Charlaine Harris - Dead Ever After

In the meantime, Amelia was struggling to gain control of her fear. She was thinking of spells she could use to temporarily neutralize her father’s bodyguard. She was trying to remember if there were weapons around the house. Sookie had said something about a rifle in the coat closet by the front door, she remembered. Maybe it was still there. BARRY! she screamed in her head.

“Ow,” he said. “What you got, Amelia?”

Rifle in the front closet, maybe.

“The stair closet?” he yelled. Amelia was smart to send thoughts to him, but she couldn’t receive his.

No, the coat closet by the front door.

“Okay! Tyrese, listen to Amelia!” Barry began edging to his left, hoping Amelia would take his cue and distract Tyrese. He didn’t think there was a chance in hell he would get to the closet, find the rifle, understand how to use it, and shoot Tyrese Marley. But he had to try.

“Tyrese, please tell me what you’re doing here,” Amelia said steadily.

“I’m here,” said Tyrese, “because I’m waiting for Sookie Stackhouse to come home. When she does, I’m going to kill her.”

“Really!” Amelia said. “Why?”

“She’s why your dad got mad,” Tyrese said. “She took the thing he wanted so bad. So he said she had to die, and we came up here to do it. But we can’t get her alone. We don’t want to run her off the road; he wants a sure thing, he says. Shoot her, Tyrese, he says. She lost her vampire protection; no one will care.”

“I care,” Amelia said.

“Well, that’s the other thing; he wanted that fairy thing because he wanted to control you. Course, he called it ‘getting you back into his life,’ but we know better, huh? Now he’s so mad at Sookie, he doesn’t care what you want,” Tyrese said. The Glock was steady in his grip. It looked huge from where Amelia was standing, and she thought Bob standing between the gun and her was the bravest thing she’d ever seen.

“Where’s my dad, Tyrese?” Amelia asked, trying to keep his interest so Barry could get the gun. She turned her eyes very slightly to read the clock on the wall. Sookie should have finished her shift by now. She’d be on her way any minute. This whole pile of shit was Amelia’s father’s doing, and Amelia had to try every strategy she could devise to prevent her friend from getting killed. She wondered if she could cast a stunning spell without any herbs or preparation. It wasn’t like in the Harry Potter books, though she and every other witch of her acquaintance had often wished it were.

“He’s in our hotel room, far as I know. I went outside when I got a call from Gypsy’s sister on my cell phone. I walked around the corner so I could talk to her without Mr. Carmichael hearing me. He doesn’t like it when I get personal phone calls when I’m with him.”

“That’s kind of crazy,” Amelia said at random. She couldn’t turn around to see where Barry was, so she was prepared to keep on talking forever if she had to.

“That’s small stuff compared to his real crazy ideas,” Tyrese said, and laughed. “You come sit in this chair, Amelia.” He nodded at one of the kitchen chairs.

“Why?” she asked instantly.

“Doesn’t make any difference why. Because I told you to,” he said, giving her hard eyes. At that moment, Bob jumped Tyrese.

The boom of the Glock filled the room, and then there was blood. Amelia screamed until Barry clapped his hands over his ears, the horror in her thoughts beating at him. While he’d worked for the vampires in Texas, Barry had seen some bad shit, but Bob’s body in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor was way up there with the worst of those memories.

“See what the devil made me do?” said Tyrese, smiling slightly. “Amelia, you shut up now.”

Amelia clamped her mouth shut.

“You, whoever you are,” Tyrese said. “Come here now.”

Barry had run out of time and options. He went into the kitchen.

“Put Amelia in that chair.”

Barry, despite the fact that he was shaking and felt scared down to the marrow of his bones, managed to help Amelia to the chair. Amelia had blood spray on her arms and chest, and in her hair. She was as pale as a vampire. Barry thought she might faint. But she sat straight in the chair and stared at Tyrese as if she could bore a hole in him with her eyes.

Tyrese had groped around on the back porch while Amelia sat, and now he tossed a roll of duct tape at Barry. “Secure her,” he ordered.

Secure her , Barry thought. Like we’re in some kind of spy movie. Fuck him. I’ll kill him if I get the chance. Anything to avoid thinking about the bloody body at his feet.

Just as he was looking down at the thing he least wanted to see, he was sure Bob moved.

He wasn’t dead.

But it would only be a matter of time, if they didn’t get some help.

Barry realized appealing to Tyrese was a waste of breath. Tyrese was not in a merciful mood and might just kick Bob in the head or shoot him again. He hoped Amelia would have an idea, but her head was full of horror and regret and loss. Not a single idea in the place.

Barry had never secured anyone with duct tape before, but he bound Amelia’s wrists together behind the chair, and that would have to do.

“Now,” Tyrese said. “You sit on the floor and put your hand on that table leg.”

That would put him closer to Bob, and there was nothing Barry could do to help the witch. He sank to the floor and gripped the table leg with his left hand.

“Now duct tape your hand to the table,” Tyrese said.

With a lot of clumsy effort, Barry managed, ripping off the tape with his teeth.

“Scoot it across the floor to me,” Tyrese said, and Barry did.

Then there was nothing left to do.

“Now we wait,” said Tyrese.

“Tyrese,” Amelia said, “you ought to shoot my dad, not Sookie.”

She had everyone’s attention.

“It’s my dad who got you into this. It’s my dad who sold your soul to the devil. It’s my dad who doomed your girlfriend.”

“Your dad done everything he could for me,” Tyrese said stubbornly.

“My dad killed you,” Amelia said. Barry admired her courage and straight speaking, but Tyrese did not. He smacked Amelia across the face, and then he taped her mouth shut.

Barry thought Amelia was absolutely right. And maybe if Tyrese had had a chance to absorb the worst of his grief, he would have seen that, too. But in his rush to do something, anything, in the wake of hearing about Gypsy’s suicide, Tyrese had committed himself to this course of action, and he would not be dissuaded. He would never admit he’d done something so incredibly stupid.

You have to admit , Barry thought, that Tyrese is loyal, in a weird way.

Barry thought of Mr. Cataliades and hoped he’d be alerted to the fact that something was wrong in the house. He was tough. He could handle this situation. Or maybe when Sookie and Diantha pulled up, she’d hear Tyrese’s thoughts, though where she parked it was doubtful she’d be able to get a reading. But if she counted heads in the house, she might think something was off—though she’d have no reason to suspect danger.

Barry’s thoughts went around in circles as he tried to think of some way to extricate them all from this situation, some way that wouldn’t get them killed. Get him killed. He wasn’t much of a hero; he’d always known that about himself. He did good when it would not put him in peril; he believed that in this, he was like most people.

Suddenly Tyrese, who’d been leaning against the wall, straightened. Barry heard a car coming, and there was another sound, too. Was that a motorcycle? Sure sounded like one. Who could it be? Would the presence of other people be enough to stop Tyrese?