Dead and Gone ss(v-9 Read online

  “Well, she’s on her way. She had a hard time arranging child care.” He sounded a little hesitant.

  “She knew about your mom, right?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “No,” he said. “Real often, were parents don’t tell the kids who aren’t affected. My sibs didn’t know about me, either, since they didn’t know about Mom.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, which stood for a lot of things.

  “I wish you were here,” Sam said, taking me by surprise.

  “I wish I could be more help,” I said. “If you can think of anything else I can do, you call me at any hour.”

  “You’re keeping the business running. That counts for a lot,” he said. “I better go get some sleep.”

  “Okay, Sam. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. He sounded so worn-out and sad it was hard not to cry.

  I felt relieved that I’d put my personal feelings aside to call Tanya, after that conversation. It had been the right thing to do. Sam’s mother being shot for what she was—well, that just put my dislike of Tanya Grissom into perspective.

  I fell into bed that night, and I don’t think I even twitched after that.

  I’d been sure the warm glow generated by Sam’s call would carry me through the next day, but the morning started badly.

  Sam always ordered the supplies and kept up with the inventory, naturally. Also, naturally, he’d forgotten to remind me that he had some cases of beer coming in. I got a phone call from the truck driver, Duff, and I had to leap out of bed and hurry to Merlotte’s. On my way out the door, I glimpsed the blinking light on my answering machine, which I’d been too tired to check the night before. But I didn’t have time to worry about missed messages now. I was simply relieved Duff had thought of calling me when he got no answer at Sam’s.

  I opened the back door of Merlotte’s, and Duff wheeled the cases in and put them where they were supposed to go. Somewhat nervously, I signed for Sam. By the time that was done and the truck had pulled out of the parking lot, Sarah Jen, the mail carrier, came by with the bar mail and Sam’s personal mail. I accepted both. Sarah Jen had her talking shoes on. She’d heard (already) that Sam’s mom was in the hospital, but I didn’t feel I had to enlighten her about the circumstances. That was Sam’s business. Sarah Jen also wanted to tell me how she wasn’t astonished at all that Sam was a wereanimal, because she’d always thought there was something strange about him.

  “He’s a nice guy,” Sarah Jen admitted. “I’m not saying he’s not. Just . . . something odd there. I wasn’t a bit surprised.”

  “Really? He’s sure said such nice things about you,” I said sweetly, looking down so the line would be a throwaway. I could see the delight flooding Sarah Jen’s head as clearly as if she’d drawn me a picture.

  “He’s always been real polite,” she said, suddenly seeing Sam in the light of a most perceptive man. “Well, I better be going. I got to finish the route. If you talk to Sam, tell him I’m thinking of his mom.”

  After I carried the mail to Sam’s desk, Amelia called from the insurance agency to tell me that Octavia had called her to ask if either of us could take her to Wal-Mart. Octavia, who’d lost most of her stuff in Katrina, was stuck out at the house without a car.

  “You’ll have to take her on your lunch hour,” I said, barely managing not to snap at Amelia. “I got a full plate today. And here comes more trouble,” I said as a car pulled up beside mine in the employee parking lot. “Here’s Eric’s daytime guy, Bobby Burnham.”

  “Oh, I meant to tell you. Octavia said Eric tried to call you at home twice. So she finally told Bobby where you were this morning,” Amelia said. “She figured it might be important. Lucky you. Okay, I’ll take care of Octavia. Somehow.”

  “Good,” I said, trying not to sound as brusque as I felt. “Talk to you later.”

  Bobby Burnham got out of his Impala and strode up to me. His boss, Eric, was bound to me in a complicated relationship that was based not only on our past history but also on the fact that we’d swapped blood several times.

  This hadn’t been an informed decision on my part.

  Bobby Burnham was an asshole. Maybe Eric had gotten him on sale?

  “Miss Stackhouse,” he said, laying the courtliness on thick. “My master asks that you come to Fangtasia tonight for a sit-down with the new king’s lieutenant.”

