Dead Reckoning: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

by Charlaine Harris

  Eric looked rebellious. I was sure he’d planned on spending the night at my place. This night, though, that was not gonna happen.

  I’d seen headlights coming up the drive, and I was sure Claude and Dermot were here. I couldn’t have fairies and vampires in the same house at the same time. Both were strong and ferocious, but vampires literally found fairies irresistible, like cats and catnip. I wasn’t up to another struggle.

  “Out the front door,” I said, when they didn’t move immediately. “Shoo! Thanks for the haircut, Immanuel. Eric, I appreciate your thinking about my hair care needs.” (I might have said this with more than a touch of sarcasm.) “It would have been nice if you had thought a little longer before you trashed my kitchen.”

  Without more ado, Pam beckoned to Immanuel, and they went out the door together, Immanuel looking very faintly amused. Pam gave me a long look as she passed me. I knew it was meant to be significant, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what she was trying to tell me.

  Eric said, “I would hold you while you sleep. Were you hurt? I’m sorry.” He seemed oddly nonplussed.

  At another time I would have accepted this rare apology, but not tonight. “You need to go home now, Eric. We’ll talk when you can control yourself.”

  That was a huge rebuke to a vampire, and his back stiffened. For a moment I thought I’d have another fight on my hands. But Eric stepped out the front door, finally. When he was on the porch, he said, “I’ll talk to you soon, my wife.” I shrugged. Whatever. I was too tired and too aggravated to summon up any kind of loving expression.

  I think Eric got in the car with Pam and the hairdresser for the drive back to Shreveport. Possibly he was too battered to fly. What the hell was up with Pam and Eric?

  I tried to tell myself it was not my problem, but I had a sinking feeling that it really, really was.

  Claude and Dermot came in the back a moment later, ostentatiously sniffing the air.

  “The smell of smoke and vampires,” Claude said, with a pronounced rolling of the eyes. “And your kitchen looks like a bear came in search of honey.”

  “I don’t know how you stand it,” Dermot said. “They smell bitter and sweet at the same time. I don’t know if I like it or hate it.” He held his hand over his nose dramatically. “And do I detect a trace of burned hair?”

  “Fellas, chill,” I said wearily. I gave them the condensed version of the firebombing at Merlotte’s and the fighting in my kitchen. “So just give me a hug and let me go to bed without any more vampire comments,” I said.

  “Do you want us to sleep with you, Niece?” Dermot asked, in the flowery way of the old fae, the ones who didn’t spend that much time with humans. The nearness of one fairy to another is both healing and soothing. Even with as little fairy blood as I had, I found the proximity of both Claude and Dermot comforting. I hadn’t realized that when I’d first met Claude and his sister Claudine, but the longer I’d known them and the more they’d touched me, the better I’d felt when they were near. When my great-grandfather Niall had embraced me, I’d felt sheer love. And no matter what Niall had done, or how dubious his decisions were, I felt that love all over again when I was near him. I had a moment’s regret that I might not ever see Niall again, but I just didn’t have any remaining emotional energy. “Thanks, Dermot. But I think I better fall into bed by myself tonight. You guys sleep well.”

  “And you, too, Sookie,” Claude told me. Dermot’s courtesy was rubbing off on my grumpy cousin.

  I woke in the morning to the sound of knocking at the door. Rumple-headed and bleary, I dragged myself through the living room and looked through the peephole. Sam.

  I opened the door and yawned in his face. “Sam, what can I do for you? Come on in.”

  His glance flickered over the crowded living room, and I could see him struggling with a smile. “Aren’t we still going to Shreveport?” he asked.

  “Oh my gosh!” Suddenly I felt more awake. “My last thought when I fell asleep last night was that you wouldn’t be able to go because of the fire at the bar. You can? You want to?”

  “Yep. The fire marshal talked to my insurance company, and they’ve started the paperwork. In the meantime, Danny and I hauled out the burned table and the chairs, Terry’s been working on the floor, and Antoine’s been checking that the kitchen’s in good shape. I’ve already made sure we’ve got more fire extinguishers ready to go.” For a long moment, his smile faltered. “If I have any customers to serve. People aren’t likely to want to come to Merlotte’s if they think they might get incinerated.”

