The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

Sookie Stackhouse Companion

Charlaine Harris has topped the bestseller charts and has become a nationwide phenomenon, thanks to the unconventional—and otherworldly—life of Sookie Stackhouse. Now, in her own words, Sookie gives readers a look at her family, friends, enemies, adventures, and—of course—the lovers who set her world on fire…

Readers will:

• Tour Bon Temps, the small Louisiana town that Sookie calls home, and visit the houses of her Gran and her sometime vampire lover, Bill.

• Prowl around the werewolf and were-panther communities

• Browse through her best friend Tara’s dress shop

• Belly up to the bar in Merlotte’s, where Sookie works

• Get must-have Bon Temps recipes—including Caroline Bellfleur’s famous chocolate cheesecake

• Test themselves with trivia questions from the series

Paula Woldan, Danna Woldan, Lauren Dodson, Victoria Koski, Debi Murray, Beverly Battillo, Denise Little, and Rachel Klika volunteered their skills and talents in assembling various parts of this book. My gratitude to them for their vision and hard work. I also appreciate the enthusiasm of the many readers who submitted questions for me and Alan Ball, and recipes for the cooking section. I wish we could have included every single one.

Sookie and I go back a long way. We’re practically sisters. Many years ago, when my mystery career was languishing, I thought it might be a good idea to shake up my writing style by trying something new. It might be fun to write a book that contained all the elements I loved: mystery, the supernatural, bloody adventure, and a dash of romance. And since people had told me for years that I had a great sense of humor, I thought it would be interesting to try to include that in the book, too.

Without a contract, without a soul being at all interested, I began to establish the character of my protagonist. My grandmother’s best friend’s name was Sookie, and since it was a fine old Southern nickname, I thought it would do well for my heroine. And “Stackhouse” just flowed right after it. I wanted to write from the point of view of a human, not a vampire or other “supe,” and since I have to live with Sookie, I wanted to make her as interesting as I possibly could. I decided she would date a vampire, as the entrée into a completely different world, and I had to establish a reason for sensible Sookie to do such a crazy thing. After a long thinking session, I came up with telepathy, which I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

Up until then, most vampires in fiction had exotic, sexy names. My vampire, I decided, would be named Bill. Instead of setting my books in the picturesque, touristy part of Louisiana, I’d make do with the distinctly unromantic northern part. Instead of being angsty brooders, my vampires would be trying their hardest to be in the forefront of business; they’d be hard workers, and they’d have their own internal system of checks and balances.

I finished Dead Until Dark and turned it in to my agent, the great Joshua Bilmes. It took Joshua a long time to warm up to the Sookieverse, but he dutifully did his best to sell my favorite book. After two years of rejections, Dead Until Dark seemed likely to live up to its acronym. Then a young editor at Ace, John Morgan (now at DC Comics), decided to take a chance, and his boss, Ginjer Buchanan (my present editor), okayed the deal.

We’ve never looked back.

Readers seemed to want more details of the Sookieverse, and the website (www.charlaineharris.com) has always bubbled and seethed with questions. How do you make Caroline Bellefleur’s chocolate cake? What about that pesky fairy genealogy? What book contains the famous shower scene? (I’m just kidding on that last one; everyone knows the shower scene.) How do the short stories fit into the chronology of the books?

We’ve assembled The Sookie Stackhouse Companion to answer all of these questions and hopefully a few more, to give readers a thorough look at the world of Bon Temps, and to provide extra snippets of interesting information about Sookie’s world and the people who live and die in it. Though this book is about the books, we also give a nod to our favorite television show, True Blood, by including an interview with one of my favorite people, Alan Ball.

Lots of people helped me assemble this companion, and I tried to thank all of them in the acknowledgments. But let me just say here that without the help of my assistant and best buddy, Paula Woldan, I would have torn out my hair and cast myself upon the floor in despair at a few points. So thanks, Paula, and I think I had some of the most fun ever drawing the map with you.

I’m sure the second The Sookie Stackhouse Companion is on the shelves, I’ll think of something I should have included, but it’s time to let this project go. I hope you all find something in the book to entertain, enlighten, and engross you.

See you in Bon Temps.

—Charlaine Harris

There are a lot of people to thank, for a relatively short work! I forgot to mention my CSI niece Danielle, who helped me on a previous piece; so here’s to you, Dani! And Ivan Van Laningham offered me help on that same piece. My college buddy, Dr. Ed Uthman. Victoria Koski, my continuity queen, who struggles against my tide of fuzzy thinking. And the many people who were kind enough to help me attempt to pronounce Dutch: Geja Topper, Dave Bennett, Hans Bekkers, Jochem Steen, Leighton Gage, Sarah Bewley, and Simon Wood. And Duane Swierczynski, who is standing by to help me dispose of a body.

It was May, I had a great tan, and I was going on a road trip, leaving vampire politics behind. I felt better than I had in a long time. Wearing only my underwear, I stood in my sunny bedroom and went down my checklist.

1. Give Eric and Jason address and dates

I’d done that. My boyfriend, Eric Northman, vampire sheriff of Area Five of Louisiana, had all the information he needed. So did my brother, Jason.

2. Ask Bill to watch house

Okay. I’d left a letter pushed under my neighbor Bill Compton’s door. He’d find it when he rose for the night. His “sister” Judith (sired by the same vampire) was still staying at his place. If Bill could tear himself away from her company, he would walk across the cemetery separating our properties to have a look at my house, and he’d get my mail and my newspaper and put them on my front porch.

3. Call Tara

I’d done that; my pregnant friend Tara reported all was well with the twins she was carrying, and she’d call or get her husband to call if there was any news. She wasn’t due for three more months. But twins, right? You never knew.

4. Bank

I’d deposited my last paycheck and gotten more cash than I usually carried.

5. Claude and Dermot

My cousin and my great-uncle had decided to stay at Claude’s house in Monroe while I was gone. Claude had been living with me for about a month, and Dermot had joined him only two weeks ago, so Dermot said he still felt funny being in my house without me there. Claude, of course, had no such qualms, since he’s about as sensitive as a sheet of sandpaper, but Dermot had carried the day.

All my clothes were clean, and I thought I was packed. Though it would be a good idea to review my packing list, which was completely separate from my “things to do” list. Since my friend and boss, Sam Merlotte, had invited me to go with him to his brother’s wedding, I’d been in a nervous tizzy about forgetting something essential and somehow making Sam look bad in front of his family.

I had borrowed a pretty dress, sleeveless and blue, like my eyes, to wear to the wedding, and I had some black pumps with three-inch heels that were in great condition. For everything else, I packed the best and newest of my casual clothes: two pairs of good shorts, an extra pair of jeans. I threw in a yellow and gray skirt outfit, just in case.

I counted my underwear, made sure I had the right bras, and checked the little jewelry pouch to be sure my gran’s pearls were there. I shut the bag, triumphant. I’d done my best to cover every contingency, and I’d fit everything into a hanging bag and a weekender bag.

Just as I reopened the bag to make sure I’d included my blow-dryer, I heard Sam’s truck coming up the driveway that wound through the woods. In thirty seconds I pulled on my khaki shorts and a very thin white tank top with a teal tank layered over it. I had a little gold chain on, and I slid my feet into my new sandals. My toenails were a happy pink (“Run Run Rosy”). I felt great. I hurried to the front door and opened it just as Sam was about to knock.

He was wearing his usual jeans and Merlotte’s Bar and Grill T-shirt, but he was sporting ancient cowboy boots. Yep, we were going to Texas, all right. His red gold hair was shorter these days, and I could tell he’d taken special care shaving.

“Sorry I’m a little late,” he said. “I had to give Kennedy and Terry some extra instructions.” The two substitute bartenders were going to be in charge while Sam was gone, and Sam was pretty nervous about it.

“No problem. I’m ready.” He picked up my overnighter while I got my hanging bag and locked the door behind me. Luckily, Sam’s pickup had an extended cab, and we were able to put our clothes on the backseat.

“You looking forward to this?” I asked him, when we were on the interstate. We were going across the state line from Louisiana into Texas to a small town called Wright, south of the interstate past Dallas, where Sam’s folks had settled after his dad got out of the service.

“This is the first nice thing that’s happened in my family in months, and for a while I didn’t think this wedding would ever come off,” he said. “I really appreciate your going with me.”

“Are they putting pressure on you to get married?” I should have realized before that there might be another reason Sam wanted me to accompany him, something beyond the pleasure of my company. Some women have long careers as bridesmaids; I had a long career of being a pretend girlfriend. I hoped that wasn’t going to be a perpetual pattern.

“That might be overstating it,” Sam said. He grinned at me. “But my mom and my sister sure are ready for me to show them I’m thinking about the subject. Of course, the shifters going public and my mom’s troubles kind of put my own marital status on the back burner.”

The Weres had revealed their existence on television a few months before, following the vampire model. Many of the other two-natured (or “twoeys,” as the pop-culture magazines had immediately started calling them) had shown themselves at the same time. Oddly, the American public seemed to be more upset about the werewolves and werepanthers living among them than they’d been when they found out vampires were real.

“Does your mom try to set you up with nice shifter girls all the time?”

“So far she hasn’t been able to find another pure shifter like me, though my sister, Mindy, told me Mom had gone online trying to track one down.” Sam could turn into anything: lion, dog, raccoon. His kind was pretty rare.

“Gosh. Are you sure you shouldn’t have brought Jannalynn? She may not be exactly who your family wants you to bring home—at least, that’s what you said—but she’s a werewolf, and that’s better than a human like me, right? At least to your mom. If your mom’s looking for a woman for you online, that’s kind of . . . desperate, huh?”

Sam laughed. “Definitely. But Mom means well. She was really happy with my dad, and their first date was a setup. If she can find an unattached female shifter the right age, she’s hoping lightning will strike twice in the Merlotte family.”

“You told me that you’d almost gotten married once.”

“Yeah, when I was in the army. She was a good ol’ girl, regular human. My dad would have liked her. But it just didn’t work out.”

I wanted to ask why, but I knew it was none of my business.

He asked, “You think you and Eric might get married now that it’s legal?”

I started to tell him we were married already, according to my big blond vampire boyfriend, but decided it would be better to skip that discussion entirely.

“He hasn’t asked me,” I said, which was the truth. He hadn’t asked me about the vampire marriage rite, either. I’d handed him a ceremonial knife in front of a witness without asking a single question, which proves how little sense I could have when I was around Eric.

As the miles carried me away from Eric, the bond between us stretched but did not break. Eric was a silent presence. Miles of Texas interstate rolled by, and though I knew Eric was in his bed, dead to the world, I couldn’t help thinking about him. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it would have been if he’d been awake, though.

“A penny for your thoughts,” Sam said.

I jumped because my thoughts weren’t family-rated at that moment.

“I was hoping Bill recovers from the silver poisoning. I found a vampire sibling of his, and I got her to come visit. He’d told me if he got some blood from a sib, it would really help him heal.”

Sam looked a little nonplussed. “How’d you do that?” he asked.

When I told him how I’d tracked Judith down, he shook his head. “How’d you know he wouldn’t get mad at you?”

“I was doing it for him,” I said, not understanding Sam’s point. “Why would he get mad?”

Sam said gently, “Sook, Bill obviously knew where this Judith was, and he didn’t call her on his own. He must have had a reason.”

I knew that. But I’d gone ahead and contacted her anyway. I’d only thought about how worried I was about Bill. I could feel myself tearing up. I didn’t want to admit to Sam that he was right.

I looked out the window so Sam wouldn’t have to watch my eyes brim over.

“Sook?” he said, and from his voice I could tell he had leaned forward to try to see my face. “Sook? Hey, I’m sorry. Listen, I was just blowing hot air. You were watching out for him, and I’m probably just jealous.”

