Deadlocked

“So often our elderly relatives love things that don’t real y have much intrinsic value,” the antiques dealer said. “In your case, your grandmother left you an item that is of interest only to a few specialized col ectors.”

“Real y? What is it? She cal ed it something crazy.” I was stil leading the way. I smiled to myself. I was pretty sure it wasn’t a very pleasant smile.

He didn’t hesitate. “It’s a turn-of-the-century Valentine’s Day present,” he said. “Made out of soapstone. If you can open it, there’s a little compartment for a lock of the hair of the person giving it.”

“Real y? I couldn’t open it. You know how?” I was sure that only the intention to use it could open the cluviel dor.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure I can open it,” he said, and he believed that—but he’d never tried. He hadn’t had time that day, had had only a quick glance at the cluviel dor and at the letter. He assumed that he’d be able to open the round object because he’d never been thwarted when he’d tried to open similar antique items before.

“That would be real interesting,” I said. “And how many people are gonna bid on this old thing? How much money you think I could make?”

“At least two people are involved,” he said. “But that’s al you need, to make a little profit. Maybe you’d make as much as a thousand, though I have to take my cut.”

“Why should I give you any? Why shouldn’t I contact them myself?”

He sat at the kitchen table uninvited, while I went to the stove to check the sweet potatoes. They were done. Al the other ingredients— butter, eggs, sugar, molasses, al spice, nutmeg, and vanil a—were arranged in a row on the counter, ready for me to measure. The oven had preheated.

He was taken aback by my question, but he ral ied. “Why, you don’t want to deal with these people, young lady. They’re pretty rough people. You want to let me do that. So it’s only fair that I get a little recompense for my trouble.”

“What if I don’t want to let you ‘do that’?” I turned off the heat, but the water kept bubbling. With a slotted spoon, I scooped out the sweet potato chunks and put them in a bowl. Steam rose from them, making the kitchen even warmer, despite the air conditioner rumbling away. I was monitoring his thoughts closely, as I should have done the day he’d been here working.

“Then I’l just take it,” he said.

I turned to face him. He had some Mace and a knife. I heard the front door open and shut, very quietly. Cal away didn’t hear it; he didn’t know this house like I did.

“I won’t give it up,” I said flatly, my voice louder than it needed to be. “And you can’t find it.”

“I’m an antiques dealer,” he said with absolute assurance. “I’m very good at finding old things.”

I didn’t know if a friend had entered or another foe. Truth be told, I had little faith in the wards. The silence and stealth the newcomer employed could indicate either one. I did know I wasn’t going to give up the cluviel dor. And I knew for sure I wasn’t going to stand passively and let this asshole hurt me. I twisted, gripped the handle of the pot of hot water, and pivoted smoothly, flinging the water directly into Donald Cal away’s face.

A lot of things happened then, in very rapid succession. Cal away screamed and dropped the knife and the Mace, clapping his hands to his face while water flew everywhere. The demon lawyer, Desmond Cataliades, charged into the room. He bel owed like a maddened bul when he saw Donald Cal away on the floor (the dealer was doing a little of his own bel owing). The demon leaped onto the prone dealer, gripped his head, and twisted, and al the noise stopped abruptly.

“Shepherd of Judea,” I said. I pul ed out a chair and sat in it to forestal fal ing down on the wet floor with the body.

Mr. Cataliades picked himself up, dusted his hands together, and beamed at me. “Miss Stackhouse, how nice to see you,” he said. “And how clever of you to distract him. I’m not yet returned to ful strength.”

“I take it you know who this is,” I said, trying not to look at the inert figure of Donald Cal away.

“I do. And I’ve been looking for a chance to shut his mouth forever.”

The bowl of sweet potatoes was stil letting off steam.

“I can’t pretend to regret he’s dead,” I said. “But this whole incident is kind of shocking, and it’s taking me a minute to col ect myself. In fact, I’ve been through a lot of shocking stuff lately. But what else is new? Sorry, I’m babbling.”

“I can quite understand that. Shal I tel you what I’ve been doing?”

“Yes, please. Have a seat and talk to me.” It would give me a chance to recover.

The demon sat opposite me and smiled in a cordial way. “When last you saw me, you were giving a baby shower, I believe? And the hel hounds were pursuing me. Do you mind if I impose on you for a glass of ice water?”

“Not at al ,” I said, and rose to fetch it. I had to step over the body.

“Thank you, my dear.” The lawyer finished the glass in one long swal ow. I refil ed it. I was glad to return to my seat.

“You look kind of beat up,” I observed, for I’d watched him as he drank. Mr. Cataliades was usual y very wel turned out in expensive suits that could not hide his round figure but at least made him look prosperous. The suit he had on had certainly looked much better when he’d bought it.

Now it was marred with snags and holes and frayed spots, and spotted with stains. His once-polished brogans could not be salvaged. Even his socks were in tatters. The tonsure of dark hair was ful of debris, leaves and twigs. Could it be he hadn’t had a chance to change clothes since I’d last seen him sitting here in this kitchen, taking a time-out from his pursuit by four-legged streaks of darkness?

“Yes,” he said, looking down at his condition. “‘Kind of beat up’ is a gentle way to put it. Those streaks of darkness were hel hounds.” It was no shock to me that he could read my mind; my own telepathy had been a birth present from Mr. Cataliades. He’d always been very good at concealing his own gift, never betraying by so much as a glance that he could read human minds. But I’d figured he must have it, if he could give it away. “The hel hounds pursued me for a very long time, and I had no idea why. I could not fathom what I had done to offend their master.” He shook his head. “Now, of course, I know.”

I waited for him to tel me what he’d done, but he wasn’t ready for that.

“Final y, I became far enough ahead of the hounds to take time to arrange an ambush. By then, Diantha had been able to find me to join in the surprise I’d planned for them. We had … quite a struggle with the hounds.” He was silent for a moment. I looked at the stains on his clothing and took a deep breath.

“Please tel me Diantha isn’t dead,” I said. His niece Diantha was one of the most unusual creatures I’d ever met, and that was saying something, considering whom I could enter in my address book.

“We prevailed,” he said simply. “But it cost us, of course. I had to lie hidden in the woods for many days until I was able to travel again. Diantha recovered more quickly since her wounds were slighter, and she brought me food and began gathering information. We needed to understand before we could begin to dig ourselves out of trouble.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, wondering where this was going to lead. “You want to share that information with me? I’m pretty sure that this guy didn’t understand my gran’s letter.” I nodded my head at the body.

“He may not have understood the context, and he didn’t believe in fairies, but he did see the phrase ‘cluviel dor,’” Mr. Cataliades said.

“But how come he knew it was valuable? He definitely didn’t know what it can do, because he didn’t understand the reality of fairies.”

“I learned from my sponsor, Bertine, that Cal away Googled the term ‘cluviel dor.’ He found one reference in a fragment of text from an old Irish folk tale,” Mr. Cataliades said.

This Bertine must be Mr. Cataliades’s godmother, in effect, the same way Mr. Cataliades (my grandfather’s best friend) was mine. I wondered briefly what Bertine looked like, where she lived. But Mr. Cataliades was stil talking.

“Computers are another reason to deplore this age, when no one has to real y travel to learn important things from other cultures.” He shook his head, and a fragment of leaf floated to the floor and landed on the corpse. “And I’l tel you more about my sponsor when we have some leisure. You might like her.”

I suspected Mr. Cataliades also had flashes of foreseeing.

“Fortunately for us, Cal away came to Bertine’s attention when he persisted in his research. Of course, it was unfortunate for him.” Mr. Cataliades spared a downward glance at the inert Donald. “Cal away tracked down a supposed expert in fairy lore, someone who could tel him what little is known about this legendary fairy artifact; namely, the fact that none exist on this earth anymore. Unfortunately, this expert—who was Bertine, as you have no doubt surmised—did not understand the importance of keeping silent. Since dear Bertine didn’t believe that there were any cluviel dors left in either world, she felt free to talk about them. Therefore, she was ignorant of the wrong she committed when she told Cal away that a cluviel dor could be made in almost any form or shape. Cal away had never suspected the item he’d held was an actual fae artifact until he talked to Bertine.

He imagined scholars and folklorists would give a pretty penny to possess such a thing.”

“When he showed me the drawer, I didn’t get that he’d already opened it,” I said quietly. “How could that be?”

“Were you shielding?”

“I’m sure I was.” I did it without thinking, to protect myself. Of course, I couldn’t maintain such a level of blocking al day, every day. And of course, it protected your brain only like wearing earmuffs affected your hearing; a lot of stuff stil filtered in, especial y from a strong broadcaster. But apparently Donald had been preoccupied that day, and I had been so excited at the contents of the drawer I hadn’t realized he was seeing the Butterick pattern envelope and the velvet bag for the second time. He hadn’t believed he’d found anything valuable or notable: a confusing letter from an old woman about having children and getting a present, and a bag containing an old toiletry item, maybe a powder compact. It was when he’d thought the find over later and Googled the odd phrase that he’d begun to wonder if those items might be valuable.

“I need to give you lessons, child, as I should have done before. Isn’t it nice that we’re final y getting to know one another? I regret that it takes a huge crisis to impel me to make this offer.”

I nodded faintly. I was glad to learn something about my telepathy from my sponsor, but it was kind of daunting to think of Desmond Cataliades becoming part of my everyday life. Of course, he knew what I was thinking, so I said hurriedly, “Please tel me what happened next.”

“When Diantha thought of questioning Bertine, Bertine realized what she had done. Far from giving a human a useless bit of information about old fairy lore, she had revealed a secret. She came to me while I was recuperating, and I final y understood why I’d been pursued.”

“Because …” I tried to arrange my thoughts. “Because you’d kept secret the existence of a cluviel dor?”

“Yes. My friendship with Fintan, whose name your grandmother mentioned in the letter, was no secret. Stupid Cal away Googled Fintan, too, and though he didn’t find out anything about the real Fintan, the conjunction of the two searches sent out an alarm that eventual y reached … the wrong ears. The fact that Fintan was your grandfather is no secret, either, since Nial found you and chose to honor you with his love and protection. It would not take much to put these snippets together.”

“This is the only cluviel dor left in the world?” Awesome.

“Unless one lies lost and forgotten in the land of the fae. And believe me, there are plenty who search every day for such a thing.”

“Can I give it away?”

“You’l need it if you’re attacked. And you wil be attacked,” Mr. Cataliades said, matter-of-factly. “You can use it for yourself, you know; loving yourself is a legitimate trigger of its magic. Giving it to someone else would seal their death warrant. I don’t think you’d want that, though my knowledge of you is inadequate.”

Gee. A lot of swel news.

“I wish Adele had used it herself, to save her own life or the life of one of her children, to take the burden from you. I can only suppose that she didn’t believe in its power.”

“Probably not,” I agreed. And if she had, she almost certainly felt that using it would not be a Christian act. “So, who’s after the cluviel dor? I guess you know, by now?”

“I’m not sure that knowledge would be good for you,” he said.

“How come you can read my mind, but I can’t read yours?” I asked, tired of being transparent. Now I knew how other people must feel when I plucked a thought or two from their brains. Mr. Cataliades was a master at this, while I was very much a novice. He seemed to hear everything, and it didn’t seem to bother him. Before I’d learned to shield, the world had been a babble of talk inside my head. Now that I could block those thoughts for the most part, life was easier, but it was frustrating when I actual y wanted to hear: I seldom got a ful thought or understood its context. It was surprisingly deflating to realize that it wasn’t how much I heard that was amazing, it was how much I missed.

“Wel , I am mostly a demon,” he said apologetical y. “And you’re mostly only human.”

“Do you know Barry?” I asked, and even Mr. Cataliades looked a little surprised.

“Yes,” he said, after a perceptible hesitation. “The young man who can also read minds. I saw him in Rhodes, before and after the explosion.”

“If I came to be telepathic because of your—wel , essential y, your baby shower present—how come Barry is telepathic?”

Mr. Cataliades pul ed himself straight and looked anywhere but at me. “Barry is my great-great-grandson.”

“So, you’re much older than you look.”

This was taken as a compliment. “Yes, my young friend, I am. I don’t neglect the boy, you know. He doesn’t real y know me, and of course he doesn’t know his heritage, but I’ve kept him out of a lot of trouble. Not the same thing as having a fairy godmother as you had, but I’ve done my best.”

“Of course,” I said, because it hadn’t been my intent to accuse Mr. Cataliades of ignoring his own kin. I’d just been curious. Time to change the subject, before I told him that my own fairy godmother had gotten kil ed defending me. “Are you gonna tel me who’s after the cluviel dor?”

He looked profoundly sorry for me. There was a lot of that going around. “Let’s get rid of this body first, shal we?” he said. “Do you have any disposal suggestions?”

I so seldom had to dispose of a human body myself, I was at a loss. Fairies turned into dust, and vampires flaked away. Demons had to be burned. Humans were very troublesome.

Mr. Cataliades, picking up on that thought, turned away with a smal smile. “I hear Diantha coming,” he remarked. “Maybe she’l have a plan.”

Sure enough, the skinny girl glided into the room from the back door. I hadn’t even heard her enter or detected her brain. She was wearing an eye-shattering combination: a very short yel ow-and-black striped skirt over royal blue leggings, and a black leotard. Her black ankle boots were laced up with broad white laces. Today, her hair was bright pink. “Sookieyoudoingokay?” she asked.

It took me a second to translate, and then I nodded. “We got to get rid of this,” I said, pointing to the body, which was absolutely obvious in a kitchen the size of mine.

“Thatshutsonedoor,” she said to her uncle.

He nodded gravely. “I suppose the best way to proceed is to load him into the trunk of his car,” Mr. Cataliades said. “Diantha, do you think you could assume his appearance?”

Diantha made a disgusted face but quickly bent to Donald Cal away’s face and stared into it. She plucked a hair from his head, closed her eyes.

Her lips moved, and the air had that magic feel I’d noticed when my friend Amelia had performed one of her spel s.

In a moment, to my shock, Donald Cal away was standing in front of us staring down at his own body.

It was Diantha, completely transformed. She was even wearing Cal away’s clothes, or at least that was the way she appeared to my eyes.

“Fuckthisshit,” Cal away said, and I knew Diantha was in charge. But it was beyond strange to see Mr. Cataliades and Donald Cal away carrying out Cal away’s body to his car, unlocked with the keys extracted from the corpse’s pocket.

I fol owed them out, watching careful y to make sure nothing fel or leaked from the body.

“Diantha, drive to the airport in Shreveport and park the car there. Cal a cab to pick you up, and have it drop you off at … at the police station.

From there, find a good place to change back, so they’l lose the trail.”

She nodded with a jerk and climbed into the car.

“Diantha can keep his appearance al the way to Shreveport?” I said, as she turned the car around with a grind of the wheel. She (he) waved gaily as she took off like a rocket. I hoped she made it back to Shreveport without getting a ticket.

“She won’t get a ticket,” Mr. Cataliades answered my thought.

But here came Jason in his pickup.

“Oh, hel ,” I said. “His sweet potatoes aren’t ready.”

“I need say good-bye, anyway,” Mr. Cataliades said. “I know there are some things I haven’t told you, but I must go now. I may have taken care of the hel hounds, but yours aren’t my only secrets.”

“But …”

I might as wel not have spoken. With the startling speed he’d shown when the hel hounds were chasing him, my “sponsor” disappeared into the woods.

“Hey, Sis!” Jason bounded out of his truck. “Did you just have a visitor? I passed a car. You got my sweet potatoes ready?”

“Ah, not quite,” I said. “That was a drop-in I didn’t expect, a guy wanting to sel me life insurance. You come in and sit, and they’l be ready in about forty-five minutes.” That was an exaggeration, but I wanted Jason to stay. I was scared to be alone. That was not a familiar feeling, or one I liked.

Jason was wil ing enough to come in and gossip with me while I stood at the kitchen counter adding ingredients to the sweet potatoes, mashing them, pouring them over the prepared crust, and putting the dish in the oven.

“How come there’s water everywhere?” Jason said, getting up from the chair to mop it off with a dry dish towel.

“I dropped a pitcher,” I said, and that was the end of Jason’s curiosity. We talked about the suggested wedding dates, the du Rone babies, Hoyt and Hol y’s marriage and Hoyt’s idea that they have a double ceremony (I was sure Hol y and Michele would nix that), and the big reconciliation between Danny and Kennedy, who had been spotted kissing passionately in public at the Sonic.

As I was pul ing the casserole out of the oven and preparing to add the final layer, Jason said, “Hey, I guess you heard that al our old furniture got busted up? That stuff the antiques dealer took? What was her name, Brenda? I hope you got money up front. It wasn’t on consignment or nothing, right?”

I’d frozen after lifting out the dish halfway, but I made myself continue with my task. It helped that Dermot came in then, and since he and Jason looked so much alike, Jason got the biggest kick out of tel ing Dermot how good he was looking, every single time he saw our great-uncle.

“No, I already got cash for that stuff,” I said, when the mutual admiration society had had its moment. And I got the distinct impression from Jason’s head that he’d already forgotten that he’d asked me.

By the time I’d finished my work and sent Jason on his way with the hot dish, Dermot had volunteered to fix hamburgers for our supper. Cooking was something else that he was interested in now, thanks to the Food Network and Bravo. While Dermot was frying the burgers and getting out anything we might want to put on the buns, I looked around the kitchen very careful y to make sure there weren’t any traces of the incident.

Oh, come on, I said to myself. Donald Callaway’s murder. “Incident,” my round, rosy ass. It turned out to be a good thing I checked, because under the kitchen table I spied a pair of dark glasses that must have fal en out of Cal away’s shirt pocket. Dermot didn’t comment when I straightened and slid them into a drawer.

“I don’t guess you’ve heard from Claude or Nial ,” I said.

“No. Maybe Nial has kil ed Claude, or maybe now that Claude is in Faery, he just doesn’t care anymore about those of us left here,” Dermot said, sounding simply philosophical.

I real y couldn’t argue with him that those scenarios were impossible, because I knew enough about fairies and enough about Claude to know that they were actual y likely. “Are some of the guys coming to run out in the woods tonight?” I said. “I guess Bel enos and Gift told you about last night.”

“Those two won’t be here tonight,” Dermot said, rather grimly. “I am making them work tonight as punishment. They hate cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen, so that’s their duty after the club closes. They may come tomorrow night if they behave themselves. I’m sorry about your car, Niece.”

Al the fae were cal ing me Sister now, and Dermot almost always cal ed me Niece. There were a lot worse names they could have chosen, but al this familial terminology felt awful y intimate. “The car’s running okay,” I said, though I’d have to get the bumper fixed sooner or later. Probably later.

The seat belt had to be replaced pronto. And I was a little taken aback that Dermot was punishing the sharp-toothed elf and his running buddy as he would little children, giving them the unpopular cleanup duty. But out loud I said, “At least they were able to get the car out of the ditch. I’m only worried they’l get spotted on someone else’s land or that they’l run into Bil .”

“He loves you,” Dermot said, turning over the hamburgers in the skil et.