  I didn’t exactly blame folks for worrying about that. We hadn’t needed the incident of the night before, not at all. It might hasten the decline of Sam’s business.

  “So they need to catch whoever did it,” I said, trying to sound positive. “Then people will know it’s safe to come back, and we’ll be busy again.”

  Claude came downstairs then, giving us Surly. “Noisy down here,” he muttered as he passed on his way to the hall bathroom. Even slouching around in rumpled jeans, Claude walked with a grace that drew attention to his beauty. Sam gave an unconscious sigh and shook his head slightly as his eyes followed Claude, gliding down the hall as though he had ball bearings in his hip joints.

  “Hey,” I said, after I heard the bathroom door shut. “Sam! He doesn’t have anything on you.”

  “Some guys,” Sam began, looking abashed, and then he stopped. “Aw, forget it.”

  I couldn’t, of course, not when I could tell directly from Sam’s brain that he was—not exactly envious, but rueful, about Claude’s physical attraction, though Sam knew as well as anyone that Claude was a pain in the butt.

  I’ve been reading men’s minds for years, and they’re more like women than you would think, really, unless you’re talking trucks. I started to tell Sam that he was plenty attractive, that women in the bar mooned over him more than he thought; but in the end, I kept my mouth shut. I had to let Sam have the privacy of his own thoughts. Because of his shifter nature, most of what was in Sam’s head remained in Sam’s head . . . more or less. I could get the odd thought, the general mood, but seldom anything more specific.

  “Here, I’ll make some coffee,” I said, and when I stepped into the kitchen, Sam close on my heels, I stopped dead. I’d forgotten all about the fight the night before.

  “What happened?” Sam said. “Did Claude do this?” He looked around with dismay.

  “No, Eric and Pam,” I said. “Oh, zombies.” Sam looked at me oddly, and I laughed and began to pick things up. I was abbreviating one of Pam’s curses, because I wasn’t that horrified.

  I couldn’t help reflecting that it would have been really, really nice if Claude and Dermot had straightened the room up before they turned in the night before. Just as lagniappe.

  Then again, it wasn’t their kitchen.

  I set a chair on its legs, and Sam dragged the table back into position. I got the broom and dustpan, and swept up the salt, pepper, and sugar that crunched under my feet, and made a mental note to go to Wal-Mart to replace my toaster if Eric didn’t send one today. My napkin holder was broken, too, and it had survived the fire of a year and a half ago. I double-sighed.

  “At least the table is okay,” I said.

  “And only one broken leg on one of the chairs,” Sam said. “Eric going to get this stuff fixed or replaced?”

  “I expect he will,” I said, and found that the coffeepot was intact, as were the mugs that had been hanging on a mug tree next to it; no, wait, one of them had broken. Well, five good ones. That was plenty.

  I made some coffee. While Sam was carrying the garbage bag outside, I ducked into my room to get ready. I’d showered the evening before, so I only needed to brush my hair and my teeth and pull on some jeans and a “Fight Like a Girl” T-shirt. I didn’t fool with makeup. Sam had seen me under all sorts of conditions.

  “How’s the hair?” he asked, when I emerged. Dermot was in the kitchen, too. Apparently, h
e’d made a quick run into town, since he and Sam were sharing some fresh doughnuts. Judging from the sound of running water, Claude was in the shower.

  I eyed the bakery box longingly, but I was all too aware that my jeans were feeling tight. I felt like a martyr as I poured a bowl of Special K and sprinkled Equal on the cereal and added some 2 percent milk. When Sam looked as though he wanted to make a comment, I narrowed my eyes at him. He grinned at me, chewing a mouthful of jelly-filled.

  “Dermot, we’re off to Shreveport in a few minutes. If you need my bathroom . . .” I offered, since Claude was terrible about hogging the one in the hall. I rinsed my bowl in the sink.

  “Thanks, Niece,” Dermot said, kissing my hand. “And your hair still looks glorious, though shorter. I think Eric was right to bring someone to cut it last night.”

  Sam shook his head as we were getting into his truck. “Sook, that guy treats you like a queen.”

  “Which guy do you mean? Eric or Dermot?”

