Saturday, February 5, 2011

Book Six Chapter 1-4

Chapter 1
I was draped over the arm of one of the most beautiful men I'd ever seen, and he was staring into my eyes. "Think… Brad Pitt," I whispered. The dark brown eyes still regarded me with remote interest.
Okay, I was on the wrong track.
I pictured Claude's last lover, a bouncer at a strip joint.
"Think about Charles Bronson," I suggested. "Or, um, Edward James Olmos." I was rewarded by the beginnings of a hot glow in those long-lashed eyes.
In a jiffy, you would've thought Claude was going to hike up my long rustling skirt and yank down my low-cut push-up bodice and ravish me until I begged for mercy. Unfortunately for me—and all the other women of Louisiana—Claude batted for another team. Bosomy and blond was not Claude's ideal; tough, rough, and brooding, with maybe a little whisker stubble, was what lit his fire.
"Maria-Star, reach in there and pull that lock of hair back," Alfred Cumberland directed from behind the camera. The photographer was a heavyset black man with graying hair and mustache. Maria-Star Cooper took a quick step in front of the camera to rearrange a stray strand of my long blond hair. I was bent backward over Claude's right arm, my invisible (to the camera, anyway) left hand desperately clutching the back of his black frock coat, my right arm raised to rest gently on his left shoulder. His left hand was at my waist. I think the pose was meant to suggest that he was lowering me to the ground to have his way with me.
Claude was wearing the black frock coat with black knee pants, white hose, and a white frothy shirt. I was wearing a long blue dress with a billowing skirt and a score of petticoats. As I've mentioned, the dress was scanty on the topside, with the little sleeves pushed down off my shoulders. I was glad the temperature in the studio was moderately warm. The big light (it looked to my eyes like a satellite dish) was not as hot as I'd expected.
Al Cumberland was snapping away as Claude smoldered down at me. I did my best to smolder right back. My personal life had been, shall we say, barren for the past few weeks, so I was all too ready to smolder. In fact, I was ready to burst into flames.
Maria-Star, who had beautiful light-toast skin and curly dark hair, was standing ready with a big makeup case and brushes and combs to perform last-minute repairs. When Claude
and I had arrived at the studio, I'd been surprised to find that I recognized the photographer's young assistant. I hadn't seen Maria-Star since the Shreveport packleader had been chosen a few weeks before. I hadn't had much of a chance to observe her then, since the packmaster contest had been frightening and bloody. Today, I had the leisure to see that Maria-Star had completely recovered from being hit by a car this past January. Werewolves healed quickly.
Maria-Star had recognized me, too, and I'd been relieved when she smiled back at me. My standing with the Shreveport pack was, to say the least, uncertain. Without exactly volunteering to do so, I'd unwittingly thrown in my lot with the unsuccessful contestant for the packleader's job. That contestant's son, Alcide Herveaux, whom I'd counted as maybe more than a friend, felt I'd let him down during the contest; the new packleader, Patrick Furnan, knew I had ties to the Herveaux family. I'd been surprised when Maria-Star chatted away while she was zipping the costume and brushing my hair. She applied more makeup than I'd ever worn in my life, but when I stared into the mirror I had to thank her. I looked great, though I didn't look like Sookie Stackhouse.
If Claude hadn't been gay, he might have been impressed, too. He's the brother of my friend Claudine, and he makes his living stripping on ladies' night at Hooligans, a club he now owns. Claude is simply mouthwatering; six feet tall, with rippling black hair and large brown eyes, a perfect nose, and lips just full enough. He keeps his hair long to cover up his ears: they've been surgically altered to look rounded like human ears, not pointed as they originally were. If you're in the know supernaturally, you'll spot the ear surgery, and you'll know Claude is a fairy. I'm not using the pejorative term for his sexual orientation. I mean it literally; Claude's a fairy.
"Now the wind machine," Al instructed Maria-Star, and after a little repositioning, she switched on a large fan. Now we appeared to be standing in a gale. My hair billowed out in a blond sheet, though Claude's tied-back ponytail stayed in place. After a few shots to capture that look, Maria-Star unbound Claude's hair and directed it over one shoulder, so it would blow forward to form a backdrop for his perfect profile.
"Wonderful," Al said, and snapped some more. Maria-Star moved the machine a couple of times, causing the windstorm to strike from different directions. Eventually Al told me I could stand up. I straightened gratefully.
"I hope that wasn't too hard on your arm," I told Claude, who was looking cool and calm again.
"Nah, no problem. You have any fruit juice around?" he asked Maria-Star. Claude was not Mr. Social Skills.
The pretty Were pointed to a little refrigerator in the corner of the studio. "Cups are on the top," she told Claude. She followed him with her eyes and sighed. Women frequently did that after they'd actually talked to Claude. The sigh was a "what a pity" sigh.
After checking to make sure her boss was still fiddling intently with his gear, Maria-Star gave me a bright smile. Even though she was a Were, which made her thoughts hard to read, I was picking up on the fact that she had something she wanted to tell me… and she wasn't sure how I was going to take it.
Telepathy is no fun. Your opinion of yourself suffers when you know what others think of you. And telepathy makes it almost impossible to date regular guys. Just think about it. (And remember, I'll know—if you are, or if you aren't.)
"Alcide's had a hard time of it since his dad was defeated," Maria-Star said, keeping her voice low. Claude was occupied with studying himself in a mirror while he drank his juice. Al Cumberland had gotten a call on his cell phone and retreated to his office to hold his conversation.
"I'm sure he has," I said. Since Jackson Herveaux's opponent had killed him, it was only to be expected that Jackson's son was having his ups and his downs. "I sent a memorial to the ASPCA, and I know they'll notify Alcide and Janice," I said. (Janice was Alcide's younger sister, which made her a non-Were. I wondered how Alcide had explained their father's death to his sister.) In acknowledgment, I'd received a printed thank-you note, the kind the funeral home gives you, without one personal word written on it.
"Well…" She seemed to be unable to spit it out, whatever was stuck in her throat. I was getting a glimpse of the shape of it. Pain flickered through me like a knife, and then I locked it down and pulled my pride around me. I'd learned to do that all too early in life.
I picked an album of samples of Alfred's work and began to flip through them, hardly looking at the photographs of brides and grooms, bar mitzvahs, first communions, twenty-fifth wedding anniversaries. I closed that album and laid it down. I was trying to look casual, but I don't think it worked.
With a bright smile that echoed Maria-Star's own expression, I said, "Alcide and I weren't ever truly a couple, you know." I might have had longings and hopes, but they'd never had a chance to ripen. The timing had always been wrong.
Maria-Star's eyes, a much lighter brown than Claude's, widened in awe. Or was it fear? "I heard you could do that," she said. "But it's hard to believe."
"Yeah," I said wearily. "Well, I'm glad you and Alcide are dating, and I have no right to mind, even if I did. Which I don't." That came out kind of garbled (and it wasn't entirely true), but I think Maria-Star got my intention: to save my face.
When I hadn't heard from Alcide in the weeks following his father's death, I'd known that whatever feelings he'd had for me were quenched. That had been a blow, but not a fatal one. Realistically, I hadn't expected anything more from Alcide. But gosh darn it, I liked him, and it always smarts when you find out you've been replaced with apparent ease. After all, before his dad's death Alcide had suggested we live together. Now he was shacking up with this young Were, maybe planning to have puppies with her.
I stopped that line of thought in its tracks. Shame on me! No point in being a bitch. (Which, come to think of it, Maria-Star actually was, at least three nights a month.)
Double shame on me.
"I hope you're very happy," I said.
She wordlessly handed me another album, this one stamped EYES only. When I opened it, I realized that the Eyes were supernatural. Here were pictures of ceremonies humans never got to see… a vampire couple dressed in elaborate costume, posed before a giant ankh; a young man in the middle of changing into a bear, presumably for the first time; a shot of a Were pack with all its members in wolf form. Al Cumberland, photographer of the weird. No wonder he had been Claude's first choice for his pictures, which Claude hoped would launch him on a cover-model career.
"Next shot," called Al, as he bustled out of his office, snapping his phone shut. "Maria-Star, we just got booked for a double wedding in Miss Stackhouse's neck of the woods." I wondered if he'd been engaged for regular human work or for a supernatural event, but it would be rude to ask.
Claude and I got up close and personal again. Following Al's instructions, I pulled up the skirt to display my legs. In the era my dress represented, I didn't think women tanned or shaved their legs, and I was brown and smooth as a baby's bottom. But what the hey. Probably guys hadn't walked around with their shirts unbuttoned, either.
"Raise your leg like you're going to wrap it around him," Alfred directed. "Now Claude, this is your chance to shine. Look like you're going to pull your pants off at any second. We want the readers to pant when they look at you!"
Claude's portfolio of shots would be used when he entered the Mr. Romance competition, orchestrated each year by Romantic Times Bookclub magazine.
