Book Eight 15-17

Chapter 15
I slept very late the next day. And I slept like a stone. I didn’t dream. I didn’t
toss or turn. I didn’t get up to pee. When I woke up, it was close to noon, so
it was good I didn’t have to be at Merlotte’s until evening.
I could hear voices in the living room. This was the downside of having a
roommate. There was someone there when you woke up, and sometimes
that person had company. However, Amelia was very good about making
enough coffee for me when she got up earlier. That prospect got me out of
bed.
I had to get dressed since we had company; besides, the other voice
sounded masculine. I did a little brisk grooming in the bathroom and threw
off my nightgown. I put on a bra and a T-shirt and some khakis. Good
enough. I made a beeline for the kitchen and found that Amelia had indeed
made a big pot of coffee. And she’d left a mug ready for me. Oh, great. I
poured, and popped some sourdough bread in the toaster. The back porch
door slammed, and I turned in surprise to see Tyrese Marley enter with an
armful of firewood.
“Where do you keep your wood after you bring it in?” he asked.
“I have a rack by the fireplace in the living room.” He’d been splitting the
wood Jason had cut and stacked by the toolshed the spring before. “That’s
really nice of you,” I said, floundering. “Um, have you had any coffee, or
some toast? Or...” I glanced at the clock. “What about a ham or meatloaf
sandwich?”
“Food sounds good,” he said, striding down the hall as though the wood
weighed nothing.
So the guest in the living room was Copley Carmichael. Why Amelia’s dad
was here, I had no clue. I scrambled to assemble a couple of sandwiches,
poured some water, and put two kinds of chips by his plate so Marley could
pick what he wanted. Then I sat down at the table myself and finally got to
drink my coffee and eat my toast. I still had some of my grandmother’s
plum jam to spread on it, and I tried not to be melancholy every time I used
it. No point in letting good jam go to waste. She would have certainly
looked at it that way.
Marley returned and sat down opposite me with no sign of discomfort. I
relaxed myself.
“I appreciate the work,” I said after he’d had a bite of his food.
“I got nothing else to do while he talks to Amelia,” Marley said. “Plus, if
she’s still here all winter, he’ll be glad if she can have a fire. Who cut that
wood for you and didn’t split it?”
“My brother,” I said.
“Humph,” Marley said, and settled into eating.
I finished my toast, poured myself a second mug of coffee, and asked
Marley if he needed anything.
“I’m good, thank you,” he said, and opened the bag of barbecue potato
chips.
I excused myself to take a shower. It was definitely cooler today, and I got
a long-sleeved T-shirt out of a drawer I hadn’t opened in months. It was
Halloween weather. It was past time to buy a pumpkin and some candy ...
not that I got many trick-or-treaters. For the first time in days, I felt normal:
that is to say, comfortably happy with myself and my world. There was a lot
to grieve about, and I would, but I wasn’t walking around expecting a
smack in the face.
Of course, the minute I thought that, I began to brood on bad things. I
realized I hadn’t heard anything from the Shreveport vampires, and then I
wondered why I thought I should or would. This period of adjustment from
one regime to another had to be full of tension and negotiation, and it was
best to leave them to it. I hadn’t heard from the Weres of Shreveport,
either. Since the investigation into the disappearance of all those people
was still active, that was a good thing.
And since I’d just broken up with my boyfriend, that meant (theoretically) I
was footloose and fancy-free. I put on eye makeup as a gesture toward my
freedom. And then I added some lipstick. It was hard to feel adventurous,
actually. I hadn’t wanted to be fancy-free.
As I finished making my bed, Amelia knocked at my door.
“Come on in,” I said, folding my nightgown and putting it in the drawer.
“What’s up?”
“Well, my father has a favor to ask you,” she said.
I could feel my face settle into grim lines. Of course, there had to be
something Copley wanted if he’d driven up from New Orleans to talk to his
daughter. And I could imagine what that request was.
“Go on,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Oh, Sookie, your body language is already saying no!”
“Ignore my body and speak your piece.”
She heaved a big sigh to indicate how reluctant she was to drag me into
her dad’s stuff. But I could tell she was tickled pink that he’d asked her to
help him. “Well, since I told him about the Vegas vampire takeover, he
wants to reestablish his business link with the vampires. He wants an
introduction. He was hoping you could, like, broker that.”
“I don’t even know Felipe de Castro.”
“No, but you know that Victor. And he looks like he’s got his eyes on his
own advancement.”
“You know him as well as I do,” I pointed out.
“Maybe, but what’s more important is that he knows who you are, and I’m
just the other woman in the room,” Amelia said, and I could see her point—
though I hated it. “I mean, he knows who I am, who my dad is, but he really
noticed you.”
“Oh, Amelia,” I moaned, and for just a moment felt like kicking her.
“I know you won’t like this, but he said he was ready to pay, like, a finder’s
fee,” Amelia muttered, looking embarrassed.
I waved my hands in front of me to fan that thought away. I was not going
to let my friend’s father pay me money to make a phone call or whatever I
had to do. At that moment I knew I’d decided I had to do this for Amelia’s
sake.
We went to the living room to talk face-to-face with Copley.
He greeted me with far more enthusiasm than he’d shown on his previous
visit. He fixed his gaze on me, did the whole “I’m focused on you” thing. I
regarded him with a skeptical eye. Since he was no fool, he picked up on
that immediately.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stackhouse, for intruding here so soon after my last visit,”
he said, laying on the smarm. “But things in New Orleans are so desperate.
We’re trying to rebuild to bring the jobs back in. This connection is really
important to me, and I employ a lot of people.”
One, I didn’t think Copley Carmichael was hurting for business even
without the contracts for rebuilding the vampire properties. Two, I didn’t for
a minute think his sole motivation was the improvement of the damaged
city; but after a moment of looking into his head, I was willing to concede
that accounted for at least a fraction of his urgency.
Also, Marley had split the wood for the winter and carried a load in. That
counted for more with me than any appeal based on emotion.
“I’ll call Fangtasia tonight,” I said. “I’ll see what they say. That’s the limit of
my involvement.”
“Miss Stackhouse, I’m indeed indebted,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“Your chauffeur already did it,” I said. “If he could finish splitting that oak,
that would be a great favor.” I’m not a very good wood splitter, and I know
because I’ve tried. Three or four logs done, and I’m wiped out.
“That’s what he’s been doing?” Copley did a good job of looking
astonished. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or not. “Well, how enterprising of
Marley.”
Amelia was smiling and trying not to let her dad notice it. “Okay, then we’re
settled,” she said briskly. “Dad, can I fix you a sandwich or soup? We have
some chips or some potato salad.”
“Sounds good,” he said, since he was still trying to be just plain folks.
“Marley and I have already eaten,” I said casually, and added, “I need to
run to town, Amelia. You need anything?”
“I could use some stamps,” she said. “You going by the post office?”
I shrugged. “It’s on the way. Bye, Mr. Carmichael.”
“Call me Cope, please, Sookie.”
I’d just known he was going to say that. Next he was going to try being
courtly. Sure enough, he smiled at me with exactly the right blend of
admiration and respect.
I got my purse and headed out the back door. Marley was still working on
the woodpile in his shirtsleeves. I hoped that had been his very own idea. I
hoped he got a raise.
I didn’t really have anything to do in town. But I had wanted to dodge any
further conversation with Amelia’s dad. I stopped by the store and got some
more paper towels, bread, and tuna, and I stopped by the Sonic and got an
Oreo Blast. Oh, I was a bad girl, no doubt about it. I was sitting in my car
working on the Blast when I spied an interesting couple two cars away.
They hadn’t noticed me, apparently, because Tanya and Arlene were
talking steadily. The two were in Tanya’s Mustang. Arlene’s hair was newly
colored, so it was flaming red to the roots, caught up at the back in a
banana clip. My former friend was wearing a tiger-print knit top, all I could
see of her ensemble. Tanya was wearing a pretty lime green blouse and a
dark brown sweater. And she was listening intently.
I tried to believe they were talking about something other than me. I mean, I
try not to be too paranoid. But when you see your ex-buddy talking to your
known enemy, you have to at least entertain the possibility that the topic of
you has come up in an unflattering way.
It wasn’t so much that they didn’t like me. I’ve known people all my life who
didn’t like me. I’ve known exactly why and how much they didn’t like me.
