True Blood Book One Chapters 4-6

Chapter 4

HALF THE PATRONS of Merlotte's thought Bill had had a hand in the markings on the women's bodies. The other 50 percent thought that some of the vampires from bigger towns or cities had bitten Maudette and Dawn when they were out barhopping, and they deserved what they got if they wanted to go to bed with vampires. Some thought the girls had been strangled by a vampire, some thought they had just continued their promiscuous ways into disaster.

But everyone who came into Merlotte's was worried that some other woman would be killed, too. I couldn't count the times I was told to be careful, told to watch my friend Bill Compton, told to lock my doors and not let anyone in my house.... As if those were things I wouldn't do, normally.

Jason came in for both commiseration and suspicion as a man who'd "dated" both women. He came by the house one day and held forth for a whole hour, while Gran and I tried to encourage him to keep going with his work like an innocent man would. But for the first time in my memory, my handsome brother was really worried. I wasn't exactly glad he was in trouble, but I wasn't exactly sorry, either. I know that was small and petty of me. I am not perfect. I am so not-perfect that despite the deaths of two women I knew, I spent a substantial amount of time wondering what Bill meant about doing him proud. I had no idea what constituted appropriate dress for visiting a vampire bar. I wasn't about to dress in some kind of stupid costume, as I'd heard some bar visitors did. I sure didn't know anyone to ask.

I wasn't tall enough or bony enough to dress in the sort of spandex outfit the vampire Diane had worn. Finally I pulled a dress from the back of my closet, one I'd had little occasion to wear. It was a Nice Date dress, if you wanted the personal interest of whoever was your escort. It was cut square and low in the neck and it was sleeveless. It was tight and white. The fabric was thinly scattered with bright red flowers with long green stems. My tan glowed and my boobs showed. I wore red enamel earrings and red high-heeled screw-me shoes. I had a little red straw purse. I put on light makeup and wore my wavy hair loose down my back.

Gran's eyes opened wide when I came out of my room.

"Honey, you look beautiful," she said. "Aren't you going to be a little cold in that dress?"
I grinned. "No, ma'am, I don't think so. It's pretty warm outside."
"Wouldn't you like to wear a nice white sweater over that?"
"No, I don't think so." I laughed. I had pushed the other vampires far enough back in my mind to where looking sexy was okay again. I was pretty excited about having a date, though I had kind of asked Bill myself and it was more of a fact-finding mission. That, too, I tried to forget, so I could just enjoy myself.

Sam called me to tell me my paycheck was ready. He asked if I'd come in and pick it up, which I usually did if I wasn't going to work the next day. I drove to Merlotte's feeling a little anxious at walking in dressed up. But when I came in the door, I got the tribute of a moment of stunned silence. Sam's back was to me, but Lafayette was looking through the hatch and Rene and JB were at the bar. Unfortunately, so was my brother, Jason, whose eyes opened wide when he turned to see what Rene was staring at.

"You lookin' good, girl!" called Lafayette enthusiastically. "Where you get that dress?"
"Oh, I've had this old thing forever," I said mockingly, and he laughed. Sam turned to see what Lafayette was gawking at, and his eyes got wide, too.
"God almighty," he breathed. I walked over to ask for my check, feeling very self-conscious.
"Come in the office, Sookie," he said, and I followed him to his small cubicle by the storeroom.

Rene gave me a half-hug on my way by him, and JB kissed my cheek. Sam rummaged through the piles of paper on top of his desk, and finally came up with my check. He didn't hand it to me, though.

"Are you going somewhere special?" Sam asked, almost unwillingly.
"I have a date," I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.
"You look great," Sam said, and I saw him swallow. His eyes were hot.
"Thank you. Urn, Sam, can I have my check?"
"Sure." He handed it to me, and I popped it in my purse.
"Good-bye, then."
"Good-bye." But instead of indicating I should leave, Sam stepped over and smelled me. He put his face close to my neck and inhaled. His brilliant blue eyes closed briefly, as if to evaluate my odor. He exhaled gently, his breath hot on my bare skin. I stepped out of the door and left the bar, puzzled and interested in Sam's behavior.

When I got home a strange car was parked in front of the house. It was a black Cadillac, and it shone like glass. Bill's. Where did they get the money to buy these cars? Shaking my head, I went up the steps to the porch and walked in. Bill turned to the door expectantly; he was sitting on the couch talking to Gran, who was perched on one arm of an old overstuffed chair.

When he saw me, I was sure I'd overdone it, and he was really angry. His face went quite still. His eyes flared. His fingers curved as if he were scooping something up with them.

"Is this all right?" I asked anxiously. I felt the blood surge up into my cheeks.
"Yes," he said finally. But his pause had been long enough to anger my grandmother.
"Anyone with a brain in his head has got to admit that Sookie is one of the prettiest girls around," she said, her voice friendly on the surface but steel underneath.
"Oh, yes," he agreed, but there was a curious lack of inflection in his voice.
Well, screw him. I'd tried my best. I stiffened my back, and said, "Shall we go, then?"
"Yes," he said again, and stood. "Good-bye, Mrs. Stackhouse. It was a pleasure seeing you again."
"Well, you two have a good time," she said, mollified. "Drive careful, Bill, and don't drink too much."
He raised an eyebrow. "No, ma'am." Gran let that sail right on past.

Bill held my car door open as I got in, a carefully calculated series of maneuvers to keep as much of me as possible in the dress. He shut the door and got in on the driver's side. I wondered who had taught him to drive a car. Henry Ford, probably.

"I'm sorry I'm not dressed correctly," I said, looking straight ahead of me.
We'd been going slowly on the bumpy driveway through the woods. The car lurched to a halt.
"Who said that?" Bill asked, his voice very gentle.
"You looked at me as though I'd done something wrong," I snapped.
"I'm just doubting my ability to get you in and out without having to kill someone who wants you."
"You're being sarcastic." I still wouldn't look. His hand gripped the back of my neck, forced me to turn to him.
"Do I look like I am?" he asked.
His dark eyes were wide and unblinking.
"Ah ... no," I admitted.
"Then accept what I say."
The ride to Shreveport was mostly silent, but not uncomfortably so. Bill played tapes most of the way. He was partial to Kenny G.

Fangtasia, the vampire bar, was located in a suburban shopping area of Shreveport, close to a Sam's and a Toys 'R' Us. It was in a shopping strip, which was all closed down at this hour except for the bar. The name of the place was spelled out in jazzy red neon above the door, and the facade was painted steel gray, a red door providing color contrast. Whoever owned the place must have thought gray was less obvious than black because the interior was decorated in the same colors.

I was carded at the door by a vampire. Of course, she recognized Bill as one of her own kind and acknowledged him with a cool nod, but she scanned me intently. Chalky pale, as all Caucasian vampires are, she was eerily striking in her long black dress with its trailing sleeves. I wondered if the overdone "vampire" look was her own inclination, or if she'd just adopted it because the human patrons thought it appropriate.

"I haven't been carded in years," I said, fishing in my red purse for my driver's license. We were standing in a little boxy entrance hall.
"I can no longer tell human ages, and we must be very careful we serve no minors. In any capacity," she said with what was probably meant to be a genial smile. She cast a sideways look at Bill, her eyes flicking up and down him with an offensive interest. Offensive to me, at least. "I haven't seen you in a few months," she said to him, her voice as cool and sweet as his could be.
"I'm mainstreaming," he explained, and she nodded.
“What were you telling her?" I whispered as we walked down the short hall and through the red double doors into the main room.
"That I'm trying to live among humans." I wanted to hear more, but then I got my first comprehensive look at Fangtasia's interior.

Everything was in gray, black, and red. The walls were lined with framed pictures of every movie vampire who had shown fangs on the silver screen, from Bela Lugosi to George Hamilton to Gary Old-man, from famous to obscure. The lighting was dim, of course, nothing unusual about that; what was unusual was the clientele. And the posted signs. The bar was full. The human clients were divided among vampire groupies and tourists. The groupies (fang-bangers, they were called) were dressed in their best finery. It ranged from the traditional capes and tuxes for the men to many Morticia Adams ripoffs among the females. The clothes ranged from reproductions of those worn by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire to some modern outfits that I thought were influenced by The Hunger. Some of the fang-bangers were wearing false fangs, some had painted trickles of blood from the corners of their mouths or puncture marks on their necks. They were extraordinary, and extraordinarily pathetic.

The tourists looked like tourists anywhere, maybe more adventurous than most. But to enter into the spirit of the bar, they were nearly all dressed in black like the fang-bangers. Maybe it was part of a tour package? "Bring some black for your exciting visit to a real vampire bar! Follow the rules, and you'll be fine, catching a glimpse of this exotic underworld."

Strewn among this human assortment, like real jewels in a bin of rhinestones, were the vampires, perhaps fifteen of them. They mostly favored dark clothes, too. I stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me with interest and amazement and some distaste, and Bill whispered, "You look like a white candle in a coal mine."

I laughed, and we strolled through the scattered tables to the bar. It was the only bar I'd ever seen that had a case of warmed bottled blood on display. Bill, naturally, ordered one, and I took a deep breath and ordered a gin and tonic. The bartender smiled at me, showing me that his fangs had shot out a little at the pleasure of serving me. I tried to smile back and look modest at the same time. He was an American Indian, with long coal black straight hair and a craggy nose, a straight line of a mouth, and a whippy build.

"How's it going, Bill?" the bartender asked. "Long time,no see. This your meal for the night?" He nodded toward me as he put our drinks on the bar before us.
"This is my friend Sookie. She has some questions to ask."
"Anything, beautiful woman," said the bartender, smiling once again. I liked him better when his mouth was the straight line.
"Have you seen this woman, or this one, in the bar?" I asked, drawing the newspaper photos of
Maudette and Dawn from my purse. "Or this man?" With a jolt of misgiving, I pulled out my brother's picture.
"Yes to the women, no to the man, though he looks delicious," said the bartender, smiling at me again. "Your brother, perhaps?"
"Yes."
"What possibilities," he whispered. It was lucky I'd had extensive practice in face control.
"Do you remember who the women hung around with?"
"That's something I wouldn't know," he replied quickly, his face closing down. "That's something we don't notice, here. You won't, either."
"Thank you," I said politely, realizing I'd broken a bar rule. It was dangerous to ask who left with whom, evidently. "I appreciate your taking the time."
He looked at me consideringly. "That one," he said, poking a finger at Dawn's picture, "she wanted to die."
"How do you know?"
"Everyone who comes here does, to one extent or another," he said so matter-of-factly I could tell he took that for granted. "That is what we are. Death."

