. Widow." She'd been young to be a widow, and younger to be a doctor. I'd introduced her to JB.
"We dated for a while. Me and a doctor," he said wonderingly.
"Hey, that's great." I'd hoped as much. It had seemed to me that Dr. Sonntag could sure use what JB had to offer, and JB needed . . . well, he needed someone to take care of him.
"But then she got rotated back to Baton Rouge," he told me. He looked a little stricken. "I guess I miss her." A health care system had bought our little hospital, and the emergency room doctors were brought in for four months at a stretch. His arm tightened around my shoulders. "But it's awful good to see you," he reassured me.
Bless his heart. "JB, you could go to Baton Rouge to see her," I suggested. "Why don't you?"
"She's a doctor. She doesn't have much time off."
"She'd make time off for you."
"Do you think so?"
"Unless she's an absolute idiot," I told him.
"I might do that. I did talk to her on the phone the other night. She did say she wished I was there."
"That was a pretty big hint, JB."
"You think?"
"I sure do."
He looked perkier. "Then I'm fixing to drive to Baton Rouge tomorrow," he said again. He kissed my cheek. "You make me feel good, Sookie."
"Well, JB, right back at you." I gave him a peck on the lips, just a quick one.
Then I saw Bill staring a hole in me.
He and Portia were in the next section of seats, close to the bottom. He had twisted around and was looking up at me.
If I'd planned it, it couldn't have worked out better. This was a magnificent Screw-him moment.
And it was ruined.
I just wanted him.
I turned my eyes away and smiled at JB, and all the time what I wanted was to meet with Bill under the stands and have sex with him right then and there. I wanted him to pull down my pants and get behind me. I wanted him to make me moan.
I was so shocked at myself I didn't know what to do. I could feel my face turning a dull red. I Could not even pretend to smile.
After a minute, I could appreciate that this was almost funny. I had been brought up as conventionally as possible, given my unusual disability. Naturally, I'd learned the facts of life pretty early since I could read minds (and, as a child, had no control over what I absorbed). And I'd always thought the idea of sex was pretty interesting, though the same disability that had led to me learning so much about it theoretically had kept me from putting that theory into practice. After all, it's hard to get really involved in sex when you know your partner is wishing you were Tara Thornton instead (for example), or when he's hoping you remembered to bring a condom, or when he's criticizing your body parts. For successful sex, you have to keep your concentration fixed on what your partner's doing, so you can't get distracted by what he's thinking.
With Bill, I couldn't hear a single thing. And he was so experienced, so smooth, so absolutely dedicated to getting it right. It appeared I was as much a junkie as Hugo.
I sat through the rest of the game, smiling and nodding when it seemed indicated, trying not to look down and to my left, and finding after the halftime show was over that I hadn't heard a single song the band had played. Nor had I noticed Tara's cousin's twirling solo. As the crowd moved slowly to the parking lot after the Bon Temps Hawks had won, 28-18, I agreed to drive JB home. Eggs had sobered some by then, so I was pretty sure he and Tara would be okay; but I was relieved to see Tara take the wheel.
JB lived close to downtown in half a duplex. He asked me very sweetly to come in, but I told him I had to get home. I gave him a big hug, and I advised him to call Dr. Sonntag. I still didn't know her first name.
He said he would, but then, with JB, you couldn't really tell.
Then I had to stop and get gas at the only late-night gas station, where I had a long conversation with Arlene's cousin Derrick (who was brave enough to take the night shift), so I was a little later getting home than I had planned.
As I unlocked the front door, Bill came out of the darkness. Without a word, he grabbed my arm and turned me to him, and then he kissed me. In a minute we were pressed against the door with his body moving rhythmically against mine. I reached one hand behind myself to fumble with the lock, and the key finally turned. We stumbled into the house, and he turned me to face the couch. I gripped it with my hands and, just as I'd imagined, he pulled down my pants, and then he was in me.
I made a hoarse noise I'd never heard come from my throat before. Bill was making noises equally as primitive. I didn't think I could form a word. His hands were under my sweater, and my bra was in two pieces. He was relentless. I almost collapsed after the first time I came. "No," he growled when I was flagging, and he kept pounding. Then he increased the pace until I was almost sobbing,
and then my sweater tore, and his teeth found my shoulder. He made a deep, awful sound, and then, after long seconds, it was over.
I was panting as if I'd run a mile, and he was shivering, too. Without bothering to refasten his clothing, he turned me around to face him, and he bent his head to my shoulder again to lick the little wound. When it had stopped bleeding and begun healing, he took off everything I had on, very slowly. He cleaned me below; he kissed me above.
"You smell like him" was the only thing he said. He proceeded to erase that smell and replace it with his own.
Then we were in the bedroom, and I had a moment to be glad I'd changed the sheets that morning before he bent his mouth to mine again.
If I'd had doubts up until then, I had them no longer. He was not sleeping with Portia Bellefleur. I didn't know what he was up to, but he did not have a true relationship with her. He slid his arms underneath me and held me to him as tightly as possible; he nuzzled my neck, kneaded my hips, ran his fingers down my thighs, and kissed the backs of my knees. He bathed in me. "Spread your legs for me, Sookie," he whispered, in his cold dark voice, and I did. He was ready again, and he was rough with it, as if he were trying to prove something.
"Be sweet," I said, the first time I had spoken.
"I can't. It's been too long, next time I'll be sweet, I swear," he said, running his tongue down the line of my jaw. His fangs grazed my neck. Fangs, tongue, mouth, fingers, manhood; it was like being made love to by the Tasmanian Devil. He was everywhere, and everywhere in a hurry.
When he collapsed on top of me, I was exhausted. He shifted to lie by my side, one leg draped over mine, one arm across my chest. He might as well have gotten out a branding iron and had done with it, but it wouldn't have been as much fun for me.
"Are you okay?" he mumbled.
"Except for having run into a brick wall a few times," I said indistinctly.
We both drifted off to sleep for a little, though Bill woke first, as he always did at night. "Sookie," he said quietly. "Darling. Wake up."
"Oo," I said, slowly coming to consciousness. For the first time in weeks, I woke with the hazy conviction that all was right with the world. With slow dismay, I realized that things were far from right. I opened my eyes. Bill's were right above me.
"We have to talk," he said, stroking the hair back from my face.
"So talk." I was awake now. What I was regretting was not the sex, but having to discuss the issues between us.
"I got carried away in Dallas," he said immediately. "Vampires do, when the chance to hunt presents itself so obviously. We were attacked. We have the right to hunt down those who want to kill us."
"That's returning to days of lawlessness," I said.
"But vampires hunt, Sookie. It is our nature," he said very seriously. "Like leopards; like wolves. We are not human. We can pretend to be, when we're trying to live with people . . . in your society. We can sometimes remember what it was like to be among you, one of you. But we are not the same race. We are no longer of the same clay."
I thought this over. He'd told me this, over and over, in different words, since we'd begun seeing each other.
Or maybe, he'd been seeing me, but I hadn't been seeing him: clearly, truly. No matter how often I thought I'd made my peace with his otherness, I realized that I still expected him to react as he would if he were JB du Rone, or Jason, or my church pastor.
"I think I'm finally getting this," I said. "But you got to realize, sometimes I'm not going to like that difference. Sometimes I have to get away and cool down. I'm really going to try. I really love you." Having done my best to promise to meet him halfway, I was reminded of my own grievance. I grabbed his hair and rolled him over so I was looking down at him. I looked right in his eyes.
"Now, you tell me what you're doing with Portia."
Bill's big hands rested on my hips as he explained.
"She came to me after I got back from Dallas, the first night. She had read about what happened there, wondered if I knew anyone who'd been there that day. When I said that I had been there myself—I didn't mention you—Portia said she had information that some of the arms used in the attack had come from a place in Bon Temps, Sheridan's Sport Shop. I asked her how she had heard this; she said as a lawyer, she couldn't say. I asked her why she was so concerned, if there wasn't anything further she'd tell me about it; she said she was a good citizen and hated to see other citizens persecuted. I asked her why she came to me; she said I was the only vampire she knew."
I believed that like I believed Portia was a secret belly dancer.
I narrowed my eyes as I worked this through. "Portia doesn't care one damn thing about vampire rights," I said. "She might want to get in your pants, but she doesn't care about vampire legal issues."
"'Get in my pants?' What a turn of phrase you have."
"Oh, you've heard that before," I said, a little abashed.
He shook his head, amusement sparkling in his face. "Get in my pants," he repeated, sounding it out slowly. "I would be in your pants, if you had any on." He rubbed his hands up and down to demonstrate.
"Cut that out," I said. "I'm trying to think."
His hands were pressing my hips, then releasing, moving me back and forth on him. I began to have difficulty forming thoughts.
"Stop, Bill," I said. "Listen, I think Portia wants to be seen with you so she might be asked to join that supposed sex club here in Bon Temps."
"Sex club?" Bill said with interest, not stopping in the least.
"Yes, didn't I tell you . . . oh, Bill, no . . . Bill, I'm still worn out from last . . . Oh. Oh, God." His hands had gripped me with their great strength, and moved me purposefully, right onto his stiffness. He began rocking me again, back and forth. "Oh," I said, lost in the moment. I began to see colors floating in front of my eyes, and then I was being rocked so fast I couldn't keep track of my motion. The end came at the same time for both of us, and we clung together panting for several minutes.
"We should never separate again," Bill said.
"I don't know, this makes it almost worth it."
A little aftershock rippled his body. "No," he said. "This is wonderful, but I would rather just leave town for a few days, than fight with you again." He opened his eyes wide. "Did you really suck a bullet from Eric's shoulder?"
"Yeah, he said I had to get it out before his flesh closed over it."
"Did he tell you he had a pocketknife in his pocket?"
I was taken aback. "No. Did he? Why would he do that?"
Bill raised his eyebrows, as if I had said something quite ridiculous.
"Guess," he said.
"So I would suck on his shoulder? You can't mean that."
Bill just maintained the skeptical look.
"Oh, Bill. I fell for it. Wait a minute—he got shot! That bullet could have hit me, but instead it hit him. He was guarding me."
"How?"
"Well, by lying on top of me . . ."
"I rest my case." There was nothing old-fashioned about Bill at the moment. On the other hand, there was a pretty old-fashioned look on his face.
"But, Bill . . . you mean he's that devious?"
Again with the raised eyebrows.
