“Tara!”
My high school friend shrieked right back and jumped up. We gave each other a full frontal hug, rather than the slightly less enthusiastic half-hug that was our norm. We were both strangers in a strange land, here at Club Dead.
Tara, who is several inches taller than I am, has dark hair and eyes and olive skin. She was wearing a long-sleeved gold-and-bronze dress that shimmered as she moved, and she had on high, high heels. She had attained the height of her date.
Just as I was disengaging from the embrace and giving her a happy pat on the back, I realized that seeing Tara was the worst thing that could have happened. I went into her mind, and I saw that, sure enough, she was about to ask me why I was with someone who wasn’t Bill.
“Come on, girlfriend, come to the ladies’ with me for a second!” I said cheerfully, and she grabbed her purse, while giving her date a perfect smile, both promising and rueful. I gave Alcide a little wave, asked the other gentlemen to excuse us, and we walked briskly to the rest rooms, which were off the passage leading to the back door. The ladies’ room was empty. I pressed my back against the door to keep other females out. Tara was facing me, her face lit up with questions.
“Tara, please, don’t say anything about Bill or anything about Bon Temps.”
“You want to tell me why?”
“Just . . .” I tried to think of something reasonable, couldn’t. “Tara, it’ll cost me my life if you do.”
She twitched, and gave me a steady stare. Who wouldn’t? But Tara had been through a lot in her life, and she was a tough, if wounded, bird. “I’m so happy to see you here,” she said. “It was lonely being in this crowd by myself. Who’s your friend? What is he?”
I always forgot that other people couldn’t tell. And sometimes I nearly forgot that other people didn’t know about Weres and shifters. “He’s a surveyor,” I said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you.”
“Sorry we left so quickly,” I said, smiling brightly at all the men. “I forgot my manners.” I introduced Tara to Alcide, who looked appropriately appreciative. Then it was Tara’s turn. “Sook, this is Franklin Mott.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” I said, and extended my hand before I realized my faux pas. Vampires don’t shake hands. “I beg your pardon,” I said hastily, and gave him a little wave instead. “Do you live here in Jackson, Mr. Mott?” I was determined not to embarrass Tara.
“Please call me Franklin,” he said. He had a wonderful mellow voice with a light Italion accent. When he had died, he had probably been in his late fifties or early sixties; his hair and mustache were iron gray, and his face was lined. He looked vigorous and very masculine. “Yes, I do, but I own a business that has a franchise in Jackson, one in Ruston, and one in Vicksburg. I met Tara at a gathering in Ruston.”
Gradually we progressed through the social do-si-do of getting seated, explaining to the men how Tara and I had attended high school together, and ordering drinks. All the vampires, of course, ordered synthetic blood, and Talbot, Tara, Alcide, and I got mixed drinks. I decided another champagne cocktail would be good. The waitress, a shifter, was moving in an odd, almost slinking manner, and she didn’t seem inclined to talk much. The night of the full moon was making itself felt in all kinds of ways.
There were far fewer of the two-natured in the bar this night of the moon cycle. I was glad to see Debbie and her fiancé were missing, and there were only a couple of the Were bikers. There were more vampires, and more humans. I wondered how the vampires of Jackson kept this bar a secret. Among the humans who came in with Supe dates, surely one or two were inclined to talk to a reporter or just tell a group of friends about the bar’s existence?
I asked Alcide, and he said quietly, “The bar’s spell-bound. You wouldn’t be able to tell anyone how to get here if you tried.”
I’d have to experiment with that later, see if it worked. I wonder who did the spell casting, or whatever it was called. If I could believe in vampires and werewolves and shape-shifters, it was not too far a stretch to believe in witches.
I was sandwiched between Talbot and Alcide, so by way of making conversation I asked Talbot about secrecy. Talbot didn’t seem averse to chatting with me, and Alcide and Franklin Mott had found they had acquaintances in common. Talbot had on too much cologne, but I didn’t hold that against him. Talbot was a man in love, and furthermore, he was a man addicted to vampiric sex . . . the two states are not always combined. He was a ruthless, intelligent man who could not understand how his life had taken such an exotic turn. (He was a big broadcaster, too, which was why I could pick up so much of his life.)
