“Shall I join you?”
“Shit, Bill!” My heart pounding a mile a minute, I leaned against the shower wall for support.
“Sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t you hear the bathroom door opening?”
“No, dammit. Why can’t you just call ‘Honey, I’m home,’ or something?”
“Sorry,” he said again, not sounding very sincere. “Do you need someone to scrub your back?”
“No, thank you,” I hissed. “I’m not in the back-scrubbing kind of mood.”
Bill grinned (so I could see his fangs were retracted) and pulled the shower curtain closed.
When I came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around me more or less modestly, he was stretched out on my bed, his shoes neatly lined up on the little rug by the night table. Bill was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and khakis, with socks that matched the shirt and polished loafers. His dark brown hair was brushed straight back, and his long sideburns looked retro.
Well, they were, but more retro than most people could ever have imagined.
He has high arched brows and a high-bridged nose. His mouth is the kind you see on Greek statues, at least the ones I’ve seen in pictures. He died a few years after the end of the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as my grandmother always called it).
“What’s the agenda for tonight?” I asked. “Business, or pleasure?”
“Being with you is always pleasure,” Bill said.
“We’re going to Shreveport for what reason?” I asked, since I know a dodgy answer when I hear one.
“We were summoned.”
“By?”
“Eric, of course.”
Now that Bill had run for, and accepted, a position as Area 5 investigator, he was at Eric’s beck and call—and under Eric’s protection. That meant, Bill had explained, that anyone attacking Bill would also have to deal with Eric, and it meant that Bill’s possessions were sacred to Eric. Which included me. I wasn’t thrilled to be numbered among Bill’s possessions, but it was better than some of the alternatives.
I made a face in the mirror.
“Sookie, you made a deal with Eric.”
“Yeah,” I admitted, “I did.”
“So you must stick by it.”
“I plan on it.”
“Wear those tight blue jeans that lace up the sides,” Bill suggested.
They weren’t denim at all, but some kind of stretchy stuff. Bill just loved me in those jeans, which came down low. More than once, I had wondered if Bill had some kind of Britney Spears fantasy thing going on. Since I was fully aware that I looked good in the jeans, I pulled them on, and a dark blue-and-white-checked short-sleeved shirt that buttoned up the front and stopped about two inches below my bra. Just to exhibit a little independence (after all, he’d better remember I was my own woman) I brushed my hair into a ponytail high up on my head. I pinned a blue bow over the elastic band and slapped on a little makeup. Bill glanced at his watch once or twice, but I took my time. If he was so all-fired concerned about how I was going to impress his vampire friends, he could just wait for me.
Once we were in the car and on our way west to Shreveport, Bill said, “I started a new business venture today.”
Frankly, I’d been wondering where Bill’s money came from. He never seemed rich: he never seemed poor. But he never worked, either; unless it was on the nights we weren’t together.
I was uneasily aware that any vampire worth his salt could become wealthy; after all, when you can control the minds of humans to some extent, it’s not that difficult to persuade them to part with money or stock tips or investment opportunities. And until vampires gained the legal right to exist, they hadn’t had to pay taxes, see. Even the U.S. government had to admit it couldn’t tax the dead. But if you gave them rights, Congress had figured, and gave them the vote, then you could obligate them into paying taxes.
When the Japanese had perfected the synthetic blood that actually enabled vampires to “live” without drinking human blood, it had been possible for vampires to come out of the coffin. “See, we don’t have to victimize mankind to exist,” they could say. “We are not a threat.”
But I knew Bill’s big thrill was when he drank from me. He might have a pretty steady diet of LifeFlow (the most popular marketing name for the synthetic blood) but nipping my neck was incomparably better. He could drink some bottled A positive in front of a whole bar full of people, but if he planned on a mouthful of Sookie Stackhouse, we had better by golly be in private, the effect was that different. Bill didn’t get any kind of erotic thrill from a wineglass of LifeFlow.
