Dead to the World

held my hands over his ears. He permitted this, even putting his own hands on top of mine. I was going to pretend he couldn’t hear what I was going to say.
    “Listen, Chow, Pam. This is the worst idea of all time. I’ll tell you why.” I could hardly get the words out fast enough, emphatically enough. “How am I supposed to protect him? You know how this will end! I’ll get beaten up. Or maybe even killed.”
    Pam and Chow looked at me with twin blank expressions. They might as well have said, “Your point being?”
    “If my sister does this,” Jason said, disregarding me completely, “she deserves to get paid for it.”
    There was what you call a pregnant silence. I gaped at him.
    Simultaneously, Pam and Chow nodded.
    “At least as much as an informer would get if he called the phone number on the poster,” Jason said, his bright blue eyes going from one pale face to another. “Fifty thousand.”
    “Jason!” I finally found my voice, and I clamped my hands down even tighter over Eric’s ears. I was embarrassed and humiliated, without being able to figure out exactly why. For one thing, my brother was arranging my business as though it were his.
    “Ten,” Chow said.
    “Forty-five,” Jason countered.
    “Twenty.”
    “Thirty-five.”
    “Done.”
    “Sookie, I’ll bring you my shotgun,” Jason said.

Chapter 3
    “H OW DID THIS HAPPEN?” I ASKED THE FIRE, WHEN they were all gone.
    All except for the big Viking vampire I was supposed to preserve and protect.
    I was sitting on the rug in front of the fire. I’d just thrown in another piece of wood, and the flames were really lovely. I needed to think about something pleasant and comforting.
    I saw a big bare foot out of the corner of my eye. Eric sank down to join me on the hearth rug. “I think this happened because you have a greedy brother, and because you are the kind of woman who would stop for me even though she was afraid,” Eric said accurately.
    “How are you feeling about all this?” I never would have asked the compos mentis Eric this question, but he still seemed so different; maybe not the completely terrified mess he’d been the night before, but still very un-Eric. “I mean—it’s like you’re a package that they put in a storage locker, me being the locker.”
    “I am glad they are afraid enough of me to take good care of me.”
    “Huh,” I said intelligently. Not the answer I’d expected.
    “I must be a frightening person, when I am myself. Or do I inspire so much loyalty through my good works and kind ways?”
    I sniggered.
    “I thought not.”
    “You’re okay,” I said reassuringly, though come to think of it, Eric didn’t look like he needed much reassurance. However, now I was responsible for him. “Aren’t your feet cold?”
    “No,” he said. But now I was in the business of taking care of Eric, who so didn’t need taking care of. And I was being paid a staggering amount of money to do just that, I reminded myself sternly. I got the old quilt from the back of the couch and covered his legs and feet in green, blue, and yellow squares. I collapsed back onto the rug beside him.
    “That’s truly hideous,” Eric said.
    “That’s what Bill said.” I rolled over on my stomach and caught myself smiling.
    “Where is this Bill?”
    “He’s in Peru.”
    “Did he tell you he was going?”
    “Yes.”
    “Am I to assume that your relationship with him has waned?”
    That was a pretty nice way to put it. “We’ve been on the outs. It’s beginning to look permanent,” I said, my voice even.
    He was on his stomach beside me now, propped up on his elbows so we could talk. He was a little closer than I was comfortable with, but I didn’t want to make a big issue out of scooting over. He half turned to toss the quilt over both of us.
    “Tell me about him,” Eric said unexpectedly. He and Pam and Chow had all had a glass of TrueBlood before the other vampires left, and he was looking pinker.
    “You know Bill,” I told him. “He’s worked for you for quite a while. I guess you can’t remember, but Bill’s—well, he’s kind of cool and calm, and he’s really protective, and he can’t seem to get some things through his head.” I never thought I’d be rehashing my relationship with Bill with Eric, of all people.
    “He loves you?”
    I sighed, and my eyes watered, as they so often did when I thought of Bill—Weeping Willa, that was me. “Well, he said he did,” I muttered dismally. “But