Club Dead

apparently knew Bill’s girlfriend was a barmaid at Merlotte’s in Bon Temps, but not her name. That’s why I’d been free to introduce myself as Sookie Stackhouse. If Russell knew Bill’s girlfriend was a telepath, and he discovered I was a telepath, who knew what would happen then?
    Actually, I could make a good guess.
    As I dithered, ashamed and frightened, the decision was made for me. The man with the black hair reached inside his coat and the fanaticism roiling in his head reached fever pitch. He pulled out the long sharpened piece of ash, and then a lot happened.
    I yelled, “STAKE!” and lunged for the fanatic’s arm, gripping it desperately with both my hands. The vampires and their humans whirled around looking for the threat, and the shifters and Weres wisely scattered to the walls to leave the floor free for the vampires. The tall man beat at me, his big hands pounding at my head and shoulders, and his dark-haired companion kept twisting his arm, trying to free it from my grasp. He heaved from side to side to throw me off.
    Somehow, in the melee, my eyes met those of the taller man, and we recognized each other. He was G. Steve Newlin, former leader of the Brotherhood of the Sun, a militant anti-vampire organization whose Dallas branch had more or less bit the dust after I’d paid it a visit. He was going to tell them who I was, I just knew it, but I had to pay attention to what the man with the stake was doing. I was staggering around on my heels, trying to keep my feet, when the assassin finally had a stroke of brilliance and transferred the stake from his pinned right hand to his free left.
    With a final punch to my back, Steve Newlin dashed for the exit, and I caught a flash of creatures bounding in pursuit. I heard lots of yowling and tweeting, and then the black-haired man threw back his left arm and plunged the stake into my waist on my right side.
    I let go of his arm then, and stared down at what he’d done to me. I looked back up into his eyes for a long moment, reading nothing there but a horror to mirror my own. Then Betty Joe Pickard swung back her gloved fist and hit him twice—boom-boom. The first blow snapped his neck. The second shattered his skull. I could hear the bones break.
    And then he went down to the floor, and since my legs were tangled with his, I went down, too. I landed flat on my back.
    I lay looking up at the ceiling of the bar, at the fan that was rotating solemnly above my head. I wondered why the fan was on in the middle of winter. I saw a hawk fly across the ceiling, narrowly avoiding the fan blades. A wolf came to my side and licked my face and whined, but turned and dashed away. Tara was screaming. I was not. I was so cold.
    With my right hand, I covered the spot where the stake entered my body. I didn’t want to see it, and I was scared I’d look down. I could feel the growing wetness around the wound.
    “Call nine-one-one!” Tara yelled as she landed on her knees beside me. The bartender and Betty Joe exchanged a look over her head. I understood.
    “Tara,” I said, and it came out like a croak. “Honey, all the shifters are changing. It’s full moon. The police can’t come in here, and they’ll come if anyone calls nine-one-one.”
    The shifter part just didn’t seem to register with Tara, who didn’t know such things were possible. “The vampires are not gonna let you die,” Tara said confidently. “You just saved one of them!”
    I wasn’t so sure about that. I saw Franklin Mott’s face above Tara. He was looking at me, and I could read his expression.
    “Tara,” I whispered, “you have to get out of here. This is getting crazy, and if there’s any chance the police are coming, you can’t be here.”
    Franklin Mott nodded in approval.
    “I’m not going to leave you until you have help,” Tara said, her voice full of determination. Bless her heart.
    The crowd around me consisted of vampires. One of them was Eric. I could not decipher his face.
    “The tall blond will help me,” I told Tara, my voice barely a rasp. I pointed a finger at Eric. I didn’t look at him for fear I’d read rejection in his eyes. If Eric wouldn’t help me, I suspected I would lie here and die on this polished wood floor in a vampire bar in Jackson, Mississippi.
    My brother, Jason, would be so pissed off.
    Tara had met Eric in Bon Temps, but their introduction had been on a very stressful night. She didn’t seem to identify the tall blond she’d met