"Though some of us thought he might be wise to agree, our master balked," Chow said, shooting "our master" a less than loving glance. "And our master saw fit to refuse in such insulting terms that Hallow cursed him."
Eric looked embarrassed.
"Why on earth would you turn down a deal like that?" Jason asked, honestly puzzled.
"I don't remember," Eric said, moving fractionally closer to my legs. Fractionally was all the closer he could get. He looked relaxed, but I knew he wasn't. I could feel the tension in his body. "I didn't know my name until this woman, Sookie, told me it."
"And how did you come to be out in the country?"
"I don't know that either."
"He just vanished from where he was," Pam said. "We were sitting in the office with the young witch, and Chow and I were arguing with Eric about his refusal. And then we weren't."
"Ring any bells, Eric?" I asked. I'd caught myself reaching out to stroke his hair, like I would a dog that was huddling close to me.
The vampire looked puzzled. Though Eric's English was excellent, every now and then an idiom would faze him.
"Do you recall anything about this?" I said, more plainly. "Have any memories of it?"
"I was born the moment I was running down the road in the dark and the cold," he said. "Until you took me in, I was a void."
Put that way, it sounded terrifying.
"This just doesn't track," I said. "This wouldn't just happen out of the blue, with no warning."
Pam didn't look offended, but Chow tried to make the effort.
"You two did something, didn't you? You messed up. What did you do?" Both Eric's arms wrapped around my legs, so I was pinned in place. I suppressed a little ripple of panic. He was just insecure.
"Chow lost his temper with the witch," Pam said, after a significant pause.
I closed my eyes. Even Jason seemed to grasp what Pam was saying, because his eyes got bigger. Eric turned his face to rub his cheek along my thigh. I wondered what he was making of this.
"And the minute she was attacked, Eric vanished?" I asked.
Pam nodded.
"So she was booby-trapped with a spell."
"Apparently," Chow said. "Though I had never heard of such a thing, and I can't be held responsible." His glare dared me to say anything.
I turned to Jason and rolled my eyes. Dealing with Chow's blunder was not my responsibility. I was pretty sure that if the whole story was told to the queen of Louisiana, Eric's overlord, she might have a few things to say to Chow about the incident.
There was a little silence, during which Jason got up to put another log on the fire. "You've been in Merlotte's before, haven't you?" he asked the vampires. "Where Sookie works?"
Eric shrugged; he didn't remember. Pam said, "I have, but not Eric." She looked at me to confirm, and after some thought, I nodded.
"So no one's going to instantly associate Eric with Sookie." Jason dropped that observation casually, but he was looking very pleased and almost smug.
"No," Pam said slowly. "Maybe not."
There was definitely something I ought to be worrying about right now, but I couldn't quite see the shape of it.
"So you're clear as far as Bon Temps goes," Jason continued. "I doubt if anyone saw him out last night, except Sookie, and I'm damned if I know why he ended up on that particular road."
My brother had made a second excellent point. He was really operating on all his batteries tonight.
"But lots of people from here do drive to Shreveport to go to that bar, Fangtasia. I've been myself," Jason said. This was news to me, and I gave him a narrow-eyed glare. He shrugged and looked just a tad embarrassed. "So what's gonna happen when someone tries to claim the reward? When they call the number on the poster?"
Chow decided to contribute more to the conversation. "Of course, the 'close friend' who answers will come right away to talk to the informant firsthand. If the caller can convince the 'close friend' that he saw Eric after the whore witch worked her spell on him, the witches will begin looking in a specific area. They're sure to find him. They'll try to contact the local witches, too, get them working on it."
"No witches in Bon Temps," Jason said, looking amazed that Chow would even suggest the idea. There my brother went again, making assumptions.
"Oh, I'll bet there are," I said. "Why not? Remember what I told you?" Though I'd been thinking of Weres and shifters when I'd warned him there were things in the world he wouldn't want to see.
My poor brother was getting overloaded with information this evening. "Why not?" he repeated weakly. "Who would they be?"
"Some women, some men," Pam said, dusting her hands together as if she were talking about some infectious pest. "They are like everyone else who has a secret life—most of them are quite pleasant, fairly harmless." Though Pam didn't sound too positive when she said that. "But the bad ones tend to contaminate the good."
"However," Chow said, staring thoughtfully at Pam, "this is such a backwater that there may well be very few witches in the area. Not all of them are in covens, and getting an unattached witch to cooperate will be very difficult for Hallow and her followers."
"Why can't the Shreveport witches just cast a spell to find Eric?" I asked.
"They can't find anything of his to use to cast such a spell," Pam said, and she sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. "They can't get into his daytime resting place to find a hair or clothes that bear his scent. And there's no one around who's got Eric's blood in her."
Ah-oh. Eric and I looked at each other very briefly. There was me; and I was hoping devoutly that no one knew that but Eric.
"Besides," Chow said, shifting from foot to foot, "in my opinion, since we are dead, such things would not work to cast a spell."
Pam's eyes latched on to Chow's. They were exchanging ideas again, and I didn't like it. Eric, the cause of all this message swapping, was looking back and forth between his two fellow vamps. Even to me he looked clueless.
