6 - Gift Wrap - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (October 2008).pdf

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6 - Gift Wrap - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (October 2008)
Wolfsbaneand Mistletoe Gift Wrap
Charlaine Harris
Charlaine Harris is the New York Times bestselling author of the Sookie
Stackhouse novels and the Harper Connelly series. She’s been nominated for a
bunch of awards, and she even won a few of them. She lives in southern Arkansas
in a country house that has a fluctuating population of people and animals. She
loves to read.
It was Christmas Eve. I was all by myself.
Does that sound sad and pathetic enough to make you say, “Poor Sookie
Stackhouse!”? You don’t need to. I was feeling plenty sorry for myself, and the
more I thought about my solitude at this time of the year, the more my eyes
welled and my chin quivered.
Most people hang with their family and friends at the holiday season. I actually
do have a brother, but we aren’t speaking. I’d recently discovered I have a
living great-grandfather, though I didn’t believe he would even realize it was
Christmas. (Not because he’s senile, far from it—but because he’s not a
Christian.) Those two are it for me, as far as close family goes.
I actually do have friends, too, but they all seemed to have their own plans
this year. Amelia Broadway, the witch who lives on the top floor of my house,
had driven down to New Orleans to spend the holiday with her father. My friend
and employer, Sam Merlotte, had gone home to Texas to see his mom, stepfather,
and siblings. My childhood friends Tara and JB would be spending Christmas Eve
with JB’s family; plus, it was their first Christmas as a married couple. Who
could horn in on that? I had other friends . . . friends close enough that if
I’d made puppy-dog eyes when they were talking about their holiday plans, they
would have included me on their guest list in a heartbeat. In a fit of
perversity, I hadn’t wanted to be pitied for being alone. I guess I wanted to
manage that all by myself.
Sam had gotten a substitute bartender, but Merlotte’s Bar closes at two o’clock
in the afternoon on Christmas Eve and remains closed until two o’clock the day
after Christmas, so I didn’t even have work to break up a lovely uninterrupted
stretch of misery.
My laundry was done. The house was clean. The week before, I’d put up my
grandmother’s Christmas decorations, which I’d inherited along with the house.
Opening the boxes of ornaments made me miss my grandmother with a sharp ache.
She’d been gone almost two years, and I still wished I could talk to her. Not
only had Gran been a lot of fun, she’d been really shrewd and she’d given good
advice—if she decided you really needed some. She’d raised me from the age of
seven, and she’d been the most important figure in my life.
She’d been so pleased when I’d started dating the vampire Bill Compton. That was
how desperate Gran had been for me to get a beau; even Vampire Bill was welcome.
When you’re telepathic like I am, it’s hard to date a regular guy; I’m sure you
can see why. Humans think all kinds of things they don’t want their nearest and
dearest to know about, much less a woman they’re taking out to dinner and a
movie. In sharp contrast, vampires’ brains are lovely silent blanks to me, and
werewolf brains are nearly as good as vampires’, though I get a big waft of
emotions and the odd snatch of thought from my occasionally furred
acquaintances.
Naturally, after I’d thought about Gran welcoming Bill, I began wondering what
Bill was doing. Then I rolled my eyes at my own idiocy. It was mid-afternoon,
daytime. Bill was sleeping somewhere in his house, which lay in the woods to the
south of my place, across the cemetery. I’d broken up with Bill, but I was sure
he’d be over like a shot if I called him—once darkness fell, of course.
Damned if I would call him. Or anyone else.
But I caught myself staring longingly at the telephone every time I passed by. I
needed to get out of the house or I’d be phoning someone, anyone.
I needed a mission. A project. A task. A diversion.
I remembered having awakened for about thirty seconds in the wee hours of the
morning. Since I’d worked the late shift at Merlotte’s, I’d only just sunk into
a deep sleep. I’d stayed awake only long enough to wonder what had jarred me out
of that sleep. I’d heard something out in the woods, I thought. The sound hadn’t
been repeated, and I’d dropped back into slumber like a stone into water.
Now I peered out the kitchen window at the woods. Not too surprisingly, there
was nothing unusual about the view. “The woods are snowy, dark, and deep,” I
said, trying to recall the Frost poem we’d all had to memorize in high school.
Or was it “lovely, dark, and deep”?
Of course, my woods weren’t lovely or snowy—they never are in Louisiana at
Christmas, even northern Louisiana. But it was cold (here, that meant the
temperature was about thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit). And the woods were
definitely dark and deep—and damp. So I put on my lace-up work boots that I’d
bought years before when my brother, Jason, and I had gone hunting together, and
I shrugged into my heaviest “I don’t care what happens to it” coat, really more
of a puffy quilted jacket. It was pale pink. Since a heavy coat takes a long
time to wear out down here, the coat was several years old, too; I’m
twenty-seven, definitely past the pale pink stage. I bundled all my hair up
under a knit cap, and I pulled on the gloves I’d found stuffed into one pocket.
I hadn’t worn this coat for a long, long time, and I was surprised to find a
couple of dollars and some ticket stubs in the pockets, plus a receipt for a
little Christmas gift I’d given Alcide Herveaux, a werewolf I’d dated briefly.
