"Charles is not attacking me," I said, proud I was speaking so levelly.
Bill sneered. "Charles," he repeated in tones of great scorn.
"Charles Twining," said my companion, bowing - if you could call a slight inclination of his curly brown head a bow.
"Where did you come up with this one?" Bill's voice had regained its calm.
"Actually, he works for Eric, like you do."
"Eric's provided you with a bodyguard? You need a bodyguard?"
"Listen, bozo," I said through clenched jaws, "my life goes on while you're gone. So does the town. People are getting shot around here, among them Sam. We needed a substitute bartender, and Charles was volunteered to help us out." That may not have been entirely accurate, but I was not in the accuracy business at the moment. I was in the Make My Point business.
At least Bill was appropriately taken aback by the information.
"Sam. Who else?"
I was shivering, since it wasn't nylon pajama weather. But I didn't want Bill in the house. "Calvin Norris and Heather Kinman."
"Shot dead?"
"Heather was. Calvin was pretty badly wounded."
"Have the police arrested anyone?"
"No."
"Do you know who did it?"
"No."
"You're worried about your brother."
"Yes."
"He turned at the full moon."
"Yes."
Bill looked at me with what might have been pity. "I'm sorry, Sookie," he said, and he meant it.
"No point telling me about it," I snapped. "Tell Jason - it's him who turns fuzzy."
Bill's face went cold and stiff. "Excuse my intrusion," he said. "I'll go." He melted into the woods.
I don't know how Charles reacted to the episode, because I turned and stalked back into the house, turning off the outside light as I went. I threw myself back in bed and lay there, fuming and fussing silently. I pulled the covers up over my head so the vampire would take the hint that I didn't want to discuss the incident. He moved so quietly, I couldn't be sure where he was in the house; I think he paused in the doorway for a second, and then moved on.
I lay awake for at least forty-five minutes, and then I found myself settling back into sleep.
Then someone shook me by the shoulder. I smelled sweet perfume, and I smelled something else, something awful. I was terribly groggy.
"Sookie, your house is on fire," a voice said.
"Couldn't be," I said. "I didn't leave anything on."
"You have to get out now," the voice insisted. A persistent shriek reminded me of fire drills at the elementary school.
"Okay," I said, my head thick with sleep and (I saw when I opened my eyes) smoke. The shriek in the background, I slowly realized, was my smoke detector. Thick gray plumes were drifting through my yellow and white bedroom like evil genies. I wasn't moving fast enough for Claudine, who yanked me out of bed and carried me out the front door. A woman had never lifted me, but, of course, Claudine was no ordinary woman. She set me on my feet in the chilly grass of the front yard. The cold feel of it suddenly woke me up. This was not a nightmare.
"My house caught on fire?" I was still struggling to be alert.
"The vampire says it was that human, there," she said, pointing to the left of the house. But for a long minute my eyes were fixed on the terrible sight of flames, and the red glow of fire lighting the night. The back porch and part of the kitchen were blazing.
I made myself look at a huddled form on the ground, close to a forsythia in bud. Charles was kneeling by it. "Have you called the fire department?" I asked them both as I picked my way around the house in my bare feet to have a look at the recumbent figure. I peered at the dead man's slack face in the poor light. He was white, clean-shaven, and probably in his thirties. Though conditions were hardly ideal, I didn't recognize him.
"Oh, no, I didn't think of it." Charles looked up from the body. He came from a time before fire departments.
"And I forgot my cell phone," said Claudine, who was thoroughly modern.
"Then I have to go back in and do it, if the phones still work," I said, turning on my heel. Charles rose to his inconsiderable height and stared at me.
"You will not go back in there." This was definitely an order from Claudine. "New man, you run fast enough to do that."
"Fire," Charles said, "is very quickly fatal to vampires."
It was true; they went up like a torch once they caught. Selfishly, for a second I almost insisted; I wanted my coat and my slippers and my purse.
"Go call from Bill's phone," I said, pointing in the right direction, and off he took like a jackrabbit. The minute he was out of sight and before Claudine could stop me, I dashed back in the front door and made my way to my room. The smoke was much thicker, and I could see the flames a few feet down the hall in the kitchen. As soon as I saw the flames I knew I'd made a huge mistake by reentering the house, and it was hard not to panic. My purse was right where I'd left it, and my coat was tossed over the slipper chair in a corner of my room. I couldn't find my slippers, and I knew I couldn't stay. I fumbled in a drawer for a pair of socks, since I knew for sure they were there, and then I ran out of my room, coughing and choking. Acting through sheer instinct, I turned briefly to my left to shut the door to the kitchen, and then whirled to hurry out the front door. I fell over a chair in the living room.
"That was stupid," said Claudine the fairy, and I shrieked. She grabbed me around the waist and ran out of the house again, with me under her arm like a rolled-up carpet.
The combination of shrieking and coughing tied my respiratory system in knots for a minute or two, during which time Claudine moved me farther away from my house. She sat me down on the grass and put the socks on my feet. Then she helped me stand up and get my arms into the coat. I buttoned it around me gratefully.
This was the second time Claudine had appeared out of nowhere when I was about to get into serious trouble. The first time, I'd fallen asleep at the wheel after a very long day.
"You're making it awfully hard on me," she said. She still sounded cheerful, but maybe not quite as sweet.
Something changed about the house, and I realized the night-light in the hall had gone out. Either the electricity was out, or the line had been shut down in town by the fire department.
"I'm sorry," I said, feeling that was appropriate, though I had no idea why Claudine felt put upon when it was my house that was burning. I wanted to hurry to the backyard to get a better view, but Claudine caught hold of my arm.