I could read his mind enough to know he wasn’t being entirely truthful—but he did sincerely want me to feel better, and he was truly sorry I was upset. “You’re right,” I said, though my voice wobbled in a pathetic way. “Sam, you’re absolutely right. I’ve made so many mistakes.”

“Don’t we all? I’ve made more than a few, and I don’t seem to stop making them,” Sam said, and there was bitterness in his voice.

“Okay. We’re both human; we got that settled,” I said, making myself smile. “Or, at least, we’re mostly human.”

He laughed, and I felt better. I rummaged around in my purse for a Kleenex and patted my eyes carefully to keep my makeup intact. I got a Coca-Cola out of the ice chest behind Sam’s seat and popped it open for him, and got myself one, too. We talked about the sorry season the Bon Temps Hawks baseball team was having, and I told Sam about watching the softball team practice the week before. I felt good when I was confident everything was back to normal between us.

When we stopped to get gas outside Dallas, I watched a black Ford Focus shoot by. “That’s funny,” I said to Sam, who was punching his PIN into the pump. “That’s the same car I saw when we pulled over to find out what that noise was.” A branch had caught under the truck and had been making an alarming whap-whap-whap.

Sam glanced up. “Huh,” he said. “Well, the interstate is always busy, and the Focus is a popular model.”

“This is the same one,” I said. “There’s a place on the driver’s side of the windshield where a rock hit.”

Then I went inside the station to visit the ladies’ room, because I could tell Sam didn’t want to be worrying about a Ford Focus. I didn’t, either, but there it was.

I kept a sharp eye out for the car after that, but I didn’t bring up the subject again. As a result, we made pleasant conversation past Dallas and Fort Worth, all the way to the turn off the interstate that would lead us south to Wright.

I’d offered to drive, but Sam said he was so familiar with the route that he didn’t mind being at the wheel. “I’m just glad to have company making the drive, for once,” he said. “I’ve had to go over to Wright so often since the announcement.” Sam’s mom had had a huge crisis the evening of the big two-natured reveal, broadcast worldwide; her second husband had been so startled by the fact that his wife could turn into an animal that he’d shot her.

“But you’ve got the one sister and the one brother,” I said.

“Yeah, Mindy and Craig. Mindy’s twenty-six. She’s married to Doke Ballinger. She went to high school with him. They have two kids, Mason and Bonnie. They live about thirty miles away in Mooney.”

“What’s the name of the woman Craig’s marrying? Daisy? Denise?”

“Deidra. She’s from Wright, too. She and Craig have both been going to UT Dallas. She’s a real pretty girl, only nineteen, and Craig’s twenty-four. He went into the army before he started college.”

“Lots of military service in your family.” Sam and Craig’s dad had been retired army.

Sam shrugged. “Because of Dad, we’re all used to the service as an option. It’s not a huge leap like it is for some families. Craig always liked Deidra, but when he was in high school, she was way too young for him to think about as a date. He did call her when he found out another kid from Wright was going to UT Dallas, and he says they were gone on each other after the first date.”

“Aw. That’s so sweet. I guess all this trouble has been really hard on them.”

“Yeah. Craig was pretty mad at me and Mom for a while, and then he accepted it, but Deidra’s folks freaked out. The wedding got postponed a couple of times.”

I nodded. Sam had told me how his brother’s fiancée’s family had reacted to the news that her about-to-be mother-in-law sometimes ran on four feet.

“So instead of sending out new invitations, the Lisles just put a notice in the Wright paper.”

“How big is Wright?”

Sam laughed. “About as big as Bon Temps. Except in the tourist season. There’s a river that runs a little west of Wright, and there’s a lot of rafting and camping. At night, those rafters and campers are looking for something to do, so there’re a couple of big bars that have live bands. And there’s a western-wear store and a riding stable for beginners on up, for when people want to take a break from the water. Stuff like that. Wright’s a pretty conservative place, though. Everyone’s glad when the tourists leave in the fall.”

“Has your mom had any trouble with the rest of the town since the shooting?” Sam had been the target of one protest in the Merlotte’s parking lot, but since then things had died down—for good, I hoped.

“I’m reading between the lines, but yes, I think people haven’t been as friendly as they used to be. Don’s a local guy. He’s got cousins and stuff all around Wright.”

“He’s in jail now, right?”

“Yeah, he couldn’t make bail. He never denied he shot Mom. I don’t understand why there’s any sympathy for him.”

I didn’t say anything, but I could sort of understand feeling sympathy for someone who’d suddenly discovered his wife changed into a different creature. Of course, shooting that wife was a gross overreaction, but watching your wife transform into a dog . . . That would shake any man. However, that was not my problem to solve, and I was certainly sorry the whole incident had happened.

I was not walking into a normal, happy family wedding. I already knew some of what Sam was saying, but maybe I should have asked more questions before I got in the truck. I thought of the shotgun my brother had given me, sitting uselessly in the closet in my house.

“You look kinda worried, Sookie,” Sam said, and I could read the dismay in his brain. “I wouldn’t have brought you if I thought there was a way in the world something bad would happen to you.”

“Sam, I hope you have the whole picture of what’s going on in Wright,” I said. “I know you asked me to go with you before you started dating Jannalynn, but I really wouldn’t have minded if you’d wanted to take her.” He understood the subtext. Though he’d told me Jannalynn’s habits and manners weren’t family-pleasing, she had excellent natural defenses. In fact, she was the enforcer for the Shreveport pack. What was I going to do if we were attacked? Mind-read someone to death?

“This isn’t any mob situation,” Sam said, and he laughed. “I finished high school there when my dad retired from the military, and Mindy and Craig did even more of their growing up in Wright than I did. People will get used to the new things in their world, even the people in a conservative little place like Wright. These are just regular folks. They’ve known us for years.”

Pardon me if I felt a tad skeptical.

I saw the black Focus one more time, and then I didn’t spot it again. I told myself that there were hundreds of cars on this section of interstate, and a hell of a lot of them were going west like we were.

The landscape got less and less green, more and more arid. Trees were smaller, rocks were more plentiful, and there were cacti in the scrubby brush. After the turnoff south, towns were fewer and farther between. They were small, and the stretches of road were lined by fences of all kinds. This was ranching country.

Wright looked very normal when we rolled in. The highway ran through Wright going north–south, and it was the main drag. In its stretch through Wright, it was called Main Street, which made me smile. It was a one-story town. Everything was low and long and dusty. I looked at the people we passed, the gas stations, the Sonic, the Dairy Queen, the McDonald’s. There were three motels, which seemed excessive until I remembered that Sam had told me about the river west of the town. The trailer park was full, and I saw a few people walking west, flip-flops on their feet and towels over their shoulders. Early vacationers. We passed a rental place for canoes, tubes, rafts, grills, and tents.

“People can grill on the sandbars in the river,” Sam said. “It’s fun. You take your ice chest out there, a tube of sunblock, drink your beer, and grill your meat. Get in the water whenever you want.”

“I wish we had time to do that,” I said. Then, thinking that might sound like a complaint or a hint, I said brightly, “But I know we’re here to get this wedding done! Maybe you can bring Jannalynn over here sometime later in the summer.”

Sam didn’t respond. I’d seen Jannalynn be aggressive, physical, even savage. But surely she had a softer side? I mean, it couldn’t be all skull-cracking, bustiers, spike heels, and kill-my-enemies. Right?

It was a warm feeling, seeing the town where Sam had done a lot of his growing up. “Where’s your school?” I asked, trying to picture the young Sam. He turned east to take me by the little high school where he’d played sports and been named Mr. Yellowjacket. Yellowjacket Stadium was about the same size as Bon Temps’s Hawks Stadium and in much better repair, though the old high school had seen better days. The town library was brand-new, and the post office was proudly flying the flag. It whipped in the warm wind.

“Why’d your dad decide to retire here after he left the service?” I asked. “What do people do here besides cater to tourists?”

“They ranch, mostly,” he said. “A few of them farm, but mostly the land’s too rocky, and we don’t get much rain. A lot of people make the bulk of their income during the tourist season, and they just coast along on odd jobs the rest of the year. We get a big influx of hunters when the tourists run out, so that’s a major source of income, too. My dad commuted to Mooney, where Doke and Mindy live now. He had a job doing security for a big plant over there. It manufactures wind turbines for wind energy. Doke works there now.”

“And you-all moved here instead of Mooney because . . . ?”

“My dad wanted us to have the whole small-town experience. He thought it would be the best way to finish out my teen years and to bring up Mindy and Craig. Some of my mom’s family was still living in Wright then, too. And he loved the river.”

I looked at the people coming in and out of the businesses we passed. There were lots more brown faces than I was used to seeing, though even Bon Temps had experienced an upsurge in its Spanish-speaking population in the past decade. Some were identifiably Native American. There were very few black faces. I’d really traveled somewhere different. In addition to the differences in skin color, there were more people in western-style clothes, which made sense. We’d passed a rodeo ground on our way into town.

We took a left when we were within sight of the south boundary of the city limits, turning onto a narrow street that could be anywhere in the United States. The houses were small ranch styles, one or two had a trailer in the backyard where maybe a mother-in-law or a newlywed child lived, and most had a prefab toolshed tucked into a corner of the yard. There were lots of open windows. People in Wright didn’t turn on their air conditioners as early as we did in Bon Temps. Instead of garages, there were carports attached to almost every house, some to the side, some added on in front.

At Sam’s mom’s home, the awning extended over half of the front of the house, covering enough area to park two vehicles. Unattractive, but efficient. “This is the house you lived in after you-all moved to Wright?” I asked.

“Yeah, this is the house Mom and Dad bought after Dad got out of the army. Don moved in here when he and Mom got married. By the way, she’s still Bernadette Merlotte. She never took Don’s name.”

Bernadette Merlotte’s home was a modest house, maybe twelve hundred square feet, with white siding and ornamental dark green shutters. The little yard space had barely any grass because it was almost entirely given over to beds containing flowers, smooth river rocks, and concrete statues, which were various in the extreme. One was a little girl with a dog, one was a large frog, and one was a creature that was supposed to be a fairy. (Any fairy I knew would want to kill Sam’s mom after a good look at that statue.) From the dry state of the patches of grass and dirt, it was evident that Sam’s mom cared for her flowers lovingly.

There was a little sidewalk winding to the front porch from the covered driveway, and the “porch” was flush with the ground. This was a slab house.

After an almost imperceptible sigh and a moment of bracing himself, Sam jumped out. I didn’t stand on ceremony. I slid out, too. I wanted to stretch my legs and back after sitting in the truck for so long, and I was almost as nervous about meeting Sam’s family as if I were his real girlfriend.

A screen door slammed, and Sam’s mother hurried down the sidewalk to hug her son. She was about my height, five-six, and very slim. She’d had his hair color, but the red gold had faded now. She’d obviously spent a lot of time out in the sun, so at least we’d have that in common. Then she was in Sam’s arms and laughing.

“It’s so good to see you!” she cried. After giving Sam a final, hard hug, she pulled away and turned to me. “You must be Sookie. Sam’s told me a lot about you!” The words were warm and welcoming, but I could tell how she really felt . . . which was more like cautious.

Shaking hands seemed a little too distant somehow, so I half hugged her. “It’s good to meet you, Mrs. Merlotte. I’m glad you’re doing so well.”

“Now, you just call me Bernie. Everybody does.” She hesitated. “I thank you for taking care of the bar while Sam came down when I was shot.” It was an effort for her to so casually mention what had happened.

“Are you going to let them come in, Mama?” said a young woman standing in the doorway.

“You just hold your horses,” Bernie said. “We’re coming!”

