Book Eight 9-11

Chapter 9
It was the middle of the same night and I was about to walk into danger. It
was my own damn fault. Through a swift series of phone calls, Alcide and
Furnan had worked out where to meet. I’d envisioned them sitting down
across a table, their lieutenants right behind them, and working this whole
situation out. Mrs. Furnan would appear and the couple would reunite.
Everyone would be content, or at least less hostile. I would be nowhere
around.
Yet here I was at an abandoned office center in Shreveport, the same one
where the contest for packmaster had taken place. At least Sam was with
me. It was dark and cool and the wind was lifting my hair from my
shoulders. I shifted from foot to foot, anxious to get this over with. Though
he was not as fidgety as I was, I could tell Sam felt the same way.
It was my fault he was here. When he’d become so curious about what was
brewing with the Weres, I’d had to tell him. After all, if someone came
through the door of Merlotte’s trying to shoot me down, Sam at least
deserved to know why his bar was full of holes. I’d argued bitterly with him
when he’d told me he was coming with me, but here we both were.
Maybe I’m lying to myself. Maybe I simply wanted a friend with me,
someone definitely on my side. Maybe I was just scared. Actually, no
“maybe” about that at all.
The night was brisk, and we were both wearing waterproof jackets with
hoods. Not that we needed the hoods, but if it got any colder, we might be
grateful for them. The abandoned office park stretched around us in gloomy
silence. We stood in the loading bay of a firm that had accepted big
shipments of something. The large metal pull-down doors where the trucks
had been unloaded looked like big shiny eyes in the gleam of the remaining
security lights.
Actually, there were lots of big shiny eyes around tonight. The Sharks and
the Jets were negotiating. Oh, excuse me, the Furnan Weres and the
Herveaux Weres. The two sides of the pack might come to an
understanding, and they might not. And right smack dab in the middle
stood Sam the Shapeshifter and Sookie the Telepath.
As I felt the hard red throbbing of Were brains approaching from both north
and south, I turned to Sam and said from the bottom of my heart, “I should
never have let you come with me. I should never have opened my mouth.”
“You’ve gotten into the habit of not telling me things, Sookie. I want you to
tell me what’s going on with you. Especially if there’s danger.” Sam’s red
gold hair blew around his head in the sharp little breeze wafting between
the buildings. I felt his difference more strongly than I ever had. Sam is a
rare true shapeshifter. He can change into anything. He prefers the form of
a dog, because dogs are familiar and friendly and people don’t shoot at
them too often. I looked into his blue eyes and saw the wildness in them.
“They’re here,” he said, raising his nose to the breeze.
Then the two groups were standing about ten feet away on either side of
us, and it was time to concentrate.
I recognized the faces of a few of the Furnan wolves, who were more
numerous. Cal Myers, the police detective, was among them. It took some
kind of nerve for Furnan to bring Cal along when he was proclaiming his
innocence. I also recognized the teenage girl Furnan had taken as part of
his victory celebration after Jackson Herveaux’s defeat. She looked a
million years older tonight.
Alcide’s group included auburn-haired Amanda, who nodded at me, her
face serious, and some werewolves I’d seen at the Hair of the Dog the
night Quinn and I had visited the bar. The scrawny girl who’d worn the red
leather bustier that night was standing right behind Alcide, and she was
both intensely excited and deeply scared. To my surprise, Dawson was
there. He wasn’t as much of a lone wolf as he’d painted himself to be.
Alcide and Furnan stepped away from their packs.
This was the agreed-on format for the parley, or sit-down, or whatever you
wanted to call it: I would stand between Furnan and Alcide. Each Were
leader would grip one of my hands. I would be the human lie detector while
they talked. I had sworn to tell each one if the other lied, at least to the best
of my ability. I could read minds, but minds can be deceptive and tricky or
just dense. I’d never done anything exactly like this, and I prayed my ability
would be extra precise tonight and that I would use it wisely, so I could help
to end this life taking.
Alcide approached me stiffly, his face harsh in the hard glare of the security
lighting. For the first time, I noticed that he looked thinner and older. There
was a little gray in the black hair that hadn’t been there when his father had
been alive. Patrick Furnan, too, didn’t look well. He’d always had a
tendency to porkiness, and now he looked as though he’d gained a good
fifteen or twenty pounds. Being packmaster hadn’t been good to him. And
the shock of the abduction of his wife had laid its mark on his face.
I did something that I never imagined I would do. I held out my right hand to
him. He took it, and the flood of his ideas washed through me instantly.
Even his twisty Were brain was easy to read because he was so focused. I
held out my left hand to Alcide, and he grasped it too tightly. For a long
minute, I felt inundated. Then, with a huge effort, I channeled them into a
stream so I wouldn’t be overwhelmed. It would be easy for them to lie out
loud, but it’s not so easy to lie inside your own head. Not consistently. I
closed my eyes. A flip of the coin had given Alcide the first question.
“Patrick, why did you kill my woman?” The words sounded like they were
cutting up Alcide’s throat.
“She was pure Were, and she was as gentle as a Were can be.”
“I never ordered any of my people to kill any of yours,” Patrick Furnan said.
He sounded so tired he could hardly stand up, and his thoughts were
proceeding in much the same way: slowly, wearily, on a track he’d worn in
his own brain. He was easier to read than Alcide. He meant what he said.
Alcide was listening with great attention, and he said next, “Did you tell
anyone not in your pack to kill Maria-Star and Sookie and Mrs. Larrabee?”
“I never gave orders to kill any of you, ever,” Furnan said.
“He believes that,” I said.
Unfortunately, Furnan wouldn’t shut up. “I hate you,” he said, sounding just
as tired as he had before. “I would be glad if a truck hit you. But I didn’t kill
anyone.”
“He believes that, too,” I said, maybe a little dryly.
Alcide demanded, “How can you claim to be innocent with Cal Myers
standing with your pack? He stabbed Maria-Star to death.”
Furnan looked confused. “Cal wasn’t there,” he said.
“He believes what he says,” I told Alcide. I turned my face to Furnan. “Cal
was there, and he murdered Maria-Star.” Though I dared not lose focus, I
heard the whispering start all around Cal Myers, saw the rest of the Furnan
Weres step away from him.
It was Furnan’s turn to ask a question.
“My wife,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Why her?”
“I didn’t take Libby,” Alcide said. “I would never abduct a woman, especially
a Were woman with young. I would never order anyone else to do it.”
He believed that. “Alcide didn’t do it himself, and he didn’t order it done.”
But Alcide hated Patrick Furnan with a great ferocity. Furnan hadn’t needed
to kill Jackson Herveaux at the climax of the contest, but he had. Better to
start his leadership with the elimination of his rival. Jackson would never
have submitted to his rule, and would have been a thorn in his side for
years. I was getting thoughts from both sides, wafts of ideas so strong it
burned in my head, and I said, “Calm down, both of you.” I could feel Sam
behind me, his warmth, the touch of his mind, and I said, “Sam, don’t touch
me, okay?”
He understood, and he moved away.
“Neither of you killed any of the people who have died. And neither of you
ordered it done. As far as I can tell.”
Alcide said, “Give us Cal Myers to question.”
“Then where is my wife?” Furnan growled.
“Dead and gone,” said a clear voice. “And I’m ready to take her place. Cal
is mine.”
We all looked up, because the voice had come from the flat roof of the
building. There were four Weres up there, and the brunette female who’d
spoken was closest to the edge. She had a sense of the dramatic, I’ll give
her that. Female Weres have power and status but they’re not packleader .
. . ever. This woman was clearly large and in charge, though she was
maybe five foot two. She had prepared to change; that is to say, she was
naked. Or maybe she just wanted Alcide and Furnan to see what they
could be getting. Which was a lot, both in quantity and in quality.
“Priscilla,” said Furnan.
It seemed like such an unlikely name for the Were that I felt myself actually
smile, which was a bad idea under the circumstances.
“You know her,” Alcide said to Furnan. “Is this part of your plan?”
“No,” I answered for him. My mind careened through thoughts I could read
and latched on to one thread in particular. “Furnan, Cal is her creature,” I
said. “He’s betrayed you.”