“So what’s this new business?” I asked.
“I bought the strip mall by the highway, the one where LaLaurie’s is.”
“Who owned that?”
“The Bellefleurs originally owned the land. They let Sid Matt Lancaster do a development deal for them.”
Sid Matt Lancaster had acted as my brother’s lawyer before. He’d been around for donkey’s years and had way more clout than Portia.
“That’s good for the Bellefleurs. They’ve been trying to sell that for a couple of years. They need the cash, bad. You bought the land and the strip mall? How big a parcel of land is that?”
“Just an acre, but it’s in a good location,” Bill said, in a businesslike voice that I’d never heard before.
“That same strip’s got LaLaurie’s, and a hair salon, and Tara’s Togs?” Aside from the country club, La-Laurie’s was the only restaurant with any pretensions in the Bon Temps area. It was where you took your wife for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, or your boss when you wanted a promotion, or a date you really, really wanted to impress. But it didn’t make a lot of money, I’d heard.
I have no inkling of how to run a business, or manage business dealings, having been just a step or two ahead of poor all my life. If my parents hadn’t had the good fortune to find a little oil on their land and save all the money from it before the oil ran out, Jason and Gran and I would’ve had a hand-to-mouth time of it. At least twice, we had been close to selling my parents’ place, just to keep up Gran’s house and taxes, while she raised the two of us.
“So, how does that work? You own the building that houses those three businesses, and they pay you rent?”
Bill nodded. “So now, if you want to get something done to your hair, go to Clip and Curl.”
I’d only been to a hairdresser once in my life. If the ends got ragged, I usually went over to Arlene’s trailer and she trimmed them evenly. “Do you think my hair needs something done to it?” I asked uncertainly.
“No, it’s beautiful.” Bill was reassuringly positive.
“But if you should want to go, they have, ah, manicures, and hair-care products.” He said “hair-care products” as if it were in a foreign language. I stifled a smile.
“And,” he continued, “take anyone you want to LaLaurie’s, and you won’t have to pay.”
I turned in my seat to stare at him.
“And Tara knows that if you come in, she will put any clothes you buy on my account.”
I could feel my temper creak and give way. Bill, unfortunately, could not. “So, in other words,” I said, proud of the evenness of my voice, “they know to indulge the boss’s fancy woman.”
Bill seemed to realize he’d made a mistake. “Oh, Sookie,” he began, but I wasn’t having any of it. My pride had risen up and whopped me in the face. I don’t lose my temper a lot, but when I do, I make a good job of it.
“Why can’t you just send me some damn flowers, like anyone else’s boyfriend? Or some candy. I like candy. Just buy me a Hallmark card, why don’t you? Or a kitten or a scarf!”
“I meant to give you something,” he said cautiously.
“You’ve made me feel like a kept woman. And you’ve certainly given the people who work at those businesses the impression I am.”
As far as I could tell in the dim dashboard light, Bill looked like he was trying to figure out the differen
ce. We were just past the turnoff to Mimosa Lake, and I could see the deep woods on the lake side of the road in Bill’s headlights.
To my complete surprise, the car coughed and stopped dead. I took it as a sign.
Bill would’ve locked the doors if he’d known what I was going to do, because he certainly looked startled when I scrambled out of the car and marched over to the woods by the road.
“Sookie, get back in here right now!” Bill was mad now, by God. Well, it had taken him long enough.
I shot him the bird as I stepped into the woods.
I knew if Bill wanted me in the car, I’d be in the car, since Bill’s about twenty times stronger and faster than me. After a few seconds in the darkness, I almost wished he’d catch up with me. But then my pride gave a twitch, and I knew I’d done the right thing. Bill seemed to be a little confused about the nature of our relationship, and I wanted him to get it straight in his head. He could just take his sorry ass to Shreveport and explain my absence to his superior, Eric. By golly, that’d show him.
