Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or events from Southern Vampire Mysteries. I am not making any money from this, it's just for fun.
All italicized dialogue in this chapter is from Dead Until Dark, Chapter 1.
Sorry for taking so long to get this chapter up, lovely readers. Real life has been insane lately. Thanks so much for the reviews and follows, they keep me writing!
Chapter 8
Bill's POV
I stroll out of Merlotte's with the two rednecks attempting to befriend me. Denise chatters on about something inane, making her hips sway seductively as she walks. She stops at a beat up red sports car near the end of the parking lot, which I assume belongs to her and Mack. I move to go toward my own car, assuming that I'll just follow them when Denise grabs my wrist to stop me. She stands up on her tip toes to whisper in my ear, "You can just ride with us, doll. Don't worry none 'bout that car of yours."
Doll? Who is she calling doll? I sputter in indignation. She kisses my neck in an effort to mollify me. I glare at her as menacingly as possible to make her stop. In this moment of distraction, I lose my focus. I didn't pay Mack much mind once we left the bar because he wasn't jabbering on like his wife. I really shouldn't be so shocked when I feel the shock of that noxious metal against the exposed skin of my neck.
Mack cackles from behind me. "You're even dumber than that bimbo of a vamp we caught a few months ago." He twists the thin silver chain securely around my neck as I try to writhe away. Denise grabs one end and begins to wrap it around my left arm, while Mack takes care of my right. I feel weak in the knees and gasp in pain as I struggle against them. It's pathetic how little silver it takes to affect me like this. I can almost hear Andre and Sophie-Anne laughing in the back of my mind. As I collapse to the ground, I realize that this is how my unlife is going to end. I call for help, but no one is out here to hear me.
"Aren't ya'll supposed to be super strong?" Denise drawls as she and her scumbag husband wrestle me over to a dark corner of the parking lot, where we're unlikely to be seen. I can only hiss in response as I continue to struggle. The pain of the chain burning down into my flesh is indescribable. Denise goes to get something from the trunk of their car, which I assume is draining supplies. Mack continues to taunt me as he holds me down and wraps the chain around my legs too. He's sloppy and doesn't bother pulling up my pant legs, so it doesn't touch my skin there. It still stings through my clothing. I'm all out of fight by the time Denise returns with the supplies and starts draining me. I groan in protest as they wrap the tourniquet around my arm and stick the needle in, but am too weak to do anything more.
My mind frantically searches for another way out. In desperation, I do something I swore I'd never resort to: I call to my maker through our bond. I've finally found something that I hate more than I hate Lorena Ball: the silver burning into me as my strength bleeds out of me into a little vial that'll probably sell for several hundred dollars once full. My bitch of a maker would be a wonderful sight now. I can feel that she's much too far away to help me, but she's much closer than she was when I last checked six months ago. I have to wonder why. Most of the time, I try to forget that she exists. It's her fault that I have this cursed existence, subsisting on human blood and shunning daylight.
I hated being a vampire for decades and clung fiercely to every scrap of humanity I had left in me. Lorena's perversion did not make that easy. We had many fights over me attempting to adhere to my mortal moral code. She always won, of course, using her power to command me to do whatever disgusting thing she wished. There were many times in the early decades that considered meeting the sun and would have welcomed the final death. Of course, Lorena commanded me not to, so I could only fantasize about it. The transition is different for every new vampire, but it took me nearly sixty years to accept my new reality, probably because Lorena used her ability to compel me as to stay with her for so long. It's hard to accept a major change when you're forced to live with someone you hate.
It's strange how I'm now clinging to the existence I cursed for so long now that it's ending. Nothing short of a miracle can save me now. "Miracles don't happen for vampires," I silently admonish myself, but some tiny part of me refuses to let go of the sliver of hope that someone will help me. It'll take them quite awhile to drain me dry; vampire blood runs slow, as we have no pulse.
