“That’s right. I can’t read vampires; they don’t seem to put out any brainwaves. That’s just how I put it. I don’t know how I do this, or if there’s a scientific way to phrase it.” I wasn’t exactly lying: Undead minds really were unreadable—except for a little split second’s glimpse every now and then (which hardly counted, and no one could know about). If vampires thought I could read their minds, not even Bill could save me. If he would.
Every time I forgot for a second that our relationship had radically changed, it hurt all over again to be reminded.
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’m aiming for humans dating or serving local vampires. Humans were the actual abductors. He was snatched in daytime. At least, that’s what they told Eric.”
“I should have asked you about this earlier,” he said, mostly to himself. “Just in case I hear something the regular way—through my ears—maybe you should tell me the circumstances.”
As we drove by what Alcide said was the old train station, I gave him a quick summary. I caught a glimpse of a street sign reading “Amite” as we pulled up to an awning that stretched over a deserted length of sidewalk in the outskirts of downtown Jackson. The area directly under the awning was lit with a brilliant and cold light. Somehow that length of sidewalk seemed creepily ominous, especially since the rest of the street was dark. Uneasiness crawled down my back. I felt a deep reluctance to stop at that bit of sidewalk.
It was a stupid feeling, I told myself. It was just a stretch of cement. No beasts were in sight. After the businesses closed at five, downtown Jackson was not exactly teeming, even under ordinary circumstances. I was willing to bet that most of the sidewalks in the whole state of Mississippi were bare on this cold December night.
But there was something ominous in the air, a watch-fulness laced with a charge of malice. The eyes observing us were invisible; but they were observing us, nonetheless. When Alcide climbed out of the truck and came around to help me down, I noticed that he left the keys in the ignition. I swung my legs outward and put my hands on his shoulders, my long silk stole wound firmly around me and trailing behind, fringe trembling in a gust of chilled air. I pushed off as he lifted, and then I was on the sidewalk.
The truck drove away.
I looked at Alcide sideways, to see if this was startling to him, but he looked quite matter-of-fact. “Vehicles parked in front would attract attention from the general public,” he told me, his voice hushed in the vast silence of that coldly lit bit of pavement.
“They can come in? Regular people?” I asked, nodding toward the single metal door. It looked as uninviting as a door can look. There was no name anywhere on it, or on the building, for that matter. No Christmas decorations, either. (Of course, vampires don’t observe holidays, except for Halloween. It’s the ancient festival of Samhain dressed up in trappings that the vamps find delightful. So Halloween’s a great favorite, and it’s celebrated worldwide in the vamp community.)
“Sure, if they want to pay a twenty-dollar cover charge to drink the worst drinks in five states. Served by the rudest waiters. Very slowly.”
I tried to smother my smile. This was not a smiley kind of place. “And if they stick that out?”
“There’s no floor show, no one speaks to them, and if they last much longer, they find themselves out on the sidewalk getting into their car with no memory of how they got there.”
He grasped the handle of the door and pulled it open. The dread that soaked the air did not seem to affect Alcide.
We stepped into a tiny hall that was blocked by another door after about four feet. There, again, I knew we were being watched, though I couldn’t see a camera or a peephole anywhere.
“What’s the name of this place?” I whispered.
“The vamp that owns it calls it Josephine’s,” he said, just as quietly. “But Weres call it Club Dead.”
I thought about laughing, but the inner door opened just then.
The doorman was a goblin.
I had never seen one before, but the word “goblin” popped into my mind as if I had a supernatural dictionary printed on the inside of my eyeballs. He was very short and very cranky-looking, with a knobby face and broad hands. His eyes were full of fire and malignance. He glared up at us as if customers were the last things he needed.
Why any ordinary person would walk into Josephine’s after the cumulative effect of the haunted sidewalk, the vanishing vehicle, and the goblin at the door . . . well, some people are just born asking to be killed, I guess.
“Mr. Herveaux,” the goblin said slowly, in a deep, growly voice. “Good to have you back. Your companion is . . . ?”
