Dead Ever After

Chapter 15

At midnight the alarms went off.

I hadn’t known there were alarms and I hadn’t known it was midnight, but when the chiming started, I glanced at the clock. I’d been having the best sleep I’d had in days, and I experienced a moment of vicious disappointment before I launched myself out of bed.

From across the hall, Amelia shouted, “It worked!” I flung open my bedroom door and stumbled out. Amelia and Bob, in a nightgown and sleep shorts respectively, were hurrying through their doorway and heading to the back door. I heard Mr. Cataliades bellow something. Diantha shrieked back. They were pounding down the stairs completely dressed in their day clothes. Barry staggered down after them in LSU sleep pants and shirtless.

We all crowded onto the back porch, staring outside. There was one big security light in the back, but we could also see that a ring of blue light had sprung up around the yard and house. A body lay on the ground outside the ring. “Oh, no!” I said, and put my hand on the porch door.

“Sookie, don’t go out!” Amelia said, grabbing my shoulder and yanking me backward. “That’s someone who tried to sneak up on the house.”

“But what if it’s Bill and he was only coming to see if everything was okay?”

“Our defensive circle recognizes enmity,” Bob said with simple pride.

“Diantha, do you have your cell phone?” Mr. Cataliades asked.

“SureIgotit,” she said, and I spared a moment to be relieved that she was back to normal.

“Go take a picture of the person who is lying on the ground, but from well within the circle,” he directed.

Before we could think to stop her or argue with the procedure, Diantha was out of the house and running across the backyard at an incredible speed. The phone was out in her hand, and as she reached the perimeter of the protective circle, she paused and took a picture. Then, before we could be more frightened for her, she was back.

Mr. Cataliades turned the little screen toward me. “Do you recognize this vampire?” he asked.

I peered at it. “Yes, I do. That’s Horst Friedman, Felipe de Castro’s right-hand man.”

“I thought as much. Amelia, Bob, I congratulate you on your power and your perspicacity.”

I didn’t know what “perspicacity” was, but Amelia did, and she beamed with delight. Even the dour Bob looked proud.

“Yes, thanks,” I said with extra enthusiasm, hoping it wasn’t too belated. “I don’t know what he wanted, and I don’t want to know, at least right now. Do you have to recharge the circle, or something like that?”

“We should retest it,” Bob suggested, and Amelia nodded.

I saw Barry’s gaze encompass the nightgown and Amelia in it, and he looked away resolutely. I really didn’t want to hear his thoughts about my witch friend. I said lalalalala inside my head for a moment so the lust could abate.

“Sookie!” The call came from outside, from the dark woods.

“Who’s there?” I called in reply.

“Bill,” he said. “What has happened here?”

“I guess Horst tried to sneak up on the house, and Bob and Amelia’s witch spell zapped him,” I yelled. I opened the back door and took two steps down. I figured if I was still standing on the steps, I could jump back inside.

Bill emerged from the tree line. “I felt the magic from my house,” he said. He looked down at Horst’s limp body. I wondered if the vampire was finally dead, but his body seemed intact. “What shall I do with him?” Bill asked me.

“That’s up to you,” I called, wishing that I could walk out to the blue ring and lower my voice. I was afraid to, though. “You gotta keep the peace with the king, I guess.” Otherwise, I might be tempted to ask Bill to use a little persuasion on Horst when the vampire woke up, so we could discover what Horst and his boss had had in mind for me.

“I’ll take him to my place and call the king,” Bill said, and he hoisted the unconscious vampire to his shoulder as if Horst weighed nothing. In a moment, Bill and his burden were out of sight.

“That was exciting,” I said, trying to sound calm and casual. I stepped back onto the porch. “I guess I’ll go back to bed. Thanks, you two, for putting that protection around. Diantha, I appreciate your help. You all okay? Anybody need anything?”

“We’ll be right back in as soon as we test the spell,” Bob said, and turned to Amelia. “You up to it, babe?”

“We should check its strength now that it’s reacted,” she said, nodding, and they went down to the yard in their bare feet. Without any consultation, they each took the other’s hands and began to chant. A strong scent wafted across the back porch, and I knew it was the scent of their magic. It was musky and heavy, like sandalwood.

