Charlaine Harris: Club Dead (3)
Chapter One
Bill was hunched over the computer when I let myself in his house. This was an all-too-familiar scenario in
the past month or two. He'd torn himself away from his work when I came home, until the past couple of
weeks. Now it was the keyboard that attracted him. "Hello, sweetheart," he said absently, his gaze riveted to
the screen. An empty bottle of type O TrueBlood was on the desk beside the keyboard. At least he'd
remembered to eat. Bill, not a jeans-and-tee kind of guy, was wearing khakis and a plaid shirt in muted blue
and green. His skin was glowing, and his thick dark hair smelled like Herbal Essence. He was enough to give
any woman a hormonal surge. I kissed his neck, and he didn't react. I licked his ear. Nothing. I'd been on my
feet for six hours straight at Merlotte's Bar, and every time some customer had under-tipped, or some fool had
patted my fanny, I'd reminded myself that in a short while I'd be with my boyfriend, having incredible sex and
basking in his attention. That didn't appear to be happening. I inhaled slowly and steadily and glared at Bill's
back. It was a wonderful back, with broad shoulders, and I
had planned on seeing it bare with my nails dug into it. I had counted on that very strongly. I exhaled, slowly
and steadily. "Be with you in a minute," Bill said. On the screen, there was a snapshot of a distinguished man
with silver hair and a dark tan. He looked sort of Anthony Quinn- type sexy, and he looked powerful. Under
the picture was a name, and under that was some text. "Born 1756 in Sicily," it began. Just as I opened my
mouth to comment that vampires did appear in photographs despite the legend, Bill twisted around and
realized I was reading. He hit a button and the screen went blank. I stared at him, not quite believing what had
just happened. "Sookie," he said, attempting a smile. His fangs were retracted, so he was totally not in the
mood in which I'd hoped to find him; he wasn't thinking of me carnally. Like all vampires, his fangs are only
fully extended when he's in the mood for the sexy kind of lust, or the feeding-and-killing kind of lust.
(Sometimes, those lusts all get kind of snarled up, and you get your dead fang- bangers. But that element of
danger is what attracts most fang-bangers, if you ask me.) Though I've been accused of being one of those
pathetic creatures that hang around vampires in the hope of attracting their attention, there's only one vampire
I'm involved with (at least voluntarily) and it was the one sitting right in front of me. The one who was
keeping secrets from me. The one who wasn't nearly glad enough to see me. "Bill," I said coldly. Something
was Up, with a capital U. And it wasn't Bill's libido. (Libido had just been on my Word-A-Day calendar.)
"You didn't see what you just saw," he said steadily. His dark brown eyes regarded me without blinking.
"Uh-huh," I said, maybe sounding just a little sarcastic. "What are you up to?" "I have a secret assignment." I
didn't know whether to laugh or stalk away in a snit. So I just raised my eyebrows and waited for more. Bill
was the investigator for Area 5, a vampire division of Louisiana. Eric, the head of Area 5, had never given Bill
an "assignment" that was secret from me before. In fact, I was usually an integral part of the investigation
team, however unwilling I might be. "Eric must not know. None of the Area 5 vampires can know." My heart
sank. "So--if you're not doing a job for Eric, who are you working for?" I knelt because my feet were so tired,
and I leaned against Bill's knees. "The queen of Louisiana," he said, almost in a whisper. Because he looked so
solemn, I tried to keep a straight face, but it was no use. I began to laugh, little giggles that I couldn't suppress.
"You're serious?" I asked, knowing he must be. BUI was almost always a serious kind of fellow. I buried my
face on his thigh so he couldn't see my amusement. I rolled my eyes up for a quick look at his face. He was
looking pretty pissed. "I am as serious as the grave," Bill said, and he sounded so steely, I made a major effort
to change my attitude. "Okay, let me get this straight," I said in a reasonably level tone. I sat back on the floor,
cross-legged, and rested my hands on my knees. "You work for Eric, who is the boss of Area 5, but there is
also a queen? Of Louisiana?" Bill nodded. "So the state is divided up into Areas? And she's Eric's superior,
since he runs a business in Shreveport, which is in Area 5."
Again with the nod. I put my hand over my face and shook my head. "So, where does she live, Baton Rouge?"
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The state capital seemed the obvious place. "No, no. New Orleans, of course." Of course. Vampire central.
