True Blood Book 13 Chapters19-22

Chapter 19
A HOUSE IN A BON TEMPS SUBURB
the same day
“You’re friends of Sookie Stackhouse’s?” Alcee Beck stood in his doorway, eyeing his visitors with
deep suspicion. He’d heard about the girl; everyone in Bon Temps who’d been in Merlotte’s had talked
about the girl. Platinum hair, bizarre ensemble, talked in a foreign language. Her companion was not as
weird to the eyes, but something about him set off an alarm in Alcee Beck’s head, and Alcee was never
one to ignore such an alarm. It was how he’d stayed alive in the air force. It was how he’d stayed alive
when he’d come home.
“We are,” said Mr. Cataliades, his voice as smooth and rich as cream. “And we’ve brought a
coworker of yours with us.” He indicated the car parked by his van, and Andy Bellefleur emerged,
looking horribly self-conscious but determined.
“What are you doing with these people, Bellefleur?” Alcee said, and the threat was clear in his
voice. “You shouldn’t bring anyone to my house. I should beat you senseless.”
“Honey,” said a quavering voice from behind him, “You know you like Andy. You got to listen to
what he has to say.”
“Shut up, Barbara,” said Alcee, and a woman appeared behind him.
Alcee Beck had many faults, and they were well-known, but it was just as well-known that he loved
his wife. He was openly proud of Barbara’s college degree and her job as the only full-time librarian
working in Bon Temps. He was rough with the rest of the world, but he minded his manners with Barbara
Beck.
That made her appearance all the more shocking to Andy Bellefleur. Barbara, always well groomed
and dressed, was wearing a bathrobe and no makeup. Her hair was a mess. And she was obviously
terrified. If Alcee hadn’t hit her yet, it was evidently something she had cause to fear. Andy had seen a lot
of battered wives, and Barbara was as cowed as a woman who’d been hit more than once. And Alcee
Beck had no notion he was behaving in a way contrary to his normal practice.
“Alcee, your wife is scared. Can she come out of the house?” Andy asked, in a neutral voice.
Alcee looked both startled and angry. “How dare you say such a thing?” he bellowed. He spun to
face his wife “Tell them that isn’t true.” For the first time, he seemed to take in her demeanor. “Barbara?”
he said uncertainly.
It was obvious to them all that she was afraid to speak.
“What do you want?” Beck asked his visitors, all the while looking at his wife with a troubled face
and a troubled mind.
“We want you to let us search your car,” Andy said. He’d gotten closer while Alcee was staring at
his wife. “And just in case you think I’d plant something in your car, we’d like it if you’d let this young
lady do the search.”
“You think I’m taking drugs?” Alcee’s head swung around like an angered bull’s.
“Not for a second,” Mr. Cataliades reassured him. “We think you have been . . . bewitched.”
Alcee snorted. “Right.”
“Something is wrong with you, and I think you know it,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Why not let us check
this simple thing, if only to rule it out?”
“Alcee, please,” whispered Barbara.
Though he was obviously unconvinced there was anything in his car, Alcee agreed with a nod to the
search. He withdrew his car key from his pocket and unlocked the car doors with the electronic key
without moving from the front door. He gestured with the hand holding the key. “Knock yourself out,” he
told the girl. She gave him a bright smile and was in the car so fast she seemed to be a blur.
The three men moved closer to Alcee Beck’s car.
“Her name’s Diantha,” Mr. Cataliades told Alcee Beck, though Alcee hadn’t asked out loud.
“Another fucking telepath,” Alcee said, with an ugly sneer. “Just like Sookie. Our town didn’t need
the one we got, much less another one.”
“I’m the telepath. She’s much more. Watch her work,” said the part-demon proudly, and Alcee felt
compelled to watch the white hands of the girl as she patted and probed every inch of his car, even
leaning close to smell the seats. He was glad he kept his car clean. The girl—Diantha—slid bonelessly
from the front seat to the back and then froze in place. If she’d been a dog, she’d have been on point.
Diantha opened the back door and emerged from the car with something clutched in her left hand.
She held it up so they could all see it. It was black and stitched with red, and it was mounted on twigs. It
had a vague resemblance to the omnipresent dream catchers sold in fake Indian stores, but it emanated
something much darker than the desire to make a buck.
“What is that thing?” Alcee asked. “And why is it in my car?”
“Sookie saw it get thrown in, when you had your car parked in the shade at Merlotte’s. Someone in
the woods tossed it through your window.” Andy tried not to sound relieved. He tried to sound as though
he’d been confident all along that such an object would be found. “It’s a charm, Alcee. Some kind of hex
thing. It’s made you do stuff you really don’t want to do.”
“Like what?” Alcee didn’t sound disbelieving, just startled.
“Like persecute Sookie when the evidence is far from conclusive that she is guilty. She has a good
alibi for the night of Arlene Fowler’s murder,” Mr. Cataliades said, reasonably. “And also, I believe you
haven’t been yourself at home since the murder.” He looked at Barbara Beck for confirmation. She
nodded violently.
“Is this true?” Alcee asked his wife. “I’ve been scaring you?”
“Yes,” she said out loud, and took a step back, as though she feared he would sock her in retaliation
for her honesty.
And with that clear evidence that Barbara feared him for the first time in their twenty years of
marriage, Alcee had to admit that something was wrong with him. “I’m still mad, though,” Alcee said,
sounding more grumpy than enraged. “And I still hate Sookie, and I still think she’s a murderess.”
“Let’s see how you feel once we destroy this thing,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Detective Bellefleur, do
you have a lighter?”
Andy, who smoked the occasional cigar, slid a Bic out of his pocket and handed it over. Diantha
squatted to the ground and laid the charm on some dry grass blown out by the Beck lawn mower. She
flicked the Bic, smiling happily, and the charm caught fire immediately. The blaze flared up much higher
than Andy would have guessed, since the charm itself had been small.
Alcee Beck staggered back when the flame began to catch hold, and by the time the charm had
burned away, he’d sunk to his knees in the doorway, clutching his head. Barbara called for help, but by
the time Andy hustled over to him, Alcee was already trying to get to his feet.
“Oh, my Lord,” he said. “Oh, my Lord. Help me to the bed, please.” Andy and Barbara steered him
back inside the house while Mr. Cataliades and Diantha waited outside.
“Good work,” said Mr. Cataliades.
Diantha
laughed.
“Kid’swork,”
she
said.
“Iknewwhereitwasafterasecond.
Ijustwantedtomakeitlookgood.”
Mr. Cataliades’s pocket buzzed. “Oh, bother,” he said quietly. “I’ve ignored it as long as I can.” He
took out his phone. “I’ve got a text message,” he told Diantha, in the same way another man might have
said, “I’ve got herpes.”
“Who from?”
“Sookie.” He studied the screen. “She wants to know if we know who tied up Copley Carmichael
and left him in her hidey-hole,” he told Diantha.
“What’sahidey-hole?” she asked.
“I have no idea. You would have told me if you’d captured Carmichael?”
“Sure,” she said, nodding vigorously. She added proudly, “InaNewYorkminute.”
Her uncle ignored the expression. “My goodness. I wonder who put him there.”
“Maybewe’dbettergosee,” Diantha suggested.
Without further ado, the two part-demons got into their van and drove back to Hummingbird Road.
SOOKIE’S HOUSE
I was glad to see Diantha and Mr. C.
“We un-bewitched Alcee Beck,” Diantha said slowly, by way of hello.
“There really was a voodoo doll in his car? Dang, it’s good to be right.”
Enunciating carefully, Diantha said, “Not a voodoo doll. A complex charm. I found it. I burned it.
He’s in bed. Okay tomorrow.”
“Does he not hate me anymore?”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” said Mr. Cataliades. “But I’m sure he’ll admit you couldn’t have killed
Arlene Fowler and that he was wrong to drive the investigation in a false direction. The district attorney
is going to be embarrassed, too.”
“As long as they know I couldn’t and didn’t kill Arlene, they can dance naked on the courthouse lawn
and I’ll show up to clap,” I said, and Diantha laughed.
“To get back to your query via text message,” Mr. Cataliades said. “We don’t know who is
responsible for capturing Amelia’s father or for placing him in . . . whatever you’ve found him in.”
“My vampire hole,” I explained. “See? In here.” I led the way into the bedroom and opened the
closet. I knelt with some difficulty and reached in for the hidden lever Eric had had installed. It hitched up
the edge of the false floor. Then it was easy to work my fingers under the edge and hoist it up, especially
when Mr. Cataliades knelt beside me to help. The lid came up easily and we swung it out of the closet.