I shuddered. Bill's hand on my arm drew me away to a just-vacated booth. Underscoring the Indian's pronouncement, at regular intervals wall placards proclaimed, "No biting on premises." "No lingering in the parking lot." "Conduct your personal business elsewhere." "Your patronage is appreciated. Proceed at your own risk."

Bill took the top off the bottle with one finger and took a sip. I tried not to look, failed. Of course he saw my face, and he shook his head.

"This is the reality, Sookie," he said. "I need it to live." There were red stains between his teeth.
"Of course," I said, trying to match the matter-of-fact tone of the bartender, I took a deep breath. "Do you suppose I want to die, since I came here with you?"
"I think you want to find out why other people are dying," he said. But I wasn't sure that was what he really believed. I didn't think Bill had yet realized that his personal position was precarious. I sipped my drink, felt the blossoming warmth of the gin spread through me.

A fang-banger approached the booth. I was half-hidden by Bill, but still, they'd all seen me enter with him. She was frizzy-haired and boney, with glasses that she stuffed in a purse as she walked over. She bent across the table to get her mouth about two inches from Bill.

"Hi, dangerous," she said in what she hoped was a seductive voice. She tapped Bill's bottled blood with a fingernail painted scarlet. "I have the real stuff." She stroked her neck to make sure he got the point.

I took a deep breath to control my temper. I had invited Bill to this place; he hadn't invited me. I could not comment on what he chose to do here, though I had a surprisingly vivid mental image of leaving a slap mark on this hussy's pale, freckled cheek. I held absolutely still so I wouldn't give Bill any cues about what I wanted.
"I have a companion," Bill said gently.
"She doesn't have any puncture marks on her neck," the girl observed, acknowledging my presence with a contemptuous look. She might as well have said "Chicken!" and flapped her arms like wings. I wondered if steam was visibly coming out of my ears.
"I have a companion," Bill said again, his voice not so gentle this time.
"You don't know what you're missing," she said, her big pale eyes flashing with offense.
"Yes, I do," he said.

She recoiled as if I'd actually done the slapping, and stomped off to her table.
To my disgust, she was only the first of four. These people, men and women, wanted to be intimate with a vampire, and they weren't shy about it. Bill handled all of them with calm aplomb.

"You're not talking," he said, after a man of forty had left, his eyes actually tearing up at Bill's rejection.
"There's nothing for me to say," I replied, with great self-control.
"You could have sent them on their way. Do you want me to leave you? Is there someone else here who catches your fancy? Long Shadow, there at the bar, would love to spend time with you, I can tell."
"Oh, for God's sake, no!" I wouldn't have felt safe with any of the other vampires in the bar, would have been terrified they were like Liam or Diane. Bill had turned his dark eyes to me and seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. "I do have to ask them if they've seen Dawn and Maudette in here, though."
"Do you want me with you?"
"Please," I said, and sounded more frightened than I'd wanted to. I'd meant to ask like it would be a casual pleasure to have his company.
"The vampire over there is handsome; he has scanned you twice," he said. I almost wondered if he was doing a little tongue biting himself.
"You're teasing me," I said uncertainly after a moment.

The vampire he'd indicated was handsome, in fact, radiant; blond and blue-eyed, tall and broad shouldered. He was wearing boots, jeans, and a vest. Period. Kind of like the guys on the cover of romance books. He scared me to death.
"His name is Eric," said Bill.
"How old is he?"
"Very. He's the oldest thing in this bar."
"Is he mean?"
"We're all mean, Sookie. We're all very strong and very violent."
"Not you," I said. I saw his face close in on itself. "You want to live mainstream. You're not gonna do antisocial stuff."
"Just when I think you're too naive to walk around alone, you say something shrewd," he said, with a short laugh. "All right, we'll go talk to Eric."

Eric, who, it was true, had glanced my way once or twice, was sitting with a female vampire who was just as lovely as he. They'd already repelled several advances by humans. In fact, one lovelorn young man had already crawled across the floor and kissed the female's boot. She'd stared down at him and kicked him in the shoulder. You could tell it had been an effort for her not to kick him in the face. Tourists flinched, and a couple got up and left hurriedly, but the fang-bangers seemed to take this scene for granted. At our approach, Eric looked up and scowled until he realized who the intruders were.

"Bill," he said, nodding. Vampires didn't seem to shake hands.
Instead of walking right up to the table, Bill stood a careful distance away, and since he was gripping my arm above my elbow, I had to stop, too. This seemed to be the courteous distance with this set.
"Who's your friend?" asked the female. Though Eric had a slight accent, this woman talked pure American, and her round face and sweet features would have done credit to a milkmaid. She smiled, and her fangs ran out, kind of ruining the image.
"Hi, I'm Sookie Stackhouse," I said politely.
"Aren't you sweet," Eric observed, and I hoped he was thinking of my character.
"Not especially," I said. Eric stared at me in surprise for a moment. Then he laughed, and the female did, too.
"Sookie, this is Pam and I am Eric," the blond vampire said. Bill and Pam gave each other the vampire nod. There was a pause. I would have spoken, but Bill squeezed my arm.
"My friend Sookie would like to ask a couple of questions," Bill said.
The seated vampires exchanged bored glances. Pam said, "Like how long are our fangs, and what kind of coffin do we sleep in?" Her voice was laced with contempt, and you could tell those were tourist questions that she hated.
"No, ma'am," I said. I hoped Bill wouldn't pinch my arm off. I thought I was being calm and courteous. She stared at me with amazement. What the hell was so startling?

I was getting a little tired of this. Before Bill could give me any more painful hints, I opened my purse and took out the pictures. "I'd like to know if you've seen either of these women in this bar." I wasn't getting Jason's picture out in front of this female. It would've been like putting a bowl of milk in front of a cat.
They looked at the pictures. Bill's face was blank. Eric looked up. "I have been with this one," he said coolly, tapping Dawn's picture. "She liked pain." Pam was surprised Eric had answered me, I could tell by her eyebrows. She seemed somehow obligated to follow his example.

"I have seen both of them. I have never been with them. This one," she flicked her finger at Maudette's picture, "was a pathetic creature."
"Thank you very much, that's all of your time I need to take," I said, and tried to turn to leave.But Bill still held my arm imprisoned.
"Bill, are you quite attached to your friend?" Eric asked. It took a second for the meaning to sink in. Eric the Hunk was asking if I could be borrowed.
"She is mine," Bill said, but he wasn't roaring it as he had to the nasty vampires from Monroe.

Nonetheless, he sounded pretty darn firm. Eric inclined his golden head, but he gave me the once over again. At least he started with my face. Bill seemed to relax. He bowed to Eric, somehow including Pam in the gesture, backed away for two steps, finally permitting me to turn my back to the couple.

"Gee whiz, what was that about?" I asked in a furious whisper. I'd have a big bruise the next day.
"They're older than I am by centuries," Bill said, looking very vampirey.
"Is that the pecking order? By age?"
"Pecking order," Bill said thoughtfully. "That's not a bad way to put it." He almost laughed. I could tell by the way his lip twitched.
"If you had been interested, I would have been obliged to let you go with Eric," he said, after we'd resumed our seats and had a belt from our drinks.
"No," I said sharply.
"Why didn't you say anything when the fang-bangers came to our table trying to seduce me away from you?" We weren't operating on the same wave level. Maybe social nuances weren't something vampires cared about. I was going to have to explain something that couldn't really bear much explaining. I made a very unladylike sound out of sheer exasperation.
"Okay," I said sharply. "Listen up, Bill! When you came to my house, I had to invite you. When you came here with me, I had to invite you. You haven't asked me out. Lurking in my driveway doesn't count, and asking me to stop by your house and leave a list of contractors doesn't count. So it's always been me asking you. How can I tell you that you have to stay with me, if you want to go? If those girls will let you suck their blood—or that guy, for that matter—then I don't feel I have a right to stand in your way!"
"Eric is much better looking than I am," Bill said. "He is more powerful, and I understand sex with him is unforgettable. He is so old he only needs to take a sip to maintain his strength. He almost never kills any more. So, as vampires go, he's a good guy. You could still go with him. He is still looking at you. He would try his glamor on you if you were not with me."
"I don't want to go with Eric," I said stubbornly.
"I don't want to go with any of the fang-bangers," he said. We sat in silence for a minute or two.
"So we're all right," I said obscurely.
"Yes."
We took a few moments more, thinking this over.
"Want another drink?" he asked.
"Yes, unless you need to get back."
"No, this is fine." He went to the bar. Eric's friend Pam left, and Eric appeared to be counting my eyelashes. I tried to keep my gaze on my hands, to indicate modesty. I felt power tweaks kind of flow over me and had an uneasy feeling Eric was trying to influence me. I risked a quick peek, and sure enough he was looking at me expectantly. Was I supposed to pull off my dress? Bark like a dog? Kick Bill in the shins? Shit.

Bill came back with our drinks.

"He's gonna know I'm not normal," I said grimly. Bill didn't seem to need an explanation.
"He's breaking the rules just attempting to glamorize you after I've told him you're mine," Bill said. He sounded pretty pissed off. His voice didn't get hotter and hotter like mine would have, but colder and colder.
"You seem to be telling everyone that," I muttered. Without doing anything about it, I added silently.
"It's vampire tradition," Bill explained again. "If I pronounce you mine, no one else can try to feed on you."
"Feed on me, that's a delightful phrase," I said sharply, and Bill actually had an expression of
exasperation for all of two seconds.
"I'm protecting you," he said, his voice not quite as neutral as usual.
"Had it occurred to you that I—" And I stopped short. I closed my eyes. I counted to ten. When I ventured a look at Bill, his eyes were fixed on my face, unblinking. I could practically hear the gears mesh.
"You—don't need protection?" he guessed softly. "You are protecting—me?" I didn't say anything. I can do that. But he took the back of my skull in his hand. He turned my head to him as though I were a puppet. (This was getting to be an annoying habit of his.) He looked so hard into my eyes that I thought I had tunnels burned into my brain. I pursed my lips and blew into his face. "Boo," I said. I was very uncomfortable. I glanced at the people in the bar, letting my guard down, listening.