“Yeah, I know.” I got out two plates and a bowl of mixed fruit. “There’s nothing I can do about it but be his friend, though. I used to love him back, and I gotta say there are moments when I feel the old attraction, but I’m not in love with Bil . Not anymore.”

“You love the blond one?” Dermot had been sure about Bil , but he didn’t sound so sure about Eric.

“Yes.” But I no longer felt the surge of love and lust and excitement I’d had before the past few weeks. I hoped I might feel al that again, but I was so emotional y battered that I’d gone a little numb. It was a curious feeling—as if my hand were asleep, but I expected it would be al pins and needles at any second. “I love him,” I said, but even to my own ears I didn’t sound happy about it.

Chapter 11

You may wonder why I was willing to eat in the kitchen where I’d just witnessed a violent death. The fact is, Donald Cal away’s demise was not the worst thing that had happened in my kitchen—not by a long shot. Maybe that was another thing I was getting numb to.

Just before our food was ready, when Dermot’s back was turned, I slid open the drawer and extricated the dead man’s sunglasses, sliding them into my apron pocket. I admit, I can’t say my legs were too steady when I excused myself to go to the bathroom. When I was safely shut inside, I put my hands over my face and sat on the edge of the tub to take a few deep breaths. I got up, dropping Donald Cal away’s dark glasses onto the bath mat. I stomped on them three times, quickly. Without stopping to think, I held the bath mat over the waste can in a funnel shape and shook it gently until al the pieces were safely at the bottom of the plastic bag acting as a liner.

After supper, I planned to take the bag out to the big garbage can that we had to wheel out to the road every Friday.

When I heard Dermot cal ing me, I washed my hands and my face and left the bathroom, making myself stand straight. As I passed through my bedroom, I slipped the cluviel dor into my pocket, where the sunglasses had been. I couldn’t leave it alone in my room. Not anymore.

The hamburgers were good, and I managed to eat mine and some fruit salad, too. Dermot and I were quiet together, which suited me fine. As we did the dishes, Dermot told me shyly that he had a date and would be going out after he showered.

“Oh my gosh!” I grinned at him. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

“Linda Tonnesen.”

“The doctor!”

“Yes,” he said a little doubtful y. “I think that’s what she said she did. Treats human ailments?”

“Oh, that’s a big deal, real y, Dermot,” I said. “Doctors get a lot of respect in our society. I guess as far as she knows, you’re human?”

He flushed. “Yes, she thinks I’m a very attractive human. I met her at the bar three nights ago.”

It would be pretty stupid for me to comment further. He was handsome, sweet natured, and strong. What more could a woman want?

Besides, considering the confused state of my own love life, I could hardly pass out dating tips.

I told Dermot I’d finish the dishes so he could go get ready for his date, and by the time I was ensconced on the living room couch with a book, he came downstairs in navy slacks and a pale blue striped shirt with a button-down col ar. He looked amazing, and I told him so. He grinned at me.

“I hope she’l think so,” he said. “I love the way she smel s.”

That was a very fairy compliment. Linda Tonnesen was a smart woman with a great sense of humor, but she was not what humans thought of as conventional y pretty. Her smel had scored her big points with Dermot. I’d have to remember that.

By the time Dermot left, dark had fal en. I got the bag containing Jannalynn’s jacket and went out the back door, on my way to Bil ’s house. I felt a little better after I’d dropped the other little bag, the one containing the smashed dark glasses, into the garbage bin. I turned on my flashlight and strode to the woods. There was a little path; Bil came over often, probably far more often than I knew.

Just before I reached the cleared ground of the old cemetery, I heard a sound to my left. I stopped in my tracks. “Bil ?” I said.

“Sookie,” he answered, and then he was right in front of me. He had his own little plastic sack looped over his left hand. We were al carrying bags around tonight.

“I brought Jannalynn’s jacket,” I said. “For you and Heidi.”

“You stole her jacket?” He sounded amused.

“If that were the worst thing I’d done today, I’d be a happy woman.”

Bil let that pass, though I could almost feel him peering at me. Vampire eyesight is excel ent, of course. He took my arm and we walked a few feet to get into the cemetery grounds. Even though there weren’t many lights there, there were a few, and I could see (faintly) that Bil was excited about something.

He opened my bag, put it to his face, and inhaled. “No, that’s not a scent I picked up at the gate in the backyard. Of course, considering al the scents around there and the length of time before we were able to investigate, that can’t be a definite no.” He handed it back.

I felt almost disappointed. Jannalynn made me so antsy that I would have liked to find her guilty of something, but I chided myself for being uncharitable. I should be glad Sam was dating an innocent woman. And I was. Right?

“You look unhappy,” Bil said. We were walking back to his house, and I’d tucked the plastic bag under my arm. I’d been thinking of how I’d return Jannalynn’s jacket to Sam’s office. I’d have to do it soon.

“I am unhappy,” I said. Then, because I didn’t want to explain my every inner qualm, I told Bil , “I listened to the news on the radio while I was cutting up sweet potatoes. That girl Kym, the police are trying to blame her murder on a vampire because she died in Eric’s front yard. Someone vandalized Fangtasia, threw white paint al over the exterior. Are Felipe and his crew stil here? Why don’t they go home?”

Bil put his arm around me. “Calm down,” he said, his voice hard.

I was so surprised that I actual y held my breath for a moment.

“Breathe,” he commanded. “Slowly. Thoughtful y.”

“What are you, Zen Master Fang?”

“Sookie.” When he used that voice, he meant business. So I took a deep breath, let it out. Again. Again.

“Okay, I’m better,” I said.

“Listen,” Bil said, and I raised my eyes to his. He was looking excited again. He shook his own bag. “We’ve had al eyes open to try to track down Colton … or find his body. Very early this past morning, Palomino cal ed from her job at the Trifecta. She’s seen Colton. Felipe does have him. We’ve got a plan to get him out. Cobbled together, but I think it might work. If we can accomplish that, maybe we’l also discover where they’re keeping Warren. If we find Warren and broadcast his whereabouts, Mustapha wil come forward to tel what he knows. When Mustapha tel s us who suborned him by holding Warren hostage, then we’l know who kil ed Kym. When we tel the police, the heat wil be off Eric. Then we can solve the problem of that asshole Appius’s posthumous betrothal of Eric to Freyda. Felipe and his ‘posse’ wil go back to Nevada. Eric wil have his sheriff’s job, or a new title, but Felipe wil not fire him or kil him.”

“That’s a hel of lot of dominoes, Bil . Colton to Warren to Mustapha to Kym’s murderer to the police to Appius to Freyda to Eric. Anyway, isn’t it too late? We’re doomed. Colton’s probably already told him everything.”

“He can’t have. Colton was grieving so hard over Audrina that I wiped his memory of her death. So he doesn’t remember al of what happened that night, by any means.”

“You didn’t tel Eric that, did you?”

Bil shrugged. “I didn’t need his permission. It doesn’t matter now, anyway. Felipe won’t have Colton after tonight.” He brandished the bag he’d brought.

“Why?”

“Because you and I are going to kidnap him back.”

“And do what with him?” Colton was a pretty nice guy, and he hadn’t had what anyone would think was an easy life. I didn’t want to rescue him from Felipe only to find that Bil planned to remove Colton as a witness in a very final way.

“I have it al planned. But we have to act quickly. I’ve texted Harp to tel him we have to reschedule. I think this is more important than asking him questions about Kym’s parents.”

I had to agree.

“Say we get Colton out,” I said, as we hustled toward Bil ’s car. “What about Immanuel? Can they track him in Los Angeles?” Immanuel the hairdresser, also human, had been there that night, since Victor’s cruelty had led to his sister’s death.

“He got work on the set of a television show. Ironical y, it’s about vampires and most of the shooting takes place at night. Two members of the crew are actual y vampires. I put Immanuel under the care of one of them. He’l be guarded.”

“How’d you arrange that?”

“Coincidence. It happens,” Bil said. “And you’re the other human, but you can’t be glamoured. So if we can just get Colton away and find Warren

…”

“Since Warren never came into Fangtasia the night we kil ed Victor,” I said, “I don’t believe his abduction has anything to do with Victor’s death. I think Warren was snatched just to force Mustapha to let Kym Rowe in the back door of Eric’s house.” I had enough lightbulbs popping over my head to il uminate an operating room. “What do you think?”

“I think we have a lot of questions,” Bil said. “Now let’s go find out some answers.”

Our first stop was my house, where I left Jannalynn’s jacket and opened the bag Bil had brought.

“Good God,” I said in disgust. “I got to wear that?”

“Part of the plan,” Bil said, though he was smiling.

I stomped into my room and pul ed on the blue “flirty” skirt, which began wel below my navel and ended about two inches below my happy place.

The “blouse”—and it was a blouse in name only—was white with red trim and tied between my breasts. It was just like a bra with sleeves. I put on white Nikes with red trim, which was the best match I had on my shoe rack. There sure wasn’t any pocket in this outfit, so I stuck the cluviel dor in my shoulder bag. While I was preparing for this secret mission, I put my phone on vibrate so it couldn’t ring at an awkward moment. I looked in the bathroom mirror. I was as ready as I’d ever be.

I felt ridiculously self-conscious when I came into the living room wearing the abbreviated outfit.

“You look just right,” Bil said soberly, and I caught the corner of his mouth twitching. I had to laugh.

“I hope Sam doesn’t decide we ought to dress this way at Merlotte’s,” I said.

“You would have a ful house every night,” Bil said.

“Not unless I lost some weight.” My glance in the mirror had reminded me that my stomach was not exactly concave.

“You look mouthwatering,” Bil said, and to make his point his fangs came down. He tactful y closed his mouth.

“Oh, wel .” I tried to accept this as an impersonal tribute, though I don’t think any woman minds knowing she looks good, as long as the admiration isn’t expressed in an offensive way and doesn’t come from a disgusting source. “We better get going.”

The Trifecta, a hotel/casino on the east side of Shreveport, was the closest thing the town had to “glamorous.” At night it glowed silver with so many lights I was sure you could see it from the moon. Since the lot was ful , we were forced to park outside the fenced employee parking area. But the gate was open and unguarded at the moment, so we simply walked through the lot and right up to the very prosaic beige metal door that was the employee entrance.

There was a keypad outside. Though I felt dismayed, Bil didn’t seem worried. He looked down at his watch and then knocked on the door. There were some faint beeps inside, and Palomino swung the door open. She was balancing a room service tray on one hand. Laden as it was, that was an impressive achievement.

The young vampire was wearing the same outfit I was, and she looked mouthwatering in it. But at the moment, her appearance was the last thing on her mind. “Get in!” she snapped, and Bil and I entered the grungy back corridor. If you got to enter the Trifecta as a guest, it was glittery and gleaming and ful of the constant machine noise and the frantic human yearning for pleasure that fil s al casinos. But that wasn’t for us, not tonight.

Wordlessly, Palomino set off at a fast clip. I noticed that she was able to balance the tray perfectly, no matter how much her speed picked up. I scurried after the two vampires along the beige-painted corridors, marred with scratches and chips. Everyone back here was in a hurry to get where they needed to be, either at a work station or out the back door to go somewhere more pleasant. They were saving their smiles for people they cared about. I saw a half-remembered face among the grim horde, and after I passed I recal ed that she was one of the Long Tooth pack. She didn’t let on by a twitch or a smile that she knew who I was.

Palomino strode ahead of us, her light-brown skin looking warm even though she’d been dead for years, her pale hair bouncing over a depressingly tight butt. We hustled onto a huge elevator. Instead of being lined with mirrors and shiny rails, this one was padded. The staff elevator was obviously used for bringing up palettes of food and other heavy items.

“I hate this fucking job,” Palomino said as she jabbed a button. She glared at Bil .

“It’s only for a little while,” he said, and from his voice I could tel he’d told her the same thing many times before. “And then you can quit. You can quit dating the Were, too.”

She was mol ified and even managed to smile. “He’s on the fifth floor, in 507,” she said. “I walked al over this damn hotel tracking him, but since they didn’t station guards outside the room, I couldn’t pinpoint it until last night when I took in the room service tray.”

“You’ve done a good job. Eric wil be grateful,” Bil said.

Her smile glowed even brighter. “Good! That’s what I was hoping! Now Rubio and Parker may get a chance to show their skil s.” The two vampires were her nestmates. They were not great fighters. I hoped they did have other skil s.

“I’l present that to Eric in the most urgent terms,” Bil promised.

The staff elevator stopped, and Palomino handed the tray to me. I had to use both my hands. Lots of food and three drinks weighed it down. She pressed the Doors Closed button and began to talk very quickly.

“Keep your head turned away, and they’l think you’re me,” she said.

“No one would think that,” I said, but after a second I could sort of see it.

Palomino was natural y brown, and I was very tan. Palomino’s hair was paler than mine, but mine was as abundant and long. We were much the same height and build, and we were wearing identical outfits.

“I’m going to go be conspicuous out front,” she said. “Give me three minutes to get within sight of the security cameras. I’l meet you at the back door ten minutes after that. Now, get off the elevator so I can go.”

We got off. Bil held the tray for me while I took my hair out of its ponytail and shook my head from side to side to increase my resemblance to the vampire.

“As long as you had her here, why couldn’t she have done this?” I hissed.

“This way she can be visibly elsewhere,” Bil said. “If Felipe suspected her complicity, he could have her kil ed. He can’t do that to you. You’re Eric’s wife. But that’s a worst-case scenario. We’l pul the trick off.” He pul ed a khaki fishing hat out of his back pocket and pul ed it over his head. I forbore to comment on the way he looked.

“What trick?” I asked, instead.

“Wel , it is a sort of conjuring trick,” he said. “Now you see him. Now you don’t. Remember, there are two guards in there with him. They’l open the door, and your job is to make sure it stays open. I’l come in and do the rest.”

“You couldn’t just break the door down?”

“And have security here in two minutes? I don’t think that would be a good plan.”

“I’m not sure this is, either. But okay.”

I marched down the hal and knocked on the door of 507 with the knuckles of my left hand, managing this by kind of wedging the tray into the corner formed by the door and its frame. I smiled big at the peephole and took a deep breath to let my chest do its thing. I sensed the appreciation through the door. I counted the heads inside the room: three, as Bil had told me.

The tray was not getting any lighter, and I was conscious of a definite relief when the door opened. I could hear Bil ’s footsteps coming up behind me.

“Al right, come on in,” said a bored voice.

Of course, both of the guards were human. They would have to be on duty during the day, too.

“Where you want this?” I asked.

“Over there on the coffee table’l be fine.” He was very tal , pretty heavy, with very short gray hair. I smiled at him and bore the laden tray over to the low table. I squatted and slid it into place. The other guard was with Colton in the bathroom, waiting until I left to emerge; I read that right from his brain.

The room door was stil open, but the guard was standing close to it. After a second’s anxious search I spotted the plastic folder containing the check and handed it to the hulk without getting closer to him. He made a little face but moved nearer, his hand extended, the door he’d released beginning to swing shut. But in slid Bil , moving smoothly and silently at the man’s back. While I kept my eyes fixed on the folder, Bil reached up and around to hit the man in the temple. The guard dropped like a sack of wet oatmeal.

I grabbed a napkin from the tray and wiped my fingerprints off the tray and the folder while Bil shut the room door.

“Dewey?” said the man in the bathroom. “She gone yet?”

“Uh-huh,” Bil said, deepening his voice.

The second guard must have sensed something was up, because he had a gun in his hand when he opened the bathroom door. He might have been prepared with weaponry, but he wasn’t mental y prepared, because at the sight of two strangers he froze, his eyes widening. It was just for a second, but that was al it took for Bil to leap onto him and sock him in the same place he’d hit the hulk. I kicked the gun under the couch when it fel from the guard’s hand.

Bil hurried to pul the unconscious man out of the way while I darted into the bathroom to untie Colton. It was like we’d done this a dozen times! I confess I felt pretty proud at the way it was going.

I looked Colton over while I began working on the duct tape across his mouth. He was not in great shape. Colton had worked for Felipe in Reno and then fol owed Victor to Louisiana, where he’d been employed at Vampire’s Kiss. His apparent devotion hadn’t stemmed from affection but from a thirst for vengeance; Colton’s mother had died as a result of Victor’s teaching a lesson to Colton’s half brother. Carelessly, Victor had never dug deep enough to get the connection, and as a result, Colton had been a great help to the Shreveport plan to eradicate Victor. His lover Audrina had taken part in the fight and paid for her devotion with her life. I hadn’t seen Colton since that night, but I’d known he’d stayed in the area and even kept his job at Vampire’s Kiss.

Colton’s gray eyes were ful of tears after I yanked the duct tape off. His first words were a stream of profanity.

“Bil , we need a handcuff key,” I said, and as Bil began rummaging in the guards’ pockets to track it down, I cut the tape around Colton’s ankles.

Bil threw the key to me, and I unlocked the cuffs. Once I tossed them aside, Colton didn’t know what he wanted to do first: rub his wrists or massage his stinging face. Instead, he flung his arms around me and said, “God bless you.”

I was startled and touched. I said, “This was Bil ’s plan, and now we’ve got to skedaddle before anyone comes looking. Those guys wil come to eventual y.” Bil had reused the handcuffs on the hulk and was using Second Guard’s own belt to secure his arms. The rol of duct tape they’d used on Colton was also heavily deployed.

“See how you like that, motherfuckers,” Colton said, with some satisfaction. He stood up and we went to the door. “Thanks, Mr. Comp-ton.”

“My pleasure,” Bil said drily.

Colton seemed to take in my scanty outfit for the first time, and his gray eyes widened. “Wow,” he said, one hand on the doorknob. “When Palomino brought in the food last night, I caught a glimpse of her. I hoped she recognized me and would do something for me, but I never expected this.” He looked at me again before forcing his eyes away. “Wow,” he said, and swal owed.

“If you’ve finished ogling Eric’s woman, it’s time to get out of here,” Bil said. If his voice had been dry before, it was toast now.

“Just don’t let anyone see me,” Colton said. “And after I get out of this town, I never want to talk to another vampire in my life.”

“Though we’ve risked our lives to rescue you,” Bil said.

“Time to work out the philosophy later,” I said, and they both nodded. In a second, we were on the move. I had a napkin in my hand, and I used it when I shut the door of 507 behind us. We went down the hal in single file and reached the staff elevator, passing only one couple on our journey.

They were completely wrapped up in each other and didn’t do more than stop groping for a moment in reaction to our presence. The staff elevator came quickly, and we stepped on to join a middle-aged woman who was carrying some dry cleaning in a plastic bag. She nodded to us and kept her eyes on the floor indicator. We had to go up with her before we could go down, and my palms started sweating with anxiety. She was ignoring Colton’s disheveled condition with a deliberate air. She didn’t want to know, which was great. It was a relief when she stepped off.

When we began our descent, I was terrified someone would be waiting for us on the fifth floor; the door would open, and we’d be confronted with the two men we’d left bound. But that didn’t happen. We got down to the second floor, and the doors whooshed open. There were several other workers there: another room service server with a rol ing cart, a bel man, and a woman in a black suit. She was very wel groomed and wearing high heels, too, so she was definitely higher up on the food chain.

