Living Dead in Dallas (Sookie Stackhouse #2) - Page 4

It was as hot as the six shades of hell in Dallas, especially on the pavement at the airport. Our brief few days of fall had relapsed back into summer. Torch-hot gusts of air bearing all the sounds and smells of the Dallas-Fort Worth airport – the workings of small vehicles and airplanes, their fuel and their cargo – seemed to accumulate around the foot of the ramp from the cargo bay of the plane I'd been waiting for. I'd flown a regular commercial flight, but Bill had had to be shipped specially.

I was flapping my suit jacket, trying to keep my underarms dry, when the Catholic priest approached me.

Initially, I was so respectful of his collar that I didn't object to his approach, even though I didn't really want to talk to anyone. I had just emerged from one totally new experience, and I had several more such hurdles ahead of me.

"Can I be of some service to you? I couldn't help but notice your situation," the small man said. He was soberly clothed in clerical black, and he sounded chock-full of sympathy. Furthermore, he had the confidence of someone used to approaching strangers and being received politely. He had what I thought was sort of an unusual haircut for a priest, though; his brown hair was longish, and tangled, and he had a mustache, too. But I only noticed this vaguely.

"My situation?" I asked, not really paying attention to his words. I'd just glimpsed the polished wood coffin at the edge of the cargo hold. Bill was such a traditionalist; metal would have been more practical for travel. The uniformed attendants were rolling it to the head of the ramp, so they must have put wheels under it somehow. They'd promised Bill it would get to its destination without a scratch. And the armed guards behind me were insurance that no fanatic would rush over and tear the lid off. That was one of the extras Anubis Air had plugged in its ad. Per Bill's instructions, I'd also specified that he be first off the plane.

So far, so good.

I cast a look at the dusky sky. The lights around the field had come on minutes ago. The black jackal's head on the airplane's tail looked savage in the harsh light, which created deep shadows where none had been. I checked my watch again.

"Yes. I'm very sorry."

I glanced sideways at my unwanted companion. Had he gotten on the plane in Baton Rouge? I couldn't remember his face, but then, I'd been pretty nervous the whole flight. "Sorry," I said. "For what? Is there some kind of problem?"

He looked elaborately astonished. "Well," he said, nodding his head toward the coffin, which was now descending on the ramp on a roller system. "Your bereavement. Was this a loved one?" He edged a little closer to me.

"Well, sure," I said, poised between puzzlement and aggravation. Why was he out here? Surely the airline didn't pay a priest to meet every person traveling with a coffin? Especially one being unloaded from Anubis Air. "Why else would I be standing here?"

I began to worry.

Slowly, carefully, I slid down my mental shields and began to examine the man beside me. I know, I know: an invasion of his privacy. But I was responsible for not only my own safety, but Bill's.

The priest, who happened to be a strong broadcaster, was thinking about approaching nightfall as intently as I was, and with a lot more fear. He was hoping his friends were where they were supposed to be.

Trying not to show my increasing anxiety, I looked upward again. Deep into dusk, there was only the faintest trace of light remaining in the Texas sky.

"Your husband, maybe?" He curved his fingers around my arm.

Was this guy creepy, or what? I glanced over at him. His eyes were fixed on the baggage handlers who were clearly visible in the hold of the plane. They were wearing black and silver jumpsuits with the Anubis logo on the left chest. Then his gaze flickered down to the airline employee on the ground, who was preparing to guide the coffin onto the padded, flat-bedded baggage cart. The priest wanted… what did he want? He was trying to catch the men all looking away, preoccupied. He didn't want them to see. While he… what?

"Nah, it's my boyfriend," I said, just to keep our pretence up. My grandmother had raised me to be polite, but she hadn't raised me to be stupid. Surreptitiously, I opened my shoulder bag with one hand and extracted the pepper spray Bill had given me for emergencies. I held the little cylinder down by my thigh. I was edging away from the false priest and his unclear intentions, and his hand was tightening on my arm, when the lid of the coffin swung open.

The two baggage handlers in the plane had swung down to the ground. Now they bowed deeply. The one who'd guided the coffin onto the cart said, "Shit!" before he bowed, too (new guy, I guess). This little piece of obsequious behavior was also an airline extra, but I considered it way over the top.

