Book Seven 5-7

5
IWAS WALKING IN MY SLEEP. IT WAS A GOOD THING Iknew every inch of
Merlotte’s like I knew my own house, or I’d have bumped into every table and chair. I
yawned widely as I took Selah Pumphrey’s order. Ordinarily Selah irritated the hell out of
me. She’d been dating Nameless Ex-Lover for several weeks—well, months now. No
matter how invisible Ex had become, she’d never be my favorite person.
“Not getting enough rest, Sookie?” she asked, her voice sharp.
“Excuse me,” I apologized. “I guess not. I was at my brother’s wedding last night. What
kind of dressing did you want on that salad?”
“Ranch.” Selah’s big dark eyes were examining me like she was thinking of etching my
portrait. She really wanted to know all about Jason’s wedding, but asking me would be like
surrendering ground to the enemy. Silly Selah.
Come to think of it, what was Selah doing here? She’d never come in without Bill. She
lived in Clarice. Not that Clarice was far; you could get there in fifteen or twenty minutes.
But why would a real estate saleswoman from Clarice be…oh. She must be showing a
house here. Yes, the brain was moving slowly today.
“Okeydokey. Coming right up,” I said, and turned to go.
“Listen,” Selah said. “Let me be frank.”
Oh, boy. In my experience, that meant, “Let me be openly mean.”
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I swung around, trying to look anything but massively irritated, which was what I actually
was. This was not the day to screw with me. Among my many worries, Amelia hadn’t come
home the night before, and when I’d gone upstairs to look for Bob, I’d found that he’d
thrown up in the middle of Amelia’s bed…which would have been okay by me, but it had
been covered with my great-grandmother’s quilt. It had fallen to me to clean up the mess
and get the quilt to soaking in the washing machine. Quinn had left early that morning, and
I was simply sad about that. And then there was Jason’s marriage, which had such potential
to be a disaster.
I could think of a few more items to add to the list (down to the dripping tap in my
kitchen), but you get that my day was not a happy one.
“I’m here working, Selah. I’m not here to have any personal chitchats with you.”
She ignored that.
“I know you’re going on a trip with Bill,” she said. “You’re trying to steal him back from
me. How long have you been scheming about this?”
I know my mouth was hanging open, because I just hadn’t gotten enough warning that was
coming. My telepathy was affected when I was tired—just as my reaction time and thought
processes were—and I was heavily shielded when I worked, as a matter of course. So I
hadn’t picked up on Selah’s thoughts. A flash of rage passed through me, lifting my palm
and raising it to slap the shit out of her. But a warm, hard hand took mine, gripped it,
brought it down to my side. Sam was there, and I hadn’t even seen him coming. I was
missing everything today.
“Miss Pumphrey, you’ll have to get your lunch somewhere else,” Sam said quietly. Of
course, everyone was watching. I could feel all the brains go on alert for fresh gossip as
eyes drank in every nuance of the scene. I could feel my face redden.
“I have the right to eat here,” Selah said, her voice loud and arrogant. That was a huge
mistake. In an instant, the sympathies of the spectators switched to me. I could feel the
wave of it wash over me. I widened my eyes and looked sad like one of those abnormally
big-eyed kids in the awful waif paintings. Looking pathetic was no big stretch. Sam put an
arm around me as though I were a wounded child and looked at Selah with nothing on his
face but a grave disappointment in her behavior.
“I have the right to tell you to go,” he said. “I can’t have you insulting my staff.”
Selah was never likely to be rude to Arlene or Holly or Danielle. She hardly knew they
existed, because she wasn’t the kind of woman who really looked at a server. It had always
stuck in her craw that Bill had dated me before he’d met her. (“Dated,” in Selah’s book,
being a euphemism for “had enthusiastic and frequent sex with.”)
Selah’s body was jerky with anger as she threw her napkin on the floor. She got to her feet
so abruptly that her chair would have fallen if Dawson, a boulder of a werewolf who ran a
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
motorcycle repair business, hadn’t caught it with one huge hand. Selah grabbed up her
purse to stalk out of the door, narrowly avoiding a collision with my friend Tara, who was
entering.
Dawson was highly amused by the whole scene. “All that over a vamp,” he said. “Them
cold-blooded things must be something, to get fine-looking women so upset.”
“Who’s upset?” I said, smiling and standing straighter to show Sam I was unfazed. I doubt
he was fooled, since Sam knows me pretty well, but he got my emotional drift and went
back behind the bar. The buzz of discussion of this juicy scene rose from the lunch crowd. I
strode over to the table where Tara was sitting. She had JB du Rone in tow.
“Looking good, JB,” I said brightly, pulling the menus from between the napkin box and
the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table and handing one to him and one to
Tara. My hands were shaking, but I don’t think they noticed.
JB smiled up at me. “Thanks, Sookie,” he said in his pleasant baritone. JB was just
beautiful, but really short on the brains. However, that gave him a charming simplicity. Tara
and I had watched out for him in school, because once that simplicity was observed and
targeted by other, less handsome boys, JB had been in for some rough patches…especially
in junior high. Since Tara and I also both had huge flaws in our own popularity profiles,
we’d tried to protect JB as much as we were able. In return, JB had squired me to a couple
of dances I’d wanted to go to very badly, and his family had given Tara a place to stay a
couple of times when I couldn’t.
Tara had had sex with JB somewhere along this painful road. I hadn’t. It didn’t seem to
make any difference to either relationship.
“JB has a new job,” Tara said, smiling in a self-satisfied way. So that was why she’d come
in. Our relationship had been uneasy for the past few months, but she knew I’d want to
share in her pride at having done a good thing for JB.
That was great news. And it helped me not think about Selah Pumphrey and her load of
anger.
“Whereabouts?” I asked JB, who was looking at the menu as if he’d never seen it before.
“At the health club in Clarice,” he said. He looked up and smiled. “Two days a week, I sit
at the desk wearing this.” He waved a hand at his clean and tight-fitting golf shirt, striped
burgundy and brown, and his pressed khakis. “I get the members to sign in, I make healthy
shakes, and I clean the equipment and hand out towels. Three days a week, I wear workout
clothes and I spot for all the ladies.”
“That sounds great,” I said, awestruck at the perfection of the job for JB’s limited
qualifications. JB was lovely: impressive muscles, handsome face, straight white teeth. He
was an ad for physical health. Also, he was naturally good-natured and neat.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Tara looked at me, expecting her due praise. “Good work,” I told her. We gave each other a
high five.
“Now, Sookie, the only thing that would make life perfect is you calling me some night,”
JB said. No one could project a wholesome, simple lust like JB.
