True Blood Book 12 Chapters 9-12

Chapter 9
An hour after Bubba left, and just after I’d finally gone to sleep, my phone
rang.
“Are you all right?” Eric’s voice sounded strange; hoarse, almost.
“Yes,” I said. “She was very rational.”
“She … that’s what she told me. And Bubba told Pam you were all
right.”
So he’d talked to Freyda, presumably in person. And he’d taken
Bubba’s secondhand word that I was fine; so therefore, he hadn’t been as
quick to call me as he would have been if there’d been doubt in his mind. A
lot of information conveyed in two short sentences.
“No,” I agreed. “No violence.” I’d lain alone in the darkness, my eyes
wide open, for a long time. I’d been sure Eric would arrive at any moment,
desperate to make sure I hadn’t been hurt.
I was controlling myself with my last bit of self-respect.
“She won’t win,” Eric said. He sounded confident, passionate—
everything I might have hoped would be reassuring.
“You’re sure?” I asked.
“Yes, my lover. I’m sure.”
“But you’re not here,” I observed, and I hung up very gently.
He didn’t call back.
I slept between three and six, I think, and woke up to a summer day
that mocked me by being beautiful. The downpour had washed everything,
cooled the air, and renewed the green of the grass and the trees. The delicate
pink of the old crepe myrtle was unfurling. The cannas would be open soon.
I felt like Hell hungover.
While the coffeepot did its work, I slumped at the kitchen table, my
head in my hands. I remembered—too vividly—sliding into a dark
depression when I understood that Bill, my first-ever boyfriend and lover,
had left me.
This was not quite as bad; that had been the first time, this was the
second. I’d had other kinds of losses during the same time period. Loved
ones, friends, acquaintances had been mown down by the Grim Reaper. So I
was no stranger to loss and to change, and these experiences had taught me
something.
But today was bad enough, and I could think of nothing to look
forward to.
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Somehow I had to pull out of this state of unhappiness. I couldn’t
struggle through many days like this.
Seeing my little cousin Hunter would make me happy. Smiling in
anticipation, I had already put my hand on the phone to call his dad before I
realized what a criminal mistake inviting Hunter over would be. The child
was a telepath like me, and he would read my misery like a book … a terrible
situation for Hunter.
I tried to think of another good thing to anticipate. Tara would be
coming home from the hospital today, and I should cook a meal for her. I
tried to summon the energy to plan that, but I came up with nothing. Okay,
save that for later. I cast around for other pleasant ideas, but nothing took a
grip on my black mood to loosen its hold on me.
When I’d exhausted my fund of self-pity by brooding on my untenable
situation with Eric, I thought I should focus on the death that had
precipitated the current crisis, at least in part. I checked the news on the
computer, but no arrest had been made in Kym Rowe’s murder. Detective
Ambroselli said, “The police are not close to an arrest, but we’re pursuing
several leads. Meanwhile, if anyone saw anything in the Clearwater Cove
area that night, please call our hotline.” So, it would be interesting to hear if
Bill and Heidi had found out anything, and it would be interesting—maybe
—to ask the writer, Harp Powell, why he was going around with the Rowes.
I’d had the feeling he was a cut or two above what he seemed to be doing—
making a quick buck off the murder of a young, self-destructive stripper.
It felt good to have a couple of projects in mind, and I clutched them to
me as I went through my morning ritual. The lockers for the employee area
were supposed to come today on the truck. That would be fun. If you had a
very limited idea of fun.
I goaded and prodded myself into preparation and went in the back
door of Merlotte’s full of grim determination. As I tied on my apron, I felt my
mouth curve up in my worst smile, the one that sent out “I’m crazy” signals
all over the place. It had been a long time since I’d worn that particular smile.
I made a round of my tables and realized Sam wasn’t behind the bar,
again. Another man who wasn’t there when I needed him. Maybe he and
Jannalynn the Terrible had gone to Arkansas to get a marriage license. I
stopped dead in my tracks, the smile turning into a scowl. Pivoting on my
heel, I shot out the back door of Merlotte’s. Sam’s truck wasn’t at his trailer.
In the middle of the employee parking lot I clapped my cell phone to my ear
after punching my speed dial.
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After two rings, Sam answered.
“Where are you?” I snarled. If I was here being unhappy, Sam should
be here, too. Weren’t we sort-of partners?
“I took another day off,” he said, now clued in about my mood. He was
only pretending to be casual.
“Seriously, Sam, where are you?”
“Yeah, you sound pretty damn serious,” he said, now borderline angry
himself.
“Did you get married?” The thought of Sam being on his honeymoon
with Jannalynn—having fun while Eric made me miserable—was simply
intolerable. I’ve had moments when I recognized that my reactions to current
events were out of the stratosphere (most often when I was in the grip of my
monthly woes), and usually that realization was enough for me to rein in the
inappropriateness.
But not today.
“Sookie, why would you think that?” Sam sounded genuinely
bewildered.
“She told Alcide she was going to ask you. She told him she wanted me
to help her surprise you … but I wouldn’t do it.”
Sam was silent for a moment, perhaps struggling through all those
pronouns.
“I’m standing outside her house,” he said finally. “Jannalynn
volunteered us to help Brenda get Splendide back in order after the break-in.
I did think I’d get back to Bon Temps sooner than I am. But I’m not married.
And I don’t have any plans to get that way.”
I started crying. I put my hand over the phone so he couldn’t hear me.
“Sookie, what’s really wrong?” Sam’s voice said.
“I can’t tell you standing out here in the parking lot, and anyway, it
makes me sound like the most pitiful person.” I couldn’t manage to get
myself under control. When I thought of Freyda’s cool surface, I was
disgusted with my own irrational display. “I’m sorry, Sam. Sorry I called
you. I’ll see you when you get home. Forget this whole conversation, okay?”
“Sookie? Listen, just shut up for a minute.”
I did.
“Look, my friend, we’re gonna be all right,” he said. “We’ll talk, and
everything will look better.”
“Maybe not,” I said. But even to my own ears, I sounded reasonable
and much more like my better self.
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“Then we’ll deal with that,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Sookie, is there any reason you can think of that someone might want
to tear apart the pieces of furniture you sold to Brenda? I mean, her partner,
Donald, said he’d found a secret drawer, but all that was in it was an old
pattern and he’d handed that to you. Did you know anything about that
furniture that might give any kind of hint why anyone would break it up?”
“No,” I lied. “It was just an old Butterick pattern, I think. I bet Jason or I
stuck it in there when we were little ’cause we thought that would be funny. I
don’t even remember Gran showing it to us. You’ll have to tell me all about
the break-in when you come back. Drive careful.”
We hung up. I shook myself, feeling my personality settling back into
place on my shoulders. It was like an emotional tornado had subsided into a
dust devil. I wiped my face with my apron before marching back into the bar,
my cell phone in my pocket like a talisman. Everyone was eyeing me
sideways. I must have startled the customers with my abrupt exit. I did a
little courtesy tour around to all my tables, just to let people know I had
returned to my right mind. I worked through the rest of my shift without
descending to the previous level of Hell I’d inhabited.
Kennedy was singing behind the bar, still happy since Danny had
revealed his big secret job hunt to her. I didn’t feel like talking about vampire
stuff at all, so I just rolled with her good mood.
By the time the delivery truck pulled up to the back door, I was
borderline normal myself. The lockers fit right in the space I’d cleared for
them, I’d already bought padlocks for everyone on the staff, and since Sam
wasn’t there, I got the pleasure of allotting everyone a locker and explaining
that though Sam and I wouldn’t go in the lockers unless there was a crisis, we
would be keeping a key to each one. Since the ladies had trusted Sam all
these years with their purses, they shouldn’t have any problem trusting him
with a change of clothes or a hairbrush. Everyone was pleased and even a
little excited, because a change in the workplace can mean a lot.
Sam’s truck was parked in front of his trailer when my shift was over,
so I felt free to take off. Sam and I needed to talk, but not this evening.
I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to buy the ingredients
for Tara’s homecoming meal. I’d left a message on JB’s cell phone to tell him I
was bringing something over, and just as insurance I’d left a message on their
landline, too.
I started cooking in my cool and empty house. I was doing my level
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best not to think about anything but food preparation. I’d decided to keep it
simple and basic. I made a hamburger-and-sausage meatloaf, a pasta salad,
and a carrot casserole for Tara and JB. The blackberries at the store had been
too tempting to resist, and I made a blackberry cobbler. As long as I was
cooking, I made duplicates of everything for Dermot and me. Two birds with
one stone, I thought proudly.
At the little house on Magnolia Street, a smiling JB met me at the door
to help me carry in the food. While I went into the kitchen to turn on the
stove to warm the meatloaf and casserole a little, the proud father returned to
the small, small nursery. I tiptoed in to find Tara and JB staring down at the
two cribs holding these amazing tiny beings. I joined them in the admiration
gallery.
Before I could even ask, Tara said, “Sara Sookie du Rone and Robert
Thornton du Rone.”
And I felt the bottom fall out of my heart. “You named her Sookie?”
“It’s her middle name. There’s only one Sookie, that’s you. We’ll call
her Sara. But we wanted her to have your name as part of her identity.”
I simply refused to cry anymore, but I admit I had to blot my eyes. JB
patted my shoulder and went to get the ringing phone before it disturbed the
sleepers. Tara and I hugged. The babies continued to snooze, so we sneaked
out and eased into the living room. We could hardly find a seat because of
the flower arrangements and baby gifts cluttering the room—in fact, the
whole house. Tara was very, very happy. So was JB. It permeated their home.
I hoped it was catching.
“Look what your cousin gave us a couple of weeks ago,” Tara said. She
lifted a brightly colored box that contained (the print said) a baby gym. The
concept confused me, but Tara said it was an arched toy you laid the baby
under, and the baby could bat at the bright things with little hands. She
showed me the picture.
“Awww,” I said. “Claude gave you that?” I simply couldn’t imagine
Claude selecting a gift, wrapping it, and bringing it by this house. He
genuinely liked babies—though not to eat, as Bellenos might suggest.
Bellenos surely wouldn’t really think of … I just couldn’t go there.
She nodded. “I guess I just send the thank-you note to your address?”
Or pop it through a hole in the air in the woods. “Sure, that’ll be fine.”
“Sookie, is everything okay with you?” Tara said suddenly. “You don’t
seem quite yourself.”
The last thing in the world I’d do is intrude on her happiness with my
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problems. And I could tell from her brain that she really didn’t want to hear
bad news; but she’d asked anyway, and that counted for a lot. “I’m good,” I
said. “I couldn’t sleep last night, is all.”
“Oh, did that big Viking keep you awake?” Tara gave me an elaborately
sly look, and we both laughed, though it was hard for me to make it sound
genuine.
Their supper should be warm by now, and they needed some privacy.
They’d been lucky to bring twins home from the hospital this early. I was
sure Tara ought to rest. So I said my good-byes, told Tara I’d stop by in a
couple of days to pick up my dishes, and hugged JB on my way out,
resolutely blocking out the memory of how he’d looked in his G-string.
Sara Sookie. Someone was named after me.
I smiled all the way home.
Dermot was there when I pulled up, and it was a real delight to know I
wouldn’t be alone that night. Supper was ready. All we had to do was get it
out of the still-warm oven.
I told Dermot I’d “sent” the letter Bellenos had suggested, and he was
so excited that he wanted to go out to the portal then and there to see if
there’d been an answer. I persuaded him to wait until the next day, but he
was fidgety for a good twenty minutes.
Nonetheless, Dermot was the kind of guest you want to have; he
complimented the food, and he helped do the dishes. By the time we cleared
away, the night outside was humming with the noise of the insects.
“I’m going to finish caulking the attic windows,” Dermot said, still
humming with energy.
Though before he’d begun work on the attic room he’d never caulked
anything in his life, he’d watched a demonstration online and he was ready
to work.
“You rock, Dermot,” I said.
He grinned at me. He was really sticking to the attic renovation, despite
what I felt was an increasingly weak chance that Claude would return to
claim his bedroom. After he went upstairs, I cracked the kitchen window
over the sink so I’d have a little breeze while I scrubbed the sink with some
Bon Ami.
A mockingbird had perched outside in a photinia at the corner of the
house. The stupid bird was singing to itself loud enough to wake the dead. I
wished I had a slingshot.
Just as I thought that, I thought I heard a voice outside calling,
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“Sookie!”
I went out on the back porch. Sure enough, Bill was waiting in the
backyard. “I can smell the fairy from here,” he said. “I know I can’t come in.
Can you step out?”
“Hold on a minute.” I rinsed out the sink, dried my hands on the dish
towel, and shut the window to keep in the air-conditioning. Then, hoping my
hair still looked decent, I went outside.
Bill had been having some vampire downtime. He was standing silent
in the darkness, lost in his thoughts. When he heard me ap-proach, he
stepped out into the bright security light, looking both intent and focused. It
was easy to see that Bill had a list of things to tell me. “I’ll start with the lesser
things first,” he said, rather stiffly. “I don’t know if you’ve spared a moment
to wonder about my efforts to find out who killed the young woman, but I
assure you I’m trying to find out. She died while I was patrolling, and I won’t
be easy until I understand why it happened.”
Taken aback, I could only nod slightly. “I don’t know why you thought
I … oh, Eric. Well, never mind. Please tell me what you’ve discovered. Would
you like to sit?”
We both sat in the lawn chairs. “Heidi and I went over Eric’s backyard
with great attention,” Bill said. “You know it slopes down to a brick wall, the
outer perimeter of the gated community.”
“Right.” I hadn’t spent more than ten minutes total in Eric’s backyard,
but I knew its contours. “There’s a gate in the brick wall.”
“Yes, for the yard crew.” Bill said this like having a yard crew was an
exotic indulgence, like having a bunch of peacocks. “It’s easier for the yard
crew to gather all the yard debris and carry it out the back, rather than go
uphill to the curb.” His tone made it plain what he thought of people who
liked to have a job made easier for them.
“It isn’t kept locked?” I was startled at the idea that it might have been
swinging open.
“Normally, yes. And normally, Mustapha is responsible for unlocking it
for the yard crew on the day they’re expected, and he’s also responsible for
locking it after they’re done. But the lock was missing.”
“A werewolf or vampire could have snapped it,” I said. “So Mustapha’s
not necessarily guilty of opening the gate, anyway.” He’d done something
wrong, though. You don’t vanish unless you’ve done something wrong.
“What did you smell? Anything?”
“Even Heidi could not say for certain who’d been there,” Bill said.
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“Many humans, sweaty humans … the yard workers. A dash of fairy, but
that could have been a very faint trace of the vial around the girl’s neck. And
a stronger trace of twoey. That could have been from the girl herself.” He
leaned back and looked up into the night sky … the only sky he’d seen in
more than a hundred and thirty years.
