“Who said that?” Bill asked, his voice very gentle.
“You looked at me as though I’d done something wrong,” I snapped.
“I’m just doubting my ability to get you in and out without having to kill someone who wants you.”
“You’re being sarcastic.” I still wouldn’t look.
His hand gripped the back of my neck, forced me to turn to him.
“Do I look like I am?” he asked.
His dark eyes were wide and unblinking.
“Ah . . . no,” I admitted.
“Then accept what I say.”
The ride to Shreveport was mostly silent, but not uncomfortably so. Bill played tapes most of the way. He was partial to Kenny G.
Fangtasia, the vampire bar, was located in a suburban shopping area of Shreveport, close to a Sam’s and a Toys ’R’ Us. It was in a shopping strip, which was all closed down at this hour except for the bar. The name of the place was spelled out in jazzy red neon above the door, and the facade was painted steel gray, a red door providing color contrast. Whoever owned the place must have thought gray was less obvious than black because the interior was decorated in the same colors.
I was carded at the door by a vampire. Of course, she recognized Bill as one of her own kind and acknowledged him with a cool nod, but she scanned me intently. Chalky pale, as all Caucasian vampires are, she was eerily striking in her long black dress with its trailing sleeves. I wondered if the overdone “vampire” look was her own inclination, or if she’d just adopted it because the human patrons thought it appropriate.
“I haven’t been carded in years,” I said, fishing in my red purse for my driver’s license. We were standing in a little boxy entrance hall.
“I can no longer tell human ages, and we must be very careful we serve no minors. In any capacity,” she said with what was probably meant to be a genial smile. She cast a sideways look at Bill, her eyes flicking up and down him with an offensive interest. Offensive to me, at least.
“I haven’t seen you in a few months,” she said to him, her voice as cool and sweet as his could be.
“I’m mainstreaming,” he explained, and she nodded.
“WHAT WERE YOU telling her?” I whispered as we walked down the short hall and through the red double doors into the main room.
“That I’m trying to live among humans.”
I wanted to hear more, but then I got my first comprehensive look at Fangtasia’s interior. Everything was in gray, black, and red. The walls were lined with framed pictures of every movie vampire who had shown fangs on the silver screen, from Bela Lugosi to George Hamilton to Gary Old-man, from famous to obscure. The lighting was dim, of course, nothing unusual about that; what was unusual was the clientele. And the posted signs.
The bar was full. The human clients were divided among vampire groupies and tourists. The groupies (fang-bangers, they were called) were dressed in their best finery. It ranged from the traditional capes and tuxes for the men to many Morticia Adams ripoffs among the females. The clothes ranged from reproductions of those worn by Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in Interview with the Vampire to some modern outfits that I thought were influenced by The Hunger. Some of the fang-bangers were wearing false fangs, some had painted trickles of blood from the corners of their mouths or puncture marks on their necks. They were extraordinary, and extraordinarily pathetic.
The tourists looked like tourists anywhere, maybe more adventurous than most. But to enter into the spirit of the bar, they were nearly all dressed in black like the fang-bangers. Maybe it was part of a tour package? “Bring some black for your exciting visit to a real vampire bar! Follow the rules, and you’ll be fine, catching a glimpse of this exotic underworld.”
Strewn among this human assortment, like real jewels in a bin of rhinestones, were the vampires, perhaps fifteen of them. They mostly favored dark clothes, too.
I stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me with interest and amazement and some distaste, and Bill whispered, “You look like a white candle in a coal mine.”
I laughed, and we strolled through the scattered tables to the bar. It was the only bar I’d ever seen that had a case of warmed bottled blood on display. Bill, naturally, ordered one, and I took a deep breath and ordered a gin and tonic. The bartender smiled at me, showing me that his fangs had shot out a little at the pleasure of serving me. I tried to smile back and look modest at the same time. He was an American Indian, with long coal black straight hair and a craggy nose, a straight line of a mouth, and a whippy build.