"Lying on top of me is not such a big treat," I protested, "that someone should take a bullet for it. Geez. That's nuts!"
"It got some of his blood in you."
"Only a drop or two. I spit the rest out," I said.
"A drop or two is enough when you are as old as Eric is."
"Enough for what?"
"He will know some things about you, now."
"What, like my dress size?"
Bill smiled, not always a relaxing sight. "No, like how you are feeling. Angry, horny, loving."
I shrugged. "Won't do him any good."
"Probably it is not too important, but be careful from now on," Bill warned me. He seemed quite serious.
"I still can't believe someone would put themselves in a position to take a bullet for me just in the hopes I'd ingest a drop of blood getting the bullet out. That's ridiculous. You know, it seems like to me you introduced this subject so I'd quit bugging you about Portia, but I'm not going to. I think Portia believes if she's dating you, someone will ask her to go to this sex club, since if she's willing to ball a vampire, she's willing to do anything. They think," said hastily after looking at Bill's face. "So Portia figures she'll go, she'll learn stuff, she'll find out who actually killed Lafayette, Andy'll be off the hook."
"That's a complicated plot."
"Can you refute it?" I was proud to use refute, which had been on my Word of the Day calendar.
"As a matter of fact, I can't." He became immobile. His eyes were fixed and unblinking, and his hands relaxed. Since Bill doesn't breathe, he was absolutely still.
Finally he blinked. "It would have been better if she had told me the truth to begin with."
"You better not have had sex with her," I said, finally admitting to myself that the bare possibility had made me nearly blind with jealousy.
"I wondered when you were going to ask me," he said calmly. "As if I would ever bed a Bellefleur. No, she has not the slightest desire to have sex with me. She even has a hard time pretending she wants to at some later date. Portia is not much of an actress. Most of the time we are together, she takes me on wild goose chases to find this cache of arms the Fellowship has stowed here, saying all the Fellowship sympathizers are hiding them."
"So why'd you go along with any of this?"
"There's something about her that's honorable. And I wanted to see if you would be jealous."
"Oh, I see. Well, what do you think?"
"I think," he said, "I had better never see you within a yard of that handsome moron again."
"JB? I'm like his sister," I said.
"You forget, you've had my blood, and I can tell what you are feeling," Bill said. "I don't think you feel exactly like a sister to him."
"That would explain why I'm here in bed with you, right?"
"You love me."
I laughed, up against his throat.
"It's close to dawn," he said. "I have to go."
"Okay, baby." I smiled up at him as he gathered up his clothes. "Hey, you owe me a sweater and a bra. Two bras. Gabe tore one, so that was a work-related clothes injury. And you tore one last night, plus my sweater."
"That's why I bought a women's clothing store," he said smoothly. "So I could rip if the spirit moves me."
I laughed and lay back down. I could sleep for a couple more hours. I was still smiling when he let himself out of my house, and I woke up in the middle of the morning with a lightness in my heart that hadn't been there for a long time. (Well, it felt like a long time.) I walked, somewhat gingerly, into the bathroom to soak in a tubful of hot water. When I began to wash, I felt something in my earlobes. I stood up in the tub and looked over at the mirror above the sink. He'd put the topaz earrings in while I was asleep.
Mr. Last Word.
***
Since our reunion had been secret, it was I who got invited to the club first. It had never occurred to me that that might happen; but after it did, I realized that if Portia had figured she might be invited after going with a vampire, I was even primer meat.
To my surprise and disgust, the one to broach the subject was Mike Spencer. Mike was the funeral home director and the coroner in Bon Temps, and we had not always had a completely cordial relationship. However, I'd known him all my life and was used to offering him respect, a hard habit to break. Mike was wearing his funeral home duds when he came in to Merlotte's that evening, because he'd come from Mrs. Cassidy's visitation. A dark suit, white shirt, subdued striped tie, and polished wing tips changed Mike Spencer from the guy who really preferred bolo ties and pointy-toed cowboy boots.
Since Mike was at least twenty years older than me, I'd always related to him as an elder, and it shocked me silly when he approached me. He was sitting by himself, which was unusual enough to be noteworthy. I brought him a hamburger and a beer. As he paid me, he said casually, "Sookie, some of us are getting together at Jan Fowler's lake house tomorrow night and we wondered if we could get you to come."
I am fortunate I have a well-schooled face. I felt as if a pit had opened beneath my feet, and I was actually a little nauseated. I understood immediately, but I couldn't quite believe it. I opened my mind to him, while my mouth was saying, "You said 'some of us'? Who would that be, Mr. Spencer?"
"Why don't you call me Mike, Sookie?" I nodded, looking inside his head all the while. Oh, geez Louise. Ick. "Well, some of your friends will be there. Eggs, and Portia, and Tara. The Hardaways."
Tara and Eggs . . . that really shocked me.
"So, what goes on at these parties? Is this just a drinking and dancing type thing?" This was not an unreasonable question. No matter how many people knew I was supposed to be able to read minds, they almost never believed it, no matter how much evidence to the contrary they'd witnessed. Mike simply could not believe that I could receive the images and concepts floating in his mind.
"Well, we get a little wild. We thought since you'd broken up with your boyfriend, that you might want to come let your hair down a little."
"Maybe I'll come," I said, without enthusiasm. It wouldn't do to look eager. "When?"
"Oh, ten o'clock tomorrow night."
"Thanks for the invite," I said, as if remembering my manners, and then sauntered off with my tip. I thought furiously, in the odd moments I had to myself during the rest of my shift.
What good could my going serve? Could I really learn anything that would solve the mystery of Lafayette's death? I didn't like Andy Bellefleur much, and now I liked Portia even less, but it wasn't
fair that Andy might be prosecuted, his reputation ruined, for something that wasn't his fault. On the other hand, it stood to reason that no one present at a party at the lake house would trust me with any deep dark secrets until I'd become a regular, and I just couldn't stomach that. I wasn't even sure I could get through one gathering. The last thing in the world I wanted to see was my friends and my neighbors "letting their hair down." I didn't want to see them let down their hair, or anything else.
"What's the matter, Sookie?" Sam asked, so close to me that I jumped.
I looked at him, wishing that I could ask what he thought. Sam was strong and wiry, and he was clever, too. The bookkeeping, the ordering, the maintenance and planning, he never seemed to be taxed with any of it. Sam was a self-sufficient man, and I liked and trusted him.
"I'm just in a little quandary," I said. "What's up with you, Sam?"
"I got an interesting phone call last night, Sookie."
"Who from?"
"A squeaky woman in Dallas."
"Really?" I found myself smiling, really, not the grin I used to cover my nerves. "Would that be a lady of Mexican descent?"
"I believe so. She spoke of you."
"She's feisty," I said.
"She's got a lot of friends."
"Kind of friends you'd want to have?"
"I already have some good friends," Sam said, squeezing my hand briefly. "But it's always nice to know people who share your interests."
"So, are you driving over to Dallas?"
"I just might. In the meantime, she's put me in touch with some people in Ruston who also . . ."
Change their appearance when the moon is full, I finished mentally.
"How did she trace you? I didn't give her your name, on purpose, because I didn't know if you'd want me to."
"She traced you," Sam said. "And she found out who your boss was through local . . . people."
"How come you had never hooked up with them on your own?"
"Until you told me about the maenad," Sam said, "I never realized that there were so many more things I had to learn."
"Sam, you haven't been hanging around with her?"
"I've spent a few evenings in the woods with her, yes. As Sam, and in my other skin."
"But she's so evil," I blurted.
Sam's back stiffened. "She's a supernatural creature like me," he said evenly. "She's neither evil nor good, she just is."
"Oh, bullshit." I couldn't believe I was hearing this from Sam. "If she's feeding you this line, then she wants something from you." I remembered how beautiful the maenad had been, if you didn't mind bloodstains. And Sam, as a shapeshifter, wouldn't. "Oh," I said, comprehension sweeping me. Not that I could read Sam's mind clearly, since he was a supernatural creature, but I could get a lock on his emotional state, which was—embarrassed, horny, resentful, and horny.
"Oh," I said again, somewhat stiffly. "Excuse me, Sam. I didn't mean to speak ill of someone you . . . you, ah . . ." I could hardly say, "are screwing," however apropos it might be. "You're spending time with," I finished lamely. "I'm sure she's lovely once you get to know her. Of course, the fact that she cut my back to bloody ribbons may have something to do with my prejudice against her. I'll try to be more open-minded." And I stalked off to take an order, leaving Sam openmouthed behind me.
I left a message on Bill's answering machine. I didn't know what Bill intended to do about Portia, and I guessed there was a possibility someone else would be there when he played his messages, so I said, "Bill, I got invited to that party tomorrow night. Let me know if you think I should go." I didn't identify myself, since he'd know my voice. Possibly, Portia had left an identical message, an idea that just made me furious.
When I drove home that night, I half-hoped Bill would be waiting to ambush me again in an erotic way, but the house and yard were silent. I perked up when I noticed the light on my answering machine was blinking.
"Sookie," said Bill's smooth voice, "stay out of the woods. The maenad was dissatisfied with our tribute. Eric will be in Bon Temps tomorrow night to negotiate with her, and he may call you. The—other people—of Dallas, the ones who helped you, are asking for outrageous recompense from the vampires of Dallas, so I am going over there on Anubis to meet with them, with Stan. You know where I'll be staying."
Yikes. Bill wouldn't be in Bon Temps to help me, and he was out of my reach. Or was he? It was one in the morning. I called the number I'd put in my address book, for the Silent Shore. Bill had not yet checked in, though his coffin (which the concierge referred to as his "baggage") had been
put in his room. I left a message, which I had to phrase so guardedly that it might be incomprehensible.
I was really tired, since I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before, but I had no intention of going to the next night's party alone. I sighed deeply, and called Fangtasia, the vampire bar in Shreveport.
"You've reached Fantasia, where the undead live again every night," said a recording of Pam's voice. Pam was a co-owner. "For bar hours, press one. To make a party reservation, press two. To talk to a live person or a dead vampire, press three. Or, if you were intending to leave a humorous prank message on our answering machine, know this: we will find you."
I pressed three.
"Fangtasia," Pam said, as if she were bored more completely than anyone had ever been bored.
"Hi," I said, weighing in on the perky side to counteract the ennui. "This is Sookie, Pam. Is Eric around?"
