Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel by Charlaine Harris

Author:Charlaine Harris [Harris, Charlaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 1410448223
Publisher: Ace Books
Published: 2012-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

An hour later, having come home to a blessedly cool and empty house, I was sitting at my kitchen table with my best stationery and a black pen. I was trying to decide how to begin the letter, the one I’d promised Bellenos I’d attempt to send to Faery. I had doubts about how well this was going to go.

The last time I’d fed something into the portal, it had been eaten. Granted, it had been a human body.

My first attempt had run on for five handwritten pages. It was now in the kitchen trash can. I had to condense what I needed to convey. Urgency! That was the message.

Dear Great-Grandfather, I began. I hesitated. And Claude, I added. Bellenos and Dermot are worried that the fae at Hooligans are getting too restless to stay confined to the building. They miss Claude and his leadership. We are all afraid something bad will happen if this situation doesn’t change soon. Please let us know what’s going on. Can you send a return letter through this portal? Or send Claude back? Love, Sookie

I read it over, decided it was as close as I was going to get to what I wanted to say (Claude, get your butt back here now!). I wrote both Niall’s and Claude’s names on the envelope, which was real pretty—cream with pink and red roses on the border. I almost put a stamp on the upper right corner before I realized it would be a ridiculous waste.

Between the heat, the bugs, and the burgeoning undergrowth, my jaunt into the woods to “mail” my letter was not as pleasant as my previous rambles had been. Sweat poured down my face, and my hair was sticking to my neck. A devil’s walking stick scratched me deeply enough to make me bleed. I paused by a big clump of the plumy bushes that only seem to grow big out in the sun—Gran would have had a name for them, but I didn’t—and I heard a deer moving around inside the dense growth. At least Bellenos left me one, I thought, and told myself I was being ridiculous. We had plenty of deer. Plenty.

To my relief, the portal was still in the little clearing where I’d last seen it, but it looked smaller. Not that it’s easy to define the size of a patch of shimmery air—but last time it had been large enough to admit a very small human body. Now, that wouldn’t be possible without taking a chainsaw to the body beforehand.

Either the portal was shrinking naturally, or Niall had decided a size reduction would prevent me from popping anything else unauthorized into Faery. I knelt before the patch of wavery air, which hovered about knee-high just above the blackberry vines and the grasses. I popped the letter into the quavering patch, and it vanished.

Though I held my breath in anticipation, nothing happened. I didn’t hear the snarling of last time, but I found the silence kind of depressing. I don’t know what I’d expected, but I’d half hoped I’d get some signal.

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