That’s really unpleasant, as you can well imagine. What bothered me was
that I thought Arlene and Tanya were moving into the realm of actually
doing something to me.
I wondered what I could find out. If I moved closer, they’d definitely notice
me, but I wasn’t sure I could “hear” them from where I was. I bent over like I
was fiddling with my CD player, and I focused on them. I tried to mentally
skip over or plow through the people in the intervening cars to reach them,
which wasn’t an easy task.
Finally, the familiar pattern of Arlene helped me to home in. The first
impression I got was one of pleasure. Arlene was enjoying her self
immensely, since she had the undivided attention of a fairly new audience
and she was getting to talk about her new boyfriend’s convictions about the
need to kill all vampires and maybe people who collaborated with them.
Arlene had no hard convictions that she’d formed for herself, but she was
great at adopting other people’s if they suited her emotionally.
When Tanya had an especially strong surge of exasperation, I zoomed in
on her thought pattern. I was in. I remained in my half-concealed position,
my hand moving every now and then over the CDs in my little car folder,
while I tried to pick out everything I could.
Tanya was still in the pay of the Pelts: Sandra Pelt, specifically. And
gradually I came to understand that Tanya had been sent here to do
anything she could to make me miserable.
Sandra Pelt was the sister of Debbie Pelt, whom I’d shot to death in my
kitchen. (After she’d tried to kill me. Several times. Let me point that out.)
Dammit. I was sick to death of the issue of Debbie Pelt. The woman had
been a bane to me alive. She had been as malicious and vindictive as her
little sister, Sandra. I’d suffered over her death, felt guilty, felt remorseful,
felt like I had a huge C for “Cain” on my forehead. Killing a vampire is bad
enough, but the corpse goes away and they’re sort of . . . erased. Killing
another human being changes you forever.
That’s how it ought to be.
But it’s possible to grow sick of that feeling, tired of that albatross around
your emotional neck. And I’d grown both sick and tired of Debbie Pelt. Then
her sister and her parents had begun giving me grief, had had me
kidnapped. The tables had turned, and I’d held them in my power. In return
for me letting them go, they’d agreed to leave me alone. Sandra had
promised to stay away until her parents died. I had to wonder if the elder
Pelts were still among the living.
I started up my car and began cruising around Bon Temps, waving at
familiar faces in almost every vehicle I passed. I had no idea what to do. I
stopped at the little town park and got out of my car. I began to stroll, my
hands jammed in my pockets. My head was all in a snarl.
I remembered the night I’d confessed to my first lover, Bill, that my greatuncle
had molested me when I’d been a child. Bill had taken my story so to
heart that he had arranged for a visitor to drop by my great-uncle’s house.
Lo and behold, my uncle had died from a fall down the stairs. I’d been
furious at Bill for taking over my own past. But I couldn’t deny that having
my great-uncle dead had felt good. That profound relief had made me feel
complicit in the assassination.
When I’d been trying to find survivors in the twisted debris of the Pyramid of
Gizeh, I’d found someone still living, a vampire who wanted to keep me
firmly under his control for the queen’s benefit. Andre had been terribly
wounded, but he would have lived if an injured Quinn hadn’t crawled over
and snuffed Andre out. I’d walked away without stopping Quinn or saving
Andre, and that had made me several degrees more guilty of Andre’s death
than of my great-uncle’s.
I strode through the empty park, kicking at the stray leaves that came my
way. I was struggling with a sick temptation. I had only to say the word to
any of many members of the supernatural community, and Tanya would be
dead. Or I could set my sights on the source and have Sandra taken out.
And again—what a relief her departure from the world would be.
I just couldn’t do it.
But I couldn’t live with Tanya nipping at my heels, either. She’d done her
best to ruin my brother’s already shaky relationship with his wife. That was
just wrong.
I finally thought of the right person to consult. And she lived with me, so
that was convenient.
When I got back to my house, Amelia’s dad and his obliging chauffeur had
departed. Amelia was in the kitchen, washing dishes.
“Amelia,” I said, and she jumped. “Sorry,” I apologized. “I should’ve walked
heavier.”
“I was hoping that my dad and I understood each other a little better,” she
confessed. “But I don’t think that’s really true. He just needs me to do
something for him now and then.”
“Well, at least we got the firewood split.”
She laughed a little and dried off her hands. “You look like you have
something big to say.”
“I want to clear the decks before I tell you this long story. I’m doing your
dad a favor, but I’m really doing it for you,” I said. “I’ll call Fangtasia for your
father no matter what, because you’re my roommate and that’ll make you
happy. So that’s a done deal. Now I’m going to tell you about a terrible
thing I did.”
Amelia sat at the table and I sat opposite her, just like Marley and I had
done earlier. “This sounds interesting,” she said. “I’m ready. Bring it on.”
I told Amelia all about it: Debbie Pelt, Alcide, Sandra Pelt and her parents,
their vow that Sandra would never bother me again while they lived. What
they had on me and how I felt about it. Tanya Grissom, spy and sneak and
saboteur of my brother’s marriage.
“Whoa,” she said when I’d finished. She thought for a minute. “Okay, first
off, let’s check on Mr. and Mrs. Pelt.” We used the computer I’d brought
back from Hadley’s apartment in New Orleans. It took all of five minutes to
discover that Gordon and Barbara Pelt had died two weeks before when
they’d attempted to make a left turn into a gas station only to be hit
broadside by a tractor trailer.
We looked at each other, our noses wrinkled. “Ewww,” Amelia said. “Bad
way to go.”
“I wonder if she even waited till they were in the ground before she
activated the Aggravate Sookie to Death plan,” I said.
“This bitch isn’t going to let up. You sure Debbie Pelt was adopted?
Because this totally vindictive attitude seems to run in that family.”
“They must have really bonded,” I said. “In fact, I got the impression that
Debbie was more of a sister to Sandra than she was a daughter to her
parents.”
Amelia nodded thoughtfully. “A little pathology going on there,” she said.
“Well, let me think about what I can do. I don’t do death magic. And you’ve
said you don’t want Tanya and Sandra to die, so I’m taking you at your
word.”
“Good,” I said briefly. “And, uh, I’m willing to pay for this, of course.”
“Poo,” Amelia said. “You were willing to take me in when I needed to get
out of town. You’ve put up with me all this time.”
“Well, you do pay rent,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, enough to cover my part of the utilities. And you put up with me, and
you don’t seem to be all up in arms about the Bob situation. So believe me,
I’m really glad to do this for you. I’ve just got to figure out what I’m actually
going to do. Do you mind if I consult with Octavia?”
“No, not at all,” I said, trying not to show that I was relieved at the idea of
the older witch offering her expertise. “You got it, right? Got that she was at
loose ends? Out of money?”
“Yeah,” Amelia said. “And I don’t know how to give her some without
offering offense. This is a good way to do it. I understand that she’s stuck in
a random corner of the living room in the house of the niece she’s staying
with. She told me that—more or less—but I don’t know what I can do about
it.”
“I’ll think about it,” I promised. “If she really, really needs to move out of her
niece’s, she could stay in my extra bedroom for a little while.” That wasn’t
an offer that delighted me, but the old witch had seemed pretty miserable.
She’d been entertained by going on the little jaunt to poor Maria-Star’s
apartment, which had been a ghastly sight.
“We’ll try to come up with something long-term,” Amelia said. “I’m going to
go give her a call.”
“Okay. Let me know what you-all come up with. I got to get ready for work.”
There weren’t too many houses between mine and Merlotte’s, but all of
them had ghosts hanging from trees, inflated plastic pumpkins in the yard,
and a real pumpkin or two sitting on the front porch. The Prescotts had a
sheaf of corn, a bale of hay, and some ornamental squash and pumpkins
arranged artfully on the front lawn. I made a mental memo to tell Lorinda
Prescott how attractive it was when next I saw her at Wal-Mart or the post
office.
By the time I got to work, it was dark. I got out my cell phone to call
Fangtasia before I went inside.
“Fangtasia, the bar with a bite. Come into Shreveport’s premier vampire
bar, where the undead do their drinking every single night,” said a
recording. “For bar hours, press one. To schedule a private party, press
two. To speak to a live human or a dead vampire, press three. And know
this: prank calls are not tolerated. We will find you.”
I was sure the voice was Pam’s. She’d sounded remarkably bored. I
pressed three.
