Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse #1)(71)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Then he was straddling me. But he’d dropped the cord in our struggle, and while he held my neck with one hand, he was groping with the other for his method of choice. My right arm was pinned, but my left was free, and I struck and clawed at him. He had to ignore this, had to look for the strangling cord because that was part of his ritual. My scrabbling hand encountered a familiar shape.

Rene, in his work clothes, was still wearing his knife on his belt. I yanked the snap open and pulled the knife from its sheath, and while he was still thinking, "I should have taken that off," I sank the knife into the soft flesh of his waist, angling up. And I pulled it out.

He screamed, then.

He staggered to his feet, twisting his upper torso sideways, trying with both hands to stanch the blood that was pouring from the wound.

I scuttered backward, getting up, trying to put distance between myself and man who was a monster just as surely as Bill was.

Rene screamed. "Aw, Jesus, woman! What you done to me? Oh, God, it hurts!"

That was rich.

He was scared now, frightened of discovery, of an end to his games, of an end to his vengeance.

"Girls like you deserve to die," he snarled. "I can feel you in my head, you freak!"

"Who’s the freak around here?" I hissed. "Die, you bastard."

I didn’t know I had it in me. I stood by the headstone in a crouch, the bloody knife still clutched in my hand, waiting for him to charge me again.

He staggered in circles, and I watched, my face stony. I closed my mind to him, to his feeling his death crawl up behind him. I stood ready to knife him a second time when he fell to the ground. When I was sure he couldn’t move, I went to Bill’s house, but I didn’t run. I told myself it was because I couldn’t: but I’m not sure. I kept seeing my grandmother, encapsuled in Rene’s memory forever, fighting for her life in her own house.

I fished Bill’s key out of my pocket, almost amazed it was still there.

I turned it somehow, staggered into the big living room, felt for the phone. My fingers touched the buttons, managed to figure out which was the nine and where the one was. I pushed the numbers hard enough to make them beep, and then, without warning, I checked out of consciousness.

I KNEW I was in the hospital: I was surrounded by the clean smell of hospital sheets.

The next thing I knew was that I hurt all over.

And someone was in the room with me. I opened my eyes, not without effort.

Andy Bellefleur. His square face was even more fatigued than the last time I’d seen him.

"Can you hear me?" he said.

I nodded, just a tiny movement, but even that sent a wave of pain through my head.

"We got him," he said, and then he proceeded to tell me a lot more, but I fell back asleep.

It was daylight when I woke again, and this time, I seemed to be much more alert.

Someone in the room.

"Who’s here?" I said, and my voice came out in a painful rasp.

Kevin rose from the chair in the corner, rolling a crossword puzzle magazine and sticking it into his uniform pocket.

"Where’s Kenya?" I whispered.

He grinned at me unexpectedly. "She was here for a couple of hours," he explained. "She’ll be back soon. I spelled her for lunch."

His thin face and body formed one lean line of approval. "You are one tough lady," he told me.

"I don’t feel tough," I managed.

"You got hurt," he told me as if I didn’t know that.

"Rene."

"We found him out in the cemetery," Kevin assured me. "You stuck him pretty good. But he was still conscious, and he told us he’d been trying to kill you."

"Good."

"He was real sorry he hadn’t finished the job. I can’t believe he spilled the beans like that, but he was some kind of hurting and he was some kind of scared, by the time we got to him. He told us the whole thing was your fault because you wouldn’t just lie down to die like the others. He said it must run in your genes, because your grandmother…" Here Kevin stopped short, aware that he was on upsetting ground.

"She fought, too," I whispered.

Kenya came in then, massive, impassive, and holding a steaming Styrofoam cup of coffee.

"She’s awake," Kevin said, beaming at his partner.

"Good." Kenya sounded less overjoyed about it. "She say what happened? Maybe we should call Andy."

"Yeah, that’s what he said to do. But he’s just been asleep four hours."

"The man said call."

Kevin shrugged, went to the phone at the side of the bed. I eased off into a doze as I heard him speaking, but I could hear him murmur with Kenya as they waited. He was talking about his hunting dogs. Kenya, I guess, was listening.

Andy came in, I could feel his thoughts, the pattern of his brain. His solid presence came to roost by my bed. I opened my eyes as he was bending to look at me. We exchanged a long stare.

Two pair of feet in regulation shoes moved out into the hall.

"He’s still alive," Andy said abruptly. "And he won’t stop talking."

I made the briefest motion of my head, indicating a nod, I hoped.

"He says this goes back to his sister, who was seeing a vampire. She evidently got so low on blood that Rene thought she’d turn into a vamp herself if he didn’t stop her. He gave her an ultimatum, one evening in her apartment. She talked back, said she wouldn’t give up her lover. She was tying her apron around her, getting ready to go to work as they were arguing. He yanked it off her, strangled her … did other stuff."

Andy looked a little sick.

"I know," I whispered.

"It seems to me," Andy began again, "that somehow he decided he’d feel justified in doing that horrible thing if he convinced himself that everyone in his sister’s situation deserved to die. In fact, the murders here are very similar to two in Shreveport that haven’t been solved up until now, and we’re expecting Rene to touch on those while he’s rambling along. If he makes it."

I could feel my lips pressing together in horrified sympathy for those other poor women.

"Can you tell me what happened to you?" Andy asked quietly. "Go slow, take your time, and keep your voice down to a whisper. Your throat is badly bruised."

I had figured that out for myself, thanks very much. I murmured my account of the evening, and I didn’t leave anything out. Andy had switched on a little tape recorder after asking me if that was all right. He placed it on the pillow close to my mouth when I indicated the device was okay with me, so he’d have the whole story.

"Mr. Compton still out of town?" he asked me, after I’d finished.