We looked down into Copley Carmichael’s face. He wasn’t as angry as before, but that might have been
because he’d spent some more hours in there. The hole had been made for a night’s shelter for a vampire,
not for a permanent resting place. An adult could lie down in it in a fetal position, without curling up
tightly. At least it was deep enough that he could sit up with his back against the wall.
“Luckily for him, he is not a tall man,” said Mr. Cataliades.
“Small in stature, large in venom,” I said. Mr. C chuckled.
“He’sasnakeallright,” Diantha said. “He’sinprettybadshape.”
“Shall we hoist him out?” Mr. Cataliades suggested.
I moved out of the way so Diantha could take my place. “I’m not much up to hoisting,” I explained.
“Shot.”
“Yes, we heard,” Mr. C said. “Glad you’re better. We’ve been tracking various people.”
“Okay, you’ll have to fill me in,” I said. For two creatures who’d come to help me, they were
certainly matter-of-fact about my getting shot. And who’d they been tracking? Had they been successful?
Where had they spent the night before?
And where was Barry?
With no apparent effort, the two pulled Copley Carmichael up out of the hole and propped him
against the wall.
“Excuse me,” I said to Mr. Cataliades, who was looking at Amelia’s father with a speculative gleam
in his eye. “Where is Barry Bellboy?”
“He detected a familiar brain signature,” Mr. Cataliades said absently. He checked Copley’s pulse
with a large finger. Diantha squatted to peer into the captive’s eyes curiously. “He told us he’d catch up
with us later.”
“How did he tell you this?”
“Via text messaging,” Mr. Cataliades said distastefully. “While we were following a false trail for
Glassport.”
My teeth were on edge. “Should we be worried about him?”
“He’s got his car and a cell phone,” Diantha said slowly and carefully. “And he has our numbers.
Uncle, did you check your other messages?”
Mr. Cataliades made a face. “No, Sookie’s news startled me so much I gave up on doing so.” He
brought out his phone and began looking at it and pressing things on the screen. “This man is dehydrated
and bruised, but he doesn’t have internal injuries,” he told me, nodding toward our captive.
“What am I supposed to do with him?”
“Whateveryouwant,” Diantha said, with a certain amount of glee.
Copley Carmichael’s eyes widened with fear.
“Of course, he did try to have me killed,” I said thoughtfully. “And he didn’t care who got caught up
in his vendetta against me. Hey, Mr. Carmichael, you see this big bandage on my shoulder? That’s
courtesy of your man Tyrese. He almost got your daughter, too.” The man’s color wasn’t good, but it got
worse. “And you know what happened to Tyrese? He got shot dead,” I said.
But this wasn’t a pastime I could really call fun. Even though Carmichael deserved a lot of bad
things, taunting him would not make me feel better about myself or anything else.
“I wonder if he’s responsible for the voodoo doll, or whatever it was, in Alcee’s car,” I said.
I watched his face carefully as I said this, and all I got was a blank stare. I did not believe Copley
had put a hex or curse on the detective.
Mr. Cataliades said, “Yes, I do have a message from Barry. Voice mail.” He held the phone to his
ear.
I waited impatiently.
Finally, Mr. Cataliades lowered the phone. He looked serious. “Barry says he is following Johan
Glassport,” he said. “That is not a safe thing to do.”
“Barry knows Glassport killed Arlene,” I said. “He shouldn’t take the chance.”
“He wants to identify Glassport’s companion.”
“Where was he when he left the message?” I asked.
“He doesn’t say. But he left the message at nine last night.”
“That’s bad,” I said. “Really bad.” The problem was, I couldn’t think of anything to do about it, and I
couldn’t imagine what to do with Copley Carmichael.
A knock at my door startled us all. I was definitely distracted. I hadn’t even heard a car come up the
driveway. My neighbor from up the road, Lorinda Prescott, was at the front door with her fabulous supper
dish that was supposed to be scooped up with tortilla chips. And she’d brought Tostitos, too. “I just
wanted to thank you for the delicious tomatoes,” she said. “I’ve never tasted any as good. What brand
were they?”
“I just bought ’em at the lawn and garden center,” I said. “Please come have a seat.” Lorinda said
she wouldn’t stay long, but I had to introduce her to my company. While Lorinda was being charmed by
Mr. Cataliades, I raised an eyebrow at Diantha, who slipped back down the hall to shut the door to the
guest bedroom, where Copley Carmichael was still propped against the wall. After that, Diantha and Mr.
Cataliades went upstairs, having said polite things to Lorinda, who seemed a bit stunned at Diantha’s
ensemble.
“I’m so glad you’ve got someone staying with you while you’re getting better,” she said. She paused,
and her brow wrinkled. “My goodness, what’s that noise?”
A dull thumping sound was issuing from the guest bedroom. Damn. “That’s probably . . . gosh, I
guess they shut their dog in that room!” I said. I called up the stairs, “Mr. C! The dog’s acting up! Can you
get Coco to calm down?”
“I do beg your pardon,” Mr. Cataliades said, gliding down the stairs. “I will make the animal keep
silent.”
“Thanks,” I said, and tried not to notice that Lorinda was looking a little shocked to hear Mr. C call
his dog “the animal.” He went down the hall, and I heard the door to the guest room open and close. The
thumping ceased abruptly.
Mr. Cataliades reappeared, bowing to Lorinda on his way through the living room to the stairs.
“Good afternoon, Mrs. Prescott,” he said, and vanished into one of the upstairs rooms.
“Gosh,” said Lorinda. “He’s mighty formal.”
“Comes from an old New Orleans family,” I explained. A couple of minutes later, Lorinda decided
she needed to get home to start supper, and I bowed her out of the house with lots of pleasantries.
When she was gone, I breathed out a deep sigh of relief. I was hurrying to the guest bedroom . . . and
the phone rang. It was Michele, checking up on me, which was a nice thing for her to do, but real bad
timing.
“Hi, Michele!” I said, trying to sound perky and healthy.
“Hey, nearly-sister-in-law,” she said. “How are you today?”
“So much better,” I said. That was only half a lie. I was better.
“Can I come by and pick up your laundry? I’m doing mine tonight, so Jason and me can go line
dancing tomorrow night.”
“Oh, have a good time!” It had been ages since I’d been dancing. “I’m caught up on my laundry,
thanks so much.”
“Why don’t you come to Stompin’ Sally’s with us, if you’re feeling so much better?”
“If my shoulder isn’t too sore, I’d love to,” I said impulsively. “Can I let you know tomorrow
afternoon?”
“Sure,” she said. “Anytime before eight, that’s when we’re leaving.”
I finally got to the guest bedroom. Copley was there, unconscious, still breathing. I hadn’t been sure
how Mr. C had silenced him, but at least it was not by snapping his neck. And I still didn’t know what to
do about him.
I called up the stairs to Mr. C and Diantha to tell them supper was ready. They came down the stairs
lickety-split. Each of us had a heaping bowlful of the ground meat, beans, sauce, and chopped peppers,
and I shared out the bag of tortilla chips to use in scooping up the mixture. I had some shredded cheese,
too. And Tara had left a pie made by Mrs. du Rone, so we even had dessert. By tacit agreement, we didn’t
discuss the disposition of Copley Carmichael until we’d finished eating. The locusts were singing their
evening chorale while we tried to reach a consensus.
Diantha’s opinion was that we should kill him.
Mr. Cataliades wanted to lay some heavy magic on him and put him back in place in New Orleans.
Like substituting a ringer for the real Copley Carmichael. Obviously, he had a plan for using the new
version of Amelia’s father.
I couldn’t see letting him back into the world, a soulless, devil-tied creature with no impulse for
good. But I didn’t want to kill anyone else, either. My own soul was dark enough. While we debated and
the long evening turned into darkness, there was another knock at the back door.
I couldn’t believe I’d ever longed for a visitor.
This one was a vampire, and she didn’t bring any food.
Pam glided in, followed closely by Karin. They looked like pale sisters. But Pam seemed energized,
somehow. After I’d introduced the two vampires to the two part-demons, they took seats at the kitchen
table and Pam said, “I feel that I’ve interrupted you when you were talking about something important.”
“Yes,” I said, “but I’m glad you’re here. Maybe you can think of a good solution for this situation.”
After all, if anyone was good at disposing of humans or bodies, it was Pam. And perhaps Karin was even
better, since she’d had longer to practice. A lightbulb lit up suddenly in my brain. “Ladies, I wondered if
either of you happens to know how a man ended up in my bedroom closet?”
