Dead to the World

got between Jeff and the student and caught firm hold of both their wrists. I thought for a minute it would work, but Terry wasn’t as young or as active as he had been, and all hell broke loose.
    “You could stop this,” I said furiously to Mickey as I hurried past his and Tara’s table on my way to try to make peace.
    He sat back in his chair and sipped his drink. “Not my job,” he said calmly.
    I got that, but it didn’t endear the vampire to me, especially when the student whirled and took a swing at me as I approached him from behind. He missed, and I hit him over the head with my tray. He staggered to one side, maybe bleeding a little, and Terry was able to subdue Jeff LaBeff, who was looking for an excuse to quit.
    Incidents like this had been happening with more frequency, especially when Sam was gone. It was evident to me that we needed a bouncer, at least on weekend nights . . . and full-moon nights.
    The student threatened to sue.
    “What’s your name?” I asked.
    “Mark Duffy,” the young man said, clutching his head.
    “Mark, where you from?”
    “Minden.”
    I did a quick evaluation of his clothes, his demeanor, and the contents of his head. “I’m gonna enjoy calling your mama and telling her you took a swing at a woman,” I said. He blanched and said no more about suing, and he and his buds left soon after. It always helps to know the most effective threat.
    We made Jeff leave, too.
    Terry resumed his place behind the bar and began dispensing drinks, but he was limping slightly and had a strained look in his face, which worried me. Terry’s war experiences hadn’t left him real stable. I’d had enough trouble for one night.
    But of course the night wasn’t over yet.
    About an hour after the fight, a woman came into Merlotte’s. She was plain and plainly dressed in old jeans and a camo coat. She had on boots that had been wonderful when they’d been new, but that had been a long time ago. She didn’t carry a purse, and she had her hands thrust into her pockets.
    There were several indicators that made my mental antennae twitch. First of all, this gal didn’t look right. A local woman might dress like that if she were going hunting or doing farm work, but not to come to Merlotte’s. For an evening out at the bar, most women fixed themselves up. So this woman was in a working mode; but she wasn’t a whore by the same reasoning.
    That meant drugs.
    To protect the bar in Sam’s absence, I tuned in to her thoughts. People don’t think in complete sentences, of course, and I’m smoothing it out, but what was running through her head was along the order of: Three vials left getting old losing power gotta sell it tonight so I can get back to Baton Rouge and buy some more. Vampire in the bar if he catches me with vamp blood I’m dead. This town is a dump. Back to the city first chance I get .
    She was a Drainer, or maybe she was just a distributor. Vampire blood was the most intoxicating drug on the market, but of course vamps didn’t give it up willingly. Draining a vampire was a hazardous occupation, boosting prices of the tiny vials of blood to amazing sums.
    What did the drug user get for parting with a lot of money? Depending on the age of the blood—that is, the time since it’d been removed from its owner—and the age of the vampire from whom the blood had been removed, and the individual chemistry of the drug user, it could be quite a lot. There was the feeling of omnipotence, the increased strength, acute vision, and hearing. And most important of all for Americans, an enhanced physical appearance.
    Still, only an idiot would drink black-market vampire blood. For one thing, the results were notoriously unpredictable. Not only did the effects vary, but those effects could last anywhere from two weeks to two months. For another thing, some people simply went mad when the blood hit their system—sometimes homicidally mad. I’d heard of dealers who sold gullible users pig’s blood or contaminated human blood. But the most important reason to avoid the black market in vamp blood was this: Vampires hated Drainers, and they hated the users of the drained blood (commonly known as blood-heads). You just don’t want a vampire pissed off at you.
    There weren’t any off-duty police officers in Merlotte’s that night. Sam was out wagging his tail somewhere. I hated to tip off Terry, because I didn’t know how he’d react. I had to do something about this woman.
    Truly, I