Deadlocked

I heard the screen door bang, and Dermot hurried out to his car.

"Got to get to the club," he called.

"Drive careful," I called back. He was gone before I could say anything more. I turned back to Bill, who was staring at the spot where Dermot had stood, a wistful expression on his face. No wonder Dermot had hurried; he'd surely known a vampire was in the backyard and that his scent would be attractive. "Let's get back to the Kym Rowe issue," I said, to get Bill's attention. "What can I do to help you find out who killed her?"

"The first person we'd want to talk to is Mustapha, and he's vanished. Tell me exactly what he said when he was here."

"Which time? When he was here before the night of the party, or when he was here after the party?"

"Tell me about both visits."

I related the first conversation to Bill, though there was surprisingly little to tell. Mustapha'd been here. He'd relayed Pam's warning, which I hadn't understood until I'd met Freyda. He'd warned me about Jannalynn. The second time he was here, he'd been worried about Warren.

"You've told Eric this?" he asked.

I snorted. "We're not exactly having lengthy heart-to-hearts these days. My conversation with Freyda was longer than any talk I've had with Eric."

Wisely, Bill didn't comment. He recapped. "So Mustapha comes to your house, though he's been missing ever since the girl died. He tells you that he wants to talk to Alcide, but he's afraid to call him or approach him directly since Jannalynn might be around to intercept him."

I thought that was a fair summary. "Yes, and I've passed that message along to Alcide," I said. "Plus, what's most important to Mustapha, his friend Warren is missing. I think someone abducted Warren, and they're holding him in return for Mustapha's good behavior."

"Then finding Warren would be a good thing," Bill said, and I winced when I heard his voice. I'd screwed up.

"I get that it was dumb for me not to have mentioned this first of all," I said. "I'm sorry."

"Tell me about this Warren."

"You haven't ever seen him?"

Bill shrugged. "No. Why would I?"

"He's a shooter. He was stationed outside Fangtasia the night we killed Victor."

"So that was Warren. Skinny little guy, big eyes, long hair?"

"Sounds right."

"What are he and Mustapha to each other?"

It was my turn to shrug. "I have no idea. They were in prison together, I think."

"Mustapha was in prison?"

I nodded. "Yeah, his real name is KeShawn Johnson. I got that out of his head."

Bill look puzzled. "But ... do you remember the vampire who decapitated Wybert at the beginning of the brawl at Sophie-Anne's monastery?"

"I'll never forget that. Thin, dreadlocks?"

"His name was Ra Shawn."

We were just swapping expressions. It was my turn to do Puzzled. "No, I don't recollect that at all. Oh ... wait, yeah. Andre told me his name."

"You don't think it's an interesting coincidence? Ra Shawn and KeShawn? Both black? Both supernaturals?"

"But one's a werewolf, and the other was a vampire. Ra Shawn could have been born hundreds of years ago. I guess they could be related."

"I think that's just possible." Bill was giving me a long-suffering look.

"The database," I suggested, and he pulled a little bunch of keys from his pocket. There was a black rectangle attached to the key ring.

"I have it right here," he said, and I was amazed all over again at Bill's plunge into the modern world.

"And that would be a what?" I asked.

"This is a jump drive." Bill looked quizzical.

"Oh, sure." I'd had enough of feeling dumb for the evening. We went inside so Bill could use my computer. Bill carried over a chair for me and then took his seat in the rolling chair directly in front of the screen.

He inserted the little stick into a slot I hadn't even realized was on the side of my computer. After a couple of minutes, he had The Vampire Directory on the screen.