“Thanks so much, JB, but I’m seeing someone now,” I said, not troubling to keep my voice
down. After Selah’s little exhibition, I felt the need to brag a little.
“Oooh, that Quinn?” Tara asked. I may have mentioned him to her once or twice. I nodded,
and we did another high five. “Is he in town now?” she asked in a lower voice, and I said,
“Left this morning,” just as quietly.
“I want the Mexican cheeseburger,” JB said.
“Then I’ll get you one,” I said, and after Tara had ordered, I marched to the kitchen. Not
only was I delighted for JB, I was happy that Tara and I seemed to have mended our fences.
I had needed a little upswing to my day, and I had gotten it.
When I reached home with a couple of bags of groceries, Amelia was back and my kitchen
sparkled like an exhibit in a Southern Homes show. When she was feeling stressed or
bored, Amelia cleaned, which was a fantastic habit to have in a housemate—especially
when you’re not used to having one at all. I like a neat house myself, and I get cleaning
spurts from time to time, but next to Amelia I was a slob.
I looked at the clean windows. “Feeling guilty, huh?” I said.
Amelia’s shoulders slumped. She was sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of one of her
weird teas, steam rising from the dark liquid.
“Yeah,” she said glumly. “I saw the quilt was in the washing machine. I worked on the
spot, and it’s hanging out back on the line now.”
Since I’d noted that when I came in, I just nodded. “Bob retaliated,” I said.
“Yeah.”
I started to ask her who she’d stayed with, then realized it was really none of my business.
Besides, though I was very tired, Amelia was a broadcaster of the first order, and within
seconds I knew she’d stayed with Calvin’s cousin Derrick and the sex hadn’t been good;
also, Derrick’s sheets had been very dirty and that had made her nuts. Plus, when Derrick
had woken up this morning, he’d indicated that in his mind, a night together made them a
couple. Amelia had had a hard time getting Derrick to give her a ride back to the house. He
wanted her to stay with him, in Hotshot.
“Weirded out?” I asked, putting the hamburger meat in the refrigerator drawer. It was my
week to cook, and we were going to have hamburger steak, baked potatoes, and green
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
beans.
Amelia nodded, lifting her mug to take a sip. It was a homemade hangover restorative
she’d concocted, and she shuddered as she experimented on herself. “Yeah, I am. Those
Hotshot guys are a little strange,” she said.
“Some of them.” Amelia had adjusted better to my telepathy than anyone I’d ever
encountered. Since she was frank and open anyway—sometimes way too much—I guess
she never felt she had secrets to hide.
“What are you gonna do?” I asked. I sat down opposite her.
“See, it’s not like I’d been dating Bob for a long time,” she said, jumping right into the
middle of the conversation without bothering with preliminaries. She knew I understood.
“We’d only gotten together that one night. Believe me, it was great. He reallygot me. That’s
why we began, ah, experimenting.”
I nodded, tried to look understanding. To me, experimenting was, well, licking a place
you’d never licked before, or trying a position that gave you a cramp in your thigh. Like
that. It did not involve turning your partner into an animal. I’d never worked up enough
nerve to ask Amelia what their goal had been, and it was one thing her brain wasn’t
throwing out.
“I guess you like cats,” I said, following my train of thought to its logical conclusion. “I
mean, Bob is a cat, but a small one, and then you picked Derrick out of all the guys who
would have been thrilled to spend the night with you.”
“Oh?” Amelia said, perking up. She tried to sound casual. “More than one?”
Amelia did have the tendency to think way too well of herself as a witch, but not enough of
herself as a woman.
“One or two,” I said, trying not to laugh. Bob came in and wreathed himself around my
legs, purring loudly. It could hardly have been more pointed, since he walked around
Amelia as if she were a pile of dog poop.
Amelia sighed heavily. “Listen, Bob, you’ve gotta forgive me,” she said to the cat. “I’m
sorry. I just got carried away. A wedding, a few beers, dancing in the street, an exotic
partner…I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. How about I promise to be celibate until I can
figure out a way to turn you back into yourself?”
This was a huge sacrifice on Amelia’s part, as anyone who’d read her thoughts for a couple
of days (and more) would know. Amelia was a very healthy girl and she was a very direct
woman. She was also fairly diverse in her tastes. “Well,” she said, on second thought,
“what if I just promise not to do any guys?”
Bob’s hind end sat while his front end stood, and his tail wrapped around his front paws.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
He looked adorable as he stared up at Amelia, his large yellow eyes unblinking. He
appeared to be thinking it over. Finally, he said, “Rohr.”
Amelia smiled.
“You taking that as a yes?” I said. “If so, remember…I just do guys, so don’t go looking
my way.”
“Oh, I probably wouldn’t try to hook up with you anyway,” Amelia said.
Did I mention Amelia is a little tactless? “Why not?” I asked, insulted.
“I didn’t pick Bob at random,” Amelia said, looking as embarrassed as it is possible for
Amelia to look. “I like ’em skinny and dark.”
“I’ll just have to live with that,” I said, trying to look deeply disappointed. Amelia threw a
tea ball at me, and I caught it in midair.
“Good reflexes,” she said, startled.
I shrugged. Though it had been ages since I’d had vampire blood, a trace seemed to linger
on in my system. I’d always been healthy, but now I seldom even got a headache. And I
moved a little quicker than most people. I wasn’t the only person to enjoy the side effects of
vamp blood ingestion. Now that the effects have become common knowledge, vampires
have become prey themselves. Harvesting that blood to sell on the black market is a
lucrative and highly perilous profession. I’d heard on the radio that morning that a drainer
had disappeared from his Texarkana apartment after he’d gotten out on parole. If you make
an enemy of a vamp, he can wait it out a lot longer than you can.
“Maybe it’s the fairy blood,” Amelia said, staring at me thoughtfully.
I shrugged again, this time with a definite drop-this-subject air. I’d learned I had a trace of
fairy in my lineage only recently, and I wasn’t happy about it. I didn’t even know which
side of my family had bequeathed me this legacy, much less which individual. All I knew
was that at some time in the past, someone in my family had gotten up close and personal
with a fairy. I’d spent a couple of hours poring over the yellowing family trees and the
family history my grandmother had worked so hard to compile, and I hadn’t found a clue.
As if she’d been summoned by the thought, Claudine knocked at the back door. She hadn’t
flown on gossamer wings; she’d arrived in her car. Claudine is a full-blooded fairy, and she
has other ways of getting places, but she uses those ways only in emergencies. Claudine is
very tall, with a thick fall of dark hair and big, slanted dark eyes. She has to cover her ears
with her hair, since unlike her twin, Claude, she hasn’t had the pointy parts surgically
altered.