“Fangtasia, where all your undead dreams come true,” said one of the
fangbangers. “This is Elvira. How may I direct you?”
Elvira, my ass. “This is Sookie Stackhouse. I need to speak with Eric,” I
said.
“Could Clancy help you?” Elvira asked.
“No.”
Elvira seemed stumped.
“The master is very busy,” she said, as if that would be hard for a human
like me to understand.
Elvira was definitely a newbie. Or maybe I was getting kind of arrogant. I
was irritated with “Elvira.” “Listen,” I said, trying to sound pleasant. “You get
Eric on the phone in two minutes or he’ll be mighty unhappy with you.”
“Well,” Elvira said. “You don’t have to be a bitch about it.”
“Evidently I do.”
“I’m putting you on hold,” Elvira said viciously. I glanced at the employee
door of the bar. I needed to hustle.
Click. “This is Eric,” he said. “Is this my former lover?”
Okay, even that made things inside me thud and shiver in excitement.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, proud of how unshaken I sounded. “Listen, Eric,
for what it’s worth, I had a visit today from a New Orleans bigwig named
Copley Carmichael. He’d been involved with Sophie-Anne in some
business negotiations about rebuilding the headquarters. He wants to
establish a relationship with the new regime.” I took a deep breath. “Are
you okay?” I asked, negating in one plaintive question all my cultivated
indifference.
“Yes,” he said, his voice intensely personal. “Yes, I am . . . coping with this.
We are very, very lucky we were in a position to . . . We’re very lucky.”
I let out my breath very softly so he wouldn’t pick up on it. Of course, he
would anyway. I can’t say I’d been on pins and needles wondering how
things were going with the vampires, but I hadn’t been resting very easy,
either. “Okay, very good,” I said briskly. “Now, about Copley. Is there
anyone around who’d like to hook up with him about the construction stuff?”
“Is he in the area?”
“I don’t know. He was here this morning. I can ask.”
“The vampire I am working with now would probably be the right woman for
him to approach. She could meet him at your bar or here at Fangtasia.”
“Okay. I’m sure he’d do either one.”
“Let me know. He needs to call here to set up an appointment. He should
ask for Sandy.”
I laughed. “Sandy, huh?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding grim enough to sober me in a hurry. “She is not a
bit funny, Sookie.”
“Okay, okay, I get it. Let me call his daughter, she’ll call him, he’ll call
Fangtasia, it’ll all get set up, and I’ve done my favor for him.”
“This is Amelia’s father?”
“Yes. He’s a jerk,” I said. “But he’s her dad, and I guess he knows his
building stuff.”
“I lay in front of your fire and talked to you about your life,” he said.
Okay, way out of left field. “Uh. Yeah. We did that.”
“I remember our shower together.”
“We did that, too.”
“We did so many things.”
“Ah . . . yeah. Okay.”
“In fact, if I didn’t have so much to do here in Shreveport, I would be
tempted to visit you all by myself to remind you how much you enjoyed
those things.”
“If memory serves,” I said sharply, “you kind of enjoyed them, too.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Eric, I really need to go. I got to get to work.” Or spontaneously combust,
whichever came first.
“Good-bye.” He could make even that sound sexy.
“Good-bye.” I didn’t.
It took me a second to gather my thoughts back together. I was
remembering things I’d tried hard to forget. The days Eric had stayed with
me—well, the nights—we’d done a lot of talking and a lot of sexing. And it
had been wonderful. The companionship. The sex. The laughing. The sex.
The conversations. The . . . well.
Somehow going in to serve beers seemed drab, all of a sudden.
But that was my job, and I owed it to Sam to show up and work. I trudged
in, stowed my purse, and nodded to Sam as I tapped Holly on the shoulder
to tell her I was here to take over. We switched shifts for the change and
convenience but mostly because the night tips were higher. Holly was glad
to see me because she had a date that night with Hoyt. They were going to
a movie and dinner in Shreveport. She’d gotten a teenager to babysit Cody.
She was telling me this as I was getting it from her contented brain, and I
had to work hard not to get confused. That showed me how rattled I’d been
by my conversation with Eric.
I was really busy for about thirty minutes, making sure everyone was wellsupplied
with drinks and food. I caught a moment to call Amelia soon after
that to relay Eric’s message, and she told me that she’d call her dad the
minute she hung up. “Thanks, Sook,” she said. “Again, you’re a great
roomie.”
I hoped she’d think of that when she and Octavia were devising a magical
solution to my Tanya problem.
Claudine came into Merlotte’s that evening, raising male pulses as she
sauntered to the bar. She was wearing a green silk blouse, black pants,
and black high-heeled boots. That made her at least six foot one, I
estimated. To my amazement, her twin brother, Claude, trailed in after her.
The racing pulses spread to the opposite sex with the speed of wildfire.
Claude, whose hair was as black as Claudine’s, though not as long, was as
lovely a hunk as ever posed in a Calvin Klein ad. Claude was wearing a
masculine version of Claudine’s out fit, and he’d tied his hair back with a
leather thong. He was also wearing very “guy” boots. Since he stripped at a
club in Monroe on ladies’ night, Claude knew exactly how to smile at
women, though he wasn’t interested in them. I take that back. He was
interested in how much money they had in their purses.
The twins had never come in together; in fact, I didn’t recall Claude setting
foot in Merlotte’s before. He had his own place to run, his own fish to fry.
Of course I went over to say hi, and I got a comprehensive hug from
Claudine. To my amazement, Claude followed suit. I figured he was playing
to the audience, which was pretty much the whole bar. Even Sam was
goggling; together, the fairy twins were overwhelming.
We stood at the bar with me sandwiched between them, each with an arm
around me, and I heard brains light up all around the room with little
fantasies, some of which startled even me, and I’ve seen the most bizarre
things people can imagine. Yep, it’s all there for lucky me to see in living
color.
“We bring you greetings from our grandfather,” Claude said. His voice was
so quiet and liquid that I was sure no one else would be able to hear it.
Possibly Sam could, but he was always good for discretion.
“He wonders why you haven’t called,” Claudine said, “especially
considering the events of the other night, in Shreveport.”
“Well, that was over with,” I said, surprised. “Why tell him about something
that had already turned out okay? You were there. But I did try to call him
the other night.”
“It rang once,” Claudine murmured.
“However, a certain person broke my phone so I couldn’t complete the call.
He told me it was the wrong thing to do, that it would start a war. I lived
through that, too. So that was okay.”
“You need to talk to Niall, tell him the whole story,” Claudine said. She
smiled across the room at Catfish Hennessy, who put his beer mug down
on the table so hard that it slopped over. “Now that Niall’s made himself
known to you, he wants you to confide in him.”
“Why can’t he pick up the phone like everyone else in the world?”
“He doesn’t spend all his time in this world,” Claude said. “There are still
places for only our kind.”
“Very small places,” Claudine said longingly. “But very special.”
I was glad to have kin, and I was always glad to see Claudine, who was
literally my lifesaver. But the two sibs together were a little overpowering,
overwhelming—and when they stood so close with me crowded between
them (even Sam was having a visual from that), their sweet smell, the smell
that made them so intoxicating to vampires, was drowning my poor nose.
“Look,” Claude said, mildly amused. “I think we have company.”
Arlene was sidling nearer, looking at Claude as if she’d spied a whole plate
of barbecue and onion rings.
“Who’s your friend, Sookie?” she asked.
“This is Claude,” I said. “He’s my distant cousin.”
“Well, Claude, nice to meet ya,” Arlene said.
She had some nerve, considering the way she felt about me now and how
she’d treated me since she’d started going to the Fellowship of the Sun
services.
Claude looked massively uninterested. He nodded.
Arlene had expected more, and after a moment of silence, she pretended
to hear someone from one of her tables calling her. “Gotta go get a
pitcher!” she said brightly, and bustled off. I saw her bend over a table,
talking very seriously to a couple of guys I didn’t know.
“It’s always good to see you two, but I am at work,” I said. “So, did you just
come to tell me my . . . that Niall wants to know why I called once and hung
up?”
“And never called thereafter to explain,” Claudine said. She bent down to
kiss my cheek. “Please call him tonight when you get off work.”
“Okay,” I said. “I still wish he’d called me himself to ask.” Messengers were
all well and good, but the phone was quicker. And I’d like to hear his voice.
