Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set

by Charlaine Harris

  I had a stab of genuine anxiety. I thought, Tanya and Sam could change together. Sam would enjoy that. He could even change into a fox himself, if he wanted to.

  It was a huge effort to smile at my customers after I’d had that idea. I was ashamed when I realized I should be happy to see someone interested in Sam, someone who could appreciate his true nature. It didn’t say much for me that I wasn’t happy at all. But she wasn’t good enough for him, and I’d warned him about her.

  Tanya returned from the hallway leading to Sam’s office and went out the front door, not looking as confident as she’d gone in. I smiled at her back. Ha! Sam came out to pull beers. He didn’t seem nearly as cheerful.

  That wiped the smile off my face. While I served Sheriff Bud Dearborn and Alcee Beck their lunch (Alcee glowering at me all the while), I worried about that. I decided to take a peek in Sam’s head, because I was getting better at aiming my talent in certain ways. It was also easier to block it off and keep it out of my everyday activities now that I’d bonded with Eric, though I hated to admit that. It’s not nice to flit around in someone else’s thoughts, but I’ve always been able to do it, and it was just second nature.

  I know that’s a lame excuse. But I was used to knowing, not to wondering. Shifters are harder to read than regular people, and Sam was hard even for a shifter, but I got that he was frustrated, uncertain, and thoughtful.

  Then I was horrified at my own audacity and lack of manners. Sam had risked his life for me the night before. He had saved my life. And here I was, rummaging around in his head like a kid in a box full of toys. Shame made my cheeks flush, and I lost the thread of what the gal at my table was saying until she asked me gently if I felt all right. I snapped out of it and focused and took her order for chili and crackers and a glass of sweet tea. Her friend, a woman in her fifties, asked for a hamburger Lafayette and a side salad. I got her choice of dressing and beer, and shot off to the hatch to turn in the order. I nodded at the tap when I stood by Sam, and he handed me the beer a second later. I was too rattled to talk to him. He shot me a curious glance.

  I was glad to leave the bar when my shift was up. Holly and I turned over to Arlene and Danielle, and grabbed our purses. We emerged into near-darkness. The security lights were already on. It was going to rain later, and clouds obscured the stars. We could hear Carrie Underwood singing on the jukebox, faintly. She wanted Jesus to take the wheel. That seemed like a real good idea.

  We stood by our cars for a moment in the parking lot. The wind was blowing, and it was downright chilly.

  “I know Jason is Hoyt’s best friend,” Holly said. Her voice sounded uncertain, and though her face was hard to decipher, I knew she wasn’t sure I’d want to hear what she was going to say. “I’ve always liked Hoyt. He was a good guy in high school. I guess—I hope you don’t really get mad at me—I guess what stopped me from dating him earlier was his being so tight with Jason.”

  I didn’t know how to respond. “You don’t like Jason,” I said finally.

  “Oh, sure, I like Jason. Who doesn’t? But is he good for Hoyt? Can Hoyt be happy if that cord between them is weaker? ’Cause I can’t think about getting closer to Hoyt unless I believe he can stick with me the way he’s always stuck with Jason. You can see what I mean.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I love my brother. But I know Jason isn’t really in the habit of thinking about the welfare of other people.” And that was putting it mildly.

  Holly said, “I like you. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But I figured you’d know, anyway.”

  “Yeah, I kinda did,” I said. “I like you, too, Holly. You’re a good mother. You’ve worked hard to take care of your kid. You’re on good terms with your ex. But what about Danielle? I would’ve said you were as tight with her as Hoyt is with Jason.” Danielle was another divorced mother, and she and Holly had been thick as thieves since they were in first grade. Danielle had more of a support system than Holly. Danielle’s mother and father were still hale and were very glad to help out with her two kids. Danielle had been going with a guy for some time now, too.