  This was not the summons I’d expected or the kind of conversation I’d foreseen with the vampire sheriff of Area Five. Given the fact that we had some personal issues to discuss, I’d imagined Eric would call me when things had settled down with the new regime, and we’d make some kind of appointment—or date—to talk about the several items on our mutual plate. I wasn’t pleased by this impersonal summons by a flunky.

  “You ever hear of a phone?” I said.

  “He left you messages last night. He told me to talk to you today, without fail. I’m just following orders.”

  “Eric told you to spend your time driving over here and asking me to come to his bar tonight.” Even to my own ears, I sounded unbelieving.

  “Yes. He said, ‘Track her down, deliver the message in person, and be polite.’ Here I am. Being polite.”

  He was telling me the truth, and it was just killing him. That was almost enough to make me smile. Bobby really didn’t like me. The closest I could come to defining why was that Bobby didn’t think I was worthy of Eric’s notice. He didn’t like my less-than-reverent attitude toward Eric, and he couldn’t understand why Pam, Eric’s right-hand vampire, was fond of me, when she wouldn’t give Bobby the time of day.

  There was nothing I could do to change this, even if Bobby’s dislike had worried me . . . and it didn’t. But Eric worried me plenty. I had to talk to him, and I might as well get it over with. It had been late October when I’d last seen him, and it was now mid-January. “It’ll have to be when I get off here. I’m temporarily in charge,” I said, sounding neither pleased nor gracious.

  “What time? He wants you there at seven. Victor will be there then.”

  Victor Madden was the representative of the new king, Felipe de Castro. It had been a bloody takeover, and Eric was the only sheriff of the old regime still standing. Staying in the good graces of the new regime was important to Eric, obviously. I wasn’t yet sure how much of that was my problem. But I was thumbs-up with Felipe de Castro by a happy accident, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  “I might be able to get there by seven,” I said after some inner computation. I tried not to think about how much it would please me to lay eyes on Eric. At least ten times in the past few weeks, I’d caught myself before I’d gotten in my car to drive over to see him. But I’d successfully resisted the impulses, because I’d been able totell that he was struggling to maintain his position under the new king. “I’ve got to brief the new gal. . . . Yeah, seven is just about doable.”

  “He’ll be so relieved,” Bobby said, managing to work in a sneer.

  Keep it up, asshole, I thought. And possibly the way I was looking at him conveyed that thought, because Bobby said, “Really, he will be,” in as sincere a tone as he could manage.

  “Okay, message delivered,” I said. “I got to get back to work.”

  “Where’s your boss?”

  “He had a family problem in Texas.”

  “Oh, I thought maybe the dogcatcher got him.”

  What a howl. “Good-bye, Bobby,” I said, and turned my back on him to go in the back door.

  “Here,” he said, and I turned around, irritated. “Eric said you would need this.” He handed me a bundle wrapped in black velvet. Vampires couldn’t give you anything in a Wal-Mart bag or wrapped in Hallmark paper, oh, no. Black velvet. The bundle was secured with a gold tasseled cord, like you’d use to tie back a curtain.

  Just holding it gave me a bad feeling. “And what would this be?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t tasked with opening it.”

  Ihate the
word “tasked,” with “gifted” running close behind. “What am I supposed to do with this?” I said.

  “Eric said, ‘Tell her to give it to me tonight, in front of Victor.’ ”

  Eric did nothing without a reason. “All right,” I said reluctantly. “Consider memessaged .”

  I got through the next shift okay. Everyone was pitching in to help, and that was pleasing. The cook had been working hard all day; this was maybe the fifteenth short-order cook we’d had since I’d begun working at Merlotte’s. We’d had every variation on a human being you could imagine: black, white, male, female, old, young, dead (yes, a vampire cook), lycanthropically inclined (a werewolf), and probably one or two I’d completely forgotten. This cook, Antoine Lebrun, was real nice. He’d come to us out of Katrina. He’d outstayed most of the other refugees, who’d moved back to the Gulf Coast or moved on.

  Antoine was in his fifties, his curly hair showing a strand or two of gray. He’d worked concessions at the Superdome, he’d told me the day he got hired, and we’d both shuddered. Antoine got along great with D’Eriq, the busboy who doubled as his assistant.

