I sighed, and my eyes watered, as they so often did when I thought of Bill—Weeping Willa, that was me. "Well, he said he did," I muttered dismally. "But then when this vampire ho contacted him somehow, he went a-running." For all I knew, she'd emailed him. "He'd had an affair with her before, and she turned out to be his, I don't know what you call 'em, the one who turned him into a vampire. Brought him over, he said. So Bill took back up with her. He says he had to. And then he found out"—I looked sideways at Eric with a significant raise of the eyebrows, and Eric looked fascinated—"that she was just trying to lure him over to the even-darker side."
"Pardon?"
"She was trying to get him to come over to another vampire group in Mississippi and bring with him the really valuable computer database he'd put together for your people, the Louisiana vamps," I said, simplifying a little bit for the sake of brevity.
"What happened?"
This was as much fun as talking to Arlene. Maybe even more, because I'd never been able to tell her the whole story. "Well, Lorena, that's her name, she tortured him," I said, and Eric's eyes widened. "Can you believe that? She could torture someone she'd made love with? Someone she'd lived with for years?" Eric shook his head disbelievingly. "Anyway, you told me to go to Jackson and find him, and I sort of picked up clues at this nightclub for Supes only." Eric nodded. Evidently, I didn't have to explain that Supes meant supernatural beings. "Its real name is Josephine's, but the Weres call it Club Dead. You told me to go there with this really nice Were who owed you a big favor, and I stayed at his place." Alcide Herveaux still figured in my daydreams. "But I ended up getting hurt pretty bad," I concluded. Hurt pretty bad, as always.
"How?"
"I got staked, believe it or not."
Eric looked properly impressed. "Is there a scar?"
"Yeah, even though—" And here I stopped dead.
He gave every indication he was hanging on my words. "What?"
"You got one of the Jackson vampires to work on the wound, so I'd survive for sure . . . and then you gave me blood to heal me quick, so I could look for Bill at daylight." Remembering how Eric had given me blood made my cheeks turn red, and I could only hope Eric would attribute my flush to the heat of the fire.
"And you saved Bill?" he said, moving beyond that touchy part.
"Yes, I did," I said proudly. "I saved his ass." I rolled onto my back and looked up at him. Gee, it was nice to have someone to talk to. I pulled up my T-shirt and inclined partially on my side to show Eric the scar, and he looked impressed. He touched the shiny area with a fingertip and shook his head. I rearranged myself.
"And what happened to the vampire ho?" he asked
I eyed him suspiciously, but he didn't seem to be making fun of me. "Well," I said, "um, actually, I kind of . . . She came in while I was getting Bill untied, and she attacked me, and I kind of . . . killed her."
Eric looked at me intently. I couldn't read his expression. "Had you ever killed anyone before?" he asked.
"Of course not!" I said indignantly. "Well, I did hurt a guy who was trying to kill me, but he didn't die. No, I'm a human. I don't have to kill anyone to live."
"But humans kill other humans all the time. And they don't even need to eat them or drink their blood."
"Not all humans."
"True enough," he said. "We vampires are all murderers."
"But in a way, you're like lions."
Eric looked astonished. "Lions?" he said weakly.
"Lions all kill stuff." At the moment, this idea seemed like an inspiration. "So you're predators, like lions and raptors. But you use what you kill. You have to kill to eat."
"The catch in that comforting theory being that we look almost exactly like you. And we used to be you. And we can love you, as well as feed off you. You could hardly say the lion wanted to caress the antelope."
Suddenly there was something in the air that hadn't been there the moment before. I felt a little like an antelope that was being stalked—by a lion that was a deviant.
I'd felt more comfortable when I was taking care of a terrified victim.
"Eric," I said, very cautiously, "you know you're my guest here. And you know if I tell you to leave, which I will if you're not straight with me, you'll be standing out in the middle of a field somewhere in a bathrobe that's too short for you."
"Have I said something to make you uncomfortable?" He was (apparently) completely contrite, blue eyes blazing with sincerity. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to continue your train of thought. Do you have some more TrueBlood? What clothes did Jason get for me? Your brother is a very clever man." He didn't sound a hundred percent admiring when he told me this. I didn't blame him. Jason's cleverness might cost him thirty-five thousand dollars. I got up to fetch the WalMart bag, hoping that Eric liked his new Louisiana Tech sweatshirt and cheap jeans.
I turned in about midnight, leaving Eric absorbed in my tapes of the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Though welcome, these were actually a gag gift from Tara.) Eric thought the show was a hoot, especially the way the vampires' foreheads bulged out when they got blood-lusty. From time to time, I could hear Eric laughing all the way back in my room. But the sound didn't bother me. I found it reassuring to hear someone else in the house.
It took me a little longer than usual to fall asleep, because I was thinking over the things that had happened that day. Eric was in the witness protection program, in a way, and I was providing the safe house. No one in the world—well, except for Jason, Pam, and Chow—knew where the sheriff of Area Five actually was at this moment.
Which was, sliding into my bed.
I didn't want to open my eyes and quarrel with him. I was just at that cusp between waking and dreaming. When he'd climbed in the night before, Eric had been so afraid that I'd felt quite maternal, comfortable in holding his hand to reassure him. Tonight it didn't seem so, well, neutral, having him in the bed with me.
"Cold?" I murmured, as he huddled close.
"Um-hum," he whispered. I was on my back, so comfortable I could not contemplate moving. He was on his side facing me, and he put an arm across my waist. But he didn't move another inch, and he relaxed completely. After a moment's tension, I did, too, and then I was dead to the world.
The next thing I knew, it was morning and the phone was ringing. Of course, I was by myself in bed, and through my open doorway I could see across the hall into the smaller bedroom. The closet door was open, as he'd had to leave it when dawn came and he'd lowered himself into the light-tight hole.
It was bright and warmer today, up in the forties and heading for the fifties. I felt much more cheerful than I'd felt upon waking the day before. I knew what was happening now; or at least I knew more or less what I was supposed to do, how the next few days would go. Or I thought I did. When I answered the phone, I discovered that I was way off.
"Where's your brother?" yelled Jason's boss, Shirley Hennessey. You thought a man named Shirley was funny only until you were face-to-face with the real deal, at which point you decided it would really be better to keep your amusement to yourself.
"How would I know?" I said reasonably. "Probably slept over at some woman's place." Shirley, who was universally known as Catfish, had never, ever called here before to track Jason down. In fact, I'd be surprised if he'd ever had to call anywhere. One thing Jason was good about was showing up at work on time and at least going through the motions until that time was up. In fact, Jason was pretty good at his job, which I'd never fully understood. It seemed to involve parking his fancy truck at the parish road department, getting into another truck with the Renard parish logo on the door, and driving around telling various road crews what to do. It also seemed to demand that he get out of the truck to stand with other men as they all stared into big holes in or near the road.