Dead Ever After

Chapter 22

I went to work the next day. I’d missed enough, I figured. I won’t say it was an easy day to get through, since I had moments of sheer panic. That would have been the case if I’d stayed home, and at least at the bar I was able to hear that Xavier had made it out of surgery and would recover. Sam’s presence behind the bar was reassuring. And his eyes followed me, as if he were constantly thinking of me, too.

I drove home while it was still light, and I was glad to get in the house and lock the door behind me. I was less glad to find Mr. Cataliades and Diantha already in the house, but I felt better about their presence when I saw they’d brought Barry. He was in bad shape, and I had a hard time persuading them that he could not heal himself the way demons could. In fact, I was pretty sure that Barry had broken a bone or two in his face and one of his hands. He was bruised and puffy all over and moved with excruciating care.

They’d put him on the bed in the guest room across the hall from mine, and I had an appalled realization that I hadn’t changed the sheets since Amelia and Bob’s stay. But after evaluating Barry’s physical damage, I realized that worrying about used sheets was the furthest thing from his concerns. He was more worried about peeing without blood.

“I feel pretty rough,” he said, between cracked lips. Diantha watched me give him some water, very carefully.

“You gotta go to a hospital,” I said. “I guess you can tell them a car hit you while you were walking by the road or something. And you were unconscious.”

I was aware, even as I said this, that it was utter bullshit. Not only would any competent doctor be able to tell that Barry had been beaten, not hit by any car, but I was sick of trying to explain away awful stuff like this.

“Isn’t worth the trouble,” Barry said. “I’ll just tell ’em I got mugged. More or less the truth.”

“So Newlin and Glassport grabbed you. What did they think they could beat out of you?”

He tried to smile, but the attempt was pretty ghastly. “They wanted me to tell them where Hunter was.”

I sat down in a hurry. Mr. Cataliades stepped forward, his face grim. “You see why it is a good thing they are all dead,” he said. “Newlin, Glassport, the fairy.”

“He told them,” I said, and it was almost funny how deeply hurt I was that Claude had betrayed a child.

“It wasn’t the money he paid them,” Mr. Cataliades said. “That was not what made them persist beyond all reason in trying to capture you. The two humans knew Claude wanted you, wanted to kill you, and they were very willing to go along with that. But they wanted the boy. To mold to their own purposes.”

The enormity of it washed over me. I felt no guilt or regret about their deaths any longer, not even about the ex-soldier who’d had to shoot Claude.

“How did you find Barry?” I asked.

“I listened for him,” Mr. Cataliades said simply. “And Diantha and I searched, following his mind like a beacon. He was alone when we found him, and we took him away. We didn’t know they were coming after you.”

“Wedidn’tknow,” Diantha said sadly.

“You did great, you did the best thing ever,” I said. “And I owe you one.”

“Never,” said Mr. Cataliades. “You owe me nothing.”

I looked at Barry. He needed to get out of this area, and he needed a place to heal. His rental car was in downtown Bon Temps, and I’d have to drive it back to the rental place and turn it in; he wouldn’t have wheels, but he was too battered to drive, obviously.

“Where can we take you afterward?” I asked Barry, trying to sound gentle. “You got a family to go to? I guess you could stay with me.”

He shook his head feebly. “Got no family,” he whispered. “And I couldn’t stand being with another telepath all the time.”

I looked through the open door at Mr. Cataliades, who was Barry’s relative for sure. He was standing out in the hall, looking pained. He met my eyes and shook his head from side to side, to tell me that Barry couldn’t come with him. He’d tracked Barry and saved his life, and that was all he could do. For whatever reason.

Barry really needed someone to convalesce with, someone who would let him be, let him heal, but be there to give him a hand. I had a sudden inspiration. I picked up my phone and found Bernadette Merlotte’s number. “Bernadette,” I said, when we’d done a polite greeting exchange, “you said you owed me a life. I don’t want a life, but a friend of mine is hurt bad and he needs a hospital and a place to stay while he recovers. He’s not a lot of trouble, I promise, and he’s a good guy.”

I told Barry five minutes later that he was going to Wright, Texas.

“Texas isn’t safe for me,” he protested.

“You’re not going to a major urban center,” I said. “You’re going to Wright, and there’s not a single vampire there. You’re going to stay with Sam’s mom, and she’s nice, and you won’t be able to read her mind clearly because she’s a shapeshifter. Don’t go out at night and you won’t see any vampires. I told her your name was Rick.”

“Okay,” he said weakly.

Within an hour, Mr. Cataliades was driving Barry to the hospital in Shreveport. He told me solemnly that he would take Barry to Wright when he was discharged.

Barry e-mailed me three days later. He was safely ensconced in Wright in Sam’s old room. He was getting better. He liked Bernie. He had no idea what he would do next. But he was alive and healing, and he was thinking of his future.

Slowly, I began to relax. I heard from Amelia about every third day. Bob had been transferred to New Orleans, finally. Her father was missing; his secretary had filed a missing-person report. Amelia didn’t seem too concerned about his whereabouts. She was all about Bob and the baby. She’d seen Mr. C, she said. He was trying to find out what witch might have made the charm that had enabled Arlene to enter my house, but Amelia was of the opinion that Claude had made it. I was sure the part-demons would get to the bottom of that question.

