Living Dead in Dallas

friend Arlene. Arlene’s flaming red hair (two shades redder this month) was arranged in an elaborate cluster of curls on the back of her head, and her tight pants let the world know she’d lost seven pounds. Arlene had been married four times, and she was on the lookout for number five.
    We talked about the murder for a couple of minutes, and I briefed her on the status of my tables, before I grabbed my purse from Sam’s office and scooted out the back door. It wasn’t quite dark when I pulled up to my house, which is a quarter mile back in the woods offa seldom-traveled parish road. It’s an old house, parts of it dating back a hundred and forty-plus years, but it’s been altered and added onto so often we don’t count it as an antebellum house. It’s just an old farmhouse, anyway. My grandmother, Adele Hale Stackhouse, left me this house, and I treasured it. Bill had spoken of me moving into his place, which sat on a hill just across the cemetery from my home, but I was reluctant to leave my own turf.
    I yanked off my waitress outfit and opened my closet. If we were going over to Shreveport on vampire business, Bill would want me to dress up a little. I couldn’t quite figure that out, since he didn’t want anyone else making a pass at me, but he always wanted me to look extra pretty when we were going to Fangtasia, a vampire-owned bar catering mainly to tourists.
    Men.
    I couldn’t make up my mind, so I hopped in the shower. Thinking about Fangtasia always made me tense. The vampires who owned it were part of the vampire power structure, and once they’d discovered my unique talent, I’d become a desirable acquisition to them. Only Bill’s determined entry into the vampire self-governing system had kept me safe; that is, living where I wanted to live, working at my chosen job. But in return for that safety, I was still obliged to show up when I was summoned, and to put my telepathy to use for them. Milder measures than their former choices (torture and terror) were what “mainstreaming” vampires needed. The hot water immediately made me feel better, and I relaxed as it beat on my back.
    “Shall I join you?”
    “Shit, Bill!” My heart pounding a mile a minute, I leaned against the shower wall for support.
    “Sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t you hear the bathroom door opening?”
    “No, dammit. Why can’t you just call ‘Honey, I’m home,’ or something?”
    “Sorry,” he said again, not sounding very sincere. “Do you need someone to scrub your back?”
    “No, thank you,” I hissed. “I’m not in the back-scrubbing kind of mood.”
    Bill grinned (so I could see his fangs were retracted) and pulled the shower curtain closed.
    When I came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around me more or less modestly, he was stretched out on my bed, his shoes neatly lined up on the little rug by the night table. Bill was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt and khakis, with socks that matched the shirt and polished loafers. His dark brown hair was brushed straight back, and his long sideburns looked retro.
    Well, they were, but more retro than most people could ever have imagined.
    He has high arched brows and a high-bridged nose. His mouth is the kind you see on Greek statues, at least the ones I’ve seen in pictures. He died a few years after the end of the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, as my grandmother always called it).
    “What’s the agenda for tonight?” I asked. “Business, or pleasure?”
    “Being with you is always pleasure,” Bill said.
    “We’re going to Shreveport for what reason?” I asked, since I know a dodgy answer when I hear one.
    “We were summoned.”
    “By?”
    “Eric, of course.”
    Now that Bill had run for, and accepted, a position as Area 5 investigator, he was at Eric’s beck and call—and under Eric’s protection. That meant, Bill had explained, that anyone attacking Bill would also have to deal with Eric, and it meant that Bill’s possessions were sacred toEric. Which included me. I wasn’t thrilled to be numbered among Bill’s possessions, but it was better than some of the alternatives.
    I made a face in the mirror.
    “Sookie, you made a deal with Eric.”
    “Yeah,” I admitted, “I did.”
    “So you must stick by it.”
    “I plan on it.”
    “Wear those tight blue jeans that lace up the sides,” Bill suggested.
    They weren’t denim at all, but some kind of stretchy stuff. Bill just loved me in those jeans, which came down