Karin raised her hand, as if she were in grade school. “I am responsible,” she said. “He was
skulking. You have many people watching you, Sookie. He came through the woods the night you were in
the hospital, and he didn’t know what had happened, that you weren’t here. He meant you ill, if the gun
and knife he had on him are any indicators, but your magic circle didn’t stop him as Bill says it stopped
Horst. I would have liked to see that. Instead, I had to stop him. I didn’t kill him since I thought you might
want to talk to him.”
“He did mean me ill, and I thank you most sincerely for stopping him,” I said. “I just don’t know
what to do with him now.”
Pam said, “Kill him. He is your enemy, and he wants to kill you.” This sounded pretty funny coming
from someone who was wearing flowered crops and a teal T-shirt. Diantha nodded vigorously in
wholehearted agreement.
“Pam, I just can’t.”
Pam shook her head at my weakness. Karin said, “Sister Pam, we could take him with us and . . .
think about a solution.”
Okay, I knew that was a euphemism for “get him out of sight and kill him.”
“You can’t wipe his memory?” I said hopefully.
“No,” Karin said. “He has no soul.”
It was news to me that you couldn’t put the whammy on a soulless person, but then, it had never come
up before. I hoped it would never come up again.
“I’m sure I can find a use for him,” Pam said, and I straightened up. There was something expansive
about the way my vampire buddy said that, something that made me pay attention.
Mr. Cataliades, who’d had more years than I to study language (both body and spoken), said, “Miss
Pam, do we have reason to congratulate you?”
Pam closed her eyes in contentment, like a lovely blond cat. “You do,” she said, and a tiny smile
curved her lips. Karin smiled, too, more broadly.
It took a minute for me to get it. “You’re the sheriff now, Pam?”
“I am,” she said, opening her eyes, her smile growing. “Felipe saw reason. Plus, it was on Eric’s
wish list. But a wish list . . . Felipe didn’t have to honor it.”
“Eric left a wish list.” I was trying not to feel sorry for Eric, going to a strange territory with a
strange queen, without his trusty henchwoman at his side.
“I think Bill told you about a few of his conditions,” Pam said, and her voice was neutral. “He had a
few wishes he expressed to Freyda in return for signing a two-hundred-year marriage contract instead of
the customary one hundred.”
“I would be . . . interested . . . to hear what else was on it. The list.”
“On the selfish side, he told Sam that he could not tell you that Sam had actually been the moving
force behind bailing you out. On the less selfish side, he made it an absolute condition of his marrying
Freyda that you never be harmed by any vampire. Not harassed, not tasted, not killed, not made a
servant.”
“That was thoughtful,” I said. In fact, that changed my whole future. And it wiped out the bitterness
I’d begun to feel toward a man I’d loved a lot. I opened my eyes to see the pale faces staring at me with
round blue eyes, eerily alike. “Okay, what else?”
“That Karin guard your house from your woods, every night for a year.”
Eric had already saved my life again and he wasn’t even here. “That was real thoughtful, too,” I said,
though with an effort.
“Sookie, take my advice,” Pam said. “I’m going to give it to you for free. This was not ‘nice’ of
Eric. This was Eric protecting what used to be his, to show Freyda that he is loyal and protects his own.
This is not a sentimental gesture.”
Karin said, “We will do anything for Eric. We love him. But we know him better than anyone, and
this calculation is one of Eric’s strengths.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “I agree.” But I also knew that Eric liked to kill two birds with one
stone. I thought the truth lay somewhere in between.
“Since we agree that Eric is so practical, how come Eric can do without you both?”
“Freyda’s condition. She did not want him to bring his children with him; she wanted him to
assimilate into her vampires without having a cadre of his own people.”
That was real smart. I had a second of thinking how lonely Eric would be without anyone familiar
around, and then I choked off that sadness at the throat.
“Thank you, Pam,” I said. “Freyda banned me from Oklahoma, which is not important. But Felipe
banned me from Fangtasia, so I won’t be visiting you at work. However, I’d love to see you from time to
time. If you’re not too important now that you’re sheriff!”
She inclined her head with an elaborately regal gesture, meant to amuse. “I’m sure we can meet
somewhere in the middle,” she said. “You’re the only human friend I’ve ever had, and I would miss you a
little if I never saw you again.”
“Oh, keep up the warm and cuddly,” I said. “Karin, thanks for stopping this man from killing me and
for putting him in here. I’m guessing the house was unlocked?”
“Yes, wide open,” she said. “Your brother, Jason, came to get some things he needed for your
hospital stay, and forgot to lock it.”
“Ah . . . and how do you know that?”
“I may have asked him a few questions. I had no idea what had happened at your house, and I could
smell your blood.”
She’d taken him under with her vampire wiles and interrogated him. I sighed. “Okay, bypassing that,
I guess Copley came along later?”
“Yes, two hours later. He had a rental car. He parked it in the cemetery.”
I could only laugh. The police had removed Copley’s own car, driven there by Tyrese. Copley had
repeated the pattern of his bodyguard, but hours later. But by now I’d resolved I wouldn’t have Copley in
my house any longer. “If he left his rental car so close, maybe you all should drive him away in it. I
assume the keys are in his pockets.”
Diantha obligingly went to look and returned with the keys. Searching for things was definitely her
favorite occupation.
Mr. Cataliades and Diantha offered to move the prisoner outside. Mr. C carried Amelia’s father over
his shoulder, and Copley’s head bounced limply against Mr. C’s broad back. But I had to harden my heart
about it. He couldn’t be hypnotized, and he couldn’t be set free, and I couldn’t keep him prisoner forever.
I tried not to think that it would have been better (by which I meant easier) if Karin had killed him
immediately.
When Eric’s children rose to leave, I got up, too. To my astonishment , they gave me a cold kiss apiece,
Karin on the forehead and Pam on the lips.
Pam said, “Eric told me that you refused his healing blood. But if I may offer mine?”
My shoulder was aching and throbbing, and I figured this might be the last time in my life I could
dodge physical pain. “Okay,” I said, and took off the bandage.
Pam bit her own wrist and let her blood drip sluggishly onto the ugly wound on my shoulder. It was
puffy and red, and scabby and sore, and altogether yucky. Even Karin made a moue of distaste. As the
dark blood ran slowly over the damaged flesh, Karin’s cool fingers gently massaged it into my skin.
Within a minute, the pain subsided and the redness vanished. The skin itched with healing.
“Thanks, Pam. Karin, thanks for looking out for me.” I looked at the two women who were so like
me and yet so completely different. Hesitantly, I said, “I know Eric intended to turn . . .”
“Don’t talk about it,” Pam said. “We’re as close to friends as we can be, human and vampire. We’ll
never be more, and I hope never less. You don’t want us to think too much about how it would be if you
became like us.” I made a resolution then and there to never refer to Eric’s intention of having the three of
us as his children.
When Pam was sure I was not going to add to her statement, she said, “Knowing you, I’m sure you
will worry about Karin being bored out in the woods. After the past few years of her life, that will be a
good thing for Karin, to have a year of peace.”
Karin nodded, and I knew I really didn’t want to find out what she’d been up to the past few years.
“I’ll be well fed from the donor’s bureau,” she said. “I’ll have a mission, and I will get to be outside all
the time. Perhaps Bill will come over for a conversation every now and then.”
“Thanks again to both of you,” I said. “Long live Sheriff Pam!” Then they were gone out the back
door, to drive Copley Carmichael away in his rental car.
“A neat solution,” said Mr. Cataliades. He’d come into the kitchen while I was taking a pain pill, the
last one I would need. My shoulder was healing but twingeing as it did so, and I had to go to bed. Frankly,
I also figured taking a pain pill would squash staying awake to worry about Barry.
“Barry’s got demon blood and he’s a telepath. Why can I read his mind and not yours?” I asked him
out of the blue.
“Because your power was a gift from me to Fintan’s lineage. You’re not my child as Pam and Karin
are Eric’s, but the result is somewhat the same. I’m not your maker; I’m more like your godfather or your
teacher.”
“Without ever actually teaching me anything,” I said, and then winced when I heard how accusing
that sounded.
He didn’t seem to take offense. “It’s true, perhaps I failed you in that respect,” Desmond Cataliades
said. “I tried to make up for it in other ways. For example, I’m here now, which is probably more
effective than any attempt I might have made when you were a child to explain myself to your parents and
tell them they had to trust me alone with you.”
There was a pregnant silence.
“Good point,” I said. “That would not have flown.”
“Plus, I had my own children to raise, and pardon me if they took precedence over the human
descendants of my friend Fintan.”