As it turns out, a miracle is just what I get. A chain-wielding Sookie Stackhouse leaps out from behind the nearest car and whacked Mack across his back. He lets out a howl of rage and jumps to his feet. Denise continues the draining process, seemingly unconcerned about her husband's assailant. She's only on the third vial, so there's a lot left to go. Mack bends down and pulls a knife from his boot.
"Uh-oh," Sookie mocks, clearly not grasping the danger she's in.
"You crazy bitch!" Mack hollers. Sookie doesn't wait for him to strike and attacks with the chain again as he brandishes the knife at her. He nearly hits her with the knife as the chain wraps around his neck. He gasps and makes an unpleasant gurgling sound. I can tell he can't breathe. He drops the knife and falls to his knees as he claws at the chain with his hands.
Sookie must have beginner's luck for fighting, because it's clear she's inexperienced. Why would she fight the Rattrays to help me? Maybe she actually is a bit crazy. She sure looks it right now with her blue eyes wide and teeth bared. She loses her grip on the chain as Mack falls down but wisely scoops up the knife he dropped.
By now, Denise is paying attention to the fight. She lunges at Sookie, screeching expletives, but stops cold when she sees the knife pointed at her.
"Get. Out. Now." Sookie commands. When Denise tries to take the blood she's collected from me with her, Sookie hisses at her like an angry cat. Denise settles for helping the still choking Mack up and getting him into their car.
Sookie and I realize at the same time that the Rattrays' retreat to their car is bad news for us. "Push with your feet!" She shouts in my ear as she grabs me under my arms to pull me out of the car's way. I do as she tells me and we narrowly avoid getting run over. I can hear Sookies heart pounding and smell her sweet scent, stronger from her perspiration. We're sitting at the edge of the woods behind Merlotte's. I'm relieved as I hear the car speed away. I'll be sure to make those bastards pay later.
"Oh wow," Sookie sighed, obviously worn out from her exertion. She kneels beside me panting. I twitched again from the pain of the silver, which drew her attention to my predicament. Would this little human be trusting enough to unbind me? She's perfectly safe so long as I'm chained up.
She gasps in horror at the sight of the smoke rising from my wrists. "Oh you poor thing," she exclaims as she begins to remove the chain. "Poor baby," she soothes . Baby? This really is not my night. First I'm called Doll, now Baby. I'm not going to complain though. She almost has me free.
I breathe a sigh of relief once the chain is off and pull my arms close to my body protectively as I wait for them to heal.
"I'm sorry I didn't get here faster," she says softly. "You'll feel better in a minute, right? Do you want me to leave?" I watch her warily. She could've easily continued the raining operation and netted some good money, but she freed me instead. If she was smart, she'd get the hell away from me, because now I'm both hungry and injured, which is never a good combination for a vampire. Of course, she might not know this.
"No." I answer her question. She seems pleased at the answer. "They might come back, and I can't fight yet." I clarify. I'm still very weak, but I don't mind her company. She clearly has no intent to hurt me, and she'd probably help me if the trailer trash came back to finish the job. Perhaps I could take this opportunity to get to know her and redeem something from this otherwise disastrous night.
She makes a strange face and turns her back to me, facing the parking lot. I think this is foolish until I notice her wrapping the drainers' chain around her neck and wrists, presumably to deter me from biting her. So, she's not totally stupid. There are other places I could bite though. The bar is emptying out for the night; I can tell from the cars leaving, so I probably wouldn't be interrupted if I bit.
After a long few minutes I sit up. Sookie startles a little. She turns to look at me. I don't know what to say. "Thank you." I feel really awkward saying that after being rescued by a mortal woman, but common courtesy demands it.
Her eyes widen. "Oh," she sounds shocked. Is it really that surprising that I expressed gratitude? "I can't hear you."
Do I have to say it again? I guess she wants to rub it in. "Thank you!" I nearly shout at her.
