Dead and Gone ss(v-9 Page 9

  “So, let me summarize,” Tara said in a good imitation of one of our high school teachers. “You and Eric have done the nasty in the past.”

  I nodded. Boy howdy, had we.

  “Now the whole vampire organization owes you for some service you performed. I don’t want to know what it was, and I don’t want to know why you did it.”

  I nodded again.

  “Also, Eric more or less owns a piece of you because of this blood-bond thing. Which he didn’t necessarily plan out in advance, to give him credit.”

  “Yep.”

  “And now he’s maneuvered you into the position of being his fiancée? His wife? But you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  “Right.”

  “And Sam called you idiotic because you obeyed Eric.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, he did.”

  Tara had to help a customer then, but only for a couple of minutes. (Riki Cunningham wanted to pay on a prom dress she’d put on layaway for her daughter.) When Tara resumed her seat, she was ready to give me feedback. “Sookie, at least Eric does care about you some, and he’s never hurt you. You could’ve been smarter. I don’t know if you weren’t because of this bond thing you have with him or because you’re so gone on him that you don’t ask enough questions. Only you can figure that out. But it could be worse. No humans need to know about this knife thing. And Eric can’t be around during the day, so you’ll have Eric-free time to think. Also, he’s got his own business to run, so he’s not going to be following you around. And the new vampire execs have to leave you alone because they want to keep Eric happy. Not so bad, right?” She smiled at me, and after a second, I smiled back.

  I began to perk up. “Thanks, Tara,” I said. “You think Sam will stop being mad?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly expect him to apologize for saying you acted like an idiot,” Tara warned me. “A, it’s true, and B, he’s a man. He’s got that chromosome. But you two have always gotten along great, and he owes you for you taking care of the bar. So he’ll come around.”

  I pitched my used Kleenex into the little trash can by the table. I smiled, though it probably wasn’t my best effort.

  “Meanwhile,” Tara said, “I have some news for you, too.” She took a deep breath.

  “What is it?” I asked, delighted that we were back on best-friend footing.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” Tara said, and her face froze in a grimace.

  Ah-oh.Dangerous footing. “You don’t look super-happy,” I said, cautiously.

  “I hadn’t planned on having children at all,” she said. “Which was okay with JB.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “Well, even multiple birth control methods don’t always work,” Tara said, looking down at her hands, which were folded on top of a bridal magazine. “And I just can’t have it taken care of. It’s ours. So.”

  “Might . . . might you come around to being glad about this?”

  She tried to smile. “JB is really happy. It’s hard for him to keep it a secret. But I wanted to wait for the first three months to pass. You’re the first one I’ve told.”

  “I swear,” I said, reaching over to pat her shoulder, “you’ll be a good mother.”

  “You really think so?” She looked, and felt, terrified. Tara’s folks had been the kind of parents who occasionally get shot-gunned by their offspring. Tara’s abhorrence of violence had prevented her from taking that path, but I don’t think anyone would have been surprised if the older Thorntons had vanished one night. A few people would have applauded.

  “Yeah, I really think so.” I meant it. I couldhear , directly from her head, Tara’s determination to wipe out everything her own mother had done to her by being the best mother she could be to her own child. In Tara’s case, that meant she would be sober, gentle-handed, clean of speech, and full of praise.

  “I’ll show up at every classroom open house and teacher conference,” she said, now in a voice that was almost frightening in its intensity. “I’ll bake brownies. My child will have new clothes. Her shoes will fit. She’ll get her shots, and she’ll get her braces. We’ll start a college fund next week. I’ll tell her I love her every damn day.”

  If that wasn’t a great plan for being a good mother, I couldn’t imagine what a better one could be.

  We hugged each other when I got up to leave.This is the way it’s supposed to be, I thought.

  I went home, ate a belated lunch, and changed into my work clothes.

  When the phone rang, I hoped it was Sam calling to smooth things over, but the voice on the other end was an older man’s and unfamiliar.

  “Hello? Is Octavia Fant there, please?”