“I get that, too,” I said. “I am glad you’re here now, and I’m glad you’re helping.” If I sounded a little
stiff, it was because I was getting tired of the need to thank people for helping me out of trouble, because I
was tired of getting in trouble.
“You are very welcome. It’s been most entertaining for Diantha and myself,” he said ponderously,
and we went our separate ways.
Chapter 20
The demons departed the next morning before I got up. They left me a note on the kitchen table to the
effect that they were going to comb Bon Temps to look for traces of Barry. It was kind of nice to have a
morning to myself again and to prepare breakfast only for myself. It was Monday and Sam had called to
say Holly was working in my place. I’d started to protest that I could work, but in the end I just said,
“Thanks.” I didn’t want to answer questions about the shooting. Give the excitement a week to die down.
I knew exactly what I did want to do. I put on my black and white bikini, slathered myself with
lotion, and went outside wearing dark glasses and carrying a book. Of course it was hot, really hot, and
the blue sky was decorated with only a few random clouds. Insects hummed and buzzed, and the
Stackhouse yard bloomed and bloomed with flowers and fruit and all sorts of vegetation. It was like
living in a botanical garden, except without the gardeners to keep the yard mowed.
I relaxed on my old chaise and let the warmth soak into me. After five minutes, I flipped over.
In the way your brain will work hard to keep you from being 100 percent content, the notion
suddenly popped into my head that it would be nice to listen to my iPod, a belated birthday gift from me to
me, but I’d left it in my locker at Merlotte’s. Instead of going inside to get my old radio, I lay there and let
the lack of the iPod nag at me. I thought, If I just jump in the car, I can be back here listening to music in
twenty minutes, tops. Finally, after saying “Dammit” a few times, I dashed in the house, pulled on a
sleeveless gauze cover-up and buttoned it, slid into my flip-flops, and grabbed my keys. As often
happened, I didn’t meet a single car on my way to the bar. Sam’s truck was parked at his trailer, but I
figured he must need some rest and recuperation as much as I did, so I didn’t stop. I unlocked the back
door of the bar and trotted in to my locker. I didn’t meet anyone along the way, and from the low buzz I
could hear and the visual aid of very few cars in the parking lot, I could tell we were having a slow day. I
was out in less than a minute.
I’d tossed the iPod through the open window of my car and was about to open the door when a voice
said, “Sookie? What you doing?”
I looked around and spotted Sam. He was in his yard, and he’d just straightened up from raking twigs
and leaves.
“Getting my iPod,” I said. “What about you?”
“The rain knocked down some stuff, and this is the first chance I’ve had to get it cleaned up.” He
wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the blond-red hairs on his chest shone in the bright light. Of course, he was
sweating. He looked relaxed and peaceful.
“Your shoulder,” he said, nodding at it. “How come it’s looking so good?”
“Pam came by,” I said. “She was celebrating being made sheriff.”
“That’s good news,” he said, while he went over to his garbage can and dumped the armful of trash
in. I glanced down at my shoulder. It still showed reddened dimples and it was tender, but it was maybe
two weeks better than it should have been. “You and Pam have always gotten along good.”
I went over to the hedge. “Yeah, some good news for a change. Ummm . . . your hedge is looking
nice and even.”
“I just gave it a little trim,” he said self-consciously. “I know people laugh about it.”
“It looks great,” I assured him. Sam had made a double-wide into a little slice of suburbia.
I stepped through the gate in the hedge, my flip-flops thwacking on the pavers Sam had laid to form a
path. He propped his rake against the only tree in his yard, a small oak. I looked more closely at him.
“You got stuff in your hair,” I said, and he tilted his head down to me. His hair was always such a tangle,
of course he wouldn’t have even felt anything in there. I removed one twig with great care, then extricated
a leaf. I had to get very close to do that. Gradually, as I worked, I became aware that Sam was standing
absolutely still. The air was still, too. A mockingbird did his best to sing louder than all the other birds. A
yellow butterfly drifted through the air and landed on the hedge.
Sam’s hand came up to take mine the next time I reached up to his hair. He held it against his chest,
and he looked at me. I came a few inches closer. He bent his head and kissed me. The air around us
seemed to tremble in the heat.
After a long, long kiss, Sam came up for air. “All right?” he asked quietly.
I nodded. “All right,” I whispered, and our lips touched again, this time with more fire. I was
completely pressed up against him now, and with only a bikini and a gauze cover-up on me and shorts on
him, we were sharing plenty of skin. Hot, oily, scented skin. Sam made a noise deep in his throat that
sounded suspiciously like a growl.
“You mean it?” he asked.
“I do,” I said, and the kiss deepened, though I hadn’t thought that possible. This was so fireworks
and Fourth of July and oh my God I wanted him so bad. I thought if we didn’t get down to it soon I was
going to explode, and not in the way I needed to.
“Please don’t change your mind,” he said, and began walking me back to the trailer. “I think I’d have
to go out and shoot something.”
“Not gonna happen,” I said, working at the button on his shorts. He said, “Hold up your arms,” and I
did, and the gauze cover-up was history. We’d made it to the trailer door, and he reached behind me to
turn the knob. We tumbled into the dark interior of the trailer, and though I paused by the couch, he said,
“No, a real bed.” He picked me up and turned sideways to get us through the narrow trailer hall, and then
we were in his bedroom and there was indeed a bed, in fact a king-sized one.
“Yay,” I said as he laid me on the bed and joined me, practically in one movement, and then I
couldn’t say another word, though I was thinking plenty of them, one-syllable words like good please
again dick long hard. My bikini bra was history, and he was so happy with my breasts. “I knew they’d be
even better than I remembered,” he said. “I am so . . . wow.” And while he was busy with those, he was
working with the bikini bottom, which proved Sam could multitask. I was freeing him from the ancient
cutoffs he’d been wearing, and they might have had a new hole or two by the time I finally skinned them
down his legs and tossed them off the bed. “Can’t wait,” I said. “You ready?” He fumbled in his night
table drawer.
“I’ve been ready for years,” he told me, and he rolled on a condom and plunged in.
Oh my God, it was so good. The years of experience of my vampire lovers might have made them
skillful, but there is so much to say for sheer heartfelt enthusiasm; and the heat of Sam, the warmth of him,
it was like the sun was soaking into my body. The tanning lotion and the sweat meant we slid against each
other like seals, and it was wonderful all the way to the shuddering, straining climax.
Would we have ended up making the best love ever if we both hadn’t been altered by the magic of
the cluviel dor, if Sam had never died and I had never brought him back?
I don’t know and I don’t care.
The air-conditioned cool of the trailer was heaven after the heat of our joining. I shivered with the
cooling of my skin and the aftershocks of the explosion.
“Don’t even think of asking if it was good for me,” I said in a limp voice, and he laughed
breathlessly.
“If I lie very still for about four hours, I might be ready to see if we could match the experience,” he
said.
“I can’t even think about that right now,” I said. “I feel like I just plowed the back forty with a team
of mules.”
“If that’s a euphemism, I can’t figure it out,” he said. The best I could manage was a feeble giggle.
Sam rolled to his side to face me, and I mimicked his move. He put his arm around me. I could feel
him get ready to say something at least three times, but every time he’d relax, as if he’d thought the better
of it.
“What do you want to tell me that’s taking you so long?” I asked.
“I keep thinking of things to say and deciding not to,” Sam said. “Like, I hope we can do this again,
and lots. Like, I hope this was something you wanted as much as I did. Like . . . I hope this is the
beginning of something and not just . . . recreation. But you aren’t casual about who you decide to go to
bed with.”
I thought carefully before I spoke. “I wanted to do this a lot,” I said. “I’ve put you off forever,
because I didn’t want to lose the good thing I had in my job and your friendship. But I’ve always thought
you’re wonderful, a great man.” I ran my thumbnail down his back, and he did a little shivering of his
own. “Now I think you’re even greater.” I kissed his neck. “It’s awful soon after the ending of my
relationship with Eric. For that reason, if no other, I’d like to take the heart-to-hearts slow. As we said
when we first talked about this.”
I could feel him smiling against my forehead. “Are you saying you want us to have wild, insane sex
and not talk about a relationship? Are you aware that’s most guys’ dream?”
“I’m real aware of that, believe me,” I said. “Telepath, remember? But I know there’s more to you
than that, Sam. I’m giving you respect, and I’m giving myself some time to make sure I’m not rebounding.”
“Speaking of rebounding . . .” Sam guided my hand down to his shaft, which was already well on its
way to being up for activity. He didn’t need four hours after all.
