Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (7 page)

“Oh, certainly, I’ll be glad to pass that very specific message along,” Eric said. He hung up. Not big on saying good-bye, like most vampires.

This was going to be a very long day.

Luckily for me, all the customers cleared out early, and I was able to get my closing work done in record time. I called, “Good night!” over my shoulder and hared out the back door to my car. When I parked behind the house, I noticed Claude’s car wasn’t there. So he was probably still in Monroe, which simplified matters. I hurried to change clothes and freshen my makeup, and just as I put on some lipstick, Pam knocked at the back door.

Pam was looking especially Pammish tonight. Her blond hair was absolutely straight and shining, her pale blue suit looked like a vintage gem, and she was wearing hose with seams up the back, which she turned around to show me.

“Wow,” I said, which was the only possible response. “You’re looking great.” She put my red skirt and red and white blouse to shame.

“Yes,” she said with considerable satisfaction. “I am. Ah. ” She became utterly still. “Do I smell fairy?”

“You do, but there’s not one here now, so just rein it in. My cousin Claude was here today. He’s going to be bunking with me for a while.”

“Claude, the mouthwateringly beautiful asshole?”

Claude’s fame preceded him. “Yes, that Claude.”

“Why? Why is he staying with you?”

“He’s lonely,” I said.

“Do you really believe that?” Pam’s pale brows were arched incredulously.

“Well. yes, I do.” Why else would Claude want to stay at my house, which was not convenient to his job? He certainly didn’t want to get in my pants, and he hadn’t asked to borrow money.

“This is some fairy intrigue,” Pam said. “You were a fool to be taken in.”

Nobody likes being called a fool. Pam had stepped over the line, but then “tact” was not her middle name. “Pam, that’s enough,” I said. I must have sounded serious, because she stared at me for all of fifteen seconds.

“I’ve offended you,” she said, though not as if the idea gave her pain.

“Yeah, you have. Claude’s missing his sisters. There aren’t any fairies left for him to intrigue with since Niall closed the portal, or doors, or whatever the heck he closed. I’m the closest Claude’s got to his kind—which is pretty pitiful, since I just have a dab of fairy in me.”

“Let’s go,” Pam said. “Eric will be waiting.”

Changing the subject when she had nothing left to say was another of Pam’s characteristics. I had to smile and shake my head. “How’d the meeting with Victor go?” I asked.

“It would be a good thing if Victor met with an unfortunate accident.”

“You really mean that?”

“No. I really wish someone would kill him.”

“Me, too.” Our eyes met, and she gave me a brisk nod. We were in synch on the Victor issue.

“I suspect his every statement,” she said. “I question his every decision. I think he’s out to take Eric’s position. He doesn’t want to be the king’s emissary any longer. He wants to carve out his own territory.”

I pictured a fur-clad Victor paddling a canoe down the Red River with an Indian maiden sitting stoically behind him. I laughed. As we got into Pam’s car, she looked at me darkly.

“I don’t understand you,” she said. “I really don’t.” We went out to Hummingbird Road and turned north.

“Why would being a sheriff in Louisiana be a step above being the emissary of Felipe, who has a rich kingdom?” I asked very seriously, to make up my lost ground.

“ ‘Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven,’ ” Pam said. I knew she was quoting someone, but I didn’t have a clue who it was.

“Louisiana is hell?
Las Vegas
is heaven?” I could almost believe some cosmopolitan vampire would consider Louisiana as less than desirable as a permanent residence, but Las Vegas—divine? I didn’t think so.

“I’m just saying.” Pam shrugged. “It’s time for Victor to get out from under Felipe’s thumb. They’ve been together a long time. Victor is ambitious.”

“That’s true. What do you think Victor’s strategy is? How do you think he plans to dislodge Eric?”

“He’ll try to discredit him,” Pam said, without pausing a beat. She’d really been thinking about this. “If Victor can’t do that, he’ll try to kill Eric—but he won’t do it directly, in combat.”

“He’s scared of fighting Eric?”

“Yes,” Pam said, smiling. “I do believe he is.” We’d reached the interstate and were on our way west to Shreveport. “If he challenged Eric, it would be Eric’s right to send me in first. I would so love to fight Victor.” Her fangs gleamed briefly in the dashboard light.

“Does Victor have a second? Wouldn’t he send that second in?”

