Dead as a Doornail (Sookie Stackhouse/Southern Vampire Series #5)

Dead as a Doornail\ \ By Charlaine Harris \ Ace\ ISBN: 0-441-01279-5 \ \ \ \ Chapter One\ I knew my brother would turn into a panther before he did. As I drove to the remote crossroads community of Hotshot, my brother watched the sunset in silence. Jason was dressed in old clothes, and he had a plastic Wal-Mart bag containing a few things he might need-toothbrush, clean underwear. He hunched inside his bulky camo jacket, looking straight ahead. His face was tense with the need to control his fear and his excitement. \ "You got your cell phone in your pocket?" I asked, knowing I'd already asked him as soon as the words left my mouth. But Jason just nodded instead of snapping at me. It was still afternoon, but at the end of January the dark comes early.\ Tonight would be the first full moon of the New Year.\ When I stopped the car, Jason turned to look at me, and even in the dim light I saw the change in his eyes. They weren't blue like mine anymore. They were yellowish. The shape of them had changed.\ "My face feels funny," he said. But he still hadn't put two and two together. Tiny Hotshot was silent and still in the waning light. A cold wind was blowing across the bare fields, and the pines and oaks were shivering in the gusts of frigid air. Only one man was visible. He was standing outside one of the little houses, the one that was freshly painted. This man's eyes were closed, and his bearded face was raised to the darkening sky. Calvin Norris waited until Jason was climbing out the passenger's door of my old Nova before he walked over and bent to my window. I rolled it down.\ His golden-green eyes were as startling as I'd remembered, and the rest of him was just as unremarkable. Stocky, graying, sturdy, he looked like a hundred other men I'd seen in Merlotte's Bar, except for those eyes.\ "I'll take good care of him," Calvin Norris said. Behind him, Jason stood with his back to me. The air around my brother had a peculiar quality; it seemed to be vibrating. None of this was Calvin Norris's fault. He hadn't been the one who'd bitten my brother and changed him forever. Calvin, a werepanther, had been born what he was; it was his nature. I made myself say, "Thank you."\ "I'll bring him home in the morning."\ "To my house, please. His truck is at my place."\ "All right, then. Have a good night." He raised his face to the wind again, and I felt the whole community was waiting, behind their windows and doors, for me to leave.\ So I did.\ Jason knocked on my door at seven the next morning. He still had his little Wal-Mart bag, but he hadn't used anything in it. His face was bruised, and his hands were covered with scratches. He didn't say a word. He just stared at me when I asked him how he was, and walked past me through the living room and down the hall. He closed the door to the hall bathroom with a decisive click. I heard the water running after a second, and I heaved a weary sigh all to myself. Though I'd gone to work and come home tired at about two a.m., I hadn't gotten much sleep.\ By the time Jason emerged, I'd fixed him some bacon and eggs. He sat down at the old kitchen table with an air of pleasure: a man doing a familiar and pleasant thing. But after a second of staring down at the plate, he leaped to his feet and ran back into the bathroom, kicking the door shut behind him. I listened to him throw up, over and over.\ I stood outside the door helplessly, knowing he wouldn't want me to come in. After a moment, I went back to the kitchen to dump the food into the trash can, ashamed of the waste but utterly unable to force myself to eat.\ When Jason returned, he said only, "Coffee?" He looked green around the gills, and he walked like he was sore.\ "Are you okay?" I asked, not sure if he would be able to answer or not. I poured the coffee into a mug.\ "Yes," he said after a moment, as though he'd had to think about it. "That was the most incredible experience of my life."\ For a second, I thought he meant throwing up in my bathroom, but that was sure no new experience for Jason. He'd been quite a drinker in his teens, until he'd figured out that there was nothing glamorous or attractive about hanging over a toilet bowl, heaving your guts out.\ "Shifting," I said tentatively.\ He nodded, cradling his coffee mug in his hands. He held his face over the steam rising from the hot, strong blackness. He met my eyes. His own were once again their ordinary blue. "It's the most incredible rush," he said. "Since I was bitten, not born, I don't get to be a true panther like the others."\ I could hear envy in his voice.\ "But even what I become is amazing. You feel the magic inside you, and you feel your bones moving around and adapting, and your vision changes. Then you're lower to the ground and you walk in a whole different way, and as for running, damn, you can run.\ You can chase...." And his voice died away.