"Then we need to know that, too. The sooner the better."
I put my hand on the old phone that hung on the kitchen wall right by the end of the counter. A high stool sat below it. My grandmother had always sat on the stool to conduct her lengthy phone conversations, with a pad and pencil handy. I missed her every day. But at the moment I had no room in my emotional palette for grief, or even nostalgia. I looked in my little address book for the number of Fangtasia, the vampire bar in Shreveport that provided Eric's principal income and served as the base of his operations, which I understood were far wider in scope. I didn't know how wide or what these other moneymaking projects were, and I didn't especially want to know.
I'd seen in the Shreveport paper that Fangtasia, too, had planned a big bash for the evening—"Begin Your New Year with a Bite"—so I knew someone would be there. While the phone was ringing, I swung open the refrigerator and got out a bottle of blood for Eric. I popped it in the microwave and set the timer. He followed my every move with anxious eyes.
"Fangtasia," said an accented male voice.
"Chow?"
"Yes, how may I serve you?" He'd remembered his phone persona of sexy vampire just in the nick of time.
"It's Sookie."
"Oh," he said in a much more natural voice. "Listen, Happy New Year, Sook, but we're kind of busy here."
"Looking for someone?"
There was a long, charged silence.
"Wait a minute," he said, and then I heard nothing.
"Pam," said Pam. She'd picked up the receiver so silently that I jumped when I heard her voice.
"Do you still have a master?" I didn't know how much I could say over the phone. I wanted to know if she'd been the one who'd put Eric in this state, or if she still owed him loyalty.
"I do," she said steadily, understanding what I wanted to know. "We are under . . . we have some problems."
I mulled that over until I was sure I'd read between the lines. Pam was telling me that she still owed Eric her allegiance, and that Eric's group of followers was under some kind of attack or in some kind of crisis.
I said, "He's here." Pam appreciated brevity.
"Is he alive?"
"Yep."
"Damaged?"
"Mentally."
A long pause, this time.
"Will he be a danger to you?"
Not that Pam cared a whole hell of a lot if Eric decided to drain me dry, but I guess she wondered if I would shelter Eric. "I don't think so at the moment," I said. "It seems to be a matter of memory."
"I hate witches. Humans had the right idea, burning them at the stake."
Since the very humans who had burned witches would have been delighted to sink that same stake into vampire hearts, I found that a little amusing—but not very, considering the hour. I immediately forgot what she'd been talking about. I yawned.
"Tomorrow night, we'll come," she said finally. "Can you keep him this day? Dawn's in less than four hours. Do you have a safe place?"
"Yes. But you get over here at nightfall, you hear me? I don't want to get tangled up in your vampire shit again." Normally, I don't speak so bluntly; but like I say, it was the tail end of a long night.
"We'll be there."
We hung up simultaneously. Eric was watching me with unblinking blue eyes. His hair was a snarly tangled mess of blond waves. His hair is the exact same color as mine, and I have blue eyes, too, but that's the end of the similarities.
I thought of taking a brush to his hair, but I was just too weary.
"Okay, here's the deal," I told him. "You stay here the rest of the night and tomorrow, and then Pam and them'll come get you tomorrow night and let you know what's happening."
"You won't let anyone get in?" he asked. I noticed he'd finished the blood, and he wasn't quite as drawn as he'd been, which was a relief.
"Eric, I'll do my best to keep you safe," I said, quite gently. I rubbed my face with my hands. I was going to fall asleep on my feet. "Come on," I said, taking his hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.
My old house has been added onto over the years, but it hasn't ever been more than a humble farmhouse. A second story was added around the turn of the century, and two more bedrooms and a walk-in attic are upstairs, but I seldom go up there anymore. I keep it shut off, to save money on electricity. There are two bedrooms downstairs, the smaller one I'd used until my grandmother died and her large one across the hall from it. I'd moved into the large one after her death. But the hidey-hole Bill had built was in the smaller bedroom. I led Eric in there, switched on the light, and made sure the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn across them. Then I opened the door of the closet, removed its few contents, and pulled back the flap of carpet that covered the closet floor, exposing the trapdoor. Underneath was a light-tight space that Bill had built a few months before, so that he could stay over during the day or use it as a hiding place if his own home was unsafe. Bill liked having a bolt-hole, and I was sure he had some that I didn't know about. If I'd been a vampire (God forbid), I would have, myself.
