I peeked around the corner very cautiously.
I was so shocked I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Sigebert, the queen’s bodyguard, had not been killed in the coup. No, sirree, he was still among the undead. And he was here in the Merlotte’s parking lot, and he was having a lot of fun with the new king, Felipe de Castro, and with Eric, and with Sam, who had been swept up in the net probably by simply leaving his bar to walk to his trailer.
I took a deep breath—a deep but silent breath—and made myself analyze what I was seeing. Sigebert was a mountain of a man, and he’d been the queen’s muscle for centuries. His brother, Wybert, had died in the queen’s service, and I was sure Sigebert had been a target of the Nevada vamps; they’d left their mark on him. Vampires heal fast, but Sigebert had been wounded badly enough that even days after he’d fought, he was still visibly damaged. There was a huge cut across his forehead and a horrible-looking mark just above where I thought his heart would be. His clothes were ripped and stained and filthy. Maybe the Nevada vamps thought he’d disintegrated when in fact he’d managed to get away and hide. Not important, I told myself.
The important part was that he’d succeeded in binding both Eric and Felipe de Castro with silver chains. How? Not important, I told myself again. Maybe this tendency to mentally wander was coming from Eric, who was looking much more battered than the king. Of course, Sigebert would see Eric as a traitor.
Eric was bleeding from the head and his arm was clearly broken. Castro was bleeding sluggishly from the mouth, so Sigebert had maybe stomped on him. Eric and Castro were both lying on the ground, and in the harsh security light they both looked whiter than snow. Sam had been tied to the bumper of his own truck somehow, and he wasn’t damaged at all, at least so far. Thank God.
I tried to figure out how I could conquer Sigebert with my aluminum softball bat, but I didn’t come up with any good ideas. If I rushed him, he’d just laugh. Even as grievously wounded as he was, he was still a vampire and I was no match for him unless I had a great idea. So I watched, and I waited, but in the end I couldn’t stand to see him hurting Eric anymore; believe me, when a vampire kicks you, you get plenty hurt. Plus, Sigebert was having a great time with the big knife he had brought.
The biggest weapon at my disposal? Okay, that would be my car. I felt a little pang of regret, because it was the best car I’d ever had, and Tara had sold it to me for a dollar when she’d gotten a newer one. But it was the only thing I could think of that would make a dent in Sigebert.
So back I crept, praying that Sigebert would be so absorbed in his torture that he wouldn’t notice the sound of the car door. I laid my head on the steering wheel and thought as hard as I’ve ever thought. I considered the parking lot and its topography, and I thought about the location of the bound vampires, and I took a deep breath and turned the key. I started around the building, wishing my car could creep through the damn nandina bushes like I had, and I swung wide to allow room to charge, and my lights caught Sigebert, and I hit the accelerator and went straight at him. He tried to get out of the way, but he was none too bright and I’d caught him with his pants down (literally—I really didn’t like to think about his next torture plan) and I hit him very hard, and up he bounced, to land on the roof of the car with a huge thud.
I screamed and braked, because this was as far as my plan had gone. He slid down the back of the car, leaving a horrible sheet of dark blood, and disappeared from view. Scared he’d pop up in the rearview mirror, I threw the car into reverse and hit the pedal again. Bump. Bump. I yanked the gear stick into park and leaped out, bat in hand, to find Sigebert’s legs and most of his torso were wedged under the car. I dashed over to Eric and began fumbling with the silver chain, while he stared at me with his eyes wide. Castro was cursing in Spanish, fluently and fluidly, and Sam was saying, “Hurry, Sookie, hurry!” which really didn’t help my powers of concentration.
