I began to be more than anxious.
As the evening wore on, the activity in the bar grew more and more frenetic. Less women, more men. More table-hopping. More drinking. Men were standing, instead of sitting. It was hard to pin down, since there wasn’t any big meeting, really. It was by word-of-mouth, whispered from ear to ear. No one jumped on the bar and screamed, “Whatta ya say, boys? Are we gonna put up with those monsters in our midst? To the castle!” or anything like that. It was just that, after a time, they all began drifting out, standing in huddled groups out in the parking lot. I looked out one of the windows at them, shaking my head. This wasn’t good.
Sam was uneasy, too.
“What do you think?” I asked him, and I realized this was the first time I’d spoken to him all evening, other than “Pass the pitcher,” or “Give me another margarita.”
“I think we’ve got a mob,” he said. “But they’ll hardly go over to Monroe now. The vampires’ll be up and about until dawn.”
“Where is their house, Sam?”
“I understand it’s on the outskirts of Monroe on the west side—in other words, closest to us,” he told me. “I don’t know for sure.”
I drove home after closing, half hoping I’d see Bill lurking in my driveway so I could tell him what was afoot.
But I didn’t see him, and I wouldn’t go to his house. After a long hesitation, I dialed his number, but got only his answering machine. I left a message. I had no idea what the three nesting vampires’ phone was listed under, if they had a phone at all.
As I pulled off my shoes and removed my jewelry—all silver, take that, Bill!—I remember worrying, but I wasn’t worrying enough. I went to bed and quickly to sleep in the bedroom that was now mine. The moonlight streamed in the open shades, making strange shadows on the floor. But I only stared at them for a few minutes. Bill didn’t wake me that night, returning my call.
*
BUT THE PHONE did ring, early in the morning, after daylight.
“What?” I asked, dazed, the receiver pressed to my ear. I peered at the clock. It was seven-thirty.
“They burned the vampires’ house,” Jason said. “I hope yours wasn’t in it.”
“What?” I asked again, but my voice was panicked now.
“They burned the vampires’ house outside of Monroe. After sunrise. It’s on Callista Street, west of Archer.”
I remembered Bill saying he might take Harlen over there. Had he stayed?
“No.” I said it definitely.
“Yes.”
“I have to go,” I said, hanging up the phone.
IT SMOLDED IN the bright sunlight. Wisps of smoke trailed up into the blue sky. Charred wood looked like alligator skin. Fire trucks and law enforcement cars were parked helter-skelter on the lawn of the two-story house. A group of the curious stood behind yellow tape.
The remains of four coffins sat side by side on the scorched grass. There was a body bag, too. I began to walk toward them, but for the longest time they seemed to be no closer; it was like one of those dreams where you can never reach your goal.
Someone grabbed my arm and tried to stop me. I can’t remember what I said, but I remember a horrified face. I trudged on through the debris, inhaling the smell of burned things, wet charred things, a smell that wouldn’t leave me the rest of my life.
I reached the first coffin and looked in. What was left of the lid was open to the light. The sun was coming up; any moment now it would kiss the dreadful thing resting on soggy, white silk lining.
Was it Bill? There was no way to tell. The corpse was disintegrating bit by bit even as I watched. Tiny fragments flaked off and blew into the breeze, or disappeared in a tiny puff of smoke where the sun’s rays began to touch the body.
Each coffin held a similar horror.
Sam was standing by me.
“Can you call this murder, Sam?”
He shook his head. “I just don’t know, Sookie. Legally, killing the vampires is murder. But you’d have to prove arson first, though I don’t think that’d be very hard.” We could both smell gasoline. There were men buzzing around the house, climbing here and there, yelling to each other. It didn’t appear to me that these men were conducting any serious crime-scene investigation.
“But this body here, Sookie.” Sam pointed to the body bag on the grass. “This was a real human, and they have to investigate. I don’t think any member of that mob ever realized there might be a human in there, ever considered anything besides what they did.”