Шарлин Харрис - Definitely Dead

Oh. Male pride. "You got my hands free," I pointed out. "And you can help me now."

"How?" he turned to me, and he was deeply upset. I realized that he was a guy who took his protecting very seriously. It was one of God's mysterious imbalances, that men are stronger than women. My grandmother told me it was his way of balancing the scales, since women are tougher and more resilient. I'm not sure that's true, but I knew that Quinn, perhaps because he was a big, formidable guy and, perhaps because he was a weretiger who could turn into this fabulously beautiful and lethal beast, was in a funk because he hadn't killed all our attackers and saved me from being sullied by their touch.

I myself would have preferred that scenario a lot, especially considering our present predicament. But events hadn't fallen out that way. "Quinn," I said, and my voice was just as weary as the rest of me, "they have to have been heading somewhere around here. Somewhere in this swamp."

"That's why we turned off," he said in agreement. I saw a snake twined around a tree branch overhanging the water right behind him, and my face must have looked as shocked as I felt, because Quinn whipped around faster than I could think and had that snake in his hand and snapped it once, twice, and then the snake was dead and floating away in the sluggish water. He seemed to feel a lot better after that. "We don't know where we're going, but we're sure it's away from them. Right?" he asked.

"There aren't any other brains up and running in my range," I said, after a moment's checking. "But I've never denned how big my range is. That's all I can tell you. Let's try to get out of the water for a minute while we think, okay?" I was shivering all over.

Quinn slogged through the water and gathered me up. "Link your arms around my neck," he said.

Sure, if he wanted to do the man thing, that was fine. I put my arms around his neck and he began moving through the water.

"Would this be better if you turned into a tiger?" I asked.

"I might need that later, and I've already partially changed twice today. I better save my strength."

"What kind are you?"

"Bengal," he said, and just then the pattering of the rain on the water stopped.

We heard voices calling then, and we came to a stop in the water, both of our faces turned to the source of the sound. As we were standing there stock-still, I heard something large slide into the water to our right. I swung my eyes in that direction, terrified of what I'd see—but the water was almost still, as if something had just passed. I knew there were tours of the bayous south of New Orleans, and I knew locals made a good living out of taking people out on the dark water and letting them see the alligators. The good thing was, these natives made money, and out-of-staters got to see something they'd never have seen otherwise. The bad thing was, sometimes the locals threw treats to attract the gators. I figured the gators associated humans with food.

I laid my head on Quinn's shoulder and I closed my eyes. But the voices didn't get any closer, and we didn't hear the baying of wolves, and nothing bit my leg to drag me down. "That's what gators do, you know," I told Quinn. "They pull you under and drown you, and stick you somewhere so they can snack on you."

"Babe, the wolves aren't going to eat us today, and neither will the gators." He laughed, a low rumble deep in his chest. I was so glad to hear that sound. After a moment, we began moving through the water again. The trees and the bits of land became close together, the channels narrow, and finally we came up on a piece of land large enough to hold a cabin.

Quinn was half supporting me when we staggered out of the water.

As shelter, the cabin was poor stuff. Maybe the structure had once been a glorified hunting camp, three walls and a roof, no more than that. Now it was a wreck, halfway fallen. The wood had rotted and the metal roof had bent and buckled, rusting through in spots. I went over to the heap of man-tailored material and searched very carefully, but there didn't seem to be anything we could use as a weapon.

Quinn was occupied by ripping the remnants of the duct tape off his wrists, not even wincing when some skin went with it. I worked on my own more gently. Then I just gave out.

I slumped dismally to the ground, my back against a scrubby oak tree. Its bark immediately began making deep impressions in my back. I thought of all the germs in the water, germs that were doubtless speeding through my system the moment they'd gained entry through the cuts on my wrists. The unhealed bite, still covered by a now-filthy bandage, had doubtless received its share of nasty particles. My face was swelling up from the beating I'd taken. I remembered looking in the mirror the day before and seeing that the marks left by the bitten Weres in Shreveport had finally almost faded away. Fat lot of good that had done me.

"Amelia should have done something by now," I said, trying to feel optimistic. "She probably called vampire HQ. Even if our own phone call didn't reach anyone who'd do something about it, maybe someone's looking for us now."

"They'd have to send out human employees. It's still technically daylight, even though the sky's so dark."

"Well, at least the rain's over with," I said. At that moment, it began to rain again.

I thought about throwing a fit, but frankly, it didn't seem worth using up the energy. And there was nothing to do about it. The sky was going to rain, no matter how many fits I threw. "I'm sorry you got caught up in this," I said, thinking that I had a lot for which to apologize.

"Sookie, I don't know if you should be telling me you're sorry." Quinn emphasized the pronouns. "Everything has happened when we were together."

That was true, and I tried to believe all this wasn't my fault. But I was convinced that somehow, it really was.

Out of the blue, Quinn said, "What's your relationship with Alcide Herveaux? We saw him in the bar last week with some other girl. But the cop, the one in Shreveport, said you'd been engaged to him."

"That was bullshit," I said, sitting slumped in the mud. Here I was, deep inside a southern Louisiana swamp, the rain pelting down on me…

Hey, wait a minute. I stared at Quinn's mouth moving, realized he was saying something, but waited for the trailing end of a thought to snag on something. If there'd been a lightbulb above my head, it would have been flashing. "Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea," I said reverently. "That's who's doing this."

Quinn squatted in front of me. "You've picked who's been doing what? How many enemies do you have?"

"At least I know who sent the bitten Weres, and who had us kidnapped," I said, refusing to be sidetracked. Crouched together in the downpour like a couple of cave people, Quinn listened while I talked.

Then we discussed probabilities.

Then we made a plan.

Once he knew what he was doing, Quinn was relentless. Since we couldn't be any more miserable than we already were, he decided we might as well be moving. While I did little more than follow him and stay out of his way, he began to scour the area for smells. Finally he got tired of crouching, and he said, "I'm going to change." He stripped quickly and efficiently, rolling the clothes into a compact (but sopping) bundle and handing them to me to carry. Every conjecture I'd had about Quinn's body was absolutely on target, I was pleased to note. He'd begun taking off his clothes without a single hesitation, but once he noticed I was looking, he held still and let me look. Even in the dark, dripping rain, he was worth it. Quinn's body was a work of art, though a scarred work of art. He was one large block of muscle, from his calves to his neck.

"Do you like what you see?" he asked.