I gave up on the damn chains and got the big knife and cut Sam free so he could help. The knife came close enough to his skin to make him yelp a time or two, but I was really doing the best I could, and he didn’t bleed. To give him credit, he made it over to Castro in record time and began freeing him while I ran back to Eric, laying the knife on the ground beside us as I worked. Now that I had at least one ally who had the use of his hands and legs, I was able to concentrate, and I got Eric’s legs unbound (at least now he could run away—I guess that was my thinking) and then, more slowly, his arms and hands. The silver had been wound around him many times, and Sigebert had made sure it touched Eric’s hands. They looked ghastly. Castro had suffered even more from the chains because Sigebert had divested him of his beautiful cape and most of his shirt.
I was unwinding the last strand when Eric shoved me as hard as he could, grabbed the knife, and leaped to his feet so swiftly I saw only a blur. Then he was on Sigebert, who had actually lifted the car to release his own trapped legs. He’d begun dragging himself out from under, and in another minute he would have been ambulatory.
Did I mention it was a big knife? And it must have been sharp, too, because Eric landed by Sigebert, said, “Go to your maker,” and cut off the warrior vampire’s head.
“Oh,” I said shakily, and sat down abruptly on the cold parking lot gravel. “Oh, wow.” We all remained where we were, panting, for a good five minutes. Then Sam straightened up from the side of Felipe de Castro and offered him a hand. The vampire took it, and when he was upright, he introduced himself to Sam, who automatically introduced himself right back.
“Miss Stackhouse,” the king said, “I am in your debt.”
Damn straight.
“It’s okay,” I said in a voice that wasn’t nearly as level as it should be.
“Thank you,” he said. “If your car is too damaged to repair, I will be very glad to buy you another one.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said with absolute sincerity, as I stood up. “I’ll try to drive it home tonight. I don’t know how I can explain the damage. Do you think the body shop would believe I ran over an alligator?” That did happen occasionally. Was it weird that I was worried about the car insurance?
“Dawson would look at it for you,” Sam said. His voice was as odd as mine. He, too, had thought he was going to die. “I know he’s a motorcycle repairman, but I bet he could fix your car. He works on his own all the time.”
“Do what is necessary,” said Castro grandly. “I will pay. Eric, would you care to explain what just happened?” His voice was considerably more acerbic.
“You should ask your crew to explain,” Eric retorted, with some justification. “Didn’t they tell you Sigebert, the queen’s bodyguard, was dead? Yet here he is.”
“An excellent point.” Castro looked down at the crumbling body. “So that was the legendary Sigebert. He’s gone to join his brother, Wybert.” He sounded quite pleased.
I hadn’t known the brothers were famous among the vampires, but they’d certainly been unique. Their mountainous physiques, their broken and primitive English, their utter devotion to the woman who’d turned them centuries before—sure, any right-minded vampire would love that story. I sagged where I stood, and Eric, moving faster than I could see, picked me up. It was a very Scarlett and Rhett moment, spoiled only by the fact that there were two other guys there, we were in a humdrum parking lot, and I was unhappy about the damage to my car. Plus not a little shocked.
“How’d he get the jump on three strong guys like you-all?” I asked. I didn’t worry about Eric holding me. It made me feel tiny, not a feeling I got to enjoy all that often.
There was a moment of general embarrassment.
“I was standing with my back to the woods,” Castro explained. “He had the chains arranged for throwing. . . . Your word is almost the same. Lazo.”
“Lasso,” Sam said.
“Ah, lasso. The first one, he threw around me, and of course, the shock was great. Before Eric could land on him, he had Eric as well. The pain from the silver . . .
very quickly we were bound. When this one”—he nodded toward Sam—“came to our aid, Sigebert knocked him unconscious and got rope from the back of Sam’s truck and tied him up.”
“We were too involved in our discussion to be wary,” Eric said. He sounded pretty grim, and I didn’t blame him. But I decided to keep my mouth shut.
“Ironic, eh, that we needed a human girl to rescue us,” the king said blithely, the very idea that I’d decided not to voice.
“Yes, very amusing,” Eric said in a dreadfully unamused voice. “Why did you return, Sookie?”
“I felt your, ah, anger at being attacked.” For “anger” read “despair.”
The new king looked very interested. “A blood bond. How interesting.”
