When I emerged from the bathroom, Eric was completely dressed. He had on a freebie T-shirt from one of the breweries that supplied Fangtasia (“This Blood’s For You,” it read) and blue jeans, and he had thoughtfully made the bed.
“Can Pam and Chow come in?” he asked.
I walked through the living room to the front door and opened it. The two vampires were sitting silently on the porch swing. They were in what I thought of as downtime. When vampires don’t have anything in particular to do, they sort of go blank; retreat inside themselves, sitting or standing utterly immobile, eyes open but vacant. It seems to refresh them.
“Please come in,” I said.
Pam and Chow entered slowly, looking around them with interest, as if they were on a field trip. Louisiana farmhouse, circa early twenty-first century. The house had belonged to our family since it was built over a hundred and sixty years ago. When my brother, Jason, had struck out on his own, he’d moved into the place my parents had built when they’d married. I’d stayed here, with Gran, in this much-altered, much-renovated house; and she’d left it to me in her will.
The living room had been the total original house. Other additions, like the modern kitchen and the bathrooms, were relatively new. The next floor, which was much smaller than the ground level, had been added in the early 1900s to accommodate a generation of children who all survived. I rarely went up there these days. It was awfully hot upstairs in the summer, even with the window air conditioners.
All my furniture was aged, styleless, and comfortable—absolutely conventional. The living room had couches and chairs and a television and a VCR, and then you passed through a hall that had my large bedroom with its own bath on one side, and a hall bathroom and my former bedroom and some closets—linen, coat—on the other. Through that passage, you were into the kitchen/dining area, which had been added on soon after my grandparents’ wedding. After the kitchen, there was a big roofed back porch, which I’d just had screened in. The porch housed a useful old bench, the washer and dryer, and a bunch of shelves.
There was a ceiling fan in every room and a fly swatter, too, hung in a discreet spot on a tiny nail. Gran wouldn’t turn on the air conditioner unless she absolutely had to.
Though they didn’t venture upstairs, no detail escaped Pam and Chow on the ground floor.
By the time they settled at the old pine table where Stackhouses had eaten for a few generations, I felt like I lived in a museum that had just been cataloged. I opened the refrigerator and got out three bottles of TrueBlood, heated them up in the microwave, gave them a good shake, and plonked them down on the table in front of my guests.
Chow was still practically a stranger to me. He’d been working at Fangtasia only a few months. I assume he’d bought into the bar, as the previous bartender had. Chow had amazing tattoos, the dark blue Asian kind that are so intricate, they are like a set of fancy clothes. These were so different from my attacker’s jailhouse decorations that it was hard to believe they were the same art form. I’d been told Chow’s were Yakuza tattoos, but I had never had the nerve to ask him, especially since it wasn’t exactly my business. However, if these were true Yakuza tats, Chow was not that old for a vampire. I’d looked up the Yakuza, and the tattooing was a (relatively) recent development in that criminal organization’s long history. Chow had long black hair (no surprise there), and I’d heard from many sources that he was a tremendous draw at Fangtasia. Most evenings, he worked shirtless. Tonight, as a concession to the cold, he was wearing a zipped red vest.
I couldn’t help but wonder if he ever really felt naked; his body was so thoroughly decorated. I wished I could ask him, but of course that was out of the question. He was the only person of Asian descent I had ever met, and no matter how you know individuals don’t represent their whole race, you do kind of expect at least some of the generalizations to be valid. Chow did seem to have a strong sense of privacy. But far from being silent and inscrutable, he was chattering away with Pam, though in a language I couldn’t understand. And he smiled at me in a disconcerting way. Okay, maybe he was too far from inscrutable. He was probably insulting the hell out of me, and I was too dumb to know it.
Pam was dressed, as always, in sort of middle-class anonymous clothes. This evening it was a pair of winter white knit pants and a blue sweater. Her blond hair was shining, straight and loose, down her back. She looked like Alice in Wonderland with fangs.
