Sookie 04 Dead to the World (11 page)

The blood had sprayed onto the white brocade and dried there. It was as if the mannequin had been wounded, and for a crazy second I wondered. I’d seen a lot of impossible things in the past few months.

“Adabelle,” Alcide said, as if he was praying.

We were standing at the bottom of the steps leading up to the front porch, staring into the bay window. The CLOSED sign was hanging in the middle of the glass oval inset in the door, and Venetian blinds were closed behind it. There were no live brainwaves emanating from that house. I had taken the time to check. I’d discovered, the hard way, that checking was a good idea.

“Dead things,” Alcide said, his face raised to the cold breeze, his eyes shut to help him concentrate. “Dead things inside and out.”

I took hold of the curved ironwork handrail with my left hand and went up one step. I glanced around. My eyes came to rest on something in the flowerbed under the bay window, something pale that stood out against the pine bark mulch. I nudged Alcide, and I pointed silently with my free right hand.

Lying by a pruned-back azalea, there was another hand-an unattached extra. I felt a shudder run through Alcide’s body as he comprehended what he saw. There was that moment when you tried to recognize it as anything but what it was.

“Wait here,” Alcide said, his voice thick and hoarse.

That was just fine with me.

But when he opened the unlocked front door to enter the shop, I saw what lay on the floor just beyond. I had to swallow a scream.

It was lucky Alcide had his cell phone. He called Colonel Flood, told him what had happened, and asked him to go over to Mrs. Yancy’s house. Then he called the police. There was just no way around it. This was a busy area, and there was a good chance someone had noticed us going to the front door.

It was surely a day for finding bodies-for me, and for the Shreveport police department. I knew there were some vampire cops on the force, but of course the vamps had to work the night shift, so we spoke to regular old human cops. There wasn’t a Were or a shifter among ‘em, not even a telepathic human. All these police officers were regular people who thought we were borderline suspicious.

“Why did you stop by here, buddy?” asked Detective Coughlin, who had brown hair, a weathered face, and a beer belly one of the Clydesdales would’ve been proud of.

Alcide looked surprised. He hadn’t thought this far, which wasn’t too amazing. I hadn’t known Adabelle when she was alive, and I hadn’t stepped inside the bridal shop as he had. I hadn’t sustained the worst shock. It was up to me to pick up the reins.

“It was my idea, Detective,” I said instantly. “My grandmother, who died last year? She always told me, ‘If you need a wedding dress, Sookie, you go to Verena Rose’s for it.’ I didn’t think to call ahead and check to see if they were open today.”

“So, you and Mr. Herveaux are going to be married?”

“Yes,” said Alcide, pulling me against him and wrapping his arms around me. “We’re headed for the altar.”

I smiled, but in an appropriately subdued way.

“Well, congratulations.” Detective Coughlin eyed us thoughtfully. “So, Miss Stackhouse, you hadn’t ever met Adabelle Yancy face-to-face?”

“I may have met the older Mrs. Yancy when I was a little girl,” I said cautiously. “But I don’t remember her. Alcide’s family knows the Yancys, of course. He’s lived here all his life.” Of course, they’re also werewolves.

Coughlin was still focused on me. “And you didn’t go in the shop none? Just Mr. Herveaux here?”

“Alcide just stepped in while I waited out here.” I tried to look delicate, which is not easy for me. I am healthy and muscular, and while I am not Emme, I’m not Kate Moss either. “I’d seen the-the hand, so I stayed out.”

“That was a good idea,” Detective Coughlin said. “What’s in there isn’t fit for people to see.” He looked about twenty years older as he said that. I felt sorry that his job was so tough. He was thinking that the savaged bodies in the house were a waste of two good lives and the work of someone he’d love to arrest. “Would either of you have any idea why anyone would want to rip up two ladies like this?”

“Two,” Alcide said slowly, stunned.

“Two?” I said, less guardedly.

“Why, yes,” the detective said heavily. He had aimed to get our reactions and now he had them; what he thought of them, I would find out.

“Poor things,” I said, and I wasn’t faking the tears that filled my eyes. It was kind of nice to have Alcide’s chest to lean against, and as if he were reading my mind he unzipped his leather jacket so I’d be closer to him, wrapping the open sides around me to keep me warmer. “But if one of them is Adabelle Yancy, who is the other?”

