Dead Ever After (Sookie Stackhouse #13)(74)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Ordinarily, in the interest of making trouble in the ranks, I’d be glad they had such a huge issue with Claude’s orientation. But then again, he was driving and I was the instantly available victim.

"He seemed like a tough man to me," Glassport said to Steve Newlin. "He would have killed that young man if the lawyer hadn’t interfered."

I finally had a clue about what had happened to Barry. I hoped the "lawyer" reference meant Mr. Cataliades had rescued him.

Claude said in a puzzled way, "Johan, are you calling me less than a strong man because I like other men in bed?"

Glassport winced, and his mouth compressed with disgust. "I am saying that I think less of you," he replied. "I do not like contact with you."

"And I think you’re going straight to hell with the imps of Satan," Steve Newlin said. "You’re an abomination."

There was more than one "abomination" in the van, but I wasn’t going to point that out. Very cautiously, I wiggled a little closer to the spot where the back of the passenger seat was very close to the sliding side door. Glassport had his back against the door a little farther away from the front of the van.

If Glassport would move away from the door, just a little, I would open it and throw myself out. I could see that the door was unlocked. Of course, it would be nice if Claude slowed down first. I had no idea what was outside the van, since I couldn’t see out the front windows; but I was assuming we were still in farmland, and there was a chance that with all the rain we’d had lately, I could make a relatively soft landing. Maybe. I would have to act with speed and no hesitation.

I defy you to throw yourself out of a moving vehicle without hesitating. Just the idea was giving me qualms.

"Then we have to have a serious discussion," Claude said, and his voice became sexy as hell. "A very serious discussion about how we all have the right to find someone who wants to have sex with us." The voice oozed over us like warm caramel.

It wasn’t working nearly as much on me as it was affecting Newlin and Glassport, who were looking oddly shaken and horribly frightened.

"Yes, many men love to think about the curved hips and firm thighs of other men," Claude said.

Okay, he could stop anytime now. I was acutely uncomfortable.

"To think about their hard dicks and full balls," Claude said, spinning a spell with his voice. That popped the sexy bubble for me, but the two men were eyeing each other with obvious lust, and I couldn’t bear to look at their crotches. Oh, yuck. Not these guys. Gross.

And then Claude made a huge mistake. He was so confident in his own sexuality, he was so sure of his audience, that he did the psychic equivalent of flipping them off. "See?" he said, and the spell dropped away. "There is nothing to it."

Steve Newlin went apeshit. He lunged at the driver’s seat, grabbed Claude by the hair, and began punching him in the face. The van swerved all over the place. Johan Glassport was thrown across to the other side with a particularly violent lurch, while I half turned to clutch the grip on the back of the passenger seat with both hands.

Claude tried to defend himself, and since Glassport had his knife in his hand, I figured it was time to get the hell out of there. I got to my knees to see where we were going. The van crossed a lane of traffic, which was thank-God empty, and then we went down a shallow embankment and up again to end up in a field of corn. The headlights shone through the stalks in an eerie way, but eerie or not I was getting out of the van now.

I yanked the handle and the door opened, and I rolled out onto the ground. Johan yelled, but I scrambled to my feet and ran, ran, the corn making an ungodly noise at my passage. I was as obvious as a water buffalo, and I felt just as unwieldy and clumsy.

I thought the cowboy boots would come off, but they didn’t, and I spared a sliver of a second to wish I’d taken the jeans option for the bar. No, I’d wanted to look cute, and here I was, running through a cornfield in danger of getting killed in a flirty skirt and a formerly white eyelet blouse. Plus, my arm was bleeding. Thank God there weren’t any vamps after me.

I wanted away from the light. I wanted to find a place to hunker down. Or a house full of shotguns, that would be good. We’d swerved south into the field from a westbound road. I began to push my way across the rows rather than running with them. If I went west, and then started north, I’d hit the road. But I had to find a dark patch of the field to obscure my movement, because God knew I was making enough noise.

But it just wouldn’t get dark. Why not? Fields, night, one vehicle . . .

There was more than one vehicle.

There were ten vehicles streaming up the two-lane to the place the van had left the road.

I abandoned my plunge westward. I changed directions and ran toward them, thinking that at least one would stop.

They all stopped. They all angled so their lights were shining out into the field to illuminate the van. I heard lots of shouting and lots of advice, and I ran right toward them, because I knew all these people had followed the van out of the parking lot to rescue me. Or to avenge the bouncer. Or just because you don’t disrupt a good bar or a line dance by grabbing a dancer. Their brains were full of righteous indignation. And I loved each and every one of them.

"Help!" I yelled, as I made my way through the corn. "Help!"

"Are you Sookie Stackhouse?" called a deep bass voice.

"I am!" I called. "I’m coming out now!"

"The lady’s coming out," the bass voice boomed. "Don’t shoot her!"

I broke out of the corn about ten yards to the west of where the van had gone in, and I ran down the edge of the field toward the line of saviors.

And the man with the bass voice yelled, "Duck, honey!"

I knew he meant me, and I dove into the ground like I was entering the ocean. His rifle took out Johan Glassport, who’d broken out of the corn behind me. In a second I was surrounded by people who were helping me up, exclaiming over my bleeding arm, or passing me by to stand in a silent knot around the body of the murderous lawyer.

One down.

A large posse headed out into the cornfield to see what had happened at the van, and Sam and Jason and Michele claimed me. There were fraught feelings bouncing around, there was self-blame, there were tears (okay, that was Michele), but what mattered was that I was safe and I was with the people who cared about me.

A heavy, silent man drew near and offered me his handkerchief to bind my arm. I accepted and thanked him sincerely. Michele did the binding, but my arm would need stitches. Of course.

There was another wave of exclamations. They were bringing Claude and Steve Newlin through the trail of wrecked stalks the van had made.