Definitely Dead

there.
    “Yes,” I said.
    While we waited for the paramedics to come, Amelia and I leaned against each other wordlessly. Was this the second body I’d found in a closet, or the third? I wondered why I even opened closet doors any more.
    “We should have known,” Amelia said wearily. “When he didn’t smell at all, we should have known.”
    “Actually, I figured that out. Since it was only thirty seconds before he woke up, it didn’t do a hell of a lot of good,” I said. My voice was just as limp as hers.
    Everything got very confusing after that. I kept thinking it would be a good time to faint if I was ever going to, because this was really not a process I wanted to be in on, but I just couldn’t pass out. The paramedics were very nice young men who seemed to think we’d been partying with a vamp and it had gotten out of hand. I guessed neither of them would be calling Amelia or me for a date any time soon.
    “You don’t want to be messing with no vampires, cherie ,” said the man who was working on me. His name tag read DELAGARDIE. “They supposed to be so attractive to women, but you wouldn’t believe how many poor girls we’ve had to patch up. And that was the lucky ones,” Delagardie said grimly. “What’s your name, young lady?”
    “Sookie,” I said. “Sookie Stackhouse.”
    “Pleased to meet you, Miss Sookie. You and your friend seem like nice girls. You need to hang with better people, live people. This city’s overrun with the dead, now. It was better when everyone here was breathing, I tell you the truth. Now let’s get you to the hospital and get you stitched up. I’d shake your hand if you wasn’t all bloody,” he said. He gave me a sudden smile, white-toothed and charming. “I’m giving you good advice for free, pretty lady.”
    I smiled, but it was the last time I was going to be doing that for a while. The pain was beginning to make itself felt. Very quickly, I became preoccupied with coping.
    Amelia was a real warrior. Her teeth were gritted as she fought to keep herself together, but she managed all the way to the hospital. The emergency room seemed to be packed. By a combination of bleeding, being escorted by cops, and the friendly Delagardie and his partner putting in a word for us, Amelia and I got put in curtained cubicles right away. We weren’t adjacent to each other, but we were in line to see a doctor. I was grateful. I knew that had to be quick, for an urban emergency room.
    As I listened to the bustle around me, I tried not to swear at the pain in my arm. In moments when it wasn’t throbbing as much, I wondered what had happened to Jake Purifoy. Had the vampire cops taken him to a vampire cell at the jail, or was everything excused since he was a brand new vamp with no guidance? There’d been a law passed about that, but I couldn’t remember the terms and strictures. It was hard for me to be too concerned. I knew the young man was a victim of his new state; that the vampire who had made him should have been there to guide him through his first wakening and hunger. The vampire to blame was most likely my cousin Hadley, who had hardly expected to be murdered. Only Amelia’s stasis spell on the apartment had kept Jake from rising months ago. It was a strange situation, probably unprecedented even in vampire annals. And a werewolf who’d become a vampire! I’d never heard tell of such a thing. Could he still change?
    I had a while to think about that and quite a few other things, since Amelia was too far away for conversation, even if she’d been up to it. After about twenty minutes, during which time I was disturbed only by a nurse who wrote down some information, I was surprised to see Eric peer around the curtain.
    “May I come in?” he asked stiffly. His eyes were wide and he was speaking carefully. I realized that to a vampire, the smell of blood in the emergency room was enchanting and pervasive. I caught a glimpse of his fangs.
    “Yes,” I said, puzzled by Eric’s presence in New Orleans. I wasn’t really in an Eric mood, but there was no point in telling the former Viking he couldn’t come into the curtained area. This was a public building, and he wasn’t bound by my words. Anyway, he could simply stand outside and talk to me through the cloth until he found out whatever he’d come to discover. Eric was nothing if not persistent. “What on earth are you doing here in town, Eric?”
    “I drove down to bargain with the queen for your