He repeated Alcide’s story about the spell on the bar. “But the way what happens here is kept a secret, that’s different,” Talbot said, as if he was considering a long answer and a short answer. I looked at his pleasant, handsome face and reminded myself that he knew Bill was being tortured, and he didn’t care. I wished he would think about Bill again, so I could learn more; at least I would know if Bill was dead or alive. “Well, Miss Sookie, what goes on here is kept secret by terror and punishment.”
Talbot said that with relish. He liked that. He liked that he had won the heart of Russell Edgington, a being who could kill easily, who deserved to be feared. “Any vampire or Were—in fact, any sort of supernatural creature, and you haven’t seen quite a few of them, believe me—who brings in a human is responsible for that human’s behavior. For example, if you were to leave here tonight and call a tabloid, it would be Alcide’s bounden duty to track and kill you.”
“I see.” And indeed, I did. “What if Alcide couldn’t bring himself to do that?”
“Then his life would be forfeit, and one of the bounty hunters would be commissioned to do the job.”
Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea. “There are bounty hunters?” Alcide could have told me a lot more than he had; that was an unpleasant discovery. My voice may have been a little on the croaky side.
“Sure. The Weres who wear the motorcycle gear, in this area. In fact, they’re asking questions around the bar tonight because . . .” His expression sharpened, became suspicious. “The man who was bothering you . . . did you see him again last night? After you left the bar?”
“No,” I said, speaking the technical truth. I hadn’t seen him again—last night. I knew what God thought about technical truths, but I also figured he expected me to save my own life. “Alcide and I, we went right back to the apartment. I was pretty upset.” I cast my eyes down like a modest girl unused to approaches in bars, which was also a few steps away from the truth. (Though Sam keeps such incidents down to a minimum, and it was widely known I was crazy and therefore undesirable, I certainly had to put up with the occasional aggressive advance, as well as a certain amount of half-hearted passes from guys who got too drunk to care that I was supposed to be crazy.)
“You were sure plucky when it looked like there was going to be a fight,” Talbot observed. Talbot was thinking that my courage last night didn’t jibe with my demure demeanor this evening. Darn it, I’d overplayed my role.
“Plucky is the word for Sookie,” Tara said. It was a welcome interruption. “When we danced together on stage, about a million years ago, she was the one who was brave, not me! I was shaking in my shoes.”
Thank you, Tara.
“You danced?” asked Franklin Mott, his attention caught by the conversation.
“Oh, yes, and we won the talent contest,” Tara told him. “What we didn’t realize, until we graduated and had some experience in the world, was that our little routine was really, ah—”
“Suggestive,” I said, calling a spade a spade. “We were the most innocent girls in our little high school, and there we were, with this dance routine we lifted straight off MTV.”
“It took us years to understand why the principal was sweating so hard,” Tara said, her smile just rascally enough to be charming. “As a matter of fact, let me go talk to the deejay right now.” She sprang up and worked her way over to the vampire
who’d set up his gear on the small stage. He bent over and listened intently, and then he nodded.
“Oh, no.” I was going to be horribly embarrassed.
“What?” Alcide was amused.
“She’s going to make us do it all over again.”
Sure enough, Tara wiggled her way through the crowd to get back to me, and she was beaming. I had thought of twenty-five good reasons not to do what she wanted by the time she seized my hands and pulled me to my feet. But it was evident that the only way I could get out of this was to go forward. Tara had her heart set on this exhibition, and Tara was my friend. The crowd made a space as Pat Benatar’s “Love Is a Battlefield” began to play.
Unfortunately, I remembered every bump and grind, every hip thrust.
In our innocence, Tara and I had planned our routine almost like pairs figure skating, so we were touching (or very near) during the whole thing. Could it have looked more like some lesbian tease act performed in a stripper bar? Not much. Not that I’d ever been to a stripper bar, or a porno movie house; but I assume the rise of communal lust I felt in Josephine’s that night was similar. I didn’t like being the object of it—but yet, I discovered I felt a certain flood of power.
