True Blood Book 12 Chapters 13-16

Chapter 13
I was shocked. I was more than shocked.
And the first coherent thought I had was, If Dermot was in on this, it’ll
break my heart. Or I’ll break his neck.
In our long drive through the night to Jannalynn’s parents’ former
place, I had more time than I needed to think, or maybe not enough. I was
scrambling for some solid foothold, some sure thing. “Why?” I said out loud.
“Why?”
“I sure don’t know,” Mustapha said. “The day I came to your house on
the run, it was everything I could do to sit at the table with that Dermot and
not try to choke it out of him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I didn’t know if he was in on it. That Dermot, he’s always
nice, and he seems to have a lot of love for you. I just couldn’t see him
stabbing you in the back like that. Or taking Warren, either, though I could
see he might think that wasn’t so bad—not knowing Warren, hardly knowing
me.”
I had to assume it had been Claude’s blood that had made Kym so
irresistible to Eric.
“Dammit,” I said, and leaned forward to bury my face in my hands. I
was glad to be sitting in the backseat where neither of them could see my
face.
“Sookie, we’ll figure all this out,” Alcide said. He sounded very
confident and strong. “We’ll get this all taken care of. We’ll clear Eric with the
police.”
From which I understood he was scared I’d start crying. I could sort of
sympathize with that, and, anyway, first things first. I was kind of beyond
crying. I’d already shed enough tears.
Glancing out the window, I saw we were now in a suburban area where
the lots were at least four acres; maybe this had been out in the country once
upon a time, until Shreveport had grown.
“It’s right around here,” Mustapha said, and when we saw a white
fence bordering the road, he said, “This is it. I remember the fence.”
There was a horse gate across the driveway, and I hopped out to move
it because I just wanted to get out of the car. They drove through and I
followed them. It was completely dark out here, no streetlights. There was a
security light in the front yard, but that was it. No lights on in the ranch-style
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house or in the freestanding garage a few feet behind it, where the driveway
terminated. A dilapidated swing set rusted in the front yard. I pictured little
Jannalynn playing on it, and found myself picturing a swing hitting her in the
head.
I grimly erased that image and joined the two men who’d gotten out of
the car to stand uncertainly in the noisy night. The crickets and all the other
myriad bugs of Louisiana were having a concert in the woods that bordered
the property. I heard a dog bark, far away.
“Now we break in,” Alcide said, and I said, “Wait.”
“But—” Mustapha began.
“Be quiet,” I said, finally feeling that there was something I could do
rather than get swept into events as they passed me by. I sent out my other
sense, the one that had shaped my life, the one given me at my birth by the
demon Mr. Cataliades. I searched and searched, looking for the signature of a
mind, and just when I was going to give up, I felt a faint flicker of thought.
“There is someone,” I said very quietly. “There is someone.”
“Where?” Mustapha asked eagerly.
“In the attic over the garage,” I said, and it was like I’d fired off the
starting gun. Werewolves are creatures of action, after all.
There were outside stairs on the side of the garage, which I hadn’t seen.
The sharper eyes of Alcide and Mustapha had, and up they swarmed.
Mustapha, catching a scent he recognized, threw back his head and howled.
It made my hair stand up. I moved to the foot of the steps, and though I still
couldn’t see much, I could make out the two figures on the landing above
beginning a furious motion. It accompanied a rhythmic thud. I realized the
two men were throwing themselves against a door. There was a ka-BANG
that had to be the door flying back, and then a light came on.
Mustapha howled again, and I feared that Warren was dead.
I just couldn’t stand it; the death of the little blond sharpshooter with
his pale freckled skin and his missing teeth was somehow more than I could
bear tonight. I sank to my knees.
“Sookie,” Alcide said urgently.
I looked up. Mustapha was coming down the stairs, a body in his arms.
Alcide was right in front of me.
“He’s alive,” Alcide said. “But he’s been up there without airconditioning
or ventilation or food or water for God knows how long. I guess
the bitch couldn’t be bothered. We got to get him some help.”
“Vampire blood?” I suggested, but very quietly.
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“I think Mustapha might consider that now,” Alcide said, and I knew
that Warren must be very bad.
I called Bill. “Sookie, where are you?” he yelled. “I’ve been calling!
What happened?”
I glanced at the screen. I did have a lot of missed calls. “I had the phone
on vibrate,” I said. “I’ll tell you everything, but I want to ask you a favor first.
Are you still in Shreveport?”
“Yes, I’m back outside the Trifecta, trying to pick up the trail of those
dogs!”
“Hey, listen, chill. It’s been a real bad night. I need you now, my
friend.”
“Anything.”
“Meet me at Alcide’s. You can save a life.”
“I’m on my way.”
On our way back into Shreveport, Mustapha took my place in the
backseat with Warren’s head on his lap. When I proposed that Bill give
Warren a drink to help him live, Mustapha said, “If it can bring him back, I’ll
do it. He may hate me later. Hell, I may hate myself. But we got to save him.”
Our drive back into Alcide’s neighborhood was shorter than our drive
out because we knew our way now, but we grudged every stoplight or slow
driver ahead of us, and Mustapha’s urgency pounded at me. Warren’s brain
signature became weaker, flickered, resumed.
Sure enough, Bill was standing waiting at Alcide’s, and I leaped out of
the car and pulled Bill around to the backseat. When the door opened and he
saw Warren, recognition flared in his eyes. Of course, Bill knew Mustapha,
and he remembered Warren the shooter. I hoped it hadn’t occurred to Bill
that it might be a good thing if he died, since he was yet another witness who
could testify—at least in a limited way—to what had happened the night
we’d killed Victor.
“He wasn’t in the club,” I said, grabbing Bill’s wrist, as Mustapha
gently lifted Warren’s head so he could vacate the car to leave room for Bill.
And Bill looked at me, a huge question on his face.
“Feed him,” I said. Without another word, Bill knelt by the car, bit his
own wrist, and held the bleeding wrist over Warren’s parched mouth.
I don’t know if Warren would have done it if he hadn’t been so thirsty.
At first, Bill’s blood trickling into the slack mouth seemed to raise no reaction.
But then something sparked in Warren, and he began to consciously drink. I
could see his throat moving.
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“Enough,” I said, after a minute. I could sense Warren’s brain firing
back up. “Now, take him to the hospital, and they’ll do all the right stuff for
him.”
“But they’ll know.” Alcide was scowling at me, and so was Mustapha.
“They’ll question him about who took him.” Bill, standing and holding his
wrist, looked only mildly interested.
“You don’t want the police to arrest Jannalynn?” That seemed like the
best of all possible worlds to me.
“She’d kill them if they tried,” Alcide said, but I knew from the conflict
flowing from his head that he wasn’t voicing his real concern.
“You want to punish her,” I said, in as neutral a voice as I could
manage.
“Course he does,” Mustapha said. “She’s pack. She’s his to punish.”
“I do want to ask her some questions,” I said. It seemed like the right
time to get that out in the open. Otherwise, Jannalynn might end up dead
before I’d had a chance to extract information.
“What about Sam?” Bill said, out of the blue.
“What about him?” Alcide asked after a moment.
“He’s not gonna be happy,” I muttered. “They weren’t ever as close as
she told you they were, but after all …”
“She’s his woman,” Mustapha said, shrugging. He looked down at
Warren. Just then Warren’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Mustapha and
smiled. “I knew you’d find me,” he said. “I knew you’d come.”
It was touching, it was awkward, and I was totally confused.
“So it was Claude,” I said out loud. “I just can’t believe it. Why would
he want Eric to drink from a borderline whore like Kym? Why would he give
her his own blood to drink?” I was beyond mincing words, or being
charitable.
“Claude could tell you why,” Bill said grimly. “Where is he now?”
“Niall came to get him. I haven’t seen Claude in days.”
“And he left Dermot here?”
“Yeah, he left Dermot in charge of all the stray supes at Hooligans,” I
said.
“I’d heard everyone there was some form of fae,” Bill said, confirming
my belief that supes gossiped just like humans did. “Did Claude give you a
time for his return?”
“No. Niall took him to Faery to investigate who actually put a curse on
Dermot. Claude said it was Murry, but Murry’s dead. I killed him, in my
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backyard.” I sure had everyone’s attention now. It seemed that all the
separate parts of my life were finally colliding. My personal highway was
jammed with fairies, werewolves, vampires, and humans.
“So it was pretty convenient for Claude to name Murry as the bad guy,”
Bill said, and that kind of hung in the air for a minute before everything came
crashing down.
“Claude,” I said. “It was Claude all along.” I felt numb.
After a little while, we were all sorted out. Since no one knew where
Jannalynn was, Mustapha and Warren were invited to spend the night at
Alcide’s, and Mustapha accepted for them both since Warren was still not
talking much. Apparently, he wasn’t going to go to the hospital, which I had
to accept. At least he was getting a bottle of Gatorade. Mustapha let him have
it in little sips.
Bill and I got in his car, and Mustapha thanked Bill for coming to
Warren’s aid. He didn’t like telling Bill he owed him a favor, but he did it.
Alcide was already on the phone as we pulled out of the driveway, and
I was sure he was checking on his pack members who’d locked up the
rogues. I would put money on his main interest being Kandace. I didn’t know
if she’d go into lockup with the rogues or if she’d abandon the pretense of
being a rebel. At the moment, I could only be glad that wasn’t my problem.
I was glad Bill was driving. I had too many thoughts crowding my
head. I wished there were a way to warn Niall what a snake he was nurturing
in his bosom. And as long as I was getting biblical, I’d never in my life been
so glad I’d said no to someone when they’d wanted to have sex with me.
“Why would Claude have done such a thing?”
I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Bill answered.
“Sookie, I don’t know. I can’t even guess. He doesn’t hate Eric, or at
least I can’t think of any reason why he should. He might be envious you
have such a handsome lover, but that’s hardly sufficient reason …”
I wasn’t about to tell Bill that Claude had told me he occasionally
bedded a real woman. Eric would surely have been more in Claude’s natural
ballpark.
“Okay, let’s think,” I said. “Why would he try to make trouble in such a
devious way? He could have set fire to my house.” (Though that had already
been done.) “He could try to shoot me.” (Ditto.) “He could abduct me and
torture me.” (Likewise.) “If his goal was to make trouble for Eric, there were
at least twenty more direct ways to cause it.”
“Yes,” Bill said. “But a direct way would have led straight back to him.
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It’s the indirectness of it, the slyness of it, that convinces me that Claude
wanted to stay in your good graces, stay close to you.”
“It’s not out of love. I can tell you that.”
“Is there something I don’t know about, Sookie? Some reason Claude
would want your company, want to live in your house and stay close to
you?” After a moment of silence, Bill hurried to add, “Not that any sane male
wouldn’t want to, even someone like Claude who likes other men.”
“Why, yes, Bill,” I said, “And it’s funny you should bring that up. As a
matter of fact, there is such a reason.”
Though I clammed up then because I didn’t need to spread the word
any wider, I was fuming. I might as well get “I HAVE A CLUVIEL DOR”
tattooed on my forehead. Thanks, Grandfather Fintan, for the great gift. And
while I was at it, Thanks, Sponsor Cataliades, for the telepathy. And also while I
was angry at people in my past—Thanks, Gran, for (a) having an affair with a
fairy and (b) not using the cluviel dor while you had the chance and, therefore,
sticking me with it.
I had to talk myself down a little bit after that internal explosion of rage,
all the more powerful because it was silent.
I took a deep breath and let it out, as Bill had advised me to do earlier in
the evening. The procedure did let off some steam and gave me the control
necessary to clap some discipline onto my thoughts. One of the things I really
like about Bill is that he didn’t pester me with questions while I was working
through all this. He just drove.
“I can’t talk about it now,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Can you tell me if you’ve heard from Niall or Claude since they left?”
“No, I haven’t. I put a letter through … that is, I sent them a letter
because Dermot’s having a hard time controlling the remaining fae. I’m sure
you know they’re getting restless.”
