Sookie 10 Dead in the Family (22 page)

Sam looked at me, a question on his face.

“He’s sincere,” I said.

“Thank you, Sookie,” Antoine said. He looked abjectly miserable.

“Okay,” Sam said, after looking at Antoine for a few more seconds. “You still have a job.”

“No. conditions?” Antoine was looking at Sam unbelievingly. “He expects me to keep watching you.”

“Not a condition, but a warning. If you tell him one thing more besides the fact that I’m here and running this business, you’re outta here, and if I can think of something else to do to you, I will.”

Antoine seemed weak with relief. “I’ll do my best for you, Sam,” he said. “Tell the truth, I’m glad it all came out. It’s been sitting heavy on my conscience.”

“There’ll be a backlash,” I said when Sam and I were alone.

“I know. Lattesta will come down on him hard, and Antoine will be tempted to make something up to tell him.”

“I think Antoine is a good guy. I hope I’m not wrong.” I’d been wrong about people before. In major ways.

“Yeah, I hope he lives up to our expectations.” Sam smiled at me suddenly. He has a great smile, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “It’s good to have faith in people sometimes, give them another chance. And we’ll both keep our eyes on him.”

I nodded. “Okay. Well, I better get home.” I wanted to check my cell phone for messages and my landline, too. And my computer. I was dying for someone to reach out and touch me.

“Is something the matter?” Sam asked. He reached out to give me a tentative pat on the shoulder. “Anything I can do?”

“You’re the greatest,” I said. “But I’m just trying to get through a bad situation.”

“Eric’s out of touch?” he said, proving that Sam is one shrewd guesser.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “And he’s got. relatives in town. I don’t know what the hell’s going on.” The word “relatives” jogged my brain. “How are things going in your family, Sam?”

“The divorce is no-fault, and it’s going through,” he said. “My mom is pretty miserable, but she’ll be better as time goes on, I hope. Some of the people in Wright are giving her the cold shoulder. She let Mindy and Craig watch her change.”

“What form did she pick?” I’d rather be a shapeshifter than a wereanimal, so I’d have a choice.

“A Scottie, I think. My sister took it real well. Mindy’s always been more flexible than Craig.”

I thought women were almost always more flexible than men, but I didn’t think I needed to say that out loud. Generalizations like that can come back to bite you in the ass. “Deidra’s family settled down?”

“It looks like the wedding’s back on, as of two nights ago,” Sam said. “Her mom and dad finally got that the ‘contamination’ couldn’t spread to Deidra and Craig and their kids, if they have any.”

“So you think the wedding will take place?”

“Yeah, I do. You still going to go to Wright with me?”

I started to say, “You still want me to?” but that would have been unduly coy, since he’d just asked me. “When the date is set, you’ll have to ask my boss if I can get off work,” I told him. “Sam, it may be tacky of me to persist in asking, but why aren’t you taking Jannalynn?”

I wasn’t imagining the discomfort that emanated from Sam. “She’s. Well, ah. She’s. I can just tell that she and my mom wouldn’t get along. If I do introduce her to my family, I think I better wait until the tension of the wedding isn’t part of the picture. My mom’s still jangled from the shooting and the divorce, and Jannalynn is. not a calm person.” In my opinion, if you were dating someone you were clearly embarrassed to introduce to your family, you were probably dating the wrong person. But Sam hadn’t asked me for my opinion.

“No, she certainly isn’t a calm individual,” I said. “And now that she’s got those new responsibilities, she’s got to be pretty focused on the pack, I guess.”

“What? What new responsibilities?”

Uh-oh. “I’m sure she’ll tell you all about it,” I said. “I guess you haven’t seen her in a couple of days, huh?”

“Nope. So we’re both down in the dumps,” he said.

I was willing to concede I’d been pretty grim, and I smiled at him. “Yeah, that’s a big part of it,” I said. “With Eric’s maker being in town, and him being scarier than Freddy Krueger, I’m pretty much on my own, I guess.”

“If we don’t hear from our significant others, let’s go out tomorrow night. We can hit Crawdad Diner again,” Sam said. “Or I can grill us some steaks.”

“Sounds good,” I told him. And I appreciated his offer. I’d been feeling kind of cast adrift. Jason was apparently busy with Michele (and after all, he’d stayed the other night when I’d half expected him to scoot out of the house), Eric was busy (apparently), Claude was almost never at the house and awake when I was awake, Tara was busy being pregnant, and Amelia had time to send me only the occasional e-mail. Though I didn’t mind being by myself from time to time—in fact, I enjoyed it—I’d had a little too much of it lately. And being alone is a lot more fun if it’s optional.

