Dead in the Family

and talking dead were much more dangerous. I’d cut a rose to lay on my grandmother’s grave. I felt sure she knew I was there and thinking of her.
    There was a dim light on at the old Compton house, which had been built about the same time my house had been. I rang the doorbell. Unless Bill was out in the woods roaming around, I was sure he was home since his car was there. But I had to wait some time until the creaking door swung open.
    He switched on the porch light, and I tried not to gasp. He looked awful.
    Bill had gotten infected with silver poisoning during the Fae War, thanks to the silver teeth of Neave. He’d had massive amounts of blood then—and since—from his fellow vampires, but I observed with some unease that his skin was still gray instead of white. His step was faltering, and his head hung a little forward like an old man’s.
    “Sookie, come in,” he said. Even his voice didn’t seem as strong as it had been.
    Though his words were polite, I couldn’t tell how he really felt about my visit. I can’t read vampire minds, one of the reasons I’d initially been so attracted to Bill. You can imagine how intoxicating silence is after nonstop unwanted sharing.
    “Bill,” I said, trying to sound less shocked than I felt. “Are you feeling better? This poison in your system . . . Is it going away?”
    I could swear he sighed. He gestured me to precede him into the living room. The lamps were off. Bill had lit candles. I counted eight. I wondered what he’d been doing, sitting alone in the flickering light. Listening to music? He loved his CDs, particularly Bach. Feeling distinctly worried, I sat on the couch, while Bill took his favorite chair across the low coffee table. He was as handsome as ever, but his face lacked animation. He was clearly suffering. Now I knew why Sam had wanted me to visit.
    “You are well?” he asked.
    “I’m much better,” I said carefully. He’d seen the worst they’d done to me.
    “The scars, the . . . mutilation?”
    “The scars are there, but they’re much fainter than I ever expected they’d be. The missing bits have filled in. I kind of have a dimple in this thigh,” I said, tapping my left knee. “But I had plenty of thigh to spare.” I tried to smile, but truthfully, I was too concerned to manage it. “Are you getting better?” I asked again, hesitantly.
    “I’m not worse,” he said. He shrugged, a minimal lift of the shoulders.
    “What’s with the apathy?” I said.
    “I don’t seem to want anything any longer,” Bill told me, after a lengthy pause. “I’m not interested in my computer anymore. I’m not inclined to work on the incoming additions and subtractions to my database. Eric sends Felicia over to package up the orders and send them out. She gives me some blood while she’s here.” Felicia was the bartender at Fangtasia. She hadn’t been a vampire that long.
    Could vampires suffer from depression? Or was the silver poisoning responsible?
    “Isn’t there anyone who can help you? I mean, help you heal?”
    He smiled in a sardonic sort of way. “My creator,” he said. “If I could drink from Lorena, I would have healed completely by now.”
    “Well, that sucks.” I couldn’t let him know that bothered me, but ouch . I’d killed Lorena. I shook the feeling off. She’d needed killing, and it was over and done with. “Did she make any other vampires?”
    Bill looked slightly less apathetic. “Yes, she did. She has another living child.”
    “Well, would that help? Getting blood from that vamp?”
    “I don’t know. It might. But I won’t . . . I can’t reach out to her.”
    “You don’t know if it would help or not? You-all need a Handy Hints rule book or something.”
    “Yes,” he said, as if he’d never heard of such an idea. “Yes, we do indeed.”
    I wasn’t going to ask Bill why he was reluctant to contact someone who could help him. Bill was a stubborn and persistent man, and I wasn’t going to be able to persuade him otherwise since he’d made up his mind. We sat in silence for a moment.
    “Do you love Eric?” Bill said, all of a sudden. His deep brown eyes were fi xed on me with the total attention that had played a large part in attracting me to him when we’d met.
    Was everyone I knew fixated on my relationship with the sheriff of Area Five? “Yes,” I said steadily. “I do love him.”
    “Does he say he loves you?”
    “Yes.” I didn’t look away.
    “I wish he would die, some