“Miss Stackhouse,” Alcide said. “Sookie, this is Mr. Hob.” The goblin examined me with glowing eyes. He looked faintly troubled, as if he couldn’t quite fit me into a slot; but after a second, he stood aside to let us pass.
Josephine’s was not very crowded. Of course, it was somewhat early for its patrons. After the eerie build-up, the large room looked almost disappointingly like any other bar. The serving area itself was in the middle of the room, a large square bar with a lift-up panel for the staff to go to and fro. I wondered if the owner had been watching reruns of
Cheers
. The glasses hung down, suspended on racks, and there were artificial plants and low music and dim lighting. There were polished bar stools set evenly all around the square. To the left of the bar was a small dance floor, and even farther left was a tiny stage for a band or a disc jockey. On the other three sides of the square were the usual small tables, about half of which were in use.
Then I spotted the list of ambiguous rules on the wall, rules designed to be understood by the regular habitués, but not by the occasional tourist. “No Changing on the Premises,” one said sternly. (Weres and shifters could not switch from animal to human when they were at the bar; well, I could understand that.) “No Biting of Any Kind,” said another. “No Live Snacks,” read a third. Ick.
The vampires were scattered throughout the bar, some with others of their own kind, some with humans. There was a raucous party of shifters in the southeast corner, where several tables had been drawn together to accommodate the size of the party. The center of this group appeared to be a tall young woman with gleaming short black hair, an athletic build, and a long, narrow face. She was draped over a square man of her own age, which I guessed to be about twenty-eight. He had round eyes and a flat nose and the softest looking hair I’d ever seen—it was almost baby fine, and so light a blond, it was nearly white. I wondered if this were the engagement party, and I wondered if Alcide had known it was to take place. His attention was definitely focused on that group.
Naturally, I immediately checked out what the other women in the bar were wearing. The female vampires and the women with male vampires were dressed about at my level. The shifter females tended to dress down a bit more. The black-haired woman I’d pegged for Debbie was wearing a gold silk blouse and skintight brown leather pants, with boots. She laughed at some comment of the blond man’s, and I felt Alcide’s arm grow rigid under my fingers. Yep, this must be the ex-girlfriend, Debbie. Her good time had certainly escalated since she’d glimpsed Alcide’s entrance.
Phony bitch
, I decided in the time it takes to snap your fingers, and I made up my mind to behave accordingly. The goblin Hob led the way to an empty table within view of the happy party, and held out a chair for me. I nodded to him politely, and unwound my wrap, folding it and tossing it onto an empty chair. Alcide sat in the chair to my right, so he could put his back to the corner where the shifters were having such a raucous good time.
A bone-thin vampire came to take our order. Alcide asked my pleasure with an inclination of his head. “A champagne cocktail,” I said, having no idea what one tasted like. I’d never gone to the trouble to mix myself one at Merlotte’s, but now that I was in someone else’s bar, I thought I’d give it a shot. Alcide ordered a Heineken. Debbie was casting many glances our way, so I leaned forward and smoothed back a lock of Alcide’s curly black hair. He looked surprised, though of course Debbie couldn’t see that.
“Sookie?” he said, rather doubtfully.
I smiled at him, not my nervous smile—because I wasn’t, for once. Thanks to Bill, I now had a little confidence about my own physical attractiveness. “Hey, I’m your date, remember? I’m acting date-like,” I told him.
The thin vampire brought our drinks just then, and I clinked my glass against his bottle. “To our joint venture,” I said, and his eyes lit up. We sipped.
I loved champagne cocktails.
“Tell me more about your family,” I said, because I enjoyed listening to his rumbly voice. I would have to wait until there were more humans in the bar before I began listening in to others’ thoughts.
Alcide obligingly began telling me about how poor his dad had been when he started his surveying business, and how long it had taken for him to prosper. He was just beginning to tell me about his mother when Debbie sashayed up.
It had only been a matter of time.
“Hello, Alcide,” she purred. Since he hadn’t been able to see her coming, his strong face quivered. “Who’s your new friend? Did you borrow her for the evening?”
“Oh, longer than that,” I said clearly, and smiled at Debbie, a smile that matched her own for sincerity.