I had to wipe thoughts of Bill out of my head as I showed my reluctant guest how to close the trapdoor on top of him and that the flap of carpet would fall back into place. "When I get up, I'll put the stuff back in the closet so it'll look natural," I reassured him, and smiled encouragingly.
"Do I have to get in now?" he asked.
Eric, making a request of me: The world was really turned upside-down. "No," I said, trying to sound like I was concerned. All I could think of was my bed. "You don't have to. Just get in before sunrise. There's no way you could miss that, right? I mean, you couldn't fall asleep and wake up in the sun?"
He thought for a moment and shook his head. "No," he said. "I know that can't happen. Can I stay in the room with you?"
Oh, God, puppy dog eyes. From a six-foot-five ancient Viking vampire. It was just too much. I didn't have enough energy to laugh, so I just gave a sad little snigger. "Come on," I said, my voice as limp as my legs. I turned off the light in that room, crossed the hall, and flipped on the one in my own room, yellow and white and clean and warm, and folded down the bedspread and blanket and sheet. While Eric sat forlornly in a slipper chair on the other side of the bed, I pulled off my shoes and socks, got a nightgown out of a drawer, and retreated into the bathroom. I was out in ten minutes, with clean teeth and face and swathed in a very old, very soft flannel nightgown that was cream-colored with blue flowers scattered around. Its ribbons were raveled and the ruffle around the bottom was pretty sad, but it suited me just fine. After I'd switched off the lights, I remembered my hair was still up in its usual ponytail, so I pulled out the band that held it and I shook my head to make it fall loose. Even my scalp seemed to relax, and I sighed with bliss.
As I climbed up into the high old bed, the large fly in my personal ointment did the same. Had I actually told him he could get in bed with me? Well, I decided, as I wriggled down under the soft old sheets and the blanket and the comforter, if Eric had designs on me, I was just too tired to care.
"Woman?"
"Hmmm?"
"What's your name?"
"Sookie. Sookie Stackhouse."
"Thank you, Sookie."
"Welcome, Eric."
Because he sounded so lost—the Eric I knew had never been one to do anything other than assume others should serve him—I patted around under the covers for his hand. When I found it, I slid my own over it. His palm was turned up to meet my palm, and his fingers clasped mine.
And though I would not have thought it was possible to go to sleep holding hands with a vampire, that's exactly what I did.
2
I woke up slowly. As I lay snuggled under the covers, now and then stretching an arm or a leg, I gradually remembered the surrealistic happenings of the night before.
Well, Eric wasn't in bed with me now, so I had to assume he was safely ensconced in the hidey-hole.
I went across the hall. As I'd promised, I put the contents back in the closet to make it look normal. The clock told me it was noon, and outside the sun was bright, though the air was cold. For Christmas, Jason had given me a thermometer that read the outside temperature and showed it to me on a digital readout inside. He'd installed it for me, too. Now I knew two things: it was noon, and it was thirty-four degrees outside.
In the kitchen, the pan of water I'd washed Eric's feet with was still sitting on the floor. As I dumped it into the sink, I saw that at some point he'd rinsed out the bottle that had held the synthetic blood. I'd have to get some more to have around when he rose, since you didn't want a hungry vampire in your house, and it would be only polite to have extra to offer Pam and whoever else drove over from Shreveport. They'd explain things to me—or not. They'd take Eric away and work on whatever problems were facing the Shreveport vampire community, and I would be left in peace. Or not.
Merlotte's was closed on New Year's Day until four o'clock. On New Year's Day, and the day after, Charlsie and Danielle and the new girl were on the schedule, since the rest of us had worked New Year's Eve. So I had two whole days off . . . and at least one of them I got to spend alone in a house with a mentally ill vampire. Life just didn't get any better.