“No, not really,” I said. “Sam, I wonder if you’d mind driving me home. I don’t know where you gentlemen left your cars, or if you flew. I do wonder how Sigebert knew where to find you.”
Felipe de Castro and Eric shared almost identical expressions of deep thought.
“We’ll find out,” Eric said, and set me down. “And then heads are going to roll.” Eric was good at setting heads to rolling. It was one of his favorite things. I was willing to put my money on Castro sharing that predilection, because the king was looking positively gleeful in anticipation.
Sam fished his keys out of his pocket without a word, and I climbed into the truck with him. We left the two vampires involved in a deep conversation. Sigebert’s corpse, still partially under my poor car, was almost gone, leaving a dark greasy residue on the gravel of the parking lot. The good thing about vampires—no corpse disposal.
“I’ll call Dawson tonight,” Sam said unexpectedly.
“Oh, Sam, thank you,” I said. “I’m so glad you were there.”
“It’s the parking lot of my bar,” he said, and it might have been my own guilty reaction, but I thought I detected some reproach. I suddenly came to the full realization that Sam had walked into a situation in his own backyard, a situation he had no stake or interest in, and that he’d almost died as a result. And why had Eric been in the parking lot back of Merlotte’s? To talk to me. And then Felipe de Castro had followed to talk to Eric . . . though I wasn’t sure why. But the point was, them being there at all was my fault.
“Oh, Sam,” I said, almost in tears, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know Eric would wait for me, and I sure didn’t know the king would follow him. I still don’t know why he was there. I’m so sorry,” I said again. I would say it a hundred times if it would take that tone out of Sam’s voice.
“It’s not your fault,” he said. “I asked Eric to come here in the first place. It’s their fault. I don’t know how we can pry you loose from them.”
“This was bad, but somehow you’re not taking it like I thought you would.”
“I just want to be left in peace,” he said unexpectedly. “I don’t want to get involved in supernatural politics. I don’t want to have to take sides in Were shit. I’m not a Were. I’m a shapeshifter, and shifters don’t organize. We’re too different. I hate vampire politics even more than Were politics.”
“You’re mad at me.”
“No!” He seemed to be struggling with what he wanted to say. “I don’t want that for you, either! Weren’t you happier before?”
“You mean before I knew any vampires; before I knew about the rest of the world that lies outside the boundaries?”
Sam nodded.
“In some ways. It was nice to have a clear path before me,” I said. “I do get really sick of the politics and the battles. But my life wasn’t any prize, Sam. Every day was a struggle just to act like I was a regular human, like I didn’t know all the things I know about other humans. The cheating and infidelity, the little acts of dishonesty, the unkindness. The really severe judgments people pass on each other. Their lack of charity. When you know all that, it’s hard to keep going sometimes. Knowing about the supernatural world puts all that in a different perspective. I don’t know why. People aren’t any better or worse than the supernaturals, but they’re not all there is, either.”
“I guess I understand,” Sam said, though he sounded a little doubtful.
“Plus,” I said very quietly, “it’s nice to be valued for the very thing that makes regular people think I’m just a crazy girl.”
“Definitely understand that,” Sam said. “But there’s a price.”
“Oh, no doubt about it.”
“You willing to pay?”
“So far.”
We chugged up my driveway. No lights on. The witchy duo had gone to bed, or else they were out partying or casting spells.
“In the morning, I’ll call Dawson,” Sam said. “He’ll check out your car, make sure you can drive it, or he’ll get it towed to his place. Think you can get a ride to work?”
“I’m sure I can,” I said. “Amelia can bring me in.”
Sam walked me to the back door like he was bringing me home from a date. The porch light was on, which was thoughtful of Amelia. Sam put his arms around me, which was a surprise, and then he just snugged his head in close to mine, and we stood there enjoying each other’s warmth for a long moment.
“We survived the Were war,” he said. “You made it through the vampire coup. Now we lived through the attack of the berserk bodyguard. I hope we keep up our record.”