“What do you think happened?” I asked him, after we’d been quiet for
a few calm moments. I’d been looking up, along with Bill. Though Bon
Temps was close, it only cast a faint glow upward, especially this late. I could
see the stars, vast and cold and distant. I shivered.
“Look, Sookie,” he said, and held out something small. I took it and
held it up to my nose to try to make it out in the patchy light.
“It’s true, then,” I said. It was a rubber stopper, the kind that would
close a small vial. “Where did you find it?”
“In the living room. It rolled under the dining table and landed right by
a chair leg. I think the woman Kym took out the stopper when she knew she
was going to see Eric face-to-face,” he said. “She dropped it while she drank
the blood. She tucked the vial down into her bra in case the lingering scent
would attract him further. And when I found her on the lawn, I could smell
that she was two-natured. That would have added to her … allure.”
“The dad’s two-natured, a Were, I think. The Rowes showed up here at
my house yesterday with a reporter, to try to make something quotable
happen.”
Bill wanted to hear all about it. “You have the reporter’s card?” he
asked when I’d finished.
I went into the house and found it on the kitchen counter. Now that I
took a moment to look at it, I discovered that Harp Powell was based in Terre
Sauvage, a small town that lay north of the interstate between Bon Temps
and Shreveport. “Huh,” I said, handing it to Bill, “I assumed he was based in
Shreveport or Baton Rouge or Monroe.”
Bill said, “I met this man at Fangtasia. He’s been published by a small
regional press. He’s written several books.”
Bill sounded quite respectful; he had great admiration for the written
word.
“What was he doing at Fangtasia?” I asked, diverted.
“He interviewed me and Maxwell Lee, since we’re both native
Louisianans. He was hoping to do a collection of Louisiana vampires’
histories. He wanted to listen to our recollections of the times we grew up in,
the historical events we’d witnessed. He thought that would be interesting.”
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“So, a ripoff of Christina Sobol?” I tried not to sound sarcastic. Sobol’s
Dead History I had been on all the best-seller lists a couple of years before.
Amazon had sent me a notice to tell me that Dead History II would be out in a
month. These books, as you may have guessed, were vampires’
reminiscences about the times they’d lived in. Harp Powell was doing a
regional twist on a national best seller.
Bill nodded. “I’m trying to remember if he asked questions about Eric. I
believe that he wanted Eric’s phone number in case he needed to get in touch
with him…. I didn’t give it to him, of course, but he could have discovered
Eric’s address online.” Bill was one of the computer-savvy vampires.
“Okay, so he could have found out where Eric lives, but why would a
writer have any reason to send Kym Rowe into the house, or to murder her
afterward?”
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” Bill said. “But we can surely go ask
him. I’m trying to think of some other avenue of investigation, one that
doesn’t lead back to someone in Eric’s house.”
“I’m not saying that Harp Powell isn’t fishy, showing up with Kym’s
parents. But it seems more likely that he’s just riding the publicity train. To
me, it appears a lot more likely that Mustapha let Kym Rowe in so she could
find Eric and offer herself. I just don’t know why. Why did someone prep her
and send her in to do that? Why did they get Mustapha to delay my arrival? I
guess so that she’d have time to hook Eric … but then, why have me come in?
Mustapha could have told me that the meeting had been canceled or that I
should go to Fangtasia instead … a hundred different things.”
“His role in this is a mystery,” Bill said, shrugging. “She was obviously
bait for Eric, designed to arouse his lust.” Bill looked at me and blinked. “His
bloodlust,” he added hastily. “But she must have had some piece of
information, if only the name of who hired her to do this. When you argued
with Eric and he sent the girl away, someone went after her and seized her
head and twisted.” Bill made a very graphic motion with his hands. No
stranger to the seizing and twisting, he.
“Disregarding why she was killed,” I said, “why was she sent there in
the first place? Getting me mad at Eric doesn’t seem to be much of a reason.”
Bill looked down at his hands. “There are a couple of theories that fit
the few facts we’re sure of,” he said slowly. “And these theories are what I’ll
tell Eric. The first is that Eric himself or Pam or Mustapha followed the Rowe
woman out of the house and killed her out of sheer anger at the trouble she’d
caused. Perhaps—if the killer was Eric— he wanted to erase the memory of
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the offense he’d committed against you.”
I stiffened. This was nothing I hadn’t thought of myself, but hearing it
out loud made it seem more likely.
“The other theory … well, that’s more complex.” Bill shifted his gaze to
the dark woods. “Since a Were let the girl in, I have to assume she was part of
some Were plot. I should suspect Alcide, since he’s the packleader. But I
don’t believe that Alcide would plan such a convoluted method of
discrediting Eric. Alcide’s a relatively straightforward man and an intelligent
one … at least in some respects. Evidently, women are a huge blind spot for
him.” Bill raised an eyebrow.
That was a pretty good evaluation of Alcide’s character. “But what
Were would do this without Alcide’s say-so?” I said.
“Mustapha is a lone wolf.” Bill shrugged. Obvious.
“But Mustapha didn’t bring Kym Rowe to the house,” I argued. “You
said the scent trail didn’t tell you that.”
“He must have known she was coming. Sookie, I know you like the
man in some measure, but he knew about this in advance. Maybe he didn’t
know why she was coming to the house—but he knew if he let her in
unchallenged, everyone in the house would assume she’d been invited. And
he knew the girl wasn’t there to scrub toilets or sing for the company. She
was there to get Eric to drink from her. Since Mustapha was the one who
called you and told you to come later, his purpose must have been to make
sure you were not there to prevent Eric from being interested in her.”
“But the only result was that I got mad at Eric. Bill, who cares that
much about my love life?” Bill gave me a very direct look, and I could feel
myself turning red.
But instead of making a personal reference, Bill said, “You had a visitor
last night who cares very deeply.”
I tried not to flinch too obviously. “You know she came to the house?”
“We all know about her presence in Area Five, Sookie. All of us who
are sworn to Eric. It’s hard to cover up the visit of a queen, especially one as
well-known as Freyda. It’s even harder to remain ignorant of exactly where
she is. She went to the casino to confer with Felipe directly after she left your
house, and Felipe summoned Eric there. He took Thalia with him—not Pam.
Thalia said it was a very tense meeting.”
That explained the delay in Eric’s calling me … but it didn’t make me
feel any better. “What makes Freyda so well-known?” I bypassed all the
obvious conversational openings that Bill’s little speech presented to lock in
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on what was most interesting to me. I was all too aware that Bill could see
how desperate I was to know more about her, and I just didn’t care.
Bill kindly looked down at his hands as he told me, “She’s beautiful, of
course. Ambitious. Young. She’s not content to sit on her throne and let
things hum along. By the way, she had to fight for that throne. She killed her
predecessor, and he didn’t make it easy. Freyda has worked hard to extend
the business dealings of Oklahoma. The only thing slowing her progress is
her lack of a strong and loyal second. If she acquires the strong vampire she
needs to serve as her right hand, she’ll always have to watch her back against
that vampire’s ambition. If she marries this right hand, he can’t succeed her.
His loyalty will be assured, because his fate is bound to hers.”
I pondered this for a few minutes, while Bill sat in silence. Vampires are
great at that. I caught his eyes on my face. I got the impression that Bill felt
sorry for me. A worm of panic twisted in my stomach.
“Freyda’s strong, active, and determined,” I said. “Like Eric. And you
say she needs a good fighter, a good second. Like Eric.”
“Yes, like Eric,” he said deliberately. “Freyda would be a great match
for him. Practically speaking, he’d escape from the political situation created
by his murder of Victor. The king’s going to have to do something to Eric.
Felipe really can’t afford to be perceived as ignoring Victor’s death.”
“Why not?”
He looked at me blankly.
“Felipe let Victor get away with whatever the hell Victor wanted to do,”
I said. “Why shouldn’t he be perceived that way?”
“He doesn’t want to lose the loyalty of the vampires who serve him,”
Bill said.
“That’s ridiculous!” I thought steam would come out of my ears. “You
can’t have it all different ways!”
“But he’ll try. I don’t think you’re really angry about Felipe. You’re
really angry about the hard practicality of Eric marrying Freyda.” I winced,
but Bill continued ruthlessly. “You have to admit that her character is much
like Eric’s and that they’d make a good team.”
“Eric’s my team,” I said. “He loves me. He wants to stay here.” I
realized that I was, so to speak, batting with another hand now. I’d been just
as sure the night before that Eric would leave, that he loved power more than
he loved me.
“But … Sookie, you must see … staying might be the death of him.”
I could read a mixture of pity and tough love in Bill’s attitude. “Bill, are
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you sure you’re able to judge that?”
“I hope that I have your best interests in my heart, Sookie.” He paused,
as if considering whether he should go on. “I know you’ll suspect everything
I say about this situation—because I love you, and I don’t love Eric. But truly,
I want your happiness, above almost everything else.”
Almost everything else. I found myself wondering what came ahead of
that. His own survival?
I heard the screen door bang, and Dermot hurried out to his car.
“Got to get to the club,” he called.
“Drive careful,” I called back. He was gone before I could say anything
more. I turned back to Bill, who was staring at the spot where Dermot had
stood, a wistful expression on his face. No wonder Dermot had hurried; he’d
surely known a vampire was in the backyard and that his scent would be
attractive. “Let’s get back to the Kym Rowe issue,” I said, to get Bill’s
attention. “What can I do to help you find out who killed her?”
“The first person we’d want to talk to is Mustapha, and he’s vanished.
Tell me exactly what he said when he was here.”
“Which time? When he was here before the night of the party, or when
he was here after the party?”
“Tell me about both visits.”
I related the first conversation to Bill, though there was surprisingly
little to tell. Mustapha’d been here. He’d relayed Pam’s warning, which I
hadn’t understood until I’d met Freyda. He’d warned me about Jannalynn.
The second time he was here, he’d been worried about Warren.
“You’ve told Eric this?” he asked.
I snorted. “We’re not exactly having lengthy heart-to-hearts these days.
My conversation with Freyda was longer than any talk I’ve had with Eric.”
Wisely, Bill didn’t comment. He recapped. “So Mustapha comes to your
house, though he’s been missing ever since the girl died. He tells you that he
wants to talk to Alcide, but he’s afraid to call him or approach him directly
since Jannalynn might be around to intercept him.”
I thought that was a fair summary. “Yes, and I’ve passed that message
along to Alcide,” I said. “Plus, what’s most important to Mustapha, his friend
Warren is missing. I think someone abducted Warren, and they’re holding
him in return for Mustapha’s good behavior.”
“Then finding Warren would be a good thing,” Bill said, and I winced
when I heard his voice. I’d screwed up.
“I get that it was dumb for me not to have mentioned this first of all,” I
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said. “I’m sorry.”
“Tell me about this Warren.”
“You haven’t ever seen him?”
Bill shrugged. “No. Why would I?”
“He’s a shooter. He was stationed outside Fangtasia the night we killed
Victor.”
“So that was Warren. Skinny little guy, big eyes, long hair?”
“Sounds right.”
“What are he and Mustapha to each other?”
It was my turn to shrug. “I have no idea. They were in prison together, I
think.”
“Mustapha was in prison?”
I nodded. “Yeah, his real name is KeShawn Johnson. I got that out of his
head.”
Bill look puzzled. “But … do you remember the vampire who
decapitated Wybert at the beginning of the brawl at Sophie-Anne’s
monastery?”
“I’ll never forget that. Thin, dreadlocks?”
“His name was Ra Shawn.”
We were just swapping expressions. It was my turn to do Puzzled. “No,
I don’t recollect that at all. Oh … wait, yeah. Andre told me his name.”
“You don’t think it’s an interesting coincidence? Ra Shawn and
KeShawn? Both black? Both supernaturals?”
“But one’s a werewolf, and the other was a vampire. Ra Shawn could
have been born hundreds of years ago. I guess they could be related.”
“I think that’s just possible.” Bill was giving me a long-suffering look.
“The database,” I suggested, and he pulled a little bunch of keys from
his pocket. There was a black rectangle attached to the key ring.
“I have it right here,” he said, and I was amazed all over again at Bill’s
plunge into the modern world.
“And that would be a what?” I asked.
“This is a jump drive.” Bill looked quizzical.
“Oh, sure.” I’d had enough of feeling dumb for the evening. We went
inside so Bill could use my computer. Bill carried over a chair for me and
then took his seat in the rolling chair directly in front of the screen.
He inserted the little stick into a slot I hadn’t even realized was on the
side of my computer. After a couple of minutes, he had The Vampire Directory
on the screen.
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“Wow.” I looked at the opening, some very dramatic graphics. A pair of
Gothic gates hung closed, a giant lock on them. The background music was
dark and atmospheric. I hadn’t paid any attention when I’d used a stolen
copy of the database before, because I’d been so conscious of my guilt. Now I
could appreciate the graveyard humor in Bill’s presentation. A written
introduction appeared superimposed on the gates in many different
languages. After you selected the language you wanted, a solemn voice read
the introduction out loud. Bill skipped through all that. He touched a few
keys, and the Gothic gates creaked open to show all our options. As Bill
explained, you could sort the vampires in different ways. You could look for
vampires in Yugoslavia, for example, or you could look for female vampires
in the St. Louis area. Or all vampires more than a thousand years old in
Myanmar.
“I can’t believe you did all this,” I said admiringly. “It’s so cool.”
“It was a lot of work,” he said absently, “and I had a lot of help.”
“How many languages is it available in?”
“So far, thirty.”
“This must have made money hand over fist, Bill. I hope you got some
of it yourself.” I hoped it wasn’t pouring into the bank account of Felipe de
Castro. Who so didn’t deserve it.
“I’ve made some change from it,” Bill said, smiling.
That was a good expression to see on Bill’s face. He didn’t wear it often
enough.
In a jiffy, he’d called up the entry for Ra Shawn. The vampire had been
about thirty at the time of his human death, but he’d been a vampire for
(maybe) a hundred years at the time of his second death. Ra Shawn’s
background was hazy, but he’d first been noticed in Haiti, Bill’s sources had
told him. The dreadlocked Ra Shawn had long been a cult figure in the black
supernatural community. He had been the cool and deadly black vampire,
hired by kings, gangsters, and political figures as a fighter.
“Well,” I said, “Maybe Mustapha’s—KeShawn’s—parents were into
supernatural African culture. After prison, maybe he became a Blade clone
because he wanted a more current model.”
“Everybody needs a hero,” Bill agreed, and I opened my mouth to ask
him who his had been. Robert E. Lee?
“What are you two doing?” Eric asked, and I jumped and gave a little
yip of surprise. Even Bill twitched.
“It’s only polite to let me know you’re coming into my house,” I said,
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because he’d really scared me and I was angry in consequence.
“It’s only polite,” Eric said mockingly, imitating my voice in a very
irritating way. “I think it’s ‘only polite’ that my wife should let me know
when she’s entertaining a male visitor, furthermore one that has shared her
bed.”
