Maxwell was a businessman. He wore suits. He turned up for his duty at the club without enthusiasm, and he flashed his fangs without the drama the tourists had come to see. He was boring, and he had a stick up his ass, though from time to time I’d had a hint that his personal life was exotic. However, not interested in learning more about that.
Eric rolled his eyes at me. “Of course, I’m so much like Maxwell. Let me start carrying a pocket calculator with me, and putting people to sleep with things like ‘variable annuities,’ or whatever the hell it is he talks about.”
“I get your point, Mr. Subtle,” I said. The ice pack had done all the good it was going to, and I removed it from my yahoo palace and put it on the table.
This was the most relaxed conversation we’d had in forever.
“See, isn’t this fun?” I said, trying to get Eric to admit I’d done the right thing, though I’d gone about it wrong.
“Yes, so much fun. Until Victor snatches you up and drains you dry and then says, ‘But, Eric, she was no longer bonded to you, so I did not think you still wanted her!’ And then he’ll turn you against your will, and I’ll have to watch you suffer being bound to him for the rest of your life. And mine.”
“You really know how to make a girl feel special,” I said.
“I love you,” he said, as if he were reminding himself of a painful fact. “And this situation with Pam has to end. If this girl Miriam dies, Pam may decide to leave, and I won’t be able to stop her. In fact, I shouldn’t. Though she’s very useful.”
“You’re fond of her,” I said. “Come on, Eric. You love her. She’s your kid.”
“Yes, I am very fond of Pam,” he said. “I made a great choice. You were my other great choice.”
“That’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me,” I told him, choking up just a little.
“Don’t cry!” He waved his hands in front of him as if to ward off my tears.
I swallowed hard. “So, do you have a plan about Victor?” I used Eric’s shirttail to dab at my eyes.
Eric looked grim. Well, grimmer. “Every time I make one, I run up against an obstacle so large I have to discard the plan. Victor is very good at self-protection. I may have to openly attack him. If I kill him, if I win, then I’ll have to stand trial.”
I shivered. “Eric, if you fought with Victor alone, bare-handed, in an empty room, what do you think the outcome would be?”
“He’s very good,” Eric said. And that was all he said.
“He might win?” I said, testing the idea out loud.
“Yes,” Eric said. He met my eyes. “And what would happen to you and Pam afterward . . .”
“I’m not trying to bypass the fact that you would be dead, which would be the most important thing to me in that scenario,” I said. “But I’m wondering why he would be so sure to hurt Pam and me afterward. What would be the point?”
“The point would be the lesson he’d be making to other vampires who might be thinking of trying to overthrow him.” Eric’s eyes focused on the mantelpiece, crowded with Stackhouse family pictures. He didn’t want to look into my face when he said what he was going to tell me next. “Heidi told me that two years ago, when Victor was still a sheriff in Nevada, in Reno . . . a new vampire named Chico talked back to him. Chico’s father was dead, but his mother was still living, and in fact had married again and had other children. Victor had her abducted. To correct Chico’s manners, he cut out the mother’s tongue while Chico watched. He made Chico eat it.”
There was so much disturbing about that, that I had a hard time thinking it through. “Vampires can’t eat,” I said. “What . . . ?”
“Chico was violently ill, and in fact threw up blood,” Eric said. He still didn’t meet my eyes. “He became too weak to move. While he lay on the floor, his mother bled to death. He couldn’t crawl to her to give her blood to save her.”
“Heidi volunteered this story?”
“Yes. I had asked her why she was so pleased she’d been sent to Area Five.”
Heidi, a vamp who specialized in tracking, had become part of Eric’s crew courtesy of Victor. Of course she was supposed to spy on Eric, and because that was not a secret, no one seemed to mind. I didn’t know Heidi well, but I knew she had a living child, a drug addict in Reno, so I wasn’t at all surprised that she’d taken Victor’s lesson to heart. Learning this would indeed cause any vampire with living relatives, or any human loved ones, to fear Victor. But they’d also loathe him and want him dead — and this was the aspect Victor hadn’t thought of, I guessed, when he’d taught that lesson.
“Victor’s either shortsighted or super cocky,” I concluded out loud, and Eric nodded.
“Maybe both,” he said.
“How’d you feel when you heard that story?” I asked.
“I . . . didn’t want that to happen to you,” he said. He gave me a puzzled face. “What are you looking for, Sookie? What answer shall I give?”
Though I knew it was futile — knew I was barking up the wrong tree — I was looking for moral repugnance. I was looking for “I would never be so cruel to a woman and her son.”
At the same time I was wanting a thousand-year-old vampire to be upset about the death of a human woman he hadn’t known — a death he couldn’t have prevented — I knew it was crazy, wrong, and bad that I myself was plotting to kill Victor. His complete absence was what I longed for. I had no doubt that if Pam called to say a safe had fallen on top of Victor, I would dance around with glee.
“That’s okay,” I said. “Never mind.”
Eric gave me a dark look. He couldn’t see the depth of my unhappiness — not now, not since the bond was severed. But he certainly knew me well enough to see that I wasn’t content. I forced myself to address the problem at hand. “You know who you should talk to,” I said. “Remember the night we went to Vampire’s Kiss, that server who tipped me off about the fairy blood by just a look and a thought.”
Eric nodded.
“I hate to pull him in any further. But I don’t see we have another choice. We have to do this with everything we’ve got, or we’re going down.”
“Sometimes,” Eric said, “you astonish me.”
Sometimes — and not always in a good way — I astonished myself.
Eric and I drove to Vampire’s Kiss again. The parking lot was crowded, maybe not as much as it had been on our previous visit. We parked out back behind the club. If Victor was actually in the club that night, there’d be no reason for him to check out the employee parking lot, and there’d be no reason for him to remember which car was mine. While we waited, I got a text from Amelia telling me that they were back at the house, and how was I doing?
“Am ok,” I texted back. “We’re good. C & D there?”
“Yes,” she replied. “Sniffing porch, don’t know why. Fairies! Got ur keys?”
I told her I did, but that I wasn’t sure I’d be home that night. We were a little closer to Shreveport than Bon Temps, and I’d need to take Eric home unless he flew. But his car would be . . . Oh, well, that was why he always had a daytime guy.
“Did you replace Bobby yet?” I asked. I hated to bring up a sore subject, but I wanted to know.
“Yes,” Eric said. “I hired a man two days ago. He came highly recommended.”
“By whom?”
There was a silence. I looked over at my honeybun, instantly curious. For the life of me, I couldn’t see why that was a critical question.
“By Bubba,” Eric said.
I could feel the smile all over my face. “He’s back! Where’s he staying?”
“Right now, he’s staying with me,” Eric said. “When he asked after Bobby, I had to tell him what had happened. The next night Bubba brought me this person. He’s teachable, I suppose.”
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”
“He’s a Were,” Eric said, and I instantly understood Eric’s attitude. The Weres and the vampires really don’t get along. You’d think that as the two largest supernatural groups they could form an alliance, but that doesn’t happen. They’re capable of cooperating on some mutually beneficial project for a short period of time, but after that they revert to distrust and dislike.