When I got home, Bubba pulled in right behind me in his amazing car. I saw that Dawson’s truck was there, too. I wasn’t surprised. Dawson worked as a bodyguard from time to time, and he was in the area. Since Alcide had decided he wanted to help, Tray Dawson was an obvious choice, regardless of his relationship with Amelia.
Tray himself was sitting at my kitchen table when Bubba and I came in. For the first time since I’d known him, the big man looked seriously startled. But he was smart enough not to blurt anything out.
“Tray, this is my friend Bubba,” I said. “Where’s Amelia?”
“She’s upstairs. I got some business to talk with you.”
“I figured. Bubba’s here for the same reason. Bubba, this is Tray Dawson.”
“Hey, Tray!” Bubba shook hands, laughing because he’d made a rhyme. He hadn’t translated real well. The spark of life had been so faint by the time a morgue attendant of the fanged persuasion had gotten hold of him, and the drugs in his system so pervasive, that Bubba had been lucky to survive the bringing over as well as he had, which wasn’t too well.
“Hey,” Tray said cautiously. “How are you doing . . . Bubba?”
I was relieved Tray’d picked up on the name.
“I’m real good, thank you. Got me some blood in the cooler out there, and Miss Sookie keeps some TrueBlood in the refrigerator, or at least she used to.”
“Yes, I have some,” I said. “You want to sit down, Bubba?”
“No, ma’am. I think I’ll just grab me a bottle and settle down out in the woods. Bill still live across the cemetery?”
“Yes, he does.”
“Always good to have friends close.”
I wasn’t sure I could call Bill my friend; our history was too complicated for that. But I was absolutely sure that he’d help me if I was in danger. “Yes,” I said, “that’s always good.”
Bubba rummaged around in the refrigerator and came out with a couple of bottles. He raised them to me and Tray, and took his leave smiling.
“Good God Almighty,” Tray said. “That who I think it is?”
I nodded and took a seat opposite him.
“Explains all the sightings,” he said. “Well, listen, you got him out there and me in here. That okay with you?”
“Yes. I guess you’ve talked to Alcide?”
“Yeah. I’m not trying to get in your business, but it would have been better to hear all this from you directly. Especially since you talked to Amelia about this guy Drake, and Amelia’s all upset because apparently she’s been blabbing to the enemy. If we’d known about your troubles, she would have kept her mouth shut. I would have killed him when he first introduced himself. Saved all of us a lot of trouble. You think about that?”
Bluntness was the way to go with Tray. “I think you are kind of getting in my business, Tray. When you’re here as my friend and Amelia’s boyfriend, I tell you what I think I can without endangering you or Amelia. It never occurred to me that Niall’s enemies would think of getting information through my roommate. And it was news to me that you couldn’t tell a fairy from a human.” Tray winced. “You may not want to be responsible for guarding me, with the personal complication of having your girlfriend under the same roof as the woman you’re supposed to protect. Is this too big a conflict of interest for you?”
Tray regarded me steadily. “No, I want the job,” he said, and even though he was a Were, I could tell that his real goal was keeping Amelia safe. Since she lived with me, he could kill two birds with one stone by getting paid for protecting me. “For one thing, I owe that Drake payback. I never knew he was a fairy, and I don’t know how he managed that. I got a good nose.”
Tray’s pride had been bruised. I could understand that. “Drake’s dad can mask his smell, even from vampires. Maybe Drake can, too. Also, he’s not completely fae. He’s half-human, and his real name is Dermot.”
Tray absorbed this, nodded. I could tell he felt a little better. I was trying to figure out if I did.
I had misgivings about the arrangement. I thought of calling Alcide and explaining why Tray might be a less than perfect bodyguard, but I decided against it. Tray Dawson was a great fighter and would do his best for me . . . up to the point where he had to make a choice between Amelia and me.
“So?” he said, and I realized I’d been quiet for too long.
“The vampire can take the nights and you can take the days,” I said. “I should be okay while I’m at the bar.” I pushed back my chair and left the kitchen without saying anything else. I had to admit that instead of feeling relieved, I was even more worried. I’d thought I’d been so clever asking for an extra layer of protection; instead, now I was going to worry about the safety of the men providing that layer.
I got ready for bed slowly, finally admitting to myself that I was hoping Eric would put in an appearance. I’d love to have his brand of relaxation therapy to help me sleep. I expected to lie awake anticipating the next attack. As it turned out, I was so tired from the night before that I drifted off to sleep very quickly.
Instead of my usual boring dreams (customers calling me constantly while I hurried to catch up, mold growing in my bathroom), that night I dreamed of Eric. In my dream, he was human and we walked together under the sun. Oddly enough, he sold real estate.
When I looked at the clock the next morning, it was very early, at least for me: not quite eight o’clock. I woke up with a feeling of alarm. I wondered if I’d had another dream, one I didn’t remember. I wondered if my telepathic sense had caught something even while I slept, something wrong, something askew.
I took a moment to scan my own house, not my favorite way to start the day. Amelia was gone, but Tray was here and in trouble.
I put on a bathrobe and slippers and stepped out into the hall. The moment I opened my door, I could hear him being sick in the hall bathroom.
There are some moments that should be completely private, and the moments when you’re throwing up are at the top of that list. But werewolves are normally completely healthy, and this was the guy who’d been sent to guard me, and he was obviously (excuse me) sick as a dog.
I waited until a lull in the sound. I called, “Tray, is there anything I can do for you?”
“I’ve been poisoned,” he said, choking and gagging.
“Should I call the doctor? A human one? Or Dr. Ludwig?”
“No.” That sounded definite enough. “I’m trying to get rid of it,” he gasped, after another bout of retching. “But it’s too late.”
“You know who gave it to you?”
“Yeah. That new girlfriend . . .” He faded out for a few seconds. “Out in the woods. Vampire Bill’s new fuck.”
I had an instinctive reaction. “He wasn’t with her, right?” I called.
“No, she—” More awful noises. “She came from the direction of his house, said she was his . . .”
I knew, without a doubt, that Bill didn’t have a new girlfriend. Though it embarrassed me to admit it to myself, I was so sure because I knew he wanted me back. I knew he wouldn’t jeopardize that by taking someone else to his bed or by permitting such a woman to roam in the woods where I might encounter her.
“What was she?” I said, resting my forehead against the cool wood of the door. I was getting tired of yelling.
“She was some fangbanger.” I felt Tray’s brain shift around through the fog of sickness. “At least, she felt like a human.”
“The same way Dermot felt human. And you drank something she handed you.” It was kind of mean of me to sound incredulous, but honestly!
“I couldn’t help it,” he said very slowly. “I was so thirsty. I had to drink it.”
He’d been under some kind of compulsion spell. “And what was it? The stuff you drank?”
“It tasted like wine.” He groaned. “Goddammit, it must have been vampire blood! I can taste it in my mouth now!”
Vampire blood was still the hot drug on the underground marketplace, and human reactions to it varied so widely that drinking the blood was very much like playing Russian roulette, in more ways than one. Vampires hated the Drainers who collected the blood because the Drainers often left the vampire exposed to the day. So vampires also loathed the users of the blood, since they created the market. Some users became addicted to the ecstatic sensation that the blood could offer, and those users sometimes tried to take the blood right from the source in a kind of suicide attack. But every now and then, the user went berserk and killed other humans. Either way, it was all bad press for the vamps who were trying to mainstream.