Шарлин Харрис - Living Dead in Dallas

"Oh," she said as happily as though she'd just gotten a present, "you're so proud! Are you a king? Are you a great soldier?"

"No," Mike said. "I own a funeral home." He didn't sound too sure. "What are you, lady?"

"Have you ever seen anything like me before?"

"No," he said, and all the others shook their heads.

"You don't remember my first visit?"

"No, ma'am."

"But you've made me an offering before."

"I have? An offering?"

"Oh, yes, when you killed the little black man. The pretty one. He was a lesser child of mine, and a fitting tribute for me. I thank you for leaving him outside the drinking place; bars are my particular delight. Could you not find me in the woods?"

"Lady, we didn't make no offering," Tom Hardaway said, his dark skin all over goose pimples and his penis gone south.

"I saw you," she said.

Everything fell silent then. The woods around the lake, always full of little noises and tiny movements, became still. I very carefully rose to my feet beside Bill.

"I love the violence of sex, I love the reek of drink," she said dreamily. "I can run from miles away to be there for the end."

The fear pouring out of their heads began to fill mine up, and run out. I covered my face with my hands. I threw up the strongest shields I could fashion, but I could still barely contain the terror. My back arched, and I bit my tongue to keep from making a sound. I could feel the movement as Bill turned to me, and then Eric was by his side and they were both mashing me between them. There is not a thing erotic about being pressed between two vampires under those circumstances. Their own urgent desire for my silence fed the fear, because what would frighten vampires? The dog pressed against our legs as if he offered us protection.

"You hit him during sex," the maenad said to Tom. "You hit him, because you are proud, and his subservience disgusted and excited you." She stretched her bony hand to caress Tom's dark face. I could see the whites of his eyes. "And you"—she patted Mike with her other hand—"you beat him, too, because you were seized with the madness. Then he threatened to tell." Her hand left Tom and rubbed his wife, Cleo. Cleo had thrown on a sweater before she went out, but it wasn't buttoned.

Since she had avoided notice, Tara began backing up. She was the only one who wasn't paralyzed by fear. I could feel the tiny spark of hope in her, the desire to survive. Tara crouched under a wrought-iron table on the deck, made herself into a little ball, and squeezed her eyes shut. She was making a lot of promises to God about her future behavior, if he'd get her out of this. That poured into my mind, too. The reek of fear from the others built to a peak, and I could feel my body go into tremors as they broadcast so heavily that it broke through all my barriers. I had nothing left of myself. I was only fear. Eric and Bill locked arms with each other, to hold me upright and immobile between them.

Jan, in her nudity, was completely ignored by the maenad. I can only suppose that there was nothing in Jan that appealed to the creature; Jan was not proud, she was pathetic, and she hadn't had a drink that night. She embraced sex out of other needs than the need for its loss of self—needs that had nothing to do with leaving one's mind and body for a moment of wonderful madness. Trying, as always, to be the center of the group, Jan reached out with a would-be flirty smile and took the maenad's hand. Suddenly she began to convulse, and the noises coming from her throat were horrible. Foam came from her mouth, and her eyes rolled up. She collapsed to the deck, and I could hear her heels drumming the wood.

Then the silence resumed. But something was brewing a few yards away in the little group on the deck: something terrible and fine, something pure and horrible. Their fear was subsiding, and my body began to calm again. The awful pressure eased in my head. But as it ebbed, a new force began to build, and it was indescribably beautiful and absolutely evil.

It was pure madness, it was mindless madness. From the maenad poured the berserker rage, the lust of pillage, the hubris of pride. I was overwhelmed when the people on the deck were overwhelmed, I jerked and thrashed as the insanity rolled off Callisto and into their brains, and only Eric's hand across my mouth kept me from screaming as they did. I bit him and tasted his blood, and heard him grunt at the pain.

It went on and on and on, the screaming, and then there were awful wet sounds. The dog, pressed against our legs, whimpered.

Suddenly, it was over.

I felt like a dancing puppet whose strings have suddenly been severed. I went limp. Bill laid me down on Eric's car hood again. I opened my eyes. The maenad looked down at me. She was smiling again, and she was drenched in blood. It was like someone had poured a bucket of red paint over her head; her hair was drenched, as was every bit of her bare body, and she reeked of the copper smell, enough to set your teeth on edge.

"You were close," she said to me, her voice as sweet and high as a flute. She moved a little more deliberately, as if she'd eaten a heavy meal. "You were very close. Maybe as close as you'll ever come, maybe not. I've never seen anyone maddened by the insanity of others. An entertaining thought."

"Entertaining for you, maybe," I gasped. The dog bit my leg to bring me to myself. She looked down at him.

"My dear Sam," she murmured. "Darling, I must leave you."

The dog looked up at her with intelligent eyes.

"We've had some good nights running through the woods," she said, and stroked his head. "Catching little rabbits, little coons."

The dog wagged his tail.

"Doing other things."

The dog grinned and panted.

"But it's time for me to go, darling. The world is full of woods and people that need to learn their lesson. I must be paid tribute. They mustn't forget me. I'm owed," she said, in her sated voice, "owed the madness and death." She began to drift to the edge of the woods.

"After all," she said over her shoulder, "it can't always be hunting season."

Even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't have walked over to see what was on the deck. Bill and Eric seemed subdued, and when vampires seem subdued, it means you don't really want to go investigate.

"We'll have to burn the cabin," Eric said from a few yards away. "I wish Callisto had taken care of her own mess."

"She never has," Bill said, "that I have heard. It is the madness. What does true madness care about discovery?"

"Oh, I don't know," Eric said carelessly. He sounded as if he was lifting something. There was a heavy thud. "I have seen a few people who were definitely mad and quite crafty with it."

"That's true," Bill said. "Shouldn't we leave a couple of them on the porch?"

"How can you tell?"

"That's true, too. It's a rare night I can agree with you this much."

"She called me and asked me to help." Eric was responding to the subtext rather than the statement.

"Then, all right. But you remember our agreement."

"How can I forget?"

"You know Sookie can hear us."

"Quite all right with me," Eric said, and laughed. I stared up at the night and wondered, not too curiously, what the hell they were talking about. It's not like I was Russia, to be parceled out to the strongest dictator. Sam was resting beside me, back in his human form, and stark naked. At the moment, I could not have cared less. The cold didn't bother Sam, since he was a shapeshifter.

"Whoops, here's a live one," Eric called.

"Tara," Sam called.

Tara scrambled down the steps of the deck and over to us. She flung her arms around me and began sobbing. With tremendous weariness, I held her and let her boo-hoo. I was still in my Daisy Duke outfit, and she was in her fire-engine lingerie. We were like big white water lilies in a cold pond, we two. I made myself straighten up and hold Tara.