  “No, sir, she’s out. May I take a message?”

  “If you would.”

  “Sure.” I’d answered the phone in the kitchen, so there was a pad and pencil handy.

  “Please tell her Louis Chambers called. Here’s my number.” He gave it to me slowly and carefully, and I repeated it to make sure I’d put it down correctly. “Ask her to call me, please. I’ll be glad to take a collect call.”

  “I’ll make sure she gets your message.”

  “Thank you.”

  Hmmm. I couldn’t read thoughts over the phone, which normally I considered a great relief. But I would have enjoyed learning a little more about Mr. Chambers.

  When Amelia came home a little after five, Octavia was in the car. I gathered Octavia had been walking around downtown Bon Temps filling out job applications, while Amelia had put in an afternoon at the insurance agency. It was Amelia’s evening to cook, and though I had to leave for Merlotte’s in a few minutes, I enjoyed watching her leap into action, creating spaghetti sauce. I handed Octavia her message while Amelia was chopping onions and a bell pepper.

  Octavia made a choked sound and grew so still that Amelia stopped chopping and joined me in waiting for the older woman to look up from the piece of paper and give us a little backstory. That didn’t happen.

  After a moment, I realized Octavia was crying, and I hurried to my bedroom and got a tissue. I tried to slip it to Octavia tactfully, like I hadn’t noticed anything amiss but just happened to have an extra Kleenex in my hand.

  Amelia carefully looked down at the cutting board and resumed chopping while I glanced at the clock and began fishing around in my purse for my car keys, taking lots of unnecessary time to do it.

  “Did he sound well?” Octavia asked, her voice choked.

  “Yes,” I said. There was only so much I could get from a voice on the other end of a phone line. “He sounded anxious to talk to you.”

  “Oh, I have to call him back,” she said, and her voice was wild.

  “Sure,” I said. “Just punch in the number. Don’t worry about calling collect or anything; the phone bill’ll tell us how much it was.” I glanced over at Amelia, cocking an eyebrow. She shook her head. She didn’t know what the hell was going on, either.

  Octavia placed the call with shaking fingers. She pressed the phone to her ear after the first ring. I could tell when Louis Chambers answered. Her eyes shut tight, and her hand clenched the phone so hard the muscles stood out.

  “Oh, Louis,” she said, her voice full of raw relief and amazement. “Oh, thank God. Are you all right?”

  Amelia and I shuffled out of the kitchen at that point. Amelia walked to my car with me. “You ever heard of this Louis guy?” I asked.

  “She never talked about her private life when she was working with me. But other witches told me Octavia had a steady boyfriend. She hasn’t mentioned him since she’s been here. It looks like she hasn’t heard from him since Katrina.”

  “She might not have thought he survived,” I said, and we widened our eyes at each other.

  “That’s big stuff,” Amelia said. “Well. We may be losing Octavia.” She tried to stifle her relief, but of course, I could read it. As fond as Amelia was of her magical mentor, I’d realized that for Amelia, living with Octavia was like living with one of your junio
r high teachers.

  “I got to go,” I said. “Keep me posted. Text me if there’s any big news.” Texting was one of my new Amelia-taught skills.

  Despite the chilly air, Amelia sat on one of the lawn chairs that we’d recently hauled out of the storage shed to encourage ourselves to anticipate spring. “The minute I know something,” she agreed. “I’ll wait here a few minutes, then go check on her.”

  I got in my car and hoped the heater would warm up soon. In the gathering dusk, I drove to Merlotte’s. I saw a coyote on the way. Usually they were too clever to be seen, but this one was trotting along the side of the road as if he had an appointment in town. Maybe it was really a coyote, or maybe it was a person in another form. When I considered the possums and coons and the occasional armadillo I saw squashed by the road every morning, I wondered how many werecreatures had gotten killed in their animal forms in such careless ways. Maybe some of the bodies the police labeled murder victims were actually people killed by accident in their alternate form. I remembered all animal traces had vanished from Crystal’s body when she’d been taken down from the cross, after the nails had been removed. I was willing to bet those nails had been silver. There was so much I didn’t know.

