Jan, in her nudity, was completely ignored by the maenad. I can only suppose that there was nothing in Jan that appealed to the creature; Jan was not proud, she was pathetic, and she hadn't had a drink that night. She embraced sex out of other needs than the need for its loss of self—needs that had nothing to do with leaving one's mind and body for a moment of wonderful madness. Trying, as always, to be the center of the group, Jan reached out with a would-be flirty smile and took the maenad's hand. Suddenly she began to convulse, and the noises coming from her throat were horrible. Foam came from her mouth, and her eyes rolled up. She collapsed to the deck, and I could hear her heels drumming the wood.
Then the silence resumed. But something was brewing a few yards away in the little group on the deck: something terrible and fine, something pure and horrible. Their fear was subsiding, and my body began to calm again. The awful pressure eased in my head. But as it ebbed, a new force began to build, and it was indescribably beautiful and absolutely evil.
It was pure madness, it was mindless madness. From the maenad poured the berserker rage, the lust of pillage, the hubris of pride. I was overwhelmed when the people on the deck were overwhelmed, I jerked and thrashed as the insanity rolled off Callisto and into their brains, and only Eric's hand across my mouth kept me from screaming as they did. I bit him and tasted his blood, and heard him grunt at the pain.
It went on and on and on, the screaming, and then there were awful wet sounds. The dog, pressed against our legs, whimpered.
Suddenly, it was over.
I felt like a dancing puppet whose strings have suddenly been severed. I went limp. Bill laid me down on Eric's car hood again. I opened my eyes. The maenad looked down at me. She was smiling again, and she was drenched in blood. It was like someone had poured a bucket of red paint over her head; her hair was drenched, as was every bit of her bare body, and she reeked of the copper smell, enough to set your teeth on edge.
"You were close," she said to me, her voice as sweet and high as a flute. She moved a little more deliberately, as if she'd eaten a heavy meal. "You were very close. Maybe as close as you'll ever come, maybe not. I've never seen anyone maddened by the insanity of others. An entertaining thought."
"Entertaining for you, maybe," I gasped. The dog bit my leg to bring me to myself. She looked down at him.
"My dear Sam," she murmured. "Darling, I must leave you."
The dog looked up at her with intelligent eyes.
"We've had some good nights running through the woods," she said, and stroked his head. "Catching little rabbits, little coons."
The dog wagged his tail.
"Doing other things."
The dog grinned and panted.
"But it's time for me to go, darling. The world is full of woods and people that need to learn their lesson. I must be paid tribute. They mustn't forget me. I'm owed," she said, in her sated voice, "owed the madness and death." She began to drift to the edge of the woods.
"After all," she said over her shoulder, "it can't always be hunting season."
Chapter 11
Even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't have walked over to see what was on the deck. Bill and Eric seemed subdued, and when vampires seem subdued, it means you don't really want to go investigate.
"We'll have to burn the cabin," Eric said from a few yards away. "I wish Callisto had taken care of her own mess."
"She never has," Bill said, "that I have heard. It is the madness. What does true madness care about discovery?"
"Oh, I don't know," Eric said carelessly. He sounded as if he was lifting something. There was a heavy thud. "I have seen a few people who were definitely mad and quite crafty with it."
"That's true," Bill said. "Shouldn't we leave a couple of them on the porch?"
"How can you tell?"
"That's true, too. It's a rare night I can agree with you this much."
"She called me and asked me to help." Eric was responding to the subtext rather than the statement.
"Then, all right. But you remember our agreement."
"How can I forget?"
"You know Sookie can hear us."
"Quite all right with me," Eric said, and laughed. I stared up at the night and wondered, not too curiously, what the hell they were talking about. It's not like I was Russia, to be parceled out to the strongest dictator. Sam was resting beside me, back in his human form, and stark naked. At the moment, I could not have cared less. The cold didn't bother Sam, since he was a shapeshifter.
"Whoops, here's a live one," Eric called.
"Tara," Sam called.
Tara scrambled down the steps of the deck and over to us. She flung her arms around me and began sobbing. With tremendous weariness, I held her and let her boo-hoo. I was still in my Daisy Duke outfit, and she was in her fire-engine lingerie. We were like big white water lilies in a cold pond, we two. I made myself straighten up and hold Tara.
"Would there be a blanket in that cabin, you think?" I asked Sam. He trotted over to the steps, and I noticed the effect was interesting from behind. After a minute, he trotted back—wow, this view was even more arresting—and wrapped a blanket around the two of us.
"I must be gonna live," I muttered.
"Why do you say that?" Sam was curious. He didn't seem unduly surprised by the events of the night.
I could hardly tell him it was because I'd watched him bounce around, so I said, "How are Eggs and Andy?"
"Sounds like a radio show," Tara said suddenly, and giggled. I didn't like the sound of it.
"They're still standing where she left them," Sam reported. "Still staring."
"I'm—still—staring," Tara sang, to the tune of Elton's "I'm Still Standing."
Eric laughed.
He and Bill were just about to start the fire. They strolled over to us for a last-minute check.
"What car did you come in?" Bill asked Tara.
"Ooo, a vampire," she said. "You're Sookie's honey, aren't you? Why were you at the game the other night with a dog like Portia Bellefleur?"
"She's kind, too," Eric said. He looked down at Tara with a sort of beneficent but disappointed smile, like a dog breeder regarding a cute, but inferior, puppy.
"What car did you come in?" Bill asked again. "If there is a sensible side to you, I want to see it now."
"I came in the white Camaro," she said, quite soberly. "I'll drive it home. Or maybe I better not. Sam?"
"Sure, I'll drive you home. Bill, you need my help here?"
"I think Eric and I can cope. Can you take the skinny one?"
"Eggs? I'll see."
Tara gave me a kiss on the cheek and began picking her way across the yard to her car. "I left the keys in it," she called.
"What about your purse?" The police would surely wonder if they found Tara's purse in a cabin with a lot of bodies.
"Oh . . . it's in there."
I looked at Bill silently, and he went in to fetch the purse. He returned with a big shoulder bag, large enough to contain not only makeup and everyday items, but also a change of clothing.
"This is yours?"
"Yes, thanks," Tara said, taking the bag from him as if she were afraid his fingers might touch hers. She hadn't been so picky earlier in the evening, I thought.
Eric was carrying Eggs to her car. "He will not remember any of this," Eric told Tara as Sam opened the back door of the Camaro so Eric could lay Eggs inside.
"I wish I could say the same." Her face seemed to sag on its bones under the weight of the knowledge of what had happened this night. "I wish I'd never seen that thing, whatever she is. I wish I'd never come here, to start with. I hated doing this. I just thought Eggs was worth it." She gave a look to the inert form in the backseat of her car. "He's not. No one is."