“I got the HIV,” Tyrese said simply.
“But . . .” Amelia intended to point out that treatment now was far better, that Tyrese could live a long and good life, that . . .
“No,” Barry warned her. “Shut up.”
“Good advice, Amelia,” Tyrese said. “Shut up. My Gypsy killed herself; I just got the phone call from her sister. Gypsy, who gave me this disease, who loved me. She killed herself! Left a note saying she had murdered the man she loved and she couldn’t live with the guilt. She dead. She hung herself. My beautiful woman!”
“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, and it was the best thing she could have told him. But even the best thing wasn’t going to save them.
Bob struggled to his feet, taking care to keep his hands visible and his movements slow. “Why are you here with a gun, Tyrese?” he said. “Don’t you think Mr. Carmichael is going to be pretty unhappy about this?”
“I don’t expect to live through this,” Tyrese said simply.
“Oh, Jesus,” Barry said, and closed his eyes for a second. He realized he had no advantage at all. He simply could not hear Tyrese’s thoughts clearly enough.
“Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Tyrese said. “The devil got everything to do with it.”
“So, again, why are you here?” Bob moved so that he was standing between the gun and Amelia. Maybe I can save Amelia and the baby, he thought.
In the meantime, Amelia was struggling to gain control of her fear. She was thinking of spells she could use to temporarily neutralize her father’s bodyguard. She was trying to remember if there were weapons around the house. Sookie had said something about a rifle in the coat closet by the front door, she remembered. Maybe it was still there. BARRY! she screamed in her head.
“Ow,” he said. “What you got, Amelia?”
Rifle in the front closet, maybe.
“The stair closet?” he yelled. Amelia was smart to send thoughts to him, but she couldn’t receive his.
No, the coat closet by the front door.
“Okay! Tyrese, listen to Amelia!” Barry began edging to his left, hoping Amelia would take his cue and distract Tyrese. He didn’t think there was a chance in hell he would get to the closet, find the rifle, understand how to use it, and shoot Tyrese Marley. But he had to try.
“Tyrese, please tell me what you’re doing here,” Amelia said steadily.
“I’m here,” said Tyrese, “because I’m waiting for Sookie Stackhouse to come home. When she does, I’m going to kill her.”
“Really!” Amelia said. “Why?”
“She’s why your dad got mad,” Tyrese said. “She took the thing he wanted so bad. So he said she had to die, and we came up here to do it. But we can’t get her alone. We don’t want to run her off the road; he wants a sure thing, he says. Shoot her, Tyrese, he says. She lost her vampire protection; no one will care.”
“I care,” Amelia said.
“Well, that’s the other thing; he wanted that fairy thing because he wanted to control you. Course, he called it ‘getting you back into his life,’ but we know better, huh? Now he’s so mad at Sookie, he doesn’t care what you want,” Tyrese said. The Glock was steady in his grip. It looked huge from where Amelia was standing, and she thought Bob standing between the gun and her was the bravest thing she’d ever seen.
“Where’s my dad, Tyrese?” Amelia asked, trying to keep his interest so Barry could get the gun. She turned her eyes very slightly to read the clock on the wall. Sookie should have finished her shift by now. She’d be on her way any minute. This whole pile of shit was Amelia’s father’s doing, and Amelia had to try every strategy she could devise to prevent her friend from getting killed. She wondered if she could cast a stunning spell without any herbs or preparation. It wasn’t like in the Harry Potter books, though she and every other witch of her acquaintance had often wished it were.
“He’s in our hotel room, far as I know. I went outside when I got a call from Gypsy’s sister on my cell phone. I walked around the corner so I could talk to her without Mr. Carmichael hearing me. He doesn’t like it when I get personal phone calls when I’m with him.”
“That’s kind of crazy,” Amelia said at random. She couldn’t turn around to see where Barry was, so she was prepared to keep on talking forever if she had to.
“That’s small stuff compared to his real crazy ideas,” Tyrese said, and laughed. “You come sit in this chair, Amelia.” He nodded at one of the kitchen chairs.
“Why?” she asked instantly.
“Doesn’t make any difference why. Because I told you to,” he said, giving her hard eyes. At that moment, Bob jumped Tyrese.
The boom of the Glock filled the room, and then there was blood. Amelia screamed until Barry clapped his hands over his ears, the horror in her thoughts beating at him. While he’d worked for the vampires in Texas, Barry had seen some bad shit, but Bob’s body in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor was way up there with the worst of those memories.
“See what the devil made me do?” said Tyrese, smiling slightly. “Amelia, you shut up now.”
Amelia clamped her mouth shut.
“You, whoever you are,” Tyrese said. “Come here now.”
Barry had run out of time and options. He went into the kitchen.
“Put Amelia in that chair.”
Barry, despite the fact that he was shaking and felt scared down to the marrow of his bones, managed to help Amelia to the chair. Amelia had blood spray on her arms and chest, and in her hair. She was as pale as a vampire. Barry thought she might faint. But she sat straight in the chair and stared at Tyrese as if she could bore a hole in him with her eyes.
Tyrese had groped around on the back porch while Amelia sat, and now he tossed a roll of duct tape at Barry. “Secure her,” he ordered.
Secure her, Barry thought. Like we’re in some kind of spy movie. Fuck him. I’ll kill him if I get the chance. Anything to avoid thinking about the bloody body at his feet.
Just as he was looking down at the thing he least wanted to see, he was sure Bob moved.
He wasn’t dead.
But it would only be a matter of time, if they didn’t get some help.
Barry realized appealing to Tyrese was a waste of breath. Tyrese was not in a merciful mood and might just kick Bob in the head or shoot him again. He hoped Amelia would have an idea, but her head was full of horror and regret and loss. Not a single idea in the place.
Barry had never secured anyone with duct tape before, but he bound Amelia’s wrists together behind the chair, and that would have to do.
“Now,” Tyrese said. “You sit on the floor and put your hand on that table leg.”
That would put him closer to Bob, and there was nothing Barry could do to help the witch. He sank to the floor and gripped the table leg with his left hand.
“Now duct tape your hand to the table,” Tyrese said.
With a lot of clumsy effort, Barry managed, ripping off the tape with his teeth.
“Scoot it across the floor to me,” Tyrese said, and Barry did.
Then there was nothing left to do.
“Now we wait,” said Tyrese.
“Tyrese,” Amelia said, “you ought to shoot my dad, not Sookie.”
She had everyone’s attention.
“It’s my dad who got you into this. It’s my dad who sold your soul to the devil. It’s my dad who doomed your girlfriend.”
“Your dad done everything he could for me,” Tyrese said stubbornly.
“My dad killed you,” Amelia said. Barry admired her courage and straight speaking, but Tyrese did not. He smacked Amelia across the face, and then he taped her mouth shut.