“I thought if I picked off a few key bitches, you two would kill each other off,”
Priscilla said. “Too bad it didn’t work.”
“Who is this?” Alcide asked Furnan again.
“She’s the mate of Arthur Hebert, a packleader from St. Catherine Parish.”
St. Catherine was way south, just east of New Orleans. It had been hit hard
by Katrina.
“Arthur is dead. We don’t have a home anymore,” Priscilla Hebert said. “We
want yours.”
Well, that was clear enough.
“Cal, why have you done this?” Furnan asked his lieutenant. Cal should
have gotten up on the roof while he was able. The Furnan wolves and the
Herveaux wolves had formed a circle around him.
“Cal’s my brother,” Priscilla called. “You better not touch a hair on his
body.” There was an edge of desperation to her voice that hadn’t been
there before. Cal looked up at his sister unhappily. He realized what a fix
he was in, and I was pretty sure he wanted her to shut up. That would be
his last thought.
Furnan’s arm was suddenly out of its sleeve and covered with hair. With
huge force, he swung at his former cohort, eviscerating the Were. Alcide’s
clawed hand took off the back of Cal’s head as the traitor fell to the ground.
Cal’s blood sprayed over me in an arc. At my back, Sam was humming with
the energy of his oncoming change, triggered by the tension, the smell of
blood, and my involuntary yelp.
Priscilla Hebert roared in rage and anguish. With inhuman grace, she
leaped from the top of the building to the parking lot, followed by her
henchmen (henchwolves?).
The war had begun.
Sam and I had worked ourselves into the middle of the Shreveport wolves.
As Priscilla’s pack began closing in from each side, Sam said, “I’m going to
change, Sookie.”
I couldn’t see what use a collie would be in this situation, but I said, “Okay,
boss.” He grinned at me in a lopsided way, stripped off his clothes, and
bent over. All around us the Weres were doing the same. The chill night air
was full of the gloppy sound, the sound of hard things moving through thick,
sticky liquid, that characterizes the transformation from man to animal.
Huge wolves straightened and shook themselves all around me; I
recognized the wolf forms of Alcide and Furnan. I tried counting the wolves
in our suddenly reunited pack, but they were milling around, positioning
themselves for the coming battle, and there was no way to keep track of
them.
I turned to Sam to give him a pat and found myself standing beside a lion.
“Sam,” I said in a whisper, and he roared.
Everyone froze in place for a long moment. The Shreveport wolves were
just as scared as the St. Catherine’s wolves at first, but then they seemed
to realize that Sam was on their side, and yips of excitement echoed
between the empty buildings.
Then the fighting started.
Sam tried to surround me, which was impossible, but it was a gallant
attempt. As an unarmed human, I was basically helpless in this struggle. It
was a very unpleasant feeling—in fact, a terrifying feeling.
I was the frailest thing on site.
Sam was magnificent. His huge paws flashed, and when he hit a wolf
square on, that wolf went down. I danced around like a demented elf, trying
to stay out the way. I couldn’t watch everything that was going on. Clusters
of St. Catherine wolves made for Furnan, Alcide, and Sam, while individual
battles went on around us. I realized that these clusters had been charged
with taking down the leaders, and I knew that a lot of planning had gone
into this. Priscilla Hebert hadn’t allowed for getting her brother out quickly
enough, but that wasn’t slowing her down any.
No one seemed to be too concerned with me, since I posed no threat. But
there was every chance I’d get knocked down by the snarling combatants
and be hurt as severely as I would if I had been the target. Priscilla, now a
gray wolf, targeted Sam. I guess she wanted to prove she had more balls
than anyone by going for the biggest and most dangerous target. But
Amanda was biting at Priscilla’s hind legs as Priscilla worked her way
through the melee. Priscilla responded by turning her head to bare her
teeth at the smaller wolf. Amanda danced away, and then when Priscilla
turned to resume her progress, Amanda darted back to bite the leg again.
Since Amanda’s bite was powerful enough to break bone, this was more
than an annoyance, and Priscilla rounded on her in full display. Before I
could even think Oh no, Priscilla seized Amanda in her iron jaws and broke
her neck.
While I stood staring in horror, Priscilla dropped Amanda’s body on the
ground and wheeled to leap onto Sam’s back. He shook and shook but she
had sunk her fangs into his neck and she would not be dislodged.
Something in me snapped as surely as the bones in Amanda’s neck. I lost
any sense I might have had, and I launched myself in the air as if I were a
wolf, too. To keep from sliding off the heaving mass of animals, I wound my
arms in the fur around Priscilla’s neck, and I wound my legs around
Priscilla’s middle, and I tightened my arms until I was just about hugging
myself. Priscilla didn’t want to let go of Sam, so she flung herself from side
to side to knock me loose. But I was clinging to her like a homicidal
monkey.
Finally, she had to let go of his neck to deal with me. I squeezed and
squeezed harder, and she tried to bite me, but she couldn’t reach around
properly since I was on her back. She was able to curve enough to graze
my leg with her fangs, but she couldn’t hold on. The pain hardly registered.
I tightened my grip even more though my arms were aching like hell. If I let
go one little bit, I would join Amanda.
Though all of this took place so quickly it was hard to believe, I felt as if I’d
been trying to kill this woman/wolf for eternity. I wasn’t really thinking, “Die,
die,” in my head; I just wanted her to stop what she was doing, and she
wouldn’t, dammit. Then there was another ear-shattering roar, and huge
teeth flashed an inch away from my arms. I understood I should let go, and
the second my arms loosened, I tumbled off the wolf, rolling over the
pavement to land in a heap a few feet away.
There was a sort of pop! and Claudine was standing over me. She was in a
tank top and pajama bottoms and she had a case of bedhead. From
between her striped legs I saw the lion bite the wolf’s head nearly off, then
spit her out in a fastidious way. Then he turned to survey the parking lot,
evaluating the next threat.
One of the wolves leaped at Claudine. She proved she was completely
awake. While the animal was in midair her hands clamped on its ears. She
swung him, using his own momentum. Claudine flung the huge wolf with
the ease of a frat boy tossing a beer can, and the wolf smacked against the
loading dock with a sound that seemed quite final. The speed of this attack
and its conclusion was absolutely incredible.
Claudine didn’t move from her straddling stance, and I was smart enough
to stay put. Actually, I was exhausted, frightened, and a little bloody, though
only the red spatter on my leg seemed to be my own. Fighting takes such a
short time, yet it uses up the body’s reserves with amazing speed. At least,
that’s the way it works with humans. Claudine looked pretty sparky.
“Bring it on, fur-ass!” she shrieked, beckoning with both hands to a Were
who was slinking up on her from behind. She’d twisted around without
moving her legs, a maneuver that would be impossible for a mundane
human body. The Were launched and got exactly the same treatment as its
packmate. As far as I could tell, Claudine wasn’t even breathing heavy. Her
eyes were wider and more intent than usual, and she held her body in a
loose crouch, clearly ready for action.
There was more roaring, and barking, and growling, and shrieks of pain,
and rending noises that didn’t bear thinking about. But after maybe five
more minutes of battle, the noise died down.
Claudine had not even glanced down at me during this time because she
was guarding my body. When she did, she winced. So I looked pretty bad.
“I was late,” she said, shifting her feet so she was standing on one side of
me. She reached down and I seized her hand. In a flash, I was on my feet.
I hugged her. Not only did I want to, I needed to. Claudine always smelled
so wonderful, and her body was curiously firmer to the touch than human
flesh. She seemed happy to hug me back, and we clung together for a long
moment while I regained my equilibrium.
Then I raised my head to look around, dreading what I would see. The
fallen lay in heaps of fur around us. The dark stains on the pavement were
not from oil drips. Here and there a bedraggled wolf nosed through the
corpses, looking for someone in particular. The lion was crouched a couple
of yards away, panting. Blood streaked his fur. There was an open wound
on his shoulder, the one caused by Priscilla.
There was another bite on his back.
I didn’t know what to do first. “Thanks, Claudine,” I said, and kissed her
cheek.
“I can’t always make it,” Claudine cautioned me. “Don’t count on an
automatic rescue.”
