The robbers had come up into the higher area where the clerk stood, and they were beating on him.
Hey, now. That had to stop. They were beating him because they wanted to know where I was hiding, was my guess; and I couldn't let someone else get beaten up on my behalf.
"Sookie," said a voice right behind me.
The next instant a hand clapped across my mouth just as I was about to scream.
"Sorry," Eric whispered. "I should have thought of a better way to let you know I was here."
"Eric," I said, when I could speak. He could tell I was calmer, and he moved his hand. "We gotta save him."
"Why?"
Sometimes vampires just astound me. Well, people, too, but tonight it was a vampire.
"Because he's getting beaten for our sakes, and they're probably gonna kill him, and it'll be our fault!"
"They're robbing the store," Eric said, as if I were particularly dim. "They had a new vampire net, and they thought they'd try it out on me. They don't know it yet, but it didn't work. But they're just opportunistic scum."
"They're looking for us," I said furiously.
"Tell me," he whispered, and I did.
"Give me the shotgun," he said.
I kept a good grip on it. "You know how to use one of these things?"
"Probably as well as you." But he looked at it dubiously.
"That's where you're wrong," I told him. Rather than have a prolonged argument while my new hero was getting internal injuries, I ran in a crouch around the ice machine, the propane gas rack, and through the front door into the store. The little bell over the door rang like crazy, and though with all the shouting they didn't seem to hear it, they sure paid attention when I fired a blast through the ceiling over their heads. Tiles, dust, and insulation rained down.
It almost knocked me flat-but not quite. I leveled the gun right on them. They were frozen. It was like playing Swing the Statue when I was little. But not quite. The poor pimply clerk had a bloody face, and I was sure his nose was broken, and some of his teeth knocked loose.
I felt a fine rage break out behind my eyes. "Let the young man go," I said clearly.
"You gonna shoot us, little lady?"
"You bet your ass I am," I said.
"And if she misses, I will get you," said Eric's voice, above and behind me. A big vampire makes great backup.
"The vampire got loose, Sonny." The speaker was a thinnish man with filthy hands and greasy boots.
"I see that," said Sonny, the heavier one. He was darker, too. The smaller man's head was covered with that no-color hair, the kind people call "brown" because they have to call it something.
The young clerk pulled himself up out of his pain and fear and came around the counter as fast as he could move. Mixed with the blood on his face was a lot of white powder from me shooting into the ceiling. He looked a sight.
"I see you found my shotgun," he said as he passed by me, carefully not getting between the bad guys and me. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, and I heard the tiny beeps as he pressed numbers. His growly voice was soon in staccato conversation with the police.
"Before the police get here, Sookie, we need to find out who sent these two imbeciles," Eric said. If I'd been them, I'd have been mighty scared at the tone of his voice, and they seemed to be aware of what an angry vampire could do. For the first time Eric stepped abreast of me and then a little bit ahead, and I could see his face. Burns crisscrossed it like angry strings of poison ivy welts. He was lucky only his face had been bare, but I doubt he was feeling very lucky.
"Come down here," Eric said, and he caught the eyes of Sonny.
Sonny immediately walked down from the clerk's platform and around the counter while his companion was gaping.
"Stay," said Eric. The no-color man squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn't glimpse Eric, but he opened them just a crack when he heard Eric take a step closer, and that was enough. If you don't have any extra abilities yourself, you just can't look a vampire in the eyes. If they want to, they'll get you.
"Who sent you here?" Eric asked softly.
"One of the Hounds of Hell," Sonny said, with no inflection in his voice.
Eric looked startled. "A member of the motorcycle gang," I explained carefully, mindful that we had a civilian audience who was listening with great curiosity. I was getting a great amplification of the answers through their brains.
"What did they tell you to do?"
"They told us to wait along the interstate. There are more fellas waiting at other gas stations."
They'd called about forty thugs altogether. They'd outlaid a lot of cash.
"What were you supposed to watch for?"
"A big dark guy and a tall blond guy. With a blond woman, real young, with nice tits."
Eric's hand moved too fast for me to track. I was only sure he'd moved when I saw the blood running down Sonny's face.
"You are speaking of my future lover. Be more respectful. Why were you looking for us?"
"We were supposed to catch you. Take you back to Jackson."
"Why?"
"The gang suspected you mighta had something to do with Jerry Falcon's disappearance. They wanted to ask you some questions about it. They had someone watching some apartment building, seen you two coming out in a Lincoln, had you followed part of the way. The dark guy wasn't with you, but the woman was the right one, so we started tracking you."
"Do the vampires of Jackson know anything about this plan?"
"No, the gang figured it was their problem. But they also got a lot of other problems, a prisoner escape and so on, and lots of people out sick. So what with one thing and another, they recruited a bunch of us to help."
"What are these men?" Eric asked me.
I closed my eyes and thought carefully. "Nothing," I said. "They're nothing." They weren't shifters, or Weres, or anything. They were hardly human beings, in my opinion, but nobody died and made me God.
"We need to get out of here," Eric said. I agreed heartily. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the night at the police station, and for Eric, that was an impossibility. There wasn't an approved vampire jail cell any closer than Shreveport. Heck, the police station in Bon Temps had just gotten wheelchair accessible.
Eric looked into Sonny's eyes. "We weren't here," he said. "This lady and myself."
"Just the boy," Sonny agreed.
Again, the other robber tried to keep his eyes tight shut, but Eric blew in his face, and just as a dog would, the man opened his eyes and tried to wiggle back. Eric had him in a second, and repeated his procedure.
Then he turned to the clerk and handed him the shotgun. "Yours, I believe," Eric said.
"Thanks," the boy said, his eyes firmly on the barrel of the gun. He aimed at the robbers. "I know you weren't here," he growled, keeping his gaze ahead of him. "And I ain't saying nothing to the police."
Eric put forty dollars on the counter. "For the gas," he explained. "Sookie, let's make tracks."
"A Lincoln with a big hole in the trunk does stand out," the boy called after us.
"He's right." I was buckling up and Eric was accelerating as we heard sirens, pretty close.
"I should have taken the truck," Eric said. He seemed pleased with our adventure, now that it was over.
"How's your face?"
"It's getting better."
The welts were not nearly as noticeable.
"What happened?" I asked, hoping this was not a very touchy subject.
He cast me a sideways glance. Now that we were back on the interstate, we had slowed down to the speed limit, so it wouldn't seem to any of the many police cars converging on the convenience store that we were fleeing.