“That’s what he gave me to understand.”
“Sookie . . . don’t do anything rash.”
“I already broke the bond.”
After a long pause, Bill said, “That’s a good thing, because the bond was risky for both of you.” Not exactly news.
“I sort of miss having the connection,” I confessed, “but at the same time it’s a relief.”
Bill didn’t say anything. Very carefully.
“Have you ever . . . ?” I asked.
“Once, long ago,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about it.
“Did it end well?”
“No,” he said. His voice was flat and didn’t invite me to continue that line of conversation. “Let it go, Sookie. I’m telling you this not as a former lover, but as a friend. Let Eric make up his own mind about this. Don’t ask him questions. Though we can’t stand each other, I know Eric will try his best to get out of this situation simply because he loves his freedom. Oklahoma is very beautiful, and Eric loves beauty, but he already has that in you.”
I must be feeling better if I could appreciate a compliment. I wondered what the queen’s real name was. Often the ruler was called by the name of the land she ruled; Bill hadn’t meant that the state was beautiful, but that the woman who ruled its night creatures was.
When I didn’t respond, Bill continued, “She also has a lot of power. That is, she has territory, minions, real estate, oil money.” And we both knew Eric loved power. Not complete power — he’d never wanted to be a king — but he loved being able to call the shots in his own bailiwick.
“I get what power is,” I said. “And I get that I don’t have it. You want to take the car to your house, or leave it here and go through the woods?”
He handed the keys to me and said, “I’ll go through the woods.”
There was nothing more to be said.
“Thanks,” I told him. I opened the porch door, stepped in, locked it behind me. I unlocked the back door and went in, switching on the kitchen light. There was a quiet emptiness to the house, which I found immediately soothing, and the air conditioners were doing their best to make everything cool.
Though I’d come out of the fight at Fangtasia better than anyone, at least physically, I felt battered and bruised. I’d be sore the next day. I unbuckled the big belt and returned the cluviel dor to my makeup drawer. I pulled off the stained dress, went to the back porch to toss it in the washing machine on cold soak, and got in the shower, turning the water as hot as I could bear it. When I’d scrubbed myself all over, I changed the temperature to cool. I was delightfully clean and fresh when I got out to dry myself.
I wondered if I would start crying or praying or sitting in a corner with my eyes wide open the rest of the night. But none of those reactions set in. I got into bed feeling relieved, as if I’d had a successful surgery or as if a biopsy had turned out well.
I thought, as I curled into a ball and composed myself for sleep, that the fact that I could sleep tonight was almost more frightening than anything else.
Chapter 17
All the women in my living room were happy. Some of them were happier than others, true, but none of them were miserable. They were there to give gifts to someone who deserved them, and they were happy that Tara was expecting twins. All the yellow and green and blue and pink tissue paper mounded up in an almost overwhelming way, but Tara was getting a lot of things she needed and wanted.
Dermot was unobtrusively helping with the refreshments and bagging up the torn gift paper to keep the floor clear. Some of my older guests were definitely at the tottering stage, so we didn’t need anything on the floor that might cause them to slip. JB’s mom and grandmother were here, and his grandmother was seventy-five if she was a day.
When Dermot had come to the back door earlier, I’d let him in and gone back to my coffee without a word. As soon as he was in the door, I felt measurably better. Maybe I hadn’t noticed the contrast these past few weeks because I’d been so wrapped up in the blood bond? I’d been under the influence of a lot of supernatural things. I couldn’t say it felt better to be just myself, but it certainly made me feel more in touch with reality.
Once my guests had gotten a good look at Dermot and realized how much he looked like Jason, there’d been a lot of raised eyebrows. I’d told them he was a distant cousin from Florida, and I’d heard from a lot of brains that ladies were going to be consulting their family trees to find a Florida connection for my family.
I felt like myself today. I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, in the community where I lived. I might not even be that same person who’d participated in a slaughter the night before.
I took a sip from my glass cup. Maxine’s punch had turned out well, the cake I’d picked up from the bakery was delicious, my cheese straws were crispy and just a little spicy, and the salted pecans were toasted just enough. We played Baby Bingo as Tara opened her gifts, and she glowed and said “Thank you” about a million times.
I felt more and more like the old Sookie Stackhouse as the event progressed. I was around people I understood, doing a good thing.
As a kind of bonus, JB’s grandmother told me a lovely story about my grandmother. Taken altogether, it was a good afternoon.
When I went in the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes, I thought, This is happiness. Last night wasn’t the real me.
But it had been. I knew — even as I thought this — that I wasn’t going to be able to fool myself. I’d changed in order to survive, and I was paying the price of survival. I had to be willing to change myself forever, or everything I’d made myself do was for nothing.
“Are you all right, Sookie?” Dermot asked, as he brought in more glasses.
“Yes, thanks.” I tried to smile at him but felt it was a weak effort.
There was a knock at the back door. I supposed it was a late guest, trying to sneak in unobtrusively.
Mr. Cataliades stood there. He was wearing a suit, as always, but for the first time it seemed somewhat the worse for wear. He seemed not quite as circular as he had been, but he was smiling politely. I was astonished at his presence and not completely sure I wanted to talk to him, but if he was the guy who could answer big questions about my life, I really didn’t have a lot of choice. “Come in,” I told him, standing back and holding open the door.
“Miss Stackhouse,” he said formally. “Thank you for your welcome.”
He stared at Dermot, who was washing dishes very carefully, proud to be trusted with Gran’s good china. “Young man,” he said in acknowledgment.
Dermot turned and froze. “Demon,” he said. Then he turned back to the sink, but I could tell he was thinking furiously.
“You’re having a social occasion?” Mr. Cataliades asked me. “I can tell there are many women in the house.”
I hadn’t even noticed the cacophony of feminine voices floating down the hall, but it sounded like there might be sixty women in the living room instead of twenty-five. “Yes,” I agreed. “There are. It’s a baby shower for a friend of mine.”
“Perhaps I could sit at your kitchen table until it’s over?” he suggested. “Perhaps a bite to eat?”
Reminded of my manners, I said, “Of course, you can have as much as you like!” I quickly made a ham sandwich and put some chips and pickles out, and prepared a separate plate with party goodies. I even poured him a cup of punch.
Mr. Cataliades’s dark eyes glowed at the sight of the food in front of him. It might not be as fancy as he was used to (though for all I knew he ate raw mice), but he dug in with a will. Dermot seemed all right, if not exactly relaxed, at being in the same room with the lawyer, so I left them to make the best of it and returned to the living room. The hostess couldn’t be away for long; it wasn’t polite.