  When I came in Merlotte’s back door, full of plans to reconcile with Sam, I found my boss having an argument with Bobby Burnham. It was almost dark now, and Bobby should be off the clock. Instead, he was standing in the hall outside of Sam’s office. He was red in the face and fit to be tied.

  “What’s up?” I said. “Bobby, did you need to talk to me?”

  “Yeah. This guy wouldn’t tell me when you were going to get here,” Bobby said.

  “This guy is my boss, and he isn’t obliged to tell you anything,” I said. “Here I am. What do you need to say to me?”

  “Eric sent you this card, and he ordered me to tell you I’m at your disposal whenever you need me. I’m supposed to wash your car if you want me to.” Bobby’s face went even redder as he said this.

  If Eric had thought Bobby would be made humble and compliant after a public humiliation, he was nuts. Now Bobby would hate me for a hundred years, if he lived that long. I took the card Bobby handed me and said, “Thanks, Bobby. Go back to Shreveport.”

  Before the last syllable left my mouth, Bobby was out the back door. I examined the plain white envelope and then stuck it in my purse. I looked up to meet Sam’s eyes.

  “Like you needed another enemy,” he said, and stomped into his office.

  Like I needed another friend acting like an asshole, I thought. So much for us having a good laugh over our disagreement. I followed Sam in to drop my purse in the drawer he kept empty for the barmaids. We didn’t say a word to each other. I went to the storeroom to get an apron. Antoine was changing his stained apron for a clean one.

  “D’Eriq bumped into me with a jar full of jalapeños, and the juice slopped out,” he said. “I can’t stand the smell of ’em.”

  “Whoo,” I said, catching a whiff. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Sam’s mama doing okay?”

  “Yeah, she’s out of the hospital,” I said.

  “Good news.”

  As I tied the strings around my waist, I thought Antoine was about to say something else, but if he was, he changed his mind. He crossed the hall to knock on the kitchen door, and D’Eriq opened it from the inside and let him in. People had wandered into the kitchen by mistake too often, and the door was kept locked all the time. There was another door from the kitchen that led directly out back, and the Dumpster was right outside.

  I walked past Sam’s office without looking in. He didn’t want to talk to me; okay, I wouldn’t talk to him. I realized I was being childish.

  The FBI agents were still in Bon Temps, which shouldn’t have surprised me. Tonight, they came into the bar. Weiss and Lattesta were sitting opposite each another in a booth, a pitcher of beer and a basket of French-fried pickles between them, and they were talking intently. And at a table close to them, looking regal and beautiful and remote, was my great-grandfather Niall Brigant.

  This day was going to win a prize for most peculiar. I blew out a puff of air and went to wait on my great-grandfather first. He stood as I approached. His pale straight hair was tied back at the nape of his neck. He was wearing a black suit and a white shirt, as he always did. Tonight, instead of the solid black tie he usually wore, he had on a tie I’d given him for Christmas. It was red, gold, and black striped, and he looked spectacular. Everything about him gleamed and shone. The shirt wasn’t simply white—it was snowy and starched; and his coat wasn’t just black—it was spotlessly inky. His shoes showed not a speck of dust, and the myriad of fine, fine wrinkles in his handsome face only set off its perfection and his brilliant green eyes. His age enhanced rather than diminished his looks. It almost hurt to look at him. Niall put his arms around me and kissed my cheek.

  “Blood of my blood,” he said, and I smiled into his chest. He was so dramatic. And he had such a hard time looking human. I’d had one glimpse of him in his true form, and it had been nearly blinding. Since no one else in the bar was gasping at the sight of him, I knew they weren’t seeing him the same way I did.

  “Niall,” I said. “I’m so happy to see you.” I always felt pleased and flattered when he visited. Being Niall’s great-granddaughter was like being kin to a rock star; he lived a life I couldn’t imagine, went places I would never go, and had power I couldn’t fathom. But every now and then he spent time with me, and that time was always like Christmas.