She was the only one who paid us any attention when they al crowded on. “Server,” she said sharply. “Where’s your name tag?” Palo-mino had worn one on the upper slope of her right breast, so I clapped my hand to the place mine should have been. “Sorry, it must have fal en off,” I said apologetical y.

“Get another one right away,” she said, and I looked at her tag. “M. Norman,” it said. I was sure I wouldn’t get a surname. Mine would say “Candi”

or “Brandi” or “Sandi.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, since now was not a time to start a class war.

M. Norman’s gaze went to Colton’s handsome face, admittedly marred by the removal of the duct tape and admittedly a little bruised. I could see a little crease between her brows as she tried to figure out what could have happened to him and if she should ask any questions. But her tailored shoulders lifted in a tiny shrug. She’d exerted her authority sufficiently for one night.

When the elevator stopped at the ground level, we got out of it like we owned the hotel. We rounded a corner, and there was the back door, Palomino walking toward it ahead of us. She glanced over her shoulder and looked faintly gratified to see us coming. She tapped the code into the keypad by the door, and then she opened it. We strode by her into the parking lot. Palomino, on the way to her red car, looked curiously at the street beyond the fenced lot for a moment, as if she sensed something strange. I didn’t have time to check it out as we walked briskly between the parked employee cars and out the gap in the fence.

We were almost to Bil ’s car when the Weres caught up with us. There were four of them. I only recognized one; I’d seen him at Alcide’s house.

He was a gaunt-faced, long-haired, bearded guy named Van.

Vamps and Weres just don’t mix, general y speaking, so I stepped ahead of Bil and did my best to manage to smile. “Van, good to see you tonight,” I said, struggling to sound sincere when every nerve in my body was screaming at me to get the hel out of the vicinity. “You gonna let us get on our way?”

Van, who was several inches tal er than me, looked down at my face. He wasn’t thinking about my body, which was a nice change, but he was thinking about … making some kind of choice. It’s very hard to read Were thoughts, but that much I could discern.

“Miss Stackhouse,” he said, and nodded. His dark hair swung forward and back with the motion. “We been looking for you.”

“How come?” I might as wel get this settled. If we were going to fight, I needed to know why I was going to get beat up. I sure didn’t want that.

“Alcide’s found Warren.”

“Oh, good!” I was real y pleased. I smiled up at Van. Now Mustapha could come in from the cold, tel us what he’d seen, and al would be wel .

“Thing is, what we found is a dead body, and we ain’t sure it’s real y him,” Van said. When my face fel , he added, “I’m real sorry, but Alcide wants you to have a look at him and tel us it’s Warren for sure.”

So much for a happy ending.

Chapter 12

“You-all were headed somewhere?” Van asked.

“We were taking this one to the airport,” Bil said, nodding at Colton. This was news to me and to Colton, but it was good news. There real y was a plan to get Colton away from the reach of Felipe.

“Why don’t you two continue on, then,” Van said reasonably. He didn’t ask any further questions or demand to know Colton’s identity, which was a relief. “I can take Sookie to the body, she’l check the identity, and I’l get her home. Or we can meet up somewhere.”

“At Alcide’s?” Bil asked.

“Sure.”

“Sookie, you okay with that?”

“Yeah, al right,” I said. “Let me get my purse out of your car.”

Bil clicked his car open and I reached inside to get my purse, which held a change of clothes. I definitely wanted to find a couple of minutes of privacy to put on something a little less revealing.

I felt uneasy without knowing exactly why. We’d recovered Colton, and if he could get the hel out of town, he’d probably be safe. If Colton couldn’t tel the little he remembered about that evening at Fangtasia, Eric would be safer, and therefore I would be safer—and so would al of the Shreveport vamps. I ought to be feeling happier. I slung my bag over my shoulder, glad that I had the cluviel dor with me.

“You’re okay with these wolves?” Bil asked in a very low voice as Colton got into Bil ’s car and buckled his seat belt.

“Uh-huh,” I said, though I wasn’t so sure. But I shook myself and cal ed myself paranoid. “These are Alcide’s wolves, and he’s my friend. But just in case, cal him when you’re on your way, would you?”

“Go with me,” Bil said suddenly. “They can identify Warren by smel , maybe. Mustapha could definitely do that, when he resurfaces.”

“Nah, it’s okay. Get Colton to the airport,” I said. “Get him out of town.”

Bil looked at me searchingly, then nodded in a jerky way. I watched as Bil and Colton drove off.

Now that I was alone with the werewolves, I felt even odder.

“Van,” I said, “Where did you find Warren?”

The other three crowded around: a woman in her thirties with a pixie haircut, an airman from the Air Force base in Bossier City, and a girl in her teens with very generous curves. The teenager was in the first throes of experiencing her power as a Were, almost drunk with her newfound ability; it dominated her brain. The other two meant business. And that was al I could get of their thoughts. We were walking north on the street to a gray Camaro, which seemed to belong to Airman.

“I’l show you. It’s a little ways east of town. Since Mustapha wasn’t a pack member, we never met Warren.”

“Okay,” I said doubtful y. And I thought of making some excuse not to get in the car, because my uneasiness was mounting like a drumrol . We were alone on a dark street, and I realized they had boxed me in. I had no real reason to doubt that Van was tel ing me the truth—but I had an instinct that was tel ing me this situation stank. I wished instinct had spoken up more clearly a few minutes ago when I’d had Bil at my side. I got in the car, and the Weres crowded in. We buckled up, and in a second we were driving in the direction of the interstate.

Curiously, I almost didn’t want to discover that my suspicion was valid. I was tired of crises, tired of deceit, tired of life-or-death situations. I felt like a stone being skipped across a pond, longing only to sink to the anonymous bottom.

Wel , that was stupid. I gave myself a mental shake. Not time to long for things I couldn’t have at the moment. Time to be alert and ready for action. “Do you real y have Warren?” I asked Van. He was sitting to my right in the backseat of the Camaro. The plump teenager was crowded in to my left. She didn’t smel particularly good.

“Nope,” he said. “Ain’t ever seen him, that I know of.”

“Then why are you doing this?” I might as wel know, though I already felt sadly sure this was going to end poorly.

“Alcide asked that black bugger Mustapha to join the pack,” Van said. “He ain’t asked us.”

So they were al rogues. “But I saw you at the last pack meeting.”

“Yeah, I was going through rush, like they do in fraternities,” Van said, deeply sarcastic. “But I didn’t make the cut. Guess I got blackballed.”

“I thought he had to let you in,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t know the packleader got to pick and choose.”

“Alcide is a little too selective,” said the airman, who was driving. He turned a little so I could see his profile as he spoke. “He doesn’t want anyone with a serious criminal record in his pack.”

Alarm bel s sounded then in my brain, way too late. Mustapha had been in prison, though I didn’t know the charge … yet Alcide had been wil ing to accept him into the pack. What had these rogues done that had been so bad that a wolf pack wouldn’t have them?

The girl beside me tittered. The woman in the passenger’s side of the front seat cast her a dark look, and the girl stuck out her tongue like a ten-year-old.

“You got a police record?” I asked the plump girl.

Plump gave me a sly look. She had straight brown hair that fel to her shoulders. Her bangs were almost in her eyes. She’d stuffed herself into a striped tube top and blue jeans. She was wearing flip-flops. “I got a juvenile record,” she said proudly. “I set my house on fire. My mama got out just in time. My daddy and the boys didn’t.”

And I got what her daddy had been doing to her, just a single line of memory from her, and I was almost glad he hadn’t made it out. But the brothers? Little boys? I didn’t think she was too happy her mom had made it out, either.

“So Alcide wouldn’t admit any of you?”

“No,” said Van. “But when there’s a changeover, and the pack has a new leader, we’l be in. We’l have security.”

“What’s going to happen to Alcide?”

“We’re gonna overthrow his ass,” said Airman.

“He’s a good man,” I said quietly.

“He’s a douche,” said Plump.

During this charming conversation the woman in the front seat had not spoken, and though I couldn’t read her thoughts, I could read the ambiguity and regret that were making it hard for her to sit stil . I sensed she was on the cusp of a decision, and I feared to say something that would tip her over to the wrong side.

“So where are you taking me?” I said, and Van put his arm around me.

“Me and Johnny might appreciate a little alone time with you,” Van said, his free hand lodging itself under my skirt. “You looking so fine and al .”

“I wonder what you were in jail for,” I said. “Gee, let me guess.”

The woman looked back at me, and our eyes met. “You going to put up with that?” she asked Plump. Thus goaded, Plump grabbed Van’s wrist and pul ed his hand away from my crotch.

“You said you wouldn’t do this again,” she growled, and I mean growled. “I’m your woman now. No more.”

“Course you’re mine, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to cleanse my palate with a little country-fried steak,” Van said.

“Charming,” I said, which was unfortunate, because Van punched me and I saw bright lights for a second. You don’t want to get hit by a werewolf.

Real y.

I had to keep from gagging from the pain, but I resolved that if I threw up I was going to do it al over Van.

He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, squeezed it until I could feel the bones rubbing together. This time, I had to cry out, and he liked that. I could feel the pleasure radiating out from him.

Help, I thought. Can anyone hear me?

No answer. I wondered where Mr. Cataliades was. I wondered where his great-great-grandson, whom I’d always cal ed Barry Bel boy, was. Too far away in Texas to hear my mental voice …

I wondered if I’d see tomorrow. I had planned on it being a happy day for me, a special day.

At least Van seemed to be taking Plump’s hostility seriously now, and he quit hurting me. Dealing out pain to me excited her jealousy just as much as him feeling me up. Unhealthy. Not that it was my problem, not that it would make any difference after we got wherever we were going. I’d picked up on a stray thought or two. I was beginning to get the bigger picture. It had a big skul and crossbones right in the middle.

The traffic was fairly heavy, but I knew what would happen to me if I signaled another car. I knew, too, what would happen to the people in that car.

Not a single police car in the stream of traffic … not a one. We were on the interstate going east, back toward Bon Temps. There were a dozen exits, and when we left the interstate, none of them would have this much traffic. Once we got into the woods, I’d be doomed.

Wel , I had to do something.

Just as a motorcycle began passing the car, I attacked Van. He’d been thinking about something entirely different, something involving the plump girl, so my sudden twist and lunge was a huge shock. I tried to grasp his neck, but my fingers wouldn’t meet around it, and I had a hank of his hair bundled into my grip. He yel ed and his hands shot up to grip mine. I dug my thumbs in ferociously, and Airman turned to glance back. Glass shattered and as I closed my eyes I saw a fine mist of red. Someone had shot Airman in the shoulder.

We were at a level spot on the interstate, thank God. As we abruptly swerved off the pavement, the quiet woman in the front seat reached over and switched the car off. Remarkable presence of mind, I thought in a daze, and we began gliding to a stop. Plump was screaming, Van was beating the shit out of me, and there was blood al over everything. The smel triggered the wolf in them, and they began to change. If I didn’t get out of the car, I was going to get bitten, and then I’d qualify to be a pack member myself.

As I struggled with Van in a vain attempt to reach the door handle, that door flew open and a black-gloved hand reached in to grab mine. I seized it like a drowning man seizes a rope, and just like a rope, that hand hauled me out of deep trouble. I barely managed to grab my bag with my free hand.

“Let’s get out of here,” Mustapha said, and I jumped on the back of his Harley behind him, my bag slung over my shoulder and mashed between us to keep it secure. Though I was stil trying to grasp what had just happened, my wiser self was tel ing me to think later, get the hel out of there now. Mustapha lost no time. Just as we zipped across the grassy median to head back into Shreveport, I watched a car pul up to offer help to the apparent wreck.

“No, they’l get hurt!” I yel ed.

“It’s Long Tooth wolves. You stay on.” And off we took. After that, I concentrated on clinging to Mustapha as we rocketed through the night. After my initial gush of relief, it was frustrating not to be able to ask any of the fifty questions racing through my mind. I wasn’t total y surprised when we pul ed up in the circular driveway in front of Alcide’s house. I had to exert a conscious effort to unclench my muscles so I could dismount. Mustapha took off his helmet and gave me a thorough look. I nodded to let him know I was okay. My hand would hurt from the squeeze Van had given it, and I was covered with dots of blood, but it wasn’t mine. I looked down at my watch. Bil had had time to deposit Colton at the airport, but he should be driving here. The whole thing had happened that quickly.

“What you doing wearing prostitute clothes?” Mustapha asked severely, and hustled me over to the front door.

Alcide opened the door himself, and if he was bowled over with surprise, he did a good job of hiding it.

“Damn, Sookie, whose blood?” he said, and waved us in.

“Rogue werewolf,” I said. I reeked.

“No cars coming, so I had to take action then,” Mustapha explained. “I shot Laidlaw. He was driving. The pack’s taking care of the others.”

“Tel me,” Alcide said, bending down to look me in the eyes. He nodded, satisfied with what he saw. I opened my mouth. “In as few words as possible,” he added.

Apparently, time was of the essence.

“Palomino found where Felipe was keeping a guy hostage, a guy we needed to rescue. Discreetly. I kind of resemble her, so to leave her cover intact, I pretended to be her wearing this waitress outfit.” I glared at Mustapha. “That the casinos picked out,” I added, to make myself clear. Alcide gave me a little shake to speed me up.

“Okay! So Bil and I came out with the hostage and we were gonna drive off, when this group of four Weres comes up, and the leader, Van—

whom I’d seen here, by the way, so I thought he was okay—Van tel s us you sent them to get me and I need to come with them, because they’ve found Warren’s body and they want me to verify that it’s real y Warren.”

Alcide turned his back and shook his head from side to side. Mustapha looked down at the floor, his face a map of complex emotions.

“So Bil headed to the—away, with the hostage, and I got in the car with Van and them, and I realized pretty quick that they were rogues because you wouldn’t have ’em. That Van …” And then I just didn’t want to talk about him anymore.

“He hit you, huh?” Alcide said, turning back to eye my face. There was a moment of fraught silence. “He rape you?”

“Didn’t have time,” I said, glad to get that out of the way. “I don’t know where they were taking me, but Mustapha shot the driver and got me out of the car, and here I am. So. Thank you, Mustapha.”

He bobbed his head, stil involved in his own thoughts, his own worry for his friend.

“Was there a woman with them, kind of quiet, about thirty?”

“Pixie haircut?”

Both the men looked blank. “Real short hair, light brown, tal woman?”

Alcide nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s her! She okay?”

“Yeah. She was sitting in the passenger front. Who is she?”

“She’s my undercover,” Alcide said.

“You have undercover agents?”

“Yeah, of course. Her name’s Kandace. Kandace Moffett.”

“Can you please explain al this?” I hated to sound stupid. Telepaths get used to knowing stuff, I guess.

“I’l give you the Reader’s Digest version,” he said, to my surprise. “But come in the bathroom and wash yourself off while I fil you in. Mustapha, man, I owe you.”

“I know,” Mustapha said. “Just help me find Warren. That’s al I need.”

Alcide hustled me into a bathroom right off the entrance hal . It was al granite countertops and pure white towels, and I felt like the nastiest thing the cat had ever drug in. Alcide didn’t necessarily mind the blood, because that’s not a Were hang-up, but I sure did. I turned on the shower and stepped under it after shucking my shoes, which were the cleanest things I was wearing. When Alcide’s back was turned, I stepped out of the waitress outfit and let it fal to the floor of the shower. I grabbed a washcloth, soaped it up, and began scrubbing. Alcide resolutely kept his eyes turned away.

“Start talking,” I reminded him, and he did.

“After I talked to you about Jannalynn, I began to think about her pretty seriously,” he said. “The more I took her recent actions apart, the more I thought I should look deeper. I figured out that Jannalynn was not tel ing me the truth about a few things. I wondered if maybe she was skimming off the top at Hair of the Dog.” He shrugged. “Sometimes when she was supposed to be around, she was out of touch. I thought maybe her romance with Sam was going over the top, but when she’d tel me one thing about them, you didn’t seem to know anything about it. And Sam’s your partner, so you’d know, I figured.”

So he’d cal ed me to talk about Sam and Jannalynn’s “wedding plans,” at least in part to hear my reaction; of course, I’d been completely shocked.

“I saw her one time when she didn’t see me. She was at a bar way across town, instead of at the Hair. And she was with the rogues I had turned down. I knew she was planning something. I’d had them al over at social evenings at the house, talked to ’em. The only one worth anything was Kandace, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a pack. Didn’t like the power struggles. I got to respect that, but I thought she’d be an asset.”

I thought maybe he’d also liked Kandace’s assets, but that was his business.

“So I cal ed up Kandace, and I asked her to meet me alone. Without me even bringing it up, she volunteered to tel me what was going on, because it troubled her.”

Alcide clearly wanted me to give Kandace a virtual pat on the back, so I said, “She must be a good person.”

He smiled, gratified. “Kandace said Jannalynn wanted to chal enge me, defeat me, but first she wanted to get a good toehold in the pack by socking away some money, enlisting pack members to her side, getting some of her own muscle. Her proposal to these rogues was that they could come into the pack if they’d do her bidding; then when she beat me, she’d let them have ful benefits.”

I wondered if that included health and dental, but I wasn’t going to go down a side path while he was stil in a sharing mood. I hung up the washcloth and poured a dol op of shampoo into my hands. I began to scrub my scalp and hair. “Go on,” I said, by way of encouragement.

“So,” he said. “I got a guy she didn’t know to fol ow Jannalynn. He saw her meeting with your buddy Claude. There’s just no good reason for that.”

I stopped rinsing the shampoo from my hair. “What … why? Why was she meeting with Claude, of al people?”

“I have no idea,” Alcide said.

“So al we have to do is find Jannalynn and ask her a lot of questions,” I said. “And find Warren. And hope that Claude comes back from Faery, so I can question him. And get Felipe and his vamps to leave us alone, here in Shreveport. And get that Freyda out of here.”

Alcide looked at me, wondered whether to speak, and decided on ful disclosure. “Is it true, Sookie? Palomino told Roy that Eric’s engaged to a vampire from Oklahoma?”

“I can’t talk about it,” I said. “Or I’l get real upset, Alcide, and you just don’t want that tonight. I owe Palomino a solid favor for getting us in to rescue … a guy, but she shouldn’t be tel ing vampire business around town.”

“You owe her more of a solid than you know,” he said. “She saw you being grabbed, and she cal ed me. Right before Bil did. That was smart, Sook, getting him to cal . It was al I could do to get him to continue on his way and check back in later. I promised him I’d keep you safe.”

“So you cal ed Mustapha? You’ve known where he was al along?”

“No, but after I got your phone messages, I cal ed him. As you’d advised, when Jannalynn wasn’t around. He’d run down his last lead on Warren, and he had to talk to someone. I stil don’t know where he’s been hiding.”

“But it’s thanks to you that he found me in time.”

“Both our efforts and some guessing, too. He knows those rogues. He figured they’d head back to their house outside Fil more. Van does bad stuff to women, and he’d want to have some time with you before he handed you over to Jannalynn. The fol ow-up car was his idea, too.”

“Oh my God.” I felt sick, wondered if I was going to throw up. No. I got hold of myself.

After a little rinsing, I was as clean as I was going to get. Alcide left the bathroom so I could change into my more modest shorts and T-shirt. It was real y interesting how much difference a few covered inches could make in your self-respect. Now that I felt more like myself, I could begin to think some more.