“Sookie,” Bill called from the road, “I’m going to go to the nearest service station to get a mechanic.”
“Good luck,” I muttered under my breath. A service station with a full-time mechanic, open at night? Bill was thinking of the fifties, or some other era.
“You’re acting like a child, Sookie,” Bill said. “I could come to get you, but I’m not going to waste the time. When you’re calm, come get in the car and lock it. I’m going now.” Bill had his pride, too.
To my mingled relief and concern, I heard the faint footfalls along the road that meant Bill was running at vampire speed. He’d really left.
He probably thought he was teaching me a lesson. When it was just the opposite. I told myself that several times. After all, he’d be back in a few minutes. I was sure. All I had to do was be sure I didn’t stumble far enough through the woods to fall into the lake.
It was really dark in the pines. Though the moon was not full, it was a cloudless night, and the shadows in the trees were pitch black in contrast with the cool remote glow of the open spaces.
I made my way back to the road, then took a deep breath and began marching back toward Bon Temps, the opposite direction from Bill. I wondered how many miles we’d put between us and Bon Temps before Bill had begun our conversation. Not so very many, I reassured myself, and patted myself on the back that I was wearing sneakers, not high-heeled sandals. I hadn’t brought a sweater, and the exposed skin between my cropped top and my low-cut blue jeans felt goose-pimply. I began to run down the shoulder in an easy jog. There weren’t any streetlights, so I would have been in bad shape if it weren’t for the moonlight.
Just about the time I recalled that there was someone out there who’d murdered Lafayette, I heard footsteps in the woods parallel to my own path.
When I stopped, the movement in the trees did also.
I’d rather know now. “Okay, who’s there?” I called. “If you’re going to eat me, let’s just get it over with.”
A woman stepped out of the woods. With her was a razorback, a feral hog. Its tusks gleamed from the shadows. In her left hand she carried a sort of stick or wand, with a tuft of something on its end.
“Great,” I whispered to myself. “Just great.” The woman was as scary as the razorback. I was sure she wasn’t a vampire, because I could feel the activity in her mind; but she was sure some supernatural being, so she didn’t send a clear signal. I could snatch the tenor of her thoughts anyway. She was amused.
That couldn’t be good.
I hoped the razorback was feeling friendly. They were very rarely seen around Bon Temps, though every now and then a hunter would spot one; even more rarely bring one down. That was a picture-in-the-paper occasion. This hog smelled, an awful and distinctive odor.
I wasn’t sure which to address. After all, the razorback might not be a true animal at all, but a shapeshifter. That was one thing I’d learned in the past few months. If vampires, so long thought of as thrilling fiction, actually did exist, so did other things that we’d regarded as equally exciting fiction.
I was really nervous, so I smiled.
She had long snarled hair, an indeterminate dark in the uncertain light, and she was wearing almost nothing. She had a kind of shift on, but it was short and ragged and stained. She was barefoot. She smiled back at me. Rather than scream, I grinned even more brightly.
“I have no intention of eating you,” she said.
“Glad to hear it. What about your friend?”
“Oh, the hog.” As if she’d just noticed it, the woman reached over and scratched the razorback’s neck, like I would a friendly dog’s. The ferocious tusks bobbed up and down. “She’ll do what I tell her,” the woman said casually. I didn’t need a translator to understand the threat. I tried to look equally casual as I glanced around the open space where I stood, hoping to locate a tree that I could climb if I had to. But all the trunks close enough for me to reach in time were bare of branches; they were the loblolly pines grown by the millions in our neck of the woods, for their lumber. The branches start about fifteen feet up.
I realized what I should’ve thought of sooner; Bill’s car stopping there was no accident, and maybe even the fight we’d had was no coincidence.
“You wanted to talk to me about something?” I asked her, and in turning to her I found she’d come several feet closer. I could see her face a little better now, and I was in no wise reassured. There was a stain around her mouth, and when it opened as she spoke, I could see the teeth had dark margins; Miss Mysterious had been eating a raw mammal. “I see you’ve already had supper,” I said nervously, and then could’ve slapped myself.
