Deadlocked (34 page)

Hoyt and Holly had gotten me a bottle of wine, Danny and Kennedy had gotten me an electric knife sharpener, and JB and Tara had regifted me with one of the five slow cookers they’d gotten when they got married. I was glad to get it.

Sam handed me a heavy envelope. “You open that later,” he said gruffly. I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “All right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s what I want.”

Halleigh had made her version of Caroline Bellefleur’s chocolate cake, and I cut it so everyone could have a piece, Dairy Queen Blizzard be damned. It was marvelous. “I think that’s better than Miss Caroline’s,” I said, which was close to heresy in Bon Temps.

“I put a pinch of cinnamon in,” she whispered.

After the party I went out the front to get birthday hugs from India, now on duty, and Danielle, who was working in my place.

Halleigh wanted me to come over to her house to see the nursery, which was completely ready for its expected occupant. I was so glad to be with a happy person who had no agenda. The visit was a real treat.

After that, I had a quick supper with my grandmother’s friend. Maxine, Hoyt’s mom, had been a couple of decades younger than Gran, but they’d been tight. Maxine was so happy about Hoyt’s wedding that I was feeling really cheerful after this visit; plus, Maxine had told me some funny stories about Gran. It was nice to remember that side of Gran, the familiar side, instead of thinking of her affair with Fintan. Dang, that had knocked me for a loop. Thanks to Maxine, I had a nice hour remembering the Gran I’d always thought I knew.

It grew dark as I drove home. Today was so much better than yesterday. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such good friends. The warm night seemed benevolent instead of scorching. I had a good time singing along with the radio since there was no one to hear my awful voice.

I’d hoped to at least get some phone messages from my vampire friends—of course, I’d been hoping to hear from Eric most of all. But my cell phone didn’t chirp on the drive back to my place. I stopped briefly at the end of the driveway to collect my local newspaper, and then I drove up to the house.

It wasn’t a total surprise—but it was a total relief—to find that they were waiting for me. Pam’s car was parked at the back of the house, and Bill, Eric, and Pam were sitting in lawn chairs in my backyard. Pam was wearing a low-cut flowered T-shirt and white cropped pants as a nod to the season—not that the temperature made any difference to her. Her high cork sandals were a great finishing touch.

“Hi, you-all!” I said, gathering all my gifts up out of the backseat. I gave Pam a special nod to acknowledge her ensemble. “What’s up at Fangtasia?”

“We came to wish you a happy day,” Eric said. “And I suppose, as usual, Bill will want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as he’ll tell you—and Pam will want to say something sarcastic and nearly painful, while reminding you that she loves you, too.”

Bill and Pam looked decidedly miffed at Eric’s preemptive strike, but I wasn’t going to let anything dim my mood.

“And what about you, Eric?” I asked on counterattack. “Are you going to tell me that you love me just as much as Bill, but in a practical way, while finding some way to subtly threaten me and simultaneously remind me that you may be leaving with Freyda?” I bared my teeth at him in a ferocious smile as I trotted by the trio on my way up my back steps. I unlocked the screen door, crossed the porch, unlocked the kitchen door, and went inside with my armful.

After dumping the presents on the kitchen table, I stepped back out onto the porch and opened the screen door. “Any of you have anything new to say?” I looked from one to the other. “Or shall I just consider all this as said?” Pam was looking away to hide her grin.

“Just that he was right,” Bill said, smiling openly. “I do love you more than Eric does. Have a great night, Sookie. Here is a gift for you.” He held out a little box with a bow on it, and I extended my arm to take it.

“Thank you, Mr. Compton,” I said, returning his smile, and he strode off into the woods. At the edge, he turned to blow me a kiss.

Pam said, “Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I’d want to spend time with a human, but you’re more tolerable than most. I hope no one hurts you on your birthday.” As birthday wishes went, that kind of sucked, but it was genuine Pam. I stepped down off the porch to give her a hug. She returned it, which made me smile. You never knew with Pam. Her touch was cold and she smelled of vampire. I was very fond of her. She produced a small box, highly decorated, and pressed it into my hand.

