Death's Excellent Vacation (Sookie Stackhouse 9.5)

"Don't you ever frighten me like that again. " "He didn't die, " I said, still stunned by the recent events. "I twisted a blade in his heart, but he didn't die. " "Like he said, situs inversus. " At my confused expression, Bones went on. "Means he was born with his organs backward, so his heart was on the right. That's what saved his life before, but he shouldn't have admitted it while I could hear him. " I hadn't known such a condition existed. Note to self: Learn more about anatomical oddities. Bones scanned the parking lot, but the only vampires out here were the ones gathered around the side of the nightclub. Onlookers, I thought in amazement. Had they stood there the whole time and just watched? Fear leapt in me. "Where's Tammy?" "I ran her inside after the car blew up, " my mother said. "She'd be safe in there, you said. " And then she'd come back outside to face a pack of hit men. Tears pricked my eyes even as Bones smiled at her. "You saved my life, Justina. " She looked embarrassed, and then scowled. "I didn't know if you were finished getting that knife out of Catherine. I couldn't let him sneak up on you and stab you until my daughter was okay. " Bones laughed. "Of course. " I shook my head. She'd never change,but that was okay. I loved her anyway. Verses walked out of Bite with Tammy at his side. From her red-rimmed eyes, she'd been crying. "It's over, " I told her. Tammy ran and hugged me. I wanted to say something profound and comforting, but all I could do was repeat, "It's over. " At least Tammy wouldn't remember any of this. No, her memories would be replaced with one where she'd been sequestered by boring bodyguards provided by her father's former friends. Tammy would go into adulthood without the burden of knowing there were things in the night no average human could stand against. She'd be normal. It was the best birthday present I could give her. "You fought on the premises, " Verses stated. Bones let out a snort. "You noticed that, did you, mate?" "Maybe if you hadn't stood there and done nothing while we were am-bushed, your precious premises would still be in one piece!" my mother snapped at Verses. "Don't you have any loyalty? Bones said you were a friend!" Verses raised his brows at her withering tone, then cast a glance around at the parking lot. Vampire bodies littered the area, one of the cars was still on fire, and various others were smashed, ripped, or dented. "I am his friend, " Verses replied. "Which is why I'll let all of you leave without paying for the damages. " "He doesn't sound like we'll be welcomed back, " I murmured to Bones. "So much for coming here during the rest of our vacation to explore all those private areas. " Bones's lips brushed my forehead. "Don't fret, luv. I know another club in Brooklyn I think you'll really fancy . . . " Meanwhile, Far Across the Caspian Sea . ..

Chapter Fourteen

DANIEL STASHOWER

Daniel Stashower is a two-time Edgar(r) Award winner whose most recent nonfiction books are The Beautiful Cigar Girl and (as coeditor) Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. Dan is also the author of five mystery novels and has received the Agatha and Anthony awards. His short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Mystery Stories and The World's Finest Mystery and Crime Stories . He lives in Washington, D. C. , with his wife and their two sons.

IN those days LifeSpan Books had offices in a three-story garden atrium building in Alexandria, Virginia. The building is still there. Across the street--in the middle of the street, actually--is a Civil War statue called Appomattox, marking the spot where seven hundred young soldiers marched off to join the Confederate cause in 1861. The statue shows a Confederate soldier with his hat off, head bowed and arms folded, facing the battlefields to the south where his comrades fell. Originally there was a perimeter of ornamental fencing and gas lamps, but over the years, as South Washington Street grew into a major artery, the fence came down and traffic in both directions simply jogged outward a bit to avoid the base of the statue. Every so often somebody clipped a fender, but the soldier stood his ground. One night a van plowed into the base of the statue and knocked the soldier facedown into the street, opening the door to a vigorous public debate about whether a busy intersection was really the proper place for a symbol of the Confederacy. The city fathers ultimately fell back on a musty piece of legislation that the Virginia House of Delegates had passed in 1890. It stated, in part, that the monument "shall remain in its present position as a perpetual and lasting testimonial to the courage, fidelity and patriotism of the heroes in whose memory it was erected . . . The permission so given by the said City Council of Alexandria for its erection shall not be repealed, revoked, altered, modified, or changed by any future Council or other municipal power or authority. " So the statue went back up. Motorists beware. I know all this because Thaddeus Palgrave told me. He was a senior editor for LifeSpan Books, and he made a point of knowing such things. Actually, Palgrave didn't tell me directly, he just let it bubble out of him when I happened to be in the room. He had a way of leaning up against the tall window of his office, with his head resting against his forearm, giving impromptu disquisitions on matters of art, commerce, and history. He would usually wrap things up with a pithy moral, sometimes in Latin. Aquila non captat muscas. The eagle doesn't capture flies. Don't sweat the small stuff. It never seemed to matter to Palgrave whether anyone was in the room with him when he made these learned remarks. At first it struck me as a sort of foppish affectation, like an ascot or an ivory-tipped swagger stick, meant to suggest a man of rare breeding set down among the heathens. I imagined him practicing at home, leaning against a bedroom wall, sighing deeply as he tossed off Latin epigrams. But in time I came to realize that he genuinely didn't care what anyone thought of him--didn't even consider it, in fact. There were a lot of people like that at LifeSpan Books. You may not remember LifeSpan. They were the people who produced "multi-volume continuity reference works" on various subjects--low-fat cooking, home repair, World War II-- and sent them to you in the mail, once every two months. You'd sign up for a series on, say, gardening, and soon the books would begin to arrive, filling you with optimism and resolve. They'd start you off with Perennials, followed two months later by Flowering Houseplants, then Vegetables and Fruits. You'd dip in here and there--do a little aerating, maybe visit a garden center--and congratulate yourself on making such a good start.

Perhaps next year, you'd tell yourself, you might even be able to grow your own carrots and tomatoes. And the books would keep coming and coming. Annuals. Ferns. Lawns and Ground Cover. You never realized there would be quite so many. Still, some of them look quite interesting. Maybe a little more detail than you bargained for, but it's good. Really, it's good. And besides, you'll be able to get back out to the garden after the Little League season ends. Bulbs. Herbs. Evergreens. It begins to dawn on you, at the start of the third year, that perhaps you've bitten off more than you can chew. For one thing, you're running out of shelf space. You start stacking the books up on the worktable in the garage. You'll sort it out in the spring. Shade Gardens. Orchids. Vines. One night around ten thirty, during tax season, you try phoning the toll- free number where operators are standing by, in an effort to take them up on the offer of "cancel anytime if not completely satisfied. " Your resolve crumbles as you spend forty- five minutes on hold listening to "Gospel Bluegrass Classics, " available now from LifeSpan Music. Pruning and Grafting. Shrubs. Wildflowers. The last of your children goes off to college. There will be time now for some serious gardening; you might even make a start on a pergola, if only your back weren't giving you so much trouble. Roses. Miniatures and Bonsai. Rock and Water Gardens. Over the winter holidays a sudden snowstorm drives your grandchildren indoors. They use the stored cartons of books to build a fort. Cacti and Succulents. Winter Gardens. Heat-Zone Gardens. It is a beautiful day in late September and your eldest son is walking a real estate agent through the house. "Yes, " he says, "it was very sudden, in the garden. He would have wanted it that way. " As they're signing the papers, they hear the soft thump of a package at the door: Organics.