Club Dead

only insurance I had against being annexed by another vampire, against my will.
    After I’d run a couple of loads through the washer and dryer and folded the clothes, I felt much more relaxed. I was almost packed, and I’d put in a couple of romances and a mystery in case I got a little time to read. I am self-educated from genre books.
    I stretched and yawned. There was a certain peace of mind to be found in having a plan, and my uneasy sleep of the past day and night had not refreshed me as much as I thought. I might be able to fall asleep easily.
    Even without help from the vampires, I could maybe find Bill, I thought, as I brushed my teeth and climbed into bed. But breaking him out of whatever prison he was in and making a successful escape, that was another question. And then I’d have to decide what to do about our relationship.
    I woke up at about four in the morning with an odd feeling there was an idea just waiting to be acknowledged. I’d had a thought at some point during the night; it was the kind of idea that you just know has been bubbling in your brain, waiting to boil over.
    Sure enough, after a minute the idea resurfaced. What if Bill had not been abducted, but had defected? What if he’d become so enamored or addicted to Lorena that he’d decided to leave the Louisiana vampires and join with the Mississippi group? Immediately, I had doubts that that had been Bill’s plan; it would be a very elaborate one, with the leakage of informants to Eric concerning Bill’s abduction, the confirmed presence of Lorena in Mississippi. Surely there’d be a less dramatic, and simpler, way to arrange his disappearance.
    I wondered if Eric, Chow, and Pam were even now searching Bill’s house, which lay across the cemetery from mine. They weren’t going to find what they were looking for. Maybe they’d come back here. They wouldn’t have to get Bill back at all, if they could find the computer files the queen wanted so badly. I fell to sleep out of sheer exhaustion, thinking I heard Chow laugh outside.
    Even the knowledge of Bill’s betrayal did not stop me from searching for him in my dreams. I must have rolled over three times, reaching out to see if he’d slid into bed with me, as he often did. And every time, the other side of the bed was empty and cold.
    However, that was better than finding Eric there instead.
    I was up and showering at first light, and I’d made a pot of coffee before the knock at the front door came.
    “Who is it?” I stood to one side of the door as I asked.
    “Eric sent me,” a gruff voice said.
    I opened the door and looked up. And looked up some more.
    He was huge. His eyes were green. His tousled hair was curly and thick and black as pitch. His brain buzzed and pulsed with energy; kind of a red effect. Werewolf.
    “Come on in. You want some coffee?”
    Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t what he was seeing. “You bet, chere. You got some eggs? Some sausage?”
    “Sure.” I led him to the kitchen. “I’m Sookie Stackhouse,” I said, over my shoulder. I bent over to get the eggs out of the refrigerator. “You?”
    “Alcide,” he said, pronouncing it Al-see, with the d barely sounded. “Alcide Herveaux.”
    He watched me steadily while I lifted out the skillet—my grandmother’s old, blackened iron skillet. She’d gotten it when she got married, and fired it, like any woman worth her salt would do. Now it was perfectly seasoned. I turned the gas eye on at the stove. I cooked the sausage first (for the grease), plopped it on a paper towel on a plate and stuck it in the oven to keep warm. After asking Alcide how he wanted the eggs, I scrambled them and cooked them quickly, sliding them onto the warm plate. He opened the right drawer for the silverware on the first try, and poured himself some juice and coffee after I silently pointed out which cabinet contained the cups. He refilled my mug while he was at it.
    He ate neatly. And he ate everything.
    I plunged my hands into the hot, soapy water to clean the few dishes. I washed the skillet last, dried it, and rubbed some Crisco into the blackness, taking occasional glances at my guest. The kitchen smelled comfortably of breakfast and soapy water. It was a peculiarly peaceful moment.
    This was anything but what I had expected when Eric had told me someone who owed him a favor would be my entrée into the Mississippi vampire milieu. As I looked out the kitchen window at the cold landscape, I realized that this