“There’s not much left of the other,” Coughlin said, before he told himself to shut his mouth.

“They were kind of jumbled up,” Alcide said quietly, close to my ear. He was sickened. “I didn’t know . . . I guess if I’d analyzed what I was seeing . . .”

Though I couldn’t read Alcide’s thoughts clearly, I could understand that he was thinking that Adabelle had managed to take down one of her attackers. And when the rest of the group was getting away, they hadn’t taken all the appropriate bits with them.

“And you’re from Bon Temps, Miss Stackhouse,” the detective said, almost idly.

“Yes, sir,” I said, with a gasp. I was trying not to picture Adabelle Yancy’s last moments.

“Where you work there?”

“Merlotte’s Bar and Grill,” I said. “I wait tables.”

While he registered the difference in social status between me and Alcide, I closed my eyes and laid my head against Alcide’s warm chest. Detective Coughlin was wondering if I was pregnant; if Alcide’s dad, a well-known and well-to-do figure in Shreveport, would approve of such a marriage. He could see why I’d want an expensive wedding dress, if I were marrying a Herveaux.

“You don’t have an engagement ring, Miss Stackhouse?”

“We don’t plan on a long engagement,” Alcide said. I could hear his voice rumbling in his chest. “She’ll get her diamond the day we marry.”

“You’re so bad,” I said fondly, punching him in the ribs as hard as I could without being obvious.

“Ouch,” he said in protest.

Somehow this bit of byplay convinced Detective Coughlin that we were really engaged. He took down our phone numbers and addresses, then told us we could leave. Alcide was as relieved as I was.

We drove to the nearest place where we could pull over in privacy-a little park that was largely deserted in the cold weather-and Alcide called Colonel Flood again. I waited in the truck while Alcide, pacing in the dead grass, gesticulated and raised his voice, venting some of his horror and anger. I’d been able to feel it building up in him. Alcide had trouble articulating emotions, like lots of guys. It made him seem more familiar and dear.

Dear? I’d better stop thinking like that. The engagement had been drummed up strictly for Detective Coughlin’s benefit. If Alcide was anyone’s “dear,” it was the perfidious Debbie’s.

When Alcide climbed back into the pickup, he was scowling.

“I guess I better go back to the office and take you to your car,” he said. “I’m sorry about all this.”

“I guess I should be saying that.”

“This is a situation neither of us created,” he said firmly. “Neither of us would be involved if we could help it.”

“That’s the God’s truth.” After a minute of thinking of the complicated supernatural world, I asked Alcide what Colonel Flood’s plan was.

“We’ll take care of it,” Alcide said. “I’m sorry, Sook, I can’t tell you what we’re going to do.”

“Are you going to be in danger?” I asked, because I just couldn’t help it.

We’d gotten to the Herveaux building by then, and Alcide parked his truck by my old car. He turned a little to face me, and he reached over to take my hand. “I’m gonna be fine. Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’ll call you.”

“Don’t forget to do that,” I said. “And I have to tell you what the witches did about trying to find Eric.” I hadn’t told Alcide about the posted pictures, the reward. He frowned even harder when he thought about the cleverness of this ploy.

“Debbie was supposed to drive over this afternoon, get here about six,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Too late to stop her coming.”

“If you’re planning a big raid, she could help,” I said.

He gave me a sharp look. Like a pointed stick he wanted to poke in my eye. “She’s a shifter, not a Were,” he reminded me defensively.

Maybe she turned into a weasel or a rat.

“Of course,” I said seriously. I literally bit my tongue so I wouldn’t make any of the remarks that waited just inside my mouth, dying to be spoken. “Alcide, do you think the other body was Adabelle’s girlfriend? Someone who just got caught at the shop with Adabelle when the witches came calling?”

“Since a lot of the second body was missing, I hope that the body was one of the witches. I hope Adabelle went down fighting.”

“I hope so, too.” I nodded, putting an end to that train of thought. “I’d better get back to Bon Temps. Eric will be waking up soon. Don’t forget to tell your dad that we’re engaged.”