Less than two weeks later, I walked down the “aisle,” actually a narrow grass path through a happy crowd of people. The folding chairs were already set up at the tables scattered around the lawn, so the guests would stand for the short service. I went slowly, to keep time with the fiddlers playing “Simple Gifts.” I was carrying a bouquet of sunflowers, wearing my beautiful yellow dress. Michele’s minister was standing under a flowery archway in Jason’s backyard (I’d been more than glad to supply the greenery), and Michele’s parents were smiling as they stood waiting by the archway. There was no family to stand on our side, but at least Jason and I had each other. Michele looked beautiful as she walked up to meet Jason, and Hoyt didn’t lose the ring.

After the wedding party—all four of us—had our pictures made together and separately, Michele and Jason took their places behind the meat table with aprons on over their wedding clothes, and they served ribs or sliced pork to the guests, who then descended on the tables full of vegetables and breads and desserts, all brought by the guests. The cake, contributed by a church friend of Michele’s mom, stood in lonely splendor under a tent.

Everybody ate and drank and made lots of toasts.

Sam had saved me a seat by his, at the newlywed couples’ table, marked off with a white ribbon. Jason and Michele would join us after they’d served the first wave of guests.

“You look real pretty,” he said. “And the arm looks fine, too.” I’d been able to leave the bandage off today.

“Thanks, Sam.” We hadn’t seen each other (except at work) since the night at Stompin’ Sally’s. He’d given me the slow time I’d asked for. We had signed on to help JB and Tara in their little home-improvement plan, and we’d decided to go to a movie in Shreveport in a week or two on a night we both had off.

I had my own ideas about how our relationship was going to progress, but I know that nothing is worse than assuming.

Late that evening, after we’d helped my brother and his bride fold up all the chairs and tables and load them on a trailer to take back to the church, Sam helped me into his truck. As we drove to my house, he said, “Little lady, I got a question.” (He’d picked that up the night of the cornfield, and he wasn’t letting it go.)

“Yes, what?” I said, with elaborate patience.

“How did Claude get out of Faery? You said it was sealed up. The portal in your woods was closed.”

“You know what I found blooming in my yard yesterday?” I said.

“I don’t know where you’re going with this, but okay, I’ll bite. What did you find growing in your yard?”

“A letter.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. Seriously. A letter on a plant. It was one of the roses on my rosebush, you know the big red one by the garage?”

“And you spotted it?”

“It was white. The rosebush is red and green. I park right by it.”

“Okay. Who was the letter from?”

“Niall, of course.”

“And what did Niall have to say?”

“That he had purposely created the opportunity for someone to break Claude out of fairy jail, because he was sure he hadn’t caught all the traitors yet. When his suspect made the attempt, Niall would nab the traitor, and Claude would have to languish—that was the word he used, ‘languish’—in the lands of the humans forever, robbed of his beauty.” After a short silence, Sam growled, “I don’t believe Niall thought about how unhappy Claude would be when he found himself back in the USA without a job, money, or looks. Or who he’d blame for all that.”

“Putting himself in someone else’s shoes is not the Niall way,” I said. “Apparently, the traitor did break Claude out, and Claude decided vengeance was first on his list. Also, he must have had a bank account that Niall didn’t know about. Claude contacted Johan Glassport, who’d acted as his lawyer before, because Glassport was the most ruthless human he knew. He bribed Glassport to take part in phase one of the ‘get Sookie’ project, which apparently was to ensure I went to jail for my whole life so I’d see just how Claude would have had to live. They needed someone else motivated by Sookie-hate to help them out, someone who would be tempted by the unusual bribe—money and a little telepath. Glassport tracked down Steve Newlin. Then they needed the perfect victim, so Glassport argued Arlene out of prison.”

“That’s pretty convoluted,” Sam said.

“Tell me about it. I mean, when I thought about Claude in fairy jail, I kind of got where he was going with it, but still. He would have been much better off if he’d just stolen a gun and shot me.”

“Sookie!” Sam was genuinely upset. We were parked at my back door. I glanced out the window and thought I saw a flash of white at the edge of the woods. Karin. Or Bill. She and Bill must be seeing a lot of each other during the night.

“I know, I don’t like the mental image, either,” I said. “But it’s true. Going elaborate reduces your chance of success. So remember this for your future vengeance projects. Short, direct.” We sat a moment in silence. “Seriously, Sam, I would have died if I’d been tortured again. I was ready to go.”

“But you got them angry with each other. You started them fighting. And you lived. You never give up, Sook.” He took my hand.

I would have disputed that if I’d cared to speak. I’d given up a lot, so much I couldn’t even begin to evaluate it, but I knew what Sam meant. He meant I’d kept myself and my will to live intact. I didn’t know what to say. And finally, that was exactly what I told Sam. “I’m left with nothing to say.”

“No, never that.” He came around to my side of the truck and helped me slide down in the high heels and snug dress. There might have been a bit more contact than strictly necessary. Even a lot more contact. “You have everything,” Sam said. “Everything.” His arms tightened around me. “I wish you’d reconsider, about me staying the night.”

“I’m tempted,” I confessed. “But this time, we’re going to be slow and sure.”

“I’m sure I want to get in bed with you.” He rested his forehead against mine. Then he laughed, just a little. “You’re right,” he said. “This is the best way to do it. Hard to be patient, though, when we know how good it can be.”

I enjoyed my arms around him, the sense of him next to me. And if you were to ask me, I would confess that I thought Sam and I would be together, maybe by Christmas, maybe for always. I couldn’t imagine a future without him. But I also knew that if he turned away from me at this moment, somehow I would survive that, and I would find a way to flourish like the yard that still bloomed and grew around my family home.

I’m Sookie Stackhouse. I belong here.