Pockets are like little time capsules. Since I’d bought Alcide the sudoku book,
his father had died in a struggle for the job of packmaster, and after a series
of violent events, Alcide himself ascended to the leadership. I wondered how
pack affairs were going in Shreveport. I hadn’t talked to any of the Weres in
two months. In fact, I’d lost track of when the last full moon had been. Last
night?
Now I’d thought about Bill and Alcide. Unless I took action, I’d begin brooding
over my most recent lost boyfriend, Quinn. It was time to get on the move.
My family has lived in this humble house for over a hundred and fifty years. My
much-adapted home lies in a clearing in the middle of some woods off Hummingbird
Road, outside of the small town of Bon Temps, in Renard Parish. The trees are
deeper and denser to the east at the rear of the house, since they haven’t been
logged in a good fifty years. They’re thinner on the south side, where the
cemetery lies. The land is gently rolling, and far back on the property there’s
a little stream, but I hadn’t walked all the way back to the stream in ages. My
life had been very busy, what with hustling drinks at the bar, telepathing (is
that a verb?) for the vampires, unwillingly participating in vampire and Were
power struggles, and other magical and mundane stuff like that.
It felt good to be out in the woods, though the air was raw and damp, and it
felt good to be using my muscles.
I made my way through the brush for at least thirty minutes, alert for any
indication of what had caused the ruckus the night before. There are lots of
animals indigenous to northern Louisiana, but most of them are quiet and shy:
possums, raccoons, deer. Then there are the slightly less quiet, but still shy,
mammals; like coyotes and foxes. We have a few more formidable creatures. In the
bar, I hear hunters’ stories all the time. A couple of the more enthusiastic
sportsmen had glimpsed a black bear on a private hunting preserve about two
miles from my house. And Terry Bellefleur had sworn to me he’d seen a panther
less than two years ago. Most of the avid hunters had spotted feral hogs,
razorbacks.
Of course, I wasn’t expecting to encounter anything like that. I had popped my
cell phone into my pocket, just in case, though I wasn’t sure I could get a
signal out in the woods.
By the time I’d worked my way through the thick woods to the stream, I was warm
inside the puffy coat. I was ready to crouch down for a minute or two to examine
the soft ground by the water. The stream, never big to begin with, was level
with its banks after the recent rainfall. Though I’m not Nature Girl, I could
tell that deer had been here; raccoons, too; and maybe a dog. Or two. Or three.
That’s not good, I thought with a hint of unease. A pack of dogs always had the
potential to become dangerous. I wasn’t anywhere near savvy enough to tell how
old the tracks were, but I would have expected them to look dryer if they’d been
made over a day ago.
There was a sound from the bushes to my left. I froze, scared to raise my face
and turn in toward the right direction. I slipped my cell phone out of my
pocket, looked at the bars. OUTSIDE OF AREA, read the legend on the little
screen. Crap, I thought. That hardly began to cover it.
The sound was repeated. I decided it was a moan. Whether it had issued from man
or beast, I didn’t know. I bit my lip, hard, and then I made myself stand up,
very slowly and carefully. Nothing happened. No more sounds. I got a grip on
myself and edged cautiously to my left. I pushed aside a big stand of laurel.
There was a man lying on the ground, in the cold wet mud. He was naked as a
jaybird, but patterned in dried blood.
I approached him cautiously, because even naked bleeding muddy men could be
mighty dangerous; maybe especially dangerous.
“Ah,” I said. As an opening statement, that left a lot to be desired. “Ah, do
you need help?” Okay, that ranked right up there with “How do you feel?” as a
stupid opening statement.
His eyes opened—tawny eyes, wild and round like an owl’s. “Get away,” he said
urgently. “They may be coming back.”
“Then we’d better hurry,” I said. I had no intention of leaving an injured man
in the path of whatever had injured him in the first place. “How bad are you
hurt?”
“No, run,” he said. “It’s not long until dark.” Painfully, he stretched out a
hand to grip my ankle. He definitely wanted me to pay attention.
It was really hard to listen to his words since there was a lot of bareness that
kept my eyes busy. I resolutely focused my gaze above his chest. Which was
covered, not too thickly, with dark brown hair. Across a broad expanse. Not that
I was looking!
“Come on,” I said, kneeling beside the stranger. A mélange of prints indented
the mud, indicating a lot of activity right around him. “How long have you been
here?”
“A few hours,” he said, gasping as he tried to prop himself up on one elbow.
“In this cold?” Geez Louise. No wonder his skin was bluish. “We got to get you
indoors,” I said. “Now.” I looked from the blood on his left shoulder to the
rest of him, trying to spot other injuries.
That was a mistake. The rest of him—though visibly muddy, bloody, and cold—was
really, really . . .
What was wrong with me? Here I was, looking at a complete (naked and handsome)
stranger with lust, while he was scared and wounded. “Here,” I said, trying to
sound resolute and determined and neutered. “Put your good arm around my neck,
and we’ll get you to your knees. Then you can get up and we can start moving.”