Claudine hugged me enthusiastically but gave Amelia a distant wave. They are not nuts
about each other. Amelia has acquired magic, but Claudine is magic to the bone. Neither
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
quite trusts the other.
Claudine is normally the sunniest creature I ever met. She is very kind, and sweet, and
helpful, like a supernatural Girl Scout, because it’s her nature and because she’s trying to
work her way up the magical ladder to become an angel. Tonight, Claudine’s face was
unusually serious. My heart sank. I wanted to go to bed, and I wanted to miss Quinn in
private, and I wanted to get over the jangling my nerves had taken at Merlotte’s. I didn’t
want bad news.
Claudine settled at the kitchen table across from me and held my hands. She spared a look
for Amelia. “Take a hike, witch,” she said, and I was shocked.
“Pointy-eared bitch,” muttered Amelia, getting up with her mug of tea.
“Mate killer,” responded Claudine.
“He’s not dead!” shrieked Amelia. “He’s just—different!”
Claudine snorted, and actually that was an adequate response.
I was too tired to scold Claudine for her unprecedented rudeness, and she was holding my
hands too tight for me to be pleased about her comforting presence. “What’s up?” I asked.
Amelia stomped out of the room, and I heard her shoes on the stairs up to the second floor.
“No vampires here?” Claudine said, her voice anxious. You know how a chocoholic feels
about chunky fudge ice cream, double dipped in dark chocolate? That’s how vamps feel
about fairies.
“Yeah, the house is empty except for me, you, Amelia, and Bob,” I said. I was not going to
deny Bob his personhood, though sometimes it was pretty hard to recall, especially when
his litter box needed cleaning.
“You’re going to this summit?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
That was a good question. “The queen is paying me,” I said.
“Do you need the money so badly?”
I started to dismiss her concern, but then I gave it some serious thought. Claudine had done
a lot for me, and the least I could do for her was think about what she said.
“I can live without it,” I said. After all, I still had some of the money Eric had paid me for
hiding him from a group of witches. But a chunk of it had gone, as money seems to; the
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
insurance hadn’t covered everything that had been damaged or destroyed by the fire that
had consumed my kitchen the winter before, and I’d upgraded my appliances, and I’d made
a donation to the volunteer fire department. They’d come so quickly and tried so hard to
save the kitchen and my car.
Then Jason had needed help to pay the doctor’s bill for Crystal’s miscarriage.
I found I missed that layer of padding between being solvent and being broke. I wanted to
reinforce it, replenish it. My little boat sailed on precarious financial waters, and I wanted
to have a towboat around to keep it afloat.
“I can live without it,” I said, more firmly, “but I don’t want to.”
Claudine sighed. Her face was full of woe. “I can’t go with you,” she said. “You know how
vampires are around us. I can’t even put in an appearance.”
“I understand,” I said, a bit surprised. I’d never dreamed of Claudine’s going.
“And I think there’s going to be trouble,” she said.
“What kind?” The last time I’d gone to a vampire social gathering, there had been big
trouble, major trouble, the bloodiest kind of trouble.
“I don’t know,” Claudine said. “But I feel it coming, and I think you should stay home.
Claude does, too.”
Claude didn’t give a rat’s ass what happened to me, but Claudine was generous enough to
include her brother in her kindness. As far as I could tell, Claude’s benefit to the world was
strictly as a decoration. He was utterly selfish, had no social skills, and was absolutely
beautiful.
“I’m sorry, Claudine, and I’ll miss you while I’m in Rhodes,” I said. “But I’ve obligated
myself to go.”
“Going in the train of a vampire,” Claudine said dismally. “It’ll mark you as one of their
world, for good. You’ll never be an innocent bystander again. Too many creatures will
know who you are and where you can be found.”
It wasn’t so much what Claudine said as the way she said it that made cold prickles run up
my spine and crawl along my scalp. She was right. I had no defense, though I rather
thought that I was already into the vamp world too deeply to opt out.
Sitting there in my kitchen with the late afternoon sun slanting through the window, I had
one of those illuminations that changes you forever. Amelia was silent upstairs. Bob had
come back into the room to sit by his food bowl and stare at Claudine. Claudine herself was
gleaming in a beam of sunlight that hit her square in the face. Most people would be
showing every unattractive skin flaw. Claudine still looked perfect.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I wasn’t sure I would ever understand Claudine and her thinking about the world, and I still
knew frighteningly little about her life; but I felt quite sure that she had devoted herself to
my well-being, for whatever reason, and that she was really afraid for me. And yet I knew I
was going to Rhodes with the queen, and Eric, and the abjured one, and the rest of the
Louisiana contingent.
Was I just curious about what the agenda might be at a vampire summit? Did I want the
attention of more undead members of society? Did I want to be known as a fangbanger, one
of those humans who simply adored the walking dead? Did some corner of me long for a
chance to be near Bill without seeking him out, still trying to make some emotional sense
of his betrayal? Or was this about Eric? Unbeknownst to myself, was I in love with the
flamboyant Viking who was so handsome, so good at making love, and so political, all at
the same time?
This sounded like a promising set of problems for a soap opera season.
“Tune in tomorrow,” I muttered. When Claudine looked at me askance, I said, “Claudine, I
feel embarrassed to tell you I’m doing something that really doesn’t make much sense in a
lot of ways, but I want the money and I’m going to do it. I’ll be back here to see you again.
Don’t worry, please.”
Amelia clomped back into the room, began making herself some more tea. She was going
to float away.
Claudine ignored her. “I’m going to worry,” she said simply. “There is trouble coming, my
dear friend, and it will fall right on your head.”
“But you don’t know how or when?”
She shook her head. “No, I just know it’s coming.”
“Look into my eyes,” muttered Amelia. “I see a tall, dark man…”
“Shut up,” I told her.
She turned her back to us, made a big fuss out of pinching the dead leaves off some of her
plants.
Claudine left soon after. For the remainder of her visit, she didn’t recover her normal
happy demeanor. She never said another word about my departure.
6
ON THE SECOND MORNING AFTER JASON’S WEDDING,I was feeling much more
myself. Having a mission helped. I needed to be at Tara’s Togs right after it opened at ten. I
had to pick out the clothes Eric said I needed for the summit. I wasn’t due at Merlotte’s
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
until five thirty or so that night, so I had that pleasant feeling of the whole day stretching
ahead of me.
“Hey, girl!” Tara said, coming from the back of the shop to greet me. Her part-time
assistant, McKenna, glanced at me and resumed moving clothes around. I assumed she was
putting misplaced items back into their correct positions; clothing store employees seem to
spend a lot of time doing that. McKenna didn’t speak, and unless I was much mistaken, she
was trying to avoid talking to me at all. That hurt, since I’d gone to see her in the hospital
when she’d had her appendix out two weeks ago, and I’d taken her a little present, too.
