Шарлин Харрис - Living Dead in Dallas

"Would there be a blanket in that cabin, you think?" I asked Sam. He trotted over to the steps, and I noticed the effect was interesting from behind. After a minute, he trotted back—wow, this view was even more arresting—and wrapped a blanket around the two of us.

"I must be gonna live," I muttered.

"Why do you say that?" Sam was curious. He didn't seem unduly surprised by the events of the night.

I could hardly tell him it was because I'd watched him bounce around, so I said, "How are Eggs and Andy?"

"Sounds like a radio show," Tara said suddenly, and giggled. I didn't like the sound of it.

"They're still standing where she left them," Sam reported. "Still staring."

"I'm—still—staring," Tara sang, to the tune of Elton's "I'm Still Standing."

Eric laughed.

He and Bill were just about to start the fire. They strolled over to us for a last-minute check.

"What car did you come in?" Bill asked Tara.

"Ooo, a vampire," she said. "You're Sookie's honey, aren't you? Why were you at the game the other night with a dog like Portia Bellefleur?"

"She's kind, too," Eric said. He looked down at Tara with a sort of beneficent but disappointed smile, like a dog breeder regarding a cute, but inferior, puppy.

"What car did you come in?" Bill asked again. "If there is a sensible side to you, I want to see it now."

"I came in the white Camaro," she said, quite soberly. "I'll drive it home. Or maybe I better not. Sam?"

"Sure, I'll drive you home. Bill, you need my help here?"

"I think Eric and I can cope. Can you take the skinny one?"

"Eggs? I'll see."

Tara gave me a kiss on the cheek and began picking her way across the yard to her car. "I left the keys in it," she called.

"What about your purse?" The police would surely wonder if they found Tara's purse in a cabin with a lot of bodies.

"Oh … it's in there."

I looked at Bill silently, and he went in to fetch the purse. He returned with a big shoulder bag, large enough to contain not only makeup and everyday items, but also a change of clothing.

"This is yours?"

"Yes, thanks," Tara said, taking the bag from him as if she were afraid his fingers might touch hers. She hadn't been so picky earlier in the evening, I thought.

Eric was carrying Eggs to her car. "He will not remember any of this," Eric told Tara as Sam opened the back door of the Camaro so Eric could lay Eggs inside.

"I wish I could say the same." Her face seemed to sag on its bones under the weight of the knowledge of what had happened this night. "I wish I'd never seen that thing, whatever she is. I wish I'd never come here, to start with. I hated doing this. I just thought Eggs was worth it." She gave a look to the inert form in the backseat of her car. "He's not. No one is."

"I can remove your memory, too." Eric made the offer offhandedly.

"No," she said. "I need to remember some of this, and it's worth carrying the burden of the rest." Tara sounded twenty years older. Sometimes we can grow up all in a minute; I'd done that when I was about seven and my parents died. Tara had done that this night.

"But they're all dead, all but me and Eggs and Andy. Aren't you afraid we'll talk? Are you gonna come after us?"

Eric and Bill exchanged glances. Eric moved a little closer to Tara. "Look, Tara," he began, in a very reasonable voice, and she made the mistake of glancing up. Then, once her gaze was fixed, Eric began to erase the memory of the night. I was just too tired to protest, as if that would do any good. If Tara could even raise the question, she shouldn't be burdened with the knowledge. I hoped she wouldn't repeat her mistakes, having been separated from the knowledge of what they had cost her; but she couldn't be allowed to tell tales.

Tara and Eggs, driven by Sam (who had borrowed Eggs's pants), were on their way back to town when Bill began arranging a natural-looking fire to consume the cabin. Eric was apparently counting bones up on the deck, to make sure the bodies there were complete enough to reassure the investigators. He went across the yard to check on Andy.

"Why does Bill hate the Bellefleurs so much?" I asked him again.

"Oh, that's an old story," Eric said. "Back from before Bill had even changed over." He seemed satisfied by Andy's condition and went back to work.

I heard a car approaching, and Bill and Eric both appeared in the yard instantly. I could hear a faint crackle from the far side of the cabin. "We can't start the fire from more than one place, or they may be able to tell it wasn't natural," Bill said to Eric. "I hate these strides in police science."

"If we hadn't decided to go public, they'd have to blame it on one of them," Eric said. "But as it is, we are such attractive scapegoats … it's galling, when you think of how much stronger we are."

"Hey, guys, I'm not a Martian, I'm a human, and I can hear you just fine," I said. I was glaring at them, and they were looking perhaps one-fiftieth embarrassed, when Portia Bellefleur got out of her car and ran to her brother. "What have you done to Andy?" she said, her voice harsh and cracking. "You damn vampires." She pulled the collar of Andy's shirt this way and that, looking for puncture marks.

"They saved his life," I told her.

Eric looked at Portia for a long moment, evaluating her, and then he began to search the cars of the dead revelers. He'd gotten their car keys, which I didn't want to picture.

Bill went over to Andy and said, "Wake up," in the quietest voice, so quiet it could hardly be heard a few feet away.

Andy blinked. He looked over at me, confused that I wasn't still in his grasp, I guess. He saw Bill, so close to him, and he flinched, expecting retaliation. He registered that Portia was at his side. Then he looked past Bill at the cabin.

"It's on fire," he observed, slowly.

"Yes," Bill said. "They are all dead, except the two who've gone back into town. They knew nothing."

"Then … these people did kill Lafayette?"

"Yes," I said. "Mike, and the Hardaways, and I guess maybe Jan knew about it."

"But I haven't got any proof."

"Oh, I think so," Eric called. He was looking down into the trunk of Mike Spencer's Lincoln.

We all moved to the car to see. Bill's and Eric's superior vision made it easy for them to tell there was blood in the trunk, blood and some stained clothes and a wallet. Eric reached down and carefully flipped the wallet open.

"Can you read whose it is?" Andy asked.

"Lafayette Reynold," Eric said.

"So if we just leave the cars like this, and we leave, the police will find what's in the trunk and it'll all be over. I'll be clear."

"Oh, thank God!" Portia said, and gave a kind of sobbing gasp. Her plain face and thick chestnut hair caught a gleam of moonlight filtering through the trees. "Oh, Andy, let's go home."

"Portia," Bill said, "look at me."

She glanced up at him, then away. "I'm sorry I led you on like that," she said rapidly. She was ashamed to apologize to a vampire, you could tell. "I was just trying to get one of the people who came here to invite me, so I could find out for myself what was going on."

"Sookie did that for you," Bill said mildly.

Portia's gaze darted over to me. "I hope it wasn't too awful, Sookie," she said, surprising me.

"It was really horrible," I said. Portia cringed. "But it's over."

"Thank you for helping Andy," Portia said bravely.

"I wasn't helping Andy. I was helping Lafayette," I snapped.

She took a deep breath. "Of course," she said, with some dignity. "He was your coworker."

"He was my friend, " I corrected.

Her back straightened. "Your friend," she said.

The fire was catching in the cabin now, and soon there would be police and firefighters. It was definitely time to leave.