You could hardly throw a rock in the Big Easy without hitting one of the undead, according to the papers
(though only a real fool would do so). The tourist trade in New Orleans was booming, but it was not exactly
the same crowd as before, the hard-drinking, rollicking crowd who'd filled the city to party hearty. The newer
tourists were the ones who wanted to rub elbows with the undead; patronize a vampire bar, visit a vampire
prostitute, watch a vampire sex show. This was what I'd heard; I hadn't been to New Orleans since I was little.
My mother and father had taken my brother, Jason, and me. That would have been before I was seven, because
that's when they died. Mama and Daddy died nearly twenty years before vampires had appeared on network
television to announce the fact that they were actually present among us, an announcement that had followed
on the Japanese development of synthetic blood that actually maintained a vampire's life without the necessity
of drinking from humans. The United States vampire community had let the Japanese vampire clans come
forth first. Then, simultaneously, in most of the nations of the world that had television--and who doesn't these
days?--the announcement had been made in hundreds of different languages, by hundreds of carefully picked
personable vampires. That night, two and half years ago, we regular old live people learned that we had
always lived with monsters among us. "But"--the burden of this announcement had been-- "now we can come
forward and join with you in harmony. You are in no danger from us anymore. We don't need to drink from
you to live." As you can imagine, this was a night of high ratings and tremendous uproar. Reaction varied
sharply, depending on the nation. The vampires in the predominantly Islamic nations had fared the worst. You
don't even want to know what happened to the undead spokesman in Syria, though perhaps the female vamp in
Afghanistan died an even more horrible--and final--death. (What were they thinking, selecting a female for
that particular job? Vampires could be so smart, but they sometimes didn't seem quite in touch with the
present world.) Some nations--France, Italy, and Germany were the most notable--refused to accept vampires
as equal citizens. Many--like Bosnia, Argentina, and most of the African nations--denied any status to the
vampires, and declared them fair game for any bounty hunter. But America, England, Mexico, Canada, Japan,
Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries adopted a more tolerant attitude. It was hard to determine if this
reaction was what the vampires had expected or not. Since they were still struggling to maintain a foothold in
the stream of the living, the vampires remained very secretive about their organization and government, and
what Bill was telling me now was the most I'd ever heard on the subject. "So, the Louisiana queen of the
vampires has you working on a secret project," I said, trying to sound neutral. "And this is why you have lived
at your computer every waking hour for the past few weeks." "Yes," Bill said. He picked up the bottle of
TrueBlood and tipped it up, but there were only a couple of drops left. He went down the hall into the small
kitchen area (when he'd remodeled his old family home, he'd pretty much left out the kitchen, since he didn't
need one) and
extracted another bottle from the refrigerator. I was tracking him by sound as he opened the bottle and popped
it into the microwave. The microwave went off, and he reentered, shaking the bottle with his thumb over the
top so there wouldn't be any hot spots. "So, how much more time do you have to spend on this project?" I
asked--reasonably, I thought. "As long as it takes," he said, less reasonably. Actually, Bill sounded downright
irritable. Hmmm. Could our honeymoon be over? Of course I mean figurative honeymoon, since Bill's a
vampire and we can't be legally married, practically anywhere in the wor ld. Not that he's asked me. "Well, if
you're so absorbed in your project, I'll just stay away until it's over," I said slowly. "That might be best," Bill
said, after a perceptible pause, and I felt like he'd socked me in the stomach. In a flash, I was on my feet and
pulling my coat back over my cold-weather waitress outfit--black slacks, white boat-neck long-sleeved tee
with "Merlotte's" embroidered over the left breast. I turned my back to Bill to hide my face. I was trying not to
cry, so I didn't look at him even after I felt Bill's hand touch my shoulder. "I have to tell you something," Bill
said in his cold, smooth voice. I stopped in the middle of pulling on my gloves, but I didn't think I could stand
to see him. He could tell my backside. "If anything happens to me," he continued (and here's where I should
have begun worrying), "you must look in the hiding place I built at your house. My computer should be in it,
and some disks. Don't tell anyone. If the computer isn't in the hiding place, come over to my house and see if
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it's here. Come in the daytime, and come armed. Get the computer and any disks you can find, and hide them
in my hidey-hole, as you call it." I nodded. He could see that from the back. I didn't trust my voice. "If I'm not
back, or if you don't get word from me, in say ... eight weeks--yes, eight weeks, then tell Eric everything I said
to you today. And place yourself under his protection." I didn't speak. I was too miserable to be furious, but it