It wasn’t easy to get back to sleep after such a rude awakening, but somehow I managed it. For all I knew, the sudden drop into deep sleep was part of the spell my friends were casting in my yard. When I next opened my eyes, the room was full of light and I could hear my guests moving around the house.

Though I knew I was being a bad hostess, I checked my cell phone for messages before I went out to the kitchen. I had one, a voice message from Bill.

“I called Eric and told him I had the kings friend at my house,” he said. “Eric asked what had happened, and I told him about the witches’ circle. I told him that you had many friends staying with you and they were prepared to defend you. He asked if Sam Merlotte was among them, and when I said I hadn’t seen him, he laughed. He told me he would tell the king where Horst was. Afterward, Felipe sent his woman, Angie, to collect Horst, who was only beginning to recover consciousness by the time she got here. Angie seemed quite angry at Horst, so I suspect he was on an unauthorized mission. Your witch friends did a good job.” Then he hung up. Older vampires are not into phone etiquette.

It wasn’t pretty, the picture of Eric laughing at Sam’s absence. It made me think furiously.

“Sookie, do you have any more milk?” Barry called. Of course, he would know that I was up.

“I’m coming,” I yelled back, and pulled on my clothes.

The needs of the world went on, no matter how many crises erupted. “All God’s children got to eat,” I said, and found another quart of milk at the back of the top shelf and handed it to Barry. Then I poured myself a bowl of cereal.

Bob said, “The psychic’s going to be here any minute.” He was not trying to sound like he was telling me to hurry up, but it was a timely reminder. I was horrified when I looked at the clock.

Everyone but me had already eaten, rinsed out the dishes, and stacked them by the sink. I should have felt embarrassed, but instead I was simply relieved.

Just after I brushed my teeth, an ancient pickup truck rumbled into my front parking area. Its motor cut with an ominous rattle. A short, stocky woman slid out of the high cab to land on the gravel. She was wearing a cowboy hat decorated with the tip portion of a peacock feather. Her dry brown hair brushed her shoulders and almost matched her skin, as tan and weathered as an old saddle. Delphine Oubre was nothing like I’d imagined. From her battered boots and jeans to her sleeveless blue blouse, she looked like she’d be more at home at a country and western bar like Stompin’ Sally’s than coming to the house of a telepath to practice her touch psychic-ness.

“Paranormal psychometry,” Barry corrected.

I raised an eyebrow.

“It was just called psychometry originally,” he said, “but in the past few years ‘real scientists’ ”—he made the imaginary quote marks—“have started using that term to designate . . . well, measuring psychological traits.”

That didn’t sound much like a science to me.

“Me, either,” he confessed. But I read up on this online last night to get ready for her visit. In case Bob is mistaken about her talent.

Good move, I told him, watching Delphine Oubre come up the back steps.

“You don’t need to tell her your names,” Bob said hastily. “Just mine, that’s all she needs.”

Up close, Delphine seemed to be about forty years old. She wore no jewelry or makeup; her only decoration was the feather in her hat. Her cowboy boots were ancient and venerable. She looked like she could pound in nails with her bare hands.

Bob introduced himself to Delphine, and though (following his orders) I didn’t tell her my name, I offered Delphine a drink (she wanted water from the tap, no ice). She pulled out a kitchen chair and took a seat. When I put the glass in front of her, she took a big swallow. “Well?” she said impatiently.

Diantha offered her the scarf, still in its plastic bag. I hadn’t seen it, hadn’t wanted to see it. The scarf had been cut off Arlene, so the knot was intact. It was twisted into a thin rope, and it was stained.

“Dead woman’s scarf,” Delphine said, though not as if that worried her.

“No, it’s my scarf,” I said. “But I want to know how come a dead woman was wearing it. Do you have a problem with holding something that killed someone?”

I wanted to be sure Ms. Oubre wouldn’t start screaming when she touched the fabric. Though judging by what I’d seen of her so far, that didn’t seem likely.

“It ain’t the scarf that killed her, but the hands that tightened it,” she said practically. “Show me your money and hand it over. I got cows to feed back home.”

