"By whom?"
There was a silence. I looked over at my honeybun, instantly curious. For the life of me, I couldn't see why that was a critical question.
"By Bubba," Eric said.
I could feel the smile all over my face. "He's back! Where's he staying?"
"Right now, he's staying with me," Eric said. "When he asked after Bobby, I had to tell him what had happened. The next night Bubba brought me this person. He's teachable, I suppose."
"You don't sound too enthusiastic."
"He's a Were," Eric said, and I instantly understood Eric's attitude. The Weres and the vampires really don't get along. You'd think that as the two largest supernatural groups they could form an alliance, but that doesn't happen. They're capable of cooperating on some mutually beneficial project for a short period of time, but after that they revert to distrust and dislike.
"Tell me about him," I said. "Your assistant, that is." We didn't have anything else to do, and lately we hadn't had much time for general conversation.
"He's a black man," Eric said, as if he were saying the new assistant had brown eyes. Eric could remember, vividly, the first black man he ever saw . . . centuries before. "He's a lone wolf, unaffiliated. Alcide has already made overtures to him about joining the Long Tooth pack, but I don't think he's interested, and of course now that he's taken the job with me, they won't be so anxious to have him."
"And this is the guy you hired? A Were, whom you don't trust and have to train? A guy who'll automatically piss off Alcide and the Long Tooth pack?"
"He has an outstanding attribute," Eric said.
"Good! What is it?"
"He can keep his mouth shut. And he hates Victor," Eric said.
That made it a whole different shooting match. "Why?" I asked. "I'm assuming he has a good reason."
"I don't know what it is yet."
"But you're convinced he's not pulling some elaborate double whammy? That Victor didn't cleverly realize you'd hire someone who hated him, so he primed this guy and shot him over to you?"
"I'm convinced," Eric said. "But I want you to sit with him a while tomorrow."
"If I can get some sleep," I said, yawning wide enough for my jaws to be in danger of cracking. It was after two in the morning, and we'd seen signs the bar was closing, but many of the employee cars were still waiting for their owners. "Oh, Eric, there he is!" I hardly recognized the server named Colton because he was wearing long khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a green T-shirt with a pattern I couldn't discern. I kind of missed the loincloth. I started my car after Colton did, and when he pulled out of the parking lot, I waited a discreet moment and followed him. He turned right onto the access road and drove west toward Shreveport. However, he didn't go that far. He exited the interstate at Haughton.
"We're looking pretty damn conspicuous," I said.
"We need to talk to him."
"So, we're giving up on stealth, huh?"
Eric said, "Yes." He didn't sound happy about it, but we didn't have that many choices.
Colton's car, a Dodge Charger that had seen better days, turned into a narrow drive off a narrow road. He stopped in front of a goodsized trailer. He got out and stood by the car. His hand was down by his side, and I was pretty sure in that hand was a gun.
"Let me get out first," I said, as I pulled up beside the man.
Before Eric could argue, I opened my car door and called, "Colton! It's Sookie Stackhouse. You know who I am! I'm standing up now, and I'm not armed."
"Go slow." His voice was wary, and I couldn't blame him.
"Just so you know, Eric Northman is with me, but he's still in the car."
"Good."
My hands reaching for the sky, I stepped away from the car so he could have a good look at me. The front porch light of the trailer was all he had to see by, but he gave me a thorough scan. While he was trying to pat me down with his eyes, the trailer door opened and a young woman stepped out on the added-on porch.
"Colton, what's going on?" she asked in a nasal voice with a very "country" accent.
"We got some company. Don't worry about it," he said automatically.
"Who's she?"
"The Stackhouse woman."
"Sookie?" The voice sounded startled.
"Yeah," I said. "Do I know you? I can't see you that well."
"It's Audrina Loomis," she said. "You remember? I went out with your brother for a while in high school."
So did half the girls in Bon Temps, so that didn't really narrow my memory down. "It's been a while," I said carefully.
"He still single?"
"Yeah," I said. "Oh, by the way, can my boyfriend get out now?" Since we were all being just folks here.
"Who's he?"
"His name's Eric; he's a vampire."
"Cool. Sure, let's have a look." Audrina seemed to be a little more reckless than Colton. On the other hand, Colton had warned me about the fairy blood.
Eric got out of my car, and there was a moment of impressed silence while Audrina absorbed Eric's magnificence.
"Well, okay okay," Audrina said, clearing her throat as though it had gone suddenly dry. "You two wanna come in and let us know what you're doing here?"
"You think that's smart?" Colton asked her.
"He coulda killed us about six times already." Audrina was not as dumb as she sounded.
