Four tough guys came in. My grandmother would have said they were loaded for bear. They might as well have stenciled “Badass and Proud of It” on their foreheads. They were definitely high on something, full of themselves, brimming with aggression. And armed.
After a second’s peek in their heads, I knew they’d taken vampire blood. That was the most unpredictable drug on the market — also the most expensive, because harvesting it was so dangerous. People who drank vampire blood were — for a length of time impossible to predict — incredibly strong and incredibly reckless . . . and sometimes batshit crazy.
Though her back was to the newcomers, Jannalynn seemed to smell them. She swung around on her stool and focused, just like someone had drawn a bow and aimed the arrow. I could feel the animal wafting off her. Something wild and savage filled the air, and I realized the smell was coming from Sam, too. Jack and Lily Leeds were on their feet. Jack had his hand under his jacket, and I knew he had a gun. Lily’s hands were poised in a strange way, as if she were about to gesture and had frozen in midmove.
“Hidee-ho, jerkoffs!” said the tallest one, addressing the bar in general. He had a heavy beard and thick dark hair, but underneath it I saw how young he was. I thought he couldn’t be more than nineteen. “We come to have some fun with you lizards.”
“No lizards here,” Sam said, his voice even and calm. “You fellas are welcome to have a drink, but after that I think you better leave. This is a quiet place, a local place, and we don’t need trouble.”
“Trouble’s already here!” boasted the shortest asshole. His face was clean-shaven, and his hair was only blond stubble, showing scars on his scalp. He was built broad and chunky. The third kid was thin and dark, maybe Hispanic. His black hair was slicked back, and his lips had a sensuous pout to them that he tried to counteract by sneering. The fourth guy had gotten off on the vampire blood even more seriously than the rest, and he couldn’t speak because he was lost in his own world. His eyes jerked from side to side as if he were tracking things the rest of us couldn’t see. He was big, too. I thought the first attack would come from him, and though I was the least of the combatants, I began to ease to my right, planning to come at him from the side.
“We can have peace here,” Sam said. He was still trying, though I knew he understood that there was no way we were going to escape violence. He was buying time for everyone in Merlotte’s to understand what was up.
That was a good idea. By the time a few more seconds had passed, even the slowest of the few patrons had moved as far from the action as they could get, except for Danny Prideaux, who’d been playing darts with Andy Bellefleur, and Andy himself. Danny was actually holding a dart. Andy was off duty, but he was armed. I watched Jack Leeds’s eyes and saw he’d realized, as I had, where the worst trouble would come from. The dazed hoodlum was actually rocking back and forth on his heels.
Since Jack Leeds had a gun and I did not, I carefully inched backward so I wouldn’t interfere with his shot. Lily’s cold eyes followed my small movement, and she nodded almost undetectably. I’d done a sensible thing.
“We don’t want peace,” snarled Bearded Leader. “We want the blonde.” And he pointed in my direction with his left hand, while his right hand pulled a knife. It looked like it was two feet long, though maybe my fear was acting like a magnifying glass.
“We gonna take care of her,” Blond Bristles said.
“And then maybe the resta you,” Pouty Lips added.
Crazy Guy just smiled.
“I don’t think so,” Jack Leeds said. Jack pulled his gun in one smooth movement. Possibly he would have done it anyway out of sheer self-defense, but it didn’t hurt that his wife, standing right by me, was a blonde. He couldn’t be completely sure they meant me, the other white meat.
“I don’t think so, either,” said Andy Bellefleur. His arm was rock steady as he aimed his own Sig Sauer at the man with the knife. “You drop that pigsticker, and we’ll work something out.”
They might be high as kites, but at least three of the thugs retained enough sense to realize that facing guns was a bad idea. There was a lot of uncertain twitching and eye shifting as they flickered gazes at each other. The moment hung in the balance.
Unfortunately, Crazy Guy went over the edge and charged for Sam, so now we were all committed to stupidity. With Were swiftness, Pouty Lips whipped out his own gun, aimed, and fired. I’m not sure who he intended to hit, but he winged Jack Leeds, whose return shot went wild as he fell.