“How’s it going, Bill?” the bartender asked. “Long time, no see. This your meal for the night?” He nodded toward me as he put our drinks on the bar before us.
“This is my friend Sookie. She has some questions to ask.”
“Anything, beautiful woman,” said the bartender, smiling once again. I liked him better when his mouth was the straight line.
“Have you seen this woman, or this one, in the bar?” I asked, drawing the newspaper photos of Maudette and Dawn from my purse. “Or this man?” With a jolt of misgiving, I pulled out my brother’s picture.
“Yes to the women, no to the man, though he looks delicious,” said the bartender, smiling at me again. “Your brother, perhaps?”
“Yes.”
“What possibilities,” he whispered.
It was lucky I’d had extensive practice in face control. “Do you remember who the women hung around with?”
“That’s something I wouldn’t know,” he replied quickly, his face closing down. “That’s something we don’t notice, here. You won’t, either.”
“Thank you,” I said politely, realizing I’d broken a bar rule. It was dangerous to ask who left with whom, evidently. “I appreciate your taking the time.”
He looked at me consideringly. “That one,” he said, poking a finger at Dawn’s picture, “she wanted to die.”
“How do you know?”
“Everyone who comes here does, to one extent or another,” he said so matter-of-factly I could tell he took that for granted. “That is what we are. Death.”
I shuddered. Bill’s hand on my arm drew me away to a just-vacated booth. Underscoring the Indian’s pronouncement, at regular intervals wall placards proclaimed, “No biting on premises.” “No lingering in the parking lot.” “Conduct your personal business elsewhere.” “Your patronage is appreciated. Proceed at your own risk.”
Bill took the top off the bottle with one finger and took a sip. I tried not to look, failed. Of course he saw my face, and he shook his head.
“This is the reality, Sookie,” he said. “I need it to live.”
There were red stains between his teeth.
“Of course,” I said, trying to match the matter-of-fact tone of the bartender. I took a deep breath. “Do you suppose I want to die, since I came here with you?”
“I think you want to find out why other people are dying,” he said. But I wasn’t sure that was what he really believed.
I didn’t think Bill had yet realized that his personal position was precarious. I sipped my drink, felt the blossoming warmth of the gin spread through me.
A fang-banger approached the booth. I was half-hidden by Bill, but still, they’d all seen me enter with him. She was frizzy-haired and boney, with glasses that she stuffed in a purse as she walked over. She bent across the table to get her mouth about two inches from Bill.
“Hi, dangerous,” she said in what she hoped was a seductive voice. She tapped Bill’s bottled blood with a fingernail painted scarlet. “I have the real stuff.” She stroked her neck to make sure he got the point.
I took a deep breath to control my temper. I had invited Bill to this place; he hadn’t invited me. I could not comment on what he chose to do here, though I had a surprisingly vivid mental image of leaving a slap mark on this hussy’s pale, freckled cheek. I held absolutely still so I wouldn’t give Bill any cues about what I wanted.
“I have a companion,” Bill said gently.<
br />
“She doesn’t have any puncture marks on her neck,” the girl observed, acknowledging my presence with a contemptuous look. She might as well have said “Chicken!” and flapped her arms like wings. I wondered if steam was visibly coming out of my ears.
“I have a companion,” Bill said again, his voice not so gentle this time.
“You don’t know what you’re missing,” she said, her big pale eyes flashing with offense.
“Yes, I do,” he said.
She recoiled as if I’d actually done the slapping, and stomped off to her table.
To my disgust, she was only the first of four. These people, men and women, wanted to be intimate with a vampire, and they weren’t shy about it.
Bill handled all of them with calm aplomb.
“You’re not talking,” he said, after a man of forty had left, his eyes actually tearing up at Bill’s rejection.
“There’s nothing for me to say,” I replied, with great self-control.