The priest said, "Help me, Jesus!" But instead of falling to his knees, he jumped to my right, seized me by the arm holding the spray, and began to yank at me.

At first, I thought he felt he was trying to remove me from the danger represented by the opening coffin, by pulling me to safety. And I guess that was what it looked like to the baggage handlers, who were wrapped up in their role-playing as Anubis Air attendants. The upshot was, they didn't help me, even though I yelled, "Let go!" at the top of my well-developed lungs. The "priest" kept yanking at my arm and trying to run, and I kept digging in my two-inch heels and pulling back. I flailed at him with my free hand. I'm not letting anyone haul me off somewhere I don't want to go, not without a good fight.

"Bill!" I was really frightened. The priest was not a big man, but he was taller and heavier than me, and almost as determined. Though I was making his struggle as hard as possible, inch by inch he was moving me toward a staff door into the terminal. A wind had sprung up from nowhere, a hot dry wind, and if I sprayed the chemicals they would blow right back in my face.

The man inside the coffin sat up slowly, his large dark eyes taking in the scene around him. I caught a glimpse of him running a hand over his smooth brown hair.

The staff door opened and I could tell there was someone right inside, reinforcements for the priest.

"Bill!"

There was a whoosh through the air around me, and all of a sudden the priest let go and zipped through the door like a rabbit at a greyhound track. I staggered and would have landed on my butt if Bill hadn't slowed to catch me.

"Hey, baby," I said, incredibly relieved. I yanked at the jacket of my new gray suit, and felt glad I'd put on some more lipstick when the plane landed. I looked in the direction the priest had taken. "That was pretty weird." I tucked the pepper spray back in my purse.

"Sookie," Bill said, "are you all right?" He leaned down to give me a kiss, ignoring the awed whispers of the baggage handlers at work on a charter plane next to the Anubis gate. Even though the world at large had learned two years ago that vampires were not only the stuff of legends and horror movies, but truly led a centuries-long existence among us, lots of people had never seen a vampire in the flesh.

Bill ignored them. Bill is good at ignoring things that he doesn't feel are worth his attention.

"Yes, I'm fine," I said, a little dazed. "I don't know why he was trying to grab me."

"He misunderstood our relationship?"

"I don't think so. I think he knew I was waiting for you and he was trying to get me away before you woke up."

"We'll have to think about this," said Bill, master of the understatement. "Other than this bizarre incident, how did the evening go?"

"The flight was all right," I said, trying not to stick my bottom lip out.

"Did anything else untoward happen?" Bill sounded just a wee bit dry. He was quite aware that I considered myself put-upon.

"I don't know what normal is for airplane trips, never having done it before," I said tartly, "but up until the time the priest appeared, I'd say things pretty much ran smooth." Bill raised one eyebrow in that superior way he has, so I'd elaborate. "I don't think that man was really a priest at all. What did he meet the plane for? Why'd he come over to talk to me? He was just waiting till everyone working on the plane was looking in another direction."

"We'll talk about it in a more private place," my vampire said, glancing at the men and women who'd begun to gather around the plane to check out the commotion. He stepped over to the uniformed Anubis employees, and in a quiet voice he chastised them for not coming to my help. At least, I assumed that was the burden of his conversation, from the way they turned white and began to babble. Bill slid an arm around my waist and we began to stroll to the terminal.

"Send the coffin to the address on the lid," Bill called back over his shoulder. "The Silent Shore Hotel." The Silent Shore was the only hotel in the Dallas area that had undergone the extensive renovation necessary to accommodate vampire patrons. It was one of the grand old downtown hotels, the brochure had said, not that I'd ever seen downtown Dallas or any of its grand old hotels before.

We stopped in the stairwell of a grubby little flight leading up to the main passenger concourse. "Now, tell me," he demanded. I glanced up at him while I related the odd little incident from start to finish. He was very white. I knew he must be hungry. His eyebrows looked black against the pallor of his skin, and his eyes looked an even darker brown than they really were.

He help open a door and I passed through into the bustle and confusion of one of the biggest airports in the world.

"You didn't listen to him?" I could tell Bill didn't mean with my ears.

"I was still pretty heavily shielded from the plane," I said. "And by the time I got concerned, began to try to read him, you came out of your coffin and he took off. I had the funniest feeling, before he ran…" I hesitated, knowing this was far-fetched.

