The door from the bar into the hall was usually left open, because people had to pass into the hall all the time to use the bathrooms. But now it was closed. It had been open when I'd come down the hall to talk to Bubba.
This was bad.
"Sookie," Charles said, behind me. "I truly regret this."
"It was you who shot Sam, wasn't it?" I reached behind me, fumbled for the handle that would open that door. He wouldn't kill me in front of all those people, would he? Then I remembered the night Eric and Bill had polished off a roomful of men in my house. I remembered it had taken them only three or four minutes. I remembered what the men had looked like afterward.
"Yes. It was a stroke of luck when you caught the cook, and she confessed. But she didn't confess to shooting Sam, did she?"
"No, she didn't," I said numbly. "All the others, but not Sam, and the bullet didn't match."
My fingers found the knob. If I turned it, I might live. But I might not. How much did Charles value his own life?
"You wanted the job here," I said.
"I thought there was a good chance I'd come in handy when Sam was out of the picture."
"How'd you know I'd go to Eric for help?"
"I didn't. But I knew someone would tell him the bar was in trouble. Since that would mean helping you, he would do it. I was the logical one to send."
"Why are you doing all this?"
"Eric owes a debt."
He was moving closer, though not very quickly. Maybe he was reluctant to do the deed. Maybe he was hoping for a more advantageous moment, when he could carry me off in silence.
"It looks like Eric's found out I'm not from the Jackson nest, as I'd said."
"Yeah.You picked the wrong one."
"Why? It seemed ideal to me. Many men there; you wouldn't have seen them all. No one can remember all the men who've passed through that mansion."
"But they've heard Bubba sing," I said softly. "He sang for them one night. You'd never have forgotten that. I don't know how Eric found out, but I knew as soon as you said you'd never—"
He sprang.
I was on my back on the floor in a split second, but my hand was already in my pocket, and he opened his mouth to bite. He was supporting himself on his arms, courteously trying not to actually lie on top of me. His fangs were fully out, and they glistened in the light.
"I have to do this," he said. "I'm sworn. I'm sorry."
"I'm not," I said, and thrust the silver chain into his mouth, using the heel of my hand to snap his jaw shut.
He screamed and hit at me, and I felt a rib go, and smoke was coming out of his mouth. I scrambled away and did a little yelling of my own. The door flew open, and a flood of bar patrons thundered into the little hallway. Sam shot out of the door of his office like he'd been firedfrom a cannon, moving very well for a man with a broken leg, and to my amazement he had a stake in his hand. By that time, the screaming vampire was weighted down by so many beefy men in jeans you couldn't even see him. Charles was trying to bite whoever he could, but his burned mouth was so painful his efforts were weak.
Catfish Hunter seemed to be on the bottom of the pile, in direct contact. "You pass me that stake here, boy!" he called back to Sam. Sam passed it to Hoyt Fortenberry, who passed it to Dago Guglielmi, who transferred it to Catfish's hairy hand.
"We gonna wait for the vampire police, or we gonna take care of this ourselves?" Catfish asked."Sookie?"
After a horrified second of temptation, I opened my mouth to say, "Call the police." The Shreveport police had a squad of vampire policemen, as well as the necessary special transportation vehicle and special jail cells.
"End it," said Charles, somewhere below the heaving pile of men. "I failed in my mission, and I can't abide jails."
"Okeydokey," Catfish said, and staked him.
After it was over and the body had disintegrated, the men went back into the bar and settled down at the tables where they'd been before they heard the fight going on in the hall. It was beyond strange. There wasn't much laughing, and there wasn't much smiling, and no one who'd stayed in the bar asked anyone who'd left what had happened.
Of course, it was tempting to think this was an echo of the terrible old days, when black men had been lynched if there was even a rumor they'd winked at a white woman.
But, you know, the simile just didn't hold. Charles was a different race, true. But he'd been guilty as hell of trying to kill me. I would have been a dead woman in thirty more seconds, despite my diversionary tactic, if the men of Bon Temps hadn't intervened.
We were lucky in a lot of ways. There was not one law enforcement person in the bar thatnight . Not five minutes after everyone resumed his table, Dennis Pettibone, the arson investigator, came in to have a visit with Arlene. (The busboy was still mopping the hall, in fact.) Sam had bound my ribs with some Ace bandages in his office, and I walked out, slowly and carefully, to ask Dennis what he wanted to drink.
We were lucky that there weren't any outsiders. No college guys from Ruston , no truckers from Shreveport , no relatives who'd dropped in for a beer with a cousin or an uncle.
We were lucky there weren't many women. I don't know why, but I imagined a woman would be more likely to get squeamish about Charles's execution. In fact, I felt pretty squeamish about it, when I wasn't counting my lucky stars I was still alive.
And Eric was lucky when he dashed into the bar about thirty minutes later, because Sam didn't have any more stakes handy. As jittery as everyone was, some foolhardy soul would have volunteered to take out Eric: but he wouldn't have come out of it relatively unscathed, as those who'd tackled Charles had.
And Eric was also lucky that the first words out of his mouth were "Sookie, are you all right?" In his anxiety, he grabbed me, one hand on either side of my waist, and I cried out.
"You're hurt," he said, and then realized five or six men had jumped to their feet.
"I'm just sore," I said, making a huge effort to look okay. "Everything's fine. This here's my friend Eric," I said a little loudly. "He's been trying to get in touch with me, and now I know why it was so urgent." I met the eyes of each man, and one by one, they dropped back into their seats.
"Let's us go sit and talk," I said very quietly.
"Where is he? I will stake the bastard myself, no matter what Hot Rain sends against me." Eric was furious.