When he'd shared his ambition with Al (I gathered they'd met at a party), Al had advised Claude to have some pictures made with the sort of woman that often appeared on the cover of romance novels; he'd told the fairy that Claude's dark looks would be set off by a blue-eyed blonde. I happened to be the only bosomy blonde of Claude's acquaintance who was willing to help him for free. Of course, Claude knew some strippers who would have done it, but they expected to be paid. With his usual tact, Claude had told me this on our way to the photographer's studio. Claude could have kept these details to himself, which would have left me feeling good about helping out my friend's brother—but in typical Claude fashion, he shared.
"Okay, Claude, now off with the shirt," Alfred called.
Claude was used to being asked to take off his clothes. He had a broad, hairless chest with impressive musculature, so he looked very nice indeed without his shirt. I was unmoved. Maybe I was becoming immune.
"Skirt, leg," Alfred reminded me, and I told myself that this was a job. Al and Maria-Star were certainly professional and impersonal, and you couldn't get cooler than Claude. But I wasn't used to pulling my skirt up in front of people, and it felt pretty personal to me. Though I showed this much leg when I wore shorts and never raised a blush, somehow the pulling up of the long skirt was a little more loaded with sexuality. I clenched my teeth and hiked up the material, tucking it at intervals so it would stay in position.
"Miss Stackhouse, you have to look like you're enjoying this," Al said. He peered at me from around his camera, his forehead creased in a definitely unhappy way.
I tried not to sulk. I'd told Claude I'd do him a favor, and favors should be done willingly. I raised my leg so my thigh was parallel with the floor, and pointed my bare toes to the floor in what I hoped was a graceful position. I put both hands on Claude's naked shoulders and looked up at him. His skin felt warm and smooth to the touch—not erotic or arousing.
"You look bored, Miss Stackhouse," Alfred said. "You're supposed to look like you want to jump his bones. Maria-Star, make her look more… more." Maria darted over to push the little puff sleeves farther down my arms. She got a little too enthusiastic, and I was glad the bodice was tight.
The fact of the matter was, Claude could look beautiful and bare all day long, and I still wouldn't want him. He was grumpy and he had bad manners. Even if he'd been hetero, he wouldn't have been my cup of tea—after I'd had ten minutes' conversation with him.
Like Claude earlier, I'd have to resort to fantasy.
I thought of Bill the vampire, my first love in every way. But instead of lust, I felt anger. Bill was dating another woman, had been for a few weeks.
Okay, what about Eric, Bill's boss, the former Viking? Eric the vampire had shared my house and my bed for a few days in January. Nope, that way lay danger. Eric knew a secret I wanted to keep hidden for the rest of my days; though, since he'd had amnesia when he'd stayed at my place, he wasn't aware it was in his memory somewhere.
A few other faces popped into my mind—my boss, Sam Merlotte, the owner of Merlotte's Bar. No, don't go there, thinking about your boss naked is bad. Okay, Alcide Herveaux? Nope, that was a no-go, especially since I was in the company of his current girlfriend… Okay, I was clean out of fantasy material and would have to fall back on one of my old fictional favorites.
But movie stars seemed bland after the supernatural world I'd inhabited since Bill came into Merlotte's. The last remotely erotic experience I'd had, oddly enough, had involved my bleeding leg getting licked. That had been… unsettling. But even under the circumstances, it had made things deep inside me twitch. I remembered how Quinn's bald head had moved while he cleaned my scrape in a very personal way, the firm grip his big warm fingers had had on my leg…
"That'll do," Alfred said, and began snapping away. Claude put his hand on my bare thigh when he could feel my muscles begin to tremble from the effort of holding the position. Once again, a man had a hold of my leg. Claude gripped my thigh enough to give it some support. That helped considerably, but it wasn't a bit erotic.
"Now some bed shots," Al said, just when I'd decided I couldn't stand it any more.
"No," Claude and I said in chorus.
"But that's part of the package," Al said. "You don't need to undress, you know. I don't do that kind of picture. My wife would kill me. You just lie down on the bed like you are. Claude hikes up on one elbow and looks down at you, Miss Stackhouse."
"No," I said firmly. "Take some pictures of him standing by himself in the water. That would be better." There was a fake pond over in the corner, and shots of Claude,
apparently naked, dripping water over his bare chest, would be extremely appealing (to any woman who hadn't actually met him).
"How does that grab you, Claude?" Al asked.
Claude's narcissism chimed in. "I think that would be great, Al," he said, trying not to sound too excited.
I started for the changing room, eager to shed the costume and get back into my regular jeans. I glanced around for a clock. I was due at work at five-thirty, and I had to drive back to Bon Temps and grab my work uniform before I went to Merlotte's.
Claude called, "Thanks, Sookie."
"Sure, Claude. Good luck with the modeling contracts." But he was already admiring himself in a mirror.
Maria-Star saw me out. "Goodbye, Sookie. It was good to see you again."
"You, too," I lied. Even through the reddish twisted passages of a Were mind, I could see that Maria-Star couldn't understand why I would pass up Alcide. After all, the Were was handsome in a rugged way, an entertaining companion, and a hot-blooded male of the heterosexual persuasion. Also, he now owned his own surveying company and was a wealthy man in his own right.
The answer popped into my head and I spoke before I thought. "Is anyone still looking for Debbie Pelt?" I asked, much the same way you poke a sore tooth. Debbie had been Alcide's longtime on-again, off-again lover. She'd been a piece of work.
"Not the same people," Maria-Star said. Her expression darkened. Maria-Star didn't like thinking about Debbie any more than I did, though doubtless for different reasons. "The detectives the Pelt family hired gave up, said they'd be fleecing the family if they'd kept on. That's what I heard. The police didn't exactly say it, but they'd reached a dead end, too. I've only met the Pelts once, when they came over to Shreveport right after Debbie disappeared. They're a pretty savage couple." I blinked. This was a fairly drastic statement, coming from a Were.
"Sandra, their daughter, is the worst. She was nuts about Debbie, and for her sake they're still consulting people, some way-out people. Myself, I think Debbie got abducted. Or maybe she killed herself. When Alcide abjured her, maybe she lost it big-time."
"Maybe," I murmured, but without conviction.
"He's better off. I hope she stays missing," Maria-Star said.
My opinion had been the same, but unlike Maria-Star, I knew exactly what had happened to Debbie; that was the wedge that had pushed Alcide and me apart.
"I hope he never sees her again," Maria-Star said, her pretty face dark and showing a little bit of her own savage side.
Alcide might be dating Maria-Star, but he hadn't confided in her fully. Alcide knew for a fact that he would never see Debbie again. And that was my fault, okay?
I'd shot her dead.
I'd more or less made my peace with my act, but the stark fact of it kept popping back up. There's no way you can kill someone and get to the other side of the experience unchanged. The consequences alter your life.
* * * * *
Two priests walked into the bar.
This sounds like the opening of a million jokes. But these priests didn't have a kangaroo with them, and there was not a rabbi sitting at the bar, or a blonde, either. I'd seen plenty of blondes, one kangaroo in a zoo, no rabbis. However, I'd seen these two priests plenty of times before. They had a standing appointment to have dinner together every other week.
Father Dan Riordan, clean shaven and ruddy, was the Catholic priest who came to the little Bon Temps church once a week on Saturday to celebrate mass, and Father Kempton Littrell, pale and bearded, was the Episcopal priest who held Holy Eucharist in the tiny Episcopal church in Clarice once every two weeks.
"Hello, Sookie," Father Riordan said. He was Irish; really Irish, not just of Irish extraction. I loved to hear him talk. He wore thick glasses with black frames, and he was in his forties.
"Evening, Father. And hi to you, Father Littrell. What can I get you all?"
"I'd like Scotch on the rocks, Miss Sookie. And you, Kempton?"
"Oh, I'll just have a beer. And a basket of chicken strips, please." The Episcopal priest wore gold-rimmed glasses, and he was younger than Father Riordan. He had a conscientious heart.
"Sure." I smiled at the two of them. Since I could read their thoughts, I knew them both to be genuinely good men, and that made me happy. It's always disconcerting to hear the
contents of a minister's head and find out they're no better than you, and not only that, they're not trying to be.
Since it was full dark outside, I wasn't surprised when Bill Compton walked in. I couldn't say the same for the priests. The churches of America hadn't come to grips with the reality of vampires. To call their policies confused was putting it mildly. The Catholic Church was at this moment holding a convocation to decide whether the church would declare all vampires damned and anathema to Catholics, or accept them into the fold as potential converts. The Episcopal Church had voted against accepting vampires as priests, though they were allowed to take communion—but a substantial slice of the laity said that would be over their dead bodies. Unfortunately, most of them didn't comprehend how possible that was.
Both the priests watched unhappily as Bill gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and settled at his favorite table. Bill barely gave them a glance, but unfolded his newspaper and began to read. He always looked serious, as if he were studying the financial pages or the news from Iraq; but I knew he read the advice columns first, and then the comics, though he often didn't get the jokes.
