Dead Reckoning: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

managed to cut Thalia’s arm off. Thalia grabbed it as it fell and hit Akiro with it, and Heidi jumped in behind him and stabbed him through the neck.
    Akiro dropped his sword to pluck at his throat, and I nipped in to seize the weapon so he couldn’t retrieve it. The sword was long, and not as heavy as I had anticipated. I stepped back to get it farther away from his groping hands, and just then Victor knocked Eric to the wall and pushed Pam down on her back, throwing himself on top of her right in front of me. He bit her neck, his hands locking her shoulders down.
    She looked up at me, her face eerily calm. “Do it,” she said.
    “No.” I might cut Pam.
    “Do it.” She was absolutely compelling. Her own hands flew up to grip Victor by his upper arms, locking him down.
    Eric was staggering to his feet, blood dripping from his head, his wounded arm, and his side. He’d bitten Victor at least once, going by his reddened mouth. I looked down at Pam, who was holding on to our enemy with everything she had. She nodded, turned her head to the side. She closed her eyes. I wished I could do the same. I took a breath and swung the sword down.

Chapter 16
    Pam shoved Victor off and leaped to her feet. I’d been so scared I’d kill Pam that I hadn’t been forceful enough. I hadn’t cut all the way through Victor, though I’d severed his spinal column. The sword stuck on the bone and I couldn’t remove it. Horrified at myself, at the sensation of cutting into Victor, I backpedaled and covered my mouth.
    Pam yanked the sword out of the wound and decapitated Victor.
    “Surrender,” Eric said to the gravely wounded Akiro.
    Akiro shook his head. The wound in his throat prevented him from speaking.
    “All right, then,” Eric said wearily. He grabbed Akiro’s head and broke his neck. The audible snap was deeply disgusting. I turned away, my stomach heaving while I told it to sit down and shut up. While Akiro lay helpless, Eric staked him.
    And it was over. Victor and all his vampire attendants—and his human attendants, too—were dead. There were enough flaking vampires to change the quality of the air.
    I sank down on a chair. Actually, I lost control of my legs and a chair happened to be underneath me.
    Thalia was weeping over the pain of her amputated arm, but she was struggling hard against this display of weakness. Indira squatted on the floor looking exhausted but gleeful. Maxwell Lee, Parker, and Rubio had lesser injuries. Pam and Eric were covered in blood, both their own and Victor’s. Palomino walked slowly over to Rubio and put her arms around him, drawing Parker into the embrace. Colton was kneeling by the dead Audrina, weeping.
    I never wanted to see another battle, large or small, in my life. I looked at my lover, my husband, and he looked like a stranger to me. He and Pam stood facing each other, holding hands and beaming through the blood. Then they simply collapsed into each other, and Pam began laughing in a breathless way. “It’s done!” she said. “It’s done. We’re free.”
    Until Felipe de Castro comes down on us like a ton of bricks because he wants to know what happened to his regent, I thought, but I didn’t say anything. A, I wasn’t sure I could. B, we’d already wondered what would happen, but Eric’s opinion was that it was better to ask forgiveness than permission.
    Mustapha was on his cell phone, which was about as big as a cricket. “Warren, no point in you coming in, man,” he said. “The deed is done. Good shot. Yeah, we got him.”
    Parker said, “Sheriff, we’re leaving for home unless you need us.” The weedy young man was supporting Palomino, and Rubio was on her other side. They were all pretty battered in one way or another.
    “You may go.” Eric, smeared with blood, was still very much the ruler. “You answered my call and did your jobs. You’ll be rewarded.”
    Palomino, Rubio, and Parker mutually assisted each other to the back door. From their expressions, I was sure they hoped Eric didn’t call them in again for a long, long time, no matter what the reward might be.
    Indira crawled over to Thalia to apply Thalia’s severed arm to its shoulder with force. She held it there, beaming. Indira was the happiest person in the club.
    “Will that work?” I asked Pam, nodding at the shoulder-arm conjunction. Pam was wiping the bloody sword on Akiro’s clothing. His throat was almost gone; wounded parts disintegrate more quickly than uninjured