Sookie 08 From Dead To Worse (24 page)

"Hmmm. Well, I don't know what to make of that. Vampires and fairies don't interact, because of the vampire tendency to eat fairies."

"Niall can mask his scent," I explained proudly.

Sam looked overloaded with information. "That's another thing I've never heard of. I hope Jason doesn't know about this?"

"Oh, God, no."

"You know he'd be jealous and that would make him mad at you."

"Since I know Niall and he doesn't?"

"Yep. Envy would just eat Jason up."

"I know Jason's not the world's most generous person," I began, to be cut off when Sam snorted. "Okay," I said, "he's selfish. But he's still my brother anyway, and I have to stick by him. But maybe it's better if I never tell him. Still, Niall didn't have any problem showing himself to
you
, after telling me to keep him a secret."

"I'm guessing he did some checking up," Sam said mildly. He hugged me, which was a welcome surprise. I felt like I needed a hug after Niall's drop-in. I hugged Sam back. He felt warm, and comforting, and human.

But neither of us was 100 percent human.

In the next instant, I thought,
We are, too.
We had more in common with humans than with the other part of us. We lived like humans; we would die like humans. Since I knew Sam pretty well, I knew he wanted a family and someone to love and a future that contained all the things plain humans want: prosperity, good health, descendants, laughter. Sam didn't want to be a leader of any pack, and I didn't want to be princess of anybody—not that any pureblood fairy would ever think I was anything other than a lowly by-product of their own wonder-fulness. That was one of the big differences between Jason and me. Jason would spend his life wishing he was more supernatural than he was; I had spent mine wishing I was less, if my telepathy was indeed supernatural.

Sam kissed me on the cheek, and then after a moment's hesitation, he turned to go into his trailer, walking through the gate in the carefully trimmed hedge and up the steps to the little deck he'd built outside his door. When he'd inserted the key, he turned to smile at me.

"Some night, huh?"

"Yeah," I said. "Some night."

Sam watched while I got in my car, made a pressing gesture to remind me to lock my car doors, waited while I complied, and then went into his trailer. I drove home preoccupied with deep questions and shallow ones, and it was lucky there wasn't any traffic on the road.

Amelia and Octavia were sitting at the kitchen table the next day when I shambled out. Amelia had used up all the coffee, but at least she'd washed the pot and it took only a few minutes to make myself a much-needed cup. Amelia and her mentor kept a tactful conversation going while I bumbled around getting some cereal, adding some sweetener, pouring milk over it. I hunched over the bowl because I didn't want to dribble milk down my tank top. And by the way, it was getting too cold to wear a tank top around the house. I pulled on a cheap jacket made of sweats material and was able to finish my coffee and cereal in comfort.

"What's up, you two?" I asked, signaling I was ready to interact with the rest of the world.

"Amelia told me about your problem," Octavia said. "And about your very kind offer."

Ah-oh. What offer?

I nodded wisely, as if I had a clue.

"I'll be so glad to be out of my niece's house, you have no idea," the older woman said earnestly. "Janesha has three little ones, including one toddler, and a boyfriend that comes and goes. I'm sleeping on the living room couch, and when the kids get up in the morning, they come in and turn on the cartoons. Whether or not I'm up. It's their house, of course, and I've been there for weeks, so they've lost the sense that I'm company."

I gathered that Octavia was going to be sleeping in the bedroom opposite me or in the extra one upstairs. I was voting for the one upstairs.

"And you know, now that I'm older, I need quicker access to a bathroom." She looked at me with that humorous deprecation people show when they're admitting to a passage-of-time condition. "So downstairs would be wonderful, especially since my knees are arthritic. Did I tell you Janesha's apartment is upstairs?"

"No," I said through numb lips. Geez, this had happened so fast.

"Now, about your problem. I'm not a black witch at all, but you need to get these young women out of your life, both Ms. Pelt's agent and Ms. Pelt herself."

I nodded vigorously.

"So," Amelia said, unable to keep quiet any longer, "we've come up with a plan."

"I'm all ears," I said, and poured myself a second cup of coffee. I needed it.

"The simplest way to get rid of Tanya, of course, is to tell your friend Calvin Norris what she's doing," Octavia said.

I gaped at her. "Ah, that seems likely to result in some pretty bad things happening to Tanya," I said.

"Isn't that what you want?" Octavia looked innocent in a real sly way.

"Well, yeah, but I don't want her to die. I mean, I don't want anything she can't get over to happen to her. I just want her away and not coming back."

Amelia said, " ‘Away and not coming back' sounds pretty final to me."

It sounded that way to me, too. "I'll rephrase. I want her to be off somewhere living her life but far away from me," I said. "Is that clear enough?" I wasn't trying to sound sharp; I just wanted to express myself.

"Yes, young lady, I think we can understand that," said Octavia with frost in her voice.