There were a few moments of confusion as we got out our hanging and overnight bags. Finally we went into the house. Bernie Merlotte’s right-hand neighbor, a man in his sixties, came out into his yard—ostensibly to check his mailbox—while all this was going on. I happened to catch his eye, and I gave him a friendly nod. To my amazement, he looked right through me, though I knew from his thoughts that he could see me plainly.

That had never happened to me in my life. If I’d been reading a Regency romance, I would have termed it “the cut direct.” No one else had noticed, and he wasn’t my neighbor, so I didn’t say anything.

Then we were inside, and I had to stuff my bafflement into a corner of my mind because there were more people to meet. The small house was crowded. First there was Sam’s sister, Mindy, a young mother of two. Her husband, Doke Ballinger, was as thin and laconic as Mindy was plump and chatty. Their children, five-year-old Mason and three-year-old Bonnie, eyed me from behind their mother. And finally I met the groom, Craig, who was like a more carefree clone of Sam. The brothers were the same in coloring, height, and build. His fiancée, Deidra Lisle, was so pretty it hurt to look at her. She was lightly tanned, with big hazel eyes and red-dish brown hair that fell to her waist. She couldn’t have stood five foot two, and she was all compact curves and femininity.

She shook my hand shyly, and her smile showed that her teeth were as perfect as her complexion. Wow.

She was pregnant. She was hoping she wasn’t showing, that no one could tell. Now that I knew, I could sort of sense that other mind floating around inside her, but it was a weird read—no language, no thoughts.

Well, another thing that was none of my business. More power to them. I was the only one who could sense that other presence in her womb.

By that time Bernie was showing me to a very small room that contained a pullout couch, a sewing machine, a computer desk, and a card table that was cluttered with scrapbooking materials. “We’re not fancy here,” Bernie said. “I hope you don’t mind sleeping in what the magazines call the all-purpose room. Course, I just call it the room-Mindy-finally-left-out-of-so-I-could-have-it-back.” There was a hint of challenge in her voice.

“No, ma’am, I don’t mind at all.” I set my bag down by the end of the couch. “I’ll just hang these up in the closet, if that’s okay,” I said, taking my hanging bag over to the closet door in the corner and waiting for her permission.

“Go right ahead,” Bernie said, and she relaxed a bit.

The closet had just enough spare room right in the middle.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Bernie said. “I meant to get in there and make you some more space. It’s taken me longer to get over this injury than I’d figured.”

“No problem,” I said. There was a hook on the outside of the closet door, so I hung my bag there rather than cram it in and wrinkle my dress.

“What’s the matter with your neighbor?” I said, my mind suddenly leaping back to my previous source of misgiving.

“Jim Collins? Oh, he’s such a grouch,” she said with a half smile. “Why do you ask? Was he giving you a mean look when you came in?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t pay any attention,” she said. “He’s just a lonely man since his wife died, and he was a big friend of Don’s. Don helped him out in the yard all the time, and they went fishing together. He’s blaming me for all Don’s problems.”

That seemed a strange way to refer to Don’s being in jail for shooting her. “Jim Collins hates you,” I said.

She gave me a very strange look. “That’s a lot to read into a look across the yard,” Bernie said. “Don’t worry about Jim, Sookie. Let’s go get you some ice tea.”

So Sam hadn’t told his mom that I could read minds. Interesting.

I followed Bernie down the short hall and into the kitchen. The kitchen was quite a bit larger than I’d expected, since it also encompassed an eating area set in a bay window. Deidra was sitting at the big round table with Mindy’s little girl, Bonnie, in her lap. The child was holding a soggy cookie and looked quite happy. Through the bay window, I saw Mason and his dad in the backyard playing catch with Craig and Sam. I went to the door and looked out at the family scene. When he saw me, Sam darted an inquiring look my way, to ask if I was okay. He was willing to come in if I needed support.

I smiled at him, genuinely pleased. I nodded reassuringly before I turned to the table. There was a pitcher of tea and a glass filled with ice ready for me. I poured my tea and sat down beside Deidra. Mindy had put a laundry basket full of clean clothes on the kitchen counter, and she was busy folding them. Bernie was drying dishes. I’d thought I might feel like an intruder, but I didn’t.

“Sookie, you’re the first girl Sam’s brought home in years,” Mindy said. “We’re dying to know all about you.”

Nothing like cutting to the chase; I appreciated the direct approach. I didn’t want to lie to them about our relationship, but Sam had brought me here to deflect the wedding fever. I would have felt worse if Sam and I hadn’t been genuinely fond of each other. After all, I told myself, I was literally Sam’s “girl friend,” if not his “girlfriend,” so we were more bending the truth than breaking it.

“I’ve worked for Sam for several years,” I said, picking my words carefully. “My mom and dad passed away when I was seven, and after that my grandmother brought me and my brother up. Gran died a couple of years ago, and I inherited her house. My brother lives in my parents’ house,” I added, so they’d know that was fair. “I graduated from high school in Bon Temps, but I never got to carry my education any further than that.”

This Sookie-in-a-capsule got a mixed reception.

“Is your brother married?” Mindy asked. She was thinking of her own brother who was getting married, and the possibility of another grandchild to make her mother happy. Bernie was going to get one sooner than Mindy imagined.

“He’s a widower,” I said.

“Gosh,” Deidra blurted, “people in your family don’t have a long life expectancy, huh?”

Ouch. “My parents died in a flash flood,” I said, because that was the public story. “My grandmother was murdered. My sister-in-law was murdered. So we never got to find out how long they would live.” Actually, they’d all been murdered. I’d never put it to myself like that before. People in my family really, truly had a short life expectancy. If I followed the family trend, I could expect to meet my end through violence in the not-too-distant future.

I glanced at the appalled faces of Sam’s womenfolk, who’d gotten more than they’d expected. Guess they wouldn’t be asking me any more personal questions, huh? “But my brother’s still alive,” I said brightly. “His name is Jason.”

They all looked relieved. Deidra grabbed a napkin and began dabbing at Bonnie’s smeared face. “Bonnie, you have a chocolate mouth,” Deidra said, and Mindy and Bernie laughed while Bonnie stretched her mouth into a wide grin, enjoying the attention.

“How big is your family, Deidra?” I said, to get off the topic of my life.

“I got two sisters,” Deidra said. “I’m the oldest. They’re seventeen and fifteen, still in high school. And I’ve got two brothers, both older. One brother works here in Wright, and one brother’s in the army.”

“How about you, Bernie? Do you have any younger brothers or sisters?” I asked Sam’s mother, to keep the conversational ball rolling.

“Oh, they have to be younger? I must be showing my age.” Bernie turned a wry face to me. She was stirring something on the stove.

“You have to be the oldest, if you’re the shifter.”

Then they were all looking at me, this time in surprise. “Sam did tell you a lot,” Mindy said. “Humph. He doesn’t usually talk much about his heritage.”

“I’m not sure if I heard it from Sam or from a werewolf,” I said.

“Unusual,” Bernie said. “Have you dated other shifters?”

“Yes,” I said simply. “And my brother’s a bitten panther.”

There was another round-robin of exchanged glances among the women, broken by Bonnie demanding to go potty. Mindy stopped matching socks to sweep her up and carry her off to the hall bathroom.

“So you have no problem with wereanimals at all,” Bernie said.

“No,” I replied, and I’m sure I sounded as surprised as I felt.

“We just figured . . .”

“What?”

“We just figured,” Deidra said, “that your family wouldn’t like the idea of you marrying into a shifter family, like my family didn’t. I mean, they’ve come around now, but when they saw the woman change on television, they freaked out.” The two-natured, following the vampire pattern, had sent their most personable representatives to local television stations to change on the air.

Don hadn’t been the only one who’d reacted with panic.

“If I had a big family, there might be more of a problem. But my brother wouldn’t mind me marrying into a family with the shifter gene,” I said. “He’s all I’ve got to worry about.” And I wasn’t any too worried about his opinion. “Not that I have any plans to get married,” I added hastily. I hadn’t even planned on getting married in the vampire way, for that matter. “Are you going to wear the traditional white dress, Deidra?” I had a doomed feeling that no matter how I tried to keep the conversation on the actual wedding about to take place, the women of the family were going to continue to steer it toward a possible future match between Sam and me.

The bride nodded, smiling. Gosh, Deidra was a dentist’s dream. “Yeah, it’s pure white and strapless,” she said. “I got it on sale at a bridal shop in Waco. It was worth the drive.”

“How many bridesmaids?”

A cloud crossed her face. “Well,” she began. After a perceptible pause, she tried again. “Two,” she said, smiling for all she was worth. “My sisters.”

“Two of her friends backed out after the shooting,” Bernie said, her back to us. Her voice was flat.

Mindy had come back into the kitchen with a scrubbed daughter, and she let Bonnie out into the backyard with the men. “Incoming,” she yelled, and shut the door. “Bitches,” Mindy said abruptly, and I knew she was referring to the bridesmaids who’d reneged on their obligations.

Deidra flinched.

“I’m sorry, sweetie, but that behavior was low,” Mindy said. “Any true friend would be thinking more about you and your feelings than about their disapproval of our family.”

Mindy had good sense.

“Well, you still got the two best ones,” Bernie said, and Deidra smiled at her mother-in-law-to-be. “Sookie, I hope you like baked chicken.”

“I sure do,” I said. “Is there anything I can be doing to help?”

Bernie said no, and I could see that the cooking area would be easier for one person to manage without a newcomer getting in her way. To keep the conversation going, I told them about having to step in at the Bellefleur double wedding when one of the bridesmaids had had a sudden attack of appendicitis. They all laughed when I described trying not to breathe in the too-tight dress or move too quickly in the too-small high heels, and I began to feel a little more at ease. Mindy finished folding clothes, Bonnie came in crying with a skinned knee, and Craig accidentally threw the ball over Doke’s shoulder and into Mr. Collins’s backyard.

In the background, I’d heard the men’s voices as they called to one another and to Mason, and I was alerted when they all fell silent. I listened.

Then I was out the door and looking to my right. Jim Collins was standing there at a gap in the overgrown hedge, his balding head shining under the sun, the baseball in his age-spotted hands. I knew what he was going to do before he did it; I knew it as his intent formed. Collins was in his sixties, but hale and fit, and the ball went right toward Sam with impressive force. My hand shot out to intercept it. It stung like hell, but I would not have winced for all the cotton in the Delta. I caught Collins’s gaze and held it. I didn’t let myself speak. I was afraid of what I’d say.

There was a long moment of silence. Mindy’s husband, Doke, took two steps forward. He told Collins, “Don’t think about acting out in front of my son.” Doke was so angry he had to exercise all his restraint.

At that moment, I wished I were a witch so I could throw Bernie’s neighbor’s malevolence back at him. But I didn’t have any superpowers or any supernatural powers, or any kind of power at all. All that I had that was mine was my unpredictable ability to read minds and my unexpected strength and quickness, which came from taking the occasional sip of Eric. My arm dropped to my side, the ball clenched in my fist, and Sam came over to put his hand on my shoulder. We watched Jim Collins, still expressionless, turn to go back into his house.

“Was he trying to hit me?” Sam asked quietly.

I was too angry to speak. I turned my head to look into Sam’s eyes. I nodded.

“Thanks, Sookie,” he said. “That would have been bad. Maybe I could have caught it in time. Maybe not.” Sam was very, very quick, like all twoeys—but he’d been caught off guard.

“I only moved quicker because I knew about it ahead of time,” I said, leaving Eric and his blood out of the conversation. “That creep wants to provoke you. I hope none of the rest of your neighbors are like him.”

“They never used to be,” he said, his voice bleak. “Now it’s hard to tell.”

“To hell with them,” I said. “You-all are good people, Sam. There’s nothing wrong with you and your mother, except maybe your mom didn’t pick her second husband too well.”

I could hear the other men going into the house, Mason’s piping voice exclaiming over my good catch.

