Sookie Stackhouse 8-copy Boxed Set (99 page)

Damn straight.

Yikes. I hadn’t seen that one coming. I pondered for a minute. Deciding that while I didn’t trust Bill anymore, I didn’t believe that he would physically harm me, I went back through the house to the front door. I opened it and called, “Okay, come on in.”

He emerged from the woods surrounding the clearing in which my old house stood. I ached at the sight of him. Bill was broad-shouldered and lean from his life of farming the land next to mine. He was hard and tough from his years as a Confederate soldier, before his death in 1867. Bill’s nose was straight off a Greek vase. His hair was dark brown and clipped close to his head, and his eyes were just as dark. He looked exactly the same as he had while we were dating, and he always would.

He hesitated before he crossed the threshold, but I’d given him permission, and I moved aside so he could step past me into the living room filled with old, comfortable furniture and neat as a pin.

“Thank you,” he said in his cold, smooth voice, a voice that still gave me a twinge of sheer lust. Many things had gone wrong between us, but they hadn’t started in bed. “I wanted to talk to you before I left.”

“Where are you going?” I tried to sound as calm as he.

“To Peru. The queen’s orders.”

“Still working on your, ah, database?” I knew almost nothing about computers, but Bill had studied hard to make himself computer literate.

“Yes. I’ve got a little more research to do. A very old vampire in Lima has a great fund of knowledge about those of our race on his continent, and I have an appointment to confer with him. I’ll do some sight-seeing while I’m down there.”

I fought the urge to offer Bill a bottle of synthetic blood, which would have been the hospitable thing to do. “Have a seat,” I said curtly, and nodded at the sofa. I sat on the edge of the old recliner catty-cornered to it. Then a silence fell, a silence that made me even more conscious of how unhappy I was.

“How’s Bubba?” I asked finally.

“He’s in New Orleans right now,” Bill said. “The queen likes to keep him around from time to time, and he was so visible here over the last month that it seemed like a good idea to take him elsewhere. He’ll be back soon.”

You’d recognize Bubba if you saw him; everyone knows his face. But he hadn’t been “brought over” too successfully. Probably the morgue attendant, who happened to be a vampire, should have ignored the tiny spark of life. But since he was a great fan, he hadn’t been able to resist the attempt, and now the entire southern vampire community shuffled Bubba around and tried to keep him from public view.

Another silence fell. I’d planned on taking off my shoes and uniform, putting on a cuddly robe, and watching television with a Freschetta pizza by my side. It was a humble plan, but it was my own. Instead, here I was, suffering.

“If you have something to say, you better go on and say it,” I told him.

He nodded, almost to himself. “I have to explain,” he said. His white hands arranged themselves in his lap. “Lorena and I—”

I flinched involuntarily. I never wanted to hear that name again. He’d dumped me for Lorena.

“I have to tell you,” he said, almost angrily. He’d seen me twitch. “Give me this chance.” After a second, I waved a hand to tell him to continue.

“The reason I went to Jackson when she called me is that I couldn’t help myself,” he said.

My eyebrows flew up. I’d heard
that
before. It means, “I have no self-control,” or, “It seemed worth it at the time, and I wasn’t thinking north of my belt.”

“We were lovers long ago. As Eric says he told you, vampire liaisons don’t tend to last long, though they’re very intense while they are ongoing. However, what Eric did not tell you was that Lorena was the vampire who brought me over.”

“To the Dark Side?” I asked, and then I bit my lip. This was no subject for levity.

“Yes,” Bill agreed seriously. “And we were together after that, as lovers, which is not always the case.”

“But you had broken up . . .”

“Yes, about eighty years ago, we came to the point where we couldn’t tolerate each other any longer. I hadn’t seen Lorena since, though I’d heard of her doings, of course.”

“Oh, sure,” I said expressionlessly.

“But I had to obey her summons. This is absolutely imperative. When your maker calls, you must respond.” His voice was urgent.

I nodded, trying to look understanding. I guess I didn’t do too good a job.

“She
ordered
me to leave you,” he said. His dark eyes were peering into mine. “She said she would kill you if I didn’t.”

