Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set

by Charlaine Harris

  The next thing I knew, it was dawn. I could hear the birds going to town outside, chirping up a storm, and it felt wonderful to be snuggled in bed. I could feel the warmth of the dog through my nightgown; I must have gotten hot during the night and thrown off the sheet. I drowsily patted the animal’s head and began to stroke his fur, my fingers running idly through the thick hair. He wriggled even closer, sniffed my face, put his arm around me.

  His arm?

  I was off the bed and shrieking in one move.

  In my bed, Sam propped himself on his elbows, sunny side up, and looked at me with some amusement.

  “Oh, ohmyGod! Sam, how’d you get here? What are you doing? Where’s Dean?” I covered my face with my hands and turned my back, but I’d certainly seen all there was to see of Sam.

  “Woof,” said Sam, from a human throat, and the truth stomped over me in combat boots.

  I whirled back to face him, so angry I felt like I was going to blow a gasket.

  “You watched me undress last night, you . . . you . . . damn dog!”

  “Sookie,” he said, persuasively. “Listen to me.”

  Another thought struck me. “Oh, Sam. Bill will kill you.” I sat on the slipper chair in the corner by the bathroom door. I put my elbows on my knees and hung my head. “Oh, no,” I said. “No, no, no.”

  He was kneeling in front of me. The wirey red-gold hair of his head was duplicated on his chest and trailed in a line down to . . . I shut my eyes again.

  “Sookie, I was worried when Arlene told me you were going to be alone,” Sam began.

  “Didn’t she tell you about Bubba?”

  “Bubba?”

  “This vampire Bill left watching the house.”

  “Oh. Yeah, she said he reminded her of some singer.”

  “Well, his name is Bubba. He likes to drain animals for fun.”

  I had the satisfaction of seeing (through my fingers) Sam turn pale.

  “Well, isn’t it lucky you let me in, then,” he said finally.

  Suddenly recalled to his guise of the night before, I said, “What are you, Sam?”

  “I’m a shapeshifter. I thought it was time you knew.”

  “Did you have to do it quite like that?”

  “Actually,” he said, embarrassed, “I had planned on waking up and getting out before you opened your eyes. I just overslept. Running around on all fours kind of tires you out.”

  “I thought people just changed into wolves.”

  “Nope. I can change into anything.”

  I was so interested I dropped my hands and tried to just stare at his face. “How often?” I asked. “Do you get to pick?”

  “I have to at the full moon,” he explained. “Other times, I have to will it; it’s harder and it takes longer. I turn into whatever animal I saw before I changed. So I keep a dog book open to a picture of a collie on my coffee table. Collies are big, but nonthreatening.”

  “So, you could be a bird?”

  “Yeah, but flying is hard. I’m always scared I’m going to get fried on a power line, or fly into a window.”

  “Why? Why did you want me to know?”

  “You seemed to handle Bill being a vampire really well. In fact, you seemed to enjoy it. So I thought I would see if you could handle my . . . condition.”

  “But what you are,” I said abruptly, off on a mental tangent, “can’t be explained by a virus! I mean, you utterly change!”

  He didn’t say anything. He just looked at me, the eyes now blue, but just as intelligent and observant.

  “Being a shapeshifter is definitely supernatural. If that is, then other things can be. So . . .” I said, slowly, carefully, “Bill hasn’t got a virus at all. Being a vampire, it really can’t be explained by an allergy to silver or garlic or sunlight . . . that’s just so much bullshit the vampires are spreading around, propaganda, you might say . . . so they can be more easily accepted, as sufferers from a terrible disease. But really they’re . . . they’re really . . .”

  I dashed into the bathroom and threw up. Luckily, I made it to the toilet.

  “Yeah,” Sam said from the doorway, his voice sad. “I’m sorry, Sookie. But Bill doesn’t just have a virus. He’s really, really dead.”

  I WASHED MY face and brushed my teeth twice. I sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling too tired to go further. Sam sat beside me. He put his arm around me comfortingly, and after a moment I nestled closer, laying my cheek in the hollow of his neck.