“They are not alone,” Bill said darkly.
“And you’re referring to what?” I was too tired and upset to make any
guesses.
“All our guests are still here—Felipe, Horst, Angie,” he said. “It’s like
having a visit from a king in the eighteenth century. You could be poor after
such an honor. And they’ve bonded mightily with the stupid wrestler—TRex.
Felipe even talks of asking him if he wants to be brought over. Felipe
thinks he would make a popular spokesman for the pro-vampire movement.”
“Is Freyda still here, too?” I was humiliated that I had to ask Bill to
know the answer, but I wanted to know the answer so badly that I would
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accept the humiliation.
“Yes. She’s spending as much time with Eric as he’ll permit her.”
“I didn’t get the impression that she was in the habit of waiting for
permission.”
“You’re absolutely right. I can’t decide if Eric is genuinely trying to
discourage her or if he’s driving up his price.”
I felt like Bill had slapped me.
He said instantly, “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I should have kept my
mouth shut.” He sounded genuinely contrite, but I didn’t trust anyone
anymore.
“You really think Eric’s capable of that?”
“Sookie, you know Eric’s capable of that, and much more.” Bill
shrugged. “I won’t be less than honest with you. And I won’t sugarcoat this
situation. From my point of view, Eric’s involvement with Freyda is a
wonderful thing. But for your sake, I hope Eric is so deeply devoted to you
that he’s determined to drive Freyda to a more amenable mate.”
“He loves me.” I sounded like a terrified child telling her father that she
really, really wasn’t afraid of the dark. I despised that in myself.
“Yes, he does,” Bill agreed readily.
That conversation was clearly over, and it was one we wouldn’t have
again.
I had a fantasy that when we got to my house, Eric would be sitting on
the back steps waiting for me. He would have ditched all his Nevada
company. He would be waiting to assure me that he had sent Freyda
packing, that he’d told her how much he loved me, that he never wanted to
leave me no matter how much power and wealth she offered him. He would
be shooting a final bird at his maker, Appius Livius Ocella. All the vampires
in his sheriffdom would be happy about his decision because they liked me
so much.
As long as I was having a fantasy, I decided to build on it. In the
daylight, Claude would return to my house with Niall. Niall would say that
he had brainwashed Claude, and that Claude was now an agreeable person
who regretted any of his past deeds that had offended others. They both
embraced Dermot as an equal and took him back to Faery with them, along
with all the other fae at Hooligans. I could be sure they would be happy
forever, since it was a fairy tale.
Then I mentally married off Jason and Michele and gave them three
little boys. I married off Terry and Jimmie and gave their Catahoulas many
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litters. I named Alcide packmaster for life and threw in a happy marriage to
Kandace and a resultant daughter. I gave the du Rone twins full scholarships
to Tulane, and for Sam … I simply couldn’t think of the best gift for Sam. Of
course, the bar would prosper, but with his tendency to fall for women on the
supernatural side … well, the bar would prosper. Quinn would live happily
ever after with his tigress, Tijgerin, and she would be able to rehabilitate the
unpleasant Frannie, who would become a nurse.
I was probably skipping a few people. Oh, yeah, Holly and Hoyt.
They’d have a girl and a boy, and Holly’s son by her first marriage would
love his stepdad and his new siblings. Hoyt’s lifelong friendship with my
brother would never come between the couple again, because my brother
would never drag Hoyt into trouble. Again.
India would find some fine young woman, and the state of Louisiana
would pass a bill to enable them to get married legally. No one would ever,
ever make lesbian jokes or misquote scripture at them … as long as I was
fantasizing.
“Bill, what’s your favorite fantasy?” I asked. Weirdly enough, I felt
much better after designing all these happy endings.
Bill glanced over at me quizzically. We were almost to my house. “My
favorite fantasy? You come down into my daytime resting place stark
naked,” he said, and I could see the gleam of his teeth as he smiled. “Oh,
wait,” Bill said. “That’s already happened.”
“There’s gotta be more to it,” I said. Then I could have bitten off my
tongue.
“Oh, there is.” His eyes told me exactly what happened after that.
“And that’s your fantasy? That I come into your house naked and have
sex with you?”
“After that, you tell me that you have sent Eric on his way, that you
want to be mine forever, and that to share my life you will permit me to make
you a vampire like me.”
The silence now was thick, and the fun had drained out of the fantasy.
Then Bill added, “You know what I’d say when you told me this? I’d
tell you I would never do such a thing. Because I love you.”
And this, ladies and gentlemen, concluded our evening’s
entertainment.
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Chapter 14
When I woke up in my own bed, the sun was glaring outside. I did not have to
work today; getting to skip on your special day was a Merlotte’s rule. Last
night had been an incredible night, all in all. I’d rescued two hostages, helped
to get a bunch of bad rogue Weres off the streets, and begun unraveling a
conspiracy. Hard to top that!
I’d also been kidnapped and bitterly disillusioned.
I wanted to look good because my spirits were so low. When I was
getting dressed to run errands and to go to an appointment I’d made days
before, I put on my makeup and brushed my hair up into a ponytail that
cascaded down from the crown of my head. While I was cleaning out my
purse in the process of finding a pair of earrings, my hand closed around the
cluviel dor. I pulled it out and gazed down at it, the pale green soothing any
anxiety I had about the day to come. I rubbed it between my hands and
enjoyed the warmth and the smoothness.
I wondered (for the fiftieth time) if I needed any special spell to activate
its magic. On the whole, I figured not. My grandmother would have passed
such a spell along to me, though as a staunch Christian she disapproved of
magic. But she wouldn’t have neglected some element I might find necessary
for my protection.
I should put it back into my makeup drawer with the usual light
camouflage. But I didn’t. After a brief debate, I slid the round object into my
skirt pocket. I understood, finally, that having it was no good if it was
inaccessible. Leaving it in the drawer was equivalent to having an unloaded
gun when burglars broke into your house.
From now on, the cluviel dor went where I went.
If Eric … if he decided to leave with Freyda, would I use it? According
to Mr. Cataliades, since I loved Eric, if I made a wish for him, it would be
granted. I tried to picture myself saying, “Eric must not choose to go with
Freyda.”
On the other hand … if he decided to go with the queen, he loved me
less than he loved the possibilities in his future with her. Would I want to
stay with someone on those terms?
A lot of bad things could happen today, but I was going to keep my
fingers crossed that they wouldn’t. I just wanted one happy day.
As I was getting up from the dressing table, I had second thoughts
about leaving the cluviel dor in my pocket. Was it really safe to carry such an
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irreplaceable object around with me? Apparently all the fae collected at
Hooligans could tell there was something special about me despite my
minimal dash of fairy blood. That special thing must be my proximity to, or
ownership of, the cluviel dor. I shouldn’t underestimate how much they’d
want it if they knew I had it, not with their terrible desire to be back in the
world they loved. I hesitated, pondered again replacing it in the drawer.
But then I thought, Unloaded gun. And I popped it from my pocket into
my purse, which latched shut and was therefore more secure.
I heard a car pull up outside. I looked out the living room windows to
see that my caller was Detective Cara Ambroselli. I shrugged. I wasn’t going
to let anything bother me today.
She came in with a sidekick, a young guy whose name I couldn’t
remember. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, undistinguished clothes,
and he wasn’t tall or very thin or very muscular or very anything. Even his
thoughts were fairly neutral. He was nuts about Ambroselli, that was
something about him I could empathize with. And Ambroselli simply
thought of him as her adjutant.
“This is Jay Osborn,” Detective Ambroselli said. “You’re all dressed up
today.”
“I have an appointment this morning,” I said. “I can only give you a
few minutes.” I waved my hand at the couch, and I sat opposite them.
Osborn was looking around the room, recognizing the age of the house,
of its furnishings. Ambroselli was concentrating on me.
“T-Rex is quite a fan of yours,” she said.
It was lucky I’d been warned ahead of time. “That’s pretty weird,” I
said. “I just met him the night Kym Rowe got killed. And I have a boyfriend.”
Theoretically.
“He’s called me to see if I’d give up your phone number.”
“I guess that says it all, that he doesn’t have it.” I shrugged.
Then we went over the evening at Eric’s again, from beginning to end.
But just when I thought we’d wound up, Ambroselli decided to throw in one
last question.
“Were you late that night because you wanted to make a big entrance?”
I blinked. “Huh?”
“Coming in late to get T-Rex’s attention?” She was asking questions at
random. She didn’t believe this.
“If I’d wanted to get his attention, I guess I would have come earlier to
spend as much time with him as I could,” I said. “The ladies he was with
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were good-looking women, and I don’t know why he’d be specially
interested in me.”
“Maybe your vampire boyfriend wanted T-Rex to be his friend.
Couldn’t hurt to have a popular guy like a wrestler on your side, in public
opinion.”
“I don’t think I’m the strongest bribe Eric could come up with,” I said. I
laughed.
Ambroselli was at an impasse in the case. She was hoping that by going
from witness to witness and scattering half-truths and asking questions she
might stir up some fact that she could use. Though I could sort of sympathize
with her, she was wasting my time.
“T-Rex hasn’t called me, and I don’t expect him to,” I said, after a
moment. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to leave myself.”
Ambroselli and Osborn stood and slowly took their departure, trying to
look as though they’d learned something significant.
When I got to Bon Temps, I dropped by to pick up my dishes from
Tara’s house. The twins were asleep. Tara was slumped on the couch, almost
dozing herself. I was glad I’d knocked very quietly. I think she would have
thrown the pans at my head if I’d woken up Sara and Rob.
“Where’s JB?” I whispered.
“He went to get some more diapers,” she whispered back.
“How’s the breastfeeding going?”
“I feel like Elsie the cow,” she said. “I don’t know why I even button my
blouse.”
“Is it hard? To get them to nurse?”
“About as hard as getting a vampire to bite you,” she said.
I grinned. It was nice to hear that Tara could joke about something that
had once made her crazy.
“By the way,” Tara said as I turned to go, “Is there something weird
going on at Hooligans?”
“What do you mean?” I jerked around, very much on the alert.
“Maybe that answers my question,” she said. “That was quite a
reaction, Sookie.”
I had no idea how to answer her. I said, “Has JB had any trouble there?”
“No, he loves everybody on the strip team,” she said. “We finally had a
good talk about it. You know, and I know, that he loves to be admired, bless
his heart. And there’s a lot to admire about JB.”
I nodded. He was lovely. Not bright; never that. But lovely.
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“But he thinks there’s something wrong?”
“He’s noticed some strange things,” she said carefully. “None of the
other guys could ever meet him for lunch, and they could never tell him what
their day job was, and they seemed to pretty much live at the club.”
I didn’t know what to tell her. “I wonder how JB got hired,” I said, to
fill in until I could think of a good way to warn her off Hooligans. I was sure
the du Rones still needed extra money, though the twins had been able to
leave the hospital at the regular time.
“How he got hired? He’d heard about Ladies Only night from the
women at the gym, and they all told him he was built well enough to
perform,” Tara said rather proudly. “So one day he went over to Hooligans
on his lunch hour.” One of the babies started fussing, and Tara darted into
their tiny room to emerge with Sara. Or Robbie. “If one starts crying, the
other one will,” she whispered. She jiggled the baby gently, humming to the
child. It was as if she’d been a mother for years, instead of a few days. When
the little head rested on her chest, she murmured, “Anyway, your cousin
Claude said since JB’d helped you recover from your ordeal—did he mean
your car wreck?—that he’d give JB a job. Also …” She met my eyes briefly.
“Remember, I met Claude when I was pregnant? He was the one who told
me I’d have twins that day in the park? He told JB he understood a father has
to provide for his children.”
It hadn’t been a car wreck I needed to recover from, but torture, of
course. JB had helped me with physical therapy for weeks; I did remember
telling Claude about that. Ha! Claude’s kindness to JB was a good thing to
hear, especially at this point in time. But I knew what my cousin really was,
and I knew he was scheming some terrible thing.