"He is enthralling the vermin," Pam said. I took that to mean Eric was sprawling in a chair on the main floor of the bar, looking gorgeous and dangerous. Bill had told me that some vampires were under contract to Fangtasia, to put in one or two appearances a week of a stated duration, so the tourists would keep coming. Eric, as an owner, was there almost every night. There was another bar where vampires went of their own accord, a bar a tourist would never enter. I'd never been in it, because frankly, I see enough of bars while I'm at work.
"Could you take him the phone, please, ma'am?"
"Oh, all right," she said grudgingly. "I hear you had quite a time in Dallas," she said as she walked. Not that I could hear her steps, but the noise in the background ebbed and flowed.
"Unforgettable."
"What did you think of Stan Davis?"
Hmmm. "He's one of a kind."
"I like that nerdy, geeky look myself."
I was glad she wasn't there to see the astonished look I gave the telephone. I'd never realized Pam liked guys, too. "He certainly didn't seem to be dating anyone," I said, I hoped casually.
"Ah. Maybe I'll take a vacation to Dallas soon."
It was also news to me that vampires were interested in each other. I'd never actually seen two vampires together.
"I am here," Eric said.
"And I am here." I was a little amused at Eric's phone answering technique.
"Sookie, my little bullet-sucker," he said, sounding fond and warm.
"Eric, my big bullshitter."
"You want something, my darling?"
"I'm not your darling, and you know it, for one thing. For another—Bill said you were coming over here tomorrow night?"
"Yes, to tromp up in the woods looking for the maenad. She finds our offerings of vintage wine and a young bull inadequate."
"You took her a live bull?" I was momentarily sidetracked by the vision of Eric herding a cow into a trailer and driving it to the shoulder of the interstate and shooing it into the trees.
"Yes, indeed we did. Pam and Indira and I."
"Was it fun?"
"Yes," he said, sounding faintly surprised. "It had been several centuries since I dealt with livestock. Pam is a city girl. Indira had too much awe of the bull to be a lot of help. But if you like, the next time I have to transport animals I will give you a call, and you can go along."
"Thanks, that would be lovely," I said, feeling pretty confident that was a call I'd never get. "The reason I called you is that I need you to go to a party with me tomorrow night."
A long silence.
"Bill is no longer your bedmate? The differences you developed in Dallas are permanent?"
"What I should have said is, 'I need a bodyguard for tomorrow night.' Bill's in Dallas." I was smacking myself on the forehead with the heel of my hand. "See, there's a long explanation, but the situation is that I need to go to a party tomorrow night that's really just a . . . well, it's a . . . kind of orgy thing? And I need someone with me in case . . . just in case."
"That's fascinating," Eric said, sounding fascinated. "And since I'm going to be in the neighborhood, you thought I might do as an escort? To an orgy?"
"You can look almost human," I said.
"This is a human orgy? One that excludes vampires?"
"It's a human orgy that doesn't know a vampire is coming."
"So, the more human I look the less frightening I'll be?"
"Yes, I need to read their thoughts. Pick their brains. And if I get them thinking about a certain thing, and pick their brains, then we can get out of there." I'd just had a great idea about how to get them to think about Lafayette. Telling Eric was going to be the problem.
"So you want me to go to a human orgy, where I will not be welcome, and you want us to leave before I get to enjoy myself?"
"Yes," I said, almost squeaking in my anxiety. In for a penny, in for a pound. "And . . . do you think you could pretend to be gay?"
There was a long silence. "What time do I need to be there?" Eric asked softly.
"Um. Nine-thirty? So I can brief you?"
"Nine-thirty at your house."
"I am carrying the phone back," Pam informed me. "What did you say to Eric? He is shaking his head back and forth with his eyes shut."
"Is he laughing, even a little bit?"
"Not that I can tell," Pam said.
Chapter 10
Bill didn't call back that night, and I left for work before sunset the next day. He'd left a message on the answering machine when I came home to dress for the "party."
"Sookie, I had a hard time making out what the situation was, from your very guarded message," he said. His usually calm voice was definitely on the unhappy side. Miffed. "If you are going to this party, don't go alone, whatever you do. It isn't worth it. Get your brother or Sam to go with you."
Well, I'd gotten someone even stronger to go with me, so I should be feeling pretty virtuous. Somehow, I didn't think that my having Eric with me would reassure Bill.
"Stan Davis and Joseph Velasquez send their regards, and Barry the bellhop."
I smiled. I was sitting cross-legged on my bed wearing only an old chenille bathrobe, giving my hair a brushing while I listened to my messages.
"I haven't forgotten Friday night," Bill said, in the voice that always made me shiver. "I will never forget."
"So what happened Friday night?" Eric asked.
I shrieked. Once I could feel my heart was going to stay in my chest cavity, I scrambled off the bed and strode over to him with my fists balled.
"You are old enough to know you don't come in someone's house without knocking on the door and having it answered. Besides, when did I ever invite you inside?" I had to have extended the invitation, or else Eric couldn't have crossed the threshold.
"When I stopped by last month to see Bill. I did knock," Eric said, trying his best to look wounded. "You didn't answer, and I thought I heard voices, so I came in. I even called your name."
"You may have whispered my name." I was still furious. "But you acted bad, and you know it!"
"What are you wearing to the party?" Eric asked, effectively changing the subject. "If this is to be an orgy, what does a good girl like you wear?"
"I just don't know," I said, deflated by the reminder. "I'm sure I'm supposed to look like the kind of girl who goes to orgies, but I've never been to one and I have no idea how to start out, though I have a pretty clear idea of how I'm supposed to end up."
"I have been to orgies," he offered.
"Why does that not surprise me? What do you wear?"
"The last time I wore an animal hide; but this time I settled for this." Eric had been wearing a long trench coat. Now he threw it off dramatically, and I could only stand and stare. Normally, Eric was a blue-jeans-and-T-shirt kind of guy. Tonight, he wore a pink tank top and Lycra leggings. I don't know where he got them; I didn't know any company made Lycra leggings in Men's X-tra Large Tall. They were pink and aqua, like the swirls down the sides of Jason's truck.
"Wow," I said, since it was all I could think of to say. "Wow. That's some outfit." When you've got a big guy wearing Lycra it doesn't leave a whole lot to the imagination. I resisted the temptation to ask Eric to turn around.
"I don't believe I could be convincing as a queen," Eric said, "but I decided this sent such a mixed signal, almost anything was possible." He fluttered his eyelashes at me. Eric was definitely enjoying this.
"Oh, yes," I said, trying to find somewhere else to look.
"Shall I go through your drawers and find something for you to wear?" Eric suggested. He had actually opened the top drawer of my bureau before I said, "No, no! I'll find something!" But I couldn't find anything more informally sexy than shorts and a tee shirt. However, the shorts were some I had left over from my junior high days, and they encased me "like a caterpillar embraces a butterfly," Eric said poetically.
"More like Daisy Dukes," I muttered, wondering if the lace pattern of my bikini underwear would be imprinted on my butt for the rest of my life. I wore a matching steel blue bra with a dipping white tank top that exposed a lot of the decoration on the bra. This was one of my replacement bras, and Bill hadn't even gotten to see it yet, so I sure hoped nothing happened to it. My tan was still holding up, and I wore my hair loose.
"Hey, our hair's the same color," I said, eyeing us side by side in the mirror.
"Sure is, girlfriend." Eric grinned at me. "But are you blond all the way down?"
"Don't you wish you knew?"
"Yes," he said simply.
"Well, you'll just have to wonder."
"I am," he said. "Blond everywhere."
"I could tell as much from your chest hair."
He raised my arm to check my armpit. "You silly women, shaving your body hair," he said, dropping my arm.
I opened my mouth to say something else on the topic, suddenly realized that would lead to disaster, and said instead, "We need to go."
"Aren't you going to wear perfume?" He was sniffing all the bottles on top of my dressing table. "Oh, wear this!" He tossed me a bottle and I caught it without thinking. His eyebrows flew up. "You have had more vampire blood than I thought, Miss Sookie."
"Obsession," I said, looking at the bottle. "Oh, okay." Carefully not responding to his observation, I dabbed a little bit of Obsession between my breasts and behind my knees. I figured that way I was covered from head to toe.
"What is our agenda, Sookie?" Eric asked, eyeing this procedure with interest.
"What we're going to do is go to this stupid so-called sex party and do as little as possible in that line while I gather information from the minds of the people there."
"Pertaining to?"
"Pertaining to the murder of Lafayette Reynold, the cook at Merlotte's Bar."
"And why are we doing this?"
"Because I liked Lafayette. And to clear Andy Bellefleur of the suspicion that he murdered Lafayette."
"Bill knows you are trying to save a Bellefleur?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"You know Bill hates the Bellefleurs," Eric said, as if that were the best-known fact in Louisiana.
"No," I said. "No, I didn't know that at all." I sat down on the chair by my bed, my eyes fixed on Eric's face. "Why?"
"You'll have to ask Bill that, Sookie. And this is the only reason we're going? You're not cleverly using this as an excuse to make out with me?"
"I'm not that clever, Eric."
"I think you deceive yourself, Sookie," Eric said with a brilliant smile.
I remembered he could now sense my moods, according to Bill. I wondered what Eric knew about me that I didn't know.
"Listen, Eric," I began, as we went out the door and across the porch. Then I had to stop and cast around in my mind for how to say what I wanted to say.
He waited. The evening had been cloudy, and the woods felt closer around the house. I knew the night just seemed oppressive because I was going to go to an event personally distasteful to me. I was going to learn things about people that I didn't know and didn't want to know. It seemed stupid to be seeking the kind of information that I'd spent my life learning how to block out. But I
felt a sort of public service obligation to Andy Bellefleur to discover the truth; and I respected Portia, in an odd way, for her willingness to subject herself to something unpleasant in order to save her brother. How Portia could feel a genuine distaste for Bill was simply incomprehensible to me, but if Bill said she was frightened of him, it was true. This coming evening, the idea of seeing the true secret face of people I'd known forever was just as frightening to me.
"Don't let anything happen to me, okay?" I said to Eric directly. "I have no intention of getting intimate with any of those people. I guess I'm scared that something will happen, someone will go too far. Even for the sake of Lafayette's murder being avenged, I won't willingly have sex with any of those people." That was my real fear, one I hadn't admitted to myself until this moment: that some cog would slip, some safeguard fail, and I would be a victim. When I'd been a child, something had happened to me, something that I could neither prevent nor control, something incredibly vile. I would almost rather die than be subjected to abuse like that again. That was why I'd fought so hard against Gabe and been so relieved when Godfrey had killed him.