Bill was by himself, which was a nice change. Usually, he brought the lovely Selah Pumphrey. I loathed her. Since Bill had been my first love and my first lover, maybe I would never be completely over him. Maybe he didn't want me to be. He did seem to drag Selah into Merlotte's every single date they had. I figured he was waving her in my face. Not exactly what you did if you didn't care any more, huh?
Without his having to ask, I took him his favorite beverage, TrueBlood type O. I set it neatly in front of him on a napkin, and I'd turned to go when a cool hand touched my arm. His touch always jolted me; maybe it always would. Bill had always made it clear I aroused him, and after a lifetime of no relationships and no sex, I began walking tall when Bill made it clear he found me attractive. Other men had looked at me as if I'd become more interesting, too. Now I knew why people thought about sex so much; Bill had given me a thorough education.
"Sookie, stay for a moment." I looked down into brown eyes, which looked all the darker in Bill's white face. His hair was brown, too, smooth and sleek. He was slim and broad-shouldered, his arms hard with muscles, like the farmer he had been. "How have you been?"
"I'm fine," I said, trying not to sound surprised. It wasn't often Bill passed the time of day; small talk wasn't his strong point. Even when we'd been a couple, he had not been what
you'd call chatty. And even a vampire can be a workaholic; Bill had become a computer geek. "Have things been well with you?"
"Yes. When will you go to New Orleans to claim your inheritance?"
Now I was truly startled. (This is possible because I can't read vampire minds. That's why I like vampires so much. It's wonderful to be with someone who's a mystery to me.) My cousin had been murdered almost six weeks ago in New Orleans, and Bill had been with me when the Queen of Louisiana's emissary had come to tell me about it… and to deliver the murderer to me for my judgment. "I guess I'll go through Hadley's apartment sometime in the next month or so. I haven't talked to Sam about taking the time off."
"I'm sorry you lost your cousin. Have you been grieving?"
I hadn't seen Hadley in years, and it would have been stranger than I can say to see her after she'd become a vampire. But as a person with very few living relations, I hated to lose even one. "A bit," I said.
"You don't know when you might go?"
"I haven't decided. You remember her lawyer, Mr. Cataliades? He said he'd tell me when the will had gone through probate. He promised to keep the place intact for me, and when the queen's counselor tells you the place'll be intact, you have to believe it'll be untouched. I haven't really been too interested, to tell you the truth."
"I might go with you when you head to New Orleans, if you don't mind having a traveling companion."
"Gee," I said, with just a dash of sarcasm, "Won't Selah mind? Or were you going to bring her, too?" That would make for a merry trip.
"No." And he closed down. You just couldn't get anything out of Bill when he was holding his mouth like that, I knew from experience. Okay, color me confused.
"I'll let you know," I said, trying to figure him out. Though it was painful to be in Bill's company, I trusted him. Bill would never harm me. He wouldn't let anyone else harm me, either. But there's more than one kind of harm.
"Sookie," Father Littrell called, and I hurried away.
I glanced back to catch Bill smiling, a small smile with a lot of satisfaction packed into it. I wasn't sure what it meant, but I liked to see Bill smile. Maybe he was hoping to revive our relationship?
Father Littrell said, "We weren't sure if you wanted to be interrupted or not." I looked down at him, confused.
"We were a tad concerned to see you consorting with the vampire for so long, and so intently," Father Riordan said. "Was the imp of hell trying to bring you under his spell?"
Suddenly his Irish accent wasn't charming at all. I looked at Father Riordan quizzically. "You're joking, right? You know Bill and I dated for a good while. Obviously, you don't know much about imps from hell if you believe Bill's anything like one." I'd seen things much darker than Bill in and about our fair town of Bon Temps. Some of those things had been human. "Father Riordan, I understand my own life. I understand the nature of vampires better than you ever will. Father Littrell," I said, "you want honey mustard or ketchup with your chicken strips?"
Father Littrell chose honey mustard, in a kind of dazed way. I walked away, working to shrug the little incident off, wondering what the two priests would do if they knew what had happened in this bar a couple of months before when the bar's clientele had ganged up to rid me of someone who was trying to kill me.
Since that someone had been a vampire, they'd probably have approved.
Before he left, Father Riordan came over to "have a word" with me. "Sookie, I know you're not real happy with me at the moment, but I need to ask you something on behalf of someone else. If I've made you less inclined to listen by my behavior, please ignore that and give these people the same consideration you would have."
I sighed. At least Father Riordan tried to be a good man. I nodded reluctantly.
"Good girl. A family in Jackson has contacted me…"
All my alarms started going off. Debbie Pelt was from Jackson.
"The Pelt family, I know you've heard of them. They're still searching for news of their daughter, who vanished in January. Debbie, her name was. They called me because their priest knows me, knows I serve the Bon Temps congregation. The Pelts would like to come to see you, Sookie. They want to talk to everyone who saw their daughter the night she vanished, and they feared if they just showed up on your doorstep, you might not see them. They're afraid you're angry because their private detectives have interviewed you, and the police have talked to you, and maybe you might be indignant about all that."
"I don't want to see them," I said. "Father Riordan, I've told everything I know." That was true. I just hadn't told it to the police or the Pelts. "I don't want to talk about Debbie any
more." That was also true, very true. "Tell them, with all due respect, there's nothing left to talk about."
"I'll tell them," he said. "But I've got to say, Sookie, I'm disappointed."
"Well, I guess it's been a bad night for me all around," I said. "Losing your good opinion, and all."
He left without another word, which was exactly what I'd wanted.
* * * * *
Chapter 2
It was close to closing time the next night when another odd thing happened. Just as Sam gave us the signal to start telling our customers this would be their last drink, someone I thought I'd never see again came into Merlotte's.
He moved quietly for such a large man. He stood just inside the door, looking around for a free table, and I noticed him because of the quick gleam of the dim bar light on his shaven head. He was very tall, and very wide, with a proud nose and big white teeth. He had full lips and an olive complexion, and he was wearing a sort of bronze sports jacket over a black shirt and slacks. Though he would have looked more natural in motorcycle boots, he was wearing polished loafers.
"Quinn," Sam said quietly. His hands became still, though he'd been in the middle of mixing a Tom Collins. "What is he doing here?"
"I didn't know you knew him," I said, feeling my face flush as I realized I'd been thinking about the bald man only the day before. He'd been the one who'd cleaned the blood from my leg with his tongue—an interesting experience.
"Everyone in my world knows Quinn," Sam said, his face neutral. "But I'm surprised you've met him, since you're not a shifter." Unlike Quinn, Sam's not a big man; but he's very strong, as shifters tend to be, and his curly red-gold hair haloes his head in an angelic way.
"I met Quinn at the contest for packmaster," I said. "He was the, ah, emcee." Naturally, Sam and I had talked about the change of leadership in the Shreveport pack. Shreveport isn't too far from Bon Temps, and what the Weres do is pretty important if you're any kind of a shifter.
A true shape-shifter, like Sam, can change into anything, though each shape-shifter has a favorite animal. And to confuse the issue, all those who can change from human form to animal form call themselves shape-shifters, though very few possess Sam's versatility. Shifters who can change to only one animal are were-animals: weretigers (like Quinn), werebears, werewolves. The wolves are the only ones who call themselves simply Weres, and they consider themselves superior in toughness and culture to any of the other shape-shifters.
Weres are also the most numerous subset of shifters, though compared to the total vampire population, there are mighty few of them. There are several reasons for this. The
Were birthrate is low, infant mortality is higher than in the general population of humans, and only the first child born of a pure Were couple becomes a full Were. That happens during puberty—as if puberty weren't bad enough already.
Shape-shifters are very secretive. It's a hard habit to break, even around a sympathetic and strange human like me. The shifters have not come into the public view yet, and I'm learning about their world in little increments.
Even Sam has many secrets that I don't know, and I count him as a friend. Sam turns into a collie, and he often visits me in that form. (Sometimes he sleeps on the rug by my bed.)
I'd only seen Quinn in his human form.
I hadn't mentioned Quinn when I told Sam about the fight between Jackson Herveaux and Patrick Furnan for the Shreveport pack leadership. Sam was frowning at me now, displeased that I'd kept it from him, but I hadn't done it purposely. I glanced back at Quinn. He'd lifted his nose a little. He was sampling the air, following a scent. Who was he trailing?
When Quinn went unerringly to a table in my section, despite the many empty ones in the closer section that Arlene was working, I knew he was trailing me.
Okay, mixed feelings on that.
I glanced sideways at Sam to get his reaction. I had trusted him for five years now, and he had never failed me.
Now Sam nodded at me. He didn't look happy, though. "Go see what he wants," he said, his voice so low it was almost a growl.
I got more and more nervous the closer I came to the new customer. I could feel my cheeks redden. Why was I getting so flustered?
"Hello, Mr. Quinn," I said. It would be stupid to pretend I didn't recognize him. "What can I get you? I'm afraid we're about to close, but I have time to serve you a beer or a drink."
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, as if he were inhaling me. "I'd recognize you in a pitch-black room," he said, and he smiled at me. It was a broad and beautiful smile.
