Dead Ever After

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.

Claude was badly wounded. Glassport had gotten to use the knife on him at least once, and Steve Newlin had pummeled his face.

They'd made Newlin help him to the road, and he hated that worse than anything.

When they were close enough to hear me, I said, "Claude. Human jail."

His thoughts focused, though I couldn't read them. Then he understood. As if someone had given him a shot of vampire blood, he went nuts. Utterly reenergized, he spun on Steve Newlin, throwing him down with a terrible force, and then he leaped for the nearest Good Samaritan, a man wearing a Stompin' Sally's shirt, and the Good Samaritan shot him dead.

Two down.

To make things even simpler, Claude had thrown Steve Newlin down with enough force to fracture his skull, and I heard later that he died that night in the Monroe hospital, where they moved him after stabilizing him in Clarice. Before he did, he was moved to confess his part in Arlene's murder. Maybe the Lord forgave him. I didn't.

Three down.

After I talked to the law, Sam took me to the hospital. I asked after Xavier; he was in surgery. The ER doctor thought a butterfly bandage was enough for my arm, to my profound relief. I wanted to get back home. I'd spent enough time in hospitals, and I'd spent enough nights scared.

Now, everyone who wished me ill was dead. That is, everyone I knew of. I wasn't happy about that, but I wasn't grieving, either. Each of them would have been glad enough if I'd been the one on my way to the grave.

I was pretty shaken up by my abduction from Stompin' Sally's. A few days later, Sally herself called. She said she'd sent me a gift card for ten free drinks at her establishment, and she offered to buy me a new pair of cowboy boots, since mine would never be the same after my flight through the cornfield. I appreciated that - but right then, I wasn't sure about any future line dancing.

And I knew I'd never be able to watch Signs again.

There was no way to thank everyone who poured out of the bar and into their trucks to try to track down the van. At least five other vehicles had headed south, just in case Claude had doubled back that way. As the bartender told me, "We had your back, little lady."

This little lady was grateful. And also grateful that out of all the people who heard me remind Claude of what he'd be facing, only the Stompin' Sally's bartender who'd shot him found a moment while we were waiting for the police to ask me what I'd meant. I'd explained as simply and tersely as I could. "He wasn't human, and I knew he'd be in a human jail for a century or more. That would have been pretty awful for him." That was all I had to say.

"You know I had to shoot him 'cause you said that," the man said steadily.

"If I'd had a gun, I would have done it myself," was all I could offer. "And you know he was attacking you and would have kept on going until he was stopped." I could tell from the man's thoughts that he was a veteran and he'd had to kill before. He'd hoped never to do it again. This would be another thing I'd have to live with. He would, too.

Chapter 22

I went to work the next day. I'd missed enough, I figured. I won't say it was an easy day to get through, since I had moments of sheer panic. That would have been the case if I'd stayed home, and at least at the bar I was able to hear that Xavier had made it out of surgery and would recover. Sam's presence behind the bar was reassuring. And his eyes followed me, as if he were constantly thinking of me, too.

I drove home while it was still light, and I was glad to get in the house and lock the door behind me. I was less glad to find Mr. Cataliades and Diantha already in the house, but I felt better about their presence when I saw they'd brought Barry. He was in bad shape, and I had a hard time persuading them that he could not heal himself the way demons could. In fact, I was pretty sure that Barry had broken a bone or two in his face and one of his hands. He was bruised and puffy all over and moved with excruciating care.

They'd put him on the bed in the guest room across the hall from mine, and I had an appalled realization that I hadn't changed the sheets since Amelia and Bob's stay. But after evaluating Barry's physical damage, I realized that worrying about used sheets was the furthest thing from his concerns. He was more worried about peeing without blood.

"I feel pretty rough," he said, between cracked lips. Diantha watched me give him some water, very carefully.

"You gotta go to a hospital," I said. "I guess you can tell them a car hit you while you were walking by the road or something. And you were unconscious."

I was aware, even as I said this, that it was utter bullshit. Not only would any competent doctor be able to tell that Barry had been beaten, not hit by any car, but I was sick of trying to explain away awful stuff like this.

"Isn't worth the trouble," Barry said. "I'll just tell 'em I got mugged. More or less the truth."

"So Newlin and Glassport grabbed you. What did they think they could beat out of you?"

He tried to smile, but the attempt was pretty ghastly. "They wanted me to tell them where Hunter was."

