Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)(63)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Audrina had a plan, too, involving discovering Victor’s sleeping place and getting him while he was out for the day. Wow, that was fresh and original. However, it was a classic for a reason. Victor would be helpless.

"Except we don’t know where he sleeps," I said, trying to slide the objection in there without sounding snooty.

"I do," Audrina said proudly. "He sleeps in a big stone mansion. It’s set back from a parish road between Musgrave and Toniton. There’s one lone road in, and that’s it. There aren’t any trees around the house. It’s just grass."

"Wow." I was impressed. "How’d you track him down?"

"I know the guy who mows the yard," she said. She grinned at me. "Dusty Kolinchek, remember him?"

"Sure," I said, feeling a stir of interest. Dusty’s dad owned a fleet–okay, a small fleet–of lawn tractors and weed eaters, and every summer a group of Bon Temps high school boys earned their walking-around money working for Mr. Kolinchek. Dusty was inheriting the lawn-mowing empire, sounded like.

"He says that the house is almost empty during the day because Victor is paranoid about having anyone come in while he’s sleeping. He just has two bodyguards there, Dixie and Dixon Mayhew, and they’re some kind of wereanimals."

"I know them," I said. "They’re werepanthers. They’re good." The Mayhew twins were tough and professional. "They must be strapped for cash to work for a vampire." Now that my sister-in-law was dead and Calvin Norris had married Tanya Grissom, I didn’t see many of the werepanthers with any frequency. Calvin didn’t come into the bar much, and Jason seemed to see his former in-laws only at the full moon, when he became one of them . . . in a limited way, since he’d been bitten, not born, as a were.

"So maybe I could bribe the Mayhews if they’re that hard up," Eric said. "You wouldn’t need to kill them, then. Less mess. But you humans would have to do the job, since Pam and I will be down for the day."

"We’d have to search the house, because I bet the Mayhews don’t know exactly where he sleeps," I said. "Though I’m sure they have to have a pretty good idea." The vampire smell alone should help the twoeys zone in on where Victor slept, but it seemed kind of tacky to say that out loud.

Pam kind of waved her hand. Eric half turned, catching the motion out of the corner of his eye. "What?" he said. "Oh, you can speak."

Pam looked relieved. She said, "I think when he leaves the club in the morning would be a good time. His attention is on whoever he’s going to feed on, and we might be able to attack then."

These were all pretty straightforward plans, and maybe that was both their strength and their weakness. They were simple. And that meant they were predictable. Eric’s plan was the bloodiest, of course. There would certainly be loss of life. Audrina and Colton’s plan was the most human, since it depended on a day attack. Pam’s was possibly the best, since it was a night attack but not in a heavily peopled area, though the club exit was so obviously the weakest point that I felt sure whatever vampires Victor used as bodyguards–maybe the toothsome Antonio and Luis?– would be extra vigilant at such a moment.

"I have a plan," I said.

It was like I’d suddenly stood up and unhooked my bra. They all looked at me simultaneously, with a combination of surprise and skepticism. I will say that most of the skepticism came from Audrina and Colton, who hardly knew me. Bubba had been sitting on the high stool beside the counter, sipping a TrueBlood with an unsatisfied air. He looked pleased when I pointed to him and said, "He’s the way."

I laid out my idea, trying hard to sound confident, and when I was through, they began trying to poke holes in it. And Bubba was reluctant, at least initially.

In the end, Bubba said he would do it if Mr. Bill said it was a good idea. I phoned Bill. He was over in a flash, and the look he gave me when I let him in told me he was enjoying remembering how I looked wrapped in a tablecloth. Or even before I’d found the tablecloth. With an effort, I swallowed my confusion and explained everything to him. And after a few embellishments had been added, he agreed.

We went over the order of events again and again, trying to allow for every contingency. By three thirty in the morning, we were all in agreement. I was so tired I was asleep on my feet, and Audrina and Colton were barely able to stifle their yawns. Pam, who’d been stepping out of the room to call Immanuel periodically, preceded Eric out the door. She was anxious to get to the hospital. Bill and Bubba had departed for Bill’s house, where Bubba would spend the day. I was alone with Eric.

We looked at each other, both at a loss. I tried to put myself in his place, feel what he must feel, but I simply couldn’t do it. I couldn’t imagine that, say, my grandmother had decided who I should marry and then passed away, fully expecting me to carry out her wishes. I couldn’t imagine that I had to follow directions from beyond the grave, leave my home and go to a new place with people I didn’t know, have sex with a stranger, simply because someone else had wanted me to.

Even, a little voice said inside me, if the stranger was beautiful and wealthy and politically astute?

No, I told myself stoutly. Not even then.

"Can you put yourself in my place?" Eric asked, chiming in on my thoughts. We knew each other pretty well, without the bond. He took my hand and held it between his cold ones.

"No, actually, I can’t," I said, as evenly as I could manage. "I’ve been trying. But I’m not used to that sort of long-distance manipulation. Even after death, Appius is controlling you, and I just can’t picture myself in that position."

"Americans," Eric said, and I couldn’t decide if he said it admiringly or with a mild exasperation.

"Not just Americans, Eric."

"I feel very old."

"You are very old-fashioned." He was ancient-fashioned.

"I can’t ignore a signed document," he said, almost angrily. "He made an agreement for me, and I was his to order. He created me."

What could I say, in the face of such conviction? "I’m so glad he’s dead," I told Eric, not caring that my bitterness was written on my face. Eric looked sad, or at least regretful, but there was nothing else to say. Eric didn’t mention spending what was left of the night with me, which was smart on his part.

After he left, I began checking all the windows and doors in the house. Since so many people had been in and out that day and night, it seemed a good idea. I wasn’t too surprised to see Bill out in the yard when I was locking the kitchen window over the sink.

Though he didn’t beckon to me, I took my weary self outside.