No matter where my great-grandfather might be, he could wink back into
this world to call if he really was that taxed about my safety.
I thought he could, anyway.
Of course, I didn’t know what being a fairy prince entailed. Write that down
under “problems I know I’ll never face.”
After another round of hugs and kisses, the twins sauntered out of the bar,
and many wistful eyes followed them on their progress out the door.
“Hoo, Sookie, you got some hot friends!” Catfish Hennessy called, and
there was a general tide of agreement.
“I’ve seen that guy at a club in Monroe. Doesn’t he strip?” said a nurse
named Debi Murray who worked at the hospital in nearby Clarice. She was
sitting with a couple of other nurses.
“Yeah,” I said. “He owns the club, too.”
“Looks and loot,” said one of the other nurses. Her name was Beverly
something. “I’m taking my daughter next ladies’ night. She just broke up
with a real loser.”
"Well...” I debated explaining that Claude wouldn’t be interested in
anyone’s daughter, then decided that wasn’t my responsibility. “Have a
good time,” I said instead.
Since I’d taken time out with my sort-of cousins, I had to hustle to sweeten
everyone up. Though they hadn’t had my attention during the visit, they had
had the entertainment of the twins, so no one was really miffed.
Toward the end of my shift, Copley Carmichael walked in.
He looked funny alone. I assumed Marley was waiting in the car.
In his beautiful suit and with his expensive haircut, he didn’t exactly fit in,
but I got to give him credit: he acted like he came into places like Merlotte’s
all the time. I happened to be standing by Sam, who was mixing a bourbon
and Coke for one of my tables. I explained to Sam who the stranger was.
I delivered the drink and nodded at an empty table. Mr. Carmichael took the
hint and settled in.
“Hey! Can I get you a drink, Mr. Carmichael?” I said.
“Please get me a single malt scotch,” he said. “Whatever you’ve got will be
fine. I’m meeting someone here, Sookie, thanks to your phone call. You
just tell me the next time you need anything, and I’ll do everything in my
power to make it happen.”
“Not necessary, Mr. Carmichael.”
“Please, call me Cope.”
“Um-hmmm. Okay, let me get your scotch.”
I didn’t know a single malt scotch from a hole in the ground, but Sam did, of
course, and he gave me a shining clean glass with a very respectable shot
of it. I serve liquor, but I seldom drink it. Most folks around here drink the
real obvious stuff: beer, bourbon and Coke, gin and tonic, Jack Daniel’s.
I set the drink and cocktail napkin on the table in front of Mr. Carmichael,
and I returned with a little bowl of snack mix.
Then I left him alone, because I had other people to tend to. But I kept track
of him. I noticed Sam was keeping a careful eye on Amelia’s dad, too. But
everyone else was too involved in their own conversations and their own
drinking to give much mind to the stranger, one not nearly as interesting as
Claude and Claudine.
In a moment when I wasn’t looking, a vampire joined Cope. I don’t think
anyone else knew what she was. She was a real recent vamp, by which I
mean she’d died in the past fifty years, and she had prematurely silver hair
that was cut in a modest chin-length style. She was small, maybe five foot
two, and she was round and firm in all the right places. She was wearing
little silver-rimmed glasses that were sheer affectation, because I’d never
met a vampire whose eyesight wasn’t absolutely perfect and in fact sharper
than any human’s.
“Can I get you some blood?” I asked.
Her eyes were like lasers. Once she was really giving you her attention,
you were sorry.
“You’re the woman Sookie,” she said.
I didn’t see any need to affirm what she was so sure of. I waited.
"A glass of TrueBlood, please,” she said. “Quite warm. And I’d like to meet
your boss, if you would fetch him.”
Like Sam was a bone. Nonetheless, she was a customer and I was a
barmaid. So I heated a TrueBlood for her and told Sam he was wanted.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, because he was getting a tray of drinks
ready for Arlene.
I nodded and took the blood over to the vampire.
“Thank you,” she said civilly. “I’m Sandy Sechrest, the new area rep for the
King of Louisiana.”
I had no idea where Sandy had grown up, but it had been in the United
States and had not been in the south. “Pleased to meet you,”
I said, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm. Area rep? Wasn’t that what
sheriffs were, among their other functions? What did that mean for Eric?
At that moment Sam came to the table, and I left because I didn’t want to
look inquisitive. Besides, I could probably pick it up from his brain later if
Sam chose not to tell me what the new vampire wanted. He was good at
blocking, but he had to make a special effort to do it.
The three engaged in a conversation for a couple of minutes, then Sam
excused himself to get back behind the bar.
I glanced at the vampire and the mogul from time to time in case they
needed something more to drink, but neither of them indicated a thirst.
They were talking very seriously, and both of them were adept at
maintaining a poker face. I didn’t care enough to try to latch onto Mr.
Carmichael’s thoughts, and of course Sandy Sechrest was a blank to me.
The rest of the night was the usual stuff. I didn’t even notice when the new
king’s rep and Mr. Carmichael left. Then it was time to close everything out
and get my tables ready for Terry Bellefleur to come in and clean early in
the morning. By the time I really looked around me, everyone was gone but
Sam and me.
“Hey, you through?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said after another look around.
“You got a minute?”
I always had a minute for Sam.
Chapter 16
He sat in the chair behind his desk and tilted it back at the usual dangerous
angle. I sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, the one with the most
padding in the seat. Most of the lights in the building were out except the
one that stayed on over the bar area and the one in Sam’s office. The
building rang with silence after the cacophony of voices rising over the
jukebox and the sounds of cooking, washing, footsteps.
“That Sandy Sechrest,” he said. “She’s got a whole new job.”
“Yeah? What the king’s rep supposed to do?”
“Well, as far as I can tell, she’ll travel the state pretty much constantly,
seeing if the citizens have problems with any vampires, seeing if the
sheriffs have everything in order and under control in their own fiefs, and
reporting in to the king. She’s like an undead troubleshooter.”
“Oh.” I thought that over. I couldn’t see that the job would detract from
Eric’s. If Eric was okay, his crew would be okay. Other than that, I didn’t
care what the vampires did. “So, she decided to meet you because...?”
“She understood I had associations in the regional supernatural
community,” Sam said dryly. “She wanted me to know she was available to
consult in the event ‘problems arose.’ I have her business card.” He held it
up. I don’t know if I expected it to drip with blood or what, but it was only a
regular business card.
“Okay.” I shrugged.
“What did Claudine and her brother want?” Sam asked.
I was feeling very bad about concealing my new great-grandfather from
Sam, but Niall had told me to keep him a secret. “She hadn’t heard from
me since the fight in Shreveport,” I said. “She just wanted to check up, and
she got Claude to come with her.”
Sam looked at me a little sharply but he didn’t comment. “Maybe,” he said
after a minute, “this will be a long era of peace.
Maybe we can just work in the bar and nothing will happen in the supe
community. I’m hoping so, because the time is coming closer and closer
when the Weres are going to go public.”
“You think it’s soon?” I had no idea how America would react to the news
that vampires were not the only things out there in the night. “You think all
the other shifters will announce the same night?”
“We’ll have to,” Sam said. “We’re talking on our website about it.”
Sam did have a life that was unknown to me. That sparked a thought. I
hesitated, then plowed ahead. There were too many questions in my own
life. I wanted to get at least some of them answered.
“How’d you come to settle here?” I asked.
“I’d passed through the area,” he said. “I was in the army for four years.”
“You were?” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known that.
“Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do in my life, so I joined
when I was eighteen. My mom cried and my dad swore since I’d been
accepted to a college, but I’d made up my mind. I was about the
stubbornest teenager on the planet.”
“Where’d you grow up?”
“At least partly in Wright, Texas,” he said. “Outside of Fort Worth. Way
outside of Fort Worth. It wasn’t any bigger than Bon Temps. We moved
around all during my childhood, though, because my dad was in the service
himself. He got out when I was about fourteen, and my mom’s family was in
Wright, so that’s where we went.”
“Was it hard settling down after moving so much?” I’d never lived anywhere
but Bon Temps.
“It was great,” he said. “I was so ready to stay in one place. I hadn’t
realized how hard it would be to find my own niche in a group of kids who’d
grown up together, but I was able to take care of myself. I played baseball
and basketball, so I found my place. Then I joined the army. Go figure.”