“Mom understands that now,” Sam said. “I think it never occurred to her that Don would be so angry about her other nature, because she was so sure he loved her.”

Time to change the subject. “Your mom’s fixing chicken,” I said. “Oven baked, with Parmesan cheese and bread crumbs.”

“Yeah? She’s a pretty good cook.” Sam’s eyes brightened.

“I don’t know how we’re all going to squeeze in around that table.”

“I’ll get the other card table out of the closet. We’ll all make it.”

And we did. No one mentioned Jim Collins again, and no one asked me any questions about what I’d done. The Merlottes (extended version) seemed to be a clan that accepted the odd without a blink . . . at least, they did now.

It was a long evening after a long day, and I was ready to retire when the dishes were done and Deidra had departed to her parents’ house. Mindy and Doke had left for home soon after supper was eaten so they could bathe the kids and get them to bed. The next day, Saturday, would hold both the wedding rehearsal (in the morning) and the wedding itself at four in the afternoon, followed by a reception. All three events would be at Deidra’s church.

Craig made a point of having a conversation with me while I was washing dishes and he was drying them. He told me that the reception would be only a punch and cake affair, which is often the case in the South. “We made up our minds too quick to do anything else,” he said with a smile. “After Deidra’s folks—the Lisles—kicked up a fuss and postponed the first date and made us go to counseling, we didn’t want anything to get in the way of this one. We don’t care about having a sit-down dinner. Punch and cake is fine with us, and a lot cheaper.”

“Where will you live?” I asked. “In Dallas? Sam said you-all went to college there.”

“I took an apartment in Houston after I graduated,” Craig said. “I got a job doing tech support for a big firm of CPAs. Deidra’s got to finish training as an EMT.”

I assumed she’d have to put that off because of the pregnancy, but it was none of my business to say anything.

“She’d really like to become a physician’s assistant, after we get on our feet,” he said.

“I hope she can do that,” I said. Deidra would have a hard row to hoe, with a new husband and a new baby.

“What about you?” Craig asked.

“And my future?” I actually had to think about it. Craig and I were alone in the kitchen. Sam had gone outside to move his truck because it had been blocking Deidra’s car. Bernie was in the bathroom.

“I’ve got a good job working for this really nice guy,” I said, and Craig laughed. I hesitated. “Maybe I’ll take some online courses. I don’t do well in classroom situations.”

Craig was silent for a few moments. He was thinking he could tell I wasn’t dumb, so what could my problem be? Maybe I had ADD, or just a total lack of ambition? Why hadn’t I advanced further in life?

Though I felt a flash of resentment, I realized that Craig naturally wanted his brother to be dating a girl who had some goals and aspirations. It was hard to resist showing off, trying to impress Craig with my one unique ability.

For example, I could have told him that I knew he’d recently quit smoking at Deidra’s request and that right now he was craving a cigarette. Or I could have told him that I knew he and Deidra were going to be parents. Or I could have told him that my boobs were real, which would have answered another unspoken question.

When you opened yourself up and stayed in a person’s head for more than a second, you could really pick up on a lot of stuff.

Analyze what you’ve thought of in the last few minutes. Would you want anyone else to know about it? No. Sam had asked me once if I thought I could do a good job for Homeland Security. I tried to imagine how. Standing in an airport by the search line? Would any bomber or terrorist be going over his plan mentally, in detail, in an airport chosen at random? No, I thought not. I’d have to have a little more direction than that.

I wanted to discuss this with Craig, as I’d wanted to say it to so many people in the past. I’d often wished that other people understood my daily path, understood what I lived with. Not that I wanted to act all whiny and put-upon—“Poor Pitiful Pearl,” as my grandmother used to call me when she thought I was in danger of being sorry for myself.

I sighed. It wasn’t Be Kind to Telepaths week, and I had better tighten up my suspenders and get on with my life. I told Craig good night and took my turn in the bathroom when it was empty. It felt good to shower away the long day, and I belted my robe around my waist and emerged with the bundle of clothes I’d removed.

Sam was waiting by the door to my assigned bedroom. He looked tired but relaxed, and I could tell he was happy to be at home. He stood aside to let me enter first, and I put my clothes down on top of my tote bag and straightened up to find him looking at me with affection. Not lust, not frustration . . . affection. My heart went all gooey. We hugged, and it felt wonderful to breathe him in. He didn’t mind the damp hair, the bare face, the worn bathrobe. He was happy I was here. He stood off a little, though he didn’t entirely let go. “Thanks for coming with me, Sookie,” he whispered. “And thanks for defusing that situation with Mr. Collins.” Sam thought Jannalynn would have sprung over into the old man’s yard and given him a shellacking. He seemed to believe that the problem with his mom’s neighbor was over. I didn’t know what to say to him. I decided, I should let him sleep well and be happy. Tomorrow is the wedding.

“No problem,” I said. “I’m glad my softball training came in handy.”

Sam went to the doorway. “I’m down there, in my old room,” he said, jerking his head toward a door on the other side of the hall and down a bit. “Craig’s in there with me. Mom’s at the end of the hall.”

I started to ask him why he’d told me, but then I realized I did indeed feel better knowing where he’d be in the night.

“You going to call Eric?” he said, almost inaudibly.

“I may try,” I said. “He’d probably appreciate it.”

“Tell him . . . Nah, don’t tell him anything.” Sam was not a big fan of the Northman. “I was going to say, ‘Tell him thanks for letting you come,’ but you can go where you damn well want to.”

I smiled at Sam. “Yes, I can, and I’m glad you know that.” Over his shoulder, I saw the door at the end of the hall open just a crack, and I could see Bernie’s eyes peering at us. Sam gave me a little grin, and I knew he could tell we were being observed. I winked at Sam with the eye away from Bernie, and I kissed him. It wasn’t long, but it was warm. There was a look in Sam’s eyes when we let go of each other, a look that let me know he might’ve enjoyed putting on a much longer show for his mom, but I laughed and stepped back.

“Night,” I said, and shut the door. I heard Sam’s steps move away, and I fished my cell phone out of my purse. “Hey, you,” I said quietly when Eric answered. Bernie would surely have the sharp shifter hearing.

“Are you well?” he asked. I could hear some noise in the background. It didn’t sound like the familiar bar noises.

“I’m fine,” I said. “There seems to be a lot of hostility here in this town against Sam and his mom, and I’m a little bit worried about that. Maybe the hater is just their cranky old neighbor, but I got a feeling there’s more to worry about.” This was what I hadn’t discussed with Sam, so I was glad to pour it out to Eric.

“That’s worrisome,” he said, but he didn’t sound too worried. “Can you handle it, or do you need help? What’s the name of the town?”

“I’m in Wright, Texas,” I said, and I may have said it a little sharply. After all, you expect your boyfriend to listen when you tell him stuff, and I knew I’d told him about the wedding. “It’s west and a little south of Dallas.”

“How far?”

I described the route we’d taken to Wright, and Eric said, “That would still be in Joseph Velasquez’s territory. When Stan became king, he gave Joseph the sheriffdom.”

“Your point?”

“I’d have to ask Joseph for permission to send someone to help you.”

“Well, I appreciate the thought.” Though I noticed that Eric hadn’t actually said he’d do it. “But the wedding will be tomorrow afternoon in the daytime, so I don’t think a vampire would be a big help.”

“If you’re really worried, you could call Alcide,” Eric said reluctantly. “Maybe he knows the leader of the nearest pack down there, and it’s possible the packleader would be willing to come to make sure things go well. Though surely Sam and his mother know the other two-natured in the area.”

I didn’t know how seriously to take one man’s malice, but I did know from the shadow of his thoughts that there were more people in the town who believed the way he did. Maybe sending out a request for help would be a good idea. On the other hand, that was hardly my call to make.

“What’s going on with you?” I asked, trying to sound completely focused. Eric had his own political problems, and the representative of the Bureau of Vampire Affairs was breathing down his neck about a violation of one of the rules for operating a vampire-owned business. A barmaid had promised a female customer that she (the barmaid, Cyndee) could bribe one of Eric’s vamps to bite the woman. Cyndee’d been blowing smoke, but the BVA had to investigate the allegation. Plus, there was a tense situation with Eric’s boss, Victor Madden.

“I think the BVA investigation is going to exonerate us,” he said, “but Victor was here today with his own accountant, going through my books. This is well-nigh intolerable. I can fire Cyndee, and I have. I understand that’s all I can do to her.”

“Don’t worry about things down here, then,” I said. “You’ve got your hands full.”

We talked a little longer, but Eric was preoccupied, and so was I. It wasn’t a very satisfactory conversation.

I’d unfolded the couch to find it was already made up, and I discovered a folded bedspread and a pillow lying on the sewing machine. The evening was warm and the windows open, so I didn’t exactly need the bedspread, but the pillow was nice and fluffy. I turned off the overhead light and stretched out on the lumpy mattress. As I adjusted my spine, I wondered if there was any foldout couch in the world that was as comfortable as a bed. I reminded myself to be glad I wasn’t sleeping on the floor.

I could hear a muffled conversation coming from the room Sam was sharing with Craig. The brothers laughed. Their voices died away gradually. Through the open window, I heard a small animal outside, and the hoot of an owl. The breeze coming in didn’t even smell like the wind at home.

I considered the possibility of calling Alcide Herveaux, the Were pack-leader in Shreveport. He was the werewolf I knew the best, and he might have some insight for me about the situation in neighboring Texas. But not only was I harboring a great resentment toward Alcide since he’d pressured me into taking hallucinogenic drugs so I could solve a pack dispute; I knew he was feeling resultant guilt himself. People who felt guilty lashed out, in my experience. It would be just my luck if he sent Jannalynn to provide backup.

Awkward.

Geez Louise, I’d be on the chopping block in no time flat. I wondered what kind of conversation Sam had had with her before we’d left. (“Yes, I’m going to my brother’s wedding, but I’m taking Sookie because she’s more presentable.” I thought not.) And truly, it was another thing that was none of my business.

Then I fell to wondering if there were any other two-natured in Wright or its environs. If there were, maybe Sam could ask them to help when—if—trouble arose. The two-natured didn’t always stick together. Of course, neither did any other minority group I’d ever heard of.... The owl hooted again.

I woke the next morning to the welcome smell of coffee and pancakes with a side of bacon. Oh, yeah. I could hear a couple of voices in the kitchen, and the water was running in the bathroom. The household was up early. This was the day of the rehearsal and the wedding. I smiled up at the ceiling in anticipation. My room looked over the front yard, and I got up and padded over to the window to see what kind of day it was.

It was a bad day.

I pulled on shorts and a T–shirt, and hurried out into the kitchen. Sam and his mother looked up as I appeared in the doorway. They’d been smiling, and Sam was raising his coffee cup to his lips while Bernie was flipping the bacon in the frying pan. Sam put down his cup hastily and jumped to his feet.

“What?” he said.

“Go look in the front yard,” I said, and stood aside while they hurried from the kitchen.

Someone had stuck a big sign in the yard, facing the house. The message was definitely for Bernie. DOGS BELONG IN THE POUND, it said. I’d already jumped to a conclusion about its meaning.

“Where is it?” I asked Sam. “The pound? I hope I’m wrong, but I have to check.”

“If you go back to the highway, head south,” he said. There was a ring of white around his mouth. “It’s on Hall Road, to the right. I’m coming.”

“No. Give me your keys. This is your brother’s wedding day. You have to take care of your mother.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Whatever’s happened there, if anything has . . . it’s already done.”

He handed me his keys without another word. I hurried out to the truck, noticing along the way that not a soul was outside in any of the yards, though Saturday mornings are good for washing cars, yard work, garage sales, shooting hoops. Maybe Bernie’s neighbors had already seen that trouble was brewing and wanted no part of it.