She stepped back and looked from me to Eric. “I’ll leave you two to whatever talk you want to have,” she said, her voice neutral. Eric was her maker, and there was a limit to the verbal abuse she could deal out. In a moment she was gone.

“Won’t you give me a hug, too?” Eric looked down at me, one eyebrow hiked up.

“Before I start giving out hugs to you I need to know what our situation is,” I said. I sat down on the back steps, setting my presents carefully to the side. Eric sat down, too.

I wasn’t happy anymore, of course, but I was much calmer than I’d thought I’d be when I’d realized we had to have this conversation. “I think you owe it to me to level with me,” I began. “For weeks, it seems like we haven’t really been a couple, though you still tell everyone I’m your wife. Lately, that’s just meant we have sex. I know it’s a tradition that guys don’t like relationship talks. I don’t think I do, either. But we have to have one.”

“Let’s go inside.”

“No. That might end up with us in bed. Before we do that again, we need to have an understanding between us.”

“I love you.” The security light glinted off his blond hair and was swallowed in his all-black getup. He’d dressed for a funeral tonight.

“I love you, too, Eric. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”

Eric looked away. “I think not,” he said reluctantly. “Sookie … it’s not just a straightforward decision, you over Freyda. If it were only one woman over another … it’s you I love. That’s a given, not a choice at all. But it’s not that simple.”

“It’s not that simple?” I repeated. I felt too many things to select one emotion, to say,
That’s the way I feel; I’m in dread
. Or
I’m angry
. Or
I’m numb with fear
. I had all those feelings, and more. Since I couldn’t bear to look at Eric’s face any more than he could bear to look at mine, I looked up at the starlit sky. After another moment’s silence, I said, “But it is, isn’t it. That simple.”

The night swelled with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.

“My maker gave this to me as his last order,” Eric said.

“I would never have believed you’d try this argument,” I said. “‘I’m just obeying orders.’ Come on! You can’t hide behind Appius’s wishes, Eric. He’s
gone
.”

“He signed a contract, and it’s legally binding,” Eric said, still keeping his composure.

“You’re giving yourself an excuse for doing something painful and wrong,” I said.

“I’m locked into it,”
he said, his expression savage.

I looked down at my feet for a minute. I was wearing my happy sandals again, high-heeled and with little flowers on the strap across my toes. They looked ridiculously frivolous, appropriate for a single woman’s twenty-eighth birthday. They weren’t kiss-your-lover-good-bye shoes.

“Eric, you’re a strong vampire,” I said. I took his cool hand. “You’ve always been the boldest, baddest guy around. If your maker were alive, I’d believe you couldn’t help this. But I watched Appius die, right here in my yard. So here’s my bottom line; here’s what I really believe. I think you could get out of this if you hated Freyda. But you don’t. She’s beautiful. She’s rich. She’s powerful. She needs you to watch her back, and the reward will be lots of the stuff you love.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “All I got is me. And I guess that’s not enough.” I waited, praying to hear a rebuttal. I looked up at him. I saw no shame. I saw no weakness. I saw instead a laserlike intensity in his blue eyes, so like my own.

He said, “Sookie, if I turn down this opportunity, Felipe will punish both of us. Our lives will not be worth living.”

“Then we’ll leave,” I said quietly. “We’ll go somewhere else. You’ll work for some other king or queen. I’ll find a job.”

But even as I spoke the words, I knew he would not opt for this. In fact, I found myself wondering if I would have said it if I’d believed there was any chance he’d say yes. On the whole, I thought I would, though it would have meant leaving everything I found dear.

“If only there were some way to prevent this,” Eric said. “But I don’t know of any way, and I can’t tear you away from your life.”

I didn’t know whether my heart was ripped in two, whether I felt anguish or relief. I’d been sure he’d say that.

But he didn’t say anything else.

He was waiting for me to speak.

The apprehension was so strong in me that I felt my eyebrows draw together in a question. “What?” I asked.
“What?”
I couldn’t imagine where he wanted me to go in this terrible conversation.

Eric seemed almost angry, as if I weren’t picking up my cue.

I continued to be bewildered; he continued to try to force some statement from me.