I looked off in another direction, pinching back the involuntary grin that rose to my lips. I was acting sort of… shy.
I never acted shy. Or maybe coy would be a better term, and one I disliked. "I guess I should say thank you," I ventured cautiously. "That's a compliment?"
"Intended as one. Who's the dog behind the bar who's giving me the stay-away look?"
He meant dog as a statement of fact, not as a derogatory term.
"That's my boss, Sam Merlotte."
"He has an interest in you."
"I should hope so. I've worked for him for round about five years."
"Hmmm. How about a beer?"
"Sure. What kind?"
"Bud."
"Coming right up," I said, and turned to go. I knew he watched me all the way to the bar because I could feel his gaze. And I knew from his mind, though his was a closely guarded shifter mind, that he was watching me with admiration.
"What does he want?" Sam looked almost… bristly. If he'd been in dog form, the hair on his back would have been standing up.
"A Bud," I said.
Sam scowled at me. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."
I shrugged. I had no idea what Quinn wanted.
Sam slammed the full glass down on the bar right by my fingers, making me jump. I gave him a steady look to make sure he noted that I'd been displeased, and then I took the beer to Quinn.
Quinn gave me the cost of the beer and a good tip—not a ridiculously high one, which would have made me feel bought—which I slipped into my pocket. I began making the rounds of my other tables. "You visiting someone in this area?" I asked Quinn as I passed him on my way back from clearing another table. Most of the patrons were paying up and drifting out of Merlotte's. There was an afterhours place that Sam pretended he didn't know about, way out in the country, but most of the Merlotte's regulars would be going home to bed. If a bar could be family-oriented, Merlotte's was.
"Yes," he said. "You."
That left me with nowhere to go, conversationally.
I kept on going and unloaded the glasses from my tray so absently that I almost dropped one. I couldn't think of when I'd been so flustered.
"Business or personal?" I asked, the next time I was close.
"Both," he said.
A little of the pleasure drained away when I heard about the business part, but I was left with a sharpened attention… and that was a good thing. You needed all your wits honed when you dealt with the supes. Supernatural beings had goals and desires that regular people didn't fathom. I knew that, since for my entire life I have been the unwilling repository for human, "normal," goals and desires.
When Quinn was one of the few people left in the bar—besides the other barmaids and Sam—he stood and looked at me expectantly. I went over, smiling brightly, as I do when I'm tense. I was interested to find that Quinn was almost equally tense. I could feel the tightness in his brain pattern.
"I'll see you at your house, if that's agreeable to you." He looked down at me seriously. "If that makes you nervous, we can meet somewhere else. But I want to talk to you tonight, unless you're exhausted."
That had been put politely enough. Arlene and Danielle were trying hard not to stare—well, they were trying hard to stare when Quinn wouldn't catch them—but Sam had turned his back to fiddle around with something behind the bar, ignoring the other shifter. He was behaving very badly.
Quickly I processed Quinn's request. If he came out to my house, I'd be at his mercy. I live in a remote place. My nearest neighbor is my ex, Bill, and he lives clear across the cemetery. On the other hand, if Quinn had been a regular date of mine, I'd let him take me home without a second thought. From what I could catch from his thoughts, he meant me no harm.
"All right," I said, finally. He relaxed, and smiled his big smile at me again.
I whisked his empty glass away and became aware that three pairs of eyes were watching me disapprovingly. Sam was disgruntled, and Danielle and Arlene couldn't understand why anyone would prefer me to them, though Quinn gave even those two experienced barmaids pause. Quinn gave off a whiff of otherness that must be perceptible to even the most prosaic human. "I'll be through in just a minute," I said.
"Take your time."
I finished filling the little china rectangle on each table with packages of sugar and sweetener. I made sure the napkin holders were full and checked the salt and pepper shakers. I was soon through. I gathered my purse from Sam's office and called good-bye to him.
Quinn pulled out to follow me in a dark green pickup truck. Under the parking lot lights, the truck looked brand spanking new, with gleaming tires and hubcaps, an extended cab, and a covered bed. I'd bet good money it was loaded with options. Quinn's truck was the fanciest vehicle I'd seen in a long time. My brother, Jason, would have drooled, and he's got pink and aqua swirls painted on the side of his truck.
I drove south on Hummingbird Road and turned left into my driveway. After following the drive through two acres of woods, I reached the clearing where our old family home stood. I'd turned the outside lights on before I left, and there was a security light on the electric pole that was automatic, so the clearing was well lit. I pulled around back to park behind the house, and Quinn parked right beside me.
He got out of his truck and looked around him. The security light showed him a tidy yard. The driveway was in excellent repair, and I'd recently repainted the tool shed in the back. There was a propane tank, which no amount of landscaping could disguise, but my grandmother had planted plenty of flower beds to add to the ones my family had established over the hundred-and-fifty-odd years the family had lived here. I'd lived on this land, in this house, from age seven, and I loved it.
There's nothing grand about my home. It started out as a family farmhouse and it's been enlarged and remodeled over the years. I keep it clean, and I try to keep the yard in good trim. Big repairs are beyond my skills, but Jason sometimes helps me out. He hadn't been happy when Gran left me the house and land, but he'd moved to our parents' house when he'd turned twenty-one, and I'd never made him pay me for my half of that property. Gran's will had seemed fair to me. It had taken Jason a while to admit that had been the right thing for her to do.
We'd become closer in the past few months.
I unlocked the back door and led Quinn into the kitchen. He looked around him curiously as I hung my jacket on one of the chairs pushed under the table in the middle of the kitchen where I ate all my meals.
"This isn't finished," Quinn said.
The cabinets were resting on the floor, ready to be mounted. After that, the whole room would have to be painted and the countertops installed. Then I'd be able to rest easy.
"My old kitchen got burned down a few weeks ago."
I said. "The builder had a cancellation and got this done in record time, but then when the cabinets didn't arrive on time, he put his crew on another job. By the time the cabinets got here, they were almost through there. I guess they'll come back eventually." In the meantime, at least I could enjoy being back in my own home. Sam had been tremendously kind in letting me live in one of his rent houses (and gosh, I'd enjoyed the level floors and the new plumbing and the neighbors), but there was nothing like being home.
The new stove was in, so I could cook, and I'd laid a sheet of plywood over the top of the cabinets so I could use it as a work station while I was cooking. The new refrigerator gleamed and hummed quietly, quite unlike the one Gran had had for thirty years. The newness of the kitchen struck me every time I crossed the back porch—now larger and enclosed—to unlock the new, heavier back door, with its peephole and deadbolt.
"This is where the old house begins," I said, going from the kitchen into the hall. Only a few boards had had to be replaced in the floor in the rest of the house, and everything was freshly cleaned and painted. Not only had the walls and ceilings been smoke-stained, but I'd had to eradicate the burned smell. I'd replaced some curtains, tossed out a throw rug or two, and cleaned, cleaned, cleaned. This project had occupied every extra waking moment I'd had for quite a while.
"A good job," Quinn commented, studying how the two parts had been united.
"Come into the living room," I said, pleased. I enjoyed showing someone the house now that I knew the upholstery was clean, there were no dust bunnies, and the glass over the pictures was simply gleaming. The living room curtains had been replaced, something I'd wanted to do for at least a year.
God bless insurance, and God bless the money I'd earned hiding Eric from an enemy. I'd gouged a hole in my savings account, but I'd had it when I needed it, and that was something for which I could be grateful.
The fireplace was laid ready for a fire, but it was just too warm to justify lighting one. Quinn sat in an armchair, and I sat across from him. "Can I get you a drink—a beer, or some coffee or iced tea?" I asked, conscious of my role as hostess.
"No, thanks," he said. He smiled at me. "I've wanted to see you again since I met you in Shreveport."
I tried to keep my eyes on him. The impulse to look down at my feet or my hands was almost overwhelming. His eyes really were the deep, deep purple I remembered. "That was a tough day for the Herveauxes," I said.
"You dated Alcide for a while," he observed, in a neutral kind of voice.
I thought of a couple of possible answers. I settled for, "I haven't seen him since the packmaster contest."
He smiled widely. "So he's not your steady?"
I shook my head.
"Then you're unattached?"
"Yes."
"No toes I'd be stepping on?"
I tried to smile, but my effort was not a happy one. "I didn't say that." There were toes. Those toes wouldn't be happy piggies. But they didn't have any right to be in the way.
"I guess I can handle some disgruntled exes. So will you go out with me?"
I looked at him for a second or two, scouring my mind for considerations. From his brain I was getting nothing but hopefulness: I saw no deceit or self-serving. When I examined the reservations I had, they dissolved into nothing.
"Yes," I said. "I will." His beautiful white smile sparked me to smile in return, and this time my smile was genuine.
"There," he said. "We've negotiated the pleasure part. Now for the business part, which is unrelated."
"Okay," I said, and put my smile away. I hoped I'd have occasion to haul it out later, but any business he would have with me would be supe-related, and therefore cause for anxiety.
"You've heard about the regional summit?"