In fact, not that many people were out and about in the entire town of Wright. I saw a stout man about Sam’s age putting gas in his car at the filling station. I caught his eye as I drove by, and he turned away pointedly. Perhaps he’d recognized the truck. I saw an elderly woman walking her dog, an equally elderly dachshund. She nodded civilly. I nodded back.

I found Hall Road without any trouble and took a right. It was a dusty stretch of asphalt with a few straggling businesses, places in little faux-adobe structures spaced far apart. I began looking at signs, and it didn’t take long to spot the one that read LOS COLMILLOS COUNTY ANIMAL SHELTER. It stood in front of a very small cement block building. Roofed pens extended in a long line on either side of a concrete run behind the building.

I turned off the motor and jumped out of the truck. I was struck by how quiet it was. Outside any animal shelter, I would expect to hear yapping and barking.

The pens out back were silent.

The front door was unlocked. I took a deep breath, let it out. I steeled myself and pushed it open, left it that way.

I stepped into a little room containing a desk topped with a battered and grimy old computer. There was a phone with an answering machine, half-buried under a pile of folders. A dilapidated file cabinet stood in a corner. In the opposite corner were two huge bags of dog food and some plastic containers of chemicals that I supposed were used to clean the pens. And that was all.

A door in the center of the rear wall stood open. I could see that it allowed access to the runway between the pens where the ownerless dogs were kept.

Had been kept.

They were all dead. I’d stepped through the door with dread in my heart, and that dread was justified. Bundles of bloody fur were in every cage.

I squatted simply because my knees gave way. My face was wet without my even realizing I’d started crying.

I’d seen dead human beings plenty of times, and the sight hadn’t made me feel this awful. I guess, in the back of my mind, I believed most people could defend themselves to some extent, if only by running away. And I also believed people sometimes—sometimes—shared responsibility in the situation that brought about their deaths, if only by making unwise choices. But animals . . . not animals.

I heard another car pull into the parking area. I looked out through the open doors to see the black Ford Focus with the cracked windshield. If I could have felt more frightened, I would have. Its doors opened, and three ill-assorted people got out and approached the animal shelter slowly, their heads swinging from side to side as they sniffed the air. They came through the little room very carefully, the tallest man in the lead.

“What’s happened here, babe?” he said. He was tall and muscular, with a shaved head and purple eyes. I knew him fairly well. His name was Quinn, and he was a weretiger.

“Someone shot all the dogs,” I said, stating the obvious because I was trying desperately to pull myself together. I hadn’t seen Quinn in weeks, not since he’d tried to visit me at my home. That hadn’t worked out too well.

Quinn knew they were dead already. His sense of smell had told him that. He squatted down by me. “I came to Wright to make a chance to talk to you,” he said. “I didn’t want it to be here, with all this death around us.”

One of Quinn’s companions came to stand by him. The two of them were like a pair of amazing bookends. Quinn’s friend was a huge man, a coal black man, with his hair in short dreads. He looked like some exotic animal, and, of course, he was. He stared down at me with an incurious assessment, and then his eyes moved to the sad corpses in the pens, the streaks of blood running everywhere. The blood was beginning to dry at the edges.

Quinn extended his hand to me, and together we stood up.

“I don’t understand why anyone would do this to our brothers,” the black man said, his English clear and crisp but heavily accented.

“It’s because of the wedding today,” I said. “Bernie Merlotte’s younger son is getting married.”

“But a younger son will never change into anything. Only the oldest son.” His accent was sort of French, which made the whole conversation more surrealistic.

“People here don’t seem to know that,” I said. “Or maybe they just don’t care.”

The third wereanimal was pacing outside the pens, circling the area. She would pick up the scents of the shooter. Or shooters. Tears were streaming down her face, and that wouldn’t help her sense of smell. She was also furious. The set of her shoulders was eloquent.

“Babe, I don’t know that this wedding is going to go off without more trouble,” Quinn said. His big hand took mine. “I have a lot to say to you, but it’s going to have to wait until later.”

I nodded. The wedding day of Craig Merlotte and Deidra Lisle had definitely gotten off to a sad start. “Anything that upsets the Merlotte family upsets me. How did you come to be here?” I tried to keep my gaze away from the pitiful, limp forms.

“I was checking the twoey message board for information about the Shreveport area,” Quinn said. “Sam posts on there from time to time, or sometimes I talk to the members of the Long Tooth pack.” The Long Tooth pack was Alcide Herveaux’s. “Someone posted that you were coming to Wright with Sam, and I already knew Trish and Togo here. Texas is part of my territory, you know.” Quinn worked for Special Events, a branch of the national event-planning company E(E)E. Special Events staged important rites of passage for the supernatural community, like vampire weddings and first changes for the two-natured. “I knew Trish has a ranch outside Wright. I decided to take the chance to see you without the deader around.” That would be Eric. “I flew into Dallas, and they picked me up. We were able to track you. I didn’t want anything to happen to you on the way. I should have worried about what would happen when you got to Wright.”

“This town is full of hate,” the man called Togo said.

“I’m afraid so.” I looked up at the broad nose, the high cheekbones, the gleaming skin. He was quite extraordinary. He stood out in these surroundings like a bird of paradise in a wren flock . . . not that there was anything avian about him.

The third wereanimal had finished her prowling, and now she appeared beside us. “I’m Trish Pulaski,” she said. “You must be Sookie. Oh my God and his angels! Who would ever conceive of hurting poor dumb dogs to make a point?” She was lovely, and she was also clearly in her fifties. Her hair was solid gray, thick and curly. She didn’t wear glasses, and her eyes were bright chips of blue in a tan face. Her jeans left no doubt she was in excellent shape. She wasn’t thinking about herself or her companions. She was beside herself with rage and pain. I understood at that moment that the pound was her special project, that she’d raised the money to build it, she came every day to feed the animals, and she’d loved them all.

I said, “They left a sign in Bernie’s yard.”

“Bernie? They’re targeting Bernie? Those fools!” she said, and her anger blazed like a flame within her. She turned to Quinn. “When we agreed to come out like the vampires did, this is the last thing I imagined would happen.” She looked around at the dead dogs and the pools of blood, her gray curls dancing gaily and incongruously in the morning wind. She sighed, and her shoulders straightened. She said to me, “I’m sorry we had to meet here. This big guy is Togo Olympio. Quinn tells me you two are old friends. What was on the sign?”

I wanted to ask a lot of questions, but now was clearly not the time. I explained the little I knew. I also told them about Jim Collins.

“On Craig’s wedding day,” Trish said. She was angry and tearful and hurt. “Assholes!” Togo put a huge hand on Trish’s thin shoulder. She laid her cheek on it for just a moment. “I’m not surprised to hear Jim Collins is involved,” she continued. “Ever since we came out, he’s been posting hate messages on his website.”

“He has a website?” I said stupidly.

“Yeah, he’s Mr. Right Wing. One of my jobs is monitoring websites like his. They’ve sprung up everywhere since the vamps came out, and they sprouted like mushrooms when we did. I watch Jim’s especially closely since we’re in the same area. He’s even had postings from the Newlins.” Steve and Sarah Newlin were the leaders of the radical religious underground in America. “Jim’s website backs every extreme conservative position you can think of. Some of his principles I actually agree with, though it chokes me to say so. But most of his beliefs are so radical they scare me, and he doesn’t seem to care how people will be hurt as a consequence of acting on those beliefs. Obviously, he doesn’t care about animals,” she added quietly.

Togo Olympio had entered one of the pens and bent over to touch the side of one of the fallen dogs. Flies were swarming now, and though I hadn’t noticed their buzzing before, it droned in my ears. His dark eyes met mine, and I shivered. I was glad we were on the same side.

“I have to go back to the house and tell them,” I said. “What will happen at the wedding if people are this determined to do them harm?”

“That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Trish said. She was pulling herself together. “Quinn says you’re a friend of the shifters and the vampires though you’re human.”

I saw Quinn twitch out of the corner of my eye.

“But you’re not completely human, right?” Trish persisted.

“No, ma’am.” My bloodline wasn’t exactly her concern, I figured, so I stopped at that.

“If you’re Sam’s friend, you’re special already,” she said, nodding to indicate she’d made a quick decision. I felt absurdly pleased. “Well, Sookie, Togo roams through every few weeks, and he and I are the scandal of the county. I’ve known Quinn, here, for years. Together, maybe we can hold back this hatred long enough for the young people to get married. After the wedding’s over, I’m hoping like hell that feeling dies down and things go back to normal.”

“Did you come out?” I asked. “With the other wereanimals?”

“This town’s always thought I was a wild card, and no one was that surprised.” Trish smiled broadly. “Bernie—she shocked everyone because she always seemed like Hannah Housewife; she and her first husband had such a great marriage, such good kids. Then, after she married Don . . . That was the trouble, Don’s going nuts like that. His reaction was so violent and public, though I don’t think he was in his right mind. Look, let’s get out of here. All of this is making me sick.”

I glanced at Quinn, and he nodded. “Togo and I’ll come back later and dig a pit,” he said, answering a question I hadn’t wanted to ask.

To my surprise, Togo brought out a digital camera and began taking pictures. “My brothers and sisters need to know,” he told me when he saw me watching. “This is to post on our own websites.”

This just got more and more interesting.

“I’ve got to get back. I’m sorry I can’t help you clean up,” I said, which was a total lie. I was hugely relieved to have good reason to avoid burying the poor dogs. “Where are the cats?” I asked, struck by the fact that all the corpses were canine.

“I keep the cats at my place, thank God,” Trish said, and I could only say Amen to that.

I walked back through the little building. When I got to the parking lot, I leaned against Sam’s truck. The awfulness of the morning rolled over me again like a heavy wave. It was abominable that someone had slaughtered innocent dogs in a vicious attempt to ruin a day that should be happy. I felt the swell of a huge anger. I’d always had a slow temper. I didn’t get really angry very often. But when I did, I did it right and proper. Since my time in the hands of the fae, my control over that anger seemed to have slipped. The second wave, the weight of my rage, threatened to pull me under. I’m not myself, I thought distantly.

It took a moment for the feeling to pass. When I was sure I was in control, I opened the door of the truck, dreading my return to the Merlotte house with the burden of my bad news.

What a lousy, rotten way to start the day.

“Sookie,” Quinn said, and I turned to show him my face. I paused with one foot on the running board.

“All right,” he said carefully. “I get it that you’re way upset now, and so am I. But I’ve got to talk to you sometime.”

“I understand,” I said with equal care. “And we’ll try to make the chance. Putting all personal issues aside, I’m glad you’re here. Sam’s family is up against more than we know. You’re willing to help?” My eyes were telling him I’d think less of him if he wasn’t.

“Yes,” he said, surprised. “Of course I’ll help. Trish will put out a bulletin on the Web. It’s probably too late for much of anyone to come, since Wright’s out in the middle of nowhere, but we’ll all help. And I’m putting personal problems aside. For now.” I looked up into his eyes, and I read in his head that he was serious, determined, and unswerving.

“I’d better go,” I said. “You know where Bernie lives?”

“Yeah, we followed you at a distance. You spotted us, right? I hope you didn’t call Eric.”

I was a little shocked. “I wouldn’t do that, Quinn.”

“You didn’t protest too much when Bill showed up at your house and beat the hell out of me the last time I tried to talk to you.”

Eric had ordered Bill to intervene, since he’d banned Quinn from his area. “Excuse me,” I said sharply. “You’ll remember I was knocked unconscious! What happened to putting personal issues aside? You got Sam’s number? You got the same cell as you did?”

We swapped phone numbers before Quinn returned to the building. I had to face the fact that there was nothing to keep me from driving back to Bernie’s house. As I negotiated the streets of Wright, I found myself looking at each person I passed. Who was our friend? Who was our enemy?