“Have you found out anything else about Bill?” I asked, when they’d all had a swallow of their drinks.
Eric said, “A little.”
I folded my hands in my lap and waited.
“I know Bill’s been kidnapped,” he said, and the room swam around my head for a second. I took a deep breath to make it stop.
“Who by?” Grammar was the least of my worries.
“We aren’t sure,” Chow told me. “The witnesses are not agreeing.” His English was accented, but very clear.
“Let me at them,” I said. “If they’re human, I’ll find out.”
“If they were under our dominion, that would be the logical thing to do,” Eric said agreeably. “But, unfortunately, they’re not.”
Dominion, my foot. “Please explain.” I was sure I was showing extraordinary patience under the circumstances.
“These humans owe allegiance to the king of Mississippi.”
I knew my mouth was falling open, but I couldn’t seem to stop it. “Excuse me,” I said, after a long moment, “but I could have sworn you said . . . the king? Of Mississippi?”
Eric nodded without a trace of a smile.
I looked down, trying to keep a straight face. Even under the circumstances, it was impossible. I could feel my mouth twitch. “For real?” I asked helplessly. I don’t know why it seemed even funnier that Mississippi had a king—after all, Louisiana had a queen—but it did. I reminded myself I wasn’t supposed to know about the queen. Check.
The vampires looked at one another. They nodded in unison.
“Are you the king of Louisiana?” I asked Eric, giddy with all my mental effort to keep varying stories straight. I was laughing so hard that it was all I could do to keep upright in the chair. Possibly there was a note of hysteria.
“Oh, no,” he said. “I am the sheriff of Area 5.”
That really set me off. I had tears running down my face, and Chow was looking uneasy. I got up, made myself some Swiss Miss microwave hot chocolate, and stirred it with a spoon so it would cool off. I was calming down as I performed the little task, and by the time I returned to the table, I was almost sober.
“You never told me all this before,” I said, by way of explanation. “You all have divided up America into kingdoms, is that right?”
Pam and Chow looked at Eric with some surprise, but he didn’t regard them. “Yes,” he said simply. “It has been so since vampires came to America. Of course, over the years the system’s changed with the population. There were far fewer vampires in America for the first two hundred years, because the trip over was so perilous. It was hard to work out the length of the voyage with the available blood supply.” Which would have been the crew, of course. “And the Louisiana Purchase made a great difference.”
Well, of course it would. I stifled another bout of giggles. “And the kingdoms are divided into . . . ?”
“Areas. Used to be called fiefdoms, until we decided that was too behind the times. A sheriff controls each area. As you know, we live in Area 5 of the kingdom of Louisiana. Stan, whom you visited in Dallas, is sheriff of Area 6 in the kingdom of . . . in Texas.”
I pictured Eric as the sheriff of Nottingham, and when that had lost amusement value, as Wyatt Earp. I was definitely on the light-headed side. I really felt pretty bad physically. I told myself to pack away my reaction to this information, to focus on the immediate problem. “So, Bill was kidnapped in daylight, I take it?”
Multiple nods all around.
“This kidnapping was witnessed by some humans who live in the king
dom of Mississippi.” I just loved to say that. “And they’re under the control of a vampire king?”
“Russell Edgington. Yes, they live in his kingdom, but a few of them will give me information. For a price.”
“This king won’t let you question them?”
“We haven’t asked him yet. It could be Bill was taken on his orders.”
That raised a whole new crop of questions, but I told myself to stay focused. “How can I get to them? Assuming I decide I want to.”
“We’ve thought of a way you may be able to gather information from humans in the area where Bill disappeared,” said Eric. “Not just people I have bribed to let me know what’s happening there, but all the people that associated with Russell. It’s risky. I had to tell you what I have, to make it work. And you may be unwilling. Someone’s already tried to get you once. Apparently, whoever has Bill must not have much information about you yet. But soon, Bill will talk. If you’re anywhere around when he breaks, they’ll have you.”