  “Not Eric,” Sam said, trying his best to look neutral. “Dermot.”

  “Yeah, too bad he’s related! And also, he looks way too much like Jason.”

  “That’s no obstacle to a fairy,” Sam said seriously.

  “You’ve got to be joking.” I felt serious in a hurry. From Sam’s expression, he wasn’t joking one little bit. “Listen, Sam, Dermot has never even looked at me like I was a woman, and Claude is gay. We’re strictly family.” We’d all slept in the same bed, and there’d never been anything but the comfort of their presence in that, though of course I’d felt a little weird about it the first time. I’d been sure that was just my human hang-up. Due to Sam’s words, now I was second-guessing myself like crazy, wondering if I’d picked up on a vibe. After all, Claude did like to run around nude, and he’d told me he’d actually had sex with a female before. (I figured there’d been another man involved, frankly.)

  “And I’m saying again, weird things happen in fae families.” Sam glanced over at me.

  “I don’t mean to sound rude, but how would you know?” If Sam had spent a lot of time with fairies, he had kept it a close secret.

  “I read up on it after I met your great-grandfather.”

  “Read up on it? Where?” It would be great to learn more about my dab of fairy heritage. Dermot and Claude, having decided to live apart from their fairy kin (though I wasn’t sure how voluntary those decisions had been), remained closemouthed about fairy beliefs and customs. Aside from making derogatory comments from time to time about trolls and sprites, they didn’t talk about their race at all . . . at least, around me.

  “Ah . . . the shifters have a library. We have records of our history and what we’ve observed about other supes. Keeping track has helped us survive. There’s always been a place we could go on each continent to read and study about the other races. Now it’s all electronic. I’m sworn not to show it to anyone. If I could, I’d let you read it all.”

  “So it’s not okay for me to read it, but it’s okay for you to tell me about it?” I wasn’t trying to be snarky; I was genuinely curious.

  “Within limits.” Sam flushed.

  I didn’t want to press him. I could tell that Sam had already stretched those limits for me.

  We were each preoccupied with our own thoughts for the rest of the drive. While Eric was dead for the day, I felt alone in my skin, and usually I enjoyed that feeling. It wasn’t that being bonded to Eric made me feel I was possessed, or anything like that. It was more like during the dark hours, I could feel his life continuing parallel to mine—I knew he was working or arguing or content or absorbed in what he was doing. A little trickle of awareness, rather than a book of knowledge.

  “So, the bomber yesterday,” Sam said abruptly.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I think maybe a twoey of some kind, right?”

  He nodded without looking at me.

  “Not a hate crime,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact.

  “Not a human hate crime,” Sam said. “But I’m sure it’s some kind of hatred.”

  “Economic?”

  “I can’t think of any economic reason,” he said. “I’m insured, but I’m the only beneficiary if the bar burns down. Of course, I’d be out of business for a while, and I’m sure the other bars in the area would take up the slack, but I can’t see that as an incentive. Much of an incentive,” he corrected himself. “Merlotte’s has always been kind of a family bar, not a wild place. Not like Vic’s Redneck Roadhouse,” he added, a little bitterly.

  That was true. “Maybe someone doesn’t like you personally, Sam,” I said, though it came out sounding harsher than I’d intended. “I mean,” I added quickly, “maybe someone wants to hurt you through damaging your business. Not you as a shapeshifter, but you as a person.”

  “I don’t recall anything that personal,” he said, genuinely bewildered.

  “Ah . . . Jannalynn have a vengeful ex, anything like that?”

  Sam was startled by the idea. “I really haven’t heard of anyone who resented me dating her,” he said. “And Jannalynn’s more than capable of speaking her mind. It’s not like I could coerce her into going out with me.”

  I had a hard time repressing a snort of laughter. “Just trying to think of all possibilities,” I said apologetically.

  “That’s okay,” he said. He shrugged. “Bottom line is, I can’t remember when I’ve made anyone really mad.”

  I couldn’t remember any such incident myself, and I’d known Sam for years.

  Pretty soon we were pulling up to the antiques shop, which was located in a former paint store in a down-sliding older business street in Shreveport.

