Dead in the Family ss-10

by Charlaine Harris

  “Should we cover him back up?” Jason said.

  “If they’re sending a crew to get him, that seems like wasted effort,” I said. “Eric, I’m so glad you sent Heidi. Otherwise. ” I thought hard. “Listen, if he was buried on my land, it was so he could be found here, right? So there’s no telling when someone’s going to get a tip to come looking for him.”

  The only one who seemed to follow my reasoning was Jason, who said, “Okay, we got to get him out of here.”

  I was flapping my hands in the air, I was so anxious. “We’ve got to put him somewhere,” I said. “We could just set him in the cemetery!”

  “Naw, too close,” Jason said.

  “What about the pond behind your house?” I said.

  “Naw, dammit! The fish! I couldn’t ever eat those fish again.”

  “Aaargh,” I said. Really!

  “Is your time with her usually like this?” Appius Livius asked Eric, who was smart enough not to answer.

  “Sookie,” he said. “It won’t be pleasant, but I think I can fly carrying him if you can suggest a good place to put him.”

  I felt like my brain was running through a maze and hitting all the dead ends. I actually smacked myself on the side of the head to jog an idea loose. It worked. “Sure, Eric. Put him in the woods right across the road from my driveway. There’s a little bit of a driveway left there, but no house. The Weres can use the driveway as a marker when they come to retrieve him. Cause someone’s coming to find him, and coming soon.”

  Without further discussion, Eric leaped into the hole and rewrapped Basim in the sheet or whatever the wrapping was. Though the lantern showed me his face was full of disgust, he scooped up the decomposing body and leaped into the air. He was out of view in a second.

  “Damn,” said Jason, impressed. “Cool.”

  “Let’s fill in this grave,” I said. We set to work, with Appius Livius watching. It obviously didn’t occur to him that his help would make the job go much faster. Even Alexei shoved in piles of dirt, and he seemed to be having a pretty good time doing it. This was probably as close to a normal activity as the thirteen-year-old had come in some time. Gradually, the hole filled in. It still looked like a grave. The tsarevitch tore at the hard edges with his small hands. I almost protested, but then I saw what he was doing. He reconfigured the grave-shaped dent until it looked like an irregular dent, maybe created by rain or a collapsed mole tunnel. He beamed at us when he’d finished, and Jason clapped him on the back. Jason got a branch and swept it over the area, and then we tossed leaves and branches around. Alexei enjoyed that part, too.

  Finally, we gave up. I couldn’t think of one more thing to do.

  Filthy and frightened, I shouldered one of the shovels and prepared to make my way through the woods. Jason took the other shovel in his right hand, and Alexei took Jason’s left hand, as if he were even younger than the child he looked. My brother, though his face was a picture, kept hold of the vampire. Appius Livius at last made himself useful by leading us through the trees and undergrowth with some assurance.

  Eric was at the house when we reached it. He’d already thrown his clothes into the garbage and gotten into the shower. Under other circumstances, I would have loved to join him, but it just wasn’t possible to feel sexy at the moment. I was grimy and nasty, but I was still the hostess, so I heated up some more TrueBlood for the two visiting vampires and showed them the downstairs bathroom in case they wanted to wash up.

  Jason came into the kitchen to tell me that he was going to shove off.

  “Let me know when the meeting is,” he said in a subdued way. “And I gotta report all this to Calvin, you know.”

  “I understand,” I said, weary to death of politics of all kinds. I wondered if America knew what it was in for when it considered requiring the two-natured to register. America was really better off not having to go through this crap. Human politics were tedious enough.

  Jason went out the back door. A second later, I heard his truck roaring away. Almost as soon as Appius Livius and Alexei had had their drinks, Eric came out of my bedroom in fresh clothes (he kept a change at my house) and smelling very much like my apricot body wash. With his maker around, Eric could hardly have a heart-to-heart with me, assuming he wanted to. He wasn’t exactly acting like my honey now that his dad was in the house. There could be several reasons for this. I didn’t like any of them.

