"She doesn't know he's gone."
"Why is that?"
"We haven't told her."
Sooner or later he'd quit answering. "Why not?"
"She would punish us."
"Why?" I was beginning to sound like a two-year-old.
"For letting something happen to Bill, when he was doing a special project for her."
"What would that punishment be?"
"Oh, with her it's difficult to tell." He gave a choked laugh. "Something very unpleasant."
Eric was even closer to me, his face almost touching my hair. He was inhaling, very delicately. Vampires rely on smell, and hearing, much more than sight, though their eyesight is extremely accurate. Eric had had my blood, so he could tell more about my emotions than a vampire who hadn't. All bloodsuckers are students of the human emotional system, since the most successful predators know the habits of their prey.
Eric actually rubbed his cheek against mine. He was like a cat in his enjoyment of contact.
"Eric." He'd given me more information than he knew.
"Mmm?"
"Really, what will the queen do to you if you can't produce Bill on the date her project is due?"
My question got the desired result. Eric pulled away from me and looked down at me with eyes bluer than mine and harder than mine and colder than the Arctic waste.
"Sookie, you really don't want to know," he said. "Producing his work would be good enough. Bill's actual presence would be a bonus."
I returned his look with eyes almost as cold as his. "And what will I get in return for doing this for you?" I asked.
Eric managed to look both surprised and pleased. "If Pam hadn't hinted to you about Bill, his safe return would have been enough and you would have jumped at the chance to help," Eric reminded me.
"But now I know about Lorena."
"And knowing, do you agree to do this for us?"
"Yes, on one condition."
Eric looked wary. "What would that be?" he asked.
"If something happens to me, I want you to take her out."
He gaped at me for at least a whole second before he roared with laughter. "I would have to pay a huge fine," he said when he'd quit chortling. "And I'd have to accomplish it first. That's easier said than done. She's three hundred years old."
"You've told me that what will happen to you if all this comes unraveled would be pretty horrible," I reminded him.
"True."
"You've told me you desperately need me to do this for you."
"True."
"That's what I ask in return."
"You might make a decent vampire, Sookie," Eric said finally. "All right. Done. If anything happens to you, she'll never fuck Bill again."
"Oh, it's not just that."
"No?" Eric looked very skeptical, as well he might.
"It's because she betrayed him."
Eric's hard blue eyes met mine. "Tell me this, Sookie: Would you ask this of me if she were a human?" His wide, thin-lipped mouth, most often amused, was in a serious straight line.
"If she were a human, I'd take care of it myself," I said, and stood to show him to the door.
After Eric had driven away, I leaned against the door and laid my cheek against the wood. Did I mean what I'd told him? I'd long wondered if I were really a civilized person, though I kept striving to be one. I knew that at the moment I'd said I would take care of Lorena myself, I had meant it. There was something pretty savage inside me, and I'd always controlled it. My grandmother had not raised me to be a murderess.
As I plodded down the hall to my bedroom, I realized that my temper had been showing more and more lately. Ever since I'd gotten to know the vampires.
I couldn't figure out why that should be. They exerted tremendous control over themselves. Why should mine be slipping?
But that was enough introspection for one night.
I had to think about tomorrow.
Chapter Four
Since it seemed I was going out of town, there was laundry to be done, and stuff in the refrigerator that needed throwing away. I wasn't particularly sleepy after spending so long in bed the preceding day and night, so I got out my suitcase, opened it, and tossed some clothes into the washer out on the freezing back porch. I didn't want to think about my own character any longer. I had plenty of other items to mull over.
Eric had certainly adopted a shotgun approach to bending me to his will. He'd bombarded me with many reasons to do what he wanted: intimidation, threat, seduction, an appeal for Bill's return, an appeal for his (and Pam's, and Chow's) life and/or well-being-to say nothing of my own health. "I might have to torture you, but I want to have sex with you; I need Bill, but I'm furious with him because he deceived me; I have to keep peace with Russell Edgington, but I have to get Bill back from him; Bill is my serf, but he's secretly working more for my boss."