"Boring," I told him. "These people are boring."
"Are they, Sookie? What are they thinking?" It was a relief to hear his voice, no matter that his voice was a little odd.
"Sex, sex, sex." And that was true. Every single person in that bar had sex on the brain. Even the tourists, who mostly weren't thinking about having sex with the vampires themselves, but were thinking about the fang-bangers having sex with the vampires.
"What are you thinking about, Sookie?"
"Not sex," I answered promptly and truthfully. I'd just gotten an unpleasant shock.
"Is that so?"
"I was thinking about the chances of us getting out of here without any trouble."
"Why were you thinking about that?"
"Because one of the tourists is a cop in disguise, and he just went to the bathroom, and he knows that a vampire is in there, sucking on the neck of a fang-banger. He's already called the police on his little radio."
"Out," he said smoothly, and we were out of the booth swiftly and moving for the door. Pam had vanished, but as we passed Eric's table, Bill gave him some sign. Just as smoothly, Eric eased from his seat and rose to his magnificent height, his stride so much longer than ours that he passed out the door first, taking the arm of the bouncer and propelling her outside with us.

As we were about to go out the door, I remembered the bartender, Long Shadow, had answered my questions willingly, so I turned and jabbed my finger in the direction of the door, unmistakably telling him to leave. He looked as alarmed as a vampire can look, and as Bill yanked me through the double doors, he was throwing down his towel.

Outside, Eric was waiting outside by his car—a Corvette, naturally.

"There's going to be a raid," Bill said.
"How do you know?" Bill stuck on that one.
"Me," I said, getting him off the hook. Eric's wide blue eyes shone even in the gloom of the parking lot. I was going to have to explain.
"I read a policeman's mind," I muttered. I snuck a look to see how Eric was taking this, and he was staring at me the same way the Monroe vampires had. Thoughtful. Hungry.
"That's interesting," he said. "I had a psychic once. It was incredible."
"Did the psychic think so?" My voice was tarter than I'd meant it to be. I could hear Bill's in drawn breath.
Eric laughed. "For a while," he answered ambiguously.

We heard sirens in the distance, and without further words Eric and the bouncer slid into his car and were gone into the night, the car seeming quieter than others' cars, somehow. Bill and I buckled up hastily, and we were leaving the parking lot by one exit just as the police were coming in by another. They had their vampire van with them, a special prisoner transport with silver bars. It was driven by two cops who were of the fanged persuasion, and they sprang out of their van and reached the club door with a speed that rendered them just blurs on my human vision.

We had driven a few blocks when suddenly Bill pulled into the parking lot of yet another darkened strip mall.

"What—?" I began, but got no further. Bill had unclipped my seat belt, moved the seat back, and grabbed me before I had finished my sentence. Frightened that he was angry, I pushed against him at first, but I might as well have been heaving against a tree. Then his mouth located mine, and I knew what he was.

Oh, boy, could he kiss. We might have problems communicating on some levels, but this wasn't one of them. We had a great time for maybe five minutes. I felt all the right things moving through my body in waves. Despite the awkwardness of being in the front seat of a car, I managed to be comfortable, mostly because he was so strong and considerate. I nipped his skin with my teeth. He made a sound like a growl.

"Sookie!" His voice was ragged. I moved away from him, maybe half an inch. "If you do that anymore I'll have you whether you want to be had or not," he said, and I could tell he meant it.
"You don't want to," I said finally, trying not to make it a question.
"Oh, yes, I want to." and he grabbed my hand and showed me.
Suddenly, there was a bright rotating light beside us. "The police," I said. I could see a figure get out of the patrol car and start toward Bill's window. "Don't let him know you're a vampire, Bill," I said hastily, fearing fallout from the Fangtasia raid. Though most police forces loved having vampires join them on the job, there was a lot of prejudice against vampires on the street, especially as part of a mixed couple. The policeman's heavy hand rapped on the window. Bill turned on the motor, hit the button that lowered the window. But he was silent, and I realized his
fangs had not retracted. If he opened his mouth, it would be really obvious he was a vampire.

"Hello, officer," I said.
"Good evening," the man said, politely enough. He bent to look in the window. "You two know all the shops here are closed, right?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now, I can tell you been messing around a little, and I got nothing against that, but you two need to go home and do this kind of thing."
"We will." I nodded eagerly, and Bill managed a stiff inclination of his head.
"We're raiding a bar a few blocks back," the patrolman said casually. I could see only a little of his face, but he seemed burly and middle-aged. "You two coming from there, by any chance?"
"No," I said.
"Vampire bar," the cop remarked.
"Nope. Not us."
"Let me just shine this light on your neck, miss, if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
And by golly, he shone that old flashlight on my neck and then on Bill's.
"Okay, just checking. You two move on now."
"Yes, we will." Bill's nod was even more curt. While the patrolman waited, I slid back over to my side and clipped my seat belt, and Bill put the car in gear and backed up.

Bill was just infuriated. All the way home he kept a sullen (I guess) silence, whereas I was inclined to view the whole thing as funny. I was cheerful at finding Bill wasn't indifferent to my personal attractions, such as they were. I began to hope that someday he would want to kiss me again, maybe longer and harder, and maybe even—we could go further? I was trying not to get my hopes up. Actually, there was a thing or two that Bill didn't know about me, that no one knew, and I was very careful to try to keep my expectations modest.

When he got me back to Gran's, he came around and opened my door, which made me raise my eyebrows; but I am not one to stop a courteous act. I assumed Bill did realize I had functioning arms and the mental ability to figure out the door-opening mechanism. When I stepped out, he backed up. I was hurt. He didn't want to kiss me again; he was regretting our earlier episode. Probably pining after that damn Pam. Or maybe even Long Shadow. I was beginning to see that the ability to have sex for several centuries leaves room for lots of experimentation. Would a telepath be so bad to add to his list? I kind of hunched my shoulders together and wrapped my arms across my chest.

"Are you cold?" Bill asked instantly, putting his arm around me. But it was the physical equivalent of a coat, he seemed to be trying to stay as far away from me as the arm made possible.
"I am sorry I have pestered you. I won't ask you for any more," I said, keeping my voice even. Even as I spoke I realized that Gran hadn't set up a date for Bill to speak to the Descendants, but she and Bill would just have to work that out.

He stood still. Finally he said, "You—are—incredibly— naive." And he didn't even add that codicil about shrewdness, like he had earlier.
"Well," I said blankly. "I am?"
"Or maybe one of God's fools," he said, and that sounded a lot less pleasant, like Quasimodo or something.
"I guess," I said tartly, "you'll just have to find out."
"It had better be me that finds out," he said darkly, which I didn't understand at all. He walked me up to the door, and I was sure hoping for another kiss, but he gave me a little peck on the forehead. "Good night, Sookie," he whispered.
I rested my cheek against his for a moment. "Thanks for taking me," I said, and moved away quickly before he thought I was asking for something else. ."I'm not calling you again." And before I could lose my determination, I slipped into the dark house and shut the door in Bill's face.

Chapter5

I CERTAINLY HAD a lot to think about the next couple of days. For someone who was always hoarding new things to keep from being bored, I'd stored enough up to last me for weeks. The people in Fangtasia, alone, were food for examination, to say nothing of the vampires. From longing to meet one vampire, now I'd met more than I cared to know. A lot of men from Bon Temps and the surrounding area had been called in to the police station to answer a few questions about Dawn Green and her habits.

Embarrassingly enough, Detective Bellefleur took to hanging around the bar on his off-hours, never drinking more alcohol than one beer, but observing everything that took place around him. Since Merlotte's was not exactly a hotbed of illegal activity, no one minded too much once they got used to Andy being there.

He always seemed to pick a table in my section. And he began to play a silent game with me. When I came to his table, he'd be thinking something provocative, trying to get me to say something. He didn't seem to understand how indecent that was. The provocation was the point, not the insult. He just wanted me to read his mind again. I couldn't figure out why. Then, maybe the fifth or sixth time I had to get him something, I guess it was a Diet Coke, he pictured me cavorting with my brother. I was so nervous when I went to the table (knowing to expect something, but not knowing exactly what) that I was beyond getting angry and into the realm of tears. It reminded me of the less sophisticated tormenting I'd taken when I was in grade school.

Andy had looked up with an expectant face, and when he saw tears an amazing range of things ran across his face in quick succession: triumph, chagrin, then scalding shame. I poured the damn coke down his shirt. I walked right past the bar and out the back door.

"What's the matter?" Sam asked sharply. He was right on my heels. I shook my head, not wanting to explain, and pulled an aging tissue out of my shorts pocket to mop my
eyes with. "Has he been saying ugly things to you?" Sam asked, his voice lower and angrier.
"He's been thinking them," I said helplessly, "to get a rise out of me. He knows."
"Son of a bitch," Sam said, which almost shocked me back to normal. Sam didn't curse.
Once I started crying, it seemed like I couldn't stop. I was getting my crying time done for a number of little unhappinesses.
"Just go on back in," I said, embarrassed at my waterworks. "I'll be okay in just a minute."

I heard the back door of the bar open and shut. I figured Sam had taken me at my word. But instead, Andy Bellefleur said, "I apologize, Sookie."
"That's Miss Stackhouse to you, Andy Bellefleur," I said. "It seems to me like you better be out finding who killed Maudette and Dawn instead of playing nasty mind games with me."

I turned around and looked at the policeman. He was looking horribly embarrassed. I thought he was sincere in his shame. Sam was swinging his arms, full of the energy of anger. "Bellefleur, sit in someone else's area if you come back," he said, but his voice held a lot of suppressed violence. Andy looked at Sam. He was twice as thick in the body, taller by two inches. But I would have put my money on Sam at that moment, and it seemed Andy didn't want to risk the challenge either, if only from good sense. He just nodded and walked across the parking lot to his car. The sun glinted on the blond highlights in his brown hair.
"Sookie, I'm sorry," Sam said.
"Not your fault."
"Do you want to take some time off? We're not so busy today."
"Nope. I'll finish my shift." Charlsie Tooten was getting into the swing of things, but I wouldn't feel good about leaving. It was Arlene's day off.

We went back into the bar, and though several people looked at us curiously as we entered, no one asked us what had happened. There was only one couple sitting in my area, and they were busy eating and had glasses full of liquid, so they wouldn't be needing me. I began putting up wineglasses. Sam leaned against the workspace beside me.

"Is it true that Bill Compton is going to speak to the Descendants
of the Glorious Dead tonight?"
"According to my grandmother."
"Are you going?"
"I hadn't planned on it." I didn't want to see Bill until he called me and made an appointment to see me.

Sam didn't say anything else then, but later in the afternoon, as I was retrieving my purse from his office, he came in and fiddled with some papers on his desk. I'd pulled out my brush and was trying to get a tangle out of my ponytail. From the way Sam dithered around, it seemed apparent that he wanted to talk to me, and I felt a wave of exasperation at the indirection men seemed to take.

