Chapter 1
Eric shifted the blind to peer again into the parking lot through the mist and rain. The little yellow mini was still absent from its bay below his window. He felt a flutter of nerves. She had never been this late returning from work. He did a quick calculation: let's say the bar had been unusually busy. She'd had to work late, but no more than an hour, surely? Merlotte's was always closed by 12, she'd told him that. Her boss was tight with overtime, but he didn't expect his staff to work for free. Then, say, she'd had to stop for petrol or something: another ten minutes, max. It was now 2.15. The drive from Bon Temps was only 15 minutes and there'd be little to no traffic at this hour. But look at the rain. Torrential, had been for hours. The Shreveport road was treacherous in these conditions. Eric had a vision of the little yellow mini bobbing and spinning on the crest of a torrent of flood water. He shook his head to clear the image and let out a hiss. Why did he even care? Didn't he have enough on his plate without fretting over the whereabouts of a virtual stranger? And a human stranger, at that? He turned back to his kitchen and popped the unopened bottle of Tru Blood into the microwave feeling a stab of anger as he did so. This is what he was reduced to. Exiled from his own community, mainstreaming in a slum in Shreveport, forced to drink this shit whilst trying to stay sane. Then again, he'd been over his other options a million times and not one of them entailed the survival of himself or his progeny, Pam. If he set foot in Bon Temps again, they'd both be dead. What's more, if the king even got a whiff of a rumour he was lying low in Shreveport he wouldn't live to see another night. He'd be better off in Alaska. Outer Mongolia. But at least here he could still sense the presence of his progeny close enough to know she was safe and to respond if she wasn't. He assumed she could sense it too, that she knew he hadn't deserted her. Not completely. The thought kept him going, kept him strong enough to knock back the Tru Blood and face another night alone. He switched on the TV and slumped on the greasy, battered sofa. A severe weather warning for the whole of North West Louisiana. Oh fucking great.
Sookie pulled up along a narrow side-road and switched off the engine. Visibility was down to ten yards at best and the wind was really starting to get up. Her nerves were shot to pieces already and that had nothing to do with the weather. The state of the weather was just further evidence, Sookie surmised, that someone or something had it in for her one way or another. If it wasn't enough to be threatened by the most powerful vampire in the state simply for serving fries in accordance with the terms of her employment as a fucking waitress, she was now in danger of becoming yet another statistic in Reynard Parish's roll call of weather-related deaths on the Shreveport road. She sighed and fumbled in the back for the blanket she kept for just such an eventuality. She'd sleep in the car. In spite of the fury of the storm it wasn't a cold night and she was so exhausted she'd sleep through a tornado, most probably. As she cuddled down under the cover, she found herself reluctantly playing over the events of the evening.
Bill had arrived at Merlotte's around 10 with two of his security team and a human Sookie didn't recognise. He hadn't acknowledged her, not even with his usual tight smile, and Sookie had no intention of serving him even though he had sat at one of her tables right in front of the bar. No doubt that was deliberate. Arlene signalled with a nod that she'd cover it and Sookie smiled gratefully. She had nothing to say to Bill Compton that didn't end with 'fuck you'. She couldn't help noticing how exhausted he looked, though. The worry lines on his forehead had deepened considerably since he'd become king and he was struggling to keep his voice down as he spoke animatedly to his human companion. Sookie was well aware of the tensions within the vampire community and no doubt Bill was right at the sharp end of it. Maybe he was even the cause of it; God only knew this vampire was no stranger to intrigue as she'd found to her cost. She gritted her teeth and set about attending to a rowdy group of weres who'd settled by the juke box. It was only then that Bill glanced over, pausing in his angry address to the hapless human. The weres were pretty boisterous, but good-humoured enough, at least for now. Sookie was determined to keep it that way, so when one of them made a lame joke about a blob of ketchup on her blouse ('You been bitten, honey? Want a wolf to kiss it better?) she'd forced a weak laugh. Bill in an instant had the wolf by the neck, slammed against the juke box. 'You shut your fucking mouth and get the fuck out of here.' He turned to Sookie with a cold glare. 'And you, you'd better learn to keep your pretty little smiles to yourself, woman, or you're going to end up dead.'
Under her blanket, already half asleep, Sookie's body tensed in anger. This vampire had betrayed her, taken everything she'd had to give and thrown it in the gutter. And here he was bawling her out in front of friends, colleagues and customers for simply doing her job. She recalled the look of shock and pity on Arlene's face as she'd backed away from the scene. Was this going to be the legacy of her relationship with Bill? That he'd taken a strong, spirited woman and turned her into this spineless little girl who stood slack-jawed whilst he humiliated her in front of people she'd known all her life? At that moment she loathed Bill Compton, but she loathed herself more.
It was almost dawn before Eric turned off his lap top and went to the window for a final check. The car wasn't there. He stared hard as if the simple act of looking might cause the little yellow mini to materialise in its parking bay. He swore at his stupidity and pressed his forehead against the glass, a wave of nausea warning him that the sun was coming up. He stumbled to his coffin, resigned to another sleepless day.