Bill had informed my body about good sex, and I was sure that now I danced like I knew about enjoying sex—and so did Tara. In a perverse way, we were having an “I am woman, hear me roar” moment. And, by golly, love sure was a battlefield. Benatar was right about that.
We had our sides to the audience, Tara gripping my waist, for the last few bars, and we pumped our hips in unison, and brought our hands sweeping to the floor. The music stopped. There was a tiny second of silence, and then a lot of applause and whistling.
The vampires thought of the blood flowing in our veins, I was sure from the hungry looks on their faces—especially those lower main lines on our inner thighs. And I could hear that the werewolves were imagining how good we would taste. So I was feeling quite edible as I made my way back to our table. Tara and I were patted and complimented along the way, and we received many invitations. I was halfway tempted to accept the dance offer of a curly-haired brunette vamp who was just about my size and cute as a bunny. But I just smiled and kept on going.
Franklin Mott was delighted. “Oh, you were so right,” he said as he held Tara’s chair for her. Alcide, I observed, remained seated and glowered at me, forcing Talbot to lean over and pull my chair out for me, an awkward and makeshift courtesy. (He did get a caress on the shoulder from Russell for his gesture.) “I can’t believe you girls didn’t get expelled,” Talbot said, covering the awkward moment. I never would have pegged Alcide for a possessive jerk.
“We had no clue,” Tara protested, laughing. “None. We couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.”
“What bit your ass?” I asked Alcide, very quietly. But when I listened carefully, I could pick out the source of his dissatisfaction. He was resenting the fact that he had acknowledged to me that he still had Debbie in his heart, because otherwise he’d make a determined effort to share my bed tonight. He felt both guilty and angry about that, since it was the full moon—come to think of it, his time of the month. In a way.
“Not looking for your boyfriend too hard, are you?” he said coldly, in a nasty undertone.
It was like he’d thrown a bucket of cold water in my face. It was a shock, and it hurt terribly. Tears welled up in my eyes. It was also completely obvious to everyone at the table that he had said something to upset me.
Talbot, Russell, and Franklin all gave Alcide level looks practically laden with threat. Talbot’s look was a weak echo of his lover’s, so it could be disregarded, but Russell was the king, after all, and Franklin was apparently an influential vampire. Alcide recalled where he was, and with whom.
“Excuse me, Sookie, I was just feeling jealous,” he said, loud enough for all at the table to hear. “That was really interesting.”
“Interesting?” I said, as lightly as I could. I was pretty damn mad, myself. I ran my fingers through his hair as I leaned over to his chair. “Just interesting?” We smiled at each other quite falsely, but the others bought it. I felt like taking a handful of that black hair and giving it a good hard yank. He might not be a mind reader like me, but he could read that impulse loud and clear. Alcide had to force himself not to flinch.
Tara stepped in once again to ask Alcide what his occupation was—God bless her—and yet another awkward moment passed harmlessly by. I pushed my chair a little farther back from the circle around the table and let my mind roam. Alcide had been right about the fact that I needed to be at work, rather than amusing myself; but I didn’t see how I could have refused Tara something she enjoyed so much.
A parting of the bodies crowding the little dance floor gave me a glimpse of Eric, leaning against the wall behind the small stage. His eyes were on me, and they were full of heat. There was someone who wasn’t pissed off at me, someone who had taken our little routine in the spirit in which it was offered.
Eric looked quite nice in the suit and glasses. The glasses made him seem somehow less threatening, I decided, and turned my mind to business. Fewer Weres and humans made it easier to listen in to each one, easier to track the thread of thought back to its owner. I closed my eyes to help me concentrate, and almost immediately I caught a snatch of inner monologue that shook me up.
“Martyrdom,” the man was thinking. I knew the thinker was a man, and that his thoughts were coming from the area behind me, the area right around the bar. My head began to turn, and I stopped myself. Looking wouldn’t help, but it was an almost irresistible impulse. I looked down instead, so the movements of the other patrons wouldn’t distract me.