  The big front windows were sparkling clean, and the pieces that had been positioned there were beautiful. The largest was what my grandmother had called a hunt sideboard. It was heavy and ornate and just about as tall as my chest. The other window featured a collection of jardinières, or vases, I wasn’t sure which to call them. The one in the center, positioned to show that it was the cream of the crop, was sea green and blue and had cherubs stuck on it. I thought it was hideous, but it definitely had style.

  Sam and I looked at the display for a moment in thoughtful silence before we went in. A bell—a real bell, not an electronic chime—jangled as we pushed open the door. A woman sitting on a stool behind a counter to the right looked up. She pushed her glasses up on her nose.

  “Nice to see you again, Mr. Merlotte,” she said, smiling with just the right intensity. I remember you, I’m glad you came back, but I’m not personally interested in you as a man. She was good.

  “Thanks, Ms. Hesterman,” Sam said. “This is my friend, Sookie Stackhouse.”

  “Welcome to Splendide,” Ms. Hesterman said. “Please call me Brenda. What can I do for you today?”

  “We’ve got two errands,” Sam said. “I’m here to look at the pieces you called me about. . . .”

  “And I’ve just cleaned out my attic and I have some things I wondered if you could take a look at,” I said. “I need to get rid of some of the odds and ends I brought down. I don’t want to put it all back.” I smiled, to show general goodwill.

  “So you’ve had a family place a long time?” she asked, encouraging me to give her a clue about what sort of possessions my family might have accumulated.

  “We’ve lived in the same house for about a hundred and seventy years,” I told her, and she brightened. “But it’s an old farm, not a mansion. Might be some things you’d be interested in, though.”

  “I’d love to come take a look,” she said, though clearly “love” was overstating it a little. “We’ll set up a time as soon as I help Sam pick out a gift for Jannalynn. She’s so modern, who would have thought she’d be interested in antiques? She’s such a little cutie!”

  I had a hard time keeping my mouth from dropping open. Did we know the same Jannalynn Hopper?

  Sam poked me in the ribs when Brenda turned her back to fetch a ring of small keys. He made a significant face, and I s
moothed out my expression and batted my eyelashes at him. He looked away, but not before I caught a reluctant grin.

  “Sam, I’ve put together some things Jannalynn might like,” Brenda said, and led us over to a display case, keys jingling in her hand. The case was full of little things, pretty things. I couldn’t identify most of them. I leaned over the glass top to look down.

  “What are those?” I pointed at some lethal sharp-pointed objects with ornate heads. I wondered if you could kill a vampire with one

  “Hat pins and stickpins, for scarves and cravats.”

  There were also earrings and rings and brooches, plus enamel boxes, beaded boxes, painted boxes. All these little containers were carefully arranged. Were they snuffboxes? I read the price tag discreetly peeking out from under a tortoiseshell and silver oval box, and had to clamp my lips together to restrain my gasp.

  While I was still wondering about the items I was examining, Brenda and Sam were comparing the merits of art deco pearl earrings versus a Victorian pressed-glass hair receiver with an enameled brass lid. Whatever the hell that was.

  “What do you think, Sookie?” he asked, looking from one item to another.

  I examined the art deco earrings, pearl drops dangling from a rose gold setting. The hair receiver was pretty, too, though I couldn’t imagine what it was for or what Jannalynn would do with it. Did anyone need to receive hair anymore?

  “She’ll wear the earrings to show them off,” I said. “It’s harder to brag about getting a hair receiver.” Brenda gave me a veiled look, and I understood from her thoughts that this opinion branded me as a philistine. So be it.

  “The hair receiver’s older,” Sam said, wavering.

  “But less personal. Unless you’re Victorian.”

  While Sam compared the two smaller items to the beauties of a seventy-year-old New Bedford police badge, I wandered around the store, looking at the furniture. I discovered I was not an antiques appreciator. This was just one more flaw in my mundane character, I decided. Or maybe it was because I was surrounded by antiques all the day long? Nothing in my house was new except the kitchen, and that only because the old one had been destroyed by fire. I’d still be using Gran’s ancient refrigerator if the flames hadn’t eaten it up. (That refrigerator was one antique I didn’t miss, for sure.)