Like Andy Bellefleur. He could just have asked me about my disability, instead of playing games with me. Like Bill. He could just have stated his intentions, instead of this strange hot-cold thing.

"So?" I said, more sharply than I'd intended. He flushed under my gaze.
"I wondered if you'd like to go to the Descendants meeting with me and have a cup of coffee afterward."
I was flabbergasted. My brush stopped in mid swoop. A number of things ran through my mind, the feel of his hand when I'd held it in front of Dawn Green's duplex, the wall I'd met in his mind, the unwisdom of dating your boss.
"Sure," I said, after a notable pause.
He seemed to exhale. "Good. Then I'll pick you up at your house at seven-twenty or so. The meeting starts at seven-thirty."
"Okay. I'll see you then." Afraid I'd do something peculiar if I stayed longer, I grabbed my purse and strode out to my car. I couldn't decide whether to giggle with glee or groan at my own idiocy.

It was five-forty-five by the time I got home. Gran already had supper on the table since she had to leave early to carry refreshments to the Descendants meeting, which was held at the Community Building.

"Wonder if he could have come if we'd had it in the fellowship hall of Good Faith Baptist?" Gran said out of the blue. But I didn't have a problem latching on to her train of thought.
"Oh, I think so," I said. "I think that idea about vampires being scared of religious items isn't true. But I haven't asked him."
"They do have a big cross hung up in there," Gran went on.
"I'll be at the meeting after all," I said. "I'm going with Sam Merlotte."
"Your boss, Sam?" Gran was very surprised.
"Yes, ma'am."
"Hmmm. Well, well." Gran began smiling while she put the plates on the table. I was trying to think of what to wear while we ate our sandwiches and fruit salad. Gran was excited about the meeting, about listening to Bill and introducing him to her friends, and now she was in outer space somewhere (probably around Venus) since I actually had a date. With a human.
"We'll be going out afterward," I said, "so I guess I'll get home maybe an hour after the meeting's over."

There weren't that many places to have coffee in Bon Temps. And those restaurants weren't exactly places you'd want to linger.

"Okay, honey. You just take your time." Gran was already dressed, and after supper I helped her load up the cookie trays and the big coffee urn she'd bought for just such events. Gran had pulled her car around to the back door, which saved us a lot of steps. She was happy as she could be and fussed and chattered the whole time we were loading. This was her kind of night. I shed my waitress clothes and got into the shower lickety-split. While I soaped up, I tried to think of what to wear. Nothing black and white, that was for sure; I had gotten pretty sick of the Merlotte's waitress colors. I shaved my legs again, didn't have time to wash my hair and dry it, but I'd done it the night before. I flung open my closet and stared. Sam had seen the white flowered dress. The denim jumper wasn't nice enough for Gran's friends. Finally I yanked out some khaki slacks and a bronze silk blouse with short sleeves. I had brown leather sandals and a brown leather belt that would look good. I hung a chain around my neck, stuck in some big gold earrings, and I was ready. As if he'd timed it, Sam rang the doorbell. There was a moment of awkwardness as I opened the door.

"You're welcome to come in, but I think we just have time—"
"I'd like to sit and visit, but I think we just have time—"We both laughed.

I locked the door and pulled it to, and Sam hurried to open the door of his pickup. I was glad I'd worn pants, as I pictured trying to get up in the high cab in one of my shorter skirts.
"Need a boost?" he asked hopefully.
"I think I got it," I said, trying not to smile.

We were silent on the way to the Community Building, which was in the older part of Bon Temps; the part that predated the War. The structure was not antebellum, but there had actually been a building on that site that had gotten destroyed during the War, though no one seemed to have a record of what it had been.

The Descendants of the Glorious Dead were a mixed bunch. There were some very old, very fragile members, and some not quite so old and very lively members, and there were even a scattering of middle-aged men and women. But there were no young members, which Gran had often lamented, with many significant glances at me.

Mr. Sterling Norris, a longtime friend of my grandmother's and the mayor of Bon Temps, was the greeter that night, and he stood at the door shaking hands and having a little conversation with everyone who entered.

"Miss Sookie, you look prettier every day," Mr. Norris said. "And Sam, we haven't seen you in a coon's age! Sookie, is it true this vampire is a friend of yours?"
"Yes, sir."
"Can you say for sure that we're all safe?"
"Yes, I'm sure you are. He's a very nice ... person." Being? Entity? If you like the living dead, he's pretty neat?
"If you say so," Mr. Norris said dubiously. "In my time, such a thing was just a fairy tale."
"Oh, Mr. Norris, it's still your time," I said with the cheerful smile expected of me, and he laughed and motioned us on in, which was what was expected of him. Sam took my hand and sort of steered me to the next to last row of metal chairs, and I waved at my grandmother as we took our seats. It was just time for the meeting to start, and the room held maybe forty people, quite a gathering for Bon Temps.

But Bill wasn't there.

Just then the president of Descendants, a massive, solid woman by the name of Maxine Fortenberry, came to the podium.

"Good evening! Good evening!" she boomed. "Our guest of honor has just called to say he's having car trouble and will be a few minutes late. So let's go on and have our business meeting while we're waiting for him."

The group settled down, and we got through all the boring stuff, Sam sitting beside me with his arms crossed over his chest, his right leg crossed over the left at the ankle. I was being especially careful to keep my mind guarded and face smiling, and I was a little deflated when Sam leaned slightly to me and whispered, "It's okay to relax."
"I thought I was," I whispered back.
"I don't think you know how." I raised my eyebrows at him. I was going to have a few things to say to Mr. Merlotte after the meeting. Just then Bill came in, and there was a moment of sheer silence as those who hadn't seen him before adjusted to his presence. If you've never been in the company of a vampire before, it's a thing you really have to get used to. Under the flourescent lighting, Bill really looked much more unhuman than he did under the dim lighting in Merlotte's, or the equally dim lighting in his own home. There was no way he could pass for a regular guy.

His pallor was very marked, of course, and the deep pools of his eyes looked darker and colder. He was wearing a lightweight medium-blue suit, and I was willing to bet that had been Gran's advice. He looked great. The dominant line of the arch of his eyebrow, the curve of his bold nose, the chiseled lips, the white hands with their long fingers and carefully trimmed nails ... He was having an exchange with the president, and she was charmed out of her support hose by Bill's close-lipped smile. I didn't know if Bill was casting a glamor over the whole room, or if these people were just predisposed to be interested, but the whole group hushed expectantly.

Then Bill saw me. I swear his eyebrows twitched. He gave me a little bow, and I nodded back, finding no smile in me to give him. Even in the crowd, I stood at the edge of the deep pool of his silence. Mrs. Fortenberry introduced Bill, but I don't remember what she said or how she skirted the fact that Bill was a different kind of creature. Then Bill began speaking. He had notes, I saw with some surprise. Beside me, Sam leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Bill's face.

"... we didn't have any blankets and very little food," Bill was saying calmly. "There were many deserters." That was not a favorite fact of the Descendants, but a few of them were nodding in agreement. This account must match what they'd learned in their studies. An ancient man in the first row raised his hand.
"Sir, did you by chance know my great-grandfather, Tolliver Humphries?"
"Yes," Bill said, after a moment. His face was unreadable. "Tolliver was my friend."
And just for a moment, there was something so tragic in his voice that I had to close my eyes.
"What was he like?" quavered the old man.
"Well, he was foolhardy, which led to his death," said Bill with a wry smile. "He was brave. He never made a cent in his life that he didn't waste."
"How did he die? Were you there?"
"Yes, I was there," said Bill wearily. "I saw him get shot by a Northern sniper in the woods about twenty miles from here. He was slow because he was starved. We all were. About the middle of the morning, a cold morning, Tolliver saw a boy in our troop get shot as he lay in poor cover in the middle of a field. The boy was not dead, but painfully wounded. But he could call to us, and he did, all morning. He called to us to help him. He knew he would die if someone didn't."

The whole room had grown so silent you could hear a pin drop. "He screamed and he moaned. I almost shot him myself, to shut him up, because I knew to venture out to rescue him was suicide. But I could not quite bring myself to kill him. That would be murder, not war, I told myself. But later I wished I had shot him, for Tolliver was less able than I to withstand the boy's pleading.

After two hours of it, he told me he planned to try to rescue the boy. I argued with him. But Tolliver told me that God wanted him to attempt it. He had been praying as we lay in the woods.

"Though I told Tolliver that God did not wish him to waste his life foolishly—that he had a wife and children praying for his safe return at home—Tolliver asked me to divert the enemy while he attempted the boy's rescue. He ran out into the field like it was a spring day and he was well rested. And he got as far as the wounded boy. But then a shot rang out, and Tolliver fell dead. And, after a time, the boy began screaming for help again."
"What happened to him?" asked Mrs. Fortenberry, her voice as quiet as she could manage to make it.
"He lived," Bill said, and there was tone to his voice that sent shivers down my spine. "He survived the day, and we were able to retrieve him that night."

Somehow those people had come alive again as Bill spoke, and for the old man in the front row there was a memory to cherish, a memory that said much about his ancestor's character.

I don't think anyone who'd come to the meeting that night was prepared for the impact of hearing about the Civil War from a survivor. They were enthralled; they were shattered. When Bill had answered the last question, there was thunderous applause, or at least it was as thunderous as forty people could make it. Even Sam, not Bill's biggest fan, managed to put his hands together.

Everyone wanted to have a personal word with Bill afterward except me and Sam. While the reluctant guest speaker was surrounded by Descendants, Sam and I sneaked out to Sam's pickup.

We went to the Crawdad Diner, a real dive that happened to have very good food. I wasn't hungry, but Sam had key lime pie with his coffee.
"That was interesting," Sam said cautiously.
"Bill's speech? Yes," I said, just as cautiously.
"Do you have feelings for him?"
After all the indirection, Sam had decided to storm the main gate.
"Yes," I said.
"Sookie," Sam said, "You have no future with him."
"On the other hand, he's been around a while. I expect he'll be around for a another few hundred years."
"You never know what's going to happen to a vampire."
I couldn't argue with that. But, as I pointed out to Sam, I couldn't know what was going to happen to me, a human, either. We wrangled back and forth like this for too long. Finally, exasperated, I said, "What's it to you, Sam?"

