Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (28 page)

It felt very strange entering as a customer. Sam was back behind the bar, and his eyebrows went up as he marked my entrance. Three waitresses I knew by sight were working tonight, and a different cook was grilling hamburgers, I saw through the serving hatch.

Jason was at the bar. For a wonder, the stool next to him was empty, and I eased onto it.

He turned to me with his face set for a new woman: mouth loose and smiling, eyes bright and wide. When he saw it was me, his expression underwent a comical change. “What the hell are you doing here, Sookie?” he asked, his voice indignant.

“You’d think you weren’t glad to see me,” I remarked. When Sam paused in front of me, I asked him for a bourbon and coke, without meeting his eyes. “I did what you told me to do, and so far nothing,” I whispered to my brother. “I came in here tonight to try some more people.”

“Thanks, Sookie,” he said, after a long pause. “I guess I didn’t realize what I was asking. Hey, is something different about your hair?”

He even paid for my drink when Sam slid it in front of me.

We didn’t seem to have much to talk about, which was actually okay, since I was trying to listen to the other customers. There were a few strangers, and I scanned them first, to see if they were possible suspects. It didn’t seem they were, I decided reluctantly. One was thinking hard about how much he missed his wife, and the subtext was that he was faithful to her. One was thinking about it being his first time here, and the drinks were good. Another was just concentrating on sitting up straight and hoping he could drive back to the motel.

I’d had another drink.

Jason and I had been swapping conjectures about how much the lawyer’s fees would be when Gran’s estate was settled. He glanced at the doorway and said, “Uh-oh.”

“What?” I asked, not turning to see what he was looking at.

“Sis, the boyfriend’s here. And he’s not alone.”

My first idea was that Bill had brought one of his fellow vampires with him, which would have been upsetting and unwise. But when I turned, I realized why Jason had sounded so angry. Bill was with a human girl. He had a grip on her arm, she was coming on to him like a whore, and his eyes were scanning the crowd. I decided he was looking for my reaction.

I got off the barstool and decided another thing.

I was drunk. I seldom drank at all, and two bourbon and cokes consumed within minutes had made me, if not knee-walking drunk, at least tipsy.

Bill’s eyes met mine. He hadn’t really expected to find me here. I couldn’t read his mind as I had Eric’s for an awful moment, but I could read his body language.

“Hey, Vampire Bill!” Jason’s friend Hoyt called. Bill nodded politely in Hoyt’s direction, but began to steer the girl—tiny, dark—in my direction.

I had no idea what to do.

“Sis, what’s his game?” Jason said. He was working up a head of steam. “That gal’s a fang-banger from Monroe. I knew her when she liked humans.”

I still had no idea what to do. My hurt was overwhelming, but my pride kept trying to contain it. I had to add a dash of guilt to that emotional stew. I hadn’t been where Bill had expected me to be, and I hadn’t left him a note. Then again—on the other hand (my fifth or sixth)—I’d had a lot of shocks the night before at the command performance in Shreveport; and only my association with him had obliged me to go to
that
shindig.

My warring impulses held me still. I wanted to pitch myself on her and beat the shit out of her, but I hadn’t been brought up to brawl in barrooms. (I also wanted to beat the shit out of Bill, but I might as well go bang my head on the wall for the all the damage it would do him.) Then, too, I wanted to burst into tears because my feelings were hurt—but that would be weak. The best option was not to show anything because Jason was ready to launch into Bill, and all it needed was some action from me to squeeze his trigger.

Too much conflict on top of too much alcohol.

While I was enumerating all these options, Bill had approached, wending his way through the tables, with the woman in tow. I noticed the room was quieter. Instead of watching, I was being watched.

I could feel my eyes well with tears while my hands fisted. Great. The worst of both responses.

“Sookie,” Bill said, “this is what Eric dropped off at my doorstep.”

I could hardly understand what he was saying.

“So?” I said furiously. I looked right into the girl’s eyes. They were big and dark and excited. I kept my own lids wide apart, knowing if I blinked the tears would flow.

“As a reward,” Bill said. I couldn’t understand how he felt about this.