"Wow." I looked at the opening, some very dramatic graphics. A pair of Gothic gates hung closed, a giant lock on them. The background music was dark and atmospheric. I hadn't paid any attention when I'd used a stolen copy of the database before, because I'd been so conscious of my guilt. Now I could appreciate the graveyard humor in Bill's presentation. A written introduction appeared superimposed on the gates in many different languages. After you selected the language you wanted, a solemn voice read the introduction out loud. Bill skipped through all that. He touched a few keys, and the Gothic gates creaked open to show all our options. As Bill explained, you could sort the vampires in different ways. You could look for vampires in Yugoslavia, for example, or you could look for female vampires in the St. Louis area. Or all vampires more than a thousand years old in Myanmar.

"I can't believe you did all this," I said admiringly. "It's so cool."

"It was a lot of work," he said absently, "and I had a lot of help."

"How many languages is it available in?"

"So far, thirty."

"This must have made money hand over fist, Bill. I hope you got some of it yourself." I hoped it wasn't pouring into the bank account of Felipe de Castro. Who so didn't deserve it.

"I've made some change from it," Bill said, smiling.

That was a good expression to see on Bill's face. He didn't wear it often enough.

In a jiffy, he'd called up the entry for Ra Shawn. The vampire had been about thirty at the time of his human death, but he'd been a vampire for (maybe) a hundred years at the time of his second death. Ra Shawn's background was hazy, but he'd first been noticed in Haiti, Bill's sources had told him. The dreadlocked Ra Shawn had long been a cult figure in the black supernatural community. He had been the cool and deadly black vampire, hired by kings, gangsters, and political figures as a fighter.

"Well," I said, "Maybe Mustapha's-KeShawn's-parents were into supernatural African culture. After prison, maybe he became a Blade clone because he wanted a more current model."

"Everybody needs a hero," Bill agreed, and I opened my mouth to ask him who his had been. Robert E. Lee?

"What are you two doing?" Eric asked, and I jumped and gave a little yip of surprise. Even Bill twitched.

"It's only polite to let me know you're coming into my house," I said, because he'd really scared me and I was angry in consequence.

"It's only polite," Eric said mockingly, imitating my voice in a very irritating way. "I think it's 'only polite' that my wife should let me know when she's entertaining a male visitor, furthermore one that has shared her bed."

I took a deep breath, hoping it would help me calm down. "You're acting like an asshole," I said, so maybe the deep breath hadn't helped so very much. "I have never cheated on you, and I have trusted you never to cheat on me. Maybe I should rethink that, since you don't seem to have much faith in me."

Eric looked taken aback. "I have never fucked another woman since I took you to wife," he said haughtily.

I couldn't help but realize that left a lot of territory uncovered-but now was not the time to ask detailed questions.

Bill was sitting like a statue. I spared a second to appreciate his predicament. Eric was so plainly in a very bad mood, anything Bill said was going to be taken in evidence against him.

A diversion was in order, though I felt a flash of resentment that I had to defuse the situation. "Why are you so mad, anyway?" I said. "Something go wrong at Fangtasia?"

Eric's face relaxed just a fraction. "Nothing is right," he said. "Felipe and his companions are still in town. He may still bring charges against me for killing Victor. At the same time, you can tell he's delighted we killed Victor. He and Freyda have just had a long talk in private. Mustapha is still missing. The police have been by Fangtasia to question me again. They wanted me to permit cadaver dogs to go over my property. I had to say yes, but it makes me furious. How stupid would I be to bury someone on my own property? They've searched the house again. T-Rex and his women came into the bar tonight, and he acted as though he were my best friend. The women used drugs in the bathroom. Thalia rousted them a little too energetically and broke Cherie's nose. I'll have to pay for her hospital visit, though she did promise not to relate what had happened in return for our not telling the police she's a drug user."

"My goodness," I said gently. "And then you walk in your girlfriend's house to find her looking at a computer screen with another man. You have had a terrible night, poor fella."

Bill raised an eyebrow to let me know I was troweling it on too thick.

I ignored him. "If I'd seen you around, or had a conversation with you that lasted longer than thirty seconds, I'd have told you that Mustapha had come by here," I said in a sweet voice. "And I'd have told you what he said."