I took a deep breath, hoping it would help me calm down. “You’re
acting like an asshole,” I said, so maybe the deep breath hadn’t helped so
very much. “I have never cheated on you, and I have trusted you never to
cheat on me. Maybe I should rethink that, since you don’t seem to have much
faith in me.”
Eric looked taken aback. “I have never fucked another woman since I
took you to wife,” he said haughtily.
I couldn’t help but realize that left a lot of territory uncovered—but
now was not the time to ask detailed questions.
Bill was sitting like a statue. I spared a second to appreciate his
predicament. Eric was so plainly in a very bad mood, anything Bill said was
going to be taken in evidence against him.
A diversion was in order, though I felt a flash of resentment that I had
to defuse the situation. “Why are you so mad, anyway?” I said. “Something
go wrong at Fangtasia?”
Eric’s face relaxed just a fraction. “Nothing is right,” he said. “Felipe
and his companions are still in town. He may still bring charges against me
for killing Victor. At the same time, you can tell he’s delighted we killed
Victor. He and Freyda have just had a long talk in private. Mustapha is still
missing. The police have been by Fangtasia to question me again. They
wanted me to permit cadaver dogs to go over my property. I had to say yes,
but it makes me furious. How stupid would I be to bury someone on my own
property? They’ve searched the house again. T-Rex and his women came into
the bar tonight, and he acted as though he were my best friend. The women
used drugs in the bathroom. Thalia rousted them a little too energetically and
broke Cherie’s nose. I’ll have to pay for her hospital visit, though she did
promise not to relate what had happened in return for our not telling the
police she’s a drug user.”
“My goodness,” I said gently. “And then you walk in your girlfriend’s
house to find her looking at a computer screen with another man. You have had
a terrible night, poor fella.”
Bill raised an eyebrow to let me know I was troweling it on too thick.
I ignored him. “If I’d seen you around, or had a conversation with you
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that lasted longer than thirty seconds, I’d have told you that Mustapha had
come by here,” I said in a sweet voice. “And I’d have told you what he said.”
“Tell me now,” Eric said, in a much more neutral voice. “If you please.”
Okay, he’d made an effort. So once again, I related the account of
Mustapha’s visit, his warning about Jannalynn, and his concern for Warren’s
safety.
“So Bill and Heidi need to scent this Jannalynn, and then we’ll know if
she was the one who led the girl to my house, who sent her up to Mustapha.
We’ll know why he was involved with this plan if we can find him—or his
friend Warren—and they’ll tell us what we can do to get them out of the
picture. Sookie, would Sam call this woman, if you asked him to do so?”
My mouth fell open. “That would be terrible of me, to ask him to bring
her in, to betray her. I won’t do it.”
“But you can see that would be best for all of us,” Eric said. “Bill or
Heidi goes up to her, shakes her hand—then they will have her scent, and
we’ll know. Sam doesn’t need to do anything beyond that. We’ll take care of
everything else.”
“What would that ‘everything else’ be?”
“What do you think?” Bill asked impatiently. “She has information we
need to learn, and she seems to be a key part of the plot to implicate Eric in a
murder. This woman is a murderer herself, most likely. We need to make her
talk.”
“The same way the Weres made you talk in Mississippi, Bill?” I
snapped.
“Why do you care if something happens to the bitch?” Eric said, his
blond eyebrows rising in query.
“I don’t,” I said instantly. “I can’t stand her.”
“Then what’s your issue?”
And I had no answer.
“It’s because we were talking about involving Sam,” Bill told Eric.
“That’s the stumbling block.”
Suddenly they were on the same side, and that side was not mine.
“You’re sweet on him?” Eric said. He couldn’t have been more
surprised if I’d said I had a crush on Terry’s Catahoula.
“He’s my boss,” I said. “We’ve been friends for years. Of course I’m
fond of him. And he’s nuts about that furry bitch, for whatever reason. So
that’s my issue, as you put it.”
“Hmmm,” Eric said, his eyes examining my face with a sharp intensity.
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I didn’t like it when he sounded thoughtful. “Then I’ll have to call Alcide and
make the request for Jannalynn’s scent official.”
Did I do as they requested, which would in some way be a betrayal of
Sam? Or did I let Eric call Alcide, which would officially involve the Long
Tooth pack? You couldn’t call a packmaster unofficially. But I couldn’t lie to
Sam. My back stiffened.
“All right,” I said. “Call Alcide.” Eric pulled out his cell phone, giving
me a very grim look as he did so. I could see a war starting, another war.
More deaths. More loss. “Wait,” I said. “I’ll talk to Sam. I’ll go into town to
talk to him. Right now.”
I didn’t even know if Sam was home, but I walked out of the house and
neither vampire tried to stop me. I’d never left two vampires alone in the
house before, and I could only hope it would be intact when I returned.
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Chapter 10
When I began driving back into town, I realized how tired I was. I thought
very seriously about turning back, but when I contemplated facing Bill and
Eric again, I kept driving north.
That was how I came to see Bellenos and our Hooligans waitress
bounding across the road after a deer. I braked desperately, and my car slid
sideways. I knew I’d end up in the ditch. I shrieked as the car slewed and the
woods rushed up to meet me. Then, abruptly, my car’s motion stopped—not
by hitting anything, but by being nose down in the steep ditch. The
headlights lit up the weeds, still whipping, bugs flying up from the impact. I
turned off the engine and sat gasping.
My poor car was nose down at a steep angle. The rain had had twentyfour
hours to soak into the previously parched soil, so the ditch was fairly
dry, which was a real blessing. Bellenos and the blonde appeared, working
their way around the car to get to my door. Bellenos was carrying a spear,
and his companion appeared to have two curved bladed weapons of some
kind. Not exactly swords; really long knives, as thin at the point as needles.
I tried to open the door, but my muscles wouldn’t obey my command. I
realized I was crying. I had a sharp flash of memory: Claudine waking me
when I fell asleep at the wheel on this same road. Bellenos’s lithe body
moved across the headlights, and then he was by my door and wrenching it
open.
“Sister!” he said, and turned to his companion. “Cut this strap, Gift.”
A knife passed right by my face in the next second, and the seat belt
was severed. Oh, damn. Evidently, they didn’t understand buckles.
Gift bent down, and in the next instant I was out of the car and she was
carrying me away.
“We didn’t mean to frighten you,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, my
sister.”
She laid me down as easily as if I’d been an infant, and she and Bellenos
squatted by me. I concluded, with no great certainty, that they weren’t going
to kill and eat me. When I could speak, I said, “What were you out here
doing?”
“Hunting,” Bellenos said, as if he suspected my head were addled.
“You saw the deer?”
“Yes. Do you realize you’re not on my land anymore?” My voice was
very unsteady, but there was nothing I could do about it.
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“I see no fence, no boundaries. Freedom is good,” he said.
And the blonde nodded enthusiastically. “It’s so good to run,” she said.
“It’s so good to be out of a human building.”
The thing was … they seemed so happy. Though I knew absolutely I
should read them the riot act, I found myself feeling not only profoundly
sorry for the two fae, but frightened of—and for—them. This was a very
uncomfortable mix of emotions. “I’m real glad you’re having a good time,” I
wheezed. They both beamed at me. “How did you come to be named Gift?” I
just couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“It’s Aelfgifu,” she said, smiling. “Elf-gift. But Gift is easier for human
mouths.” Speaking of mouths, Aelfgifu’s teeth were not as ferocious as
Bellenos’s. In fact, they were quite small. But since she was leaning over me, I
could see longer, sharper, thinner teeth folded against the roof of her mouth.
Fangs. Not vampire fangs, but snake fangs. Jesus Christ, Shepherd of
Judea. Coupled with the pupil-less eyes, she was really scary.
“Is this the way you do in Faery?” I asked weakly. “Hunt in the
woods?”
They both smiled. “Oh, yes, no fences or boundaries there,” Aelfgifu
said longingly. “Though the woods are not as deep as they once were.”
“I don’t want to … to chide you,” I said, wondering if I could sit up.
They both stared at me, their eyes unreadable, their heads canted at inhuman
angles. “But regular people really shouldn’t see you without your human
disguises. And even if you could make other people perceive you as human
… regular human couples don’t chase deer in the middle of the night. With
sharp weapons.” Even around Bon Temps, where hunting is practically a
religion.
“You see us as we really are,” Bellenos said. I could tell he hadn’t
known that before. Maybe I’d given away a powerful bit of knowledge by
revealing that.
“Yeah.”
“You have powerful magic,” Gift said respectfully. “That makes you
our sister. When you first came to Hooligans, we weren’t sure about you. Are
you on our side?”
Bellenos’s hand shot across me, and he gripped Aelfgifu’s shoulder.
Their eyes met. In the weird light and shadows cast by the headlights, her
eyes looked just as black as his.
“I don’t know what side that is,” I said, to break the moment up. It
seemed to work, because she laughed and slid an arm underneath me, and I
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sat up. “You’re not hurt,” she said. “Dermot will be pleased. He loves you.”
Bellenos put an arm around me, too, so our little trio was suddenly
positioned in an uncomfortably intimate little scene there on the deserted
road. Bellenos’s teeth were awfully close to my flesh. Sure, I was used to Eric
biting, but he didn’t rip off flesh and eat it.
“You’re shaking, Sister,” Aelfgifu observed. “You can’t be cold on a hot
night like tonight! Is it the shock of your little accident?”
“You can’t be frightened of us?” Bellenos sounded mocking.
“You turkey,” I said. “Of course I’m scared of you. If you’d spent a
while with Lochlan and Neave, you’d be scared, too.”
“We’re not like them,” Aelfgifu said in a much more subdued voice.
“And we’re sorry, Sister. There are quite a few of us who endured their
attentions. Not all lived to tell others about it. You’re very fortunate.”
“Did you have the magic then?” Bellenos asked.
This was the second time the elf had referred to my having magic. I was
very curious to know why he said that, but at the same time, I hated to
expose my total ignorance.
“Could I drive you two back to Monroe?” I asked, staving off Bellenos’s
question.
“I couldn’t bear to be shut up in an iron box,” Gift said. “We’ll run. May
we come to hunt on your land tomorrow night?”
“How many of you?” I thought I should err on the side of caution, here.
They helped me to my feet, consulting with each other silently as they
did so.
“Four of us,” Bellenos said, trying not to sound as if he were asking me.
“That would be okay,” I said. “Long as you let me explain where the
boundaries are.”
I got simultaneous kisses on both sides of my face. Then the two fae
leaped down in the ditch, bent over to get a grip below the hood of my car,
and pushed. The car was back up on the road in seconds. Aside from the
severed seat belt, it didn’t seem to be much the worse for the experience:
dirty, of course, and the front fender was a little dented. Gift waved at me
cheerfully as I took my place behind the wheel, and then the two were off,
heading east toward Monroe … at least while I could see them. My car
started up, thank God, and I turned around at the next driveway and headed
home. My excursion was over. I was completely jangled.
As I pulled up, I could tell the vampires were still there. When I glanced
at my car clock, I saw that only twenty minutes had passed since I’d left.
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Suddenly, I began shivering all over when I thought of the incident—the
panicked deer, the swift and deadly pursuit, the faes’ overly loving
solicitousness. I turned off the car and got out slowly. I was going to be stiff
all over the next morning, I just knew it. Of course Bill and Eric had heard me
return, but neither of them came rushing out to see how I was. I reminded
myself they didn’t have any idea something had happened to me.
I stepped out of the car and thought I’d go flat on my face. I was having
some kind of reaction to the whole bizarre incident, and I couldn’t stop
replaying the running figures in my mind. They had looked so alien, so very,
very … not-human.
And now I knew that someone suspected I had some powerful fae
magic. If the fae suspected it was contained in an item, I didn’t like my
chances of keeping it, or of keeping my life, for that matter. Any supe would
want such a thing, especially the hodgepodge of fae trapped at Hooligans.
They were yearning for the homeland of Faery, no matter how they’d come to
be trapped in our world. Any power they could acquire would be more than
they had now. And if they had the cluviel dor … they could wish the doors of
Faery open to them again.
“Sookie?” Eric said. “Lover, what’s happened to you? Are you hurt?”
“Sookie?” Bill’s voice, equally urgent.
I could only stand staring straight ahead, thinking hard about what
would happen if the rogue fae opened the portals to Faery. What if humans
could walk into that other country? What if all fae could come and go as they
pleased? Would they accept that state of affairs, or would there be another
war?
“I had a wreck,” I said, belatedly realizing that Eric had picked me up
and was carrying me inside. “I never got to Sam’s. I had a wreck.”
“That’s all right, Sookie,” Eric said. “Don’t worry about going to Sam’s.
That can wait. We can make some other arrangement. At least I’m not
smelling any blood,” he said to Bill.
“Did you hit your head?” Bill asked. I could feel fingers working
through my hair. Then those fingers stilled. “You reek of fairy.”
I could see the hunger rising in his face. I glanced at Eric, whose mouth
was compressed tight as a mousetrap. I was willing to bet his fangs had
popped out. The entrancing Eau de Fae—it acted on vampires like catnip on
cats.
“You guys need to leave,” I said. “Out you go, before you both use me
as a chewy toy.”
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“But, Sookie,” Eric protested. “I want to stay with you and make love to
you at length.”
You couldn’t get any more frank than that.
“I appreciate the enthusiasm, but with me smelling like a fairy, I’m
afraid you might get a little carried away.”
“Oh, no, my lover,” he protested.
“Please, Eric, some self-control. You and Bill need to git.”
It was my mention of self-control that did it. Neither of them would
admit to a failure of the trait vampires prized so highly.
Eric went to stand at the edge of the woods. He said, “While you were
gone, Thalia called me. I’d sent her to talk to the human, Colton, at his job.
When she got there, they reported he hadn’t come in for work. Thalia went to
his trailer. A fight had taken place inside. There was a small amount of blood.
Colton was gone. I think Felipe has found him.” While Eric was still
maintaining deniability over the death of Victor, Colton had actually been in
Fangtasia the night Victor had died. He knew the truth, and he was human
and, therefore, could be made to talk.
Bill took a step toward me. “It’ll be okay,” he said reassuringly, and
even though he was a vampire, I could tell that he simply wanted to be
closer.
“Okay, we’ll talk about that tomorrow,” I said hastily. At this point, I
was sure that all I could do for Colton was pray for him. There was certainly
no way to find him tonight.
Very reluctantly, and with many good-byes and hopeful requests that
they be called if I felt unwell during what remained of the night, Eric and Bill
went their separate ways.
After I’d locked the doors, I took a hot shower. I could already feel
myself beginning to stiffen up. I had to work the next day, and I couldn’t
afford to hobble.
