Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set

by Charlaine Harris

  Chow is a whole different kettle of fish. I don’t want to know Chow any better than I already do. I don’t trust him, and I’ve never felt comfortable around him. Chow is Asian, a small-built but powerful vampire with longish black hair. He is no more than five foot seven, but every inch of visible skin (except his face) is covered with those intricate tattoos that are true art dyed into human skin. Pam says they are yakuza tattoos. Chow acts as Fangtasia’s bartender some evenings, and on other nights he just sits around to let patrons approach him. (That’s the whole purpose of vampire bars, to let regular humans feel they’re walking on the wild side by being in the same room with the in-the-flesh undead. It’s very lucrative, Bill told me.)

  Pam was wearing a fluffy cream sweater and golden-brown knit pants, and Chow was in his usual vest and slacks. He seldom wore a shirt, so the Fangtasia patrons could get the full benefit of his body art.

  I called Eric, and he came into the room slowly. He was visibly wary.

  “Eric,” Pam said, when she saw him. Her voice was full of relief. “You’re well?” Her eyes were fixed on Eric anxiously. She didn’t bow, but she sort of gave a deep nod.

  “Master,” Chow said, and bowed.

  I tried not to overinterpret what I was seeing and hearing, but I assumed that the different greetings signified the relationships among the three.

  Eric looked uncertain. “I know you,” he said, trying to make it sound more statement than question.

  The two other vampires exchanged a glance. “We work for you,” Pam said. “We owe you fealty.”

  I began to ease out of the room, because they’d want to talk about secret vampire stuff, I was sure. And if there was anything I didn’t want to know, it was more secrets.

  “Please don’t go,” Eric said to me. His voice was frightened. I froze and looked behind me. Pam and Chow were staring over Eric’s shoulders at me, and they had quite different expressions. Pam looked almost amused. Chow looked openly disapproving.

  I tried not to look in Eric’s eyes, so I could leave him with a clear conscience, but it just didn’t work. He didn’t want to be left alone with his two sidekicks. I blew lots of air out, puffing up my cheeks. Well, dammit. I trudged back to Eric’s side, glaring at Pam the whole way.

  There was another knock at the door, and Pam and Chow reacted in a dramatic way. They were both ready to fight in an instant, and vampires in that readiness are very, very scary. Their fangs run out, their hands arch like claws, and their bodies are on full alert. The air seems to crackle around them.

  “Yes?” I said from right inside the door. I had to get a peephole installed.

  “It’s your brother,” Jason said brusquely. He didn’t know how lucky he was that he hadn’t just walked in.

  Something had put Jason into a foul mood, and I wondered if there was anyone with him. I almost opened the door. But I hesitated. Finally, feeling like a traitor, I turned to Pam. I silently pointed down the hall to the back door, making an opening-and-closing gesture so she could not mistake what I meant. I made a circle in the air with my finger—Come around the house, Pam—and pointed at the front door.

  Pam nodded and ran down the hall to the back of the house. I couldn’t hear her feet on the floor. Amazing.

  Eric moved away from the door. Chow got in front of him. I approved. This was exactly what an underling was supposed to do.

  In less than a minute, I heard Jason bellow from maybe six inches away. I jumped away from the door, startled.

  Pam said, “Open up!”

  I swung the door wide to see Jason locked in Pam’s arms. She was holding him off the ground with no effort, though he was flailing wildly and making it as hard as he could, God bless him.

  “You’re by yourself,” I said, relief being my big emotion.

  “Of course, dammit! Why’d you set her on me? Let me down!”

  “It’s my brother, Pam,” I said. “Please put him down.”

  Pam set Jason down, and he spun around to look at her. “Listen, woman! You don’t just sneak up on a man like that! You’re lucky I didn’t slap you upside the head!”

  Pam looked amused all over again, and even Jason looked embarrassed. He had the grace to smile. “I guess that might be pretty hard,” he admitted, picking up the bags he’d dropped. Pam helped him. “It’s lucky I got the blood in the big plastic bottles,” he said. “Otherwise, this lovely lady would have to go hungry.”

  He smiled at Pam engagingly. Jason loves women. With Pam, Jason was in way over his head, but didn’t have the sense to know it.

  “Thanks. You need to go now,” I said abruptly. I took the plastic bags from his hands. He and Pam were still in an eye-lock. She was putting the whammy on him. “Pam,” I said sharply. “Pam, this is my brother.”