I left the little house after running a finger over the soft, soft baby cheek.
“You’re so lucky,” I whispered to Tara.
“I tell myself that every day,” she said. “Every day.” In my friend’s
head, I could see the kaleidoscope of miserable scenes that had composed her
childhood: her alcoholic parents, the parade of drug users through her home,
her own determination to rise above the shack, rise above the degradation
and squalor. This small, neat house, these beautiful babies, a sober husband—
this was heaven to Tara.
“Take care of yourself, Sookie,” she said, looking at me with some
anxiety. She hadn’t been my friend this long for nothing.
“You just watch out for those young’uns. Don’t you worry about me.
I’m doing okay.” I gave my friend the most convincing smile I could
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summon, and I let myself out of the house very quietly, easing the door shut.
I went to the drive-through at the bank to use the ATM, and then I
drove to the newly opened law offices of Beth Osiecki and Jarrell Hilburn.
There were those who would argue that Bon Temps was overburdened with
lawyers, but all of them seemed to be busy and thriving, and since Sid Matt
Lancaster, who’d had a huge practice, had recently passed away, all his
clients needed new representation.
Why’d I picked the new kids on the block?
For that very reason: They were new, and I didn’t know them, and they
didn’t know me. I wanted to start with a clean slate. I’d seen Hilburn before,
for my transaction with Sam. Today I was seeing Osiecki, who specialized in
estate planning. And since she was new, she’d agreed to see me on a
Saturday.
A girl barely out of her teens was sitting at the receptionist’s desk in the
tiny anteroom of the storefront office. Osiecki and Hilburn had rented the
first floor of an old building right off the square. The electrical system would
need overhauling, I was sure, but they’d painted and brought in good
secondhand office furniture. Some potted plants made everything look a little
nicer, and there wasn’t any canned music playing, which was a huge plus.
The girl, who didn’t even have a name plaque, beamed at me and checked
her appointment book, which had large white spaces.
“You must be Ms. Stackhouse,” she said.
“Yes. I have an appointment with Ms. Osiecki?” I sounded out the
name.
“Oh-seek-ee,” she said very quietly, presumably so the owner of the
name wouldn’t hear her correction.
I nodded, to show I’d gotten it now.
“I’ll see if she’s ready,” the girl said, leaping to her feet and making her
way to the little corridor leading to the rest of the space. There was a door on
the left and a door on the right, and after that the area seemed to widen into a
common space. I could glimpse a big table and a bookcase full of heavy
books, the kind of books I would never pick up to read.
I heard a brisk knock and a murmur, and then the teenager was back.
“Ms. Osiecki will see you now,” she said, with an expansive sweep of her
hand.
I went back to talk to Ms. Osiecki after taking a deep breath.
A woman of about thirty stood up from her broad desk. She had wellcut
short red-streaked brown hair, blue eyes, and brown glasses. She was
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wearing a nice white blouse and a wildly flowered skirt and high-heeled
sandals. She was smiling.
“I’m Beth Osiecki,” she said, in case I’d gotten lost between the
reception area and her office.
“Sookie Stackhouse,” I said, shaking the outstretched hand.
She glanced down at the pad, and I could see she was going over the
notes she’d scribbled the day before when I’d called her. She looked over at
the big Scenic Louisiana poster by her desk. “Well,” she said, shooting me a
quizzical look. “It really is a special day for you, isn’t it? It’s your birthday,
and you’re going to make your will.”
I felt a little strange after I left the lawyers’ office. I guess there’s nothing to
make you think about your own demise like making your will. It’s also a
literally do-or-die moment. When your will is read, it will be the last time
people will hear your voice: the last expression of your will and your wishes,
the last statement from your heart. It had been a strangely revelatory hour.
Beth Osiecki was going to put everything in legalese, and I had to come
in day after tomorrow and sign it. Just in case, I told her, I’d like to sign a list
of the points I’d made. The list was in my own handwriting. I asked her if
that would make it legal.
“Sure,” she’d said. She’d smiled. I could tell that she was adding to her
meager store of “strange client” stories, and that was okay with me.
When I left Beth Osiecki’s office, I was pretty proud of myself. I’d made
a will.
I couldn’t quite figure out what to do next. It was three in the afternoon.
I’d had a late breakfast, and a full lunch was out of the question. I didn’t need
to go to the library; I had several library books I hadn’t read yet. I could go
home and sunbathe, which was always a pleasant pastime, but then I’d sweat
all over my good makeup and my clean hair. I was in danger of doing that
now, standing here on the sidewalk. The sun was glaring down ferociously. I
figured it was at least a hundred degrees. My cell phone rang as I hesitated to
touch the handle of my car door.
“Hello?” I fished a tissue out of my purse and used it to cover my
fingers as I opened the door. The heat rolled out.
“Sookie? How are you?”
“Quinn?” I couldn’t believe it. “I’m so glad to hear from you.”
“Happy birthday,” he said.
I could feel my lips curve up in an involuntary smile. “You
remembered!” I said. “Thanks!” I was absurdly pleased. I hadn’t exactly
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thought Tara would be thinking about my birthday, since she’d just brought
twins home from the hospital, but maybe I’d been a tiny bit flattened when
she hadn’t mentioned it this morning.
“Hey, a birthday is an important day,” the weretiger said. I hadn’t seen
him since Sam’s brother’s wedding. It was good to hear his deep voice.
“How are you?” I hesitated for a moment before adding, “How’s
Tijgerin?” The last time I’d seen Quinn, he’d just met the beautiful and single
and one-of-the-last-of-her-kind weretigress. I don’t think I have to draw you
a picture.
“I’m … ah … going to be a father.”
Wow. “Way to go!” I said. “So you guys have moved in together?
Where are you living?”
“That’s not exactly the way we do it, Sookie.”
“Um. Okay. What’s the tiger procedure?”
“Tiger men don’t bring up their young. Only the tiger mom.”
“Gosh, that seems kind of old-fashioned.” And kind of wrong.
“To me, too. But Tij’s real traditional. She says that when she has the
baby, she’ll go into hiding until he’s weaned. Her mom told her that if it’s a
boy I might see him as a threat.” I couldn’t read Quinn’s mind over the
phone, but he sounded plenty exasperated and not a little resentful.
As far as I knew—and I’d done a little reading on tigers when I was
Quinn’s girlfriend—only males who were not the actual dads were apt to kill
tiger cubs. But since this was totally none of my business, I choked back the
indignation I felt on Quinn’s behalf. At least, I tried to.
So she’d used him to get pregnant with a weretiger baby and now she
didn’t want to see him anymore?
I told myself sternly, Not my battle. (Werewolves were much more
modern in their thinking. Even werepanthers!)
Since my silence had lasted too long, I leaped in with both feet. “Well,
I’m so happy that you’ll have a cub, since there aren’t many of you-all left. I
guess your mama and your sister are excited?”
“Uh … well, my mom is pretty sick. She brightened up a lot when I told
her, but it was just temporary. She’s back in that nursing home. Frannie
found a guy, and she took off with him last month. I’m not really sure where
she is.”
“Quinn, that’s so tough. I’m really sorry.”
“But I’m raining on your birthday, and I didn’t mean to. I really did call
you to tell you to have a great day, Sookie. No one deserves it more.” He
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hesitated, and I could tell there were more words that he wanted to say.
“Maybe you could call me sometime?” he asked. “Tell me what you ended
up doing to celebrate?”
I tried to do some concentrated thinking in a very short time, but I just
wasn’t up to figuring out all the cracks and crevices in this tentative overture.
“Maybe,” I said. “I hope I do something worth talking about. So far, all I’ve
done is make my will.”
There was a long moment of silence. “You’re kidding,” he said.
“You know I’m not.”
There was a serious silence.
“You need me to come?”
“Oh, gosh, no,” I said, putting a smile in my voice. “I’ve got the house,
the car, a little money saved up. It just seemed like time.” I hoped I wasn’t
lying. “Well, I gotta go, Quinn. I’m so glad you called. It made the day special
for me.” I snapped the phone shut and dropped it into my purse.
I got in the slightly less-hot car and tried to think of somewhere fun to
go, something fun to do. I’d picked up the newspaper and checked my
mailbox on my way to town, and hadn’t pulled out anything but my auto
insurance bill and a Wal-Mart ad leaflet.
I decided I was just hungry enough to treat myself to something special.
I went to Dairy Queen and got an Oreo Blizzard. I ate it inside since it was
way too hot to sit in the car. I said hello to a couple of people and had a brief
chat with India, who came in with one of her little nieces in tow.
My cell phone rang again. Sam. “Sook,” he said, “can you come by the
bar? We’re short a case of Heineken and two of Michelob, and I need to know
what happened.” He sounded pretty snappish. Damn.
“It’s my day off.”
“Hey, you pretty much bought into the business. You gotta pull your
share of the weight.”
I mouthed a very bad word at the phone. “Okay,” I said, sounding just
as irritated as I felt. “I’m coming. But I’m not staying.”
I strode through the employee entrance as if I were on my way into a
bullfight ring. The hell we were short three cases of beer. “Sam,” I called,
“you in your office?”
“Yeah, come here,” he called back. “I think I found the problem.”
I flung open his office door and everybody in the world shrieked in my
face. “Oh my God!” I said, shocked to the core.
After a throbbing moment, I understood that I was having a surprise
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birthday party.
JB was there, and Terry and his girlfriend, Jimmie. Sam, Hoyt and
Holly, Jason and Michele, Halleigh Bellefleur, Danny and Kennedy. Even
Jane Bodehouse.
“Tara had to stay with the babies,” JB said, handing me a little package.
Terry said, “We thought about giving you a puppy, but Jimmie said we
better check with you first.” Jimmie winked at me over his shoulder.
Sam held me so tight I thought I’d quit breathing, and I thumped him
on his shoulder. “You creep,” I said in his ear. “Missing cases of beer! I like
that!”
“You should have heard your voice,” he said, laughing. “Jannalynn
said to tell you she was sorry she couldn’t make it. She had to open at Hair of
the Dog.”
Sure, I believed she was really unhappy at not being here. I turned
away so Sam wouldn’t see my face.
Halleigh apologized for Andy’s absence, too; he was on duty. Danny
and Kennedy gave me a kind of group hug, and Jane Bodehouse gave me a
highly alcoholic kiss on the cheek. Michele held my hand for a moment and
said, “I hope you have a wonderful year this year. Will you be my
bridesmaid?” I grinned wide enough to split my face and told her I’d be
proud to stand up with her. Jason wrapped one arm around me and handed
me a beribboned box.
“I didn’t expect presents. I’m too old for a present party,” I protested.
“Never too old for presents,” Sam said.
My eyes were so full of tears I had a hard time unwrapping Jason’s gift.
He’d given me a bracelet my grandmother used to wear, a little gold chain
with pearls set at intervals. I was shocked to see it. “Where was this?” I asked.
“I was cleaning the pie-crust table I got out of the attic, and it was
pushed way in the back of that shallow drawer, caught on a splinter,” he
said. “All I could think of was Gran, and I knew you’d wear it.”
I let the tears run out, then. “That’s the sweetest thing,” I said. “The
nicest thing you’ve ever done.”
“Here,” said Jane, as eagerly as a child. She put a little gift bag in my
hand. I smiled and dug my hand in. Jane had given me five “get a free car
wash” coupons from the place her son worked. I was able to thank her
sincerely. “I’ll use every one,” I promised her.
Hoyt and Holly had gotten me a bottle of wine, Danny and Kennedy
had gotten me an electric knife sharpener, and JB and Tara had regifted me
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with one of the five slow cookers they’d gotten when they got married. I was
glad to get it.
Sam handed me a heavy envelope. “You open that later,” he said
gruffly. I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “All right,” I said. “If that’s what you
want.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s what I want.”
Halleigh had made her version of Caroline Bellefleur’s chocolate cake,
and I cut it so everyone could have a piece, Dairy Queen Blizzard be damned.