"You trust me?" Eric sounded surprised.
"Yes."
"That's . . . crazy, Sookie."
"I don't think so." Where that surety had come from, I didn't know, but it was there. I pulled on a thigh-length heavy sweater I had brought out with me.
Shaking his blond head, his trench coat drawn close around him, Eric opened the door to his red Corvette. I would be arriving at the orgy in style.
I gave Eric directions to Mimosa Lake, and I filled him in as much as I could on the background of this series of events as we drove (flew) down the narrow two-lane. Eric drove with great zest and élan—and the recklessness of someone extremely hard to kill.
"Remember, I'm mortal," I said, after going around a curve at a speed that made me wish my fingernails were long enough to bite.
"I think about that often," Eric said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead of him.
I didn't know what to make of that, so I let my mind drift to relaxing things. Bill's hot tub. The nice check I would get from Eric when the check from the Dallas vampires cleared. The fact that Jason had dated the same woman several months in a row, which might mean he was serious about her, or might mean he'd run through all the available women (and a few who shouldn't have been) in Renard Parish. That it was a beautiful, cool night and I was riding in a wonderful car.
"You are happy," Eric said.
"Yes. I am."
"You will be safe."
"Thanks. I know I will."
I pointed to the little sign marked FOWLER that indicated a driveway almost hidden by a stand of myrtle and hawthorn. We turned down a short, rutted gravel driveway lined with trees. It canted sharply downhill. Eric frowned as the Corvette lurched along the deep ruts. By the time the drive leveled out into the clearing where the cabin stood, the slope was enough to render the roof a little below the height of the road around the lake. There were four cars parked on the beaten dirt in front of the cabin. The windows were open to admit the sharp cool of the evening, but the shades were drawn. I could hear voices drifting out, though I couldn't make out words. I was suddenly, deeply reluctant to enter Jan Fowler's cabin.
"I could be bisexual?" Eric asked. It didn't seem to bother him; he seemed, if anything, amused. We stood by Eric's car, facing each other, my hands stuffed in the sweater pockets.
"Okay." I shrugged. Who cared? This was make believe. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone was watching us through a partially raised shade. "We're being watched."
"Then I'll act friendly."
We were out of the car by that time. Eric bent, and without yanking me to him, set his mouth on mine. He didn't grab me, so I felt fairly relaxed. I'd known that at the very minimum I'd have to kiss other people. So I set my mind to it.
Maybe I had natural talent, which had been nurtured by a great teacher. Bill had pronounced me an excellent kisser, and I wanted to do him proud.
Judging from the state of Eric's Lycra, I succeeded.
"Ready to go in?" I asked, doing my best to keep my eyes above his chest.
"Not really," Eric said. "But I suppose we have to. At least I look in the mood."
Though it was dismaying to think that this was the second time I had kissed Eric and that I had enjoyed it more than I should, I could feel a smile twitch the corners of my mouth as we crossed the bumpy ground of the clearing. We went up the steps to a large wooden deck, strewn with the usual aluminum folding chairs and a large gas grill. The screen door screeched as Eric pulled it open, and I knocked lightly on the inner door. "Who is it?" Jan's voice said.
"It's Sookie and a friend," I answered.
"Oh, goodie! Come on in!" she called.
When I pushed open the door, all the faces in the room were turned toward us. The welcoming smiles turned to startled looks as Eric came in behind me.
Eric stepped to my side, his coat over his arm, and I almost hooted at the variety of expressions. After the shock of realizing Eric was vampire, which everyone in the room did after a minute or so, eyes flickered up and down the length of Eric's body, taking in the panorama.
"Hey, Sookie, who's your friend?" Jan Fowler, a multiple divorcee in her thirties, was wearing what looked like a lace slip. Jan's hair was streaked and professionally tousled, and her makeup would have seemed in place on stage, though for a cabin by Mimosa Lake the effect was a bit much. But as hostess, I guess she felt she could wear what she wanted to her own orgy. I slid out of my sweater and endured the embarrassment of receiving the same scrutiny Eric had been given.
"This is Eric," I said. "I hope you don't mind me bringing a friend?"
"Oh, the more the merrier," she said with undoubted sincerity. Her eyes never rose to Eric's face. "Eric, what can I get you to drink?"
"Blood?" Eric asked hopefully.
"Yeah, I think I've got some O here," she said, unable to tear her gaze away from the Lycra. "Sometimes we . . . pretend." She raised her eyebrows significantly, and kind of leered at Eric.
"No need to pretend anymore," he said, giving her back look for look. On his way to join her at the refrigerator, he managed to stroke Eggs's shoulder, and Eggs's face lit up.
Oh. Well, I'd known I'd learn some things. Tara, beside him, was sulking, her dark brows drawn down over dark eyes. Tara was wearing a bra and panties of shrieking red, and she looked pretty good. Her toenails and fingernails were painted so they matched, and so did her lipstick. She'd come prepared. I met her eyes, and she looked away. It didn't take a mind reader to recognize shame.
Mike Spencer and Cleo Hardaway were on a dilapidated couch against the left-hand wall. The whole cottage, basically one large room with a sink and stove against the right-hand wall and a walled-in bathroom in the far corner, was furnished in cast-offs, because in Bon Temps that was what you did with your old furniture. However, most lake cabins would not have featured such a thick soft rug and such a lot of pillows tossed around at random, and there would not have been such thick shades drawn at all the windows. Plus, the knickknacks strewn around on that soft rug were simply nasty. I didn't even know what some of them were.
But I pasted a cheerful smile on my face, and hugged Cleo Hardaway, as I usually did when I saw her. Granted, she had always been wearing more clothes when she ran the high school cafeteria. But panties were more than Mike was wearing, which was not a stitch.
Well, I'd known it would be bad, but I guess you just can't prepare yourself for some sights. Cleo's huge milk-chocolate brown boobs were glistening with some kind of oil, and Mike's private parts were equally shiny. I didn't even want to think about that.
Mike tried to grab my hand, probably to assist with the oil, but I slithered away and edged over to Eggs and Tara.
"I sure never thought you'd come," Tara said. She was smiling, too, but not real happily. In fact, she looked pretty damn miserable. Maybe the fact that Tom Hardaway was kneeling in front of her smooching up the inside of her leg had something to do with that. Maybe it was Eggs's obvious interest in Eric. I tried to meet Tara's eyes, but I felt sick.
I'd only been here five minutes, but I was willing to bet this was the longest five minutes of my life.
"Do you do this real often?" I asked Tara, absurdly. Eggs, his eyes on Eric's bottom while Eric stood talking at the refrigerator with Jan, began fumbling with the button on my shorts. Eggs had been drinking again. I could smell it. His eyes were glassy and his jaw was slack. "Your friend is really big," he said, as if his mouth were watering, and maybe it was.
"Lots bigger than Lafayette," I whispered, and his gaze jerked up to meet mine. "I figured he'd be welcome."
"Oh, yes," Eggs said, deciding not to confront my statement. "Yes, Eric's . . . very large. It's good to have some diversity."
"This is as rainbow as Bon Temps gets," I said, trying hard not to sound perky. I endured Eggs's continued struggle with the button. This had been a big mistake. Eggs was just thinking about Eric's butt. And other things about Eric.
Speaking of the devil, he snugged up behind me and ran his arms around me, pulling me to him and removing me from Eggs's clumsy fingers. I leaned back into Eric, really glad he was there. I realized that was because I expected Eric to misbehave. But seeing people you'd known all your life act like this, well, it was deeply disgusting. I wasn't too sure I could keep my face from showing this, so I wiggled against Eric, and when he made a happy sound, I turned in his arms to face him. I put my arms up around his neck and raised my face. He happily complied with my silent suggestion. With my face concealed, my mind was free to roam. I opened myself up mentally, just as Eric parted my lips with his tongue, so I felt completely unguarded. There were some strong "senders" in that room, and I no longer felt like myself, but like a pipeline for other people's overwhelming needs.
I could taste the flavor of Eggs's thoughts. He was remembering Lafayette, thin brown body, talented fingers, and heavily made up eyes. He was remembering Lafayette's whispered suggestions. Then he was choking those happy memories off with more unpleasant ones, Lafayette protesting violently, shrilly . . .
"Sookie," Eric said in my ear, so low that I don't think another person in the room could've heard him. "Sookie, relax. I have you."
I made my hand stroke his neck. I found that someone else was behind Eric, sort of making out with him from behind.
Jan's hand reached around Eric and began rubbing my rear. Since she was touching me, her thoughts were absolutely clear; she was an exceptional "sender." I flicked through her mind like the pages of a book, and read nothing of interest. She was only thinking of Eric's anatomy, and worrying about her own fascination with Cleo's chest. Nothing there for me.
I reached in another direction, wormed into the head of Mike Spencer, found the nasty tangle I'd expected, found that as he rolled Cleo's breasts in his hands he was seeing other brown flesh, limp and lifeless. His own flesh rose as he remembered this. Through his memories I saw Jan asleep on the lumpy couch, Lafayette's protest that if they didn't stop hurting him he would tell everyone what he'd done and with whom, and then Mike's fists descending, Tom Hardaway kneeling on the thin dark chest . . .
I had to get out of here. I couldn't bear it, even if I hadn't just learned what I needed to know. I didn't see how Portia could have endured it, either, especially since she would have had to stay to learn anything, not having the "gift" I had.
I felt Jan's hand massaging my ass. This was the most joyless excuse for sex I had ever seen: sex separated from mind and spirit, from love or affection. Even simple liking.
According to my four-times-married friend Arlene, men had no problem with this. Evidently, some women didn't either.
"I have to get out," I breathed into Eric's mouth. I knew he could hear me.
"Go along with me," he replied, and it was almost as if I was hearing him in my head.
He lifted me and slung me over his shoulder. My hair trailed down almost to the middle of his thigh.
"We're going outside for a minute," he told Jan, and I heard a big smacking noise. He'd given her a kiss.
"Can I come, too?" she asked, in a breathless Marlene Dietrich voice. It was lucky my face wasn't showing.
"Give us a minute. Sookie is still a little shy," Eric said in a voice as full of promise as a tub of a new flavor of ice cream.