Relieved that the conversation with Antoine was over, and wondering what trouble Tom Lattesta might cause in the future, I grabbed my purse from the drawer in Sam’s desk and headed for home.

It was a beautiful late afternoon when I pulled up in back of the house. I thought of working out to an exercise DVD before I fi xed supper. Claude’s car was gone. I hadn’t noticed Jason’s truck, so I was surprised to see him sitting on my back steps.

“Hey, Brother!” I called as I got out of the car. “Listen, let me ask you. ” And then, getting his mental signature, I realized the man sitting on the steps wasn’t Jason. I froze. All I could do was stare at my half-fae great-uncle Dermot and wonder if he had come to kill me.

He could have slain me about sixty times in the seconds I stood there. Despite the fact that he didn’t, I still didn’t want to take my eyes off him.

“Don’t be afraid,” Dermot said, rising with a grace that Jason could never have matched. He moved like his joints were machine made and well oiled.

I said through numb lips, “Can’t help it.”

“I want to explain,” he said as he drew nearer.

“Explain?”

“I wanted to get closer to both of you,” he said. He was well into my personal space by then. His eyes were blue like Jason’s, candid like Jason’s, and really, seriously, crazy.
Not
like Jason’s. “I was confused.”

“About what?” I wanted to keep the conversation going, I surely did, because I didn’t know what would happen when it came to a halt.

“About where my loyalties lay,” he said, bowing his head as gracefully as a swan.

“Sure. Tell me about that.” Oh, if only I had my squirt gun, loaded with lemon juice, in my purse! But I’d promised Eric I’d put it on my nightstand when Claude had come to live with me, so that was where it lay. And the iron trowel was where it was supposed to be, in the toolshed.

“I will,” he said, standing close enough that I could smell him. He smelled great. Fairies always do. “I know you met my father, Niall.”

I nodded, a very small movement. “Yes,” I said, to make sure.

“Did you love him?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation. “I did. I do.”

“He’s easy to love; he’s charming,” Dermot said. “My mother, Einin, was beautiful, too. Not a fairy kind of beautiful, like Niall, but she was human-beautiful.”

“That’s what Niall told me,” I said. I was picking my way through a conversational minefield.

“Did he tell you the water fairies murdered my twin?”

“Did Niall tell me your brother was murdered? No, but I heard.”

“I saw parts of Fintan’s body. Neave and Lochlan had torn him limb from limb.”

“They helped drown my parents, too,” I said, holding my breath. What would he say?

“I. ” He struggled to speak, his face desperate. “But I
wasn’t there
. I. Niall. ” It was terrible to watch Dermot struggle to speak. I shouldn’t have had any mercy for him, since Niall had told me about Dermot’s part in my parents’ deaths. But I really couldn’t endure his pain.

“So how come you ended up siding with Breandan’s forces in the war?”

“He told me my father had killed my brother,” Dermot said bleakly. “And I believed him. I mistrusted my love for Niall. When I remembered my mother’s misery after Niall stopped coming to visit her, I thought Breandan must be right and we weren’t meant to mingle with humans. It never seems to turn out well for them. And I hated what I was, half-human. I was never at home anywhere.”

“So, are you feeling better now? About being a little bit human?”

“I’ve come to terms with it. I know my former actions were wrong, and I’m grieved that my father won’t let me into Faery.” The big blue eyes looked sad. I was too busy trying not to shake to get the full impact.

In a breath, out a breath. Calm, calm.
“So now you’re thinking Jason and I are okay? You don’t want to hurt us anymore?”

He put his arms around me. This was “hug Sookie” season, and no one had told me ahead of time. Fairies were very touchy-feely, and personal space didn’t mean anything to them. I would have liked to tell my great-uncle to back off. But I didn’t dare. I didn’t need to read Dermot’s mind to understand that almost anything could set him off, so delicate was his mental balance. I had to stiffen all my resolution to maintain my even breathing so I wouldn’t shiver and shake. His nearness and the tension of being in his presence, the huge strength that hummed through his arms, took me back to a dark ruined shack and two psycho fairies who really had deserved their deaths. My shoulders jerked, and I saw a flash of panic in Dermot’s eyes.
Calm. Be calm.

