Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(23)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Tourists thought stories like this were actually amusing and colorful. It added to the thrill of ordering overpriced drinks (from human waitresses dressed in trailing black "vampire" outfits) while staring at real, honest-to-God, undead bloodsuckers. Eric made the Area Five vampires show up for this unappealing duty by giving them a set number of hours each week to present themselves at Fangtasia. Most of his underlings weren’t enthusiastic about exhibiting themselves, but it did give them a chance to hook up with fang-bangers who actually yearned for the chance to be bitten. Such encounters didn’t take place on the premises: Eric had rules about that. And so did the police department. The only legal biting that could take place between humans and vampires was between consenting adults, in private.

Automatically, I pulled around to the rear of the shopping center. Bill and I had almost always used the employee entrance. Back here, the door was just a gray door in a gray wall, with the name of the bar put on in stick-on letters from WalMart. Right below that, a large, black, stenciled notice proclaimed STAFF ONLY. I lifted my hand to knock, and then I realized I could see that the inner dead bolt had not been employed.

The door was unlocked.

This was really, really bad.

Though it was broad daylight, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. Abruptly, I wished I had Bill at my back. I wasn’t missing his tender love, either. It’s probably a bad indicator of your lifestyle when you miss your ex-boyfriend because he’s absolutely lethal.

Though the public face of the shopping center was fairly busy, the service side was deserted. The silence was crawling with possibilities, and none of them was pleasant. I leaned my forehead against the cold gray door. I decided to get back in my old car and get the hell out of there, which would have been amazingly smart.

And I would have gone, if I hadn’t heard the moaning.

Even then, if I’d been able to spot a pay phone, I would’ve just called 911 and stayed outside until someone official showed up. But there wasn’t one in sight, and I couldn’t stand the possibility that someone needed my help real bad, and I’d withheld it because I was chicken.

There was a heavy garbage can right by the back door, and after I’d yanked the door open – standing aside for a second to avoid anything that might dart out – I maneuvered the can to hold the door ajar. I had goose bumps all over my arms as I stepped inside.

Windowless Fangtasia requires electric light, twenty-four/seven. Since none of these lights were on, the interior was just a dark pit. Winter daylight extended weakly down the hall that led to the bar proper. On the right were the doors to Eric’s office and the bookkeeper’s room. On the left was the door to the large storeroom, which also contained the employee bathroom. This hall ended in a heavy door to discourage any fun lovers from penetrating to the back of the club. This door, too, was open, for the first time in my memory. Beyond it lay the black silent cavern of the bar. I wondered if anything was sitting at those tables or huddled in those booths.

I was holding my breath so I could detect the least little noise. After a few seconds, I heard a scraping movement and another sound of pain, coming from the storeroom. Its door was slightly ajar. I took four silent steps to that door. My heart was pounding all the way up in my throat as I reached into the darkness to flip the light switch.

The glare made me blink.

Belinda, the only half-intelligent fang-banger I’d ever met, was lying on the storeroom floor in a curiously contorted position. Her legs were bent double, her heels pressed against her hips. There was no blood – in fact, no visible mark – on her. Apparently, she was having a giant and perpetual leg cramp.

I knelt beside Belinda, my eyes darting glances in all directions. I saw no other movement in the room, though its corners were obscured with stacks of liquor cartons and a coffin that was used as a prop in a show the vampires sometimes put on for special parties. The employee bathroom door was shut.

"Belinda," I whispered. "Belinda, look at me."

Belinda’s eyes were red and swollen behind their glasses, and her cheeks were wet with tears. She blinked and focused on my face.

"Are they still here?" I asked, knowing she’d understand that I meant "the people who did this to you."

"Sookie," she said hoarsely. Her voice was weak, and I wondered how long she’d lain there waiting for help. "Oh, thank God. Tell Master Eric we tried to hold them off." Still role-playing, you notice, even in her agony: "Tell our chieftain we fought to the death" – you know the kind of thing.

"Who’d you try to hold off?" I asked sharply.

"The witches. They came in last night after we’d closed, after Pam and Chow had gone. Just Ginger and me…"

"What did they want?" I had time to notice that Belinda was still wearing her filmy black waitress outfit with the slit up the long skirt, and there were still puncture marks painted on her neck.

"They wanted to know where we’d put Master Eric. They seemed to think they’d done… something to him, and that we’d hidden him." During her long pause, her face contorted, and I could tell she was in terrible pain, but I couldn’t tell what was wrong with her. "My legs," she moaned. "Oh

"But you didn’t know, so you couldn’t tell them."

"I would never betray our master."

And Belinda was the one with sense.

"Was anyone here besides Ginger, Belinda?" But she was so deep into a spasm of suffering that she couldn’t answer. Her whole body was rigid with pain, that low moan tearing out of her throat again.

I called 911 from Eric’s office, since I knew the location of the phone there. The room had been tossed, and some frisky witch had spray painted a big red pentagram on one of the walls. Eric was going to love that.

I returned to Belinda to tell her the ambulance was coming. "What’s wrong with your legs?" I asked, scared of the answer.

"They made the muscle in the back of my legs pull up, like it was half as long…." And she began moaning again. "It’s like one of those giant cramps you get when you’re pregnant."

It was news to me that Belinda had ever been pregnant.

"Where’s Ginger?" I asked, when her pain seemed to have ebbed a little.

"She was in the bathroom."

Ginger, a pretty strawberry blonde, as dumb as a rock, was still there. I don’t think they’d meant to kill her. But they’d put a spell on her legs like they’d done to Belinda’s, it looked like; her legs were drawn up double in the same peculiar and painful way, even in death. Ginger had been standing in front of the sink when she’d crumpled, and her head had hit the lip of the sink on her way down. Her eyes were sightless and her hair was matted with some clotted blood that had oozed from the depression in her temple.