Chapter 5
Sleep evaded me. Finding a comfortable position was impossible, and the pain in my wrist seemed to be getting worse not better. When I finally slept, I fell into another night of fitful dreams. I awoke with a gasp, slick with sweat. I went to brush the hair from my sweaty face. Ouch.
It was nearly six am, I could see the pale light of near-dawn frame the edges of my window shades. Sleep was a long-shot now. I got up, gingerly nursing my wrist, and crossed the hall to tap lightly on Diantha's door.
"What?" she called out, her voice thick with sleep.
I peeked in on her. She slept like she fought ninjas all night, the sheets wrapped around her, her green hair jutted out at all sides in spikes.
"Can you drive me to the emergency room?" I asked.
"What's the emergency?"
"My wrist isn't getting any better." It was so puffed up, my arm was beginning to resemble a Christmas ham.
"Fine." She threw the sheets back with a flourish and tumbled elegantly out of bed, completely nude.
What was it with supes and nudity? It had to be a universal thing. Or maybe humans were the oddity, what with our modesty and propriety. On the plus side, it meant I had no compunctions about asking Diantha to help me do up my bra and button up my denim shorts. She didn't give a lick about my bare form. I waited to ask for help once she was dressed, however. I had to draw the line somewhere.
She drove me to the emergency room like there was a real emergency. I had to wonder if possessing a harrowing driving style was another quirk of supes too. In the waiting room, there were a handful of people waiting to be seen, sitting in rows of gray, beaten up chairs. I told Diantha I'd make my way home after I was done.
"Screw you," she said. "I'm not going anywhere." She sanitized her hands and picked up a dog-eared copy of People from a table. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie featured on the cover, locked in an embrace. I could see there was no changing Diantha's mind, and to be honest I liked the company, even if I wasn't much in return. I stared unfocused at the mounted TV playing Good Morning America on mute. Time crept by at a snail's pace.
Why wasn't my wrist feeling any better? I'd recovered from death, with not a mark to be found. I'd freaking bled out. I awoke after the ordeal at Fangtasia to feel more or less fine. So how could I survive all that, for my arm to then not heal? What had changed?
I stared down at my wrist, willing it to give me answers. I'd spent the last two months trying to wrap my head around the notion of being immortal, or invincible…or something thereabouts. Now this injury threw everything for a loop. Yet again.
"How ya doin'?" Diantha asked, cutting off my train of thought. "You look pale."
"Fine. Tired." A little scared. Mostly confused.
A set of double doors opened to the right and an equally tired doctor ushered me through a corridor of hospital beds divided by fabric curtains. This was the section of the emergency ward dedicated to injuries, rather than the sick and frail. I passed one bed where a middle-aged woman sat sporting a bloody bandage wrapped around her forehead. She stared at the cell phone in her hand, bored.
I was taken to a medical bay at the end of the row, this one without a bed and just a couple of plastic chairs and a desk instead. I was questioned by the doctor, then examined, my wrist palpated until my eyes watered, and then I was duly sent off for an x-ray.
"Colles fracture," the doc announced, placing the x-rays up on the lightboard for me to see. "Typical for a fall like you described. Plaster cast for a month or so and you'll be as good as new. You should have come in sooner."
"Why? Is it showing signs of healing?" I asked. I could see the spot that had broken but it didn't look as terrible as I thought it would. No bones sitting at weird angles. Just a little crack in the bone. Maybe it was already nearly better? Healing at a supernaturally fast rate?
"No. I mean you should've come in last night after you hurt yourself," he said. "I'm sure you had a restless night's sleep."
I left a half hour later sporting a cast and sling on my right hand, and holding a bottle of prescription pills in my left. A simple visit, all in all. And covered almost entirely by the health insurance plan provided by work. And here I was thinking I'd never really need it. Diantha drove me back home in my little Nissan. We found parking right out front of the Belle Vue complex. The time on the car's digital display read 7:52 am. Enough time to dress and get to work.
"Are you kidding?" Diantha said, when I voiced that to her as we walked past the pool to our duplex. "You can't go to work."
"Yes, I can." I'd taken Tylenol and Advil which took the edge off, and the stronger pills I'd stow in my purse in case I needed it. "I've been back for exactly one day. I'm not missing any more time at work."
"It's just work," she said. "Uncle would understand."