"Warm her up good," Mike Spencer said in a muffled voice. "We all want to see our Sookie fired up."
"She will be hot," Eric promised.
"Hot damn," said Tom Hardaway, from between Tara's legs.
Then, bless Eric, we were out the door and he laid me out on the hood of the Corvette. He lay on top of me, but most of his weight was supported by his hands resting on the hood on either side of my shoulders.
He was looking down at me, his face clamped down like a ship's deck during a storm. His fangs were out. His eyes were wide. Since the whites were so purely white, I could see them. It was too dark to see the blue of his eyes, even if I'd wanted to.
I didn't want. "That was . . ." I began, and had to stop. I took a deep breath. "You can call me a goody two-shoes if you want to, and I wouldn't blame you, after all this was my idea. But you know what I think? I think that's awful. Do men really like that? Do women, for that matter? Is it fun to have sex with someone you don't even like?"
"Do you like me, Sookie?" Eric asked. He rested more heavily on me and moved a little.
Uh-oh. "Eric, remember why we're here?"
"They're watching."
"Even if they are, remember?"
"Yes, I remember."
"So we need to go."
"Do you have any evidence? Do you know what you wanted to find out?"
"I don't have any more evidence than I had before tonight, not evidence you can hand out in court." I made myself put my arms around his ribs. "But I know who did it. It was Mike, Tom, and maybe Cleo."
"This is interesting," Eric said, with a complete lack of sincerity. His tongue flicked into my ear. I happen to particularly like that, and I could feel my breathing speed up. Maybe I wasn't as immune to uninvolved sex as I'd thought. But then, I liked Eric, when I wasn't afraid of him.
"No, I just hate this," I said, reaching some inner conclusion. "I don't like any part of this." I shoved Eric hard, though it didn't make a bit of difference. "Eric, you listen to me. I've done everything for Lafayette and Andy Bellefleur I can, though it's precious little. He'll just have to go from here on the little snatches I caught. He's a cop. He can find court evidence. I'm not selfless enough to go any further with this."
"Sookie," Eric said. I didn't think he'd heard a word. "Yield to me."
Well, that was pretty direct.
"No," I said, in the most definite voice I could summon. "No."
"I will protect you from Bill."
"You're the one that's gonna need protection!" When I reflected on that sentence, I was not proud of it.
"You think Bill is stronger than me?"
"I am not having this conversation." Then I proceeded to have it. "Eric, I appreciate your offering to help me, and I appreciate your willingness to come to an awful place like this."
"Believe me, Sookie, this little gathering of trash is nothing, nothing, compared to some of the places I have been."
And I believed him utterly. "Okay, but it's awful to me. Now, I realize that I should've known this would, ah, rouse your expectations, but you know I did not come out here tonight to have sex with anyone. Bill is my boyfriend." Though the words boyfriend and Bill sounded ludicrous in the same sentence, "boyfriend" was Bill's function in my world, anyway.
"I am glad to hear it," said a cool, familiar voice. "This scene would make me wonder, otherwise."
Oh, great.
Eric rose up off of me, and I scrambled off the hood of the car and stumbled in the direction of Bill's voice.
"Sookie," he said, when I drew near, "it's getting to where I just can't let you go anywhere alone."
As far as I could tell in the poor lighting, he didn't look very glad to see me. But I couldn't blame him for that. "I sure made a big mistake," I said, from the bottom of my heart. I hugged him.
"You smell like Eric," he said into my hair. Well, hell, I was forever smelling like other men to Bill. I felt a flood of misery and shame, and I realized things were about to happen.
But what happened was not what I expected.
Andy Bellefleur stepped out of the bushes with a gun in his hand. His clothes looked torn and stained, and the gun looked huge.
"Sookie, step away from the vampire," he said.
"No." I wrapped myself around Bill. I didn't know if I was protecting him or he was protecting me. But if Andy wanted us separated, I wanted us joined.
There was a sudden surge of voices on the porch of the cabin. Someone clearly had been looking out of the window—I had kind of wondered if Eric had made that up—because, though no voices had been raised, the showdown in the clearing had attracted the attention of the revelers inside.
While Eric and I had been in the yard, the orgy had progressed. Tom Hardaway was naked, and Jan, too. Eggs Tallie looked drunker.
"You smell like Eric," Bill repeated, in a hissing voice.
I reared back from him, completely forgetting about Andy and his gun. And I lost my temper.
This is a rare thing, but not as rare as it used to be. It was kind of exhilarating. "Yeah, uh-huh, and I can't even tell what you smell like! For all I know you've been with six women! Hardly fair, is it?"
Bill gaped at me, stunned. Behind me, Eric started laughing. The crowd on the sundeck was silently enthralled. Andy didn't think we should all be ignoring the man with the gun.
"Stand together in a group," he bellowed. Andy had had a lot to drink.
Eric shrugged. "Have you ever dealt with vampires, Bellefleur?" he asked.
"No," Andy said. "But I can shoot you dead. I have silver bullets."
"That's—" I started to say, but Bill's hand covered my mouth. Silver bullets were only definitely fatal to werewolves, but vampires also had a terrible reaction to silver, and a vampire hit in a vital place would certainly suffer.
Eric raised an eyebrow and sauntered over to the orgiasts on the deck. Bill took my hand, and we joined them. For once, I would have loved to know what Bill was thinking.
"Which one of you was it, or was it all of you?" Andy bellowed.
We all kept silent. I was standing by Tara, who was shivering in her red underwear. Tara was scared, no big surprise. I wondered if knowing Andy's thoughts would help any, and I began to focus on him. Drunks don't make for good reading, I can tell you, because they only think about stupid stuff, and their ideas are quite unreliable. Their memories are shaky, too. Andy didn't have too many thoughts at the moment. He didn't like anyone in the clearing, not even himself, and he was determined to get the truth out of someone.
"Sookie, come here," he yelled.
"No," Bill said very definitely.
"I have to have her right here beside me in thirty seconds, or I shoot—her!" Andy said, pointing his gun right at me.
"You will not live thirty seconds after, if you do," Bill said.
I believed him. Evidently Andy did, too.
"I don't care," Andy said. "She's not much loss to the world."
Well, that made me mad all over again. My temper had begun to die down, but that made it flare up in a big way.
I yanked free from Bill's hand and stomped down the steps to the yard. I wasn't so blind with anger that I ignored the gun, though I was sorely tempted to grab Andy by his balls and squeeze. He'd still shoot me, but he'd hurt, too. However, that was as self-defeating as drinking was. Would the moment of satisfaction be worth it?
"Now, Sookie, you read the minds of those people and you tell me which one did it," Andy ordered. He gripped the back of my neck with his big hands, like I was an untrained puppy, and swiveled me around to face the deck.
"What the hell do you think I was doing here, you stupid shit? Do you think this is the way I like to spend my time, with assholes like these?"
Andy shook me by my neck. I am very strong, and there was a good chance that I could break free from him and grab the gun, but it was not close enough to a sure thing to make me comfortable. I decided to wait for a minute. Bill was trying to tell me something with his face, but I wasn't sure what it was. Eric was trying to cop a feel from Tara. Or Eggs. It was hard to tell.
A dog whined at the edge of the woods. I rolled my eyes in that direction, unable to turn my head. Well, great. Just great.
"That's my collie," I told Andy. "Dean, remember?" I could have used some human-shaped help, but since Sam had arrived on the scene in his collie persona, he'd have to stay that way or risk exposure.
"Yeah. What's your dog doing out here?"
"I don't know. Don't shoot him, okay?"
"I'd never shoot a dog," he said, sounding genuinely shocked.
"Oh, but me, it's okay," I said bitterly.
The collie padded over to where we were standing. I wondered what was on Sam's mind. I wondered if he retained much human thinking while he was in his favorite form. I rolled my eyes toward the gun, and Sam/Dean's eyes followed mine, but how much comprehension was in there, I just couldn't estimate.
The collie began to growl. His teeth were bared and he was glaring at the gun.
"Back up, dog," Andy said, annoyed.
If I could just hold Andy still for a minute, the vampires could get him. I tried to work out all the moves in my mind. I'd have to grab his gun hand with both of my hands and force it up. But with Andy holding me out from him like this, that wasn't going to be easy.
"No, sweetheart," Bill said.
My eyes flashed over to him. I was considerably startled. Bill's eyes moved from my face to behind Andy. I could take a hint.
"Oh, who is being held like a little cub?" inquired a voice behind Andy.
Oh, this was just peachy.
"It is my messenger!" The maenad sauntered around Andy in a wide circle and came to stand to his right, a few feet before him. She was not between Andy and the group on the deck. She was clean tonight, and wearing nothing at all. I guessed she and Sam had been out in the woods making whoopee, before they heard the crowd. Her black hair fell in a tangled mass all the way to her hips. She didn't seem cold. The rest of us (except the vampires) were definitely feeling the nip in the air. We'd come dressed for an orgy, not an outdoors party.
"Hello, messenger," the maenad said to me. "I forgot to introduce myself last time, my canine friend reminds me. I am Callisto."
"Miss Callisto," I said, since I had no idea what to call her. I would have nodded, but Andy had hold of my neck. It was sure beginning to hurt.
"Who is this stalwart brave gripping you?" Callisto moved a little closer.
I had no idea what Andy looked like, but everyone on the deck was enthralled and terrified, Eric and Bill excepted. They were easing back, away from the humans. This wasn't good.
"This is Andy Bellefleur," I croaked. "He has a problem."
I could tell from the way my skin crawled that the maenad had eased forward a little.
"You have never seen anything like me, have you?" she said to Andy.
"No," Andy admitted. He sounded dazed.
"Am I beautiful?"
"Yes," he said, without hesitation.
"Do I deserve tribute?"
"Yes," he said.
"I love drunkenness, and you are very drunk," Callisto said happily. "I love pleasures of the flesh, and these people are full of lust. This is my kind of place."
"Oh, good," Andy said uncertainly. "But one of these people is a murderer, and I need to know which."
"Not just one," I muttered. Reminded I was on the end of his arm, Andy shook me again. I was getting really tired of this.
The maenad had gotten close enough now to touch me. She gently stroked my face, and I smelled earth and wine on her fingers.
"You are not drunk," she observed.
"No, ma'am."
"And you have not had the pleasures of the flesh this evening."
"Oh, just give me time," I said.
She laughed. It was a high, whooping laugh. It went on and on.