His ruddy skin flushed. His bright blue eyes met mine. "I like you, Sookie. As friend or maybe something else sometime..." Huh?
"I just hate to see you take a wrong turn." I looked at him. I could feel my skeptical face forming, eyebrows drawn together, the corner of my mouth tugging up.
"Sure," I said, my voice matching my face. "I've always liked you."
"So much that you had to wait till someone else showed an interest, before you mentioned it to me?"
"I deserve that." He seemed to be turning something over in his mind, something he wanted to say, but hadn't the resolution. Whatever it was, he couldn't come out with it, apparently. "Let's go," I suggested. It would be hard to turn the conversation back to neutral ground, I figured. I might as well go home.

It was a funny ride back. Sam always seemed on the verge of speaking, and then he'd shake his head and keep silent. I was so aggravated I wanted to swat him. We got home later than I'd thought. Gran's light was on, but the rest of the house was dark. I didn't see her car, so I figured she'd parked in back to unload the leftovers right into the kitchen. The porch light was on for me. Sam walked around and opened the pickup door, and I stepped down. But in the shadow, my foot
missed the running board, and I just sort of tumbled out. Sam caught me. First his hands gripped my arms to steady me, then they just slid around me. And he kissed me.

I assumed it was going to be a little good-night peck, but his mouth just kind of lingered. It was really more than pleasant, but suddenly my inner censor said, "This is the boss." I gently disengaged. He was immediately aware that I was backing off, and gently slid his hands down my arms until he was just holding hands with me. We went to the door, not speaking.
"I had a good time," I said, softly. I didn't want to wake Gran, and I didn't want to sound bouncy.
"I did, too. Again sometime?"
"We'll see," I said. I really didn't know how I felt about Sam.

I waited to hear his truck turn around before I switched off the porch light and went into the house. I was unbuttoning my blouse as I walked, tired and ready for bed.

Something was wrong.. I stopped in the middle of the living room. I looked around me.
Everything looked all right, didn't it?

Yes. Everything was in its proper place.

It was the smell.
It was a sort of penny smell.
A coppery smell, sharp and salty.
The smell of blood.

It was down here with me, not upstairs where the guest bedrooms sat in neat solitude.

"Gran?" I called. I hated the quavering in my voice. I made myself move, I made myself go to the door of her room. It was pristine. I began switching on lights as I went through the house. My room was just as I'd left it.

The bathroom was empty.
The washroom was empty.
I switched on the last light. The kitchen was ...

I screamed, over and over. My hands were fluttering uselessly in the air, trembling more with each scream. I heard a crash behind me, but couldn't be concerned. Then big hands gripped me and moved me, and a big body was between me and what I'd seen on the kitchen floor. I didn't recognize Bill, but he picked me up and moved me to the living room where I couldn't see any more.

"Sookie," he said harshly, "Shut up! This isn't any good!"
If he'd been kind to me, I'd have kept on shrieking.
"Sorry," I said, still out of my mind. "I am acting like that boy."
He stared at me blankly.
"The one in your story," I said numbly.
"We have to call the police."
"Sure."
"We have to dial the phone."
"Wait. How did you come here?"
"Your grandmother gave me a ride home, but I insisted on coming with her first and helping her unload the car."
"So why are you still here?"
"I was waiting for you."
"So, did you see who killed her?"
"No. I went home, across the cemetery, to change."
He was wearing blue jeans and Grateful Dead T-shirt, and suddenly I began to giggle.
"That's priceless," I said, doubling over with the laughter.
And I was crying, just as suddenly. I picked up the phone and dialed 911.

Andy Bellefleur was there in five minutes.

JASON CAME AS soon as I reached him. I tried to call him at four or five different places, and finally reached him at Merlotte's. Terry Bellefleur was bartending for Sam that night, and when he'd gotten back from telling Jason to come to his grandmother's house, I asked Terry if he'd call Sam and tell him I had troubles and couldn't work for a few days.

Terry must have called Sam right away because Sam was at my house within thirty minutes, still wearing the clothes he'd worn to the meeting that night. At the sight of him I looked down, remembering unbuttoning my blouse as I walked through the living room, a fact I'd completely lost track of; but I was decent. It dawned on me that Bill must have set me to rights. I might find that embarrassing later, but at the moment I was just grateful.

So Jason came in, and when I told him Gran was dead, and dead by violence, he just looked at me. There seemed to be nothing going on behind his eyes. It was as if someone had erased his capacity for absorbing new facts. Then what I'd said sank in, and my brother sank to his knees right where he stood, and I knelt in front of him. He put his arms around me and lay his head on my shoulder, and we just stayed there for a while. We were all that was left.

Bill and Sam were out in the front yard sitting in lawn chairs, out of the way of the police. Soon Jason and I were asked to go out on the porch, at least, and we opted to sit outside, too. It was a mild evening, and I sat facing the house, all lit up like a birthday cake, and the people that came and went from it like ants who'd been allowed at the party. All this industry surrounding the tissue that had been my grandmother.

"What happened?" Jason asked finally.
"I came in from the meeting," I said very slowly. "After Sam pulled off in his truck. I knew something was wrong. I looked in every room." This was the story of How I Found Grandmother Dead, the official version. "And when I got to the kitchen I saw her."
Jason turned his head very slowly so his eyes met mine.
"Tell me."
I shook my head silently. But it was his right to know. "She was beaten up, but she had tried to fight back, I think. Whoever did this cut her up some. And then strangled her, it looked like."
I could not even look at my brother's face. "It was my fault." My voice was nothing more than a whisper.

"How do you figure that?" Jason said, sounding nothing more than dull and sluggish.
"I figure someone came to kill me like they killed Maudette and Dawn, but Gran was here instead." I could see the idea percolate in Jason's brain. "I was supposed to be home tonight while she was at the meeting, but Sam asked me to go at the last minute. My car was here like it would be normally because we went in Sam's truck. Gran had parked her ear around back while she was unloading, so it wouldn't look like she was here, just me. She had given Bill a ride home, but he helped her unload and went to change clothes. After he left, whoever it was ...got her."
"How do we know it wasn't Bill?" Jason asked, as though Bill wasn't sitting right there beside him.
"How do we know it wasn't anyone?" I said, exasperated at my brother's slow wits. "It could be anyone, anyone we know. I don't think it was Bill. I don't think Bill killed Maudette and Dawn. And I do think whoever killed Maudette and Dawn killed Grandmother."

"Did you know," Jason said, his voice too loud, "that Grandmother left you this house all by yourself?"
It was like he'd thrown a bucket of cold water in my face. I saw Sam wince, too. Bill's eyes got darker and chillier.
"No. I just always assumed you and I would share like we did on the other one." Our parents' house, the one Jason lived in now.
"She left you all the land, too."
"Why are you saying this?" I was going to cry again, just when I'd been sure I was dry of tears now.
"She wasn't fair!" he was yelling. "It wasn't fair, and now she can't set it right!"

I began to shake. Bill pulled me out of the chair and began walking with me up and down the yard. Sam sat in front of Jason and began talking to him earnestly, his voice low and intense.
Bill's arm was around me, but I couldn't stop shaking.

"Did he mean that?" I asked, not expecting Bill to answer.
"No," he said. I looked up, surprised. "No, he couldn't help your grandmother, and he couldn't handle the idea of someone lying in wait for you and killing her instead. So he had to get angry about something. And instead of getting angry with you for not getting killed, he's angry about things. I wouldn't let it worry me."
"I think it's pretty amazing that you're saying this," I told him bluntly.
"Oh, I took some night school courses in psychology," said Bill Compton, vampire. And, I couldn't help thinking, hunters always study their prey. "Why would Gran leave me all this, and not Jason?"
"Maybe you'll find out later," he said, and that seemed fine to me.

Then Andy Bellefleur came out of the house and stood on the steps, looking up at the sky as if there were clues written on it.

"Compton," he called sharply.
"No," I said, and my voice came out as a growl. I could feel Bill look down at me with the slight surprise that was a big reaction, coming from him.
"Now it's gonna happen," I said furiously.
"You-were protecting me," he said. "You thought the police would suspect me of killing those two women. That's why you wanted to be sure they were accessible to other vampires. Now you think this Bellefleur will try to blame your grandmother's death on me."
"Yes."
He took a deep breath. We were in the dark, by the trees that lined the yard. Andy bellowed Bill's name again.
"Sookie," Bill said gently, "I am sure you were the intended victim, as sure as you are." It was kind of a shock to hear someone else say it. "And I didn't kill them. So if the killer was the same as their killer, then I didn't do it, and he will see that. Even if he is a Bellefleur."

We began walking back into the light. I wanted none of this to be. I wanted the lights and the people to vanish, all of them, Bill, too. I wanted to be alone in the house with my grandmother, and I wanted her to look happy, as she had the last time I'd seen her. It was futile and childish, but I could wish it nonetheless. I was lost in that dream, so lost I didn't see harm coming until it was too late.

My brother, Jason, stepped in front of me and slapped me in the face.

It was so unexpected and so painful that I lost my balance and staggered to the side, landing hard on one knee. Jason seemed to be coming after me again, but Bill was suddenly in front of me, crouched, and his fangs were out and he was scary as hell. Sam tackled Jason and brought him down, and he may have whacked Jason's face against the ground once for good measure.

Andy Bellefleur was stunned at this unexpected display of violence. But after a second he stepped in between our two little groups on the lawn. He looked at Bill and swallowed, but he said in a steady voice, "Compton, back off. He won't hit her again."

Bill was taking deep breaths, trying to control his hunger for Jason's blood. I couldn't read his thoughts, but I could read his body language. I couldn't exactly read Sam's thoughts, but I could tell he was very angry. Jason was sobbing. His thoughts were a confused and tangled blue mess. And Andy Bellefleur didn't like any of us and wished he could lock every freaking one of us up for some reason or another.

I pushed myself wearily to my feet and touched the painful spot of my cheek, using that to distract me from the pain in my heart, the dreadful grief that rolled over me. I thought this night would never end.

THE FUNERAL WAS the largest ever held in Renard Parish. The minister said so. Under a brilliant early summer sky, my grandmother was buried beside my mother and father in our family plot in the ancient cemetery between the Comptons' house and Gran's house. Jason had been right. It was my house, now. The house and the twenty acres surrounding it were mine, as were the mineral rights. Gran's money, what there was, had been divided fairly between us, and Gran had stipulated that I give Jason my half of the home our parents had lived in, if I wanted to retain full rights to her house. That was easy to do, and I didn't want any money from Jason for that half, though my lawyer looked dubious when I told him that. Jason would just blow his top if I mentioned paying me for my half; the fact that I was part-owner had never been more than a fantasy to him. Yet Gran leaving her house to me outright had come as a big shock. She had understood him better than I had.