Darn vampires. You can see why I'm glad their glamour doesn't affect me. It's one of the few positives my mind-reading ability has yielded me. Unfortunately, humans with psychic glitches are very attractive to the undead.
I certainly could not have foreseen any of this when I'd become attached to Bill. Bill had become almost as necessary to me as water; and not entirely because of my deep feelings for him, or my physical pleasure in his lovemaking. Bill was the only insurance I had against being annexed by another vampire, against my will.
After I'd run a couple of loads through the washer and dryer and folded the clothes, I felt much more relaxed. I was almost packed, and I'd put in a couple of romances and a mystery in case I got a little time to read. I am self-educated from genre books.
I stretched and yawned. There was a certain peace of mind to be found in having a plan, and my uneasy sleep of the past day and night had not refreshed me as much as I thought. I might be able to fall asleep easily.
Even without help from the vampires, I could maybe find Bill, I thought, as I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. But breaking him out of whatever prison he was in and making a successful escape, that was another question. And then I'd have to decide what to do about our relationship.
I woke up at about four in the morning with an odd feeling there was an idea just waiting to be acknowledged. I'd had a thought at some point during the night; it was the kind of idea that you just know has been bubbling in your brain, waiting to boil over.
Sure enough, after a minute the idea resurfaced. What if Bill had not been abducted, but had defected? What if he'd become so enamored or addicted to Lorena that he'd decided to leave the Louisiana vampires and join with the Mississippi group? Immediately, I had doubts that that had been Bill's plan; it would be a very elaborate one, with the leakage of informants to Eric concerning Bill's abduction, the confirmed presence of Lorena in Mississippi. Surely there'd be a less dramatic, and simpler, way to arrange his disappearance.
I wondered if Eric, Chow, and Pam were even now searching Bill's house, which lay across the cemetery from mine. They weren't going to find what they were looking for. Maybe they'd come back here. They wouldn't have to get Bill back at all, if they could find the computer files the queen wanted so badly. I fell to sleep out of sheer exhaustion, thinking I heard Chow laugh outside.
Even the knowledge of Bill's betrayal did not stop me from searching for him in my dreams. I must have rolled over three times, reaching out to see if he'd slid into bed with me, as he often did. And every time, the other side of the bed was empty and cold.
However, that was better than finding Eric there instead.
I was up and showering at first light, and I'd made a pot of coffee before the knock at the front door came.
"Who is it?" I stood to one side of the door as I asked.
"Eric sent me," a gruff voice said.
I opened the door and looked up. And looked up some more.
He was huge. His eyes were green. His tousled hair was curly and thick and black as pitch. His brain buzzed and pulsed with energy; kind of a red effect. Werewolf.
"Come on in. You want some coffee?"
Whatever he'd expected, it wasn't what he was seeing. "You bet, chere. You got some eggs? Some sausage?"
"Sure." I led him to the kitchen. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse," I said, over my shoulder. I bent over to get the eggs out of the refrigerator. "You?"
"Alcide," he said, pronouncing it Al-see, with the d barely sounded. "Alcide Herveaux."
He watched me steadily while I lifted out the skillet-my grandmother's old, blackened iron skillet. She'd gotten it when she got married, and fired it, like any woman worth her salt would do. Now it was perfectly seasoned. I turned the gas eye on at the stove. I cooked the sausage first (for the grease), plopped it on a paper towel on a plate and stuck it in the oven to keep warm. After asking Alcide how he wanted the eggs, I scrambled them and cooked them quickly, sliding them onto the warm plate. He opened the right drawer for the silverware on the first try, and poured himself some juice and coffee after I silently pointed out which cabinet contained the cups. He refilled my mug while he was at it.
He ate neatly. And he ate everything.
I plunged my hands into the hot, soapy water to clean the few dishes. I washed the skillet last, dried it, and rubbed some Crisco into the blackness, taking occasional glances at my guest. The kitchen smelled comfortably of breakfast and soapy water. It was a peculiarly peaceful moment.