  “I would never have said anything could come between Danielle and me, Sookie.” Holly pulled on her Windbreaker and fished for her keys in the depths of her purse. “But her and me, we’ve parted ways a little bit. We still see each other for lunch sometimes, and our kids still play together.” Holly sighed heavily. “I don’t know. When I got interested in something other than the world here in Bon Temps, the world we grew up in, Danielle started thinking there was something a little wrong with that, with my curiosity. When I decided to become a Wiccan, she hated that, still does hate it. If she knew about the Weres, if she knew what had happened to me . . .” A shapeshifting witch had tried to force Eric to give her a piece of his financial enterprises. She’d forced all the local witches she could round up into helping her, including an unwilling Holly. “That whole thing changed me,” Holly said now.

  “It does, doesn’t it? Dealing with the supes.”

  “Yeah. But they’re part of our world. Someday everyone will know that. Someday . . . the whole world will be different.”

  I blinked. This was unexpected. “What do you mean?”

  “When they all come out,” Holly said, surprised at my lack of insight. “When they all come out and admit their existence. Everyone, everyone in the world, will have to adjust. But some people won’t want to. Maybe there’ll be a backlash. Wars maybe. Maybe the Weres will fight all the other shifters, or maybe the humans will attack the Weres and the vampires. Or the vampires—you know they don’t like the wolves worth a durn—they’ll wait until some fine night, and then they’ll kill them all and get the humans to say thank you.”

  She had a touch of the poet in her, did Holly. And she was quite a visionary, in a doom-ridden way. I’d had no idea Holly was that deep, and I was again ashamed of myself. Mind readers shouldn’t be taken by surprise like that. I’d tried so hard to stay out of people’s minds that I was missing important cues.

  “All of that, or none of that,” I said. “Maybe people will just accept it. Not in every country. I mean, when you think of what happened to the vampires in eastern Europe and some of South America . . .”

  “The pope never sorted that one out,” Holly commented.

  I nodded. “Kind of hard to know what to say, I guess.” Most churches had had (excuse me) a hell of a time deciding on a scriptural and theological policy toward the undead. The Were announcement would sure add another wrinkle to that. They were definitely alive, no doubt about it. . . . But they had almost too much life, as opposed to already having died once.

  I shifted my feet. I hadn’t intended on standing out here and solving the world’s problems and speculating on the future. I was still tired from the night before. “I’ll see you, Holly. Maybe you and me and Amelia can go to the movies in Clarice some night?”

  “Sure,” she said, a little surprised. “That Amelia, she doesn’t think much of my craft, but at least we can talk the talk a little.”

  Too late, I had a conviction the threesome wouldn’t work out, but what the hell. We could give it a try.

  I drove home wondering if anyone would be there waiting for me. The answer came when I parked beside Pam’s car at the back door. Pam drove a conservative car, of course, a Toyota with a Fangtasia bumper sticker. I was only surprised it wasn’t a minivan.

  Pam and Amelia were watching a DVD in the living room. They were sitting on the couch but not exactly twined around each other. Bob was curled up in my recliner. There was a bowl of popcorn on Amelia’s lap and a bottle of TrueBlood in Pam’s hand. I stepped around so I could see what they were watching. Underworld. Hmmm.

  “Kate Beckinsale is hot,” Amelia said. “Hey, how was work?”

  “Okay,” I said. “Pam, how come you have two evenings off in a row?”

  “I deserve it,” Pam said. “I haven’t had time off in two years. Eric agreed I was due. How do you think I would look in that black outfit?�
�

  “Oh, as good as Beckinsale,” Amelia said, and turned her head to smile at Pam. They were at the ooey-gooey stage. Considering my own complete lack of ooey, I didn’t want to be around.

  “Did Eric find out any more about that Jonathan guy?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t you call him yourself?” Pam said with a complete lack of concern.

  “Right, you’re off duty,” I muttered, and stomped back to my room, grumpy and a little ashamed of myself. I punched in the number for Fangtasia without even having to look it up. So not good. And it was on speed dial on my cell phone. Geez. Not something I wanted to ponder just at the moment.

  The phone rang, and I put my dreary musing aside. You had to be on your game when you talked to Eric.

  “Fangtasia, the bar with a bite. This is Lizbet.” One of the fangbangers. I scrounged around my mental closet, trying to put a face with the name. Okay—tall, very round and proud of it, moon face, gorgeous brown hair.

