Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(73)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"We practically fell over the other guys who were after you," Newlin said conversationally, as if I weren’t bleeding on the van floor. He’d pulled himself against the driver’s-side wall of the van. There was a strap there for him to hold on to, which he needed, because Claude was driving very fast, and he wasn’t a good driver. "But apparently you’ve taken care of them. And with the vampire on guard duty in your woods, we couldn’t watch you at night. So we knew God was being good to us when we saw our opportunity tonight."

"Claude, what about you," I said, hoping to put off Johan sticking me anymore. "Why do you hate me?"

"Niall was going to kill me, anyway, since I was trying to organize a coup against him. And that would have been a noble death. But after Dermot blabbed about me searching for the cluviel dor, my dear grandfather decided killing me was too quick. So he tortured me for quite some time."

"It hasn’t been that long," I protested.

"You’ve been tortured," he said. "How long did that seem to you?"

Good point.

"Besides, we were in Faery, and time passes differently there. And the fae can take more punishment than humans."

"Though we intend to discover your limits," Glassport said.

"Where are we going?" I dreaded the answer.

"Oh, we’ve found a little place," Glassport said. "Just down the road a piece." He delivered the colloquialism mockingly.

Pam had wasted her blood healing me. I’d just have more flesh to torture. I don’t mind saying, I was at my wit’s end and then some. I didn’t know how fast Sam or Jason and Michele would be able to follow me, if they even had a clue which direction the van had taken. Maybe the furor over the abduction and the stabbing of the bouncer would impede them even getting out the door. And my guardian vampire, Karin, was back at my house, presumably making sure no coons came out of the woods to steal my tomatoes.

The first rule about kidnapping attempts is, Don’t get in the car. Well, we were already past that, though I’d given it a try. Probably the next rule was, Observe where you’re going. Oh, I knew that! We were going either north or south or east or west. I told myself not to be a Helpless Hilda, and I thought back. We’d turned to the right out of the parking lot, so we were going north. Okay. That should have been visible from Stompin’ Sally’s, because there weren’t many trees to obscure the line of sight . . . if anyone had had the presence of mind to watch.

I didn’t think Claude had made any turns since then, which even Claude would know was dumb, so we were going straight to whatever place they’d decided was secure, and it must be very close. I assumed they planned on getting there and concealing the van pretty quickly, before pursuit could even start out.

I felt like giving up right then. I didn’t think I’d ever felt so defeated. Johan Glassport was still looking at me with that sickly anticipation, and Steve Newlin was praying out loud, thanking the Lord for delivering his enemy into his hands. My heart sank as low as it could go.

I’d been tortured before, as Claude had so thoughtfully reminded me, and I still bore the scars on my body. I had the scars on my spirit, too, and I always would, no matter how well I’d recovered. Worst of all, I knew what was coming. I just wanted the whole thing to be over, even if I died . . . and I knew they intended to kill me. Death would be easier than going through that again. I was very clear on that. But I tried to rally. The only thing I could do was talk.

"I feel sorry for you, Claude," I said. "I’m sorry Niall did that to you." His face was an especially cruel target, since Claude had been outstandingly handsome and very proud. If he’d wanted women, he could have had them by the dozens, instead of sampling one now and then. As it happened, Claude liked men, men rough around the edges, and they’d responded to him with enthusiasm. Niall had found a perfectly devastating punishment for Claude’s treachery.

"Don’t feel sorry for me," Claude said. "Wait to see what we’re going to do to you."

"Cutting me will make you well again?"

"That’s not what I’m after."

"What are you after?"

"Vengeance," he said.

"What did I do to you, Claude?" I asked, genuinely curious. "I let you live in my house. I cooked for you. I let you sleep in my bed when you were lonely." Of course, all the time he was scouring my house looking for the cluviel dor, but I hadn’t known that. I’d been genuinely glad to have him there. I also hadn’t known anything about the plot against Niall, the rebellion Claude was fomenting among the other fae who hadn’t made it into Faery when Niall closed the portals.

"You were the cause of Niall’s wanting to close Faery off," Claude said, surprised at my even having to ask.

"Wasn’t he going to do that, anyway?" Geez Louise.

Steve Newlin leaned forward to bitch-slap me. "Shut up, you godforsaken whore," he said.

"Don’t hit her again unless I tell you to," Claude said. And he must have given them great cause to fear him earlier in their partnership, because Glassport put his knife away and Newlin settled back against the wall of the van. They hadn’t tied me; I guessed that was the weak point of an impromptu kidnapping, nothing to bind the victim with.

"You think I am unfounded in hating you," Claude said, and we made a hard left turn. I rolled over on my side, and only when the van straightened out was I able to make some cautious moves to sit up myself. To avoid the two men, I had to stay in the middle, so any turn or bump in the road was going to knock me over. Well, great. Then I spied a grip on the back of the passenger seat, and I grabbed it.

"I do think so," I said. "There’s no reason for you to hate me. I never hated you."

"You didn’t want to sleep with me," Claude pointed out.

"Well, damn, Claude, you’re g*y! Why would I want to have sex with someone who’s fantasizing about beard stubble?"

Neither Claude nor I considered what I’d said anything extraordinary, but you’d have thought I’d stuck a cattle prod where the sun didn’t shine on the two humans.

"Is this true, Claude? You’re a fairy who’s a fairy?" Steve Newlin’s voice had gone super-ugly, and Johan Glassport had pulled his knife out again.

"Uh-oh," I said, just to alert Claude – since, after all, he was driving the vehicle – that there was dissension in his ranks. "Claude, your buddies are homophobes."

"What does that mean?" he asked me.

"They hate men who like men."

Claude appeared perplexed, but I could see the distortion and hatred in the brains of the two men, and I knew that completely without intending to, I’d hit the perk button on their ethical coffeemaker.