Dead to the World ss(v-4

by Шарлин Харрис

  Culpepper was a young woman with a strong, handsome face and a no-nonsense haircut. She looked pleased to be included in something Portugal was doing. He looked pleased, too, but he tried to mask it under a brusque manner. "Yes, sir," he said snappily. Culpepper thought that was cute as hell; I was lifting that directly from her brain. Were she might be, but you couldn't disguise an admiration that intense. "Uh, why am I calling them again?" Portugal asked after a long moment.

  "We need to know what they plan to do, if they'll share that with us," Colonel Flood said. "If they're not with us, they can at least stay out of the way."

  "So, we're going to war?" This was from an older man, who seemed to be a pair with the red-haired woman.

  "It was the vampires that started it," the redheaded woman said.

  "That is so untrue," I said indignantly.

  "Vamp humper," she said.

  I'd had worse things said about me, but not to my face, and not from people who intended me to hear them.

  Eric had left the floor before I could decide if I was more hurt or more enraged. He had instantly opted for enraged, and it made him very effective. She was on the ground on her back and he was on top of her with fangs extended before anyone could even be alarmed. It was lucky for the red-haired woman that Pam and Gerald were equally swift, though it took both of them to lift Eric off the redheaded Were. She was bleeding only a little, but she was yelping nonstop.

  For a long second, I thought the whole room was going to erupt into battle, but Colonel Flood roared, "SILENCE!" and you didn't disobey that voice.

  "Amanda," he said to the red-haired woman, who was whimpering as though Eric had removed a limb, and whose companion was busy checking out her injuries in a wholly unnecessary panic, "you will be polite to our allies, and you will keep your damn opinions to yourself. Your offense cancels out the blood he spilled. No retaliation, Parnell!" The male Were snarled at the colonel, but finally gave a grudging nod.

  "Miss Stackhouse, I apologize for the poor manners of the pack," Colonel Flood said to me. Though I was still upset, I made myself nod. I couldn't help but notice that Alcide was looking from me to Eric, and he looked—well, he looked appalled. Sam had the sense to be quite expressionless. My back stiffened, and I ran a quick hand over my eyes to dash away the tears.

  Eric was calming down, but it was with an effort. Pam was murmuring in his ear, and Gerald was keeping a good grip on his arm.

  To make my evening perfect, the back door to Merlotte's opened once again, and Debbie Pelt walked in.

  "Y'all are having a party without me." She looked at the odd assemblage and raised her eyebrows. "Hey, baby," she said directly to Alcide, and ran a possessive hand down his arm, twining her fingers with his. Alcide had an odd expression on his face. It was as though he was simultaneously happy and miserable.

  Debbie was a striking woman, tall and lean, with a long face. She had black hair, but it wasn't curly and disheveled like Alcide's. It was cut in asymmetrical tiny clumps, and it was straight and swung with her movement. It was the dumbest haircut I'd ever seen, and it had undoubtedly cost an arm and a leg. Somehow, men didn't seem to be interested in her haircut.

  It would have been hypocritical of me to greet her. Debbie and I were beyond that. She'd tried to kill me, a fact that Alcide knew; and yet she still seemed to exercise some fascination for him, though he'd thrown her out when he first learned of it. For a smart and practical and hardworking man, he had a great big blind spot, and here it was, in tight Cruel Girl jeans and a thin orange sweater that hugged every inch of skin. What was she doing here, so far from her own stomping grounds?

  I felt a sudden impulse to turn to Eric and tell him that Debbie had made a serious attempt on my life, just to see what would happen. But I restrained myself yet again. All this restraint was plain painful. My fingers were curled under, transforming my hands into tight fists.

  "We'll call you if anything more happens in this meeting," Gerald said. It took me a minute to understand I was being dismissed, and that it was because I had to take Eric back to my house lest he erupt again. From the look on his face, it wouldn't take much. His eyes were glowing blue, and his fangs were at least half extended. I was more than ever tempted to . . . no, I was not. I would leave.

