Dead Reckoning

Chapter 12

   

  "You have both your ears," I assured him, feeling a wave of relief so strong I almost fell over. I touched the points lightly so he could be certain.

  "Why would I not?" Dermot was confused, and considering the amount of bleeding he'd had, I was sure that was understandable. "Who attacked me?"

  I looked down at him and couldn't decide what to do. I had to bite the bullet. I called Claude.

  "Claude's phone," said a deep voice I pegged as belonging to Bellenos, the elf.

  "Bellenos, it's Sookie. I don't know if you remember me, but I was there the other day with my friend Sam?"

  "Yes," he said.

  "Here's the deal. Someone attacked Dermot, and he's hurt, and I need to know if there's anything I should or shouldn't do to an injured fairy. Anything besides what you do for a human. "

  "Who has hurt him?" Bellenos's voice was sharper.

  "Two human guys who broke into the house coming for me. I wasn't here, but Dermot was, and there was machinery running, and he couldn't hear too well, and they seem to have hit him on the head. I don't know what with. "

  "Has the bleeding stopped?" he asked, and I could hear Claude's voice in the background.

  "Yes, it's clotted. "

  There was a buzz of voices while Bellenos consulted with various people, or at least that was what it sounded like.

  "I'm coming," Bellenos said at last. "Claude tells me he's not welcome in your home right now, so I'm coming in his stead. It'll be nice to get out of this building. No other humans around besides you? I can't pass. "

  "No one else besides me, at least now. "

  "I'll be there soon. "

  I relayed this information to Dermot, who was simply looking puzzled. He told me a couple of times he didn't understand why he was on the floor, and I began to get worried about him. At least he seemed content to stay there.

  "Sookie!" Before it had started raining, Dermot had opened the windows because of the sanding. I could hear Bill clearly.

  I trailed over to the window with my fringe swaying.

  "How is he?" Bill asked, staying well away. "How can I help?"

  "You've been wonderful," I said, meaning it. "One of the fae from Monroe is coming over, Bill, so you better go back to your house. When my clothes get dry, could you just leave them on my back steps sometime when it's not raining? Or if you just put them on your front porch, I can pick 'em up any time. "

  "I feel I've failed you," he said.

  "How come? You gave me a place to hide; you cleared my driveway; you checked out the house so no one could ambush me again. "

  "I didn't kill them," he said. "I'd like to. "

  I didn't feel hardly creepy at all at his admission. I was getting used to drastic pronouncements. "Hey, don't worry about it," I assured him. "Someone will, if they keep doing stuff like this. "

  "Did you form any idea of who had hired them?"

  "I'm afraid not. " I really regretted that. "They were going to tie me on some vehicle and take me somewhere. " I hadn't seen the vehicle in their thoughts, so that part was fuzzy.

  "Where was their car parked?"

  "I don't know. I never saw one. " I hadn't exactly had time to think about it.

  Bill stared up at me longingly. "I feel useless, Sookie. I know you need help getting him down the stairs. But I don't dare try to approach him again. "

  Bill's head turned with a suddenness that made me blink. Then he was gone.

  "I'm here," called a voice from the back door. "I am Bellenos the elf, vampire. Tell Sookie I'm here to see my friend Dermot. "

  "An elf. I haven't seen one of you in over a hundred years," I heard Bill's voice, much fainter.

  "And you won't again for another hundred," Bellenos's deep voice responded. "There aren't many of us left. "

  I went down the stairs again, as fast as I could without breaking my neck. I unlocked the back door and stepped across the porch to unlock the porch door. I could see both the elf and the vampire through the glass.

  "Since you're here, I'll be on my way," Bill said. "I can't be of any help. " He was out in the yard. The harsh security light mounted on the pole made him look whiter than white, truly alien. The rain was only dripping now, but the air smelled pregnant with moisture. I didn't think it would hold off for long.

