Dead Until Dark (30 page)

I nodded, my mouth hanging open. Of course not. "Geez," I murmured, stunned at the royalty in my yard.

"So remember how stupid he is, and how impulsive ... don't spend time alone with him, and don't ever call him anything but Bubba. Also, he likes pets, as he told you, and a diet of their blood hasn't made him any the more reliable. Now, as to why I brought him here ..."

I stood with my arms across my chest, waiting for Bill's explanation with some interest.

"Sweetheart, I have to go out of town for a while," Billsaid. The unexpectedness of this completely disconcerted me.

"What... why? No, wait. I don't need to know." I waved my hands in front of me, shooing away any implication that Bill was obligated to tell me his business.

"I'll tell you when I get back," he said firmly.

"So where does your friend—Bubba—come in?" Though I had a nasty feeling I already knew.

"Bubba is going to watch you while I'm gone," Bill said stiffly. I raised my eyebrows.

"All right. He's not long on..." Bill cast around. "... anything," he finally admitted. "But he's strong, and
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he'll do what I tell him, and he'll make sure no one breaks into your house."

"He'll stay out in the woods?"

"Oh, yes," Bill said emphatically. "He's not even supposed to come up and speak to you. At dark, he'll just find a place from which he can see the house, and he'll watch all night." I'd have to remember to close my blinds. The idea of the dim vampire peering in my windows was not edifying.

"You really think this is necessary?" I asked helplessly. "You know, I don't remember you asking me." Bill sort of heaved, his version of taking a deep breath. "Sweetheart," he began in an overly patient voice, "I am trying very hard to get used to the way women want to be treated now. But it isn't natural to me, especially when I fear you are in danger. I'm trying to give myself peace of mind while I'm gone. I wish I didn't have to go, and it isn't what I want to do, but what I have to do, for us." I eyed him. "I hear you," I said finally. "I'm not crazy about this, but I am afraid at night, and I guess ... well, okay."

Frankly, I don't think it mattered a damn whether I con-sented or not. After all, how could I make Bubba leave if he didn't want to go? Even the law enforcement people in our little town didn't have the equipment to deal with vampires, and if they were faced with this particular vampire, they'd just stand and gape for long enough for him to tear them apart. I appreciated Bill's concern, and I figured I better have the good grace to thank him. I gave him a little hug.

"Well, if you have to go off, you just be careful while you're gone," I said, trying not to sound forlorn.

"Do you have a place to stay?"

"Yes. I'll be in New Orleans. There was a room open at the Blood in the Quarter." I'd read an article about this hotel, the first in the world that catered exclusively to vampires. It promised complete security, and so far it had delivered. It was right smack dab in the middle of the French Quarter, too. And at dusk it was absolutely surrounded by fang-bangers and tourists wait-ing for the vampires to come out.

I began to feel envious. Trying not to look like a wistful puppy who's being pushed back in the door when its owners leave, I yanked my smile back into place. "Well, you have a good time," I said brightly.

"Got your packing done? The drive should take a few hours, and it's already dark."

"The car is ready." I understood for the first time that he had delayed leaving to spend time with me and Arlene's kids. "I had better leave." He hesitated, seemed to be searching for the right words. Then he held out his hands to me. I took them, and he pulled a little, just exerted a tiny pressure. I moved into his embrace. I rubbed my face against his shirt. My arms circled him, pressed him into me.

"I'll miss you," he said. His voice was just a breath in the air, but I heard him. I felt him kiss the top of my head, and then he stepped away from me and out the front door. I heard his voice on the front porch as he gave Bubba some last minute directions, and I heard the squeak of the swing as Bubba got up. I didn't look out the window until I heard Bill's car going down the driveway. Then I saw Bubba sauntering into the woods. I told myself, as I took my shower, that Bill must trust Bubba since he'd left
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him guarding me. But I still wasn't sure who I was more afraid of: the murderer Bubba was watching for, or Bubba himself.

WORK THE next day, Arlene asked me why the vam-pire had been at my house. I wasn't surprised that she'd brought it up.

