From the Waist Down

Chapter 4

"I can smell you," George Larson grumbled, the tiny black hairs on the back of his neck rising defensively. He had a low, guttural voice and a cruel disposition to perfectly complement it. George Larson made a great mercenary, and since he'd been hired through the local army base, he knew everything there was to know about taking down an opponent.

"I can smell you too," Bill hissed. He stepped out of the dark, his fangs lowered and visible underneath a snarled lip. His dark brown eyes cut through the night, focusing in on the enormous werewolf standing in front of him. There was no full moon tonight, just a sliver of light in the chilly October air, but that didn't seem to stop George. He hunched toward the ground, his tan skin covering with thick black hair. Bill could hear the familiar sound of magic, a sound that Sookie likened to a thick soup being stirred. The Were was going wolf, making him a much deadlier opponent.

On the other side of the bar, at the front entrance, Sam stood behind Madden's vehicle, a polished chrome Cadillac with vanity plates that read BITEME. Attractive, Sam thought, as he stripped off his shirt and pants. It would be easier to change without them. He tossed the clothes, with his shoes, into the bushes that surrounded the parking lot. He couldn't change with any sort of stealth, so instead, he opted for speed. Sam Merlotte could change into anything that he had imprinted, but he most often went with the figure of a thin collie that wandered the bar's lot. His opponent, Angus Sharpton, was on alert. He heard the squashy sound of Sam's transformation and cocked the rifle gripped in his hands. Angus had picked up the smell of the vampire and the supe a mile away, but he'd gotten lucky. He'd ended up with a pup.

***

His pants fell around his knees, sinking with the weight of his black leather belt. Victor Madden had gone commando for the occasion, as if he knew everything would work out exactly as he had planned. It was, too, which made the whole thing all the more disturbing. With his free hand, Victor ripped at my shorts. I'd worn a pair to the bar, despite the lateness of the year. It was a warm night in October, so warm that shorts seemed more comfortable than the long black pants Merlotte's waitresses wore in the winter months. The thing about the shorts, though, was that they were light, flexible, and apparently, easily destroyed. The fabric came apart in his hands like tissue paper.

I set to screaming. Top of my lungs, full-fledged, straight out of a horror movie screaming. I was channeling Jamie Lee Curtis, and I prayed to God that someone, anyone, would hear me.

Victor seemed to revel in the whole thing, the torn pants and the violence of my voice. He grabbed me by the hip and yanked me down to the edge of the desk, my pelvis cocked in such a way as to provide perfect access. I pinched my legs together, crossing my ankles. No way. No fucking way was this going to happen to me. There was no way!

"Eric!" I screamed. "Bill! Please! Sam! Somebody! Oh God!"

"Scream my name next, Sookie," Victor laughed. "You have a beautiful voice."

His callous remark worked like a charm, just as it was intended. I clamped my mouth shut. My eyes darted to the doors, the blocked door, the office door. I expected to see it open, to watch someone come slamming through it. He'd grab Victor by the throat and yank him back with so much force that his head would detach from his body and he'd turn into a pile of smoke and ash and vampire dust. I waited. I waited and waited for something to happen.

And then something happened, but it wasn't the something I expected. Victor shoved his dick inside me like a freight train penetrating a tunnel in the side of a mountain. It was a sharp feeling, a rough and painful feeling. If my body could have split in half, it would have. Tears fell down the sides of my face. I stared at the ceiling. What had just happened? Why was this happening to me? I'd been kind to a vampire, just once, just one time, and now I was being…I was a pawn in the world's craziest political system. No no no no. My brain whimpered. I wept harder. My lower lip trembled uncontrollably.

No one was coming. No one was coming for me.

"Please," I whimpered. Was that terror-stricken, pained voice coming from my mouth? Was I begging? Was I letting myself beg? "Please don't."

"I told you, Sookie." Victor grinned. He pulled his hips back and lingered for a moment. "I told you that you'd be begging me." He charged in again, and the desk actually moved slightly on the floor.

Just then, at that moment, the door leading in from the bar burst open. Bill Compton stood framed with the single bulb beaming in the bar, the house light. His face was bloody, and I wasn't sure it wasn't his blood. His face carried slowly healing scratches, and his left arm was drenched in blood and sinew, as if he'd reached into an animal's guts and tried to extract something. I wanted to vomit, just looking at him.

"Get the hell off of her!" Bill roared, his face a mass of rage.

"She's mine," Victor sneered at him. There was a rumbling in the hall, as though someone were coming up behind him. My heart leapt, just for a moment. Eric? There was a roar so powerful that the room seemed to shake with the thunder of it. Bill yelled in pain and disappeared from the doorway. I could swear I saw a huge black muzzle clamping down on his shoulder.

I listened intently to the struggle, as did Victor. We hung in limbo for a minute, not moving, not breathing. There was a low howl, then the sickly sucking sound of a supe's transformation. A man appeared in the doorway, his face drenched with blood, his eyes bright and dancing. He grabbed the knob of the office door and shut it without a word. Victor turned back to me, his dark eyes glistening as though a flame had been lit behind them.

"You're mine, Sookie," Victor laughed. "You're all mine."

"No," I wept. I sank like a stone, seemingly smacking into the desk a second time. Victor bucked a third time, and then a fourth. I lost count. I stared at the ceiling, dead inside. I could feel no pain but the pain in my heart. Victor's grunting was barely audible. I could only hear the weighty thumping of my own heart, beating long after I willed it to stop.

Eric was gone, possibly dead. Pam was with him, stuck in the same boat. Bill had fought for me and obviously lost his life in the process. Sam…Sam was at home in his trailer, fast asleep. I was alone, alone in a world ruled by Victor Madden. I was his now. I'd been claimed, claimed by a creature that wanted only to use me to further his political career. Nausea washed over me in waves, but I didn't have the urge to vomit. After so many close calls, I'd finally lost. I'd lost everything.

I gave up.

Victor's fangs tore a second time at my skin, this time breaking the flesh at my femoral artery. I jumped, only because I was surprised. There was nothing left to fear. I welcomed death, bleeding from a wound in my thigh seemed like a perfect release. My head rolled to one side as Victor lapped at my blood, drawing me into him. He stood again, his hand cupping under the still gushing wound. He brought cups of blood to his mouth as he attacked my pelvis a second time.

My flesh was raw and dry, tense and bruised. I could feel my skin ripping as it tried to accommodate him. Victor Madden had been blessed in the girth department, and for once, I wished for a penis jealous of a #2 pencil. The tears had returned. They ran down my temples, taking my dignity and my pride, my will to live and my will to fight. I was no more than a shell of despair, a thing waiting to die. Could I will myself to bleed faster? No. I couldn't even will myself to stop breathing.

"Just kill me," I whispered. My tongue felt dry, like a piece of paper in my mouth.

"Not yet, my dear. Not yet." Victor cooed like a lover.

***

In the parking lot, Eric leapt from the car with the engine still running, the vehicle still in gear. His fangs clicked down against his lip, and his eyes narrowed to fearsome slits of icy blue. A huge six foot wolf galloped out of the bar, his paws and muzzle drenched with dark blood. As he jumped through the air, his front legs outstretched to attack, Eric grabbed his throat and twisted. Bone grinded against bone. The neck snapped like a twig under a hiking boot. The corpse dropped to the gravel in a heap, and Eric kept right on moving, through Fangtasia's front door, through the bar, back to the office door.

He took the knob roughly and yanked, ripping the door from its hinges with a scream of twisted metal.