Dead But Not Forgotten (36 page)

Just as Luna was wondering what in freaking hell had happened to the poor Were, it hit her why the animal looked so wrong.

She wasn't looking at a wolf, as she'd been expecting, but a huge bobcat.

The twoey was a freaking shifter.

Well, that explained why he'd bypassed Dallas and headed for Bon Temps. He really had been looking for Sam.

The air around the bobcat shimmered, and a scrawny teenage boy took its place. He shook, then sat huddled on the tree's sloping trunk, skinny arms wrapped around his drawn-up knees, eyeing her with patent distrust. She recognized his thin, dark face, his black tight-cropped curls, currently dotted with water drops that glinted like diamonds in the light of the moon. Definitely the runaway, Jimmy.

“Gordy ain't dead?” Jimmy's question was rusty, as if he hadn't used his voice much recently. Or he'd been crying. Which, of course, he had been.

“He isn't,” Luna replied gently. “The shot didn't kill him.” Then because she wasn't about to sugarcoat things, she added, “But he's in a coma. The docs aren't sure if he'll pull through.”

A mix of grief and anger crossed Jimmy's face. “If he dies, it's Mr. Nicholson's fault.” He said it in a sullen croak, like he didn't expect Luna to believe him but he had to say it anyway.

It sounded as if there was a story to be told, and truths to be sifted—especially considering how fast and easy Jimmy had changed from bobcat to human; shapeshifting didn't look as new to him as the police report said—but other things needed to be dealt with first.

Luna directed a quick thought at Hunter. “Found him.”

The Bat-Signal flashed,
Okay.
Then after a brief lull, it flashed six times: code for
Good-bye and good luck
. Remy and Hunter were going home.

“Good-bye and good luck to you, too,” Luna thought with a pang of sadness. She'd probably never see the brave little boy or his protective dad again. Then she leaned forward and fixed the teen with a stern look.

“Did you attack Gordon?” she asked.

“Course not!” Jimmy's head jerked up in affront. “Gordy's my best friend.”

“The police report said he had bite marks on his throat,” Luna said, eyebrows raised in silent question.

“Well, yeah.” Jimmy looked embarrassed. “I bit him. Gordy wanted to be a werewolf like me.”

Of course he did. Never mind that Jimmy wasn't a werewolf but a shifter, so he couldn't bite anyone and change them. The teen was an orphan; he didn't know any better.

“So,” Luna said, keeping the exasperation out of her words. “If Gordy wanted to get bit, and you weren't attacking him, how did things end up with Mr. Nicholson shooting at you?”

Jimmy sniffed loudly. “Like you'd believe me. Or care.”

Teenagers! “Instead of having fun in Dallas with my friends,” Luna said evenly, “I'm sitting in a tree, in the middle of a gator-infested lake, in a swamp, talking to you. I think that counts as me caring, don't you?”

Jimmy frowned. “Suppose so.”

“Glad to hear it,” Luna said. “And as for believing you, I won't know if I do until you've told me what happened. Why don't you start with something easy like how you got out here?”

“I swam. Cats can swim, y'know.” His tone suggested it was a stupid question, which Luna admitted it probably was. Though how he'd managed not to end up as gator chow . . .

“Fair enough,” she said. “Why don't you tell me how you found out you were a shifter and take it from there?”

Jimmy wriggled about a bit, then let out a deep sigh.

“First time,” he said slowly, and then his words rushed out, eager to tell his story now that he had an audience, “I turned into a hamster like the classroom pet.” His face screwed up in disgust. “I knew I was a were 'cause I'd seen them come out on the TV, but I thought that was it, and I was stuck turning into something small and useless every full moon. Then next time I turned into a cat like the one at the home. That's when me and Gordy worked out that I was changing into the animal I looked at before the moon rose. So we found a picture of a wolf, and it worked!” He grinned. “Werewolves are the best.”

Of course they are,
Luna thought,
if you suffer from delusions of superiority.
Like every werewolf she knew. And small didn't mean useless! She clamped down on her irritation; Jimmy didn't know any better. But he could learn, if he got the chance. He and his pal had been smart to work out the mechanics of shapeshifting without any help.

“So Gordy wanted to be like me,” Jimmy carried on. “Once we found out I could be a wolf, anyway. No one bothers you when you're strong and tough. But that stupid Mr. Nicholson was always on our backs, and when he saw my wolf, he didn't even shout or nothing, just pointed his gun at me. Gordy threw himself in front, and took the bullet.” He shuddered. “It must've hurt bad 'cause Gordy screamed an' then he made this funny gurgling sound and Mr. Nicholson was going to shoot again . . .” Jimmy trailed off, staring down at the dark water.

“So you went for the gun,” Luna finished softly.
Brave kid.

“Yeah,” he muttered, then raised his head and stared straight at her. “Is Mr. Nicholson okay?”

