I was just settling down on the couch after a long night at work when the phone rang. Sighing, I looked at the clock. It was 1:37 AM, so I reckoned it had to be something important. It had better be, anyway, for interrupting my well-earned hot cocoa and Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode before bed. I paused the DVD right as Buffy was about to stake a lumpy-faced vampire chick in the heart. In real life, vampires don't get ridgy faces like that. They're alot harder to spot. They look just like any other people- well, to normal folks anyway. I'm not exactly normal and I can spot a vampire in a crowd like a candle in the dark, no problem. That's how I met my first boyfriend, Bill.
The townsfolk called him Vampire Bill, because he was the only vampire we had ever seen here in Bon Temps. It's a pretty small town, even for the back woods of Louisiana. Bill made a big stir when he came back to live in his ancestral home right across the cemetary from me. I know that sounds strange, and I'll go ahead and warn you now that just about everything to do with my life is strange, but the Bon Temps cemetery is situated on the big rise of land between my property and the old Compton manor. Bill and I were broken up because- well, just because. There are alot of things I'd like to say about Bill, but my Gran always told me not to speak ill of the dead. Not that he was dead. Well, I guess, technically he was. But he was definitely dead to me. I won't go more into that right now.
I went into the kitchen and looked at the caller ID. It was Hoyt Fortenberry. I crinkled my brow and picked up the phone. "Hello, Stackhouse residence," I greeted. Really, I was the only Stackhouse in residence here, so I don't know how necessary it was to say that. But I still did, out of habit. My Gran hadn't been gone that long, God rest her soul.
"Uh, yeah, hey Sookie. It's Hoyt." Hoyt sounded nervous.
"Hi, Hoyt. It's pretty late, can I help you with anything?" I was always polite, even when I was annoyed. That was the mark of a good Southern woman, my Gran always said.
"Well, Sook, I just got this weird call from Jason." Jason was my brother. Hoyt was his best friend, so it didn't seem odd to me that he would be giving him weird calls on a Friday night. Lord knows I've gotten my fair share of those drunk calls from Jason. Not that Jason was an alcoholic or anything, he just wasn't the type to sit at home with a good movie on a weekend night. He liked the girls and he liked to party.
"What's up?" I asked to move the conversation along when it seemed like Hoyt was hesitating with what he wanted to tell me.
"Jason asked me to come to Shreveport with fifteen thousand dollars," he said, shocking me right out of my socks.
"What?" was all I could think to say.
"He said he was at a bar called Fangtasia and he needed me to bring him fifteen thousand dollars before sunrise," Hoyt sounded as confused as I was.
"Fangtasia?" I had never heard of it.
"Sounded like a vamper bar to me. I don't know what Jason's doin' there and I ain't got that kinda money and he knows that, but I reckoned you could go get him home since you, uh, seem to be pretty friendly with those types."
Did he think since I had dated one vampire I was in their magic circle of trust or something? I shook my head in annoyance. "Ok, Hoyt, I'll take care of him. Thanks for calling," I said.
We said our goodnights and hung up. I changed out of my Tweety Bird night shirt into some jeans and a Bon Temps Hawks football tee, pulled my hair up in a loose pony-tail, grabbed my purse and was out the door in two shakes of a lamb's tail. On the dark drive to Shreveport I turned up the local country station and sang my heart out to distract myself from the nervous thoughts in my head. By the time I pulled up at the bar, I was feeling only a little less panicked than before.
I could hear the music thumping when I started for the front entrance and saw the name Fangtasia above the door in jazzy red letters. There were young people smoking outside, dressed to the nines in black leather and gaudy make-up, some of them with red dots painted on their necks that I figured were supposed to look like puncture wounds where a vampire had bitten. Fangbangers is what they called them. This wasn't your friendly neighborhood family bar and grill like Merlotte's, where I worked. I made it through the door after paying the entrance fee (Damn you, Jason, you just cost me another ten dollars besides what I paid in gas to get here!), ignoring the condescending look the spikey-haired door attendant cast on my outfit. I wasn't here to party, I was here to drag my good-for-nothing pain in the ass brother out of trouble, like always.
