“I heard over the police band radio at the queen’s headquarters that the vampire police had been called in to subdue a fresh vampire, and I recognized the address,” Bill said by way of explanation. “Naturally, I found out where Sookie had been brought, and came here as fast as I could.”
I closed my eyes.
“Eric, you’re tiring her out,” Bill said, his voice even colder than usual. “You should leave Sookie alone.”
There was a long moment of silence. It was fraught with some big emotion. My eyes opened and went from one face to another. For once, I wished I could read vampire minds.
As much as I could read from his expression, Bill was deeply regretting his words, but why? Eric was looking at Bill with a complex expression compounded of resolve and something less definable; regret, maybe.
“I quite understand why you want to keep Sookie isolated while she’s in New Orleans,” Eric said. His
r
’s became more pronounced, as they did when he was angry.
Bill looked away.
Despite the pain pulsing in my arm, despite my general exasperation with the both of them, something inside me sat up and took notice. There was an unmistakable significance to Eric’s tone. Bill’s lack of response was curious . . . and ominous.
“What?” I said, my eyes flicking from one to the other. I tried to prop myself up on my elbows and settled for one when the other arm, the bitten one, gave a big throb of pain. I pressed the button to raise the head of the bed. “What’s all the big hinting about, Eric? Bill?”
“Eric should not be agitating you when you’ve got a lot to handle already,” Bill said, finally. Though never known for its expressiveness, Bill’s face was what my grandmother would have described as “locked up tighter than a drum.”
Eric folded his arms across his chest and looked down at them.
“Bill?” I said.
“Ask him why he came back to Bon Temps, Sookie,” Eric said very quietly.
“Well, old Mr. Compton died, and he wanted to reclaim his . . .” I couldn’t even describe the expression on Bill’s face. My heart began to beat faster. Dread gathered in a knot in my stomach. “Bill?”
Eric turned to face away from me, but not before I saw a shade of pity cross his face. Nothing could have scared me more. I might not be able to read a vampire’s mind, but in this case his body language said it all. Eric was turning away because he didn’t want to watch the knife sliding in.
“Sookie, you would find out when you saw the queen . . . Maybe I could have kept it from you, because you won’t understand . . . but Eric has taken care of that.” Bill gave Eric’s back a look that could have drilled a hole through Eric’s heart. “When your cousin Hadley was becoming the queen’s favorite . . .”
And suddenly I saw it all, knew what he was going to say, and I rose up on the hospital bed with a gasp, one hand to my chest because I felt my heart shattering. But Bill’s voice went on, even though I shook my head violently.
“Apparently, Hadley talked about you and your gift a lot, to impress the queen and keep her interest. And the queen knew I was originally from Bon Temps. On some nights, I’ve wondered if she sent someone to kill the last Compton and hurry things along. But maybe he truly died of old age.” Bill was looking down at the floor, didn’t see my left hand extended to him in a “stop” motion.
“She ordered me to return to my human home, to put myself in your way, to seduce you if I had to . . .”
I couldn’t breathe. No matter how my right hand pressed to my chest, I couldn’t stop the decimation of my heart, the slide of the knife deeper into my flesh.
“She wanted your gift harnessed for her own use,” he said, and he opened his mouth to say more. My eyes were so blurred with tears that I couldn’t see properly, couldn’t see what expression was on his face and didn’t care anyway. But I could not cry while he was anywhere near me. I would not.
“Get out,” I said, with a terrible effort. Whatever else happened, I could not bear for him to see the pain he had caused.
He tried to look me straight in the eyes, but mine were too full. Whatever he wanted to convey, it was lost on me. “Please let me finish,” he said.
“I never want to see you again, ever in my life,” I whispered. “Ever.”
He didn’t speak. His lips moved, as if he were trying to form a word or phrase, but I shook my head. “Get out,” I told him, in a voice so choked with hatred and anguish that it didn’t sound like my own. Bill turned and walked past the curtain and out of the emergency room. Eric did not turn around to see my face, thank God. He reached back to pat me on the leg before he left, too.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to kill someone with my bare hands.