  "Bye, bitch," Debbie said, as I went out the door. I caught a glimpse of Alcide turning to her, his expression appalled, but Pam grabbed me by the arm and hustled me out into the parking lot. Gerald had a hold of Eric, which was a good thing, too.

  As the two vampires handed us out to Chow, I was seething.

  Chow thrust Eric into the passenger's seat, so it appeared I was the designated driver. The Asian vamp said, "We'll call you later, go home," and I was about to snap back at him. But I glanced over at my passenger and decided to be smart instead and get out of there quickly. Eric's belligerence was dissolving into a muddle. He looked confused and lost, as unlike the hair-trigger avenger he'd been only a few minutes before as you can imagine.

  We were halfway home before Eric said anything. "Why are vampires so hated by Weres?" he asked.

  "I don't know," I answered, slowing down because two deer bounded across the road. You see the first one, you always wait: There'll be another one, most often. "Vamps feel the same about Weres and shifters. The supernatural community seems to band together against humans, but other than that, you guys squabble a lot, at least as far as I can tell." I took a deep breath and considered phraseology. "Um, Eric, I appreciate your taking my part, when that Amanda called me a name. But I'm pretty used to speaking up for myself when I think it's called for. If I were a vampire, you wouldn't feel you had to hit people on my behalf, right?"

  "But you're not as strong as a vampire, not even as strong as a Were," Eric objected.

  "No argument there, honey. But I also wouldn't have even thought of hitting her, because that would give her a reason to hit me back."

  "You're saying I made it come to blows when I didn't need to."

  "That's exactly what I'm saying."

  "I embarrassed you."

  "No," I said instantly. Then I wondered if that wasn't exactly the case. "No," I repeated with more conviction, "you didn't embarrass me. Actually, it made me feel good, that you felt, ah, fond enough of me to be angry when Amanda acted like I was something stuck to her shoe. But I'm used to that treatment, and I can handle it. Though Debbie's taking it to a whole different level."

  The new, thoughtful Eric gave that a mental chewing over.

  "Why are you used to that?" he asked.

  It wasn't the reaction I'd expected. By that time we were at the house, and I checked out the surrounding clearing before I got out of the car to unlock the back door. When we were safely inside with the dead bolt shot, I said, "Because I'm used to people not thinking much of barmaids. Uneducated barmaids. Uneducated telepathic barmaids. I'm used to people thinking I'm crazy, or at least off mentally. I'm not trying to sound like I think I'm Poor Pitiful Pearl, but I don't have a lot of fans, and I'm used to that."

  "That confirms my bad opinion of humans in general," Eric said. He pulled my coat off my shoulders, looked at it with distaste, hung it on the back of one of the chairs pushed in under the kitchen table. "You are beautiful."

  No one had ever looked me in the eyes and said that. I found I had to lower my head. "You are smart, and you are loyal," he said relentlessly, though I waved a hand to ask him to quit. "You have a sense of fun and adventure."

  "Cut it out," I said.

  "Make me," he said. "You have the most beautiful breasts I've ever seen. You're brave." I put my fingers across his mouth, and his tongue darted out to give them a quick lick. I relaxed against him, feeling the tingle down to my toes. "You're responsible and hardworking," he continued. Before he could tell me that I was good about replacing the garbage can liner when I took the garbage out, I replaced my fingers with my lips.

  "There," he said softly, after a long moment. "You're creative, too."

  For the next hour
, he showed me that he, too, was creative.

  It was the only hour in an extremely long day that I hadn't been consumed with fear: for the fate of my brother, about Hallow's malevolence, about the horrible death of Adabelle Yancy. There were probably a few more things that made me fearful, but in such a long day it was impossible to pick any one thing that was more awful than the other.

  As I lay wrapped up in Eric's arms, humming a little wordless tune as I traced the line of his shoulder with an idle finger, I was bone-deep grateful for the pleasure he'd given me. A piece of happiness should never be taken as due.

  "Thank you," I said, my face pressed to his silent chest.

  He put a finger under my chin so I would raise my eyes to his. "No," he said quietly. "You took me in off the road and kept me safe. You're ready to fight for me. I can tell this about you. I can't believe my luck. When this witch is defeated, I would bring you to my side. I will share everything I have with you. Every vampire who owes me fealty will honor you."