At least one small mystery was solved. I assumed that the absence of
Bellenos and his friend Aelfgifu was the crisis that had called my great-uncle
back to Hooligans in such a tear. While I was sorry for his tough night, I
wasn’t so sorry that I planned to wait up for him. I crawled into bed. I was
briefly conscious of the profound gratitude I felt that this sucky day was
finally, finally over … and then I was out.
I staggered out of my bedroom at nine the next day.
I wasn’t as sore as I’d feared, which was a pleasant discovery.
No one stirred in my house. I carefully checked with my other sense,
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the telepathy that could locate any creature thinking in the house. No one
was sleeping here, either.
What did I need to do today? I made a little list after I’d had my coffee
and a Pop-Tart.
I needed to go to the grocery store because I’d promised Jason I’d make
him a sweet potato casserole to serve to Michele and her mom tonight. It
wasn’t exactly sweet potato season, but he’d texted me to ask me specially,
and Jason didn’t ask me for much these days. As long as I had to go to the
store to get the ingredients, I reminded myself to check with Tara. I could
pick up anything she wanted from the grocery store at the same time.
Then I needed to think of a way to see Jannalynn, so Bill and Heidi
could sniff her. Since Eric’s vampire Palomino was visiting Hair of the Dog, if
worse came to worst maybe I could get Palomino to lift something of
Jannalynn’s.
Asking Jannalynn if she’d stand still for a minute and let the vamp
trackers check her out was never a serious option. I could imagine all too
clearly how she’d react to such a proposal.
And Bill was considering visiting Harp Powell to talk about the dead
girl. I didn’t know if we would be able to find time tonight. I thought of
Kym’s parents and shuddered. As unpleasant as her life sounded, meeting
Oscar and Georgene just once made her bad choices more understandable.
While I was thinking about the evening’s possibilities, I recalled that the
fae wanted hunting permission again for tonight. I tried not to imagine the
consequences if they all fanned out into the Louisiana countryside to find
entertainment. I remembered the unease I’d felt last night when Aelfgifu and
Bellenos had referred to my magic; without knowing I was going to do it, I
found myself in my bedroom looking into my dressing table drawer to check
that the cluviel dor was safe and still camouflaged as a powder compact.
Of course, it was. I let out a deep breath of relief. When I looked into the
mirror, I looked scared. So I thought of something else to worry about.
Warren was missing, Immanuel was in California and presumably safe, but
where was Colton, the other human who’d been in Fangtasia that bloody
night? We had to assume that Felipe had him stashed somewhere. Colton
wasn’t a Were, he had no fae blood, and he didn’t owe allegiance to any
vampire. He was just an employee at a vampire-owned enterprise. No one
would be looking for him, unless I called the police. Would that do any good?
Would Colton thank me for drawing his abduction to the attention of the
police? I couldn’t decide.
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Time to give myself a good shake and get into my Merlotte’s outfit. In
this weather I didn’t mind wearing the shorts. I shaved my legs just to be
sure they were smooth, admired their brownness, and moisturized lavishly.
By the time I applied my makeup, collected my grocery list, and grabbed my
cell phone off the charger, it was time to go. On my way to town I called Tara,
who said she didn’t need anything; JB’s mom had gone to the store for them
that morning. She sounded tired, and I could hear one of the babies crying in
the background. I was able to draw a line through one item.
Since my own grocery list was so short, I stopped at the old Piggly
Wiggly. I could get in and out of it faster than Wal-Mart. Though I saw
Maxine Fortenberry and had to pass the time of day with her, I still emerged
from the store with only one bag and plenty of time to spare.
Feeling very efficient, I was tying on my apron fifteen minutes early.
Sam was behind the bar talking to Hoyt Fortenberry, who was taking
an early lunch hour. I stopped to visit for a second, told Hoyt I’d seen his
mom, asked him how the wedding plans were going (he rolled his eyes), and
gave Sam a pat on the back by way of apology for my emotional excesses
over the telephone the day before. He smiled back at me and continued
poking at Hoyt about the potholes on the street in front of the bar.
I stowed my purse in my shiny new locker. I wore the key to it on a
chain around my neck. The other waitresses were delighted to have real
lockers, and from the stuffed bags they carried in, I was sure the lockers were
already full. Everyone wanted to keep a change of clothes, an extra umbrella,
some makeup, a hairbrush … even D’Eriq and Antoine seemed pleased with
the new system. As I passed Sam’s office, I saw the coatrack inside, and on it
was a jacket, a bright red jacket … Jannalynn’s. Before I could think about
what I was doing, I stepped into Sam’s office, stole the jacket, and retreated to
stuff it inside my locker.
I’d found a quick and easy solution to the problem of getting
Jannalynn’s scent to the noses of Bill and Heidi. I even persuaded myself that
Sam wouldn’t mind, if I were to tell him; but I didn’t test that idea by asking
permission to take the jacket.
I’m not used to feeling underhanded, and I have to confess that for an
hour or two I kept away from Sam. That was unexpectedly easy, since the bar
was really busy. The association of local insurance agents came in for their
monthly lunch together, and since it was so hot, they were almighty thirsty.
The EMT team on duty parked the ambulance outside and ordered their
food. Jason and his road crew came in, and so did a bunch of nurses from the
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blood bank truck, parked on the town square today.
Though I was working hard, the idea of bags of blood reminded me of
Eric. Like all roads leading to Rome, all my thoughts seemed to come back to
the certain prospect of misery to come. As I stood staring into the kitchen,
waiting for a basket of French fried pickles for the insurance agents, my heart
felt as if it were beating way too fast. I revisited the single disturbing
scenario, over and over. Eric would choose her. He would leave me.
What weighed on me with incredible heaviness was the idea of using
the love gift given by Fintan to my grandmother, the cluviel dor. If I
understood its properties correctly, a wish on behalf of someone I loved
would surely be granted. This fairy object, which Amelia had heard was no
longer made in the fae world, might come with a penalty for its use. I had no
idea if there would be a price to pay, much less how steep that price would
be. But if I used it to keep Eric …
“Sookie?” Antoine said, sounding anxious. “Hey, girl, you hearing me?
Here’s your pickles. For the third time.”
“Thanks,” I said, picking up the red plastic basket and hurrying to the
table. I smiled all around, put the basket neatly in the middle, and checked to
see if anyone needed a drink refill. They all did, so I went to get the pitcher of
sweet tea, while taking one glass with me to refill with Coke.
Then Jason asked for more mayonnaise for his hamburger, and Jane
Bodehouse wanted a bowl of pretzels to go with her lunch (Bud Light).
By the time the noon crowd thinned out, I was feeling a little more
normal. I reminded Jason I was making his sweet potato casserole and that he
should come by tonight to pick it up.
“Sook, thanks,” he said with his charming smile. “Her mom is gonna
love it, and so will Michele. I really appreciate you taking the time to do this.
I can grill meat, but I ain’t no kitchen chef.”
I worked the rest of the shift on automatic. I had a little conversation
with Sam about whether to change insurance companies for the bar or
whether Sam should insure his trailer separately. The State Farm agent had
spoken to Sam at lunchtime.
Finally it was time to go, but I had to fiddle around until the storage
room was empty and I could open the locker to remove the borrowed jacket.
(“Borrowed” sounded much better than “stolen.”) I’d found an empty Wal-
Mart bag, and I stuffed the jacket into it, though my hands were clumsy
because I was trying to hurry. Just as I tied the plastic handles together and
opened the back door, I saw Sam go into his office; but he didn’t come out
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again to yell, “Where’s my honey’s jacket?”
I drove home and unloaded the bag of groceries and the bag containing
Jannalynn’s jacket. I felt as if I’d lifted the collection plate from the church. I
took off my uniform and put on some denim shorts and a camo tank top
Jason had given me for my birthday the year before.
I left a message on Bill’s answering machine before I began cooking. I
put a big pot of water on the stove so it could reach the boiling point. As I
peeled the sweet potatoes and cut them into chunks for cooking, I turned on
the radio. It provided background noise, at least until the Shreveport news
came on. In the wake of Kym Rowe’s murder, anti-vamp sentiment was
escalating. Someone had thrown a bucket of white paint across the façade of
Fangtasia. There was nothing I could do about that, so I pushed that worry to
the back of my mind. The vamps could more than take care of themselves,
unless things got much, much worse.
After I’d eased the sweet potatoes into the boiling water and turned the
heat down to simmer, I checked my e-mail. Tara had sent some pictures of
the babies. Cute. I’d gotten a chain letter from Maxine (which I deleted
without reading), and I’d gotten a message from Michele. She had a short list
of three wedding dates she and Jason were considering, and she wanted to
know if all three were clear for me. I smiled, looked at my empty calendar,
and had just sent my reply when I heard a car pull up.
My schedule for the evening was full, so I wasn’t very pleased at
having an uninvited guest. I was even more astonished when I looked out the
living room window to see that my caller was Donald Callaway, Brenda
Hesterman’s partner in Splendide. I’d wondered if I’d hear from them after
Sam told me about the break-in, but I hadn’t ever imagined I’d get a personal
visit. Surely a phone call or an e-mail would have been sufficient to handle
any issues that had resulted from the destruction of the furniture I’d sold to
them?
Donald, standing by his car, looked as crisp as he had the morning he’d
spent examining the contents of my attic: creased khakis, seersucker shirt,
polished loafers. His salt-and-pepper hair and mustache were freshly
trimmed, and he radiated a sort of middle-aged tan fitness. Golfer, maybe. He
seemed to be having some difficulty.
I opened the door, worried about the simmering sweet potatoes, which
should be nearly done.
“Hey, Mr. Callaway,” I called. “What are you doing way out here?”
And why didn’t he approach?
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“Can I come in for a second?” he asked.
“Okay,” I said, and he started forward. “But I’m afraid I don’t have a lot
of time.”
He was just a little surprised that I wasn’t more cordial. I got a waft of
wrongness. I dropped all my shields and looked inside his brain.
He was on the porch now, and I said, “Stop right there.”
He looked at me with apparent surprise.
“What have you done?” I asked. “You’ve screwed me over somehow.
You might as well tell me.”
His eyes widened. “Are you human?”
“I’m human with extras. Spill it, Mr. Callaway.”
He was almost frightened, but he was becoming angry, too. That was a
bad combination. “I need that thing that was in the secret compartment.”
Revelation. “You opened it first, before you showed it to me.” It was
my turn to be astonished.
“If I’d had any idea what that thing was, I’d never have told you,” he
said, regret weighing down his voice. “As it was, I thought it was worthless,
and I thought I might as well boost my reputation for honesty.”
“But you’re not honest, are you?” I glided through his thoughts, my
head tilted on one side. “You’re a twisty bastard.” The wards around the
house had been trying to keep him out, but like an idiot, I’d invited him in.
He had the gall to be offended.
“Come on now, just trying to turn a buck and keep our business afloat
in a bad economy.” He thought he could tell me this, and I’d accept it? I
checked him out quickly but thoroughly. I didn’t think he had a gun, but he
had a knife in a sheath clipped to his belt, just like many men who had to
open boxes every day. It wasn’t a big knife—but any knife was pretty damn
frightening.
“Sookie,” he continued, “I came out here tonight to do you a favor. I
don’t think you know that you have a valuable little item. Interest in this item
is heating up, and word’s getting around. You might find it a tad dangerous
to keep it in your house. I’ll be glad to put it in the safe at my office. I did
some research on your behalf, and what you think may just be a pretty thing
your grandma left in the desk is something a few people do want for their
private collection.”
Not only had he opened the secret compartment and glanced at the
contents before he’d called me to come look, he’d at least scanned the letter.
The letter my grandmother had written to me. Thank God he hadn’t had a
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chance to read it carefully. He was completely ignorant about me.
Something inside me caught fire. I was mad. Really mad.
“Come in,” I said calmly. “We’ll talk about it.”
He was surprised, but relieved.
I smiled at him.
I turned and walked back to the kitchen. There were lots of weapons in
the kitchen.
Callaway followed me, his loafers making little thwacks on the boards of
the floor.
It would be very opportune if Jason arrived right now for his sweet
potato casserole, or if Dermot came home for supper, but I wasn’t going to
count on their help.
“So you did open the bag? You looked at it?” I said over my shoulder.
“I don’t know why Gran left me an old powder compact, but it is kind of
pretty. Gran was sort of a crackpot; a sweet old lady, but real imaginative.”
“So often our elderly relatives love things that don’t really have much
intrinsic value,” the antiques dealer said. “In your case, your grandmother
left you an item that is of interest only to a few specialized collectors.”
“Really? What is it? She called it something crazy.” I was still leading
the way. I smiled to myself. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a very pleasant smile.
He didn’t hesitate. “It’s a turn-of-the-century Valentine’s Day present,”
he said. “Made out of soapstone. If you can open it, there’s a little
compartment for a lock of the hair of the person giving it.”
“Really? I couldn’t open it. You know how?” I was sure that only the
intention to use it could open the cluviel dor.
“Yes, I’m pretty sure I can open it,” he said, and he believed that—but
he’d never tried. He hadn’t had time that day, had had only a quick glance at
the cluviel dor and at the letter. He assumed that he’d be able to open the
round object because he’d never been thwarted when he’d tried to open
similar antique items before.
“That would be real interesting,” I said. “And how many people are
gonna bid on this old thing? How much money you think I could make?”
“At least two people are involved,” he said. “But that’s all you need, to
make a little profit. Maybe you’d make as much as a thousand, though I have
to take my cut.”
“Why should I give you any? Why shouldn’t I contact them myself?”
He sat at the kitchen table uninvited, while I went to the stove to check
the sweet potatoes. They were done. All the other ingredients— butter, eggs,
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sugar, molasses, allspice, nutmeg, and vanilla—were arranged in a row on
the counter, ready for me to measure. The oven had preheated.
He was taken aback by my question, but he rallied. “Why, you don’t
want to deal with these people, young lady. They’re pretty rough people.
You want to let me do that. So it’s only fair that I get a little recompense for
my trouble.”
“What if I don’t want to let you ‘do that’?” I turned off the heat, but the
water kept bubbling. With a slotted spoon, I scooped out the sweet potato
chunks and put them in a bowl. Steam rose from them, making the kitchen
even warmer, despite the air conditioner rumbling away. I was monitoring
his thoughts closely, as I should have done the day he’d been here working.
“Then I’ll just take it,” he said.
I turned to face him. He had some Mace and a knife. I heard the front
door open and shut, very quietly. Callaway didn’t hear it; he didn’t know this
house like I did.
“I won’t give it up,” I said flatly, my voice louder than it needed to be.
“And you can’t find it.”
“I’m an antiques dealer,” he said with absolute assurance. “I’m very
good at finding old things.”
I didn’t know if a friend had entered or another foe. Truth be told, I had
little faith in the wards. The silence and stealth the newcomer employed
could indicate either one. I did know I wasn’t going to give up the cluviel
dor. And I knew for sure I wasn’t going to stand passively and let this asshole
hurt me. I twisted, gripped the handle of the pot of hot water, and pivoted
smoothly, flinging the water directly into Donald Callaway’s face.