I came out of the bathroom. Alcide was having a beer, and Mustapha was drinking a Coca-Cola. I accepted one, too, and the cold sweetness tasted wonderful going down.

“So what are you going to do with the rogues, for right now?” I asked.

“I’m going to stow them in a reinforced shed my dad built,” Alcide said. Jackson, his dad, had owned a farm outside Shreveport where the pack could run at the ful moon.

“So you have a special place to stow people,” I said. “I’m sure Jannalynn has a special place, too. You been thinking about where that might be?”

“Jannalynn’s from Shreveport,” Alcide said. “So, yeah, I’ve been thinking. She lives in the apartment above Hair of the Dog, so that’s out. No place there; besides, we’d have heard Warren if he’d been stashed there, or we’d have smel ed him.”

“If he was alive,” I said, very quietly.

“If he wasn’t, definitely we’d have smel ed him,” Alcide said, and Mustapha nodded, his face expressionless.

“So where does she have of her own, a place she could be fairly sure no one else would go?”

“Her mom and dad retired to Florida last year,” Alcide said. “But they sold their house. Our computer guy who works at the tax assessor’s office couldn’t find anything else in Jannalynn’s name.”

“You sure that house sold? In this market?”

“That’s what she told me. And the sign was down, last time I went by,” Alcide said.

Mustapha stirred. “It’s on a big lot, and it’s pretty far out of Shreveport,” he said. “I was out that way once, driving with Jannalynn, when the pack was courting me. She said she used to ride dirt bikes out there. They had horses, too.”

“Anyone can take down a sign,” I said.

Alcide got a cal just then and talked to the pack members who’d secured my abductors. They were on their way to Alcide’s farm. “You don’t have to be too civil,” Alcide said into the phone, and I could hear the laughter that came from the other end of the line.

I’d been struck by another thought, and as we went out to Alcide’s car, I said, “I guess growing up as a ful -blooded Were in Shreveport, Jannalynn would be pretty much bound to know al the others around her age. Even the kids who weren’t ful -blood.”

Alcide and Mustapha shrugged, almost in unison. “We did,” they said, and then smiled at each other, though their growing tension made that hard to do.

“Kym Rowe was half-Were and not much older than Jannalynn,” I observed. “Her folks came out to my house. Her dad’s Oscar, a ful Were.”

Mustapha stopped in his tracks, his head bowed. “Mustapha, was it Jannalynn who made you let Kym into Eric’s house?”

“Yeah,” he said, and Alcide stopped and turned to him. His face was hard and accusing. Mustapha said to both of us, “She told me she had Warren. She told me I had to let this Rowe girl into the house. That was al I had to do.”

“So it was her plan,” I said careful y. “Her plan. To get Eric to drink from this girl?”

“No, it was not her plan,” Mustapha said clearly. “She was hired to find a Were girl wil ing to carry it out, but it was the plan of this dude named Claude. I’ve seen him at your place. Your cousin?”

Chapter 13

I was shocked. I was more than shocked.

And the first coherent thought I had was, If Dermot was in on this, it’ll break my heart. Or I’ll break his neck.

In our long drive through the night to Jannalynn’s parents’ former place, I had more time than I needed to think, or maybe not enough. I was scrambling for some solid foothold, some sure thing. “Why?” I said out loud. “Why?”

“I sure don’t know,” Mustapha said. “The day I came to your house on the run, it was everything I could do to sit at the table with that Dermot and not try to choke it out of him.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because I didn’t know if he was in on it. That Dermot, he’s always nice, and he seems to have a lot of love for you. I just couldn’t see him stabbing you in the back like that. Or taking Warren, either, though I could see he might think that wasn’t so bad—not knowing Warren, hardly knowing me.”

I had to assume it had been Claude’s blood that had made Kym so irresistible to Eric.

“Dammit,” I said, and leaned forward to bury my face in my hands. I was glad to be sitting in the backseat where neither of them could see my face.

“Sookie, we’l figure al this out,” Alcide said. He sounded very confident and strong. “We’l get this al taken care of. We’l clear Eric with the police.”

From which I understood he was scared I’d start crying. I could sort of sympathize with that, and, anyway, first things first. I was kind of beyond crying. I’d already shed enough tears.

Glancing out the window, I saw we were now in a suburban area where the lots were at least four acres; maybe this had been out in the country once upon a time, until Shreveport had grown.

“It’s right around here,” Mustapha said, and when we saw a white fence bordering the road, he said, “This is it. I remember the fence.”

There was a horse gate across the driveway, and I hopped out to move it because I just wanted to get out of the car. They drove through and I fol owed them. It was completely dark out here, no streetlights. There was a security light in the front yard, but that was it. No lights on in the ranch-style house or in the freestanding garage a few feet behind it, where the driveway terminated. A dilapidated swing set rusted in the front yard. I pictured little Jannalynn playing on it, and found myself picturing a swing hitting her in the head.

I grimly erased that image and joined the two men who’d gotten out of the car to stand uncertainly in the noisy night. The crickets and al the other myriad bugs of Louisiana were having a concert in the woods that bordered the property. I heard a dog bark, far away.

“Now we break in,” Alcide said, and I said, “Wait.”

“But—” Mustapha began.

“Be quiet,” I said, final y feeling that there was something I could do rather than get swept into events as they passed me by. I sent out my other sense, the one that had shaped my life, the one given me at my birth by the demon Mr. Cataliades. I searched and searched, looking for the signature of a mind, and just when I was going to give up, I felt a faint flicker of thought. “There is someone,” I said very quietly. “There is someone.”

“Where?” Mustapha asked eagerly.

“In the attic over the garage,” I said, and it was like I’d fired off the starting gun. Werewolves are creatures of action, after al .

There were outside stairs on the side of the garage, which I hadn’t seen. The sharper eyes of Alcide and Mustapha had, and up they swarmed.

Mustapha, catching a scent he recognized, threw back his head and howled. It made my hair stand up. I moved to the foot of the steps, and though I stil couldn’t see much, I could make out the two figures on the landing above beginning a furious motion. It accompanied a rhythmic thud. I realized the two men were throwing themselves against a door. There was a ka-BANG that had to be the door flying back, and then a light came on.

Mustapha howled again, and I feared that Warren was dead.

I just couldn’t stand it; the death of the little blond sharpshooter with his pale freckled skin and his missing teeth was somehow more than I could bear tonight. I sank to my knees.

“Sookie,” Alcide said urgently.

I looked up. Mustapha was coming down the stairs, a body in his arms. Alcide was right in front of me.

“He’s alive,” Alcide said. “But he’s been up there without air-conditioning or ventilation or food or water for God knows how long. I guess the bitch couldn’t be bothered. We got to get him some help.”

“Vampire blood?” I suggested, but very quietly.

“I think Mustapha might consider that now,” Alcide said, and I knew that Warren must be very bad.

I cal ed Bil . “Sookie, where are you?” he yel ed. “I’ve been cal ing! What happened?”

I glanced at the screen. I did have a lot of missed cal s. “I had the phone on vibrate,” I said. “I’l tel you everything, but I want to ask you a favor first.

Are you stil in Shreveport?”

“Yes, I’m back outside the Trifecta, trying to pick up the trail of those dogs!”

“Hey, listen, chil . It’s been a real bad night. I need you now, my friend.”

“Anything.”

“Meet me at Alcide’s. You can save a life.”

“I’m on my way.”

On our way back into Shreveport, Mustapha took my place in the backseat with Warren’s head on his lap. When I proposed that Bil give Warren a drink to help him live, Mustapha said, “If it can bring him back, I’l do it. He may hate me later. Hel , I may hate myself. But we got to save him.”

Our drive back into Alcide’s neighborhood was shorter than our drive out because we knew our way now, but we grudged every stoplight or slow driver ahead of us, and Mustapha’s urgency pounded at me. Warren’s brain signature became weaker, flickered, resumed.

Sure enough, Bil was standing waiting at Alcide’s, and I leaped out of the car and pul ed Bil around to the backseat. When the door opened and he saw Warren, recognition flared in his eyes. Of course, Bil knew Mustapha, and he remembered Warren the shooter. I hoped it hadn’t occurred to Bil that it might be a good thing if he died, since he was yet another witness who could testify—at least in a limited way—to what had happened the night we’d kil ed Victor.

“He wasn’t in the club,” I said, grabbing Bil ’s wrist, as Mustapha gently lifted Warren’s head so he could vacate the car to leave room for Bil .

And Bil looked at me, a huge question on his face.

“Feed him,” I said. Without another word, Bil knelt by the car, bit his own wrist, and held the bleeding wrist over Warren’s parched mouth.

I don’t know if Warren would have done it if he hadn’t been so thirsty. At first, Bil ’s blood trickling into the slack mouth seemed to raise no reaction. But then something sparked in Warren, and he began to consciously drink. I could see his throat moving.

“Enough,” I said, after a minute. I could sense Warren’s brain firing back up. “Now, take him to the hospital, and they’l do al the right stuff for him.”

“But they’l know.” Alcide was scowling at me, and so was Mustapha. “They’l question him about who took him.” Bil , standing and holding his wrist, looked only mildly interested.

“You don’t want the police to arrest Jannalynn?” That seemed like the best of al possible worlds to me.

“She’d kil them if they tried,” Alcide said, but I knew from the conflict flowing from his head that he wasn’t voicing his real concern.

“You want to punish her,” I said, in as neutral a voice as I could manage.

“Course he does,” Mustapha said. “She’s pack. She’s his to punish.”

“I do want to ask her some questions,” I said. It seemed like the right time to get that out in the open. Otherwise, Jannalynn might end up dead before I’d had a chance to extract information.

“What about Sam?” Bil said, out of the blue.

“What about him?” Alcide asked after a moment.

“He’s not gonna be happy,” I muttered. “They weren’t ever as close as she told you they were, but after al …”

“She’s his woman,” Mustapha said, shrugging. He looked down at Warren. Just then Warren’s eyes fluttered open. He saw Mustapha and smiled. “I knew you’d find me,” he said. “I knew you’d come.”

It was touching, it was awkward, and I was total y confused.

“So it was Claude,” I said out loud. “I just can’t believe it. Why would he want Eric to drink from a borderline whore like Kym? Why would he give her his own blood to drink?” I was beyond mincing words, or being charitable.

“Claude could tel you why,” Bil said grimly. “Where is he now?”

“Nial came to get him. I haven’t seen Claude in days.”

“And he left Dermot here?”

“Yeah, he left Dermot in charge of al the stray supes at Hooligans,” I said.

“I’d heard everyone there was some form of fae,” Bil said, confirming my belief that supes gossiped just like humans did. “Did Claude give you a time for his return?”

“No. Nial took him to Faery to investigate who actual y put a curse on Dermot. Claude said it was Murry, but Murry’s dead. I kil ed him, in my backyard.” I sure had everyone’s attention now. It seemed that al the separate parts of my life were final y col iding. My personal highway was jammed with fairies, werewolves, vampires, and humans.

“So it was pretty convenient for Claude to name Murry as the bad guy,” Bil said, and that kind of hung in the air for a minute before everything came crashing down.

“Claude,” I said. “It was Claude al along.” I felt numb.

After a little while, we were al sorted out. Since no one knew where Jannalynn was, Mustapha and Warren were invited to spend the night at Alcide’s, and Mustapha accepted for them both since Warren was stil not talking much. Apparently, he wasn’t going to go to the hospital, which I had to accept. At least he was getting a bottle of Gatorade. Mustapha let him have it in little sips.

Bil and I got in his car, and Mustapha thanked Bil for coming to Warren’s aid. He didn’t like tel ing Bil he owed him a favor, but he did it.

Alcide was already on the phone as we pul ed out of the driveway, and I was sure he was checking on his pack members who’d locked up the rogues. I would put money on his main interest being Kandace. I didn’t know if she’d go into lockup with the rogues or if she’d abandon the pretense of being a rebel. At the moment, I could only be glad that wasn’t my problem.

I was glad Bil was driving. I had too many thoughts crowding my head. I wished there were a way to warn Nial what a snake he was nurturing in his bosom. And as long as I was getting biblical, I’d never in my life been so glad I’d said no to someone when they’d wanted to have sex with me.

“Why would Claude have done such a thing?”

I didn’t realize I’d said it out loud until Bil answered.

“Sookie, I don’t know. I can’t even guess. He doesn’t hate Eric, or at least I can’t think of any reason why he should. He might be envious you have such a handsome lover, but that’s hardly sufficient reason …”

I wasn’t about to tel Bil that Claude had told me he occasional y bedded a real woman. Eric would surely have been more in Claude’s natural bal park.

“Okay, let’s think,” I said. “Why would he try to make trouble in such a devious way? He could have set fire to my house.” (Though that had already been done.) “He could try to shoot me.” (Ditto.) “He could abduct me and torture me.” (Likewise.) “If his goal was to make trouble for Eric, there were at least twenty more direct ways to cause it.”

“Yes,” Bil said. “But a direct way would have led straight back to him. It’s the indirectness of it, the slyness of it, that convinces me that Claude wanted to stay in your good graces, stay close to you.”

“It’s not out of love. I can tel you that.”

“Is there something I don’t know about, Sookie? Some reason Claude would want your company, want to live in your house and stay close to you?” After a moment of silence, Bil hurried to add, “Not that any sane male wouldn’t want to, even someone like Claude who likes other men.”

“Why, yes, Bil ,” I said, “And it’s funny you should bring that up. As a matter of fact, there is such a reason.”

Though I clammed up then because I didn’t need to spread the word any wider, I was fuming. I might as wel get “I HAVE A CLUVIEL DOR”

tattooed on my forehead. Thanks, Grandfather Fintan, for the great gift. And while I was at it, Thanks, Sponsor Cataliades, for the telepathy. And also while I was angry at people in my past— Thanks, Gran, for (a) having an affair with a fairy and (b) not using the cluviel dor while you had the chance and, therefore, sticking me with it.

I had to talk myself down a little bit after that internal explosion of rage, al the more powerful because it was silent.

I took a deep breath and let it out, as Bil had advised me to do earlier in the evening. The procedure did let off some steam and gave me the control necessary to clap some discipline onto my thoughts. One of the things I real y like about Bil is that he didn’t pester me with questions while I was working through al this. He just drove.

“I can’t talk about it now,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Can you tel me if you’ve heard from Nial or Claude since they left?”

“No, I haven’t. I put a letter through … that is, I sent them a letter because Dermot’s having a hard time control ing the remaining fae. I’m sure you know they’re getting restless.”

“They are not alone,” Bil said darkly.

“And you’re referring to what?” I was too tired and upset to make any guesses.

“Al our guests are stil here—Felipe, Horst, Angie,” he said. “It’s like having a visit from a king in the eighteenth century. You could be poor after such an honor. And they’ve bonded mightily with the stupid wrestler—T-Rex. Felipe even talks of asking him if he wants to be brought over. Felipe thinks he would make a popular spokesman for the pro-vampire movement.”

“Is Freyda stil here, too?” I was humiliated that I had to ask Bil to know the answer, but I wanted to know the answer so badly that I would accept the humiliation.

“Yes. She’s spending as much time with Eric as he’l permit her.”

“I didn’t get the impression that she was in the habit of waiting for permission.”

“You’re absolutely right. I can’t decide if Eric is genuinely trying to discourage her or if he’s driving up his price.”

I felt like Bil had slapped me.

He said instantly, “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I should have kept my mouth shut.” He sounded genuinely contrite, but I didn’t trust anyone anymore.

“You real y think Eric’s capable of that?”

“Sookie, you know Eric’s capable of that, and much more.” Bil shrugged. “I won’t be less than honest with you. And I won’t sugarcoat this situation. From my point of view, Eric’s involvement with Freyda is a wonderful thing. But for your sake, I hope Eric is so deeply devoted to you that he’s determined to drive Freyda to a more amenable mate.”

“He loves me.” I sounded like a terrified child tel ing her father that she really, really wasn’t afraid of the dark. I despised that in myself.

“Yes, he does,” Bil agreed readily.

That conversation was clearly over, and it was one we wouldn’t have again.

I had a fantasy that when we got to my house, Eric would be sitting on the back steps waiting for me. He would have ditched al his Nevada company. He would be waiting to assure me that he had sent Freyda packing, that he’d told her how much he loved me, that he never wanted to leave me no matter how much power and wealth she offered him. He would be shooting a final bird at his maker, Appius Livius Ocel a. Al the vampires in his sheriffdom would be happy about his decision because they liked me so much.

As long as I was having a fantasy, I decided to build on it. In the daylight, Claude would return to my house with Nial . Nial would say that he had brainwashed Claude, and that Claude was now an agreeable person who regretted any of his past deeds that had offended others. They both embraced Dermot as an equal and took him back to Faery with them, along with al the other fae at Hooligans. I could be sure they would be happy forever, since it was a fairy tale.

Then I mental y married off Jason and Michele and gave them three little boys. I married off Terry and Jimmie and gave their Catahoulas many litters. I named Alcide packmaster for life and threw in a happy marriage to Kandace and a resultant daughter. I gave the du Rone twins ful scholarships to Tulane, and for Sam … I simply couldn’t think of the best gift for Sam. Of course, the bar would prosper, but with his tendency to fal for women on the supernatural side … wel , the bar would prosper. Quinn would live happily ever after with his tigress, Tijgerin, and she would be able to rehabilitate the unpleasant Frannie, who would become a nurse.

I was probably skipping a few people. Oh, yeah, Hol y and Hoyt. They’d have a girl and a boy, and Hol y’s son by her first marriage would love his stepdad and his new siblings. Hoyt’s lifelong friendship with my brother would never come between the couple again, because my brother would never drag Hoyt into trouble. Again.

India would find some fine young woman, and the state of Louisiana would pass a bil to enable them to get married legal y. No one would ever, ever make lesbian jokes or misquote scripture at them … as long as I was fantasizing.

“Bil , what’s your favorite fantasy?” I asked. Weirdly enough, I felt much better after designing al these happy endings.

Bil glanced over at me quizzical y. We were almost to my house. “My favorite fantasy? You come down into my daytime resting place stark naked,” he said, and I could see the gleam of his teeth as he smiled. “Oh, wait,” Bil said. “That’s already happened.”

“There’s gotta be more to it,” I said. Then I could have bitten off my tongue.

“Oh, there is.” His eyes told me exactly what happened after that.

“And that’s your fantasy? That I come into your house naked and have sex with you?”

“After that, you tel me that you have sent Eric on his way, that you want to be mine forever, and that to share my life you wil permit me to make you a vampire like me.”

The silence now was thick, and the fun had drained out of the fantasy.

Then Bil added, “You know what I’d say when you told me this? I’d tel you I would never do such a thing. Because I love you.”

And this, ladies and gentlemen, concluded our evening’s entertainment.

Chapter 14

When I woke up in my own bed, the sun was glaring outside. I did not have to work today; getting to skip on your special day was a Merlotte’s rule.

Last night had been an incredible night, al in al . I’d rescued two hostages, helped to get a bunch of bad rogue Weres off the streets, and begun unraveling a conspiracy. Hard to top that!