  “I know,” she said calmly. “Jason, did you have something to tell us?”

  I’d forgotten that Jason had sounded like he was barely containing himself when he’d come to the door.

  “Yes,” he said, hardly able to tear his eyes away from the vampire. But when he glanced at me, he caught sight of Chow, and his eyes widened. He had enough sense to fear Chow, at least. “Sookie?” he said. “Are you all right?” He took a step into the room, and I could see the adrenaline left over from the fright Pam had given begin to pump through his system again.

  “Yes. Everything’s all right. These are just friends of Eric’s who came to check on him.”

  “Well, they better go take those wanted posters down.”

  That got everyone’s full attention. Jason enjoyed that.

  “There’s posters up at Wal-Mart, and Grabbit Kwik, and the Bottle Barn, and just about everywhere else in town,” he said. “They all say, ‘Have you seen this man?’ and they go on to tell about him being kidnapped and his friends being so anxious, and the reward for a confirmed sighting is fifty thousand dollars.”

  I didn’t process this too well. I was mostly thinking, Huh?, when Pam got the point.

  “They’re hoping to sight him and catch him,” she said to Chow. “It will work.”

  “We should take care of it,” he said, nodding toward Jason.

  “Don’t you lay one hand on my brother,” I said. I moved between Jason and Chow, and my hands itched for a stake or hammer or anything at all that would keep this vamp from touching Jason.

  Pam and Chow focused on me with that unswerving attention. I didn’t find it flattering, as Jason had. I found it deadly. Jason opened his mouth to speak—I could feel the anger building in him, and the impulse to confront—but my hand clamped down on his wrist, and he grunted, and I said, “Don’t say a word.” For a miracle, he didn’t. He seemed to sense that events were moving forward too rapidly and in a grave direction.

  “You’ll have to kill me, too,” I said.

  Chow shrugged. “Big threat.”

  Pam didn’t say anything. If it came to a choice between upholding vamp interests and being my buddy . . . well, I guessed we were just going to have to cancel our sleepover, and here I’d been planning on French-braiding her hair.

  “What is this about?” Eric asked. His voice was considerably stronger. “Explain . . . Pam.”

  A minute went by while things hung in the balance. Then Pam turned to Eric, and she may have been slightly relieved that she didn’t have to kill me right at the moment. “Sookie and this man, her brother, have seen you,” she explained. “They’re human. They need the money. They will turn you in to the witches.”

  “What witches?” Jason and I said simultaneously.

  “Thank you, Eric, for getting us into this shit,” Jason muttered unfairly. “And could you let go of my wrist, Sook? You’re stronger than you look.”

  I was stronger than I should be because I’d had vampire blood—most recently, Eric’s. The effects would last around three more weeks, maybe longer. I knew this from past experience.

  Unfortunately, I’d needed that extra strength at a low point in my life. The very vampire who was now draped in my for
mer boyfriend’s bathrobe had donated that blood when I was grievously wounded but had to keep going.

  “Jason,” I said in a level voice—as though the vampires couldn’t hear me—“please watch yourself.” That was as close as I could come to telling Jason to be smart for once in his life. He was way too fond of walking on the wild side.

  Very slowly and cautiously, as if an uncaged lion were in the room, Jason and I went to sit on the old couch to one side of the fireplace. That notched the situation down a couple of degrees. After a brief hesitation, Eric sat on the floor and pressed himself into my legs. Pam settled on the edge of the recliner, closest to the fireplace, but Chow chose to remain standing (within what I calculated was lunging distance) near Jason. The atmosphere became less tense, though not by any means relaxed—but still, this was an improvement over the moments before.

  “Your brother must stay and hear this,” Pam said. “No matter how much you don’t want him to know. He needs to learn why he mustn’t try to earn that money.”

  Jason and I gave quick nods. I was hardly in a position to throw them out. Wait, I could! I could tell them all that their invitation to come in was rescinded, and whoosh, out the door they’d go, walking backward. I found myself smiling. Rescinding an invitation was extremely satisfying. I’d done it once before; I’d sent both Bill and Eric zooming out of my living room, and it had felt so good I’d rescinded the entrance invite of every vampire I knew. I could feel my smile fading as I thought more carefully.