“You could have sent them on their way. Do you want me to leave you? Is there someone else here who catches your fancy? Long Shadow, there at the bar, would love to spend time with you, I can tell.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, no!” I wouldn’t have felt safe with any of the other vampires in the bar, would have been terrified they were like Liam or Diane. Bill had turned his dark eyes to me and seemed to be waiting for me to say something else. “I do have to ask them if they’ve seen Dawn and Maudette in here, though.”
“Do you want me with you?”
“Please,” I said, and sounded more frightened than I’d wanted to. I’d meant to ask like it would be a casual pleasure to have his company.
“The vampire over there is handsome; he has scanned you twice,” he said. I almost wondered if he was doing a little tongue biting himself.
“You’re teasing me,” I said uncertainly after a moment.
The vampire he’d indicated was handsome, in fact, radiant; blond and blue-eyed, tall and broad shouldered. He was wearing boots, jeans, and a vest. Period. Kind of like the guys on the cover of romance books. He scared me to death.
“His name is Eric,” said Bill.
“How old is he?”
“Very. He’s the oldest thing in this bar.”
“Is he mean?”
“We’re all mean, Sookie. We’re all very strong and very violent.”
“Not you,” I said. I saw his face close in on itself. “You want to live mainstream. You’re not gonna do antisocial stuff.”
“Just when I think you’re too naive to walk around alone, you say something shrewd,” he said, with a short laugh. “All right, we’ll go talk to Eric.”
Eric, who, it was true, had glanced my way once or twice, was sitting with a female vampire who was just as lovely as he. They’d already repelled several advances by humans. In fact, one lovelorn young man had already crawled across the floor and kissed the female’s boot. She’d stared down at him and kicked him in the shoulder. You could tell it had been an effort for her not to kick him in the face. Tourists flinched, and a couple got up and left hurriedly, but the fang-bangers seemed to take this scene for granted.
At our approach, Eric looked up and scowled until he realized who the intruders were.
“Bill,” he said, nodding. Vampires didn’t seem to shake hands.
Instead of walking right up to the table, Bill stood a careful distance away, and since he was gripping my arm above my elbow, I had to stop, too. This seemed to be the courteous distance with this set.
“Who’s your friend?” asked the female. Though Eric had a slight accent, this woman talked pure American, and her round face and sweet features would have done credit to a milkmaid. She smiled, and her fangs ran out, kind of ruining the image.
“Hi, I’m Sookie Stackhouse,” I said politely.
“Aren’t you sweet,” Eric observed, and I hoped he was thinking of my character.
“Not especially,” I said.
Eric stared at me in surprise for a moment. Then he laughed, and the female did, too.
“Sookie, this is Pam and I am Eric,” the blond vampire said. Bill and Pam gave each other the vampire nod.
There was a pause. I would have spoken, but Bill squeezed my arm.
“My friend Sookie would like to ask a couple of questions,” Bill said.
The seated vampires exchanged bored glances.
Pam said, “Like how long are our fangs, and what kind of coffin do we sleep in?” Her voice was laced with contempt, and you could tell those were tourist questions that she hated.
“No, ma’am,” I said. I hoped Bill wouldn’t pinch my arm off. I thought I was being calm and courteous.
She stared at me with amazement.
What the hell was so startling? I was getting a little tired of this. Before Bill could give me any more painful hints, I opened my purse and took out the pictures. “I’d like to know if you’ve seen either of these women in this bar.” I wasn’t getting Jason’s picture out in front of this female. It would’ve been like putting a bowl of milk in front of a cat.
They looked at the pictures. Bill’s face was blank. Eric looked up. “I have been with this one,” he said coolly, tapping Dawn’s picture. “She liked pain.”
Pam was surprised Eric had answered me, I could tell by her eyebrows. She seemed somehow obligated to follow his example. “I have seen both of them. I have never been with them. This one,” she flicked her finger at Maudette’s picture, “was a pathetic creature.”
“Thank you very much, that’s all of your time I need to take,” I said, and tried to turn to leave. But Bill still held my arm imprisoned.
“Bill, are you quite attached to your friend?” Eric asked. It took a second for the meaning to sink in. Eric the Hunk was asking if I could be borrowed.