This was anything but what I had expected when Eric had told me someone who owed him a favor would be my entree into the Mississippi vampire milieu. As I looked out the kitchen window at the cold landscape, I realized that this was how I had envisioned my future; on the few occasions I'd let myself imagine a man sharing my house.
This was the way life was supposed to be, for normal people. It was morning, time to get up and work, time for a woman to cook breakfast for a man, if he had to go out and earn. This big rough man was eating real food. He almost certainly had a pickup truck sitting out in front of my house.
Of course, he was a werewolf. But a Were could live a more close-to-human life than a vampire.
On the other hand, what I didn't know about Weres could fill a book.
He finished, put his plate in the water in the sink, and washed and dried it himself while I wiped the table. It was as smooth as if we'd choreographed it. He disappeared into the bathroom for a minute while I ran over my mental list of things that had to be done before I left. I needed to talk to Sam, that was the main thing. I'd called my brother the night before to tell him I'd be gone for a few days. Liz had been at Jason's, so he hadn't really thought a lot about my departure. He'd agreed to pick up my mail and my papers for me.
Alcide came to sit opposite me at the table. I was trying to think about how we should talk about our joint task; I was trying to anticipate any sore paws I might tread on. Maybe he was worrying about the same things. I can't read the minds of shape-shifters or werewolves with any consistency; they're supernatural creatures. I can reliably interpret moods, and pick up on the occasional clear idea. So the humans-with-a-difference are much less opaque to me than the vampires. Though I understand there's a contingent of shape-shifters and Weres who wants to change things, the fact of their existence still remains a secret. Until they see how publicity works out for the vampires, the supernaturals of the two-natured variety are ferocious about their privacy.
Werewolves are the tough guys of the shape-shifting world. They're shape-shifters by definition, but they're the only ones who have their own separate society, and they will not allow anyone else to be called "Were" in their hearing. Alcide Herveaux looked plenty tough. He was big as a boulder, with biceps that I could do pull-ups on. He would have to shave a second time if he planned on going out in the evening. He would fit right in on a construction site or a wharf.
He was a proper man.
"How are they forcing you to do this?" I asked.
"They have a marker of my dad's," he said. He put his massive hands on the table and leaned into them. "They own a casino in Shreveport, you know?"
"Sure." It was a popular weekend excursion for people in this area, to go over to Shreveport or up to Tunica (in Mississippi, right below Memphis) and rent a room for a couple of nights, play the slots, see a show or two, eat lots of buffet food.
"My dad got in too deep. He owns a surveying company-I work for him-but he likes to gamble." The green eyes smoldered with rage. "He got in too deep in the casino in Louisiana, so your vamps own his marker, his debt. If they call it in, our company will go under." Werewolves seemed to respect vampires about as much as vampires respect them. "So, to get the marker back, I have to help you hang around with the vamps in Jackson." He leaned back in the chair, looking me in the eyes. "That's not a hard thing, taking a pretty woman to Jackson and out barhopping. Now that I've met you, I'm glad to do it, to get my father out from under the debt. But why the hell you want to do that? You look like a real woman, not one of those sick bitches who get off on hanging around the vamps."
This was a refreshingly direct conversation, after my conference with the vampires. "I only hang around with one vampire, by choice," I said bitterly. "Bill, my-well, I don't know if he's even my boyfriend anymore. It seems the vampires of Jackson may have kidnapped him. Someone tried to grab me last night." I thought it only fair to let him know. "Since the kidnapper didn't seem to know my name, just that I worked at Merlotte's, I'll probably be safe in Jackson if no one figures out I'm the woman who goes with Bill. I have to tell you, the man who tried to grab me was a werewolf. And he had a Hinds County car plate." Jackson was in Hinds County.