I was losing my temper. I bit the inside of my cheek, real hard, to make myself focus. “So, without explanation or discussion with me, you decided what was best for me and for you.”

“I had to,” he said. “I
had
to do her bidding. And I knew she was capable of harming you.”

“Well, you got that right.” In fact, Lorena had done her dead level best to harm me right into the grave. But I’d gotten her first—okay, by a fluke, but it had worked.

“And now you no longer love me,” Bill said, with the slightest of questions in his voice.

I didn’t have any clear answer.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to come back to me. After all, I killed your
mom
.” And there was the slightest of questions in my voice, too, but mostly I was bitter.

“Then we need more time apart. When I return, if you consent, we’ll talk again. A kiss good-bye?”

To my shame, I would love to kiss Bill again. But it was such a bad idea, even wanting it seemed wrong. We stood, and I gave him a quick brush of lips to the cheek. His white skin shone with a little glow that distinguished vampires from humans. It had surprised me to learn that not everyone saw them like I did.

“Are you seeing the Were?” he asked, when he was nearly out the door. He sounded as though the words had been pulled out of him by their roots.

“Which one?” I asked, resisting the temptation to bat my eyelashes. He deserved no answer, and he knew it. “How long will you be gone?” I asked more briskly, and he looked at me with some speculation.

“It’s not a sure thing. Maybe two weeks,” he answered.

“We might talk then,” I said, turning my face away. “Let me return your key.” I fished my keys out of my purse.

“No, please, keep it on your key ring,” he said. “You might need it while I am gone. Go in the house as you will. My mail’s getting held at the post office until I give them notice, and I think all my other loose ends are taken care of.”

So I was his last loose end. I damned up the trickle of anger that was all too ready to bubble out these days.

“I hope you have a safe trip,” I said coldly, and shut the door behind him. I headed back to my bedroom. I had a robe to put on and some television to watch. By golly, I was sticking to my plan.

But while I was putting my pizza in the oven, I had to blot my cheeks a few times.

T
HE NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY AT MERLOTTE’S BAR AND Grill was finally, finally, over. Though the bar owner, Sam Merlotte, had asked all his staff to work that night, Holly, Arlene, and I were the only ones who’d responded. Charlsie Tooten had said she was too old to put up with the mess we had to endure on New Year’s Eve, Danielle had long-standing plans to attend a fancy party with her steady boyfriend, and a new woman couldn’t start for two days. I guess Arlene and Holly and I needed the money more than we needed a good time.

And I hadn’t had any invitations to do anything else. At least when I’m working at Merlotte’s, I’m a part of the scenery. That’s a kind of acceptance.

I was sweeping up the shredded paper, and I reminded myself again not to comment to Sam on what a poor idea the bags of confetti had been. We’d all made ourselves pretty clear about that, and even good-natured Sam was showing signs of wear and tear. It didn’t seem fair to leave it all for Terry Bellefleur to clean, though sweeping and mopping the floors was his job.

Sam was counting the till money and bagging it up so he could go by the night deposit at the bank. He was looking tired but pleased.

He flicked open his cell phone. “Kenya? You ready to take me to the bank? Okay, see you in a minute at the back door.” Kenya, a police officer, often escorted Sam to the night deposit, especially after a big take like tonight’s.

I was pleased with my money take, too. I had earned a lot in tips. I thought I might have gotten three hundred dollars or more—and I needed every penny. I would have enjoyed the prospect of totting up the money when I got home, if I’d been sure I had enough brains left to do it. The noise and chaos of the party, the constant runs to and from the bar and the serving hatch, the tremendous mess we’d had to clean up, the steady cacophony of all those brains . . . it had combined to exhaust me. Toward the end I’d been too tired to keep my poor mind protected, and lots of thoughts had leaked through.

It’s not easy being telepathic. Most often, it’s not fun.

This evening had been worse than most. Not only had the bar patrons, almost all known to me for many years, been in uninhibited moods, but there’d been some news that lots of people were just dying to tell me.

“I hear yore boyfriend done gone to South America,” a car salesman, Chuck Beecham, had said, malice gleaming in his eyes. “You gonna get mighty lonely out to your place without him.”