  “You know, once I was listening to NPR,” I said, completely at random. “They were broadcasting a piece about cryogenics, about how lots of people are opting to just freeze their head because it’s so much cheaper than getting your whole body frozen.”

  “Ummm?”

  “Guess what song they played for the closing?”

  “What, Sookie?”

  “ ‘Put Your Head on My Shoulder.’ ”

  Sam made a choking noise, then doubled over with laughter.

  “Listen, Sam,” I said, when he’d calmed down. “I hear what you’re telling me, but I have to work this out with Bill. I love Bill. I am loyal to him. And he isn’t here to give his point of view.”

  “Oh, this isn’t about me trying to woo you away from Bill. Though that would be great.” And Sam smiled his rare and brilliant smile. He seemed much more relaxed with me now that I knew his secret.

  “Then what is it about?”

  “This is about keeping you alive until the murderer is caught.”

  “So that’s why you woke up naked in my bed? For my protection?”

  He had the grace to look ashamed. “Well, maybe I could have planned it better. But I did think you needed someone with you, since Arlene told me Bill was out of town. I knew you wouldn’t let me spend the night here as a human.”

  “Will you rest easy now that you know Bubba is watching the house at night?”

  “Vampires are strong, and ferocious,” Sam conceded. “I guess this Bubba owes Bill something, or he wouldn’t be doing him a favor. Vampires aren’t big on doing each other favors. They have a lot of structure in their world.”

  I should have paid more attention to what Sam was saying, but I was thinking I’d better not explain about Bubba’s origins.

  “If there’s you, and Bill, I guess there must be lots of other things outside of nature,” I said, realizing what a treasure trove of thought awaited me. Since I’d met Bill, I hadn’t felt so much need to hoard neat things up for future contemplation, but it never hurt to be prepared. “You’ll have to tell me sometime.” Big Foot? The Loch Ness Monster? I’d always believed in the Loch Ness monster.

  “Well, I guess I better be getting back home,” Sam said. He looked at me hopefully. He was still naked.

  “Yes, I think you better. But—oh, dang it—you . . . oh, hell.” I stomped upstairs to look for some clothes. It seemed to me Jason had a couple of things in an upstairs closet he kept here for some emergency.

  Sure enough, there was a pair of blue jeans and a work shirt in the first upstairs bedroom. It was already hot up there, under the tin roof, because the upstairs was on a separate thermostat. I came back down, grateful to feel the cool conditioned air.

  “Here,” I said, handing Sam the clothes. “I hope they fit well enough.” He looked as though he wanted to start our conversation back up, but I was too aware now that I was clad in a thin nylon nightgown and he was clad in nothing at all.

  “On with the clothes,” I said firmly. “And you get dressed out in the living room.” I shooed him out and shut the door behind him. I thought it would be insulting to lock the door, so I didn’t. I did get dressed in record time, pulling on clean underwear and the denim skirt and yellow shirt I’d had on the night before. I dabbed on my makeup, put on some earrings, and brushed my hair up into a ponytail, putting a yellow squnchy over the elastic band. My morale rose as I looked in the mirror. My smile turned into a frown when I thought I heard a truck pulling into the front yard.

  I came out of
the bedroom like I’d been fired from a cannon, hoping like hell Sam was dressed and hiding. He’d done one better. He’d changed back into a dog. The clothes were scattered on the floor, and I swept them up and stuffed them into the closet in the hall.

  “Good boy!” I said enthusiastically and scratched behind his ears. Dean responded by sticking his cold black nose up my skirt. “Now you cut that out,” I said, and looked through the front window. “It’s Andy Bellefleur,” I told the dog.

  Andy jumped out of his Dodge Ram, stretched for a long second, and headed for my front door. I opened it, Dean by my side.

  I eyed Andy quizzically. “You look like you been up all night long, Andy. Can I make you some coffee?”

  The dog stirred restlessly beside me.

  “That would be great,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” I stood aside. Dean growled.