A lot of things happened then, in very rapid succession. Callaway
screamed and dropped the knife and the Mace, clapping his hands to his face
while water flew everywhere. The demon lawyer, Desmond Cataliades,
charged into the room. He bellowed like a maddened bull when he saw
Donald Callaway on the floor (the dealer was doing a little of his own
bellowing). The demon leaped onto the prone dealer, gripped his head, and
twisted, and all the noise stopped abruptly.
“Shepherd of Judea,” I said. I pulled out a chair and sat in it to forestall
falling down on the wet floor with the body.
Mr. Cataliades picked himself up, dusted his hands together, and
beamed at me. “Miss Stackhouse, how nice to see you,” he said. “And how
clever of you to distract him. I’m not yet returned to full strength.”
“I take it you know who this is,” I said, trying not to look at the inert
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figure of Donald Callaway.
“I do. And I’ve been looking for a chance to shut his mouth forever.”
The bowl of sweet potatoes was still letting off steam.
“I can’t pretend to regret he’s dead,” I said. “But this whole incident is
kind of shocking, and it’s taking me a minute to collect myself. In fact, I’ve
been through a lot of shocking stuff lately. But what else is new? Sorry, I’m
babbling.”
“I can quite understand that. Shall I tell you what I’ve been doing?”
“Yes, please. Have a seat and talk to me.” It would give me a chance to
recover.
The demon sat opposite me and smiled in a cordial way. “When last
you saw me, you were giving a baby shower, I believe? And the hellhounds
were pursuing me. Do you mind if I impose on you for a glass of ice water?”
“Not at all,” I said, and rose to fetch it. I had to step over the body.
“Thank you, my dear.” The lawyer finished the glass in one long
swallow. I refilled it. I was glad to return to my seat.
“You look kind of beat up,” I observed, for I’d watched him as he
drank. Mr. Cataliades was usually very well turned out in expensive suits
that could not hide his round figure but at least made him look prosperous.
The suit he had on had certainly looked much better when he’d bought it.
Now it was marred with snags and holes and frayed spots, and spotted with
stains. His once-polished brogans could not be salvaged. Even his socks were
in tatters. The tonsure of dark hair was full of debris, leaves and twigs. Could
it be he hadn’t had a chance to change clothes since I’d last seen him sitting
here in this kitchen, taking a time-out from his pursuit by four-legged streaks
of darkness?
“Yes,” he said, looking down at his condition. “‘Kind of beat up’ is a
gentle way to put it. Those streaks of darkness were hellhounds.” It was no
shock to me that he could read my mind; my own telepathy had been a birth
present from Mr. Cataliades. He’d always been very good at concealing his
own gift, never betraying by so much as a glance that he could read human
minds. But I’d figured he must have it, if he could give it away. “The
hellhounds pursued me for a very long time, and I had no idea why. I could
not fathom what I had done to offend their master.” He shook his head.
“Now, of course, I know.”
I waited for him to tell me what he’d done, but he wasn’t ready for that.
“Finally, I became far enough ahead of the hounds to take time to
arrange an ambush. By then, Diantha had been able to find me to join in the
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surprise I’d planned for them. We had … quite a struggle with the hounds.”
He was silent for a moment. I looked at the stains on his clothing and took a
deep breath.
“Please tell me Diantha isn’t dead,” I said. His niece Diantha was one of
the most unusual creatures I’d ever met, and that was saying something,
considering whom I could enter in my address book.
“We prevailed,” he said simply. “But it cost us, of course. I had to lie
hidden in the woods for many days until I was able to travel again. Diantha
recovered more quickly since her wounds were slighter, and she brought me
food and began gathering information. We needed to understand before we
could begin to dig ourselves out of trouble.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, wondering where this was going to lead. “You want
to share that information with me? I’m pretty sure that this guy didn’t
understand my gran’s letter.” I nodded my head at the body.
“He may not have understood the context, and he didn’t believe in
fairies, but he did see the phrase ‘cluviel dor,’” Mr. Cataliades said.
“But how come he knew it was valuable? He definitely didn’t know
what it can do, because he didn’t understand the reality of fairies.”
“I learned from my sponsor, Bertine, that Callaway Googled the term
‘cluviel dor.’ He found one reference in a fragment of text from an old Irish
folk tale,” Mr. Cataliades said.
This Bertine must be Mr. Cataliades’s godmother, in effect, the same
way Mr. Cataliades (my grandfather’s best friend) was mine. I wondered
briefly what Bertine looked like, where she lived. But Mr. Cataliades was still
talking.
“Computers are another reason to deplore this age, when no one has to
really travel to learn important things from other cultures.” He shook his
head, and a fragment of leaf floated to the floor and landed on the corpse.
“And I’ll tell you more about my sponsor when we have some leisure. You
might like her.”
I suspected Mr. Cataliades also had flashes of foreseeing.
“Fortunately for us, Callaway came to Bertine’s attention when he
persisted in his research. Of course, it was unfortunate for him.” Mr.
Cataliades spared a downward glance at the inert Donald. “Callaway tracked
down a supposed expert in fairy lore, someone who could tell him what little
is known about this legendary fairy artifact; namely, the fact that none exist
on this earth anymore. Unfortunately, this expert—who was Bertine, as you
have no doubt surmised—did not understand the importance of keeping
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silent. Since dear Bertine didn’t believe that there were any cluviel dors left in
either world, she felt free to talk about them. Therefore, she was ignorant of
the wrong she committed when she told Callaway that a cluviel dor could be
made in almost any form or shape. Callaway had never suspected the item
he’d held was an actual fae artifact until he talked to Bertine. He imagined
scholars and folklorists would give a pretty penny to possess such a thing.”
“When he showed me the drawer, I didn’t get that he’d already opened
it,” I said quietly. “How could that be?”
“Were you shielding?”
“I’m sure I was.” I did it without thinking, to protect myself. Of course,
I couldn’t maintain such a level of blocking all day, every day. And of course,
it protected your brain only like wearing earmuffs affected your hearing; a lot
of stuff still filtered in, especially from a strong broadcaster. But apparently
Donald had been preoccupied that day, and I had been so excited at the
contents of the drawer I hadn’t realized he was seeing the Butterick pattern
envelope and the velvet bag for the second time. He hadn’t believed he’d
found anything valuable or notable: a confusing letter from an old woman
about having children and getting a present, and a bag containing an old
toiletry item, maybe a powder compact. It was when he’d thought the find
over later and Googled the odd phrase that he’d begun to wonder if those
items might be valuable.
“I need to give you lessons, child, as I should have done before. Isn’t it
nice that we’re finally getting to know one another? I regret that it takes a
huge crisis to impel me to make this offer.”
I nodded faintly. I was glad to learn something about my telepathy
from my sponsor, but it was kind of daunting to think of Desmond
Cataliades becoming part of my everyday life. Of course, he knew what I was
thinking, so I said hurriedly, “Please tell me what happened next.”
“When Diantha thought of questioning Bertine, Bertine realized what
she had done. Far from giving a human a useless bit of information about old
fairy lore, she had revealed a secret. She came to me while I was recuperating,
and I finally understood why I’d been pursued.”
“Because …” I tried to arrange my thoughts. “Because you’d kept secret
the existence of a cluviel dor?”
“Yes. My friendship with Fintan, whose name your grandmother
mentioned in the letter, was no secret. Stupid Callaway Googled Fintan, too,
and though he didn’t find out anything about the real Fintan, the conjunction
of the two searches sent out an alarm that eventually reached … the wrong
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ears. The fact that Fintan was your grandfather is no secret, either, since Niall
found you and chose to honor you with his love and protection. It would not
take much to put these snippets together.”
“This is the only cluviel dor left in the world?” Awesome.
“Unless one lies lost and forgotten in the land of the fae. And believe
me, there are plenty who search every day for such a thing.”
“Can I give it away?”
“You’ll need it if you’re attacked. And you will be attacked,” Mr.
Cataliades said, matter-of-factly. “You can use it for yourself, you know;
loving yourself is a legitimate trigger of its magic. Giving it to someone else
would seal their death warrant. I don’t think you’d want that, though my
knowledge of you is inadequate.”
Gee. A lot of swell news.
“I wish Adele had used it herself, to save her own life or the life of one
of her children, to take the burden from you. I can only suppose that she
didn’t believe in its power.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. And if she had, she almost certainly felt that
using it would not be a Christian act. “So, who’s after the cluviel dor? I guess
you know, by now?”
“I’m not sure that knowledge would be good for you,” he said.
“How come you can read my mind, but I can’t read yours?” I asked,
tired of being transparent. Now I knew how other people must feel when I
plucked a thought or two from their brains. Mr. Cataliades was a master at
this, while I was very much a novice. He seemed to hear everything, and it
didn’t seem to bother him. Before I’d learned to shield, the world had been a
babble of talk inside my head. Now that I could block those thoughts for the
most part, life was easier, but it was frustrating when I actually wanted to
hear: I seldom got a full thought or understood its context. It was surprisingly
deflating to realize that it wasn’t how much I heard that was amazing, it was
how much I missed.
“Well, I am mostly a demon,” he said apologetically. “And you’re
mostly only human.”
“Do you know Barry?” I asked, and even Mr. Cataliades looked a little
surprised.
“Yes,” he said, after a perceptible hesitation. “The young man who can
also read minds. I saw him in Rhodes, before and after the explosion.”
“If I came to be telepathic because of your—well, essentially, your baby
shower present—how come Barry is telepathic?”
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Mr. Cataliades pulled himself straight and looked anywhere but at me.
“Barry is my great-great-grandson.”
“So, you’re much older than you look.”
This was taken as a compliment. “Yes, my young friend, I am. I don’t
neglect the boy, you know. He doesn’t really know me, and of course he
doesn’t know his heritage, but I’ve kept him out of a lot of trouble. Not the
same thing as having a fairy godmother as you had, but I’ve done my best.”
“Of course,” I said, because it hadn’t been my intent to accuse Mr.
Cataliades of ignoring his own kin. I’d just been curious. Time to change the
subject, before I told him that my own fairy godmother had gotten killed
defending me. “Are you gonna tell me who’s after the cluviel dor?”
He looked profoundly sorry for me. There was a lot of that going
around. “Let’s get rid of this body first, shall we?” he said. “Do you have any
disposal suggestions?”
I so seldom had to dispose of a human body myself, I was at a loss.
Fairies turned into dust, and vampires flaked away. Demons had to be
burned. Humans were very troublesome.
Mr. Cataliades, picking up on that thought, turned away with a small
smile. “I hear Diantha coming,” he remarked. “Maybe she’ll have a plan.”
Sure enough, the skinny girl glided into the room from the back door. I
hadn’t even heard her enter or detected her brain. She was wearing an eyeshattering
combination: a very short yellow-and-black striped skirt over royal
blue leggings, and a black leotard. Her black ankle boots were laced up with
broad white laces. Today, her hair was bright pink. “Sookieyoudoingokay?”
she asked.
It took me a second to translate, and then I nodded. “We got to get rid
of this,” I said, pointing to the body, which was absolutely obvious in a
kitchen the size of mine.
“Thatshutsonedoor,” she said to her uncle.
He nodded gravely. “I suppose the best way to proceed is to load him
into the trunk of his car,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Diantha, do you think you
could assume his appearance?”
Diantha made a disgusted face but quickly bent to Donald Callaway’s
face and stared into it. She plucked a hair from his head, closed her eyes. Her
lips moved, and the air had that magic feel I’d noticed when my friend
Amelia had performed one of her spells.
In a moment, to my shock, Donald Callaway was standing in front of us
staring down at his own body.
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It was Diantha, completely transformed. She was even wearing
Callaway’s clothes, or at least that was the way she appeared to my eyes.
“Fuckthisshit,” Callaway said, and I knew Diantha was in charge. But it
was beyond strange to see Mr. Cataliades and Donald Callaway carrying out
Callaway’s body to his car, unlocked with the keys extracted from the
corpse’s pocket.
I followed them out, watching carefully to make sure nothing fell or
leaked from the body.
“Diantha, drive to the airport in Shreveport and park the car there. Call
a cab to pick you up, and have it drop you off at … at the police station. From
there, find a good place to change back, so they’ll lose the trail.”
She nodded with a jerk and climbed into the car.
“Diantha can keep his appearance all the way to Shreveport?” I said, as
she turned the car around with a grind of the wheel. She (he) waved gaily as
she took off like a rocket. I hoped she made it back to Shreveport without
getting a ticket.
“She won’t get a ticket,” Mr. Cataliades answered my thought.
But here came Jason in his pickup.
“Oh, hell,” I said. “His sweet potatoes aren’t ready.”
“I need say good-bye, anyway,” Mr. Cataliades said. “I know there are
some things I haven’t told you, but I must go now. I may have taken care of
the hellhounds, but yours aren’t my only secrets.”
“But …”
I might as well not have spoken. With the startling speed he’d shown
when the hellhounds were chasing him, my “sponsor” disappeared into the
woods.
“Hey, Sis!” Jason bounded out of his truck. “Did you just have a visitor?
I passed a car. You got my sweet potatoes ready?”
“Ah, not quite,” I said. “That was a drop-in I didn’t expect, a guy
wanting to sell me life insurance. You come in and sit, and they’ll be ready in
about forty-five minutes.” That was an exaggeration, but I wanted Jason to
stay. I was scared to be alone. That was not a familiar feeling, or one I liked.
Jason was willing enough to come in and gossip with me while I stood
at the kitchen counter adding ingredients to the sweet potatoes, mashing
them, pouring them over the prepared crust, and putting the dish in the
oven.
“How come there’s water everywhere?” Jason said, getting up from the
chair to mop it off with a dry dish towel.
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“I dropped a pitcher,” I said, and that was the end of Jason’s curiosity.
We talked about the suggested wedding dates, the du Rone babies, Hoyt and
Holly’s marriage and Hoyt’s idea that they have a double ceremony (I was
sure Holly and Michele would nix that), and the big reconciliation between
Danny and Kennedy, who had been spotted kissing passionately in public at
the Sonic.
As I was pulling the casserole out of the oven and preparing to add the
final layer, Jason said, “Hey, I guess you heard that all our old furniture got
busted up? That stuff the antiques dealer took? What was her name, Brenda?
I hope you got money up front. It wasn’t on consignment or nothing, right?”
I’d frozen after lifting out the dish halfway, but I made myself continue
with my task. It helped that Dermot came in then, and since he and Jason
looked so much alike, Jason got the biggest kick out of telling Dermot how
good he was looking, every single time he saw our great-uncle.
“No, I already got cash for that stuff,” I said, when the mutual
admiration society had had its moment. And I got the distinct impression
from Jason’s head that he’d already forgotten that he’d asked me.