  "Fairy intoxication?" Bellenos said. He was pale, too, but no one could be more washed out than a vamp. Bellenos's light brown freckles looked like little shadows on his face, and his smooth hair seemed an even darker auburn. "Elves smell different from fairies. "

  "Yes, you do," Bill said, and I could hear the distaste in his voice. Bellenos's smell seemed to repel at least one vampire. Maybe I could scrape some skin cells from Bellenos to scatter over my great-uncle so I could have vampires over. Oh, gosh, what was I going to do about the meeting with Eric and Pam?

  "Are you two through swapping how-de-dos?" I called. "Because Dermot could use some help. "

  Bill vanished into the woods, and I opened the door for the elf. He smiled at me, and it was hard not to twitch when I saw the long, pointed teeth.

  "Come in," I said, though I knew he could enter without being invited.

  As I led him through the kitchen, he was looking around him with some curiosity. I hoisted my trailing wrapper to precede him up the stairs, and I hoped Bellenos wasn't getting too much of an eyeful. When we reached the attic, before I could say anything the elf was on his knees beside Dermot. After a quick survey, Bellenos rolled the fairy onto his side to examine the wound. The curiously slanted brown eyes were intent on his wounded friend.

  Well, he might have glanced at my bare shoulders a little.

  More than a little.

  "You need to cover up," Bellenos said bluntly. "That's too much human skin for me. "

  Okay, I'd totally misread that, to my embarrassment. Just as Bill had been repelled by Bellenos's scent, Bellenos was repelled by the sight of me.

  "I'll be glad to put on real clothes now that there's someone to stay with Dermot. " "Good," Bellenos said.

  As blunt as Claude could be, Bellenos had him beat. It was actually almost entertaining. I asked Bellenos to carry Dermot down to the guest room on the ground floor, and I preceded them to make sure the room was okay. After a cursory look to make sure the bedspread was pulled up over the sheets, I moved aside for Bellenos, who was carrying Dermot as easily as he would a child, though Dermot was certainly less maneuverable on the narrow staircase.

  While Bellenos settled Dermot on the bed, I zipped into my room to dress. I can't tell you what a relief it was to unwind the fringed and flowered shawl and put on some jeans (not shorts, out of deference to Bellenos's human skin aversion). It was too hot to even think of a longsleeved shirt, but my offensive shoulders were properly covered with a striped T-shirt.

  Dermot was fully conscious when I returned to check on him. Bellenos was kneeling by the bed, stroking Dermot's golden hair and talking to him in a language I didn't know. My great-uncle was alert and lucid. My heart settled into a happier rhythm when Dermot even smiled at me, though it was a shadow of his usual grin.

  "They didn't hurt you," he said, obviously relieved. "So far, Niece, it seems living with you is more dangerous than staying with my own kind. "

  "I'm so sorry," I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking his hand. "I don't know how they were able to get into the house with the wards in place. People who mean me harm aren't supposed to be able to enter, whether I'm here or not. "

  Despite his blood loss, Dermot flushed. "That would be my fault. "

  "What?" I stared down at him. "Why?"

  "It was human magic," he said, not meeting my eyes. "Your little witch friend, she's quite good for a human, but fae magic is much, much b
etter. So I deconstructed her spells, and I intended to put my own around your house as soon as I finished sanding the floor. "

  I really couldn't think of a thing to say.

  There was a sticky little moment of silence.

  "We'd better tend to your head," I said briskly. I cleaned it some more and dabbed the wound with Neosporin. I certainly wasn't going to try to sew it up, though it seemed to me that someone should. When I mentioned stitches, both of the fae seemed utterly disgusted by the idea. I put some butterfly bandages on the wound to hold it shut. I figured that was the best I could do.

  "Now I'll treat him," Bellenos said, and I was pleased to hear that he intended to do something more active than carry Dermot down the stairs to the bed. Not that that hadn't been a help, but I'd expected a bit more, somehow. "Of course the blood of the one who harmed him would be best, and maybe we can do something about that, but for now . . . "

  "What will you do?" I hoped I could watch and learn.