“I don’t know,” I said, considering. “This seems more like a ricochet.”
“I’ll ricochet you,” he said, grinning.
And he did.
Back in my own bathroom later that afternoon, I took my own sweet time soaking in a hot tub. My
favorite bath oil scented the air pleasantly as I shaved my legs. Though I’d been tempted to linger in
Sam’s bed all day, I’d made myself get up and go home . . . to get ready for our date.
Sam had agreed to come line dancing with me tonight, which was a happy thing for many reasons.
For one thing, I was excited about spending time with him now that we’d smashed down a huge barrier.
For another thing, it would be nice not to be a third wheel with Jason and Michele. For a third thing, I
hadn’t heard a word from Mr. Cataliades or Diantha, so I was still in the dark about where Barry was and
what he was doing, and I didn’t want to sit at home thinking about what his absence might mean.
And here’s my selfish confession: I was so happy, while I was soaking in the bathtub, that I almost
resented having to worry about something, since I wanted to just roll in the pleasure of the moment.
I reminded myself in severe terms that my previous lover had barely left town and that it was absurd
for a grown woman to plunge into something else so quickly. And I’d told Sam we were going to go slow
about making promises and commitments to each other. I meant those things. But that didn’t mean the
physical release and the excitement of having great sex with Sam wasn’t completely satisfying.
I shaved my legs and curled my hair and got my cowboy boots out of the closet. I’d had them for
years, and since I wasn’t an actual cowgirl, they were still in really good shape. Black and white with red
roses and green vines: I was proud every time I looked at them. I could go fundamental cowgirl with tight
jeans and a sleeveless shirt, or I could go flirty dance hall with a full short skirt and an off-the-shoulder
blouse. Hmmm.
Yep, flirty dance hall it was. I made my hair big and ripply, and put on my push-up bra to make my
assets look outstanding and tan under the off-the-shoulder white eyelet blouse. The red-and-black-roses
skirt swung with every step. I felt so good. I knew I would have to go back to my troubles and worries the
next morning, but I was enjoying taking a little break from them tonight.
I’d called Michele, and we were meeting her and Jason at Stompin’ Sally’s, a big western bar out in
the middle of the country twenty miles south of Bon Temps. I’d been to the bar/dance hall only twice in
my life, once with JB du Rone and Tara back in our younger years, and once with some guy whose name I
couldn’t even recall.
Sam and I got there about ten minutes late because we’d been a little shy at meeting again after our
amazing encounter, and he’d wanted to break the ice by making out a little. I’d had to remind him sternly
that we were going out tonight, not staying in.
“You were the one who said no love talk,” Sam said, his sharp teeth nipping my earlobe delightfully.
“I’m willing to go there. Roses. Moonlight. Your lips.”
“No, no,” I said, pushing him away, but quite gently. “No, buster, we’re going to go dancing. You
start up this truck.”
In an instant, we were going down the driveway. Sam knew when I was serious. During the drive, he
wanted an update on the overall picture, and I described the evening before, including Karin’s yearlong
mission and the fact that I’d turned over Copley Carmichael to the vampires.
“Good Lord,” he said. I braced myself to receive his condemnation of my action. After a moment, he
said, “Sookie, I didn’t know that soulless people can’t be glamoured. Huh!”
“Got anything else to say?” I asked nervously.
“You know, I never did like Eric. But I’ve got to say that if he was fool enough to leave you for a
dead woman, he did try to make life a little easier for you. End of subject.”
After a pause, I let out my breath, and I asked Sam if he could line dance.
“You just watch me,” he said. “You notice I’m wearing my cowboy boots.”
I made a derisive sound. “You wear cowboy boots about half the time,” I said. “Big whoop.”
“Hey, I’m from Texas,” he protested, and the conversation got even more trivial from there.
Stompin’ Sally’s was out in the middle of a field, and it was a big place. It had its own brand of
fame. The parking lot was huge. A lot of pickup trucks, a lot of SUVs. Big garbage cans set at strategic
intervals. Some lights, not quite enough. I spotted Jason’s truck two rows closer to the entrance, so we
started in. Sam insisted on walking behind me to admire the way the skirt swayed, until I reached back
with my hand and caught his, drawing him to my side. Xavier, Sally’s bouncer, was western from head to
toe, including a white hat. He gave us a smile and wave as Sam paid our cover charge.
In the dim, noisy cavern of the dance hall, we finally tracked down Jason and Michele. Michele had
gone the tight-jeans-and-tube-top route, and she looked delicious. Jason, his blond hair carefully combed
and styled, hadn’t decided on the cowboy hat, but he was ready to dance. That’s one ability both Jason
and I inherited from our mom and dad. We sat down at the table, watching the dancing, for a while until
we’d each had a drink. There are a hundred versions of “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and one of my favorites was
playing. My feet began to itch to get out on the dance floor. Jason was getting that itch, too; I could tell by
the way his knees were jiggling.
“Let’s dance,” I called to Sam. Though he was right next to me, a raised voice was necessary. Sam
was looking a little worried as he eyed the dancers. “I’m not that good,” he called back. “Why don’t you
and Jason take a turn while me and Michele admire you?” Michele, who was able to hear the gist of the
exchange, smiled and pushed Jason, so my brother and I went out onto the dance floor. I saw Sam
watching, smiling, and I felt truly happy. I knew it might be only for a moment, but I was willing to take it
when I could get it.
Jason and I stomped and sashayed and moved smoothly through all the steps in good synchronization,
beaming at each other. We started out side by side, me in the outer ring, Jason in the inner, and as we
circled, we moved away from Sam and Michele’s table at the back of the big room, and closer to the
door. When the inner circle rotated a bit, I looked to my left to see my new partner—and recognized the
Reverend Steve Newlin.
The shock almost knocked me down, and I lunged away from him with no plan except to put distance
between us. But someone stopped me. An iron grip caught my arm and pulled me toward the door. Johan
Glassport was much stronger than he looked, and before I knew it, I was on my way out into the parking
lot. “Help!” I yelled to the big bouncer, and Xavier’s eyes widened and he stepped forward, his hand
extended to Glassport’s shoulder. Without slowing down, Glassport shoved a knife into the poor man and
yanked it out, and I filled my lungs with air and screamed like a banshee. I drew plenty of attention, but
too late. From behind me, Newlin shoved me out the door, and Glassport dragged me to the van waiting
there, engine idling.
He pulled the side door open and shoved me inside, launching himself in on top of me. From the
flurry of knees and elbows, I could tell Glassport had jumped into the van, too. We took off. I could hear
yelling behind us and even a gunshot.
I was gasping for air and sanity. I looked around me, trying to orient myself. I was in a large van
with two small passenger and driver doors at the front, a larger side door. The back seats had been
removed to create an empty, carpeted space. Only the driver’s seat was occupied.
From my position sprawled on the floor, I tried to identify the driver. He half turned to look down at
me. His face was like a nightmare, scarred and twisted. I could see his teeth, though he wasn’t smiling,
and I saw shiny red patches on his cheeks. Someone had burned this guy, recently and severely. Only his
long black hair seemed familiar.
Then he started laughing.
Full of horror and pity, I said, “Shepherd of Judea! Claude, is that you?”
Chapter 21
My fairy cousin Claude was never supposed to see the human world again. Yet here he was, with two of
my worst enemies, and he was kidnapping me. I lost it.
“How many enemies do I have?” I screamed.
“Lots and lots, Sookie,” Claude said. His voice was smooth and silky, but not warm. The seductive
voice combined with the nightmare of a face . . . oh, it was horrible. “It was very easy to hire Steve and
Johan to help me track you.”
Steve Newlin and Johan Glassport had sorted themselves out and were sitting against the walls,
congratulating each other on a job well done. Steve was smiling the whole time. “I was glad to help,” he
said, as if he’d taken out the garbage for Claude. “After what happened to my poor wife.”
“And I was glad to help,” Johan Glassport said, “just because I hate you, Sookie.”
“Why?” I really couldn’t understand it.
“You nearly ruined everything for Sophie-Anne and me at Rhodes,” he said. “And you didn’t come
to get us when you knew the building was going to collapse. You got your pretty boy Eric, instead.”
“Sophie-Anne is dead, and it doesn’t make any difference,” I snapped. “I figured you were like a
cockroach, you’d survive a nuclear blast!”
Okay, that maybe wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever said, but honestly! It was insane to think I’d run
to help two people I didn’t particularly like when I knew the hotel was going to explode any second. Of
course I’d gotten the people I had the strongest feelings for.