“They won’t really need me then,” I pointed out. “If he’s already broken.”
“That’s not necessarily true,” Pam said. They did some more of the enigmatic-gaze-swapping thing.
“Give me the whole story,” I said. I noticed that Chow had finished his blood, so I got up to get him some more.
“As Russell Edgington’s people tell it, Betty Jo Pickard, Edgington’s second in command, was supposed to begin a flight to St. Louis yesterday. The humans responsible for taking her coffin to the airport took Bill’s identical coffin by mistake. When they delivered the coffin to the hangar Anubis Airlines leases, they left it unguarded for perhaps ten minutes while they were filling out paperwork. During that time—they claim—someone wheeled the coffin, which was on a kind of gurney, out of the back of the hangar, loaded it onto a truck, and drove away.”
“Someone who could penetrate Anubis security,” I said, doubt heavy in my voice. Anubis Airlines had been established to transport vampires safely both day and night, and their guarantee of heavy security to guard the coffins of sleeping vampires was their big calling card. Of course, vampires don’t have to sleep in coffins, but it sure is easy to ship them that way. There had been unfortunate “accidents” when vampires had tried to fly Delta. Some fanatic had gotten in the baggage hold and hacked open a couple of coffins with an ax. Northwest had suffered the same problem. Saving money suddenly didn’t seem so attractive to the undead, who now flew Anubis almost exclusively.
“I’m thinking that someone could have mingled with Edgington’s people, someone the Anubis employees thought was Edgington’s, and Edgington’s people thought belonged to Anubis. He could have wheeled Bill out as Edgington’s people left, and the guards would be none the wiser.”
“The Anubis people wouldn’t ask to see papers? On a departing coffin?”
“They say they did see papers, Betty Jo Pickard’s. She was on her way to Missouri to negotiate a trade agreement with the vampires of St. Louis.” I had a blank moment of wondering what on earth the vampires of Mississippi could be trading with the vampires of Missouri, and then I decided I just didn’t want to know.
“There was also extra confusion at the time,” Pam was saying. “A fire started under the tail of another Anubis plane, and the guards were distracted.”
“Oh, accidentally-on-purpose.”
“I think so,” Chow said.
“So, why would anyone want to snatch Bill?” I asked. I was afraid I knew. I was hoping they’d provide me with something else. Thank God Bill had prepared for this moment.
“Bill’s been working on a little special project,” Eric said, his eyes on my face. “Do you know anything about that?”
More than I wanted to. Less than I ought to.
“What project?” I said. I’ve spent my whole life concealing my thoughts, and I called on all my skill now. That life depended on my sincerity.
Eric’s gaze flickered over to Pam, to Chow. They both gave some infinitesimal signal. He focused on me again, and said, “That is a little hard to believe, Sookie.”
“How come?” I asked, anger in my voice. When in doubt, attack. “When do any of you exactly spill your emotional guts to a human? And Bill is definitely one of you.” I infused that with as much rage as I could muster.
They did that eye-flicker thing at one another again.
“You think we’ll believe that Bill didn’t tell you what he was working on?”
“Yes, I think so. Because he didn’t.” I had more or less figured it out all by myself anyway.
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Eric said finally. He looked at me from across the table, his blue eyes as hard as marbles and just as warm. No more Mr. Nice Vampire. “I can’t tell if you’re lying or not, which is remarkable. For your sake, I hope you are telling the truth. I could torture you until you told me the truth, or until I was sure you had been telling me the truth from the beginning.”
Oh, brother. I took a deep breath, blew it out, and tried to think of an appropriate prayer. God, don’t let me scream too loud seemed kind of weak and negative. Besides, there was no one to hear me besides the vampires, no matter how loudly I shrieked. When the time came, I might as well let it rip.
“But,” Eric continued thoughtfully, “that might damage you too badly for the other part of my plan. And really, it doesn’t make that much difference if you know what Bill has been doing behind our backs or not.”