Pam turned to me. "Eric should stay here, where he is. Moving him will expose him to more danger. With him out of the way and in safety, we can take countermeasures against the witches."
"Going to the mattresses," Jason muttered in my ear, still stuck on the Godfather terminology.
Now that Pam had said it out loud, I could see clearly why I should have become concerned when Jason began emphasizing how impossible it was that anyone should associate Eric with me. No one would believe that a vampire of Eric's power and importance would be parked with a human barmaid.
My amnesiac guest looked bewildered. I leaned forward, gave in briefly to my impulse to stroke his hair, and then I held my hands over his ears. He permitted this, even putting his own hands on top of mine. I was going to pretend he couldn't hear what I was going to say.
"Listen, Chow, Pam. This is the worst idea of all time. I'll tell you why." I could hardly get the words out fast enough, emphatically enough. "How am I supposed to protect him? You know how this will end! I'll get beaten up. Or maybe even killed."
Pam and Chow looked at me with twin blank expressions. They might as well have said, "Your point being?"
"If my sister does this," Jason said, disregarding me completely, "she deserves to get paid for it."
There was what you call a pregnant silence. I gaped at him.
Simultaneously, Pam and Chow nodded.
"At least as much as an informer would get if he called the phone number on the poster," Jason said, his bright blue eyes going from one pale face to another. "Fifty thousand."
"Jason!" I finally found my voice, and I clamped my hands down even tighter over Eric's ears. I was embarrassed and humiliated, without being able to figure out exactly why. For one thing, my brother was arranging my business as though it were his.
"Ten," Chow said.
"Forty-five," Jason countered.
"Twenty."
"Thirty-five."
"Done."
"Sookie, I'll bring you my shot
gun," Jason said.
3
"How did this happen?" I asked the fire, when they were all gone.
All except for the big Viking vampire I was supposed to preserve and protect.
I was sitting on the rug in front of the fire. I'd just thrown in another piece of wood, and the flames were really lovely. I needed to think about something pleasant and comforting.
I saw a big bare foot out of the corner of my eye. Eric sank down to join me on the hearth rug. "I think this happened because you have a greedy brother, and because you are the kind of woman who would stop for me even though she was afraid," Eric said accurately.
"How are you feeling about all this?" I never would have asked the compos mentis Eric this question, but he still seemed so different; maybe not the completely terrified mess he'd been the night before, but still very un-Eric. "I mean—it's like you're a package that they put in a storage locker, me being the locker."
"I am glad they are afraid enough of me to take good care of me."
"Huh," I said intelligently. Not the answer I'd expected.
"I must be a frightening person, when I am myself. Or do I inspire so much loyalty through my good works and kind ways?"
I sniggered.
"I thought not."
"You're okay," I said reassuringly, though come to think of it, Eric didn't look like he needed much reassurance. However, now I was responsible for him. "Aren't your feet cold?"
"No," he said. But now I was in the business of taking care of Eric, who so didn't need taking care of. And I was being paid a staggering amount of money to do just that, I reminded myself sternly. I got the old quilt from the back of the couch and covered his legs and feet in green, blue, and yellow squares. I collapsed back onto the rug beside him.
"That's truly hideous," Eric said.
"That's what Bill said." I rolled over on my stomach and caught myself smiling.
"Where is this Bill?"
"He's in Peru."
"Did he tell you he was going?"
"Yes."
"Am I to assume that your relationship with him has waned?"
That was a pretty nice way to put it. "We've been on the outs. It's beginning to look permanent," I said, my voice even.
He was on his stomach beside me now, propped up on his elbows so we could talk. He was a little closer than I was comfortable with, but I didn't want to make a big issue out of scooting over. He half turned to toss the quilt over both of us.
"Tell me about him," Eric said unexpectedly. He and Pam and Chow had all had a glass of TrueBlood before the other vampires left, and he was looking pinker.
"You know Bill," I told him. "He's worked for you for quite a while. I guess you can't remember, but Bill's—well, he's kind of cool and calm, and he's really protective, and he can't seem to get some things through his head." I never thought I'd be rehashing my relationship with Bill with Eric, of all people.
"He loves you?"
I sighed, and my eyes watered, as they so often did when I thought of Bill—Weeping Willa, that was me. "Well, he said he did," I muttered dismally. "But then when this vampire ho contacted him somehow, he went a-running." For all I knew, she'd emailed him. "He'd had an affair with her before, and she turned out to be his, I don't know what you call 'em, the one who turned him into a vampire. Brought him over, he said. So Bill took back up with her. He says he had to. And then he found out"—I looked sideways at Eric with a significant raise of the eyebrows, and Eric looked fascinated—"that she was just trying to lure him over to the even-darker side."
"Pardon?"
"She was trying to get him to come over to another vampire group in Mississippi and bring with him the really valuable computer database he'd put together for your people, the Louisiana vamps," I said, simplifying a little bit for the sake of brevity.
"What happened?"