“Mr. Northman’s business associate Bobby Burnham called down here to say you needed
some clothes for a trip?” Tara said. I nodded, trying to look matter of fact. “Would casual
clothes be what you needed? Or suits, something of a business nature?” She gave me an
utterly false bright smile, and I knew she was angry with me because she was scared for
me. “McKenna, you can take that mail to the post office,” Tara told McKenna with an edge
to her voice. McKenna scuttled out the back door, the mail stuffed under her arm like a
riding crop.
“Tara,” I said, “it’s not what you think.”
“Sookie, it’s none of my business,” she said, trying hard to sound neutral.
“I think it is,” I said. “You’re my friend, and I don’t want you thinking I’m just going
traveling with a bunch of vampires for fun.”
“Then why are you going?” Tara’s face dropped all the false cheer. She was deadly serious.
“I’m getting paid to go with a few of the Louisiana vamps to a big meeting. I’ll act as their,
like, human Geiger counter. I’ll tell them if a human’s trying to bullshit them, and I’ll know
what the other vamps’ humans are thinking. It’s just for this one time.” I couldn’t explain
more fully. Tara had been into the world of the vampires more heavily than she needed to
be, and she’d almost gotten killed. She wanted nothing more to do with it, and I couldn’t
blame her. But she still couldn’t tell me what to do. I’d gone through my own soul
searching over this issue, even before Claudine’s lecture, and I wasn’t going to permit
anyone else to second-guess me once I’d made up my mind. Getting the clothes was okay.
Working for the vamps was okay…as long as I didn’t turn humans over to get killed.
“We’ve been friends for a coon’s age,” Tara said quietly. “Through thick and thin. I love
you, Sookie, I always will; but this is a real thin time.” Tara had had so much
disappointment and worry in her life that she simply wasn’t willing to undertake any more.
So she was cutting me loose, and she thought she would call JB that night and renew their
carnal acquaintance, and she would do that almost in memory of me.
It was a strange way to write my premature epitaph.
“I need an evening dress, a cocktail-type dress, and some nice day clothes,” I said,
checking my list quite unnecessarily. I wasn’t going to fool with Tara anymore. I was going
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
to have fun, no matter how sour she looked. She’d come around, I told myself.
I was going to enjoy buying clothes. I started off with an evening dress and a cocktail
dress. And I got two suits, like business suits (but not really, since I can’t see myself in
black pinstripes). And two pants outfits. And hose and knee-highs and a nightgown or two.
And a bit of lingerie.
I was swinging between guilt and delight. I spent more of Eric’s money than I absolutely
had to, and I wondered what would happen if Eric asked to see the things he’d bought. I’d
feel pretty bad then. But it was like I’d been caught up in a buying frenzy, partly out of the
sheer delight of it, and partly out of anger at Tara, and partly to deny the fear I was feeling
at the prospect of accompanying a group of vampires anywhere.
With another sigh, this one a very quiet and private one, I returned the lingerie and the
nightgowns to their tables. Nonessentials. I felt sad to part with them, but I felt better
overall. Buying clothes to suit a specific need, well, that was okay. That was a meal. But
buying underthings, that was something else entirely. That was like a MoonPie. Or Ding
Dongs. Sweet, but bad for you.
The local priest, who had started attending Fellowship of the Sun meetings, had suggested
to me that befriending vamps, or even working for them, was a way of expressing a death
wish. He’d told me this over his burger basket the week before. I thought about that now,
standing at the cash register while Tara rang up all my purchases, which would be paid for
with vampire money. Did I believe I wanted to die? I shook my head. No, I didn’t. And I
thought the Fellowship of the Sun, which was the ultra right-wing anti-vampire movement
that was gaining an alarming stronghold in America, was a crock. Their condemnation of
all humans who had any dealings with vampires, even down to visiting a business owned
by a vamp, was ridiculous. But why was I even drawn to vamps to begin with?
Here was the truth of it: I’d had so little chance of having the kind of life my classmates
had achieved—the kind of life I’d grown up thinking was the ideal—that any other life I
could shape for myself seemed interesting. If I couldn’t have a husband and children, worry
about what I was going to take to the church potluck and if our house needed another coat
of paint, then I’d worry about what three-inch heels would do to my sense of balance when
I was wearing several extra pounds in sequins.
When I was ready to go, McKenna, who’d come back from the post office, carried my
bags out to my car while Tara cleared the amount with Eric’s day man, Bobby Burnham.
She hung up the phone, looking pleased.
“Did I use it all up?” I asked, curious to find out how much Eric had invested in me.
“Not nearly,” she said. “Want to buy more?”
But the fun was over. “No,” I said. “I’ve gotten enough.” I had a definite impulse to ask
Tara to take every stitch back. Then I thought what a shabby thing that would be to do to
her. “Thanks for helping me, Tara.”
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“My pleasure,” she assured me. Her smile was a little warmer and more genuine. Tara
always liked making money, and she’d never been able to stay mad at me long. “You need
to go to World of Shoes in Clarice to get something to go with the evening gown. They’re
having a sale.”
I braced myself. This was the day to get things done. Next stop, World of Shoes.
I would be leaving in a week, and work that night went by in a blur as I grew more excited
about the trip. I’d never been as far from home as Rhodes, which was way up there by
Chicago; actually, I’d never been north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I’d flown only once, and
that had been a short flight from Shreveport to Dallas. I would have to get a suitcase, one
that rolled. I’d have to get…I thought of a long list of smaller items. I knew that some
hotels had hair dryers. Would the Pyramid of Gizeh? The Pyramid was one of the most
famous vampire-oriented hotels that had sprung up in major American cities.
Since I’d already arranged my time off with Sam, that night I told him when I was
scheduled to leave. Sam was sitting behind his desk in the office when I knocked on the
door—well, the door frame, because Sam almost never shut the door. He looked up from
his bill paying. He was glad to be interrupted. When he worked on the books, he ran his
hands through his reddish blond hair, and now he looked a little electrified as a result. Sam
would rather be tending bar than doing this task, but he’d actually hired a substitute for
tonight just for the purpose of getting his books straight.
“Come in, Sook,” he said. “How’s it going out there?”
“Pretty busy; I haven’t got but a second. I just wanted to tell you I’ll be leaving next
Thursday.”
Sam tried to smile, but he ended up simply looking unhappy. “You have to do this?” he
asked.
“Hey, we’ve talked about this,” I said, sounding a clear warning.
“Well, I’ll miss you,” he explained. “And I’ll worry a little. You and lots of vamps.”