Pam cocked her head to one side. She seemed to be thinking about it as she passed a semi. “His second is Bruno Brazell. He was with Victor the night Eric surrendered to Nevada,” she said. “Short beard, an earring? If Eric allowed me to fight for him, Victor might send in Bruno. He’s impressive, I grant you. But I would kill him in five minutes or less. You can put money on that.”

Pam, who had been a Victorian middle-class young lady with a secret wild streak, had been liberated by becoming a vampire. I had never asked Eric why he’d chosen Pam for the change, but I was convinced it was because Eric had detected her inner ferocity.

On an impulse, I said, “Pam? Do you ever wonder what would have happened to you if you hadn’t met up with Eric?”

There was a long silence, or at least it seemed long to me. I wondered if she was angry or sad about her lost chance for a husband and children. I wondered if she was looking back with longing on her sexual relationship with her maker, Eric, which (like most vampire-vampire relationships) hadn’t lasted long, but had surely been very intense.

Finally, just when I was going to apologize for asking, Pam said, “I think I was born for this.” The faint light from the dashboard illuminated her perfectly symmetrical face. “I would have been a dismal wife, a terrible mother. The part of me that has taken to slashing the throats of my enemies would have surfaced if I’d remained human. I wouldn’t have killed anyone, I suppose, because that wasn’t on my list of things
I could do
, when I was human. But I would have made my family very miserable; you can be sure of that.”

“You’re a great vampire,” I said, since I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

She nodded. “Yes. I am.”

We didn’t speak again until we reached Eric’s house. Oddly enough, he’d bought a place in a gated community with a strict building code. Eric liked the daytime security of the gate and the guard. And he liked the fieldstone house. There weren’t too many basements in Shreveport, because the water level was too high, but Eric’s house was on a slope. Originally, its downstairs was a walk-in from the back patio. Eric had had that door pulled out and the wall made solid, so he had a great place to sleep.

Until we’d become blood bonded, I’d never been to Eric’s house.

Sometimes it was exciting being so closely yoked with Eric, and sometimes it made me feel trapped. Though I could scarcely believe it, the sex was even better now that I’d recovered, at least in large part, from the attack. At this moment, I felt like every molecule in my body was humming because I was near him.

Pam had a garage-door opener, and she pressed it now. The door swung up to reveal Eric’s car. Other than the gleaming Corvette, the garage was spotless: no lawn chairs, no bags of grass seed or half-empty paint cans. No stepladder, or coveralls, or hunting boots. Eric didn’t need any of those accoutrements. The neighborhood had lawns, pretty lawns, with rigidly planted and mulched flower beds—but a lawn-care service trimmed every blade of grass there, pruned every bush, raked every leaf.

Pam got a kick out of closing the garage door once we were inside. The kitchen door was locked, and she used a key so we could pass from the garage into the kitchen. A kitchen is largely useless to a vampire, though a little refrigerator is necessary for the synthetic blood, and a microwave is handy to heat it to room temperature. Eric had bought a coffeemaker for me, and he kept some food in the freezer for whatever human was in the house. Lately, that human had been me.

“Eric!” I called, when we came through the door. Pam and I took off our shoes, which was one of Eric’s house rules.

“Oh, go get your greeting over with!” Pam said, when I looked at her. “I’ve got some TrueBlood and some Life Support to put away.”

I passed from the sterile kitchen into the living room. The kitchen colors were bland, but the living room echoed Eric’s personality. Though it wasn’t often reflected in his clothing, Eric harbored a love of deep colors. The first time I’d been to his house, the living room had surprised the hell out of me. The walls were a sapphire blue, the crown molding and baseboards a pure, gleaming white. The furniture was an eclectic collection of pieces that had appealed to him, all upholstered in jewel tones, some intricately patterned—deep red, blue, the yellow of citrine, the greens of jade and emerald, the gold of topaz. Since Eric is a big man, all the pieces were big: heavy, sturdy, and strewn with pillows.

Eric came out of the doorway to his home office. When I saw him, every hormone I had stood to attention. He’s very tall, his hair is long and golden, and his eyes are so blue the color practically pops out of the whiteness of his face, a face that is bold and masculine. There’s nothing epicene about Eric. He wears jeans and T-shirts, mostly, but I’ve seen him in a suit.
GQ
missed a good thing when Eric decided his talents lay in building a business empire rather than modeling. Tonight he was shirtless, sparse dark gold hair trailing down to the waist of his jeans and gleaming against his pallor.