It was marvelous. “I think that’s better than Miss Caroline’s,” I said, which
was close to heresy in Bon Temps.
“I put a pinch of cinnamon in,” she whispered.
After the party I went out the front to get birthday hugs from India,
now on duty, and Danielle, who was working in my place.
Halleigh wanted me to come over to her house to see the nursery,
which was completely ready for its expected occupant. I was so glad to be
with a happy person who had no agenda. The visit was a real treat.
After that, I had a quick supper with my grandmother’s friend. Maxine,
Hoyt’s mom, had been a couple of decades younger than Gran, but they’d
been tight. Maxine was so happy about Hoyt’s wedding that I was feeling
really cheerful after this visit; plus, Maxine had told me some funny stories
about Gran. It was nice to remember that side of Gran, the familiar side,
instead of thinking of her affair with Fintan. Dang, that had knocked me for a
loop. Thanks to Maxine, I had a nice hour remembering the Gran I’d always
thought I knew.
It grew dark as I drove home. Today was so much better than
yesterday. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such good friends. The
warm night seemed benevolent instead of scorching. I had a good time
singing along with the radio since there was no one to hear my awful voice.
I’d hoped to at least get some phone messages from my vampire friends
—of course, I’d been hoping to hear from Eric most of all. But my cell phone
didn’t chirp on the drive back to my place. I stopped briefly at the end of the
driveway to collect my local newspaper, and then I drove up to the house.
It wasn’t a total surprise—but it was a total relief—to find that they
were waiting for me. Pam’s car was parked at the back of the house, and Bill,
Eric, and Pam were sitting in lawn chairs in my backyard. Pam was wearing
a low-cut flowered T-shirt and white cropped pants as a nod to the season—
not that the temperature made any difference to her. Her high cork sandals
were a great finishing touch.
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“Hi, you-all!” I said, gathering all my gifts up out of the backseat. I gave
Pam a special nod to acknowledge her ensemble. “What’s up at Fangtasia?”
“We came to wish you a happy day,” Eric said. “And I suppose, as
usual, Bill will want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as
he’ll tell you—and Pam will want to say something sarcastic and nearly
painful, while reminding you that she loves you, too.”
Bill and Pam looked decidedly miffed at Eric’s preemptive strike, but I
wasn’t going to let anything dim my mood.
“And what about you, Eric?” I asked on counterattack. “Are you going
to tell me that you love me just as much as Bill, but in a practical way, while
finding some way to subtly threaten me and simultaneously remind me that
you may be leaving with Freyda?” I bared my teeth at him in a ferocious
smile as I trotted by the trio on my way up my back steps. I unlocked the
screen door, crossed the porch, unlocked the kitchen door, and went inside
with my armful.
After dumping the presents on the kitchen table, I stepped back out
onto the porch and opened the screen door. “Any of you have anything new
to say?” I looked from one to the other. “Or shall I just consider all this as
said?” Pam was looking away to hide her grin.
“Just that he was right,” Bill said, smiling openly. “I do love you more
than Eric does. Have a great night, Sookie. Here is a gift for you.” He held out
a little box with a bow on it, and I extended my arm to take it.
“Thank you, Mr. Compton,” I said, returning his smile, and he strode
off into the woods. At the edge, he turned to blow me a kiss.
Pam said, “Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I’d
want to spend time with a human, but you’re more tolerable than most. I
hope no one hurts you on your birthday.” As birthday wishes went, that kind
of sucked, but it was genuine Pam. I stepped down off the porch to give her a
hug. She returned it, which made me smile. You never knew with Pam. Her
touch was cold and she smelled of vampire. I was very fond of her. She
produced a small box, highly decorated, and pressed it into my hand.
She stepped back and looked from me to Eric. “I’ll leave you two to
whatever talk you want to have,” she said, her voice neutral. Eric was her
maker, and there was a limit to the verbal abuse she could deal out. In a
moment she was gone.
“Won’t you give me a hug, too?” Eric looked down at me, one eyebrow
hiked up.
“Before I start giving out hugs to you I need to know what our situation
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is,” I said. I sat down on the back steps, setting my presents carefully to the
side. Eric sat down, too.
I wasn’t happy anymore, of course, but I was much calmer than I’d
thought I’d be when I’d realized we had to have this conversation. “I think
you owe it to me to level with me,” I began. “For weeks, it seems like we
haven’t really been a couple, though you still tell everyone I’m your wife.
Lately, that’s just meant we have sex. I know it’s a tradition that guys don’t
like relationship talks. I don’t think I do, either. But we have to have one.”
“Let’s go inside.”
“No. That might end up with us in bed. Before we do that again, we
need to have an understanding between us.”
“I love you.” The security light glinted off his blond hair and was
swallowed in his all-black getup. He’d dressed for a funeral tonight.
“I love you, too, Eric. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”
Eric looked away. “I think not,” he said reluctantly. “Sookie … it’s not
just a straightforward decision, you over Freyda. If it were only one woman
over another … it’s you I love. That’s a given, not a choice at all. But it’s not
that simple.”
“It’s not that simple?” I repeated. I felt too many things to select one
emotion, to say, That’s the way I feel; I’m in dread. Or I’m angry. Or I’m numb
with fear. I had all those feelings, and more. Since I couldn’t bear to look at
Eric’s face any more than he could bear to look at mine, I looked up at the
starlit sky. After another moment’s silence, I said, “But it is, isn’t it. That
simple.”
The night swelled with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic
that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the
enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.
“My maker gave this to me as his last order,” Eric said.
“I would never have believed you’d try this argument,” I said. “‘I’m
just obeying orders.’ Come on! You can’t hide behind Appius’s wishes, Eric.
He’s gone.”
“He signed a contract, and it’s legally binding,” Eric said, still keeping
his composure.
“You’re giving yourself an excuse for doing something painful and
wrong,” I said.
“I’m locked into it,” he said, his expression savage.
I looked down at my feet for a minute. I was wearing my happy sandals
again, high-heeled and with little flowers on the strap across my toes. They
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looked ridiculously frivolous, appropriate for a single woman’s twentyeighth
birthday. They weren’t kiss-your-lover-good-bye shoes.
“Eric, you’re a strong vampire,” I said. I took his cool hand. “You’ve
always been the boldest, baddest guy around. If your maker were alive, I’d
believe you couldn’t help this. But I watched Appius die, right here in my
yard. So here’s my bottom line; here’s what I really believe. I think you could
get out of this if you hated Freyda. But you don’t. She’s beautiful. She’s rich.
She’s powerful. She needs you to watch her back, and the reward will be lots
of the stuff you love.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “All I got is me. And
I guess that’s not enough.” I waited, praying to hear a rebuttal. I looked up at
him. I saw no shame. I saw no weakness. I saw instead a laserlike intensity in
his blue eyes, so like my own.
He said, “Sookie, if I turn down this opportunity, Felipe will punish
both of us. Our lives will not be worth living.”
“Then we’ll leave,” I said quietly. “We’ll go somewhere else. You’ll
work for some other king or queen. I’ll find a job.”
But even as I spoke the words, I knew he would not opt for this. In fact,
I found myself wondering if I would have said it if I’d believed there was any
chance he’d say yes. On the whole, I thought I would, though it would have
meant leaving everything I found dear.
“If only there were some way to prevent this,” Eric said. “But I don’t
know of any way, and I can’t tear you away from your life.”
I didn’t know whether my heart was ripped in two, whether I felt
anguish or relief. I’d been sure he’d say that.
But he didn’t say anything else.
He was waiting for me to speak.
The apprehension was so strong in me that I felt my eyebrows draw
together in a question. “What?” I asked. “What?” I couldn’t imagine where he
wanted me to go in this terrible conversation.
Eric seemed almost angry, as if I weren’t picking up my cue.
I continued to be bewildered; he continued to try to force some
statement from me.
When he was sure I genuinely didn’t have a clue, Eric said, “You could
stop this if you chose.” Each word came clear and distinct.
“How?” I dropped his hands, spread my own to show my ignorance.
“Tell me how.” I rummaged through my mind as fast as I could, trying
frantically to understand what Eric could mean.
“You say you love me,” he said angrily. “You could stop this.”
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He turned to walk away.
“Just tell me how,” I asked, hearing and hating the desperation in my
voice. “Goddammit, just TELL ME HOW.”
He cast a look over his shoulder. I hadn’t seen that expression on his
face since we’d met, when he’d regarded me as just another disposable
human.
And then he was in the air. And then he was lost in the night sky.
I stood staring up for a minute or two. Maybe I expected blazing letters
to appear in the sky to explain his words. Maybe I thought Bill would pop
out of the woods like a deus ex machina to tell me what Eric had been so sure
I would understand.
I went back into the house and automatically locked the door behind
me. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, cudgeling my tired brain into
activity.
Okay, I said. Let’s figure this out. Eric said I could stop him from leaving with
Freyda. “But it can’t be just that I love him, because I told him that, and he
knows it,” I whispered. “So, it’s not how I feel, it’s some act I need to
perform.”
What act? How could I prevent their marriage?
I could kill Freyda; however, not only would that be a horrible thing to
do, since she’d done nothing more than desire the man I loved, but any
attempt to kill the powerful vampire would be simply suicidal.
And killing Eric would hardly produce a happy ending, and that was
the only other way I could imagine stopping him.
I guess I could go to Felipe and beg him to keep Eric, I thought. Though Eric
had said Felipe would punish both of us if Eric remained in Louisiana,
disobliging Freyda, I seriously considered how I would go about appealing to
the king. What response would he have? He knew I’d saved his life once
upon a time, but though he’d made me big promises, he hadn’t exactly come
through with them. No, Felipe would laugh when I went down on my knees.
And then he’d tell me he thought he ought to honor Appius’s wishes and let
Appius’s child make such an advantageous match.
In return, I was sure Felipe would be favored in any subsequent
dealings between Oklahoma and Nevada or Arkansas or Louisiana.
All in all, I really couldn’t see any chance at all that Felipe would agree
to let Eric remain in Shreveport. Eric’s worth as a sheriff couldn’t equal the
huge plus of having him at Freyda’s side, murmuring things into Freyda’s
ear.
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Okay, begging Felipe was out. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved.
I was still poking at my brain, trying to get it to spit out an idea, while I
showered and put on my nightshirt. Eric had been so sure I could stop the
Freyda-Felipe deal. How? It was like Eric thought I had a magic wish,
something tucked up my sleeve.
Oh.
I froze, one arm through an armhole, the rest of the nightshirt bunched
around my neck. I didn’t breathe for a long moment.
Eric knew about the cluviel dor.
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Chapter 15
I sat up all night.
My brain ran through the same old paces like a chipmunk in a cage. I
always ended with the same conclusion.
Eric was trying to get me to admit I had the cluviel dor. What would
have happened if I’d understood him last night, if I’d admitted it? Would he
have taken it from me? I didn’t know if he simply sought it for himself, or if
Freyda would barter the cluviel dor in return for Eric’s services, or if Eric
simply wanted me to use it to stop him from going to Oklahoma.
And here’s what happens when you have too much time to think: I
actually considered the idea that Eric might have engineered this whole
episode with Freyda to get me to reveal the location of the cluviel dor. That
was a sickening possibility. If I hadn’t experienced past betrayals, such an
idea would never have crossed my mind. Even though I had accepted the
world as it was, it made me sad that I was sure such a long-term and planned
deception was possible.
Every new thought seemed to be worse than the previous one.
I lay in the dark watching the clock change.
I tried to think of things I could do, something besides lie in this bed. I
could run across the cemetery to talk to Bill, who was surely up. That was a
terrible idea, and I discarded it the first ten times it occurred to me. The
eleventh time, I actually got out of bed and walked to the back door before I
made myself turn away. I knew if I went over to talk to Bill right now,
something might happen that I would surely regret—and that wasn’t fair to
me or Eric. Not until I knew for sure.
(I really knew for sure.)