\ I would just as soon not know that part, anyway.\ "So it's not so bad?" I asked, my hands clasped together. Jason was all the family I had, except for a cousin who'd drifted away into the underworld of drugs years before.\ "It's not so bad," Jason agreed, scraping up a smile to give me. "It's great while you're actually the animal. Everything's so simple. It's when you're back to being human that you start to worry about stuff."\ He wasn't suicidal. He wasn't even despondent. I wasn't aware I'd been holding my breath until I let it out. Jason was going to be able to live with the hand he'd been dealt.\ He was going to be okay.\ The relief was incredible, like I'd removed something jammed painfully between my teeth or shaken a sharp rock out of my shoe. For days, weeks even, I'd been worried, and now that anxiety was gone. That didn't mean Jason's life as a shape-shifter would be worry-free, at least from my point of view. If he married a regular human woman, their kids would be normal. But if he married into the shifter community at Hotshot, I'd have nieces or nephews who turned into animals once a month. At least, they would after puberty; that would give them, and their auntie Sook, some preparation time.\ Luckily for Jason, he had plenty of vacation days, so he wasn't due at the parish road department. But I had to work tonight. As soon as Jason left in his flashy pickup truck, I crawled back into bed, jeans and all, and in about five minutes I was fast asleep. The relief acted as a kind of sedative.\ When I woke up, it was nearly three o'clock and time for me to get ready for my shift at Merlotte's. The sun outside was bright and clear, and the temperature was fifty-two, said my indoor-outdoor thermometer. This isn't too unusual in north Louisiana in January. The temperature would drop after the sun went down, and Jason would shift. But he'd have some fur-not a full coat, since he turned into half-man, half-cat-and he'd be with other panthers. They'd go hunting. The woods around Hotshot, which lay in a remote corner of Renard Parish, would be dangerous again tonight.\ As I went about eating, showering, folding laundry, I thought of a dozen things I'd like to know. I wondered if the shifters would kill a human being if they came upon one in the woods. I wondered how much of their human consciousness they retained in their animal form. If they mated in panther form, would they have a kitten or a baby? What happened when a pregnant werepanther saw the full moon? I wondered if Jason knew the answer to all these questions yet, if Calvin had given him some kind of briefing. But I was glad I hadn't questioned Jason this morning while everything was still so new to him. I'd have plenty of chances to ask him later.\ For the first time since New Year's Day, I was thinking about the future. The full moon symbol on my calendar no longer seemed to be a period marking the end of something, but just another way of counting time. As I pulled on my waitress outfit (black pants and a white boat-neck T-shirt and black Reeboks), I felt almost giddy with cheer. For once, I left my hair down instead of pulling it back and up into a ponytail. I put in some bright red dot earrings and matched my lipstick to the color. A little eye makeup and some blush, and I was good to go.\ I'd parked at the rear of the house last night, and I checked the back porch carefully to make sure there weren't any lurking vampires before I shut and locked the back door behind me. I'd been surprised before, and it wasn't a pleasant feeling. Though it was barely dark, there might be some early risers around. Probably the last thing the Japanese had expected when they'd developed synthetic blood was that its availability would bring vampires out of the realm of legend and into the light of fact. The Japanese had just been trying to make a few bucks hawking the blood substitute to ambulance companies and hospital emergency rooms. Instead, the way we looked at the world had changed forever. Speaking of vampires (if only to myself), I wondered if Bill Compton was home.\ Vampire Bill had been my first love, and he lived right across the cemetery from me. Our houses lay on a parish road outside the little town of Bon Temps and south of the bar where I worked. Lately, Bill had been traveling a lot. I only found out he was home if he happened to come into Merlotte's, which he did every now and then to mix with the natives and have some warm O-positive. He preferred TrueBlood, the most expensive Japanese synthetic. He'd told me it almost completely satisfied his cravings for blood fresh from the source. Since I'd witnessed Bill going into a bloodlust fit, I could only thank God for TrueBlood. Sometimes I missed Bill an awful lot.\ I gave myself a mental shake. Snapping out of a slump, that was what today was all about. No more worry! No more fear! Free and twenty-six! Working! House paid for! Money in the bank! These were all good, positive things.