Money? Bob had called her. Since he’d done the arranging, I’d forgotten to ask him what the payment should be. Naturally, she wouldn’t take a check.

“Four hundred,” Bob murmured, and I could have slapped him for neglecting to tell me this. Of course, I should have asked. As I tried to remember what was in my purse, my heart sank. I’d have to pass Delphine’s cowboy hat to come up with the cash on the spot.

Mr. Cataliades’s hand appeared in front of Delphine with four hundred-dollar bills in it. She took the money without comment, stuffing it in her chest pocket. I nodded my thanks to my demon benefactor. He nodded back in a negligent way. “I’ll add it to my bill,” he murmured.

Now that that was settled, we all watched the touch psychic with anxious interest. Without further ado, Delphine Oubre opened the plastic bag and extracted the scarf. The smell was pretty bad, and Amelia immediately went to a window and opened it.

If I’d thought twice, I’d have done this outside, no matter how hot it was.

The psychic’s eyes were closed, and she held the scarf loosely at first. As it revealed things to her, her grip tightened, until she was clenching the material tightly. Her face turned slightly from side to side as if she sought a better view; the effect was indescribably eerie. And believe me, seeing inside her head was eerie, too.

“I’ve killed women,” she said suddenly, in a voice that was not her own. I jumped, and I wasn’t the only one. We all took a step back from Delphine Oubre.

“I’ve killed whores,” she said gloatingly. “This one’s close enough. She’s so scared. That makes it sweeter.”

We were frozen, like we’d drawn a collective breath and were holding it.

“My friend there,” said Oubre, still in the slightly accented voice, “he’s squeamish, just a bit. But it’s his choice, you know?”

I almost recognized that voice. I associated it with . . . trouble. Disaster.

I turned to look at Barry, at the same moment he took my hand in his.

“Johan Glassport,” I whispered.

My comfort level had just shot out of the uneasy area and into the blood-pressure-medication zone. Barry had mentioned seeing Glassport in New Orleans, and Quinn had seen him at an area motel; but I couldn’t figure out why. Glassport had no reason to dislike me that I knew of, but I didn’t believe that reasons were a big part of his operating system when he wasn’t on the clock as a lawyer.

When I’d met Glassport, we’d been on an airplane flight to Rhodes, both hired by the then-queen of Louisiana, Sophie-Anne. I was supposed to listen in to human brains at the vampire summit, and Glassport’s job was to defend her against charges brought by a contingent of Arkansas vamps.

I hadn’t seen Glassport since the Pyramid of Gizeh had been blown up by human supremacists who wanted to make a statement about vampires—namely, that they all ought to die.

I’d thought about Glassport from time to time, always with distaste. I had happily assumed I’d never see him again in my life. But here he was, speaking through the mouth of a Louisiana rancher named Delphine Oubre.

“Whose choice?” Bob said, in a very quiet voice.

But Delphine didn’t respond in the Glassport voice. Instead, her body changed subtly, and she swayed from side to side, as if she were riding an invisible roller coaster. It slowed down and then stopped. After a long minute, she opened her eyes.

“What I see is this,” she said in her own voice. She spoke rapidly, as if trying to get it all told before she forgot. “I see a man, a white man, and he’s bad most of the way through, but he keeps a good façade. He enjoys killing the helpless. He killed that woman, the red-headed one, on assignment. She not his usual style. She not some random pickup. She knew him. She knew the man with him. She couldn’t believe they were killing her. She thought the other man was good. She was thinking, ‘I done everything they ask me. Why they not killing Snookie?’ ”

We hadn’t introduced ourselves. “Sookie,” I corrected her absently. “She wanted to know why they were killing her instead of Sookie.”

“That you?” Delphine asked.

Catching Bob’s eyes on me and his warning shake of the head, I said, “No.”

“You lucky if you’re not Sookie. Whoever she is, they’d sure like to kill her.”

Damn.

Delphine stood up, shook herself a little, took another swallow of water, and walked out the door to get into her pickup to go home to feed her cows.

Everyone carefully avoided looking at me. I was the one with the big X on her forehead.