"Wearing a gang vest?" Alcide asked. I nodded. Alcide looked thoughtful, which was a good thing. This was not a situation I took lightly, and it was a good sign that he didn't, either. "There's a small gang in Jackson made up of Weres. Some of the bigger shifters hang around the edges of this gang-the panther, the bear. They hire themselves out to the vamps on a pretty regular basis."
"There's one less of them now," I said.
After a moment's digestion of that information, my new companion gave me a long, challenging stare. "So, what good is a little human gal going to do against the vampires of Jackson? You a martial artist? You a great shot? You been in the Army?"
I had to smile. "No. You never heard my name?"
"You're famous?"
"Guess not." I was pleased that he didn't have any preconceptions about me. "I think I'll just let you find out about me."
"Long as you're not gonna turn into a snake." He stood up. "You're not a guy, are you?" That late-breaking thought made his eyes widen.
"No, Alcide. I'm a woman." I tried to say that matter-of-factly, but it was pretty hard.
"I was willing to put money on that." He grinned at me. "If you're not some kind of superwoman, what are you going to do when you know where your man is?"
"I'm going to call Eric, the …" Suddenly I realized that telling vampire secrets is a bad idea. "Eric is Bill's boss. He'll decide what to do after that."
Alcide looked skeptical. "I don't trust Eric. I don't trust any of 'em. He'll probably double-cross you."
"How?"
"He might use your man as leverage. He might demand restitution, since they have one of his men. He might use your man's abduction as an excuse to go to war, in which case your man will be executed tout de suite."
I had not thought that far. "Bill knows stuff," I said. "Important stuff."
"Good. That may keep him alive." Then he saw my face, and chagrin ran across his own. "Hey, Sookie, I'm sorry. I don't think before I talk sometimes. We'll get him back, though it makes me sick to think of a woman like you with one of those bloodsuckers."
This was painful, but oddly refreshing.
"Thanks, I guess," I said, attempting a smile. "What about you? Do you have a plan about how to introduce me to the vampires?"
"Yeah. There's a nightclub in Jackson, close to the capitol. It's for Supes and their dates only. No tourists. The vamps can't make it pay on their own, and it's a convenient meeting pla
ce for them, so they let us low-lifes share the fun." He grinned. His teeth were perfect-white and sharp. "It won't be suspicious if I go there. I always drop in when I'm in Jackson. You'll have to go as my date." He looked embarrassed. "Uh, I better tell you, you seem like you're a jeans kind of person like me-but this club, they like you to dress kind of party style." He feared I had no fancy dresses in my closet; I could read that clearly. And he didn't want me to be humiliated by appearing in the wrong clothes. What a man.
"Your girlfriend won't be crazy about this," I said, angling for information out of sheer curiosity.
"She lives in Jackson, as a matter of fact. But we broke up a couple of months ago," he said. "She took up with another shape-shifter. Guy turns into a damn owl."
Was she nuts? Of course, there'd be more to the story. And of course, it fell into the category of "none of your business."
So without comment, I went to my room to pack my two party dresses and their accessories in a hanging bag. Both were purchases from Tara's Togs, managed (and now owned) by my friend Tara Thornton. Tara was real good about calling me when things went on clearance. Bill actually owned the building that housed Tara's Togs, and had told all the businesses housed in there to run a tab for me that he would pay, but I had resisted the temptation. Well, except for replacing clothes that Bill himself had ripped in our more thrilling moments.
I was very proud of both these dresses, since I'd never had anything like them before, and I zipped the bag shut with a smile.
Alcide stuck his head in the bedroom to ask if I was ready. He looked at the cream-and-yellow bed and curtains, and nodded approvingly. "I got to call my boss," I said. "Then we'll be good to go." I perched on the side of the bed and picked up the receiver.
Alcide propped himself against the wall by my closet door while I dialed Sam's personal number. His voice was sleepy when he answered, and I apologized for calling so early. "What's happening, Sookie?" he asked groggily.
"I have to go away for a few days," I said. "I'm sorry for not giving you more notice, but I called Sue Jennings last night to see if she'd work for me. She said yes, so I gave her my hours."
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