Sookie Stackhouse Boxed Set (Books 1-8) - Charlaine Harris [436]
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 fiancée, 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