\ The parking lot was full when I got to the bar. I could see I'd be busy tonight. I drove around back to the employees' entrance. Sam Merlotte, the owner and my boss, lived back there in a very nice double-wide that even had a little yard surrounded by a hedge, Sam's equivalent of a white picket fence. I locked my car and went in the employees' back door, which opened into the hallway off of which lay the men's and the ladies', a large stock room, and Sam's office. I stowed my purse and coat in an empty desk drawer, pulled up my red socks, shook my head to make my hair hang right, and went through the doorway (this door was almost always propped open) that led to the big room of the bar/restaurant. Not that the kitchen produced anything but the most basic stuff: hamburgers, chicken strips, fries and onion rings, salads in the summer and chili in the winter.\ Sam was the bartender, the bouncer, and on occasion the cook, but lately we'd been lucky in getting our positions filled: Sam's seasonal allergies had hit hard, making him less than ideal as a food handler. The new cook had shown up in answer to Sam's ad just the week before. Cooks didn't seem to stay long at Merlotte's, but I was hoping that Sweetie Des Arts would stick around a while. She showed up on time, did her job well, and never gave the rest of the staff any trouble. Really, that was all you could ask for. Our last cook, a guy, had given my friend Arlene a big rush of hope that he was The One-in this case, he'd have been her fourth or fifth One-before he'd decamped overnight with her plates and forks and a CD player. Her kids had been devastated; not because they'd loved the guy, but because they missed their CD player. I walked into a wall of noise and cigarette smoke that made it seem like I was passing into another universe. Smokers all sit on the west side of the room, but the smoke doesn't seem to know it should stay there. I put a smile on my face and stepped behind the bar to give Sam a pat on the arm. After he expertly filled a glass with beer and slid it to a patron, he put another glass under the tap and began the process all over again.\ "How are things?" Sam asked carefully. He knew all about Jason's problems, since he'd been with me the night I'd found Jason being held prisoner in a toolshed in Hotshot. But we had to be roundabout in our speech; vampires had gone public, but shape-shifters and Weres were still cloaked in secrecy. The underground world of supernatural beings was waiting to see how vampires fared before they followed the vampire example by going public.\ "Better than I expected." I smiled up at him, though not too far up, since Sam's not a big man. He's built lean, but he's much stronger than he looks. Sam is in his thirties-at least, I think he is-and he has reddish gold hair that halos his head. He's a good man, and a great boss. He's also a shape-shifter, so he can change into any animal. Most often, Sam turns into a very cute collie with a gorgeous coat. Sometimes he comes over to my place and I let him sleep on the rug in the living room.\ "He's gonna be fine."\ "I'm glad," he said. I can't read shifter minds as easily as I read human minds, but I can tell if a mood is true or not. Sam was happy because I was happy.\ "When are you taking off?" I asked. He had that faraway look in his eyes, the look that said he was mentally running through the woods, tracking possums.\ "As soon as Terry gets here." He smiled at me again, but this time the smile was a bit strained. Sam was getting antsy.\ The door to the kitchen was just outside the bar area at the west end, and I stuck my head in the door to say hi to Sweetie. Sweetie was bony and brunette and fortyish, and she wore a lot of makeup for someone who was going to be out of sight in the kitchen all evening. She also seemed a little sharper, perhaps better educated, than any of Merlotte's previous short-order cooks.\ "You doing okay, Sookie?" she called, flipping a hamburger as she spoke. Sweetie was in constant motion in the kitchen, and she didn't like anyone getting in her way. The teenager who assisted her and bussed tables was terrified of Sweetie, and he took care to dodge her as she moved from griddle to fryer. This teenage boy got the plates ready, made the salads, and went to the window to tell the barmaids which order was up. Out on the floor, Holly Cleary and her best friend, Danielle, were working hard. They'd both looked relieved when they'd seen me come in. Danielle worked the smoking section to the west, Holly usually worked the middle area in front of the bar, and I worked the east when three of us were on duty.\ "It looks like I better get moving," I told Sweetie. She gave me a quick smile and turned back to the griddle. The cowed teenager, whose name I had yet to catch, gave me a ducked-head nod and went back to loading the dishwasher.\ I wished Sam had called me before things had gotten so busy; I wouldn't have minded coming in a little earlier. Of course, he wasn't exactly himself tonight.\ Continues... \ \ \ \ Excerpted from Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris Excerpted by permission.\ All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.\ Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. \ \