Immediately, I was accosted with the the thoughts of a hundred other people pressing in on my poor mind and made an effort to throw up my shields to block them out. It didn't completely get rid of the awful racket, it just made the thoughts seem distant and muffled like I was hearing them from underwater. Oh, did I mention I was a telepath? I can hear people's thoughts. It's pretty annoying most of the time. Well, pretty much all the time. I often wish I didn't have this curse. But you take what the good Lord gives you and you make the most of it, that's what my Gran said.
I looked around for Jason, but didn't see him anywhere in the crowd of people writhing on the dance floor or even at the bar propositioning some girl he just met. I went up to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic to get the bartender to talk to me. Plus, I just really needed a drink.
"Hey, I was wondering if I could ask you a question!" I told him with what I hoped was a disarming smile.
He was a vampire, I could tell from the faint glow of his skin and the strange empty air space around his mind, where I could normally sense the origin of his thoughts if he was human. That's what I get from vampires, just empty space. Their minds are closed to me, for some reason. I'm no scientist, but I think it might have something to do with the fact that they're dead. No detectable brainwaves, or something. I don't know.
Quick as a blink, his face appeared before me with a dangerous hiss, his lips pulled back to show me his fangs. The fangbangers around me flinched back with a chorus of gasps and a spike of lust you didn't need telepathy to sense. I just blinked back at him owlishly. With vampires, you can't show fear. It just gets them excited. I know that from experience. I couldn't help my over-sized smile, though, the one that made me look a bit unstable. It was a nervous habit.
When he failed to get the reaction he wanted out of me, I guess, he slapped my drink down on the bar in front of me. I drank it at once. He didn't move away, just kept mixing drinks and glaring a bit at me. I took that as the go-ahead.
"Have you seen a man in here tonight about my age, blonde-ish hair, blue eyes, might look a bit like me? He's my brother." The vamp bartender just raised an eyebrow at me cryptically. Ok, I guess he probably saw a hundred guys in here every night, how would he remember one in particular? I looked around. "He wouldn't be dressed like," I gestured vaguely to the other patrons, all dressed like punk-rockers and Dracula wanna-bes. "Just a normal jeans and t-shirt guy?" I tried again.
The vampire actually snorted, which wasn't something that came very naturally to vampires I think. Then he grinned wickedly as if he found something humorous (which made me quite nervous because you never wanna be involved in anything that a vampire might find funny- their sense of humor usually ran on the side of macabre and downright horrific) and jerked his head towards a door behind the bar marked "Employees Only." He said, still with that unnerving smirk, "Through there and on your right. They'll be expecting you, I should think."
I swallowed and thought Oh, Lord, Jason what have you got yourself into now? I nodded in thanks to the bartender and headed through that door, behind which I got the strangest feeling lurked my doom.
When I got away from all the noise in the main area of the bar, I let down my barriers a bit and felt the presence of two vampires and a human in a room to my right. I recognized my brother's mental signature immediately, and his slightly muddled thoughts of oh shit oh shit where's Hoyt oh shit that vamper girl has a nice rack oh shit are they gonna kill me what is this guy lookin' at? oh shit I'm dead dead dead.
I took a deep breath and knocked lightly on the door. I heard a male voice say "Come in" and stepped into the room. All eyes were on me. Jason sat in front of a desk in his jeans and a plaid button-up, a few buttons undone to show off his pects. He was sweating like a whore at a Sunday sermon. A gorgeous beast of a man sat behind the desk, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he reclined in his plushy leather chair, big hands behind his blonde head, glacial blue eyes staring directly back at me. The muscles of his arms bulged under his t-shirt in a way that made me distinctly uncomfortable around the lower belly area. What! A girl has the right to look, right? The woman leaning casually on the desk gave me the once over and a predatory smile that made me want to run.
"Oh, thank you Jesus! Sook, you came, did you bring the money?"
His relief was palpable, and I almost felt sorry for him when I had to tell him, "Jason, where the hell do you think I'm gonna get fifteen thousand dollars?" He looked terrified again.
"Stackhouse, who is this lovely creature?" Big and Blonde asked, his voice a seductive pur aimed right at me. I wasn't immune, I'll admit (far from it), but the look in his eyes like a starving lion eyeing a lame zebra was like a bucket of cold water on my rising heat.
I glared at him. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse, this idiot's my brother," I answered for myself, jerking my head towards Jason, sending my long pony-tail over my shoulder. I was beyond being polite right now. Jason didn't bring out the best of me, sometimes. Neither did condescending vampires.