I opened my purse and took the cluviel dor into my hand. Its warm,
smooth surface relieved my pain, calmed me. I didn’t know if I could trust
this feeling or not, but it was far preferable to my previous misery. I heard
Dermot come in and walk very quietly through the house. I couldn’t bear the
idea of explaining the situation, so I didn’t let him know I was awake.
When he was safely upstairs, I moved into my dark living room and
waited for the dawn. I fell asleep just as the night was lightening gradually
into day. I slept sitting up on the couch until I woke four hours later, a cramp
in my neck and stiffness in all my joints. I got up, feeling like I imagined an
old woman felt first thing in the morning. I unlocked the front door and
stepped out onto the porch. I heard birds singing, and the heat of the day was
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well advanced. Life was trudging onward.
Since I couldn’t think what else to do, I went into the kitchen and
started a pot of coffee. At least I didn’t have to go to work today, since
Merlotte’s was closed on Sunday.
The night before, I had tossed our weekly local newspaper on the table
unread, so while I sipped the coffee I took off the rubber band and spread it
out. It was only a few pages, a little tube compared to the Shreveport daily
paper, which I also read. Often the Bon Temps paper had news that was more
interesting, though. That was the case today. Bear in Local Woods? read the
headline. I skimmed the article hastily, and my heart sank, if there were any
lower depths to hold it.
Two deer carcasses found by local men had led to some excited
speculation. “Some large predator did this,” said Terry Bellefleur, who happened
upon one of the killing sites while training his dog. “It didn’t exactly look like a bear
or panther kill, but this deer was killed by something big.”
Dammit. I’d warned Bellenos to stick to my woods.
“Oh, I didn’t have quite enough to worry about,” I said, rising to pour
some more coffee. “I needed something else.”
“What are you worried about?” Claude asked.
I screamed, and my coffee mug went flying.
When I could speak, I said, “You. Do. Not. Do. That. To. Me.” He must
have come in through the unlocked front door. He had keys, anyway, but I
would have heard them in the lock and had some warning.
“Cousin, I’m sorry,” he said contritely, but I could see the amusement
in his eyes.
Oh, shit. Where had I put the cluviel dor?
I’d left it on the coffee table in the living room. It took every bit of selfcontrol
I had not to break and run for the living room.
“Claude,” I said, “things haven’t been going well while you were
gone.” I struggled to make my voice level. “Some of your fae workers have
been taking little vacations.” I pointed to the paper. “I guess Dermot spent
the night at Hooligans. You should read this.” If he hadn’t come through the
backyard, he might not have seen Dermot’s car.
Claude poured himself a cup of coffee and obediently pulled out a
chair.
His actions weren’t threatening, but I was looking at the man who’d
sent Kym Rowe to her death; for all I knew, he was the one who’d killed her
when she hadn’t gotten Eric to do the job. Claude’s sudden reappearance—
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without Niall—would have been enough to raise the hair on my arms even if
I hadn’t known about his collusion with Jannalynn.
Why had Claude returned by himself? There was something in his face
that hadn’t been there before. I was willing him to sit down, willing him to
give me the time to walk into the living room and retrieve the magical object.
“Where is Niall?” I asked, picking up my mug, which (amazingly)
hadn’t broken. After I put it by the sink, I got a wad of paper towels to mop
up the spilled coffee.
“Still in Faery,” Claude said, ostensibly concentrating on the paper.
“Oh, did you like your friend’s act at Hooligans? Your human friend?”
“JB. Well, his wife and I were sure surprised. Him being the only
human, and her not knowing he was doing it and all.”
“He needed a job, and I remembered the pretty lady who was with
child,” Claude said. “See, I did a good thing. I’m not so bad.”
“I never said you were.”
“You look at me, though, from time to time, as if you can’t understand
why I get to breathe the same air you do.”
I was genuinely staggered. “Claude, I’m so sorry if I’ve ever given the
impression I thought you were worthless. Certainly I don’t feel that way.” Or
did I? No, I didn’t. I thought he was selfish and charmless and maybe guilty
of murder, but that was different.
“You don’t want to have sex with me. If you had more fae blood, you
certainly would want it.”
“But I don’t. You’re gay. I’m in love with someone else. I don’t believe
in having sex with relatives. We’ve had this conversation before. I really,
really don’t want to have it again.”
The feeling of wrongness and badness kept growing; especially after
my experience with the rogue Weres, I knew better than to ignore it. I also
knew Claude was stronger than I was, and I assumed he had skills I’d never
seen.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re trying to let me know that my kith and kin are
hunting at night? Is that the point of giving me this newspaper?”
“Yes, Claude. That’s the point. Dermot’s about been nuts, trying to keep
them in line. Did Niall get the letter I sent?”
“I don’t know,” Claude said.
I was bewildered. “I thought you went back with Niall to investigate
who’d cast the crazy spell on Dermot,” I said. “He’s been spending lots of
nights at the club and trying real hard to keep things running.” I was
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frightened for myself, of course, but I was frightened for Dermot, too. I hoped
Dermot was awake by now; Claude wouldn’t take my word for it that
Dermot wasn’t there. He’d go up to check.
“So what have you been doing in Faery? Did you ever find out who cast
the spell?”
“Niall and I have had some disagreements,” Claude said, his beautiful
dark eyes flashing up to meet mine. “I’m sorry to say that Niall believes it
was me who cursed Dermot.”
I was left with no response, since I was by now pretty sure myself that
Claude was the culprit. “I think that’s awful,” I said, with absolute sincerity.
He could take it as he chose. “I’m gonna go open the shades in the living
room. Have some more coffee. I think I’ve got some Toaster Strudels in the
freezer if you’re hungry.” I walked down the hall to the living room, trying
not to hurry, trying to make my footsteps regular and nonchalant. I even
went directly to one of the front windows and raised the blind. “It’s gonna be
a pretty day,” I called, turned, and in one gesture swept up the cluviel dor
and put it in my nightshirt pocket. Dermot was halfway down the stairs.
He said, “Did I hear Claude’s voice?” and made as if to hurry past me.
Apparently, he hadn’t even looked at what I’d picked up, which was a relief
—but not at the top of my list of problems just at the moment.
“Yes, he’s home,” I said, in what I hoped was a natural voice, but I
gripped Dermot’s arm as he went by me. I looked at him with as much
warning as I could pack into my eyes.
Dermot’s blue eyes, so like Jason’s, widened in shock. There was no
gesture I could make that would clearly translate as “I think he wants to do
something awful to us! He killed Kym Rowe for some reason I can’t fathom,
and I think he cursed you!” but at least Dermot understood that caution was
called for.
“I told him you weren’t here,” I whispered. He nodded.
“Claude,” he called. “Where have you been? Sookie didn’t hear me
come in last night, she says. The other fae are champing at the bit to hear
your news.” He started toward the kitchen.
But he met Claude coming into the living room. I didn’t think Claude
had witnessed our silent colloquy, but at this point I wouldn’t put money on
anything good. Yesterday had been my good day, apparently, even though it
had ended as badly as I thought it could have. I’d been wrong! Claude could
have returned last night. Yep, that would have been worse.
“Dermot,” said Claude. His voice was so cold it stopped Dermot dead. I
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went on and opened the other blind.
“What’s wrong? Why have you returned without Father?” Dermot said.
“Grandfather has issues he must deal with,” Claude snarled. “In
Faery.”
“What did you do?” Dermot asked. He was brave. I was trying to
unobtrusively creep into my room to retrieve my cell phone. I didn’t know
whom I would call; I didn’t know who could deal with a fairy. “What did
you do, Claude?”
“I thought that when I went back with him, I would find support for
our program,” Claude said.
Uh-oh. I didn’t like the sound of that. I took two more steps to my left.
Hooligans! I’d call the fae at Hooligans! Wait. Unless they were backing
Claude in whatever the hell his program was. Shit. What should I do?
Dermot wasn’t armed. He was wearing sleep pants and no shirt.
My shotgun was in the closet by the front door. Maybe the closet
should be my goal, instead of the cell phone. Did I have Hooligans on speed
dial? How long would it take the police to get out here if I hit 911? Would
Claude kill them?
“And you didn’t?” Dermot said. “I’m not sure what program you
mean, Claude?”
“You naïve simpleton,” Claude said scathingly. “How hard have you
worked at ignoring what was going on all around you, so you could stay
with us?”
Claude was just being mean now. If I’d had any sleep, I wouldn’t have
snapped then, but I hadn’t, and I did. “Claude Crane, you are just being an
A-number-one asshole,” I exploded. “And you shut up right now!”
I’d succeeded in startling Claude, and he turned his gaze on me for just
a second, but Dermot took advantage of that second to hit Claude as hard as
he could, which proved to be plenty hard. Claude lurched to his right, and
Dermot kept punching. Of course, the element of surprise was gone after the
first blow. Claude had another skill besides stripping. He could fight dirty.
The two launched into it, two beautiful men doing something so ugly I
could hardly bear to watch.
The heaviest thing around was a lamp that had belonged to my greatgrandmother.
With a flash of reluctance I picked it up. I proposed to bash
Claude’s head in, if I got the opportunity.
But then my back door flew open and Bellenos bounded through my
kitchen and down the hall. He had a true sword in his hand, instead of his
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deer-hunting spear. Gift was with him, long knives in both her hands. Three
more of the Monroe fae were with them: two of the strippers, the fairy
“policeman” and the part demon who’d worn leather when he’d come
onstage. The curvy ticket taker followed. She hadn’t bothered with looking
human today.
“Help Dermot!” I yelled, hoping that was what they’d come to do. To
my overwhelming relief, they whooped with excitement and threw
themselves into the brawl. There was a lot of unnecessary punching and
biting, but when they were sure Claude was subdued, they all began
laughing. Even Dermot.
At least I was able to put the lamp back on the table.
“Would someone tell me what’s going on?” I asked. I felt (as usual with
the supes) two steps behind the crowd, and no telepath enjoys feeling that
way. I was going to have to hang around with humans for a long time to
make up for this sad ignorance.
“My dearest sister,” Bellenos said. He smiled that disconcerting smile at
me. He looked especially toothy today, and since there was blood between
some of those teeth, the effect was not reassuring.
“Hi, y’all,” was the best I could do, but they all grinned back, and Gift
gave Dermot an enthusiastic kiss. Her extra eyelid flickered down and up
again, almost too fast for me to note.
In the meantime, Claude was lying on the floor in a panting, bloody
bundle. There was still plenty of fight in him, from the glares he was
throwing around, but he was so clearly outnumbered that it seemed he’d
given up … at least temporarily. The ticket taker was sitting on his legs, and
the two strippers were each pinning one arm.
Gift came to sit by me; I’d collapsed on the couch. She put her arm
around me. “Claude was trying to incite us to rebel against Niall,” she said
kindly. “Sister, I’m surprised he didn’t try to test your loyalty, too.”
“Well, he wouldn’t have gotten very far!” I said. “I would have thrown
him out in a New York minute!”
“Then see, that was intelligent of you, Claude,” said Bellenos, bending
over to speak to Claude face-to-face. “One of the few intelligent things you
did.” Claude glared at him.
Dermot shook his handsome head. “All this time I thought I must try to
emulate Claude, because he had been so successful out here in the human
world. But I realized that when he thought people were pleased with him, he
didn’t perceive that it was only because he is beautiful. Much more often,
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when he talked to people, they came to regard him with dislike. I couldn’t
believe it, but he’d done well in spite of himself, not because of his own
talents.”
“He does like children,” I said weakly. “And he’s nice to pregnant
women.”
“Yes, that’s true,” the policeman stripper said. “By the way, you can
just call me Dirk, my stripping name. Siobhan is sitting on Claude’s legs. And
this is Harley. I’m sure you remember Harley.”
“Oh, yeah, who could forget Harley?” I said. Even under the
circumstances, I had a gratifying flashback of how Harley’s straight black
hair and coppery red body had looked under the lights at Hooligans. Harley
tried to bow from a crouching position, which isn’t easy, and Siobhan
grinned at me. “So … Claude really was locked out of Faery, along with youall?
