Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2)(45)
Author: Charlaine Harris

There was a long silence.

"How did you know he would? How did you know where?"

I shrugged as much as you can while you’re lying in a bed. "I just figured he’d stick with his original plan. He seemed pretty set on it. And he’d saved my life. It was the least I could do."

"Did he show courage?"

I met Bill’s eyes. "He died very bravely. He was eager to go."

I had no idea what Bill was thinking. "We have to go see Stan," he said. "We’ll tell him."

"Why do we have to go see Stan again?" If I hadn’t been such a mature woman, I would’ve pouted. As it was, Bill gave me one of those looks.

"You have to tell him your part, so he can be convinced we’ve performed our service. Also, there’s the matter of Hugo."

That was enough to make me gloomy. I was so sore the idea of any more clothes than necessary touching my skin made me feel ill, so I pulled on a long sleeveless taupe dress made out of a soft knit and slid my feet carefully into sandals, and that was my outfit. Bill brushed my hair and put in my earrings for me, since raising my arms was uncomfortable, and he decided I needed a gold chain. I looked like I was going to a party at the outpatient ward for battered women. Bill called down for a rental car to be brought around. When the car had arrived in the underground garage, I had no idea. I didn’t even know who had arranged for it. Bill drove. I didn’t look out the window anymore. I was sick of Dallas.

When we got to the house on Green Valley Road it looked as quiet as it had two nights ago. But after we’d been admitted, I found it was abuzz with vampires. We’d arrived in the midst of a welcome-home party for Farrell, who was standing in the living room with his arm around a handsome young man who might be all of eighteen. Farrell had a bottle of TrueBlood O negative in one hand, and his date had a Coke. The vampire looked almost as rosy as the boy.

Farrell had never actually seen me, so he was delighted to make my acquaintance. He was clad from head to toe in western regalia, and as he bowed over my hand, I expected to hear spurs clink.

"You are so lovely," he said extravagantly, waving the bottle of synthetic blood, "that if I slept with women, you would receive my undivided attention for a week. I know you are self-conscious about your bruises, but they only set off your beauty."

I couldn’t help laughing. Not only was I walking like I was about eighty, my face was black-and-blue on the left side.

"Bill Compton, you are one lucky vampire," Farrell told Bill.

"I am well aware of that," Bill said, smiling, though somewhat coolly.

"She is brave and beautiful!"

"Thanks, Farrell. Where’s Stan?" I decided to break this stream of praise. Not only did it make Bill antsy, but Farrell’s young companion was getting entirely too curious. My intention was to relate this story once again, and only once.

"He’s in the dining room," the young vampire said, the one who’d brought poor Bethany into the dining room when we’d been here before. This must be Joseph Velasquez. He was maybe five foot eight, and his Hispanic ancestry gave him the toast-colored complexion and dark eyes of a don, while his vampire state gave him an unblinking stare and the instant willingness to do damage. He was scanning the room, waiting for trouble. I decided he was sort of the sergeant at arms of the nest. "He will be glad to see both of you."

I glanced around at all the vampires and the sprinkling of humans in the large rooms of the house. I didn’t see Eric. I wondered if he’d gone back to Shreveport. "Where’s Isabel?" I asked Bill, keeping my voice quiet.

"Isabel is being punished," he said, almost too softly to hear. He didn’t want to talk about this any louder, and when Bill thought that was a wise idea, I knew I better shut up. "She brought a traitor into the nest, and she has to pay a price for that."

"But – "

"Shhh."

We came into the dining room to find it as crowded as the living room. Stan was in the same chair, wearing virtually the same outfit he had been wearing last time I saw him. He stood up when we entered, and from the way he did this, I understood this was supposed to mark our status as important.

"Miss Stackhouse," he said formally, shaking my hand with great care. "Bill." Stan examined me with his eyes, their washed-out blue not missing a detail of my injuries. His glasses had been mended with Scotch tape. Stan was nothing if not thorough with his disguise. I thought I’d send him a pocket-protector for Christmas.

"Please tell me what happened to you yesterday, omitting nothing," Stan said.

This reminded me irresistibly of Archie Goodwin reporting to Nero Wolfe. "I’ll bore Bill," I said, hoping to get out of this recitation.

"Bill will not mind being bored for a little."

There was no getting around this. I sighed, and began with Hugo picking me up from the Silent Shore Hotel. I tried to leave Barry’s name out of my narrative, since I didn’t know how he’d feel about being known by the vampires of Dallas. I just called him "a bellboy at the hotel." Of course, they could learn who he was if they tried.

When I got to the part where Gabe sent Hugo into Farrell’s cell and then tried to rape me, my lips yanked up in a tight grin. My face felt so taut that I thought it might crack.

"Why does she do that?" Stan asked Bill, as though I weren’t there.

"When she is tense…" Bill said.

"Oh." Stan looked at me even more thoughtfully. I reached up and began to pull my hair into a ponytail. Bill handed me an elastic band from his pocket, and with considerable discomfort, I held the hair in a tight hank so I could twist the band around it three times.

When I told Stan about the help the shapeshifters had given me, he leaned forward. He wanted to know more than I told, but I would not give any names away. He was intensely thoughtful after I told him about being dropped off at the hotel. I didn’t know whether to include Eric or not; I left him out, completely. He was supposed to be from California. I amended my narrative to say I’d gone up to our room to wait for Bill.

And then I told him about Godfrey.

To my amazement, Stan could not seem to absorb Godfrey’s death. He made me repeat the story. He swiveled in his chair to face the other way while I spoke. Behind his back, Bill gave me a reassuring caress. When Stan turned back to us, he was wiping his eyes with a red-stained handkerchief. So it was true that vampires could cry. And it was true that vampire tears were bloody.

I cried right along with him. For his centuries of molesting and killing children, Godfrey had deserved to die. I wondered how many humans were in jail for crimes Godfrey had committed. But Godfrey had helped me, and Godfrey had carried with him the most tremendous load of guilt and grief I’d ever encountered.