Definitely Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #6)(68)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"Amelia should have done something by now," I said, trying to feel optimistic. "She probably called vampire HQ. Even if our own phone call didn’t reach anyone who’d do something about it, maybe someone’s looking for us now."

"They’d have to send out human employees. It’s still technically daylight, even though the sky’s so dark."

"Well, at least the rain’s over with," I said. At that moment, it began to rain again.

I thought about throwing a fit, but frankly, it didn’t seem worth using up the energy. And there was nothing to do about it. The sky was going to rain, no matter how many fits I threw. "I’m sorry you got caught up in this," I said, thinking that I had a lot for which to apologize.

"Sookie, I don’t know if you should be telling me you’re sorry." Quinn emphasized the pronouns. "Everything has happened when we were together."

That was true, and I tried to believe all this wasn’t my fault. But I was convinced that somehow, it really was.

Out of the blue, Quinn said, "What’s your relationship with Alcide Herveaux? We saw him in the bar last week with some other girl. But the cop, the one in Shreveport, said you’d been engaged to him."

"That was bullshit," I said, sitting slumped in the mud. Here I was, deep inside a southern Louisiana swamp, the rain pelting down on me…

Hey, wait a minute. I stared at Quinn’s mouth moving, realized he was saying something, but waited for the trailing end of a thought to snag on something. If there’d been a lightbulb above my head, it would have been flashing. "Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea," I said reverently. "That’s who’s doing this."

Quinn squatted in front of me. "You’ve picked who’s been doing what? How many enemies do you have?"

"At least I know who sent the bitten Weres, and who had us kidnapped," I said, refusing to be sidetracked. Crouched together in the downpour like a couple of cave people, Quinn listened while I talked.

Then we discussed probabilities.

Then we made a plan.

Chapter 21

Once he knew what he was doing, Quinn was relentless. Since we couldn’t be any more miserable than we already were, he decided we might as well be moving. While I did little more than follow him and stay out of his way, he began to scour the area for smells. Finally he got tired of crouching, and he said, "I’m going to change." He stripped quickly and efficiently, rolling the clothes into a compact (but sopping) bundle and handing them to me to carry. Every conjecture I’d had about Quinn’s body was absolutely on target, I was pleased to note. He’d begun taking off his clothes without a single hesitation, but once he noticed I was looking, he held still and let me look. Even in the dark, dripping rain, he was worth it. Quinn’s body was a work of art, though a scarred work of art. He was one large block of muscle, from his calves to his neck.

"Do you like what you see?" he asked.

"Oh, boy," I said. "You look better than a Happy Meal to a three-year-old."

Quinn gave me a broad, pleased smile. He bent to crouch on the ground. I knew what was coming. The air around Quinn began to shimmer and tremble, and then within that envelope Quinn began to change. Muscles rippled and flowed and reformed, bones reshaped, fur rolled out of somewhere inside him – though I knew that couldn’t be, that was the illusion. The sound was dreadful. It was a kind of gloppy, sticky sound, but with hard notes in it, as if someone were stirring a pot of stiff glue that was full of sticks and rocks.

At the end of it, the tiger stood across from me.

If Quinn had been a gorgeous naked man, he was an equally beautiful tiger. His fur was a deep orange slashed with black stripes, and there were touches of white on his belly and face. His eyes slanted, and they were golden. He was maybe seven feet long and at least three feet tall at the shoulder. I was amazed at how big he was. His paws were fully developed and as big as some dinner plates. His rounded ears were just plain cute. He walked over to me silently, with a grace unusual in such a massive form. He rubbed his huge head against me, almost knocking me down, and he purred. He sounded like a happy Geiger counter.

His dense fur was oily to the touch, so I figured he was pretty well waterproofed. He gave a barking cough, and the swamp went silent. You wouldn’t think Louisiana wildlife would recognize the sound of a tiger, right? But it did, and it shut its mouth and hid.

We don’t have the same special space requirements with animals that we do with people. I knelt beside the tiger that had been Quinn, in some magical way was still Quinn, and I put my arms around his neck, and I hugged him. It was a little disturbing that he smelled so much like an actual tiger, and I forced my mind around the fact that he was a tiger, that Quinn was inside him. And we set out through the swamp.

It was a little startling to see the tiger mark his new territory – this is not something you expect to see your boyfriend do – but I decided it would just be ridiculous to mind the display. Besides, I had enough to think about, keeping up with the tiger. He was searching for scents, and we covered a lot of ground. I was growing more and more exhausted. My sense of wonder faded, and I was simply wet and chilly, hungry and grumpy. If someone had been thinking right under my feet, I’m not sure my mind would have picked the thoughts up.

Then the tiger froze, nose testing the air. His head moved, ears twitching, to search in a particular direction. He turned to look at me. Though tigers can’t smile, I got the definite wave of triumph from the huge cat. The tiger turned his head back to the east, rotated his massive head to look at me, and turned his head to the east again. Follow me, clear as a bell.

"Okay," I said, and put my hand on his shoulder.

Off we went. The trip through the swamp lasted an eternity, though later I estimated that "eternity," in this case, was probably about thirty minutes. Gradually the ground grew firmer, the water scarcer. Now we were in forest, not swamp.

I’d figured we’d gotten close to our abductors’ destination when the van had turned off onto the side road. I’d been right. When we came to the edge of the clearing surrounding the little house, we were to the west side of the north-facing house. We could see both front and back yards. The van that had held us captive was parked in the back. In the tiny clearing at the front was a car, some kind of GMC sedan.

The little house itself was like a million other houses in rural America. It was a box of a place: wooden, painted tan, with green shutters on the windows and green uprights to support the roof over the tiny front porch. The two men from the van, Clete and George, were huddled on the concrete square because of that bit of shelter, however inadequate it was.