It was lucky I had income other than from the bar, I thought heavily, trying to concentrate on something besides her loss. Paying taxes on the land and house, plus the upkeep of the house, which Gran had assumed at least partially, would really stretch my income.

"I guess you'll want to move," Maxine Fortenberry said when she was cleaning the kitchen. Maxine had brought over devilled eggs and ham salad, and she was trying to be extra helpful by scrubbing.
"No," I said, surprised.
"But honey, with it happening right here..." Maxine's heavy face creased with concern.
"I have far more good memories of this kitchen than bad ones," I explained. "Oh, what a good way to look at it," she said, surprised. "Sookie, you really are smarter than anyone gives you credit for being."
"Gosh, thanks, Mrs. Fortenberry," I said, and if she heard the dry tone in my voice she didn't react. Maybe that was wise.
"Is your friend coming to the funeral?" The kitchen was very warm. Bulky, square Maxine was blotting her face with a dishtowel. The spot where Gran had fallen had been scrubbed by her friends, God bless them.
"My friend. Oh, Bill? No, he can't."
She looked at me blankly.
"We're having it in the daytime, of course."
She still didn't comprehend.
"He can't come out."
"Oh, of course!" She gave herself a light tap on the temple to indicate she was knocking sense into her head. "Silly me. Would he really fry?"
"Well, he says he would."
"You know, I'm so glad he gave that talk at the club, that has really made such a difference in making him part of the community." I nodded, abstracted. "There's really a lot of feeling about the murders, Sookie. There's really a lot of talk about vampires, about how they're responsible for these deaths."
I looked at her with narrowed eyes.
"Don't you go all mad on me, Sookie Stackhouse! Since Bill was so sweet about telling those fascinating stories at the Descendants meeting, most people don't think he could do those awful things that were done to those women." I wondered what stories were making the rounds, and I shuddered to think. "But he's had some visitors that people didn't much like the looks of."

I wondered if she meant Malcolm, Liam, and Diane. I hadn't much liked their looks either, and I resisted the automatic impulse to defend them.

"Vampires are just as different among themselves as humans are," I said.
"That's what I told Andy Bellefleur," she said, nodding vehemently. "I said to Andy, you should go after some of those others, the ones that don't want to learn how to live with us, not like Bill Compton, who's really making an effort to settle in. He was telling me at the funeral home that he'd gotten his kitchen finished, finally."

I could only stare at her. I tried to think of what Bill might make in his kitchen. Why would he need one? But none of the distractions worked, and finally I just realized that for a while I was going to be crying every whipstitch.

And I did.

At the funeral Jason stood beside me, apparently over his surge of anger at me, apparently back in his right mind. He didn't touch me or talk to me, but he didn't hit me, either. I felt very alone. But then I realized as I looked out over the hillside that the whole town was grieving with me. There were cars as far as I could see on the narrow drives through the cemetery, there were hundreds of dark-clad folks around the funeral-home tent. Sam was there in a suit (looking quite unlike himself), and Arlene, standing by Rene, was wearing a flowered Sunday dress. Lafayette stood at the very back of the crowd, along with Terry Bellefleur and Charlsie Tooten; the bar must be closed!

And all Gran's friends, all, the ones who could still walk. Mr. Norris wept openly, a snowy white handkerchief held up to his eyes. Maxine's heavy face was set in graven lines'of sadness. While the minister said what he had to, while Jason and I sat alone in family area in the uneven folding chairs, I felt something in me detach and fly up, up into the blue brilliance: and I knew that whatever had happened to my grandmother, now she was at home.

The rest of the day went by in a blur, thank God. I didn't want to remember it, didn't want to even know it was happening. But one moment stood out. Jason and I were standing by the dining room table in Gran's house, some temporary truce between us.

We greeted the mourners, most of whom did their best not to stare at the bruise on my cheek. We glided through it, Jason thinking that he would go home and have a drink after, and he wouldn't have to see me for a while and then it would be all right, and me thinking almost exactly the same thing. Except for the drink.

A well-meaning woman came up to us, the sort of woman who has thought over every ramification of a situation that was none of her business to start with.

"I am so sorry for you kids," she said, and I looked at her; for the life of me I couldn't remember her name. She was a Methodist. She had three grown children. But her name ran right out the other side of my head.
"You know it was so sad seeing you two there alone today, it made me remember your mother and father so much," she said, her face creasing into a mask of sympathy that I knew was automatic. I glanced at Jason, looked back to the woman, nodded.
"Yes," I said. But I heard her thought before she spoke, and I began to blanch.
"But where was Adele's brother today, your great uncle? Surely he's still living?"
"We're not in touch," I said, and my tone would have discouraged anyone more sensitive than this lady.
"But her only brother! Surely you ..." and her voice died away as our combined stare finally sank home. Several other people had commented briefly on our Uncle Bartlett's absence, but we had given the "this is family business" signals that cut them right off. This woman—what was her name?—just hadn't been as quick to read them. She'd brought a taco salad, and I planned to throw it right into the garbage when she'd left.

"We do have to tell him," Jason said quietly after she left. I put my guard up; I had no desire to know what he was thinking.
"You call him," I said.
"All right."

And that was all we said to each other for the rest of the day.

Chapter 6

I STAYED AT home for three days after the funeral. It was too long; I needed to go back to work. But I kept thinking of things I just had to do, or so I told myself. I cleaned out Gran's room. Arlene happened to drop by, and I asked her for help, because I just couldn't be in there alone with my grandmother's things, all so familiar and imbued with her personal odor of Johnson's baby powder and Campho-Phenique. So my friend Arlene helped me pack everything up to take to the disaster relief agency. There'd been tornadoes in northern Arkansas the past few days, and surely some person who had lost everything could use all the clothes. Gran had been smaller and thinner than I, and besides that her tastes were very different, so I wanted nothing of hers except the jewelry. She'd never worn much, but what she wore was real and precious to me.

It was amazing what Gran had managed to pack into her room. I didn't even want to think about what she'd stored in the attic: that would be dealt with later, in the fall, when the attic was bearably cool and I'd time to think. I probably threw away more than I should have, but it made me feel efficient and strong to be doing this, and I did a drastic job of it. Arlene folded and packed, only putting aside papers and photographs, letters and bills and cancelled checks. My grandmother had never used a credit card in her life and never bought anything on time, God bless her, which made the winding-up much easier.

Arlene asked about Gran's car. It was five years old and had very little mileage. "Will you sell yours and keep hers?" she asked. "Yours is newer, but it's small."
"I hadn't thought," I said. And I found I couldn't think of it, that cleaning out the bedroom was the extent of what I could do that day. At the end of the afternoon, the bedroom was empty of Gran. Arlene and I turned the mattress and I remade the bed out of habit. It was an old four-poster in the rice pattern. I had always thought her bedroom set was beautiful, and it occurred to me that now it was mine. I could move into the bigger bedroom and have a private bath instead of using the one in the hall. Suddenly, that was exactly what I wanted to do. The furniture I'd been using in my bedroom had been moved over here from my parents' house when they'd died, and it was kid's furniture; overly feminine, sort of reminiscent of Barbies and sleepovers.

Not that I'd ever had many sleepovers, or been to many.

Nope, nope, nope, I wasn't going to fall into that old pit. I was what I was, and I had a life, and I could enjoy things; the little treats that kept me going.

"I might move in here," I told Arlene as she taped a box shut.
"Isn't that a little soon?" she asked. She flushed red when she realized she'd sounded critical.
"It would be easier to be in here than be across the hall thinking about the room being empty," I said. Arlene thought that through, crouched beside the cardboard box with the roll of tape in her hand.
"I can see that," she agreed, with a nod of her flaming red head.

We loaded the cardboard boxes into Arlene's car. She had kindly agreed to drop them by the collection center on her way home, and I gratefully accepted the offer. I didn't want anyone to look at me knowingly, with pity, when I gave away my grandmother's clothes and shoes and nightgowns.

When Arlene left, I hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, and she stared at me. That was outside the bounds our friendship had had up till now. She bent her head to mine and we very gently bumped foreheads.

"You crazy girl," she said, affection in her voice. "You come see us, now. Lisa's been wanting you to baby-sit again."
"You tell her Aunt Sookie said hi to her, and to Coby, too."
"I will." And Arlene sauntered off to her car, her flaming hair puffing in a waving mass above her head, her full body making her waitress outfit look like one big promise. All my energy drained away as Arlene's car bumped down the driveway through the trees. I felt a million
years old, alone and lonely. This was the way it was going to be from now on.

I didn't feel hungry, but the clock told me it was time to eat. I went into the kitchen and pulled one of the many Tupperware containers from the refrigerator. It held turkey and grape salad, and I liked it, but I sat there at the table just picking at it with a fork. I gave up, returning it to the icebox and going to the bathroom for a much-needed shower. The corners of closets are always dusty, and even a housekeeper as good as my grandmother had been had not been able to defeat that dust.

The shower felt wonderful. The hot water seemed to steam out some of my misery, and I shampooed my hair and scrubbed every inch of skin, shaving my legs and armpits. After climbed out, I plucked my eyebrows and put on skin lotion and deodorant and a spray to untangle my hair and anything else I could lay my hands on. With my hair trailing down my back in a cascade of wet snarls, I pulled on my nightshirt, a white one with Tweety Bird on the front, and I got my comb. I'd sit in front of the television to have something to watch while I got my hair combed out, always a tedious process. My little burst of purpose expired, and I felt almost numb. The doorbell rang just as I was trailing into the living room with my comb in one hand and a towel in the other.

I looked through the peephole. Bill was waiting patiently on the porch. I let him in without feeling either glad or sorry to see him. He took me in with some surprise: the nightshirt, the wet hair, the bare feet. No makeup.

"Come in," I said.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes." And he came in, looking around him as he always did. "What are you doing?" he asked, seeing the pile of things I'd put to one side because I thought friends of Gran's might want them: Mr. Norris might be pleased to get the framed picture of his mother and Gran's mother together, for example.
"I cleaned out the bedroom today," I said. "I think I'll move into it." Then I couldn't think of anything else to say. He turned to look at me carefully.
"Let me comb out your hair," he said.
I nodded indifferently. Bill sat on the flowered couch and indicated the old ottoman positioned in front of it. I sat down obediently, and he scooted forward a little, framing me with his thighs. Starting at the crown of my head, he began teasing the tangles out of my hair.

