From Dead to Worse

black outfit?”
    “Oh, as good as Beckinsale,” Amelia said, and turned her head to smile at Pam. They were at the ooey-gooey stage. Considering my own complete lack of ooey, I didn’t want to be around.
    “Did Eric find out any more about that Jonathan guy?” I asked.
    “I don’t know. Why don’t you call him yourself?” Pam said with a complete lack of concern.
    “Right, you’re off duty,” I muttered, and stomped back to my room, grumpy and a little ashamed of myself. I punched in the number for Fangtasia without even having to look it up. So not good. And it was on speed dial on my cell phone. Geez. Not something I wanted to ponder just at the moment.
    The phone rang, and I put my dreary musing aside. You had to be on your game when you talked to Eric.
    “Fangtasia, the bar with a bite. This is Lizbet.” One of the fangbangers. I scrounged around my mental closet, trying to put a face with the name. Okay—tall, very round and proud of it, moon face, gorgeous brown hair.
    “Lizbet, this is Sookie Stackhouse,” I said.
    “Oh, hi,” she said, sounding startled and impressed.
    "Um ... hi. Listen, could I speak to Eric, please?”
    “I’ll see if the master is available,” Lizbet breathed, trying to sound reverent and all mysterious.
    “Master,” my ass.
    The fangbangers were men and women who loved vampires so much they wanted to be around them every minute the vampires were awake. Jobs at places like Fangtasia were bread and butter to these people, and the opportunity to get bitten was regarded as close to sacred. The fangbanger code required them to be honored if some bloodsucker wanted to sample them; and if they died of it, well, that was just about an honor, too. Behind all the pathos and tangled sexuality of the typical fangbanger was the underlying hope that some vampire would think the fangbanger was “worthy” of being turned into a vampire. Like you had to pass a character test.
    “Thanks, Lizbet,” I said.
    Lizbet set the phone down with a thud and went off looking for Eric. I couldn’t have made her happier.
    “Yes,” said Eric after about five minutes.
    “Busy, were you?”
    “Ah . . . having supper.”
    I wrinkled my nose. “Well, hope you had enough,” I said with a total lack of sincerity. “Listen, did you find out anything about that Jonathan?”
    “Have you seen him again?” Eric asked sharply.
    “Ah, no. I was just wondering.”
    “If you see him, I need to know immediately.”
    “Okay, got that. What have you learned?”
    “He’s been seen other places,” Eric said. “He even came here one night when I was away. Pam’s at your house, right?”
    I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Maybe Pam wasn’t sleeping with Amelia out of sheer attraction. Maybe she’d combined business with a great cover story, and she was staying with Amelia to keep an eye on me. Damn vampires, I thought angrily, because that scenario was entirely too close to an incident in my recent past that had hurt me incredibly.
    I wasn’t going to ask. Knowing would be worse than suspecting.
    “Yes,” I said between stiff lips. “She’s here.”
    “Good,” Eric said with some satisfaction. “If he appears again, I know she can take care of it. Not that that’s why she’s there,” he added unconvincingly. The obvious afterthought was Eric’s attempt at pacifying what he could tell were my upset feelings; it sure didn’t arise from any feeling of guilt.
    I scowled at my closet door. “Are you gonna give me any real information on why you’re so jumpy about this guy?”
    “You haven’t seen the queen since Rhodes,” Eric said.
    This was not going to be a good conversation. “No,” I said. “What’s the deal with her legs?”
    “They’re growing back,” Eric said after a brief hesitation.
    I wondered if the feet were growing right out of her stumps, or if the legs would grow out and then the feet would appear at the end of the process. “That’s good, right?” I said. Having legs had to be a good thing.
    “It hurts very much,” Eric said, “when you lose parts and they grow back. It’ll take a while. She’s very . . . She’s incapacitated.” He said the last word very slowly, as if it was a word he knew but had never said aloud.
    I thought about what he was telling me, both on the surface and beneath. Conversations with Eric were seldom single-layered.
    “She’s not well enough to be in charge,” I said in conclusion. “Then who is?”
    “The sheriffs