"Charlaine Harris - Sookie Stackhouse 03 - Club Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harris Charlaine)

"What's up?" He closed the catalog of bar supplies he'd been studying.
"I need to stash someone in here for a little while."

Sam didn't look altogether happy. "Who? Has Bill gotten back?"
"No, he's still traveling." My smile got even brighter. "But, um, they sent another vampire to sort
of guard me? And I need to stow him in here while I work, if that's okay with you."
"Why do you need to be guarded? And why can't he just sit out in the bar? We have plenty of
TrueBlood." TrueBlood was definitely proving to be the front-runner among competing blood
replacements. "Next best to the drink of life," its first ad had read, and vampires had responded to the ad
campaign.

I heard the tiniest of sounds behind me, and I sighed. Bubba had gotten impatient.

"Now, I asked youтАФ" I began, starting to turn, but never got further. A hand grasped my
shoulder and whirled me around. I was facing a man I'd never seen before. He was cocking his fist to
punch me in the head.

Though the vampire blood I had ingested a few months ago (to save my life, let me point out) has
mostly worn offтАФI barely glow in the dark at all nowтАФI'm still quicker than most people. I dropped and
rolled into the man's legs, which made him stagger, which made it easier for Bubba to grab him and crush
his throat.

I scrambled to my feet and Sam rushed out of his office. We stared at each other, Bubba, and
the dead man.
 Well, now we were really in a pickle.
"I've kilt him," Bubba said proudly. "I saved you, Miss Sookie."

Having the Man from Memphis appear in your bar, realizing he's become a vampire, and
watching him kill a would-be assailantтАФwell, that was a lot to absorb in a couple of minutes, even for
Sam, though he himself was more than he appeared.

"Well, so you have," Sam said to Bubba in a soothing voice. "Do you know who he was?"

I had never seen a dead manтАФoutside of visitation at the local funeral homeтАФuntil I'd started
dating Bill (who of course was technically dead, but I mean human dead people).

It seems I run across them now quite often. Lucky I'm not too squeamish.

This particular dead man had been in his forties, and every year of that had been hard. He had
tattoos all over his arms, mostly of the poor quality you get in jail, and he was missing some crucial teeth.
He was dressed in what I thought of as biker clothes: greasy blue jeans and a leather vest, with an
obscene T-shirt underneath.

"What's on the back of the vest?" Sam asked, as if that would have significance for him.

Bubba obligingly squatted and rolled the man to his side. The way the man's hand flopped at the
end of his arm made me feel pretty queasy. But I forced myself to look at the vest. The back was
decorated with a wolf's head insignia. The wolf was in profile, and seemed to be howling. The head was
silhouetted against a white circle, which I decided was supposed to be the moon. Sam looked even more