13

The aftermath of a battle is melancholy and nasty. I guess you could call what we'd had a battle... maybe more like a supernatural skirmish? The wounded have to be tended, the blood has to be cleaned up, the bodies have to be buried. Or, in this case, disposed of - Pam decided to burn the store down, leaving the bodies of Hallow's coven inside.

They hadn't all died. Hallow, of course, was still alive. One other witch survived, though she was badly hurt and very low on blood. Of the Weres, Colonel Flood was gravely wounded; Portugal had been killed by Mark Stonebrook. The others were more or less okay. Only Chow had died, out of the vampire contingent. The others had wounds, some very horrible, but vampires will heal.

It surprised me that the witches hadn't made a better showing.

"They were probably good witches, but they weren't good fighters," Pam said. "They were picked for their magical ability and their willingness to follow Hallow, not for their battle skills. She shouldn't have tried to take over Shreveport with such a following."

"Why Shreveport?" I asked Pam.

"I'm going to find out," Pam said, smiling.

I shuddered. I didn't want to consider Pam's methods. "How are you going to keep her from doing a spell on you while you question her?"

Pam said, "I'll think of something." She was still smiling.

"Sorry about Chow," I said, a little hesitantly.

"The job of bartender at Fangtasia doesn't seem to be a good-luck job," she admitted. "I don't know if I'll be able to find someone to replace Chow. After all, he and Long Shadow both perished within a year of starting work."

"What are you going to do about un-hexing Eric?"

Pam seemed glad enough to talk to me, even if I was only a human, since she'd lost her sidekick. "We'll make Hallow do it, sooner or later. And she'll tell us why she did it."

"If Hallow just gives up the general outline of the spell, will that be enough? Or will she have to perform it herself?" I tried to rephrase that in my head so it was clearer, but Pam seemed to understand me.

"I don't know. We'll have to ask our friendly Wiccans. The ones you saved should be grateful enough to give us any help we need," Pam said, while she tossed some more gasoline around the room. She'd already checked the building to remove the few things she might want from it, and the local coven had gathered up the magical paraphernalia, in case one of the cops who came to investigate this fire could recognize the remnants.

I glanced at my watch. I hoped that Holly had made it safely home by now. I would tell her that her son was safe.

I kept my eyes averted from the job the youngest witch was doing on Colonel Flood's left leg. He'd sustained an ugly gash in the quadriceps. It was a serious wound. He made light of it, and after Alcide fetched their clothes, the colonel limped around with a smile on his face. But when blood seeped through the bandage, the packmaster had to allow his Weres to take him to a doctor who happened to be two-natured and willing to help off the books, since no one could think of a good story that would explain such a wound. Before he left, Colonel Flood shook hands ceremoniously with the head witch and with Pam, though I could see the sweat beading on his forehead even in the frigid air of the old building.

I asked Eric if he felt any different, but he was still oblivious to his past. He looked upset and on the verge of terror. Mark Stonebrook's death hadn't made a bit of difference, so Hallow was in for a few dreadful hours, courtesy of Pam. I just accepted that. I didn't want to think about it closely. Or at all.

As for me, I was feeling completely at a loss. Should I go home to Bon Temps, taking Eric with me? (Was I in charge of him anymore?) Should I try to find a place to spend the remaining hours of the night here in the city? Shreveport was home for everyone but Bill and me, and Bill was planning on using Chow's empty bed (or whatever it was) for the coming day, at Pam's suggestion.

I dithered around indecisively for a few minutes, trying to make up my mind. But no one seemed to need me for anything specific, and no one sought me out for conversation. So when Pam got involved in giving the other vampires directions about Hallow's transportation, I just walked out. The night was quite as still as it had been, but a few dogs did bark as I walked down the street. The smell of magic had lessened. The night was just as dark, and even colder, and I was at low ebb. I didn't know what I'd say if a policeman stopped me; I was blood-spattered and tattered, and I had no explanation. At the moment, I found it hard to care.

I'd gotten maybe a block when Eric caught up with me. He was very anxious - almost fearful. "You weren't there. I just looked around and you weren't there," he said accusingly. "Where are you going? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Please," I said, and held up a hand to beg him to be silent. "Please." I was too tired to be strong for him, and I had to fight an overwhelming depression, though I couldn't have told you exactly why; after all, no one had hit me. I should be happy, right? The goals of the evening had been met. Hallow was conquered and in captivity; though Eric hadn't been restored to himself, he soon would be, because Pam was sure to bring Hallow around to the vampire way of thinking, in a painful and terminal way.