wouldn't be long before I reached meltdown. I acknowledged his words with a jerk of my head. I could feel
my ponytail switch against my neck. "I am going to ... Seattle soon," Bill said. I could feel his cool lips touch
the place my ponytail had brushed. He was lying. "When I come back, we'll talk." Somehow, that didn't sound
like an entrancing prospect. Somehow, that sounded ominous. Again I inclined my head, not risking speech
because I was actually crying now. I would rather have died than let him see the tears. And that was how I left
him, that cold December night. 1 he next day, on my way to work, I took an unwise detour. I was in that kind
of mood where I was rolling in how awful everything was. Despite a nearly sleepless night, something inside
me told me I could probably make my mood a little worse if I drove along Magnolia Creek Road: so sure
enough, that's what I did. The old Bellefleur mansion, Belle Rive, was a beehive of activity, even on a cold
and ugly day. There were
vans from the pest control company, a kitchen design
firm, and a siding contractor parked at the kitchen entrance to the antebellum home. Life was just humming
for Caroline Holliday Bellefleur, the ancient lady who had ruled Belle Rive and (at least in part) Bon Temps
for the past eighty years. I wondered how Portia, a lawyer, and Andy, a detective, were enjoying all the
changes at Belle Rive. They had lived with their grandmother (as I had lived with mine) for all their adult
lives. At the very least, they had to be enjoying her pleasure in the mansion's renovation. My own
grandmother had been murdered a few months ago. The Bellefleurs hadn't had anything to do with it, of
course. And there was no reason Portia and Andy would share the pleasure of this new affluence with me. In
fact, they both avoided me like the plague. They owed me, and they couldn't stand it. They just didn't know
how much they owed me. The Bellefleurs had received a mysterious legacy from a relative who had "died
mysteriously over in Europe somewhere," I'd heard Andy tell a fellow cop while they were drinking at
Merlotte's. When she dropped off some raffle tickets for Gethsemane Baptist Church's Ladies' Quilt, Maxine
Fortenberry told me Miss Caroline had combed every family record she could unearth to identify their
benefactor, and she was still mystified at the family's good fortune. She didn't seem to have any qualms about
spending the money, though. Even Terry Bellefleur, Portia and Andy's cousin, had a new pickup sitting in the
packed dirt yard of his double-wide. I liked Terry, a scarred Viet Nam vet who didn't have a lot of friends, and
I didn't grudge him a new set of wheels. But I thought about the carburetor I'd just been forced to replace in
my old car. I'd paid for the work in full, though I'd considered asking Jim Downey if I could just pay half and
get the rest together over the next two months. But Jim had a wife and three kids. Just this morning I'd been
thinking of asking my boss, Sam Mer- lotte, if he could add to my hours at the bar. Especially with Bill gone
to "Seattle," I could just about live at Merlotte's, if Sam could use me. I sure needed the money. I tried real
hard not to be bitter as I drove away from Belle Rive. I went south out of town and then turned left onto
Hummingbird Road on my way to Merlotte's. I tried to pretend that all was well; that on his return from
Seattle--or wherever--Bill would be a passionate lover again, and Bill would treasure me and make me feel
valuable once more. I would again have that feeling of belonging with someone, instead of being alone. Of
course, I had my brother, Jason. Though as far as intimacy and companionship goes, I had to admit that he
hardly counted. But the pain in my middle was the unmistakable pain of rejection. I knew the feeling so well,
it was like a second skin. I sure hated to crawl back inside it. Chapter Two I tested the doorknob to make sure
I'd locked it, turned around, and out of the corner of my eye glimpsed a figure sitting in the swing on my front
porch. I stifled a shriek as he rose. Then I recognized him. I was wearing a heavy coat, but he was in a tank
top; that didn't surprise me, really. "El--" Uh-oh, close call. "Bubba, how are you?" I was trying to sound
casual, carefree. I failed, but Bubba wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. The vampires admitted that bringing
him over, when he'd been so very close to death and so saturated with drugs, had been a big mistake. The night
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he'd been
brought in, one of the morgue attendants happened to be one of the undead, and also happened to be a huge
fan. With a hastily constructed and elaborate plot involving a murder or two, the attendant had "brought him
over"--made Bubba a vampire. But the process doesn't always go right, you know. Since then, he's been
passed around like idiot royalty. Louisiana had been hosting him for the past year. "Miss Sookie, how you
doin'?" His accent was still thick and his face still handsome, in a jowly kind of way. The dark hair tumbled
over his forehead in a carefully careless style. The heavy sideburns were brushed. Some undead fan had
groomed him for the evening. "I'm just fine, thank you," I said politely, grinning from ear to ear. I do that
when I'm nervous. "I was just fixing to go to work," I added, wondering if it was possible I would be able to
simply get in my car and drive away. I thought not. "Well, Miss Sookie, I been sent to guard you tonight."