Luna could hear the fear hanging on his question the same way she could see the thick Spanish moss dripping off the tree.

“His arm's tore up,” she replied matter-of-factly. “And you broke a couple of bones. He's gonna have a scar or two, but he'll live.” Which was good, more than the idiot man deserved after shooting at a couple of innocent kids, just because one was two-natured.

“I knew I hadn't hurt him bad,” Jimmy said, his face twisting with frustration. “I was careful. I just want to know if he's gonna turn into a werewolf? Now I've bit him?”

Luna shook her head. “He can't,” she said. “You're not a werewolf, Jimmy. You're a shapeshifter. Shapeshifters are born, not bitten.”

“But it said on the Internet this guy got bit by a werewolf and he turned into a wolfman.”

“That's something that only happens with weres, Jimmy,” Luna replied. “Not shapeshifters.”

“Oh.” Jimmy's face fell. “But that means Gordy won't be a werewolf.”

“No, he won't,” Luna agreed. “But isn't it more important that he gets better?”

He nodded, chin dropping sadly to rest on his knees. A couple of seconds later he muttered, “Good thing Mr. Nicholson won't turn into a werewolf, either. He don't deserve to be one.”

And you don't deserve what's happened to you,
Luna thought.

“C'mon,” she said, “you can't stay here. Those gators are going to start thinking about their empty bellies soon. How about we both head for somewhere more comfortable?”

The teen half sniffed, half sneered. “What for? It ain't like going back's gonna change anything. Now I've attacked Mr. Nicholson and they all know what I am, they'll lock me up and throw away the key. I might as well stay here. None of the other animals will bother me if I stick to shifting into a bobcat.”

The twoey coalition, especially with the packmaster throwing his weight around even though the young shapeshifter wasn't technically his responsibility, would do more than lock him up, Luna thought, her heart heavy. And for a moment she wondered if life in the bayou was better than none at all. Except that Jimmy was just a kid, and he hadn't done anything wrong. Why should he have to pay for someone else's stupidity? Only how to persuade him to come with her?

She pondered for a moment, then made a show of looking around, and said, “Spending your life as a bobcat isn't going to change anything, either. I expect it'll be pretty boring, too. No computer games, no Internet, no TV, no movies, no music. Though, of course, it'll liven up during hunting season.” She grinned. “Bet you'll make a pretty fur coat one day.”

He blinked at her, horror widening his eyes. “Fur coat?”

“Yeah, that's what they use bobcat skins for,” she said cheerfully. “They'll probably stuff your head and mount it on a wall, too.”

She saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed.

“If you come with me, Jimmy,” she said softly, “I'll help you.”

As she spoke, something inside her clicked into place. And she knew she was going to do exactly that. She was going to go to the coalition and make them do the right thing by this runaway shapeshifter. And not just them, but the rest of the world, too. Even if it meant fighting for the rest of her life. Just because weres and shifters were different, it didn't mean they were any less human. And it didn't mean they shouldn't have rights. Luna fixed Jimmy with a serious look. “That's a promise.”

He stared at her, suspicion, skepticism, and hope warring in his eyes. “Okay,” he said finally, and cautiously. “I guess you helping me's got to be better than being a fur coat.”

Luna grinned, and said, “Hey, bobcats can't fly. Think you can change into a bat, Jimmy?”

Ten days later Hunter received a short letter sent to his aunt Sookie's address. The envelope had a New Orleans postmark but no return address—secrets needed to be kept, after all.

Dear Mr. Hunter,

I am writing to thank you, and to let you know what happened to the sad boy. You were very brave and smart, and his rescue would have been very different, and difficult, without you.

Well, he is no longer sad, as his best friend was not dead as he thought but only hurt. And now the friend has made a full recovery.

As for the boy who was sad, he is now living with an old friend of mine in New Orleans, who is going to make sure he does not get into any more trouble, and where I am sure he will be very happy.

Please could you let your dad know, and tell him a huge thank-you, too.

Love and best wishes,
Batwoman

DANA CAMERON

Dana Cameron was always a Pam fan. She wanted to see more of her past, which I only hint at in the books. Dana decided to start with Eric's creation of Pam as a vampire, weaving that into her own story about why Pam loves being a vampire and the trouble that enjoyment—and Pam's nature—get her into.

—

The day I died was the day I'd never anticipated. Not in the sense of every oblivious mortal, ignoring what inevitably must find us all. It was the day I felt something, profoundly.

I blame the artists. The men, most especially. They taunt us with ideas of freedom, and fail to tell us that it exists only in their prose, their pictures, their verse. I vowed I would give up the sun, the moon, and the stars for that kind of freedom. When I sneaked out to visit my darling, I thought myself daring, a tragic heroine. After that night, I understood I had been living a mummified existence, bound by corsetry and social niceties.