His expression provided the only fun I’d had all day.

I thought all the way home about my day in Shreveport. I’d asked Alcide to call the cops in Bon Temps from his cell phone, and he’d gotten another negative message. No, they hadn’t heard any more on Jason, and no one had called to say they’d seen him. So I didn’t stop by the police station on my way home, but I did have to go to the grocery to buy some margarine and bread, and I did have to go in the liquor store to pick up some blood.

The first thing I saw when I pushed open the door of Super Save-A-Bunch was a little display of bottled blood, which saved me a stop at the liquor store. The second thing I saw was the poster with the headshot of Eric. I assumed it was the photo Eric had had made when he opened Fangtasia, because it was a very nonthreatening picture. He was projecting winsome worldliness; any person in this universe would know that he’d never, ever bite. It was headed, “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS VAMPIRE?”

I read the text carefully. Everything Jason had said about it was true. Fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money. That Hallow must be really nuts about Eric to pay that much, if all she wanted was a hump. It was hard to believe gaining control of Fangtasia (and having the bed services of Eric) would afford her a profit after paying out a reward that large. I was increasingly doubtful that I knew the whole story, and I was increasingly sure I was sticking my neck out and might get it bitten off.

Hoyt Fortenberry, Jason’s big buddy, was loading pizzas into his buggy in the frozen food aisle. “Hey, Sookie, where you think ole Jason got to?” he called as soon as he saw me. Hoyt, big and beefy and no rocket scientist, looked genuinely concerned.

“I wish I knew,” I said, coming closer so we could talk without everyone in the store recording every word. “I’m pretty worried.”

“You don’t think he’s just gone off with some girl he met? That girl he was with New Year’s Eve was pretty cute.”

“What was her name?”

“Crystal. Crystal Norris.”

“Where’s she from?”

“From round Hotshot, out thataway.” He nodded south.

Hotshot was even smaller than Bon Temps. It was about ten miles away and had a reputation for being a strange little community. The Hotshot kids who attended the Bon Temps school always stuck together, and they were all a smidge . . . different. It didn’t surprise me at all that Crystal lived in Hotshot.

“So,” Hoyt said, persisting in making his point, “Crystal might have asked him to come stay with her.” But his brain was saying he didn’t believe it, he was only trying to comfort me and himself. We both knew that Jason would have phoned by now, no matter how good a time he was having with any woman.

But I decided I’d give Crystal a call when I had a clear ten minutes, which might not be any time tonight. I asked Hoyt to pass on Crystal’s name to the sheriff’s department, and he said he would. He didn’t seem too happy about the idea. I could tell that if the missing man had been anyone but Jason, Hoyt would have refused. But Jason had always been Hoyt’s source of recreation and general amusement, since Jason was far more clever and inventive than the slow-moving, slow-thinking Hoyt: If Jason never reappeared, Hoyt would have a dull life.

We parted in the Super Save-A-Bunch parking lot, and I felt relieved that Hoyt hadn’t asked me about the TrueBlood I’d purchased. Neither had the cashier, though she’d handled the bottles with distaste. As I’d paid for it, I’d thought about how much I was in the hole from hosting Eric already. Clothes and blood mounted up.

It was just dark when I got to my house and pulled the plastic grocery bags out of the car. I unlocked my back door and went in, calling to Eric as I switched on the kitchen light. I didn’t hear an answer, so I put the groceries away, leaving a bottle of TrueBlood out of the refrigerator so he could have it to hand when he got hungry. I got the shotgun out of my trunk and loaded it, sticking it in the shadow of the water heater. I took a minute to call the sheriff’s department again. No news of Jason, said the dispatcher.

I slumped against the kitchen wall for a long moment, feeling dejected. It wasn’t a good thing to just sit around, being depressed. Maybe I’d go out to the living room and pop a movie into the VCR, as entertainment for Eric. He’d gone through all myBuffytapes, and I didn’t haveAngel.I wondered if he’d likeGone with the Wind.(For all I knew, he’d been around when they were filming it. On the other hand, he had amnesia. Anything should be new to him.)