“Am I wearing some kind of fairy Life Alert button? How’d you know to
come?” I could tell she wasn’t going to answer. “Anyway, I sure appreciate
this rescue. Hey, I guess you know I met my great-grandfather.” I was
babbling. I was so glad to be alive.
She bowed her head. “The prince is my grandfather,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “So, we’re like cousins?”
She looked down at me, her eyes clear and dark and calm. She didn’t look
like a woman who’d just killed two wolves as quick as you could snap your
fingers. “Yes,” she said. “I guess we are.”
“So what do you call him? Granddaddy? Popsy?”
“I call him ‘my lord.’ ”
“Oh.”
She stepped away to check out the wolves she’d disposed of (I was pretty
sure they were still dead), so I went over to the lion. I crouched beside him
and put my arm around his neck. He rumbled.
Automatically, I scratched the top of his head and behind his ears, just like I
did with Bob. The rumble intensified.
“Sam,” I said. “Thanks so much. I owe you my life. How bad are your
wounds? What can I do about them?”
Sam sighed. He laid his head on the ground.
“You’re tired?”
Then the air around him got hyper, and I pulled away from him. I knew what
was coming. After a few moments, the body that lay beside me was
human, not animal. I ran my eyes over Sam anxiously and I saw that he still
had the wounds, but they were much smaller than they’d been on his lion
form. All shapeshifters are great at healing. It says a lot about the way my
life had changed that it didn’t seem significant to me that Sam was buck
naked. I had kind of gone beyond that now—which was good, since there
were bare bodies all around me. The corpses were changing back, as well
as the injured wolves.
It had been easier to look at the bodies in wolf form.
Cal Myers and his sister, Priscilla, were dead, of course, as were the two
Weres Claudine had dispatched. Amanda was dead. The skinny girl I’d met
in the Hair of the Dog was alive, though severely wounded in the upper
thigh. I recognized Amanda’s bartender, too; he seemed unscathed. Tray
Dawson was cradling an arm that looked broken.
Patrick Furnan lay in the middle of a ring of the dead and wounded, all of
them Priscilla’s wolves. With some difficulty, I picked my way through
broken, bloody bodies. I could feel all the eyes, wolf and human, focus on
me as I squatted by him. I put my fingers on his neck and got nothing. I
checked his wrist. I even put my hand against his chest. No movement.
“Gone,” I said, and those remaining in wolf form began to howl. Far more
disturbing were the howls coming from the throats of the Weres in human
form.
Alcide staggered over to me. He appeared to be more or less intact, though
streaks of blood matted his chest hair. He passed the slain Priscilla, kicking
her corpse as he went by. He knelt for a moment by Patrick Furnan,
dipping his head as though he was bowing to the corpse. Then he rose to
his feet. He looked dark, savage, and resolute.
“I am the leader of this pack!” he said in a voice of absolute certainty. The
scene became eerily quiet as the surviving wolves absorbed that.
“You need to leave now,” Claudine said very quietly right behind me. I
jumped like a rabbit. I’d been mesmerized by the beauty of Alcide, by the
primitive wildness rolling off him.
“What? Why?”
“They’re going to celebrate their victory and the ascension of a new
packmaster,” she said.
The skinny girl clenched her hands together and brought them down on the
skull of a fallen—but still twitching— enemy. The bones broke with a nasty
crunch. All around me the defeated Weres were being executed, at least
those who were severely wounded. A small cluster of three scrambled to
kneel in front of Alcide, their heads tilted back. Two of them were women.
One was an adolescent male. They were offering Alcide their throats in
surrender. Alcide was very excited. All over. I remembered the way Patrick
Furnan had celebrated when he got the packmaster job. I didn’t know if
Alcide was going to fuck the hostages or kill them. I took in my breath to
exclaim. I don’t know what I would’ve said, but Sam’s grimy hand clapped
over my mouth. I rolled my eyes to glare at him, both angry and agitated,
and he shook his head vehemently. He held my gaze for a long moment to
make sure I would stay silent, and then he removed his hand. He put his
arm around my waist and turned me abruptly away from the scene.
Claudine took the rear guard as Sam marched me rapidly away. I kept my
eyes forward.
I tried not to listen to the noises.
Chapter 10
Sam had some extra clothes in his truck, and he pulled them on matter-offactly.
Claudine said, “I have to get back to bed,” as if she’d been awoken
to let the cat out or go to the bathroom, and then pop! she was gone.
“I’ll drive,” I offered, because Sam was wounded.
He handed me his keys.
We started out in silence. It was an effort to remember the route to get back
to the interstate to return to Bon Temps because I was still shocked on
several different levels.
“That’s a normal reaction to battle,” Sam said. “The surge of lust.”
I carefully didn’t look at Sam’s lap to see if he was having his own surge.
“Yeah, I know that. I’ve been in a few fights now. A few too many.”
“Plus, Alcide did ascend to the packmaster position.” Another reason to feel
“happy.”
“But he did this whole battle thing because Maria-Star died.” So he should
have been too depressed to think about celebrating the death of his enemy,
was my point.
“He did this whole battle thing because he was threatened,” Sam said. “It’s
really stupid of Alcide and Furnan that they didn’t sit down and talk before it
came to this point. They could have figured out what was happening much
earlier. If you hadn’t persuaded them, they’d still be getting picked off and
they’d have started an all-out war. They’d have done most of Priscilla
Hebert’s work for her.”
I was sick of the Weres, their aggression and stubbornness. “Sam, you
went through all of this because of me. I feel terrible about that. I would
have died if it wasn’t for you. I owe you big-time. And I’m so sorry.”
“Keeping you alive,” Sam said, “is important to me.” He closed his eyes and
slept the rest of the way back to his trailer. He limped up the steps unaided,
and his door shut firmly. Feeling a little forlorn and not a little depressed, I
got in my own car and drove home, wondering how to fit what had
happened that night into the rest of my life.
Amelia and Pam were sitting in the kitchen. Amelia had made some tea,
and Pam was working on a piece of embroidery. Her hands flew as the
needle pierced the fabric, and I didn’t know what was most astonishing: her
skill or her choice of pastimes.
“What have you and Sam been up to?” Amelia asked with a big smile. “You
look like you’ve been rode hard and put away wet.”
Then she looked more closely and said, “What happened, Sookie?”
Even Pam put down her embroidery and gave me her most serious face.
“You smell,” she said. “You smell of blood and war.”
I looked down at myself and registered what a mess I was. My clothes were
bloody, torn, and dirty, and my leg ached. It was first aid time, and I couldn’t
have had better care from Nurse Amelia and Nurse Pam. Pam was a little
excited by the wound, but she restrained herself like a good vampire. I
knew she’d tell Eric everything, but I just couldn’t find it in me to care.
Amelia said a healing spell over my leg. Healing wasn’t her strongest suit,
she told me modestly, but the spell helped a bit. My leg did stop throbbing.
“Aren’t you worried?” Amelia asked. “This is from a Were. What if you
caught it?”
“It’s harder to catch than almost any communicable disease,” I said, since
I’d asked almost every werecreature I’d met about the chances of their
condition being transmitted by bite. After all, they have doctors, too. And
researchers. “Most people have to be bitten several times, all over their
body, to get it, and even then it’s not for sure.” It’s not like the flu or the
common cold. Plus, if you cleaned the wound soon afterward, your
chances dropped considerably even from that. I’d poured a bottle of water
over my leg before I’d gotten in the car. “So I’m not worried, but I am sore,
and I think I might have a scar.”
“Eric won’t be happy,” Pam said with an anticipatory smile. “You
endangered yourself because of the Weres. You know he holds them in
low esteem.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, not caring one little bit. “He can go fly a kite.”
Pam brightened. “I’ll tell him that,” she said.
“Why do you like to tease him so much?” I asked, realizing I was almost
sluggish with weariness.
“I’ve never had this much ammunition to tease him with,” she answered,
and then she and Amelia were out of my room, and I was blessedly alone
and in my own bed and alive, and then I was asleep.