People don’t really think in complete sentences, of course. What I’m doing, when I spell out their thoughts, is translating.
“When I die, my name will be famous,” he thought. “It’s almost here. God, please let it not hurt. At least he’s here with me . . . I hope the stake’s sharp enough.”
Oh, dammit. The next thing I knew I was on my feet, walking away from the table.
I WAS INCHING along, blocking the noise of the music and the voices so I could listen sharply to what was being said silently. It was like walking underwater. At the bar, slugging back a glass of synthetic blood, was a woman with a poof of teased hair. She was dressed in a tight-bodiced dress with a full skirt fluffing out around it. Her muscular arms and broad shoulders looked pretty strange with the outfit; but I’d never tell her so, nor would any sane person. This had to be Betty Joe Pickard, Russell Edgington’s second in command. She had on white gloves and pumps, too. All she needed was a little hat with a half-veil, I decided. I was willing to bet Betty Joe had been a big fan of Mamie Eisenhower’s.
And standing behind this formidable vampire, also facing the bar, were two male humans. One was tall, and oddly familiar. His gray-threaded brown hair was long, but neatly combed. It looked like a regular men’s hair-cut, allowed to grow however it wanted to grow. The hairstyle looked odd with his suit. His shorter companion had rough black hair, tousled and flecked with gray. This second man wore a sports coat that maybe came off the rack from JCPenney on a sale day.
And inside that cheap coat, in a specially sewn pocket, he carried a stake.
Horribly enough, I hesitated. If I stopped him, I would be revealing my hidden talent, and to reveal that would be to unmask my identity. The consequences of this revelation would depend on what Edgington knew about me; he apparently knew Bill’s girlfriend was a barmaid at Merlotte’s in Bon Temps, but not her name. That’s why I’d been free to introduce myself as Sookie Stackhouse. If Russell knew Bill’s girlfriend was a telepath, and he discovered I was a telepath, who knew what would happen then?
Actually, I could make a good guess.
As I dithered, ashamed and frightened, the decision was made for me. The man with the black hair reached inside his coat and the fanaticism roiling in his head reached fever pitch. He pulled out the long shar
pened piece of ash, and then a lot happened.
I yelled, “STAKE!” and lunged for the fanatic’s arm, gripping it desperately with both my hands. The vampires and their humans whirled around looking for the threat, and the shifters and Weres wisely scattered to the walls to leave the floor free for the vampires. The tall man beat at me, his big hands pounding at my head and shoulders, and his dark-haired companion kept twisting his arm, trying to free it from my grasp. He heaved from side to side to throw me off.
Somehow, in the melee, my eyes met those of the taller man, and we recognized each other. He was G. Steve Newlin, former leader of the Brotherhood of the Sun, a militant anti-vampire organization whose Dallas branch had more or less bit the dust after I’d paid it a visit. He was going to tell them who I was, I just knew it, but I had to pay attention to what the man with the stake was doing. I was staggering around on my heels, trying to keep my feet, when the assassin finally had a stroke of brilliance and transferred the stake from his pinned right hand to his free left.
With a final punch to my back, Steve Newlin dashed for the exit, and I caught a flash of creatures bounding in pursuit. I heard lots of yowling and tweeting, and then the black-haired man threw back his left arm and plunged the stake into my waist on my right side.
I let go of his arm then, and stared down at what he’d done to me. I looked back up into his eyes for a long moment, reading nothing there but a horror to mirror my own. Then Betty Joe Pickard swung back her gloved fist and hit him twice—boom-boom. The first blow snapped his neck. The second shattered his skull. I could hear the bones break.
And then he went down to the floor, and since my legs were tangled with his, I went down, too. I landed flat on my back.
I lay looking up at the ceiling of the bar, at the fan that was rotating solemnly above my head. I wondered why the fan was on in the middle of winter. I saw a hawk fly across the ceiling, narrowly avoiding the fan blades. A wolf came to my side and licked my face and whined, but turned and dashed away. Tara was screaming. I was not. I was so cold.
Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set Page 66