"I don't want there to be any misunderstanding here," I said. "There's a lot at stake. I think Calvin kind of likes Tanya. On the other hand, I bet he could scare her pretty effectively."

"Enough to get her to leave forever?"

"You'd have to demonstrate that you were telling the truth," Amelia said. "About her sabotaging you."

"What do you have in mind?" I asked.

"Okay, here's what we think," Amelia said, and just like that, Phase One was in place. It turned out to be something I could have thought of myself, but the witches' help made the planning run much more smoothly.

I called Calvin at home, and asked him to stop by when he had a minute to spare around lunchtime. He sounded surprised to hear from me, but he agreed to come.

He got a further surprise when he came into the kitchen and found Amelia and Octavia there. Calvin, the leader of the werepanthers who lived in the little community of Hotshot, had met Amelia several times before, but Octavia was new to him. He respected her immediately because he was able to sense her power. That was a big help.

Calvin was probably in his midforties, strong and solid, sure of himself. His hair was graying, but he was straight as an arrow in posture, and he possessed a huge calm that couldn't fail to impress. He'd been interested in me for a while, and I'd only been sorry I couldn't feel the same way. He was a good man.

"What's up, Sookie?" he said after he'd turned down the offer of cookies or tea or Coke.

I took a deep breath. "I don't like to be a tale-teller, Calvin, but we have a problem," I said.

"Tanya," he said immediately.

"Yeah," I said, not bothering to hide my relief.

"She's a sly one," he said, and I was sorry to hear an element of admiration in his voice.

"She's a spy," Amelia said. Amelia could cut right to the chase.

"Who for?" Calvin tilted his head to one side, unsurprised and curious.

I told him an edited version of the story, a story I was extremely sick of repeating. Calvin needed to know that the Pelts had a big beef with me, that Sandra would hound me to my grave, that Tanya had been planted as a gadfly.

Calvin stretched out his legs while he listened, his arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing brand-new jeans and a plaid shirt. He smelled like fresh-cut trees.

"You want to put a spell on her?" he asked Amelia when I'd finished.

"We do," she said. "But we need you to get her here."

"What would the effect be? Would it hurt her?"

"She'd lose interest in doing harm to Sookie and all her family. She wouldn't want to obey Sandra Pelt anymore. It wouldn't hurt her physically at all."

"Would this change her mentally?"

"No," Octavia said. "But it's not as sure a spell as the one that would make her not want to be here anymore. If we cast that one, she'd leave here, and she wouldn't want to come back."

Calvin mulled this over. "I kind of like that ole girl," he said. "She's a live one. I've been pretty concerned over the trouble she's causing Crystal and Jason, though, and I've been wondering what steps to take about Crystal's crazy spending. I guess this kind of brings the issue front and center."

"You like her?" I said. I wanted all cards on the table.

"I said that."

"No, I mean, you
like
her."

"Well, her and me, we've had some good times now and then."

"You don't want her to go away," I said. "You want to try the other thing."

"That's about the size of it. You're right: she can't stay and keep on going like she is. She either changes her ways, or she leaves." He looked unhappy about that. "You working today, Sookie?"

I looked at the wall calendar. "No, it's my day off." I'd have two days in a row off.

"I'll get aholt of her and bring her by tonight. That give you ladies enough time?"

The two witches looked at each other and consulted silently.

"Yes, that will be fine," Octavia said.

"I'll get her here by seven," Calvin said.

This was moving with unexpected smoothness.

"Thanks, Calvin," I said. "This is really helpful."

"This'll kill a lot of birds with one stone, if it works," Calvin said. "Of course, if it don't work, you two ladies won't be my favorite people." His voice was completely matter-of-fact.

The two witches didn't look happy.

Calvin eyed Bob, who happened to stroll into the room. "Hello, brother," Calvin said to the cat. He gave Amelia a narrowed-eye look. "Seems to me like your magic don't work all the time."

Amelia looked guilty and offended simultaneously. "We'll get this to work," she said, tight-lipped. "You just see."

"I aim to."

I spent the rest of the day doing my laundry, redoing my nails, changing my sheets—all those tasks you save up for your day off. I went by the library to swap books and absolutely nothing happened. One of Barbara Beck's part-time assistants was on duty, which was good. I didn't want to experience the horror of the attack all over again, as I surely would in every encounter with Barbara for a long time to come. I noticed the stain was gone from the library floor.

After that, I went to the grocery store. No Weres attacked, no vampires rose. No one tried to kill me or anyone I knew. No secret relatives revealed themselves, and not a soul tried to involve me in his or her problems, marital or otherwise.

I was practically reeking with normality by the time I got home.