  "I will breathe into him," Bellenos said, as if I were a fool not to know that. My amazement startled him. He shrugged, as if I were too ignorant for words. "You can watch if you want. " He looked down at Dermot, who nodded, then winced.

  Bellenos stretched out on the bed beside Dermot and kissed him.

  I'd certainly never thought of curing a head wound that way. If my lack of knowledge of fae ways had been a surprise to him, this was a surprise to me.

  After a second I understood that though their mouths were together, the elf was breathing the air in his own lungs into Dermot. After detaching to take in another lungful, Bellenos repeated the procedure.

  I tried to imagine a human doctor treating a patient this way. Lawsuit! Though I could tell it wasn't sexual--well, not overtly--this was a little too personal for me. This might be a good time to clean up. I collected the used sterile wipes and bandage wrappers to pitch into the kitchen trash can, and while I was by myself, I took the time to have a snit.

  Yeah, fae magic was probably great, when you used it. Amelia's spells might have been human and therefore inferior, but they'd been in place to protect me. Until Dermot had removed them . . . and left me with nothing at all. "Jackass," I muttered, and scrubbed the counter with enough pressure to kill any germs by force. That was about as mad as I could get, since Dermot's mistaken sense of superiority had ended with his incurring a severe head injury.

  "He's resting and healing. Very soon, he and I have things we must do," Bellenos said. He'd come into the kitchen behind me without my sensing so much as a change in the air. He really enjoyed watching me jump. He laughed, which was weird, because he did it with his mouth wide as if he were panting. His laugh was more a breathy "heeheehee" than the human guffaw.

  "He's able to move?" I was delighted, but surprised.

  "Yes," Bellenos said. "Besides, he tells me you have vampires coming later, and he would need to be elsewhere, anyway. "

  At least Bellenos didn't chide me for expecting vampire guests, and he also didn't ask me to cancel my plans to accommodate Dermot's injury.

  I'd considered calling Eric's cell phone to postpone our powwow. But I thought that it was entirely possible that Hod and Kelvin were part and parcel of the same struggle, albeit a clumsy part.

  "Wait here for a minute, please," I said politely, and I went to talk to Dermot. He was propped up on the bed, and I spared a second to thank Amelia for making it before she left, though I needed to change the sheets, but I could do that at my leisure--okay, time to stop making housekeeping notes, since Dermot was looking all pale and brave. When I sat by him, he took me in a surprisingly strong embrace. I returned it with interest.

  "I'm sorry this happened to you," I said. I bypassed the whole warding issue. "Are you sure you want to go to Monroe? Will they really take care of you? I can cancel the thing for tonight. I'd be glad to nurse you. "

  Dermot was silent for a moment. I could feel him breathing in my arms, and the smell of his skin surrounded me. Naturally he didn't smell like Jason, though they could have been twins.

  "Thanks for not ripping me a new one," he said. "See, I've mastered modern human speech. " He managed a real smile. "I'll see you later. Bellenos and I have an errand to complete. "

  "You need to take it easy. You were hurt pretty bad. How are you feeling?"

  "Better by the moment. Bellenos has shared his breath with me, and I'm excited about the hunt. "

  Okay, I didn't quite understand that, but if he was pleased, I was pleased. Before I could ask him questions, he said, "I failed you about the wards, and I didn't stop the intruders. While I lay there, I feared they'd found you. "

  "You shouldn't have worried about me," I said, and I was sincere, though I was sure grateful he had. "I hid over at Bill's and they didn't find me. "

  While Dermot and I were hugging each other, an embrace that was lasting a bit too long, I could hear Bellenos outside. He was circling the house in the rain (which had begun again) and darkness, and his voice rose and fell. I could only catch snatches of what he was saying, but it was in that other language and its meaning was lost on me. Dermot seemed satisfied, and that was reassuring.

  "I'll make this up to you," Dermot said, releasing me gently.

  "No need," I said. "I'm good, and since you didn't have any permanent damage, we'll just say that was a learning experience. " As in, Don't erase wards without putting in new ones.