Andy's grip loosened, as he grew more and more disconcerted by the maenad's nearness. I don't know what the people on the deck thought they saw. But Andy knew he was seeing a creature of the night. He let go of me, quite suddenly.
"Come on up here, new girl," called Mike Spencer. "Let's have a look at you."
I was on a heap on the ground by Dean, who was licking my face enthusiastically. From that point of view, I could see the maenad's arm snake around Andy's waist. Andy transferred his gun to his left hand so he could return the compliment.
"Now, what did you want to know?" she asked Andy. Her voice was calm and reasonable. She idly waved the long wand with the tuft on the end. It was called a thyrsis; I'd looked maenad up in the encyclopedia. Now I could die educated.
"One of those people killed a man named Lafayette, and I want to know which one," Andy said with the belligerence of the drunk.
"Of course you do, my darling," the maenad crooned. "Shall I find out for you?"
"Please," he begged.
"All right." She scanned the people, and crooked her finger at Eggs. Tara held on to his arm to try to keep him with her, but he lurched down the steps and over to the maenad, grinning foolishly all the while.
"Are you a girl?" Eggs asked.
"Not by any stretch of the imagination," Callisto said. "You have had a lot of wine." She touched him with the thyrsis.
"Oh, yeah," he agreed. He wasn't smiling anymore. He looked into Callisto's eyes, and he shivered and shook. Her eyes were glowing. I looked at Bill, and saw he had his own eyes focused on the ground. Eric was looking at the hood of his car. Ignored by everyone, I began to crawl toward Bill.
This was a fine kettle of fish.
The dog paced beside me, nosing me anxiously. I felt he wanted me to move faster. I reached Bill's legs and gripped them. I felt his hand on my hair. I was scared to make the large movement of rising to my feet.
Callisto wrapped her thin arms around Eggs and began to whisper to him. He nodded and whispered back. She kissed him, and he went rigid. When she left him to glide over to the deck, he stood absolutely still, staring into the woods.
She stopped by Eric, who was closer to the deck than we were. She looked him up and down, and smiled that terrifying smile again. Eric looked at her chest fixedly, careful not to meet her eyes. "Lovely," she said, "just lovely. But not for me, you beautiful piece of dead meat."
Then she was up amongst the people on the deck. She took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of drinking and sex. She sniffed as if she were following a trail, and then she swung to face Mike Spencer. His middle-aged body did not fare well in the chilly air, but Callisto seemed delighted with him.
"Oh," she said as happily as though she'd just gotten a present, "you're so proud! Are you a king? Are you a great soldier?"
"No," Mike said. "I own a funeral home." He didn't sound too sure. "What are you, lady?"
"Have you ever seen anything like me before?"
"No," he said, and all the others shook their heads.
"You don't remember my first visit?"
"No, ma'am."
"But you've made me an offering before."
"I have? An offering?"
"Oh, yes, when you killed the little black man. The pretty one. He was a lesser child of mine, and a fitting tribute for me. I thank you for leaving him outside the drinking place; bars are my particular delight. Could you not find me in the woods?"
"Lady, we didn't make no offering," Tom Hardaway said, his dark skin all over goose pimples and his penis gone south.
"I saw you," she said.
Everything fell silent then. The woods around the lake, always full of little noises and tiny movements, became still. I very carefully rose to my feet beside Bill.
"I love the violence of sex, I love the reek of drink," she said dreamily. "I can run from miles away to be there for the end."
The fear pouring out of their heads began to fill mine up, and run out. I covered my face with my hands. I threw up the strongest shields I could fashion, but I could still barely contain the terror. My back arched, and I bit my tongue to keep from making a sound. I could feel the movement as Bill turned to me, and then Eric was by his side and they were both mashing me between them. There is not a thing erotic about being pressed between two vampires under those circumstances. Their own urgent desire for my silence fed the fear, because what would frighten vampires? The dog pressed against our legs as if he offered us protection.
"You hit him during sex," the maenad said to Tom. "You hit him, because you are proud, and his subservience disgusted and excited you." She stretched her bony hand to caress Tom's dark face. I could see the whites of his eyes. "And you"—she patted Mike with her other hand—"you beat him, too, because you were seized with the madness. Then he threatened to tell." Her hand left Tom and rubbed his wife, Cleo. Cleo had thrown on a sweater before she went out, but it wasn't buttoned.
Since she had avoided notice, Tara began backing up. She was the only one who wasn't paralyzed by fear. I could feel the tiny spark of hope in her, the desire to survive. Tara crouched under a wrought-iron table on the deck, made herself into a little ball, and squeezed her eyes shut. She was making a lot of promises to God about her future behavior, if he'd get her out of this. That poured into my mind, too. The reek of fear from the others built to a peak, and I could feel my body go into tremors as they broadcast so heavily that it broke through all my barriers. I had nothing left of myself. I was only fear. Eric and Bill locked arms with each other, to hold me upright and immobile between them.
Jan, in her nudity, was completely ignored by the maenad. I can only suppose that there was nothing in Jan that appealed to the creature; Jan was not proud, she was pathetic, and she hadn't had a drink that night. She embraced sex out of other needs than the need for its loss of self—needs that had nothing to do with leaving one's mind and body for a moment of wonderful madness. Trying, as always, to be the center of the group, Jan reached out with a would-be flirty smile and took the maenad's hand. Suddenly she began to convulse, and the noises coming from her throat were horrible. Foam came from her mouth, and her eyes rolled up. She collapsed to the deck, and I could hear her heels drumming the wood.
Then the silence resumed. But something was brewing a few yards away in the little group on the deck: something terrible and fine, something pure and horrible. Their fear was subsiding, and my
body began to calm again. The awful pressure eased in my head. But as it ebbed, a new force began to build, and it was indescribably beautiful and absolutely evil.
It was pure madness, it was mindless madness. From the maenad poured the berserker rage, the lust of pillage, the hubris of pride. I was overwhelmed when the people on the deck were overwhelmed, I jerked and thrashed as the insanity rolled off Callisto and into their brains, and only Eric's hand across my mouth kept me from screaming as they did. I bit him and tasted his blood, and heard him grunt at the pain.
It went on and on and on, the screaming, and then there were awful wet sounds. The dog, pressed against our legs, whimpered.
Suddenly, it was over.
I felt like a. dancing puppet whose strings have suddenly been severed. I went limp. Bill laid me down on Eric's car hood again. I opened my eyes. The maenad looked down at me. She was smiling again, and she was drenched in blood. It was like someone had poured a bucket of red paint over her head; her hair was drenched, as was every bit of her bare body, and she reeked of the copper smell, enough to set your teeth on edge.
"You were close," she said to me, her voice as sweet and high as a flute. She moved a little more deliberately, as if she'd eaten a heavy meal. "You were very close. Maybe as close as you'll ever come, maybe not. I've never seen anyone maddened by the insanity of others. An entertaining thought."
"Entertaining for you, maybe," I gasped. The dog bit my leg to bring me to myself. She looked down at him.
"My dear Sam," she murmured. "Darling, I must leave you."
The dog looked up at her with intelligent eyes.
"We've had some good nights running through the woods," she said, and stroked his head. "Catching little rabbits, little coons."
The dog wagged his tail.
"Doing other things."
The dog grinned and panted.
"But it's time for me to go, darling. The world is full of woods and people that need to learn their lesson. I must be paid tribute. They mustn't forget me. I'm owed," she said, in her sated voice, "owed the madness and death." She began to drift to the edge of the woods.
"After all," she said over her shoulder, "it can't always be hunting season."
Chapter 11
Even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't have walked over to see what was on the deck. Bill and Eric seemed subdued, and when vampires seem subdued, it means you don't really want to go investigate.
"We'll have to burn the cabin," Eric said from a few yards away. "I wish Callisto had taken care of her own mess."
"She never has," Bill said, "that I have heard. It is the madness. What does true madness care about discovery?"
"Oh, I don't know," Eric said carelessly. He sounded as if he was lifting something. There was a heavy thud. "I have seen a few people who were definitely mad and quite crafty with it."
"That's true," Bill said. "Shouldn't we leave a couple of them on the porch?"
"How can you tell?"
"That's true, too. It's a rare night I can agree with you this much."
"She called me and asked me to help." Eric was responding to the subtext rather than the statement.
"Then, all right. But you remember our agreement."
"How can I forget?"
"You know Sookie can hear us."
"Quite all right with me," Eric said, and laughed. I stared up at the night and wondered, not too curiously, what the hell they were talking about. It's not like I was Russia, to be parceled out to the strongest dictator. Sam was resting beside me, back in his human form, and stark naked. At the moment, I could not have cared less. The cold didn't bother Sam, since he was a shapeshifter.
"Whoops, here's a live one," Eric called.
"Tara," Sam called.
Tara scrambled down the steps of the deck and over to us. She flung her arms around me and began sobbing. With tremendous weariness, I held her and let her boo-hoo. I was still in my Daisy Duke outfit, and she was in her fire-engine lingerie. We were like big white water lilies in a cold pond, we two. I made myself straighten up and hold Tara.
"Would there be a blanket in that cabin, you think?" I asked Sam. He trotted over to the steps, and I noticed the effect was interesting from behind. After a minute, he trotted back—wow, this view was even more arresting—and wrapped a blanket around the two of us.
"I must be gonna live," I muttered.
"Why do you say that?" Sam was curious. He didn't seem unduly surprised by the events of the night.
I could hardly tell him it was because I'd watched him bounce around, so I said, "How are Eggs and Andy?"
"Sounds like a radio show," Tara said suddenly, and giggled. I didn't like the sound of it.
"They're still standing where she left them," Sam reported. "Still staring."
"I'm—still—staring," Tara sang, to the tune of Elton's "I'm Still Standing."
Eric laughed.
He and Bill were just about to start the fire. They strolled over to us for a last-minute check.
"What car did you come in?" Bill asked Tara.
"Ooo, a vampire," she said. "You're Sookie's honey, aren't you? Why were you at the game the other night with a dog like Portia Bellefleur?"
"She's kind, too," Eric said. He looked down at Tara with a sort of beneficent but disappointed smile, like a dog breeder regarding a cute, but inferior, puppy.
"What car did you come in?" Bill asked again. "If there is a sensible side to you, I want to see it now."
"I came in the white Camaro," she said, quite soberly. "I'll drive it home. Or maybe I better not. Sam?"
"Sure, I'll drive you home. Bill, you need my help here?"