I had two cups of coffee, put Eric's jeans in the washer, read a romance for a while, and studied my brand-new Word of the Day calendar, a Christmas gift from Arlene. My first word for the New Year was "exsanguinate." This was probably not a good omen.
Jason came by a little after four, flying down my drive in his black pickup with pink and purple flames on the side. I'd showered and dressed by then, but my hair was still wet. I'd sprayed it with detangler and I was brushing through it slowly, sitting in front of the fireplace. I'd turned on the TV to a football game to have something to watch while I brushed, but I kept the sound way down. I was pondering Eric's predicament while I luxuriated in the feel of the fire's warmth on my back.
We hadn't used the fireplace much in the past couple of years because buying a load of wood was so expensive, but Jason had cut up a lot of trees that had fallen last year after an ice storm. I was well stocked, and I was enjoying the flames.
My brother stomped up the front steps and knocked perfunctorily before coming in. Like me, he had mostly grown up in this house. We'd come to live with Gran when my parents died, and she'd rented out their house until Jason said he was ready to live on his own, when he'd been twenty. Now Jason was twenty-eight and the boss of a parish road crew. This was a rapid rise for a local boy without a lot of education, and I'd thought it was enough for him until the past month or two, when he'd begun acting restless.
"Good," he said, when he saw the fire. He stood squarely in front of it to warm his hands, incidentally blocking the warmth from me. "What time did you get home last night?" he said over his shoulder.
"I guess I got to bed about three."
"What did you think of that girl I was with?"
"I think you better not date her anymore."
That wasn't what he'd expected to hear. His eyes slid sideways to meet mine. "What did you get off her?" he asked in a subdued voice. My brother knows I am telepathic, but he would never discuss it with me, or anyone else. I've seen him get into fights with some man who accused me of being abnormal, but he knows I'm different. Everyone else does, too. They just choose not to believe it, or they believe I couldn't possibly read their thoughts—just someone else's. God knows, I try to act and talk like I'm not receiving an unwanted spate of ideas and emotions and regrets and accusations, but sometimes it just seeps through.
"She's not your kind," I said, looking into the fire.
"She surely ain't a vamp," he protested.
"No, not a vamp."
"Well, then." He glared at me belligerently.
"Jason, when the vampires came out—when we found out they were real after all those decades of thinking they were just a scary legend—didn't you ever wonder if there were other tall tales that were real?"
My brother struggled with that concept for a minute. I knew (because I could "hear" him) that Jason wanted to deny any such idea absolutely and call me a crazy woman—but he just couldn't. "You know for a fact," he said. It wasn't quite a question.
I made sure he was looking me in the eyes, and I nodded emphatically.
"Well, shit," he said, disgusted. "I really liked that girl, and she was a tiger in the sack."
"Really?" I asked, absolutely stunned that she had changed in front of him when it wasn't the full moon. "Are you okay?" The next second, I was chastising myself for my stupidity. Of course she hadn't.
He gaped at me for a second, before busting out laughing. "Sookie, you are one weird woman! You looked just like you thought she really could—" And his face froze. I could feel the idea bore a hole through the protective bubble most people inflate around their brain, the bubble that repels sights and ideas that don't jibe with their expectation of the everyday. Jason sat down heavily in Gran's recliner. "I wish I didn't know that," he said in a small voice.
"That may not be specifically what happens to her—the tiger thing—but believe me, something happens."
It took a minute for his face to settle back into more familiar lines, but it did. Typical Jason behavior: There was nothing he could do about his new knowledge, so he pushed it to the back of his mind. "Listen, did you see Hoyt's date last night? After they left the bar, Hoyt got stuck in a ditch over to Arcadia, and they had to walk two miles to get to a phone because he'd let his cell run down."
"He did not!" I exclaimed, in a comforting and gossipy way. "And her in those heels." Jason's equilibrium was restored. He told me the town gossip for a few minutes, he accepted my offer of a Coke, and he asked me if I needed anything from town.