  Was this medieval, or what? Bless Eric's heart, none of that was going to happen. At least I was smart enough, and realistic enough, not to deceive myself for a minute, though it was a wonderful fantasy. He was thinking like a chieftain with thralls at his disposal, not like a ruthless head vampire who owned a tourist bar in Shreveport.

  "You've made me very happy," I said, which was certainly the truth.

  10

  The pond behind Jason's house had already been searched by the time I got up the next morning. Alcee Beck pounded on my door about ten o'clock, and since it sounded exactly like a lawman knocking, I pulled on my jeans and a sweatshirt before I went to the door.

  "He's not in the pond," Beck said, without preamble.

  I sagged against the doorway. "Oh, thank God." I closed my eyes for a minute to do just that. "Please come in." Alcee Beck stepped over the threshold like a vampire, looking around him silently and with a certain wariness.

  "Would you like some coffee?" I asked politely, when he was seated on the old couch.

  "No, thank you," he said stiffly, as uncomfortable with me as I was with him. I spotted Eric's shirt hanging on the doorknob of my bedroom, not quite visible from where Detective Beck was sitting. Lots of women wear men's shirts, and I told myself not to be paranoid about its presence. Though I tried not to listen to the detective's mind, I could tell that he was uneasy being alone in the house of a white woman, and he was wishing that Andy Bellefleur would get there.

  "Excuse me for a minute," I said, before I yielded to temptation and asked him why Andy was due to arrive. That would shake Alcee Beck to the core. I grabbed the shirt as I went into my room, folded it, and tucked it in a drawer before I brushed my teeth and washed my face. By the time I returned to the living room, Andy had made his appearance. Jason's boss, Catfish Hennessey, was with him. I could feel the blood leaving my head and I sat down very heavily on the ottoman sitting by the couch.

  "What?" I said. I couldn't have uttered another word.

  "The blood on the dock is probably feline blood, and there's a print in it, besides Jason's boot print," said Andy. "We've kept this quiet, because we didn't want those woods crawling with idiots." I could feel myself swaying in an invisible wind. I would have laughed, if I hadn't had the "gift" of telepathy. He wasn't thinking tabby or calico when he said feline; he was thinking panther.

  Panthers were what we called mountain lions. Sure, there aren't mountains around here, but panthers—the oldest men hereabouts called them "painters"—live in low bottomland, too. To the best of my knowledge, the only place panthers could be found in the wild was in Florida, and their numbers were dwindling to the brink of extinction. No solid evidence had been produced to prove that any live native panthers had been living in Louisiana in the past fifty years, give or take a decade.

  But of course, there were stories. And our woods and streams could produce no end of alligators, nutria, possums, coons, and even the occasional black bear or wildcat. Coyotes, too. But there were no pictures, or scat, or print casts, to prove the presence of panthers . . . until now.

  Andy Bellefleur's eyes were hot with longing, but not for me. Any red-blooded male who'd ever gone hunting, or even any P.C. guy who photographed nature, would give almost anything to see a real wild panther. Despite the fact that these large predators were deeply anxious to avoid humans, humans would not return the favor.

  "What are you thinking?" I asked, though I knew damn good and well what they were thinking. But to keep them on an even keel, I had to pretend not to; they'd feel better, and they might let something slip. Catfish was just thinking that Jason was most likely dead. The two lawmen kept fixing me in their gaze, but Catfish, who knew me better than they did, was sitting forward on the edge of Gran's old recliner, his big red hands clasped to each other so hard the knuckles were white.

  "Maybe Jason spotted the panther when he came home that night," Andy said carefully. "You know he'd run and get his rifle and try to track it."

  "They're endangered," I said. "You think Jason doesn't know that panthers are endangered?" Of course, they thought Jason was so impulsive and brainless that he just wouldn't care.

  "Are you sure that would be at the top of his list?" Alcee Beck asked, with an attempt at gentleness.

  "So you think Jason shot the panther," I said, having a little difficulty getting the words out of my mouth.

  "It's a possibility."