Behind their backs? Oh, shit. And now I knew whom to blame for my very deep predicament. My own dear love, Bill Compton.
“That got a reaction,” Pam observed.
“But not the one I expected,” Eric said slowly.
“I’m not too happy about the torture option.” I was in so much trouble, I couldn’t even begin to add it up, and I was so overloaded with stress that I felt like my head was floating somewhere above my body. “And I miss Bill.” Even though at the moment I would gladly kick his ass, I did miss him. And if I could just have ten minutes’ conversation with him, how much better prepared I would be to face the coming days. Tears rolled down my face. But there was more they had to tell me; more I had to hear, whether I wanted to or not. “I do expect you to tell me why he lied about this trip, if you know. Pam mentioned bad news.”
Eric looked at Pam with no love in his eyes at all.
“She’s leaking again,” Pam observed, sounding a little uncomfortable. “I think before she goes to Mississippi, she should know the truth. Besides, if she has been keeping secrets for Bill, this will . . .”
Make her spill the beans? Change her loyalty to Bill? Force her to realize she has to tell us?
It was obvious that Chow and Eric had been all for keeping me in ignorance and that they were acutely unhappy with Pam for hinting to me that, though I supposedly didn’t know it, all was not well with Bill and me. But they both eyed Pam intently for a long minute, and then Eric nodded curtly.
“You and Chow wait outside,” Eric said to Pam. She gave him a very pointed look, and then they walked out, leaving their drained bottles sitting on the table. Not even a thank-you for the blood. Didn’t even rinse the bottles out. My head felt lighter and lighter as I contemplated poor vampire manners. I felt my eyelids flicker, and it occurred to me that I was on the edge of fainting. I am not one of these frail gals who keels over at every little thing, but I felt I was justified right now. Plus, I vaguely realized I hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours.
“Don’t you do it,” Eric said. He sounded definite. I tried to concentrate on his voice, and I looked at him.
I nodded to indicate I was doing my best.
He moved over to my side of the table, turned the chair Pam had occupied until it faced me and was very close. He sat and leaned over to me, his big white hand covering both of mine, still folded neatly in my lap. If he closed his hand, he could crush all my fingers. I’d never work as a waitress again.
“I don’t enjoy seeing you scared of me,” he said, his face too close to
mine. I could smell his cologne—Ulysse, I thought. “I have always been very fond of you.”
He’d always wanted to have sex with me.
“Plus, I want to fuck you.” He grinned, but at this moment it didn’t do a thing to me. “When we kiss . . . it’s very exciting.” We had kissed in the line of duty, so to speak, and not as recreation. But it had been exciting. How not? He was gorgeous, and he’d had several hundred years to work on his smooching technique.
Eric got closer and closer. I wasn’t sure if he was going to bite me or kiss me. His fangs had run out. He was angry, or horny, or hungry, or all three. New vampires tended to lisp while they talked until they got used to their fangs; you couldn’t even tell, with Eric. He’d had centuries of perfecting that technique, too.
“Somehow, that torture plan didn’t make me feel very sexy,” I told him.
“It did something for Chow, though,” Eric whispered in my ear.
I wasn’t shaking, but I should have been. “Could you cut to the chase here?” I asked. “Are you gonna torture me, or not? Are you my friend, or my enemy? Are you gonna find Bill, or let him rot?”
Eric laughed. It was short and unfunny, but it was better than him getting closer, at least at the moment. “Sookie, you are too much,” he said, but not as though he found that particularly endearing. “I’m not going to torture you. For one thing, I would hate to ruin that beautiful skin; one day, I will see all of it.”
I just hoped it was still on my body when that happened.
“You won’t always be so afraid of me,” he said, as if he were absolutely certain of the future. “And you won’t always be as devoted to Bill as you are now. There is something I must tell you.”
Here came the Big Bad. His cool fingers twined with mine, and without wanting to, I held his hand hard. I couldn’t think of a word to say, at least a word that was safe. My eyes fixed on his.
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