By the time I’d finished my work and sent Jason on his way with the
hot dish, Dermot had volunteered to fix hamburgers for our supper. Cooking
was something else that he was interested in now, thanks to the Food
Network and Bravo. While Dermot was frying the burgers and getting out
anything we might want to put on the buns, I looked around the kitchen very
carefully to make sure there weren’t any traces of the incident.
Oh, come on, I said to myself. Donald Callaway’s murder. “Incident,” my
round, rosy ass. It turned out to be a good thing I checked, because under the
kitchen table I spied a pair of dark glasses that must have fallen out of
Callaway’s shirt pocket. Dermot didn’t comment when I straightened and
slid them into a drawer.
“I don’t guess you’ve heard from Claude or Niall,” I said.
“No. Maybe Niall has killed Claude, or maybe now that Claude is in
Faery, he just doesn’t care anymore about those of us left here,” Dermot said,
sounding simply philosophical.
I really couldn’t argue with him that those scenarios were impossible,
because I knew enough about fairies and enough about Claude to know that
they were actually likely. “Are some of the guys coming to run out in the
woods tonight?” I said. “I guess Bellenos and Gift told you about last night.”
“Those two won’t be here tonight,” Dermot said, rather grimly. “I am
making them work tonight as punishment. They hate cleaning the bathrooms
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and kitchen, so that’s their duty after the club closes. They may come
tomorrow night if they behave themselves. I’m sorry about your car, Niece.”
All the fae were calling me Sister now, and Dermot almost always
called me Niece. There were a lot worse names they could have chosen, but
all this familial terminology felt awfully intimate. “The car’s running okay,” I
said, though I’d have to get the bumper fixed sooner or later. Probably later.
The seat belt had to be replaced pronto. And I was a little taken aback that
Dermot was punishing the sharp-toothed elf and his running buddy as he
would little children, giving them the unpopular cleanup duty. But out loud I
said, “At least they were able to get the car out of the ditch. I’m only worried
they’ll get spotted on someone else’s land or that they’ll run into Bill.”
“He loves you,” Dermot said, turning over the hamburgers in the
skillet.
“Yeah, I know.” I got out two plates and a bowl of mixed fruit. “There’s
nothing I can do about it but be his friend, though. I used to love him back,
and I gotta say there are moments when I feel the old attraction, but I’m not
in love with Bill. Not anymore.”
“You love the blond one?” Dermot had been sure about Bill, but he
didn’t sound so sure about Eric.
“Yes.” But I no longer felt the surge of love and lust and excitement I’d
had before the past few weeks. I hoped I might feel all that again, but I was so
emotionally battered that I’d gone a little numb. It was a curious feeling—as
if my hand were asleep, but I expected it would be all pins and needles at any
second. “I love him,” I said, but even to my own ears I didn’t sound happy
about it.
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Chapter 11
You may wonder why I was willing to eat in the kitchen where I’d just
witnessed a violent death. The fact is, Donald Callaway’s demise was not the
worst thing that had happened in my kitchen—not by a long shot. Maybe
that was another thing I was getting numb to.
Just before our food was ready, when Dermot’s back was turned, I slid
open the drawer and extricated the dead man’s sunglasses, sliding them into
my apron pocket. I admit, I can’t say my legs were too steady when I excused
myself to go to the bathroom. When I was safely shut inside, I put my hands
over my face and sat on the edge of the tub to take a few deep breaths. I got
up, dropping Donald Callaway’s dark glasses onto the bath mat. I stomped
on them three times, quickly. Without stopping to think, I held the bath mat
over the waste can in a funnel shape and shook it gently until all the pieces
were safely at the bottom of the plastic bag acting as a liner.
After supper, I planned to take the bag out to the big garbage can that
we had to wheel out to the road every Friday.
When I heard Dermot calling me, I washed my hands and my face and
left the bathroom, making myself stand straight. As I passed through my
bedroom, I slipped the cluviel dor into my pocket, where the sunglasses had
been. I couldn’t leave it alone in my room. Not anymore.
The hamburgers were good, and I managed to eat mine and some fruit
salad, too. Dermot and I were quiet together, which suited me fine. As we did
the dishes, Dermot told me shyly that he had a date and would be going out
after he showered.
“Oh my gosh!” I grinned at him. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“Linda Tonnesen.”
“The doctor!”
“Yes,” he said a little doubtfully. “I think that’s what she said she did.
Treats human ailments?”
“Oh, that’s a big deal, really, Dermot,” I said. “Doctors get a lot of
respect in our society. I guess as far as she knows, you’re human?”
He flushed. “Yes, she thinks I’m a very attractive human. I met her at
the bar three nights ago.”
It would be pretty stupid for me to comment further. He was
handsome, sweet natured, and strong. What more could a woman want?
Besides, considering the confused state of my own love life, I could
hardly pass out dating tips.
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I told Dermot I’d finish the dishes so he could go get ready for his date,
and by the time I was ensconced on the living room couch with a book, he
came downstairs in navy slacks and a pale blue striped shirt with a buttondown
collar. He looked amazing, and I told him so. He grinned at me.
“I hope she’ll think so,” he said. “I love the way she smells.”
That was a very fairy compliment. Linda Tonnesen was a smart woman
with a great sense of humor, but she was not what humans thought of as
conventionally pretty. Her smell had scored her big points with Dermot. I’d
have to remember that.
By the time Dermot left, dark had fallen. I got the bag containing
Jannalynn’s jacket and went out the back door, on my way to Bill’s house. I
felt a little better after I’d dropped the other little bag, the one containing the
smashed dark glasses, into the garbage bin. I turned on my flashlight and
strode to the woods. There was a little path; Bill came over often, probably far
more often than I knew.
Just before I reached the cleared ground of the old cemetery, I heard a
sound to my left. I stopped in my tracks. “Bill?” I said.
“Sookie,” he answered, and then he was right in front of me. He had his
own little plastic sack looped over his left hand. We were all carrying bags
around tonight.
“I brought Jannalynn’s jacket,” I said. “For you and Heidi.”
“You stole her jacket?” He sounded amused.
“If that were the worst thing I’d done today, I’d be a happy woman.”
Bill let that pass, though I could almost feel him peering at me. Vampire
eyesight is excellent, of course. He took my arm and we walked a few feet to
get into the cemetery grounds. Even though there weren’t many lights there,
there were a few, and I could see (faintly) that Bill was excited about
something.
He opened my bag, put it to his face, and inhaled. “No, that’s not a
scent I picked up at the gate in the backyard. Of course, considering all the
scents around there and the length of time before we were able to investigate,
that can’t be a definite no.” He handed it back.
I felt almost disappointed. Jannalynn made me so antsy that I would
have liked to find her guilty of something, but I chided myself for being
uncharitable. I should be glad Sam was dating an innocent woman. And I
was. Right?
“You look unhappy,” Bill said. We were walking back to his house, and
I’d tucked the plastic bag under my arm. I’d been thinking of how I’d return
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Jannalynn’s jacket to Sam’s office. I’d have to do it soon.
“I am unhappy,” I said. Then, because I didn’t want to explain my every
inner qualm, I told Bill, “I listened to the news on the radio while I was
cutting up sweet potatoes. That girl Kym, the police are trying to blame her
murder on a vampire because she died in Eric’s front yard. Someone
vandalized Fangtasia, threw white paint all over the exterior. Are Felipe and
his crew still here? Why don’t they go home?”
Bill put his arm around me. “Calm down,” he said, his voice hard.
I was so surprised that I actually held my breath for a moment.
“Breathe,” he commanded. “Slowly. Thoughtfully.”
“What are you, Zen Master Fang?”
“Sookie.” When he used that voice, he meant business. So I took a deep
breath, let it out. Again. Again.
“Okay, I’m better,” I said.
“Listen,” Bill said, and I raised my eyes to his. He was looking excited
again. He shook his own bag. “We’ve had all eyes open to try to track down
Colton … or find his body. Very early this past morning, Palomino called
from her job at the Trifecta. She’s seen Colton. Felipe does have him. We’ve
got a plan to get him out. Cobbled together, but I think it might work. If we
can accomplish that, maybe we’ll also discover where they’re keeping
Warren. If we find Warren and broadcast his whereabouts, Mustapha will
come forward to tell what he knows. When Mustapha tells us who suborned
him by holding Warren hostage, then we’ll know who killed Kym. When we
tell the police, the heat will be off Eric. Then we can solve the problem of that
asshole Appius’s posthumous betrothal of Eric to Freyda. Felipe and his
‘posse’ will go back to Nevada. Eric will have his sheriff’s job, or a new title,
but Felipe will not fire him or kill him.”
“That’s a hell of lot of dominoes, Bill. Colton to Warren to Mustapha to
Kym’s murderer to the police to Appius to Freyda to Eric. Anyway, isn’t it
too late? We’re doomed. Colton’s probably already told him everything.”
“He can’t have. Colton was grieving so hard over Audrina that I wiped
his memory of her death. So he doesn’t remember all of what happened that
night, by any means.”
“You didn’t tell Eric that, did you?”
Bill shrugged. “I didn’t need his permission. It doesn’t matter now,
anyway. Felipe won’t have Colton after tonight.” He brandished the bag he’d
brought.
“Why?”
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“Because you and I are going to kidnap him back.”
“And do what with him?” Colton was a pretty nice guy, and he hadn’t
had what anyone would think was an easy life. I didn’t want to rescue him
from Felipe only to find that Bill planned to remove Colton as a witness in a
very final way.
“I have it all planned. But we have to act quickly. I’ve texted Harp to
tell him we have to reschedule. I think this is more important than asking him
questions about Kym’s parents.”
I had to agree.
“Say we get Colton out,” I said, as we hustled toward Bill’s car. “What
about Immanuel? Can they track him in Los Angeles?” Immanuel the
hairdresser, also human, had been there that night, since Victor’s cruelty had
led to his sister’s death.
“He got work on the set of a television show. Ironically, it’s about
vampires and most of the shooting takes place at night. Two members of the
crew are actually vampires. I put Immanuel under the care of one of them.
He’ll be guarded.”
“How’d you arrange that?”
“Coincidence. It happens,” Bill said. “And you’re the other human, but
you can’t be glamoured. So if we can just get Colton away and find Warren
…”
“Since Warren never came into Fangtasia the night we killed Victor,” I
said, “I don’t believe his abduction has anything to do with Victor’s death. I
think Warren was snatched just to force Mustapha to let Kym Rowe in the
back door of Eric’s house.” I had enough lightbulbs popping over my head to
illuminate an operating room. “What do you think?”
“I think we have a lot of questions,” Bill said. “Now let’s go find out
some answers.”
Our first stop was my house, where I left Jannalynn’s jacket and opened
the bag Bill had brought.
“Good God,” I said in disgust. “I got to wear that?”
“Part of the plan,” Bill said, though he was smiling.
I stomped into my room and pulled on the blue “flirty” skirt, which
began well below my navel and ended about two inches below my happy
place. The “blouse”—and it was a blouse in name only—was white with red
trim and tied between my breasts. It was just like a bra with sleeves. I put on
white Nikes with red trim, which was the best match I had on my shoe rack.
There sure wasn’t any pocket in this outfit, so I stuck the cluviel dor in my
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shoulder bag. While I was preparing for this secret mission, I put my phone
on vibrate so it couldn’t ring at an awkward moment. I looked in the
bathroom mirror. I was as ready as I’d ever be.
I felt ridiculously self-conscious when I came into the living room
wearing the abbreviated outfit.
“You look just right,” Bill said soberly, and I caught the corner of his
mouth twitching. I had to laugh.
“I hope Sam doesn’t decide we ought to dress this way at Merlotte’s,” I
said.
“You would have a full house every night,” Bill said.
“Not unless I lost some weight.” My glance in the mirror had reminded
me that my stomach was not exactly concave.
“You look mouthwatering,” Bill said, and to make his point his fangs
came down. He tactfully closed his mouth.
“Oh, well.” I tried to accept this as an impersonal tribute, though I don’t
think any woman minds knowing she looks good, as long as the admiration
isn’t expressed in an offensive way and doesn’t come from a disgusting
source. “We better get going.”
The Trifecta, a hotel/casino on the east side of Shreveport, was the
closest thing the town had to “glamorous.” At night it glowed silver with so
many lights I was sure you could see it from the moon. Since the lot was full,
we were forced to park outside the fenced employee parking area. But the
gate was open and unguarded at the moment, so we simply walked through
the lot and right up to the very prosaic beige metal door that was the
employee entrance.
There was a keypad outside. Though I felt dismayed, Bill didn’t seem
worried. He looked down at his watch and then knocked on the door. There
were some faint beeps inside, and Palomino swung the door open. She was
balancing a room service tray on one hand. Laden as it was, that was an
impressive achievement.
The young vampire was wearing the same outfit I was, and she looked
mouthwatering in it. But at the moment, her appearance was the last thing on
her mind. “Get in!” she snapped, and Bill and I entered the grungy back
corridor. If you got to enter the Trifecta as a guest, it was glittery and
gleaming and full of the constant machine noise and the frantic human
yearning for pleasure that fills all casinos. But that wasn’t for us, not tonight.
Wordlessly, Palomino set off at a fast clip. I noticed that she was able to
balance the tray perfectly, no matter how much her speed picked up. I
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scurried after the two vampires along the beige-painted corridors, marred
with scratches and chips. Everyone back here was in a hurry to get where
they needed to be, either at a work station or out the back door to go
somewhere more pleasant. They were saving their smiles for people they
cared about. I saw a half-remembered face among the grim horde, and after I
passed I recalled that she was one of the Long Tooth pack. She didn’t let on
by a twitch or a smile that she knew who I was.
Palomino strode ahead of us, her light-brown skin looking warm even
though she’d been dead for years, her pale hair bouncing over a depressingly
tight butt. We hustled onto a huge elevator. Instead of being lined with
mirrors and shiny rails, this one was padded. The staff elevator was
obviously used for bringing up palettes of food and other heavy items.
“I hate this fucking job,” Palomino said as she jabbed a button. She
glared at Bill.
“It’s only for a little while,” he said, and from his voice I could tell he’d
told her the same thing many times before. “And then you can quit. You can
quit dating the Were, too.”
She was mollified and even managed to smile. “He’s on the fifth floor,
in 507,” she said. “I walked all over this damn hotel tracking him, but since
they didn’t station guards outside the room, I couldn’t pinpoint it until last
night when I took in the room service tray.”
“You’ve done a good job. Eric will be grateful,” Bill said.
Her smile glowed even brighter. “Good! That’s what I was hoping!
Now Rubio and Parker may get a chance to show their skills.” The two
vampires were her nestmates. They were not great fighters. I hoped they did
have other skills.
“I’ll present that to Eric in the most urgent terms,” Bill promised.