When we were all in the trailer and Eric and I were sitting on the couch, which had been covered with an old chenille bedspread and was missing several crucial springs, I got a good look at Audrina. Her roots were dark. The rest of her shoulder-length hair was platinum blond. She was wearing a nightgown that hadn't really been designed for sleeping in. It was red and mostly sheer. She'd been waiting up for Colton with more on her mind than conversation.
Now that I wasn't distracted by a leather loincloth and his startling eyes, Colton was much more of an average guy. Some men just can't radiate sexual attraction unless they take their clothes off, and Colton was such a man. But his eyes were definitely unusual, and he was practically giving me a laser treatment with them now, though not in a sexy way.
"We don't have any blood," Audrina said. "Sorry." She didn't offer me anything to drink. She was doing this on purpose, her brain told me. She didn't want this to seem in any way like a social occasion.
Okay. "Eric and I want to know why you warned us," I said to Colton. And I wanted to know why I'd thought about him when Eric had told me the story of Chico and his mother.
"I heard about you," he said. "Heidi told me."
"You and Heidi are friends?" Eric was intent on Colton, but he spared one of his best smiles for Audrina.
"Yeah," Colton said. "I worked for Felipe at a club in Reno. I knew Heidi from there."
"You moved from Reno to take a low-paying job in Louisiana?" That didn't make any sense.
"Audrina was from here, and she wanted to try living here again," Colton explained. "Her grandma lives in the trailer down the road, and she's pretty frail. Audrina works at Vic's Redneck Roadhouse during the day as a bookkeeper. I work at night at Vampire's Kiss. And the cost of living is a lot cheaper here. But you're right, there's more to the story." He glanced at his girlfriend.
"We came for a reason," Audrina said. "Colton is Chico's brother."
Eric and I both took a second to work that out. "So it was your mom," I said to the young man. "I'm so sorry." Though I hadn't heard any more of the story, the name had been enough to snag in my brain.
"Yeah, it was my mom," Colton said. He gave us an entirely blank stare. "My brother Chico is an asshole who didn't think twice about becoming a vampire. He gave up his life like some lesser asshole would get a tattoo. 'It's cool, let's do it!' And then he kept on being an asshole, talking shit to Victor, not understanding. Not getting it. Not getting it." Colton put his head in his hands and shook it from side to side. "Until that night. Then he got it. But our mom was dead. And Chico wishes he was, but he won't ever be."
"And how come Victor doesn't know who you are, know to be leery of you?"
"Chico had a different dad, so he had a different last name," Audrina said, to give Colton time to recover. "And Chico wasn't a family type guy. He hadn't lived at home for ten years. He only called his mom once every couple of months, never went to see them. But that was enough to give Victor the bright idea of reminding Chico he hadn't signed a contract with the California Angels."
"More like Hell's Angels," Colton said, straightening.
If the comparison bothered Eric, he didn't let on. I was sure it wasn't the worst he'd heard. "So thanks to Victor's employee," Eric began, "you knew about my Sookie. And you knew how to warn her when Victor was going to poison us."
Colton looked angry. Shouldn't have, Shouldn't have, he thought. he thought.
"Yes, you did what you ought to do," I said, maybe a little huffily. "We're people, too."
"You are," Eric said, reading Colton's expression as accurately as I read his thoughts. "But Pam and I aren't. Colton, I want to thank you for your warning, and I want to reward you. What can I do for you?"
"You can kill Victor," Colton said immediately.
"How interesting. That's exactly what I want to do," Eric said.
Chapter 10.
As dramatic statements go, Eric's had a high impact. Both Audrina and Colton tensed up. But I'd ridden this pony before. and Colton tensed up. But I'd ridden this pony before.
I puffed out my cheeks in exasperation and looked away.
"You're bored, my lover?" Eric asked, in a voice that could have taught icicles something about chilly.
"We've been saying that for months." That might have been a slight slight exaggeration, but not much. "All we've done is talk smack. If we're going to do something bad, let's go on and do it-not talk it to death! You think he doesn't know he's on our hit list? You think he's not waiting for us to try?" (Apparently, this was a speech I'd kept secret even from myself, for way too long.) "You think he's not doing all this shit to you and Pam to provoke you into something, so he'll be justified in smacking you down? This is a win-win situation for him!" exaggeration, but not much. "All we've done is talk smack. If we're going to do something bad, let's go on and do it-not talk it to death! You think he doesn't know he's on our hit list? You think he's not waiting for us to try?" (Apparently, this was a speech I'd kept secret even from myself, for way too long.) "You think he's not doing all this shit to you and Pam to provoke you into something, so he'll be justified in smacking you down? This is a win-win situation for him!"