“Free
beverage
?” I said, and couldn’t believe how venomous my voice sounded.

Jason put his hand on my shoulder. “Steady, girl,” he said, his voice as low and mean as mine. “He ain’t worth it.”

I didn’t know what Bill wasn’t worth, but I was about to find out. It was almost exhilarating to have no idea what I was about to do, after a lifetime of control.

Bill was regarding me with sharp attention. Under the flourescents over the bar, he looked remarkably white. He hadn’t fed from her. And his fangs were retracted.

“Come outside and talk,” he said.

“With her?” I was almost growling.

“No,” he said. “With me. I have to send her back.”

The distaste in his voice influenced me, and I followed Bill outside, keeping my head up and not meeting any eyes. He kept ahold of the girl’s arm, and she was practically walking on her toes to keep up. I didn’t know Jason was coming with us until I turned to see him behind me as we passed into the parking lot. Outside, people were coming and going, but it was marginally better than the crowded bar.

“Hi,” the girl said chattily. “My name’s Desiree. I think I’ve met you before, Jason.”

“What are you doing here, Desiree?” Jason asked, his voice quiet. You could almost believe he was calm.

“Eric sent me over here to Bon Temps as a reward for Bill,” she said coyly, looking at Bill from the corners of her eyes. “But he seems less than thrilled. I don’t know why. I’m practically a special vintage.”

“Eric?” Jason asked me.

“A vampire from Shreveport. Bar owner. Head honcho.”

“He left her on my doorstep,” Bill told me. “I didn’t ask for her.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Send her back,” he said impatiently. “You and I have to talk.”

I gulped. I felt my fingers uncurl.

“She needs a ride back to Monroe?” Jason asked.

Bill looked surprised. “Yes. Are you offering? I need to talk to your sister.”

“Sure,” Jason said, all geniality. I was instantly suspicious.

“I can’t believe you’re refusing me,” Desiree said, looking up at Bill and pouting. “No one has ever turned me down before.”

“Of course I am grateful, and I’m sure you are, as you put it, a special vintage,” Bill said politely. “But I have my own wine cellar.”

Little Desiree stared at him blankly for a second before comprehension slowly lit her brown eyes. “This woman yours?” she asked, jerking her head at me.

“She is.”

Jason shifted nervously at Bill’s flat statement.

Desiree gave me a good looking over. “She’s got funny eyes,” she finally pronounced.

“She’s my sister,” Jason said.

“Oh. I’m sorry. You’re much more . . . normal.” Desiree gave Jason the up-and-down, and seemed more pleased with what she saw. “Hey, what’s your last name?”

Jason took her hand and began leading her toward his pickup. “Stackhouse,” he was saying, giving her the full eye treatment, as they walked away. “Maybe on the way home, you can tell me a little about what you do . . .”

I turned back to Bill, wondering what Jason’s motive was for this generous act, and met Bill’s gaze. It was like walking into a brick wall.

“So, you want to talk?” I asked harshly.

“Not here. Come home with me.”

I scuffed the gravel with my shoe. “Not your house.”

“Then yours.”

“No.”

He raised his arched brows. “Where then?”

Good question.

“My folks’ pond.” Since Jason was going to be giving Miss Dark and Tiny a ride home, he wouldn’t be there.

“I’ll follow you,” he said briefly, and we parted to go to our respective cars.

The property where I’d spent my first few years was to the west of Bon Temps. I turned down the familiar gravel driveway and parked at the house, a modest ranch that Jason kept up pretty well. Bill emerged from his car as I slid from mine, and I motioned him to follow me. We went around the house and down the slope, following a path set with big paving stones. In a minute we were at the pond, man-made, that my dad had put in our backyard and stocked, anticipating fishing with his son in that water for years.

There was a kind of patio overlooking the water, and on one of the metal chairs was a folded blanket. Without asking me, Bill picked it up and shook it out, spreading it on the grass downslope from the patio. I sat on it reluctantly, thinking the blanket wasn’t safe for the same reasons meeting him in either home wasn’t safe. When I was close to Bill, what I thought about was being even closer to him.