I’d also been kidnapped and bitterly disil usioned.

I wanted to look good because my spirits were so low. When I was getting dressed to run errands and to go to an appointment I’d made days before, I put on my makeup and brushed my hair up into a ponytail that cascaded down from the crown of my head. While I was cleaning out my purse in the process of finding a pair of earrings, my hand closed around the cluviel dor. I pul ed it out and gazed down at it, the pale green soothing any anxiety I had about the day to come. I rubbed it between my hands and enjoyed the warmth and the smoothness.

I wondered (for the fiftieth time) if I needed any special spel to activate its magic. On the whole, I figured not. My grandmother would have passed such a spel along to me, though as a staunch Christian she disapproved of magic. But she wouldn’t have neglected some element I might find necessary for my protection.

I should put it back into my makeup drawer with the usual light camouflage. But I didn’t. After a brief debate, I slid the round object into my skirt pocket. I understood, final y, that having it was no good if it was inaccessible. Leaving it in the drawer was equivalent to having an unloaded gun when burglars broke into your house.

From now on, the cluviel dor went where I went.

If Eric … if he decided to leave with Freyda, would I use it? According to Mr. Cataliades, since I loved Eric, if I made a wish for him, it would be granted. I tried to picture myself saying, “Eric must not choose to go with Freyda.”

On the other hand … if he decided to go with the queen, he loved me less than he loved the possibilities in his future with her. Would I want to stay with someone on those terms?

A lot of bad things could happen today, but I was going to keep my fingers crossed that they wouldn’t. I just wanted one happy day.

As I was getting up from the dressing table, I had second thoughts about leaving the cluviel dor in my pocket. Was it real y safe to carry such an irreplaceable object around with me? Apparently al the fae col ected at Hooligans could tel there was something special about me despite my minimal dash of fairy blood. That special thing must be my proximity to, or ownership of, the cluviel dor. I shouldn’t underestimate how much they’d want it if they knew I had it, not with their terrible desire to be back in the world they loved. I hesitated, pondered again replacing it in the drawer.

But then I thought, Unloaded gun. And I popped it from my pocket into my purse, which latched shut and was therefore more secure.

I heard a car pul up outside. I looked out the living room windows to see that my cal er was Detective Cara Ambrosel i. I shrugged. I wasn’t going to let anything bother me today.

She came in with a sidekick, a young guy whose name I couldn’t remember. He had short brown hair, brown eyes, undistinguished clothes, and he wasn’t tal or very thin or very muscular or very anything. Even his thoughts were fairly neutral. He was nuts about Ambrosel i, that was something about him I could empathize with. And Ambrosel i simply thought of him as her adjutant.

“This is Jay Osborn,” Detective Ambrosel i said. “You’re al dressed up today.”

“I have an appointment this morning,” I said. “I can only give you a few minutes.” I waved my hand at the couch, and I sat opposite them.

Osborn was looking around the room, recognizing the age of the house, of its furnishings. Ambrosel i was concentrating on me.

“T-Rex is quite a fan of yours,” she said.

It was lucky I’d been warned ahead of time. “That’s pretty weird,” I said. “I just met him the night Kym Rowe got kil ed. And I have a boyfriend.”

Theoretical y.

“He’s cal ed me to see if I’d give up your phone number.”

“I guess that says it al , that he doesn’t have it.” I shrugged.

Then we went over the evening at Eric’s again, from beginning to end. But just when I thought we’d wound up, Ambrosel i decided to throw in one last question.

“Were you late that night because you wanted to make a big entrance?”

I blinked. “Huh?”

“Coming in late to get T-Rex’s attention?” She was asking questions at random. She didn’t believe this.

“If I’d wanted to get his attention, I guess I would have come earlier to spend as much time with him as I could,” I said. “The ladies he was with were good-looking women, and I don’t know why he’d be special y interested in me.”

“Maybe your vampire boyfriend wanted T-Rex to be his friend. Couldn’t hurt to have a popular guy like a wrestler on your side, in public opinion.”

“I don’t think I’m the strongest bribe Eric could come up with,” I said. I laughed.

Ambrosel i was at an impasse in the case. She was hoping that by going from witness to witness and scattering half-truths and asking questions she might stir up some fact that she could use. Though I could sort of sympathize with her, she was wasting my time.

“T-Rex hasn’t cal ed me, and I don’t expect him to,” I said, after a moment. “If you’l excuse me, I have to leave myself.”

Ambrosel i and Osborn stood and slowly took their departure, trying to look as though they’d learned something significant.

When I got to Bon Temps, I dropped by to pick up my dishes from Tara’s house. The twins were asleep. Tara was slumped on the couch, almost dozing herself. I was glad I’d knocked very quietly. I think she would have thrown the pans at my head if I’d woken up Sara and Rob.

“Where’s JB?” I whispered.

“He went to get some more diapers,” she whispered back.

“How’s the breastfeeding going?”

“I feel like Elsie the cow,” she said. “I don’t know why I even button my blouse.”

“Is it hard? To get them to nurse?”

“About as hard as getting a vampire to bite you,” she said.

I grinned. It was nice to hear that Tara could joke about something that had once made her crazy.

“By the way,” Tara said as I turned to go, “Is there something weird going on at Hooligans?”

“What do you mean?” I jerked around, very much on the alert.

“Maybe that answers my question,” she said. “That was quite a reaction, Sookie.”

I had no idea how to answer her. I said, “Has JB had any trouble there?”

“No, he loves everybody on the strip team,” she said. “We final y had a good talk about it. You know, and I know, that he loves to be admired, bless his heart. And there’s a lot to admire about JB.”

I nodded. He was lovely. Not bright; never that. But lovely.

“But he thinks there’s something wrong?”

“He’s noticed some strange things,” she said careful y. “None of the other guys could ever meet him for lunch, and they could never tel him what their day job was, and they seemed to pretty much live at the club.”

I didn’t know what to tel her. “I wonder how JB got hired,” I said, to fil in until I could think of a good way to warn her off Hooligans. I was sure the du Rones stil needed extra money, though the twins had been able to leave the hospital at the regular time.

“How he got hired? He’d heard about Ladies Only night from the women at the gym, and they al told him he was built wel enough to perform,”

Tara said rather proudly. “So one day he went over to Hooligans on his lunch hour.” One of the babies started fussing, and Tara darted into their tiny room to emerge with Sara. Or Robbie. “If one starts crying, the other one wil ,” she whispered. She jiggled the baby gently, humming to the child. It was as if she’d been a mother for years, instead of a few days. When the little head rested on her chest, she murmured, “Anyway, your cousin Claude said since JB’d helped you recover from your ordeal—did he mean your car wreck?—that he’d give JB a job. Also …” She met my eyes briefly. “Remember, I met Claude when I was pregnant? He was the one who told me I’d have twins that day in the park? He told JB he understood a father has to provide for his children.”

It hadn’t been a car wreck I needed to recover from, but torture, of course. JB had helped me with physical therapy for weeks; I did remember tel ing Claude about that. Ha! Claude’s kindness to JB was a good thing to hear, especial y at this point in time. But I knew what my cousin real y was, and I knew he was scheming some terrible thing.

I left the little house after running a finger over the soft, soft baby cheek. “You’re so lucky,” I whispered to Tara.

“I tel myself that every day,” she said. “Every day.” In my friend’s head, I could see the kaleidoscope of miserable scenes that had composed her childhood: her alcoholic parents, the parade of drug users through her home, her own determination to rise above the shack, rise above the degradation and squalor. This smal , neat house, these beautiful babies, a sober husband—this was heaven to Tara.

“Take care of yourself, Sookie,” she said, looking at me with some anxiety. She hadn’t been my friend this long for nothing.

“You just watch out for those young’uns. Don’t you worry about me. I’m doing okay.” I gave my friend the most convincing smile I could summon, and I let myself out of the house very quietly, easing the door shut.

I went to the drive-through at the bank to use the ATM, and then I drove to the newly opened law offices of Beth Osiecki and Jarrel Hilburn. There were those who would argue that Bon Temps was overburdened with lawyers, but al of them seemed to be busy and thriving, and since Sid Matt Lancaster, who’d had a huge practice, had recently passed away, al his clients needed new representation.

Why’d I picked the new kids on the block?

For that very reason: They were new, and I didn’t know them, and they didn’t know me. I wanted to start with a clean slate. I’d seen Hilburn before, for my transaction with Sam. Today I was seeing Osiecki, who specialized in estate planning. And since she was new, she’d agreed to see me on a Saturday.

A girl barely out of her teens was sitting at the receptionist’s desk in the tiny anteroom of the storefront office. Osiecki and Hilburn had rented the first floor of an old building right off the square. The electrical system would need overhauling, I was sure, but they’d painted and brought in good secondhand office furniture. Some potted plants made everything look a little nicer, and there wasn’t any canned music playing, which was a huge plus. The girl, who didn’t even have a name plaque, beamed at me and checked her appointment book, which had large white spaces.

“You must be Ms. Stackhouse,” she said.

“Yes. I have an appointment with Ms. Osiecki?” I sounded out the name.

“Oh-seek-ee,” she said very quietly, presumably so the owner of the name wouldn’t hear her correction.

I nodded, to show I’d gotten it now.

“I’l see if she’s ready,” the girl said, leaping to her feet and making her way to the little corridor leading to the rest of the space. There was a door on the left and a door on the right, and after that the area seemed to widen into a common space. I could glimpse a big table and a bookcase ful of heavy books, the kind of books I would never pick up to read.

I heard a brisk knock and a murmur, and then the teenager was back. “Ms. Osiecki wil see you now,” she said, with an expansive sweep of her hand.

I went back to talk to Ms. Osiecki after taking a deep breath.

A woman of about thirty stood up from her broad desk. She had wel -cut short red-streaked brown hair, blue eyes, and brown glasses. She was wearing a nice white blouse and a wildly flowered skirt and high-heeled sandals. She was smiling.

“I’m Beth Osiecki,” she said, in case I’d gotten lost between the reception area and her office.

“Sookie Stackhouse,” I said, shaking the outstretched hand.

She glanced down at the pad, and I could see she was going over the notes she’d scribbled the day before when I’d cal ed her. She looked over at the big Scenic Louisiana poster by her desk. “Wel ,” she said, shooting me a quizzical look. “It real y is a special day for you, isn’t it? It’s your birthday, and you’re going to make your wil .”

I felt a little strange after I left the lawyers’ office. I guess there’s nothing to make you think about your own demise like making your wil . It’s also a literal y do-or-die moment. When your wil is read, it wil be the last time people wil hear your voice: the last expression of your wil and your wishes, the last statement from your heart. It had been a strangely revelatory hour.

Beth Osiecki was going to put everything in legalese, and I had to come in day after tomorrow and sign it. Just in case, I told her, I’d like to sign a list of the points I’d made. The list was in my own handwriting. I asked her if that would make it legal.

“Sure,” she’d said. She’d smiled. I could tel that she was adding to her meager store of “strange client” stories, and that was okay with me.

When I left Beth Osiecki’s office, I was pretty proud of myself. I’d made a wil .

I couldn’t quite figure out what to do next. It was three in the afternoon. I’d had a late breakfast, and a ful lunch was out of the question. I didn’t need to go to the library; I had several library books I hadn’t read yet. I could go home and sunbathe, which was always a pleasant pastime, but then I’d sweat al over my good makeup and my clean hair. I was in danger of doing that now, standing here on the sidewalk. The sun was glaring down ferociously. I figured it was at least a hundred degrees. My cel phone rang as I hesitated to touch the handle of my car door.

“Hel o?” I fished a tissue out of my purse and used it to cover my fingers as I opened the door. The heat rol ed out.

“Sookie? How are you?”

“Quinn?” I couldn’t believe it. “I’m so glad to hear from you.”

“Happy birthday,” he said.

I could feel my lips curve up in an involuntary smile. “You remembered!” I said. “Thanks!” I was absurdly pleased. I hadn’t exactly thought Tara would be thinking about my birthday, since she’d just brought twins home from the hospital, but maybe I’d been a tiny bit flattened when she hadn’t mentioned it this morning.

“Hey, a birthday is an important day,” the weretiger said. I hadn’t seen him since Sam’s brother’s wedding. It was good to hear his deep voice.

“How are you?” I hesitated for a moment before adding, “How’s Tijgerin?” The last time I’d seen Quinn, he’d just met the beautiful and single and one-of-the-last-of-her-kind weretigress. I don’t think I have to draw you a picture.

“I’m … ah … going to be a father.”

Wow. “Way to go!” I said. “So you guys have moved in together? Where are you living?”

“That’s not exactly the way we do it, Sookie.”

“Um. Okay. What’s the tiger procedure?”

“Tiger men don’t bring up their young. Only the tiger mom.”

“Gosh, that seems kind of old-fashioned.” And kind of wrong.

“To me, too. But Tij’s real traditional. She says that when she has the baby, she’l go into hiding until he’s weaned. Her mom told her that if it’s a boy I might see him as a threat.” I couldn’t read Quinn’s mind over the phone, but he sounded plenty exasperated and not a little resentful.

As far as I knew—and I’d done a little reading on tigers when I was Quinn’s girlfriend—only males who were not the actual dads were apt to kil tiger cubs. But since this was total y none of my business, I choked back the indignation I felt on Quinn’s behalf. At least, I tried to.

So she’d used him to get pregnant with a weretiger baby and now she didn’t want to see him anymore?

I told myself sternly, Not my battle. (Werewolves were much more modern in their thinking. Even werepanthers!) Since my silence had lasted too long, I leaped in with both feet. “Wel , I’m so happy that you’l have a cub, since there aren’t many of you-al left. I guess your mama and your sister are excited?”

“Uh … wel , my mom is pretty sick. She brightened up a lot when I told her, but it was just temporary. She’s back in that nursing home. Frannie found a guy, and she took off with him last month. I’m not real y sure where she is.”

“Quinn, that’s so tough. I’m real y sorry.”

“But I’m raining on your birthday, and I didn’t mean to. I real y did cal you to tel you to have a great day, Sookie. No one deserves it more.” He hesitated, and I could tel there were more words that he wanted to say. “Maybe you could cal me sometime?” he asked. “Tel me what you ended up doing to celebrate?”

I tried to do some concentrated thinking in a very short time, but I just wasn’t up to figuring out al the cracks and crevices in this tentative overture.

“Maybe,” I said. “I hope I do something worth talking about. So far, al I’ve done is make my wil .”

There was a long moment of silence. “You’re kidding,” he said.

“You know I’m not.”

There was a serious silence.

“You need me to come?”

“Oh, gosh, no,” I said, putting a smile in my voice. “I’ve got the house, the car, a little money saved up. It just seemed like time.” I hoped I wasn’t lying. “Wel , I gotta go, Quinn. I’m so glad you cal ed. It made the day special for me.” I snapped the phone shut and dropped it into my purse.

I got in the slightly less-hot car and tried to think of somewhere fun to go, something fun to do. I’d picked up the newspaper and checked my mailbox on my way to town, and hadn’t pul ed out anything but my auto insurance bil and a Wal-Mart ad leaflet.

I decided I was just hungry enough to treat myself to something special. I went to Dairy Queen and got an Oreo Blizzard. I ate it inside since it was way too hot to sit in the car. I said hel o to a couple of people and had a brief chat with India, who came in with one of her little nieces in tow.

My cel phone rang again. Sam. “Sook,” he said, “can you come by the bar? We’re short a case of Heineken and two of Michelob, and I need to know what happened.” He sounded pretty snappish. Damn.

“It’s my day off.”

“Hey, you pretty much bought into the business. You gotta pul your share of the weight.”

I mouthed a very bad word at the phone. “Okay,” I said, sounding just as irritated as I felt. “I’m coming. But I’m not staying.”

I strode through the employee entrance as if I were on my way into a bul fight ring. The hell we were short three cases of beer. “Sam,” I cal ed,

“you in your office?”

“Yeah, come here,” he cal ed back. “I think I found the problem.”

I flung open his office door and everybody in the world shrieked in my face. “Oh my God!” I said, shocked to the core.

After a throbbing moment, I understood that I was having a surprise birthday party.

JB was there, and Terry and his girlfriend, Jimmie. Sam, Hoyt and Hol y, Jason and Michele, Hal eigh Bel efleur, Danny and Kennedy. Even Jane Bodehouse.

“Tara had to stay with the babies,” JB said, handing me a little package.

Terry said, “We thought about giving you a puppy, but Jimmie said we better check with you first.” Jimmie winked at me over his shoulder.

Sam held me so tight I thought I’d quit breathing, and I thumped him on his shoulder. “You creep,” I said in his ear. “Missing cases of beer! I like that!”

“You should have heard your voice,” he said, laughing. “Jannalynn said to tel you she was sorry she couldn’t make it. She had to open at Hair of the Dog.”

Sure, I believed she was real y unhappy at not being here. I turned away so Sam wouldn’t see my face.

Hal eigh apologized for Andy’s absence, too; he was on duty. Danny and Kennedy gave me a kind of group hug, and Jane Bodehouse gave me a highly alcoholic kiss on the cheek. Michele held my hand for a moment and said, “I hope you have a wonderful year this year. Wil you be my bridesmaid?” I grinned wide enough to split my face and told her I’d be proud to stand up with her. Jason wrapped one arm around me and handed me a beribboned box.

“I didn’t expect presents. I’m too old for a present party,” I protested.

“Never too old for presents,” Sam said.

My eyes were so ful of tears I had a hard time unwrapping Jason’s gift. He’d given me a bracelet my grandmother used to wear, a little gold chain with pearls set at intervals. I was shocked to see it. “Where was this?” I asked.

“I was cleaning the pie-crust table I got out of the attic, and it was pushed way in the back of that shal ow drawer, caught on a splinter,” he said.

“Al I could think of was Gran, and I knew you’d wear it.”

I let the tears run out, then. “That’s the sweetest thing,” I said. “The nicest thing you’ve ever done.”

“Here,” said Jane, as eagerly as a child. She put a little gift bag in my hand. I smiled and dug my hand in. Jane had given me five “get a free car wash” coupons from the place her son worked. I was able to thank her sincerely. “I’l use every one,” I promised her.

Hoyt and Hol y had gotten me a bottle of wine, Danny and Kennedy had gotten me an electric knife sharpener, and JB and Tara had regifted me with one of the five slow cookers they’d gotten when they got married. I was glad to get it.

Sam handed me a heavy envelope. “You open that later,” he said gruffly. I gave him a narrow-eyed look. “Al right,” I said. “If that’s what you want.”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s what I want.”

Hal eigh had made her version of Caroline Bel efleur’s chocolate cake, and I cut it so everyone could have a piece, Dairy Queen Blizzard be damned. It was marvelous. “I think that’s better than Miss Caroline’s,” I said, which was close to heresy in Bon Temps.

“I put a pinch of cinnamon in,” she whispered.

After the party I went out the front to get birthday hugs from India, now on duty, and Daniel e, who was working in my place.

Hal eigh wanted me to come over to her house to see the nursery, which was completely ready for its expected occupant. I was so glad to be with a happy person who had no agenda. The visit was a real treat.