The shower I took the next morning was a sublime experience. In the list of
Great Showers I’ve Had, this one ranked at least number 4. (The best
shower was the one I’d shared with Eric, and I couldn’t even think of that
one without shivering all over.) I scoured myself clean. My leg looked good,
and though I was even more sore from pulling muscles I didn’t use too
much, I felt a disaster had been averted and that evil had been vanquished,
at least in a gray sort of way.
As I stood under the pounding hot water, rinsing my hair, I thought about
Priscilla Hebert. In my brief glimpse into her world, she’d been at least
trying to find a place for her disenfranchised pack, and she’d done the
research to find a weak area where she could establish a foothold. Maybe if
she’d come to Patrick Furnan as a supplicant, he would have been glad to
give a home to her pack. But he would never have surrendered leadership.
He’d killed Jackson Herveaux to attain it, so he sure wouldn’t have agreed
to any kind of co-op arrangement with Priscilla—even if wolf society would
permit that, which was doubtful, especially given her status as a rare
female packleader.
Well, she wasn’t one anymore.
Theoretically, I admired her attempt to re-establish her wolves in a new
home. Since I’d met Priscilla in the flesh, I could only be glad she hadn’t
succeeded.
Clean and refreshed, I dried my hair and put on my makeup. I was working
the day shift, so I had to be at Merlotte’s at eleven. I pulled on the usual
uniform of black pants and white shirt, decided to leave my hair loose for
once, and tied my black Reeboks.
I decided I felt pretty good, all things considered.
A lot of people were dead, and a lot of grief was hanging around the events
of last night, but at least the encroaching pack had been defeated and now
the Shreveport area should be peaceful for a while. The war was over in a
very short time. And the Weres hadn’t been exposed to the rest of the
world, though that was a step they’d have to take soon. The longer the
vampires were public, the more likely it became that someone would out
the Weres.
I added that fact to the giant box full of things that were not my problem.
The scrape on my leg, whether due to its nature or because of Amelia’s
ministrations, was already scabbed over. There were bruises on my arms
and legs, but my uniform covered them. It was feasible to wear long
sleeves today, because it was actually cool. In fact, a jacket would have
been nice, and I regretted not having thrown one on as I drove to work.
Amelia hadn’t been stirring when I left, and I had no idea if Pam was in my
secret vampire hidey-hole in the spare bedroom. Hey, not my concern!
As I drove, I was adding to the list of things I shouldn’t have to worry about
or consider. But I came to a dead halt when I got to work. When I saw my
boss, a lot of thoughts came crowding in that I hadn’t anticipated. Not that
Sam looked beaten up or anything. He looked pretty much as usual when I
stopped in his office to drop my purse in its usual drawer. In fact, the brawl
seemed to have invigorated him. Maybe it had felt good to change into
something more aggressive than a collie. Maybe he’d enjoyed kicking
some werewolf butt. Ripping open some werewolf stomachs ... breaking
some werewolf spines.
Okay, well—whose life had been saved by the aforesaid ripping and
breaking? My thoughts cleared up in a hurry. Impulsively, I bent to give him
a kiss on the cheek. I smelled the smell that was Sam: aftershave, the
woods, something wild yet familiar.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, as if I always kissed him hello.
“Better than I thought I would,” I said. “You?”
“A little achy, but I’ll do.”
Holly stuck her head in. “Hey, Sookie, Sam.” She came in to deposit her
own purse.
“Holly, I hear you and Hoyt are an item,” I said, and I hoped I looked smiling
and pleased.
“Yeah, we’re hitting it off okay,” she said, trying for nonchalance. “He’s
really good with Cody, and his family’s real nice.” Despite her aggressively
dyed spiky black hair and her heavy makeup, there was something wistful
and vulnerable about Holly’s face.
It was easy for me to say, “I hope it works out.” Holly looked very pleased.
She knew as well as I did that if she married Hoyt she’d be for all intents
and purposes my sister-in-law, since the bond between Jason and Hoyt
was so strong.
Then Sam began telling us about a problem he was having with one of his
beer distributors, and Holly and I tied on our aprons, and our working day
began. I stuck my head through the hatch to wave at the kitchen staff. The
current cook at Merlotte’s was an ex-army guy named Carson. Short-order
cooks come and go. Carson was one of the better ones. He’d mastered
burgers Lafayette right away (hamburgers steeped in a former cook’s
special sauce), and he got the chicken strips and fries done exactly right,
and he didn’t have tantrums or try to stab the busboy. He showed up on
time and left the kitchen clean at the end of his shift, and that was such a
huge thing Sam would have forgiven Carson a lot of weirdness.
We were light on customers, so Holly and I were getting the drinks and
Sam was on the phone in his office when Tanya Grissom came in the front
door. The short, curvy woman looked as pretty and healthy as a milkmaid.
Tanya went light on the makeup and heavy on the self-assurance.
“Where’s Sam?” she asked. Her little mouth curved up in a smile. I smiled
back just as insincerely. Bitch.
“Office,” I said, as if I always knew exactly where Sam was.
“That woman there,” Holly said, pausing on her way to the serving hatch.
“That gal is a deep well.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s living out at Hotshot, rooming with some of the women out there,”
Holly said. Of all the regular citizens of Bon Temps, Holly was one of the
few who knew that there were such creatures as Weres and shifters. I
didn’t know if she’d discovered that the residents of Hotshot were
werepanthers, but she knew they were inbred and strange, because that
was a byword in Renard Parish.
And she considered Tanya (a werefox) guilty by association, or at least
suspicious by association.
I had a stab of genuine anxiety. I thought, Tanya and Sam could change
together. Sam would enjoy that. He could even change into a fox himself, if
he wanted to.
It was a huge effort to smile at my customers after I’d had that idea. I was
ashamed when I realized I should be happy to see someone interested in
Sam, someone who could appreciate his true nature. It didn’t say much for
me that I wasn’t happy at all. But she wasn’t good enough for him, and I’d
warned him about her.
Tanya returned from the hallway leading to Sam’s office and went out the
front door, not looking as confident as she’d gone in. I smiled at her back.
Ha! Sam came out to pull beers. He didn’t seem nearly as cheerful.
That wiped the smile off my face. While I served Sheriff Bud Dearborn and
Alcee Beck their lunch (Alcee glowering at me all the while), I worried about
that. I decided to take a peek in Sam’s head, because I was getting better
at aiming my talent in certain ways. It was also easier to block it off and
keep it out of my everyday activities now that I’d bonded with Eric, though I
hated to admit that. It’s not nice to flit around in someone else’s thoughts,
but I’ve always been able to do it, and it was just second nature.
I know that’s a lame excuse. But I was used to knowing, not to wondering.
Shifters are harder to read than regular people, and Sam was hard even for
a shifter, but I got that he was frustrated, uncertain, and thoughtful.
Then I was horrified at my own audacity and lack of manners. Sam had
risked his life for me the night before. He had saved my life. And here I
was, rummaging around in his head like a kid in a box full of toys. Shame
made my cheeks flush, and I lost the thread of what the gal at my table was
saying until she asked me gently if I felt all right. I snapped out of it and
focused and took her order for chili and crackers and a glass of sweet tea.
Her friend, a woman in her fifties, asked for a hamburger Lafayette and a
side salad. I got her choice of dressing and beer, and shot off to the hatch
to turn in the order. I nodded at the tap when I stood by Sam, and he
handed me the beer a second later. I was too rattled to talk to him. He shot
me a curious glance.
I was glad to leave the bar when my shift was up. Holly and I turned over to
Arlene and Danielle, and grabbed our purses. We emerged into neardarkness.
The security lights were already on. It was going to rain later,
and clouds obscured the stars. We could hear Carrie Underwood singing
on the jukebox, faintly. She wanted Jesus to take the wheel. That seemed
like a real good idea.
We stood by our cars for a moment in the parking lot. The wind was
blowing, and it was downright chilly.
“I know Jason is Hoyt’s best friend,” Holly said. Her voice sounded
uncertain, and though her face was hard to decipher, I knew she wasn’t
sure I’d want to hear what she was going to say. “I’ve always liked Hoyt. He
was a good guy in high school. I guess—I hope you don’t really get mad at
me—I guess what stopped me from dating him earlier was his being so
tight with Jason.”