Before
, I did not know myself, with my “wild” ways, to be alive but immured.

And yet if I hadn't been trying to live, to feel, as the poets claim we must, I never would have drawn my master's attention. If I hadn't tried to leave the drab, mortal path I was confined to, I would never have died and discovered true life.

I remember shadows from Before. A shadowy existence, shadows between our garden and that of our neighbors'. I thought that place was Elysium: It housed my closest friend and, occasionally, her cousin, my love. But mine was nothing but a weak imitation of life, soon to be snuffed out entirely, a feeble gesture at something more than a muffled existence. A young lady's fanciful imagination that her tentative efforts to trammel convention were real, meaningful. Potent.

Then came a series of shocks, too many things wrong all at once. That stranger waiting just outside my garden gate, as he'd waited in the chilly winter churchyard in past weeks.

Watching me.

“I have news, from—” He nodded at our neighbor's house, where my love was no doubt writing poetry to me at that moment.

His words puzzled me. “I've only just left—”

“He has a plan for the two of you to be together, and it demands urgency. We are too visible here.” He followed me through the garden. “You should ask me in.”

I was dazzled. The stranger was blond, an Adonis. Something not quite the gentleman about him, and yet I did not hesitate.

“Please, come in.” I opened the door, took off my cape, and—

One strong hand at my back, the other brushed against my cheek, and a thrill as he pulled me to him. I expected a kiss, but his hand swept over my hair, pushing my head so that I could feel his mouth on the soft skin above the lace of my collar and below my ear.

The touch of his cold lips against my neck and my knees went weak.

He bit me.

I opened my mouth—was it to scream or moan?—and before a noise could come out, I felt the pain.

Sharp teeth sheared through my flesh like scalpels. Blood—my blood—rushed into his mouth. The life was drawn from me by his lips.

And still beyond all that, beyond death, I felt a thumb across my nipple.

It was the most intense thing I'd ever experienced in my life. Shock, fear, suffering, arousal in a moment. The sensation was more than the sum of my parts; I felt my whole body alive at his touch. Primal experiences that no lady should have known, until the wedding night and childbirth.

I'm not certain how we arrived in my room, but he settled me onto my bed and raised his left wrist to his mouth. I saw a flash of white, white teeth, so long, so sharp. His jaw worked; I heard the gentle growling, a dog with a bone, and then the ripping of flesh.

A sharp scent caught me. Rich, dark, earthy, a metallic edge. My body, my being, contracted with need for it. All my earlier thoughts of the physical element of romance, those utterly chaste kisses tinged with hope and illusion, fled in the face of that longing.

That was real need. Real life.

I knew instantly what to do. I grabbed his wrist, drew it to my mouth. I latched on as surely as any babe to its nurse. My teeth sank into his flesh and I guided his blood over my tongue. The dryness that threatened to consume me tightened to an ache, as if resisting the offered nourishment, and then . . .

It began to burn, as if I were being devoured from the inside out. I could no more stop the flow of blood than I could scream with the pain it brought. As I kept sucking, the wildfire devoured me, and all I knew was that if I perished at that instant, I would die craving more blood. A slave to my own torment, a willing victim to a terrible pleasure.

I was a fool,
was nearly my last thought.
So wrong. This was what I sought, this commingling of fear, lust, life. And death.

Even as all the fires of hell seemed to consume me, I was grateful and remembered my manners.

“Thank y—”

Night. Again. I woke to bitter cold and blinding light.

“Sally, why are the windows open? It's—”

But my voice didn't work; my lips cracked as I tried to form the words.

I reached for the water pitcher; my hand hit something slippery and softly resistant, too close to me.

My fingers floated along the cloth. A shiver from my fingertips up my arm, until it felt as if my entire body registered what I felt: satin. I wasn't in my bed. I was in a lidless box.

I realized it was a coffin.

The light was starlight. I was staring up at the stars. My eyes focused slowly, aching as if there were too much for them to take in. There was too much beauty in the night. The silver music of the stars, the brilliance of the sandy soil as it trickled from the earthen walls that surrounded me. It pattered on my sleeve, making a noise as quiet and as fleeting as mice.

Soil and satin, two things that ordinarily I would keep far apart. But with the shrill fairness of the stars above, the glorious pulse of the dark city around me, the cacophony of worms and voles beneath . . . it was just one more note.

I wanted to cry out in amazement, but I was as parched as the desert. A small noise escaped, barely a croak, but even that was gratifying to me.

The dryness of my mouth triggered something. A terrible hunger seized me, a thirst so awful it was as though I were filled with coal dust and cobwebs. I struggled to sit up, the movement only underscoring the misery of my desiccated body.

“All will be well.”