  "And then what?" I crossed my arms over my chest.

  All three men exchanged a glance. "Maybe Jason followed the panther into the woods," Andy said. "Maybe the panther wasn't so badly wounded after all, and it got him."

  "You think my brother would trail a wounded and dangerous animal into the woods—at night, by himself." Sure they did. I could read it loud and clear. They thought that would be absolutely typical Jason Stackhouse behavior. What they didn't get was that (reckless and wild as my brother was) Jason's favorite person in the entire universe was Jason Stackhouse, and he would not endanger that person in such an obvious way.

  Andy Bellefleur had some misgivings about this theory, but Alcee Beck sure didn't. He thought I'd outlined Jason's procedure that night exactly. What the two lawmen didn't know, and what I couldn't tell them, was that if Jason had seen a panther at his house that night, the chances were good the panther was actually a shape-shifting human. Hadn't Claudine said that the witches had gathered some of the larger shifters into their fold? A panther would be a valuable animal to have at your side if you were contemplating a hostile takeover.

  "Jay Stans, from Clarice, called me this morning," Andy said. His round face turned toward me and his brown eyes locked on me. "He was telling me about this gal you found by the side of the road last night."

  I nodded, not seeing the connection, and too preoccupied with speculation about the panther to guess what was coming.

  "This girl have any connection to Jason?"

  "What?" I was stunned. "What are you talking about?"

  "You find this girl, this Maria-Star Cooper, by the side of the road. They searched, but they didn't find any trace of an accident."

  I shrugged. "I told them I wasn't sure I could pin the spot down, and they didn't ask me to go looking, after I offered. I'm not real surprised they couldn't find any evidence, not knowing the exact spot. I tried to pin it down, but it was at night, and I was pretty scared. Or she could have just been dumped where I found her." I don't watch the Discovery Channel for nothing.

  "See, what we were thinking," Alcee Beck rumbled, "is that this girl was one of Jason's discards, and maybe he was keeping her somewhere secret? But you let her go when Jason disappeared."

  "Huh?" It was like they were speaking Urdu or something. I couldn't make any sense out of it.

  "With Jason getting arrested under suspicion of those murders last year and all, we wondered if there wasn't some fire under all that smoke."

  "You know who did those killings. He's in jail, unless something's happened that I don't know abou
t. And he confessed." Catfish met my eyes, and his were very uneasy. This line of questioning had my brother's boss all twitchy. Granted, my brother was a little kinky in the sex department (though none of the women he'd kinked with seemed to mind), but the idea of him keeping a sex slave that I had to deal with when he vanished? Oh, come on!

  "He did confess, and he's still in jail," Andy said. Since Andy had taken the confession, I should hope so. "But what if Jason was his accomplice?"

  "Wait a damn minute now," I said. My pot was beginning to boil over. "You can't have it both ways. If my brother is dead out in the woods after chasing a mythical wounded panther, how could he have been holding, what's her name, Maria-Star Cooper, hostage somewhere? You're thinking I've been in on my brother's supposed bondage activities, too? You think I hit her with my car? And then I loaded her in and drove her to the emergency room?"

  We all glared at each other for a long moment. The men were tossing out waves of tension and confusion like they were necklaces at Mardi Gras.

  Then Catfish launched himself off the couch like a bottle rocket. "No," he bellowed. "You guys asked me to come along to break this bad news about the panther to Sookie. No one said anything about this stuff about some girl that got hit by a car! This here is a nice girl." Catfish pointed at me. "No one's going to call her different! Not only did Jason Stackhouse never have to do more than crook his little finger at a girl for her to come running, much less take one hostage and do weird stuff to her, but if you're saying Sookie let this Cooper girl free when Jason didn't come home, and then tried to run over her, well, all I got to say is, you can go straight to hell!"

  God bless Catfish Hennessey is all I had to say.

  Alcee and Andy left soon after, and Catfish and I had a disjointed talk consisting mostly of him cursing the lawmen. When he ran down, he glanced at his watch.

  "Come on, Sookie. You and me got to get to Jason's."

  "Why?" I was willing but bewildered.