I didn’t know how to respond. “You don’t like Jason,” I said finally.
“Oh, sure, I like Jason. Who doesn’t? But is he good for Hoyt? Can Hoyt be
happy if that cord between them is weaker? ’Cause I can’t think about
getting closer to Hoyt unless I believe he can stick with me the way he’s
always stuck with Jason. You can see what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said. “I love my brother. But I know Jason isn’t really in the habit of
thinking about the welfare of other people.” And that was putting it mildly.
Holly said, “I like you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But I figured you’d
know, anyway.”
“Yeah, I kinda did,” I said. “I like you, too, Holly. You’re a good mother.
You’ve worked hard to take care of your kid. You’re on good terms with
your ex. But what about Danielle? I would’ve said you were as tight with her
as Hoyt is with Jason.” Danielle was another divorced mother, and she and
Holly had been thick as thieves since they were in first grade. Danielle had
more of a support system than Holly. Danielle’s mother and father were still
hale and were very glad to help out with her two kids. Danielle had been
going with a guy for some time now, too.
“I would never have said anything could come between Danielle and me,
Sookie.” Holly pulled on her Windbreaker and fished for her keys in the
depths of her purse. “But her and me, we’ve parted ways a little bit. We still
see each other for lunch sometimes, and our kids still play together.” Holly
sighed heavily. “I don’t know.
When I got interested in something other than the world here in Bon
Temps, the world we grew up in, Danielle started thinking there was
something a little wrong with that, with my curiosity. When I decided to
become a Wiccan, she hated that, still does hate it. If she knew about the
Weres, if she knew what had happened to me...” A shapeshifting witch had
tried to force Eric to give her a piece of his financial enterprises. She’d
forced all the local witches she could round up into helping her, including
an unwilling Holly. “That whole thing changed me,” Holly said now.
“It does, doesn’t it? Dealing with the supes.”
“Yeah. But they’re part of our world. Someday everyone will know that.
Someday ... the whole world will be different.”
I blinked. This was unexpected. “What do you mean?”
“When they all come out,” Holly said, surprised at my lack of insight. “When
they all come out and admit their existence. Everyone, everyone in the
world, will have to adjust. But some people won’t want to. Maybe there’ll be
a backlash. Wars maybe. Maybe the Weres will fight all the other shifters,
or maybe the humans will attack the Weres and the vampires. Or the
vampires—you know they don’t like the wolves worth a durn—they’ll wait
until some fine night, and then they’ll kill them all and get the humans to
say thank you.”
She had a touch of the poet in her, did Holly. And she was quite a
visionary, in a doom-ridden way. I’d had no idea Holly was that deep, and I
was again ashamed of myself. Mind readers shouldn’t be taken by surprise
like that. I’d tried so hard to stay out of people’s minds that I was missing
important cues.
“All of that, or none of that,” I said. “Maybe people will just accept it. Not in
every country. I mean, when you think of what happened to the vampires in
eastern Europe and some of South America . . .”
“The pope never sorted that one out,” Holly commented.
I nodded. “Kind of hard to know what to say, I guess.” Most churches had
had (excuse me) a hell of a time deciding on a scriptural and theological
policy toward the undead. The Were announcement would sure add
another wrinkle to that. They were definitely alive, no doubt about it.... But
they had almost too much life, as opposed to already having died once.
I shifted my feet. I hadn’t intended on standing out here and solving the
world’s problems and speculating on the future. I was still tired from the
night before. “I’ll see you, Holly. Maybe you and me and Amelia can go to
the movies in Clarice some night?”
“Sure,” she said, a little surprised. “That Amelia, she doesn’t think much of
my craft, but at least we can talk the talk a little.”
Too late, I had a conviction the threesome wouldn’t work out, but what the
hell. We could give it a try.
I drove home wondering if anyone would be there waiting for me. The
answer came when I parked beside Pam’s car at the back door. Pam drove
a conservative car, of course, a Toyota with a Fangtasia bumper sticker. I
was only surprised it wasn’t a minivan.
Pam and Amelia were watching a DVD in the living room. They were sitting
on the couch but not exactly twined around each other. Bob was curled up
in my recliner. There was a bowl of popcorn on Amelia’s lap and a bottle of
TrueBlood in Pam’s hand. I stepped around so I could see what they were
watching. Underworld. Hmmm.
“Kate Beckinsale is hot,” Amelia said. “Hey, how was work?”
“Okay,” I said. “Pam, how come you have two evenings off in a row?”
“I deserve it,” Pam said. “I haven’t had time off in two years. Eric agreed I
was due. How do you think I would look in that black outfit?”
“Oh, as good as Beckinsale,” Amelia said, and turned her head to smile at
Pam. They were at the ooey-gooey stage. Considering my own complete
lack of ooey, I didn’t want to be around.
“Did Eric find out any more about that Jonathan guy?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Why don’t you call him yourself?” Pam said with a complete
lack of concern.
“Right, you’re off duty,” I muttered, and stomped back to my room, grumpy
and a little ashamed of myself. I punched in the number for Fangtasia
without even having to look it up. So not good. And it was on speed dial on
my cell phone. Geez. Not something I wanted to ponder just at the
moment.
The phone rang, and I put my dreary musing aside. You had to be on your
game when you talked to Eric.
“Fangtasia, the bar with a bite. This is Lizbet.” One of the fang bangers. I
scrounged around my mental closet, trying to put a face with the name.
Okay—tall, very round and proud of it, moon face, gorgeous brown hair.
“Lizbet, this is Sookie Stackhouse,” I said.
“Oh, hi,” she said, sounding startled and impressed.
"Um ... hi. Listen, could I speak to Eric, please?”
“I’ll see if the master is available,” Lizbet breathed, trying to sound reverent
and all mysterious.
“Master,” my ass.
The fangbangers were men and women who loved vampires so much they
wanted to be around them every minute the vampires were awake. Jobs at
places like Fangtasia were bread and butter to these people, and the
opportunity to get bitten was regarded as close to sacred. The fangbanger
code required them to be honored if some bloodsucker wanted to sample
them; and if they died of it, well, that was just about an honor, too. Behind
all the pathos and tangled sexuality of the typical fangbanger was the
underlying hope that some vampire would think the fangbanger was
“worthy” of being turned into a vampire. Like you had to pass a character
test.
“Thanks, Lizbet,” I said.
Lizbet set the phone down with a thud and went off looking for Eric. I
couldn’t have made her happier.
“Yes,” said Eric after about five minutes.
“Busy, were you?”
“Ah . . . having supper.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Well, hope you had enough,” I said with a total lack of
sincerity. “Listen, did you find out anything about that Jonathan?”
“Have you seen him again?” Eric asked sharply.
“Ah, no. I was just wondering.”
“If you see him, I need to know immediately.”
“Okay, got that. What have you learned?”
“He’s been seen other places,” Eric said. “He even came here one night
when I was away. Pam’s at your house, right?”
I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Maybe Pam wasn’t sleeping with Amelia
out of sheer attraction. Maybe she’d combined business with a great cover
story, and she was staying with Amelia to keep an eye on me. Damn
vampires, I thought angrily, because that scenario was entirely too close to
an incident in my recent past that had hurt me incredibly.
I wasn’t going to ask. Knowing would be worse than suspecting.
“Yes,” I said between stiff lips. “She’s here.”
“Good,” Eric said with some satisfaction. “If he appears again, I know she
can take care of it. Not that that’s why she’s there,” he added
unconvincingly. The obvious afterthought was Eric’s attempt at pacifying
what he could tell were my upset feelings; it sure didn’t arise from any
feeling of guilt.
I scowled at my closet door. “Are you gonna give me any real information
on why you’re so jumpy about this guy?”
“You haven’t seen the queen since Rhodes,” Eric said.
This was not going to be a good conversation. “No,” I said. “What’s the deal
with her legs?”
“They’re growing back,” Eric said after a brief hesitation.
I wondered if the feet were growing right out of her stumps, or if the legs
would grow out and then the feet would appear at the end of the process.
“That’s good, right?” I said. Having legs had to be a good thing.
“It hurts very much,” Eric said, “when you lose parts and they grow back.