“Mmmm,” she said. “You are Bill’s pet?”
“Yes,” I said. I objected to the terminology, but I wasn’t in much position to take a stand. “He would be really awfully upset if anything happened to me.”
“As if a vampire’s anger is anything to me,” she said offhandedly.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but what are you? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She smiled again, and I shuddered. “Not at all. I’m a maenad.”
That was something Greek. I didn’t know exactly what, but it was wild, female, and lived in nature, if my impressions were correct.
“That’s very interesting,” I said, grinning for all I was worth. “And you are out here tonight because . . . ?”
“I need a message taken to Eric Northman,” she said, moving closer. This time I could see her do it. The hog snuffled along at her side as if she were tied to the woman. The smell was indescribable. I could see the little brushy tail of the razorback—it was switching back and forth in a brisk, impatient sort of way.
“What’s the message?” I glanced up at her—and whirled to run as quickly as I could. If I hadn’t ingested some vampire blood at the beginning of the summer, I couldn’t have turned in time, and I would’ve taken the blow on my face and chest instead of my back. It felt exactly as though someone very strong had swung a heavy rake and the points had caught in my skin, gone deeper, and torn their way across my back.
I couldn’t keep to my feet, but pitched forward and landed on my stomach. I heard her laughing behind me, and the hog snuffling, and then I registered the fact that she had gone. I lay there crying for a minute or two. I was trying not to shriek, and I found myself panting like a woman in labor, attempting to master the pain. My back hurt like hell.
I was mad, too, with the little energy I could spare. I was just a living bulletin board to that bitch, that maenad, whatever the hell she was. As I crawled, over twigs and rough ground, pine needles and dust, I grew angrier and angrier. I was shaking all over from the pain and the rage, dragging myself along, until I didn’t feel I was worth killing, I was such a mess. I’d begun the crawl back to the car, trying to head back to the likeliest spot for Bill to find me, but when I was almost there I had second thoughts about staying out in the open.
I’d been
assuming the road meant help—but of course, it didn’t. I’d found out a few minutes before that not everyone met by chance was in a helping kind of mood. What if I met up with something else, something hungry? The smell of my blood might be attracting a predator at this very moment; a shark is said to be able to detect the tiniest particles of blood in the water, and a vampire is surely the shark’s land equivalent.
So I crawled inside the tree line, instead of staying out beside the road where I’d be visible. This didn’t seem like a very dignified or meaningful place to die. This was no Alamo, or Thermopylae. This was just a spot in the vegetation by a road in northern Louisiana. I was probably lying in poison ivy. I would probably not live long enough to break out, though.
I expected every second that the pain would begin to abate, but it only increased. I couldn’t prevent the tears from coursing down my cheeks. I managed not to sob out loud, so I wouldn’t attract any more attention, but it was impossible to keep completely still.
I was concentrating so desperately on maintaining my silence that I almost missed Bill. He was pacing along the road looking into the woods, and I could tell by the way he was walking that he was alert to danger. Bill knew something was wrong.
“Bill,” I whispered, but with his vampire hearing, it was like a shout.
He was instantly still, his eyes scanning the shadows. “I’m here,” I said, and swallowed back a sob. “Watch out.” I might be a living booby trap.
In the moonlight, I could see that his face was clean of emotion, but I knew he was weighing the odds, just as I was. One of us had to move, and I realized if I came out into the moon glow, at least Bill could see more clearly if anything attacked.
I stuck my hands out, gripped the grass, and pulled. I couldn’t even get up to my knees, so this progress was my best speed. I pushed a little with my feet, though even that use of my back muscles was excruciating. I didn’t want to look at Bill while I moved toward him, because I didn’t want to soften at the sight of his rage. It was an almost palpable thing.
“What did this to you, Sookie?” he asked softly.
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