“I have to go to work,” I said, when the silence had lasted long enough. I didn’t give a damn about what Sam thought about it. I had to get out and do something.

Mr. Cataliades said, “Diantha will go with you.”

“I would be extremely glad to have her with me,” I said with absolute truth. “I’m just not sure how to explain her being there.”

“Why do you have to?” Bob said.

“Well, I have to say something, don’t I?”

“Why?” Barry asked. “Don’t you own part of the bar?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

“Then you don’t have to explain diddly-squat,” Amelia said, with such an air of magnificent indifference that we all laughed, even me.

So Diantha and I walked into Merlotte’s, and I didn’t explain her presence to anyone but Sam. The part-demon girl was wearing a relatively quiet outfit: yellow miniskirt, kingfisher blue tank top, and rainbow platform flip-flops. This month her hair was a platinum blond, but there were a lot of artificially platinum blondes around Bon Temps, though not many who looked like they were at most eighteen.

I don’t know what Diantha thought about Merlotte’s clientele, but Merlotte’s clientele was wild about her. She was different, she was alert and bright-eyed, and she talked so fast that everyone thought she was speaking a foreign language. I discovered that since I could evidently understand that language, I had to translate for her. So off and on during the day, I was called on to tell Jane Bodehouse or Antoine the cook or Andy Bellefleur what my “little second cousin” was saying. I don’t know where they got the idea that she was my second cousin, but after the first thirty minutes it became an established fact. I don’t know where they thought she’d come from, since everyone in the bar knew my entire family history, but I guess since I’d introduced the fairy Dermot (a dead ringer for Jason) as my cousin from Florida, and I’d said Claude was from the wrong side of the blanket, my townspeople figured the Stackhouses were simply unpredictable.

We were real busy that day, though since I was teamed with An Norr, I didn’t have to run as fast as I would’ve with some other waitresses. An was such a worker ant. And with Diantha and An both in the bar, not a single guy thought about my boobs, which were old news to the regulars anyway. I smiled down at my chest. “Girls, you’re outdated,” I said. Sam gave me a strange look, but he didn’t come over to ask me why I was talking to my breasts.

I stayed away from him, too. I was tired of trying to break through his defenses. I felt like I had enough trouble without trying to coax him out of his funky cave.

I was surprised when he spoke to me as I was waiting for an order for Andy and Terry Bellefleur. (Yes, it was awkward to see Andy, since he’d put me in handcuffs. We were both trying to ignore that.)

“Since when do you have a demon for a cousin?” he asked.

“You haven’t met Diantha before? I couldn’t remember.”

“I can’t say that I have. And I definitely think I’d recall it.”

“She and her uncle are at my house. They’re part of Team Sookie,” I said proudly. “They’re helping clear my name. So I don’t have to go to trial.”

I didn’t expect my words to have such an effect on Sam. He looked almost simultaneously pleased and angry. “I wish I could be there,” he said.

“Nothing’s stopping you,” I said. “Remember, you said you’d come to dinner.” I’d passed beyond confusion at Sam’s weirdness. I was somewhere in the “What the hell?” zone.

SOOKIE’S HOUSE

There was a sort of muted thump at the back door, as if someone were perhaps carrying in bags of groceries and therefore tried to open the door with a finger or foot.

Bob, just back from town with Amelia and Barry, opened the back door and stepped out on the screened-in porch to investigate. He wasn’t really thinking about who might have arrived. Truth be told, he was worried about Amelia’s pregnancy on many different levels. He was smart enough to know they couldn’t take care of a baby on the meager money they brought in now, and he was also smart enough to know that accepting money from Copley Carmichael (besides the indirect revenue Amelia got from renting out the apartment on the top floor of the house her dad had given her) would be a grave error.

So Bob was preoccupied, which was why he didn’t react instantly when the man beyond the screen door pulled it open and lunged in. Bob thought, Tyrese, and then he remembered Tyrese worked for a man who’d sold his soul. Bob shoved Tyrese, hoping desperately to knock him down the back steps and out into the yard so Bob could retreat into the kitchen and lock the door.