It’ll take a while. She’s very . . . She’s incapacitated.” He said the last word
very slowly, as if it was a word he knew but had never said aloud.
I thought about what he was telling me, both on the surface and beneath.
Conversations with Eric were seldom single-layered.
“She’s not well enough to be in charge,” I said in conclusion. “Then who
is?”
“The sheriffs have been running things,” Eric said. “Gervaise perished in
the bombing, of course; that leaves me, Cleo, and Arla Yvonne. It would
have been clearer if Andre had survived.” I felt a twinge of panic and guilt. I
could have saved Andre. I’d feared and loathed him, and I hadn’t. I’d let
him be killed.
Eric was silent for a minute, and I wondered if he was picking up on the
fear and guilt. It would be very bad if he ever learned that Quinn had killed
Andre for my sake. Eric continued, “Andre could have held the center
because he was so established as the queen’s right hand. If one of her
minions had to die, I wish I could have picked Sigebert, who’s all muscles
and no brains. At least Sigebert’s there to guard her body, though Andre
could have done that and guarded her territory as well.”
I’d never heard Eric so chatty about vampire affairs. I was beginning to
have an awful creeping feeling that I knew where he was headed.
“You expect some kind of takeover,” I said, and felt my heart plummet. Not
again. “You think Jonathan was a scout.”
“Watch out, or I’ll begin to think you can read my mind.” Though Eric’s tone
was light as a marshmallow, his meaning was a sharp blade hidden inside.
“That’s impossible,” I said, and if he thought I was lying, he didn’t challenge
me. Eric seemed to be regretting telling me so much. The rest of our talk
was very brief. He told me again to call him at the first sight of Jonathan,
and I assured him I’d be glad to.
After I’d hung up, I didn’t feel quite as sleepy. In honor of the chilly night I
pulled on my fleecy pajama bottoms, white with pink sheep, and a white Tshirt.
I unearthed my map of Louisiana and found a pencil. I sketched in the
areas I knew. I was piecing my knowledge together from bits of
conversations that had taken place in my presence. Eric had Area Five.
The queen had had Area One, which was New Orleans and vicinity. That
made sense. But in between, there was a jumble. The finally deceased
Gervaise had had the area including Baton Rouge, and that was where the
queen had been living since Katrina damaged her New Orleans properties
so heavily. So that should have been Area Two, due to its prominence. But
it was called Area Four. Very lightly, I traced a line that I could erase, and
would, after I’d looked at it for a bit.
I mined my head for other bits of information. Five, at the top of the state,
stretched nearly all the way across. Eric was richer and more powerful than
I’d thought. Below him, and fairly even in territory, were Cleo Babbitt’s Area
Three and Arla Yvonne’s Area Two. A swoop down to the Gulf from the
south-westernmost corner of Mississippi marked off the large areas
formerly held by Gervaise and the queen, Four and One respectively. I
could only imagine what vampiric political contortions had led to the
numbering and arrangement.
I looked at the map for a few long minutes before I erased all the light lines
I’d drawn. I glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since my
conversation with Eric. In a melancholy mood, I brushed my teeth and
washed my face. After I climbed into bed and said my prayers, I lay there
awake for quite a while. I was pondering the undeniable truth that the most
powerful vampire in the state of Louisiana, at this very point in time, was
Eric Northman, my blood-bonded, once-upon-a-time lover. Eric had said in
my hearing that he didn’t want to be king, didn’t want to take over new
territory; and since I’d figured out the extent of his territory right now, the
size of it made that assertion a little more likely.
I believed I knew Eric a little, maybe as much as a human can know a
vampire, which doesn’t mean my knowledge was profound. I didn’t believe
he wanted to take over the state, or he would have done so. I did think his
power meant there was a giant target pinned to his back. I needed to try to
sleep. I glanced at the clock again. An hour and a half since I’d talked to
Eric.
Bill glided into my room quite silently.
“What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my voice very quiet, very calm, though
every nerve in my body had started shrieking.
“I’m uneasy,” he said in his cool voice, and I almost laughed. “Pam had to
leave for Fangtasia. She called me to take her place here.”
“Why?”
He sat in the chair in the corner. It was pretty dark in my room, but the
curtains weren’t drawn completely shut and I got some illumination from the
yard’s security light. There was a night-light in the bathroom, too, and I
could make out the contours of his body and the blur of his face. Bill had a
little glow, like all vampires do in my eyes.
“Pam couldn’t get Cleo on the phone,” he said. “Eric left the club to run an
errand, and Pam couldn’t raise him, either. But I got his voice mail; I’m sure
he’ll call back. It’s Cleo not answering that’s the rub.”
“Pam and Cleo are friends?”
“No, not at all,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But Pam should be able to talk to
her at her all-night grocery. Cleo always answers.”
“Why was Pam trying to reach her?” I asked.
“They call each other every night,” Bill said. “Then Cleo calls Arla Yvonne.
They have a chain. It should not be broken, not in these days.” Bill stood up
with a speed that I couldn’t follow. “Listen!” he whispered, his voice as light
on my ear as a moth wing. “Do you hear?”
I didn’t hear jack shit. I held still under the covers, wishing passionately that
this whole thing would just go away. Weres, vampires, trouble, strife ... But
no such luck. “What do you hear?” I asked, trying to be as quiet as Bill was
being, an effort doomed in the attempt.
“Someone’s coming,” he said.
And then I heard a knock on the front door. It was a very quiet knock.
I threw back the covers and got up. I couldn’t find my slippers because I
was so rattled. I started for the bedroom door on my bare feet. The night
was chilly, and I hadn’t turned on the heat yet; my soles pressed coldly
against the polished wood of the floor.
“I’ll answer the door,” Bill said, and he was ahead of me without my having
seen him move.
“Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea,” I muttered, and followed him. I
wondered where Amelia was: asleep upstairs or on the living room couch?
I hoped she was only asleep. I was so spooked by that time that I imagined
she might be dead.
Bill glided silently through the dark house, down the hall, to the living room
(which still smelled like popcorn), to the front door, and then he looked
through the peephole, which for some reason I found funny. I had to slap a
hand over my mouth to keep from giggling.
No one shot Bill through the peephole. No one tried to batter the door
down. No one screamed.
The continuing silence was breaking me out in goose bumps. I didn’t even
see Bill move. His cool voice came from right beside my ear. “It is a very
young woman. Her hair is dyed white or blond, and it’s very short and dark
at the roots. She’s skinny. She’s human. She’s scared.”
She wasn’t the only one.
I tried like hell to think who my middle-of-the-night caller could be. Suddenly
I thought I might know.
“Frannie,” I breathed. “Quinn’s sister. Maybe.”
“Let me in,” a girl’s voice said. “Oh, please let me in.”
It was just like a ghost story I’d read once. Every hair on my arms stood up.
“I have to tell you what’s happened to Quinn,” Frannie said, and that
decided me on the spot.
“Open the door,” I said to Bill in my normal voice. “We have to let her in.”
“She’s human,” Bill said, as if to say, “How much trouble can she be?” He
unlocked the front door.
I won’t say Frannie tumbled in, but she sure didn’t waste any time getting
through the door and slamming it behind her. I hadn’t had a good first
impression of Frannie, who was long on the aggression and attitude and
short on the charm, but I’d come to know her a fraction better as she sat at
Quinn’s bedside in the hospital after the explosion. She’d had a hard life,
and she loved her brother.
“What’s happened?” I asked sharply as Frannie stumbled to the nearest
chair and sat down.
“You would have a vampire here,” she said. “Can I have a glass of water?
Then I’ll try to do what Quinn wants.”
I hurried to the kitchen and got her a drink. I turned on the light in the
kitchen, but even when I came back to the living room, we kept it dark.
“Where’s your car?” Bill asked.
“It broke down about a mile back,” she said. “But I couldn’t wait with it. I
called a tow truck and left the keys in the ignition. I hope to God they get it
off the road and out of sight.”
“Tell me right now what’s happening,” I said.
“Short or long version?”
“Short.”
“Some vampires from Vegas are coming to take over Louisiana.”
It was a showstopper.
Chapter 11
Bill’s voice was very fierce. “Where, when, how many?”