Tonight was my cooking night, and I'd decided to fix pork chops. I have a favorite homemade breading mix that I make in a huge batch, so I soaked the chops in milk and then dredged them with the mix so they were ready for the oven. I fixed baked apples stuffed with raisins and cinnamon and butter and popped them in to bake and I flavored some canned green beans and some canned corn and put them on low heat. After a while, I opened the oven to put in the meat. I thought about making biscuits, but there seemed to be more than enough calories on board.

While I cooked, the witches were doing stuff in the living room. They seemed to be having a good old time. I could hear Octavia's voice, which sounded very much like it was in teaching mode. Every now and then, Amelia would ask a question.

I did a lot of muttering to myself while I cooked. I hoped this magical procedure worked, and I was grateful to the witches for being so willing to help. But I was feeling a little sideswiped on the domestic front. My brief mention to Amelia that Octavia could stay with us for a little while had been a spur of the moment thing. (I could tell I was going to have to be more careful in conversations with my roomie from now on.) Octavia hadn't said she'd be in my house for a weekend, or a month, or any measure of time. That scared me.

I could have cornered Amelia and told her, "You didn't ask me if Octavia could stay
right now at this moment
, and it's my house," I supposed. But I
did
have a free room, and Octavia
did
need someplace to stay. It was a little late to discover that I wasn't entirely happy at having a third person in the house—a third person I barely knew.

Maybe I could find a job for Octavia, because regular earnings would allow the older woman her independence and she'd move out of here. I wondered about the state of her house in New Orleans. I assumed it was unlivable. For all the power she had, I guess even Octavia couldn't undo the damage a hurricane had done. After her references to stairs and increased bathroom needs, I'd revised her age upward, but she still didn't seem any older than, say, sixty-three. That was practically a spring chicken, these days.

I called Octavia and Amelia to the table at six o'clock. I had the table set and the iced tea poured, but I let them serve their own plates from the stove. Not elegant, but it did save on dishes.

We didn't talk a lot as we ate. All three of us were thinking about the evening to come. As much as I disliked her, I was a little worried about Tanya.

I felt funny about the idea of altering someone, but the bottom line was, I needed Tanya off my back and out of my life and the lives of those around me. Or I needed her to get a new attitude about what she was doing in Bon Temps. I couldn't see any way around those facts. In line with my new practicality, I'd realized that if I had to choose between continuing my life with Tanya's interference or continuing my life with Tanya altered, there was no contest.

I cleared the plates away. Normally, if one of us cooked, the other did the dishes, but the two women had magical preparations to make. It was just as well; I wanted to keep busy.

We heard the gravel crunching under the wheels of a truck at 7:05.

When we'd asked him to have her here at seven, I hadn't realized he'd bring her as a parcel.

Calvin carried Tanya in over his shoulder. Tanya was compact, but no featherweight. Calvin was definitely working, but his breathing was nice and even and he hadn't broken a sweat. Tanya's hands and ankles were bound, but I noticed he'd wrapped a scarf under the rope so she wouldn't get chafed. And (thank God) she was gagged, but with a jaunty red bandanna. Yes, the head werepanther definitely had a thing for Tanya.

Of course, she was mad as a disturbed rattler, wriggling and twisting and glaring. She tried to kick Calvin, and he slapped her on her butt. "You stop that now," he said, but not as if he was particularly upset. "You've done wrong; you got to take your medicine."

He'd come in the front door, and now he dumped Tanya on the couch.

The witches had drawn some things in chalk on the floor of the living room, a process that hadn't found much favor with me. Amelia had assured me she could clean it all up, and since she was a champion cleaner, I'd let them proceed.

There were various piles of things (I really didn't want to look too closely) set around in bowls. Octavia lit the material in one bowl and carried it over to Tanya. She wafted the smoke toward Tanya with her hand. I took an extra step back, and Calvin, who was standing behind the couch and holding Tanya by the shoulders, turned his head. Tanya held her breath as long as she could.

After breathing the smoke, she relaxed.

"She needs to be sitting there," Octavia said, pointing to an area circled by chalky symbols. Calvin plonked Tanya down on a straight-backed chair in the middle. She stayed put, thanks to the mysterious smoke.

Octavia started chanting in a language I didn't understand. Amelia's spells had always been in Latin, or at least a primitive form of it (she'd told me that), but I thought Octavia was more diverse. She was speaking something that sounded entirely different.

I'd been very nervous about this ritual, but it turned out to be pretty boring unless you were one of the participants. I wished I could open the windows to get the smell of the smoke out of the house, and I was glad Amelia had thought to take the batteries out of the smoke detectors. Tanya was clearly feeling something, but I wasn't sure it was the removal of the Pelt effect.

"Tanya Grissom," Octavia said, "yank the roots of evil out of your soul and remove yourself from the influence of those who would use you for evil ends." Octavia made several gestures over Tanya while holding a curious item that looked awfully like a human bone wound around with a vine. I tried not to wonder where she'd gotten the bone.