  Soon afterward, the three vampires left for Shreveport. Appius Livius thanked me for my hospitality in such an impassive way that I had no idea whether he was being sarcastic. Eric was as silent as a stone. Alexei, as calm and smiling as if he’d never gone mad, gave me a cold embrace. I had a hard time accepting it with equal calm.

  Three seconds after they were out the door, I was on the phone.

  “Fangtasia, where all your bloody dreams come true,” said a bored female voice.

  “Pam. Listen.”

  “The phone is pressed to my ear. Speak.”

  “Appius Livius Ocella just dropped in.”

  “Fuck a zombie!”

  I wasn’t sure that I’d heard that correctly. “Yes, he’s been here. I guess he’s your granddad? Anyway, he’s got a new protégé with him, and they’re heading for Eric’s to spend the day.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He hasn’t said yet.”

  “How is Eric?”

  “Very tightly wound. Plus, a lot of stuff happened that he’ll tell you about.”

  “Thanks for the warning. I’ll go to the house now. You’re my favorite breather.”

  “Oh. Well. great.”

  She hung up. I wondered what preparations she would make. Would the vamps and humans who worked at the Shreveport night-club go into a cleaning frenzy at Eric’s? I’d only seen Pam and Bobby Burnham there, though I assumed some of the crew came in from time to time. Would Pam rush some willing humans over to act as bedtime snacks?

  I was too tense to think about going to bed. Whatever Eric’s maker was doing here, it wasn’t something I was going to like. And I already knew Appius Livius’s presence was bad for our relationship. While I was in the shower—and before I picked up the wet towels Eric had left on the floor—I did some serious thinking.

  Vampire plotting can be pretty convoluted. But I tried to imagine the significance of the Roman’s surprise visit. Surely he hadn’t shown up in America, in Louisiana, in Shreveport, just to catch up on the geezer gossip.

  Maybe he needed a loan. That wouldn’t be too bad. Eric could always make more money. Though I had no idea how Eric stood financially, I had a little nest egg in the bank since Sophie-Anne’s estate had paid up the money she’d owed me. And whatever Claudine had had in her checking account would be coming to join it. If Eric needed it, he could have it.

  But what if money wasn’t the issue? Maybe Appius Livius needed to hole up because he’d gotten in trouble somewhere else. Maybe some Bolshevik vampires were after Alexei! That would be interesting. I could always hope they’d catch up with Appius Livius. as long as it wasn’t at Eric’s house.

  Or perhaps Eric’s maker had been courted by Felipe de Castro or Victor Madden because they wanted something from Eric that he hadn’t given up yet, and they planned on using Eric’s maker to pull his strings.

  But here was my most likely scenario: Appius Livius Ocella had dropped by with his “new” boy toy just to mess with Eric’s head. That was the guess I was putting my money on. Appius Livius was hard to read. At moments he seemed okay. He seemed to care about Eric, and he seemed to care about Alexei. As for Eric’s maker’s relationship with Alexei—the boy would have died if Appius Livius hadn’t intervened. Given the circumstances—Alexei’s witnessing the murders of his entire family and their servants and friends—letting the tsarevitch die might have been a blessing.

  I was sure Appius Livius was having sex with Alexei, but it was impossible to tell whether Alexei’s passive demeanor came from the fact that he was in an unwanted sexual relationship or fro
m his being permanently traumatized from seeing his family shot multiple times. I shuddered. I dried off and brushed my teeth, hoping I could sleep.

  I realized there was another phone call I should make. With great reluctance, I called Bobby Burnham, Eric’s daytime guy. Bobby and I had never liked each other. Bobby was weirdly jealous of me, though he didn’t have the hots for Eric sexually at all. In Bobby’s opinion, I diverted Eric’s attention and energy away from its proper focus, which was Bobby and the business affairs he handled for Eric while Eric slept the day away. I was down on Bobby because instead of silently disliking me, he actively tried to make my life more difficult, which was a whole different kettle of fish. But still, we were both in the Eric business.

  “Bobby, it’s Sookie.”

  “I got caller ID.”

  Mr. Sullen. “Bobby, I think you ought to know that Eric’s maker is in town. When you go over to get your instructions, be careful.” Bobby normally got briefed right before Eric went to ground for the day, unless Eric stayed over at my place.