“They’ve taken out some of the sheriffs already,” Frannie said, and I could
tell there was just a hint of enjoyment at getting to deliver this momentous
news. “Smaller forces are taking out the weaker ones while a larger force
gathers to surround Fangtasia to deal with Eric.”
Bill was on his cell phone before the words had finished leaving Frannie’s
mouth, and I was left gaping at him. I had come so late to the realization of
how weak Louisiana’s situation was that it seemed to me for a second that I
had brought this about by thinking of it.
“How did this happen?” I asked the girl. “How did Quinn get involved? How
is he? Did he send you here?”
“Of course he sent me here,” she said, as if I were the stupidest person
she’d ever met. “He knows you’re tied to that vampire Eric, so that makes
you part of the target. The Vegas vamps sent someone to have a look at
you, even.”
Jonathan.
“I mean, they were evaluating Eric’s assets, and you were considered part
of that.”
“Why was this Quinn’s problem?” I asked, which may not have been the
clearest way to put it, but she got my meaning.
“Our mother, our goddamned screwed-up, screw-up mother,” Frannie said
bitterly. “You know she got captured and raped by some hunters, right? In
Colorado. Like a hundred years ago.” Actually, it had been maybe nineteen
years ago, because that was how Frannie had been conceived.
“And Quinn rescued her and killed them all, though he was just a kid, and
he went in debt to the local vampires to get them to help him clean up the
scene and get his mom away.”
I knew Quinn’s mother’s sad history. I was nodding frantically by now,
because I wanted to get to something I hadn’t heard yet.
“Okay, well, my mom was pregnant with me after the rape,” Frannie said,
glaring at me defiantly. “So she had me, but she was never right in the
head, and growing up with her was kinda hard, right? Quinn was working
off his debt in the pits.” (Think Gladiator with wereanimals.) “She never got
right in the head,” Frannie repeated. “And she’s kept getting worse.”
“I get that,” I said, trying to keep my voice level. Bill seemed on the verge of
thumping Frannie to speed up her narrative, but I shook my head.
“Okay, so she was in a nice place that Quinn was paying for outside Las
Vegas, the only assisted-living center in America where you can send
people like my mom.” The Deranged Weretiger Nursing Home? “But Mom
got loose, and she killed some tourist and took her clothes and caught a
ride into Vegas and picked up a man. She killed him, too. She robbed him
and took his money and gambled until we caught up with her.” Frannie
paused and took a deep breath. “Quinn was still healing from Rhodes, and
this about killed him.”
“Oh, no.” But I had a feeling I hadn’t heard the bottom line on this incident
yet.
“Yeah, what’s worse, right? The escape, or the killing?”
Probably the tourists had had an opinion on that.
I vaguely noticed that Amelia had entered the room, and I also realized that
she didn’t seem startled to see Bill. So she’d been awake when Bill had
taken Pam’s place. Amelia hadn’t met Frannie before, but she didn’t
interrupt the flow.
“Anyway, there’s a huge vampire cartel in Vegas, because the pickings are
so rich,” Frannie told us. “They tracked down Mom before the police could
catch her. They cleaned up after her again. Turns out that Whispering
Palms, the place that lost her, had alerted all the supes in the area to be on
the lookout. By the time I got to the casino where they’d grabbed Mom, the
vamps were telling Quinn that they’d taken care of everything and now
there was more debt for him to work off. He said he was coming off a bad
injury and he couldn’t go back in the pits. They offered to take me on as a
blood donor or a whore for visiting vamps instead, and he just about took
out the one who said that.”
Of course. I exchanged a glance with Bill. The offer to “employ” Frannie
had been designed to make anything else look better.
“Then they said they knew of a really weak kingdom that was just about up
for grabs, and they meant Louisiana. Quinn told ’em they could get it for
free if the King of Nevada would just marry Sophie-Anne, her being in no
position to argue. But it turned out the king was right there. He said he
detested cripples and no way would he marry a vampire who’d killed her
previous husband, no matter how sweet her kingdom was, even with
Arkansas thrown in.” Sophie-Anne was the titular head of Arkansas as well
as Louisiana since she’d been found innocent of her husband’s (the King of
Arkansas’s) murder in a vampire court. Sophie-Anne hadn’t had a chance
to consolidate her claim, because of the bombing. But I was sure it was on
her to-do list, right after her legs grew back.
Bill flipped his phone open again and began punching in numbers.
Whoever he called, he didn’t get an answer. His dark eyes were blazing.
He was absolutely revved up. He leaned over to pick up a sword he’d left
propped against the couch. Yep, he’d come fully armed. I didn’t keep items
like that in my toolshed.
“They’ll want to take us out quietly and quickly so the human news media
won’t catch on. They’ll concoct a story to explain why familiar vampires
have been replaced with strange ones,” Bill said. “You, girl—what part does
your brother have to play in this?”
“They made him tell them how many people you-all had and share what
else he knew about the situation in Lousiana,” Frannie said. To make
matters perfect, she began to cry. “He didn’t want to. He tried to bargain
with them, but they had him where they wanted him.” Now Frannie looked
about ten years older than she was. “He tried to call Sookie a million times,
but they were watching him, and he was scared he’d be leading them right
to her. But they found out anyway. Once he knew what they were going to
do, he took a big risk—for both of us—and sent me on ahead. I was glad I’d
got a friend to get my car back from you.”
“One of you should have called me, written me, something.” Despite our
current crisis, I couldn’t stop myself from expressing my bitterness.
“He couldn’t let you know how bad it was. He said he knew you’d try to get
him out of it somehow, but there was no way out.”
“Well, sure I would have tried to get him out of it,” I said. “That’s what you
do when someone’s in trouble.”
Bill was silent but I felt his eyes on me. I’d rescued Bill when he’d been in
trouble. Sometimes I was sorry I had.
“Your brother, why is he with them now?” Bill asked sharply. “He’s given
them information. They are vampires. What do they need with him?”
“They’re bringing him with them so he can negotiate with the supe
community, specifically the Weres,” Frannie said, sounding suddenly like
Miss Corporate Secretary. I felt sort of sorry for Frannie. As the product of a
union between a human and a weretiger, she had no special powers to
give her an edge or to provide her with a bargaining chip. Her face was
streaked with smeared mascara and her nails were chewed down to the
quick. She was a mess.
And this was no time to be worried about Frannie, because the vampires of
Vegas were taking over the state.
“What had we better do?” I asked. "Amelia, have you checked the house
wards? Do they include our cars?” Amelia nodded briskly. “Bill, you’ve
called Fangtasia and all the other sheriffs?”
Bill nodded. “No answer from Cleo. Arla Yvonne answered, and she had
already gotten wind of the attack. She said she was going to ground and
would try to work her way up to Shreveport. She has six of her nest with
her. Since Gervaise met his end, his vampires have been tending the
queen, and Booth Crimmons has been their lieutenant. Booth says he was
out tonight and his child, Audrey, who was left with the queen and Sigebert,
doesn’t answer. Even the deputy that Sophie-Anne sent to Little Rock is not
responding.”
We were all silent for a moment. The idea that Sophie-Anne might be finally
dead was almost unimaginable.
Bill shook himself visibly. “So,” he continued, “we might stay here, or we
might find another place for you three. When I’m sure you’re safe, I have to
get to Eric as soon as I can. He’ll need every pair of hands tonight if he’s to
survive.”
Some of the other sheriffs were surely dead. Eric might die tonight. The full
realization smacked me in the face with the force of a huge gloved hand. I
sucked in a jagged breath and fought to stay on my feet. I just couldn’t think
about that.
“We’ll be fine,” Amelia said stoutly. “I’m sure you’re a great fighter, Bill, but
we aren’t defenseless.”
With all due respect to Amelia’s witchcraft ability, we were so defenseless;
at least against vampires.
Bill spun away from us and stared down the hall at the back door. He’d
heard something that hadn’t reached our human ears. But a second later, I
heard a familiar voice.
“Bill, let me in. The sooner, the better!”
“It’s Eric,” Bill said with great satisfaction. Moving so fast he was a blur, he
went to the rear of the house. Sure enough, Eric was outside, and
something in me relaxed. He was alive. I noticed that he was hardly his
usual tidy self. His T-shirt was torn, and he was barefoot.