After that, I had a quick supper with my grandmother’s friend. Maxine, Hoyt’s mom, had been a couple of decades younger than Gran, but they’d been tight. Maxine was so happy about Hoyt’s wedding that I was feeling real y cheerful after this visit; plus, Maxine had told me some funny stories about Gran. It was nice to remember that side of Gran, the familiar side, instead of thinking of her affair with Fintan. Dang, that had knocked me for a loop. Thanks to Maxine, I had a nice hour remembering the Gran I’d always thought I knew.

It grew dark as I drove home. Today was so much better than yesterday. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have such good friends. The warm night seemed benevolent instead of scorching. I had a good time singing along with the radio since there was no one to hear my awful voice.

I’d hoped to at least get some phone messages from my vampire friends—of course, I’d been hoping to hear from Eric most of al . But my cel phone didn’t chirp on the drive back to my place. I stopped briefly at the end of the driveway to col ect my local newspaper, and then I drove up to the house.

It wasn’t a total surprise—but it was a total relief—to find that they were waiting for me. Pam’s car was parked at the back of the house, and Bil , Eric, and Pam were sitting in lawn chairs in my backyard. Pam was wearing a low-cut flowered T-shirt and white cropped pants as a nod to the season—not that the temperature made any difference to her. Her high cork sandals were a great finishing touch.

“Hi, you-al !” I said, gathering al my gifts up out of the backseat. I gave Pam a special nod to acknowledge her ensemble. “What’s up at Fangtasia?”

“We came to wish you a happy day,” Eric said. “And I suppose, as usual, Bil wil want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as he’l tel you—and Pam wil want to say something sarcastic and nearly painful, while reminding you that she loves you, too.”

Bil and Pam looked decidedly miffed at Eric’s preemptive strike, but I wasn’t going to let anything dim my mood.

“And what about you, Eric?” I asked on counterattack. “Are you going to tel me that you love me just as much as Bil , but in a practical way, while finding some way to subtly threaten me and simultaneously remind me that you may be leaving with Freyda?” I bared my teeth at him in a ferocious smile as I trotted by the trio on my way up my back steps. I unlocked the screen door, crossed the porch, unlocked the kitchen door, and went inside with my armful.

After dumping the presents on the kitchen table, I stepped back out onto the porch and opened the screen door. “Any of you have anything new to say?” I looked from one to the other. “Or shal I just consider al this as said?” Pam was looking away to hide her grin.

“Just that he was right,” Bil said, smiling openly. “I do love you more than Eric does. Have a great night, Sookie. Here is a gift for you.” He held out a little box with a bow on it, and I extended my arm to take it.

“Thank you, Mr. Compton,” I said, returning his smile, and he strode off into the woods. At the edge, he turned to blow me a kiss.

Pam said, “Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I’d want to spend time with a human, but you’re more tolerable than most. I hope no one hurts you on your birthday.” As birthday wishes went, that kind of sucked, but it was genuine Pam. I stepped down off the porch to give her a hug. She returned it, which made me smile. You never knew with Pam. Her touch was cold and she smel ed of vampire. I was very fond of her. She produced a smal box, highly decorated, and pressed it into my hand.

She stepped back and looked from me to Eric. “I’l leave you two to whatever talk you want to have,” she said, her voice neutral. Eric was her maker, and there was a limit to the verbal abuse she could deal out. In a moment she was gone.

“Won’t you give me a hug, too?” Eric looked down at me, one eyebrow hiked up.

“Before I start giving out hugs to you I need to know what our situation is,” I said. I sat down on the back steps, setting my presents careful y to the side. Eric sat down, too.

I wasn’t happy anymore, of course, but I was much calmer than I’d thought I’d be when I’d realized we had to have this conversation. “I think you owe it to me to level with me,” I began. “For weeks, it seems like we haven’t real y been a couple, though you stil tel everyone I’m your wife. Lately, that’s just meant we have sex. I know it’s a tradition that guys don’t like relationship talks. I don’t think I do, either. But we have to have one.”

“Let’s go inside.”

“No. That might end up with us in bed. Before we do that again, we need to have an understanding between us.”

“I love you.” The security light glinted off his blond hair and was swal owed in his al -black getup. He’d dressed for a funeral tonight.

“I love you, too, Eric. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”

Eric looked away. “I think not,” he said reluctantly. “Sookie … it’s not just a straightforward decision, you over Freyda. If it were only one woman over another … it’s you I love. That’s a given, not a choice at al . But it’s not that simple.”

“It’s not that simple?” I repeated. I felt too many things to select one emotion, to say, That’s the way I feel; I’m in dread. Or I’m angry. Or I’m numb with fear. I had al those feelings, and more. Since I couldn’t bear to look at Eric’s face any more than he could bear to look at mine, I looked up at the starlit sky. After another moment’s silence, I said, “But it is, isn’t it. That simple.”

The night swel ed with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.

“My maker gave this to me as his last order,” Eric said.

“I would never have believed you’d try this argument,” I said. “‘I’m just obeying orders.’ Come on! You can’t hide behind Appius’s wishes, Eric.

He’s gone.”

“He signed a contract, and it’s legal y binding,” Eric said, stil keeping his composure.

“You’re giving yourself an excuse for doing something painful and wrong,” I said.

“I’m locked into it,” he said, his expression savage.

I looked down at my feet for a minute. I was wearing my happy sandals again, high-heeled and with little flowers on the strap across my toes.

They looked ridiculously frivolous, appropriate for a single woman’s twenty-eighth birthday. They weren’t kiss-your-lover-good-bye shoes.

“Eric, you’re a strong vampire,” I said. I took his cool hand. “You’ve always been the boldest, baddest guy around. If your maker were alive, I’d believe you couldn’t help this. But I watched Appius die, right here in my yard. So here’s my bottom line; here’s what I real y believe. I think you could get out of this if you hated Freyda. But you don’t. She’s beautiful. She’s rich. She’s powerful. She needs you to watch her back, and the reward wil be lots of the stuff you love.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Al I got is me. And I guess that’s not enough.” I waited, praying to hear a rebuttal. I looked up at him. I saw no shame. I saw no weakness. I saw instead a laserlike intensity in his blue eyes, so like my own.

He said, “Sookie, if I turn down this opportunity, Felipe wil punish both of us. Our lives wil not be worth living.”

“Then we’l leave,” I said quietly. “We’l go somewhere else. You’l work for some other king or queen. I’l find a job.”

But even as I spoke the words, I knew he would not opt for this. In fact, I found myself wondering if I would have said it if I’d believed there was any chance he’d say yes. On the whole, I thought I would, though it would have meant leaving everything I found dear.

“If only there were some way to prevent this,” Eric said. “But I don’t know of any way, and I can’t tear you away from your life.”

I didn’t know whether my heart was ripped in two, whether I felt anguish or relief. I’d been sure he’d say that.

But he didn’t say anything else.

He was waiting for me to speak.

The apprehension was so strong in me that I felt my eyebrows draw together in a question. “What?” I asked. “What?” I couldn’t imagine where he wanted me to go in this terrible conversation.

Eric seemed almost angry, as if I weren’t picking up my cue.

I continued to be bewildered; he continued to try to force some statement from me.

When he was sure I genuinely didn’t have a clue, Eric said, “You could stop this if you chose.” Each word came clear and distinct.

“How?” I dropped his hands, spread my own to show my ignorance. “Tel me how.” I rummaged through my mind as fast as I could, trying frantical y to understand what Eric could mean.

“You say you love me,” he said angrily. “You could stop this.”

He turned to walk away.

“Just tell me how,” I asked, hearing and hating the desperation in my voice. “Goddammit, just TELL ME HOW.”

He cast a look over his shoulder. I hadn’t seen that expression on his face since we’d met, when he’d regarded me as just another disposable human.

And then he was in the air. And then he was lost in the night sky.

I stood staring up for a minute or two. Maybe I expected blazing letters to appear in the sky to explain his words. Maybe I thought Bil would pop out of the woods like a deus ex machina to tel me what Eric had been so sure I would understand.

I went back into the house and automatical y locked the door behind me. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, cudgeling my tired brain into activity.

Okay, I said. Let’s figure this out. Eric said I could stop him from leaving with Freyda. “But it can’t be just that I love him, because I told him that, and he knows it,” I whispered. “So, it’s not how I feel, it’s some act I need to perform.”

What act? How could I prevent their marriage?

I could kil Freyda; however, not only would that be a horrible thing to do, since she’d done nothing more than desire the man I loved, but any attempt to kil the powerful vampire would be simply suicidal.

And kil ing Eric would hardly produce a happy ending, and that was the only other way I could imagine stopping him.

I guess I could go to Felipe and beg him to keep Eric, I thought. Though Eric had said Felipe would punish both of us if Eric remained in Louisiana, disobliging Freyda, I seriously considered how I would go about appealing to the king. What response would he have? He knew I’d saved his life once upon a time, but though he’d made me big promises, he hadn’t exactly come through with them. No, Felipe would laugh when I went down on my knees. And then he’d tel me he thought he ought to honor Appius’s wishes and let Appius’s child make such an advantageous match.

In return, I was sure Felipe would be favored in any subsequent dealings between Oklahoma and Nevada or Arkansas or Louisiana.

Al in al , I real y couldn’t see any chance at al that Felipe would agree to let Eric remain in Shreveport. Eric’s worth as a sheriff couldn’t equal the huge plus of having him at Freyda’s side, murmuring things into Freyda’s ear.

Okay, begging Felipe was out. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved.

I was stil poking at my brain, trying to get it to spit out an idea, while I showered and put on my nightshirt. Eric had been so sure I could stop the Freyda-Felipe deal. How? It was like Eric thought I had a magic wish, something tucked up my sleeve.

Oh.

I froze, one arm through an armhole, the rest of the nightshirt bunched around my neck. I didn’t breathe for a long moment.

Eric knew about the cluviel dor.

Chapter 15

I sat up all night.

My brain ran through the same old paces like a chipmunk in a cage. I always ended with the same conclusion.

Eric was trying to get me to admit I had the cluviel dor. What would have happened if I’d understood him last night, if I’d admitted it? Would he have taken it from me? I didn’t know if he simply sought it for himself, or if Freyda would barter the cluviel dor in return for Eric’s services, or if Eric simply wanted me to use it to stop him from going to Oklahoma.

And here’s what happens when you have too much time to think: I actual y considered the idea that Eric might have engineered this whole episode with Freyda to get me to reveal the location of the cluviel dor. That was a sickening possibility. If I hadn’t experienced past betrayals, such an idea would never have crossed my mind. Even though I had accepted the world as it was, it made me sad that I was sure such a long-term and planned deception was possible.

Every new thought seemed to be worse than the previous one.

I lay in the dark watching the clock change.

I tried to think of things I could do, something besides lie in this bed. I could run across the cemetery to talk to Bil , who was surely up. That was a terrible idea, and I discarded it the first ten times it occurred to me. The eleventh time, I actual y got out of bed and walked to the back door before I made myself turn away. I knew if I went over to talk to Bil right now, something might happen that I would surely regret—and that wasn’t fair to me or Eric. Not until I knew for sure.

(I real y knew for sure.)

I opened my purse and took the cluviel dor into my hand. Its warm, smooth surface relieved my pain, calmed me. I didn’t know if I could trust this feeling or not, but it was far preferable to my previous misery. I heard Dermot come in and walk very quietly through the house. I couldn’t bear the idea of explaining the situation, so I didn’t let him know I was awake.

When he was safely upstairs, I moved into my dark living room and waited for the dawn. I fel asleep just as the night was lightening gradual y into day. I slept sitting up on the couch until I woke four hours later, a cramp in my neck and stiffness in al my joints. I got up, feeling like I imagined an old woman felt first thing in the morning. I unlocked the front door and stepped out onto the porch. I heard birds singing, and the heat of the day was wel advanced. Life was trudging onward.

Since I couldn’t think what else to do, I went into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. At least I didn’t have to go to work today, since Merlotte’s was closed on Sunday.

The night before, I had tossed our weekly local newspaper on the table unread, so while I sipped the coffee I took off the rubber band and spread it out. It was only a few pages, a little tube compared to the Shreveport daily paper, which I also read. Often the Bon Temps paper had news that was more interesting, though. That was the case today. Bear in Local Woods? read the headline. I skimmed the article hastily, and my heart sank, if there were any lower depths to hold it.

Two deer carcasses found by local men had led to some excited speculation. “Some large predator did this,” said Terry Bellefleur, who happened upon one of the killing sites while training his dog. “It didn’t exactly look like a bear or panther kill, but this deer was killed by something big.”

Dammit. I’d warned Bel enos to stick to my woods.

“Oh, I didn’t have quite enough to worry about,” I said, rising to pour some more coffee. “I needed something else.”

“What are you worried about?” Claude asked.

I screamed, and my coffee mug went flying.

When I could speak, I said, “You. Do. Not. Do. That. To. Me.” He must have come in through the unlocked front door. He had keys, anyway, but I would have heard them in the lock and had some warning.

“Cousin, I’m sorry,” he said contritely, but I could see the amusement in his eyes.

Oh, shit. Where had I put the cluviel dor?

I’d left it on the coffee table in the living room. It took every bit of self-control I had not to break and run for the living room.

“Claude,” I said, “things haven’t been going wel while you were gone.” I struggled to make my voice level. “Some of your fae workers have been taking little vacations.” I pointed to the paper. “I guess Dermot spent the night at Hooligans. You should read this.” If he hadn’t come through the backyard, he might not have seen Dermot’s car.

Claude poured himself a cup of coffee and obediently pul ed out a chair.

His actions weren’t threatening, but I was looking at the man who’d sent Kym Rowe to her death; for al I knew, he was the one who’d kil ed her when she hadn’t gotten Eric to do the job. Claude’s sudden reappearance—without Nial —would have been enough to raise the hair on my arms even if I hadn’t known about his col usion with Jannalynn.

Why had Claude returned by himself? There was something in his face that hadn’t been there before. I was wil ing him to sit down, wil ing him to give me the time to walk into the living room and retrieve the magical object.

“Where is Nial ?” I asked, picking up my mug, which (amazingly) hadn’t broken. After I put it by the sink, I got a wad of paper towels to mop up the spil ed coffee.

“Stil in Faery,” Claude said, ostensibly concentrating on the paper. “Oh, did you like your friend’s act at Hooligans? Your human friend?”

“JB. Wel , his wife and I were sure surprised. Him being the only human, and her not knowing he was doing it and al .”

“He needed a job, and I remembered the pretty lady who was with child,” Claude said. “See, I did a good thing. I’m not so bad.”

“I never said you were.”

“You look at me, though, from time to time, as if you can’t understand why I get to breathe the same air you do.”

I was genuinely staggered. “Claude, I’m so sorry if I’ve ever given the impression I thought you were worthless. Certainly I don’t feel that way.” Or did I? No, I didn’t. I thought he was selfish and charmless and maybe guilty of murder, but that was different.

“You don’t want to have sex with me. If you had more fae blood, you certainly would want it.”

“But I don’t. You’re gay. I’m in love with someone else. I don’t believe in having sex with relatives. We’ve had this conversation before. I real y, real y don’t want to have it again.”

The feeling of wrongness and badness kept growing; especial y after my experience with the rogue Weres, I knew better than to ignore it. I also knew Claude was stronger than I was, and I assumed he had skil s I’d never seen.

“Okay,” he said. “You’re trying to let me know that my kith and kin are hunting at night? Is that the point of giving me this newspaper?”

“Yes, Claude. That’s the point. Dermot’s about been nuts, trying to keep them in line. Did Nial get the letter I sent?”

“I don’t know,” Claude said.

I was bewildered. “I thought you went back with Nial to investigate who’d cast the crazy spel on Dermot,” I said. “He’s been spending lots of nights at the club and trying real hard to keep things running.” I was frightened for myself, of course, but I was frightened for Dermot, too. I hoped Dermot was awake by now; Claude wouldn’t take my word for it that Dermot wasn’t there. He’d go up to check.

“So what have you been doing in Faery? Did you ever find out who cast the spel ?”

“Nial and I have had some disagreements,” Claude said, his beautiful dark eyes flashing up to meet mine. “I’m sorry to say that Nial believes it was me who cursed Dermot.”

I was left with no response, since I was by now pretty sure myself that Claude was the culprit. “I think that’s awful,” I said, with absolute sincerity.

He could take it as he chose. “I’m gonna go open the shades in the living room. Have some more coffee. I think I’ve got some Toaster Strudels in the freezer if you’re hungry.” I walked down the hal to the living room, trying not to hurry, trying to make my footsteps regular and nonchalant. I even went directly to one of the front windows and raised the blind. “It’s gonna be a pretty day,” I cal ed, turned, and in one gesture swept up the cluviel dor and put it in my nightshirt pocket. Dermot was halfway down the stairs.

He said, “Did I hear Claude’s voice?” and made as if to hurry past me. Apparently, he hadn’t even looked at what I’d picked up, which was a relief

—but not at the top of my list of problems just at the moment.

“Yes, he’s home,” I said, in what I hoped was a natural voice, but I gripped Dermot’s arm as he went by me. I looked at him with as much warning as I could pack into my eyes.

Dermot’s blue eyes, so like Jason’s, widened in shock. There was no gesture I could make that would clearly translate as “I think he wants to do something awful to us! He kil ed Kym Rowe for some reason I can’t fathom, and I think he cursed you!” but at least Dermot understood that caution was cal ed for.

“I told him you weren’t here,” I whispered. He nodded.

“Claude,” he cal ed. “Where have you been? Sookie didn’t hear me come in last night, she says. The other fae are champing at the bit to hear your news.” He started toward the kitchen.

But he met Claude coming into the living room. I didn’t think Claude had witnessed our silent col oquy, but at this point I wouldn’t put money on anything good. Yesterday had been my good day, apparently, even though it had ended as badly as I thought it could have. I’d been wrong! Claude could have returned last night. Yep, that would have been worse.

“Dermot,” said Claude. His voice was so cold it stopped Dermot dead. I went on and opened the other blind.

“What’s wrong? Why have you returned without Father?” Dermot said.

“Grandfather has issues he must deal with,” Claude snarled. “In Faery.”

“What did you do?” Dermot asked. He was brave. I was trying to unobtrusively creep into my room to retrieve my cel phone. I didn’t know whom I would cal ; I didn’t know who could deal with a fairy. “What did you do, Claude?”

“I thought that when I went back with him, I would find support for our program,” Claude said.

Uh-oh. I didn’t like the sound of that. I took two more steps to my left. Hooligans! I’d cal the fae at Hooligans! Wait. Unless they were backing Claude in whatever the hel his program was. Shit. What should I do? Dermot wasn’t armed. He was wearing sleep pants and no shirt.

My shotgun was in the closet by the front door. Maybe the closet should be my goal, instead of the cel phone. Did I have Hooligans on speed dial? How long would it take the police to get out here if I hit 911? Would Claude kil them?

“And you didn’t?” Dermot said. “I’m not sure what program you mean, Claude?”

“You naïve simpleton,” Claude said scathingly. “How hard have you worked at ignoring what was going on al around you, so you could stay with us?”