A lightning bolt of a thought hit me. I was almost all human. I could legitimately claim this wasn’t my fight.

No, I couldn’t. I’d be as bad as Deidra’s bridesmaids.

I’d been Sam’s friend for years, and his family was human, too. I’d already taken a side, and there was no point in reviewing it.

I pondered Quinn’s appearance. His story had amazed me. He’d gone to a huge amount of trouble and inconvenience to rendezvous with me here in Texas, and he’d only been acting on a tip.

I’d had a brief but ardent relationship with Quinn before I’d broken up with him—awkwardly and painfully—over family issues . . . his family issues. I’d been feeling guilty ever since, though I still thought I’d made the wise decision. Quinn seemed to think we had more to discuss, and possibly he was right, but I wanted to get through one crisis at a time.

I looked at the dashboard clock when I parked in front of the house. I’d been gone only forty-five minutes. I sure felt a lot more than forty-five minutes older. I got out and crossed the yard to the front door.

As I came close to the damn sign, I ripped it out of the ground. Moving with a lot more velocity, I strode over to the neighbor’s house. Jim Collins was looking out of his open front window when I jabbed the stake into his dirt. Well, yee-haw. “You damn murderer,” I said, and then I made myself walk away before I climbed through the window to choke Collins.

His creased face had been shocked and almost frightened, and for a blinding second I’d felt sorry that he didn’t have a weak heart. After seeing the pathetic heaps of blood and fur, I would have enjoyed the sensation of scaring him to death.

I didn’t knock on Bernie’s door since I was staying there, and once I was inside, I went right to the kitchen at the back of the house. Sam, Bernie, and Craig were all there. They looked eerily alike as I appeared in the kitchen: apprehensive, upset, unhappy.

“All the dogs at the shelter are dead,” I said. “They were shot.”

Sam rose to take a tentative step toward me, and I could tell he wanted to offer me comfort. But I was too angry to accept it, and I held the palm of my hand toward him to let him know that.

“I moved the sign into Jim Collins’s yard,” I said. “That man’s a murderer.” My rage deflated just a little.

“Oh, Sookie,” Bernie began, sounding both alarmed and a little reproachful, and I held up the same palm to her.

“It was him,” I said. “He was not the only one, but it was him.”

She sat back and looked at me with more objective attention than she’d given me since I’d met her. “And you know this how?” she said.

“He’s condemned by his own words, from his own brain.”

“Sookie can read minds, Mom,” Sam said, and after a second’s thought, Bernie flushed a dull red. She had thought a few unflattering things about me. I’m a big girl; I can live with that. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard plenty of similar things before.

“Shapeshifters are hard to read, if that makes you feel any better,” I offered, and I sat down at the table with a thud. As the rage oozed out of me, it left an empty space, an aching hole. I looked down at my leg as if I could see it through my clothes, see the thickened, whiter flesh of the scarring. I made myself sit straighter. This family had enough on their plate without having to bolster me up.

“My friend Quinn showed up,” I said, and from the corner of my eye I saw Sam start. “He came with a couple you know, Bernie,” I said, looking at Sam’s mother. “A woman named Trish Pulaski and a man named Togo Olympio.”

“Trish and I have been friends since we moved to Wright,” Bernie said. “You probably remember her as Trish Graham, Sam. She divorced a while ago, took back her maiden name, and started up with Togo. I’ll never understand that relationship, but I tell myself it’s none of my business.” Bernie’s face suddenly reflected much more of the woman behind it and less of the mom, as if she’d switched hats internally.

“The point is, they’re very concerned about Craig and Deidra’s wedding going off without a hitch.” I watched Bernie’s face pass from incomprehension to reluctant horror.

“You think there may be more?” she said.

I found myself understanding why Bernie had been stunned when her husband had reacted so drastically to her revelation. As well as being unimaginative, Bernie was a wee bit on the unrealistic side.

“Mom,” Sam said, “if they’re starting off by killing all the dogs in the pound, I think you can assume there’s going to be something else happening. Maybe we should think about postponing the wedding? Move it somewhere else?” He looked at his brother.

Craig said, “No.” His face hardened as I watched. “We put it off once because Deidra’s family wanted to understand more about what she’d be getting into, being married to me. We got the couples counseling. We got the totally unnecessary genetics counseling. Deidra’s ready to marry me. Her family is used to the idea, if not exactly thrilled. We set another date, and then we had to move it up.” He cast a quick glance at me. He was wondering if I knew exactly why. “Because of Deidra’s brother going overseas.”

“Next month,” I said helpfully.

“Right. Well, we didn’t want to wait till the last minute. In fact, we don’t want to wait another day.”

Sam was looking from me to Craig.

“But everyone has been pitching in to help,” Bernie said, still stuck on the hate. She’d lived here for years, and I could tell she was having a very hard time believing that people she’d known for more than a decade could turn on her. “I mean, the ladies in the church, the pastor . . . they’ve all been so happy that Craig and Deidra were going to get married. They threw Deidra a wedding shower in the fellowship hall.”

“See, most people aren’t bad,” I said, as if I were reassuring a child. “I’m sure it’s a minority here in Wright, a handful of people, but we don’t want anything bad to happen that would ruin the wedding. Craig and Deidra need happy memories of this day, not . . .” My voice trailed off as I thought of what I’d seen at the shelter.

“Yes, I understand,” Bernie said. She sat up a little straighter. “Craig, honey, I think you need to call Deidra right now. I hope nothing has happened over at her place.”

Nothing could have gotten Craig moving as fast as that idea, and he had speed-dialed his fiancée almost before his mother had finished speaking. He stepped into the living room while he spoke to her, and he snapped his phone shut and came back into the kitchen with an air of relief.

“They’re fine,” he said. “I didn’t tell them about the animal shelter. I hope they won’t find out until after the wedding. Deidra’s at the Clip N Curl, getting her hair done.”

It was all of eight thirty in the morning. Despite the important issues we were facing, I shuddered at the idea of how long a day it was going to be for Deidra.

“When are Mindy and Doke and their kids coming?” I asked.

“They’re supposed to be here in an hour,” Bernie said. “Should I call their cell, tell them to turn back?”

“No,” Sam said. “No, this wedding is going to take place. We are not going to let a few crackpots make us back down. That is,” he said more quietly, “if that’s what Craig and Deidra want to do.”

Craig smiled at Sam briefly. “I’m getting married today,” he said. “I don’t want to put anyone in danger, but we’re having this wedding.” He shook his head from side to side. I could see the unhappiness, the bewilderment, the determination. “They all know us. Why do we seem like we’re any different from the way we’ve always been? And it’s not like Deidra or I turn into anything.”

Sam stared at his brother, and Bernie winced.

To his credit, Craig noticed. He said, “Sam, we talked this all out a couple of months ago. You’re my brother, and you and Mom are like God made you. If they’ve got a problem with that, they can take it up with him.”

Sam laughed, though unwillingly, and I nodded at Craig. That was a good little speech. I hoped the next time Sam felt down about being different, he would remember his brother’s words. I wouldn’t forget them myself.

I went to the guest room to put on my makeup. I’d dashed out of the house in such a hurry that morning, I’d left out several important steps in my daily routine. I wasn’t an essential part of the rehearsal (or the wedding), but the family clearly expected me to go with them.

I tried to think of some tangible help I could provide—besides looking at dead animals and/or threatening a neighbor who already hated the family. (In retrospect, that hadn’t been a smart thing.) When Sam knocked on the door thirty minutes later, I let him in. I’d pulled on the yellow and gray skirt outfit with matching yellow sandals. The top zipped up the back, and I turned around so Sam could finish zipping for me. I didn’t have the flexibility in my arms that I’d had before . . . Oh, the hell with it. Not today.

Sam zipped me up as though this were our routine. He was wearing a dress shirt and khakis, and his loafers were shined. He’d brushed his hair neatly back. I admired the new look, but I found myself missing the long tangle of hair he’d had before.

“Listen, I did something I shouldn’t have done,” I said when I was zipped. I picked up my brush and began untangling my hair, which was very long now.

“If you’re about to tell me what you said to Collins, I heard. So did Mom. Shifters have real sharp hearing, you know . . . and the windows were open.”

I could feel my cheeks turn red. “Sorry,” I said.

“I would have gone in and hit him,” Sam said, and that was so close to what I’d been thinking that I jumped.

“I almost did,” I confessed.

“Sook,” he said seriously, “I appreciate your caring about my family so much.”

“But it’s not my family or my business, and I should back off and let you handle it? I know,” I said, turning away and brushing my hair forcefully.

“I was going to say I’m glad I brought you.” Pause. “Jannalynn’s got her good points, or I wouldn’t be going out with her—but she has no restraint, and she’d have gone batshit crazy this morning. The good thing about Jannalynn is that she’s fully into her animal nature, and the bad thing is, it seems like she likes it more.”

Without revealing how close I had come to going batshit crazy myself, I turned to face him, brush in hand. “I get what you’re saying. Eric loves being a vampire. He loves it more than anything.” Maybe more than he loves me, I thought, surprising myself. “You remember that black Focus we thought might be following us? Well, it was Quinn. Trish and Togo are his local contacts. He came here to talk to me.”

Sam said, “Didn’t you tell me that Eric had banned Quinn from Area Five?”

“Yeah, but he found out I was coming here from some kind of website. Isn’t that crazy? Quinn flew from wherever he was working, and he got Togo and Trish to pick him up at the airport and bring him here.”

“You and he . . .”

“Yeah, we had a thing, but I kind of told him to take a hike—I didn’t put it that mean—because his family is . . . well, complicated. His mom’s not really sane, and his little sister is a real piece of work, though I guess I never really had a chance to get to know her. I didn’t break up with him well,” I admitted. “He wants to have some kind of conversation about it. I sure don’t need that, though I guess I owe him. I just don’t understand how my being here got on the Internet.”

Sam looked embarrassed. “That might be my fault,” he said. “We keep track of each other now, all of us who change. Since the announcement, we never know what people are going to do. Humans don’t always react in predictable ways. You know that better than anyone.”

“So you put it on the Web that you and I were coming here to this wedding?”

“No! No! But I did mention it when I was talking to Travis.” Travis, a trucker who was a Were not affiliated with a pack, stopped in at Merlotte’s about once every two weeks.

“But why would you have mentioned me?”

Sam closed his eyes briefly. “You’re kind of famous in the supe community, Sookie.”

“What?” This made no sense at all.

“You’re unique. Weres like something different as much as anyone else. You’re a friend of the Shreveport pack. You’ve done a lot for twoeys.”

“Okay, several thoughts. I haven’t seen a computer around here, or I’d ask you to check Jim Collins’s website. I want to know what he’s saying about what’s happening in Wright. And here’s my second thought—I’ve been assuming that Jannalynn knows I came with you . . . right?”

“Sookie, of course Jannalynn knows I brought you to this wedding. I explained that I’d asked you before we’d started dating.” Sam looked even more embarrassed, which I didn’t think was possible. He’d already more or less admitted that that wasn’t the only reason he’d left Jannalynn at home.

Plus, Jannalynn would realize that anyone who saw on the Web that I was going with Sam to his family home would know that she was not the only woman in Sam’s life. Even though Sam and I had a platonic relationship, I knew I would have been pretty jealous if I’d been in her shoes. Or on her paws.

“Jannalynn’s going to want to kill you,” I said flatly. “Or me. And I guess I wouldn’t really blame her.”

Sam flushed, but his gaze was unwavering. “She’s a big girl. She knows better than anyone else that . . .”

“That you’ve lost your frickin’ mind? Well, it’s done now.” I sighed and regrouped, realizing that worrying about Sam’s indiscretion would have to wait until later. We needed to focus on getting Craig and Deidra married without any violence disrupting the ceremony.