  Bobby took his time with his reply—probably trying to figure out if I was playing some elaborate practical joke on him. “Is he likely to want to bite me?” he asked. “The maker?”

  “I don’t know what he’s going to want, Bobby. I just felt like I ought to give you a heads-up.”

  “Eric won’t let him hurt me,” Bobby said confidently.

  “Just as general information—if this guy says jump, Eric has to ask how high.”

  “No way,” Bobby said. To Bobby, Eric was the most powerful creature under the moon.

  “Way. They gotta mind their maker. This is no lie.”

  Bobby had to have heard that news item before. I know there’s some kind of website or message board for vampires’ human assistants. I’m sure they swap all kinds of handy hints about dealing with their employers. Whatever the reason, Bobby didn’t argue or accuse me of trying to deceive him, which was a nice change.

  “Okay,” he said, “I’m ready for ’em. Was. What kind of person is Eric’s maker?”

  “He’s not much like a person at all anymore,” I said. “And he’s got a thirteen-year-old boyfriend who used to be Russian royalty.”

  After a long silence, Bobby said, “Thanks. It’s good to be prepared.”

  That was the nicest thing he’d ever said to me.

  “You’re welcome. Good night, Bobby,” I said, and we hung up. We’d managed to have an entire civil conversation. Vampires, bringing America together!

  I changed into a nightshirt and crawled into bed. I had to try to get some sleep, but it took its own sweet time coming. I kept seeing the light from the lantern dance across the clearing in the woods as the dirt mounded up around the edges of Basim’s grave. And I saw the dead Were’s face. But eventually, finally, the edges of that face blurred and darkness slid over me.

  I slept late and heavily the next day. The minute I woke, I knew someone was in the kitchen cooking. I let my extra sense check it out, and I found that Claude was frying bacon and eggs. There was coffee in the pot, and I didn’t need telepathy to know that. I could smell it. The perfume of morning.

  After a trip to the bathroom, I stumbled into the hall and made my way into the kitchen. Claude was sitting at the table eating, and I could see there was enough coffee in the pot for me.

  “There’s food,” he said, pointing to the stove.

  I got a plate and a mug, and settled in for a good start to my day. I glanced over at the clock. It was Sunday, and Merlotte’s wouldn’t be open until the afternoon. Sam was trying Sundays again in a limited way, though the whole staff half hoped it wouldn’t be profitable. As Claude and I ate in a companionable silence, I realized I felt wonderfully peaceful because Eric was in his day sleep. That meant I didn’t have to feel him walking around with me. His problematic sire and his new “brother” were out of it, too. I sighed with relief.

  “I saw Dermot last night,” Claude said.

  Crap! Well, so much for peace. “Where?” I asked.

  “He was at the club. Staring at me with longing,” Claude said.

  “Dermot’s gay?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t my dick he was thinking of. He wanted to be around another fairy.”

  “I sure hoped he was gone. Niall told Jason and me that Dermot helped kill my parents. I wish he’d gone into the fae land when it was closing up.”

  “He would have been killed on sight.” Claude took the time to sip some coffee before he added, “No one in the fae world understands Dermot’s actions. He should have sided with Niall from the beginning, because he’s kin and because he’s half-human and Niall wanted to spare humans. But his own self-loathing—or at least that’s all I can imagine—led him to take the side of the fairies who really couldn’t stand him, and that side lost.” Claude looked happy. “So Dermot has cut off his own nose to spite his face. I love that saying. Sometimes humans put things very well.”

  “Do you think he still means to hurt my brother and me?”

  “I don’t think he ever intended to hurt you,” Claude said, after thinking it over. “I think Dermot is crazy, though he used to be an agreeable guy a few score years ago. I don’t know if it’s his human side that’s gone batshit, or his fae side that’s soaked up too many toxins from the human world. I can’t even explain his part in killing your parents. The Dermot I used to know would never have done such a thing.”