"It's been taken care of," I hissed. "Will you
chill
?"
With Sam's permission, we went to his office, the only place in the building that offered both chairs and privacy. Sam was back behind the bar, perched on a high stool with his leg on a lower stool, managing the bartending himself.
"Bill searched his database," Eric said proudly. "The bastard told me he came from Mississippi , so I wrote him down as one of Russell's discarded pretty boys. I had even called Russell, to ask him if Twining had worked well for him. Russell said he had so many new vampires in themansion, he had only the vaguest recollection of Twining. But Russell, as I observed at Josephine's Bar, is not the kind of manager I am."
I managed a smile. That was definitely true.
"So when I found myself wondering, I asked Bill to go to work, and Bill traced Twining from his birth as a vampire to his pledge to Hot Rain."
"This Hot Rain was the one who made him a vampire?"
"No, no," Eric said impatiently. "Hot Rain made the pirate's sire a vampire. And when Charles's sire was killed during the French and Indian War, Charles pledged himself to Hot Rain. When Hot Rain was dissatisfied with Long Shadow's death, he sent Charles to exact payment for the debt he felt was owed."
"Why would killing me cancel the debt?"
"Because he decided after listening to gossip and much reconnoitering that you were important tome, and that your death would wound me the way Long Shadow's had him."
"Ah." I could not think of one thing to say. Not one thing.
At last I asked, "So Hot Rain and Long Shadow were doing the deed, once upon a time?"
Eric said, "Yes, but it wasn't the sexual connection, it wasthe . . . the affection. That was the valuable part of the bond."
"So because this Hot Rain decided the fine you paid him for Long Shadow's death just didn't give him closure, he sent Charles to do something equally painful to you."
"Yes."
"And Charles got to Shreveport , kept his ears open, found out about me, decided my death would fill the bill."
"Apparently."
"So he heard about the shootings, knew Sam is a shifter, and shot Sam so there'd be a good reason for him to come to Bon Temps."
"Yes."
"That's real, real complicated. Why didn't Charles just jump me some night?"
"Because he wanted it to look like an accident.He didn't want blame attached to a vampire at all, because not only did he not want to get caught, he didn't want Hot Rain to incur any penalty."
I closed my eyes. "He set fire to my house," I said. "Not that poor Marriot guy. I bet Charles killed him before the bar even closed that night and brought him back to my house so he'd take the blame. After all, the guy was a stranger to Bon Temps. No one would miss him. Oh my God! Charles borrowed my keys! I bet the man was in my trunk! Not dead, but hypnotized. Charles planted that card in the guy's pocket. The poor fella wasn't a member of the Fellowship of the Sun anymore than I am."
"It must have been frustrating for Charles, when he found you were surrounded by friends," Eric said a little coldly, since a couple of those "friends" had just clomped by noisily, using a trip to the john as a pretext to keep an eye on him.
"Yes, must have been." I smiled.
"You seem better than I expected," Eric said a little hesitantly."Less traumatized, as they say now."
"Eric, I'm a lucky woman," I said. "Today I've seen more bad stuff than you can imagine. All I can think is,I escaped. By the way, Shreveport now has a new packmaster, and he's a lying, cheating bastard."
"Then I take it Jackson Herveaux lost his bid for the job."
"Lost more than that."
Eric's eyes widened. "So the contest was today. I'd heard Quinn was in town. Usually, he keeps transgressions to a minimum."
"It wasn't his choice," I said. "A vote went against Jackson ; it should have helped him, butit . . . didn't."
"Why were you there? Was that blasted Alcide trying to use you for some purpose in the contest?"
"You should talk about using."
"Yes, but I'm straightforward about it," Eric said, his blue eyes wide and guileless.
I had to laugh. I hadn't expected to laugh for days, or weeks, and yet here I was, laughing. "True," I admitted.
"So, I'm to understand that Charles Twining is no more?" Eric asked quite soberly.
"That's correct."
"Well, well. The people here are unexpectedly enterprising. What damage have you suffered?"
"Broken rib."
"A broken rib is not much when a vampire is fighting for his life."
"Correct, again."
"When Bubba got back and I found he hadn't exactly delivered his message, I rushed here gallantly to rescue you. I had tried calling the bar tonight to tell you to beware, but Charles answered the phone every time."
"It was gallant of you, in the extreme," I admitted."But, as it turns out, unnecessary."
"Well,then . . . I'll go back to my own bar and look at my own bar patrons from my own office. We're expanding our Fangtasia product line."
"Oh?"
"Yes. What would you think of a nude calendar? 'Fangtasia's Vampire Hunks' is what Pam thinks it should be called."
"Are you gonna be in it?"
"Oh, of course.Mr. January."
"Well, put me down for three. I'll give one to Arlene and one to Tara. And I'll put one up on my own wall."
"If you promise to keep it open to my picture, I'll give you one for free," Eric promised.
"You got a deal."
He stood up. "One more thing, before I go."
I stood, too, but much more slowly.
"I may need to hire you in early March."
"I'll check my calendar. What's up?"
"There's going to be a little summit.A meeting of the kings and queens of some of the southern states. The location hasn't been settled, but when it is, I wonder if you can get time off from your job here to accompany me and my people."
"I can't think that far ahead just at the moment, Eric," I said. I winced as I began to walk out of the office.
"Wait one moment," he said suddenly, and justlikethat he was in front of me.
I looked up, feeling massively tired.
He bent and kissed me on my mouth, as softly as a butterfly's fluttering.
"You said I told you you were the best I'd ever had," he said. "But did you respond in kind?"
"Don't you wish you knew?" I said, and went back to work.
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