"No, no . . . I can hear you speak, but I can't hear your thoughts like I can with regular folks." She clarifies. Well, that confirms it. Hadley's cousin is the real deal. Sophie-Anne will be over the moon.
"You can hear people's thoughts?" I ask to confirm.
She nods. "Yep. I usually don't tell anyone though. It's why everyone thinks I'm crazy. It's like having tons of people chattering on in my head all the time. I call it my disability." Then she turns to me and puts her hands on my face with an intense look on her face. I guess she's trying to hear me, so I think disgustingly sexual thoughts about her so that she'll react if she hears them. She doesn't recoil or slap me, so I guess she really can't hear me.
"Oh, excuse me," she says, embarrassed. She drops her hands to her lap and twiddles her thumbs. "You see, I could hear the Rats planning to drain you in their minds. Mack was trying to remember the current street price of V. Denise was planning how to spend the money. They were both wondering how old you are. I wasn't sure if they'd try to drain you here or if they'd take you back to their trailer, but I got suspicious when I didn't hear that loud car of theirs leaving . . . so I figured I better come out here to see how you were."
"You came out here to rescue me. It was brave." I purr, silently glamoring her to come closer to me and offer me blood.
"Now you cut that out." She snaps. This takes me by surprise, but I try to hide it. Is she immune to glamor? That would be a first. It also would make this mission much more complicated.
"Aren't you afraid to be alone with a hungry vampire?" I query saucily. If she's not, she's truly naïve.
"Nope." She makes no move to get away from me.
"Are you assuming that since you came to my rescue that you're safe, that I harbor an ounce of sentimental feeling after all these years?" I'm genuinely curious about how she'll answer. " Vampires often turn on those who trust them. We don't have human values, you know." Even ditzy Hadley figured this out. She's lasted longer with fickle Sophie-Anne than I expected her to because she understands how vampires think. Would her innocent cousin have such insight?
"A lot of humans turn on those who trust them," she retorted. "I'm not a total fool." She turned to show me the chain she'd been wrapping around her neck and arms. I shiver as I remembered how it felt wrapped around my own body.
I think for a moment on how to respond. "But there's a juicy artery inn your groin." The femoral arteries are favorites of mine, and her little strategy leaves them unprotected. Plus the little innuendo should get a rise out of her.
"Don't you talk dirty, I won't listen to that." Sookie snaps back. We stare at each other for a few minutes. I ponder about what to say next and wonder what she's thinking. Glamoring her into giving me a meal is out, as it doesn't work. I wonder if she plans to keep the blood the redneck scum drained from me before she interrupted them.
"Would you like to drink the blood they collected?" I ask. She looks astonished. "It would me a way to show my gratitude." I point at the pair of vials on the ground nearby. I really do owe her something. "My blood is supposed to improve your sex life and your health." I clarify. She still looks horrified at the suggestion.
"I'm healthy as a horse," she responds. "And I have no sex life to speak of. You do what you want with it." So Hadley's right, she is still a virgin. I'd suspected as much, but it's good to have the confirmation so that I can plan accordingly. She probably won't hop right into bed with me, so I need to figure out how to woo her.
"You could sell it." I suggest, but she looks disgusted. She's every bit as straight-laced as Hadley claimed.
"I wouldn't touch it."
"You're different, what are you?" I ask, wondering if she'll come right out and say that she's a telepath or if she'd admit to having some supe blood, which I was starting to suspect.
"Well, I'm Sookie Stackhouse and I'm a waitress." She evades. "What's your name?
"Bill." I guess there's no harm in telling her that. I leave out my last name so that she won't realize that I'm her new neighbor just yet.
She bursts out laughing. I wasn't expecting that reaction. "The vampire Bill! I thought it might be Antione, or Basil, or Langford!" This reminds me a bit too much of my earlier conversation with Denise and Mack. She laughs for a solid five minutes. I don't know whether to be offended or amused. I have to wonder if she'd laugh at Eric Northman for having a normal-sounding name. I'd love to see his reaction to that.