“There’ll be humans there, like me.”
“Notlike you. They’ll be humans with a sick infatuation with the vampire culture, or
deaddiggers, looking to make a buck off the undead. None of these are healthy people with
long life expectancies.”
“Sam, two years ago I didn’t have any idea of what the world around me was really like. I
didn’t know what you really were; I didn’t know that vampires were as different from each
other as we are. I didn’t know that there were real fairies. I couldn’t have imagined any of
that.” I shook my head. “What a world this is, Sam. It’s wonderful and it’s scary. Each day
is different. I never thought I would have any kind of life for myself, and now I do.”
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“I’d be the last person in the world to block your place in the sun, Sookie,” Sam said, and
he smiled at me. But it didn’t escape my attention that his statement was a wee bit
ambiguous.
Pam came to Bon Temps that night, looking bored and cool in a pale green jumpsuit with
navy piping. She was wearing navy penny loafers…no kidding. I hadn’t even realized those
were still for sale. The dark leather was polished to a high shine, and the pennies were new.
She got plenty of admiring looks in the bar. She perched at a table in my section and sat
patiently, her hands clasped on the table in front of her. She went into the vampire state of
suspension that was so unnerving to anyone who hadn’t seen it yet—her eyes open but not
seeing, her body totally unmoving, her expression blank. Since she was having some
downtime, I waited on a few people before I went to her table. I was sure I knew why she
was there, and I wasn’t looking forward to the conversation.
“Pam, can I get you a drink?”
“What’s with the tiger, then?” she asked, going straight for the conversational jugular.
“Quinn is who I’m seeing now,” I said. “We don’t get to stay together much because of his
job, but we’ll see each other at the summit.” Quinn had been hired to produce some of the
summit’s expected ceremonies and rituals. He’d be busy, but I’d catch glimpses of him, and
I was already excited about the prospect. “We’re spending a month together after the
summit,” I told Pam.
Ah-oh, maybe I’d over-shared on that one. Pam’s face lost its smile.
“Sookie, I don’t know what strange game you and Eric have going, but it’s not good for
us.”
“I have nothing going! Nothing!”
“You may not, but he does. He has not been the same since the time you two spent
together.”
“I don’t know what I can do about that,” I said weakly.
Pam said, “I don’t either, but I hope he can resolve his feelings for you. He doesn’t enjoy
having conflicts. He doesn’t enjoy feeling attached. He is not the carefree vampire he used
to be.”
I shrugged. “Pam, I’ve been as straight with him as I can be. I think maybe he’s worried
about something else. You’re exaggerating my importance in Eric’s scheme of things. If he
has any kind of undying love for me, then he’s sure not telling me about it. And I never see
him. And he knows about Quinn.”
“He made Bill confess to you, didn’t he?”
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“Well, Eric was there,” I said uncertainly.
“Do you think Bill would ever have told you if Eric hadn’t commanded him to?”
I’d done my best to forget that night altogether. In the back of my mind, I’d known the
strange timing of Bill’s revelation was significant, but I just hadn’t wanted to think about it.
“Why do you think Eric would give a flying fuck what Bill had been ordered to do, much
less reveal it to a human woman, if he didn’t have inappropriate feelings for you?”
I’d never put it to myself quite like that. I’d been so ripped up by Bill’s confession—the
queen had planted him to seduce me (if necessary) to gain my trust—that I hadn’t thought
of why Eric had forced Bill into the position of telling me about the plot.
“Pam, I don’t know. Listen, I’m working here, and you need to order something to drink. I
gotta take care of my other tables.”
“O-negative, then. TrueBlood.”
I hurried to get the drink out of the cooler, and I warmed it up in the microwave, shaking it
gently to make sure the temperature was even. It coated the sides of the bottle in an
unpleasant way, but it certainly looked and tasted like real blood. I’d poured a few drops
into a glass one time at Bill’s so I could have the experience. As far as I could tell, drinking
synthetic blood was exactly like drinking real blood. Bill had always enjoyed it, though
he’d remarked more than once that flavor wasn’t the thing; it was the sensation of biting
into flesh, feeling the heartbeat of the human, that made being a vampire fun. Glugging out
of a bottle just didn’t do the trick. I took the bottle and a wineglass to Pam’s table and
deposited both before her, along with a napkin, of course.
“Sookie?” I looked up to see that Amelia had come in.
My roomie had come into the bar often enough, but I was surprised to see her tonight.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“Um…hi,” Amelia said to Pam. I took in Amelia’s pressed khakis, her neat white golf
shirt, her equally white tennis shoes. I glanced at Pam, whose pale eyes were wider than I’d
ever seen them.
“This is my roommate, Amelia Broadway,” I told Pam. “Amelia, this is Pam the vampire.”
“I am pleased to meet you,” Pam said.
“Hey, neat outfit,” Amelia said.
Pam looked pleased. “You look very nice, too,” she said.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“You a local vamp?” Amelia asked. Amelia was nothing if not blunt. And chatty.
Pam said, “I’m Eric’s second-in-command. You do know who Eric Northman is?”
“Sure,” Amelia said. “He’s the blond hunk of burning love who lives in Shreveport, right?”
Pam smiled. Her fangs popped out a little. I looked from Amelia to the vampire. Geez
Louise.
“Perhaps you would like to see the bar some night?” Pam said.
“Oh, sure,” Amelia said, but not as if she were particularly excited. Playing hard to get. For
about ten minutes, if I knew Amelia.
I left to answer a customer beckoning from another table. Out of the corner of my eye,
Amelia sat down with Pam, and they talked for a few minutes before Amelia got up and
stood by the bar, waiting for me to return.
“And what brings you here tonight?” I asked maybe a little too abruptly.
Amelia raised her eyebrows, but I didn’t apologize.
“I just wanted to tell you, you got a phone call at the house.”
“Who from?”
“From Quinn.”
I felt a smile spread across my face, a real one. “What did he say?”
“He said he’d see you in Rhodes. He misses you already.”
“Thanks, Amelia. But you could’ve just called here to tell me, or told me when I got
home.”
“Oh, I got a little bored.”
I’d known she would be, sooner or later. Amelia needed a job, a full-time job. She missed
her city and her friends, of course. Even though she’d left New Orleans before Katrina,
she’d suffered a little every day since the storm’s aftermath had devastated the city. Amelia
missed the witchcraft, too. I’d hoped she’d pal around with Holly, another barmaid and a
dedicated Wiccan. But after I’d introduced the two and they’d had some conversations,
Amelia had told me glumly that she and Holly were very different sorts of witches. Amelia
herself was (she considered) a true witch, while Holly was a Wiccan. Amelia had a thinly
veiled contempt for the Wiccan faith. Once or twice, Amelia had met with Holly’s coven,
partly to keep her hand in…and partly because Amelia yearned for the company of other
practitioners.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
At the same time, my houseguest was very anxious she might be discovered by the witches
of New Orleans and made to pay a high price for her mistake in changing Bob. To add yet
another emotional layer, since Katrina, Amelia feared for the safety of these same former
companions. She couldn’t find out if they were okay without them discovering her in
return.