I smiled at him. I have a pretty smile, people tell me, though I know it’s a little too bright, a little nuts. However, that suited the conversation perfectly. “The last time you saw Jason,” I said, and then couldn’t think how to finish.

“I attacked his companion. The beast who’d hurt Jason’s wife.”

I swallowed hard and smiled some more. “Probably would’ve been better if you’d explained to Jason why you were going after Mel. And it wasn’t Mel who killed her, you know.”

“No, it was my own kind that finished her off. But she would have died anyway. He wasn’t taking her to get help, you know.”

Wasn’t much I could say, because his account of what had happened to Crystal was accurate. I noticed I hadn’t gotten a coherent response from Dermot on why he’d left Jason in ignorance of Mel’s crime. “But you didn’t explain to Jason,” I said, breathing in and out—in a very soothing way. I hoped. It seemed to me that the longer I touched Dermot, the calmer we both got. And Dermot was markedly more coherent.

“I was very conflicted,” he said seriously, unexpectedly borrowing from modern jargon.

Maybe that was as good an answer as I was going to get. I decided to take another tack. “Did you want to see Claude?” I said hopefully. “He’s living with me now, just temporarily. He should be back later tonight.”

“I’m not the only one, you know,” Dermot told me. I looked up and met his mad eyes. I understood that my great-uncle was trying to tell me something. I wished to God I could make him rational. Just for five minutes. I stepped back from him and tried to figure out what he needed.

“You’re not the only fairy left out in the human world. I know Claude’s here. Someone else is, too?” I would’ve enjoyed my telepathy for a couple of minutes.

“Yes.
Yes.
” His eyes were pleading with me to understand.

I’d risk a direct question. “Who else is on this side of Faery?”

“You don’t want to meet him,” Dermot assured me. “You have to be careful. He can’t decide right now. He’s ambivalent.”

“Right.” Whoever “he” was, he wasn’t the only one who had mixed feelings. I wished I knew the right nutcracker that would open up Dermot’s head.

“Sometimes he’s in your woods.” Dermot put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently. It was like he was trying to transmit things he couldn’t say directly into my flesh.

“I heard about that,” I said sourly.

“Don’t trust other fairies,” Dermot told me. “I shouldn’t have.”

I felt like a lightbulb had popped on above my head. “Dermot, have you had magic put on you? Like a spell?”

The relief in his eyes was almost palpable. He nodded frantically. “Unless they’re at war, fairies don’t like to kill other fairies. Except for Neave and Lochlan. They liked to kill everything. But I’m not dead. So there’s hope.”

Fairies might be reluctant to kill their own kind, but they didn’t mind making them insane, apparently. “Is there anything I can do to reverse this spell? Can Claude help?”

“Claude has little magic, I think,” Dermot said. “He’s been living like a human too long. My dearest niece, I love you. How is your brother?”

We were back in nutty land. God bless poor Dermot. I hugged him, following an impulse. “My brother is happy, Uncle Dermot. He’s dating a woman who suits him, and she won’t take any shit off him, either. Her name is Michele—like my mom’s, but with one
l
instead of two.”

Dermot smiled down at me. Hard to say how much of this he was absorbing.

“Dead things love you,” Dermot told me, and I made myself keep smiling.

“Eric the vampire? He says he does.”

“Other dead things, too. They’re pulling on you.”

That was a not-so-welcome revelation. Dermot was right. I’d been feeling Eric through our bond, as usual, but there were two other gray presences with me every moment after dark: Alexei and Appius Livius. It was a drain on me, and I hadn’t realized it until this moment.

“Tonight,” Dermot said, “you’ll receive visitors.”

So now he was a prophet. “Good ones?”

He shrugged. “That’s a matter of taste and expedience.”

“Hey, Uncle Dermot? Do you walk around this land very often?”

“Too scared of the other one,” he said. “But I try to watch you a little.”

I was figuring out if that was a good thing or a bad thing when he vanished. Poof! I saw a kind of blur and then nothing. His hands were on my shoulders, and then they weren’t. I assumed the tension of conversing with another person had gotten to Dermot.

Boy. That had been really, really weird.

I glanced around me, thinking I might see some other trace of his passage. He might even decide to return. But nothing happened. There wasn’t a sound except the prosaic growl of my stomach, reminding me that I hadn’t eaten lunch and that it was now suppertime. I went into the house on shaking legs and collapsed at the table. Conversation with a spy. Interview with an insane fairy. Oh, yes, phone Jason and tell him to be back on fairy watch. That was something I could do sitting down.