“Now you’re scaring me,” I said as I remembered all the other things I’d survived. I should be dead, no doubt about it.
His warm lips brushed my cheek. “Maybe that’s a good thing,” he said, and turned to go back to his truck.
I watched him climb in and reverse, and then I unlocked the back door and went to my room. After all the adrenaline and the fear and the accelerated pace of life (and death) in the parking lot of Merlotte’s, my own room seemed very quiet and clean and secure. I’d done my best to kill someone tonight. It was only by chance Sigebert had survived my attempt at vehicular homicide. Twice. I couldn’t help but notice that I wasn’t feeling remorseful. This was surely a flaw, but at the moment I just didn’t care. There were definitely parts of my character I didn’t approve of, and maybe from time to time I had moments when I didn’t like myself much. But I got through each day as it came to me, and so far I’d survived everything life had thrown at me. I could only hope that the survival was worth the price I’d paid.
Chapter 20
To my relief, I woke up in an empty house. Neither Amelia’s nor Octavia’s throbbing heads were under my roof. I lay in bed and reveled in the knowledge. Maybe the next time I had a whole day off, I could spend it completely alone. That didn’t seem a likely occurrence, but a girl can dream. After I planned my day (call Sam to find out about my car, pay some bills, go to work), I got into the shower and really scrubbed. I used as much hot water as I wanted. I painted my toenails and my fingernails, and I pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt and went in to make some coffee. The kitchen was spanking clean; God bless Amelia.
The coffee was great, the toast delicious spread with blueberry jam. Even my taste buds were happy. After I cleaned up from breakfast, I was practically singing with the pleasure of solitude. I went back to my room to make my bed and put on my makeup.
Of course, that was when the knock came at the back door, nearly making me jump out of my skin. I stepped into some shoes and went to answer it.
Tray Dawson was there, and he was smiling. “Sookie, your car is doing fine,” he said. “I had to do a little replacing here and there, and it’s the first time I ever had to scrape vampire ash off an undercarriage, but you’re good to go.”
“Oh, thanks! Can you come in?”
“Just for a minute,” he said. “You got a Coke in the refrigerator?”
“I sure do.” I brought him a Coke, asked if he wanted some cookies or a peanut butter sandwich to go with it, and when he’d turned that down, I excused myself to finish my makeup. I’d figured Dawson would run me to the car, but he’d driven it over to my place, as it turned out, so I’d ne
ed to give him a ride instead.
I had my checkbook out and my pen in hand when I sat at the table opposite the big man and asked him how much I owed him.
“Not a dime,” Dawson said. “The new guy paid for it.”
“The new king?”
“Yeah, he called me in the middle of the night last night. Told me the story, more or less, and asked me if I could look at the car first thing in the morning. I was awake when he called, so it didn’t make me no nevermind. I got over to Merlotte’s this morning, told Sam he wasted a phone call since I already knew all about it. I followed him while he drove the car out to my place, and we put it up on the rack and had a good look.”
This was a long speech for Dawson. I put my checkbook back in my purse and listened, silently asking him if he wanted more Coke by pointing at his glass. He shook his head, letting me know he was satisfied. “We had to tighten up a few things, replace your windshield fluid reservoir. I knew just where another car like yours was at Rusty’s Salvage, and it didn’t take no time to do the job.”
I could only thank him again. I drove Dawson out to his repair shop. Since the last time I’d driven by, he’d trimmed up the front yard of his home, a modest but tidy frame house that stood next door to the big shop. Dawson had also put all the bits and pieces of motorcycles under cover somewhere, instead of having them strewn around in a handy but unattractive spread. And his pickup was clean.
As Dawson slid out of the car, I said, “I’m so grateful. I know cars aren’t your specialty and I do appreciate your working on mine.” Repairman to the underworld, that was Tray Dawson.
“Well, I did it because I wanted to,” Dawson said, and then he paused. “But if you could see your way to it, I’d sure like it if you’d put in a word for me with your friend Amelia.”
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