Bill just waited. He's not one to waste words. He lets me finish what I'm saying. We stopped walking for a second, edged over to the wall.

"I felt like he was there to kidnap me," I said. "I know that sounds nuts. Who would know who I am, here in Dallas? Who would know to be meeting the plane? But that's definitely the impression I got." Bill took my warm hands in his cool ones.

I looked up into Bill's eyes. I'm not that short, and he's not that tall, but I still have to look up at him. And it's a little pride issue with me, that I can meet his eyes and not get glamoured. Sometimes I wish Bill could give me a different set of memories – for example, I wouldn't mind forgetting about the maenad – but he can't.

Bill was thinking over what I'd said, filing it away for future reference. "So the flight itself was boring?" he asked.

"Actually, it was pretty exciting," I admitted. "After I made sure the Anubis people had stowed you on their plane, and I was boarded on mine, the woman showed us what to do when we crashed. I was sitting on the row with the emergency exit. She said to switch if we didn't think we could handle that. But I think I could, don't you? Handle an emergency? She brought me a drink and a magazine." I seldom got waited on myself, being a barmaid by profession, you might say, so I really enjoyed being served.

"I'm sure you can handle just about anything, Sookie. Were you frightened when the plane took off?"

"No. I was just a little worried about this evening. Aside from that, it went fine."

"Sorry I couldn't be with you," he murmured, his cool and liquid voice flowing around me. He pressed me against his chest.

"That's okay," I said into his shirt, mostly meaning it. "First time flying, you know, it's kind of nerve-wracking. But it went all right. Until we landed."

I might grouse and I might moan, but I was truly glad Bill had risen in time to steer me through the airport. I was feeling more and more like the poor country cousin.

We didn't talk any more about the priest, but I knew Bill hadn't forgotten. He walked me through collecting our luggage and finding transportation. He would've parked me somewhere and arranged it all, except, as he reminded me frequently, I'd have to do this on my own sometime, if our business demanded we land somewhere in full daylight.

Despite the fact that the airport seemed incredibly crowded, full of people who all appeared heavily burdened and unhappy, I managed to follow the signs with a little nudge from Bill, after reinforcing my mental shields. It was bad enough, getting washed with the weary misery of the travelers, without listening to their specific laments. I directed the porter with our luggage (which Bill could easily have carried under one arm) to the taxi stand, and Bill and I were on our way to the hotel within forty minutes of Bill's emergence. The Anubis people had sworn up and down that his coffin would be delivered within three hours.

We'd see. If they didn't make it, we got a free flight.

I'd forgotten the sprawl of Dallas, in the seven years since I'd graduated from high school. The lights of the city were amazing, and the busyness. I stared out of the windows at everything we passed, and Bill smiled at me with an irritating indulgence.

"You look very pretty, Sookie. Your clothes are just right."

"Thanks," I said, relieved and pleased. Bill had insisted that I needed to look "professional," and after I'd said, "Professional what?" he'd given me one of those looks. So I was wearing a gray suit over a white shell, with pearl earrings and a black purse and heels. I'd even smoothed my hair back into a twisted shape at the back of my head with one of those Hairagamis I'd ordered from TV. My friend Arlene had helped me. To my mind, I looked like a professional, all right – a professional funeral home attendant – but Bill seemed to approve. And I'd charged the whole outfit to him at Tara's Togs, since it was a legitimate business expense. So I couldn't complain about the cost.

I'd have been more comfortable in my barmaid's outfit. Give me shorts and a T-shirt over a dress and hose any day. And I could've been wearing my Adidas with my barmaid uniform, not these damn heels. I sighed.

The taxi pulled up to the hotel, and the driver got out to extract our luggage. There was enough of it for three days. If the vampires of Dallas had followed my directions, I could wind this up and we could go back to Bon Temps tomorrow night, to live there unmolested and uninvolved in vampire politics – at least until the next time Bill got a phone call. But it was better to bring extra clothes than to count on that.

I scooted across the seat to emerge after Bill, who was paying the driver. A uniformed bellboy from the hotel was loading the luggage onto a rolling cart. He turned his thin face to Bill and said, "Welcome to Silent Shore Hotel, sir! My name is Barry, and I'll…" Then Bill stepped forward, the light from the lobby door spilling onto his face. "I'll be your porter," Barry finished weakly.