Cold blue eyes, nameless but not unfamiliar, appeared, another constellation in the firmament. A sudden movement, quicker than even I could follow with my newly sharpened eyes, then strong arms around me and a rush of frigid air. My preserver took me from the grave with as little effort as if he'd scooped up a kitten. Just as easily, he cradled me in his lap.

“—you.” The effort of finishing my last mortal sentence made my throat ache. “I am so—”

“Here.”

He offered me his wrist again, and finally, his blood quenched my tortured throat. I began to relax, began to feel . . . more than alive. Sure-minded. Free.

He taunted me a little, as if he could tell the worst was past, and moved as if he'd take his wrist from me.

I clung to his arm, my fingers powerful, my mouth still demanding.

He laughed and relented. “Slowly, now, Miss Ravenscroft. Another moment, only. I did not bring you to life only to abandon it myself.”

I let his blood roll over my lips, felt it spill over and caress my cheek, as if I were savoring the juice from a stolen peach. I swallowed the last mouthful greedily as he firmly took his arm from me. I could make no complaint. I had never enjoyed food so well, never felt it nourish me so completely. So perfectly.

Now that the blood was gone—I wondered if my next mouthful would taste as lovely—I could smell him. Masculine, faintly of horse, laundry soap, and blood—perhaps even some from the laundress who'd washed that shirt. More distinctly I sensed power and lust.

“I do admire a young lady with an appetite,” he said, helping me to sit. A politeness, only; I felt more vital than I ever had. “I am Eric Northman. I will teach you about your new life and I shall protect you as my own. In return, I expect your obedience in all things.”

It was a better bargain than any lady in my acquaintance had ever been offered, and far more honest. I did not hesitate. “Oh, yes, please!”

A present to seal our compact: He gestured and a gaunt street Arab with a vacant look on her face stumbled to our side, obeying the same will that had compelled me to allow a strange man into my father's house. Her rags were redolent of the perfume of the East End slums. She wordlessly stretched her dirty neck out in front of me.

“Drink,” was all my master said. He didn't need to say more; the hunger I felt instructed me. The stink of her poverty was sharp but secondary to the entrancing rhythm of the pulse in her neck. It called me, the answer to my killing thirst.

A new and peculiar spasm in my mouth: I felt my teeth lengthening, becoming sharper. A throbbing in my entire person seemed to match the pulse at her throat that filled my ears.

I rose to my knees and clutched her by the shoulders. Without a second thought, or even a first, I bit down hard on her neck, felt the skin puncture and rend under my fangs. Her tiny whimper was a sweet counterpoint to the thumping in her veins, her weak resistance enthralling, as her blood filled me. The most delectable flavors rolled over my tongue like my favorite dinner: roast pork and savory pudding and dark red wine all together. I sucked harder, the tear in her skin wider than my greedy mouth could cover, and the blood sluiced down my chin and neck. The heat of the lost blood warmed and thrilled me as it soaked into my silk dress and my tumbled-down hair.

I felt myself refreshed to the point of ecstasy as existence vacated her forever.

I cast the small body away from me, useless now, an empty foul thing. My strength was greater than I realized. She arced through the air, to land, a broken doll, on a monument of an angel nearby. I licked at my lips and chin in a very unladylike fashion.

I half stood. “More!” The more I ate, the more I desired, and I craved other things, too, though I could not have put a name to them.

“You are wonderful!” My master, Eric, laughed. “There will be more, I promise you. But what if I told you there was something even better than feeding?”

“There cannot be.” There was not even a twinge, as there might have been Before, at such greediness. Every sermon I'd ever heard against the sins of the flesh had been burned out of me. I yearned for more.

“There is.”

Eric raised me to my feet, placed my hand on the front of his trousers. The satisfaction I'd felt in drinking from the urchin diminished beside what I experienced now. The talk of love and eternal passion that—I could not even remember the name of my friend's cousin—had promised me, was pretty, hollow, gilt-tin words, now banished by an irresistible yearning. Eric's face was stunningly beautiful, pale, and hungry as mine, and those blue eyes burned still.

“Yes! Oh, yes, please!”

Then the naughty Miss Ravenscroft, whose previous noteworthy transgressions were only silly declarations and clumsy, stolen kisses from a boy whose name she couldn't remember, truly became the vampire Pamela. No thoughts but my own satisfaction troubled me, and as I hauled up my skirts and petticoats, Eric lifted me to sit on the edge of a monument. An instant later, I felt him slam inside me, and I knew he was right. This was nearly the match of feeding, but in a way I had never experienced. I wrapped my legs around him, locking my ankles behind his back, and felt his being—no pulse, no heart—merge with mine. The blood he shared with me now linked us in a divine knot, sharing each other's pleasure.

Even as I moaned my climax—only dimly aware of the chilly London air, the cooling corpse of my first meal nearby—I felt a pain that threatened to eradicate me. It grew and grew and I panicked. As the spiraling agony threatened to swallow me, I was certain I was entering hell.