  Dermot stood, and he seemed very steady on his feet. His eyes were shining. He looked . . . excited, as if he were going to a birthday party or something.

  "Don't you need a raincoat?" I suggested.

  Dermot laughed, put his hands on my shoulders, and kissed me. My heart leaped in shock, but I recognized the stance. He was breathing into me.

  For a few seconds I thought I'd strangle or suffocate, but somehow I didn't, and then it was over.

  He smiled down at me and then he was gone. I heard the back doors slam after him, and I turned to the window to see a blur as he and Bellenos disappeared into the dark woods.

  I couldn't think of anything to do after such a crisis. I got the blood off the floor in the attic, I put the shawl in the kitchen sink to soak in some Woolite, and I changed the sheets in the guest bedroom.

  After that I showered. I needed to wash the fairy scent off me before Eric and Pam got here. Besides, after being rain soaked, my hair was just a mass of nastiness. I got dressed--again--and sat down for a minute or two in the living room, to watch the Weather Channel gloating over the big storm.

  The next thing I knew, I was waking up with sand in my mouth. The Weather Channel was still on, and Eric and Pam were knocking at the front door.

  I staggered over to unlock it, as stiff as though someone had kicked me while I slept. I was feeling the result of my desperate run through the rain.

  "What's happened?" Eric asked, holding my shoulders and giving me a narrow-eyed look. Pam was sniffing the air, her blond head thrown back dramatically. She gave me a sideways grin. "Ooooh, who's been entertaining . . . Wait . . . An elf, a fairy, and Bill?"

  "You been taking tracking lessons from Heidi?" I asked weakly.

  "As a matter of fact, I have," she said. "There's an art to drawing in air to sample it, since we no longer need to breathe. "

  Eric was still waiting, and not patiently.

  I remembered I'd bought them some bottled blood, and I went to the kitchen to heat it up with the two vampires trailing behind. While I was taking care of the hospitality portion of the evening, I gave them the Reader's Digest version of my adventure.

  Someone knocked on the back door.

  The air turned electric. Pam glided over to the door onto the porch, unlocked it, went out to the back door. "Yes?" I heard her say.

  There was a muffled answer in a deep voice. Bellenos.

  "Sookie, you're
wanted!" Pam sang out. She seemed very amused by something.

  I was curious as I stepped out on the porch, Eric right behind me.

  "Oh, she'll be so impressed," Pam was saying, sounding as pleased as I did when someone brought me some fresh produce from his garden. "How very thoughtful. " She stepped aside so I could appreciate my presents.

  Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea.

  My great-uncle Dermot and Bellenos were standing in the dripping rain, each holding a severed head.

  Let me just say here that normally I have quite a strong stomach, but the rain wasn't the only thing that was dripping, and the heads were face forward so I got a good look at each face. The sight overcame me in a very drastic way. I turned and dashed for my bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I retched and ralphed and panted until I'd recovered a bit of my equilibrium. Naturally, I needed to brush my teeth and wash my face and comb my hair after losing everything in my stomach . . . though it hadn't been much, because I simply couldn't remember how long it had been since I'd eaten. I'd had the biscuit for breakfast. . . . Oh. No wonder I'd been sick. I hadn't eaten anything since then. I'm a girl who likes her meals, so it hadn't been a weight-loss tactic. I'd just been too busy bumping from crisis to crisis. Go on the Sookie Stackhouse Narrow Avoidance of Death Diet! Run for your life, and miss meals, too! Exercise plus starvation.

  Pam and Eric were waiting in the kitchen.

  "They left," Pam said, holding up a bottle of blood in a toast. "They were sorry it was too much for your human sensibility. I'm assuming you didn't want to keep the trophies?"

  I felt a need to defend myself, but I bit it back. I refused to be ashamed of getting sick after seeing something so horrible. I'd seen a detached vampire head, but it hadn't had the ghastly touches. I took a deep breath. "No, I didn't want to keep the heads. Kelvin and Hod, rest in peace. "

  "Those were their names? That'll help in finding out who hired them," Pam said, looking pleased.