"Work is important to me."
"It's just work." She unlocked the front door, and I followed her inside.
"Yes. And it piles up if I'm not there."
"Nerd," she said before heading upstairs back to bed.
"Thank you!" I called out after her.
I dressed, performed a passable effort on my hair and makeup (particularly considering I was using my non-dominant hand), and got to work with a handful of minutes to spare.
"Looking fresh, Sookie," Hannah said when I lowered myself into my chair. She saw my arm and her mouth popped open with surprise. "What happened to you?"
"An up close and personal encounter with the pavement in the French Quarter last night."
"What? You were out drinking on a Monday night?"
"No," I said, wrestling my laptop from my shoulder bag.
When Mr. C came in, he immediately noted my state, and he invited me into his office.
"What happened?" he asked as soon as my behind landed in the seat across from him. Before I could answer there was a soft rap at the door. Honey entered and brought him in his morning pot of tea and treats. She carefully set out his morning platter and disappeared, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.
"So, tell me, what happened?" he asked and poured himself a cup of green tea.
I gave him a rundown over the last two days, starting with Bubba knocking on my door and ending with Eric's foiled assassination attempt.
"You know, you could sue Mr. Northman for damages." His expression was serious, but his tone somewhat less so.
"For what? The insurance you provide here is excellent."
Mr. C smiled, clearly pleased, his cheeks flushing pink. "Good. As it should be."
"Honestly, Eric saved me from further injury."
"It's curious that your arm hasn't healed given your injuries back in July."
I smiled, a wan one I was sure, but it was from relief. I wasn't sure how or if to bring that little fact up. Mr. C passed me a cup of tea, and I poured out my worries to him. He listened, without interruption as I described my worries and confusion from the past twelve hours.
"Perhaps it's the nature of the injury?" he asked.
"How do you suppose that?"
"You were stabbed and shed blood that time you healed. Perhaps you heal from injuries only of that nature." Mr. C dropped several sugar cubes into his cup and stirred.
"I only heal when I'm stabbed?" I thought back to the night of my birthday when I'd cut my finger on the chef knife.
"Perhaps only when you spill blood?"
"Oh." I hadn't considered that possibility.
He looked over his platter before settling on an apricot danish which he transferred onto an ornate plate with a pair of silver serving tongs. He offered me something, to which I declined.
"I take it you haven't met with Dr. Ludwig to see what she thought about the nature of the changes you're experiencing."
"No..." I ducked my head. "She doesn't see patients this far south." The excuse sounded as lousy as it was. Mr. C leaned back in his seat and his expression was loaded with such fatherly disappointment that it made me squirm in my seat.
"Though, I suppose I could've seen her when I was in Bon Temps."
"Yes. You should have. Too late now. I'll send you the details of a supernatural doctor operating in New Orleans."
"Thank you."
"You need to prioritize your health, Sookie."
"Yes, sir," I said meekly. He was right.
I stood to leave and as I did Mr. C took a sip of his tea. He grimaced.
"Oh my, this is far too cold." He opened his meaty right hand and his palm lit up with the glow of a small, muted flame. He cupped his teacup and the liquid within steamed. He extinguished his hand—how I couldn't tell you, it just went out—and he lifted the dainty cup to his lips and sipped. "Ah, that's better."
Leaving his office, I couldn't help but marvel at just how strange my life had become.
•───── ─────•
I wore my hummingbird necklace to get me through the afternoon. These days it lived either in my purse or my pocket. There, ready on hand, only for when I needed it. Times like now, for example, when I was beat and needed silence to get my work done. I'd mostly given up on using it after my relationship with Danny circled the drain. I wasn't a proud freak in the way that Diantha declared herself to be, but I had to accept and put to bed the fact that I was indeed a freak of nature. I don't mean that in a disparaging way. It was God's honest truth. I was a part-fairy telepath who came back from the dead. Pretending I was anything but—pretending I was fully human—wasn't fair to me or my sense of self (and any potential suitors). As much of a gift the necklace was, it was also the salt in the wound for the normal human life I'd so desperately longed for but had always been just out of reach.