“She is mine,” Bill said, but he wasn’t roaring it as he had to the nasty vampires from Monroe. Nonetheless, he sounded pretty darn firm.
Eric inclined his golden head, but he gave me the once-over again. At least he started with my face.
Bill seemed to relax. He bowed to Eric, somehow including Pam in the gesture, backed away for two steps, finally permitting me to turn my back to the couple.
“Gee whiz, what was that about?” I asked in a furious whisper. I’d have a big bruise the next day.
“They’re older than I am by centuries,” Bill said, looking very vampirey.
“Is that the pecking order? By age?”
“Pecking order,” Bill said thoughtfully. “That’s not a bad way to put it.” He almost laughed. I could tell by the way his lip twitched.
“If you had been interested, I would have been obliged to let you go with Eric,” he said, after we’d resumed our seats and had a belt from our drinks.
“No,” I said sharply.
“Why didn’t you say anything when the fang-bangers came to our table trying to seduce me away from you?”
We weren’t operating on the same wave level. Maybe social nuances weren’t something vampires cared about. I was going to have to explain something that couldn’t really bear much explaining.
I made a very unladylike sound out of sheer exasperation.
“Okay,” I said sharply. “Listen up, Bill! When you came to my house, I had to invite you. When you came here with me, I had to invite you. You haven’t asked me out. Lurking in my driveway doesn’t count, and asking me to stop by your house and leave a list of contractors doesn’t count. So it’s always been me asking you. How can I tell you that you have to stay with me, if you want to go? If those girls will let you suck their blood—or that guy, for that matter—then I don’t feel I have a right to stand in your way!”
“Eric is much better looking than I am,” Bill said. “He is more powerful, and I understand sex with him is unforgettable. He is so old he only needs to take a sip to maintain his strength. He almost never kills any more. So, as vampires go, he’s a good guy. You could still go with him. He is still looking at you. He would t
ry his glamor on you if you were not with me.”
“I don’t want to go with Eric,” I said stubbornly.
“I don’t want to go with any of the fang-bangers,” he said.
We sat in silence for a minute or two.
“So we’re all right,” I said obscurely.
“Yes.”
We took a few moments more, thinking this over.
“Want another drink?” he asked.
“Yes, unless you need to get back.”
“No, this is fine.”
He went to the bar. Eric’s friend Pam left, and Eric appeared to be counting my eyelashes. I tried to keep my gaze on my hands, to indicate modesty. I felt power tweaks kind of flow over me and had an uneasy feeling Eric was trying to influence me. I risked a quick peek, and sure enough he was looking at me expectantly. Was I supposed to pull off my dress? Bark like a dog? Kick Bill in the shins? Shit.
Bill came back with our drinks.
“He’s gonna know I’m not normal,” I said grimly. Bill didn’t seem to need an explanation.
“He’s breaking the rules just attempting to glamorize you after I’ve told him you’re mine,” Bill said. He sounded pretty pissed off. His voice didn’t get hotter and hotter like mine would have, but colder and colder.
“You seem to be telling everyone that,” I muttered. Without doing anything about it, I added silently.
“It’s vampire tradition,” Bill explained again. “If I pronounce you mine, no one else can try to feed on you.”
“Feed on me, that’s a delightful phrase,” I said sharply, and Bill actually had an expression of exasperation for all of two seconds.
“I’m protecting you,” he said, his voice not quite as neutral as usual.
“Had it occurred to you that I—”
And I stopped short. I closed my eyes. I counted to ten.
When I ventured a look at Bill, his eyes were fixed on my face, unblinking. I could practically hear the gears mesh.
“You—don’t need protection?” he guessed softly. “You are protecting—me?”
I didn’t say anything. I can do that.
But he took the back of my skull in his hand. He turned my head to him as though I were a puppet. (This was getting to be an annoying habit of his.) He looked so hard into my eyes that I thought I had tunnels burned into my brain.
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