  "Um. Where are they?" I asked, trying not to look too anxious.

  "Do you mean your great-uncle and his elf buddy, or do you mean the heads, or do you mean the bodies?" Eric asked.

  "Both. All three. " I got myself some ice and poured some Diet Coke over it. People had told me for years that carbonated drinks settled your stomach. I was hoping they were right.

  "Dermot and Bellenos have left for Monroe. Dermot got to anoint his wound with the blood of his enemies, which is a tradition among the fae. Bellenos, of course, got to take the heads off, which is an elf tradition. They were both very happy in consequence. "

  "I'm glad for them," I said automatically, and thought, What the hell am I saying? "I should tell Bill. I wonder if they found the car?"

  "They found four-wheelers," Pam said. "I think they had an excellent time driving them. " Pam looked envious.

  I was almost able to smile, imagining that. "So, the bodies?"

  "They've been dealt with," Eric said. "Though I think the two of them took the heads back to Monroe to show the other fae. But they'll destroy them there. "

  "Oh," Pam said suddenly, and leaped up. "Dermot left their papers. " She returned with two wet wallets and some odds and ends heaped in her hands. I spread a kitchen towel out on the table, and she dumped the items onto it. I tried not to notice the bloodstains on the bits of paper. I opened the leather billfold first and extracted a driver's license. "Hod Mayfield," I said. "From Clarice. He was twenty-four. " I pulled out a picture of a woman, presumably the Marge they'd been talking about. She was definitely queen-sized, and she was wearing her dark hair up in a teased style that was what you might call dated. Her smile was open and sweet.

  No pictures of children, thank God.

  A hunter's license, a few receipts, an insurance card. "That means he had a regular job," I said to the vampires, who never needed hospitalization or life insurance. And Hod had three hundred dollars.

  "Gosh," I said. "That seems like a lot. " All crisp twenties, too.

  "Some of our employees don't have a checking account," Pam said. "They cash their paychecks every time and live on a cash basis. "

  "Yeah, I know people who do that, too. " Terry Bellefleur, for example, who thought banks were run by a Communist cartel. "But this money is all twenties, right from the machine. Might be a payoff. " Kelvin turned out to be a Mayfield, too. Cousin, brother? Kelvin was also from Clarice. He was older, twenty-seven. His billfold did contain pictures of children, three of them. Crap. Without comment, I laid the school shots out with the other items. Kelvin also had a condom, a free drink card for Vic's Redneck Roadhouse, and a card for an auto body shop. A few worn dollar bills, and the same crisp three hundred that Hod had had.

  These were guys I could have passed dozens of times when I'd been shopping in Clarice. I might have played softball against their sisters or wives. I might have served them drinks at Merlotte's. What were they doing trying to kidnap me? "I guess they could have taken me up to Clarice through the woods, on the four-wheelers," I said out loud. "But what would they have done with me then? I thought one of them . . . Through his thoughts I caught a glimpse of an idea about a car trunk. " It had only been fleeting, but I shuddered. I'd been in a car trunk before, and it hadn't ended well for me. It was a memory I blocked out resolutely.

  Possibly Eric was thinking about the same event because he glanced out the window toward Bill's house. "Who do you think sent them, Sookie?" he asked, and he made a huge effort to keep his voice calm and patient.

  "I sure can't question them to find out," I muttered, and Pam laughed.

  I gathered my thoughts, such as they were. The fog of my two-hour nap had finally lifted, and I tried to make some sense out of the evening's strange occurrences. "If Kelvin and Hod had been from Shreveport, I'd think that Sandra Pelt had hired them after she escaped from the hospital," I said. "She doesn't mind using up the lives of others, not a bit. I'm sure she hired the guys who came to the bar last Saturday. And I'm also sure she's the one who threw the firebomb at Merlotte's before that. "

  "We've had eyes looking for her in Shreveport, but no one's spotted her," Eric said.

