Шарлин Харрис - Dead until Dark

I looked down at myself. I was bloodstained and wrinkled, and I smelled funny. Yuck. I looked over at Bill to share my disgust with him, but he was looking at me in an unmistak­able way.

"No," I said forcefully. "You start this car and get out of here before anything else happens, Bill Compton. I tell you flat, I'm not in the mood."

He scooted across the seat toward me, his arms scooping me up before I could say anything else. Then his mouth was on mine, and after a second his tongue began licking the blood from my face.

I was really scared. I was also really angry. I grabbed his ears and pulled his head away from mine using every ounce of strength I possessed, which happened to be more than I thought I had.

His eyes were still like caves with ghosts dwelling in their depths.

"Bill!" I shrieked. I shook him. "Snap out of it!"

Slowly, his personality seeped back into his eyes. He drew a shuddering sigh. He kissed me lightly on the lips.

"Okay, can we go home now?" I asked, ashamed that my voice was so quavery.

"Sure," he said, sounding none too steady himself.

"Was that like sharks scenting blood?" I asked, after a fifteen-minute silent drive that almost had us out of Shreve­port.

"Good analogy."

He didn't need to apologize. He'd been doing what nature dictated, as least as natural as vampires got. He didn't bother to. I would kind of liked to have heard an apology.

"So, am I in trouble?" I asked finally. It was two in the morning, and I found the question didn't bother me as much as it should have.

"Eric will hold you to your word," Bill said. "As to whether he will leave you alone personally, I don't know. I wish..." but his voice trailed off. It was the first time I'd heard Bill wish for anything.

"Sixty thousand dollars isn't a lot of money to a vampire, surely," I observed. "You all seem to have plenty of money."

"Vampires rob their victims, of course," Bill said matter-of-factly. "Early on, we take the money from the corpse. Later, when we're more experienced, we can exert enough control to persuade a human to give us money willingly, then forget it's been done. Some of us hire money managers, some of us go into real estate, some of us live on the interest from our investments. Eric and Pam went in together on the bar. Eric put up most of the money, Pam the rest. They had known Long Shadow for a hundred years, and they hired him to be bartender. He betrayed them."

"Why would he steal from them?"

"He must have had some venture he needed the capital for," Bill said absently. "And he was in a mainstreaming position. He couldn't just go out and kill a bank manager after hypnotizing him and persuading the man to give him the money. So he took it from Eric."

"Wouldn't Eric have loaned it to him?"

"If Long Shadow hadn't been too proud to ask, yes," Bill said.

We had another long silence. Finally I said, "I always think of vampires as smarter than humans, but they're not, huh?"

"Not always," he agreed.

When we reached the outskirts of Bon Temps, I asked Bill to drop me off at home. He looked sideways at me, but didn't say anything. Maybe vampires were smarter than humans, after all.

THE NEXT DAY, when I was getting ready for work, I realized I was definitely off vampires for a while. Even Bill.

I was ready to remind myself I was a human.

The trouble was, I had to notice that I was a changed human.

It wasn't anything major. After the first infusion of Bill's blood on the night the Rats had beaten me, I'd felt healed, healthy, stronger. But not markedly different. Maybe more— well, sexier.

After my second draft of Bill's blood, I'd felt really strong, and I'd been braver because I'd had more confidence. I felt more secure in my sexuality and its power. It seemed appar­ent I was handling my disability with more aplomb and capa­bility.

I'd had Long Shadow's blood by accident. The next morn­ing, looking in the mirror, my teeth were whiter and sharper. My hair looked lighter and livelier, and my eyes were brighter. I looked like a poster girl for good hygiene, or some healthy cause like taking vitamins or drinking milk. The sav­age bite on my arm (Long Shadow's last bite on this earth, I realized) was not completely healed, but it was well on its way.

Then my purse spilled as I picked it up, and my changerolled under the couch. I held up the end of the couch with one hand while with the other I retrieved the coins.

Whoa.

I straightened and took a deep breath. At least the sunlight didn't hurt my eyes, and I didn't want to bite everyone I saw. I'd enjoyed my breakfast toast, rather than longing for tomato juice. I wasn't turning into a vampire. Maybe I was sort of an enhanced human?

Life had sure been simpler when I hadn't dated.

When I got to Merlotte's, everything was ready except for slicing the lemons and limes. We served the fruit both with mixed drinks and with tea, and I got out the cutting board and a sharp knife. Lafayette was tying on his apron as I got the lemons from the big refrigerator.

"You highlighted your hair, Sookie?"

I shook my head. Under the enveloping white apron, La­fayette was a symphony of color; he was wearing a fuschia thin-strap tee, dark purple jeans, red thong sandals, and he had sort of raspberry eye shadow on.

"It sure looks lighter," he said skeptically, raising his own plucked brows.

"I've been out in the sun a lot," I assured him. Dawn had never gotten along with Lafayette, whether because he was black or because he was gay, I didn't know ... maybe both. Arlene and Charlsie just accepted the cook, but didn't go out of their ways to be friendly. But I'd always kind of liked Lafayette because he conducted what had to be a tough life with verve and grace.

I looked down at the cutting board. All the lemons had been quartered. All the limes had been sliced. My hand was holding the knife, and it was wet with juices. I had done it without knowing it. In about thirty seconds. I closed my eyes. My God.

When I opened them, Lafayette was staring from my face to my hands.

"Tell me I didn't just see that, girlfriend," he suggested.

"You didn't," I said. My voice was cool and level, I was surprised to note. "Excuse me, I got to put these away." I put the fruit in separate containers in the big cooler behind the bar where Sam kept the beer. When I shut the door, Sam was standing there, his arms crossed across his chest. He didn't look happy.

"Are you all right?" he asked. His bright blue eyes scanned me up and down. "You do something to your hair?" he said uncertainly.

I laughed. I realized that my guard had slid into place easily, that it didn't have to be a painful process. "Been out in the sun," I said. "What happened to your arm?"

I looked down at my right forearm. I'd covered the bite with a bandage. "Dog bit me."

"Had it had its shots?"

"Sure."

I looked up at Sam, not too far, and it seemed to me his wiry, curly, red-blond hair snapped with energy. It seemed to me I could hear his heart beating. I could feel his uncer­tainty, his desire. My body responded instantly. I focussed on his thin lips, and the rich smell of his aftershave filled my lungs. He moved two inches closer. I could feel the breath going in and out of his lungs. I knew his penis was stiffening. Then Charlsie Tooten came in the front door and slammed it behind her. We both took a step away from each other. Thank God for Charlsie, I thought. Plump, dumb, good-natured, and hardworking, Charlsie was a dream employee. Married to Ralph, her high school sweetheart, who worked at one of the chicken processing plants, Charlsie had a girl in the eleventh grade and a married daughter. Charlsie loved to work at the bar so she could get out and see people, and she had a knack for dealing with drunks that got them out the door without a fight.