“Have you thought about how Quinn and Togo and Trish can be useful? I’ve got Quinn’s cell phone number. They’re probably at the pound . . . cleaning up. Of course, I’ll help however I can.” I handed Sam the scrap of paper with Quinn’s number.

“What I’m going to ask them to do,” Sam said, “is stand guard. When we get to the church for the rehearsal, I hope you four will set up a perimeter outside. That way we’ll have plenty of warning if Collins and his buddies try something. The time of the rehearsal isn’t public knowledge, not like the wedding time. That was in the paper because the whole community was invited.”

That was a common practice in Bon Temps, too, so I wasn’t surprised. Many engagement announcements included the particulars of the marriage ceremony with the invitation, “All friends of the couple are welcome.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be a lookout.” I’d feel better standing watch with a shotgun in my hands, but I figured that if I had the Benelli, (a) I might actually shoot someone, and (b) I might get arrested. I didn’t know Texas gun laws, and there was no telling how stringently they’d be enforced on a local level.

“You look too pretty to be standing out in the churchyard. I’m sorry,” Sam said, shaking his head. “This isn’t how I thought we’d be spending this time.”

“Sam, it’s not your fault. I’m glad I can help out. I only regret it’s necessary.” There was a chance that planting the sign and killing the dogs was the end of the protest against the marriage. But that was a remote possibility.

“I’m sorry you had to see the dogs; I guess . . . Well, that’s just sad. No one should have to see something like that.” Sam stared down at his feet.

“I agree,” I said, my voice as steady as I could manage.

From the flurry of voices in the living room, I could tell that Doke and Mindy and the kids had arrived. Sam and I went out to join them. We told them all the news. After some quiet discussion, they decided they’d stay at the house with the kids until it was time for the wedding. Mindy said, “All we’d do at the rehearsal is find out when to come down the aisle and sit in a pew, and I think Doke and I can manage that, right?” They were worried about Mason and Bonnie, and I didn’t blame them.

When it was time to leave the house, I walked out with the others to find that a car was parked in front that didn’t belong to anyone in the family.

“Hey,” called a short brunette who was leaning on the hood of the Saturn. She straightened and came forward to hug Sam.

“Hey, yourself,” he said, and hugged her back.

“That’s Sister Mendoza,” Craig explained. “They’ve been friends a long time.” Craig was afraid I’d get mad at Sam touching another woman.

“She’s a nun?”

“What?” Craig stared for a second. “Oh. Oh, no! Sister is her name.” He laughed. “She and Sam have been friends ever since we moved here. She’s a deputy at the sheriff’s department.”

“Why is she here?”

“I have no idea. Hey, Sister! Did you come because of that parking ticket I forgot to pay?”

“Hell, no,” Sister Mendoza said, letting go of Sam. “I come here to be a watchman. Me and Rafe.” A short, thick-bodied man got out of the car. He was as pale-haired as Sister was brunette.

“Rafe played football with Sam,” Craig told me, but I think I would have figured it out by the way they were thumping each other.

Sam beckoned me over. “Sookie, these are some old friends of mine, Sister and Rafe,” he said. “You two, you be nice to this woman.” Sam was in no doubt that they would be. His brain was practically rolling with pleasure at seeing his old buddies.

The two friends gave me a quick once-over, seemed okay with what they saw. Rafe gave Sam a fist to the shoulder. “She’s way too pretty for you, you old dog,” Rafe said, and they laughed together.

“I’m taking the backyard,” Sister said, and she left.

Rafe gave Sam a sharp nod. “You-all go to the church and don’t worry about things here,” he said. “We got your back. You got someone coming to the church?”

Sam said, “We got the church covered.” He paused. “You two aren’t in uniform,” he said carefully.

“Well, we’re off duty,” Rafe said. He shrugged. “You know how it is, Sam.”

Sam looked pretty grim. “I’m getting the picture,” he said.

I felt much better about the safety of both the kids and the house itself as Sam and I got into his truck to drive behind Craig and his mom to the church.

It wasn’t a long drive. Wright was no bigger than Bon Temps. Drier, dustier, browner—but I didn’t imagine it was essentially different. We’d had trouble with demonstrators in front of the bar, but they’d gotten tired of getting hustled out of the parking lot, and they’d gone back to writing letters. Could my fellow townspeople do what someone had done here at the dog pound?

But there wasn’t time to worry about that because we were two blocks west of Main Street at the corner of Mesquite (the north–south street) and St. Francis (the east–west). Gethsemane Baptist Church was a faux-adobe structure with a red-tiled roof and a squat bell tower. I could hear the organist practicing inside. The sound was strangely peaceful.

There was parking at the front and at the left side, between the church and the parsonage. The fellowship hall was directly behind the church, connected by the umbilical cord of a covered walkway. The yard was full of thin grass, though what grew there was neatly mown.

A man who could only be the pastor was walking over from the parsonage, which looked like a smaller version of the church. He was middle-aged with a big belly and graying black hair. From my first dip into his head, I concluded that Bart Arrowsmith was a genial man who was not equipped to handle a situation this volatile. I knew that by now word must have spread all over Wright about what had happened, and I knew this situation had spooked Brother Arrowsmith.

This was a day when I had to know the capabilities and weaknesses of the people around me, no matter how invasive it felt to enter their thoughts. What I saw in Brother Arrowsmith’s head gave me the sad suspicion that he was not going to be the tower of strength we needed today. He was a conflicted man who couldn’t decide what God wanted him to do when he was faced with a situation he couldn’t interpret scripturally.

He was troubled on this day that should be so happy. And that made him feel even worse. He liked Craig and Deidra. He had always liked Bernie. For that matter, he liked Sam, but when he looked at Sam, he now saw something subhuman.

I took a deep breath and got out of Bart Arrowsmith’s head. It wasn’t a healthy, happy place to be.

A light breeze had been stirring the leaves on the short trees. Now it gained power. It hadn’t rained in Wright for a while, and my cheeks felt the sting of the sandy particles picked up by the wind. I didn’t know who’d appointed me Grim Nemesis, but I was in a weird state of apprehension.

I intercepted the minister as he reached the steps. I introduced myself. After Bart Arrowsmith shook my hand and asked me if Craig was already inside, I told him, “You need to take a stand on this.”

“What?” he said. He peered through his wire rims at me.

“You know what’s happening here is wrong. You know this is hate, and you know God doesn’t want hatred to happen here.”

See? Like I was the voice of God. But I felt compelled.

Something shifted around behind Bart Arrowsmith’s eyes. “Yes, I hear you,” he said. He sighed. “Yes.” He turned to go into the church.

Next I’d be nailing a list of demands to the door.

Trish, Quinn, and Togo drifted across the dry yard. Their feet hardly made a sound on the crisp grass. I hadn’t seen them approach, but they all looked the worse for the wear. Quinn and Togo had been digging.

“Quinn will take the front,” Trish said, sounding calm and authoritative though her eyes were red from weeping. “Togo, honey, you take the rear. Sookie and I will take the right side.” I hoped we could take it for granted that no one was going to attack from the parsonage on the left.

I nodded, then exchanged a glance with Quinn as I started moving east into position.

Deidra and her parents arrived in one car, her sisters and her brothers in another. Mrs. Lisle was almost as pretty as Deidra, but with shorter hair and a few more pounds. Mr. Lisle looked exactly like a man who worked in a hardware store: capable, skilled, and unimaginative. The whole family was obviously very anxious.

Mr. Lisle wanted to ask us what we were doing standing around the churchyard, but his nerve failed him. So he and Mrs. Lisle, Deidra and her sisters, and Deidra’s oldest brother scurried across the yard to the open doors of the church. Deidra’s other brother, the one in the service, took up a stand beside me. Since I was sure he was armed, I was glad to see him. He nodded at my companion. “Miss Trish,” he said politely. She patted him on the shoulder. “Jared Lisle,” he said to me.

“Sookie Stackhouse. I came with Sam.”

And then we watched.

A pair of girls arrived and scooted up the sidewalk and into the church, casting a glance at Jared as they hurried. He smiled and raised his hand in greeting.

“They’re singing,” he explained. “I’m kind of surprised they showed up.” Sam and Deidra’s oldest brother were Craig’s groomsmen, so the wedding party was complete.

Through the open church windows, I listened to “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” as the organist ran through some opening music. I could faintly hear Brother Arrowsmith giving instructions to the wedding party.

A car or two drove by, with nothing more than a curious glance from the drivers. I fidgeted, unable to find a casual way to be just hanging around the side of the church. I felt both conspicuous and awkward.

Jared didn’t have that problem. Since he was in the army, he was used to spending time being on alert. He didn’t talk to me or Trish for a long time, but I figured that was okay because he had something more important to think about.

As for me, I was wondering what on earth I would do if there was some kind of attack. Read their thoughts really, really quickly? That wouldn’t be much help. I missed my shotgun more than ever. Could I shoot another human being if he attacked the church or tried to disrupt Sam’s brother’s wedding?

Yes, I thought I could. Hell, yes. My back stiffened.

It’s both interesting and unpleasant to get a big revelation about your own character, especially at a moment when you can’t do a damn thing about it. I couldn’t abandon my post, run to the nearest gun store to make a purchase, don some black leather and high-heeled boots, and reinvent myself as a kick-ass heroine. A gun would make me feel tough, but it wouldn’t make me be tough. The desire to shoot someone wouldn’t make me an accurate shot with a handgun. Though if I had my shotgun, it would be hard to miss.

I had a hundred scattered ideas in the space of a few seconds. And those few seconds multiplied as the assorted band I’d joined kept watch over nothing. Only Jared and Trish showed no signs of impatience or restlessness, but they did relax enough to exchange a few comments. I gathered that Trish had taught Jared in high school—English and composition. She was enjoying her early retirement. She’d been doing a lot of volunteer work and selling her handmade jewelry. Jared told her about his posting in Afghanistan. He was ready to go.

Then we heard the sounds of several engines approaching the turnoff to the church from the main drag. We all stiffened, and our eyes went to the stop sign at the end of the street.

Three motorcycles turned onto the street, motors rumbling. And there was a Suburban right behind them, full of people.

We formed a line across the sidewalk without saying a word.

The engines were turned off, and there was silence. The only sound in the neighborhood was the wind through the branches of the live oak in the front yard and the organ music wafting from the church windows.

I tried to develop a plan, and finally I decided the only way I could stop someone from entering the church was by tackling him. The three people astride cycles swung off and removed their helmets. They were all women. Ha! That was unexpected. And I realized after just a moment that they were all shifters, something Togo and Trish had picked up on in a fraction of a second.

“What are you doing here, sisters?” Togo said, his wonderful accent and deep voice fascinating.

The people in the Suburban began to climb out. Two of them were male; two were women. They were also two-natured.

“Hey, buddy,” called the man who’d been driving. “We heard about the problem here, from the Web. We’ve come to be of service.”

There was a long moment of thoughtful silence. Then Trish stepped forward. She was holding back her wind-tossed gray curls with both hands. She introduced herself. “I’m a friend of the groom’s family. We’re here to keep strangers out of the church. You know there’ve already been a couple of incidents today. All the dogs in the pound were killed to protest this wedding.”

I was a little unnerved to hear the newcomers growl. Most two-natured didn’t let themselves express their animal sides when they were in public. Then I realized that Deidra’s brother and I were the only humans around. We were in the minority.

The newly arrived Weres, both the Suburban wolves and the Biker Babes—I didn’t make that up; that’s what their jackets said—reinforced our picket around the church. A couple of trucks drove by, but if the men in them had pictured themselves stopping, they changed their minds when they saw the assortment of people waiting.

I introduced myself to a Biker Babe named Brenda Sue, who told me she was a trauma nurse at a hospital about fifty miles away. This was her afternoon off. I told her about the four o’clock wedding, and she looked as if she was working something out in her head. “We’ll be here,” she said.

