Charlaine Harris - Dead Ever After

In the dim, noisy cavern of the dance hall, we finally tracked down Jason and Michele. Michele had gone the tight-jeans-and-tube-top route, and she looked delicious. Jason, his blond hair carefully combed and styled, hadn’t decided on the cowboy hat, but he was ready to dance. That’s one ability both Jason and I inherited from our mom and dad. We sat down at the table, watching the dancing, for a while until we’d each had a drink. There are a hundred versions of “Cotton-Eyed Joe,” and one of my favorites was playing. My feet began to itch to get out on the dance floor. Jason was getting that itch, too; I could tell by the way his knees were jiggling.

“Let’s dance,” I called to Sam. Though he was right next to me, a raised voice was necessary. Sam was looking a little worried as he eyed the dancers. “I’m not that good,” he called back. “Why don’t you and Jason take a turn while me and Michele admire you?” Michele, who was able to hear the gist of the exchange, smiled and pushed Jason, so my brother and I went out onto the dance floor. I saw Sam watching, smiling, and I felt truly happy. I knew it might be only for a moment, but I was willing to take it when I could get it.

Jason and I stomped and sashayed and moved smoothly through all the steps in good synchronization, beaming at each other. We started out side by side, me in the outer ring, Jason in the inner, and as we circled, we moved away from Sam and Michele’s table at the back of the big room, and closer to the door. When the inner circle rotated a bit, I looked to my left to see my new partner—and recognized the Reverend Steve Newlin.

The shock almost knocked me down, and I lunged away from him with no plan except to put distance between us. But someone stopped me. An iron grip caught my arm and pulled me toward the door. Johan Glassport was much stronger than he looked, and before I knew it, I was on my way out into the parking lot. “Help!” I yelled to the big bouncer, and Xavier’s eyes widened and he stepped forward, his hand extended to Glassport’s shoulder. Without slowing down, Glassport shoved a knife into the poor man and yanked it out, and I filled my lungs with air and screamed like a banshee. I drew plenty of attention, but too late. From behind me, Newlin shoved me out the door, and Glassport dragged me to the van waiting there, engine idling.

He pulled the side door open and shoved me inside, launching himself in on top of me. From the flurry of knees and elbows, I could tell Glassport had jumped into the van, too. We took off. I could hear yelling behind us and even a gunshot.

I was gasping for air and sanity. I looked around me, trying to orient myself. I was in a large van with two small passenger and driver doors at the front, a larger side door. The back seats had been removed to create an empty, carpeted space. Only the driver’s seat was occupied.

From my position sprawled on the floor, I tried to identify the driver. He half turned to look down at me. His face was like a nightmare, scarred and twisted. I could see his teeth, though he wasn’t smiling, and I saw shiny red patches on his cheeks. Someone had burned this guy, recently and severely. Only his long black hair seemed familiar.

Then he started laughing.

Full of horror and pity, I said, “Shepherd of Judea! Claude, is that you?”

Chapter 21

My fairy cousin Claude was never supposed to see the human world again. Yet here he was, with two of my worst enemies, and he was kidnapping me. I lost it.

“How many enemies do I have?” I screamed.

“Lots and lots, Sookie,” Claude said. His voice was smooth and silky, but not warm. The seductive voice combined with the nightmare of a face . . . oh, it was horrible. “It was very easy to hire Steve and Johan to help me track you.”

Steve Newlin and Johan Glassport had sorted themselves out and were sitting against the walls, congratulating each other on a job well done. Steve was smiling the whole time. “I was glad to help,” he said, as if he’d taken out the garbage for Claude. “After what happened to my poor wife.”

“And I was glad to help,” Johan Glassport said, “just because I hate you, Sookie.”

“Why?” I really couldn’t understand it.

“You nearly ruined everything for Sophie-Anne and me at Rhodes,” he said. “And you didn’t come to get us when you knew the building was going to collapse. You got your pretty boy Eric, instead.”

“Sophie-Anne is dead, and it doesn’t make any difference,” I snapped. “I figured you were like a cockroach, you’d survive a nuclear blast!”

Okay, that maybe wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever said, but honestly! It was insane to think I’d run to help two people I didn’t particularly like when I knew the hotel was going to explode any second. Of course I’d gotten the people I had the strongest feelings for.

“Actually, I just like to hurt women,” Glassport said. “I don’t really need a reason. I like dark women better, but you’ll do. In a pinch.” And saying that, he poked the flesh of my arm with the knife. And I shrieked.

“We practically fell over the other guys who were after you,” Newlin said conversationally, as if I weren’t bleeding on the van floor. He’d pulled himself against the driver’s-side wall of the van. There was a strap there for him to hold on to, which he needed, because Claude was driving very fast, and he wasn’t a good driver. “But apparently you’ve taken care of them. And with the vampire on guard duty in your woods, we couldn’t watch you at night. So we knew God was being good to us when we saw our opportunity tonight.”

“Claude, what about you,” I said, hoping to put off Johan sticking me anymore. “Why do you hate me?”

“Niall was going to kill me, anyway, since I was trying to organize a coup against him. And that would have been a noble death. But after Dermot blabbed about me searching for the cluviel dor, my dear grandfather decided killing me was too quick. So he tortured me for quite some time.”

“It hasn’t been that long,” I protested.

“You’ve been tortured,” he said. “How long did that seem to you?”

Good point.

“Besides, we were in Faery, and time passes differently there. And the fae can take more punishment than humans.”

“Though we intend to discover your limits,” Glassport said.

“Where are we going?” I dreaded the answer.

“Oh, we’ve found a little place,” Glassport said. “Just down the road a piece.” He delivered the colloquialism mockingly.

Pam had wasted her blood healing me. I’d just have more flesh to torture. I don’t mind saying, I was at my wit’s end and then some. I didn’t know how fast Sam or Jason and Michele would be able to follow me, if they even had a clue which direction the van had taken. Maybe the furor over the abduction and the stabbing of the bouncer would impede them even getting out the door. And my guardian vampire, Karin, was back at my house, presumably making sure no coons came out of the woods to steal my tomatoes.

The first rule about kidnapping attempts is, Don’t get in the car. Well, we were already past that, though I’d given it a try. Probably the next rule was, Observe where you’re going. Oh, I knew that! We were going either north or south or east or west. I told myself not to be a Helpless Hilda, and I thought back. We’d turned to the right out of the parking lot, so we were going north. Okay. That should have been visible from Stompin’ Sally’s, because there weren’t many trees to obscure the line of sight . . . if anyone had had the presence of mind to watch.

I didn’t think Claude had made any turns since then, which even Claude would know was dumb, so we were going straight to whatever place they’d decided was secure, and it must be very close. I assumed they planned on getting there and concealing the van pretty quickly, before pursuit could even start out.