"You have? By who?" "By Eric," he said proudly. "I was the only one in the office when he got a phone call.
He tole me to get my ass over here." "What's the danger?" I peered around the clearing in the woods in which
my old house stood. Bubba's news made me very nervous. "I don't know, Miss Sookie. Eric, he tole me to
watch you tonight till one of them from Fangtasia gets here- Eric, or Chow, or Miss Pam, or even Clancy. So
if you go to work, I go with you. And I take care of anyone who bothers you." There was no point in
questioning Bubba further, putting strain on that fragile brain. He'd just get upset, and you didn't want to see
that happen. That was why you had to remember not to call him by his former name . .. though every now and
then he would sing, and that was a moment to remember. "You can't come in the bar," I said bluntly. That
would be a disaster. The clientele of Merlotte's is used to the occasional vampire, sure, but I couldn't warn
everyone not to say his name. Eric must have been desperate; the vampire community kept mistakes like
Bubba out of sight, though from time to time he'd take it in his head to wander off on his own. Then you got a
"sighting," and the tabloids went crazy. "Maybe you could sit in my car while I work?" The cold wouldn't
affect Bubba. "I got to be closer than that," he said, and he sounded immovable. "Okay, then, how about my
boss's office? It's right off the bar, and you can hear me if I yell." Bubba still didn't look satisfied, but finally,
he nodded. I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. It would be easiest for me to stay home, call in
sick. However, not only did Sam expect me to show up, but also, I needed the paycheck. The car felt a little
small with Bubba in the front seat beside me. As we bumped off my property, through the woods and out to
the parish road, I made a mental note to get the gravel company to come dump some more gravel on my long,
meandering driveway. Then I canceled that order, also mentally. I couldn't afford that right now. It'd have to
wait until spring. Or summer. We turned right to drive the few miles to Merlotte's, the bar where I work as a
waitress when I'm not doing Heap Big Secret Stuff for the vampires. It occurred to me when we were about
halfway there that I hadn't seen a car Bubba could've used to drive to my house. Maybe he'd flown? Some
vamps could. Though Bubba was the least talented vampire I'd met, maybe he had a flair for it. A year ago I
would've asked him, but not now. I'm used to hanging around with the undead now. Not that I'm a vampire.
I'm a telepath. My life was hell on wheels until I met a man whose mind I couldn't rea d. Unfortunately, I
couldn't read his mind because he was dead. But Bill and I had been together for several months now, and
until recently, our relationship had been real good. And the other vampires need me, so I'm safe--to a certain
extent. Mostly. Sometimes. Merlotte's didn't look too busy, judging from the half empty parking lot. Sam had
bought the bar about five years ago. It had been failing-maybe because it had been cut out of the forest, which
loomed all around the parking lot. Or maybe the former owner just hadn't found the right combination of
drinks, food, and service. Somehow, after he renamed the place and renovated it, Sam had turned balance
sheets around. He
made a nice living off it now. But tonight was a Monday night, not a big drinking night in our neck of the
woods, which happened to be in northern Louisiana. I pulled around to the employee parking lot, which was
right in front of Sam Merlotte's trailer, which itself is behind and at right angles to the employee entrance to
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the bar. I hopped out of the driver's seat, trotted through the storeroom, and peeked through the glass pane in
the door to check the short hall with its doors to the rest rooms and Sam's office. Empty. Good. And when I
knocked on Sam's door, he was behind his desk, which was even better. Sam is not a big man, but he's very
strong. He's a strawberry blond with blue eyes, and he's maybe three years older than my twenty-six. I've
worked for him for about that many years. I'm fond of Sam, and he's starred in some of my favorite fantasies;
but since he dated a beautiful but homicidal creature a couple of months before, my enthusiasm has somewhat
faded. He's for sure my friend, though. " 'Scuse me, Sam," I said, smiling like an idiot. "What's up?" He closed
the catalog of bar supplies he'd been studying. "I need to stash someone in here for a little while." Sam didn't
look altogether happy. "Who? Has Bill gotten back?" "No, he's still traveling." My smile got even brighter.
"But, urn, they sent another vampire to sort of guard me? And I need to stow him in here while I work, if that's
okay with you." "Why do you need to be guarded? And why can't he just sit out in the bar? We have plenty of
TrueBlood." TrueBlood was definitely proving to be the frontrunner among competing blood replacements.
...
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