  He said very quietly, “These people opposite me, they do nothing but talk of you.”

  “Do you know what the FBI is?” Niall’s fund of knowledge was incredible, since he was so old he’d stopped counting at a thousand and sometimes missed accurate dates by more than a century, but I didn’t know how specific his information about the modern day might be.

  “Yes,” he said. “FBI. A government agency that collects data about law breakers and terrorists inside the United States.”

  I nodded.

  “But you’re such a good person. You’re not a killer or terrorist,” Niall said, though he didn’t sound as if he believed my innocence would protect me.

  “Thank you,” I said. “But I don’t think they want to arrest me. I suspect they want to find out how I get results with my little mental condition, and if they decide I’m not nuts, they probably want me to work for them. That’s why they came to Bon Temps . . . but they got sidetracked.” And that brought me to the painful subject. “Do you know what happened to Crystal?”

  But some other customers called me then, and it was a while before I got back to Niall, who was waiting patiently. He somehow made the scarred chair look like a throne. He picked the conversation up right where we’d left off.

  “Yes, I know what happened to her.” His face didn’t seem to change, but I felt the chill rolling off of him. If I’d had anything to do with Crystal’s death, I would have felt very afraid.

  “How come you care?” I asked. He’d never paid any attention to Jason; in fact, Niall seemed to dislike my brother.

  Niall said, “I’m always interested in finding out why someone connected to me has died.” Niall had sounded totally impersonal when he spoke of Crystal’s death, but if he was interested, maybe he would help. You’d think he’d want to clear Jason, since Jason was his great-grandson just as surely as I was his great-granddaughter, but Niall had never shown any sign of wanting to meet Jason, much less get to know him.

  Antoine rang the bell in the kitchen to tell me one of my orders was up, and I scurried off to serve Sid Matt Lancaster and Bud Dearborn their cheesy chili bacon fries. The recently widowed Sid Matt was so old I guess he figured his arteries couldn’t harden much more than they already had, and Bud had never been one for health food.

  When I could return to Niall, I said, “Do you have any idea who did it? The werepanthers are searching, too.” I put down an extra napkin on the table in front of him so I’d l
ook busy.

  Niall didn’t disdain the panthers. In fact, though fairies seemed to consider themselves apart and superior to all other species of supernaturals, Niall (at least) had respect for all shapechangers, unlike the vampires, who regarded them as second-rate citizens. “I’ll look a little. I’ve been preoccupied, and that is why I haven’t visited. There is trouble.” I saw that Niall’s expression was even more serious than usual.

  Oh, shit. More trouble.

  “But you need not concern yourself,” he added regally. “I will take care of it.”

  Did I mention Niall is a little proud? But I couldn’t help but feel concerned. In a minute I’d have to go get someone else another drink, and I wanted to be sure I understood him. Niall didn’t come around often, and when he did, he seldom dallied. I might not get another chance to talk to him. “What’s up, Niall?” I asked directly.

  “I want you to take special care of yourself. If you see any fairies other than myself or Claude and Claudine, call me at once.”

  “Why would I worry about other fairies?” The other shoe dropped. “Why would other fairies want to hurt me?”

  “Because you are my great-granddaughter.” He stood, and I knew I’d get no more explanation than that.

  Niall hugged me again, kissed me again (fairies are very touchy-feely), and left the bar, his cane in his hand. I’d never seen him use it as an aid to walking, but he always had it with him. As I stared after him, I wondered if it had a knife concealed inside. Or maybe it might be an extra-long magic wand. Or both. I wished he could’ve stuck around for a while, or at least issued a more specific danger bulletin.

  “Ms. Stackhouse,” said a polite male voice, “could you bring us another pitcher of beer and another basket of pickles?”

  I turned to Special Agent Lattesta. “Sure, be glad to,” I said, smiling automatically.

  “That was a very handsome man,” Sara Weiss said. Sara was feeling the effects of the two glasses of beer she’d already had. “He sure looked different. Is he from Europe?”