The staff elevator stopped, and Palomino handed the tray to me. I had
to use both my hands. Lots of food and three drinks weighed it down. She
pressed the Doors Closed button and began to talk very quickly.
“Keep your head turned away, and they’ll think you’re me,” she said.
“No one would think that,” I said, but after a second I could sort of see
it.
Palomino was naturally brown, and I was very tan. Palomino’s hair was
paler than mine, but mine was as abundant and long. We were much the
same height and build, and we were wearing identical outfits.
“I’m going to go be conspicuous out front,” she said. “Give me three
minutes to get within sight of the security cameras. I’ll meet you at the back
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door ten minutes after that. Now, get off the elevator so I can go.”
We got off. Bill held the tray for me while I took my hair out of its
ponytail and shook my head from side to side to increase my resemblance to
the vampire.
“As long as you had her here, why couldn’t she have done this?” I
hissed.
“This way she can be visibly elsewhere,” Bill said. “If Felipe suspected
her complicity, he could have her killed. He can’t do that to you. You’re Eric’s
wife. But that’s a worst-case scenario. We’ll pull the trick off.” He pulled a
khaki fishing hat out of his back pocket and pulled it over his head. I forbore
to comment on the way he looked.
“What trick?” I asked, instead.
“Well, it is a sort of conjuring trick,” he said. “Now you see him. Now
you don’t. Remember, there are two guards in there with him. They’ll open
the door, and your job is to make sure it stays open. I’ll come in and do the
rest.”
“You couldn’t just break the door down?”
“And have security here in two minutes? I don’t think that would be a
good plan.”
“I’m not sure this is, either. But okay.”
I marched down the hall and knocked on the door of 507 with the
knuckles of my left hand, managing this by kind of wedging the tray into the
corner formed by the door and its frame. I smiled big at the peephole and
took a deep breath to let my chest do its thing. I sensed the appreciation
through the door. I counted the heads inside the room: three, as Bill had told
me.
The tray was not getting any lighter, and I was conscious of a definite
relief when the door opened. I could hear Bill’s footsteps coming up behind
me.
“All right, come on in,” said a bored voice.
Of course, both of the guards were human. They would have to be on
duty during the day, too.
“Where you want this?” I asked.
“Over there on the coffee table’ll be fine.” He was very tall, pretty
heavy, with very short gray hair. I smiled at him and bore the laden tray over
to the low table. I squatted and slid it into place. The other guard was with
Colton in the bathroom, waiting until I left to emerge; I read that right from
his brain.
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The room door was still open, but the guard was standing close to it.
After a second’s anxious search I spotted the plastic folder containing the
check and handed it to the hulk without getting closer to him. He made a
little face but moved nearer, his hand extended, the door he’d released
beginning to swing shut. But in slid Bill, moving smoothly and silently at the
man’s back. While I kept my eyes fixed on the folder, Bill reached up and
around to hit the man in the temple. The guard dropped like a sack of wet
oatmeal.
I grabbed a napkin from the tray and wiped my fingerprints off the tray
and the folder while Bill shut the room door.
“Dewey?” said the man in the bathroom. “She gone yet?”
“Uh-huh,” Bill said, deepening his voice.
The second guard must have sensed something was up, because he had
a gun in his hand when he opened the bathroom door. He might have been
prepared with weaponry, but he wasn’t mentally prepared, because at the
sight of two strangers he froze, his eyes widening. It was just for a second,
but that was all it took for Bill to leap onto him and sock him in the same
place he’d hit the hulk. I kicked the gun under the couch when it fell from the
guard’s hand.
Bill hurried to pull the unconscious man out of the way while I darted
into the bathroom to untie Colton. It was like we’d done this a dozen times! I
confess I felt pretty proud at the way it was going.
I looked Colton over while I began working on the duct tape across his
mouth. He was not in great shape. Colton had worked for Felipe in Reno and
then followed Victor to Louisiana, where he’d been employed at Vampire’s
Kiss. His apparent devotion hadn’t stemmed from affection but from a thirst
for vengeance; Colton’s mother had died as a result of Victor’s teaching a
lesson to Colton’s half brother. Carelessly, Victor had never dug deep enough
to get the connection, and as a result, Colton had been a great help to the
Shreveport plan to eradicate Victor. His lover Audrina had taken part in the
fight and paid for her devotion with her life. I hadn’t seen Colton since that
night, but I’d known he’d stayed in the area and even kept his job at
Vampire’s Kiss.
Colton’s gray eyes were full of tears after I yanked the duct tape off. His
first words were a stream of profanity.
“Bill, we need a handcuff key,” I said, and as Bill began rummaging in
the guards’ pockets to track it down, I cut the tape around Colton’s ankles.
Bill threw the key to me, and I unlocked the cuffs. Once I tossed them aside,
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Colton didn’t know what he wanted to do first: rub his wrists or massage his
stinging face. Instead, he flung his arms around me and said, “God bless
you.”
I was startled and touched. I said, “This was Bill’s plan, and now we’ve
got to skedaddle before anyone comes looking. Those guys will come to
eventually.” Bill had reused the handcuffs on the hulk and was using Second
Guard’s own belt to secure his arms. The roll of duct tape they’d used on
Colton was also heavily deployed.
“See how you like that, motherfuckers,” Colton said, with some
satisfaction. He stood up and we went to the door. “Thanks, Mr. Comp-ton.”
“My pleasure,” Bill said drily.
Colton seemed to take in my scanty outfit for the first time, and his gray
eyes widened. “Wow,” he said, one hand on the doorknob. “When Palomino
brought in the food last night, I caught a glimpse of her. I hoped she
recognized me and would do something for me, but I never expected this.”
He looked at me again before forcing his eyes away. “Wow,” he said, and
swallowed.
“If you’ve finished ogling Eric’s woman, it’s time to get out of here,”
Bill said. If his voice had been dry before, it was toast now.
“Just don’t let anyone see me,” Colton said. “And after I get out of this
town, I never want to talk to another vampire in my life.”
“Though we’ve risked our lives to rescue you,” Bill said.
“Time to work out the philosophy later,” I said, and they both nodded.
In a second, we were on the move. I had a napkin in my hand, and I used it
when I shut the door of 507 behind us. We went down the hall in single file
and reached the staff elevator, passing only one couple on our journey. They
were completely wrapped up in each other and didn’t do more than stop
groping for a moment in reaction to our presence. The staff elevator came
quickly, and we stepped on to join a middle-aged woman who was carrying
some dry cleaning in a plastic bag. She nodded to us and kept her eyes on the
floor indicator. We had to go up with her before we could go down, and my
palms started sweating with anxiety. She was ignoring Colton’s disheveled
condition with a deliberate air. She didn’t want to know, which was great. It
was a relief when she stepped off.
When we began our descent, I was terrified someone would be waiting
for us on the fifth floor; the door would open, and we’d be confronted with
the two men we’d left bound. But that didn’t happen. We got down to the
second floor, and the doors whooshed open. There were several other
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workers there: another room service server with a rolling cart, a bellman, and
a woman in a black suit. She was very well groomed and wearing high heels,
too, so she was definitely higher up on the food chain.
She was the only one who paid us any attention when they all crowded
on. “Server,” she said sharply. “Where’s your name tag?” Palo-mino had
worn one on the upper slope of her right breast, so I clapped my hand to the
place mine should have been. “Sorry, it must have fallen off,” I said
apologetically.
“Get another one right away,” she said, and I looked at her tag. “M.
Norman,” it said. I was sure I wouldn’t get a surname. Mine would say
“Candi” or “Brandi” or “Sandi.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, since now was not a time to start a class war.
M. Norman’s gaze went to Colton’s handsome face, admittedly marred
by the removal of the duct tape and admittedly a little bruised. I could see a
little crease between her brows as she tried to figure out what could have
happened to him and if she should ask any questions. But her tailored
shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. She’d exerted her authority sufficiently for
one night.
When the elevator stopped at the ground level, we got out of it like we
owned the hotel. We rounded a corner, and there was the back door,
Palomino walking toward it ahead of us. She glanced over her shoulder and
looked faintly gratified to see us coming. She tapped the code into the keypad
by the door, and then she opened it. We strode by her into the parking lot.
Palomino, on the way to her red car, looked curiously at the street beyond the
fenced lot for a moment, as if she sensed something strange. I didn’t have
time to check it out as we walked briskly between the parked employee cars
and out the gap in the fence.
We were almost to Bill’s car when the Weres caught up with us. There
were four of them. I only recognized one; I’d seen him at Alcide’s house. He
was a gaunt-faced, long-haired, bearded guy named Van.
Vamps and Weres just don’t mix, generally speaking, so I stepped
ahead of Bill and did my best to manage to smile. “Van, good to see you
tonight,” I said, struggling to sound sincere when every nerve in my body
was screaming at me to get the hell out of the vicinity. “You gonna let us get
on our way?”
Van, who was several inches taller than me, looked down at my face.
He wasn’t thinking about my body, which was a nice change, but he was
thinking about … making some kind of choice. It’s very hard to read Were
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thoughts, but that much I could discern.
“Miss Stackhouse,” he said, and nodded. His dark hair swung forward
and back with the motion. “We been looking for you.”
“How come?” I might as well get this settled. If we were going to fight,
I needed to know why I was going to get beat up. I sure didn’t want that.
“Alcide’s found Warren.”
“Oh, good!” I was really pleased. I smiled up at Van. Now Mustapha
could come in from the cold, tell us what he’d seen, and all would be well.
“Thing is, what we found is a dead body, and we ain’t sure it’s really
him,” Van said. When my face fell, he added, “I’m real sorry, but Alcide
wants you to have a look at him and tell us it’s Warren for sure.”
So much for a happy ending.
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Chapter 12
“You-all were headed somewhere?” Van asked.
“We were taking this one to the airport,” Bill said, nodding at Colton.
This was news to me and to Colton, but it was good news. There really was a
plan to get Colton away from the reach of Felipe.
“Why don’t you two continue on, then,” Van said reasonably. He didn’t
ask any further questions or demand to know Colton’s identity, which was a
relief. “I can take Sookie to the body, she’ll check the identity, and I’ll get her
home. Or we can meet up somewhere.”
“At Alcide’s?” Bill asked.
“Sure.”
“Sookie, you okay with that?”
“Yeah, all right,” I said. “Let me get my purse out of your car.”
Bill clicked his car open and I reached inside to get my purse, which
held a change of clothes. I definitely wanted to find a couple of minutes of
privacy to put on something a little less revealing.
I felt uneasy without knowing exactly why. We’d recovered Colton,
and if he could get the hell out of town, he’d probably be safe. If Colton
couldn’t tell the little he remembered about that evening at Fangtasia, Eric
would be safer, and therefore I would be safer—and so would all of the
Shreveport vamps. I ought to be feeling happier. I slung my bag over my
shoulder, glad that I had the cluviel dor with me.
“You’re okay with these wolves?” Bill asked in a very low voice as
Colton got into Bill’s car and buckled his seat belt.
“Uh-huh,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure. But I shook myself and called
myself paranoid. “These are Alcide’s wolves, and he’s my friend. But just in
case, call him when you’re on your way, would you?”
“Go with me,” Bill said suddenly. “They can identify Warren by smell,
maybe. Mustapha could definitely do that, when he resurfaces.”
“Nah, it’s okay. Get Colton to the airport,” I said. “Get him out of
town.”
Bill looked at me searchingly, then nodded in a jerky way. I watched as
Bill and Colton drove off.
Now that I was alone with the werewolves, I felt even odder.
“Van,” I said, “Where did you find Warren?”
The other three crowded around: a woman in her thirties with a pixie
haircut, an airman from the Air Force base in Bossier City, and a girl in her
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teens with very generous curves. The teenager was in the first throes of
experiencing her power as a Were, almost drunk with her newfound ability;
it dominated her brain. The other two meant business. And that was all I
could get of their thoughts. We were walking north on the street to a gray
Camaro, which seemed to belong to Airman.
“I’ll show you. It’s a little ways east of town. Since Mustapha wasn’t a
pack member, we never met Warren.”
“Okay,” I said doubtfully. And I thought of making some excuse not to
get in the car, because my uneasiness was mounting like a drumroll. We were
alone on a dark street, and I realized they had boxed me in. I had no real
reason to doubt that Van was telling me the truth—but I had an instinct that
was telling me this situation stank. I wished instinct had spoken up more
clearly a few minutes ago when I’d had Bill at my side. I got in the car, and
the Weres crowded in. We buckled up, and in a second we were driving in
the direction of the interstate.
Curiously, I almost didn’t want to discover that my suspicion was
valid. I was tired of crises, tired of deceit, tired of life-or-death situations. I
felt like a stone being skipped across a pond, longing only to sink to the
anonymous bottom.
Well, that was stupid. I gave myself a mental shake. Not time to long
for things I couldn’t have at the moment. Time to be alert and ready for
action. “Do you really have Warren?” I asked Van. He was sitting to my right
in the backseat of the Camaro. The plump teenager was crowded in to my
left. She didn’t smell particularly good.
“Nope,” he said. “Ain’t ever seen him, that I know of.”
“Then why are you doing this?” I might as well know, though I already
felt sadly sure this was going to end poorly.
“Alcide asked that black bugger Mustapha to join the pack,” Van said.
“He ain’t asked us.”
So they were all rogues. “But I saw you at the last pack meeting.”
“Yeah, I was going through rush, like they do in fraternities,” Van said,
deeply sarcastic. “But I didn’t make the cut. Guess I got blackballed.”
“I thought he had to let you in,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know the
packleader got to pick and choose.”
“Alcide is a little too selective,” said the airman, who was driving. He
turned a little so I could see his profile as he spoke. “He doesn’t want anyone
with a serious criminal record in his pack.”
Alarm bells sounded then in my brain, way too late. Mustapha had
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been in prison, though I didn’t know the charge … yet Alcide had been
willing to accept him into the pack. What had these rogues done that had
been so bad that a wolf pack wouldn’t have them?
The girl beside me tittered. The woman in the passenger’s side of the
front seat cast her a dark look, and the girl stuck out her tongue like a tenyear-
old.
“You got a police record?” I asked the plump girl.
Plump gave me a sly look. She had straight brown hair that fell to her
shoulders. Her bangs were almost in her eyes. She’d stuffed herself into a
striped tube top and blue jeans. She was wearing flip-flops. “I got a juvenile
record,” she said proudly. “I set my house on fire. My mama got out just in
time. My daddy and the boys didn’t.”
And I got what her daddy had been doing to her, just a single line of
memory from her, and I was almost glad he hadn’t made it out. But the
brothers? Little boys? I didn’t think she was too happy her mom had made it
out, either.
“So Alcide wouldn’t admit any of you?”
“No,” said Van. “But when there’s a changeover, and the pack has a
new leader, we’ll be in. We’ll have security.”
“What’s going to happen to Alcide?”