Eric looked at me as though I'd turned into a nanny goat. Audrina and Colton were openmouthed.
Eric started to say something, then closed his mouth. I had no idea if he was going to yell at me or walk out silently.
"So what's your solution?" he said, his voice quiet and steady. "Do you have a plan?"
"Let's meet with Pam tomorrow night," I said. "She should be in on this." Also, it would give me a time to think of something so that I wouldn't embarrass myself.
"All right," he said. "Colton, Audrina. Are you both sure you want to risk this?"
"Without a doubt," Colton said. "Audie, baby. You don't have to do this."
Audrina snorted. "Too late, buddy! Everyone at work knows we live together. If you rebel, I'm dead anyway. My only chance is to join in so we can do this thing right."
I like a practical woman. I looked at her outside and I looked at her inside. I came up with sincerity. However, I would've been naive not to see that it would be extremely practical if Audrina went to Victor and turned us in. That would be the most practical course of all. "How do we know you won't be on the phone the minute we're out of the trailer?" I asked, deciding I might as well be blunt.
"How do I know you won't do the same?" Audrina retorted. "Colton done you a good turn in letting you know about the fairy blood. He believed what Heidi said about you. And I guess you want to live through this as bad as we do."
"'Survival' is my middle name. See you tomorrow night at my house," I said. I'd written directions down on an old grocery list. Since my house was isolated and warded, we'd at least have some warning if anyone was following Eric and Pam or Colton and Audrina.
It had been a very long night, and I was yawning hard enough to crack my jaw. I let Eric drive us to Shreveport, since we were closer to his house than mine. I was so sleepy (and sore) that another bout of sex was out of the question, unless Eric had suddenly developed an interest in necrophilia. He laughed when I said as much.
"No, I like you alive and warm and wiggling," he said, and kissed my neck in his favorite spot, the one that always made me shiver. "I think I could wake you up enough," he said. Confidence is attractive, but I still couldn't summon any energy. I yawned again, and he laughed. "I'm going to find Pam and bring her up to date. I should ask about her friend Miriam, too. In the morning, Sookie, go home when you get up. I'll leave a note for Mustapha about the car."
"Who?"
"My new daytime man's name is Mustapha Khan."
"Seriously?"
Eric nodded. "Plenty of attitude," he said. "Be advised."
"'Kay. I think I'll stay in the upstairs bedroom since I have to get up," I said. I was standing in the doorway of the largest ground-level bedroom, the one Eric wanted me to move into. The one Eric used had formerly been a walk-out game room downstairs. Eric had gotten some builders to make the wall solid, and he had the protection of a very heavy door that double-locked to bar the stairs. It made me just a wee tad claustrophobic to spend the night in there, though I had done it a few times if I knew I could sleep late. The upstairs bedroom had shutters and heavy curtains installed to make it light-tight for visiting vampires, but I left the shutters open and that made the room tolerable.
After the catastrophic visit of Eric's maker, Appius, and his "son" Alexei, I'd imagined I could still see blood everywhere when I came to Eric's house; and I smelled it, too. But a decorator with a big budget had swapped the carpets and repainted. Now it was hard to tell anything violent had occurred, and the house had a sort of pecan pie smell. That homely fragrance was underlain with the faint dry scent of vampires, a smell not at all unpleasant.
I locked the bedroom door after Eric left (on the theory that you never knew you never knew) and had a quick shower. I kept a nightgown here, something nicer than my usual Tweety sleep shirt. I thought I heard Pam's voice in the living room as I relaxed on the excellent mattress. I groped around in the night table drawer, found my clock and my box of Kleenex, and placed them close to hand.
That was the last thing I remembered for a few hours. I dreamed about Eric and Pam and Amelia; they were in a house that was on fire, and I had to pull them out or they'd be consumed. Didn't need a shrink to figure out that one. I only questioned why I'd put Amelia in the house. If dreams were more true to life, Amelia would have started the fire herself by some strange accident.
I stumbled out of the house at eight in the morning, having had maybe five hours' sleep. It didn't feel like enough. I stopped at a Hardee's and got a sausage biscuit and a cup of coffee. My day got a little brighter after that. A little.
Aside from a brand-new pickup parked at the front by Eric's car, my house looked sleepy and normal in the warm morning light. It was a dazzlingly clear day. The flowers blooming around the front steps lifted their faces to the morning sunshine. I drove around back, wondering who was visiting and what bed they were in.
Amelia's car and Claude's car were in the graveled area at the back door, leaving just enough room for mine. I found it very strange to walk into my house when there were so many people there already. No one was stirring yet, somewhat to my relief. I started a pot of coffee and went into my room to change clothes.
There was someone in my bed.
"Excuse me?" I said.