Undoubtedly, Pam would also discover why Hallow had begun this whole course of action. And Fangtasia would acquire a new bartender, some fangy hunk who would bring in the tourist bucks. She and Eric would open the strip club they'd been considering, or the all-night dry-cleaners, or the bodyguard service.

My brother would still be missing.

"Let me go home with you. I don't know them," Eric said, his voice low and almost pleading. I hurt inside when Eric said something that was so contrary to his normal personality. Or was I seeing Eric's true nature? Was his flash and assurance something he'd assumed, like another skin, over the years?

"Sure, come on," I said, as desperate as Eric was, but in my own way. I just wanted him to be quiet, and strong.

I'd settle for quiet.

He loaned me his physical strength, at least. He picked me up and carried me back to the car. I was surprised to find that my cheeks were wet with tears.

"You have blood all over you," he said into my ear.

"Yes, but don't get excited about it," I warned. "It doesn't do a thing for me. I just want to shower." I was at the hiccupping-sob stage of crying, almost done.

"You'll have to get rid of this coat now," he said, with some satisfaction.

"I'll get it cleaned." I was too tired to respond to disparaging comments about my coat.

Getting away from the weight and smell of the magic was almost as good as a big cup of coffee and a hit of oxygen. By the time I got close to Bon Temps, I wasn't feeling so ragged, and I was calm as I let us in the back door. Eric came in behind me and took a step to my right to go around the kitchen table, as I leaned left to flick on the light switch.

When I turned on the light, Debbie Pelt was smiling at me.

She had been sitting in the dark at my kitchen table, and she had a gun in her hand.

Without saying a word, she fired at me.

But she'd reckoned without Eric, who was so fast, faster than any human. He took the bullet meant for me, and he took it right in the chest. He went down in front of me.

She hadn't had time to search the house, which was lucky. From behind the water heater, I yanked the shotgun I'd taken from Jason's house. I pumped it - one of the scariest sounds in the world - and I shot Debbie Pelt while she was still staring, shocked, at Eric, who was on his knees and coughing up blood. I racked another shell, but I didn't need to shoot her again. Her fingers relaxed and her gun fell to the floor.

I sat on the floor myself, because I couldn't stay upright anymore.

Eric was now full length on the floor, gasping and twitching in a pool of blood.

There wasn't much left of Debbie's upper chest and neck.

My kitchen looked like I'd been dismembering pigs, pigs that'd put up a good fight.

I started to reach up to scrabble for the telephone at the end of the counter. My hand dropped back to the floor when I wondered whom I was going to call.

The law? Ha.

Sam? And mire him down further in my troubles? I didn't think so.

Pam? Let her see how close I'd come to letting my charge get killed? Uh-uh.

Alcide? Sure, he'd love seeing what I'd done with his fianc¨¦e, abjure or no abjure.

Arlene? She had her living to make, and two little kids. She didn't need to be around something illegal.

Tara? Too queasy.

This is when I would have called my brother, if I'd known where he was. When you have to clean the blood out of the kitchen, it's family you want.

I'd have to do this by myself.

Eric came first. I scrambled over to him, reclined by him with one elbow to prop me up.

"Eric," I said loudly. His blue eyes opened. They were bright with pain.

The hole in his chest bubbled blood. I hated to think what the exit wound looked like. Maybe it had been a twenty-two? Maybe the bullet was still inside? I looked at the wall behind where he'd been standing, and I couldn't see a spray of blood or a bullet hole. Actually, I realized, if the bullet had gone through him, it would have struck me. I looked down at myself, fumbled the coat off. No, no fresh blood.

As I watched Eric, he began to look a little better. "Drink," he said, and I almost put my wrist to his lips, when I reconsidered. I managed to get some TrueBlood out of the refrigerator and heat it up, though the front of the microwave was less than pristine.

I knelt to give it to him. "Why not you?" he asked painfully.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I know you earned it, sweetie. But I have to have all my energy. I've got more work ahead."

Eric downed the drink in a few big gulps. I'd unbuttoned his coat and his flannel shirt, and as I looked at his chest to mark the progression of his bleeding, I saw an amazing thing. The bullet that had hit him popped out of the wound. In another three minutes, or perhaps less, the hole had closed. The blood was still drying on his chest hair, and the bullet wound was gone.

"Another drink?" Eric asked.

"Sure. How do you feel?" I was numb myself.

His smile was crooked. "Weak."

I got him more blood and he drank this bottle more slowly. Wincing, he pulled himself to a full sitting position. He looked at the mess on the other side of the table.

Then he looked at me.