"Thank you," I said, to give the boy, who couldn't be more than eighteen, a second to compose himself. His hands were a little trembly. I cast a mental net out to check the source of his distress.

To my startled delight, I realized (after a quick rummage in Barry's head) that he was a telepath, like me! But he was at the level of organization and development I'd been when I was, maybe, twelve years old. He was a mess, that boy. He couldn't control himself at all, and his shields were a shambles. He was heavy into denial. I didn't know whether to grab him and hug him, or smack him upside the head. Then I realized his secret was not mine to give away. I glanced off in another direction, and shifted from one foot to another, as if I were bored.

"I'll just follow you with your luggage," Barry mumbled, and Bill smiled at him gently. Barry smiled tentatively back, and then got busy bringing in the cart. It had to be Bill's appearance that unnerved Barry, since he couldn't read Bill's mind, the great attraction of the undead for people like me. Barry was going to have to learn how to relax around vampires, since he'd agreed to work at a hotel that catered to them.

Some people think all vampires look terrifying. To me, it depends on the vampire. I remember thinking, when I first met Bill, that he looked incredibly different; but I hadn't been frightened.

The one that was waiting for us in the lobby of Silent Shores, now, she was scary. I bet she made ole Barry wet his pants. She approached after we'd checked in, as Bill was putting his credit card back in his wallet (you just try applying for a credit card when you're a hundred sixty years old; that process had been a bear) and I sidled a little closer to him as he tipped Barry, hoping she wouldn't notice me.

"Bill Compton? The detective from Louisiana?" Her voice was as calm and cool as Bill's, with considerably less inflection. She had been dead a long time. She was as white as paper and as flat as a board, and her thin ankle-length blue-and-gold dress didn't do a thing for her except accentuate both whiteness and flatness. Light brown hair (braided and long enough to tap her butt) and glittery green eyes emphasized her otherness.

"Yes." Vampires don't shake hands, but the two made eye contact and gave each other a curt nod.

"This is the woman?" She had probably gestured toward me with one of those lightning quick movements, because I caught a blur from the corner of my eyes.

"This is my companion and coworker, Sookie Stackhouse," Bill said.

After a moment, she nodded to show she was picking up the hint. "I am Isabel Beaumont," she said, "and after you take your luggage to your room and take care of your needs, you are to come with me."

Bill said, "I have to feed."

Isabel swiveled an eye toward me thoughtfully, no doubt wondering why I wasn't supplying blood for my escort, but it was none of her business. She said, "Just punch the telephone button for room service."

Measly old mortal me would just have to order from the menu. But as I considered the time frame, I realized I'd feel much better if I waited to eat after this evening's business was finished.

After our bags had been put in the bedroom (big enough for the coffin and a bed), the silence in the little living room became uncomfortable. There was a little refrigerator well stocked with PureBlood, but this evening Bill would want the real thing.

"I have to call, Sookie," Bill said. We'd gone over this before the trip.

"Of course." Without looking at him, I retreated into the bedroom and shut the door. He might have to feed off someone else so I could keep my strength up for coming events, but I didn't have to watch it or like it. After a few minutes, I heard a knock on the corridor door and I heard Bill admit someone – his Meal on Wheels. There was a little murmur of voices and then a low moan.

Unfortunately for my tension level, I had too much common sense to do something like throw my hairbrush or one of the damn high heels across the room. Maybe retaining some dignity figured in there, too, and a healthy sense of how much temperament Bill would put up with. So I unpacked my suitcase and laid my makeup out in the bathroom, using the facility even though I didn't feel especially needy. Toilets were optional in the vampire world, I'd learned, and even if a functional facility was available in a house occupied by vampires, occasionally they forgot to stock toilet paper.

Soon I heard the outer door open and close again, and Bill knocked lightly before coming into the bedroom. He looked rosy and his face was fuller.

"Are you ready?" he asked. Suddenly, the fact that I was going out on my first real job for the vampires hit me, and I felt scared all over again. If I wasn't a success, my life would become out-and-out perilous, and Bill might become even deader than he was now. I nodded, my throat dry with fear.

"Don't bring your purse."

