Even in the winter chill, weeds pushed up through cracks in the parking area. A big Dumpster stood to the right side of the parking lot. I viewed it from across the street, getting as much of a picture of the outside as I could before closing my eyes to concentrate on my other senses. I took a moment to be rueful.
If you'd asked me, I would've had a hard time tracing the steps that had led me to this dangerous place at this dangerous time. I was on the edges of a battle in which both sides were pretty dubious. If I'd fallen in with Hallow's witches first, I would probably have been convinced that the Weres and the vampires deserved to be eradicated.
At this time a year ago, no one in the world really understood what I was, or cared. I was just Crazy Sookie, the one with the wild brother, a woman others pitied and avoided, to varying degrees. Now here I was, on a freezing street in Shreveport, gripping the hand of a vampire whose face was legendary and whose brain was mush. Was this betterment?
And I was here not for amusement, or improvement, but to reconnoiter for a bunch of supernatural creatures, gathering information on a group of homicidal, blood-drinking, shape-changing witches.
I sighed, I hoped inaudibly. Oh, well. At least no one had hit me.
My eyes closed, and I dropped my shields and reached out with my mind to the building across the street.
Brains, busy busy busy. I was startled at the bundle of impressions I was receiving. Maybe the absence of other humans in the vicinity, or the overwhelming pervasion of magic, was responsible; but some factor had sharpened my other sense to the point of pain. Almost stunned by the flow of information, I realized I had to sort through it and organize it. First, I counted brains. Not literally ("One temporal lobe, two temporal lobes..." ), but as a thought cluster. I came up with fifteen. Five were in the front room, which had been the showroom of the store, of course. One was in the smallest space, which was most likely the bathroom, and the rest were in the third and largest room, which lay to the rear. I figured it had been the work area.
Everyone in the building was awake. A sleeping brain still gives me a low mumble of a thought or two, in dreaming, but it's not the same as a waking brain. It's like the difference between a dog twitching in its sleep and an alert puppy.
To get as much information as possible, I had to get closer. I had never attempted to pick through a group to get details as specific as guilt or innocence, and I wasn't even sure that was possible. But if any of the people in the building were not evil witches, I didn't want them to be in the thick of what was to come.
"Closer," I breathed to Bubba. "But under cover."
"Yes'm," he whispered back. "You gonna keep your eyes closed?"
I nodded, and he led me very carefully across the street and into the shadow of the Dumpster that stood about five yards south of the building. I was glad it was cold, because that kept the garbage smell at an acceptable level. The ghosts of the scents of doughnuts and blossoms lay on top of the funk of spoiled things and old diapers that passersby had tossed into the handy receptacle. It didn't blend happily with the magic smell.
I adjusted, blocked out the assault on my nose, and began listening. Though I'd gotten better at this, it was still like trying to hear twelve phone conversations at once. Some of them were Weres, too, which complicated matters. I could only get bits and pieces.
... hope that's not a vaginal infection I feel coming on...
She won't listen to me, she doesn't think men can do the job.
If I turned her into a toad, who could tell the difference?
... wish we'd gotten some diet Coke...
I'll find that damn vamp and kill him...
Mother of the Earth, listen to my pleas.
I'm in too deep...
I better get a new nail file.
This was not decisive, but no one had been thinking, "Oh, these demonic witches have trapped me, won't somebody help?" or "I hear the vampires approaching!" or anything dramatic like that. This sounded like a band of people who knew each other, were at least relaxed in each other's company, and therefore held the same goals. Even the one who was praying was not in any state of urgency or need. I hoped Hallow wouldn't sense the crush of my mind, but everyone I'd touched had seemed preoccupied.
"Bubba," I said, just a little louder than a thought, "you go tell Pam there are fifteen people in there, and as far as I can tell, they're all witches."
"Yes'm."
"You remember how to get to Pam?"
"Yes'm."
"So you can let go my hand, okay?"
"Oh. Okay."
"Be silent and careful," I whispered.
And he was gone. I crouched in the shadow that was darker than the night, beside the smells and cold metal, listening to the witches. Three brains were male, the rest female. Hallow was in there, because one of the women was looking at her and thinking of her... dreading her, which kind of made me uneasy. I wondered where they'd parked their cars - unless they flew around on broomsticks, ha ha. Then I wondered about something that should already have crossed my mind.
If they were so darn wary and dangerous, where were their sentries?
At that moment, I was seized from behind.
Chapter 12
12
"Who are you?" asked a thin voice.
Since she had one hand clapped over my mouth and the other was holding a knife to my neck, I couldn't answer. She seemed to grasp that after a second, because she told me, "We're going in," and began to push me toward the back of the building.
I couldn't have that. If she'd been one of the witches in the building, one of the blood-drinking witches, I couldn't have gotten away with this, but she was a plain old witch, and she hadn't watched Sam break up as many bar fights as I had. With both hands, I reached up and grabbed her knife wrist, and I twisted it as hard as I could while I hit her hard with my lower body. Over she went, onto the filthy cold pavement, and I landed right on top of her, pounding her hand against the ground until she released the knife. She was sobbing, the will seeping out of her.
"You're a lousy lookout," I said to Holly, keeping my voice low.
"Sookie?" Holly's big eyes peered out from under a knit watch cap. She'd dressed for utility tonight, but she still had on bright pink lipstick.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
"They told me they'd get my boy if I didn't help them."
I felt sick. "How long have you been helping them? Before I came to your apartment, asking for help? How long?" I shook her as hard as I could.
"When she came to the bar with her brother, she knew there was another witch there. And she knew it wasn't you or Sam, after she'd talked to you. Hallow can do anything. She knows everything. Late that night, she and Mark came to my apartment. They'd been in a fight; they were all messed up, and they were mad. Mark held me down while Hallow punched me. She liked that. She saw my picture of my son; she took it and said she could curse him long distance, all the way from Shreveport - make him run out in the traffic or load his daddy's gun...." Holly was crying by now. I didn't blame her. It made me sick to think of it, and he wasn't even my child. "I had to say I'd help her," Holly whimpered.