Dead to the World

him I was sure someone was going to die tonight; maybe quite a few someones, human and Were and vampire. It was probably the last time I would use an endearment when I addressed Eric. It was perhaps the last time Eric would wake up in my house. One of us might not survive this night, and if we did, there was no way to know how we’d be changed.
    The drive to Shreveport was silent. We’d washed up and dressed without talking much, either. At least seven times, I thought of heading back to Bon Temps, with or without Eric.
    But I didn’t.
    Eric’s skills did not include map reading, so I had to pull over to check my Shreveport map to plot our course to 714 Parchman, something I hadn’t foreseen before we got to the city. (I’d somehow expected Eric to remember the directions, but of course, he didn’t.)
    “Your word of the day was ‘annihilate,’ ” he told me cheerfully.
    “Oh. Thanks for checking.” I probably didn’t sound very thankful. “You’re sounding pretty excited about all this.”
    “Sookie, there’s nothing like a good fight,” he said defensively.
    “That depends on who wins, I would think.”
    That kept him quiet for a few minutes, which was fine. I was having trouble negotiating the strange streets in the darkness, with so much on my mind. But we finally got to the right street, and the right house on that street. I had always pictured Pam and Chow living in a mansion, but the vampires had a large ranch-style house in an upper-middle-class suburb. It was a trimmed-lawn, bike-riding, lawn-sprinkling street, from what I could tell.
    The light by the driveway was on at 714, and the three-car garage around at the rear was full. I drove up the slope to the concrete apron that was placed for overflow parking. I recognized Alcide’s truck and the compact car that had been parked in Colonel Flood’s carport.
    Before we got out of my old car, Eric leaned over to kiss me. We looked at each other, his eyes wide and blue, the whites so white you could hardly look away, his golden hair neatly brushed. He’d tied it back with one of my elastic bands, a bright blue one. He was wearing a pair of jeans and a new flannel shirt.
    “We could go back,” he said. In the dome light of the car, his face looked hard as stone. “We could go back to your house. I can stay with you always. We can know each other’s bodies in every way, night after night. I could love you.” His nostrils flared, and he looked suddenly proud. “I could work. You would not be poor. I would help you.”
    “Sounds like a marriage,” I said, trying to lighten the atmosphere. But my voice was too shaky.
    “Yes,” he said.
    And he would never be himself again. He would be a false version of Eric, an Eric cheated out of his true life. Providing our relationship (such as it was) lasted, he would stay the same; but I wouldn’t.
    Enough with the negative thinking, Sookie, I told myself. I would be a total idiot to pass up living with this gorgeous creature for however long. We actually had a good time together, and I enjoyed Eric’s sense of humor and his company, to say nothing of his lovemaking. Now that he’d lost his memory, he was lots of uncomplicated fun.
    And that was the fly in the ointment. We would have a counterfeit relationship, because this was the counterfeit Eric. I’d come full loop.
    I slid out of the car with a sigh. “I’m a total idiot,” I said as he came around the back of the car to walk with me to the house.
    Eric didn’t say anything. I guess he agreed with me.
    “Hello,” I called, pushing open the door after my knock brought no response. The garage door led into the laundry room and from there into the kitchen.
    As you would expect in a vampire home, the kitchen was absolutely clean, because it wasn’t used. This kitchen was small for a house the size of this one. I guess the real estate agent had thought it was her lucky day—her lucky night—when she’d shown it to vampires, since a real family who cooked at home would have trouble dealing with a kitchen the size of a king bed. The house had an open floor plan, so you could see over the breakfast bar into the “family” room—in this case, the main room for a mighty odd family. There were three open doorways that probably led into the formal living room, the dining room, and the bedroom area.
    Right at the moment, this family room was crammed with people. I got the impression, from the glimpses of feet and arms, that more people