  When I went in the kitchen to make sure he had everything he needed, Antoine told me he was really proud to be working for a shapeshifter, and D’Eriq wanted to go over and over his reaction to Sam’s and Tray’s transformations. After he’d left work, D’Eriq had gotten a phone call from his cousin in Monroe, and now D’Eriq wanted to tell us all about his cousin’s wife being a werewolf.

  D’Eriq’s reaction was what I hoped was typical. Two nights before, many people had discovered that someone they knew personally was a were of some kind. Hopefully, if the were had never shown signs of insanity or violence, these people would be willing to accept that shape-changing was an unthreatening addition to their knowledge of the world. It was even exciting.

  I hadn’t had time to check reactions around the world, but at least as far as local stuff went, the revelation seemed to be going smoothly. I didn’t get the feeling anyone was going to be firebombing Merlotte’s because of Sam’s dual nature, and I thought Tray’s motorcycle repair business was safe.

  Tanya was twenty minutes early, which raised her up in my estimation, and I gave her a genuine smile. After we ran over a few of the basics like hours, pay, and Sam’s house rules, I said, “You like being out there in Hotshot?”

  “Yeah, I do,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “The families out in Hotshot, they really get along well. If something goes wrong, they have a meeting and discuss it. Those that don’t like the life, they leave, like Mel Hart did.” Almost everyone in Hotshot was either a Hart or a Norris.

  “He’s really taken up with my brother lately,” I said, because I was a little curious about Jason’s new friend.

  “Yeah, that’s what I hear. Everyone’s glad he’s found someone to hang with after being on his own so long.”

  “Why didn’t he fit in out there?” I asked directly.

  Tanya said, “I understand Mel doesn’t like to share, like you have to if you live in a little community like that. He’s real . . . ‘What’s mine is mine.’ ” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what they say.”

  “Jason’s like that, too,” I said. I couldn’t read Tanya’s mind too clearly because of her double nature, but I could read the mood and intent of it, and I understood the other panthers worried about Mel Hart.

  They were concerned about Mel making it in the big world of Bon Temps, I guessed. Hotshot was its own little universe.

  I was feeling a bit lighter of heart by the time I’d finished briefing Tanya (who had definitely had experience) and hung up my apron. I gathered my purse and Bobby Burnham’s bundle, and I hurried out the employee door to drive to Shreveport.

  I started to listen to the news as I drove, but I was tired of grim reality. Instead, I listened to a Mariah Carey CD, and I felt the better for it. I can’t sing worth a damn, but I love to belt out the lyrics to a song when I’m driving. The tensions of the day began to drain away, replaced by an optimistic mood.

  Sam would come back, his mother having recovered, and her husband having made amends and having pledged he’d love her forever. The world wouldoooh andaaah about werewolves and other shifters for a while, then all would be normal again.

  Isn’t it always a bad idea, thinking things like that?

  Chapter 3

  The closer I got to the vampire bar, the more my pulse picked up; this was the downside to the blood bond I had with Eric Northman. I knew I was going to see him, and I was simplyhappy about it. I should have been worried, I should have been apprehensive about what he wanted, I should have asked a million questions about the velvet-wrapped bundle, but I just drove with a smile on my face.

  Though I couldn’t help how I felt, I could control my actions. Out of sheer perversity, since no one had told me to come around to the employees’ entrance, I entered through the main door. It was a busy night at Fangtasia, and there was a crowd waiting on benches inside the first set of doors. Pam was at the hostess podium. She smiled at me broadly, showing a little fang. (The crowd was delighted.)

  I’d known Pam for a while now, and she was as close to a friend as I had among the vampires. Tonight the blond vampire was wearing the obligatory filmy black dress, and she’d camped it up with a long, sheer black veil. Her fingernails were polished scarlet.

  “My friend,” Pam said, and came out from behind the podium to hug me. I was surprised but pleased and gladly hugged her back. She’d spritzed on a little perfume to eclipse the faint, rather dry smell of vampire. “Have you got it?” she whispered in my ear.

  “Oh, the bundle? It’s in my purse.” I lifted my big brown shoulder bag by its straps.