"Yes, I do." I'd been thinking while he was talking. Most of his news I'd heard from other brains the nights before, in unguarded moments.
"Ah-oh," he said, looking mock-frightened. "What am I in for now?"
"I need ten bottles of synthetic blood and clothes for big man," I said, and I'd startled him again. Poor Jason, he deserved a silly vixen of a sister who bore nieces and nephews who called him Uncle Jase and held on to his legs. Instead, he got me.
"How big is the man, and where is he?"
"He's about six foot four or five, and he's asleep," I said. "I'd guess a thirty-four waist, and he's got long legs and broad shoulders." I reminded myself to check the size label on Eric's jeans, which were still in the dryer out on the back porch.
"What kind of clothes?"
"Work clothes."
"Anybody I know?"
"Me," said a much deeper voice.
Jason whipped around as if he was expecting an attack, which shows his instincts aren't so bad, after all. But Eric looked as unthreatening as a vampire his size can look. And he'd obligingly put on the brown velour bathrobe that I'd left in the second bedroom. It was one I'd kept here for Bill, and it gave me a pang to see it on someone else. But I had to be practical; Eric couldn't wander around in red bikini underwear—at least, not with Jason in the house.
Jason goggled at Eric and cast a shocked glance at me. "This is your newest man, Sookie? You didn't let any grass grow under your feet." He didn't know whether to sound admiring or indignant. Jason still didn't realize Eric was dead. It's amazing to me that lots of people can't tell for a few minutes. "And I need to get him clothes?"
"Yes. His shirt got torn last night, and his blue jeans are still dirty."
"You going to introduce me?"
I took a deep breath. It would have been so much better if Jason hadn't seen Eric. "Better not," I said.
They both took that badly. Jason looked wounded, and the vampire looked offended.
"Eric," he said, and stuck out a hand to Jason.
"Jason Stackhouse, this rude lady's brother," Jason said.
They shook, and I felt like wringing both their necks.
"I'm assuming there's a reason why you two can't
go out to buy him more clothes," Jason said.
"There's a good reason," I said. "And there's about twenty good reasons you should forget you ever saw this guy."
"Are you in danger?" Jason asked me directly.
"Not yet," I said.
"If you do something that gets my sister hurt, you'll be in a world of trouble," Jason told Eric the vampire.
"I would expect nothing less," Eric said. "But since you are being blunt with me, I'll be blunt with you. I think you should support her and take her into your household, so she would be better protected."
Jason's mouth fell open again, and I had to cover my own so I wouldn't laugh out loud. This was even better than I'd imagined.
"Ten bottles of blood and a change of clothes?" Jason asked me, and I knew by the change in his voice that he'd finally cottoned on to Eric's state.
"Right. Liquor store'll have the blood. You can get the clothes at WalMart." Eric had mostly been a jeans and T-shirt kind of guy, which was all I could afford, anyway. "Oh, he needs some shoes, too."
Jason went to stand by Eric and put his foot parallel to the vampire's. He whistled, which made Eric jump.
"Big feet," Jason commented, and flashed me a look. "Is the old saying true?"
I smiled at him. He was trying to lighten the atmosphere. "You may not believe me, but I don't know."
"Kind of hard to swallow . . . no joke intended. Well, I'm gone," Jason said, nodding to Eric. In a few seconds, I heard his truck speeding around the curves in the driveway, through the dark woods. Night had fallen completely.
"I'm sorry I came out while he was here," Eric said tentatively. "You didn't want me to meet him, I think." He came over to the fire and seemed to be enjoying the warmth as I had been doing.
"It's not that I'm embarrassed to have you here," I said. "It's that I have a feeling you're in a heap of trouble, and I don't want my brother drawn in."
"He is your only brother?"
"Yes. And my parents are gone, my grandmother, too. He's all I have, except for a cousin who's been on drugs for years. She's lost, I guess."
Dead to the World ss(v-4 Page 3