  If I gave way to this impulse, I’d have to stay in my house every night for the rest of my life, because they’d return at dusk the next day and the day after that and so on, until they got me, because I had their boss. I glowered at Chow. I was willing to blame this whole thing on him.

  “Several night ago, we heard—at Fangtasia,” Pam explained for Jason’s benefit, “that a group of witches had arrived in Shreveport. A human told us, one who wants Chow. She didn’t know why we were so interested in that information.”

  That didn’t sound too threatening to me. Jason shrugged. “So?” he said. “Geez, you all are vampires. What can a bunch of girls in black do to you?”

  “Real witches can do plenty to vampires,” Pam said, with remarkable restraint. “The ‘girls in black’ you’re thinking of are only poseurs. Real witches can be women or men of any age. They are very formidable, very powerful. They control magical forces, and our existence itself is rooted in magic. This group seems to have some extra . . .” She paused, casting around for a word.

  “Juice?” Jason suggested helpfully.

  “Juice,” she agreed. “We haven’t discovered what makes them so strong.”

  “What was their purpose in coming to Shreveport?” I asked.

  “A good question,” Chow said approvingly. “A much better question.”

  I frowned at him. I didn’t need his damn approval.

  “They wanted—they want—to take over Eric’s businesses,” Pam said. “Witches want money as much as anyone, and they figure they can either take over the businesses, or make Eric pay them to leave him alone.”

  “Protection money.” This was a familiar concept to a television viewer. “But how could they force you into anything? You guys are so powerful.”

  “You have no idea how many problems a business can develop if witches want a piece of it. When we met with them for the first time, their leaders—a sister and brother team—spelled it out. Hallow made it clear she could curse our labor, turn our alcoholic drinks bad, and cause patrons to trip on the dance floor and sue us, to say nothing of plumbing problems.” Pam threw up her hands in disgust. “It would make every night a bad dream, and our revenues would plummet, maybe to the point that the Fangtasia would become worthless.”

  Jason and I gave each other cautious glances. Naturally, vampires were heavily into the bar business, since it was most lucrative at night, and they were up then. They’d dabbled in all-night dry cleaners, all-night restaurants, all-night movie theaters . . . but the bar business paid best. If Fangtasia closed, Eric’s financial base would suffer a blow.

  “So they want protection money,” Jason said. He’d watched the Godfather trilogy maybe fifty times. I thought about asking him if he wanted to sleep with the fishes, but Chow was looking antsy, so I refrained. We were both of us just a snick and a snee away from an unpleasant death, and I knew it was no time for humor, especially humor that so nearly wasn’t.

  “So how did Eric end up running down the road at night without a shirt or shoes?” I asked, thinking it was time to get down to brass tacks.

  Much exchanging of glances between the two subordinates. I looked down at Eric, pressed up against my legs. He seemed to be as interested in the answer as we were. His hand firmly circled my ankle. I felt like a large security blanket.

  Chow decided to take a narrative turn. “We told them we would discuss their threat. But last night, when we went to work, one of the lesser witches was waiting at Fangtasia with an alternative proposal.” He looked a little uncomfortable. “During our initial meeting, the head of the coven, Hallow, decided she, uh, lusted after Eric. Such a coupling is very frowned upon among witches, you understand, since we are dead and witchcraft is supposed to be so . . . organic.” Chow spat the word out like it was something stuck to his shoe. “Of course, most witches would never do what this coven was attempting. These are all people drawn to the power itself, rather than to the religion behind it.”

  This was interesting, but I wanted to hear the rest of the story. So did Jason, who made a “hurry along” gesture with his hand. With a little shake to himself, as if to rouse himself from his thoughts, Chow went on. “This head witch, this Hallow, told Eric, through her subordinate, that if he would entertain her for seven nights, she would only demand a fifth of his business, rather than a half.”

  “You must have some kind of reputation,” my brother said to Eric, his voice full of honest awe. Eric was not entirely successful at hiding his pleased expression. He was glad to hear he was such a Romeo. There was a slight difference in the way he looked up at me in the next moment, and I had a feeling of horrid inevitability—like when you see your car begin to roll downhill (though you’re sure you left it in park), and you know there’s no way you can catch up to it and put on the brakes, no matter how much you want to. That car is gonna crash.

  “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.

&nb
sp; “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?”