Living Dead in Dallas (sookie Stackhouse, #2)

The second installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series opens in Bon Temps, Louisiana, where Sookie Stackhouse works as a telepathic barmaid at Merlotte's Bar. Sookie can read human minds, a gift she considers a curse. She is dating Bill Compton, a vampire who lives openly among humans after vampires publicly revealed their existence. Vampires are organized into regional jurisdictions; Bill's area is controlled by Eric Northman, a powerful Viking vampire who runs Fangtasia, a bar in Shreveport.

One evening, Sookie reads the troubled thoughts of Andy Bellefleur, a local detective drinking heavily, and confiscates his keys. The next morning, she finds Andy's car still in the lot. When she tries to close a rear door, she discovers the naked body of Lafayette Reynold, the bar's openly gay cook. Lafayette's neck was broken, and he was killed elsewhere before being placed in Andy's car. Sookie tells investigators that Lafayette had recently bragged about attending a sex party. She and her boss, Sam Merlotte, a shapeshifter whose nature is secret, speculate that Lafayette was killed for being indiscreet about the party.

That evening, Bill and Sookie argue about a strip mall he bought for her, which makes her feel like a kept woman. As they drive to Shreveport, where Eric has summoned them, the car dies on a dark road. Sookie storms into the woods and encounters a maenad, an ancient, immortal follower of Bacchus, the Greek god of wine. The creature rakes Sookie's back with a pointed wand, inflicting deeply poisonous wounds. Bill rushes Sookie to Fangtasia, where Dr. Ludwig, a dwarf healer, directs the vampires to drain Sookie's poisoned blood in turns and replace it with a transfusion.

Sookie wakes healed but shaken. Eric reveals the real purpose of her summons: She has been loaned to the Dallas vampires, who need her telepathic abilities. Bill will accompany her as protector. The maenad demands tribute from the vampires or will unleash madness into their ranks. Back in Bon Temps, Portia Bellefleur, Andy's sister and a lawyer, asks Sookie to use her telepathy to find Lafayette's killer and clear Andy. Sookie agrees for Lafayette's sake.

In Dallas, a man posing as a priest tries to kidnap Sookie at the airport before Bill can rise from his travel coffin. Bill emerges just in time, and the man flees, revealing that someone knew of Sookie's arrival. At the nest, the shared residence of the Dallas vampires, their leader Stan Davis reveals that Farrell, a member of his household, has been missing for five nights. Sookie hypnotizes a waitress who last saw Farrell and, through her memories, spots the fake priest from the airport. Bill identifies the vampire who lured Farrell as Godfrey, who has allied with the Fellowship of the Sun, an anti-vampire hate group, and plans to commit suicide by sunlight exposure, taking Farrell with him.

Hugo Ayres, the human boyfriend of Dallas vampire Isabel Beaumont, accompanies Sookie undercover to the Fellowship Center. They pose as potential members but are captured and locked in a bomb shelter beneath the church. Alone with Hugo, Sookie reads his mind and discovers he is the traitor who tipped the Fellowship to her arrival and identified the only witness to Farrell's abduction, leading to that witness's murder. Hugo confesses: He grew resentful of vampires despite his addiction to Isabel and began feeding them information.

Gabe, a muscular Fellowship staffer, attempts to rape Sookie. She fights back but is overpowered until Godfrey appears and kills him. Godfrey, turned into a vampire at about 16 and covered in pre-Roman tattoos, confesses he has molested and killed children for centuries. He helps Sookie escape upstairs. Sookie telepathically contacts Barry, a fellow telepath at her hotel, urging him to send Bill to the Fellowship basement at nightfall. Luna Garza, a shapeshifter infiltrating the Fellowship, rescues Sookie from the sanctuary, and they flee by car. Fellowship members pursue and ram them, flipping the vehicle. After hospital treatment, Sookie is returned to the hotel. Bill has already raided the Fellowship Center with Stan's vampires, freeing Farrell and Hugo. Godfrey escaped into the night.

Before dawn, Sookie takes a taxi to the Fellowship parking lot. Godfrey emerges from the shadows, resolved to die. She cries for him. He thanks her for being someone to weep at his end. The sun rises, and he dies.

That evening at Stan's nest, Sookie demands to know Hugo's fate. Stan has chained Hugo and Isabel on opposite walls with silver, punishing both by denying the addictions that drove Hugo's betrayal. At Farrell's welcome party, Sookie senses hostile minds surrounding the house and screams for everyone to hit the floor. When the Fellowship opens fire, the humans in the room are struck. Eric throws himself over Sookie, taking a bullet in his shoulder. He tells her she must suck the bullet out before his flesh heals over it; she does, inadvertently swallowing some of his blood. Bill returns from chasing the attackers, energized from killing. Sookie is horrified he left without checking on her and flies home alone.

For three weeks, Sookie and Bill do not speak. She learns he has been seen with Portia Bellefleur. After spotting them at a football game, Sookie realizes she wants him back. They reunite at her front door. Bill explains that Portia approached him to be seen dating a vampire so the local sex club would invite her, allowing her to infiltrate it and find Lafayette's killer. Bill also reveals that Eric engineered the bullet incident so Sookie would ingest his blood, which allows Eric to sense her emotions.

Mike Spencer, the parish coroner, invites Sookie to a gathering she recognizes as the sex club Lafayette attended. With Bill away, she asks Eric to accompany her. At the cabin, Sookie reads Mike's thoughts and sees Lafayette's murder: a club member named Tom Hardaway struck Lafayette during a sexual encounter, Mike joined in beating him, and they killed him when he threatened to expose the group.

Outside, Bill arrives unexpectedly, and Andy Bellefleur emerges from the bushes with a gun. The maenad Callisto then appears from the woods, drawn by the revelry, accompanied by Sam in his collie form. She identifies Mike and Tom as Lafayette's killers and unleashes pure madness into the minds of the partygoers. They tear each other apart. Mike, Tom and his wife Cleo Hardaway, and Jan Fowler, the party's hostess, are killed. Sookie's friend Tara Thornton survives by hiding. Eric erases Tara's memories, and Bill and Eric burn the cabin to conceal the supernatural violence. Evidence found in Mike's car trunk, including Lafayette's wallet and bloody clothes, allows police to close the case.

The next evening, Sookie finds a thank-you cake from Caroline Holliday Bellefleur, Andy and Portia's elderly grandmother. Bill is shaken by the name and asks Sookie to bring his old family Bible. Opening it to entries in faded ink, some in his own handwriting, he traces his family line and discovers that Caroline Holliday Bellefleur is his great-granddaughter. Andy and Portia are his direct descendants. Overwhelmed, Bill explains he cut himself off from his human family to spare them. Sookie tells him the Bellefleurs' greatest need is money, and Bill resolves to help.

In a quiet final moment, Bill tells Sookie that if anything happens to him, she should go to Eric. Sookie rejects this, insisting she belongs to no one. As they lie together, she notices that Bill's skin glows in the darkness with its otherworldly light. So does hers, a sign of the vampire blood now in her veins.