With the necklace on (Hannah helping me clasp it), all mental noise of the office was extinguished, and I was able to relegate the dull throbbing ache of my wrist to background noise. I set to work, coffee being the fuel that kept the motor running. God bless coffee. I managed to get through the day, though I counted down the minutes until five o'clock. I had a sizable pile of work to finish up on. A few minutes after five o'clock, Mr. C stuck his head through his office door and dismissed me for the day. He told me anything urgent he'd handle himself. God bless good bosses too.
On my way back downstairs I called past the desk Curtis the investigator often worked from. I could see a dirty coffee cup, evidence he'd been in for the day but there was no sign of him.
"Have you seen Curtis?" I asked Fresh-Meat, the new associate.
"Who?" he asked. The kid looked like he was fresh out of law-school and had a faintly harassed expression on his face.
"The investigator."
"Oh, him. He was in earlier, I'm pretty sure. He's doing some work for Ms. Latour this afternoon. I think he stepped out after lunch."
A nearby associate echoed the same information. Fine. Well, don't say I didn't try. I trudged to my streetcar stop only to realize that I'd missed the streetcar by two minutes. I leaned against the wall of the neighboring building until the next one came trundling down the tracks ten minutes later. I squeezed in with the group of commuters who turned up to the stop as I waited. I found a seat by the window and rested my forehead against the cool glass. The bell rang and it took off with a shuddering start. I belatedly realized I'd forgotten to take off my necklace. This was the exact scenario that I'd want to use it, anyway. Tired and unable to hold my shields while surrounded by the general public.
At the next stop more office workers ambled on, and the seats quickly filled. A man, with a thin mustache and dressed in a dark gray suit, shuffled his way from the front and sat in the seat in front of me. After a few minutes of travel, he turned to face me.
"You're a difficult woman to get a hold of," he said.
I frowned, trying to put a name to a face. "Agent Ray," I said after a moment.
He was the rookie FBI agent working with Agent Weiss on the Ryker murder case. I hadn't exactly ingratiated myself with either FBI agent. In the couple of months that had passed since solving her murder, Agent Ray had somehow aged considerably. Gone was the young agent, green at the lapels, that I'd met when working on Lydia Ryker's murder investigation. Now he looked as tired as I felt, his narrow features drawn, dark bags under his eyes. Even his suit tie was askew. He'd grown a mustache.
"I don't think I'm difficult to reach at all." I lifted my cell phone off my lap.
"Your number is unlisted."
"You could've reached me at work," I said.
"I tried."
I shrugged and returned my gaze to the urban scenery passing by. I'd gone through all my messages, and I definitely would've noticed if the FBI had left me some. Although, thinking on it, there were a bunch of blank messages I'd just thrown out.
"You're not even curious?"
"Nope. My plate is full, thank you." I had not the slightest compunction to know what he wanted from or with me.
"I lost my job because of you, you know." His expression and tone transformed to anger so quickly, it was like a switch had been flicked. Curious passengers looked our way.
"You're no longer with the feds?"
"No... not that exactly. I'm still an agent. I've been demoted."
I sighed. "And how is that my fault exactly?"
"You and your posse came to my home and glamoured me, scraped me for confidential information."
"Firstly," I said, dropping and hardening the tone of my voice, "don't act like I had any say or a position of authority amongst that group. Secondly, it's not on me that you withheld pertinent information from a whole team investigation. We used that information you gave us to solve the case."
"Which you hid from us."
"Y'all were conducting your own lines of inquiry. And Agent Weiss wasn't open to hearing anything we were pursuing. So take it up with her."
Agent Ray's theory that Lydia Ryker's murder had been part of a spree of killings had been dismissed by his partner Sara Weiss several times. She thought it was a cut and dry DV case. Never mind the supposed perpetrator was caught on camera elsewhere at the time of the murder.
The streetcar juddered to a stop and the bell rang. Agent Ray waited for passengers to clear and new ones to settle on the seats around us before he continued.
"I'm in a windowless office assigned to cold cases. My partner is a sixty-year-old suit whose entire focus is his 401k and where he plans to retire in the Florida Keys."
I considered this and him for a moment. "You clearly have a good nose for clues. I'm sure you'll do well working with cold cases."
"I think I will too." Color appeared in his cheeks as he spoke, returning some of his youth. He had to be 25 at most. A babe in the woods. He struck me as the type who gunned to be on the fast track to upper management… until he'd crossed paths with us.