That wasn’t a lie?”
“No, not a lie,” said Dermot sadly. “My father hated me because he
thought I’d always worked against him. But I was cursed. I thought he’d
done the cursing, but I see now it must have been Claude all along. Claude,
you betrayed me and then kept me trotting behind you like a dog.”
Claude began to speak in another language, and then the fae moved
with an unbelievable speed. Gift yanked off her bra top, and Harley stuffed it
in Claude’s mouth. It would have been petty of me to take any notice of Gift’s
bare chest, so I rose above it.
“That was a secret fairy language?” I hated to ask, but I just wanted to
know. My days of ignorance were over.
Dirk nodded. “We speak to each other that way; it’s what we have in
common: full fairy, demon, angel, all the half-breeds.”
“Dermot, did you and Claude really come here because of my fairy
blood?” I asked Dermot. Claude’s mouth was otherwise occupied.
“Yes,” Dermot said uncertainly. “Though Claude said there was
something here that attracted him, and he spent hours when you were gone
searching your house. When he couldn’t find what he wanted here, he
thought perhaps it was in the furniture you sold. He went to that shop and
broke in to examine all the furniture again.”
I felt a little bubble of rage float to the top of my brain. “Though I was
nice enough to let him live with me. He searched my house. Went through
my stuff. While I was gone.”
Dermot nodded. From the guilty glance he gave me, I was pretty damn
sure Claude had enlisted my great-uncle in his search.
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“What was he looking for?” Harley asked curiously.
“He sensed a fairy object in Sookie’s house, a fairy influence.”
They all looked at me, simultaneously, with sharp attention.
“Gran—you-all know my fairy blood comes from my grandmother and
Fintan, right?” They all nodded and blinked. I was sure glad I hadn’t been
trying to keep that a secret. “Gran was friends with Mr. Cataliades, through
Fintan.” They nodded again, more slowly. “He left something here, but when
he stopped by a few days ago, he picked it up.”
They appeared to accept that pretty well. At least no one leaped up to
say, “You liar, you have it in your pocket!”
Claude thrashed on the floor. Clearly, he wanted to put in his two
cents’ worth, and I was glad the bra was in his mouth.
“If I’m getting to ask questions …” I said, waiting for Bellenos to
interrupt, to tell me my time was up. But that didn’t happen.
“Claude, I know you tried to sabotage me and Eric. But I don’t know
why.”
Dirk raised interrogative eyebrows. Did I want him to remove the gag?
“Maybe you can just let me know if I get something right,” I suggested,
hoping that the gag stayed in. “Did you go to Jannalynn for help because you
wanted to enlist a shifter of some kind?”
Glaring at me, Claude nodded.
“Who’s that?” Dermot whispered, as if the air would answer him.
“Jannalynn Hopper is the second of the Long Tooth pack in
Shreveport,” I said. “She’s been dating my boss, Sam Merlotte. But she hates
me, which is a long story for some other time, though it’s pretty boring.
Anyway, I knew she’d love to do me a bad turn if she could. And the young
woman who got murdered in Eric’s front yard turned out to be a half-Were
with a death wish and severe financial problems, ripe for a desperate plan, I
figure. Claude, you gave her some of your blood to make her alluring to Eric,
I think?”
The fae all looked absolutely aghast. I couldn’t have said anything more
abhorrent to them. “You gave your sacred blood to a mongrel?” hissed Gift,
and kicked Claude heartily.
Claude closed his eyes and nodded.
Maybe he wanted them to kill him on the spot. Kym Rowe hadn’t been
the only person to develop a wish to die.
“So I get how you did it … but why? Why did you want Eric to lose
control? What benefit to you?”
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“Oh, I know that one!” Dermot said brightly.
I sighed. “Maybe you would explain.”
“Claude told me several times that if we could get Niall to return to
your side, we could attack him here in the human world, where he wouldn’t
be surrounded by his supporters,” Dermot said. “But I ignored his scheming.
I was sure Niall wouldn’t return and couldn’t return, because he was firm in
his resolution to stay in Faery. But Claude argued that Niall loves you so
much that if something happened to you, he’d come to your side. So he tried
to ruin Eric, thinking that at best you and Eric would fight and Eric would
hurt you. Or you’d be arrested for murdering him, and you’d need your
great-grandfather. At the very least, you would throw Eric aside and your
misery would bring Niall running.”
“I was pretty miserable,” I said slowly. “And I was even more
miserable last night.”
“And here I am,” said a voice I recognized. “I’ve come in response to
your letter, which opened my eyes to many things.”
He was glowing. My great-grandfather hadn’t troubled with his human
appearance, either. The white-blond hair floated in the air around him. His
face was radiant, his eyes like fairy lights on a white tree.
The little cluster of fae in my living room fell to their knees.
He put his arms around me, and I felt his incredible beauty, his
terrifying magic, and his crazy devotion.
There was nothing human about him.
He put his mouth right by my ear. “I know you have it,” he said.
Suddenly we were standing in my bedroom instead of in the living
room. “You gonna take it?” I asked, in the smallest possible voice. Those
were fae in the living room. They might hear.
“Don’t even show it to me,” he said. “It was from my son to his loved
one. He intended it for a human. It should stay in human hands.”
“But you really, really want it.”
“I do, and I have very poor impulse control.”
“Okay. No looks.” Danger. I was trying to relax, but it’s not easy loving
and being loved by a powerful prince who has no human frame of reference;
furthermore, one whose great age has kind of unhinged him. Just a little bit.
From time to time. “What will happen to the fae in my living room?”
“I will take them with me,” Niall said. “I have taken care of a lot of
things while Claude was with me. I never let him know what I already
understood about him. I know what happened to Dermot. I have forgiven
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Dermot.”
Okay, that was good.
“Will you close Faery? For good?”
“Soon,” he whispered, his lips again uncomfortably close to my ear.
“You have not asked yet who told your lover that you have the … object.”
“That would be a good thing for me to learn.”
“You need to know.” His arms grew uncomfortably tight around me. I
made myself relax against him.
“It was me,” Niall said, almost inaudibly.
I jerked back as if he’d pinched my butt. “What?”
The brilliant eyes bored into mine. “You had to know,” he said. “You
had to know what would happen if he believed you had power.”
“Please tell me you didn’t engineer the whole Appius thing?” That
would be more than I could bear.
“No. Eric is unfortunate in that people feel the need to take him down a
peg, including his own maker. The Roman wanted to keep control over so
vital a being even after his own death, which became far more likely once he
turned the child. So unstable. Appius Livius Ocella made mistakes in his
whole long existence. Perhaps changing Eric was his finest hour. He created
the perfect vampire. Eric’s only flaw is you.”
“But …” I couldn’t think of what I’d been about to say.
“Of course, that’s not how I perceive it, dearest. You are the one right
impulse Eric has had in five hundred years or more. Well, Pam is all right.
Even Eric’s other living child does not rival her maker.”
“Thanks,” I said numbly, the words not sinking in at all. “So you knew
Appius?”
“We met. He was a stinking Roman asshole.”
“True.”
“I was glad when he died. Out in your front yard, wasn’t it?”
“Ah. Yes.”
“The ground around your house has become soaked with blood. It will
add to its magic and fertility.”
“What happens now?” I said, because I simply couldn’t think of what
else to say.
He lifted me and carried me out of the bedroom like I was a baby. It
didn’t feel like the times when Eric had carried me, which had had a
definitely carnal edge. This was incredibly tender and (like a lot of things
about my great-grandfather) incredibly creepy.
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He put me on the couch as carefully as if I were an egg. “This is what
happens next,” he told me. He turned to the other fae, still on their knees.
Claude had stopped thrashing and was looking up at Niall with resignation.
For the moment, Niall ignored his grandson.
“Do you all want to go home?” he asked the others.
“Yes, Prince,” said Dirk. “Please, with our kindred waiting at Claude’s
club? If we may? If you will.”
Dermot said, “With your blessing, I’ll stay here, Father.”
For a moment they all looked at Dermot incredulously, as if he’d just
announced he was going to birth a kangaroo.
Niall folded Dermot to him. I could see Dermot’s face, and it was
ecstatic, frightened, everything I had felt in Niall’s embrace. Niall said, “You
won’t be a fairy anymore. The American fae are all leaving. Choose.”
The conflict on Dermot’s face was painful to see. “Sookie,” he said,
“who can finish your upstairs work?”
“I’ll hire Terry Bellefleur,” I said. “He won’t be as good as you,
Dermot.”
“No television,” Dermot said. “I’ll miss HGTV.” Then he smiled. “But I
can’t live without my essence, and I am your son, Niall.”
Niall beamed down at Dermot, which was what Dermot had wanted
his whole life.
I got up because I couldn’t stand to have him leave without a hug. I
even started crying, which I hadn’t expected. They all kissed me, even
Bellenos, though I felt his teeth scrape lightly on my cheek, and I felt his chest
move in a silent chuckle.
Niall made some mysterious signs over my head and closed his eyes,
just like a priest giving a blessing. I felt something change in the house, the
land.
And then they were gone. Even Claude.
I was stupefied. I was willing to bet that over at Hooligans, the bar
stood empty, the doors locked.
The fae were gone from America. Their departure point? Bon Temps,
Louisiana. The woods behind my house.
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Chapter 16
As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy to go on and have a normal day after that.
I hadn’t slept all night, and the traumas had just kept on coming.
But after I showered and straightened up the living room, which had
suffered a bit during the fight, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table
trying to absorb everything: last night, this morning.
It was taking a lot of energy to do that. About halfway through setting
my mental house in order, I had to think about something else. Luckily, there
was something right in front of me that would serve.
Among the presents I’d tossed to the table last night was Pam’s little
box, Bill’s box, and Sam’s envelope, which I’d never examined. Pam had
given me perfume, and I liked the smell of it very much. Bill had given me a
necklace with a cameo pendant. The likeness on it was my gran’s. “Oh, Bill,” I
said, “you did great!” Nothing could top such a gift, I thought, as I reached
for Sam’s envelope. I figured he’d picked a fancy birthday card—with,
maybe, a gift certificate enclosed.
Sam had officially made me a partner in the bar. I legally owned a third
of Merlotte’s.
I put my head on the table and swore. In a happy way.
This past twenty-four hours had been my personal trail of tears. No
more!
I picked myself up out of that chair, slapped on about a ton of makeup
and a sundress, and put a smile on my face. It was time to rejoin the land of
the living, the everyday world. I didn’t want to learn one more secret or
suffer one more betrayal.
I was due to meet Kennedy for breakfast at LaLaurie’s, which (she’d
told me) served a great Sunday brunch. I didn’t think I’d ever eaten a meal
and called it “brunch.” Today I did, and it was really excellent. White
tablecloths and cloth napkins, too! Kennedy was wearing a pretty sundress,
too, and her hair was in full pageant mode. The hickey on her neck was not
quite covered by her makeup.
Kennedy was in an excellent mood, and she confided in me way more
than I wanted to know about the wonderfulness that now lay between Danny
and her. Danny was even now running errands for Bill Compton since he
didn’t have to work at the lumberyard, which was closed on Sunday. It was
going to work out. He’d be making a living wage. When their finances
stabilized, maybe they would move in together. “Maybe,” she emphasized,
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but I wasn’t fooled. Their cohabitation was a done deal.
I thought of my happy fantasies of the night before; had it really just
been the night before? I tried to remember all the happy endings I’d imagined
for everyone, and I tried to recollect if I’d included Danny and Kennedy in
the roundup.
After I left LaLaurie’s, full and happy, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer
to thank Sam for his amazing gift. His truck was parked in front of his trailer.
His carefully watered hedge and yard were flourishing despite the heat. Not
many men would try to keep a yard around their double-wide if it was
parked behind a bar. I’d always tried to let Sam’s house be his house. I could
count on my fingers the times I’d knocked on his door.