"Well, Bill had to go out of town, and he worries, you know ..." I was hoping to let it drop at that. But Charlsie had drifted up (we weren't at all busy: the Chamber of Com-merce was having a lunch and speaker at Fins and Hooves, and the Ladies' Prayers and Potatoes group were topping their baked potatoes at old Mrs. Bellefleur's huge house).

"You mean," Charlsie said with starry eyes, "that your man got you a personal bodyguard?" I nodded reluctantly. You could put it that way. "That's so romantic," Charlsie sighed. You could look at it that way.

"But you should see him," Arlene told Charlsie, havingheld her tongue as long as she could. "He's exactly like—!"

"Oh, no, not when you talk to him," I interrupted. "He's not at all the same." That was true. "And he really doesn'tlike it when he hears that name."

"Oh," said Arlene in a hushed voice, as if Bubba could be listening in the broad daylight.

"I do feel safer with Bubba in the woods," I said, which was more or less true.

"Oh, he doesn't stay in the house?" Charlsie asked, clearly a little disappointed.

"God, no!" I said, then mentally apologized to God for taking his name in vain. I was having to do that a lot lately. "No, Bubba stays in the woods at night, watching the house." "Was that true about the cats?" Arlene looked squeamish. "He was just joking. Not a great sense of humor, huh?" I was lying through my teeth. I certainly believed Bubba en-joyed a snack of cat blood.

Arlene shook her head, unconvinced. It was time to change the subject. "Did you and Rene have fun on your evening out?" I asked.

"Rene was so good last night, wasn't he?" she said, her cheeks pink. A much-married woman, blushing. "You tell me." Arlene enjoyed a little ribald teasing.

"Oh, you! What I mean, he was real polite to Bill and even that Bubba."

"Any reason why he wouldn't be?"

"He has kind of a problem with vampires, Sookie." Arlene shook her head. "I know, I do, too," she confessed when I looked at her with raised eyebrows. "But Rene really has some, prejudice. Cindy dated a vampire for a while, and that just made Rene awful upset."

"Cindy okay?" I had a great interest in the health of some-one who'd dated a vamp.

"I haven't seen her," Arlene admitted, "but Rene goes to visit every other week or so. She's doing well,
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she's back on the right track. She has a job in a hospital cafeteria." Sam, who'd been standing behind the bar loading the re-frigerator with bottled blood, said, "Maybe Cindy would like to move back home. Lindsey Krause quit the other shift be-cause she's moving to Little Rock."

That certainly focussed our attention. Merlotte's was be-coming seriously understaffed. For some reason, low-level service jobs had dropped in popularity in the last couple of months.

"You interviewed anyone else?" Arlene asked. "I'll have to go through the files," Sam said wearily. I knew that Arlene and I were the only barmaids, waitresses, servers, whatever you wanted to call us, that Sam had hung on to for more then two years. No, that wasn't true; there was Susanne Mitchell, on the other shift. Sam spent lots of time hiring and occasionally firing. "Sookie, would you have a look through the file, see if there's anyone there you know has moved, anyone already got a job, anyone you really rec-ommend? That would save me some time."

"Sure," I said. I remembered Arlene doing the same thing a couple of years ago when Dawn had been hired. We had more ties to the community than Sam, who never seemed to join anything. Sam had been in Bon Temps for six years now, and I had never met anyone who seemed to know about Sam's life prior to his buying the bar here.

I settled down at Sam's desk with the thick file of appli-cations. After a few minutes, I could tell I was really making a difference. I had three piles: moved, employed elsewhere, good material. Then I added a fourth and fifth stack: a pile for people I couldn't work with because I couldn't stand them, and a pile for the dead. The first form on the fifth pile had been filled out by a girl who'd died in a car accident last Christmas, and I felt sorry for her folks all over again when I saw her name at the top of the form. The other application was headed "Maudette Pickens."

Maudette had applied for a job with Sam three months before her death. I guess working at Grabbit Kwik was pretty uninspiring. When I glanced over the filled-in blanks and noticed how poor Maudette's handwriting and spelling had been, it made me feel pitiful all over again. I tried to imagine my brother thinking of having sex with this woman—and filming it—was a worthwhile way to spend his time, and I marvelled at Jason's strange mentality. I hadn't seen him since he'd driven off with Desiree. I hoped he'd gotten home in one piece. That gal was a real handful. I wished he'd settle down with Liz Barrett: she had enough backbone to hold him up, too.