I was fascinated. “Are your mom and dad still in Wright?” I asked. “It must
have been hard for him in the military, with him being a shifter.” Since Sam
was a shapeshifter, I knew without him having to tell me that he was the
first-born child of pure-blooded shapeshifters.
“Yeah, the full moons were a bitch. There was an herbal drink his Irish
grandmother used to make. He learned how to make it himself. It was foul
beyond belief, but he drank it on full moons when he had to be on duty and
had to be seen all night, and that helped him maintain. . . . But you didn’t
want to be around him the next day. Dad passed away about six years ago,
left me a chunk of money. I’d always liked this area, and this bar was up for
sale. It seemed like a good way to invest the money.”
“And your mom?”
“She’s still in Wright. She married again about two years after Dad died.
He’s a good enough guy. He’s regular.” Not a shifter or any kind of
supernatural. “So there’s a limit to how close I can get to him,” Sam said.
“Your mom’s a full-blood. Surely he suspects.”
“He’s willfully blind, I think. She has to go out for her evening run, she says,
or she’s spending the night with her sister in Waco, or she’s driving over to
visit me, or some other excuse.”
“Must be hard to maintain.”
“I would never try to do that. I almost married a regular girl once, while I
was in the service. But I just couldn’t marry someone and keep that big a
secret. It saves my sanity, having someone to talk to about it, Sookie.” He
smiled at me, and I appreciated the trust he was showing. “If the Weres
announce, then we’ll all go public. It’ll be a great burden off me.”
We both knew there would be new problems to face, but there wasn’t any
need to talk about future trouble. Trouble always came at its own pace.
“You got any sisters or brothers?” I asked.
“One of each. My sister is married with two kids, and my brother is still
single. He’s a great guy.” Sam was smiling and his face looked more
relaxed than I’d ever seen. “Craig’s getting married in the spring, he says,”
Sam went on. “Maybe you can go to the wedding with me.”
I was so astonished I didn’t know what to say, and I was very flattered and
pleased. “That sounds like fun. Tell me when you know the date,” I said.
Sam and I had gone out, once, and it had been very pleasant; but it was in
the midst of my problems with Bill and the evening had never been
repeated.
Sam nodded casually, and the little jolt of tension that had run through me
evaporated. After all, this was Sam, my boss, and come to think of it, also
one of my best friends. He’d clicked into that slot during the past year. I got
up. I had my purse, and I pulled on my jacket.
“Did you get an invitation for the Fangtasia Halloween party this year?” he
asked.
“No. After the last party they invited me to, they might not want me to come
back,” I said. “Besides, with all the recent losses, I don’t know if Eric’ll feel
like celebrating.”
“You think we ought to have a Halloween party at Merlotte’s?” he asked.
“Maybe not with candy and stuff like that,” I said, thinking hard. “Maybe a
goodie bag for each customer, with dry roasted peanuts? Or a bowl of
orange popcorn on each table? And some decorations?”
Sam looked in the direction of the bar as if he could see through the walls.
“That sounds good. Make a thing of it.” Ordinarily we only decorated for
Christmas, and that only after Thanksgiving, at Sam’s insistence.
I waved good night and left the bar, leaving Sam to check that everything
was locked tight.
The night had a cold bite to it. This would be one of the Halloweens that
really felt like the Halloweens I’d seen in children’s books.
In the center of the parking lot, his face turned up to the sliver of moon, his
eyes closed, stood my great-grandfather. His pale hair hung down his back
like a thick curtain. His myriad of fine creases were invisible in the
moonlight, or else he’d divested himself of them. He was carrying his cane,
and once again he was wearing a suit, a black suit. There was a heavy ring
on his right hand, the hand gripping the cane.
He was the most beautiful being I’d ever seen.
He didn’t look remotely like a human grandfather. Human grandfathers
wore gimme caps from the John Deere place and overalls. They took you
fishing. They let you ride on their tractors. They groused at you for being
too pampered and then they bought you candy. As for human greatgrandfathers,
most of us hardly got to know ours.
I became aware of Sam standing by my side.
“Who is that?” he breathed.
“That’s my, ah, my great-granddad,” I said. He was right there in front of
me. I had to explain.
“Oh,” he said, his voice was full of amazement.
“I just found out,” I said apologetically.
Niall stopped soaking up the moonlight and his eyes opened. “My greatgranddaughter,”
he said, as if my presence in the Merlotte’s parking lot was
a pleasant surprise. “Who is your friend?”
“Niall, this is Sam Merlotte, who owns this bar,” I said.
Sam extended his hand cautiously, and after a good look at it, Niall touched
it with his own. I could feel Sam give a slight jerk, as if my great-grandfather
had had a buzzer in his hand.
“Great-granddaughter,” Niall said, “I hear you were in danger in the fracas
between the werewolves.”
“Yes, but Sam was with me, and then Claudine came,” I said, feeling oddly
defensive. “I didn’t know there was going to be a fracas, as you put it, when
I went. I was trying to be a peacemaker. We were ambushed.”
“Yes, that’s what Claudine reported,” he said. “I understand the bitch is
dead?”
By which he meant Priscilla. “Yes, sir,” I said. “The bitch is dead.”
“And then you were in danger again one night later?”
I was beginning to feel definitely guilty of something. “Well, that’s not
actually my norm,” I said. “It just happened that the vampires of Louisiana
got overrun by the vampires of Nevada.”
Niall seemed only mildly interested. “But you went as far as dialing the
number I left you.”
“Ah, yes, sir, I was pretty scared. But then Eric knocked the phone out of
my hand because he thought if you came into the equation, there’d be an
out-and-out war. As it turned out, I guess that was for the best, because he
surrendered to Victor Madden.” I was still a little angry about it, though,
even after Eric’s gift of the replacement phone.
“Ahhh.”
I couldn’t make head nor tail of that noncommittal sound. This might be the
downside of having a great-grandfather on site. I’d been called on the
carpet. It was a feeling I hadn’t had since I was a young teen and Gran had
found out I’d skipped taking out the trash and folding the laundry. I didn’t
like the feeling now any more than I’d liked it then.
“I love your courage,” Niall said unexpectedly. “But you are very frail—
mortal, breakable, and short-lived. I don’t want to lose you just when I
finally became able to speak to you.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I muttered.
“You don’t want me to stop you from doing anything. You won’t change.
How can I protect you?”
“I don’t think you can, not a hundred percent.”
“Then what use am I to you?”
“You don’t have to be of use to me,” I said, surprised. He didn’t seem to
have the emotional set I had. I didn’t know how to explain it to him. “It’s
enough for me—it’s wonderful—just knowing you exist. That you care
about me. That I have living family, no matter how distant and different.
And you don’t think I’m weird or crazy or embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing?” He looked puzzled. “You’re far more interesting than most
humans.”
“Thank you for not thinking I’m defective,” I said.
“Other humans think you’re defective?” Niall sounded genuinely outraged.
“They can’t be comfortable sometimes,” Sam said unexpectedly. “Knowing
she can read their minds.”
“But you, shapeshifter?”
“I think she’s great,” Sam said. And I could tell he was absolutely sincere.
My back straightened. I felt a flush of pride. In the emotional warmth of the
moment, I almost told my great-grandfather about the big problem I’d
uncovered today, to prove I could share. But I had a pretty good feeling that
his solution to the Sandra Pelt-Tanya Grissom Axis of Evil would be to
cause their deaths in a macabre way. My sort-of cousin Claudine might be
trying to become an angel, a being I associated with Christianity, but Niall
Brigant was definitely from another ethos entirely. I suspected his outlook
was, “I’ll take your eye ahead of time, just in case you want mine.” Well,
maybe not that preemptive, but close.
“There is nothing I can do for you?” He sounded almost plaintive.
“I’d really like it if you’d just come spend some time with me at the house,
when you have some to spare. I’d like to cook you supper. If you want to do
that?” It made me feel shy, offering him something I wasn’t sure he’d value.
He looked at me with glowing eyes. I could not read his face, and though
his body was shaped like a human body, he was not. He was a complete
puzzle to me. Maybe he was exasperated or bored or repulsed by my
suggestion.
Finally Niall said, “Yes. I’ll do that. I’ll tell you ahead of time, of course. In
the meantime, if you need anything of me, call the number. Don’t let
anyone dissuade you if you think I can be of help. I will have words with
Eric. He’s been useful to me in the past, but he can’t second-guess me with
you.”
