Dead to the World

were far wider in scope. I didn’t know how wide or what these other moneymaking projects were, and I didn’t especially want to know.
    I’d seen in the Shreveport paper that Fangtasia, too, had planned a big bash for the evening—“Begin Your New Year with a Bite”—so I knew someone would be there. While the phone was ringing, I swung open the refrigerator and got out a bottle of blood for Eric. I popped it in the microwave and set the timer. He followed my every move with anxious eyes.
    “Fangtasia,” said an accented male voice.
    “Chow?”
    “Yes, how may I serve you?” He’d remembered his phone persona of sexy vampire just in the nick of time.
    “It’s Sookie.”
    “Oh,” he said in a much more natural voice. “Listen, Happy New Year, Sook, but we’re kind of busy here.”
    “Looking for someone?”
    There was a long, charged silence.
    “Wait a minute,” he said, and then I heard nothing.
    “Pam,” said Pam. She’d picked up the receiver so silently that I jumped when I heard her voice.
    “Do you still have a master?” I didn’t know how much I could say over the phone. I wanted to know if she’d been the one who’d put Eric in this state, or if she still owed him loyalty.
    “I do,” she said steadily, understanding what I wanted to know. “We are under . . . we have some problems.”
    I mulled that over until I was sure I’d read between the lines. Pam was telling me that she still owed Eric her allegiance, and that Eric’s group of followers was under some kind of attack or in some kind of crisis.
    I said, “He’s here.” Pam appreciated brevity.
    “Is he alive?”
    “Yep.”
    “Damaged?”
    “Mentally.”
    A long pause, this time.
    “Will he be a danger to you?”
    Not that Pam cared a whole hell of a lot if Eric decided to drain me dry, but I guess she wondered if I would shelter Eric. “I don’t think so at the moment,” I said. “It seems to be a matter of memory.”
    “I hate witches. Humans had the right idea, burning them at the stake.”
    Since the very humans who had burned witches would have been delighted to sink that same stake into vampire hearts, I found that a little amusing—but not very, considering the hour. I immediately forgot what she’d been talking about. I yawned.
    “Tomorrow night, we’ll come,” she said finally. “Can you keep him this day? Dawn’s in less than four hours. Do you have a safe place?”
    “Yes. But you get over here at nightfall, you hear me? I don’t want to get tangled up in your vampire shit again.” Normally, I don’t speak so bluntly; but like I say, it was the tail end of a long night.
    “We’ll be there.”
    We hung up simultaneously. Eric was watching me with unblinking blue eyes. His hair was a snarly tangled mess of blond waves. His hair is the exact same color as mine, and I have blue eyes, too, but that’s the end of the similarities.
    I thought of taking a brush to his hair, but I was just too weary.
    “Okay, here’s the deal,” I told him. “You stay here the rest of the night and tomorrow, and then Pam and them’ll come get you tomorrow night and let you know what’s happening.”
    “You won’t let anyone get in?” he asked. I noticed he’d finished the blood, and he wasn’t quite as drawn as he’d been, which was a relief.
    “Eric, I’ll do my best to keep you safe,” I said, quite gently. I rubbed my face with my hands. I was going to fall asleep on my feet. “Come on,” I said, taking his hand. Clutching the afghan with the other hand, he trailed down the hall after me, a snow white giant in tiny red underwear.
    My old house has been added onto over the years, but it hasn’t ever been more than a humble farmhouse. A second story was added around the turn of the century, and two more bedrooms and a walk-in attic are upstairs, but I seldom go up there anymore. I keep it shut off, to save money on electricity. There are two bedrooms downstairs, the smaller one I’d used until my grandmother died and her large one across the hall from it. I’d moved into the large one after her death. But the hidey-hole Bill had built was in the smaller bedroom. I led Eric in there, switched on the light, and made sure the blinds were closed and the curtains drawn across them. Then I opened the door of the closet, removed its few contents, and pulled back the flap of carpet that covered the closet floor, exposing the trapdoor. Underneath was a light-tight space that Bill had built a few