Whenever I thought about my brother lately, it was to worry. If only he hadn't known Maudette and Dawn so well! Lots of men knew them both, apparently, both casually and carnally. They'd both been vampire bitten. Dawn had liked rough sex, and I didn't know Maudette's proclivities. Lots of men got gas and coffee at the Grabbit Kwik, and lots of men came in to get a drink here, too. But only my stupid brother had recorded sex with Dawn and Maudette on film.

I stared at the big plastic cup on Sam's desk, which had been full of iced tea. "The Big Kwencher from Grabbit Kwik" was written in neon orange on the side of the green cup. Sam knew them both, too. Dawn had worked for him, Maudette had applied for a job here.

Sam sure didn't like
me
dating a vampire. Maybe he didn't like
anyone
dating a vampire. Sam walked in just then, and I jumped like I'd been doing something bad. And I had, in my book. Thinking evil of a friend was a bad thing to do.

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"Which is the good pile?" he asked, but he gave me a puzzled look. I handed him a short stack of maybe ten applications. "This gal, Amy Burley," I said, indicating the one on top, "has experience, she's only subbing at the Good Times Bar, and Charlsie used to work with her there. So you could check with Charlsie first."

"Thanks, Sookie. This'll save me some trouble."

I nodded curtly in acknowledgment.

"Are you all right?" he asked. "You seem kind of distant today." I looked at him closely. He looked just like he always did. But his mind was closed to me. How could he do that? Theonly other mind completely closed to me was Bill's, because of his vampire state. But Sam was sure no vampire.

"Just missing Bill," I said deliberately. Would he lecture me about the evils of dating a vampire?

Sam said, "It's daytime. He couldn't very well be here."

"Of course not," I said stiffly, and was about to add, "He's out of town." Then I asked myself if that was a smart thing to do when I had even a hint of suspicion in my heart about my boss. I left the office so abruptly that Sam stared after me in astonishment.

When I saw Arlene and Sam having a long conversation later that day, their sidelong glances told me clearly that I was the topic. Sam went back to his office looking more worried than ever. But we didn't have any more chitchat the rest of the day.

Going home that evening was hard because I knew I'd be alone until morning. When I'd been alone other evenings, I'd had the reassurance that Bill was just a phone call away. Now he wasn't. I tried to feel good about being guarded once it was dark and Bubba crawled out of whatever hole he'd slept in, but I didn't manage it.

I called Jason, but he wasn't home. I called Merlotte's, thinking he might be there, but Terry Bellefleur answered the phone and said Jason hadn't been in.

I wondered what Sam was doing tonight. I wondered why he never seemed to date much. It wasn't for want of offers, I'd been able to observe many times.

Dawn had been especially aggressive.

That evening I couldn't think of anything that pleased me.

I began wondering if Bubba was the hitman—hitvam-pire?—Bill had called when he wanted Uncle Bartlett bumped off. I wondered why Bill had chosen such a dim-witted creature to guard me. Every book I picked up seemed wrong, somehow. Every television show I tried to watch seemed completely ridicu-lous. I tried to read my
Time
and became incensed at the determination to commit suicide that possessed so many nations. I pitched the magazine across the room. My mind scrabbled around like a squirrel trying to get outof a cage. It couldn't light on anything or be
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comfortable anywhere.

When the phone rang, I jumped a foot. "Hello?" I said harshly.

"Jason's here now," Terry Bellefleur said. "He wants to buy you a drink." I thought uneasily about going out to the car, now that it was dark; about coming home to an empty house, at least a house I would have to hope was empty. Then I scolded my-self because, after all, there would be someone watching the house, someone very strong, if very brainless.

"Okay, I'll be there in a minute," I said.

Terry simply hung up. Mr. Chatterbox.

I pulled on a denim skirt and a yellow T-shirt and, looking both ways, crossed the yard to my car. I'd left on every outside light, and I unlocked my car and scooted inside quick as a wink. Once inside the car, I relocked my door.