Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris Page A

wore to the Descendants of the Glorious Dead meetings, not quite good enough for church, but not plain enough for everyday wear.
    I was sweeping the front porch, which we’d forgotten, when he came. He made a vampire entrance; one minute he wasn’t there, and the next he was, standing at the bottom of the steps and looking up at me.
    I grinned. “Didn’t scare me,” I said.
    He looked a little embarrassed. “It’s just a habit,” he said, “appearing like that. I don’t make much noise.”
    I opened the door. “Come on in,” I invited, and he came up the steps, looking around.
    “I remember this,” he said. “It wasn’t so big, though.”
    “You remember this house? Gran’s gonna love it.” I preceded him into the living room, calling Gran as I went.
    She came into the living room very much on her dignity, and I realized for the first time she’d taken great pains with her thick white hair, which was smooth and orderly for a change, wrapped around her head in a complicated coil. She had on lipstick, too.
    Bill proved as adept at social tactics as my grandmother. They greeted, thanked each other, complimented, and finally Bill ended up sitting on the couch and, after carrying out a tray with three glasses of peach tea, my Gran sat in the easy chair, making it clear I was to perch by Bill. There was no way to get out of this without being even more obvious, so I sat by him, but scooted forward to the edge, as if I might hop up at any moment to get him a refill on his ritual glass of iced tea.
    He politely touched his lips to the edge of the glass and then set it down. Gran and I took big nervous swallows of ours.
    Gran picked an unfortunate opening topic. She said, “I guess you heard about the strange tornado.”
    “Tell me,” Bill said, his cool voice as smooth as silk. I didn’t dare look at him, but sat with my hands folded and my eyes fixed to them.
    So Gran told him about the freak tornado and the deaths of the Rats. She told him the whole thing seemed pretty awful, but cut-and-dried, and at that I thought Bill relaxed just a millimeter.
    “I went by yesterday on my way to work,” I said, without raising my gaze. “By the trailer.”
    “Did you find it looked as you expected?” Bill asked, only curiosity in his voice.
    “No,” I said. “It wasn’t anything I could have expected. I was really . . . amazed.”
    “Sookie, you’ve seen tornado damage before,” Gran said, surprised.
    I changed the subject. “Bill, where’d you get your shirt? It looks nice.” He was wearing khaki Dockers and a green and brown striped golfing shirt, polished loafers, and thin brown socks.
    “Dillard’s,” he said, and I tried to imagine him at the mall in Monroe, perhaps, other people turning to look at this exotic creature with his glowing skin and beautiful eyes. Where would he get the money to pay with? How did he wash his clothes? Did he go into his coffin naked? Did he have a car or did he just float wherever he wanted to go?
    Gran was pleased with the normality of Bill’s shopping habits. It gave me another pang of pain, observing how glad she was to see my supposed suitor in her living room, even if (according to popular literature) he was a victim of a virus that made him seem dead.
    Gran plunged into questioning Bill. He answered her with courtesy and apparent goodwill. Okay, he was a polite dead man.
    “And your people were from this area?” Gran inquired.
    “My father’s people were Comptons, my mother’s people Loudermilks,” Bill said readily. He seemed quite relaxed.
    “There are lots of Loudermilks left,” Gran said happily. “But I’m afraid old Mr. Jessie Compton died last year.”
    “I know,” Bill said easily. “That’s why I came back. The land reverted to me, and since things have changed in our culture toward people of my particular persuasion, I decided to claim it.”
    “Did you know the Stackhouses? Sookie says you have a long history.” I thought Gran had put it