"I think Eric and I can cope. Can you take the skinny one?"
"Eggs? I'll see."
Tara gave me a kiss on the cheek and began picking her way across the yard to her car. "I left the keys in it," she called.
"What about your purse?" The police would surely wonder if they found Tara's purse in a cabin with a lot of bodies.
"Oh . . . it's in there."
I looked at Bill silently, and he went in to fetch the purse. He returned with a big shoulder bag, large enough to contain not only makeup and everyday items, but also a change of clothing.
"This is yours?"
"Yes, thanks," Tara said, taking the bag from him as if she were afraid his fingers might touch hers. She hadn't been so picky earlier in the evening, I thought.
Eric was carrying Eggs to her car. "He will not remember any of this," Eric told Tara as Sam opened the back door of the Camaro so Eric could lay Eggs inside.
"I wish I could say the same." Her face seemed to sag on its bones under the weight of the knowledge of what had happened this night. "I wish I'd never seen that thing, whatever she is. I wish I'd never come here, to start with. I hated doing this. I just thought Eggs was worth it." She gave a look to the inert form in the backseat of her car. "He's not. No one is."
"I can remove your memory, too." Eric made the offer offhandedly.
"No," she said. "I need to remember some of this, and it's worth carrying the burden of the rest." Tara sounded twenty years older. Sometimes we can grow up all in a minute; I'd done that when I was about seven and my parents died. Tara had done that this night.
"But they're all dead, all but me and Eggs and Andy. Aren't you afraid we'll talk? Are you gonna come after us?"
Eric and Bill exchanged glances. Eric moved a little closer to Tara. "Look, Tara," he began, in a very reasonable voice, and she made the mistake of glancing up. Then, once her gaze was fixed, Eric began to erase the memory of the night. I was just too tired to protest, as if that would do any good. If Tara could even raise the question, she shouldn't be burdened with the knowledge. I hoped she wouldn't repeat her mistakes, having been separated from the knowledge of what they had cost her; but she couldn't be allowed to tell tales.
Tara and Eggs, driven by Sam (who had borrowed Eggs's pants), were on their way back to town when Bill began arranging -a natural-looking fire to consume the cabin. Eric was apparently counting bones up on the deck, to make sure the bodies there were complete enough to reassure the investigators. He went across the yard to check on Andy.
"Why does Bill hate the Bellefleurs so much?" I asked him again.
"Oh, that's an old story," Eric said. "Back from before Bill had even changed over." He seemed satisfied by Andy's condition and went back to work.
I heard a car approaching, and Bill and Eric both appeared in the yard instantly. I could hear a faint crackle from the far side of the cabin. "We can't start the fire from more than one place, or they may be able to tell it wasn't natural," Bill said to Eric. "I hate these strides in police science."
"If we hadn't decided to go public, they'd have to blame it on one of them," Eric said. "But as it is, we are such attractive scapegoats . . . it's galling, when you think of how much stronger we are."
"Hey, guys, I'm not a Martian, I'm a human, and I can hear you just fine," I said. I was glaring at them, and they were looking perhaps one-fiftieth embarrassed, when Portia Bellefleur got out of her car and ran to her brother. "What have you done to Andy?" she said, her voice harsh and cracking. "You damn vampires." She pulled the collar of Andy's shirt this way and that, looking for puncture marks.
"They saved his life," I told her.
Eric looked at Portia for a long moment, evaluating her, and then he began to search the cars of the dead revelers. He'd gotten their car keys, which I didn't want to picture.
Bill went over to Andy and said, "Wake up," in the quietest voice, so quiet it could hardly be heard a few feet away.
Andy blinked. He looked over at me, confused that I wasn't still in his grasp, I guess. He saw Bill, so close to him, and he flinched, expecting retaliation. He registered that Portia was at his side. Then he looked past Bill at the cabin.
"It's on fire," he observed, slowly.
"Yes," Bill said. "They are all dead, except the two who've gone back into town. They knew nothing."
"Then . . . these people did kill Lafayette?"
"Yes," I said. "Mike, and the Hardaways, and I guess maybe Jan knew about it."
"But I haven't got any proof."
"Oh, I think so," Eric called. He was looking down into the trunk of Mike Spencer's Lincoln.
We all moved to the car to see. Bill's and Eric's superior vision made it easy for them to tell there was blood in die trunk, blood and some stained clothes and a wallet. Eric reached down and carefully flipped the wallet open.
"Can you read whose it is?" Andy asked.
"Lafayette Reynold," Eric said.
"So if we just leave the cars like this, and we leave, the police will find what's in the trunk and it'll all be over. I'll be clear."
"Oh, thank God!" Portia said, and gave a kind of sobbing gasp. Her plain face and thick chestnut hair caught a gleam of moonlight filtering through the trees. "Oh, Andy, let's go home."
"Portia," Bill said, "look at me."
She glanced up at him, then away. "I'm sorry I led you on like that," she said rapidly. She was ashamed to apologize to a vampire, you could tell. "I was just trying to get one of the people who came here to invite me, so I could find out for myself what was going on."
"Sookie did that for you," Bill said mildly.
Portia's gaze darted over to me. "I hope it wasn't too awful, Sookie," she said, surprising me.
"It was really horrible," I said. Portia cringed. "But it's over."
"Thank you for helping Andy," Portia said bravely.
"I wasn't helping Andy. I was helping Lafayette," I snapped.
She took a deep breath. "Of course," she said, with some dignity. "He was your coworker."
"He was my friend," I corrected.
Her back straightened. "Your friend," she said.
The fire was catching in the cabin now, and soon there would be police and firefighters. It was definitely time to leave.
I noticed neither Eric nor Bill offered to remove any memories from Andy.
"You better get out of here," I said to him. "You better go back to your house, with Portia, and tell your grandmama to swear you were there all night."
Without a word, brother and sister piled into Portia's Audi and left. Eric folded himself into the Corvette for the drive back to Shreveport, and Bill and I went through the woods to Bill's car, concealed in the trees across the road. He carried me, as he enjoyed doing. I have to say, I enjoyed it, too, on occasion. This was definitely one of the occasions.
It wasn't far from dawn. One of the longest nights of my life was about to come to a close. I lay back against the seat of the car, tired beyond reckoning.
"Where did Callisto go?" I asked Bill.
"I have no idea. She moves from place to place. Not too many maenads survived the loss of the god, and the ones that did find woods, and roam them. They move before their presence is
discovered. They're crafty like that. They love war and its madness. You'll never find them far from a battlefield. I think they'd all move to the Middle East if there were more woods."
"Callisto was here because . . . ?"
"Just passing through. She stayed maybe two months, now she'll work her way . . . who knows? To the Everglades, or up the river to the Ozarks."
"I can't understand Sam, ah, palling around with her."
"That's what you call it? Is that what we do, pal around?"
I reached over and poked him in the arm, which was like pressing on wood. "You," I said.
"Maybe he just wanted to walk on the wild side," Bill said. "After all, it's hard for Sam to find someone who can accept his true nature." Bill paused significantly.
"Well, that can be hard to do," I said. I recalled Bill coming back in the mansion in Dallas, all rosy, and I gulped. "But people in love are hard to pry apart." I thought of how I'd felt when I'd heard he'd been seeing Portia, and I thought of how I'd reacted when I'd seen him at the football game. I stretched my hand over to rest on his thigh and I gave it a gentle squeeze.
With his eyes on the road, he smiled. His fangs ran out a little.
"Did you get everything settled with the shapeshifters in Dallas?" I asked after a moment.
"I settled it in an hour, or rather Stan did. He offered them his ranch for the nights of the full moon, for the next four months."
"Oh, that was nice of him."
"Well, it doesn't cost him anything exactly. And he doesn't hunt, so the deer need culling anyway, as he pointed out."
"Oh," I said in acknowledgment, and then after a second, "ooooh."
"They hunt."
"Right. Gotcha."
When we got back to my house, it didn't lack much till dawn. Eric would just make it to Shreveport, I figured. While Bill showered, I ate some peanut butter and jelly, since I hadn't had anything for more hours than I could add up. Then I went and brushed my teeth.
At least he didn't have to rush off. Bill had spent several nights the month before creating a place for himself at my house. He'd cut out the bottom of the closet in my old bedroom, the one I'd used for years before my grandmother died and I'd started using hers. He'd made the whole closet floor into a trapdoor, so he could open it, climb in, and pull it shut after him, and no one would be the
wiser but me. If I was still up when he went to earth, I put an old suitcase in the closet and a couple of pairs of shoes to make it look more natural. Bill kept a box in the crawl space to sleep in, because it was mighty nasty down there. He didn't often stay there, but it had come in handy from time to time.
"Sookie," Bill called from my bathroom. "Come, I have time to scrub you."
"But if you scrub me, I'll have a hard time getting to sleep."
"Why?"
"Because I'll be frustrated."
"Frustrated?"
"Because I'll be clean but . . . unloved."
"It is close to dawn," Bill admitted, his head poking around the shower curtain. "But we'll have our time tomorrow night."
"If Eric doesn't make us go somewhere else," I muttered, when his head was safely under the cascade of water. As usual, he was using up most of my hot. I wriggled out of the damn shorts and resolved to throw them away tomorrow. I pulled the tee shirt over my head and stretched out on my bed to wait for Bill. At least my new bra was intact. I turned on one side, and closed my eyes against the light coming from the half-closed bathroom door.
"Darling?"
"You out of the shower?" I asked drowsily.
"Yes, twelve hours ago."
"What?" My eyes flew open. I looked at the windows. They were not pitch black, but very dark.
"You fell asleep."
I had a blanket over me, and I was still wearing the steel blue bra and panty set. I felt like moldy bread. I looked at Bill. He was wearing nothing at all.
"Hold that thought," I said and paid a visit to the bathroom. When I came back, Bill was waiting for me on the bed, propped on one elbow.
"Did you notice the outfit you got me?" I rotated to give him the full benefit of his generosity.
"It's lovely, but you may be slightly overdressed for the occasion."
"What occasion would that be?"
"The best sex of your life."
I felt a lurch of sheer lust down low. But I kept my face still. "And can you be sure it will be the best?"
"Oh, yes," he said, his voice becoming so smooth and cold it was like running water over stones. "I can be sure, and so can you."
"Prove it," I said, smiling very slightly.
His eyes were in the shadows, but I could see the curve of his lips as he smiled back. "Gladly," he said.