Claude was just being mean now. If I’d had any sleep, I wouldn’t have snapped then, but I hadn’t, and I did. “Claude Crane, you are just being an A-number-one asshole,” I exploded. “And you shut up right now!”

I’d succeeded in startling Claude, and he turned his gaze on me for just a second, but Dermot took advantage of that second to hit Claude as hard as he could, which proved to be plenty hard. Claude lurched to his right, and Dermot kept punching. Of course, the element of surprise was gone after the first blow. Claude had another skil besides stripping. He could fight dirty.

The two launched into it, two beautiful men doing something so ugly I could hardly bear to watch.

The heaviest thing around was a lamp that had belonged to my great-grandmother. With a flash of reluctance I picked it up. I proposed to bash Claude’s head in, if I got the opportunity.

But then my back door flew open and Bel enos bounded through my kitchen and down the hal . He had a true sword in his hand, instead of his deer-hunting spear. Gift was with him, long knives in both her hands. Three more of the Monroe fae were with them: two of the strippers, the fairy

“policeman” and the part demon who’d worn leather when he’d come onstage. The curvy ticket taker fol owed. She hadn’t bothered with looking human today.

“Help Dermot!” I yel ed, hoping that was what they’d come to do. To my overwhelming relief, they whooped with excitement and threw themselves into the brawl. There was a lot of unnecessary punching and biting, but when they were sure Claude was subdued, they al began laughing. Even Dermot.

At least I was able to put the lamp back on the table.

“Would someone tel me what’s going on?” I asked. I felt (as usual with the supes) two steps behind the crowd, and no telepath enjoys feeling that way. I was going to have to hang around with humans for a long time to make up for this sad ignorance.

“My dearest sister,” Bel enos said. He smiled that disconcerting smile at me. He looked especial y toothy today, and since there was blood between some of those teeth, the effect was not reassuring.

“Hi, y’al ,” was the best I could do, but they al grinned back, and Gift gave Dermot an enthusiastic kiss. Her extra eyelid flickered down and up again, almost too fast for me to note.

In the meantime, Claude was lying on the floor in a panting, bloody bundle. There was stil plenty of fight in him, from the glares he was throwing around, but he was so clearly outnumbered that it seemed he’d given up … at least temporarily. The ticket taker was sitting on his legs, and the two strippers were each pinning one arm.

Gift came to sit by me; I’d col apsed on the couch. She put her arm around me. “Claude was trying to incite us to rebel against Nial ,” she said kindly. “Sister, I’m surprised he didn’t try to test your loyalty, too.”

“Wel , he wouldn’t have gotten very far!” I said. “I would have thrown him out in a New York minute!”

“Then see, that was intel igent of you, Claude,” said Bel enos, bending over to speak to Claude face-to-face. “One of the few intel igent things you did.” Claude glared at him.

Dermot shook his handsome head. “Al this time I thought I must try to emulate Claude, because he had been so successful out here in the human world. But I realized that when he thought people were pleased with him, he didn’t perceive that it was only because he is beautiful. Much more often, when he talked to people, they came to regard him with dislike. I couldn’t believe it, but he’d done wel in spite of himself, not because of his own talents.”

“He does like children,” I said weakly. “And he’s nice to pregnant women.”

“Yes, that’s true,” the policeman stripper said. “By the way, you can just cal me Dirk, my stripping name. Siobhan is sitting on Claude’s legs. And this is Harley. I’m sure you remember Harley.”

“Oh, yeah, who could forget Harley?” I said. Even under the circumstances, I had a gratifying flashback of how Harley’s straight black hair and coppery red body had looked under the lights at Hooligans. Harley tried to bow from a crouching position, which isn’t easy, and Siobhan grinned at me. “So … Claude real y was locked out of Faery, along with you-al ? That wasn’t a lie?”

“No, not a lie,” said Dermot sadly. “My father hated me because he thought I’d always worked against him. But I was cursed. I thought he’d done the cursing, but I see now it must have been Claude al along. Claude, you betrayed me and then kept me trotting behind you like a dog.”

Claude began to speak in another language, and then the fae moved with an unbelievable speed. Gift yanked off her bra top, and Harley stuffed it in Claude’s mouth. It would have been petty of me to take any notice of Gift’s bare chest, so I rose above it.

“That was a secret fairy language?” I hated to ask, but I just wanted to know. My days of ignorance were over.

Dirk nodded. “We speak to each other that way; it’s what we have in common: ful fairy, demon, angel, al the half-breeds.”

“Dermot, did you and Claude real y come here because of my fairy blood?” I asked Dermot. Claude’s mouth was otherwise occupied.

“Yes,” Dermot said uncertainly. “Though Claude said there was something here that attracted him, and he spent hours when you were gone searching your house. When he couldn’t find what he wanted here, he thought perhaps it was in the furniture you sold. He went to that shop and broke in to examine al the furniture again.”

I felt a little bubble of rage float to the top of my brain. “Though I was nice enough to let him live with me. He searched my house. Went through my stuff. While I was gone.”

Dermot nodded. From the guilty glance he gave me, I was pretty damn sure Claude had enlisted my great-uncle in his search.

“What was he looking for?” Harley asked curiously.

“He sensed a fairy object in Sookie’s house, a fairy influence.”

They al looked at me, simultaneously, with sharp attention.

“Gran—you-al know my fairy blood comes from my grandmother and Fintan, right?” They al nodded and blinked. I was sure glad I hadn’t been trying to keep that a secret. “Gran was friends with Mr. Cataliades, through Fintan.” They nodded again, more slowly. “He left something here, but when he stopped by a few days ago, he picked it up.”

They appeared to accept that pretty wel . At least no one leaped up to say, “You liar, you have it in your pocket!”

Claude thrashed on the floor. Clearly, he wanted to put in his two cents’ worth, and I was glad the bra was in his mouth.

“If I’m getting to ask questions …” I said, waiting for Bel enos to interrupt, to tel me my time was up. But that didn’t happen.

“Claude, I know you tried to sabotage me and Eric. But I don’t know why.”

Dirk raised interrogative eyebrows. Did I want him to remove the gag?

“Maybe you can just let me know if I get something right,” I suggested, hoping that the gag stayed in. “Did you go to Jannalynn for help because you wanted to enlist a shifter of some kind?”

Glaring at me, Claude nodded.

“Who’s that?” Dermot whispered, as if the air would answer him.

“Jannalynn Hopper is the second of the Long Tooth pack in Shreveport,” I said. “She’s been dating my boss, Sam Merlotte. But she hates me, which is a long story for some other time, though it’s pretty boring. Anyway, I knew she’d love to do me a bad turn if she could. And the young woman who got murdered in Eric’s front yard turned out to be a half-Were with a death wish and severe financial problems, ripe for a desperate plan, I figure. Claude, you gave her some of your blood to make her al uring to Eric, I think?”

The fae al looked absolutely aghast. I couldn’t have said anything more abhorrent to them. “You gave your sacred blood to a mongrel?” hissed Gift, and kicked Claude heartily.

Claude closed his eyes and nodded.

Maybe he wanted them to kil him on the spot. Kym Rowe hadn’t been the only person to develop a wish to die.

“So I get how you did it … but why? Why did you want Eric to lose control? What benefit to you?”

“Oh, I know that one!” Dermot said brightly.

I sighed. “Maybe you would explain.”

“Claude told me several times that if we could get Nial to return to your side, we could attack him here in the human world, where he wouldn’t be surrounded by his supporters,” Dermot said. “But I ignored his scheming. I was sure Nial wouldn’t return and couldn’t return, because he was firm in his resolution to stay in Faery. But Claude argued that Nial loves you so much that if something happened to you, he’d come to your side. So he tried to ruin Eric, thinking that at best you and Eric would fight and Eric would hurt you. Or you’d be arrested for murdering him, and you’d need your great-grandfather. At the very least, you would throw Eric aside and your misery would bring Nial running.”

“I was pretty miserable,” I said slowly. “And I was even more miserable last night.”

“And here I am,” said a voice I recognized. “I’ve come in response to your letter, which opened my eyes to many things.”

He was glowing. My great-grandfather hadn’t troubled with his human appearance, either. The white-blond hair floated in the air around him. His face was radiant, his eyes like fairy lights on a white tree.

The little cluster of fae in my living room fel to their knees.

He put his arms around me, and I felt his incredible beauty, his terrifying magic, and his crazy devotion.

There was nothing human about him.

He put his mouth right by my ear. “I know you have it,” he said.

Suddenly we were standing in my bedroom instead of in the living room. “You gonna take it?” I asked, in the smal est possible voice. Those were fae in the living room. They might hear.

“Don’t even show it to me,” he said. “It was from my son to his loved one. He intended it for a human. It should stay in human hands.”

“But you real y, real y want it.”

“I do, and I have very poor impulse control.”

“Okay. No looks.” Danger. I was trying to relax, but it’s not easy loving and being loved by a powerful prince who has no human frame of reference; furthermore, one whose great age has kind of unhinged him. Just a little bit. From time to time. “What wil happen to the fae in my living room?”

“I wil take them with me,” Nial said. “I have taken care of a lot of things while Claude was with me. I never let him know what I already understood about him. I know what happened to Dermot. I have forgiven Dermot.”

Okay, that was good.

“Wil you close Faery? For good?”

“Soon,” he whispered, his lips again uncomfortably close to my ear. “You have not asked yet who told your lover that you have the … object.”

“That would be a good thing for me to learn.”

“You need to know.” His arms grew uncomfortably tight around me. I made myself relax against him.

“It was me,” Nial said, almost inaudibly.

I jerked back as if he’d pinched my butt. “What?”

The bril iant eyes bored into mine. “You had to know,” he said. “You had to know what would happen if he believed you had power.”

“Please tel me you didn’t engineer the whole Appius thing?” That would be more than I could bear.

“No. Eric is unfortunate in that people feel the need to take him down a peg, including his own maker. The Roman wanted to keep control over so vital a being even after his own death, which became far more likely once he turned the child. So unstable. Appius Livius Ocel a made mistakes in his whole long existence. Perhaps changing Eric was his finest hour. He created the perfect vampire. Eric’s only flaw is you.”

“But …” I couldn’t think of what I’d been about to say.

“Of course, that’s not how I perceive it, dearest. You are the one right impulse Eric has had in five hundred years or more. Wel , Pam is al right.

Even Eric’s other living child does not rival her maker.”

“Thanks,” I said numbly, the words not sinking in at al . “So you knew Appius?”

“We met. He was a stinking Roman asshole.”

“True.”

“I was glad when he died. Out in your front yard, wasn’t it?”

“Ah. Yes.”

“The ground around your house has become soaked with blood. It wil add to its magic and fertility.”

“What happens now?” I said, because I simply couldn’t think of what else to say.

He lifted me and carried me out of the bedroom like I was a baby. It didn’t feel like the times when Eric had carried me, which had had a definitely carnal edge. This was incredibly tender and (like a lot of things about my great-grandfather) incredibly creepy.

He put me on the couch as careful y as if I were an egg. “This is what happens next,” he told me. He turned to the other fae, stil on their knees.

Claude had stopped thrashing and was looking up at Nial with resignation. For the moment, Nial ignored his grandson.

“Do you al want to go home?” he asked the others.

“Yes, Prince,” said Dirk. “Please, with our kindred waiting at Claude’s club? If we may? If you wil .”

Dermot said, “With your blessing, I’l stay here, Father.”

For a moment they al looked at Dermot incredulously, as if he’d just announced he was going to birth a kangaroo.

Nial folded Dermot to him. I could see Dermot’s face, and it was ecstatic, frightened, everything I had felt in Nial ’s embrace. Nial said, “You won’t be a fairy anymore. The American fae are al leaving. Choose.”

The conflict on Dermot’s face was painful to see. “Sookie,” he said, “who can finish your upstairs work?”

“I’l hire Terry Bel efleur,” I said. “He won’t be as good as you, Dermot.”

“No television,” Dermot said. “I’l miss HGTV.” Then he smiled. “But I can’t live without my essence, and I am your son, Nial .”

Nial beamed down at Dermot, which was what Dermot had wanted his whole life.

I got up because I couldn’t stand to have him leave without a hug. I even started crying, which I hadn’t expected. They al kissed me, even Bel enos, though I felt his teeth scrape lightly on my cheek, and I felt his chest move in a silent chuckle.

Nial made some mysterious signs over my head and closed his eyes, just like a priest giving a blessing. I felt something change in the house, the land.

And then they were gone. Even Claude.

I was stupefied. I was wil ing to bet that over at Hooligans, the bar stood empty, the doors locked.

The fae were gone from America. Their departure point? Bon Temps, Louisiana. The woods behind my house.

Chapter 16

As you can imagine, it wasn’t easy to go on and have a normal day after that.

I hadn’t slept al night, and the traumas had just kept on coming.

But after I showered and straightened up the living room, which had suffered a bit during the fight, I found myself sitting at the kitchen table trying to absorb everything: last night, this morning.

It was taking a lot of energy to do that. About halfway through setting my mental house in order, I had to think about something else. Luckily, there was something right in front of me that would serve.

Among the presents I’d tossed to the table last night was Pam’s little box, Bil ’s box, and Sam’s envelope, which I’d never examined. Pam had given me perfume, and I liked the smel of it very much. Bil had given me a necklace with a cameo pendant. The likeness on it was my gran’s. “Oh, Bil ,” I said, “you did great!” Nothing could top such a gift, I thought, as I reached for Sam’s envelope. I figured he’d picked a fancy birthday card—

with, maybe, a gift certificate enclosed.

Sam had official y made me a partner in the bar. I legal y owned a third of Merlotte’s.

I put my head on the table and swore. In a happy way.

This past twenty-four hours had been my personal trail of tears. No more!

I picked myself up out of that chair, slapped on about a ton of makeup and a sundress, and put a smile on my face. It was time to rejoin the land of the living, the everyday world. I didn’t want to learn one more secret or suffer one more betrayal.

I was due to meet Kennedy for breakfast at LaLaurie’s, which (she’d told me) served a great Sunday brunch. I didn’t think I’d ever eaten a meal and cal ed it “brunch.” Today I did, and it was real y excel ent. White tablecloths and cloth napkins, too! Kennedy was wearing a pretty sundress, too, and her hair was in ful pageant mode. The hickey on her neck was not quite covered by her makeup.

Kennedy was in an excel ent mood, and she confided in me way more than I wanted to know about the wonderfulness that now lay between Danny and her. Danny was even now running errands for Bil Compton since he didn’t have to work at the lumberyard, which was closed on Sunday.

It was going to work out. He’d be making a living wage. When their finances stabilized, maybe they would move in together. “Maybe,” she emphasized, but I wasn’t fooled. Their cohabitation was a done deal.

I thought of my happy fantasies of the night before; had it real y just been the night before? I tried to remember al the happy endings I’d imagined for everyone, and I tried to recol ect if I’d included Danny and Kennedy in the roundup.

After I left LaLaurie’s, ful and happy, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to thank Sam for his amazing gift. His truck was parked in front of his trailer.

His careful y watered hedge and yard were flourishing despite the heat. Not many men would try to keep a yard around their double-wide if it was parked behind a bar. I’d always tried to let Sam’s house be his house. I could count on my fingers the times I’d knocked on his door.

Today was one of them.

When he answered the door, my smile faded away. I could tel something was mighty wrong.

Then I realized that he knew what Jannalynn had done.

He looked at me bleakly. “I don’t know what to say to you,” he said. “This is the second time I’ve been with a woman who tried to do you harm.”

It actual y took me a second to remember who the other one had been. “Cal isto? Oh, Sam, that was a while ago, and she was hardly a woman.

She didn’t mean any of it personal. Jannalynn, wel , she definitely did. But she’s an ambitious young woman; she’s trying …” My voice trailed off.

She’s trying to take over the pack from her packmaster, to whom she swore loyalty. She’s trying to make sure my boyfriend gets arrested for murder. She conspired with a fairy to pay Kym Rowe to go to her death. She kidnapped Warren. She left him to die. She was trying to kill me, one way or another.

“Okay,” I said, conceding defeat. “You fucked up with Jannalynn.”

He blinked at me. His reddish-blond hair was standing up like porcupine quil s al over his head. He tilted his head to one side as if he wasn’t sure I was quite in focus.

His mouth quirked up in an unwil ing grin. I grinned back. Then we both laughed. Not a lot, but enough to clear the air.

“Where is she?” I asked. “Do you know what happened night before last?”

“Tel me,” he said, standing aside so I could come in.

Sam had heard a sketchy version from a pack member who’d become a friend of his, a young man who worked for Jannalynn at Hair of the Dog.

“You didn’t tel me what you suspected about her,” Sam said. He left that sitting there between us.

“Sam, let me tel you about what’s happened the last couple of days, and you’l understand, I promise,” I said, and with a certain amount of editing, I told him.

“Good God, Sookie,” he said. “You real y know how to have a birthday, huh?”

“The best part of my birthday was my present from you,” I said, and I took his hand.

Sam turned red. “Aw, Sook. You earned it. You deserve it. And look, I didn’t make you equal partner, did I?”

“Trying to make your gift look like less won’t work for me,” I said. I kissed him on the cheek and got up, to make the moment lighten so Sam would be more comfortable. “I got to get home,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine what for.

“See you tomorrow.”

It would be a lot sooner than that.

I felt curiously blank on the drive home to my empty house.

For what seemed like forever, my spare time had been taken up by Eric. We were making plans to meet, or we were together, or we were talking on the telephone. Now that it seemed our relationship was unraveling, I had no idea what to expect from our next meeting. If we had a next meeting.

But I couldn’t imagine how I would fil the hole in my life left by his absence. Now that I knew who’d tried to get Eric into trouble, I knew that his involvement with me had led to this moment. He’d never have been targeted by Claude, by Jannalynn, if it hadn’t been for me, and that was such a reversal on the usual situation—I’d been the object of so many schemes because Eric was my lover—that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it. I wondered how much Eric knew of what had transpired, but I couldn’t bring myself to cal him to tel about it al .

He had known I had the cluviel dor, and he had expected me to use it to get him out of the arrangement Appius had made with Freyda.

And maybe I would have done that. Maybe I stil would. It seemed the obvious choice, the most apparent thing to do with the magic. But it also seemed to me that Eric was expecting me to magical y get him out of a situation that he should defeat by his own efforts. He should love me enough to simply refuse Freyda. It was like he wanted the decision out of his hands.

That was an idea I didn’t want to have. But you can’t erase a thought; once you’ve had it, it’s there to stay.

I would love to feel an absolute conviction that yanking that cluviel dor out of my pocket and wishing with al my heart that Eric would stay with me was the right thing to do.

I poked at that thought. I prodded that thought. But it just didn’t feel right to me.

I took a much-needed nap. When I got up, though I wasn’t real y al that hungry, I microwaved a dish of lasagna and picked at it as I thought. No one at the bar had heard news of any more mysterious deer deaths, and now I was sure there never would be. I wondered about Hooligans, presumably now sitting empty, but it wasn’t anything to do with me anymore. Oh, gosh, the guys were sure to have left some stuff upstairs. Maybe this evening I’d pack it up. Not that there was any address to forward it to.