  “You got a good guard dog, there. Here, fella. Come here.” Andy squatted to hold out a hand to the collie, whom I simply could not think of as Sam. Dean sniffed Andy’s hand, but wouldn’t give it a lick. Instead, he kept between me and Andy.

  “Come on back to the kitchen,” I said, and Andy stood and followed me. I had the coffee on in a jiffy and put some bread in the toaster. Assembling the cream and sugar and spoons and mugs took a few more minutes, but then I had to face why Andy was here. His face was drawn; he looked ten years older than I knew him to be. This was no courtesy call.

  “Sookie, were you here last night? You didn’t work?”

  “No, I didn’t. I was here except for a quick trip in to Merlotte’s.”

  “Was Bill here any of that time?”

  “No, he’s in New Orleans. He’s staying in that new hotel in the French Quarter, the one just for vampires.”

  “You’re sure that’s where he is.”

  “Yes.” I could feel my face tighten. The bad thing was coming.

  “I’ve been up all night,” Andy said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve just come from another crime scene.”

  “Yes.” I went into his mind. “Amy Burley?” I stared at his eyes, trying to make sure. “Amy who worked at the Good Times Bar?” The name at the top of yesterday’s pile of prospective barmaids, the name I’d left for Sam. I looked down at the dog. He lay on the floor with his muzzle between his paws, looking as sad and stunned as I felt. He whined pathetically.

  Andy’s brown eyes were boring a hole in me. “How’d you know?”

  “Cut the crap, Andy, you know I can read minds. I feel awful. Poor Amy. Was it like the others?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes, it was like the others. But the puncture marks were fresher.”

  I thought of the night Bill and I had had to go to Shreveport to answer Eric’s summons. Had Amy given Bill blood that night? I couldn’t even count how many days ago that had been, my schedule had been so thrown off by all the strange and terrible events of the past few weeks.

  I sat down heavily in a wooden kitchen chair, shaking my head absently for a few minutes, amazed at the turn my life had taken.

  Amy Burley’s life had no more turns to take. I shook the odd spell of apathy off, rose and poured the coffee.

  “Bill hasn’t been here since night before last,” I said.

  “And you were here all night?”

  “Yes, I was. My dog can tell you,” and I smiled down at Dean, who whined at being noticed. He came over to lay his fuzzy head on my knees while I drank my coffee. I smoothed his ears.

  “Did you hear from your brother?”

  “No, but I got a funny phone call, from someone who said he was at Merlotte’s.” After the words left my mouth I realized the caller must have been Sam, luring me over to Merlotte’s so he could maneuver himself into accompanying me home. Dean yawned, a big jaw-cracking yawn that let us see every one of his white sharp teeth.

  I wished I’d kept my mouth shut.

  But now I had to explain the whole thing to Andy, who was slumped only half-awake in my kitchen chair, his plaid shirt wrinkled and blotched with coffee stains, his khakis shapeless through long wear. Andy was longing for bed the way a horse longs for his own stall.

  “You need to get some rest,” I said gently. There was something sad about Andy Bellefleur, something daunted.

  “It’s these murders,” he said, his voice unsteady from exhaustion. “These poor women. And they were all the same in so many ways.”

  “Uneducated, blue-collar women who worked in bars? Didn’t mind having a vampire lover from time to time?”

  He nodded, his eyes drooping shut.

  “Women just like me, in other words.”

  His eyes opened then. He was aghast at his error. “Sookie . . .”

  “I understand, Andy,” I said. “In some respects, we are all alike, and if you accept the attack on my grandmother as intended for me, well, I guess then I’m the only survivor.”

  I wondered who the murderer had left to kill. Was I the only one alive who met his criteria? That was the scariest thought I’d had all day.

  Andy was practically nodding over his coffee cup.

  “Why don’t you go lie down in the other bedroom?” I suggested quietly. “You have to have some sleep. You’re not safe to drive, I wouldn’t think.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Andy said, his voice dragging. He sounded a little surprised, like kindness wasn’t something he expected from me. “But I have to get home, set my alarm. I can sleep for maybe three hours.”