“You offering to take his place, Chuck?” the man beside him at the bar had asked, and they both had a we’re-men-together guffaw.

“Naw, Terrell,” said the salesman. “I don’t care for vampire leavings.”

“You be polite, or you go out the door,” I said steadily. I felt warmth at my back, and I knew my boss, Sam Merlotte, was looking at them over my shoulder.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“They were just about to apologize,” I said, looking Chuck and Terrell in the eyes. They looked down at their beers.

“Sorry, Sookie,” Chuck mumbled, and Terrell bobbed his head in agreement. I nodded and turned to take care of another order. But they’d succeeded in hurting me.

Which was their goal.

I had an ache around my heart.

I was sure the general populace of Bon Temps, Louisiana, didn’t know about our estrangement. Bill sure wasn’t in the habit of blabbing his personal business around, and neither was I. Arlene and Tara knew a little about it, of course, since you have to tell your best friends when you’ve broken up with your guy, even if you have to leave out all the interesting details. (Like the fact that you’d killed the woman he left you for. Which I couldn’t help. Really.) So anyone who told me Bill had gone out of the country, assuming I didn’t know it yet, was just being malicious.

Until Bill’s recent visit to my house, I’d last seen him when I’d given him the disks and computer he’d hidden with me. I’d driven up at dusk, so the machine wouldn’t be sitting on his front porch for long. I’d put all his stuff up against the door in a big waterproofed box. He’d come out just as I was driving away, but I hadn’t stopped.

An evil woman would have given the disks to Bill’s boss, Eric. A lesser woman would have kept those disks and that computer, having rescinded Bill’s (and Eric’s) invitations to enter the house. I had told myself proudly that I was not an evil, or a lesser, woman.

Also, thinking practically, Bill could just have hired some human to break into my house and take them. I didn’t think he would. But he needed them bad, or he’d be in trouble with his boss’s boss. I’ve got a temper, maybe even a bad temper, once it gets provoked. But I’m not vindictive.

Arlene has often told me I am too nice for my own good, though I assure her I am not. (Tara never says that; maybe she knows me better?) I realized glumly that, sometime during this hectic evening, Arlene would hear about Bill’s departure. Sure enough, within twenty minutes of Chuck and Terrell’s gibing, she made her way through the crowd to pat me on the back. “You didn’t need that cold bastard anyway,” she said. “What did he ever do for you?”

I nodded weakly at her to show how much I appreciated her support. But then a table called for two whiskey sours, two beers, and a gin and tonic, and I had to hustle, which was actually a welcome distraction. When I dropped off their drinks, I asked myself the same question. What had Bill done for me?

I delivered pitchers of beer to two tables before I could add it all up.

He’d introduced me to sex, which I really enjoyed. Introduced me to a lot of other vampires, which I didn’t. Saved my life, though when you thought about it, it wouldn’t have been in danger if I hadn’t been dating him in the first place. But I’d saved his back once or twice, so that debt was canceled. He’d called me “sweetheart,” and at the time he’d meant it.

“Nothing,” I muttered, as I mopped up a spilled piña colada and handed one of our last clean bar towels to the woman who’d knocked it over, since a lot of it was still in her skirt. “He didn’t do a thing for me.” She smiled and nodded, obviously thinking I was commiserating with her. The place was too noisy to hear anything anyway, which was lucky for me.

But I’d be glad when Bill got back. After all, he was my nearest neighbor. The community’s older cemetery separated our properties, which lay along a parish road south of Bon Temps. I was out there all by myself, without Bill.

“Peru, I hear,” my brother Jason, said. He had his arm around his girl of the evening, a short, thin, dark twenty-one-year-old from somewhere way out in the sticks. (I’d carded her.) I gave her a close look. Jason didn’t know it, but she was a shape-shifter of some kind. They’re easy to spot. She was an attractive girl, but she changed into something with feathers or fur when the moon was full. I noticed Sam give her a hard glare when Jason’s back was turned, to remind her to behave herself in his territory. She returned the glare, with interest. I had the feeling she didn’t become a kitten, or a squirrel.