  I considered pointing out that truly crazy people can hurt others around them without meaning to, or without even realizing they’re doing it. But I didn’t. Dermot was my great-uncle, and according to everyone who’d met him, he was nearly a dead ringer for my brother. I admitted to myself I was curious about him. And I wondered about what Niall had said about Dermot having been the one who’d opened the truck doors so my parents could be pulled out and drowned by Neave and Lochlan. Dermot’s behavior, the bit that I’d observed, didn’t gibe with the horror of that incident. Would Dermot think of me as kin? Were Jason and I fae enough to attract him? I had doubted Bill’s assertion that he felt better from my nearness because of my fairy blood.

  “Claude, can you tell I’m not entirely human? How do I register on the fairy meter?” Fae-dar.

  “If you were in a crowd of humans, I could pick you out blindfolded and say you are my kin,” Claude said without hesitation. “But if you were in the middle of the fae, I would call you human. It’s an elusive scent. Most vamps would think, ‘She smells good,’ and they’d enjoy being close to you. That would be the extent of it. Once they know you have fairy blood, they can attribute that enjoyment to it.”

  So Bill really could be comforted by my little streak of fae, at least now that he knew how to identify it. I got up to rinse off my plate and pour another mugful of coffee, and in passing I grabbed Claude’s empty plate, too. He didn’t thank me.

  “I appreciate your cooking,” I said. “We haven’t talked about how we’ll handle grocery expenses or household items.”

  Claude looked surprised. “I hadn’t thought about it,” he said.

  Well, at least that was honest. “I’ll tell you how Amelia and I did it,” I said, and in a few sentences I laid out the guidelines. Looking a little stunned, Claude agreed.

  I opened the refrigerator. “These two shelves are yours,” I said, “and the rest are mine.”

  “I get it,” he said.

  Somehow I doubted that. Claude sounded like he was simply trying to give the impression that he understood and agreed. There was a good chance we’d have to have this conversation again. When he’d left to go upstairs, I took care of the dishes—after all, he’d cooked—and after I got dressed, I thought I’d read for a while. But I was too restless to concentrate on my book.

  I heard cars coming down the driveway through the woods. I looked out the front window. Two police cars.

  I’d been sure this was coming. But my heart sank down to my toes. Sometimes I hated being right. Whoever had killed Basim had planted his bod
y on my land to implicate me in his death. “Claude,” I called up the stairs. “Get decent, if you’re not. The police are here.”

  Claude, curious as ever, came down the stairs at a trot. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, like me. We went out on the front porch. Bud Dearborn, the sheriff (the regular human sheriff), was in the first car, and Andy Bellefleur and Alcee Beck were in the second. The sheriff and two detectives—I must be a dangerous criminal.

  Bud got out of his car slowly, the way he did most things these days. I knew from his thoughts that Bud was increasingly a victim to arthritis, and he had some doubts about his prostate, too. Bud’s mashed-in face didn’t give any hint about his physical discomfort as he came up to the porch, his heavy belt creaking with the weight of all the things hanging from it.

  “Bud, what’s up?” I asked. “Not that I’m not glad to see you-all.”

  “Sookie, we got an anonymous phone call,” Bud said. “As you know, law enforcement couldn’t solve much without anonymous tips, but I personally don’t respect a person who won’t tell you who they are.”

  I nodded.

  “Who’s your friend?” Andy asked. He looked worn. I’d heard his grandmother, who’d raised him, was on her deathbed. Poor Andy. He’d much rather be there than here. Alcee Beck, the other detective, really didn’t like me. He never had, and his dislike had found a good foundation to settle on—his wife had been attacked by a Were who was trying to get to me. Even though I’d taken the guy out, Alcee was down on me. Maybe he was one of the rare people repulsed by my trace of fairy blood, but more likely, he just didn’t care for me. There was no point in trying to win him over. I gave him a nod, which he did not return.

  “This here is my cousin Claude Crane from Monroe,” I said.

  “How’s he related?” Andy asked. All three of these men knew the skein of blood ties that bound together practically the whole parish.

  “It’s kind of embarrassing,” Claude said. (Nothing would embarrass Claude, but he gave a good imitation.) “I’m from what you call the wrong side of the blanket.”