Today was one of them.
When he answered the door, my smile faded away. I could tell
something was mighty wrong.
Then I realized that he knew what Jannalynn had done.
He looked at me bleakly. “I don’t know what to say to you,” he said.
“This is the second time I’ve been with a woman who tried to do you harm.”
It actually took me a second to remember who the other one had been.
“Callisto? Oh, Sam, that was a while ago, and she was hardly a woman. She
didn’t mean any of it personal. Jannalynn, well, she definitely did. But she’s
an ambitious young woman; she’s trying …” My voice trailed off. She’s trying
to take over the pack from her packmaster, to whom she swore loyalty. She’s trying to
make sure my boyfriend gets arrested for murder. She conspired with a fairy to pay
Kym Rowe to go to her death. She kidnapped Warren. She left him to die. She was
trying to kill me, one way or another.
“Okay,” I said, conceding defeat. “You fucked up with Jannalynn.”
He blinked at me. His reddish-blond hair was standing up like
porcupine quills all over his head. He tilted his head to one side as if he
wasn’t sure I was quite in focus.
His mouth quirked up in an unwilling grin. I grinned back. Then we
both laughed. Not a lot, but enough to clear the air.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Do you know what happened night before
last?”
“Tell me,” he said, standing aside so I could come in.
Sam had heard a sketchy version from a pack member who’d become a
friend of his, a young man who worked for Jannalynn at Hair of the Dog.
“You didn’t tell me what you suspected about her,” Sam said. He left that
sitting there between us.
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“Sam, let me tell you about what’s happened the last couple of days,
and you’ll understand, I promise,” I said, and with a certain amount of
editing, I told him.
“Good God, Sookie,” he said. “You really know how to have a birthday,
huh?”
“The best part of my birthday was my present from you,” I said, and I
took his hand.
Sam turned red. “Aw, Sook. You earned it. You deserve it. And look, I
didn’t make you equal partner, did I?”
“Trying to make your gift look like less won’t work for me,” I said. I
kissed him on the cheek and got up, to make the moment lighten so Sam
would be more comfortable. “I got to get home,” I said, though I couldn’t
imagine what for.
“See you tomorrow.”
It would be a lot sooner than that.
I felt curiously blank on the drive home to my empty house.
For what seemed like forever, my spare time had been taken up by Eric.
We were making plans to meet, or we were together, or we were talking on
the telephone. Now that it seemed our relationship was unraveling, I had no
idea what to expect from our next meeting. If we had a next meeting. But I
couldn’t imagine how I would fill the hole in my life left by his absence. Now
that I knew who’d tried to get Eric into trouble, I knew that his involvement
with me had led to this moment. He’d never have been targeted by Claude,
by Jannalynn, if it hadn’t been for me, and that was such a reversal on the
usual situation—I’d been the object of so many schemes because Eric was my
lover—that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. I wondered how much
Eric knew of what had transpired, but I couldn’t bring myself to call him to
tell about it all.
He had known I had the cluviel dor, and he had expected me to use it
to get him out of the arrangement Appius had made with Freyda.
And maybe I would have done that. Maybe I still would. It seemed the
obvious choice, the most apparent thing to do with the magic. But it also
seemed to me that Eric was expecting me to magically get him out of a
situation that he should defeat by his own efforts. He should love me enough
to simply refuse Freyda. It was like he wanted the decision out of his hands.
That was an idea I didn’t want to have. But you can’t erase a thought;
once you’ve had it, it’s there to stay.
I would love to feel an absolute conviction that yanking that cluviel dor
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out of my pocket and wishing with all my heart that Eric would stay with me
was the right thing to do.
I poked at that thought. I prodded that thought. But it just didn’t feel
right to me.
I took a much-needed nap. When I got up, though I wasn’t really all
that hungry, I microwaved a dish of lasagna and picked at it as I thought. No
one at the bar had heard news of any more mysterious deer deaths, and now
I was sure there never would be. I wondered about Hooligans, presumably
now sitting empty, but it wasn’t anything to do with me anymore. Oh, gosh,
the guys were sure to have left some stuff upstairs. Maybe this evening I’d
pack it up. Not that there was any address to forward it to.
Okay, maybe I’d take the clothes to Goodwill.
I watched television for a while—an old black-and-white movie about a
man and a woman who loved one another but had to overcome all sorts of
things to be together, a cooking show, a couple of episodes of Jeopardy. (I
couldn’t get any answers right.) My only phone call was from a fund-raising
organization. I turned them down.
They were disappointed in me, I could tell.
When the phone rang again, I picked it up without bothering to turn
down the sound on the TV.
“Sookie?” said a familiar voice.
I pressed the Off button on the remote. “Alcide, how is Warren?”
“He’s much better. I think he’s gonna be fine. Listen, I need you and
Sam to come to the old farm tonight.”
“Your dad’s place?”
“Yeah. Your presence was requested.”
“By whom?”
“By Jannalynn.”
“You found her?”
“Yeah.”
“But Sam, too? She wants Sam?”
“Yeah. She deceived him, too. He has a right to be there.”
“Did you call him?”
“He’s on his way to pick you up.”
“Do I have to?” I said.
“You whining, Sookie?”
“Yeah, I guess I am, Alcide. I’m mighty tired, and more bad stuff has
happened than you know.”
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“I can’t take any more than I have on my plate. Just come. If it makes
you want to attend this little soiree more, your honey’s gonna be there.”
“Eric?”
“Yeah. The King of Cold himself.”
Fear and longing rippled along my skin. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll come.”
By the time I heard Sam’s truck in the driveway, the lack of sleep I’d
experienced the night before was hitting me in a major way. I’d spent the
minutes I’d waited by refreshing my memory about the route to Alcide’s
family place, and I’d written the directions out. When Sam knocked on the
door, I stuck the paper in my purse. We were going to be walking around a
farm at night; I’d want to leave my purse in the car. I made certain the cluviel
dor was still in my pocket and I felt the now-familiar curved shape.
Sam’s face was grim and hard, and it felt wrong to see him that way.
We didn’t talk on the way to the farm.
I had to turn on Sam’s overhead light from time to time to read my
directions, but I was able to steer us right. I think the preoccupation with
actually getting there helped keep us from worrying too much about what
we’d see when we arrived.
We found a mess of cars parked higgledy-piggledy in the front yard of
the old farmhouse. To call it “remote” was to be kind. Though there was
more cleared land around it than there had ever been at my place, it was even
more private. No one lived here full time any longer. Alcide’s dad’s dad had
owned the farm, and Jackson Herveaux had kept it after he’d gone into
construction so he’d have a place to run at the full moon. The pack had used
it often. The front of the house was dark, but I could hear voices around the
back. Sam and I trudged through the high weeds. We didn’t say a word to
each other.
We might as well have walked into another country.
The meadow behind the house was mowed and smooth. There were
lights up. I could see from posts that normally there was a volley-ball net set
up across a sand court. A few yards away, there was a pool that looked new. I
even spotted a baseball diamond farther back. A Weber grill was under the
covered patio. Clearly, this was where the pack came to relax and have
fellowship.
I saw the tall and quiet Kandace first. She smiled at me and pointed to
Alcide, who stood out among his people as much as Niall did among his.
Tonight Alcide looked like a king. A king in jeans and a T-shirt, a barefoot
king. And he looked dangerous. The power gathered around him. The air
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was humming with the magic of the pack.
Good. We needed more tension.
Eric shone like the moon; he was pale and commanding, and there was
a large empty space around him. He was alone. He held out his hand to me,
and I took it, to a flare of dismay from the twoeys.
“You know, about Jannalynn and Claude?” I looked up at him.
“Yes, I know. Niall sent me a message.”
“He’s gone. They’ve all gone.”
“He told me I would not hear from him again.”
I nodded and gulped. No more crying. “So what’s going to happen
tonight?”
“I don’t know what we’re here to see,” he said. “An execution? A duel?
With the wolves, I can’t predict.”
Sam was standing by himself, just under the awning over the patio.
Alcide went up to him and spoke, and Sam shrugged, then nodded. He
stepped out to stand by Alcide.
I looked around at the faces of the pack members. They were all restless
because of the night and because of the promise of violence in the air. There
was going to be bleeding tonight.
Alcide raised an arm, and four figures were led from the back of the
house. Their hands were bound. Van, Plump, the bandaged Airman
(Laidlaw, Mustapha had called him), and Jannalynn. I didn’t know where
they’d caught up with her, but her face was bruised. She’d put up a fight,
which was no surprise at all.
Then I saw Mustapha. He’d blended with the darkness. He was
magnificently nude. Warren was in the shadows behind him, huddled in a
folding lawn chair. He was too far away for me to get a good look at him.
Mustapha had a sword. Too many of those in my life these days, I thought,
feeling Eric’s cold hand tightening on mine.
“We are here to judge tonight,” Alcide said. “We’ve had to judge
members all too often lately. The pack has been full of dissension and
disloyalty. Tonight I require all of you to renew your oaths, and tonight I say
that the penalty for breaking them is death.”
The werewolves drew in breath sharply, collectively, like a single quiet
scream. I looked around. Werewolfism manifests itself along with puberty, so
none of the faces were younger than early teens, but that was young enough
to make their presence shocking.
“After the judgments are rendered tonight, anyone who likes can
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challenge me on this spot,” Alcide said. His face was savage. “No candidate
has announced against me, but if anyone would like to win here and now,
without a ceremony, you’re welcome to try single combat. Prepare yourself to
fight to the death.”
Everyone was frozen in place now. This was not at all like the
packmaster challenge I’d seen before, the one in which Alcide’s father had
died. That had been a formal, ceremonial contest. Alcide himself had
succeeded to the position when his father’s challenger, Patrick Furnan, had
died fighting side by side with Alcide against a common enemy. Packmaster
by acclamation, I guess you’d term it. Tonight Alcide was throwing down the
gauntlet to every wolf present. It was a big gamble.
“Now for judgment,” Alcide said, when he had looked into the face of
every pack member.
The prisoners were pushed forward to land on their knees in the sand
of the volleyball court. Roy, the Were who was dating Palomino, seemed to
be in charge of the miscreants.
“The three rogues I had turned down for admission into the pack acted
against us,” Alcide said in a voice that carried across the yard. “They
abducted Warren, the friend of Mustapha, who in turn is a friend—though
not a member—of this pack. If he hadn’t been found in time, Warren would
have died.”
Everyone moved in unison, turning to stare at the people on their
knees.
“The three rogues were incited by Jannalynn Hopper, not only a pack
member, but also my enforcer. Jannalynn couldn’t subdue her pride and
ambition. She couldn’t wait until she was strong enough to challenge me
openly. Instead she started a campaign of undermining me. She looked for
power in the wrong places. She even accepted money from a fairy in return
for finding a half-bitch who would try to get Eric Northman arrested for
murder. When Eric was too smart to act the way she thought he would,
Jannalynn stole into his yard and murdered Kym Rowe herself, so Kym
wouldn’t tell the police who’d hired her. Some of you remember running
with Oscar, Kym’s father. He’s joined us tonight.”
Kym’s father, Oscar, was skulking behind Alcide. He looked oddly out
of place, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d come to a pack
meeting. What regrets did Oscar have now about his daughter’s life and
death? If he was any kind of father, any kind of human being, he had to be
thinking about how she’d lost her job, how she’d needed money so badly that
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she’d agreed to be bait for a vampire. He had to be wondering if he could’ve
helped her out.
But maybe I was just projecting. I had to keep my mind in the here and
now.
“Jannalynn was willing to sacrifice Were blood to serve her own
interests and those of the fae?” Roy said. I was pretty sure Alcide had
prepped him to ask that.
“She was. She admits it. She has written a confession and mailed it to
the Shreveport police station. Now we’re going to ensure it’s taken
seriously.”
Alcide dialed a number. His cell was on speakerphone. “Detective
Ambroselli,” said a recognizable voice.
