Dead as a Doornail

culprit. About two seconds before Long Shadow would have ripped out my throat, Eric had executed the bartender with the traditional wooden stake. Killing another vampire is a very serious thing, I gathered, and Eric had had to pay a stiff fine—to whom, I hadn’t known, though now I was sure the money had gone to Hot Rain. If Eric had killed Long Shadow without any justification, other penalties would have come into play. I was content to let those remain a mystery.
    “What did Hot Rain want?” I said.
    “To let me know that though I had paid him the price set by the arbitrator, he didn’t consider himself satisfied.”
    “Did he want more money?”
    “I don’t think so. He seemed to think financial recompense was not all he required.” Eric shrugged. “As far as I’m concerned, the matter is settled.” Eric took a swallow of synthetic blood, leaned back in his chair, and looked at me with unreadable blue eyes. “And so is my little amnesia episode. The crisis is over, the witches are dead, and order is restored in my little piece of Louisiana. How have things been for you?”
    “Well, I’m here on business,” I said, and I put my business face on.
    “What can I do for you, my Sookie?” he asked.
    “Sam wants to ask you for something,” I said.
    “And he sends you to ask for it. Is he very clever or very stupid?” Eric asked himself out loud.
    “Neither,” I said, trying not to sound snippy. “He’s very leg-broken. That is to say, he got his leg broken last night. He got shot.”
    “How did this come about?” Eric’s attention sharpened.
    I explained. I shivered a little when I told him Sam and I had been alone, how silent the night had been.
    “Arlene was just out of the parking lot. She went on home without knowing a thing. The new cook, Sweetie—she’d just left, too. Someone shot him from the trees north of the parking lot.” I shivered again, this time with fear.
    “How close were you?”
    “Oh,” I said, and my voice shook. “I was real close. I’d just turned to . . . then he was . . . There was blood all over.”
    Eric’s face looked hard as marble. “What did you do?”
    “Sam had his cell phone in his pocket, thank God, and I held one hand over the hole in his leg and I dialed nine-one-one with the other.”
    “How is he?”
    “Well.” I took a deep breath and tried to make myself still. “He’s pretty good, all things considered.” I’d put that quite calmly. I was proud. “But of course, he’s down for a while, and so much . . . so many odd things have been happening at the bar lately. . . . Our substitute bartender, he just can’t handle it for more than a couple of nights. Terry’s kind of damaged.”
    “So what’s Sam’s request?”
    “Sam wants to borrow a bartender from you until his leg heals.”
    “Why’s he making this request of me, instead of the packmaster of Shreveport?” Shifters seldom got organized, but the city werewolves had. Eric was right: It would have been far more logical for Sam to make the request of Colonel Flood.
    I looked down at my hands wrapped around the ginger ale glass. “Someone’s gunning for the shifters and Weres inBon Temps,” I said. I kept my voice very low. I knew he would hear me through the music and the talk of the bar.
    Just then a man lurched up to the booth, a young serviceman from Barksdale Air Force Base, which is a part of the Shreveport area. (I pigeonholed him instantly from his haircut, fitness, and his running buddies, who were more or less clones.) He rocked on his heels for a long moment, looking from me to Eric.
    “Hey, you,” the young man said to me, poking my shoulder. I looked up at him, resigned to the inevitable. Some people court their own disaster, especially when they drink. This young man, with his buzz haircut and sturdy build, was far from home and determined to prove himself.
    There’s not much I dislike more than being addressed as “Hey, you” and being poked with a finger. But I tried to present a pleasant face to the young man. He had a round face and round dark eyes, a small mouth and thick brown brows. He was wearing a clean knit shirt and pressed khakis. He was also primed for a confrontation.
    “I don’t believe I know you,” I said gently, trying to defuse the situation.
    “You shouldn’t be sitting with a vamp,” he said. “Human girls shouldn’t go with dead guys.”
    How often had I heard that? I’d gotten an earful of this kind of crap