Despite all this, I’d known the day (or night) would come when Amelia would be restless
enough to look outside my house and yard and Bob.
I tried not to frown as Amelia went over to Pam’s table to visit some more. I reminded my
inner worrier that Amelia could take care of herself. Probably. I’d been more certain the
night before in Hotshot. As I went about my work, I switched my thoughts to Quinn’s call. I
wished I’d had my new cell phone (thanks to Amelia’s paying me a little rent, I could afford
one) with me, but I didn’t think it was right to carry it at work, and Quinn knew I wouldn’t
have it with me and turned on unless I was at liberty to answer it. I wished Quinn would be
waiting at home when I left the bar in an hour. The strength of that fantasy intoxicated me.
Though it would have been pleasant to roll in that feeling, indulging myself in the flush of
my new relationship, I concluded was time to back down and face a little reality. I
concentrated on serving my tables, smiling and chatting as needed, and refreshing Pam’s
TrueBlood once or twice. Otherwise, I left Amelia and Pam to their tête-à-tête.
Finally, the last working hour was over, and the bar cleared out. Along with the other
servers, I did my closing-up chores. When I was sure the napkin holders and salt shakers
were full and ready for the next day, I went down the little hall into the storeroom to deposit
my apron in the large laundry basket. After listening to us hint and complain for years, Sam
had finally hung a mirror back there for our benefit. I found myself standing absolutely
still, staring into it. I shook myself and began to untie my apron. Arlene was fluffing her
own bright red hair. Arlene and I were not such good friends these days. She’d gotten
involved in the Fellowship of the Sun. Though the Fellowship represented itself as an
informational organization, dedicated to spreading the “truth” about vampires, its ranks
were riddled with those who believed all vampires were intrinsically evil and should be
eliminated, by violent means. The worst among the Fellowship took out their anger and fear
on the humans who consorted with vampires.
Humans like me.
Arlene tried to meet my eyes in the mirror. She failed.
“That vamp in the bar your buddy?” she asked, putting a very unpleasant emphasis on the
last word.
“Yes,” I said. Even if I hadn’t liked Pam, I would have said she was my buddy. Everything
about the Fellowship made the hair rise up on my neck.
“You need to hang around with humans more,” Arlene said. Her mouth was set in a solid
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
line, and her heavily made-up eyes were narrow with intensity. Arlene had never been what
you’d call a deep thinker, but I was astonished and dismayed by how fast she’d been sucked
into the Fellowship way of thinking.
“I’m with humans ninety-five percent of the time, Arlene.”
“You should make it a hundred.”
“Arlene, how is this any of your business?” My patience was stretched to its breaking
point.
“You been putting in all these hours because you’re going with a bunch of vamps to some
meeting, right?”
“Again, what business of yours?”
“You and me were friends for a long time, Sookie, until that Bill Compton walked into the
bar. Now you see vamps all the time, and you have strange people staying at your house.”
“I don’t have to defend my life to you,” I said, and my temper utterly snapped. I could see
inside her head, see all the smug and satisfied righteous judgment. It hurt. It rankled. I had
babysat her children, consoled her when she was left high and dry by a series of unworthy
men, cleaned her trailer, tried to encourage her to date men who wouldn’t walk all over her.
Now she was staring at me, actually surprised at my anger.
“Obviously you have some big holes in your own life if you have to fill them with this
Fellowship crap,” I said. “Look at what sterling guys you pick to date and marry.” With that
unchristian dig, I spun on my heel and walked out of the bar, thankful I’d already gotten my
purse from Sam’s office. Nothing’s worse than having to stop in the middle of a righteous
walkout.
Somehow Pam was beside me, having joined me so quickly that I hadn’t seen her move. I
looked over my shoulder. Arlene was standing with her back flat against the wall, her face
distorted with pain and anger. My parting shot had been a true one. One of Arlene’s
boyfriends had stolen the family silverware, and her husbands…hard to know where to
start.
Pam and I were outside before I could react to her presence.
I was rigid with the shock of Arlene’s verbal attack and my own fury. “I shouldn’t have
said anything about him,” I said. “Just because one of Arlene’s husbands was a murderer is
no reason for me to be ugly.” I was absolutely channeling my grandmother, and I gave a
shaky hoot of laughter.
Pam was a little shorter than I, and she looked up into my face curiously as I struggled to
control myself.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“She’s a whore, that one,” Pam said.
I pulled a Kleenex out of my purse to blot my tears. I often cried when I got angry; I hated
that. Crying just made you look weak, no matter what triggered it.
Pam held my hand and wiped my tears off with her thumb. The tender effect was a little
weakened when she stuck the thumb in her mouth, but I figured she meant well.
“I wouldn’t call her a whore, but she’s truly not as careful as she might be about who she
goes with,” I admitted.
“Why do you defend her?”
“Habit,” I said. “We were friends for years and years.”
“What did she do for you, with her friendship? What benefit was there?”
“She…” I had to stop and think. “I guess I was just able to say I had a friend. I cared about
her kids, and I helped her out with them. When she couldn’t work, I’d take her hours, and if
she worked for me, I’d clean her trailer in return. She’d come see me if I was sick and bring
me food. Most of all, she was tolerant of my differences.”
“She used you and yet you felt grateful,” Pam said. Her expressionless white face gave me
no clue to her feelings.
“Listen, Pam, it wasn’t like that.”
“How was it, Sookie?”
“She really did like me. We really did have some good times.”
“She’s lazy. That extends to her friendships. If it’s easy to be friendly, she will be. If the
wind blows the other way, her friendship will be gone. And I’m thinking the wind is
blowing the other way. She has found some other way to be an important person in her own
right, by hating others.”
“Pam!”
“Is this not true? I’ve watched people for years. I know people.”
“There’s true stuff you should say, and true stuff that’s better left unsaid.”
“There’s true stuff you wouldrather I left unsaid,” she corrected me.
“Yes. As a matter of fact, that’s…true.”
“Then I’ll leave you and go back to Shreveport.” Pam turned to walk around the building
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
to where her car was parked in front.
“Whoa!”
She turned back. “Yes?”
“Why were you here in the first place?”
Pam smiled unexpectedly. “Aside from asking you questions about your relationship with
my maker? And the bonus of meeting your delectable roommate?”