Alcide held the phone in front of Jannalynn. Her eyes closed for a
moment as she was readying herself to step off a cliff. The Were said,
“Detective, this is Jannalynn Hopper.”
“Uh-huh? Wait, you’re the bartender at Hair of the Dog, right?”
“Yeah. I have a confession to make.”
“Then come on in, and we’ll sit down,” Ambroselli said cautiously.
“I can’t do that. I’m about to vanish. And I’ve mailed you a letter. But I
wanted to tell you, so you can hear it’s my voice. Are you recording this?”
“Yeah, I am now,” Ambroselli said. I could hear a lot of movement on
her end.
“I killed Kym Rowe. I came up on her when she was leaving Eric
Northman’s house, and I snapped her neck. I’m a werewolf. We’re pretty
strong.”
“Why’d you do that?” Ambroselli asked. I could hear someone
muttering to her, and I guessed she was getting advice from the other
detectives around her.
For a moment, Jannalynn’s face looked blank. She hadn’t thought of a
motive, at least not a simple one. Then she said, “Kym stole my wallet from
my purse, and when I tracked her down and made her give it back, she
disrespected me. I … have a bad temper, and she said some stuff that made
me sick. I lost it. I have to go now. But I don’t want anyone else blamed for
something I did.”
And Alcide hung up. “We’ll hope that will clear Eric. That’s our
responsibility,” he said, and nodded at Eric, who nodded back.
Jannalynn made her face hard and looked around, but I noticed she
didn’t actually meet anyone’s eyes. Even mine.
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“How’d she get these sleazeballs to help her?” Roy asked, jerking his
head at the kneeling prisoners. He’d definitely been prepped.
“She promised them membership in the pack when she became
packleader,” Alcide told the Weres. “Van is a convicted rapist. Coco burned
her own family, father and two brothers, in their home. Laidlaw, though not
convicted in a human court, was thrown out of his own pack in West Virginia
for attacking a human child during his moon time. This is why I had turned
them down for the Long Tooth pack. But Jannalynn would admit these
people to run with us. And they did her bidding.”
There was a long silence. Neither Van, nor Plump (Coco), nor Laidlaw
denied the charges against them. They didn’t try to justify themselves, which
was pretty damn impressive.
“What do you think we should do with the rogues?” Roy asked when
the silence had lasted long enough.
“What crimes did they commit here?” asked a young woman just past
her teens.
“They abducted Warren and imprisoned him at Jannalynn’s family
home. They didn’t feed him and left him in an attic room without airconditioning
or any means of relief from the heat. He almost died as a result.
They abducted Sookie and were taking her to their own place, and we can
only imagine what they would have done with her there. Those actions were
at the behest of Jannalynn.”
“And she held out the promise of admission to the pack upon your
death.” The young woman sounded like she was thinking hard. “Those are
bad things to do, but in fact Warren lived, and Sookie was rescued by the
pack. Jannalynn won’t be your successor, and they won’t join the pack.”
“This is all true,” Alcide said.
“So they acted about like you’d expect rogues to act,” the young
woman persisted.
“Yes. Not lone wolves,” Alcide explained for the benefit of the youngest
Weres present. “But rogues, who’ve been turned down for pack membership,
maybe by more than one pack.”
“And what about Kandace?” the young woman said, pointing to the
short-haired rogue.
“Kandace told us what was happening because she didn’t want to be a
part of it,” Alcide said. “So we’re going to put her membership to the vote in
a month. After people have time to get to know her.”
There was a general round of nodding, kind of guarded. Kandace might
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have told on the other rogues because it was the right thing to do, or she
might be a natural snitch. Getting to talk to her on an individual basis was the
best course.
“I think we should let these rogues go,” called an older man. “Blackball
them from ever being a pack member anywhere. Put out the word.”
Van closed his eyes. I couldn’t tell if he was feeling relief or misery.
Coco was crying; Laidlaw spat on the ground. Not smooth when people were
deciding your life or death. In the end, they were released. It was
unceremonious. Roy untied them and said, “Git.”
Eric looked away to hide his appalled reaction to such a lack of ritual.
Laidlaw took off toward the east, running awkwardly because of his
bandaged shoulder. Coco and Van went north. In a moment they were out of
sight, and that was the end of the rogues, as far as the Long Tooth pack went.
Jannalynn remained. Responding to a gesture from Alcide, Roy untied
her hands and she stood to her unimpressive height, rubbing her wrists and
stretching. Mustapha stood to face her on the sanded volleyball area.
“I will kill you,” he said in his deep voice. He was not even wearing the
dark glasses.
“Try, jungle bunny,” Jannalynn said, and held out her hand. She got a
sword, too, handed to her by Roy. I was a little surprised; execution seemed
more in order than the right to fight. But nobody had asked me.
She was trying to make Mustapha angrier with her insult, but the
epithet didn’t have any effect on him whatsoever. Some of the pack looked
disgusted. The rest looked … like people waiting for a sporting event to
begin. I looked up at Eric, who seemed interested, nothing more. Suddenly, I
felt like punching him. This woman had talked a desperate stripper into
drinking fairy blood and seducing a vampire, both dangerous processes with
unknown outcomes. Kym might have been reckless enough to risk her own
death, but that didn’t make Jannalynn’s scheming any less pernicious, or the
pain I’d felt as a result any more bearable.
I thought she deserved to die for what she’d done to Sam alone. His
face was rigid with the effort of holding in his feelings. My heart hurt for him.
The two combatants circled each other for a moment, and suddenly
Jannalynn executed one of her flying leaps, hoping to come down on top of
Mustapha. The lone wolf pivoted, and his sword blocked hers. She went
spinning to the ground, but she was up in a second and back on the attack.
Mustapha had told me he wasn’t sure he could win a fight with Jannalynn,
and for a few seconds she had the advantage. Not only did she hack away at
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him—this wasn’t fencing, not like Robin Hood—but she shrieked, she
screamed, she did everything she could to confuse and distract her opponent.
I noticed that she was working gradually closer to the edge of the sand.
Closer to Alcide and Sam. She might be a Were, but some intents were so
strong I couldn’t miss them.
“She’s after you,” I yelled in warning, and just as the words left my
mouth Jannalynn leaped, spun, and came down on Alcide, who leaped aside
at the last fraction of a second.
She got Sam.
He crumpled to the ground as his blood spurted. Jannalynn paused in
shock at having cut her lover, and in that moment Mustapha grabbed her by
the hair, threw her to the sand, and beheaded her. I’d seen beheadings before,
but they’re pretty spectacularly horrible. I didn’t even remember Jannalynn’s
until much later, because I was launching myself across the intervening space
to crouch by Sam, who was bleeding out into the grass by the patio. I heard
someone screaming and knew it was me. Alcide crouched down by me and
reached out to touch Sam, but I shoved him away. Sam’s eyes were wide and
desperate. He knew the severity of his wound.
I started to call for Eric, so he could give Sam his blood, but as I put my
hand to Sam’s neck, Sam’s pulse stopped. His eyes closed.
And everything else in the world did, too.
In my universe, everything fell silent. I didn’t hear the chaos around
me. I didn’t hear a voice calling my name. I shoved Alcide away for a second
time. My course was perfectly clear. I reached in my right pocket, pulled out
the cluviel dor, and put it on Sam’s chest. The creamy green glowed. The
band of gold radiated light.
Amelia had always told me that will and intent are everything in magic,
and I had plenty of both.
“Sam. Live.” I hardly recognized my own voice. I didn’t have spells, but
I had the will. I had to believe that. I pressed the cluviel dor to Sam’s heart,
and I put my left hand over the terrible wound in his neck. “Live,” I said
again, hearing only my own voice and the silence in Sam’s body.
And the cluviel dor opened at its gold seam, revealing a hollow interior,
and the concentrated magic inside it flew out and poured into Sam. It was
clear and shining and otherworldly. It flowed through my fingers and into
Sam’s neck, and it vanished into the terrible wound. It filled Sam’s body,
which began to glow. The cluviel dor, now empty of magic, slipped from my
right hand, which rested still on Sam’s chest. I felt movement with my left
239
hand, so I pulled it away from the gash and watched.
It was like watching a film run in reverse. The severed vessels and
tendons inside Sam’s neck began to knit. I held my breath, afraid even to
blink or move. After a long moment, or several long moments, I could feel
Sam’s heart begin to beat under my fingers.
“Thanks, Fintan,” I whispered. “Thanks, Gran.”
After a small eternity, Sam’s eyes opened. “I was dead,” he said.
I nodded. I couldn’t talk to save my soul.
“What … how’d you do that?”
“Tell you later.”
“You … you can do that?” He was dazed.
“Not again,” I warned him. “That’s it. You got to stay alive from now
on.”
“Okay,” he said weakly. “I promise.”
Eric left while I was with Sam. He left without speaking to me.
When I got Sam to stand, we had to walk past Jannalynn’s body. Sam
looked at the corpse of the woman he’d dated for months, and his face was
blank. He had a lot to process.
I didn’t give a shit about the rest of the Were evening. I figured no one
was going to challenge Alcide on the spot, and if they did, I wasn’t going to
stick around to watch another fight. I also figured if Mustapha wanted to join
the pack, no one was going to vote against that, either. Not tonight. I didn’t
even worry about the effect of tonight’s spectacle on the smaller teenage
Weres. They had their own world to live in, and they had to learn its rules
and ways pretty damn quick.
I drove, because I figured a guy who’d just died and come back
probably should be left to think about the experience. Sam’s truck wasn’t
hard to operate, but between driving an unfamiliar vehicle and remembering
the way to get back to the county road to go home, I was pretty preoccupied.
“Where’d Eric go?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know. He left in hurry. Without speaking.” I shrugged.
“Kind of abrupt.”
“Yeah,” I said briefly. I figured his was the voice I’d heard yelling,
before I’d focused on Sam. The silence hung around and got awkward.
“Okay,” I said. “You heard about Freyda. I figure he’s going to go with
her.”
“Oh?” It was clear Sam didn’t know what reaction to give me.
“Oh,” I said firmly. “So he knew I had this thing. This magic thing that I
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used on you. And I guess he thought it was kind of a test of my love.”
“He expected you to use it to save him from this marriage,” Sam said
slowly.
“Yeah. Evidently.” And I sighed. “And I kind of expected him to tell
her to go to Hell. I guess I thought of it as a test of his love.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“He’s proud,” I said, and I just felt tired. “I can’t worry about it right
now. The most I can hope for is that Felipe and his crew leave for home and
we get some peace.”
“And Claude and Dermot are gone, to Faery.”
“Yep, their own land.”
“They’ll come back?”
“Nope. That was the idea, anyway. I guess JB is out of a job, unless the
new management of Hooligans wants him. I don’t know what’ll happen to
the club now.”
“So everything has changed in the past few days?”
I laughed, just a little. I thought of seeing JB strip, looking at the wet
chair in Tara’s shop, the faces of the babies. I’d talked to Mr. Cataliades. I’d
seen Niall again. I’d bid good-bye to Dermot. I’d loathed King Felipe. I’d had
sex with Eric. Donald Callaway had died. Warren had lived. Jannalynn had
died. Sam had died. And lived. I’d worried and worried and worried about
the cluviel dor—which, I realized, I didn’t have to worry about, ever again.
I was relieved when Sam agreed to spend the night in the spare
bedroom across the hall. He and I were both exhausted for different reasons.
He was still pretty shaky, and I helped him into the house. When he sat on
the bed, I knelt before him to take off his shoes.
I brought him a glass of water for the bedside table.
I moved toward the door, walking as quietly as I could.
“Sookie,” Sam said. I turned and smiled at him, though he wasn’t
looking at me. His eyes were shut and his voice was already slow and thick
with sleep. “You have to tell me what the cluviel dor is all about. How you
made it work.”
That was going to be a delicate conversation. “Sure, Sam,” I said, very
quietly. “Another day.”
* * * *