As always, his mental silence was a treat. Each time, it was like putting the first foot into a cool pool of water when I'd been on a long, dusty hike on a hot day. As a bonus, Bill's long fingers seemed adept at dealing with the thick mane of my hair. I sat with my eyes closed, gradually becoming tranquil. I could feel the slight movements of his body behind me as he worked with the comb. I could almost hear his heart beating, I thought, and then realized how strange an idea that was. His heart, after all, didn't.

"I used to do this for my sister, Sarah," he murmured quietly, as if he knew how peaceful I'd gotten and was trying not to break my mood. "She had hair darker than yours, even longer. She'd never cut it. When we were children, and my mother was busy, she'd have me work on Sarah's hair."
"Was Sarah younger than you, or older?" 1 asked in a slow, drugged voice.
"She was younger. She was three years younger." "Did you have other brothers or sisters?" "My mother lost two in childbirth," he said slowly, as if he could barely remember. "I lost my brother, Robert, when he was twelve and I was eleven. He caught a fever, and it killed him. Now they would pump him full of penicillin, and he would be all right. But they couldn't then. Sarah survived the war, she and my mother, though my father died while I was soldiering; he had what I've learned since was a stroke. My wife was living with my family then, and my children ..." "Oh, Bill," I said sadly, almost in a whisper, for he had lost so much.
"Don't, Sookie," he said, and his voice had regained its cold clarity.

He worked on in silence for a while, until I could tell the comb was running free through my hair. He picked up the white towel I'd tossed on the arm of the couch and began to pat my hair dry, and as it dried he ran his fingers through it to give it body.

"Mmmm," I said, and as I heard it, it was no longer the sound of someone being soothed.

I could feel his cool fingers lifting the hair away from my neck and then I felt his mouth just at the nape. I couldn't speak or move. I exhaled slowly, trying not to make another sound. His lips moved to my ear, and he caught the lobe of it between his teeth. Then his tongue darted in. His arms came around me, crossing over my chest, pulling me back against him. And for a miracle I only heard what his body was saying, not those niggling things from minds that only foul up moments like this. His body was saying something very simple. He lifted me as easily as I’d rotate an infant. He turned me so I was facing him on his lap, my legs on either side of his. I put my arms around him and bent a little to kiss him. It went on and on, but after a while Bill settled into a rhythm with his tongue, a rhythm even someone as inexperienced as I could identify. The nightshirt slid up to the tops of my thighs. My hands began to rub his arms helplessly. Strangely, I thought of a pan of caramels my grandmother had put on the stove for a candy recipe, and I thought of the melted, warm sweet goldenness of them.

He stood up with me still wrapped around him. "Where?" he asked. And I pointed to my grandmother's former room. He carried me in as we were, my legs locked around him, my head on his shoulder, and he lay me on the clean bed. He stood by the bed and in the moonlight coming in the unshaded windows, I saw him undress, quickly and neatly. Though I was getting great pleasure from watching him, I knew I had to do the same; but still a little embarrassed, I just drew off the nightshirt and tossed it onto the floor.

I stared at him. I'd never seen anything so beautiful or so scary in my life.

"Oh, Bill," I said anxiously, when he was beside me in the bed, "I don't want to disappoint you."
"That's not possible," he whispered. His eyes looked at my body as if it were a drink of water on a desert dune.
"I don't know much," I confessed, my voice barely audible.
"Don't worry. I know a lot." His hands began drifting over me, touching me in places I'd never been touched. I jerked with surprise, then opened myself to him.
"Will this be different from doing it with a regular guy?" I asked.
"Oh, yes." I looked up at him questioningly. "It'll be better," he said in my ear, and I felt a twinge of pure excitement. A little shyly, I reached down to touch him, and he made a very human sound. After a moment, the sound became deeper.
"Now?" I asked, my voice ragged and shaking.
"Oh, yes," he said, and then he was on top of me.

A moment later he found out the true extent of my inexperience.

"You should have told me," he said, but very gently. He held himself still with an almost palpable effort.
"Oh, please don't stop!" I begged, thinking that the top . would fly off my head, something drastic would happen, if he didn't go on with it.
"I have no intention of stopping," he promised a little grimly. "Sookie ... this will hurt."
In answer, I raised myself. He made an incoherent noise and pushed into me. I held my breath. I bit my lip. Ow, ow, ow.
"Darling," Bill said. No one had ever called me that. "How are you?" Vampire or not, he was trembling with the effort of holding back.
"Okay," I said inadequately. I was over the sting, and I'd lose my courage if we didn't proceed. "Now," I said, and I bit him hard on the shoulder.

He gasped, and jerked, and he began moving in earnest. At first I was dazed, but I began to catch on and keep up. He found my response very exciting, and I began to feel that something was just around the corner, so to speak—something very big and good. I said, "Oh, please, Bill, please!" and dug my nails in his hips, almost there, almost there, and then a small shift in our alignment allowed him to press even more directly against me and almost before I could gather myself I was flying, flying, seeing white with gold streaks. I felt Bill's teeth against my neck, and I said, "Yes!" I felt his fangs penetrate, but it was a small pain, an exciting pain, and as he came inside me I felt him draw on the little wound.

We lay there for a long time, from time to time trembling with little aftershocks. I would never forget his taste and smell as long as I lived, I would never forget the feel of him inside me this first time—my first time, ever—I would never forget the pleasure.

Finally Bill moved to lie beside me, propped on one elbow, and he put his hand over my stomach. "I am the first."
"Yes."
"Oh, Sookie." He bent to kiss me, his lips tracing the line of my throat.
"You could tell I don't know much," I said shyly. "But was that all right for you? I mean, about on a par with other women at least? I'll get better."
"You can get more skilled, Sookie, but you can't get any better." He kissed me on the cheek. "You're wonderful."
"Will I be sore?"
"I know you'll think this is odd, but I don't remember. The only virgin I was ever with was my wife, and that was a century and a half ago ... yes, I recall, you will be very sore. We won't be able to make love again, for a day or two."
"Your blood heals," I observed after a little pause, feeling my cheeks redden. In the moonlight, I could see him shift, to look at me more directly.
"So it does," he said. "Would you like that?"
"Sure. Wouldn't you?"
"Yes," he breathed, and bit his own arm.
It was so sudden that I cried out, but he casually rubbed a finger in his own blood, and then before I could tense up he slid that finger up inside me. He began moving it very gently, and in a moment, sure enough, the pain was gone.
'Thanks," I said. "I'm better now."

But he didn't remove his finger.

"Oh," I said. "Would you like to do it again so soon? Can you do that?" And as his finger kept up its motion, I began to hope so.
"Look and see," he offered, a hint of amusement in his sweet dark voice.
I whispered, hardly recognizing myself, "Tell me what you want me to do."

And he did.

I WENT BACK to work the next day. No matter what Bill's healing powers were, I was a little uncomfortable, but boy, did I feel powerful. It was a totally new feeling for me. It was hard not to feel—well, cocky is surely the wrong word— maybe incredibly smug is closer.

Of course, there were the same old problems at the bar— the cacophony of voices, the buzzing of them, the persistence. But somehow I seemed better able to tone them down, to tamp them into a pocket. It was easier to keep my guard up, and I felt consequently more relaxed. Or maybe since I was more relaxed—boy, was I more relaxed—it was easier to guard? I don't know. But I felt better, and I was able to accept the condolences of the patrons with calm instead of tears.

Jason came in at lunch and had a couple of beers with his hamburger, which wasn't his normal regimen. He usually didn't drink during the work day. I knew he'd get mad if I said anything directly, so I just asked him if everything was okay.

"The chief had me in again today," he said in a low voice. He looked around to make sure no one else was listening, but the bar was sparsely filled that day since the Rotary Club was meeting at the Community Building.
"What is he asking you?" My voice was equally low. "How often I'd seen Maudette, did I always get my gas at the place she worked.... Over and over and over, like I hadn't answered those questions seventy-five times. My boss is at the end of his patience, Sookie, and I don't blame him. I been gone from work at least two days, maybe three, with all the trips I been making down to the police station."
"Maybe you better get a lawyer," I said uneasily.
"That's what Rene said."

Then Rene Lenier and I saw eye to eye. "What about Sid Matt Lancaster?" Sidney Matthew Lancaster, native son and a whiskey sour drinker, had the reputation of being the most aggressive trial lawyer in the parish. I liked him because he always treated me with respect when I served him in the bar.
"He might be my best bet." Jason looked as petulant and grim as a lovely person can. We exchanged a glance. We both knew Gran's lawyer was too old to handle the case if Jason was ever, God forbid, arrested. Jason was far too self-absorbed to notice anything different about me, but I'd worn a white golf shirt (instead of my usual round-necked T-shirt) for the protection of its collar.

Arlene was not as unaware as my brother. She'd been eyeing me all morning, and by the time the three o'clock lull hit, she was pretty sure she'd got me figured out. "Girl," she said, "you been having fun?" I turned red as a beet. "Having fun" made my relationship with Bill lighter than it was, but it was accurate as far as it went. I didn't know whether to take the high road and say, "No, making love," or keep my mouth shut, or tell Arlene it was none of her business, or just shout, "Yes!"
"Oh, Sookie, who is the man?"
Uh-oh. "Urn, well, he's not..."
"Not local? You dating one of those servicemen from Bossier City?"
"No," I said hesitantly.
"Sam? I've seen him looking at you."
"No."
"Who, then?"
I was acting like I was ashamed. Straighten your spine, Sookie Stackhouse, I told myself sternly. Pay the piper.
"Bill," I said, hoping against hope that she'd just say, "Oh, yeah."
"Bill," Arlene said blankly. I noticed Sam had drifted up and was listening. So was Charlsie Tooten. Even Lafayette stuck his head through the hatch.
"Bill," I said, trying to sound firm. "You know. Bill."
"Bill Auberjunois?"
"No."
"Bill... ?"
"Bill Compton," Sam said flatly, just as I opened my mouth to say the same thing. "Vampire Bill."

Arlene was flabbergasted, Charlsie Tooten immediately gave a little shriek, and Lafayette about dropped his bottom jaw.

"Honey, couldn't you just date a regular human fella?" Arlene asked when she got her voice back.
"A regular human fella didn't ask me out." I could feel the color fix in my cheeks. I stood there with my back straight, feeling defiant and looking it, I'm sure.
"But, sweetie," Charlsie Tooten fluted in her babyish voice, "honey ... Bill's, ah, got that virus."
"I know that," I said, hearing the distinct edge in my voice.
"I thought you were going to say you were dating a black, but you've gone one better, ain't you, girl?" Lafayette said, picking at his fingernail polish.
Sam didn't say anything. He just stood leaning against the bar, and there was a white line around his mouth as if he were biting his cheek inside. I stared at them all in turn, forcing them to either swallow this or spit it out.