But as I went down the hall, I heard some small movement. I pushed open the door of my old room gently, not wanting to make a big noise if my guest wasn’t yet up. Oh, but he was. Eric was pulling on his jeans, with his back to me. He hadn’t bothered with underwear, not even the itty-bitty red ones. My breath stuck in my throat. I made a sound like “Guck,” and made myself close my eyes tight. I clenched my fists.

If there were an international butt competition, Eric would win, hands down-or cheeks up. He would get a large, large trophy. I had never realized a woman could have to struggle to keep her hands off a man, but here I was, digging my nails into my palms, staring at the inside of my eyelids as though I could maybe see through them if I peered hard enough.

It was somehow degrading, craving someone so . . . sovoraciously-another good calendar word-just because he was physically beautiful. I hadn’t thought that was something women did, either.

“Sookie, are you all right?” Eric asked. I floundered my way back to sanity through a swamp of lust. He was standing right in front of me, his hands resting on my shoulders. I looked up into his blue eyes, now focused on me and apparently full of nothing but concern. I was right on a level with his hard nipples. They were the size of pencil erasers. I bit the inside of my lip. I wouldnotlean over those few inches.

“Excuse me,” I said, speaking very softly. I was scared to speak loudly, or move at all. If I did, I might knock him down. “I didn’t mean to walk in on you. I should have knocked.”

“You have seen all of me before.”

Not the rear view, bare. “Yes, but intruding wasn’t polite.”

“I don’t mind. You look upset.”

You think? “Well, I have had a very bad day,” I said, through clenched teeth. “My brother is missing, and the Were witches in Shreveport killed the-the vice president of the Were pack there, and her hand was in the flowerbed. Well, someone’s was. Belinda’s in the hospital. Ginger is dead. I think I’ll take a shower.” I turned on my heel and marched into my room. I went in the bathroom and shucked my clothes, tossing them into the hamper. I bit my lip until I could smile at my own streak of wildness, and then I climbed into the spray of hot water.

I know cold showers are more traditional, but I was enjoying the warmth and relaxation the heat brought. I got my hair wet and groped for the soap.

“I’ll do that for you,” Eric said, pulling back the curtain to step into the shower with me.

I gasped, just short of a shriek. He had discarded the jeans. He was also in the mood, the same mood I was in. You could really tell, with Eric. His fangs were out some, too. I was embarrassed, horrified, and absolutely ready to jump him. While I stood stock-still, paralyzed by conflicting waves of emotion, Eric took the soap out of my hands and lathered up his own, set the soap back in its little niche, and began to wash my arms, raising each in turn to stroke my armpit, down my side, never touching my breasts, which were practically quivering like puppies who wanted to be petted.

“Have we ever made love?” he asked.

I shook my head, still unable to speak.

“Then I was a fool,” he said, moving one hand in a circular motion over my stomach. “Turn around, lover.”

I turned my back to him, and he began to work on that. His fingers were very strong and very clever, and I had the most relaxed and cleanest set of shoulder blades in Louisiana by the time Eric got through.

My shoulder blades were the only thing at ease. My libido was hopping up and down. Was I really going to do this? It seemed more and more likely that I was, I thought nervously. If the man in my shower had been the real Eric, I would have had the strength to back off. I would have ordered him out the minute he stepped in. The real Eric came with a whole package of power and politics, something of which I had limited understanding and interest. This was a different Eric-without the personality that I’d grown fond of, in a perverse way-but it was beautiful Eric, who desired me, who was hungry for me, in a world that often let me know it could do very well without me. My mind was about to switch off and my body was about to take over. I could feel part of Eric pressed against my back, and he wasn’t standing that close. Yikes. Yahoo. Yum.

He shampooed my hair next.

“Are you trembling because you are frightened of me?” he asked.

I considered that. Yes, and no. But I wasn’t about to have a long discussion over the pros and cons. The inner debate had been tough enough. Oh, yeah, I know, there wouldn’t be a better time to have a long yada-yada with Eric about the moral aspects of mating with someone you didn’t love. And maybe there would never be another time to lay ground rules about being careful to be gentle with me physically. Not that I thought Eric would beat me up, but his manhood (as my romance novels called it-in this case the popular adjectives “burgeoning” or “throbbing” might also be applied) was a daunting prospect to a relatively inexperienced woman like me. I felt like a car that had only been operated by one driver . . . a car its new prospective buyer was determined to take to the Daytona 500.