My stop was next. I gathered my belongings and got to my feet, making my way to the front of the car, careful not to bump my arm. Agent Ray got off at the stop with me. He looked at me expectantly. I pursed my lips, annoyed that I'd forgotten to take the necklace off before leaving work. Annoyed that I was curious. Annoyed that I wanted to know what he wanted of me... And if it was related to any said cold cases.
"Fine. Agent Ray, would you like to continue this discussion at my home? I believe there is some sweet tea in the fridge."
Diantha was home when I let myself in and she thoroughly spooked Agent Ray, which stoked a devilish sort of pleasure inside me. At first glance, Diantha passed as human. But on occasion, she could smile in such a way that made it abundantly clear there was something significantly inhuman about her.
I poured two glasses of sweet tea, and the agent and I sat across from one another at the small oak dining table in my kitchen
"What happened to your wrist?" the agent asked. His question rang genuine, well, the effort of it at least.
"I fell. And no offense, but can we skip the pleasantries? I'd rather you tell me why you're here. I want to get on with my evening."
"Sure. Fine." His hands, which had been sitting flat on the table, now moved reflexively for his glass, clasping it tightly. His nails were neat, smoothly manicured with nary a stray cuticle. "I'd like you to accompany me while I re-interview several witnesses for an old case I'm looking at."
"And why would you ask me to do that? I'm sure my experience in investigation pales in comparison to yours."
I wasn't sure what his former partner Agent Weiss had ever told him about me, but she'd always suspected I had abilities ever since the Rhodes bombing. And I'd never confirmed it one way or another. In fact, I'd blatantly denied it at one point. Agent Weiss got my hackles up. There was nothing trustworthy about that woman. In fact, I had misgivings about the federal organization in general.
"When it comes to cold cases, it's difficult re-interviewing witnesses," Agent Ray said. "Time erodes memories. Trauma can shift perception of incidents. I was hoping you'd be willing to add some depth to theirs."
I sat back in my seat, crossed my legs, and held his gaze until I felt his thoughts begin to squirm. "Agent," I finally said, "what is it that you think I do?"
He had a great poker face, that was for sure.
"I don't think psychic is the right word, Miss Stackhouse… but my former partner, she—"
"She what?"
"Agent Weiss thinks you have some sort of sixth sense; that you can see things others can't. You have a file at the FBI."
Oh, of course I do, I thought with a barely suppressed sigh.
"Not a significant one," he hurried to clarify. "It's more a note, or an addendum to the Rhodes bombing reports. It was noted that you assisted in recovering survivors for many hours after the explosion. I'm not sure in what capacity… A lot of it was redacted."
Well, that was a small blessing at least.
"I'm not confirming or denying anything you're saying here," I said. "Particularly if anything will eventually be added to a file with my name on it."
"You'll be helping strictly off the books." His gaze was level, steady.
"So, you don't intend on recording the interviews?"
This stumped him. "We'll work around it somehow."
"And what about your partner? Won't he have questions?"
Agent Ray snorted, and he rolled his eyes. "Agent Nowell has his foot out the door. Plus, he has his own pet cases that he's working on and isn't interested in anything I do."
I'd taken my hummingbird necklace off as soon as I'd gotten home and so now I could hear his thoughts clear as a bell. He was thinking how his office chair was a revolving hot seat for any agent who'd received a slap on the wrist. Nowell wasn't a partner, he was a babysitter, a detention teacher. And an inattentive one, at that.
"So, what are you investigating?" I asked.
"I'm trying to get to the bottom of several missing person cases that occurred four years ago here in the city."
"Four years ago?" I blinked as I heard his thoughts. "During Hurricane Katrina?"
"Over 700 people are still missing thanks to that hurricane. 30 bodies remain in the city morgue unidentified."
"You're aiming to find 700 people?"
"Not exactly. Just a specific few. I'm following up on the report of several missing people in a neighborhood that wasn't particularly affected by the flood. There were some assaults there too, something was thought to be stalking the neighborhood." A flash of a half-formed visual sprung to life in his mind. A shape. A shadow. Now, what did that mean?
He slipped a hand into the pocket of his suit-pants, and he placed a small USB drive on the table, sliding it across so that it sat next to the vase of pale blue baby's breath flowers I'd bought not two days earlier at the market. He drained his glass and got to his feet.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Miss Stackhouse."
"How will I contact you, if I decide I want to help?"