But Tyrese was a man of action, and he was full of the fire of despair. He was quicker. He pushed the smaller man back into the house. The door shut behind them.

Amelia was coming out of the hall bathroom, impelled by a sense that something was wrong. When the two men staggered into the kitchen, she screamed. Barry, in the living room, dropped his e-reader and dashed for the kitchen. Bob landed on the floor, Amelia gathered her power, and Barry stopped dead behind her in the hall.

But a Glock trumped Amelia’s attempts at a spell, since it was pointed at her chest and her man was on the floor and groaning. Barry was intent on Tyrese’s thoughts, which were full of despair, with a curious deadness to them. Though Tyrese wasn’t sending out any interesting or usable information, Barry was pretty good at interpreting body language.

“He’s got nothing to lose, Amelia,” he said, when she stopped screaming. “I don’t know why, but he’s given up hope.”

“I got the HIV,” Tyrese said simply.

“But . . .” Amelia intended to point out that treatment now was far better, that Tyrese could live a long and good life, that . . .

“No,” Barry warned her. “Shut up.”

“Good advice, Amelia,” Tyrese said. “Shut up. My Gypsy killed herself; I just got the phone call from her sister. Gypsy, who gave me this disease, who loved me. She killed herself! Left a note saying she had murdered the man she loved and she couldn’t live with the guilt. She dead. She hung herself. My beautiful woman!”

“I’m sorry,” Amelia said, and it was the best thing she could have told him. But even the best thing wasn’t going to save them.

Bob struggled to his feet, taking care to keep his hands visible and his movements slow. “Why are you here with a gun, Tyrese?” he said. “Don’t you think Mr. Carmichael is going to be pretty unhappy about this?”

“I don’t expect to live through this,” Tyrese said simply.

“Oh, Jesus,” Barry said, and closed his eyes for a second. He realized he had no advantage at all. He simply could not hear Tyrese’s thoughts clearly enough.

“Jesus ain’t got nothing to do with it,” Tyrese said. “The devil got everything to do with it.”

“So, again, why are you here?” Bob moved so that he was standing between the gun and Amelia. Maybe I can save Amelia and the baby, he thought.

In the meantime, Amelia was struggling to gain control of her fear. She was thinking of spells she could use to temporarily neutralize her father’s bodyguard. She was trying to remember if there were weapons around the house. Sookie had said something about a rifle in the coat closet by the front door, she remembered. Maybe it was still there. BARRY! she screamed in her head.

“Ow,” he said. “What you got, Amelia?”

Rifle in the front closet, maybe.

“The stair closet?” he yelled. Amelia was smart to send thoughts to him, but she couldn’t receive his.

No, the coat closet by the front door.

“Okay! Tyrese, listen to Amelia!” Barry began edging to his left, hoping Amelia would take his cue and distract Tyrese. He didn’t think there was a chance in hell he would get to the closet, find the rifle, understand how to use it, and shoot Tyrese Marley. But he had to try.

“Tyrese, please tell me what you’re doing here,” Amelia said steadily.

“I’m here,” said Tyrese, “because I’m waiting for Sookie Stackhouse to come home. When she does, I’m going to kill her.”

“Really!” Amelia said. “Why?”

“She’s why your dad got mad,” Tyrese said. “She took the thing he wanted so bad. So he said she had to die, and we came up here to do it. But we can’t get her alone. We don’t want to run her off the road; he wants a sure thing, he says. Shoot her, Tyrese, he says. She lost her vampire protection; no one will care.”

“I care,” Amelia said.

“Well, that’s the other thing; he wanted that fairy thing because he wanted to control you. Course, he called it ‘getting you back into his life,’ but we know better, huh? Now he’s so mad at Sookie, he doesn’t care what you want,” Tyrese said. The Glock was steady in his grip. It looked huge from where Amelia was standing, and she thought Bob standing between the gun and her was the bravest thing she’d ever seen.

“Where’s my dad, Tyrese?” Amelia asked, trying to keep his interest so Barry could get the gun. She turned her eyes very slightly to read the clock on the wall. Sookie should have finished her shift by now. She’d be on her way any minute. This whole pile of shit was Amelia’s father’s doing, and Amelia had to try every strategy she could devise to prevent her friend from getting killed. She wondered if she could cast a stunning spell without any herbs or preparation. It wasn’t like in the Harry Potter books, though she and every other witch of her acquaintance had often wished it were.

