Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)(68)
Author: Charlaine Harris

I found Eric in his office sitting behind the desk. Pam was sitting on it, and Thalia was on the couch. Oh, boy! I felt more confident when I saw the tiny ancient Greek vampire. Thalia had been turned so long ago that no trace of humanity remained. She was simply a cold killing machine. She’d reluctantly joined the vampires that came out, but she despised humans with a thoroughness and ferocity that had made her a sort of cult figure. One website had offered five thousand dollars to the man or woman who could get a picture of Thalia smiling. No one had ever collected, but they could have tonight. She was smiling now. It was creepy as hell.

"He accepted the invitation," Eric said without preamble. "He was uneasy, but he couldn’t resist. I told him he was welcome to bring as many of his own people as he wished so that they could share the experience."

"That was the only way to do it," I said.

"I think you’re right," Pam said. "I think he’ll bring only a few, because he’ll want to show us how confident he is."

Mustapha Khan knocked on the door frame. Eric beckoned him in.

"Bill and Bubba are making a stop in the alley two blocks over," he said, barely glancing at the rest of us.

"What for?" Eric was surprised.

"Ah . . . something about cats."

We all looked away, embarrassed. Bubba’s perversion was not anything vampires wanted to talk about.

"But he’s cheerful? In a good mood?"

"Yes, Eric. He’s happy as a minister on Easter Sunday. Bill took him for a drive in an antique car, then horseback riding, and then to the alley. They should be here right on time. I told Bill I’d call him when Victor arrived."

By then, Fangtasia would be closed to the public. Though the happy and free-spending crowd out on the floor didn’t know it, tonight the king of rock ‘n’ roll would sing again for the Regent of Louisiana. Who could turn down an invitation to such an event?

Not fanboy Victor, that was for sure. The cardboard cutout at Vampire’s Kiss had been a big clue. Of course Victor had tried to get Bubba to come to his own club, but I’d known Bubba wouldn’t want to go to Vampire’s Kiss. He’d want to stay with Bill, and if Bill said Fangtasia was the place to be, that was what Bubba would insist on.

We sat in silence, though Fangtasia is never really silent. We could hear the music from the bar area, and the hum of voices. It was almost as if the customers could sense that tonight was a special night, that they all had cause to celebrate . . . or to have a last hurrah before they perished.

Though I felt it put me one step closer to catastrophe, I’d brought the cluviel dor. It was tucked into my belt behind the huge buckle. It pressed into my flesh insistently.

Mustapha Khan had taken up a stance against the wall. He was deep into his Blade fantasy that night, with dark glasses, a leather jacket, and a great haircut. I wondered where his buddy Warren was. Finally, out of sheer desperation for some conversation, I asked.

"Warren, he’s outside the club on the roof of the Bed Bath & Beyond." Mustapha Khan didn’t turn his face to me when he spoke.

"What for?"

"He’s a shooter."

"We refined your idea a bit," Eric said. "Anyone gets out the door, Warren will take care of them." He’d been slumped back in his chair with his feet on the desk. Pam hadn’t looked at me since I’d come in. Suddenly, I wondered why.

"Pam?" I said. I got up and took a step toward her.

She shook her head, her face averted.

I can’t read vampire minds, but I didn’t have to. Miriam had died today. Looking at the set of Pam’s shoulders I knew better than to say anything. It went against my nature to resume my seat on the couch without offering her comfort, a Kleenex, a few words of solace. But it would be Pam’s nature to strike out if I offered those things.

I touched my belt, where the cluviel dor made a hard impression on my stomach. Could I wish Miriam back alive? I wondered if that would satisfy the requirement that the wish be for someone I loved. I was very fond of Pam, but wouldn’t that be too indirect?

I felt like I had a bomb strapped to me.

I heard the shimmery sound of the gong. Eric had installed one in the bar, and the bartender rang it fifteen minutes before closing. I didn’t even know who’d taken over the bartending duties since Felicia had been killed by Alexei. Maybe I hadn’t been interested enough in Eric’s business lately. On the other hand, he himself had been abstracted from his normal absorption in his little kingdom by Victor’s predations. I realized that lack of conversation about ordinary things was one of our problems. I hoped we’d get to correct it.

I got up and went down the hall to the main area of the bar. I couldn’t stand sitting in Eric’s office anymore, not with Pam suffering the way she was.

I spotted Colton and Audrina dancing on the tiny floor, arms around each other. Immanuel was sitting at the bar, and I climbed onto the stool next to him. The bartender came to stand across from me. He was a brawny fellow with ringlets cascading down his back, total eye candy. A vampire, of course.

"What can I get you, wife of my sheriff?" he asked ceremoniously.

"You can get me a tonic and lime, please. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to meet you before. What’s your name?"

"Jock," he said, as if daring me to make a joke. I wouldn’t dream of it.

"When did you start work, Jock?"

"I came from Reno when the last bartender died," he said. "I worked for Victor there."

I wondered which way Jock would jump tonight. Interesting to see.

I didn’t know Immanuel well–in fact, I barely knew him. But I patted his shoulder and asked him if I could buy him a drink.

He turned and gave my hair a long look, finally nodding his approval. "Sure," he said. "I’d like another beer."

"I’m sorry," I said quietly, after I’d asked Jock to bring Immanuel a beer. I wondered where Miriam’s body was now; at the undertaker’s, I assumed.

"Appreciated," he replied. After a moment, he said, "Pam was going to do it tonight, without permission. Turn Miriam, that is. But Mir just . . . breathed out one last time, and then she was gone."

"Your mom and dad . . . ?"

He shook his head. "It was just us."

There was really nothing else to say about that.

"Maybe you should go home?" I suggested. He didn’t look like much of a fighter to me.

"I don’t think so," he said.

I couldn’t make him leave, so I drank my tonic and lime while all the human customers left. The bar grew quiet and relatively empty. Indira, one of Eric’s vamps, came in, wearing a full sari. I’d never seen her in traditional clothing before, and the pink and green of the pattern was really fetching. Jock gave her an admiring look. Thalia and Maxwell came out of the back and moved around the club along with the human staff, busy cleaning the place up for the after-party. I helped, too. This was work I was used to. The tables circling the little dance floor and stage were moved away, and two lines of chairs were arranged instead. Maxwell brought in an elaborate sort of boom box. Bubba’s music. After I swept the dance floor and stage, I got out of the way by resuming my stool at the bar.