When he was sure I genuinely didn’t have a clue, Eric said, “You could stop this if you chose.” Each word came clear and distinct.

“How?” I dropped his hands, spread my own to show my ignorance. “Tell me how.” I rummaged through my mind as fast as I could, trying frantically to understand what Eric could mean.

“You say you love me,” he said angrily. “You could stop this.”

He turned to walk away.

“Just
tell me how
,” I asked, hearing and hating the desperation in my voice. “Goddammit, just TELL ME HOW.”

He cast a look over his shoulder. I hadn’t seen that expression on his face since we’d met, when he’d regarded me as just another disposable human.

And then he was in the air. And then he was lost in the night sky.

I stood staring up for a minute or two. Maybe I expected blazing letters to appear in the sky to explain his words. Maybe I thought Bill would pop out of the woods like a deus ex machina to tell me what Eric had been so sure I would understand.

I went back into the house and automatically locked the door behind me. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, cudgeling my tired brain into activity.

Okay,
I said.
Let’s figure this out. Eric said I could stop him from leaving with Freyda.
“But it can’t be just that I love him, because I told him that, and he knows it,” I whispered. “So, it’s not how I feel, it’s some act I need to perform.”

What act? How could I prevent their marriage?

I could kill Freyda; however, not only would that be a horrible thing to do, since she’d done nothing more than desire the man I loved, but any attempt to kill the powerful vampire would be simply suicidal.

And killing Eric would hardly produce a happy ending, and that was the only other way I could imagine stopping him.

I guess I could go to Felipe and beg him to keep Eric,
I thought. Though Eric had said Felipe would punish both of us if Eric remained in Louisiana, disobliging Freyda, I seriously considered how I would go about appealing to the king. What response would he have? He knew I’d saved his life once upon a time, but though he’d made me big promises, he hadn’t exactly come through with them. No, Felipe would laugh when I went down on my knees. And then he’d tell me he thought he ought to honor Appius’s wishes and let Appius’s child make such an advantageous match.

In return, I was sure Felipe would be favored in any subsequent dealings between Oklahoma and Nevada or Arkansas or Louisiana.

All in all, I really couldn’t see any chance at all that Felipe would agree to let Eric remain in Shreveport. Eric’s worth as a sheriff couldn’t equal the huge plus of having him at Freyda’s side, murmuring things into Freyda’s ear.

Okay, begging Felipe was out. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved.

I was still poking at my brain, trying to get it to spit out an idea, while I showered and put on my nightshirt. Eric had been so sure I could stop the Freyda-Felipe deal. How? It was like Eric thought I had a magic wish, something tucked up my sleeve.

Oh.

I froze, one arm through an armhole, the rest of the nightshirt bunched around my neck. I didn’t breathe for a long moment.

Eric knew about the cluviel dor.

Chapter 15

I sat up all night.

My brain ran through the same old paces like a chipmunk in a cage. I always ended with the same conclusion.

Eric was trying to get me to admit I had the cluviel dor. What would have happened if I’d understood him last night, if I’d admitted it? Would he have taken it from me? I didn’t know if he simply sought it for himself, or if Freyda would barter the cluviel dor in return for Eric’s services, or if Eric simply wanted me to use it to stop him from going to Oklahoma.

And here’s what happens when you have too much time to think: I actually considered the idea that Eric might have engineered this whole episode with Freyda to get me to reveal the location of the cluviel dor. That was a sickening possibility. If I hadn’t experienced past betrayals, such an idea would never have crossed my mind. Even though I had accepted the world as it was, it made me sad that I was sure such a long-term and planned deception was possible.

Every new thought seemed to be worse than the previous one.

I lay in the dark watching the clock change.

I tried to think of things I could do, something besides lie in this bed. I could run across the cemetery to talk to Bill, who was surely up. That was a terrible idea, and I discarded it the first ten times it occurred to me. The eleventh time, I actually got out of bed and walked to the back door before I made myself turn away. I knew if I went over to talk to Bill right now, something might happen that I would surely regret—and that wasn’t fair to me or Eric. Not until I knew for sure.