“I was cut off from the club,” he said as he and Bill came up the hall to join
us. “My house was no good, not by myself. I couldn’t reach anyone else. I
got your message, Bill. So, Sookie, I’m here to ask for your hospitality.”
“Of course,” I said automatically, though I really should have thought about
it. “But maybe we should go to—” I was about to suggest we cut across the
graveyard and go to Bill’s house, which was larger and would have more
facilities for vampires, when trouble erupted from another source. We
hadn’t been paying any attention to Frannie since she’d finished her story,
and the slump she’d experienced once her dramatic news had been
delivered had allowed her to think of the potential for disaster we faced.
“I gotta get out of here,” Frannie said. “Quinn told me to stay here, but you
guys are...” Her voice was rising and she was on her feet and every muscle
in her neck stood out in sharp relief as her head whipped around in her
agitation.
“Frannie,” Bill said. He put his white hands on each side of Frannie’s face.
He looked into the girl’s eyes. Frannie fell silent. “You stay here, you stupid
girl, and do what Sookie tells you to do.”
“Okay,” Frannie said in a calm voice.
“Thanks,” I said. Amelia was looking at Bill in a shocked kind of way. I
guess she’d never seen a vamp use his whammy before. “I’m going to get
my shotgun,” I said to no one, but before I could move, Eric turned to the
closet by the front door. He reached in and extricated the Benelli. He turned
to hand it to me with a bemused expression. Our eyes met.
Eric had remembered where I kept the shotgun. He’d learned that when
he’d stayed with me while his memory was lost.
When I could look away, I saw Amelia was looking self-consciously
thoughtful. Even in my short experience of living with Amelia, I had learned
that this was not a look I liked. It meant she was about to make a point, and
it was a point I wouldn’t care for.
“Are we getting all excited about nothing?” she asked rhetorically. “Maybe
we’re panicking for no good reason.”
Bill looked at Amelia as if she’d turned into a baboon. Frannie looked totally
unconcerned.
“After all,” Amelia said, wearing a small, superior smile, “why would anyone
come after us at all? Or more specifically you, Sookie. Because I don’t
suppose vampires would come after me. But that aside, why would they
come here? You’re not an essential part of the vampire defense system.
What would give them a good reason to want to kill or capture you?”
Eric had been making a circuit of the doors and windows. He finished as
Amelia was winding up her speech. “What’s happened?” he asked.
I said, “Amelia is explaining to me why there’s no rational reason the
vampires would come after me in their attempt to conquer the state.”
“Of course they’ll come,” Eric said, barely glancing at Amelia. He examined
Frannie for a minute, nodded in approval, and then stood to the side of a
living room window to look out. “Sookie’s got a blood tie to me. And now I
am here.”
“Yeah,” Amelia said heavily. “Thanks a lot, Eric, for making a beeline for
this house.”
“Amelia. Are you not a witch with much power?”
“Yes, I am,” she said cautiously.
“Isn’t your father a wealthy man with a lot of influence in the state? Isn’t
your mentor a great witch?”
Who had been doing some research on the Internet? Eric and Copley
Carmichael had something in common.
“Yeah,” Amelia said. “Okay, they’d be happy if they could corral us. But still,
if Eric hadn’t come here, I don’t think we’d need to worry about physical
injury.”
“You’re wondering if we’re actually in danger?” I said. “Vampires, excited,
bloodlust?”
“We won’t be any use if we’re not alive.”
“Accidents happen,” I said, and Bill snorted. I’d never heard him make such
an ordinary sound, and I looked at him. Bill was enjoying the prospect of a
good fight. His fangs were out. Frannie was staring at him, but her
expression didn’t change. If there’d been the slightest chance she’d stay
calm and cooperative, I might have asked Bill to bring her out of the
artificial state. I loved having Frannie still and quiet—but I hated her loss of
free will.
“Why did Pam leave?” I asked.
“She can be of more value at Fangtasia. The others have gone to the club,
and she can tell me if they are sealed in it or not. It was stupid of me to call
them all and tell them to gather; I should have told them to scatter.” From
the way he looked now, it wasn’t a mistake Eric would ever make again.
Bill stood close to a window, listening to the sounds of the night. He looked
at Eric and shook his head. No one there yet.
Eric’s phone rang. He listened for a minute, said, “Good fortune to you,”
and hung up.
“Most of the others are in the club,” he told Bill, who nodded.
“Where is Claudine?” Bill asked me.
“I have no idea.” How come Claudine came sometimes when I was in
trouble and didn’t come at others? Was I just wearing her out? “But I don’t
think she’ll come, because you guys are here. There’s no point in her
showing up to defend me if you and Eric can’t keep your fangs off of her.”
Bill stiffened. His sharp ears had picked up something. He turned and
exchanged a long glance with Eric.
“Not the company I’d have chosen,” Bill said in his cool voice. “But we’ll
make a good showing. I do regret the women.” And he looked at me, his
deep dark eyes full of some intense emotion. Love? Sorrow? Without a hint
or two from his silent brain, I couldn’t tell.
“We’re not in our graves yet,” Eric said, just as coolly.
Now I too could hear the cars coming down the driveway. Amelia made an
involuntary sound of fear, and Frannie’s eyes got even wider, though she
stayed in her chair as if paralyzed. Eric and Bill sank into themselves.
The cars stopped out front, and there were the sounds of doors opening
and shutting, someone walking up to the house.
There was a brisk knock—not on the door, but on one of the porch
uprights.
I moved toward it slowly. Bill gripped my arm and stepped in front of me.
“Who is there?” he called, and immediately shifted us three feet away.
He’d expected someone to fire through the door.
That didn’t happen.
“It is I, the vampire Victor Madden,” said a cheerful voice.
Okay, unexpected. And especially to Eric, who closed his eyes briefly.
Victor Madden’s identity and presence had told Eric volumes, and I didn’t
know what he’d read in those volumes.
“Do you know him?” I whispered to Bill.
Bill said, “Yes. I’ve met him.” But he didn’t add any details and stood lost in
an inner debate. I’ve never wanted more intensely to know what someone
was thinking than I did at that moment. The silence was getting to me.
“Friend or foe?” I called.
Victor laughed. It was a real good laugh—genial, an “I’m laughing with you,
not at you” kind of chortle.
“That’s an excellent question,” he said, “and one only you can answer. Do I
have the honor of talking to Sookie Stackhouse, famed telepath?”
“You have the honor of talking to Sookie Stackhouse, barmaid,” I said
frostily. And I heard a sort of throaty ruffling noise, a vocalization of an
animal. A large animal.
My heart sank into my bare feet.
“The wards will hold,” Amelia was saying to herself in a rapid whisper. “The
wards will hold; the wards will hold.” Bill was gazing at me with his dark
eyes, thoughts flickering across his face in rapid succession. Frannie was
looking vague and detached, but her eyes were fixed on the door. She’d
heard the sound, too.
“Quinn’s out there with them,” I whispered to Amelia, since she was the
only one in the room who hadn’t figured that out.
Amelia said, “He’s on their side?”
“They’ve got his mom,” I reminded her. But I felt sick inside.
“But we’ve got his sister,” Amelia said.
Eric looked as thoughtful as Bill. In fact, they were looking at each other
now, and I could believe they were having a whole dialogue without
speaking a word.
All this thoughtfulness wasn’t good. It meant they hadn’t decided which way
they were going to jump.
“May we come in?” asked the charming voice. “Or may we treat with one of
you face-to-face? You seem to have quite a few safeguards on the house.”
Amelia pumped her arm and said, “Yes!” She grinned at me.
Nothing wrong with a little deserved self-congratulation, though the timing
of it might be a bit off. I smiled back at her, though I felt my cheeks would
crack.
Eric seemed to gather himself, and after one long last look at each other,
he and Bill relaxed. Eric turned to me, kissed me on the lips very lightly,
and looked at my face for a long moment. “He’ll spare you,”
Eric said, and I understood he wasn’t really talking to me but to himself.
“You’re too unique to waste.”
And then he opened the door.