Dead to the World (Sookie Stackhouse #4)(3)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Until Bill’s recent visit to my house, I’d last seen him when I’d given him the disks and computer he’d hidden with me. I’d driven up at dusk, so the machine wouldn’t be sitting on his front porch for long. I’d put all his stuff up against the door in a big waterproofed box. He’d come out just as I was driving away, but I hadn’t stopped.

An evil woman would have given the disks to Bill’s boss, Eric. A lesser woman would have kept those disks and that computer, having rescinded Bill’s (and Eric’s) invitations to enter the house. I had told myself proudly that I was not an evil, or a lesser, woman.

Also, thinking practically, Bill could just have hired some human to break into my house and take them. I didn’t think he would. But he needed them bad, or he’d be in trouble with his boss’s boss. I’ve got a temper, maybe even a bad temper, once it gets provoked. But I’m not vindictive.

Arlene has often told me I am too nice for my own good, though I assure her I am not. (Tara never says that; maybe she knows me better?) I realized glumly that, sometime during this hectic evening, Arlene would hear about Bill’s departure. Sure enough, within twenty minutes of Chuck and Terrell’s gibing, she made her way through the crowd to pat me on the back. "You didn’t need that cold bastard anyway," she said. "What did he ever do for you?"

I nodded weakly at her to show how much I appreciated her support. But then a table called for two whiskey sours, two beers, and a gin and tonic, and I had to hustle, which was actually a welcome distraction. When I dropped off their drinks, I asked myself the same question. What had Bill done for me?

I delivered pitchers of beer to two tables before I could add it all up.

He’d introduced me to sex, which I really enjoyed. Introduced me to a lot of other vampires, which I didn’t. Saved my life, though when you thought about it, it wouldn’t have been in danger if I hadn’t been dating him in the first place. But I’d saved his back once or twice, so that debt was canceled. He’d called me "sweetheart," and at the time he’d meant it.

"Nothing," I muttered, as I mopped up a spilled pina colada and handed one of our last clean bar towels to the woman who’d knocked it over, since a lot of it was still in her skirt. "He didn’t do a thing for me." She smiled and nodded, obviously thinking I was commiserating with her. The place was too noisy to hear anything anyway, which was lucky for me.

But I’d be glad when Bill got back. After all, he was my nearest neighbor. The community’s older cemetery separated our properties, which lay along a parish road south of Bon Temps. I was out there all by myself, without Bill.

"Peru, I hear," my brother Jason, said. He had his arm around his girl of the evening, a short, thin, dark twenty-one-year-old from somewhere way out in the sticks. (I’d carded her.) I gave her a close look. Jason didn’t know it, but she was a shape-shifter of some kind. They’re easy to spot. She was an attractive girl, but she changed into something with feathers or fur when the moon was full. I noticed Sam give her a hard glare when Jason’s back was turned, to remind her to behave herself in his territory. She returned the glare, with interest. I had the feeling she didn’t become a kitten, or a squirrel.

I thought of latching on to her brain and trying to read it, but shifter heads aren’t easy. Shifter thoughts are kind of snarly and red, though every now and then you can get a good picture of emotions. Same with Weres.

Sam himself turns into a collie when the moon is bright and round. Sometimes he trots all the way over to my house, and I feed him a bowl of scraps and let him nap on my back porch, if the weather’s good, or in my living room, if the weather’s poor. I don’t let him in the bedroom anymore, because he wakes up naked – in which state he looks very nice, but I just don’t need to be tempted by my boss.

The moon wasn’t full tonight, so Jason would be safe. I decided not to say anything to him about his date. Everyone’s got a secret or two. Her secret was just a little more colorful.

Besides my brother’s date, and Sam of course, there were two other supernatural creatures in Merlotte’s Bar that New Year’s Eve. One was a magnificent woman at least six feet tall, with long rippling dark hair. Dressed to kill in a skintight long-sleeved orange dress, she’d come in by herself, and she was in the process of meeting every guy in the bar. I didn’t know what she was, but I knew from her brain pattern that she was not human. The other creature was a vampire, who’d come in with a group of young people, most in their early twenties. I didn’t know any of them. Only a sideways glance by a few other revelers marked the presence of a vampire. It just went to show the change in attitude in the few years since the Great Revelation.

Almost three years ago, on the night of the Great Revelation, the vampires had gone on TV in every nation to announce their existence. It had been a night in which many of the world’s assumptions had been knocked sideways and rearranged for good.

This coming-out party had been prompted by the Japanese development of a synthetic blood that can keep vamps satisfied nutritionally. Since the Great Revelation, the United States has undergone numerous political and social upheavals in the bumpy process of accommodating our newest citizens, who just happen to be dead. The vampires have a public face and a public explanation for their condition – they claim an allergy to sunlight and garlic causes severe metabolic changes – but I’ve seen the other side of the vampire world. My eyes now see a lot of things most human beings don’t ever see. Ask me if this knowledge has made me happy.

No.

But I have to admit, the world is a more interesting place to me now. I’m by myself a lot (since I’m not exactly Norma Normal), so the extra food for thought has been welcome. The fear and danger haven’t. I’ve seen the private face of vampires, and I’ve learned about Weres and shifters and other stuff. Weres and shifters prefer to stay in the shadows – for now – while they watch how going public works out for the vamps.

See, I had all this to mull over while collecting tray after tray of glasses and mugs, and unloading and loading the dishwasher to help Tack, the new cook. (His real name is Alphonse Petacki. Can you be surprised he likes "Tack" better?) When our part of the cleanup was just about finished, and this long evening was finally over, I hugged Arlene and wished her a happy New Year, and she hugged me back. Holly’s boyfriend was waiting for her at the employees’ entrance at the back of the building, and Holly waved to us as she pulled on her coat and hurried out.

"What’re your hopes for the New Year, ladies?" Sam asked. By that time, Kenya was leaning against the bar, waiting for him, her face calm and alert. Kenya ate lunch here pretty regularly with her partner, Kevin, who was as pale and thin as she was dark and rounded. Sam was putting the chairs up on the tables so Terry Bellefleur, who came in very early in the morning, could mop the floor.