The vampire summit: the kings and queens from a group of states would gather to confer about… vampire stuff. "Eric said something about it."
"Has he hired you to work there yet?"
"He mentioned he might need me."
"Because the Queen of Louisiana found out I was in the area, and she asked me to request your services. I think her bid would have to cancel out Eric's."
"You'd have to ask Eric about that."
"I think you would have to tell him. The queen's wishes are Eric's orders."
I could feel my face fall. I didn't want to tell Eric, the sheriff of Louisiana's Area Five, anything. Eric's feelings for me were confused. I can assure you, vamps don't like feeling confused. The sheriff had lost his memory of the short time he'd spent hiding in my house. That memory gap had driven Eric nuts; he liked being in control, and that meant being cognizant of his own actions every second of the night. So he'd waited until he could perform an action on my behalf, and as payment for that action he'd demanded my account of what had passed while he stayed with me.
Maybe I'd carried the frankness thing a little too far. Eric wasn't exactly surprised that we'd had sex; but he was stunned when I told him he'd offered to give up his hard-won position in the vampire hierarchy and to come live with me.
If you knew Eric, you'd know that was pretty much intolerable to him.
He didn't talk to me any more. He stared at me when we met, as if he were trying to resurrect his own memories of that time, to prove me wrong. It made me sad to see that the relationship we'd had—not the secret happiness of the few days he'd spent with me, but the entertaining relationship between a man and a woman who had little in common but a sense of humor—didn't seem to exist any more.
I knew it was up to me to tell him that his queen had superseded him, but I sure didn't want to.
"Smile's all gone," Quinn observed. He looked serious himself.
"Well, Eric is a…" I didn't know how to finish the sentence. "He's a complicated guy," I said lamely.
"What shall we do on our first date?" Quinn asked. So he was a good subject changer.
"We could go to the movies," I said, to start the ball rolling.
"We could. Afterward, we could have dinner in Shreveport. Maybe Ralph and Kacoo's," he suggested.
"I hear their crawfish etouffee is good," I said, keeping the conversational ball rolling.
"And who doesn't like crawfish etouffee? Or we could go bowling."
My great-uncle had been an avid bowler. I could see his feet, in their bowling shoes, right in front of me. I shuddered. "Don't know how."
"We could go to a hockey game."
"That might be fun."
"We could cook together in your kitchen, and then watch a movie on your DVD."
"Better put that one on a back burner." That sounded a little too personal for a first date, not that I've had that much experience with first dates. But I know that proximity to a bedroom is never a good idea unless you're sure you wouldn't mind if the flow of the evening took you in that direction.
"We could go see The Producers. That's coming to the Strand."
"Really?" Okay, I was excited now. Shreveport's restored Strand Theater hosted traveling stage productions ranging from plays to ballet. I'd never seen a real play before. Wouldn't that be awfully expensive? Surely he wouldn't have suggested it if he couldn't afford it. "Could we?"
He nodded, pleased at my reaction. "I can make the reservations for this weekend. What about your work schedule?"
"I'm off Friday night," I said happily. "And, um, I'll be glad to chip in for my ticket."
"I invited you. My treat," Quinn said firmly. I could read from his thoughts that he thought it was surprising that I had offered. And touching. Hmmm. I didn't like that. "Okay then. It's settled. When I get back to my laptop, I'll order the tickets online. I know there are some good ones left, because I was checking out our options before I drove over."
Naturally, I began to wonder about appropriate clothes. But I stowed that away for later. "Quinn, where do you actually live?"
"I have a house outside Memphis."
"Oh," I said, thinking that seemed a long way away for a dating relationship.
"I'm partner in a company called Special Events. We're a sort of secret offshoot of Extreme(ly Elegant) Events. You've seen the logo, I know. E(E)E?" He made the
parentheses with his fingers. I nodded. E(E)E did a lot of very fancy event designing nationally. "There are four partners who work full-time for Special Events, and we each employ a few people full- or part-time. Since we travel a lot, we have places we use all over the country; some of them are just rooms in houses of friends or associates, and some of them are real apartments. The place I stay in this area is in Shreveport, a guesthouse in back of the mansion of a shifter."
I'd learned a lot about him in two minutes flat. "So you put on events in the supernatural world, like the contest for packmaster." That had been a dangerous job and one requiring a lot of specialized paraphernalia. "But what else is there to do? A packmaster's contest can only come up every so now and then. How much do you have to travel? What other special events can you stage?"
"I generally handle the Southeast, Georgia across to Texas." He sat forward in his chair, his big hands resting on his knees. "Tennessee south through Florida. In those states, if you want to stage a fight for packmaster, or a rite of ascension for a shaman or witch, or a vampire hierarchal wedding—and you want to do it right, with all the trimmings—you come to me."
I remembered the extraordinary pictures in Alfred Cumberland's photo gallery. "So there's enough of that to keep you busy?"
"Oh, yes," he said. "Of course, some of it is seasonal. Vamps get married in the winter, since the nights are so much longer. I did a hierarchal wedding in New Orleans in January, this past year. And then, some of the occasions are tied to the Wiccan calendar. Or to puberty."
I couldn't begin to imagine the ceremonies he arranged, but a description would have to wait for another occasion. "And you have three partners who do this full-time, too? I'm sorry. I'm just grilling you, seems like. But this is such an interesting way to make a living."
"I'm glad you think so. You gotta have a lot of people skills, and you gotta have a mind for details and organization."
"You have to be really, really, tough," I murmured, adding my own thought.
He smiled, a slow smile. "No problem there."
Yep, didn't seem as though toughness was a problem for Quinn.
"And you have to be good at sizing up people, so you can steer clients in the right direction, leave them happy with the job you've done," he said.
"Can you tell me some stories? Or is there a client confidentiality clause with your jobs?"
"Customers sign a contract, but none of them have ever requested a confidentiality clause," he said. "Special Events, you don't get much chance to talk about what you do, obviously, since the clients are mostly still traveling beneath the surface of the regular world. It's actually kind of a relief to talk about it. I usually have to tell a girl I'm a consultant, or something bogus like that."
"It's a relief to me, too, to be able to talk without worrying I'm spilling secrets."
"Then it's lucky we found each other, huh?" Again, the white grin. "I'd better let you get some rest, since you just got off work." Quinn got up and stretched after he'd reached his full height. It was an impressive gesture on someone as muscular as he was. It was just possible Quinn knew how excellent he looked when he stretched. I glanced down to hide my smile. I didn't mind one bit that he wanted to impress me.
He reached for my hand and pulled me to my feet in one easy motion. I could feel his focus centered on me. His own hand was warm and hard. He could crack my bones with it.
The average woman would not be pondering how fast her date could kill her, but I'll never be an average woman. I'd realized that by the time I became old enough to understand that not every child could understand what her family members were thinking about her. Not every little girl knew when her teachers liked her, or felt contempt for her, or compared her to her brother (Jason had an easy charm even then). Not every little girl had a funny uncle who tried to get her alone at every family gathering.
So I let Quinn hold my hand, and I looked up into his pansy-purple eyes, and for a minute I indulged myself by letting his admiration wash over me like a bath of approval.
Yes, I knew he was a tiger. And I don't mean in bed, though I was willing to believe he was ferocious and powerful there, too.
When he kissed me good night, his lips brushed my cheek, and I smiled.
I like a man who knows when to rush things… and when not to.
* * * * *
Chapter 3
I got a phone call the next night at Merlotte's.
Of course, it's not a good thing to get phone calls at work; Sam doesn't like it, unless there's some kind of home emergency. Since I get the least of any of the barmaids—in fact, I could count the calls I'd gotten at work on one hand—I tried not to feel guilty when I gestured to Sam that I'd take the call back at the phone on his desk.
"Hello," I said cautiously.
"Sookie," said a familiar voice.
"Oh, Pam. Hi." I was relieved, but only for a second. Pam was Eric's second in command, and she was his child, in the vampire sense.
"The boss wants to see you," she said. "I'm calling from his office."
Eric's office, in the back of his club, Fangtasia, was well soundproofed. I could barely hear KDED, the all-vampire radio station, playing in the background: Clapton's version of "After Midnight."
"Well, lah-de-dah. He's too lofty to make his own phone calls?"
"Yes," Pam said. That Pam—literal-minded was the phrase for her.
"What's this about?"
"I am following his instructions," she said. "He tells me to call the telepath, I call you. You are summoned."
"Pam, I need a little more explanation than that. I don't especially want to see Eric."
"You are being recalcitrant?"
Uh-oh. I hadn't had that on my Word of the Day calendar yet. "I'm not sure I understand." It's better to just go on and confess ignorance than try to fake my way through.
Pam sighed, a long-suffering gust of sound. "You're digging in your heels," she clarified, her English accent making itself known. "And you shouldn't be. Eric treats you very well." She sounded faintly incredulous.
"I'm not giving up work or free time to drive over to Shreveport because Mr. High and Mighty wants me to jump to do his bidding," I protested—reasonably, I thought. "He can haul his ass over here if he wants to tell me something. Or he can pick up the telephone his ownself." So there.