This was as much fun as talking to Arlene. Maybe even more, because I'd never been able to tell her the whole story. "Well, Lorena, that's her name, she tortured him," I said, and Eric's eyes widened. "Can you believe that? She could torture someone she'd made love with? Someone she'd lived with for years?" Eric shook his head disbelievingly. "Anyway, you told me to go to Jackson and find him, and I sort of picked up clues at this nightclub for Supes only." Eric nodded. Evidently, I didn't have to explain that Supes meant supernatural beings. "Its real name is Josephine's, but the Weres call it Club Dead. You told me to go there with this really nice Were who owed you a big favor, and I stayed at his place." Alcide Herveaux still figured in my daydreams. "But I ended up getting hurt pretty bad," I concluded. Hurt pretty bad, as always.
"How?"
"I got staked, believe it or not."
Eric looked properly impressed. "Is there a scar?"
"Yeah, even though—" And here I stopped dead.
He gave every indication he was hanging on my words. "What?"
"You got one of the Jackson vampires to work on the wound, so I'd survive for sure . . . and then you gave me blood to heal me quick, so I could look for Bill at daylight." Remembering how Eric had given me blood made my cheeks turn red, and I could only hope Eric would attribute my flush to the heat of the fire.
"And you saved Bill?" he said, moving beyond that touchy part.
"Yes, I did," I said proudly. "I saved his ass." I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. Gee, it was nice to have someone to talk to. I pulled up my T-shirt and inclined partially on my side to show Eric the scar, and he looked impressed. He touched the shiny area with a fingertip and shook his head. I rearranged myself.
"And what happened to the vampire ho?" he asked
I eyed him suspiciously, but he didn't seem to be making fun of me. "Well," I said, "um, actually, I kind of . . . She came in while I was getting Bill untied, and she attacked me, and I kind of . . . killed her."
Eric looked at me intently. I couldn't read his expression. "Had you ever killed anyone before?" he asked.
"Of course not!" I said indignantly. "Well, I did hurt a guy who was trying to kill me, but he didn't die. No, I'm a human. I don't have to kill anyone to live."
"But humans kill other humans all the time. And they don't even need to eat them or drink their blood."
"Not all humans."
"True enough," he said. "We vampires are all murderers."
"But in a way, you're like lions."
Eric looked astonished. "Lions?" he said weakly.
"Lions all kill stuff." At the moment, this idea seemed like an inspiration. "So you're predators, like lions and raptors. But you use what you kill. You have to kill to eat."
"The catch in that comforting theory being that we look almost exactly like you. And we used to be you. And we can love you, as well as feed off you. You could hardly say the lion wanted to caress the antelope."
Suddenly there was something in the air that hadn't been there the moment before. I felt a little like an antelope that was being stalked—by a lion that was a deviant.
I'd felt more comfortable when I was taking care of a terrified victim.
"Eric," I said, very cautiously, "you know you're my guest here. And you know if I tell you to leave, which I will if you're not straight with me, you'll be standing out in the middle of a field somewhere in a bathrobe that's too short for you."
"Have I said something to make you uncomfortable?" He was (apparently) completely contrite, blue eyes blazing with sincerity. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to continue your train of thought. Do you have some more TrueBlood? What clothes did Jason get for me? Your brother is a very clever man." He didn't sound a hundred percent admiring when he told me this. I didn't blame him. Jason's cleverness might cost him thirty-five thousand dollars. I got up to fetch the WalMart bag, hoping that Eric liked his new Louisiana Tech sweatshirt and cheap jeans.
I turned in about midnight, leaving Eric absorbed in my tapes of the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Though welcome, these were actually a gag gift from Tara.) Eric thought the show was a hoot, especi
ally the way the vampires' foreheads bulged out when they got blood-lusty. From time to time, I could hear Eric laughing all the way back in my room. But the sound didn't bother me. I found it reassuring to hear someone else in the house.
It took me a little longer than usual to fall asleep, because I was thinking over the things that had happened that day. Eric was in the witness protection program, in a way, and I was providing the safe house. No one in the world—well, except for Jason, Pam, and Chow—knew where the sheriff of Area Five actually was at this moment.
Which was, sliding into my bed.
I didn't want to open my eyes and quarrel with him. I was just at that cusp between waking and dreaming. When he'd climbed in the night before, Eric had been so afraid that I'd felt quite maternal, comfortable in holding his hand to reassure him. Tonight it didn't seem so, well, neutral, having him in the bed with me.
"Cold?" I murmured, as he huddled close.
"Um-hum," he whispered. I was on my back, so comfortable I could not contemplate moving. He was on his side facing me, and he put an arm across my waist. But he didn't move another inch, and he relaxed completely. After a moment's tension, I did, too, and then I was dead to the world.
The next thing I knew, it was morning and the phone was ringing. Of course, I was by myself in bed, and through my open doorway I could see across the hall into the smaller bedroom. The closet door was open, as he'd had to leave it when dawn came and he'd lowered himself into the light-tight hole.
It was bright and warmer today, up in the forties and heading for the fifties. I felt much more cheerful than I'd felt upon waking the day before. I knew what was happening now; or at least I knew more or less what I was supposed to do, how the next few days would go. Or I thought I did. When I answered the phone, I discovered that I was way off.
Dead to the World ss(v-4 Page 5