"I know, I know, I did terrible!" I said. "I'm so sorry!" I could feel tears - again - trailing down my cheeks. I could hardly feel more miserable. I'd done a dreadful thing. I'd failed in my job. I had a massive cleanup ahead of me. And I looked awful.

Eric looked mildly surprised at my outburst. "You might have died of the bullet, and I knew I wouldn't," he pointed out. "I kept the bullet from you in the most expedient way, and then you defended me effectively."

That was certainly a skewed way to look at it, but oddly enough, I did feel less horrible.

"I killed another human," I said. That made two in one night; but in my opinion, the hollow-cheeked witch had killed himself by pushing down on the knife.

I'd definitely fired the shotgun all by myself.

I shuddered and turned away from the ragged shell of bone and flesh that had once held Debbie Pelt.

"You didn't," he said sharply. "You killed a shifter who was a treacherous, murderous bitch, a shifter who had tried to kill you twice already." So it had been Eric's hand that had squeezed her throat and made her let go of me. "I should have finished the job when I had her earlier," he said, by way of confirmation. "It would have saved us both some heartache; in my case, literally."

I had a feeling this was not what the Reverend Fullenwilder would be saying. I muttered something to that effect.

"I was never a Christian," Eric said. Now, that didn't surprise me. "But I can't imagine a belief system that would tell you to sit still and get slaughtered."

I blinked, wondering if that wasn't exactly what Christianity taught. But I am no theologian or Bible scholar, and I would have to leave the judgment on my action to God, who was also no theologian.

Somehow I felt better, and I was in fact grateful to be alive.

"Thank you, Eric," I said. I kissed him on the cheek. "Now you go clean up in the bathroom while I start in here."

But he was not having any of that. God bless him, he helped me with great zeal. Since he could handle the most disgusting things with no apparent qualms, I was delighted to let him.

You don't want to know how awful it was, or all the details. But we got Debbie together and bagged up, and Eric took her way out into the woods and buried her and concealed the grave, he swore, while I cleaned. I had to take down the curtains over the sink and soak them in the washing machine in cold water, and I stuck my coat in with them, though without much hope of its being wearable again. I pulled on rubber gloves and used bleach-soaked wipes to go over and over the chair and table and floor, and I sprayed the front of the cabinets with wood soap and wiped and wiped.

You just wouldn't believe where specks of blood had landed.

I realized that attention to these tiny details was helping me keep my mind off of the main event, and that the longer I avoided looking at it squarely - the longer I let Eric's practical words sink into my awareness - the better off I'd be. There was nothing I could undo. There was no way I could mend what I had done. I'd had a limited number of choices, and I had to live with the choice I'd made. My Gran had always told me that a woman - any woman worth her salt - could do whatever she had to. If you'd called Gran a liberated woman, she would have denied it vigorously, but she'd been the strongest woman I'd ever known, and if she believed I could complete this grisly task just because I had to, I would do it.

When I was through, the kitchen reeked of cleaning products, and to the naked eye it was literally spotless. I was sure a crime scene expert would be able to find trace evidence (a tip of the hat to the Learning Channel), but I didn't intend that a crime scene expert would ever have reason to come into my kitchen.

She'd broken in the front door. It had never occurred to me to check it before I came in the back. So much for my career as a bodyguard. I wedged a chair under the doorknob to keep it blocked for the remainder of the night.

Eric, returned from his burial detail, seemed to be high on excitement, so I asked him to go scouting for Debbie's car. She had a Mazda Miata, and she'd hidden it on a four-wheeler trail right across the parish road from the turnoff to my place. Eric had had the foresight to retain her keys, and he volunteered to drive her car somewhere else. I should have followed him, to bring him back to my house, but he insisted he could do the job by himself, and I was too exhausted to boss him around. I stood under a stream of water and scrubbed myself clean while he was gone. I was glad to be alone, and I washed myself over and over. When I was as clean as I could get on the outside, I pulled on a pink nylon nightgown and crawled in the bed. It was close to dawn, and I hoped Eric would be back soon. I had opened the closet and the hole for him, and put an extra pillow in it.

I heard him come in just as I was falling asleep, and he kissed me on the cheek. "All done," he said, and I mumbled, "Thanks, baby."

"Anything for you," he said, his voice gentle. "Good night, my lover."

It occurred to me that I was lethal for exes. I'd dusted Bill's big love (and his mom); now I'd killed Alcide's off-and-on-again sweetie. I knew hundreds of men. I'd never gone homicidal on their exes. But creatures I cared about, well, that seemed to be different. I wondered if Eric had any old girlfriends around. Probably about a hundred or so. Well, they'd better beware of me.

After that, whether I willed it or not, I was sucked down into a black hole of exhaustion.