"If he had wanted to pick up the phone 'his ownself,' as you put it, he would have done so. Be here Friday night by eight, he bids me tell you."
"Sorry, no can do."
A significant silence.
"You won't come?"
"I can't. I have a date," I said, trying to keep any trace of smugness out of my voice.
There was another silence. Then Pam snickered. "Oh, that's rich," she said, abruptly switching to American vernacular. "Oh, I'm going to love telling him that."
Her reaction made me begin to feel uneasy. "Um, Pam," I began, wondering if I should backpedal, "listen…"
"Oh, no," she said, almost laughing out loud, which was very un-Pam-like.
"You tell him I did say thanks for the calendar proofs," I said. Eric, always thinking of ways to make Fangtasia more lucrative, had come up with a vampire calendar to sell in the little gift shop. Eric himself was Mr. January. He'd posed with a bed and a long white fur robe. Eric and the bed were set against a pale gray background hung with giant glittering snowflakes. He wasn't wearing the robe: oh, no. He wasn't wearing anything. He had one bent knee on the rumpled bed, and the other foot was on the floor, and he was looking directly at the camera, smoldering. (He could have taught Claude a few lessons.) Eric's blond hair fell in a tousled mane around his shoulders, and his right hand gripped the robe tossed on the bed, so the white fur rose just high enough to cover his kit 'n' kaboodle. His body was turned just slightly to flaunt the curve of his world-class butt. A light trail of dark blond hair pointed south of his navel. It practically screamed, "Carrying concealed!"
I happened to know that Eric's pistol was more of a .357 Magnum than a snub-nose.
Somehow I'd never gotten past looking at January.
"Oh, I'll let him know," Pam said. "Eric said many people wouldn't like it if I were in the calendar made for women… so I'm in the one for men. Would you like me to send you a copy of my picture, as well?"
"That surprises me," I told her. "It really does. I mean, that you wouldn't mind posing." I had a hard time imagining her participation in a project that would pander to human tastes.
"Eric tells me to pose, I pose," she said matter-of-factly.
Though Eric had considerable power over Pam since he was her maker, I have to say that I'd never known Eric to ask Pam to do anything she wasn't ready to do. Either he knew her well (which, of course, he did) or Pam was willing to do just about anything.
"I have a whip in my picture," Pam said. "The photographer says it'll sell a million." Pam had wide-ranging tastes in the area of sex.
After a long moment while I contemplated the mental image that raised, I said, "I'm sure it will, Pam. But I'll give it a pass."
"We'll all get a percentage, all of us who agreed to pose."
"But Eric will get a bigger percentage than the rest."
"Well, he's the sheriff," Pam said reasonably.
"Right. Well, bye." I started to hang up.
"Wait, what am I to tell Eric?"
"Just tell him the truth."
"You know he'll be angry." Pam didn't sound at all scared. In fact, she sounded gleeful.
"Well, that's his problem," I said, maybe a bit childishly, and this time I did hang up. An angry Eric would surely be my problem, too.
I had a nasty feeling I'd taken a serious step in denying Eric. I had no idea what would happen now. When I'd first gotten to know the sheriff of Area Five, I'd been dating Bill. Eric had wanted to use my unusual talent. He'd simply held hurting Bill over my head to get me to comply. When I'd broken up with Bill, Eric had lacked any means of coercion until I'd needed a favor from him, and then I'd supplied Eric with the most potent ammunition of all—the knowledge that I'd shot Debbie Pelt. It didn't matter that he'd hidden her body and her car and he couldn't himself remember where; the accusation would be enough to ruin the rest of my life, even if it was never proved. Even if I could bring myself to deny it.
As I carried out my duties in the bar the rest of that night, I found myself wondering if Eric really would reveal my secret. If Eric told the police what I'd done, he'd have to admit he'd had a part in it, wouldn't he?
I was waylaid by Detective Andy Bellefleur when I was on my way to the bar. I've known Andy and his sister Portia all my life. They're a few years older than me, but we'd been through the same schools, grown up in the same town. Like me, they'd been largely raised by their grandmother. The detective and I have had our ups and downs. Andy had been dating a young schoolteacher, Halleigh Robinson, for a few months now.
Tonight, he had a secret to share with me and a favor to ask.
"Listen, she's going to order the chicken basket," he said, without preamble. I glanced over to their table, to make sure Halleigh was sitting with her back to me. She did. "When you bring the food to the table, make sure this is in it, covered up." He stuffed a little velvet-covered box into my hand. There was a ten-dollar bill under it.
"Sure, Andy, no problem," I said, smiling.
"Thanks, Sookie," he said, and for once he smiled back, a simple and uncomplicated and terrified smile.
Andy had been right on the money. Halleigh ordered the chicken basket when I went to their table.
"Make that extra fries," I said to our new cook when I turned in the order. I wanted plenty of camouflage. The cook turned from the grill to glare at me. We've had an assortment of cooks, of every age, color, gender, and sexual preference. We even had a vampire, once. Our current cook was a middle-aged black woman named Callie Collins. Callie was heavy, so heavy I didn't know how she could get through the hours she spent standing on her feet in the hot kitchen. "Extra fries?" Callie said, as if she'd never heard of such a thing. "Uh-huh. People get extra fries when they pay for them, not because they friends of yours."
It could be that Callie was so sharp-edged because she was old enough to remember the bad old days when blacks and whites had different schools, different waiting rooms, different water fountains. I didn't remember any of those things, and I was not willing to take into account Callie's bundle of baggage every time I talked to her.
"They paid extra," I lied, not wanting to call an explanation through the service pass-through that anyone close enough could overhear. I'd put a dollar of my tip into the till, instead, to make up the money. Despite our differences, I wished Andy and his
schoolteacher well. Anyone who was going to be Caroline Bellefleur's granddaughter-in-law deserved a romantic moment.
When Callie called up the basket, I trotted over to get it. Slipping the little box under the fries was harder than I imagined, and it required a bit of surreptitious rearrangement. I wondered if Andy had realized that the velvet would get greasy and salty. Oh well, this wasn't my romantic gesture, but his.
I carried the tray to the table with happy anticipation. In fact, Andy had to warn me (with a severe glance) to pull my face into more neutral lines as I served their food. Andy already had a beer in front of him, and she had a glass of white wine. Halleigh wasn't a big drinker, as befitted an elementary school teacher. I turned away as soon as the food was on the table, even forgetting to ask them if they needed anything else, like a good waitress should.
It was beyond me to try to stay detached after that. Though I tried not to be obvious, I watched the couple as closely as I could. Andy was on pins and needles, and I could hear his brain, which was simply agitated. He really wasn't sure whether he'd be accepted, and his mind was running through the list of things she might object to: the fact that Andy was almost ten years older, his hazardous profession…
I knew the moment when she spied the box. Maybe it wasn't nice of me to eavesdrop mentally on a very special moment, but to tell you the truth, I didn't even think of that at the time. Though ordinarily I keep myself well guarded, I'm used to dropping into people's heads if I spy something interesting. I'm also used to believing that my ability is a minus, not a plus, so I guess I feel entitled to whatever fun I can have with it.
I had my back to them, clearing off a table, which I should have left for the busboy to do. So I was close enough to hear.
She was frozen for a long moment. "There's a box in my food," she said, finally, keeping her voice very low because she thought she'd upset Sam if she made a fuss.
"I know," he said. "It's from me."
She knew then; everything in her brain began to accelerate, and the thoughts practically tripped over themselves in their eagerness.
"Oh, Andy," she whispered. She must have opened the box. It was all I could do not to turn around and look right along with her.
"Do you like it?"
"Yes, it's beautiful."
"Will you wear it?"
There was a silence. Her head was so confused. Half of it was going "Yippee!" and half of it was troubled.
"Yes, with one stipulation," she said slowly.
I could feel his shock. Whatever Andy had expected, it wasn't this.
"And that would be?" he asked, suddenly sounding much more like a cop than a lover.
"We have to live in our own place."
"What?" Again, she'd surprised Andy.
"I've always gotten the idea that you assumed you'd stay in the family home, with your grandmother and your sister, even after you got married. It's a wonderful old house, and your grandmother and Portia are great women."
That was tactful. Good for Halleigh.
"But I'd like to have a home of my own," she said gently, earning my admiration.
And then I really had to haul ass; I had tables to tend to. But as I refilled beer mugs, cleared empty plates, and took more money to Sam at the cash register, I was filled with awe at Halleigh's stand, since the Bellefleur mansion was Bon Temps's premier residence. Most young women would give a finger or two to live there, especially since the big old house had been extensively remodeled and freshened with the influx of money from a mysterious stranger. That stranger was actually Bill, who'd discovered that the Bellefleurs were descendants of his. He'd known they wouldn't accept money from a vampire, so he'd arranged the whole "mysterious legacy" ruse, and Caroline Bellefleur had jumped into spending it on the mansion with as much relish as Andy ate a cheeseburger.