I had to be by myself. I could not let anyone see me suffer this much. The pain was tied up with a rage so profound that I had never felt its like. I was sick with anger and hurt. The snap of Jake Purifoy’s teeth had been nothing compared to this.
I couldn’t stay still. With some difficulty, I eased off the bed. My feet were still bare, of course, and I noticed with an odd detached part of my mind that they were extraordinarily dirty. I staggered out of the triage area, spotted the doors to the waiting room, and aimed myself in that direction. Walking was a problem.
A nurse bustled up to me, a clipboard in her hand. “Miss Stackhouse, a doctor’s going to be with you in just a minute. I know you’ve had to wait, and I’m sorry, but . . .”
I turned to look at her and she flinched, took a step backward. I kept on toward the doors, my steps uncertain but my purpose clear. I wanted out of there. Beyond that, I didn’t know. I made it to the doors and pushed and then I was dragging myself through the waiting room thronged with people. I blended in perfectly with the mix of patients and relatives waiting to see a doctor. Some were dirtier and bloodier than I was, and some were older—and some were way younger. I supported myself with a hand against a wall and kept moving to the doors, to the outside.
I made it.
It was much quieter outside, and it was warm. The wind was blowing, just a little. I was barefoot and penniless, standing under the glaring lights of the walk-in doors. I had no idea where I was in relation to the house, and no idea if that was where I was going, but I wasn’t in the hospital any more.
A homeless man stepped in front of me. “You got any change, sister?” he asked. “I’m down on my luck, too.”
“Do I
look
like I have
anything
?” I asked him, in a reasonable voice.
He looked as unnerved as the nurse had. He said, “Sorry,” and backed away. I took a step after him.
I screamed,
“I HAVE NOTHING!”
And then I said, in a perfectly calm voice, “See, I never had anything to start with.”
He gibbered and quavered and I ignored him. I began my walk. The ambulance had turned right coming in, so I turned left. I couldn’t remember how long the ride had been. I’d been talking to Delagardie. I had been a different person. I walked and I walked. I walked under palm trees, heard the rich rhythm of music, brushed against the peeling shutters of houses set right up to the sidewalk.
On a street with a few bars, a group of young men came out just as I was passing, and one of them grabbed my arm. I turned on him with a scream, and with a galvanic effort I swung him into a wall. He stood there, dazed and rubbing his head, and his friends pulled him away.
“She crazy,” one of them said softly. “Leave her be.” They wandered off in the other direction.
After a time, I recovered enough to ask myself why I was doing this. But the answer was vague. When I fell on some broken pavement, scraping my knee badly enough to make it bleed, the new physical pain called me back to myself a little bit more.
“Are you doing this so they’ll feel sorry they hurt you?” I asked myself out loud. “Oh my God, poor Sookie! She walked out of the hospital all by herself, driven crazy with grief, and she wandered alone through the dangerous streets of the Big Easy because Bill made her so crazy!”
I didn’t want my name to cross Bill’s lips ever again. When I was a little more myself—just a little—the depth of my reaction began to surprise me. If we’d still been a couple when I learned what I’d learned this evening, I’d have killed him; I knew that with crystal clarity. But the reason I’d had to get away from the hospital was equally clear; I couldn’t have stood dealing with anyone in the world just then. I’d been blindsided with the most painful knowledge: the first man to ever say he loved me had never loved me at all.
His passion had been artificial.
His pursuit of me had been choreographed.
I must have seemed so easy to him, so gullible, so ready for the first man who devoted a little time and effort to winning me. Winning me! The very phrase made me hurt worse. He’d never thought of me as a prize.
Until the structure had been torn down in a single moment, I hadn’t realized how much of my life in the past year had been built on the false foundation of Bill’s love and regard.
“I saved his life,” I said, amazed. “I went to Jackson and risked my life for his, because he loved me.” One part of my brain knew that wasn’t entirely accurate. I’d done it because I had loved him. And I was amazed, at the same moment, to realize that the pull of his maker, Lorena, had been even stronger than the orders of his queen. But I wasn’t in the mood to split emotional hairs. When I thought of Lorena, another realization socked me in the stomach. “I killed someone for him,” I said, my words floating in the thick dark night. “Oh, my God. I killed someone for
him.