“Actually, I just like to hurt women,” Glassport said. “I don’t really need a reason. I like dark
women better, but you’ll do. In a pinch.” And saying that, he poked the flesh of my arm with the knife. And
I shrieked.
“We practically fell over the other guys who were after you,” Newlin said conversationally, as if I
weren’t bleeding on the van floor. He’d pulled himself against the driver’s-side wall of the van. There
was a strap there for him to hold on to, which he needed, because Claude was driving very fast, and he
wasn’t a good driver. “But apparently you’ve taken care of them. And with the vampire on guard duty in
your woods, we couldn’t watch you at night. So we knew God was being good to us when we saw our
opportunity tonight.”
“Claude, what about you,” I said, hoping to put off Johan sticking me anymore. “Why do you hate
me?”
“Niall was going to kill me, anyway, since I was trying to organize a coup against him. And that
would have been a noble death. But after Dermot blabbed about me searching for the cluviel dor, my dear
grandfather decided killing me was too quick. So he tortured me for quite some time.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” I protested.
“You’ve been tortured,” he said. “How long did that seem to you?”
Good point.
“Besides, we were in Faery, and time passes differently there. And the fae can take more punishment
than humans.”
“Though we intend to discover your limits,” Glassport said.
“Where are we going?” I dreaded the answer.
“Oh, we’ve found a little place,” Glassport said. “Just down the road a piece.” He delivered the
colloquialism mockingly.
Pam had wasted her blood healing me. I’d just have more flesh to torture. I don’t mind saying, I was
at my wit’s end and then some. I didn’t know how fast Sam or Jason and Michele would be able to follow
me, if they even had a clue which direction the van had taken. Maybe the furor over the abduction and the
stabbing of the bouncer would impede them even getting out the door. And my guardian vampire, Karin,
was back at my house, presumably making sure no coons came out of the woods to steal my tomatoes.
The first rule about kidnapping attempts is, Don’t get in the car. Well, we were already past that,
though I’d given it a try. Probably the next rule was, Observe where you’re going. Oh, I knew that! We
were going either north or south or east or west. I told myself not to be a Helpless Hilda, and I thought
back. We’d turned to the right out of the parking lot, so we were going north. Okay. That should have been
visible from Stompin’ Sally’s, because there weren’t many trees to obscure the line of sight . . . if anyone
had had the presence of mind to watch.
I didn’t think Claude had made any turns since then, which even Claude would know was dumb, so
we were going straight to whatever place they’d decided was secure, and it must be very close. I assumed
they planned on getting there and concealing the van pretty quickly, before pursuit could even start out.
I felt like giving up right then. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so defeated. Johan Glassport was still
looking at me with that sickly anticipation, and Steve Newlin was praying out loud, thanking the Lord for
delivering his enemy into his hands. My heart sank as low as it could go.
I’d been tortured before, as Claude had so thoughtfully reminded me, and I still bore the scars on my
body. I had the scars on my spirit, too, and I always would, no matter how well I’d recovered. Worst of
all, I knew what was coming. I just wanted the whole thing to be over, even if I died . . . and I knew they
intended to kill me. Death would be easier than going through that again. I was very clear on that. But I
tried to rally. The only thing I could do was talk.
“I feel sorry for you, Claude,” I said. “I’m sorry Niall did that to you.” His face was an especially
cruel target, since Claude had been outstandingly handsome and very proud. If he’d wanted women, he
could have had them by the dozens, instead of sampling one now and then. As it happened, Claude liked
men, men rough around the edges, and they’d responded to him with enthusiasm. Niall had found a
perfectly devastating punishment for Claude’s treachery.
“Don’t feel sorry for me,” Claude said. “Wait to see what we’re going to do to you.”
“Cutting me will make you well again?”
“That’s not what I’m after.”
“What are you after?”
“Vengeance,” he said.
“What did I do to you, Claude?” I asked, genuinely curious. “I let you live in my house. I cooked for
you. I let you sleep in my bed when you were lonely.” Of course, all the time he was scouring my house
looking for the cluviel dor, but I hadn’t known that. I’d been genuinely glad to have him there. I also
hadn’t known anything about the plot against Niall, the rebellion Claude was fomenting among the other
fae who hadn’t made it into Faery when Niall closed the portals.
“You were the cause of Niall’s wanting to close Faery off,” Claude said, surprised at my even
having to ask.
“Wasn’t he going to do that, anyway?” Geez Louise.
Steve Newlin leaned forward to bitch-slap me. “Shut up, you godforsaken whore,” he said.
“Don’t hit her again unless I tell you to,” Claude said. And he must have given them great cause to
fear him earlier in their partnership, because Glassport put his knife away and Newlin settled back
against the wall of the van. They hadn’t tied me; I guessed that was the weak point of an impromptu
kidnapping, nothing to bind the victim with.
“You think I am unfounded in hating you,” Claude said, and we made a hard left turn. I rolled over on
my side, and only when the van straightened out was I able to make some cautious moves to sit up myself.
To avoid the two men, I had to stay in the middle, so any turn or bump in the road was going to knock me
over. Well, great. Then I spied a grip on the back of the passenger seat, and I grabbed it.
“I do think so,” I said. “There’s no reason for you to hate me. I never hated you.”
“You didn’t want to sleep with me,” Claude pointed out.
“Well, damn, Claude, you’re gay! Why would I want to have sex with someone who’s fantasizing
about beard stubble?”
Neither Claude nor I considered what I’d said anything extraordinary, but you’d have thought I’d
stuck a cattle prod where the sun didn’t shine on the two humans.
“Is this true, Claude? You’re a fairy who’s a fairy?” Steve Newlin’s voice had gone super-ugly, and
Johan Glassport had pulled his knife out again.
“Uh-oh,” I said, just to alert Claude—since, after all, he was driving the vehicle—that there was
dissension in his ranks. “Claude, your buddies are homophobes.”
“What does that mean?” he asked me.
“They hate men who like men.”
Claude appeared perplexed, but I could see the distortion and hatred in the brains of the two men,
and I knew that completely without intending to, I’d hit the perk button on their ethical coffeemaker.
Ordinarily, in the interest of making trouble in the ranks, I’d be glad they had such a huge issue with
Claude’s orientation. But then again, he was driving and I was the instantly available victim.
“He seemed like a tough man to me,” Glassport said to Steve Newlin. “He would have killed that
young man if the lawyer hadn’t interfered.”
I finally had a clue about what had happened to Barry. I hoped the “lawyer” reference meant Mr.
Cataliades had rescued him.
Claude said in a puzzled way, “Johan, are you calling me less than a strong man because I like other
men in bed?”
Glassport winced, and his mouth compressed with disgust. “I am saying that I think less of you,” he
replied. “I do not like contact with you.”
“And I think you’re going straight to hell with the imps of Satan,” Steve Newlin said. “You’re an
abomination.”
There was more than one “abomination” in the van, but I wasn’t going to point that out. Very
cautiously, I wiggled a little closer to the spot where the back of the passenger seat was very close to the
sliding side door. Glassport had his back against the door a little farther away from the front of the van.
If Glassport would move away from the door, just a little, I would open it and throw myself out. I
could see that the door was unlocked. Of course, it would be nice if Claude slowed down first. I had no
idea what was outside the van, since I couldn’t see out the front windows; but I was assuming we were
still in farmland, and there was a chance that with all the rain we’d had lately, I could make a relatively
soft landing. Maybe. I would have to act with speed and no hesitation.
I defy you to throw yourself out of a moving vehicle without hesitating. Just the idea was giving me
qualms.
“Then we have to have a serious discussion,” Claude said, and his voice became sexy as hell. “A
very serious discussion about how we all have the right to find someone who wants to have sex with us.”
The voice oozed over us like warm caramel.
It wasn’t working nearly as much on me as it was affecting Newlin and Glassport, who were looking
oddly shaken and horribly frightened.
“Yes, many men love to think about the curved hips and firm thighs of other men,” Claude said.
Okay, he could stop anytime now. I was acutely uncomfortable.
“To think about their hard dicks and full balls,” Claude said, spinning a spell with his voice. That
popped the sexy bubble for me, but the two men were eyeing each other with obvious lust, and I couldn’t
bear to look at their crotches. Oh, yuck. Not these guys. Gross.
And then Claude made a huge mistake. He was so confident in his own sexuality, he was so sure of
his audience, that he did the psychic equivalent of flipping them off. “See?” he said, and the spell dropped
away. “There is nothing to it.”