Andy caught up with me a few minutes later. He snagged me on the way to Sid Matt Lancaster's table, so the aged lawyer had to wait a bit extra for his hamburger and fries.
"Sookie, I have to know," he said urgently, but in a very low tone.
"What, Andy?" I was alarmed at his intensity.
"Does she love me?" There were edges of humiliation in his head, that he'd actually asked me. Andy was proud, and he wanted some kind of assurance that Halleigh didn't want his
family name or his family home as he'd found other women had. Well, he'd found out about the home. Halleigh didn't want it, and he would move into some humble, small house with her, if she really loved him.
No one had ever demanded this of me before. After all the years of wanting people to believe in me, understand my freakish talent, I found I didn't enjoy being taken seriously, after all. But Andy was waiting for an answer, and I couldn't refuse. He was one of the most dogged men I'd ever met.
"She loves you as much as you love her," I said, and he let go of my arm. I continued on my way to Sid Matt's table. When I glanced back at him, he was staring at me.
Chew on that, Andy Bellefleur, I thought. Then I felt a little ashamed of myself. But he shouldn't have asked, if he didn't want to know the answer.
* * * * *
There was something in the woods around my house.
I'd gotten ready for bed as soon as I'd come home, because one of my favorite moments in every twenty-four hours is when I get to put on my nightgown. It was warm enough that I didn't need a bathrobe, so I was roaming around in my old blue knee-length sleep tee. I was just thinking of shutting the kitchen window, since the March night was getting a little chilly. I'd been listening to the sounds of the night while I washed dishes; the frogs and the bugs had been filling the air with their chorus.
Suddenly, the noises that had made the night seem as friendly and busy as the day had come to a stop, cut off in midcry.
I paused, my hands immersed in the hot soapy water. Peering out into the darkness didn't help a bit, and I realized how visible I must be, standing at an open window with its curtains flung wide apart. The yard was lit up with the security light, but beyond the trees that ringed the clearing, the woods lay dark and still.
Something was out there. I closed my eyes and tried to reach out with my brain, and I found some kind of activity. But it wasn't clear enough to define.
I thought about phoning Bill, but I'd called him before when I'd been worried about my safety. I couldn't let it become a habit. Hey, maybe the watcher in the woods was Bill himself? He sometimes roamed around at night, and he came to check on me from time to time. I looked longingly over at the telephone on the wall at the end of the counter. (Well, where the counter would be when it was all put together.) My new telephone was
portable. I could grab it, retreat to my bedroom, and call Bill in a snap of the fingers, since he was on my speed dial. If he answered the phone, I'd know whatever was out in the woods was something I needed to worry about.
But if he was home, he'd come racing over here. He'd hear my call like this: "Oh, Bill, please come save me! I can't think of anything to do but call a big, strong vampire to come to my rescue!"
I made myself admit that I really knew that whatever was in the woods, it wasn't Bill. I'd gotten a brain signal of some kind. If the lurker had been a vampire, I would have sensed nothing. Only twice had I gotten a flicker of a signal from a vampire brain, and it had been like a flash of electricity in an outage.
And right by that telephone was the back door—which wasn't locked.
Nothing on earth could keep me at the sink after the fact of the open door had occurred to me. I simply ran for it. I stepped out onto the back porch, nipped the latch on the glass door there, and jumped back into the kitchen proper and locked the big wooden door, which I'd had outfitted with a thumb latch and a deadbolt.
I leaned against the door after it was safely locked. Better than anyone I could think of, I knew the futility of doors and locks. To a vampire, the physical barrier was nothing—but a vampire had to be invited in. To a Were, doors were of more consequence, but still not much of a problem; with their incredible strength, Weres could go wherever they damn well chose. The same held true of other shifters.
Why didn't I just hold an open house?
However, I felt wonderfully better with two locked doors between me and whatever was in the woods. I knew the front door was locked and bolted, since it hadn't been opened in days. I didn't get that many visitors, and I normally entered and departed through the back.
I crept back to the window, which I closed and locked. I drew the curtains, too. I'd done everything to increase my security I could do. I went back to the dishes. I got a wet circle on the front of my sleep tee because I had to lean against the edge of the sink to steady my shaking legs. But I made myself continue until all the dishes were safely in the drainer and the sink had been wiped clean.
I listened intently after that. The woods were still silent. No matter how I listened with every sense at my disposal, that faint signal did not impinge on my brain again. It was gone.
I sat in the kitchen for a while, brain still in high gear, but then I forced myself to follow my usual routine. My heart rate had returned to normal by the time I brushed my teeth, and as I climbed into bed I had almost persuaded myself that nothing had happened out there in the silent darkness. But I'm careful about being honest inside. I knew some creature had been out in my woods; and that creature had been something bigger and scarier than a raccoon.
Quite soon after I'd turned my bedside light off, I heard the bugs and the frogs resume their chorus. Finally, when it continued uninterrupted, I slept.
* * * * *
Chapter 4
I punched in the number of my brother's cell phone when I got up the next morning. I hadn't spent a very good night, but at least I'd gotten a bit of sleep. Jason answered on the second ring. He sounded a little preoccupied when he said, "Hello?"
"Hi, Brother. How's it going?"
"Listen, I need to talk to you. I can't right now. I'll be there, probably in a couple of hours." He hung up without saying good-bye, and he'd sounded pretty worried about something. Good. I needed another complication.
I glanced at the clock. A couple of hours would give me enough time to get cleaned up and run into town to go to the grocery store. Jason would be getting here about noon, and if I knew him he'd expect me to feed him lunch. I yanked my hair into a ponytail and then doubled the elastic band around it, making it into a kind of topknot. I had a little fan of the ends waving above my head. Though I tried not to admit it to myself, I thought this slapdash hairstyle was fun-looking and kind of cute.
It was one of those crisp, cool March mornings, the kind that promises a warm afternoon. The sky was so bright and sunny that my spirits rose, and I drove to Bon Temps with the window rolled down, singing along with the radio at the top of my voice. I would've sung along with Weird Al Yankovic that morning.
I drove past woods, the occasional house, and a field full of cows (and a couple of buffalo; you never know what people will raise).
The disc jockey played "Blue Hawaii" as a golden oldie, and I wondered where Bubba was—not my own brother, but the vampire now known only as Bubba. I hadn't seen him in three or four weeks. Maybe the vamps of Louisiana had moved him to another hiding place, or maybe he'd wandered off, as he does from time to time. That's when you get your long articles in the papers they keep by the grocery check-out stand.
Though I was having a blissful moment of being happy and content, I had one of those stray ideas you get at odd moments. I thought, How nice it would be if Uric were here with me in the car. He'd look so good with the wind blowing his hair, and he'd enjoy the moment. Well, yeah, before he burned to a crisp.
But I realized I'd thought of Eric because it was the kind of day you wanted to share with the person you cared about, the person whose company you enjoyed the most. And that
would be Eric as he'd been while he was cursed by a witch: the Eric who hadn't been hardened by centuries of vampire politics, the Eric who had no contempt for humans and their affairs, the Eric who was not in charge of many financial enterprises and responsible for the lives and incomes of quite a few humans and vampires. In other words, Eric as he would never be again.
Ding-dong, the witch was dead, and Eric was restored to his character as it was now. The restored Eric was wary of me, was fond of me, and didn't trust me (or his feelings) an inch.
I sighed heavily, and the song vanished from my lips. It was nearly quenched in my heart until I told myself to stop being a melancholy idiot. I was young, I was healthy. The day was beautiful. And I had an actual date for Friday night. I promised myself a big treat. Instead of going directly to the grocery store, I went by Tara's Togs, owned and operated by my friend Tara Thornton.
I hadn't seen Tara in a while. She'd gone on a vacation to visit an aunt in south Texas, and since she'd returned she'd been working long hours at the store. At least, that's what she'd said when I'd called her to thank her for the car. When my kitchen had burned, my car had burned with it, and Tara had loaned me her old car, a two-year-old Malibu. She'd acquired a brand-new car (never mind how) and hadn't gotten around to selling the Malibu.
To my astonishment, about a month ago, Tara had mailed me the title and the bill of sale, with a letter telling me the car was now mine. I'd called to protest, but she had stonewalled me, and in the end, there didn't seem to be anything to do but accept the gift graciously.
She intended it as payment, since I'd extricated her from a terrible situation. But to help her, I'd had to indebt myself to Eric. I hadn't minded. Tara had been my friend all my life. Now she was safe, if she was smart enough to stay away from the supernatural world.
Though I was grateful and relieved to have the newest vehicle I'd ever owned, I would have been happier to have her uninterrupted friendship. I'd stayed away, since I assumed that I reminded her of too many bad things. But I was in the mood to try to rip down that veil. Maybe Tara had had enough time.
Tara's Togs was in a strip mall on the south side of Bon Temps. There was one other car parked in front of the store. I decided it might be good that a third party would be there; it would depersonalize the meeting.