  "So this Sandra's goal," Pam said, pulling her straight pale hair behind her shoulders to braid it, "is to destroy you, your place of work, and anything else that gets in her way. "

  "That sounds about right. But evidently she's not behind this. I have too many enemies. "

  "Charming," Pam said.

  "How's your friend?" I asked. "I'm sorry I didn't ask before. "

  Pam gave me a straight look. "She's going to pass soon," she said. "I'm running out of options, and I'm running out of hope that the process can be legal. "

  Eric's cell phone rang, and he got up to walk into the hall to take it. "Yes?" he said curtly. Then his voice changed. "Your Majesty," he said, and he walked quickly into the living room so I couldn't hear.

  I wouldn't have thought so much about it if I hadn't seen Pam's face. She was looking at me, and her expression was clearly one of . . . pity.

  "What?" I said, the hair on the back of my neck rising. "What's up? If he said `Your Majesty,' that's Felipe calling, huh? That should be good . . . right?"

  "I can't tell you," she said. "He'd kill me. He doesn't even want you to know there's anything to know, if you can pick up what I'm putting down. "

  "Pam. Tell me. "

  "I can't," she repeated. "You need to be looking out for yourself, Sookie. "

  I looked at her with fierce intensity. I couldn't will her mouth to open, and I didn't have the strength to hold her down on the kitchen table and demand the facts from her.

  Where could reason get me? Okay, Pam liked me. The only people she liked better were Eric and her Miriam. If there was something she couldn't tell me, it had to be associated with Eric. If Eric had
been human, I would've thought he had some dread disease. If Eric had lost all his assets in the stock market or some such financial calamity, Pam knew that money was not my ruling concern. What was the only thing I valued?

  His love.

  Eric had someone else.

  I stood up without knowing I was standing, the chair clattering to the floor behind me. I wanted to reach into Pam's brain and yank out the details. Now I understood very clearly why Eric had gone for her in this same room the night he'd brought Immanuel over. She'd wanted to tell me then and he'd forbidden her to speak.

  Alarmed by the noise of the chair bouncing on the floor, Eric came running into the room, the phone still held to his ear. I was standing with my fists clenched, glaring at him. My heart was lurching around in my chest like a frog on a griddle.

  "Excuse me," he said into the phone. "There is a crisis. I'll return your call later. " He snapped his phone shut.

  "Pam," he said. "I am very angry with you. I am seriously angry with you. Leave this house now and remain silent. "

  With a posture I had never seen before, hunched and humbled, Pam scrambled up from her chair and out the back door. I wondered if she'd see Bubba in the woods. Or Bill. Or maybe there'd be fairies. Or some more kidnappers. A homicidal maniac! You never knew what you'd find in my woods.

  I didn't say a word. I waited. I felt like my eyes were shooting flames.

  "I love you," he said.

  I waited.

  "My maker, Appius Livius Ocella"--the dead Appius Livius Ocella--"was in the process of making a match for me before he died," Eric said. "He mentioned it to me during his stay, but I didn't realize the process had gone as far as it had when he died. I thought I could ignore it. That his death canceled it out. "

  I waited. I could not read his face, and without the bond, I could only see that he was covering his emotion with a hard face.

  "This isn't much done anymore, though it used to be the norm. Makers used to find matches for their children. They'd receive a fee if it was an advantageous union, if each half could supply something the other lacked. It was mostly a business arrangement. "

  I raised my eyebrows. At the only vampire wedding I'd witnessed, there'd been plenty of evidence of physical passion, though I'd been told the couple wouldn't be spending all their time together.

  Eric looked abashed, an expression I'd never thought to see on his face.

  "Of course, it has to be consummated," he said.

  I waited for the coup de grace. Maybe the ground would open up and swallow him first. It didn't.

  "I'd have to put you aside," he admitted. "It's not done, to have a human wife and a vampire wife. Especially if the wife is the Queen of Oklahoma. The vampire wife must be the only one. " He looked away, his face stiff with a resentment he'd never expressed before. "I know you've always insisted that you weren't my true wife, so presumably that would not be so difficult for you. "

  Like hell.