There were bruises all over him, but not another injury that had broken the
skin, I thought. He protested several more times, but the sky was getting darker
as the night drew in, and I cut him off sharply. “Get a move on,” I advised him.
“We don’t want to be out here any longer than we have to be. It’s going to take
the better part of an hour to get you to the house.”
The man fell silent. He finally nodded. With a lot of work, we got him to his
feet. I winced when I saw how scratched and filthy they were.
“Here we go,” I said encouragingly. He took a step, did a little wincing of his
own. “What’s your name?” I said, trying to distract him from the pain of
walking.
“Preston,” he said. “Preston Pardloe.”
“Where you from, Preston?” We were moving a little faster now, which was good.
The woods were getting darker and darker.
“I’m from Baton Rouge,” he said. He sounded a little surprised.
“And how’d you come to be in my woods?”
“Well . . .”
I realized what his problem was. “Are you a Were, Preston?” I asked. I felt his
body relax against my own. I’d known it already from his brain pattern, but I
didn’t want to scare him by telling him about my little disability. Preston had
a—how can I describe it?—a smoother, thicker pattern than other Weres I’d
encountered, but each mind has its own texture.
“Yes,” he said. “You know, then.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.” I knew way more than I’d ever wanted to. Vampires had
come out in the open with the advent of the Japanese-marketed synthetic blood
that could sustain them, but other creatures of the night and shadows hadn’t yet
taken the same giant step.
“What pack?” I asked, as we stumbled over a fallen branch and recovered. He was
leaning on me heavily. I feared we’d actually tumble to the ground. We needed to
pick up the pace. He did seem to be moving more easily now that his muscles had
warmed up a little.
“The Deer Killer pack, from south of Baton Rouge.”
“What are you doing up here in my woods?” I asked again.
“This land is yours? I’m sorry we trespassed,” he said. His breath caught as I
helped him around a devil’s walking stick. One of the thorns caught in my pink
coat, and I pulled it out with difficulty.
“That’s the least of my worries,” I said. “Who attacked you?”
“The Sharp Claw pack from Monroe.”
I didn’t know any Monroe Weres.
“Why were you here?” I asked, thinking sooner or later he’d have to answer me if
I kept asking.
“We were supposed to meet on neutral ground,” he said, his face tense with pain.
“A werepanther from out in the country somewhere offered the land to us as a
midway point, a neutral zone. Our packs have been . . . feuding. He said this
would be a good place to resolve our differences.”
My brother had offered my land as a Were parley ground? The stranger and I
struggled along in silence while I tried to think that through. My brother,
Jason, was indeed a werepanther, though he’d become one by being bitten; his
estranged wife was a born werepanther, a genetic panther. What was Jason
thinking, sending such a dangerous gathering my way? Not of my welfare, that’s
for sure.
Granted, we weren’t on good terms, but it was painful to think he’d actually
want to do me harm. Any more than he’d already done me, that is.
A hiss of pain brought my attention back to my companion. Trying to help him
more efficiently, I put my arm around his waist and he draped his arm across my
shoulder. We were able to make better time that way, to my relief. Five minutes
later, I saw the light I’d left on above the back porch.
“Thank God,” I said. We began moving faster, and we reached the house just as
dark fell. For a second, my companion arched and tensed, but he didn’t change.
That was a relief.
Getting up the steps turned into an ordeal, but finally I got Preston into the
house and seated at the kitchen table. I looked him over anxiously. This wasn’t
the first time I’d brought a bleeding and naked man into my kitchen, oddly
enough. I’d found a vampire named Eric under similar circumstances. Was that not
incredibly weird, even for my life? Of course, I didn’t have time to mull that
over, because this man needed some attention.
I tried to look at the shoulder wound in the improved light of the kitchen, but
he was so grimy it was hard to examine in detail. “Do you think you could stand
to take a shower?” I asked, hoping I didn’t sound like I thought he smelled or
anything. Actually, he did smell a little unusual, but his scent wasn’t
unpleasant.
“I think I can stay upright that long,” he said briefly.
“Okay, stay put for a second,” I said. I brought the old afghan from the back of
the living room couch and arranged it around him carefully. Now it was easier to
concentrate.
I hurried to the hall bathroom to turn on the shower controls, added long after
the claw-footed bathtub had been installed. I leaned over to turn on the water,
waited until it was hot, and got out two fresh towels. Amelia had left shampoo
and crČme rinse in the rack hanging from the showerhead, and there was plenty of
soap. I put my hand under the water. Nice and hot.
“Okay!” I called. “I’m coming to get you!”
My unexpected visitor was looking startled when I got back to the kitchen. “For
what?” he asked, and I wondered if he’d hit his head in the woods.
“For the shower, hear the water running?” I said, trying to sound
matter-of-fact. “I can’t see the extent of your wounds until I get you clean.”
We were up and moving again, and I thought he was walking better, as if the
warmth of the house and the smoothness of the floor helped his muscles relax.
He’d just left the afghan on the chair. No problem with nudity, like most Weres,

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