I hugged my knees to me and stared off across the water. There was a security light on the other side of the pond, and I could see it reflected in the still water. Bill lay on his back next to me. I could feel his eyes on my face. He laced his fingers together across his ribs, ostentatiously keeping his hands to himself.

“Last night frightened you,” he said neutrally.

“Weren’t you just a little scared?” I asked, more quietly than I’d thought I would.

“For you. A little for myself.”

I wanted to lie on my stomach but worried about getting that close to him. When I saw his skin glow in the moonlight, I yearned to touch him.

“It scared me that Eric can control our lives while we’re a couple.”

“Do you not want to be a couple anymore?”

The pain in my chest was so bad I put my hand over it, pressing the area above my breast.

“Sookie?” He was kneeling by me, an arm around me.

I couldn’t answer. I had no breath.

“Do you love me?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Why do you talk of leaving me?”

The pain made its way out through my eyes in the form of tears.

“I’m too scared of the other vampires and the way they are. What will he ask me to do next? He’ll try to make me do something else. He’ll tell me he’ll kill you otherwise. Or he’ll threaten Jason. And he can do it.”

Bill’s voice was as quiet as the sound of a cricket in the grass. A month ago, I might not have been able to hear it. “Don’t cry,” he told me. “Sookie, I have to tell you unwelcome facts.”

The only welcome thing he could have told me at that point was that Eric was dead.

“Eric is intrigued by you now. He can tell you have mental powers that most humans don’t have, or ignore if they know they possess them. He anticipates your blood is rich and sweet.” Bill’s voice got hoarse when he said that, and I shivered. “And you’re beautiful. You’re even more beautiful now. He doesn’t realize you have had our blood three times.”

“You know that Long Shadow bled onto me?”

“Yes. I saw.”

“Is there anything magic about three times?”

He laughed, that low, rumbly, rusty laugh. “No. But the more vampire blood you drink, the more desirable you become to our kind, and actually, more desirable to anyone. And Desiree thought she was a vintage! I wonder what vampire said that to her.”

“One that wanted to get in her pants,” I said flatly, and he laughed again. I loved to hear him laugh.

“With all this telling me how lovely I am, are you saying that Eric, like, lusts for me?”

“Yes.”

“What’s to stop him from taking me? You say he’s stronger than you.”

“Courtesy and custom, first of all.”

I didn’t snort, but I came close.

“Don’t discount that. We’re all observant of custom, we vampires. We have to live together for centuries.”

“Anything else?”

“I am not as strong as Eric, but I’m not a new vampire. He might get badly hurt in a fight with me, or I might even win if I got lucky.”

“Anything else?”

“Maybe,” Bill said carefully, “you yourself.”

“How so?”

“If you can be valuable to him otherwise, he may leave you alone if he knows that is your sincere wish.”

“But I don’t want to be valuable to him! I don’t want to ever see him again!”

“You promised Eric you’d help him again,” Bill reminded me.

“If he turned the thief over to the police,” I said. “And what did Eric do? He staked him!”

“Possibly saving your life in the process.”

“Well, I found his thief!”

“Sookie, you don’t know much about the world.”

I stared at him, surprised. “I guess that’s so.”

“Things don’t turn out . . . even.” Bill stared out into the darkness. “Even I think sometimes I don’t know much, anymore.” Another gloomy pause. “I have only once before seen one vampire stake another. Eric is going beyond the limits of our world.”

“So, he’s not too likely to take much notice of that custom and courtesy you were bragging about earlier.”

“Pam may keep him to the old ways.”

“What is she to him?”

“He made her. That is, he made her vampire, centuries ago. She comes back to him from time to time and helps him do whatever he is doing at the moment. Eric’s always been something of a rogue, and the older he gets the more willful he gets.” Calling Eric willful seemed a huge understatement to me.

“So, have we talked our way around in circles?” I asked. Bill seemed to be considering. “Yes,” he confirmed, a tinge of regret in his voice. “You don’t like associating with vampires other than myself, and I have told you we have no choice.”