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1. DEADDARK UNTIL
1
Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
2. Ace books by Charlaine Harris
DEAD UNTIL DARK
LIVING DEAD IN DALLAS
CLUB DEAD
DEAD TO THE WORLD Sookie Stackhouse Novels
DEAD AS A DOORNAIL
DEFINITELY DEAD
FROM DEAD TO WORSE
MANY BLOODY RETURNS
edited by Charlaine Harris
and Toni L. P. Kelner
Berkley Prime Crime Books by Charlaine Harris
GRAVE SIGHT
Harper Connelly Mysteries GRAVE SURPRISE
AN ICE COLD GRAVE
SHAKESPEAREโS LANDLORD
SHAKESPEAREโS CHAMPION
Lily Bard Mysteries
SHAKESPEAREโS TROLLOP
SHAKESPEAREโS COUNSELOR
REAL MUDERDERS
Aurora Teagarden Mysteries A BONE TO PICK
THREE BEDROOMS, ONE CORPSE
SWEET AND DEADLY
A SECRET RAGE
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
3. DEADDARK UNTIL
CHARLAINE HARRIS
New York
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
4. THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Plublised by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3,
Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd.,80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephenโs Green Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin
Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250, Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110
017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Resgistered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the
authorโs imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does
not have any control over and does not assume any responsability for author or third-party
websites or this content.
Copyright ยฉ 2008 by Charlaine Harris, Inc.
Text design by Kristin del Rosario.
All rights reserved.
Not part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or eletronic
form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted
materials in violation of the authorโ rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ACE and the โAโ design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Edition: May 2008
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harris, Charlainne.
Dead until dark/Charlaine Harris. - 1st ed.
p.cm.
ISBN 978-0-441-01589-4
1. Vampires - Fiction. 2. Supernatural - Fiction 3. Lousiana - Fiction I. Title.
PS3558.A6427F76 2008
813โ.54--dc22
2008002396
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
5. My thanks and appreciation go to the people who
thought this book was a good idea - Dean James,
Toni L. P. Kelner and Gary and Susan Nowlin
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
7. Iโd been waiting for the
vampire for years when he
walked into the bar.
Ever since vampires
came out of the coffin (as
they laughingly put it) four
years ago, Iโd hoped one
would come to Bon Temps.
We had all the other minori-
ties in our little townโwhy
not the newest, the legally
recognized undead? But
rural northern Louisiana
wasnโt too tempting to vam-
pires, apparently; on the
other hand, New Orleans
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
8. was a real center for themโthe whole Anne Rice thing,
right?
Itโs not that long a drive from Bon Temps to New Or-
leans, and everyone who came into the bar said that if
you threw a rock on a street comer youโd hit one. Though
you better not.
But I was waiting for my own vampire.
You can tell I donโt get out much. And itโs not because
Iโm not pretty. I am. Iโm blond and blue-eyed and twenty-
five, and my legs are strong and my bosom is substantial,
and I have a waspy waistline. I look good in the warm-
weather waitress outfit Sam picked for us: black shorts,
white T, white socks, black Nikes.
But I have a disability. Thatโs how I try to think of it.
The bar patrons just say Iโm crazy.
Either way, the result is that I almost never have a
date. So little treats count a lot with me.
And he sat at one of my tablesโthe vampire.
I knew immediately what he was. It amazed me when
no one else turned around to stare. They couldnโt tell! But
to me, his skin had a little glow, and I just knew.
I could have danced with joy, and in fact I did do a
little step right there by the bar. Sam Merlotte, my boss,
looked up from the drink he was mixing and gave me
a tiny smile. I grabbed my tray and pad and went over
to the vampireโs table. I hoped that my lipstick was still
even and my ponytail was still neat. Iโm
kind of tense, and I could feel my smile yanking the
corners of my mouth up.
He seemed lost in thought, and I had a chance to
give him a good once-over before he looked up. He was
a little under six feet, I estimated. He had thick brown
hair, combed straight back and brushing his collar, and
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
9. my bottom since Iโd been sitting on the dirty pavement
and gave Bill a wave as I started off across the parking lot.
It had been a stimulating evening, one with a lot of
food for thought. I felt almost as cheerful as my smile
when I considered it.
But Jason was going to be mighty angry about the
chain.
After work that night, I drove home, which is only
about four miles south from the bar. Jason had been gone
(and so had DeeAnne) when I got back to work, and that
had been another good thing. I was reviewing the evening
as I drove to my grandmotherโs house, where I lived. Itโs
right before Tall Pines cemetery, which lies off a narrow
two-lane parish road. My great-great-great grandfather
had started the house, and heโd had ideas about privacy,
so to reach it you had to turn off the parish road into the
driveway, go through some woods, and then you arrived
at the clearing in which the house stood.
Itโs sure not any historic landmark, since most of the
oldest parts have been ripped down and replaced over
the years, and of course itโs got electricity and plumbing
and insulation, all that good modern stuff. But it still has
a tin roof that gleams blindingly on sunny days. When
the roof needed to be replaced, I wanted to put regular
roofing tiles on it, but my grandmother said no. Though I
was paying, itโs her house; so naturally, tin it was.
Historical or not, Iโd lived in this house since I was
about seven, and Iโd visited it often before then, so I loved
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark
10. it. It was just a big old family home, too big for Gran-
ny and me, I guess. It had a broad front covered by a
screened-in porch, and it was painted white, Granny be-
ing a traditionalist all the way. I went through the big
living room, strewn with battered furniture arranged to
suit us, and down the hall to the first bedroom on the left,
the biggest.
Adele Hale Stackhouse, my grandmother, was
propped up in her high bed, about a million pillows
padding her skinny shoulders. She was wearing a long-
sleeved cotton nightgown even in the warmth of this
spring night, and her bedside lamp was still on. There
was a book propped in her lap.
โHey,โ I said.
โHi, honey.โ
My grandmother is very small and very old, but her
hair is still thick, and so white it almost has the very faint-
est of green tinges. She wears it kind of rolled against her
neck during the day, but at night itโs loose or braided. I
looked at the cover of her book.
โYou reading Danielle Steele again?โ
โOh, that woman can sure tell a story.โ My grand-
motherโs great pleasures were reading Danielle Steele,
watching her soap operas (which she called her โsto-
riesโ) and attending meetings of the myriad clubs sheโd
belonged to all her adult life, it seemed. Her favorites
were the Descendants of the Glorious Dead and the Bon
Temps Gardening Society.
โGuess what happened tonight?โ I asked her.
โWhat? You got a date?โ
โNo,โ I said, working to keep a smile on my face. โA
vampire came into the bar.โ
โOoh, did he have fangs?โ
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Charlaine Harris Dead until dark