Living Dead in Dallas

elevator in silence.
    “Do you have your key?” he asked me at the room door.
    I had been half-asleep. “Where’s yours?” I asked, none too graciously.
    “I’d just like to see you recover yours,” he said.
    Suddenly I was in a better mood. “Maybe you’d like to find it,” I suggested.
    A male vampire with a waist-length black mane strolled down the hall, his arm around a plump girl with a head of curly red hair. When they’d entered a room farther down the hall, Bill began searching for the key.
    He found it pretty fast.
    Once we’d gotten inside, Bill picked me up and kissed me at length. We needed to talk, since a lot had happened during this long night, but I wasn’t in the mood and he wasn’t, either.
    The nice thing about skirts, I discovered, was that they just slide up, and if you were only wearing a thong underneath, it could vanish in a jiffy. The gray jacket was on the floor, the white shell was discarded, and my arms were locked around Bill’s neck before you could say, “Screw a vampire.”
    Bill was leaning against the sitting room wall trying to open his slacks with me still wrapped around him when there was a knock at the door.
    “Damn,” he whispered in my ear. “Go away,” he said, somewhat louder. I wriggled against him and his breath caught in his throat. He pulled the bobby pins and the Hairagami out of my hair to let it roll down my back.
    “I need to talk to you,” said a familiar voice, somewhat muffled by the thick door.
    “No,” I moaned. “Say it isn’t Eric.” The only creature in the world we had to admit.
    “It’s Eric,” said the voice.
    I unlocked my legs from around Bill’s waist, and he gently lowered me to the floor. In a real snit, I stomped into the bedroom to put on my bathrobe. To hell with rebuttoning all those clothes.
    I came back out as Eric was telling Bill that Bill had done well this evening.
    “And, of course, you were marvelous, Sookie,” Eric said, taking in the pink, short bathrobe with a comprehensive glance. I looked up at him—and up, and up—and wished him at the bottom of the Red River, spectacular smile, golden hair, and all.
    “Oh,” I said malignantly, “thanks so much for coming up to tell us this. We couldn’t have gone to bed without a pat on the back from you .”
    Eric looked as blandly delighted as he possibly could. “Oh, dear,” he said. “Did I interrupt something? Would these—well, this—be yours, Sookie?” He held up the black string that had formerly been one side of my thong.
    Bill said, “In a word, yes. Is there anything else you would like to discuss with us, Eric?” Ice would’ve been surprised by how cold Bill could sound.
    “We haven’t got time tonight,” Eric said regretfully, “since daylight is so soon, and there are things I need to see to before I sleep. But tomorrow night we must meet. When you find out what Stan wants you to do, leave me a note at the desk, and we’ll make an arrangement.”
    Bill nodded. “Good-bye, then,” he said.
    “You don’t want a nightcap?” Was he hoping to be offered a bottle of blood? Eric’s eyes went to the refrigerator, then to me. I was sorry I was wearing a thin nylon robe instead of something bulky and chenille. “Warm from the vessel?” Bill maintained a stony silence.
    His gaze lingering on me until the last minute, Eric stepped through the door and Bill locked it behind him.
    “You think he’s listening outside?” I asked Bill, as he untied the sash of my robe.
    “I don’t care,” Bill said, and bent his head to other things.
     
    W HEN I GOT up, about one o’clock in the afternoon, the hotel had a silent feel to it. Of course, most of the guests were sleeping. Maids would not come into a room during the day. I had noted the security last night—vampire guards. The daytime would be different, since daytime guarding was what the guests were paying so heavily for. I called room service for the first time in my life and ordered breakfast. I was as hungry as a horse, since I hadn’t eaten last night at all. I was showered and wrapped up in my robe when the waiter knocked on the door, and after I’d made sure he was who he said he was, I let him in.
    After my attempted abduction at the airport the day before, I wasn’t taking anything for granted. I held the pepper spray down by my side as the young man laid out the food and the coffeepot. If he took one step toward the door behind which Bill slept in his coffin, I would zap