  He looked at my face as if he were reading a map. "Though I believe it would be," he said softly. "Sookie, I swear to you that since I received the letter, I have done everything I could to stop this. I have pleaded that Ocella's death should cancel the arrangement; I have said that I'm happy where I am; I have even put forward our marriage as a bar. And as my regent, Victor could plead that his wishes supersede those of Ocella, and that I'm too useful to him to leave the state. "

  "Oh, no. " I found myself finally able to speak, though only in a whisper.

  "Oh, yes," Eric said bitterly. "I've appealed to Felipe, but I haven't heard from him. Oklahoma is one of the rulers eyeing his throne. He may want to placate her. In the meantime, she calls me every week, offering me a share of her kingdom if I'll come to her. "

  "So, she's met you face-to-face. " My voice was a little stronger.

  "Yes," he said. "She was at the summit in Rhodes to make a deal with the King of Tennessee about a prisoner exchange. "

  Did I remember her? When I was calmer, I might. There'd been several queens there, and not an ugly one among 'em. There were a thousand questions crowding to get out of my head and into my mouth, but I clamped my lips shut. This was not a time to speak, but a time to listen.

  I believed this arrangement hadn't been his idea. And now I understood what Appius had told me when he was about to die. He'd told me I'd never keep Eric. He'd died happy about that, that he'd arranged such an advantageous connection for his beloved son, one that would take Eric away from the lowly human he loved. If he'd been in front of me, I'd have killed Appius again and enjoyed it.

  In the middle of this brooding, and while Eric was saying everything all over again, a white face peered in the kitchen window. Eric could see from my face that something was behind him, and he whipped around so quickly I didn't see him move. To my relief, the face was familiar.

  "Let him in," I said, and Eric went to the back door.

  Bubba was in the kitchen a second later, bending over to kiss my hand. "Hey, pretty lady," he said, beaming at me. Bubba had one of the most recognizable faces in the world, though his heyday had been fifty years before.

  "Good to see you," I said, and I meant it. Bubba had some bad habits, because he was a bad vampire; he'd been too soaked in drugs when he'd been brought over, and the spark of life had been almost extinct. Two seconds later, it would have been too late. But a morgue attendant in Memphis, a vampire, had been so overwhelmed at seeing him that he'd brought the King over. Then, vampires had been secret creatures of the night, not on the cover of every other magazine the way they are now. Under the name "Bubba" he'd been passed around from kingdom to kingdom, given simple tasks to do to earn his keep, and every now and then on memorable nights, he wanted to sing. He was very fond of Bill, less attached to Eric, but Bubba understood the protocol well enough to be polite.

  "Miss Pam is outside," Bubba said, looking sideways at Eric. "You and Mr. Eric doing okay in here?"

  Bless his heart, he suspected Eric was hurting me, and he'd come in to check. Bubba was right; Eric was hurting me but not physically. I felt as though I were standing on the edge of a cliff, narrowly avoiding taking the step off the edge. I was pretty numb, but that wasn't going to last.

  At this interesting moment a knock at the front door announced the arrival of (I hoped) Audrina and Colton, our co-conspirators. I went to the door, the two vampires behind me. Feeling absolutely secure in doing so, I opened the front door. Sure enough, the human couple was standing on the front porch waiting, and each of them was gripped by a dripping, grim Pam. Pam's blond straight hair was darker with rain and hanging in rattails. She looked like she could spit nails.

  "Please come in," I said politely. "And you, too, Pam. " After all, it was my house and she was my friend. "We need to put our heads together. " I thought of adding, "Though not literally," when I flashed on the heads of Hod and Kelvin, but Audrina and Colton looked pretty frightened already. It was one thing to talk big in your trailer all alone. It was another thing to meet with desperate and terrifying people in a lonely house out in the woods. As I turned away to lead them to the kitchen, I decided to put out some drinks, a bucket of ice, and maybe a bowl of chips and dip.

  It was time to get this assassination party started.

  I'd think about other deaths later.