“Really?” If her eyebrows had crawled any higher, they’d have been in heaven.
“Sookie is a good friend,” Alcide said impassively.
“Oh?” Debbie doubted his word. “It wasn’t too long ago you told me you’d never have another ‘friend’ if you couldn’t have . . . Well.” She smirked.
I covered Alcide’s huge hand with my own and gave her a look that implied much.
“Tell me,” Debbie said, her lips curling in a skeptical way, “how do you like that birthmark of Alcide’s?”
Who could have predicted she was willing to be a bitch so openly? Most women try to hide it, at least from strangers.
It’s on my right butt cheek. It’s shaped like a rabbit
. Well, how nice. Alcide had remembered what I’d said, and he’d thought directly at me.
“I love bunnies,” I said, still smiling, my hand drifting down Alcide’s back to caress, very lightly, the top of his right buttock.
For a second, I saw sheer rage on Debbie’s face. She was so focused, so controlled, that her mind was a lot less opaque than most shifters’. She was thinking about her owl fiancé, about how he wasn’t as good in the sack as Alcide, but he had a lot of ready cash and he was willing to have children, which Alcide wasn’t. And she was stronger than the owl, able to dominate him.
She was no demon (of course, her fiancé would have a really short shelf life if she
were
) but she was no sweetie, either.
Debbie still could have recovered the situation, but her discovery that I knew Alcide’s little secret made her nuts. She made a big mistake.
She raked me over with a glare that would have paralyzed a lion. “Looks like you went to Janice’s salon today,” she said, taking in the casually tumbled curls, the fingernails. Her own straight black hair had been cut in asymmetrical clumps, tiny locks of different lengths, making her look a little like a dog in a very good show, maybe an Afghan. Her narrow face increased the resemblance. “Janice never sends anyone out looking like they live in this century.”
Alcide opened his mouth, rage tensing all his muscles. I laid my hand on his arm.
“What do
you
think of my hair?” I asked softly, moving my head so it slithered over my bare shoulders. I took his hand and held it gently to the curls falling over my chest. Hey, I was pretty good at this! Sookie the sex kitten.
Alcide caught his breath. His fingers trailed through the length of my hair, and his knuckles brushed my collarbone. “I think it’s beautiful,” he said, and his voice was both sincere and husky.
I smiled at him.
“I guess instead of borrowing you, he rented you,” Debbie said, goaded into irreparable error.
It was a terrible insult, to both of us. It took every bit of resolution I had to hang on to a ladylike self-control. I felt the primitive self, the truer me, swim nearly to the surface. We sat staring at the shifter, and she blanched at our silence. “Okay, I shouldn’t have said that,” she said nervously. “Just forget it.”
Because she was a shifter, she’d beat me in a fair fight. Of course, I had no intention of fighting fair, if it came to that.
I leaned over and touched one red fingertip to her leather pants. “Wearing Cousin Elsie?” I asked.
Unexpectedly, Alcide burst into laughter. I smiled at him as he doubled over, and when I looked up, Debbie was stalking back to her party, who had fallen silent during our exchange.
I reminded myself to skip going to the ladies’ room alone this evening.
BY THE TIME we ordered our second drinks, the place was full. Some Were friends of Alcide’s came in, a large group—Weres like to travel in packs, I understand. Shifters, it depended on the animal they most often shifted to. Despite their theoretical versatility, Sam had told me that shape-shifters most often changed to the same animal every time, some creature they had a special affinity for. And they might call themselves by that animal: weredog, or werebat, or weretiger. But never just “Weres”—that term was reserved for the wolves. The true werewolves scorned such variance in form, and they didn’t think much of shifters in general. They, the werewolves, considered themselves the cream of the shape-shifting world.
Shifters, on the other hand, Alcide explained, thought of werewolves as the thugs of the supernatural scene. “And you do find a lot of us in the building trades,” he said, as if he were trying hard to be fair. “Lots of Weres are mechanics, or brick masons, or plumbers, or cooks.”
“Useful occupations,” I said.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But not exactly white-collar. So though we all cooperate with each other, to some extent, there’s a lot of class discrimination.”