“Oh. Yeah. Aside from all that.”
“I want to talk to you about Bill,” she said to my utter surprise. “Bill, and Eric.”
7
“IDON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY.” I UNLOCKED MYcar and tossed my purse
inside. Then I turned to face Pam, though I was tempted to get in the car and go home.
“We didn’t know,” the vampire said. She walked slowly, so I could see her coming. Sam
had left two lawn chairs out in front of his trailer, set at right angles to the rear of the bar,
and I got them out of his yard and set them by the car. Pam took the hint and perched in one
while I took the other.
I drew a deep, silent breath. I had wondered ever since I returned from New Orleans if all
the vamps in Shreveport had known Bill’s secret purpose in courting me. “I wouldn’t have
told you,” Pam said, “even if I had known Bill had been charged with a mission, because…
vampires first.” She shrugged. “But I promise you that I didn’t know.”
I bobbed my head in acknowledgment, and a little pocket of tension in me finally relaxed.
But I had no idea how to respond.
“I must say, Sookie, that you have caused a tremendous amount of trouble in our area.”
Pam didn’t seem perturbed by that; she was just stating a fact. I hardly felt I could
apologize. “These days Bill is full of anger, but he doesn’t know who to hate. He feels
guilty, and no one likes that. Eric is frustrated that he can’t remember the time he was in
hiding at your house, and he doesn’t know what he owes you. He’s angry that the queen has
annexed you for her own purposes, through Bill, and thus poached on Eric’s territory, as he
sees it. Felicia thinks you are the bogeyman, since so many of the Fangtasia bartenders
have died while you were around. Longshadow, Chow.” She smiled. “Oh, and your friend,
Charles Twining.”
“None of that was my fault.” I’d listened to Pam with growing agitation. It’s so not good to
have vampires angry with you. Even the current Fangtasia bartender, Felicia, was much
stronger than I would ever be, and she was definitely the low vamp on the totem pole.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
“I don’t see that that makes any difference,” Pam said, her voice curiously gentle. “Now
that we know you have fairy blood, thanks to Andre, it would be easy to write all this off.
But I don’t think that’s it, do you? I’ve known many humans descended from the fae, and
none of them have been telepathic. I think that’s just you, Sookie. Of course, knowing you
have this streak of fairy makes one wonder how you would taste. I certainly enjoyed the sip
I got when the maenad maimed you, though that was tainted with her poison. We love
fairies, as you know.”
“Love them to death,” I said under my breath, but of course Pam heard.
“Sometimes,” she agreed with a little smile. That Pam.
“So what’s the bottom line here?” I was ready to go home and just be human, all by
myself.
“When I say ‘we’ didn’t know about Bill’s agreement with the queen, that includes Eric,”
Pam said simply.
I looked down at my feet, struggling to keep my face under control.
“Eric feels especially angry about this,” Pam said. She was picking her words now. “He is
angry at Bill because Bill made an agreement with the queen that bypassed Eric. He is
angry that he didn’t discern Bill’s plan. He is angry at you because you got under his skin.
He is angry at the queen because she is more devious than he is. Of course, that’s why she’s
the queen. Eric will never be a king, unless he can control himself better.”
“You’re really worried about him?” I’d never known Pam to be seriously concerned about
much of anything. When she nodded, I found myself saying, “When did you meet Eric?”
I’d always been curious, and tonight Pam seemed to be in a sharing mood.
“I met him in London the last night of my life.” Her voice was level, coming out of the
shadowy darkness. I could see half her face in the overhead security light, and she looked
quite calm. “I risked everything forlove . You’ll laugh to hear this.”
I wasn’t remotely close to laughing.
“I was a very wild girl for my times. Young ladies weren’t supposed to be alone with
gentlemen, or any males, for that matter. A far cry from now.” Pam’s lips curved upward in
a brief smile. “But I was a romantic, and bold. I slipped out of my house late at night to
meet the cousin of my dearest friend, the girl who lived right next door. The cousin was
visiting from Bristol, and we were very attracted to each other. My parents didn’t consider
him to be my equal in social class, so I knew they wouldn’t let him court me. And if I were
caught alone with him at night, it would be the end of me. No marriage, unless my parents
could force him to wed me. So, no future at all.” Pam shook her head. “Crazy to think of
now. Those were the times women didn’t have choices. The ironic part is, our meeting was
quite innocent. A few kisses, a lot of sentimental claptrap, undying love. Yada yada yada.”
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I grinned at Pam, but she didn’t look up to catch the smile.
“On my way back to my house, trying to move so silently through the garden, I met Eric.
There was no way to slip silently enough to avoidhim .” For a long moment, she was quiet.
“And it really was the end of me.”
“Why’d he turn you?” I settled lower in my chair and crossed my legs. This was an
unexpected and fascinating conversation.
“I think he was lonely,” she said, a faint note of surprise in her voice. “His last companion
had struck out on her own, since children can’t stay with their maker for long. After a few
years, the child must strike out on its own, though it may come back to the maker, and must
if the maker calls.”
“Weren’t you angry with him?”
She seemed to be trying to remember. “At first, I was shocked,” Pam said. “After he’d
drained me, he put me in bed in my own room, and of course my family thought I’d died of
some mysterious ailment, and they buried me. Eric dug me up, so I wouldn’t wake up in my
coffin and have to dig my own way out. That was a great help. He held me and explained it
all to me. Up until the night I died, I’d always been a very conventional woman underneath
my daring tendencies. I was used to wearing layers and layers of clothes. You would be
amazed at the dress I died in: the sleeves, the trim. The fabric in the skirt alone could make
you three dresses!” Pam looked fondly reminiscent, nothing more. “After I’d awakened, I
discovered being a vampire freed some wild thing in me.”
“After what he did, you didn’t want to kill him?”
“No,” she said instantly. “I wanted to have sex with him, and I did. We had sex many,
many times.” She grinned. “The tie between maker and child doesn’t have to be sexual, but
with us it was. That changed quite soon, actually, as my tastes broadened. I wanted to try
everything I’d been denied in my human life.”
“So you actually liked it, being a vampire? You were glad?”
Pam shrugged. “Yes, I’ve always loved being what I am. It took me a few days to
understand my new nature. I’d never even heard of a vampire before I became one.”
I couldn’t imagine the shock of Pam’s awakening. Her self-proclaimed quick adjustment to
her new state amazed me.
“Did you ever go back to see your family?” I asked. Okay, that was tacky, and I regretted it
as soon as the words passed my lips.
