"Aren't you worried?" Amelia asked. "This is from a Were. What if you caught it?"
"It's harder to catch than almost any communicable disease," I said, since I'd asked almost every werecreature I'd met about the chances of their condition being transmitted by bite. After all, they have doctors, too. And researchers. "Most people have to be bitten several times, all over their body, to get it, and even then it's not for sure." It's not like the flu or the common cold. Plus, if you cleaned the wound soon afterward, your chances dropped considerably even from that. I'd poured a bottle of water over my leg before I'd gotten in the car. "So I'm not worried, but Iam sore, and I think I might have a scar."
"Eric won't be happy," Pam said with an anticipatory smile. "You endangered yourself because of the Weres. You know he holds them in low esteem."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, not caring one little bit. "He can go fly a kite."
Pam brightened. "I'll tell him that," she said.
"Why do you like to tease him so much?" I asked, realizing I was almost sluggish with weariness.
"I've never had this much ammunition to tease him with," she answered, and then she and Amelia were out of my room, and I was blessedly alone and in my own bed and alive, and then I was asleep.
The shower I took the next morning was a sublime experience. In the list of Great Showers I've Had, this one ranked at least number 4. (The best shower was the one I'd shared with Eric, and I couldn't even think of that one without shivering all over.) I scoured myself clean. My leg looked good, and though I was even more sore from pulling muscles I didn't use too much, I felt a disaster had been averted and that evil had been vanquished, at least in a gray sort of way.
As I stood under the pounding hot water, rinsing my hair, I thought about Priscilla Hebert. In my brief glimpse into her world, she'd been at least trying to find a place for her disenfranchised pack, and she'd done the research to find a weak area where she could establish a foothold. Maybe if she'd come to Patrick Furnan as a supplicant, he would have been glad to give a home to her pack. But he would never have surrendered leadership. He'd killed Jackson Herveaux to attain it, so he sure wouldn't have agreed to any kind of co-op arrangement with Priscilla—even if wolf society would permit that, which was doubtful, especially given her status as a rare female packleader.
Well, she wasn't one anymore.
Theoretically, I admired her attempt to reestablish her wolves in a new home. Since I'd met Priscilla in the flesh, I could only be glad she hadn't succeeded.
Clean and refreshed, I dried my hair and put on my makeup. I was working the day shift, so I had to be at Merlotte's at eleven. I pulled on the usual uniform of black pants and white shirt, decided to leave my hair loose for once, and tied my black Reeboks.
I decided I felt pretty good, all things considered.
A lot of people were dead, and a lot of grief was hanging around the events of last night, but at least the encroaching pack had been defeated and now the Shreveport area should be peaceful for a while. The war was over in a very short time. And the Weres hadn't been exposed to the rest of the world, though that was a step they'd have to take soon. The longer the vampires were public, the more likely it became that someone would out the Weres.
I added that fact to the giant box full of things that were not my problem.
The scrape on my leg, whether due to its nature or because of Amelia's ministrations, was already scabbed over. There were bruises on my arms and legs, but my uniform covered them. It was feasible to wear long sleeves today, because it was actually cool. In fact, a jacket would have been nice, and I regretted not having thrown one on as I drove to work. Amelia hadn't been stirring when I left, and I had no idea if Pam was in my secret vampire hidey-hole in the spare bedroom. Hey, not my concern!
As I drove, I was adding to the list of things I shouldn't have to worry about or consider. But I came to a dead halt when I got to work. When I saw my boss, a lot of thoughts came crowding in that I hadn't anticipated. Not that Sam looked beaten up or anything. He looked pretty much as usual when I stopped in his office to drop my purse in its usual drawer. In fact, the brawl seemed to have invigorated him. Maybe it had felt good to change into something more aggressive than a collie. Maybe he'd enjoyed kicking some werewolf butt. Ripping open some werewolf stomachs ... breaking some werewolf spines.
Okay, well—whose life had been saved by the aforesaid ripping and breaking? My thoughts cleared up in a hurry. Impulsively, I bent to give him a kiss on the cheek. I smelled the smell that was Sam: aftershave, the woods, something wild yet familiar.
"How are you feeling?" he asked, as if I always kissed him hello.
"Better than I thought I would," I said. "You?"
"A little achy, but I'll do."
Holly stuck her head in. "Hey, Sookie, Sam." She came in to deposit her own purse.
"Holly, I hear you and Hoyt are an item," I said, and I hoped I looked smiling and pleased.
"Yeah, we're hitting it off okay," she said, trying for nonchalance. "He's really good with Cody, and his family's real nice." Despite her aggressively dyed spiky black hair and her heavy makeup, there was something wistful and vulnerable about Holly's face.
It was easy for me to say, "I hope it works out." Holly looked very pleased. She knew as well as I did that if she married Hoyt she'd be for all intents and purposes my sister-in-law, since the bond between Jason and Hoyt was so strong.
Then Sam began telling us about a problem he was having with one of his beer distributors, and Holly and I tied on our aprons, and our working day began. I stuck my head through the hatch to wave at the kitchen staff. The current cook at Merlotte's was an ex-army guy named Carson. Short-order cooks come and go. Carson was one of the better ones. He'd mastered burgers Lafayette right away (hamburgers steeped in a former cook's special sauce), and he got the chicken strips and fries done exactly right, and he didn't have tantrums or try to stab the busboy. He showed up on time and left the kitchen clean at the end of his shift, and that was such a huge thing Sam would have forgiven Carson a lot of weirdness.
We were light on customers, so Holly and I were getting the drinks and Sam was on the phone in his office when Tanya Grissom came in the front door. The short, curvy woman looked as pretty and healthy as a milkmaid. Tanya went light on the makeup and heavy on the self-assurance.
"Where's Sam?" she asked. Her little mouth curved up in a smile. I smiled back just as insincerely. Bitch.
"Office," I said, as if I always knew exactly where Sam was.
"That woman there," Holly said, pausing on her way to the serving hatch. "That gal is a deep well."
"Why do you say that?"
"She's living out at Hotshot, rooming with some of the women out there," Holly said. Of all the regular citizens of Bon Temps, Holly was one of the few who knew that there were such creatures as Weres and shifters. I didn't know if she'd discovered that the residents of Hotshot were werepanthers, but she knew they were inbred and strange, because that was a byword in Renard Parish. And she considered Tanya (a werefox) guilty by association, or at leastsuspicious by association.
I had a stab of genuine anxiety. I thought,Tanya and Sam could change together. Sam would enjoy that. He could even change into a fox himself, if he wanted to.
It was a huge effort to smile at my customers after I'd had that idea. I was ashamed when I realized I should be happy to see someone interested in Sam, someone who could appreciate his true nature. It didn't say much for me that I wasn't happy at all. But she wasn't good enough for him, and I'd warned him about her.