"Good question." He produced a business card from his breast pocket and placed it on the table next to the flash drive. Then using a pen, he scratched out the office number printed on the card and wrote a new one beside it. The extension to his new cold case desk. "Take your time. Read over what I've left you with."
"What was that about?" Diantha asked when the agent left. She'd been hovering at the top of the stairs and listening in.
"I'm not really sure." I thought of that strange flash I saw in his thought and a little tingle of intuition, or maybe it was anticipation, ran up my spine.
"He was cute. What's his name?"
"Agent Ray," I said and gathered up our used glasses from the table.
"Duh, I know that," she said. "You introduced us. What's his first name?"
"I actually have no idea." I'd been told it before, but couldn't recall. What had he said about time eroding memory?
Diantha picked up the business card. "Agent Roberto Ray." She rolled the r's.
I laughed. "That's a bit of a mouthful."
"Oh, I bet Roberto is a bit of a mouthful."
"You're sick, you know that?" I said, throwing the comment over my shoulder as I walked to the kitchen. Diantha followed me and affixed his card with a magnet to the fridge.
Later, when I was absorbed in reading case notes on my laptop, the doorbell rang. I looked over at my bedside clock. It was sundown. I heard Diantha let Bubba in and the two engage in muffled conversation.
I stood at the top of the stairs, "How you holdin' up, Bubba?" I called down.
"Fine and dandy, Miss Sookie."
I took that to mean the curse was subdued for now, and so I retired to my room once more. I liked Bubba, but I was in no mood for company. I closed the file containing the digitized case notes from Agent Ray's flash drive, and opened the next, reading through a couple of witness statements. That same uncomfortable prickle returned. The story they relayed was bizarre and… creepy. I thought of the shadow figure I'd seen in Agent Ray's thoughts.
I rubbed my eyes with my good hand and the weight of the last twenty-four hours hit me like a freight train. I needed sleep. I couldn't begin to make sense of this now. I knew from experience that good sleep and fresh eyes improved the chances of unraveling even the most unsolvable problems.
Later, tucked in bed, I picked up my cell phone and sent a message.
Do you think the X-files was based on real life?
The truth is out there, Eric sent back.
Very funny. I'm being serious, I sent.
I don't think I need to remind you that we slayed an x-file in your bedroom only several weeks ago.
I got what he was saying, but that wasn't what I meant. The shapeshifter that had preyed on Lydia Ryker and all those other unsuspecting couples was easy to explain within the bounds of the known supernatural world. Part shifter and part… demi-god? Amelia had killed it two feet from where I was laying right now. At least we think she'd killed it. I'd still sensed … something after it was eviscerated. But that sense of something had quickly faded. Now, what I wanted to know was: what about creatures that went bump in the night? Slithered through duct work? Hid in sewers? Standalone beings that took amorphous shapes and could not be described by any of the known supe beings, vampires, twoeys or otherwise.
Is the boogeyman real? I sent back.
I don't know. What mess have you stuck ur nose in this time?
Nothing
I sense a "yet", he responded.
You know me
Eric didn't reply to the last text, no doubt engaged in more pleasurable pursuits. I propped my laptop open on the night stand and read through as much of the witness statements as I could before sleep claimed me.
I awoke to Diantha barging into my room the next morning.
"I-hate-your-stupid-fucking-alarm" she said, and began pulling at my bed covers. I tried to make sense of what was happening as she plucked my buzzing and braying cell phone from under a corner of my quilt. She tossed it to me.
"Turn-it-off. Girl needs her beauty rest." She stalked back out, her bright hair sticking out in all directions.
"Sorry," I croaked. I rolled on my back and rubbed my eyes. I felt groggy, like a bear waking early from hibernation.
I silenced the alarm. 7:03 am. I slept through my alarm for three minutes. Good grief. I maneuvered out of my cozy bed with no small measure of reluctance and headed for the shower. I got the water running before realizing I needed to wrap a plastic bag around my cast. Perfect. I wound off the faucets and wrapped the towel around myself awkwardly, before plodding to the kitchen for a plastic bag. It was going to be one of those days, wasn't it?
Showered, dressed and halfway through my first cup of coffee, my phone pinged again. It was Mr. C sending me the contact details of a supe doctor in the city.
Fine. Fine. Time to deal with this then.