“I saw them from a distance, maybe ten years later. You understand, the first thing a new
vampire needed to do was leave her home area. Otherwise she ran the risk of being
recognized and hunted down. Now you can parade around as much as you like. But we
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
were so secret, so careful. Eric and I headed out of London as quickly as we could go, and
after spending a little time in the north of England while I became accustomed to my state,
we left England for the continent.”
This was gruesome but fascinating. “Did you love him?”
Pam looked a little puzzled. There was a tiny wrinkle in her smooth forehead. “Love him?
No. We were good companions, and I enjoyed the sex and the hunting. But love? No.” In
the glare of the overhead security lights, which cast curious dark shadows in the corners of
the lot, I watched Pam’s face relax into its normal smooth lines. “I owe him my loyalty,”
Pam said. “I have to obey him, but I do it willingly. Eric is intelligent, ambitious, and very
entertaining. I would be crumbled to nothing in my grave by now if he hadn’t been
watching me slip back to my house from meeting that silly young man. I went my own way
for many, many years, but I was glad to hear from him when he opened the bar and called
me to serve him.”
Was it possible for anyone in the world to be as detached as Pam over the whole “I was
murdered” issue? There was no doubt Pam relished being a vampire, seemed to genuinely
harbor a mild contempt for humans; in fact, she seemed to find them amusing. She had
thought it was hilarious when Eric had first exhibited feelings for me. Could Pam truly be
so changed from her former self?
“How old were you, Pam?”
“When I died? I was nineteen.” Not a flicker of feeling crossed her face.
“Did you wear your hair up every day?”
Pam’s face seemed to warm a little. “Yes, I did. I wore it in a very elaborate style; my maid
had to help me. I put artificial pads underneath my hair to give it height. And the
underwear! You would laugh yourself sick to see me get into it.”
As interesting as this conversation had been, I realized I was tired and ready to go home.
“So the bottom line is, you’re really loyal to Eric, and you want me to know that neither of
you knew that Bill had a hidden agenda when he came to Bon Temps.” Pam nodded. “So,
you came here tonight to…?”
“To ask you to have mercy on Eric.”
The idea of Eric needing my mercy had never crossed my mind. “That’s as funny as your
human underwear,” I said. “Pam, I know you believe you owe Eric, even though he killed
you—honey, hekilled you—but I don’t owe Eric a thing.”
“You care for him,” she said, and for the first time she sounded a little angry. “I know you
do. He’s never been so entangled in his emotions. He’s never been at such a disadvantage.”
She seemed to gather herself, and I figured our conversation was over. We got up, and I
returned Sam’s chairs.
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I had no idea what to say.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to think of anything. Eric himself walked out of the shadows at
the edge of the lot.
“Pam,” he said, and that one word was loaded. “You were so late, I followed your trail to
make sure all was well.”
“Master,” she said, which was something I’d never heard from Pam. She went down on
one knee on the gravel, which must have been painful.
“Leave,” Eric said, and just like that, Pam was gone.
I kept silent. Eric was giving me that vampiric fixed stare, and I couldn’t read him at all. I
was pretty sure he was mad—but about what, at whom, and with what intensity? That was
the fun part of being with vampires, and the scary part of being with vampires, all at the
same time.
Eric decided action would speak louder than words. Suddenly, he was right in front of me.
He put a finger under my chin and lifted my face to his. His eyes, which looked simply dark
in the irregular light, latched on to mine with an intensity that was both exciting and
painful. Vampires; mixed feelings. One and the same.
Not exactly to my astonishment, he kissed me. When someone has had approximately a
thousand years to practice kissing, he can become very good at it, and I would be lying if I
said I was immune to such osculatory talent. My temperature zoomed up about ten degrees.
It was everything I could do to keep from stepping into him, wrapping my arms around
him, and stropping myself against him. For a dead guy, he had the liveliest chemistry—and
apparently all my hormones were wide awake after my night with Quinn. Thinking of
Quinn was like a dash of cold water.
With an almost painful reluctance, I pulled away from Eric. His face had a focused air, as if
he was sampling something and deciding if it was good enough to keep.
“Eric,” I said, and my voice was shaking. “I don’t know why you’re here, and I don’t know
why we’re having all this drama.”
“Are you Quinn’s now?” His eyes narrowed.
“I’m my own,” I said. “I choose.”
“And have you chosen?”
“Eric, this is beyond gall. You haven’t been dating me. You haven’t given me any sign that
was on your mind. You haven’t treated me as though I had any significance in your life. I’m
not saying I would have been open to those things, but I’m saying in theirabsence I’ve been
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
free to find another, ah, companion. And so far, I like Quinn just fine.”
“You don’t know him any more than you really knew Bill.”
That sliced down where it hurt.
“At least I’m pretty damn sure he wasn’t ordered to get me in bed so I’d be a political
asset!”
“It’s better that you knew about Bill,” Eric said.
“Yes, it’s better,” I agreed. “That doesn’t mean I enjoyed the process.”
“I knew that would be hard. But I had to make him tell you.”
“Why?”
Eric seemed stumped. I don’t know any other way to put it. He looked away, off into the
darkness of the woods. “It wasn’t right,” he said at last.
“True. But maybe you just wanted to be sure I wouldn’t ever love him again?”
“Maybe both things,” he said.
There was a sharp moment of silence, as if something big was drawing in breath.
“Okay,” I said slowly. This was like a therapy session. “You’ve been moody around me for
months, Eric. Ever since you were…you know, not yourself. What’s up with you?”
“Ever since that night I was cursed, I’ve wondered why I ended up running down the road
to your house.”
I took a step or two back and tried to pull some evidence, some indication of what he was
thinking, from his white face. But it was no use.
It had never occurred to me to wonder why Eric had been there. I’d been so astounded over
so many things that the circumstances of finding Eric alone, half naked, and clueless, early
in the morning on the first day of the New Year, had been buried in the aftermath of the
Witch War.
“Did you ever figure out the answer?” I asked, realizing after the words had left my mouth
how stupid the question was.
“No,” he said in a voice that was just short of a hiss. “No. And the witch who cursed me is
dead, though the curse was broken. Now she can’t tell me what her curse entailed. Was I
supposed to look for the person I hated? Loved? Could it have been random that I found
myself running out in the middle of nowhere…except that nowhere was on the way to your
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter
http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
house?”
A moment of uneasy silence on my part. I had no idea what to say, and Eric was clearly
waiting for a response.
“Probably the fairy blood,” I said weakly, though I had spent hours telling myself that my
fraction of fairy blood was not significant enough to cause more than a mild attraction on
the part of the vampires I met.
“No,” he said. And then he was gone.
“Well,” I said out loud, unhappy with the quiver in my voice. “As exits go, that was a good
one.” It was pretty hard to have the last word with a vampire.