Arlene got through it first. "All right, then. He better treat you good, or we'll get our stakes out!"
They were all able to laugh at that, albeit weakly.
"And you'll save a lot on groceries!" Lafayette pointed out. But then in one step Sam ruined it all, that tentative acceptance, by suddenly moving to stand beside me and pull the collar of my shirt down. You could have cut the silence of my friends with a knife. "Oh, shit," Lafayette said, very softly. I looked right into Sam's eyes, thinking I'd never forgive him for doing this to me.
"Don't you touch my clothes," I told him, stepping away from him and pulling the collar back straight. "Don't tend to my personal life."
"I'm scared for you, I'm worried about you," he said, as Arlene and Charlsie hastily found other things to do.
"No you're not, or not entirely. You're mad as hell. Well listen, buddy. You never got in line."

And I stalked away to wipe down the formica on one of the tables. Then I collected all the salt shakers and refilled them. Then I checked the pepper shakers and the bottles of hot peppers on each table and booth, the Tabasco sauce, too. I just kept working and kept my eyes in front of me, and gradually, the atmosphere cooled down. Sam was back in his office doing paperwork or something, I didn't care what, as long as he kept his opinions to himself. I still felt like he'd ripped the curtain off a private area of my life when he'd exposed my neck, and I hadn't forgiven him. But Arlene and Charlsie had found make-work, as I'd done, and by the time the after-work crowd began trickling in, we were once again fairly comfortable with one another.

Arlene came into the women's room with me. "Listen, Sookie, I got to ask. Are vampires all everyone says they are, in the lover department?" I just smiled.

Bill came into the bar that evening, just after dark. I'd worked late since one of the evening waitresses had had car trouble. One minute he wasn't there, and the next minute he was, slowing down so I could see him coming. If Bill had any doubts about making our relationship public, he didn't show them. He lifted my hand and kissed it in a gesture that performed by anyone else would have seemed phony as hell. I felt the touch of his lips on the back of my hand all the way down to my toes, and I knew he could tell that.

"How are you this evening?" he whispered, and I shivered.
"A little ..." I found I couldn't get the words out.
"You can tell me later," he suggested. "When are you through?"
"Just as soon as Susie gets here."
"Come to my house."
"Okay." I smiled up at him, feeling radiant and lightheaded.
And Bill smiled back, though since my nearness had affected him, his fangs were showing, and maybe to anyone else but me the effect was a little—unsettling. He bent to kiss me, just a light touch on the cheek, and he turned to leave. But just at that moment, the evening went all to hell.

Malcolm and Diane came in, flinging the door open as if they were making a grand entrance, and of course, they were. I wondered where Liam was. Probably parking the car. It was too much to hope they'd left him at home.

Folks in Bon Temps were getting accustomed to Bill, but the flamboyant Malcolm and the equally flamboyant Diane caused quite a stir. My first thought was that this wasn't going to help people get used to Bill and me.

Malcolm was wearing leather pants and a kind of chain-mail shirt. He looked like something on the cover of a rock album. Diane was wearing a one-piece lime green bodysuit spun out of Lycra or some other very thin, stretchy cloth. I was sure I could count her pubic hairs if I so desired. Blacks didn't come into Merlotte's much, but if any black was absolutely safe there, it was Diane. I saw Lafayette goggling through the hatch in open admiration, spiced by a dollop of fear.

The two vampires shrieked with feigned surprise when they saw Bill, like demented drunks. As far as I could tell, Bill was not happy about their presence, but he seemed to handle their invasion calmly, as he did almost everything. Malcolm kissed Bill on the mouth, and so did Diane. It was hard to tell which greeting was more offensive to the customers in the bar. Bill had better show distaste, and quick, I thought, if he wanted to stay in good with the human inhabitants
of Bon Temps.

Bill, who was no fool, took a step back and put his arm around me, dissociating himself from the vampires and aligning himself with the humans.
"So your little waitress is still alive," Diane said, and her clear voice was audible through the whole bar.
"Isn't that amazing."
"Her grandmother was murdered last week," Bill said quietly, trying to subdue Diane's desire to make a scene. Her gorgeous lunatic brown eyes fixed on me, and I felt cold.
"Is that right?" she said and laughed. That was it. No one would forgive her now. If Bill had been trying to find a way to entrench himself, this would be the scenario I would write. On the other hand, the disgust I could feel massing from the humans in the bar could backlash and wash over Bill as well as the renegades.

Of course ... to Diane and her friends, Bill was the renegade.

"When's someone going to kill you, baby?" She ran a fingernail under my chin, and I knocked her hand away. She would have been on me if Malcolm hadn't grabbed her hand, lazily, almost effortlessly. But I saw the strain show in the way he was standing.
"Bill," he said conversationally, as if he wasn't exerting every muscle he had to keep Diane still, "I hear this town is losing its unskilled service personnel at a terrible rate. And a little bird in Shreveport tells me you and your friend here were at Fangtasia asking questions about what vampire the murdered fang-bangers might have been with."

"You know that's for us to know, no one else," Malcolm continued, and all of a sudden his face was so serious it was truly terrifying. "Some of us don't want to go to—baseball— games and ..." (here he was searching his memory for something disgustingly human, I could tell) "barbecues! We are Vampire!" He invested the word with majesty, with glamor, and I could tell a lot of the people in the bar were falling under his spell.

Malcolm was intelligent enough to want to erase the bad impression he knew Diane had made, all the while showering contempt on those of us it had been made on. I stomped on his instep with every ounce of weight I could muster. He showed his fangs at me. The people in the bar blinked and shook themselves.

"Why don't you just get outta here, mister," Rene said. He was slouched at the bar with his elbows flanking a beer.

There was moment when things hung in the balance, when the bar could have turned into a bloodbath. None of my fellow humans seemed to quite comprehend how strong vampires were, or how ruthless. Bill had moved in front of me, a fact registered by every citizen in Merlotte's.

"Well, if we're not wanted..." Malcolm said. His thick-muscled masculinity warred with the fluting voice he suddenly affected. "These good people would like to eat meat, Diane, and do human things. By themselves. Or with our former friend Bill."
"I think the little waitress would like to do a very human thing with Bill," Diane began, when Malcolm caught her by the arm and propelled her from the room before she could cause more damage.

The entire bar seemed to shudder collectively when they were out the door, and I thought I better leave, even though Susie hadn't shown up yet. Bill waited for me outside; when I asked him why, he said he wanted to be sure they'd really left.

I followed Bill to his house, thinking we'd gotten off relatively lightly from the vampire visitation. I wondered why Diane and Malcolm had come; it seemed odd to me that they would be cruising so far from home and decide, on a whim, to drop in Merlotte's. Since they were making no real effort at assimilation, maybe they wanted to scotch Bill's prospects.

The Compton house was visibly different from the last time I'd been in, the sickening evening I'd met the other vampires. The contractors were really coming through for Bill, whether because they were scared not to or because he was paying well, I didn't know. Maybe both. The living room was getting a new ceiling and the new wallpaper was white with a delicate flowered pattern. The hardwood floors had been cleaned, and they shone as they must have originally. Bill led me to the kitchen. It was sparse, naturally, but bright and cheerful and had a brand-new refrigerator full of bottled synthetic blood (yuck).

The downstairs bathroom was opulent.

As far as I knew, Bill never used the bathroom; at least for the primary human function. I stared around me in amazement. The space for this grand bathroom had been achieved by including what had formerly been the pantry and about half the old kitchen.

"I like to shower," he said, pointing to a clear shower stall in one corner. It was big enough for two grownups and maybe a dwarf or two. "And I like to lie in warm water." He indicated the centerpiece of the room, a huge sort of tub surrounded by an indoor deck of cedar, with steps on two sides. There were potted plants arranged all around it. The room was as close to being in the middle of a very luxurious jungle as you could get in northern Louisiana. "What is that?" I asked, awed.

"It's a portable spa," Bill said proudly. "It has jets you can adjust individually so each person can get the right force of water. It's a hot tub," he simplified.
"It has seats," I said, looking in. The interior was decorated around the top with green and blue tiles. There were fancy controls on the outside. Bill turned them, and water began to surge. "Maybe we can bathe together?" Bill suggested. I felt my cheeks flame, and my heart began to pound a little faster. "Maybe now?" Bill's fingers tugging at my shirt where it was tucked into my black shorts.
"Oh, well...maybe." I couldn't seem to look at him straight when I thought of how this—okay, man—had seen more of me than I'd ever let anyone see, including my doctor.
"Have you missed me?" he asked, his hands unbuttoning my shorts and peeling them down.
"Yes," I said promptly because I knew that to be true.
He laughed, even as he knelt to untie my Nikes. "What did you miss most, Sookie?"
"I missed your silence," I said without thinking at all.
He looked up. His fingers paused in the act of pulling the end of the bow to loosen it.
"My silence," he said.
"Not being able to hear your thoughts. You just can't imagine, Bill, how wonderful that is."
"I was thinking you'd say something else."
"Well, I missed that, too."
"Tell me about it," he invited, pulling my socks off and running his fingers up my thigh, tugging off the panties and shorts.
"Bill! I'm embarrassed," I protested.
"Sookie, don't be embarrassed with me. Least of anyone, with me." He was standing now, divesting me of my shirt and reaching behind me to unsnap my bra, running his hands over the marks the straps had made on my skin, turning his attention to my breasts. He toed off his sandals at some point.
"I'll try," I said, looking at my own toes.
"Undress me."

Now that I could do. I unbuttoned his shirt briskly and eased it out of his pants and off his shoulders. I unbuckled his belt and began to work on the waist button of his slacks. It was stiff, and I had quite a job. I thought I was going to cry if the button didn't cooperate more. I felt clumsy and inept.

He took my hands and led them up to his chest. "Slow, Sookie, slow," he said, and his voice had gone soft and shivery. I could feel myself relaxing almost inch by inch, and I began to stroke his chest as he'd stroked mine, twining the curly hair around my fingers and gently pinching his flat nipples. His hand went behind my head and pressed gently. I hadn't known men liked that, but Bill sure did, so I paid equal attention to the other one. While I was doing that, my hands resumed work on the damn button, and this time it came undone with ease. I began pushing down his pants, sliding my fingers inside his Jockeys.

He helped me down into the spa, the water frothing around our legs.
"Shall I bathe you first?" he asked.
"No," I said breathlessly. "Give me the soap."