"Why not?" I stared down at it, astonished. Who could object?

"Things can be hidden in purses." Things like stakes, I assumed. "Just slip a room key into… does that skirt have a pocket?"

"No."

"Well, slip the key into your underthings."

I raised my hem so Bill could see exactly what underthings I had to tuck something into. I enjoyed the expression on his face more than I can say.

"Those are… would that be a… thong?" Bill seemed a little preoccupied all of a sudden.

"It would. I didn't see the need to be professional down to the skin."

"And what skin it is," Bill murmured. "So tan, so… smooth."

"Yep, I figured I didn't need to wear any hose." I tucked the plastic rectangle – the "key" – under one of the side straps.

"Oh, I don't think it'll stay there," he said, his eyes large and luminous. "We might get separated, so you definitely need to take it with you. Try another spot."

I moved it somewhere else.

"Oh, Sookie. You'll never get at it in a hurry there. We have… ah, we have to go." Bill seemed to shake himself out of his trance.

"All right, if you insist," I said, smoothing the skirt of the suit over my "underthings."

He gave me a dark look, patted his pockets like men do, just to make sure they got everything. It was an oddly human gesture, and it touched me in a way I couldn't even describe to myself. We gave each other a sharp nod and walked down the corridor to the elevator. Isabel Beaumont would be waiting, and I had a distinct feeling she wasn't used to that.

The ancient vampire, who looked no more than thirty-five, was standing exactly where we'd left her. Here at the Silent Shore Hotel, Isabel felt free to be her vampire self, which included immobile downtime. People fidget. They are compelled to look engaged in an activity, or purposeful. Vampires can just occupy space without feeling obliged to justify it. As we came out of the elevator, Isabel looked exactly like a statue. You could have hung your hat on her, though you'd have been sorry.

Some early warning system kicked in when we were within six feet of the vamp. Isabel's eyes nicked in our direction and her right hand moved, as though someone had thrown her "on" switch. "Come with me," she said, and glided out the main door. Barry could hardly open it for her fast enough. I noticed he had enough training to cast his eyes down as she passed. Everything you've heard about meeting vampires' eyes is true.

Predictably, Isabel's car was a black Lexus loaded with options. Vampires won't go around in any Geo. Isabel waited until I'd buckled my seat belt (she and Bill didn't bother to use them) before pulling away from the curb, which surprised me. Then we were driving through Dallas, down a main thoroughfare. Isabel seemed to be the strong silent type, but after we'd been in the car for maybe five minutes, she seemed to shake herself, as if she had been reminded she had orders.

We began a curve to the left. I could see some sort of grassy area, and a vague shape that would be some kind of historical marker, maybe. Isabel pointed to her right with a long bony finger. "The Texas School Book Depository," she said, and I understood she felt obliged to inform me. That meant she had been ordered to do so, which was very interesting. I followed her finger eagerly, taking in as much of the brick building as I could see. I was surprised it didn't look more notable.

"That's the grassy knoll?" I breathed, excited and impressed. It was like I'd happened upon the Hindenburg or some other fabled artifact.

Isabel nodded, a barely perceptible movement that I only caught because her braid jerked. "There is a museum in the old depository," she said.

Now, that was something I'd like to see in the daytime. If we were here long enough, I'd walk or maybe find out how to catch a cab while Bill was in his coffin.

Bill smiled over his shoulder at me. He could pick up on my slightest mood, which was wonderful about eighty percent of the time.

We drove for at least twenty more minutes, leaving business areas and entering residential. At first the structures were modest and boxy; but gradually, though the lots didn't seem that much larger, the houses began to grow as if they'd taken steroids. Our final destination was a huge house shoehorned onto a small lot. With its little ruffle of land around the cube of the house, it looked ridiculous, even in the dark.

I sure could have stood a longer ride and more delay.

We parked on the street in front of the mansion, for so it seemed to me. Bill opened my door for me. I stood for a moment, reluctant to start the – project. I knew there were vampires inside, lots of them. I knew it the same way I would be able to discern that humans were waiting. But instead of positive surges of thought, the kind I'd get to indicate people, I got mental pictures of… how can I put it? There were holes in the air inside the house. Each hole represented a vampire. I went a few feet down the short sidewalk to the front door, and there, finally, I caught a mental whiff of human.