"Tell me now," Eric said, in a much more neutral voice. "If you please."

Okay, he'd made an effort. So once again, I related the account of Mustapha's visit, his warning about Jannalynn, and his concern for Warren's safety.

"So Bill and Heidi need to scent this Jannalynn, and then we'll know if she was the one who led the girl to my house, who sent her up to Mustapha. We'll know why he was involved with this plan if we can find him-or his friend Warren-and they'll tell us what we can do to get them out of the picture. Sookie, would Sam call this woman, if you asked him to do so?"

My mouth fell open. "That would be terrible of me, to ask him to bring her in, to betray her. I won't do it."

"But you can see that would be best for all of us," Eric said. "Bill or Heidi goes up to her, shakes her hand-then they will have her scent, and we'll know. Sam doesn't need to do anything beyond that. We'll take care of everything else."

"What would that 'everything else' be?"

"What do you think?" Bill asked impatiently. "She has information we need to learn, and she seems to be a key part of the plot to implicate Eric in a murder. This woman is a murderer herself, most likely. We need to make her talk."

"The same way the Weres made you talk in Mississippi, Bill?" I snapped.

"Why do you care if something happens to the bitch?" Eric said, his blond eyebrows rising in query.

"I don't," I said instantly. "I can't stand her."

"Then what's your issue?"

And I had no answer.

"It's because we were talking about involving Sam," Bill told Eric. "That's the stumbling block."

Suddenly they were on the same side, and that side was not mine.

"You're sweet on him?" Eric said. He couldn't have been more surprised if I'd said I had a crush on Terry's Catahoula.

"He's my boss," I said. "We've been friends for years. Of course I'm fond of him. And he's nuts about that furry bitch, for whatever reason. So that's my issue, as you put it."

"Hmmm," Eric said, his eyes examining my face with a sharp intensity. I didn't like it when he sounded thoughtful. "Then I'll have to call Alcide and make the request for Jannalynn's scent official."

Did I do as they requested, which would in some way be a betrayal of Sam? Or did I let Eric call Alcide, which would officially involve the Long Tooth pack? You couldn't call a packmaster unofficially. But I couldn't lie to Sam. My back stiffened.

"All right," I said. "Call Alcide." Eric pulled out his cell phone, giving me a very grim look as he did so. I could see a war starting, another war. More deaths. More loss. "Wait," I said. "I'll talk to Sam. I'll go into town to talk to him. Right now."

I didn't even know if Sam was home, but I walked out of the house and neither vampire tried to stop me. I'd never left two vampires alone in the house before, and I could only hope it would be intact when I returned.

Chapter 10

When I began driving back into town, I realized how tired I was. I thought very seriously about turning back, but when I contemplated facing Bill and Eric again, I kept driving north.

That was how I came to see Bellenos and our Hooligans waitress bounding across the road after a deer. I braked desperately, and my car slid sideways. I knew I'd end up in the ditch. I shrieked as the car slewed and the woods rushed up to meet me. Then, abruptly, my car's motion stopped-not by hitting anything, but by being nose down in the steep ditch. The headlights lit up the weeds, still whipping, bugs flying up from the impact. I turned off the engine and sat gasping.

My poor car was nose down at a steep angle. The rain had had twenty-four hours to soak into the previously parched soil, so the ditch was fairly dry, which was a real blessing. Bellenos and the blonde appeared, working their way around the car to get to my door. Bellenos was carrying a spear, and his companion appeared to have two curved bladed weapons of some kind. Not exactly swords; really long knives, as thin at the point as needles.

I tried to open the door, but my muscles wouldn't obey my command. I realized I was crying. I had a sharp flash of memory: Claudine waking me when I fell asleep at the wheel on this same road. Bellenos's lithe body moved across the headlights, and then he was by my door and wrenching it open.

"Sister!" he said, and turned to his companion. "Cut this strap, Gift."