Some time later, I was trying to recover my strength, and he was draped over me, an arm across my stomach, a leg across mine. My mouth was so tired it could barely pucker to kiss his shoulder. Bill's tongue was gently licking the tiny puncture marks on my shoulder.
"You know what we need to do?" I said, feeling too lazy to move ever again.
"Um?"
"We need to get the newspaper."
After a long pause, Bill slowly unwrapped himself from me and strolled to the front door. My paperwoman pulls up my driveway and tosses it in the general direction of the porch because I pay her a great big tip on that understanding.
"Look," said Bill, and I opened my eyes. He was holding a foil-wrapped plate. The paper was tucked under his arm.
I rolled off the bed and we went automatically to the kitchen. I pulled on my pink robe as I padded after Bill. He was still natural, and I admired the effect.
"There's a message on the answering machine," I said, as I put on some coffee. The most important thing done, I rolled back the aluminum foil and saw a two-layer cake with chocolate icing, studded with pecans in a star pattern on the top.
"That's old Mrs. Bellefleur's chocolate cake," I said, awe in my voice.
"You can tell whose it is by looking?"
"Oh, this is a famous cake. It's a legend. Nothing is as good as Mrs. Bellefleur's cake. If she enters it in the county fair, the ribbon's as good as won. And she brings it when someone dies. Jason said it was worth someone dying, just to get a piece of Mrs. Bellefleur's cake."
"What a wonderful smell," Bill said, to my amazement. He bent down and sniffed. Bill doesn't breathe, so I haven't exactly figured out how he smells, but he does. "If you could wear that as a perfume, I would eat you up."
"You already did."
"I would do it a second time."
"I don't think I could stand it." I poured myself a cup of coffee. I stared at the cake, full of wonderment. "I didn't even know she knew where I live."
Bill pressed the message button on my answering machine. "Miss Stackhouse," said the voice of a very old, very Southern, aristocrat. "I knocked on your door, but you must have been busy. I left a chocolate cake for you, since I didn't know what else to do to thank you for what Portia tells me you've done for my grandson Andrew. Some people have been kind enough to tell me that the cake is good. I hope you enjoy it. If I can ever be of service to you, just give me a call."
"Didn't say her name."
"Caroline Holliday Bellefleur expects everyone to know who she is."
"Who?"
I looked up at Bill, who was standing by the window. I was sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee from one of my grandmother's flowered cups.
"Caroline Holliday Bellefleur."
Bill could not get any paler, but he was undoubtedly stunned. He sat down very abruptly into the chair across from me. "Sookie, do me a favor."
"Sure, baby. What is it?"
"Go over to my house and get the Bible that is in the glass-fronted bookshelf in the hallway."
He seemed so upset, I grabbed my keys and drove over in my bathrobe, hoping I wouldn't meet anyone along the way. Not too many people live out on our parish road, and none of them were out at four in the morning.
I let myself into Bill's house and found the Bible exactly where he'd said. I eased it out of the bookcase very carefully. It was obviously quite old. I was so nervous carrying it up the steps to my house that I almost tripped. Bill was sitting where I'd left him. When I'd set the Bible in front of him, he stared at it for a long minute. I began to wonder if he could touch it. But he didn't ask for help, so I waited. His hand reached out and the white fingers caressed the worn leather cover. The book was massive, and the gold lettering on the cover was ornate.
Bill opened the book with gentle fingers and turned a page. He was looking at a family page, with entries in faded ink, made in several different handwritings.
"I made these," he said in a whisper. "These here." He pointed at a few lines of writing.
My heart was in my throat as I came around the table to look over his shoulder. I put my own hand on his shoulder, to link him to the here and now.
I could barely make out the writing.
William Thomas Compton, his mother had written, or perhaps his father. Born April 9, 1840. Another hand had written Died November 25, 1868.
"You have a birthday," I said, of all the stupid things to say. I'd never thought of Bill having a birthday.
"I was the second son," Bill said. "The only son who grew up."
I remembered that Robert, Bill's older brother, had died when he was twelve or so, and two other babies had died in infancy. There all these births and deaths were recorded, on the page under Bill's fingers.
"Sarah, my sister, died childless." I remembered that. "Her young man died in the war. All the young men died in the war. But I survived, only to die later. This is the date of my death, as far as my family is concerned. It's in Sarah's handwriting."
I held my lips pressed tight, so I wouldn't make a sound. There was something about Bill's voice, the way he touched the Bible that was almost unbearable. I could feel my eyes fill with tears.
"Here is the name of my wife," he said, his voice quieter and quieter.
I bent over again to read, Caroline Isabelle Holliday. For one second, the room swung sideways, until I realized it just could not be.
"And we had children," he said. "We had three children."
Their names were there, too. Thomas Charles Compton, b. 1859. She'd gotten pregnant right after they'd married, then.
I would never have Bill's baby.
Sarah Isabelle Compton, b. 1861. Named after her aunt (Bill's sister) and her mother. She'd been born around the time Bill had left for the war. Lee Davis Compton, b. 1866. A homecoming baby. Died 1867, a different hand had added.
"Babies died like flies then," Bill whispered. "We were so poor after the war, and there wasn't any medicine."
I was about to take my sad weepy self out of the kitchen, but then I realized that if Bill could stand this, I pretty much had to.
"The other two children?" I asked.
"They lived," he said, the tension in his face easing a little. "I had left then, of course. Tom was only nine when I died, and Sarah was seven. She was towheaded, like her mother." Bill smiled a little, a smile that I'd never seen on his face before. He looked quite human. It was like seeing a different being sitting here in my kitchen, not the same person I'd made love with so thoroughly not an hour earlier. I pulled a Kleenex out of the box on the baker's rack and dabbed at my face. Bill was crying, too, and I handed him one. He looked at it in surprise, as if he'd expected to see something different—maybe a monogrammed cotton handkerchief. He patted his own cheeks. The Kleenex turned pink.
"I hadn't ever looked to see what became of them," he said wonderingly. "I cut myself off so thoroughly. I never came back, of course, while there was any chance any one of them would be alive. That would be too cruel." He read down the page.
"My descendant Jessie Compton, from whom I received my house, was the last of my direct line," Bill told me. "My mother's line, too, has thinned down, until the remaining Loudermilks are only distantly related to me. But Jessie did descend from my son Tom, and apparently, my daughter Sarah married in 1881. She had a baby in—Sarah had a baby! She had four babies! But one of them was born dead."
I could not even look at Bill. Instead, I looked at the window. It had begun raining. My grandmother had loved her tin roof, so when it had had to be replaced, we'd gotten tin again, and the drumming of the rain was normally the most relaxing sound I knew. But not tonight.
"Look, Sookie," Bill said, pointing. "Look! My Sarah's daughter, named Caroline for her grandmother, married a cousin of hers, Matthew Phillips Holliday. And her second child was Caroline Holliday." His face was glowing.
"So old Mrs. Bellefleur is your great-granddaughter."
"Yes," he said unbelievingly.
"So Andy," I continued, before I could think twice about it, "is your, ah, great-great-great-grandson. And Portia . . ."
"Yes," he said, less happily.
I had no idea what to say, so for once, I said nothing. After a minute, I got the feeling it might be better if I made myself scarce, so I tried to slip by him to get out of the small kitchen.
"What do they need?" he asked me, seizing my wrist.
Okay. "They need money," I said instantly. "You can't help them with their personality problems, but they are cash-poor in the worst possible way. Old Mrs. Bellefleur won't give up that house, and it's eating every dime."
"Is she proud?"
"I think you could tell from her phone message. If I hadn't known her middle name was Holliday, I would have thought it was 'Proud.'" I eyed Bill. "I guess she comes by it natural."
Somehow, now that Bill knew he could do something for his descendants, he seemed to feel much better. I knew he would be reminiscing for a few days, and I would not grudge him that. But if he decided to take up Portia and Andy as permanent causes, that might be a problem.
"You didn't like the name Bellefleur before this," I said, surprising myself. "Why?"
"When I spoke to your grandmother's club, you remember, the Descendants of the Glorious Dead?"
"Yes, sure."
"And I told the story, the story of the wounded soldier out in the field, the one who kept calling for help? And how my friend Tolliver Humphries tried to rescue him?"
I nodded.
"Tolliver died in the attempt," Bill said bleakly. "And the wounded soldier resumed calling for help after his death. We managed to retrieve him during the night. His name was Jebediah Bellefleur. He was seventeen years old."
"Oh my gosh. So that was all you knew of the Bellefleurs until today."
Bill nodded.
I tried to think of something of significance to say. Something about cosmic plans. Something about throwing your bread upon the waters. What goes around, comes around?
I tried to leave again. But Bill caught my arm, pulled me to him. "Thank you, Sookie."
That was the last thing I had expected him to say. "Why?"
"You made me do the right thing with no idea of the eventual reward."
"Bill, I can't make you do anything."
"You made me think like a human, like I was still alive."
"The good you do is in you, not in me."
"I am a vampire, Sookie. I have been a vampire far longer than I was human. I have upset you many times. To tell the truth, sometimes I can't understand why you do what you do sometimes, because it's been so long since I was a person. It's not always comfortable to remember what it was like to be a man. Sometimes I don't want to be reminded."
These were deep waters for me. "I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but I don't know how to be different," I said. "I'd be miserable if it wasn't for you."
"If anything happens to me," Bill said, "you should go to Eric."
"You've said that before," I told him. "If anything happens to you, I don't have to go to anyone. I'm my own person. I get to make up my mind what I want to do. You've got to make sure nothing happens to you."
"We'll be having more trouble from the Fellowship in the years to come," Bill said. "Actions will have to be taken that may be repugnant to you as a human. And there are the dangers attached to your job." He didn't mean waiting tables.
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Sitting on Bill's lap was a real treat, especially since he was still naked. My life had not exactly been full of treats until I met Bill. Now every day held a treat, or two.
In the low-lit kitchen, with the coffee smelling as beautiful (in its own way) as the chocolate cake did, and the rain drumming on the roof, I was having a beautiful moment with my vampire, what you might call a warm human moment.
But maybe I shouldn't call it that, I reflected, rubbing my cheek against Bill's. This evening, Bill had looked quite human. And I—well, I had noticed while we made love on our clean sheets, that in the darkness Bill's skin had been glowing in its beautiful otherworldly way. And mine had, too.