”
I was covered in scrapes, bruises, blood, and dirt when I looked up to see a sign reading CHLOE STREET. That was where Hadley’s apartment was, I realized slowly. I turned right, and began to walk again.
The house was dark, up and down. Maybe Amelia was still at the hospital. I had no idea what time it was or how long I had walked.
Hadley’s apartment was locked. I went downstairs and picked up one of the flowerpots Amelia had put around her door. I carried it up the stairs and smashed in a glass pane on the door. I reached inside, unlocked the door, and stepped in. No alarm shrieked. I’d been pretty sure the police wouldn’t have known the code to activate it when they’d left after doing whatever it was they’d done.
I walked through the apartment, which was still turned upside down by our fight with Jake Purifoy. I had some more cleaning to do in the morning, or whenever . . . whenever my life resumed. I went into the bathroom and stripped off the clothes I’d been wearing. I held them and looked at them for a minute, at the state they were in. Then I stepped across the hall, unlocked the closest French window, and threw the clothes over the railing of the gallery. I wished all problems were that easily disposed of, but at the same time my real personality was waking up enough to trigger a thread of guilt that I was leaving a mess that someone else would have to clean up. That wasn’t the Stackhouse way. That thread wasn’t strong enough to make me go back down the stairs to retrieve the filthy garments. Not then.
After I’d wedged a chair under the door I’d broken, and after I’d set the alarm system with the numbers Amelia had taught me, I got into the shower. The water stung my many scrapes and cuts, and the deep bite in my arm began bleeding again. Well, shit. My cousin the vampire hadn’t needed any first aid supplies, of course. I finally found some circular cotton pads she’d probably used for removing makeup, and I rummaged through one of the bags of clothes until I found a ludicrously cheerful leopard-patterned scarf. Awkwardly, I bound the pads to the bite and got the scarf tight enough.
At least the vile sheets were the least of my worries. I climbed painfully into my nightgown and lay on the bed, praying for oblivion.
16
I
WOKE UP UNREFRESHED, WITH THAT AWFUL FEELING that in a moment I would remember bad things.
The feeling was right on the money.
But the bad things had to take a backseat, because I had a surprise to start the day with. Claudine was lying beside me on the bed, propped up on one elbow looking down at me compassionately. And Amelia was at the end of the bed in an easy chair, her bandaged leg propped up on an ottoman. She was reading.
“How come you’re here?” I asked Claudine. After seeing Eric and Bill last night, I wondered if everyone I knew followed me around. Maybe Sam would come in the door in a minute.
“I told you, I’m your fairy godmother,” Claudine said. Claudine was usually the happiest fairy I knew. Claudine was just as lovely for a woman as her twin Claude was for a man; maybe lovelier, because her more agreeable personality shone through her eyes. Her coloring was the same as his; black hair, white skin. Today she was wearing pale blue capris and a coordinating black-and-blue tunic. She looked ethereally lovely, or at least as ethereal as you can look in capris.
“You can explain that to me right after I go to the bathroom,” I said, remembering all the water I’d chugged down when I’d gotten to the sink the night before. All my wanderings had made me thirsty. Claudine swung gracefully from the bed, and I followed her awkwardly.
“Careful,” Amelia advised, when I tried to stand up too quickly.
“How’s your leg?” I asked her, when the world had righted itself. Claudine kept a grip on my arm, just in case. It felt good to see Claudine, and I was surprisingly glad to see Amelia, even limping.
“Very sore,” she said. “But unlike you, I stayed at the hospital and had the wound treated properly.” She closed her book and put it on the little table by the chair. She looked a little better than I suspected I did, but she was not the radiant and happy witch she’d been the day before.
“Had a learning experience, didn’t we?” I said, and then my breath caught when I remembered just how much I’d learned.
Claudine helped me into the bathroom, and when I assured her I could manage, she left me alone. I did the necessary things and came out feeling better, almost human. Claudine had gotten some clothes out of my sports bag, and there was a mug on the bedside table with steam rising from it. I carefully sat against the headboard, my legs crossed in front of me, and held the mug to my face so I could breathe in the smell.