“Has he known I was your kin for very long?” I held my breath, waiting for
the answer.
Niall had turned to go. Now he turned back a little, so I saw his face in
profile. “No,” he said. “I had to know him better, first. I told him only before
he brought you to meet me. He wouldn’t help me until I told him why I
wanted you.”
And then he was gone. It was like he’d walked through a door we couldn’t
see, and for all I knew, that was exactly what he’d done.
“Okay,” Sam said after a long moment. “Okay, that was really . . . different.”
“Are you all right with all this?” I waved a hand toward the spot where Niall
had been standing. Probably. Unless what we’d seen had been some astral
projection or something.
“It’s not my place to be okay with it. It’s your thing,” Sam said.
“I want to love him,” I said. “He’s so beautiful and he seems to care so
much, but he’s really, really...”
“Scary,” Sam finished.
“Yeah.”
“And he approached you through Eric?”
Since apparently my great-grandfather thought it was okay if Sam knew
about him, I told Sam about my first meeting with Niall.
“Hmmm. Well, I don’t know what to make of that. Vampires and fairies don’t
interact, because of the vampire tendency to eat fairies.”
“Niall can mask his scent,” I explained proudly.
Sam looked overloaded with information. “That’s another thing I’ve never
heard of. I hope Jason doesn’t know about this?”
“Oh, God, no.”
“You know he’d be jealous and that would make him mad at you.”
“Since I know Niall and he doesn’t?”
“Yep. Envy would just eat Jason up.”
“I know Jason’s not the world’s most generous person,” I began, to be cut
off when Sam snorted.
“Okay,” I said, “he’s selfish. But he’s still my brother anyway, and I have to
stick by him. But maybe it’s better if I never tell him. Still, Niall didn’t have
any problem showing himself to you, after telling me to keep him a secret.”
“I’m guessing he did some checking up,” Sam said mildly. He hugged me,
which was a welcome surprise. I felt like I needed a hug after Niall’s dropin.
I hugged Sam back. He felt warm, and comforting, and human.
But neither of us was 100 percent human.
In the next instant, I thought, We are, too. We had more in common with
humans than with the other part of us. We lived like humans; we would die
like humans. Since I knew Sam pretty well, I knew he wanted a family and
someone to love and a future that contained all the things plain humans
want: prosperity, good health, descendants, laughter. Sam didn’t want to be
a leader of any pack, and I didn’t want to be princess of anybody—not that
any pureblood fairy would ever think I was anything other than a lowly byproduct
of their own wonder-fulness. That was one of the big differences
between Jason and me. Jason would spend his life wishing he was more
supernatural than he was; I had spent mine wishing I was less, if my
telepathy was indeed supernatural.
Sam kissed me on the cheek, and then after a moment’s hesitation, he
turned to go into his trailer, walking through the gate in the carefully
trimmed hedge and up the steps to the little deck he’d built outside his
door. When he’d inserted the key, he turned to smile at me.
“Some night, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Some night.”
Sam watched while I got in my car, made a pressing gesture to remind me
to lock my car doors, waited while I complied, and then went into his trailer.
I drove home preoccupied with deep questions and shallow ones, and it
was lucky there wasn’t any traffic on the road.
Chapter 17
Amelia and Octavia were sitting at the kitchen table the next day when I
shambled out. Amelia had used up all the coffee, but at least she’d washed
the pot and it took only a few minutes to make myself a much-needed cup.
Amelia and her mentor kept a tactful conversation going while I bumbled
around getting some cereal, adding some sweetener, pouring milk over it. I
hunched over the bowl because I didn’t want to dribble milk down my tank
top. And by the way, it was getting too cold to wear a tank top around the
house. I pulled on a cheap jacket made of sweats material and was able to
finish my coffee and cereal in comfort.
“What’s up, you two?” I asked, signaling I was ready to interact with the rest
of the world.
“Amelia told me about your problem,” Octavia said. “And about your very
kind offer.”
Ah-oh. What offer?
I nodded wisely, as if I had a clue.
“I’ll be so glad to be out of my niece’s house, you have no idea,” the older
woman said earnestly. “Janesha has three little ones, including one toddler,
and a boyfriend that comes and goes. I’m sleeping on the living room
couch, and when the kids get up in the morning, they come in and turn on
the cartoons. Whether or not I’m up. It’s their house, of course, and I’ve
been there for weeks, so they’ve lost the sense that I’m company.”
I gathered that Octavia was going to be sleeping in the bedroom opposite
me or in the extra one upstairs. I was voting for the one upstairs.
“And you know, now that I’m older, I need quicker access to a bathroom.”
She looked at me with that humorous deprecation people show when
they’re admitting to a passage-of-time condition. “So downstairs would be
wonderful, especially since my knees are arthritic. Did I tell you Janesha’s
apartment is upstairs?”
“No,” I said through numb lips. Geez, this had happened so fast.
“Now, about your problem. I’m not a black witch at all, but you need to get
these young women out of your life, both Ms. Pelt’s agent and Ms. Pelt
herself.”
I nodded vigorously.
“So,” Amelia said, unable to keep quiet any longer, “we’ve come up with a
plan.”
“I’m all ears,” I said, and poured myself a second cup of coffee. I needed it.
“The simplest way to get rid of Tanya, of course, is to tell your friend Calvin
Norris what she’s doing,” Octavia said.
I gaped at her. “Ah, that seems likely to result in some pretty bad things
happening to Tanya,” I said.
“Isn’t that what you want?” Octavia looked innocent in a real sly way.
“Well, yeah, but I don’t want her to die. I mean, I don’t want anything she
can’t get over to happen to her. I just want her away and not coming back.”
Amelia said, “ ‘Away and not coming back’ sounds pretty final to me.”
It sounded that way to me, too. “I’ll rephrase. I want her to be off
somewhere living her life but far away from me,” I said. “Is that clear
enough?” I wasn’t trying to sound sharp; I just wanted to express myself.
“Yes, young lady, I think we can understand that,” said Octavia with frost in
her voice.
“I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding here,” I said. “There’s a lot
at stake. I think Calvin kind of likes Tanya. On the other hand, I bet he
could scare her pretty effectively.”
“Enough to get her to leave forever?”
“You’d have to demonstrate that you were telling the truth,” Amelia said.
“About her sabotaging you.”
“What do you have in mind?” I asked.
“Okay, here’s what we think,” Amelia said, and just like that, Phase One
was in place. It turned out to be something I could have thought of myself,
but the witches’ help made the planning run much more smoothly.
I called Calvin at home, and asked him to stop by when he had a minute to
spare around lunchtime. He sounded surprised to hear from me, but he
agreed to come.
He got a further surprise when he came into the kitchen and found Amelia
and Octavia there. Calvin, the leader of the werepanthers who lived in the
little community of Hotshot, had met Amelia several times before, but
Octavia was new to him. He respected her immediately because he was
able to sense her power. That was a big help.
Calvin was probably in his midforties, strong and solid, sure of himself. His
hair was graying, but he was straight as an arrow in posture, and he
possessed a huge calm that couldn’t fail to impress. He’d been interested
in me for a while, and I’d only been sorry I couldn’t feel the same way. He
was a good man.
“What’s up, Sookie?” he said after he’d turned down the offer of cookies or
tea or Coke.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t like to be a tale-teller, Calvin, but we have a
problem,” I said.
“Tanya,” he said immediately.
“Yeah,” I said, not bothering to hide my relief.
“She’s a sly one,” he said, and I was sorry to hear an element of admiration
in his voice.
“She’s a spy,” Amelia said. Amelia could cut right to the chase.
“Who for?” Calvin tilted his head to one side, unsurprised and curious.
I told him an edited version of the story, a story I was extremely sick of
repeating. Calvin needed to know that the Pelts had a big beef with me,
that Sandra would hound me to my grave, that Tanya had been planted as
a gadfly.
Calvin stretched out his legs while he listened, his arms crossed over his
chest. He was wearing brand-new jeans and a plaid shirt. He smelled like
fresh-cut trees.
“You want to put a spell on her?” he asked Amelia when I’d finished.
“We do,” she said. “But we need you to get her here.”
“What would the effect be? Would it hurt her?”