  “I promise I’ll wake you up,” I said. I didn’t want Andy sleeping in my house, but I didn’t want him to have a wreck on the way to his house, either. Old Mrs. Bellefleur would never forgive me, and probably Portia wouldn’t either. “You come lie down in this room.” I led him to my old bedroom. My single bed was neatly made up. “You just lie down on top of the bed, and I’ll set the alarm.” I did, while he watched. “Now, get a little sleep. I have one errand to run, and I’ll be right back.” Andy didn’t offer any more resistance, but sat heavily on the bed even as I shut the door.

  The dog had been padding after me while I got Andy situated, and now I said to him, in a quite different tone, “You go get dressed right now!”

  Andy stuck his head out the bedroom door. “Sookie, who are you talking to?”

  “The dog,” I answered instantly. “He always gets his collar, and I put it on every day.”

  “Why do you ever take it off?”

  “It jingles at night, keeps me up. You go to bed, now.”

  “All right.” Looking satisfied at my explanation, Andy shut the door again.

  I retrieved Jason’s clothes from the closet, put them on the couch in front of the dog, and sat with my back turned. But I realized I could see in the mirror over the mantel.

  The air grew hazy around the collie, seemed to hum and vibrate with energy, and then the form began to change within that electric concentration. When the haze cleared, there was Sam kneeling on the floor, buck-naked. Wow, what a bottom. I had to make myself close my eyes, tell myself repeatedly that I had not been unfaithful to Bill. Bill’s butt, I told myself staunchly, was every bit as neat.

  “I’m ready,” Sam’s voice said, so close behind me that I jumped. I stood up quickly and turned to face him, and found his face about six inches from mine.

  “Sookie,” he said hopefully, his hand landing on my shoulder, rubbing and caressing it.

  I was angry because half of me wanted to respond.

  “Listen here, buddy, you could have told me about yourself any time in the past few years. We’ve known each other what, four years? Or even more! And yet, Sam, despite the fact that I see you almost daily, you wait until Bill is interested in me, before you even . . .” and unable to think how to finish, I threw my hands up in the air.

  Sam drew back, which was a good thing.

  “I didn’t see what was in front of me until I thought it might be taken away,” he said, his voice quiet.

  I had nothing to say to that. “Ti
me to go home,” I told him. “And we better get you there without anyone seeing you. I mean it.”

  This was chancy enough without some mischievous person like Rene seeing Sam in my car in the early morning and drawing wrong conclusions. And passing them on to Bill.

  So off we went, Sam hunched down in the backseat. I pulled cautiously behind Merlotte’s. There was a truck there; black, with pink and aqua flames down the sides. Jason’s.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “What?” Sam’s voice was somewhat muffled by his position.

  “Let me go look,” I said, beginning to be anxious. Why would Jason park over here in the employees’ parking area? And it seemed to me there was a shape in the truck.

  I opened my door. I waited for the sound to alert the figure in the truck. I watched for evidence of movement. When nothing happened, I began to walk across the gravel, as frightened as I’d ever been in the light of day.

  When I got closer to the window, I could see that the figure inside was Jason. He was slumped behind the wheel. I could see that his shirt was stained, that his chin was resting on his chest, that his hands were limp on the seat on either side of him, that the mark on his handsome face was a long red scratch. I could see a videotape resting on the truck dashboard, unlabelled.

  “Sam,” I said, hating the fear in my voice. “Please come here.”

  Quicker than I could believe, Sam was beside me, then reaching past me to unlatch the truck door. Since the truck had apparently been sitting there for several hours—there was dew on its hood—with the windows closed, in the early summer, the smell that rolled out was pretty strong and compounded of at least three elements: blood, sex, and liquor.

  “Call the ambulance!” I said urgently as Sam reached in to feel for Jason’s pulse. Sam looked at me doubtfully. “Are you sure you want to do that?” he asked.

  “Of course! He’s unconscious!”

  “Wait, Sookie. Think about this.”

  And I might have reconsidered in just a minute, but at that moment Arlene pulled up in her beat-up blue Ford, and Sam sighed and went into his trailer to phone.