“He’s in our hotel room, far as I know. I went outside when I got a call from Gypsy’s sister on my cell phone. I walked around the corner so I could talk to her without Mr. Carmichael hearing me. He doesn’t like it when I get personal phone calls when I’m with him.”

“That’s kind of crazy,” Amelia said at random. She couldn’t turn around to see where Barry was, so she was prepared to keep on talking forever if she had to.

“That’s small stuff compared to his real crazy ideas,” Tyrese said, and laughed. “You come sit in this chair, Amelia.” He nodded at one of the kitchen chairs.

“Why?” she asked instantly.

“Doesn’t make any difference why. Because I told you to,” he said, giving her hard eyes. At that moment, Bob jumped Tyrese.

The boom of the Glock filled the room, and then there was blood. Amelia screamed until Barry clapped his hands over his ears, the horror in her thoughts beating at him. While he’d worked for the vampires in Texas, Barry had seen some bad shit, but Bob’s body in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor was way up there with the worst of those memories.

“See what the devil made me do?” said Tyrese, smiling slightly. “Amelia, you shut up now.”

Amelia clamped her mouth shut.

“You, whoever you are,” Tyrese said. “Come here now.”

Barry had run out of time and options. He went into the kitchen.

“Put Amelia in that chair.”

Barry, despite the fact that he was shaking and felt scared down to the marrow of his bones, managed to help Amelia to the chair. Amelia had blood spray on her arms and chest, and in her hair. She was as pale as a vampire. Barry thought she might faint. But she sat straight in the chair and stared at Tyrese as if she could bore a hole in him with her eyes.

Tyrese had groped around on the back porch while Amelia sat, and now he tossed a roll of duct tape at Barry. “Secure her,” he ordered.

Secure her, Barry thought. Like we’re in some kind of spy movie. Fuck him. I’ll kill him if I get the chance. Anything to avoid thinking about the bloody body at his feet.

Just as he was looking down at the thing he least wanted to see, he was sure Bob moved.

He wasn’t dead.

But it would only be a matter of time, if they didn’t get some help.

Barry realized appealing to Tyrese was a waste of breath. Tyrese was not in a merciful mood and might just kick Bob in the head or shoot him again. He hoped Amelia would have an idea, but her head was full of horror and regret and loss. Not a single idea in the place.

Barry had never secured anyone with duct tape before, but he bound Amelia’s wrists together behind the chair, and that would have to do.

“Now,” Tyrese said. “You sit on the floor and put your hand on that table leg.”

That would put him closer to Bob, and there was nothing Barry could do to help the witch. He sank to the floor and gripped the table leg with his left hand.

“Now duct tape your hand to the table,” Tyrese said.

With a lot of clumsy effort, Barry managed, ripping off the tape with his teeth.

“Scoot it across the floor to me,” Tyrese said, and Barry did.

Then there was nothing left to do.

“Now we wait,” said Tyrese.

“Tyrese,” Amelia said, “you ought to shoot my dad, not Sookie.”

She had everyone’s attention.

“It’s my dad who got you into this. It’s my dad who sold your soul to the devil. It’s my dad who doomed your girlfriend.”

“Your dad done everything he could for me,” Tyrese said stubbornly.

“My dad killed you,” Amelia said. Barry admired her courage and straight speaking, but Tyrese did not. He smacked Amelia across the face, and then he taped her mouth shut.

Barry thought Amelia was absolutely right. And maybe if Tyrese had had a chance to absorb the worst of his grief, he would have seen that, too. But in his rush to do something, anything, in the wake of hearing about Gypsy’s suicide, Tyrese had committed himself to this course of action, and he would not be dissuaded. He would never admit he’d done something so incredibly stupid.

You have to admit, Barry thought, that Tyrese is loyal, in a weird way.

