From Dead to Worse

Bill was enjoying the prospect of a good fight. His fangs were out. Frannie was staring at him, but her expression didn’t change. If there’d been the slightest chance she’d stay calm and cooperative, I might have asked Bill to bring her out of the artificial state. I loved having Frannie still and quiet—but I hated her loss of free will.
    “Why did Pam leave?” I asked.
    “She can be of more value at Fangtasia. The others have gone to the club, and she can tell me if they are sealed in it or not. It was stupid of me to call them all and tell them to gather; I should have told them to scatter.” From the way he looked now, it wasn’t a mistake Eric would ever make again.
    Bill stood close to a window, listening to the sounds of the night. He looked at Eric and shook his head. No one there yet.
    Eric’s phone rang. He listened for a minute, said, “Good fortune to you,” and hung up.
    “Most of the others are in the club,” he told Bill, who nodded.
    “Where is Claudine?” Bill asked me.
    “I have no idea.” How come Claudine came sometimes when I was in trouble and didn’t come at others? Was I just wearing her out? “But I don’t think she’ll come, because you guys are here. There’s no point in her showing up to defend me if you and Eric can’t keep your fangs off of her.”
    Bill stiffened. His sharp ears had picked up something. He turned and exchanged a long glance with Eric. “Not the company I’d have chosen,” Bill said in his cool voice. “But we’ll make a good showing. I do regret the women.” And he looked at me, his deep dark eyes full of some intense emotion. Love? Sorrow? Without a hint or two from his silent brain, I couldn’t tell.
    “We’re not in our graves yet,” Eric said, just as coolly.
    Now I too could hear the cars coming down the driveway. Amelia made an involuntary sound of fear, and Frannie’s eyes got even wider, though she stayed in her chair as if paralyzed. Eric and Bill sank into themselves.
    The cars stopped out front, and there were the sounds of doors opening and shutting, someone walking up to the house.
    There was a brisk knock—not on the door, but on one of the porch uprights.
    I moved toward it slowly. Bill gripped my arm and stepped in front of me. “Who is there?” he called, and immediately shifted us three feet away.
    He’d expected someone to fire through the door.
    That didn’t happen.
    “It is I, the vampire Victor Madden,” said a cheerful voice.
    Okay, unexpected. And especially to Eric, who closed his eyes briefly. Victor Madden’s identity and presence had told Eric volumes, and I didn’t know what he’d read in those volumes.
    “Do you know him?” I whispered to Bill.
    Bill said, “Yes. I’ve met him.” But he didn’t add any details and stood lost in an inner debate. I’ve never wanted more intensely to know what someone was thinking than I did at that moment. The silence was getting to me.
    “Friend or foe?” I called.
    Victor laughed. It was a real good laugh—genial, an “I’m laughing with you, not at you” kind of chortle. “That’s an excellent question,” he said, “and one only you can answer. Do I have the honor of talking to Sookie Stackhouse, famed telepath?”
    “You have the honor of talking to Sookie Stackhouse, barmaid,” I said frostily. And I heard a sort of throaty ruffling noise, a vocalization of an animal. A large animal.
    My heart sank into my bare feet.
    “The wards will hold,” Amelia was saying to herself in a rapid whisper. “The wards will hold; the wards will hold.” Bill was gazing at me with his dark eyes, thoughts flickering across his face in rapid succession. Frannie was looking vague and detached, but her eyes were fixed on the door. She’d heard the sound, too.
    “Quinn’s out there with them,” I whispered to Amelia, since she was the only one in the room who hadn’t figured that out.
    Amelia said, “He’s on their side?”
    “They’ve got his mom,” I reminded her. But I felt sick inside.
    “But we’ve got his sister,” Amelia said.
    Eric looked as thoughtful as Bill. In fact, they were looking at each other now, and I could believe they were having a whole dialogue without speaking a word.
    All this thoughtfulness wasn’t good. It meant they hadn’t decided which way they were going to jump.
    “May we come in?” asked the charming voice. “Or may we treat with one of you face-to-face? You seem to have quite a few safeguards on the