Tara was serving Andy Bellefleur's sister Portia when I went in, so I began flicking through the size tens, and then the eights. Portia was sitting at the Isabelle table, which was extremely interesting. Tara is the local representative for Isabelle's Bridal, a national company that produces a catalog that's become the bible of all things wedding-related. You can try on samples of the bridesmaid dresses at the local outlet, so you can order the right size, and each dress comes in about twenty colors. The wedding dresses are just as popular. Isabelle's has twenty-five models. The Company also offers wedding shower invitations, decorations, garters, bridesmaids' gifts, and any bit of wedding paraphernalia you can imagine. However, Isabelle's was pretty much a middle-class phenomenon, and Portia was definitely an upper-class woman.
Since she lived with her grandmother and her brother in the Bellefleur mansion on Magnolia Street, Portia had grown up in a sort of decayed gothic splendor. Now that the mansion was repaired and her grandmother entertained more, Portia had looked noticeably happier when I'd glimpsed her around town. She didn't come into Merlotte's that much, but when she was in the bar she had more time to spare for other people, and she smiled occasionally. A plain woman just past thirty, Portia's best feature was her thick, shining chestnut hair.
Portia was thinking wedding, and Tara was thinking money.
"I have to talk with Halleigh again, but I think we'll need four hundred invitations," Portia was saying, and I thought my jaw would drop.
"All right, Portia, if you don't mind paying the rush fee, we can have those in ten days."
"Oh, good!" Portia was definitely pleased. "Of course, Halleigh and I will be wearing different dresses, but we thought we might try to pick out the same bridesmaid's dress. Maybe in different colors. What do you think?"
I thought I was going to choke on my own curiosity. Portia was going to be married, too? To that stick of an accountant she'd been dating, the guy from Clarice? Tara caught a glimpse of my face over the top of the standing rack of dresses. Portia was looking at the catalog, so Tara winked at me. She was definitely pleased to have a rich customer, and we were definitely okay with each other. Relief flooded me.
"I think having the same style in different colors—coordinating colors, of course—would be really original," Tara said. "How many bridesmaids are there going to be?"
"Five apiece," Portia said, her attention on the page before her. "Can I take a copy of the catalog home? That way, Halleigh and I can look at it tonight."
"I only have one extra copy; you know, one of the ways Isabelle's makes money is charging an arm and a leg for the darn catalog," Tara said with a charming smile. Tara can lay it on when she needs to. "I'll let you take it home, if you cross your heart you'll bring it back tomorrow!"
Portia made the childish gesture, and tucked the thick catalog under her arm. She was wearing one of her "lawyer suits," a brownish tweedy-looking straight skirt and jacket with a silk blouse underneath. She had on beige hose and low-heeled pumps, and she carried a matching purse. Bo-ring.
Portia was excited, and her brain was cartwheeling with happy images. She knew she would look a little old as a bride, especially compared to Halleigh; but by God, she was finally going to be a bride. Portia would get her share of the fun, the presents, the attention, and the clothes, to say nothing of the validation of having a husband of her own. She looked up from the catalog and spied me lurking by the slacks rack. Her happiness was profound enough to encompass even me.
"Hello, Sookie!" she said, practically beaming. "Andy told me what a help you were to him, fixing up his little surprise for Halleigh. I really appreciate it."
"It was fun," I said, with my own version of a gracious smile. "Is it true that congratulations are in order for you, as well?" I know, you're not supposed to congratulate the bride, only the groom, but I didn't think Portia would mind.
Sure enough, she didn't. "Well, I am getting married," she confessed. "And we decided to have a double ceremony with Andy and Halleigh. The reception will be at the house."
Of course. Why have a mansion, if you couldn't have the reception there?
"That's going to be a lot of work, setting up a wedding by—when?" I said, trying to sound sympathetic and concerned.
"April. Tell me about it," Portia said, laughing. "Grandmother is already half-crazy. She's called every caterer she knows to try to book someone for the second weekend, and finally landed Extreme(ly Elegant) Events because they had a cancellation. Plus, the guy who runs Sculptured Forest in Shreveport is coming to see her this afternoon."
Sculptured Forest was the premier landscape planning center and nursery in the area, at least if you went by their omnipresent ads. Hiring both Sculptured Forest and Extreme(ly Elegant) Events meant that this double wedding would be the primo social occasion of the Bon Temps year.
"We're thinking an outdoor wedding at the house, with tents in the back yard," Portia said. "In case of rain, we'll have to move it to the church, and have the reception at the Renard Parish Community Building. But we'll keep our fingers crossed."
"Sounds wonderful." I really couldn't think of anything else to say. "How are you going to keep working, with all this wedding stuff to do?"
"Somehow I'll manage."
I wondered what the rush was. Why weren't the happy couples waiting until summer, when Halleigh wouldn't be working? Why not wait, so Portia could free her calendar for a proper wedding and honeymoon? And wasn't the man she'd been dating an accountant? Surely a wedding during tax season was the worst possible scheduling.
… maybe Portia was pregnant. But if she was in the family way, she wasn't thinking about it, and I hardly thought she would be doing otherwise. Gosh, if I ever found out I was pregnant, I'd be so happy! If the guy loved me and would marry me, that is—because I wasn't tough enough to raise a kid by myself, and my grandmother would roll over in her grave if I was an unmarried mother. Modern thinking on that subject had completely passed my grandmother by, without even ruffling her hair with its passage.
While all these thoughts were buzzing around in my head, it took me a minute to process Portia's words. "So try to keep the second Saturday in April free," she said with as close to a charming smile as Portia Bellefleur could manage.
I promised I would, trying not to trip over my own tongue with astonishment. She must be high on wedding fever. Why would my presence be desired at the wedding? I was no big buddy of any of the Bellefleurs.
"We're asking Sam to bartend at the reception," she continued, and my world realigned into a more familiar pattern. She wanted me there to assist Sam.
"An afternoon wedding?" I asked. Sam sometimes took outside bartending jobs, but Saturday was usually our heavy day at Merlotte's.
"No, night," she said, "but I already talked to Sam this morning, and he's agreed."
"Okay," I said.
She read more into my tone than I'd put there, and she flushed. "Glen has some clients that he wants to invite," she said, though I'd asked for no explanation. "They can only come after dark." Glen Vicks was the accountant. I was glad I'd retrieved his last name from my memory. Then everything clicked into place, and I understood Portia's
embarrassment. Portia meant that Glen's clients were vampires. Well, well, well. I smiled at her.
"I'm sure it'll be a lovely wedding, and I look forward to being there," I said, "since you were kind enough to invite me." I'd deliberately misunderstood her, and as I'd foreseen, she flushed even redder. Then a related idea occurred to me, one so important I bent one of my personal rules.
"Portia," I said slowly, wanting to be sure she got my meaning, "you should invite Bill Compton."
Now Portia loathed Bill—disliked all vampires—but when she'd been forwarding one of her own plots, she'd dated Bill briefly. Which had been odd, because afterward Bill had discovered Portia was actually his great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter, or something like that.
Bill had gone along with her pretense of interest in him. At the time, he'd just wanted to find out what her goal was. He'd realized that it made Portia's skin crawl to be around him. But when he'd discovered the Bellefleurs were his only surviving kin, he'd anonymously given them a whacking great bunch of money.
I could "hear" that Portia thought I was purposely reminding her of the few times she'd dated Bill. She didn't want to be reminded of it, and it angered her that I'd done so.
"Why do you suggest that?" she asked coldly, and I gave her high points for not just stalking out of the shop. Tara was being studiously busy over by the Isabelle table, but I knew she could hear our conversation. Nothing wrong with Tara's hearing.
I had a ferocious internal debate. Finally, what Bill wanted prevailed over what I wanted for him. "Never mind," I said reluctantly. "Your wedding, your list."
Portia was looking at me as if she really saw me for the first time. "Are you still dating him?" she asked.
"No, he's dating Selah Pumphrey," I said, keeping my voice even and empty.
Portia gave me an unreadable look. Without another word, she went out to her car.
"What was all that about?" Tara asked.
I couldn't explain, so I changed the subject to one closer to Tara's retailing heart. "I'm delighted you're getting the business," I said.
"You and me both. If she didn't have to pull it together in such a short time, you can bet Portia Bellefleur wouldn't ever go Isabelle," Tara said frankly. "She'd drive to Shreveport and back a million times running errands, if she had the lead time. Halleigh is just trailing along in Portia's wake, poor thing. She'll come in this afternoon, and I'll show her the same things I've shown Portia, and she'll have to buckle under. But it's all good for me. They're getting the whole package, because the Isabelle system can deliver it all on time. Invitations, thank-you notes, dresses, garters, bridesmaids' gifts, even the mother-of-the-bride gowns—Miss Caroline will be buying one, and Halleigh's mother—they're getting it all here, either from my stock or from Isabelle's book." She looked me up and down. "What brought you in, by the way?"
"I need a date outfit to wear to a play in Shreveport," I said, "and I have to go to the grocery and get back at home to cook Jason's lunch. So, you got anything to show me?"
Tara's smile turned predatory. "Oh," she said, "just a few things."
* * * * *

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