"Your brother?" He made a show of looking surprised, looking back and forth between us. "Oh, yes, I can see the resemblance." Somewhere, my inner fangirl took notice of his faint accent, something European. I wondered how old he was. You can never tell with vamps.
"Yeah, well, what does he owe you for?" I asked, trying to get to the negotiations.
Big and Blonde grinned, showing me fang. I just glared, hoping he would get the message that I wasn't going to be intimidated. "I loaned your brother 8K to put on a horse that he said he knew with absolute certainty would win, via inside information of course, with the assurance that he would pay me back 15 when he got the winnings. Rhett's Butler did not win." He said this with pleasure, as though this was the outcome he had been hoping for all along. Looking at him, I was sure it was.
I rounded on my brother and gave him a smack to the back of his head for good measure. "Why the hell would you do that?"
I heard it in his mind before he could open his terrified mouth. He had heard me last week tell one of the men at the bar, offhand, that I would put my money on Rhett's Butler. Jason thought it was one of my "predictions."
"Jason Stackhouse how many times do I have to tell you it doesn't work like that-!" I exploded at the same time he rushed to explain, "You wouldn't come play Poker for me, and I needed money for a new paintjob and some rims on the truck, and-!"
Can I just say, my brother, bless his heart, is not the brightest crayon in the box. He's a good man (mostly, essentially, er- I think), but he's dumb as a sack o' rocks. I looked up and noticed the vampires eyeing me with unsettling interest, watching the exchange. The woman leaned down and muttered something to the man in a foreign language. They were looking at me.
I took a deep, calming breath and stepped back from the situation. I looked at my brother, who was visibly terrified and practically trembling. He was blaming me in his mind for the whole thing. Go figure. I looked at the two vampires who were conversing quietly in a language I didn't understand, probably the point, but I could tell they were definitely talking about me. I thought of my pitiful bank account and knew in my heart I would never have fifteen thousand dollars. I thought about my Gran and all the advice she had ever given me about tough situations, but couldn't think of anything that would apply to this. Well, sometimes you've gotta think outside the box.
I squared my shoulders and marched forward, smacking my hands down on the desk and leaning over to face Big and Blonde. Their conversation interrupted, I was met with two intense blue gazes. I gave it right back what I got. "Ok, listen, Mr..."
"Eric," Big and Blonde leered fangily.
"Right, Eric. As you've probably guessed, me and my brother, we don't have fifteen thousand dollars. And I don't really have anything to give you worth fifteen thousand dollars. What I do have," I hesitated. Was this really the smart thing to do? Let a powerful vampire know you could read minds? I thought of poor, stupid, scared Jason and steeled myself. "What I do have is a very special talent."
Eric grinned and exchanged a knowing look with the woman. I had a feeling he had already begun to suspect as much. I could say one thing, he wasn't an idiot. He raked his eyes down my body as though he were thinking of some other talents I might have. I shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, do tell," he said.
I took a deep breath and let it fly. "I can hear peoples' thoughts." Immediately, I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I had never admitted that out loud. Sure, everyone in town thought I was weird and knew that I just knew things that I wasn't supposed to. But no one ever talked about it out loud. No one had ever given voice to it. It was taboo, somehow, and if you said it out loud it made it true. If you said it out loud, Sookie really could read your mind.
I was slammed back to reality when the woman perked up immediately. "A telepath!" she said as if she weren't really surprised at all. "Oh, how very serendipitous!"
Serendipitous was on my Word-of-the-Day calendar a couple weeks back. I remembered because that was the day I found twenty dollars when I was cleaning under the sofa. Twenty dollars isn't much, but every little bit helps when you're a barmaid and you've got property taxes to pay.
I straightened my back and faced the intense interest of the two vampires across the desk, willing my nerves to settle.
"And what is it you want to offer us?" The lady vamp watched me like a hungry tiger ready to pounce.
"My services. I'll work for you for a fair wage until Jason's debt is paid back." I tried my best to feel as confident as I sounded. This was the only way. I had nothing else to give them worth anything.
Eric watched me for a long moment, contemplating my offer I supposed. He seemed to be thinking very hard about something, although what I couldn't fathom a guess. A tiny wrinkle appeared between his blonde brows that I had the strangest urge to smooth away with my fingers. My hands twitched.
"What do you think you can do for us, Miss Stackhouse?" he asked in a low voice, quietly dangerous.