“She’d lose interest in doing harm to Sookie and all her family. She
wouldn’t want to obey Sandra Pelt anymore. It wouldn’t hurt her physically
at all.”
“Would this change her mentally?”
“No,” Octavia said. “But it’s not as sure a spell as the one that would make
her not want to be here anymore. If we cast that one, she’d leave here, and
she wouldn’t want to come back.”
Calvin mulled this over. “I kind of like that ole girl,” he said. “She’s a live
one. I’ve been pretty concerned over the trouble she’s causing Crystal and
Jason, though, and I’ve been wondering what steps to take about Crystal’s
crazy spending. I guess this kind of brings the issue front and center.”
“You like her?” I said. I wanted all cards on the table.
“I said that.”
“No, I mean, you like her.”
“Well, her and me, we’ve had some good times now and then.”
“You don’t want her to go away,” I said. “You want to try the other thing.”
“That’s about the size of it. You’re right: she can’t stay and keep on going
like she is. She either changes her ways, or she leaves.” He looked
unhappy about that. “You working today, Sookie?”
I looked at the wall calendar. “No, it’s my day off.” I’d have two days in a
row off.
“I’ll get aholt of her and bring her by tonight. That give you ladies enough
time?”
The two witches looked at each other and consulted silently.
“Yes, that will be fine,” Octavia said.
“I’ll get her here by seven,” Calvin said.
This was moving with unexpected smoothness.
“Thanks, Calvin,” I said. “This is really helpful.”
“This’ll kill a lot of birds with one stone, if it works,” Calvin said. “Of course,
if it don’t work, you two ladies won’t be my favorite people.” His voice was
completely matter-of-fact.
The two witches didn’t look happy.
Calvin eyed Bob, who happened to stroll into the room. “Hello, brother,”
Calvin said to the cat. He gave Amelia a narrowed-eye look. “Seems to me
like your magic don’t work all the time.”
Amelia looked guilty and offended simultaneously. “We’ll get this to work,”
she said, tight-lipped. “You just see.”
“I aim to.”
I spent the rest of the day doing my laundry, redoing my nails, changing my
sheets—all those tasks you save up for your day off. I went by the library to
swap books and absolutely nothing happened. One of Barbara Beck’s parttime
assistants was on duty, which was good. I didn’t want to experience
the horror of the attack all over again, as I surely would in every encounter
with Barbara for a long time to come. I noticed the stain was gone from the
library floor.
After that, I went to the grocery store. No Weres attacked, no vampires
rose. No one tried to kill me or anyone I knew. No secret relatives revealed
themselves, and not a soul tried to involve me in his or her problems,
marital or otherwise.
I was practically reeking with normality by the time I got home.
Tonight was my cooking night, and I’d decided to fix pork chops. I have a
favorite homemade breading mix that I make in a huge batch, so I soaked
the chops in milk and then dredged them with the mix so they were ready
for the oven. I fixed baked apples stuffed with raisins and cinnamon and
butter and popped them in to bake and I flavored some canned green
beans and some canned corn and put them on low heat. After a while, I
opened the oven to put in the meat. I thought about making biscuits, but
there seemed to be more than enough calories on board.
While I cooked, the witches were doing stuff in the living room. They
seemed to be having a good old time. I could hear Octavia’s voice, which
sounded very much like it was in teaching mode. Every now and then,
Amelia would ask a question.
I did a lot of muttering to myself while I cooked. I hoped this magical
procedure worked, and I was grateful to the witches for being so willing to
help. But I was feeling a little sideswiped on the domestic front. My brief
mention to Amelia that Octavia could stay with us for a little while had been
a spur of the moment thing. (I could tell I was going to have to be more
careful in conversations with my roomie from now on.) Octavia hadn’t said
she’d be in my house for a weekend, or a month, or any measure of time.
That scared me.
I could have cornered Amelia and told her, “You didn’t ask me if Octavia
could stay right now at this moment, and it’s my house,” I supposed. But I
did have a free room, and Octavia did need someplace to stay. It was a
little late to discover that I wasn’t entirely happy at having a third person in
the house—a third person I barely knew.
Maybe I could find a job for Octavia, because regular earnings would allow
the older woman her independence and she’d move out of here. I
wondered about the state of her house in New Orleans. I assumed it was
unlivable. For all the power she had, I guess even Octavia couldn’t undo
the damage a hurricane had done. After her references to stairs and
increased bathroom needs, I’d revised her age upward, but she still didn’t
seem any older than, say, sixty-three. That was practically a spring
chicken, these days.
I called Octavia and Amelia to the table at six o’clock. I had the table set
and the iced tea poured, but I let them serve their own plates from the
stove. Not elegant, but it did save on dishes.
We didn’t talk a lot as we ate. All three of us were thinking about the
evening to come. As much as I disliked her, I was a little worried about
Tanya.
I felt funny about the idea of altering someone, but the bottom line was, I
needed Tanya off my back and out of my life and the lives of those around
me. Or I needed her to get a new attitude about what she was doing in Bon
Temps. I couldn’t see any way around those facts. In line with my new
practicality, I’d realized that if I had to choose between continuing my life
with Tanya’s interference or continuing my life with Tanya altered, there
was no contest.
I cleared the plates away. Normally, if one of us cooked, the other did the
dishes, but the two women had magical preparations to make. It was just
as well; I wanted to keep busy.
We heard the gravel crunching under the wheels of a truck at 7:05.
When we’d asked him to have her here at seven, I hadn’t realized he’d
bring her as a parcel.
Calvin carried Tanya in over his shoulder. Tanya was compact, but no
featherweight. Calvin was definitely working, but his breathing was nice and
even and he hadn’t broken a sweat. Tanya’s hands and ankles were
bound, but I noticed he’d wrapped a scarf under the rope so she wouldn’t
get chafed. And (thank God) she was gagged, but with a jaunty red
bandanna. Yes, the head werepanther definitely had a thing for Tanya.
Of course, she was mad as a disturbed rattler, wriggling and twisting and
glaring. She tried to kick Calvin, and he slapped her on her butt. “You stop
that now,” he said, but not as if he was particularly upset. “You’ve done
wrong; you got to take your medicine.”
He’d come in the front door, and now he dumped Tanya on the couch.
The witches had drawn some things in chalk on the floor of the living room,
a process that hadn’t found much favor with me. Amelia had assured me
she could clean it all up, and since she was a champion cleaner, I’d let
them proceed.
There were various piles of things (I really didn’t want to look too closely)
set around in bowls. Octavia lit the material in one bowl and carried it over
to Tanya. She wafted the smoke toward Tanya with her hand. I took an
extra step back, and Calvin, who was standing behind the couch and
holding Tanya by the shoulders, turned his head. Tanya held her breath as
long as she could.
After breathing the smoke, she relaxed.
“She needs to be sitting there,” Octavia said, pointing to an area circled by
chalky symbols. Calvin plonked Tanya down on a straight-backed chair in
the middle. She stayed put, thanks to the mysterious smoke.
Octavia started chanting in a language I didn’t understand. Amelia’s spells
had always been in Latin, or at least a primitive form of it (she’d told me
that), but I thought Octavia was more diverse. She was speaking
something that sounded entirely different.
I’d been very nervous about this ritual, but it turned out to be pretty boring
unless you were one of the participants. I wished I could open the windows
to get the smell of the smoke out of the house, and I was glad Amelia had
thought to take the batteries out of the smoke detectors. Tanya was clearly
feeling something, but I wasn’t sure it was the removal of the Pelt effect.
“Tanya Grissom,” Octavia said, “yank the roots of evil out of your soul and
remove yourself from the influence of those who would use you for evil
ends.” Octavia made several gestures over Tanya while holding a curious
item that looked awfully like a human bone wound around with a vine. I
tried not to wonder where she’d gotten the bone.
Tanya squealed beneath her gag, and her back arched alarmingly. Then
she relaxed.
Amelia made a gesture, and Calvin bent over to untie the red bandanna
that had made Tanya look like a small bandit. He pulled another
handkerchief, a clean white one, out of Tanya’s mouth. She’d definitely
been abducted with affection and consideration.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me!” Tanya shrieked the second her
mouth would work. “I can’t believe you kidnapped me like a caveman, you
big jerk!” If her hands had been free, Calvin would have taken a
pummeling. “And what the hell is up with this smoke? Sookie, are you
trying to burn your house down? Hey, woman, would you get that crap out
of my face?” Tanya batted at the vine-wrapped bone with her bound hands.