Barry thought of Mr. Cataliades and hoped he’d be alerted to the fact that something was wrong in the house. He was tough. He could handle this situation. Or maybe when Sookie and Diantha pulled up, she’d hear Tyrese’s thoughts, though where she parked it was doubtful she’d be able to get a reading. But if she counted heads in the house, she might think something was off—though she’d have no reason to suspect danger.

Barry’s thoughts went around in circles as he tried to think of some way to extricate them all from this situation, some way that wouldn’t get them killed. Get him killed. He wasn’t much of a hero; he’d always known that about himself. He did good when it would not put him in peril; he believed that in this, he was like most people.

Suddenly Tyrese, who’d been leaning against the wall, straightened. Barry heard a car coming, and there was another sound, too. Was that a motorcycle? Sure sounded like one. Who could it be? Would the presence of other people be enough to stop Tyrese?

But there wasn’t any going back for the bodyguard, apparently.

As the car’s motor died and the other motor, too, Tyrese grinned at Amelia. “Here goes,” he said. “I’m going to make everything even. This woman is going to die.”

But the person driving the car might not even be Sookie. What if it was Mr. Cataliades in his van? Tyrese didn’t even look. He’d gotten the whole story set in his mind. This would be Sookie, and he would kill her, and then everything would somehow balance out.

Tyrese swung around to face the back door, the smile still on his lips. Barry started screaming at Sookie in his head, because that was all he could do, but he didn’t think she’d hear him. He looked up at Amelia and saw the strain in her face. She was doing the same.

And then Tyrese took a step forward, and another. He was on the porch. He wasn’t going to wait for Sookie to enter the house, which would have been a sure thing. He was going to meet her.

MERLOTTE’S

earlier

Sam’s lips parted and I just knew he was finally going to explain. But then he looked past me and the moment passed. “Mustapha Khan,” he said, and he definitely wasn’t happy to see Eric’s daytime guy.

As far as I knew, Sam had nothing against the werewolf. Surely he couldn’t blame Mustapha for beheading Jannalynn? After all, it had been a fair fight, and Sam, though a shapeshifter, was very familiar with Were rules. Or was it Mustapha’s job as Eric’s daytime guy that made Sam so grumpy?

I wondered, things being how they were, why Mustapha was coming to see me. Maybe something had been decided about who would take over Fangtasia, and Eric wanted me to know.

“Hello, Mustapha,” I said, as calmly as I could. “What brings you here today? Can I get you a glass of water with lemon?” Mustapha didn’t take stimulants of any kind: coffee, Coca-Cola, anything.

“Thank you. A glass of water would be refreshing,” he allowed. As usual, Mustapha was wearing dark glasses. He’d removed his motorcycle helmet, and I saw he’d shaved a pattern in the stubble on his head. That was new. It gleamed under the lights of the bar. An Norr did a double take when she got a good look at the muscled magnificence that was Mustapha Khan. She wasn’t the only one.

When I brought him an icy glass, he was sitting on a bar stool having some kind of silent staring contest with Sam.

“How is Warren?” I asked. Warren, possibly the only person Mustapha cared for, had been awfully close to dead when we found him at Jannalynn’s folks’ empty garage apartment.

“He’s better, thank you, Sookie. He ran half a mile today. He walked the rest, with some help. He’s out there waiting, right now.” Mustapha inclined his patterned head toward the front door. Warren was the shyest man I’d ever met.

I hadn’t known Warren had been a runner before his ordeal, but I figured the fact that he’d resumed the exercise was pretty good news, and I told Mustapha to give the convalescent my good wishes. “I’d have sent him a get-well card if I knew his address,” I added, and felt like a fool when Mustapha took off his dark glasses to give me an incredulous look. Well, I would have.

“I come here to tell you Eric is leaving tomorrow night,” he said. “He thought you should know. Plus, he left some shit at your place. He wants it back.”

I stood very still for a long moment, feeling the finality of it hit my heart. “Okay, then,” I said. “I do have some stuff of his in my closet. I’ll send it—where? Though I don’t suppose they are things he’ll miss.” I tried to not add any layers of meaning to that.

“I’ll come get them when you get off work,” Mustapha said.

The clock was reading four thirty. “I should be through here in thirty minutes or so,” I said, looking to Sam for confirmation. “If India gets here on time.”