  Pam gave me a look I couldn’t interpret through the veil. It appeared to be an expression that compounded exasperation and affection. “You didn’t even look inside?”

  “I haven’t had time,” I said. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been curious. I simply hadn’t had the leisure to think about it. “Sam had to leave because his mom got shot by his stepdad, and I’ve been managing the bar.”

  Pam gave me a long look of appraisal. “Go back to Eric’s office and hand him the bundle,” she said. “Leave it wrapped. No matter who’s there. And don’t handle it like it was a garden tool he left outside, either.”

  I gave her the look right back. “What am I doing, Pam?” I asked, jumping on the cautious train way too late.

  “You’re protecting your own skin,” Pam said. “Never doubt it. Now go.” She gave me a get-along pat on the back and turned to answer a tourist’s question about how often vampires needed to get their teeth cleaned.

  “Would you like to come very close and look at mine?” Pam asked in a sultry voice, and the woman shrieked with delighted fear. That was why the humans came to vampire bars, and vampire comedy clubs, and vampire dry cleaners, and vampire casinos . . . to flirt with danger.

  Every now and then, flirtation became the real thing.

  I made my way between the tables and across the dance floor to the rear of the bar. Felicia, the bartender, looked unhappy when she saw me. She found something to do that involved crouching down out of my sight. I had an unfortunate history with the bartenders of Fangtasia.

  There were a few vampires seated throughout the bar area, strewn among the gawking tourists, the costumed vampire wannabes, and the humans who had business dealings with the vamps. Over in the little souvenir shop, one of the New Orleans vampire refugees from Katrina was selling a Fangtasia T-shirt to a pair of giggling girls.

  Tiny Thalia, paler than bleached cotton and with a profile from an ancient coin, was sitting by herself at a small table. Thalia was actually tracked by fans who had devoted a website to her, though she would not have cared if they’d all burst into flames. A drunken serviceman from Barksdale Air Force Base knelt before her as I watched, and as Thalia turned her dark eyes on him, his prearranged speech died in his throat. Turning rather pale himself, the strapping young man backed aw
ay from the vampire half his size, and though his friends jeered as he returned to his table, I knew he wouldn’t approach her again.

  After this little slice of bar life, I was glad to knock on Eric’s door. I heard his voice inside, telling me to come in. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. “Hi, Eric,” I said, and was almost rendered mute by the surge of happiness that swept through me whenever I saw him. His long blond hair was braided tonight, and he was wearing his favorite jeans-and-a-tee combo. The T-shirt tonight was bright green, making him look whiter than ever.

  The wave of delight wasn’t necessarily related to Eric’s gor geousness or the fact that we’d bumped pelvises, though. The blood bond was responsible. Maybe. I had to fight the feeling. For sure.

  Victor Madden, representative of the new king, Felipe de Castro, stood and inclined his curly dark head. Victor, short and compact, was always polite and always well-dressed. This evening he was especially resplendent in an olive suit and brown striped tie. I smiled at him and was just about to tell him I was glad to see him again when I noticed that Eric was eyeing me expectantly. Oh, right.

  I shucked off my coat and extracted the velvet bundle from my purse. I dropped the purse and coat in an empty chair, and walked over to Eric’s desk with the bundle extended in both hands. This was making as much of the moment as I could, short of getting on my knees and crawling over to him, which I would do when hell froze over.

  I laid the bundle in front of him, inclined my own head in what I hoped was a ceremonious manner, and sat down in the other guest chair.

  “What has our fair-haired friend brought you, Eric?” Victor asked in the cheerful voice that he affected most of the time. Maybe he was actually that happy, or maybe his mama had taught him (a few centuries ago) that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

  With a certain sense of theater, Eric untied the golden cord and silently unfolded the velvet. Sparkling like a jewel on the dark material was the ceremonial knife I’d last seen in the city of Rhodes. Eric had used it when he officiated at the marriage of two vampire kings, and he’d used it to nick himself later when he’d taken blood from me and given me blood in return: the final exchange, the one that (from my point of view) had caused all the trouble. Now Eric lifted the shining blade to his lips and kissed it.