“I’m Octavia Fant.”
“Well, goody, Octavia Fant. Get me out of these ropes!” Octavia and
Amelia exchanged glances.
Tanya appealed to me. “Sookie, tell these nuts to let me go! Calvin, I was
halfway interested in you before you tied me up and dumped me here!
What did you think you were doing?”
“Saving your life,” Calvin said. “You ain’t gonna run now, are you? We got
some talking to do.”
“Okay,” Tanya said slowly, as she realized (I could hear her) that
something serious was afoot. “What’s all this about?”
“Sandra Pelt,” I said.
“Yeah, I know Sandra. What about her?”
“What’s your connection?” Amelia asked.
“What’s your interest, Amy?” Tanya countered.
“Amelia,” I corrected, sitting on the big ottoman in front of Tanya. “And you
need to answer this question.”
Tanya gave me a sharp look—she had a repertoire of them— and said, “I
used to have a cousin who was adopted by the Pelts, and Sandra was my
cousin’s adopted sister.”
“Do you have a close friendship with Sandra?” I said.
“No, not especially. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“You didn’t make a bargain with her recently?”
“No, Sandra and I don’t see each other too much.”
“What do you think of her?” Octavia asked.
“I think she’s a double-barreled bitch. But I sort of admire her,” Tanya said.
“If Sandra wants something, she goes after it.” She shrugged. “She’s kind
of extreme for my taste.”
“So if she told you to ruin someone’s life, you wouldn’t do it?” Octavia was
eyeing Tanya intently.
“I got better fish to fry than that,” Tanya said. “She can go around ruining
lives on her own, if she wants to do it so bad.”
“You wouldn’t be a part of that?”
“No,” Tanya said. She was sincere, I could tell. In fact, she was beginning
to get anxious at our line of questioning. “Ah, have I done something bad to
somebody?”
“I think you got in a little over your head,” Calvin said. “These nice ladies
have intervened. Amelia and Miss Octavia are, ah, wise women. And you
know Sookie already.”
“Yeah, I know Sookie.” Tanya gave me a sour look. “She won’t make
friends with me no matter what I do.”
Well, yeah, I didn’t want you close enough to stab me in the back, I
thought, but I didn’t say anything.
“Tanya, you’ve taken my sister-in-law shopping a little too much lately,” I
said.
Tanya burst into laughter. “Too much retail therapy for the pregnant bride?”
she said. But then she looked puzzled. “Yeah, it does seem like we went to
the mall in Monroe too many times for my checkbook. Where’d I get the
money? I don’t even like shopping that much. Why’d I do that?”
“You’re not going to do it anymore,” Calvin said.
“You don’t tell me what I’m going to do, Calvin Norris!” Tanya shot back. “I
won’t go shopping because I don’t want to go, not because you tell me not
to.”
Calvin looked relieved.
Amelia and Octavia looked relieved.
We all nodded simultaneously. This was Tanya, all right. And she seemed
to be minus the destructive guidance of Sandra Pelt. I didn’t know if Sandra
had whipped up some witchcraft of her own, or if she’d just offered Tanya a
lot of money and talked her into thinking Debbie’s death was my fault, but
the witches appeared to have been successful in excising the tainted
Sandra portion of Tanya’s character.
I felt oddly deflated at this easy—easy to me, that is— removal of a real
thorn in my side. I found myself wishing we could abduct Sandra Pelt and
reprogram her, too. I didn’t think she’d be as easy to convert. There had
been some big pathology going on in the Pelt family.
The witches were happy. Calvin was pleased. I was relieved. Calvin told
Tanya he was going to take her back to Hotshot. The somewhat-puzzled
Tanya made her departure with a lot more dignity than her entrance. She
didn’t understand why she’d been in my house and she didn’t seem to
remember what the witches had done. But she also didn’t seem upset
about that confusion in her memory.
The best of all possible worlds.
Maybe Jason and Crystal could work things out now that Tanya’s
pernicious influence was gone. After all, Crystal had really wanted to marry
Jason, and she had seemed genuinely pleased that she was pregnant
again. Why she was so discontented now . . . I simply didn’t get it.
I could add her to the long list of people I didn’t understand.
While the witches cleaned up the living room with the windows open—
though it was a chilly night, I wanted to get rid of the lingering smell of the
herbs—I sprawled on my bed with a book. I found I wasn’t focused enough
to read. Finally, I decided to go outside, and I threw on a hoody and called
to Amelia to let her know. I sat in one of the wooden chairs Amelia and I
had bought at Wal-Mart at end-of-summer clearance-sale prices, and I
admired the matching table with its umbrella all over again. I reminded
myself to take the umbrella down and cover the furniture for the winter.
Then I leaned back and let go of my thoughts.
For a while it was nice to simply be outside, smelling the trees and the
ground, hearing a whip-poor-will give its enigmatic call from the
surrounding woods. The security light made me feel safe, though I knew
that was an illusion. If there’s light, you can just see what’s coming for you
a little more clearly.
Bill stepped out of the woods and strolled silently over to the yard set. He
sat in one of the other chairs.
We didn’t speak for several moments. I didn’t feel the surge of anguish I’d
felt over the past few months when he was around. He barely disturbed the
fall night with his presence, he was so much a part of it.
“Selah has moved to Little Rock,” he said.
“How come?”
“She got a position with a large firm,” he said. “It was what she told me she
wanted. They specialize in vampire properties.”
“She hooked on vamps?”
“I believe so. Not my doing.”
“Weren’t you her first?” Maybe I sounded a little bitter. He’d been my first,
in every way.
“Don’t,” he said, and turned his face toward me. It was radiantly pale. “No,”
he said finally. “I was not her first. And I always knew it was the vampire in
me that attracted her, not the person who was a vampire.”
I understood what he was saying. When I’d learned he’d been ordered to
ingratiate himself with me, I’d felt it was the telepath in me that had gotten
his attention, not the woman who was the telepath.
“What goes around, comes around,” I said.
“I never cared about her,” he said. “Or very little.” He shrugged. “There’ve
been so many like her.”
“I’m not sure how you think this is going to make me feel.”
“I’m only telling you the truth. There has been only one you.” And then he
got up and walked back into the woods, human slow, letting me watch him
leave.
Apparently Bill was conducting a kind of stealth campaign to win back my
regard. I wondered if he dreamed I could love him again. I still felt pain
when I thought of the night I’d learned the truth. I figured my regard would
be the outer limits of what he could hope to earn. Trust, love? I couldn’t see
that happening.
I sat outside for a few more minutes, thinking about the evening I’d just
had. One enemy agent down. The enemy herself to go. Then I thought of
the police search for the missing people, all Weres, in Shreveport. I
wondered when they’d give up.
Surely I wouldn’t have to deal with Were politics again any time soon; the
survivors would be absorbed in setting their house in order.
I hoped Alcide was enjoying being the leader, and I wondered if he’d
succeeded in creating yet another little purebred Were the night of the
takeover. I wondered who had taken the Furnan children.
As long as I was speculating, I wondered where Felipe de Castro had
established his headquarters in Louisiana or if he’d stayed in Vegas. I
wondered if anyone had told Bubba that Louisiana was under a new
regime, and I wondered if I’d ever see him again. He had one of the most
famous faces in the world, but his head had been sadly addled by being
brought over at the last possible second by a vampire working in the
morgue in Memphis. Bubba had not weathered Katrina well; he’d gotten cut
off from the other New Orleans vampires and had had to subsist on rats
and small animals (left-behind pet cats, I suspected) until he’d been
rescued one night by a search party of Baton Rouge vamps. The last I’d
heard, they’d had to send him out of state for rest and recuperation. Maybe
he’d wind up in Vegas. He’d always done well in Vegas, when he was alive.
Suddenly, I realized I was stiff with sitting so long, and the night had grown
uncomfortably cold. My jacket wasn’t doing the job. It was time to go inside
and go to bed. The rest of the house was dark, and I figured Octavia and
Amelia were exhausted by their witch work.
I heaved myself up from the chair, let the umbrella down, and opened the
toolshed door, leaning the umbrella against a bench where the man I’d
thought was my grandfather had made repairs. I shut the toolshed door,
feeling I was shutting summer inside.