"My dad liked to take me to business meetings. I would sit and listen and after whoever it was left, he would ask me whether or not they were lying." My eyes itched and I scrubbed them with the back of my hand. Eric didn't look entirely convinced; he was still staring into my eyes like he was trying to see the back of my head. I sighed and crossed my arms. "Ok, give me a minute."
They watched and waited for me to do something spectacular I guess, and I hoped I wouldn't disappoint them. I turned my focus inward and let down my walls. I stretched out my sixth sense as fas as it would go. I could feel all the minds of the people out in the main area of the bar. I could hear everything. I listened intently for anything that would help me, anything that would prove to them that I could be useful. I gasped.
"Oh my god!" My eyes snapped back into focus on Eric's stoney face. I smacked the desktop in excitement and fear. "The bathroom! A man just planted a bomb in the men's bathroom!"
That got their attention. The lady vamp and Eric shared a weighted look, almost as if she was asking if I was believable enough to bother with. Eric gave an almost imperceptible nod and the woman disappeared at vamp speed out the door.
It twisted my hands and shifted from foot to foot, wondering if I should just grab Jason and haul ass out of this place before it blew. I tried to remember everything I had heard in the little snippet of thought I'd gotten from the man. "He was thinking about how he hated vampires, how they deserved to die for being an abomination to God, and everyone in the bar for associating with them. I think he might have been with the Fellowship." The Fellowship of the Sun was a group of religious extremists who thought vampires were damned and needed to be eradicated. I didn't think much of them.
Eric's cell phone rang. It sounded like some jaunty circus tune. I giggled, which I do at inappropriate times when tension is high. He exchanged a few short words with whoever was at the other end and looked mighty angry when he flipped it shut.
"Well, Miss Stackhouse, it seems your services could be very useful to us. I had not imagined the possible applications of a telepath," he seemed to say the last part almost to himself. Then he stood up from his seat, raising to his full and very impressive height. He seemed to fill the whole room. He stepped around the desk and came to stand nearly chest-to-chest with me, forcing me to crane my neck to keep eye contact with him. His body was so close my nipples might brush against him. I forced myself to keep my head in the game.
He lifted one large hand and brushed his fingers up my throat. I didn't flinch. "You cannot sense the thoughts of vampires, can you Miss Stackhouse." It was more a statement than a question. He took my silence as affirmitive, I guess. He grinned something scary. "I thought not."
He walked around to the other side of the desk and took his seat again. "Ok, Miss Stackhouse, your brother is free to go."
Jason, who I had completely forgotten was still there up until this point, hopped up out of his seat like he'd been waiting for those words. He grabbed me in a fierce hug, thanking me profusely, and was out the door before I could get in two words. I was too angry to do anything but shake my head. "Jack-ass."
I sighed and turned back to Eric, ready to negotiate my terms of employment. I wondered how I was going to be able to pay my bills with the hours I'd have to cut at work in order to work here too. It was a worrying prospect.
Suddenly, I was looking at the floor, slung over Eric's shoulder. I screamed. "What-!" Words fought eachother to escape my mouth. "What the fuck are you doing! Put me down!" I screamed in a panic and beat on his back. It was a bit like punching a brick wall. He squeezed my thigh painfully in warning. I just screamed louder.
He was taking me down a dark starewell. Panic began to cloud my mind. Where was he taking me? Why?
The world spun around me and my butt hit the cold cement. I was in a basement. I struggled as hard as I could but his hands around my wrists were steel. I tried to kick but he only moved behind me to hold me tight against his chest and I felt cold metal close around my neck. I screamed and cussed and kicked, but he paid me no more mind than he would a wriggling worm in his hand. Tears were hot on my cheeks. He disappeared in the darkness, back up the stairwell, and took the thin shaft of light with him when he shut the door behind him.
It was pitch dark in the basement. I pulled at the metal collar around my neck, but couldn't pry it off of me. I threw myself to the end of my short length of chain. I found where it connected to the wall, but it was made to hold creatures much stronger than a curvy barmaid from Bon Temps. I screamed until I was hoarse but I couldn't even hear the thumping of the music upstairs. In a few hours, the thoughts of the humans upstairs left me too and I was left in complete silence, alone and cold and unable to see my own hand in front of my face. I continued to scream and sob and shiver in the dark, but no one came.