“Jump,” Eric said, holding out his hands and smiling. I laughed. I took a running start, and leaped. Eric caught me, his hands clamped around my waist. He lifted me up until my head touched the ceiling. Then he lowered me for a kiss. I wrapped my legs around his torso, my arms around his neck. We were lost in each other for a long moment.

Pam said, “Back to earth, monkey girl. Time is passing.”

I noted that she was blaming me and not Eric. I pulled away and gave him a special smile.

“Come, sit, and tell me what’s wrong,” he said. “Do you want Pam to know, too?”

“Yes,” I said. I figured he’d tell her anyway.

The two vampires sat at opposite ends of the dark red couch, and I sat across from them on the gold and red love seat. In front of the couch was a very large square coffee table with inlaid woodwork on the top and elaborately carved legs. The table was scattered with things Eric had been enjoying recently: the manuscript of a book about the Vikings that he’d been asked to endorse, a heavy jade cigarette lighter (though he didn’t smoke), and a beautiful silver bowl with a deep blue enamel interior. I always found his selections interesting. My own house was kind of. cumulative. In fact, I hadn’t picked out anything in it but the kitchen cabinets and appliances—but my house was the history of my family. Eric’s house was the history of Eric.

I brushed a finger across the inlaid wood. “Day before yesterday,” I began, “I got a call from Alcide Herveaux.”

I wasn’t imagining that the two vampires had a reaction to my news. It was minute (most vampires aren’t given to extravagant expressions), but it was definitely there. Eric leaned forward, inviting me to continue my account. I did, telling them that I’d also met some of the new additions to the Long Tooth pack, including Basim and Annabelle.

“I’ve seen this Basim,” Pam said. I looked at her with some surprise. “He came to Fangtasia one night with another Were, another new one. that Annabelle, the brown-haired woman. She’s Alcide’s new. squeeze.”

Though I’d suspected as much, it was still a little astonishing to me. “She must have hidden assets,” I said, before I thought.

Eric raised an eyebrow. “Not what you thought Alcide would pick, my lover?”

“I liked Maria-Star,” I said. Like so many other people I’d met in the past two years, Alcide’s previous girlfriend had met an awful end. I’d grieved for her.

“But before that, he had long associated with Debbie Pelt,” Eric said, and I had to struggle to control my face. “You can see that Alcide’s catholic in his pleasures,” Eric continued. “He carried the torch for you, didn’t he?” Eric’s slight accent made the outmoded phrase sound exotic. “From a true bitch, to a startling talent, to a sweet photographer, to a tough girl who doesn’t mind visiting a vampire bar. Alcide has very variable taste in women.”

That was true. I’d never put it together before.

“He sent Annabelle and Basim to the club for a purpose. Have you been reading the newspapers lately?” Pam asked.

“No,” I said. “I’ve been enjoying
not
reading the papers.”

“Congress is thinking of passing a bill requiring all the werewolves and shifters to register. Legislation and issues regarding them would then fall under the Bureau of Vampire Affairs, as laws and lawsuits pertaining to us, the undead, do now.” Pam was looking very grim.

I almost said, “But that’s not
right
!” Then I understood how that would sound—as if I thought it was okay to require the vampires to register, but Weres and shifters shouldn’t have to. Thank God I didn’t open my mouth.

“Not too surprisingly, the Weres are furious about this. In fact, Alcide has told me himself that he thinks the government has sent people to spy on his pack, the idea being that they would then give some kind of secret report to the people in Congress who are considering this bill. He doesn’t believe it’s only his pack that’s being singled out. Alcide has good sense.” Eric sounded approving. “But he believes he’s being watched.”

Now I understood why Alcide had been so concerned about the people camping on his land. He’d suspected they weren’t what they appeared to be.

“It would be awful to think your own government was spying on you,” I said. “Especially after you’d been thinking of yourself as a regular citizen your entire life.” The enormity of the impact of this piece of legislation was still sinking in. Instead of being a respected and wealthy citizen in Shreveport, Alcide (and the other members of his pack) would become like. illegal aliens. “Where would they have to register? Could the kids still go to school with all the other children? What about the men and women at Barksdale Air Force Base? After all these years! Do you think the bill really has a chance of passing?”