Dead Until Dark

with an expression so avid that I became worried.
    I went closer to the table, staring at Mack. Finally, I let down my guard and listened.
    Mack and Denise had been in jail for vampire draining.
    Deeply upset, I nevertheless automatically carried a pitcher of beer and some glasses to a raucous table of four. Since vampire blood was supposed to temporarily relieve symptoms of illness and increase sexual potency, kind of like prednisone and Viagra rolled into one, there was a huge black market for genuine, undiluted vampire blood. Where there’s a market there are suppliers; in this case, I’d just learned, the scummy Rat Couple. They’d formerly trapped vampires and drained them, selling the little vials of blood for as much as two hundred dollars apiece. It had been the drug of choice for at least two years now. Some buyers went crazy after drinking pure vampire blood, but that didn’t slow the market any.
    The drained vampire didn’t last long, as a rule. The Drainers left the vampires staked or simply dumped them out in the open. When the sun came up, that was all she wrote. From time to time, you read about the tables being turned when the vampire managed to get free. Then you got your dead Drainers.
    Now my vampire was getting up and leaving with the Rats. Mack met my eyes, and I saw him looking distinctly startled at the expression on my face. He turned away, shrugging me off like everyone else.
    That made me mad. Really mad.
    What should I do? While I struggled with myself, they were out the door. Would the vampire believe me if I ran after them, told him? No one else did. Or if by chance they did, they hated and feared me for reading the thoughts concealed in people’s brains. Arlene had begged me to read her fourth husband’s mind when he’d come in to pick her up one night because she was pretty certain he was thinking of leaving her and the kids, but I wouldn’t because I wanted to keep the one friend I had. And even Arlene hadn’t been able to ask me directly because that would be admitting I had this gift, this curse. People couldn’t admit it. They had to think I was crazy. Which sometimes I almost was!
    So I dithered, confused and frightened and angry, and then I knew I just had to act. I was goaded by the look Mack had given me—as if I was negligible.
    I slid down the bar to Jason, where he was sweeping DeeAnne off her feet. She didn’t take much sweeping, popular opinion had it. The trucker from Hammond was glowering from her other side.
    “Jason,” I said urgently. He turned to give me a warning glare. “Listen, is that chain still in the back of the pickup?”
    “Never leave home without it,” he said lazily, his eyes scanning my face for signs of trouble. “You going to fight, Sookie?”
    I smiled at him, so used to grinning that it was easy. “I sure hope not,” I said cheerfully.
    “Hey, you need help?” After all, he was my brother.
    “No, thanks,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. And I slipped over to Arlene. “Listen, I got to leave a little early. My tables are pretty thin, can you cover for me?” I didn’t think I’d ever asked Arlene such a thing, though I’d covered for her many times. She, too, offered me help. “That’s okay,” I said. “I’ll be back in if I can. If you clean my area, I’ll do your trailer.”
    Arlene nodded her red mane enthusiastically.
    I pointed to the employee door, to myself, and made my fingers walk, to tell Sam where I was going.
    He nodded. He didn’t look happy.
    So out the back door I went, trying to make my feet quiet on the gravel. The employee parking lot is at the rear of the bar, through a door leading into the storeroom. The cook’s car was there, and Arlene’s, Dawn’s, and mine. To my right, the east, Sam’s pickup was sitting in front of his trailer.
    I went out of the gravelled employee parking area onto the blacktop that surfaced the much larger customer lot to the west of the bar. Woods surrounded the clearing in which Merlotte’s stood, and the edges of the parking lot were mostly gravel. Sam kept it well lit, and the surrealistic glare of the high, parking lot lights made everything look strange.
    I saw the Rat Couple’s dented red sports car, so I knew they were close.
    I found Jason’s truck at last. It was black with custom aqua and pink swirls on the sides. He sure did love to be noticed. I pulled myself up by the tailgate and rummaged around in the bed for his chain, a thick length of links