And here she came, through the front door, weaving her way between the tables. India had had her hair done, a process she’d described to me in fascinating detail, and the jeweled balls on her braids clicked together as she walked. She spotted my companion when she was a couple of yards away. She had a startled look, which she exaggerated for effect when she drew up to us.

“Brother, you are almost enough to make me wish I was straight!” she said, with her beautiful smile.

“Sister, right back at you,” he said politely, which perhaps answered a question I’d had about Mustapha. Or perhaps not. He was the most secretive and closemouthed person I’d ever encountered, and I must admit I found that refreshing—occasionally. When you’re used to knowing everything, including a lot of factoids you wish you had never learned, it can be mighty frustrating to wonder.

“Mustapha Khan, India Unger,” I said, trying to keep up my end of the exchange. “India’s here to take over my tables, Mustapha, so I guess you can come out to the house now.”

“I’ll see you there,” he said, nodding good-bye to India before striding out the door. He was donning his dark glasses and helmet as he walked.

India shook her head as she watched him go, thinking about how fine his ass was. “It’s the front half that doesn’t appeal to me,” she said, before going to the lockers to put on her apron.

Sam was still standing in the same spot, and he was giving me a big stare.

“Sookie, I’m sorry,” he said. “I know this has to be tough. Call me if you need me.” And then he had to turn away to make a mojito for Christy Aubert. His shoulders were stiff with tension.

He was a problem I couldn’t solve.

Diantha followed me out to the car. “Sookieunclejustcalledheneedsme. You’llbeallrightwiththewolf?” I assured her I would.

“Okaythen,” she said, and went back into Merlotte’s, I guessed to wait for Mr. C to pick her up. I wondered what India would make of her.

When I pulled out from behind Merlotte’s, Mustapha was waiting for me. Warren perched behind him on the Harley. Warren was like a bird compared to Mustapha—small, pale, narrow. But according to Mustapha, Warren was the best shot he’d ever seen. That was a compliment Mustapha would not give out lightly.

As I drove home down Hummingbird Road followed by the Harley, I found myself feeling relieved that Eric would be gone soon. In fact, I wished he were gone already.

I’d never imagined feeling this way, but I couldn’t handle this emotional jerking around. I’d start to feel okay, then I’d get poked in the sore spot, like taking a scab off my knee when I was a kid. In books, the hero was gone after the big blowup. He didn’t stick around in the vicinity doing mysterious shit, sending messages to the heroine by a third party. He hauled his ass into oblivion. And that was the way things should be, as far as I was concerned. Life should imitate romance literature far more often.

If the world operated according to romance principles, Mustapha Khan would tell me that Eric had always been unworthy of me and that Mustapha himself had harbored a deep love for me from the moment he’d met me. Did Harlequin have a line of books for guys-out-of-prison-get-redeemed romances?

I was just distracting myself, and I knew it. I noticed as I pulled to a stop that Barry’s rental car was parked in my yard, but Mr. Cataliades and his van were in town, of course.

I got out of my car and turned around to tell Mustapha that I had company. “You and Warren come on in. I’ll have Eric’s stuff together in a jiffy,” I said. I put my hand on my car door to close it, and Mustapha got off his bike. I raised a hand to Warren, and hearing the creak of the screen door, I turned my head slightly to see who was coming out the back door. I caught a glimpse of someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. I couldn’t recall his name . . .

And he had a gun. He called out my name in a terrible voice.

Mustapha, his eyes hidden behind his shades, was reaching toward me, quick as only a werewolf can be. When I saw that skinny blond Warren, still on the bike, had drawn the biggest handgun I’d ever seen in my life, I had a moment to be afraid. I had time to think, “Oh Jesus, that guy is going to kill me,” when two things happened almost simultaneously. From behind me I heard a crack!, and my left shoulder burned as I staggered because Mustapha was flinging me face-first to the ground. Then a house landed on top of me. And I heard a voice screaming from inside the house, a voice that was not mine.

“Barry,” I said. And a huge bee advised me that it had dug its stinger into my shoulder.

Life just sucked some days.