\ From Barnes & NobleWhen she is not waitressing or preoccupied with her own amorous adventures, telepath Sookie Stackhouse is tracking down a serial killer of shapeshifters. Her sleuthing is partly altruistic, but she's also trying to save her were-panther brother, Jason, who has become the chief suspect in the crime. A three-ring circus of sexy supernaturalism.\ \ \ \ \ Publishers WeeklyHarris's rousing fifth Sookie Stackhouse fantasy-mystery (after 2004's Dead to the World) pits vampires, were-creatures, shifters and one fairy godmother against a sniper with an apparent aversion to nonhumans. If trying to discover who's behind the shootings isn't enough, the telepathic cocktail waitress from Bon Temps, La., has to cope with a few other distractions: her sexy "Were" friend, Alcide Herveaux, needs her help in his father's bid to become the next leader of the local werewolf pack; her boss, Sam Merlotte (a collie in his spare time), gets shot; her house partly burns down; and what's she to do about the handsome vampire bartender who dresses as a pirate at Sam's place? Between one mishap and another, Sookie is one busy gal. Harris does an admirable job of creating a heroine who's not only interesting but completely believable in a world of the strange and the different. Natural and humorous dialogue and a nicely paced plot that doesn't dwell so much on Sookie's old boyfriends help make this entry the best yet in the series. Agent, Joshua Bilmes at Jabberwocky. 10-city author tour. (May 3) FYI: Harris is also the author of the Aurora Teagarden (Real Murders) and the Lily Bard (Shakespeare's Landlord) mystery series. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ Library JournalPlot twists and fascinating characters abound in this welcome addition to Harris's Anthony Award-winning "Southern Vampire" series. Charming heroine and cocktail waitress Sookie Stackhouse must once again use her mind-reading talents to solve a mystery and take out some really bad guys. Someone has been shooting shapeshifters. Even Sam, her boss at Melotte's tavern, who from time to time turns into a collie, becomes a victim. For help, she turns to the local vampire honcho, the handsome, sexy Eric, who complies but expects a favor in return. As if this isn't enough, Sookie herself is targeted by an assassin; she almost dies when her house is torched and is then shot but fortunately not badly wounded. On top of everything else, her Were friend Alcide compels her to witness the brutal, bloody ritual used to choose a new werewolf pack leader. Much of the action here has its roots in Dead to the World, but the author unobtrusively keeps new readers apprised of what happened earlier. Harris lives in Arkansas.-Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Columbia, MD Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.\ \ \ \ \ Kirkus ReviewsThe Witch War may be over, but there's still danger aplenty for the supernatural citizens of Louisiana's Renard Parish. Vampires and werewolves owe a debt to waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Dead to the World, 2004, etc.), whose telepathic powers helped them triumph over the witches. So when bar owner Sam Merlotte is sidelined during a rash of attacks that leaves werefox Heather Kinman dead and werewolf Calvin Norris hospitalized, he sends Sookie to Fangtasia to ask vampire Eric to lend him a bartender. Sam, who'd love for Sookie to be more than just his messenger, doesn't know that she's been equally in Eric's debt since he took the bullet Debbie Pelt aimed at her for ruining her relationship with werewolf Alcide Herveux. Eric doesn't know either: the shotgun blast erased all memories of his brief but torrid affair with Sookie. But Eric obligingly sends ex-pirate Charles Twining to help Sam and short-order cook Sweetie Des Arts. Since Sookie still has the lightproof room Eric used during his convalescence, Charles stays with her, annoying both Alcide, who wants Sookie as his consort, and Bill Compton, Sookie's first love. Luckily for Sookie's admirers, Charles is on the scene when her house is set afire by Jeff Marriott, whose grudge against Sookie is as mysterious as his origins. Sorting out her suitors leaves Sookie scant time to worry about why she's become a target: here, the mystery is swamped by the ongoing supernatural-soap-opera romance. Author tour\ \ \ \ \ From the Publisher“I love the imaginative, creative world of Charlaine Harris. Everyone should read Dead as a Doornail.”—Christine Feehan“[Harris’s] mash-up of genres is delightful, taking elements from mysteries, horror stories, and romances.”—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel\ \