Steve Newlin went apeshit. He lunged at the driver’s seat, grabbed Claude by the hair, and began
punching him in the face. The van swerved all over the place. Johan Glassport was thrown across to the
other side with a particularly violent lurch, while I half turned to clutch the grip on the back of the
passenger seat with both hands.
Claude tried to defend himself, and since Glassport had his knife in his hand, I figured it was time to
get the hell out of there. I got to my knees to see where we were going. The van crossed a lane of traffic,
which was thank-God empty, and then we went down a shallow embankment and up again to end up in a
field of corn. The headlights shone through the stalks in an eerie way, but eerie or not I was getting out of
the van now.
I yanked the handle and the door opened, and I rolled out onto the ground. Johan yelled, but I
scrambled to my feet and ran, ran, the corn making an ungodly noise at my passage. I was as obvious as a
water buffalo, and I felt just as unwieldy and clumsy.
I thought the cowboy boots would come off, but they didn’t, and I spared a sliver of a second to wish
I’d taken the jeans option for the bar. No, I’d wanted to look cute, and here I was, running through a
cornfield in danger of getting killed in a flirty skirt and a formerly white eyelet blouse. Plus, my arm was
bleeding. Thank God there weren’t any vamps after me.
I wanted away from the light. I wanted to find a place to hunker down. Or a house full of shotguns,
that would be good. We’d swerved south into the field from a westbound road. I began to push my way
across the rows rather than running with them. If I went west, and then started north, I’d hit the road. But I
had to find a dark patch of the field to obscure my movement, because God knew I was making enough
noise.
But it just wouldn’t get dark. Why not? Fields, night, one vehicle . . .
There was more than one vehicle.
There were ten vehicles streaming up the two-lane to the place the van had left the road.
I abandoned my plunge westward. I changed directions and ran toward them, thinking that at least
one would stop.
They all stopped. They all angled so their lights were shining out into the field to illuminate the van.
I heard lots of shouting and lots of advice, and I ran right toward them, because I knew all these people
had followed the van out of the parking lot to rescue me. Or to avenge the bouncer. Or just because you
don’t disrupt a good bar or a line dance by grabbing a dancer. Their brains were full of righteous
indignation. And I loved each and every one of them.
“Help!” I yelled, as I made my way through the corn. “Help!”
“Are you Sookie Stackhouse?” called a deep bass voice.
“I am!” I called. “I’m coming out now!”
“The lady’s coming out,” the bass voice boomed. “Don’t shoot her!”
I broke out of the corn about ten yards to the west of where the van had gone in, and I ran down the
edge of the field toward the line of saviors.
And the man with the bass voice yelled, “Duck, honey!”
I knew he meant me, and I dove into the ground like I was entering the ocean. His rifle took out Johan
Glassport, who’d broken out of the corn behind me. In a second I was surrounded by people who were
helping me up, exclaiming over my bleeding arm, or passing me by to stand in a silent knot around the
body of the murderous lawyer.
One down.
A large posse headed out into the cornfield to see what had happened at the van, and Sam and Jason
and Michele claimed me. There were fraught feelings bouncing around, there was self-blame, there were
tears (okay, that was Michele), but what mattered was that I was safe and I was with the people who
cared about me.
A heavy, silent man drew near and offered me his handkerchief to bind my arm. I accepted and
thanked him sincerely. Michele did the binding, but my arm would need stitches. Of course.
There was another wave of exclamations. They were bringing Claude and Steve Newlin through the
trail of wrecked stalks the van had made.
Claude was badly wounded. Glassport had gotten to use the knife on him at least once, and Steve
Newlin had pummeled his face.
They’d made Newlin help him to the road, and he hated that worse than anything.
When they were close enough to hear me, I said, “Claude. Human jail.”
His thoughts focused, though I couldn’t read them. Then he understood. As if someone had given him
a shot of vampire blood, he went nuts. Utterly reenergized, he spun on Steve Newlin, throwing him down
with a terrible force, and then he leaped for the nearest Good Samaritan, a man wearing a Stompin’
Sally’s shirt, and the Good Samaritan shot him dead.
Two down.
To make things even simpler, Claude had thrown Steve Newlin down with enough force to fracture
his skull, and I heard later that he died that night in the Monroe hospital, where they moved him after
stabilizing him in Clarice. Before he did, he was moved to confess his part in Arlene’s murder. Maybe the
Lord forgave him. I didn’t.
Three down.
After I talked to the law, Sam took me to the hospital. I asked after Xavier; he was in surgery. The
ER doctor thought a butterfly bandage was enough for my arm, to my profound relief. I wanted to get back
home. I’d spent enough time in hospitals, and I’d spent enough nights scared.
Now, everyone who wished me ill was dead. That is, everyone I knew of. I wasn’t happy about that,
but I wasn’t grieving, either. Each of them would have been glad enough if I’d been the one on my way to
the grave.
I was pretty shaken up by my abduction from Stompin’ Sally’s. A few days later, Sally herself
called. She said she’d sent me a gift card for ten free drinks at her establishment, and she offered to buy
me a new pair of cowboy boots, since mine would never be the same after my flight through the cornfield.
I appreciated that—but right then, I wasn’t sure about any future line dancing.
And I knew I’d never be able to watch Signs again.
There was no way to thank everyone who poured out of the bar and into their trucks to try to track
down the van. At least five other vehicles had headed south, just in case Claude had doubled back that
way. As the bartender told me, “We had your back, little lady.”
This little lady was grateful. And also grateful that out of all the people who heard me remind
Claude of what he’d be facing, only the Stompin’ Sally’s bartender who’d shot him found a moment while
we were waiting for the police to ask me what I’d meant. I’d explained as simply and tersely as I could.
“He wasn’t human, and I knew he’d be in a human jail for a century or more. That would have been pretty
awful for him.” That was all I had to say.
“You know I had to shoot him ’cause you said that,” the man said steadily.
“If I’d had a gun, I would have done it myself,” was all I could offer. “And you know he was
attacking you and would have kept on going until he was stopped.” I could tell from the man’s thoughts
that he was a veteran and he’d had to kill before. He’d hoped never to do it again. This would be another
thing I’d have to live with. He would, too.
Chapter 22
I went to work the next day. I’d missed enough, I figured. I won’t say it was an easy day to get through,
since I had moments of sheer panic. That would have been the case if I’d stayed home, and at least at the
bar I was able to hear that Xavier had made it out of surgery and would recover. Sam’s presence behind
the bar was reassuring. And his eyes followed me, as if he were constantly thinking of me, too.
I drove home while it was still light, and I was glad to get in the house and lock the door behind me.
I was less glad to find Mr. Cataliades and Diantha already in the house, but I felt better about their
presence when I saw they’d brought Barry. He was in bad shape, and I had a hard time persuading them
that he could not heal himself the way demons could. In fact, I was pretty sure that Barry had broken a
bone or two in his face and one of his hands. He was bruised and puffy all over and moved with
excruciating care.
They’d put him on the bed in the guest room across the hall from mine, and I had an appalled
realization that I hadn’t changed the sheets since Amelia and Bob’s stay. But after evaluating Barry’s
physical damage, I realized that worrying about used sheets was the furthest thing from his concerns. He
was more worried about peeing without blood.
“I feel pretty rough,” he said, between cracked lips. Diantha watched me give him some water, very
carefully.
“You gotta go to a hospital,” I said. “I guess you can tell them a car hit you while you were walking
by the road or something. And you were unconscious.”
I was aware, even as I said this, that it was utter bullshit. Not only would any competent doctor be
able to tell that Barry had been beaten, not hit by any car, but I was sick of trying to explain away awful
stuff like this.
“Isn’t worth the trouble,” Barry said. “I’ll just tell ’em I got mugged. More or less the truth.”
“So Newlin and Glassport grabbed you. What did they think they could beat out of you?”
He tried to smile, but the attempt was pretty ghastly. “They wanted me to tell them where Hunter
was.”
I sat down in a hurry. Mr. Cataliades stepped forward, his face grim. “You see why it is a good thing
they are all dead,” he said. “Newlin, Glassport, the fairy.”
“He told them,” I said, and it was almost funny how deeply hurt I was that Claude had betrayed a
child.
“It wasn’t the money he paid them,” Mr. Cataliades said. “That was not what made them persist
beyond all reason in trying to capture you. The two humans knew Claude wanted you, wanted to kill you,
and they were very willing to go along with that. But they wanted the boy. To mold to their own
purposes.”
The enormity of it washed over me. I felt no guilt or regret about their deaths any longer, not even
about the ex-soldier who’d had to shoot Claude.
“How did you find Barry?” I asked.