“We’re gonna overthrow his ass,” said Airman.
“He’s a good man,” I said quietly.
“He’s a douche,” said Plump.
During this charming conversation the woman in the front seat had not
spoken, and though I couldn’t read her thoughts, I could read the ambiguity
and regret that were making it hard for her to sit still. I sensed she was on the
cusp of a decision, and I feared to say something that would tip her over to
the wrong side.
“So where are you taking me?” I said, and Van put his arm around me.
“Me and Johnny might appreciate a little alone time with you,” Van
said, his free hand lodging itself under my skirt. “You looking so fine and
all.”
“I wonder what you were in jail for,” I said. “Gee, let me guess.”
The woman looked back at me, and our eyes met. “You going to put up
with that?” she asked Plump. Thus goaded, Plump grabbed Van’s wrist and
pulled his hand away from my crotch.
“You said you wouldn’t do this again,” she growled, and I mean
growled. “I’m your woman now. No more.”
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“Course you’re mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to cleanse my
palate with a little country-fried steak,” Van said.
“Charming,” I said, which was unfortunate, because Van punched me
and I saw bright lights for a second. You don’t want to get hit by a werewolf.
Really.
I had to keep from gagging from the pain, but I resolved that if I threw
up I was going to do it all over Van.
He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, squeezed it until I could feel the
bones rubbing together. This time, I had to cry out, and he liked that. I could
feel the pleasure radiating out from him.
Help, I thought. Can anyone hear me?
No answer. I wondered where Mr. Cataliades was. I wondered where
his great-great-grandson, whom I’d always called Barry Bellboy, was. Too far
away in Texas to hear my mental voice …
I wondered if I’d see tomorrow. I had planned on it being a happy day
for me, a special day.
At least Van seemed to be taking Plump’s hostility seriously now, and
he quit hurting me. Dealing out pain to me excited her jealousy just as much
as him feeling me up. Unhealthy. Not that it was my problem, not that it
would make any difference after we got wherever we were going. I’d picked
up on a stray thought or two. I was beginning to get the bigger picture. It had
a big skull and crossbones right in the middle.
The traffic was fairly heavy, but I knew what would happen to me if I
signaled another car. I knew, too, what would happen to the people in that
car. Not a single police car in the stream of traffic … not a one. We were on
the interstate going east, back toward Bon Temps. There were a dozen exits,
and when we left the interstate, none of them would have this much traffic.
Once we got into the woods, I’d be doomed.
Well, I had to do something.
Just as a motorcycle began passing the car, I attacked Van. He’d been
thinking about something entirely different, something involving the plump
girl, so my sudden twist and lunge was a huge shock. I tried to grasp his
neck, but my fingers wouldn’t meet around it, and I had a hank of his hair
bundled into my grip. He yelled and his hands shot up to grip mine. I dug
my thumbs in ferociously, and Airman turned to glance back. Glass shattered
and as I closed my eyes I saw a fine mist of red. Someone had shot Airman in
the shoulder.
We were at a level spot on the interstate, thank God. As we abruptly
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swerved off the pavement, the quiet woman in the front seat reached over
and switched the car off. Remarkable presence of mind, I thought in a daze, and
we began gliding to a stop. Plump was screaming, Van was beating the shit
out of me, and there was blood all over everything. The smell triggered the
wolf in them, and they began to change. If I didn’t get out of the car, I was
going to get bitten, and then I’d qualify to be a pack member myself.
As I struggled with Van in a vain attempt to reach the door handle, that
door flew open and a black-gloved hand reached in to grab mine. I seized it
like a drowning man seizes a rope, and just like a rope, that hand hauled me
out of deep trouble. I barely managed to grab my bag with my free hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mustapha said, and I jumped on the back of his
Harley behind him, my bag slung over my shoulder and mashed between us
to keep it secure. Though I was still trying to grasp what had just happened,
my wiser self was telling me to think later, get the hell out of there now.
Mustapha lost no time. Just as we zipped across the grassy median to head
back into Shreveport, I watched a car pull up to offer help to the apparent
wreck.
“No, they’ll get hurt!” I yelled.
“It’s Long Tooth wolves. You stay on.” And off we took. After that, I
concentrated on clinging to Mustapha as we rocketed through the night.
After my initial gush of relief, it was frustrating not to be able to ask any of
the fifty questions racing through my mind. I wasn’t totally surprised when
we pulled up in the circular driveway in front of Alcide’s house. I had to
exert a conscious effort to unclench my muscles so I could dismount.
Mustapha took off his helmet and gave me a thorough look. I nodded to let
him know I was okay. My hand would hurt from the squeeze Van had given
it, and I was covered with dots of blood, but it wasn’t mine. I looked down at
my watch. Bill had had time to deposit Colton at the airport, but he should be
driving here. The whole thing had happened that quickly.
“What you doing wearing prostitute clothes?” Mustapha asked
severely, and hustled me over to the front door.
Alcide opened the door himself, and if he was bowled over with
surprise, he did a good job of hiding it.
“Damn, Sookie, whose blood?” he said, and waved us in.
“Rogue werewolf,” I said. I reeked.
“No cars coming, so I had to take action then,” Mustapha explained. “I
shot Laidlaw. He was driving. The pack’s taking care of the others.”
“Tell me,” Alcide said, bending down to look me in the eyes. He
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nodded, satisfied with what he saw. I opened my mouth. “In as few words as
possible,” he added.
Apparently, time was of the essence.
“Palomino found where Felipe was keeping a guy hostage, a guy we
needed to rescue. Discreetly. I kind of resemble her, so to leave her cover
intact, I pretended to be her wearing this waitress outfit.” I glared at
Mustapha. “That the casinos picked out,” I added, to make myself clear. Alcide
gave me a little shake to speed me up.
“Okay! So Bill and I came out with the hostage and we were gonna
drive off, when this group of four Weres comes up, and the leader, Van—
whom I’d seen here, by the way, so I thought he was okay—Van tells us you
sent them to get me and I need to come with them, because they’ve found
Warren’s body and they want me to verify that it’s really Warren.”
Alcide turned his back and shook his head from side to side. Mustapha
looked down at the floor, his face a map of complex emotions.
“So Bill headed to the—away, with the hostage, and I got in the car with
Van and them, and I realized pretty quick that they were rogues because you
wouldn’t have ’em. That Van …” And then I just didn’t want to talk about
him anymore.
“He hit you, huh?” Alcide said, turning back to eye my face. There was
a moment of fraught silence. “He rape you?”
“Didn’t have time,” I said, glad to get that out of the way. “I don’t know
where they were taking me, but Mustapha shot the driver and got me out of
the car, and here I am. So. Thank you, Mustapha.”
He bobbed his head, still involved in his own thoughts, his own worry
for his friend.
“Was there a woman with them, kind of quiet, about thirty?”
“Pixie haircut?”
Both the men looked blank. “Real short hair, light brown, tall woman?”
Alcide nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s her! She okay?”
“Yeah. She was sitting in the passenger front. Who is she?”
“She’s my undercover,” Alcide said.
“You have undercover agents?”
“Yeah, of course. Her name’s Kandace. Kandace Moffett.”
“Can you please explain all this?” I hated to sound stupid. Telepaths
get used to knowing stuff, I guess.
“I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version,” he said, to my surprise. “But
come in the bathroom and wash yourself off while I fill you in. Mustapha,
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man, I owe you.”
“I know,” Mustapha said. “Just help me find Warren. That’s all I need.”
Alcide hustled me into a bathroom right off the entrance hall. It was all
granite countertops and pure white towels, and I felt like the nastiest thing
the cat had ever drug in. Alcide didn’t necessarily mind the blood, because
that’s not a Were hang-up, but I sure did. I turned on the shower and stepped
under it after shucking my shoes, which were the cleanest things I was
wearing. When Alcide’s back was turned, I stepped out of the waitress outfit
and let it fall to the floor of the shower. I grabbed a washcloth, soaped it up,
and began scrubbing. Alcide resolutely kept his eyes turned away.
“Start talking,” I reminded him, and he did.
“After I talked to you about Jannalynn, I began to think about her
pretty seriously,” he said. “The more I took her recent actions apart, the more
I thought I should look deeper. I figured out that Jannalynn was not telling
me the truth about a few things. I wondered if maybe she was skimming off
the top at Hair of the Dog.” He shrugged. “Sometimes when she was
supposed to be around, she was out of touch. I thought maybe her romance
with Sam was going over the top, but when she’d tell me one thing about
them, you didn’t seem to know anything about it. And Sam’s your partner, so
you’d know, I figured.”
So he’d called me to talk about Sam and Jannalynn’s “wedding plans,”
at least in part to hear my reaction; of course, I’d been completely shocked.
“I saw her one time when she didn’t see me. She was at a bar way
across town, instead of at the Hair. And she was with the rogues I had turned
down. I knew she was planning something. I’d had them all over at social
evenings at the house, talked to ’em. The only one worth anything was
Kandace, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a pack. Didn’t like the
power struggles. I got to respect that, but I thought she’d be an asset.”
I thought maybe he’d also liked Kandace’s assets, but that was his
business.
“So I called up Kandace, and I asked her to meet me alone. Without me
even bringing it up, she volunteered to tell me what was going on, because it
troubled her.”
Alcide clearly wanted me to give Kandace a virtual pat on the back, so I
said, “She must be a good person.”
He smiled, gratified. “Kandace said Jannalynn wanted to challenge me,
defeat me, but first she wanted to get a good toehold in the pack by socking
away some money, enlisting pack members to her side, getting some of her
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own muscle. Her proposal to these rogues was that they could come into the
pack if they’d do her bidding; then when she beat me, she’d let them have
full benefits.”
I wondered if that included health and dental, but I wasn’t going to go
down a side path while he was still in a sharing mood. I hung up the
washcloth and poured a dollop of shampoo into my hands. I began to scrub
my scalp and hair. “Go on,” I said, by way of encouragement.
“So,” he said. “I got a guy she didn’t know to follow Jannalynn. He saw
her meeting with your buddy Claude. There’s just no good reason for that.”
I stopped rinsing the shampoo from my hair. “What … why? Why was
she meeting with Claude, of all people?”
“I have no idea,” Alcide said.
“So all we have to do is find Jannalynn and ask her a lot of questions,” I
said. “And find Warren. And hope that Claude comes back from Faery, so I
can question him. And get Felipe and his vamps to leave us alone, here in
Shreveport. And get that Freyda out of here.”
Alcide looked at me, wondered whether to speak, and decided on full
disclosure. “Is it true, Sookie? Palomino told Roy that Eric’s engaged to a
vampire from Oklahoma?”
“I can’t talk about it,” I said. “Or I’ll get real upset, Alcide, and you just
don’t want that tonight. I owe Palomino a solid favor for getting us in to
rescue … a guy, but she shouldn’t be telling vampire business around town.”
“You owe her more of a solid than you know,” he said. “She saw you
being grabbed, and she called me. Right before Bill did. That was smart,
Sook, getting him to call. It was all I could do to get him to continue on his
way and check back in later. I promised him I’d keep you safe.”
“So you called Mustapha? You’ve known where he was all along?”
“No, but after I got your phone messages, I called him. As you’d
advised, when Jannalynn wasn’t around. He’d run down his last lead on
Warren, and he had to talk to someone. I still don’t know where he’s been
hiding.”
“But it’s thanks to you that he found me in time.”
“Both our efforts and some guessing, too. He knows those rogues. He
figured they’d head back to their house outside Fillmore. Van does bad stuff
to women, and he’d want to have some time with you before he handed you
over to Jannalynn. The follow-up car was his idea, too.”
“Oh my God.” I felt sick, wondered if I was going to throw up. No. I
got hold of myself.
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After a little rinsing, I was as clean as I was going to get. Alcide left the
bathroom so I could change into my more modest shorts and T-shirt. It was
really interesting how much difference a few covered inches could make in
your self-respect. Now that I felt more like myself, I could begin to think
some more.
I came out of the bathroom. Alcide was having a beer, and Mustapha
was drinking a Coca-Cola. I accepted one, too, and the cold sweetness tasted
wonderful going down.
“So what are you going to do with the rogues, for right now?” I asked.
“I’m going to stow them in a reinforced shed my dad built,” Alcide
said. Jackson, his dad, had owned a farm outside Shreveport where the pack
could run at the full moon.
“So you have a special place to stow people,” I said. “I’m sure
Jannalynn has a special place, too. You been thinking about where that might
be?”
“Jannalynn’s from Shreveport,” Alcide said. “So, yeah, I’ve been
thinking. She lives in the apartment above Hair of the Dog, so that’s out. No
place there; besides, we’d have heard Warren if he’d been stashed there, or
we’d have smelled him.”
“If he was alive,” I said, very quietly.
“If he wasn’t, definitely we’d have smelled him,” Alcide said, and
Mustapha nodded, his face expressionless.
“So where does she have of her own, a place she could be fairly sure no
one else would go?”
“Her mom and dad retired to Florida last year,” Alcide said. “But they
sold their house. Our computer guy who works at the tax assessor’s office
couldn’t find anything else in Jannalynn’s name.”
“You sure that house sold? In this market?”
“That’s what she told me. And the sign was down, last time I went by,”
Alcide said.
Mustapha stirred. “It’s on a big lot, and it’s pretty far out of
Shreveport,” he said. “I was out that way once, driving with Jannalynn, when
the pack was courting me. She said she used to ride dirt bikes out there. They
had horses, too.”
“Anyone can take down a sign,” I said.
Alcide got a call just then and talked to the pack members who’d
secured my abductors. They were on their way to Alcide’s farm. “You don’t
have to be too civil,” Alcide said into the phone, and I could hear the laughter
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that came from the other end of the line.
I’d been struck by another thought, and as we went out to Alcide’s car, I
said, “I guess growing up as a full-blooded Were in Shreveport, Jannalynn
would be pretty much bound to know all the others around her age. Even the
kids who weren’t full-blood.”
Alcide and Mustapha shrugged, almost in unison. “We did,” they said,
and then smiled at each other, though their growing tension made that hard
to do.
“Kym Rowe was half-Were and not much older than Jannalynn,” I
observed. “Her folks came out to my house. Her dad’s Oscar, a full Were.”
Mustapha stopped in his tracks, his head bowed. “Mustapha, was it
Jannalynn who made you let Kym into Eric’s house?”
“Yeah,” he said, and Alcide stopped and turned to him. His face was
hard and accusing. Mustapha said to both of us, “She told me she had
Warren. She told me I had to let this Rowe girl into the house. That was all I
had to do.”
“So it was her plan,” I said carefully. “Her plan. To get Eric to drink
from this girl?”
“No, it was not her plan,” Mustapha said clearly. “She was hired to find
a Were girl willing to carry it out, but it was the plan of this dude named
Claude. I’ve seen him at your place. Your cousin?”
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