I sat down in a hurry. Mr. Cataliades stepped forward, his face grim. "You see why it is a good thing they are all dead," he said. "Newlin, Glassport, the fairy."

"He told them," I said, and it was almost funny how deeply hurt I was that Claude had betrayed a child.

"It wasn't the money he paid them," Mr. Cataliades said. "That was not what made them persist beyond all reason in trying to capture you. The two humans knew Claude wanted you, wanted to kill you, and they were very willing to go along with that. But they wanted the boy. To mold to their own purposes."

The enormity of it washed over me. I felt no guilt or regret about their deaths any longer, not even about the ex-soldier who'd had to shoot Claude.

"How did you find Barry?" I asked.

"I listened for him," Mr. Cataliades said simply. "And Diantha and I searched, following his mind like a beacon. He was alone when we found him, and we took him away. We didn't know they were coming after you."

"Wedidn'tknow," Diantha said sadly.

"You did great, you did the best thing ever," I said. "And I owe you one."

"Never," said Mr. Cataliades. "You owe me nothing."

I looked at Barry. He needed to get out of this area, and he needed a place to heal. His rental car was in downtown Bon Temps, and I'd have to drive it back to the rental place and turn it in; he wouldn't have wheels, but he was too battered to drive, obviously.

"Where can we take you afterward?" I asked Barry, trying to sound gentle. "You got a family to go to? I guess you could stay with me."

He shook his head feebly. "Got no family," he whispered. "And I couldn't stand being with another telepath all the time."

I looked through the open door at Mr. Cataliades, who was Barry's relative for sure. He was standing out in the hall, looking pained. He met my eyes and shook his head from side to side, to tell me that Barry couldn't come with him. He'd tracked Barry and saved his life, and that was all he could do. For whatever reason.

Barry really needed someone to convalesce with, someone who would let him be, let him heal, but be there to give him a hand. I had a sudden inspiration. I picked up my phone and found Bernadette Merlotte's number. "Bernadette," I said, when we'd done a polite greeting exchange, "you said you owed me a life. I don't want a life, but a friend of mine is hurt bad and he needs a hospital and a place to stay while he recovers. He's not a lot of trouble, I promise, and he's a good guy."

I told Barry five minutes later that he was going to Wright, Texas.

"Texas isn't safe for me," he protested.

"You're not going to a major urban center," I said. "You're going to Wright, and there's not a single vampire there. You're going to stay with Sam's mom, and she's nice, and you won't be able to read her mind clearly because she's a shapeshifter. Don't go out at night and you won't see any vampires. I told her your name was Rick."

"Okay," he said weakly.

Within an hour, Mr. Cataliades was driving Barry to the hospital in Shreveport. He told me solemnly that he would take Barry to Wright when he was discharged.

Barry e-mailed me three days later. He was safely ensconced in Wright in Sam's old room. He was getting better. He liked Bernie. He had no idea what he would do next. But he was alive and healing, and he was thinking of his future.

Slowly, I began to relax. I heard from Amelia about every third day. Bob had been transferred to New Orleans, finally. Her father was missing; his secretary had filed a missing-person report. Amelia didn't seem too concerned about his whereabouts. She was all about Bob and the baby. She'd seen Mr. C, she said. He was trying to find out what witch might have made the charm that had enabled Arlene to enter my house, but Amelia was of the opinion that Claude had made it. I was sure the part-demons would get to the bottom of that question.

Less than two weeks later, I walked down the "aisle," actually a narrow grass path through a happy crowd of people. The folding chairs were already set up at the tables scattered around the lawn, so the guests would stand for the short service. I went slowly, to keep time with the fiddlers playing "Simple Gifts." I was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, wearing my beautiful yellow dress. Michele's minister was standing under a flowery archway in Jason's backyard (I'd been more than glad to supply the greenery), and Michele's parents were smiling as they stood waiting by the archway. There was no family to stand on our side, but at least Jason and I had each other. Michele looked beautiful as she walked up to meet Jason, and Hoyt didn't lose the ring.

After the wedding party - all four of us - had our pictures made together and separately, Michele and Jason took their places behind the meat table with aprons on over their wedding clothes, and they served ribs or sliced pork to the guests, who then descended on the tables full of vegetables and breads and desserts, all brought by the guests. The cake, contributed by a church friend of Michele's mom, stood in lonely splendor under a tent.