After that conversation, I remembered to carry in the newspapers when I got my legs to working again. While I baked a Marie Callender’s pot pie, I read the past two days’ papers.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of interest on the front page. There had been a gruesome murder in Shreveport, probably gang-related. The victim had been a young black man wearing gang colors, which was like a blinking arrow to the police, but he hadn’t been shot. He’d been stabbed multiple times, and then his throat had been slashed. Yuck. Sounded more personal than a gang killing to me. Then the next night the same thing had happened again, this time to a kid of nineteen who wore different gang colors. He’d died the same awful way. I shook my head over the stupidity of young men dying over what I considered nothing, and moved on to a story that I found electrifying and very worrisome.

The tension over the werewolf registration issue was rising. According to the newspapers, the Weres were the big controversy. The stories hardly mentioned the other two-natured, yet I knew at least one werefox, one werebat, two weretigers, a score of werepanthers, and a shapeshifter. Werewolves, the most numerous of the two-natured, were catching the brunt of the backlash. And they were sounding off about it, as they should have.

“Why should I register, as if I were an illegal alien or a dead citizen?” Scott Wacker, an army general, was quoted as saying. “My family has been American for six generations, all of us army people. My daughter’s in Iraq. What more do you want?”

The governor of one of the northwestern states said, “We need to know who’s a werewolf and who’s not. In the event of an accident, officers need to know, to avoid blood contamination and to aid in identification.”

I plunged my spoon into the crust to release some of the heat from the pot pie. I thought that over.
Bullshit,
I concluded.

“That’s bushwah,” General Wacker responded in the next paragraph. So Wacker and I had something in common. “For one thing, we change back to human form when we’re dead. Officers already glove up when they’re handling bodies. Identification is not going to be any more of a problem than with the one-natured. Why should it be?”

You go, Wacker.

According to the newspaper, the debate raged from the people in the streets (including some who weren’t simply people) to members of Congress, from military personnel to firefighters, from law experts to constitutional scholars.

Instead of thinking globally or nationally, I tried to evaluate the crowd at Merlotte’s since the announcement. Had revenue fallen off? Yes, there’d been a slight decrease at first, right after the bar patrons had watched Sam change into a dog and Tray become a wolf, but then people had started drinking as much as they had formerly.

So was this a created crisis, a nothing issue?

Not as much as I would have liked, I decided, having read a few more articles.

Some people really hated the idea that individuals they’d known all their lives had another side, a mysterious life unbeknownst (isn’t that a great word? It had been on my Word of the Day calendar the week before) to the general public. That was the impression I’d gotten before, and it seemed that still held true. No one was budging on that position; the Weres got angrier, and the public got more frightened. At least a very vocal part of the public.

There had been demonstrations and riots in Redding, California, and Lansing, Michigan. I wondered if there were going to be riots here or in Shreveport. I found that hard to believe and painful to picture. I looked through the kitchen window at the gathering dusk, as if I expected to see a crowd of villagers with torches marching to Merlotte’s.

It was a curiously empty evening. There wasn’t much to clean up after I’d eaten, my laundry was up to date, and there was nothing on television I wanted to watch. I checked my e-mail; no message from Judith Vardamon.

There was a message from Alcide. “Sookie, we’ve set the pack meeting for Monday night at eight at my house. We’ve been trying to find a shaman for the judging. I’ll see you and Jason then.” It had been nearly a week since we’d found Basim’s body in the woods, and this was the first I’d heard. The pack’s “day or two” had stretched into six. And that meant it had been a very long time since I’d heard from Eric.

I called Jason again and left voice mail on his cell phone. I tried not to worry about the pack meeting, but every time I’d been with the whole pack, something violent had happened.

I thought again about the dead man in the grave in the clearing. Who had put him there? Presumably, the killer had wanted Basim’s silence, but the body hadn’t been planted on my land by mistake.

I read for thirty minutes or so, and then it was full dark and I felt Eric’s presence, and then the lesser though undeniable company of the other two vampires. As soon as they woke, I felt tired. This made me so twitchy I broke my own resolution.

I knew that Eric realized I was unhappy and worried. It was impossible for him not to know that. Maybe he thought by keeping me away he was protecting me. Maybe he didn’t know that his maker and Alexei were both in my consciousness. I took a deep breath and called him. The phone rang, and I pressed it to my ear as though I were holding Eric himself. But I thought, and I wouldn’t have believed this possible a week ago,
What if he doesn’t pick up?