  “Lizbet, this is Sookie Stackhouse,” I said.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, sounding startled and impressed.

  “Um . . . hi. Listen, could I speak to Eric, please?”

  “I’ll see if the master is available,” Lizbet breathed, trying to sound reverent and all mysterious.

  “Master,” my ass.

  The fangbangers were men and women who loved vampires so much they wanted to be around them every minute the vampires were awake. Jobs at places like Fangtasia were bread and butter to these people, and the opportunity to get bitten was regarded as close to sacred. The fangbanger code required them to be honored if some bloodsucker wanted to sample them; and if they died of it, well, that was just about an honor, too. Behind all the pathos and tangled sexuality of the typical fangbanger was the underlying hope that some vampire would think the fangbanger was “worthy” of being turned into a vampire. Like you had to pass a character test.

  “Thanks, Lizbet,” I said.

  Lizbet set the phone down with a thud and went off looking for Eric. I couldn’t have made her happier.

  “Yes,” said Eric after about five minutes.

  “Busy, were you?”

  “Ah . . . having supper.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Well, hope you had enough,” I said with a total lack of sincerity. “Listen, did you find out anything about that Jonathan?”

  “Have you seen him again?” Eric asked sharply.

  “Ah, no. I was just wondering.”

  “If you see him, I need to know immediately.”

  “Okay, got that. What have you learned?”

  “He’s been seen other places,” Eric said. “He even came here one night when I was away. Pam’s at your house, right?”

  I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Maybe Pam wasn’t sleeping with Amelia out of sheer attraction. Maybe she’d combined business with a great cover story, and she was staying with Amelia to keep an eye on me. Damn vampires, I thought angrily, because that scenario was entirely too close to an incident in my recent past that had hurt me incredibly.

  I wasn’t going to ask. Knowing would be worse than suspecting.

  “Yes,” I said between stiff lips. “She’s here.”

  “Good,” Eric said with some satisfaction. “If he appears again, I know she can take care of it. Not that that’s why she’s there,” he added unconvincingly. The obvious afterthought was Eric’s attempt at pacifying what he could tell were my upset feelings; it sure didn’t arise from any feeling of guilt.

  I scowled at my closet door. “Are you gonna give me any real information on why you’re so jumpy about this guy?”

  “You haven’t seen the queen since Rhodes,” Eric said.

  This was not going to be a good conversation. “No,” I said. “What’s the deal with her legs?”

  “They’re growing back,” Eric said after a brief hesitation.

  I wondered if the feet were growing right out of her stumps, or if the legs would grow out and then the feet would appear at the end of the process. “That’s good, right?” I said. Having legs had to be a good thing.

  “It hurts very much,” Eric said, “when you lose parts and they grow back. It’ll take a while. She’s very . . . She’s incapacitated.” He said the last word very slowly, as if it was a word he knew but had never said aloud.

  I thought about what he was telling me, both on the surface and beneath. Conversations with Eric were seldom single-layered.

  “She’s not well enough to be in charge,” I said in conclusion. “Then who is?”

  “The sheriffs have been running things,” Eric said. “Gervaise perished in the bombing, of course; that leaves me, Cleo, and Arla Yvonne. It would have been clearer if Andre had survived.” I felt a twinge of panic and guilt. I could have saved Andre. I’d feared and loathed him, and I hadn’t. I’d let him be killed.

  Eric was silent for a minute, and I wondered if he was picking up on the fear and guilt. It would be very bad if he ever learned that Quinn had killed Andre for my sake. Eric continued, “Andre could have held the center because he was so established as the queen’s right hand. If one of her minions had to die, I wish I could have picked Sigebert, who’s all muscles and no brains. At least Sigebert’s there to guard her body, though Andre could have done that and guarded her territory as well.”

  I’d never heard Eric so chatty about vampire affairs. I was beginning to have an awful creeping feeling that I knew where he was headed.

  “You expect some kind of takeover,” I said, and felt my heart plummet. Not again. “You think Jonathan was a scout.”