"Well, see ya, Bill. I got to get back to work." That weird smile from earlier reappears on her face. I wonder why she does that. Nervous reflex, perhaps? Her real smile is much prettier. She uses my shoulder to push herself up. She dusts off her backside and checks to make sure her socks look right before heading inside with a final wave to me.
I make my way to my car, mind churning with the events of the evening. Things certainly didn't go as planned, but I think I have enough to report to satisfy Sophie-Anne for now. I'll be editing what happened. I can't let Andre, Sophie-Anne, or Hadley find out that I almost got myself drained by a couple of hicks. I'd be the laughingstock of the supernatural community for months. I crank the engine as I ponder how to spin this.
I stop at a convenience store for some bottled blood on the way back to the house. I don't feel up to finding a donor tonight, after the fiasco with the Rats, though I think the plump clerk at the Grabbit Kwik was interested. She told me she was getting off work soon and winked at me as she rang up my purchase. I noticed from her nametag that her name is Maudette. She isn't very attractive, but blood is blood, so she may be an option for another night. The nearest blood bank is in Shreveport, which I must avoid at all cost, so that's not an option either. I guess this synthetic shit will have to do for now. It'll take the edge off, even if it can't fully sate me.
Once I'm home, I take the blood into the kitchen and heat a couple bottles up in the ancient microwave. I stow the rest in the beat up old fridge. Hmm, something else that needs replacing in this dump of a house. I don't know much about my descendant Jesse, but his housekeeping skills leave much to be desired. Everything is banged up and stained and there's junk everywhere I look. Was the man a hoarder? Whoever came in here after he died made no effort to clean the place up.
I find a reasonably clean armchair in the living room and settle down with my laptop and phone. I bought a 3G adapter for the computer before I left New Orleans so I could check my email from this house. Of course there is no internet here, Jesse didn't even have cable TV. If I got really desperate I could use the phone line for dial up, but I'd rather not.
After a few more minutes of pondering what kind of story to spin for the crowd back in New Orleans, I call Andre. With him, I stick to the basics, because that bastard can always tell if I'm stretching the truth or embellishing things too much. I tell him that I know for sure that Sookie is a telepath, that she can't be glamored, and that I'm pretty sure she is a virgin. I confirm that the shifter Merlotte is very protective of her and was not pleased to see me. I say that I doubt Merlotte will report my presence to Northman, since he doesn't want more vampires sniffing around Sookie. I conclude that this mission may take weeks or months if I can't simply abduct the girl. Andre tells me that still isn't an option and that I'm to complete my mission with minimal disruption to the Bon Temps community.
Andre is in a sour mood and I am happy to end the call. I can hear Hadley giggling obnoxiously in the background, so I sympathize a little with my fellow vampire. I don't know how he stands being around her so much. He must be truly devoted to his maker to put up with her pet's irritating qualities with so little complaint.
I begin writing my report for Sophie-Anne shortly after finishing the call. I make sure to pack it full of the gossip I heard at the bar and detailed descriptions about everything from the town to my house. Even the smallest details delight the Queen. I am able to avoid all mention of the draining incident without outright lying, but do mention the Rattrays, though not by name. I claim to have spoken to Sookie on one of her breaks, which isn't a huge perversion of the truth. After all, she took an unscheduled break to come help me. Sophie-Anne's probably going to creep Sookie out when she finally meets her and starts gabbing about Sookie's friends and neighbors from Bon Temps like she's lived there all her life. Oh well, that isn't my problem. My job is just to get the Queen what she wants, even if it's something as silly as gossip from a backwater town.
I email my report a couple hours before sunrise and have a couple more bottles of synthetic blood. I go to ground feeling good about my job security, but still hungry. Perhaps I'll find a live donor tomorrow night.
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Next chapter – Hadley is annoying, Andre is jealous, and Sophie-Anne does some online shopping.