Okay, maybe I’d take the clothes to Goodwil .

I watched television for a while—an old black-and-white movie about a man and a woman who loved one another but had to overcome al sorts of things to be together, a cooking show, a couple of episodes of Jeopardy. (I couldn’t get any answers right.) My only phone cal was from a fund-raising organization. I turned them down.

They were disappointed in me, I could tel .

When the phone rang again, I picked it up without bothering to turn down the sound on the TV.

“Sookie?” said a familiar voice.

I pressed the Off button on the remote. “Alcide, how is Warren?”

“He’s much better. I think he’s gonna be fine. Listen, I need you and Sam to come to the old farm tonight.”

“Your dad’s place?”

“Yeah. Your presence was requested.”

“By whom?”

“By Jannalynn.”

“You found her?”

“Yeah.”

“But Sam, too? She wants Sam?”

“Yeah. She deceived him, too. He has a right to be there.”

“Did you cal him?”

“He’s on his way to pick you up.”

“Do I have to?” I said.

“You whining, Sookie?”

“Yeah, I guess I am, Alcide. I’m mighty tired, and more bad stuff has happened than you know.”

“I can’t take any more than I have on my plate. Just come. If it makes you want to attend this little soiree more, your honey’s gonna be there.”

“Eric?”

“Yeah. The King of Cold himself.”

Fear and longing rippled along my skin. “Okay,” I said. “I’l come.”

By the time I heard Sam’s truck in the driveway, the lack of sleep I’d experienced the night before was hitting me in a major way. I’d spent the minutes I’d waited by refreshing my memory about the route to Alcide’s family place, and I’d written the directions out. When Sam knocked on the door, I stuck the paper in my purse. We were going to be walking around a farm at night; I’d want to leave my purse in the car. I made certain the cluviel dor was stil in my pocket and I felt the now-familiar curved shape.

Sam’s face was grim and hard, and it felt wrong to see him that way.

We didn’t talk on the way to the farm.

I had to turn on Sam’s overhead light from time to time to read my directions, but I was able to steer us right. I think the preoccupation with actual y getting there helped keep us from worrying too much about what we’d see when we arrived.

We found a mess of cars parked higgledy-piggledy in the front yard of the old farmhouse. To cal it “remote” was to be kind. Though there was more cleared land around it than there had ever been at my place, it was even more private. No one lived here ful time any longer. Alcide’s dad’s dad had owned the farm, and Jackson Herveaux had kept it after he’d gone into construction so he’d have a place to run at the ful moon. The pack had used it often. The front of the house was dark, but I could hear voices around the back. Sam and I trudged through the high weeds. We didn’t say a word to each other.

We might as wel have walked into another country.

The meadow behind the house was mowed and smooth. There were lights up. I could see from posts that normal y there was a vol ey-bal net set up across a sand court. A few yards away, there was a pool that looked new. I even spotted a basebal diamond farther back. A Weber gril was under the covered patio. Clearly, this was where the pack came to relax and have fel owship.

I saw the tal and quiet Kandace first. She smiled at me and pointed to Alcide, who stood out among his people as much as Nial did among his.

Tonight Alcide looked like a king. A king in jeans and a T-shirt, a barefoot king. And he looked dangerous. The power gathered around him. The air was humming with the magic of the pack.

Good. We needed more tension.

Eric shone like the moon; he was pale and commanding, and there was a large empty space around him. He was alone. He held out his hand to me, and I took it, to a flare of dismay from the twoeys.

“You know, about Jannalynn and Claude?” I looked up at him.

“Yes, I know. Nial sent me a message.”

“He’s gone. They’ve al gone.”

“He told me I would not hear from him again.”

I nodded and gulped. No more crying. “So what’s going to happen tonight?”

“I don’t know what we’re here to see,” he said. “An execution? A duel? With the wolves, I can’t predict.”

Sam was standing by himself, just under the awning over the patio. Alcide went up to him and spoke, and Sam shrugged, then nodded. He stepped out to stand by Alcide.

I looked around at the faces of the pack members. They were al restless because of the night and because of the promise of violence in the air.

There was going to be bleeding tonight.

Alcide raised an arm, and four figures were led from the back of the house. Their hands were bound. Van, Plump, the bandaged Airman (Laidlaw, Mustapha had cal ed him), and Jannalynn. I didn’t know where they’d caught up with her, but her face was bruised. She’d put up a fight, which was no surprise at al .

Then I saw Mustapha. He’d blended with the darkness. He was magnificently nude. Warren was in the shadows behind him, huddled in a folding lawn chair. He was too far away for me to get a good look at him.

Mustapha had a sword. Too many of those in my life these days, I thought, feeling Eric’s cold hand tightening on mine.

“We are here to judge tonight,” Alcide said. “We’ve had to judge members al too often lately. The pack has been ful of dissension and disloyalty.

Tonight I require al of you to renew your oaths, and tonight I say that the penalty for breaking them is death.”

The werewolves drew in breath sharply, col ectively, like a single quiet scream. I looked around. Werewolfism manifests itself along with puberty, so none of the faces were younger than early teens, but that was young enough to make their presence shocking.

“After the judgments are rendered tonight, anyone who likes can chal enge me on this spot,” Alcide said. His face was savage. “No candidate has announced against me, but if anyone would like to win here and now, without a ceremony, you’re welcome to try single combat. Prepare yourself to fight to the death.”

Everyone was frozen in place now. This was not at al like the packmaster chal enge I’d seen before, the one in which Alcide’s father had died.

That had been a formal, ceremonial contest. Alcide himself had succeeded to the position when his father’s chal enger, Patrick Furnan, had died fighting side by side with Alcide against a common enemy. Packmaster by acclamation, I guess you’d term it. Tonight Alcide was throwing down the gauntlet to every wolf present. It was a big gamble.

“Now for judgment,” Alcide said, when he had looked into the face of every pack member.

The prisoners were pushed forward to land on their knees in the sand of the vol eybal court. Roy, the Were who was dating Palomino, seemed to be in charge of the miscreants.

“The three rogues I had turned down for admission into the pack acted against us,” Alcide said in a voice that carried across the yard. “They abducted Warren, the friend of Mustapha, who in turn is a friend—though not a member—of this pack. If he hadn’t been found in time, Warren would have died.”

Everyone moved in unison, turning to stare at the people on their knees.

“The three rogues were incited by Jannalynn Hopper, not only a pack member, but also my enforcer. Jannalynn couldn’t subdue her pride and ambition. She couldn’t wait until she was strong enough to chal enge me openly. Instead she started a campaign of undermining me. She looked for power in the wrong places. She even accepted money from a fairy in return for finding a half-bitch who would try to get Eric Northman arrested for murder. When Eric was too smart to act the way she thought he would, Jannalynn stole into his yard and murdered Kym Rowe herself, so Kym wouldn’t tel the police who’d hired her. Some of you remember running with Oscar, Kym’s father. He’s joined us tonight.”

Kym’s father, Oscar, was skulking behind Alcide. He looked oddly out of place, and I wondered how long it had been since he’d come to a pack meeting. What regrets did Oscar have now about his daughter’s life and death? If he was any kind of father, any kind of human being, he had to be thinking about how she’d lost her job, how she’d needed money so badly that she’d agreed to be bait for a vampire. He had to be wondering if he could’ve helped her out.

But maybe I was just projecting. I had to keep my mind in the here and now.

“Jannalynn was wil ing to sacrifice Were blood to serve her own interests and those of the fae?” Roy said. I was pretty sure Alcide had prepped him to ask that.

“She was. She admits it. She has written a confession and mailed it to the Shreveport police station. Now we’re going to ensure it’s taken seriously.”

Alcide dialed a number. His cel was on speakerphone. “Detective Ambrosel i,” said a recognizable voice.

Alcide held the phone in front of Jannalynn. Her eyes closed for a moment as she was readying herself to step off a cliff. The Were said,

“Detective, this is Jannalynn Hopper.”

“Uh-huh? Wait, you’re the bartender at Hair of the Dog, right?”

“Yeah. I have a confession to make.”

“Then come on in, and we’l sit down,” Ambrosel i said cautiously.

“I can’t do that. I’m about to vanish. And I’ve mailed you a letter. But I wanted to tel you, so you can hear it’s my voice. Are you recording this?”

“Yeah, I am now,” Ambrosel i said. I could hear a lot of movement on her end.

“I kil ed Kym Rowe. I came up on her when she was leaving Eric Northman’s house, and I snapped her neck. I’m a werewolf. We’re pretty strong.”

“Why’d you do that?” Ambrosel i asked. I could hear someone muttering to her, and I guessed she was getting advice from the other detectives around her.

For a moment, Jannalynn’s face looked blank. She hadn’t thought of a motive, at least not a simple one. Then she said, “Kym stole my wal et from my purse, and when I tracked her down and made her give it back, she disrespected me. I … have a bad temper, and she said some stuff that made me sick. I lost it. I have to go now. But I don’t want anyone else blamed for something I did.”

And Alcide hung up. “We’l hope that wil clear Eric. That’s our responsibility,” he said, and nodded at Eric, who nodded back.

Jannalynn made her face hard and looked around, but I noticed she didn’t actual y meet anyone’s eyes. Even mine.

“How’d she get these sleazebal s to help her?” Roy asked, jerking his head at the kneeling prisoners. He’d definitely been prepped.

“She promised them membership in the pack when she became packleader,” Alcide told the Weres. “Van is a convicted rapist. Coco burned her own family, father and two brothers, in their home. Laidlaw, though not convicted in a human court, was thrown out of his own pack in West Virginia for attacking a human child during his moon time. This is why I had turned them down for the Long Tooth pack. But Jannalynn would admit these people to run with us. And they did her bidding.”

There was a long silence. Neither Van, nor Plump (Coco), nor Laidlaw denied the charges against them. They didn’t try to justify themselves, which was pretty damn impressive.

“What do you think we should do with the rogues?” Roy asked when the silence had lasted long enough.

“What crimes did they commit here?” asked a young woman just past her teens.

“They abducted Warren and imprisoned him at Jannalynn’s family home. They didn’t feed him and left him in an attic room without air-conditioning or any means of relief from the heat. He almost died as a result. They abducted Sookie and were taking her to their own place, and we can only imagine what they would have done with her there. Those actions were at the behest of Jannalynn.”

“And she held out the promise of admission to the pack upon your death.” The young woman sounded like she was thinking hard. “Those are bad things to do, but in fact Warren lived, and Sookie was rescued by the pack. Jannalynn won’t be your successor, and they won’t join the pack.”

“This is al true,” Alcide said.

“So they acted about like you’d expect rogues to act,” the young woman persisted.

“Yes. Not lone wolves,” Alcide explained for the benefit of the youngest Weres present. “But rogues, who’ve been turned down for pack membership, maybe by more than one pack.”

“And what about Kandace?” the young woman said, pointing to the short-haired rogue.

“Kandace told us what was happening because she didn’t want to be a part of it,” Alcide said. “So we’re going to put her membership to the vote in a month. After people have time to get to know her.”

There was a general round of nodding, kind of guarded. Kandace might have told on the other rogues because it was the right thing to do, or she might be a natural snitch. Getting to talk to her on an individual basis was the best course.

“I think we should let these rogues go,” cal ed an older man. “Blackbal them from ever being a pack member anywhere. Put out the word.”

Van closed his eyes. I couldn’t tel if he was feeling relief or misery. Coco was crying; Laidlaw spat on the ground. Not smooth when people were deciding your life or death.

In the end, they were released. It was unceremonious. Roy untied them and said, “Git.”

Eric looked away to hide his appal ed reaction to such a lack of ritual. Laidlaw took off toward the east, running awkwardly because of his bandaged shoulder. Coco and Van went north. In a moment they were out of sight, and that was the end of the rogues, as far as the Long Tooth pack went.

Jannalynn remained. Responding to a gesture from Alcide, Roy untied her hands and she stood to her unimpressive height, rubbing her wrists and stretching.

Mustapha stood to face her on the sanded vol eybal area.

“I wil kil you,” he said in his deep voice. He was not even wearing the dark glasses.

“Try, jungle bunny,” Jannalynn said, and held out her hand. She got a sword, too, handed to her by Roy. I was a little surprised; execution seemed more in order than the right to fight. But nobody had asked me.

She was trying to make Mustapha angrier with her insult, but the epithet didn’t have any effect on him whatsoever. Some of the pack looked disgusted. The rest looked … like people waiting for a sporting event to begin. I looked up at Eric, who seemed interested, nothing more. Suddenly, I felt like punching him. This woman had talked a desperate stripper into drinking fairy blood and seducing a vampire, both dangerous processes with unknown outcomes. Kym might have been reckless enough to risk her own death, but that didn’t make Jannalynn’s scheming any less pernicious, or the pain I’d felt as a result any more bearable.

I thought she deserved to die for what she’d done to Sam alone. His face was rigid with the effort of holding in his feelings. My heart hurt for him.

The two combatants circled each other for a moment, and suddenly Jannalynn executed one of her flying leaps, hoping to come down on top of Mustapha. The lone wolf pivoted, and his sword blocked hers. She went spinning to the ground, but she was up in a second and back on the attack.

Mustapha had told me he wasn’t sure he could win a fight with Jannalynn, and for a few seconds she had the advantage. Not only did she hack away at him—this wasn’t fencing, not like Robin Hood—but she shrieked, she screamed, she did everything she could to confuse and distract her opponent.

I noticed that she was working gradual y closer to the edge of the sand. Closer to Alcide and Sam.

She might be a Were, but some intents were so strong I couldn’t miss them.

“She’s after you,” I yel ed in warning, and just as the words left my mouth Jannalynn leaped, spun, and came down on Alcide, who leaped aside at the last fraction of a second.

She got Sam.

He crumpled to the ground as his blood spurted. Jannalynn paused in shock at having cut her lover, and in that moment Mustapha grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the sand, and beheaded her. I’d seen beheadings before, but they’re pretty spectacularly horrible. I didn’t even remember Jannalynn’s until much later, because I was launching myself across the intervening space to crouch by Sam, who was bleeding out into the grass by the patio. I heard someone screaming and knew it was me. Alcide crouched down by me and reached out to touch Sam, but I shoved him away.

Sam’s eyes were wide and desperate. He knew the severity of his wound.

I started to cal for Eric, so he could give Sam his blood, but as I put my hand to Sam’s neck, Sam’s pulse stopped. His eyes closed.

And everything else in the world did, too.

In my universe, everything fel silent. I didn’t hear the chaos around me. I didn’t hear a voice cal ing my name. I shoved Alcide away for a second time. My course was perfectly clear. I reached in my right pocket, pul ed out the cluviel dor, and put it on Sam’s chest. The creamy green glowed.

The band of gold radiated light.

Amelia had always told me that wil and intent are everything in magic, and I had plenty of both.

“Sam. Live.” I hardly recognized my own voice. I didn’t have spel s, but I had the wil . I had to believe that. I pressed the cluviel dor to Sam’s heart, and I put my left hand over the terrible wound in his neck. “Live,” I said again, hearing only my own voice and the silence in Sam’s body.

And the cluviel dor opened at its gold seam, revealing a hol ow interior, and the concentrated magic inside it flew out and poured into Sam. It was clear and shining and otherworldly. It flowed through my fingers and into Sam’s neck, and it vanished into the terrible wound. It fil ed Sam’s body, which began to glow. The cluviel dor, now empty of magic, slipped from my right hand, which rested stil on Sam’s chest. I felt movement with my left hand, so I pul ed it away from the gash and watched.

It was like watching a film run in reverse. The severed vessels and tendons inside Sam’s neck began to knit. I held my breath, afraid even to blink or move. After a long moment, or several long moments, I could feel Sam’s heart begin to beat under my fingers.

“Thanks, Fintan,” I whispered. “Thanks, Gran.”

After a small eternity, Sam’s eyes opened. “I was dead,” he said.

I nodded. I couldn’t talk to save my soul.

“What … how’d you do that?”

“Tel you later.”

“You … you can do that?” He was dazed.

“Not again,” I warned him. “That’s it. You got to stay alive from now on.”

“Okay,” he said weakly. “I promise.”

Eric left while I was with Sam. He left without speaking to me.

When I got Sam to stand, we had to walk past Jannalynn’s body. Sam looked at the corpse of the woman he’d dated for months, and his face was blank. He had a lot to process.

I didn’t give a shit about the rest of the Were evening. I figured no one was going to chal enge Alcide on the spot, and if they did, I wasn’t going to stick around to watch another fight. I also figured if Mustapha wanted to join the pack, no one was going to vote against that, either. Not tonight. I didn’t even worry about the effect of tonight’s spectacle on the smal er teenage Weres. They had their own world to live in, and they had to learn its rules and ways pretty damn quick.

I drove, because I figured a guy who’d just died and come back probably should be left to think about the experience. Sam’s truck wasn’t hard to operate, but between driving an unfamiliar vehicle and remembering the way to get back to the county road to go home, I was pretty preoccupied.

“Where’d Eric go?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. He left in hurry. Without speaking.” I shrugged.

“Kind of abrupt.”

“Yeah,” I said briefly. I figured his was the voice I’d heard yel ing, before I’d focused on Sam. The silence hung around and got awkward.

“Okay,” I said. “You heard about Freyda. I figure he’s going to go with her.”

“Oh?” It was clear Sam didn’t know what reaction to give me.

“Oh,” I said firmly. “So he knew I had this thing. This magic thing that I used on you. And I guess he thought it was kind of a test of my love.”

“He expected you to use it to save him from this marriage,” Sam said slowly.

“Yeah. Evidently.” And I sighed. “And I kind of expected him to tel her to go to Hel . I guess I thought of it as a test of his love.”

“What do you think he’l do?”

“He’s proud,” I said, and I just felt tired. “I can’t worry about it right now. The most I can hope for is that Felipe and his crew leave for home and we get some peace.”

“And Claude and Dermot are gone, to Faery.”

“Yep, their own land.”

“They’l come back?”

“Nope. That was the idea, anyway. I guess JB is out of a job, unless the new management of Hooligans wants him. I don’t know what’l happen to the club now.”

“So everything has changed in the past few days?”

I laughed, just a little. I thought of seeing JB strip, looking at the wet chair in Tara’s shop, the faces of the babies. I’d talked to Mr. Cataliades. I’d seen Nial again. I’d bid good-bye to Dermot. I’d loathed King Felipe. I’d had sex with Eric. Donald Cal away had died. Warren had lived. Jannalynn had died. Sam had died. And lived. I’d worried and worried and worried about the cluviel dor—which, I realized, I didn’t have to worry about, ever again.

I was relieved when Sam agreed to spend the night in the spare bedroom across the hal . He and I were both exhausted for different reasons. He was stil pretty shaky, and I helped him into the house. When he sat on the bed, I knelt before him to take off his shoes.

I brought him a glass of water for the bedside table.

I moved toward the door, walking as quietly as I could.

“Sookie,” Sam said. I turned and smiled at him, though he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were shut and his voice was already slow and thick with sleep. “You have to tel me what the cluviel dor is al about. How you made it work.”

That was going to be a delicate conversation. “Sure, Sam,” I said, very quietly. “Another day.”