  “Watch out, or I’ll begin to think you can read my mind.” Though Eric’s tone was light as a marshmallow, his meaning was a sharp blade hidden inside.

  “That’s impossible,” I said, and if he thought I was lying, he didn’t challenge me. Eric seemed to be regretting telling me so much. The rest of our talk was very brief. He told me again to call him at the first sight of Jonathan, and I assured him I’d be glad to.

  After I’d hung up, I didn’t feel quite as sleepy. In honor of the chilly night I pulled on my fleecy pajama bottoms, white with pink sheep, and a white T-shirt. I unearthed my map of Louisiana and found a pencil. I sketched in the areas I knew. I was piecing my knowledge together from bits of conversations that had taken place in my presence. Eric had Area Five. The queen had had Area One, which was New Orleans and vicinity. That made sense. But in between, there was a jumble. The finally deceased Gervaise had had the area including Baton Rouge, and that was where the queen had been living since Katrina damaged her New Orleans properties so heavily. So that should have been Area Two, due to its prominence. But it was called Area Four. Very lightly, I traced a line that I could erase, and would, after I’d looked at it for a bit.

  I mined my head for other bits of information. Five, at the top of the state, stretched nearly all the way across. Eric was richer and more powerful than I’d thought. Below him, and fairly even in territory, were Cleo Babbitt’s Area Three and Arla Yvonne’s Area Two. A swoop down to the Gulf from the southwesternmost corner of Mississippi marked off the large areas formerly held by Gervaise and the queen, Four and One respectively. I could only imagine what vampiric political contortions had led to the numbering and arrangement.

  I looked at the map for a few long minutes before I erased all the light lines I’d drawn. I glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since my conversation with Eric. In a melancholy mood, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. After I climbed into bed and said my prayers, I lay there awake for quite a while. I was pondering the undeniable truth that the most powerful vampire in the state of Louisiana, at this very point in time, was Eric Northman, my blood-bonded, once-upon-a-time lover. Eric had said in my hearing that he didn’t want to be king, didn’t want to take over new territory; and since I’d figured out the extent of his territory right now, the size of it made that assertion a little more likely.

  I believed I knew Eric a little, maybe as much as a human can
know a vampire, which doesn’t mean my knowledge was profound. I didn’t believe he wanted to take over the state, or he would have done so. I did think his power meant there was a giant target pinned to his back. I needed to try to sleep. I glanced at the clock again. An hour and a half since I’d talked to Eric.

  Bill glided into my room quite silently.

  “What’s up?” I asked, trying to keep my voice very quiet, very calm, though every nerve in my body had started shrieking.

  “I’m uneasy,” he said in his cool voice, and I almost laughed. “Pam had to leave for Fangtasia. She called me to take her place here.”

  “Why?”

  He sat in the chair in the corner. It was pretty dark in my room, but the curtains weren’t drawn completely shut and I got some illumination from the yard’s security light. There was a night-light in the bathroom, too, and I could make out the contours of his body and the blur of his face. Bill had a little glow, like all vampires do in my eyes.

  “Pam couldn’t get Cleo on the phone,” he said. “Eric left the club to run an errand, and Pam couldn’t raise him, either. But I got his voice mail; I’m sure he’ll call back. It’s Cleo not answering that’s the rub.”

  “Pam and Cleo are friends?”

  “No, not at all,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But Pam should be able to talk to her at her all-night grocery. Cleo always answers.”

  “Why was Pam trying to reach her?” I asked.

  “They call each other every night,” Bill said. “Then Cleo calls Arla Yvonne. They have a chain. It should not be broken, not in these days.” Bill stood up with a speed that I couldn’t follow. “Listen!” he whispered, his voice as light on my ear as a moth wing. “Do you hear?”

  I didn’t hear jack shit. I held still under the covers, wishing passionately that this whole thing would just go away. Weres, vampires, trouble, strife . . . But no such luck. “What do you hear?” I asked, trying to be as quiet as Bill was being, an effort doomed in the attempt.