Oh, to hell with thinking.

I took the soap from the niche and lathered up my fingers. As I stepped very close to him, I kind of folded Mr. Happy up against Eric’s stomach, so I could reach around him and get my fingers on that absolutely gorgeous butt. I couldn’t look him in the face, but he let me know he was delighted that I was responding. He spread his legs obligingly and I washed him very thoroughly, very meticulously. He began to make little noises, to rock forward. I began to work on his chest. I closed my lips around his right nipple and sucked. He liked that a lot. His hands pressed against the back of my head. “Bite, a little,” he whispered, and I used my teeth. His hands began to move restlessly over whatever bit of my skin they could find, stroking and teasing. When he pulled away, he had decided to reciprocate, and he bent down. While his mouth closed over my breast, his hand glided between my legs. I gave a deep sigh, and did a little moving of my own. He had long fingers.

The next thing I knew, the water was off and he was drying me with a fluffy white towel, and I was rubbing him with another one. Then we just kissed for while, over and over.

“The bed,” he said, a little raggedly, and I nodded. He scooped me up and then we got into a kind of tangle with me trying to pull the bedspread down while he just wanted to dump me on the bed and proceed, but I had my way because it was just too cold for the top of the bed. Once we were arranged, I turned to him and we picked back up where we’d left off, but with an escalating tempo. His fingers and his mouth were busy learning my topography, and he pressed heavily against my thigh.

I was so on fire for him I was surprised that flames didn’t flicker out of my fingertips. I curled my fingers around him and stroked.

Suddenly Eric was on top of me, about to enter. I was exhilarated and very ready. I reached between us to put him at just the right spot, rubbing the tip of him over my nub as I did so.

“My lover,” he said hoarsely, and pushed.

Though I’d been sure I was prepared, and I ached with wanting him, I cried out with the shock of it.

After a moment, he said, “Don’t close your eyes. Look at me, lover.” The way he said “lover” was like a caress, like he was calling me by a name no other man had ever used before or ever would after. His fangs were completely extended and I stretched up to run my tongue over them. I expected he would bite my neck, as Bill nearly always did.

“Watch me,” he said in my ear, and pulled out. I tried to yank him back, but he began kissing his way down my body, making strategic stops, and I was hovering on the golden edge when he got all the way down. His mouth was talented, and his fingers took the place of his penis, and then all of a sudden he looked up the length of my body to make sure I was watching-I was-and he turned his face to my inner thigh, nuzzling it, his fingers moving steadily now, faster and faster, and then he bit.

I may have made a noise, I am sure I did, but in the next second I was floating on the most powerful wave of pleasure I’d ever felt. And the minute the shining wave subsided, Eric was kissing my mouth again, and I could taste my own fluids on him, and then he was back inside me, and it happened all over again. His moment came right after, as I was still experiencing aftershocks. He shouted something in a language I’d never heard, and he closed his own eyes, and then he collapsed on top of me. After a couple of minutes, he raised his head to look down. I wished he would pretend to breathe, as Bill always had during sex. (I’d never asked him, he’d just done it, and it had been reassuring.) I pushed the thought away. I’d never had sex with anyone but Bill, and I guess it was natural to think of that, but the truth was it hurt to remember my previous one-man status, now gone for good.

I yanked myself back into The Moment, which was fine enough. I stroked Eric’s hair, tucking some behind his ear. His eyes on mine were intent, and I knew he was waiting for me to speak. “I wish,” I said, “I could save orgasms in a jar for when I need them, because I think I had a few extra.”

Eric’s eyes widened, and all of a sudden he roared with laughter. That sounded good, that sounded like the real Eric. I felt comfortable with this gorgeous but unknown stranger, after I heard that laugh. He rolled onto his back and swung me over easily until I was straddling his waist.

“If I had known you would be this gorgeous with your clothes off, I would have tried to do this sooner,” he said.

“You did try to do this sooner, about twenty times,” I said, smiling down at him.

“Then I have good taste.” He hesitated for a long minute, some of the pleasure leaving his face. “Tell me about us. How long have I known you?”