The light over the door was on, so I could tell the house was of beige brick with white trim. The light, too, was for my benefit; any vampire could see far better than the sharpest-eyed human. Isabel led the way to the front door, which was framed in graduating arches of brick. There was a tasteful wreath of grapevines and dried flowers on the door, which almost disguised the peephole: This was clever mainstreaming. I realized there was nothing apparent in this house's appearance to indicate that it was any different from any of the other oversized houses we'd passed, no outward indication that within lived vampires.

But they were there, in force. As I followed Isabel inside, I counted four in the main room onto which the front door opened, and there were two in the hall and at least six in the vast kitchen, which looked designed to produce meals for twenty people at a time. I knew immediately that the house had been purchased, not built, by a vampire, because vampires always plan tiny kitchens, or leave the kitchen out entirely. All they need is a refrigerator, for the synthetic blood, and a microwave, to heat it up. What are they going to cook?

At the sink, a tall, lanky human was washing a few dishes, so perhaps some humans did live here. He half-turned as we passed through, and nodded to me. He was wearing glasses and his shirtsleeves were rolled up. I didn't have a chance to speak, because Isabel was ushering us into what appeared to be the dining room.

Bill was tense. I might not be able to read his mind, but I knew him well enough to interpret the set of his shoulders. No vampire is ever comfortable entering another vamp's territory. Vampires have as many rules and regulations as any other society; they just try to keep them secret. But I was figuring things out.

Among all the vampires in the house, I quickly spotted the leader. He was one of those sitting at the long table in the large dining room. He was a total geek. That was my first impression. Then I realized that he was carefully disguised as a geek: he was quite… other. His sandy hair was slicked back, his physique was narrow and unimpressive, his black-rimmed glasses were sheer camouflage, and his pinstriped oxford cloth shirt was tucked into cotton-polyester blend pants. He was pale – well, duh – and freckled, with invisible eyelashes and minimal eyebrows.

"Bill Compton," the geek said.

"Stan Davis," Bill said.

"Yeah, welcome to the city." There was a faint trace of foreign accent in the geek's voice. He used to be Stanislaus Davidowitz, I thought, and then wiped my mind clean like a slate. If any of them found out that every now and then I picked a stray thought out of the silence of their minds, I'd be bloodless before I hit the floor.

Even Bill didn't know that.

I packed the fear down in the cellar of my mind as the pale eyes fixed on me and scrutinized me feature by feature.

"She comes in an agreeable package," he said to Bill, and I supposed that was meant to be a compliment, a pat on the back, for Bill.

Bill inclined his head.

Vampires didn't waste time saying a lot of things humans would under similar circumstances. A human executive would ask Bill how Eric, his boss, was doing; would threaten Bill a little in case I didn't perform; would maybe introduce Bill and me to at least the more important people in the room. Not Stan Davis, head vampire. He lifted his hand, and a young Hispanic vampire with bristly black hair left the room and returned with a human girl in tow. When she saw me, she gave a screech and lunged, trying to break free of the grip the vampire had on her upper arm.

"Help me," she shrieked. "You have to help me!"

I knew right away that she was stupid. After all, what could I do against a roomful of vampires? Her appeal was ridiculous. I told myself that several times, very fast, so I could go through with what I had to do.

I caught her eyes, and held up my finger to tell her to be silent. Once she'd looked at me, locked on to me, she obeyed. I don't have the hypnotic eyes of a vamp, but I don't look the least bit threatening. I look exactly like the girl you'd see in a low-paying job any place in any town in the South: blond and bosomy and tan and young. Possibly, I don't look very bright. But I think it's more that people (and vampires) assume that if you're pretty and blond and have a low-paying job, you are ipso facto dumb.

I turned to Stan Davis, very grateful that Bill was right behind me. "Mr. Davis, you understand that I need more privacy when I question this girl. And I have to know what you need from her."

The girl began to sob. It was slow and heartrending, and almost unbelievably irritating under the circumstances.

Davis's pale eyes fastened on mine. He was not trying to glamour me, or subdue me; he was just examining me. "I understood your escort knew the terms of my agreement with his leader," Stan Davis said. All right, I got the point. I was beneath contempt since I was a human. My talking to Stan