“I listened for him,” Mr. Cataliades said simply. “And Diantha and I searched, following his mind
like a beacon. He was alone when we found him, and we took him away. We didn’t know they were
coming after you.”
“Wedidn’tknow,” Diantha said sadly.
“You did great, you did the best thing ever,” I said. “And I owe you one.”
“Never,” said Mr. Cataliades. “You owe me nothing.”
I looked at Barry. He needed to get out of this area, and he needed a place to heal. His rental car was
in downtown Bon Temps, and I’d have to drive it back to the rental place and turn it in; he wouldn’t have
wheels, but he was too battered to drive, obviously.
“Where can we take you afterward?” I asked Barry, trying to sound gentle. “You got a family to go
to? I guess you could stay with me.”
He shook his head feebly. “Got no family,” he whispered. “And I couldn’t stand being with another
telepath all the time.”
I looked through the open door at Mr. Cataliades, who was Barry’s relative for sure. He was
standing out in the hall, looking pained. He met my eyes and shook his head from side to side, to tell me
that Barry couldn’t come with him. He’d tracked Barry and saved his life, and that was all he could do.
For whatever reason.
Barry really needed someone to convalesce with, someone who would let him be, let him heal, but
be there to give him a hand. I had a sudden inspiration. I picked up my phone and found Bernadette
Merlotte’s number. “Bernadette,” I said, when we’d done a polite greeting exchange, “you said you owed
me a life. I don’t want a life, but a friend of mine is hurt bad and he needs a hospital and a place to stay
while he recovers. He’s not a lot of trouble, I promise, and he’s a good guy.”
I told Barry five minutes later that he was going to Wright, Texas.
“Texas isn’t safe for me,” he protested.
“You’re not going to a major urban center,” I said. “You’re going to Wright, and there’s not a single
vampire there. You’re going to stay with Sam’s mom, and she’s nice, and you won’t be able to read her
mind clearly because she’s a shapeshifter. Don’t go out at night and you won’t see any vampires. I told
her your name was Rick.”
“Okay,” he said weakly.
Within an hour, Mr. Cataliades was driving Barry to the hospital in Shreveport. He told me solemnly
that he would take Barry to Wright when he was discharged.
Barry e-mailed me three days later. He was safely ensconced in Wright in Sam’s old room. He was
getting better. He liked Bernie. He had no idea what he would do next. But he was alive and healing, and
he was thinking of his future.
Slowly, I began to relax. I heard from Amelia about every third day. Bob had been transferred to
New Orleans, finally. Her father was missing; his secretary had filed a missing-person report. Amelia
didn’t seem too concerned about his whereabouts. She was all about Bob and the baby. She’d seen Mr. C,
she said. He was trying to find out what witch might have made the charm that had enabled Arlene to enter
my house, but Amelia was of the opinion that Claude had made it. I was sure the part-demons would get to
the bottom of that question.
Less than two weeks later, I walked down the “aisle,” actually a narrow grass path through a happy
crowd of people. The folding chairs were already set up at the tables scattered around the lawn, so the
guests would stand for the short service. I went slowly, to keep time with the fiddlers playing “Simple
Gifts.” I was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, wearing my beautiful yellow dress. Michele’s minister
was standing under a flowery archway in Jason’s backyard (I’d been more than glad to supply the
greenery), and Michele’s parents were smiling as they stood waiting by the archway. There was no family
to stand on our side, but at least Jason and I had each other. Michele looked beautiful as she walked up to
meet Jason, and Hoyt didn’t lose the ring.
After the wedding party—all four of us—had our pictures made together and separately, Michele
and Jason took their places behind the meat table with aprons on over their wedding clothes, and they
served ribs or sliced pork to the guests, who then descended on the tables full of vegetables and breads
and desserts, all brought by the guests. The cake, contributed by a church friend of Michele’s mom, stood
in lonely splendor under a tent.
Everybody ate and drank and made lots of toasts.
Sam had saved me a seat by his, at the newlywed couples’ table, marked off with a white ribbon.
Jason and Michele would join us after they’d served the first wave of guests.
“You look real pretty,” he said. “And the arm looks fine, too.” I’d been able to leave the bandage off
today.
“Thanks, Sam.” We hadn’t seen each other (except at work) since the night at Stompin’ Sally’s. He’d
given me the slow time I’d asked for. We had signed on to help JB and Tara in their little home-
improvement plan, and we’d decided to go to a movie in Shreveport in a week or two on a night we both
had off.
I had my own ideas about how our relationship was going to progress, but I know that nothing is
worse than assuming.
Late that evening, after we’d helped my brother and his bride fold up all the chairs and tables and
load them on a trailer to take back to the church, Sam helped me into his truck. As we drove to my house,
he said, “Little lady, I got a question.” (He’d picked that up the night of the cornfield, and he wasn’t
letting it go.)
“Yes, what?” I said, with elaborate patience.
“How did Claude get out of Faery? You said it was sealed up. The portal in your woods was
closed.”
“You know what I found blooming in my yard yesterday?” I said.
“I don’t know where you’re going with this, but okay, I’ll bite. What did you find growing in your
yard?”
“A letter.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Seriously. A letter on a plant. It was one of the roses on my rosebush, you know the big red
one by the garage?”
“And you spotted it?”
“It was white. The rosebush is red and green. I park right by it.”
“Okay. Who was the letter from?”
“Niall, of course.”
“And what did Niall have to say?”
“That he had purposely created the opportunity for someone to break Claude out of fairy jail,
because he was sure he hadn’t caught all the traitors yet. When his suspect made the attempt, Niall would
nab the traitor, and Claude would have to languish—that was the word he used, ‘languish’—in the lands
of the humans forever, robbed of his beauty.” After a short silence, Sam growled, “I don’t believe Niall
thought about how unhappy Claude would be when he found himself back in the USA without a job,
money, or looks. Or who he’d blame for all that.”
“Putting himself in someone else’s shoes is not the Niall way,” I said. “Apparently, the traitor did
break Claude out, and Claude decided vengeance was first on his list. Also, he must have had a bank
account that Niall didn’t know about. Claude contacted Johan Glassport, who’d acted as his lawyer
before, because Glassport was the most ruthless human he knew. He bribed Glassport to take part in
phase one of the ‘get Sookie’ project, which apparently was to ensure I went to jail for my whole life so
I’d see just how Claude would have had to live. They needed someone else motivated by Sookie-hate to
help them out, someone who would be tempted by the unusual bribe—money and a little telepath.
Glassport tracked down Steve Newlin. Then they needed the perfect victim, so Glassport argued Arlene
out of prison.”
“That’s pretty convoluted,” Sam said.
“Tell me about it. I mean, when I thought about Claude in fairy jail, I kind of got where he was going
with it, but still. He would have been much better off if he’d just stolen a gun and shot me.”
“Sookie!” Sam was genuinely upset. We were parked at my back door. I glanced out the window and
thought I saw a flash of white at the edge of the woods. Karin. Or Bill. She and Bill must be seeing a lot
of each other during the night.
“I know, I don’t like the mental image, either,” I said. “But it’s true. Going elaborate reduces your
chance of success. So remember this for your future vengeance projects. Short, direct.” We sat a moment
in silence. “Seriously, Sam, I would have died if I’d been tortured again. I was ready to go.”
“But you got them angry with each other. You started them fighting. And you lived. You never give
up, Sook.” He took my hand.
I would have disputed that if I’d cared to speak. I’d given up a lot, so much I couldn’t even begin to
evaluate it, but I knew what Sam meant. He meant I’d kept myself and my will to live intact. I didn’t know
what to say. And finally, that was exactly what I told Sam. “I’m left with nothing to say.”
“No, never that.” He came around to my side of the truck and helped me slide down in the high heels
and snug dress. There might have been a bit more contact than strictly necessary. Even a lot more contact.
“You have everything,” Sam said. “Everything.” His arms tightened around me. “I wish you’d reconsider,
about me staying the night.”
“I’m tempted,” I confessed. “But this time, we’re going to be slow and sure.”
“I’m sure I want to get in bed with you.” He rested his forehead against mine. Then he laughed, just a
little. “You’re right,” he said. “This is the best way to do it. Hard to be patient, though, when we know
how good it can be.”
I enjoyed my arms around him, the sense of him next to me. And if you were to ask me, I would
confess that I thought Sam and I would be together, maybe by Christmas, maybe for always. I couldn’t
imagine a future without him. But I also knew that if he turned away from me at this moment, somehow I
would survive that, and I would find a way to flourish like the yard that still bloomed and grew around my
family home.
I’m Sookie Stackhouse. I belong here.