At the moment, I thought that Trish, when she’d posted that call to arms on the twoey website, had done us a good deed. And maybe Jim Collins had actually given us a present by killing those poor animals. He might as well have shot a flaming arrow into the sky.

I heard the traditional music a couple more times, and I could hear the voice of an older woman giving some quick instructions. The rehearsal was over much more quickly than I’d anticipated. I didn’t know if that was because Brother Arrowsmith was hurrying it up or if forty-five minutes was normal for the rehearsal for a small family ceremony.

The wedding party came out of the church. They were obviously shocked to see the increased number of watchmen in the yard. Sam and Bernie grinned, and though the regular humans held back a little, all the two-natured had a great meet-and-greet. After some conversation all the way around, Jared Lisle shook my hand and got in a car with his brother and his sisters. No one wanted to linger in this exposed space. Trish and Togo had volunteered to feed the out-of-town visitors an impromptu lunch out at Trish’s ranch, and they led the little procession south out of town. Sam’s mom and Craig got into their car to go home, leaving Sam and me in front of the church.

“You and I are going to the police department,” he said briefly, and I scrambled up into the truck. Sam was silent on the short drive—everything in Wright was a short drive—and by the time we parked in front of the small brick structure labeled LOS COLMILLOS POLICE DEPT, I understood that Sam was angry, stressed, and feeling responsible for a certain amount of this persecution.

“I’m sorry,” he said to me abruptly.

“What?”

“I’m sorry I bring you here and this all happens. You have enough on your plate without having this added to it. I know you wish you’d stayed home in Bon Temps.”

“What I was wishing was that I were more use,” I said, trying to smile. “Maybe you should have brought Jannalynn, was what I was thinking.”

“She would have broken each of Jim Collins’s fingers and laughed while she did it.”

Oh. Well, in that case. “But at least she would have accomplished something,” I said ruefully. What had I done that morning? Did not killing the neighbor count as a positive?

We were out of the truck and walking into the police department as we had this exchange. After we passed through the scarred door, it seemed like a good time to stop talking about finger breaking.

“Sam,” said the middle-aged man behind the desk. “When did you get back?”

He had thin lips and a square jaw that came to a point, and a pair of eyebrows that were straight and bushy. He was smiling, but he was not happy. I wasn’t sure what the cause of his unhappiness was. I suspected it was us.

“Hey, Porter. We got in yesterday. This is my girl friend, Sookie.”

“If you’re going out with Sam, you’ve got a high bullshit tolerance,” Porter said. He was trying to smile, but it wasn’t reaching his eyes.

“I put up with him somehow,” I said.

“I guess you aren’t here just to say hi?” The name on his tag read “Carpenter.” Was his name Porter Carpenter? Almost as challenging as Sister Mendoza.

“I wish,” Sam said, and I realized that his speech had slowed down a bit and his body had relaxed. He even looked a little younger. He was home. Funny I hadn’t noticed that until now. “I’m afraid we had some trouble this morning.”

“I been out to the animal shelter,” Porter said. “Your problem related to that?”

I let Sam tell Officer Carpenter all about it, and he did a quick job of it.

“So you think this was at least partly Jim Collins’s doing?” Carpenter asked. “Jim wasn’t too bad until the vampires came out, but that tipped him over the line because that was about when Della died.”

Della had been Jim’s wife. I filled that in from Sam’s brain.

“Then the weres . . . Well, it just made him nuts. Especially when Don shot your mom. He and Don were big buddies.”

“So it was okay for his big buddy to shoot his own wife?” Sam asked bitterly.

“Sam, I’m just saying.” Porter shrugged.

“I didn’t see any evidence Jim Collins put the sign on Sam’s mom’s lawn or that he killed the dogs at the animal shelter,” I said, trying to get the conversation back on track. “At least, none that you could take to court. Maybe you found something?”

Carpenter shook his head. I knew he hadn’t looked. I was getting a whole lot from his head that scared me.

Sam said, “The dogs are dead, and nothing’s gonna change that. I’d like whoever did that to go to jail. But right now, I’m more worried that someone’s going to disrupt the wedding.”

“Do you think they’d do that?” Porter Carpenter asked, genuinely taken aback. “Ruin your brother’s wedding day?” He answered his own question. “Yes, I reckon there are a few people who would.” He thought for a moment. “Don’t worry about it, Sam. I’ll be there in my uniform, right outside the church. I’ll have another deputy with me, too. We’d have traffic duty anyway. Where’s the reception going to be? Church hall?”

Sam nodded.

Good. Close and quick to get to, not much exposure, I thought.

Though Sam and Porter talked a little more, there wasn’t much else the cop was willing to do until the anti-two-natured took a more drastic step. He was only being as helpful as he was because he’d known Sam and his mom and dad a long time. If it hadn’t been for that bond, he would have given us a much cooler reception. A deputy came in while Sam and Carpenter were talking, and he regarded us with the same reserve.

When we left the police station, I thought Sam was more worried than when he’d gone in. The cops who were on our side were already at the Merlotte home, and they weren’t in uniform.

We arrived at Bernie’s house to see at least ten cars parked up and down the street and in the driveway. I was filled with dismay, thinking these were people who were showing up to give the family some more grief; but then I saw that the new arrivals were positioning themselves all around the little lot. They were facing outward. They were there to protect the Merlotte family.

Unexpectedly, tears welled up in my eyes. I groped for Sam’s hand, felt it grip mine. “Hey, Leonard,” Sam said to the nearest man, a gray-haired guy wearing a khaki shirt and khaki pants.

“Sam,” Leonard said, bobbing his head.

Sister nodded at us. “We’ll get this done,” she assured Sam. “Day’s half over. Bring Sookie to the next class reunion, you hear?”

Though I knew Sam had a real girlfriend and I was only standing in for the weekend, I had a giddy little tingle of warmth at the welcome I’d received from his family and friends. I had to stop in amazement when we went in the front door. The little house was a beehive of activity inside as well as out.

There were some bouquets of carnations on the occasional tables in the living room. One had balloons attached, which made the atmosphere weirdly cheerful. While we’d been gone, not only had the florist van stopped by, but someone had delivered a platter of cold cuts and cheese, and bread. Sliced tomatoes and everything else that might conceivably go on a sandwich were set out beside the platter, along with some “wedding” paper plates. Sam and I helped ourselves, as everyone else had done. Mindy’s children were running around in high excitement.

The house felt very small, very full of life, and all the brains were buzzing with excitement and happiness.

While Sam and I ate in the living room, sitting side by side on the couch, Mason brought me a glass of sweet tea, carrying it very carefully. “Here, Aunt Sookie,” he said proudly, and though I opened my mouth to correct the title, I just said, “Thank you, darlin’.” Mason grinned, looked instantly bashful, and dashed away.

Sam put his arm around me and kissed me on the cheek.

I took a sip of the tea because I didn’t know what else to do. I thought Sam was getting a little too into his role-playing.

“After all, you are my girlfriend this weekend,” he said close to my ear, and I stifled a laugh because it tickled.

“Uh-huh,” I said, infusing the words with a little hint of warning.

He didn’t remove his arm until he needed it to pick up his sandwich, and I shook my head at him . . . but I was smiling. I couldn’t help it. I was so uplifted at the community rallying around the Merlottes and the Lisles. I hadn’t felt this hopeful in . . . forever.

That lasted about five more minutes. The brains outside grew jangled with agitation. It began about the same time that I noticed an increased number of vehicles passing in front of the house. Given the general turmoil, I didn’t think much of it. However, I glimpsed movement out the front window, and I half stood to look through Bernie’s sheers. There were four cars parked across the street and at least twenty newcomers standing around, blocking the cars of the volunteers, and the family cars, too.

Sister was yelling, poking her finger at the chest of a man three times as big around as she was. He was yelling back. And finally, he shoved her and she went sprawling.

Sam had jumped to his feet to look out the window. When he saw his friend fall, he yelled and shot out of the house, Doke and Craig following him. Bernie zipped through the living room soon after, pelting out the front door like the strong woman she was.

There was lots of shouting, lots of commotion, and I wondered if I should join them, if I could be of any help. Then I thought twice. There was something contrived about the whole incident. Why would a confrontation be staged in front of the house?

So something could happen at the back.

Mindy and her children were standing in the hall, and I understood that Mindy didn’t want the kids to see any violence through the front or back windows. I nodded at her, held my finger over my lips, and eased into the kitchen. The small wooden bat the men had been using to lob balls to Mason the day before was by the back door, and I picked it up and hefted it. I was glad it was wood and not plastic. I looked out the window cautiously. Yes, someone was creeping through the backyard. A teenage boy, lean and lanky and angry. He had something in his hand.

My heart was pounding a mile a minute, and I had to make myself calm down so I could read his thoughts. He had some kind of a bomb, and he was planning on opening the back door and tossing it in and running like hell. I had no idea what kind of device it was. It might be a stink bomb or a smoke bomb . . . or a firebomb.

I felt a movement behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mindy creeping into the room. She’d made the kids lie down on the hall floor, and had come in to provide backup. I felt an unexpected surge of emotion. My resolve got a shot of adrenaline.

So here’s where I may have overreacted.

When the teenager opened the back door, so very cautiously, and stuck his hand in, I shoved the door all the way open, took a half step, and swung the bat as hard as I could.

I broke his arm. And here’s the thing: Though what he was holding turned out to be a stink bomb, not something that would actually physically harm Sam’s family, I never did feel bad about it afterward. In fact, in a savage kind of way I was glad I’d broken a bone.

This was the new me. Though I could regret I’d changed, it was a done deal. I couldn’t regenerate the tenderhearted me. I didn’t know how much of this alteration in my character was due to the blood bond I shared with a big, unscrupulous Viking and how much of it was due to the torture I’d undergone . . . but I wasn’t exactly the same nice person, as this boy had just found out.

He screamed in pain, and people came running from all over, both his buddies and the Merlotte family and their friends, and then the police, both in and out of uniform, and it was all chaos for a good forty minutes.

Since Mindy had been standing there while the boy came in the back door—and when he was blubbering in pain, he himself admitted it—I was in the clear.

In fact, his hastily summoned parents were absolutely horrified, didn’t try to dodge the facts or excuse his actions. They were stand-up people, which was a huge relief, because the boy was Nathan Arrowsmith, the only child of the Reverend and Mrs. Bart Arrowsmith. Talk about your touchy situation.

What did Sam’s family do? Sam’s family had a prayer meeting.

My gran had been a religious woman, and I liked to think of myself as a striving Christian. (Lately, I’d been more striving than Christian.) But we’d never had a family prayer circle. So I felt a little self-conscious about standing in the living room holding hands with Doke and Sam while all of us bowed our heads and prayed out loud, one by one.

Bernie identified herself to God, which I thought was kind of unnecessary, and then asked God to make her enemies see the light of tolerance. Mindy asked that God grant his blessing to the wedding and keep it peaceful. Craig very manfully asked God to forgive Nathan Arrowsmith and those who had conspired with him. Mason asked God to give him back his baseball bat. (I winced at that one.) Doke asked God to cure the hatred growing in the people of Wright. I asked God to restore peace in our hearts, which was something we all needed. Sam put in a request for the safety of everyone involved in the wedding. Bonnie got too self-conscious to say anything and started crying—pretty understandable in a three-year-old.

I felt a little better afterward, and I think the family did, too. It was definitely time to get ready to go over to the church again, and for the second time that day I retreated to the guest/sewing room to get dressed. I put on the sleeveless blue dress I’d borrowed from Tara. I wore Gran’s pearl necklace and earrings and the black heels. I pulled my hair off my face with a pearl comb—also Gran’s—and left it loose. All I’d had to buy was a lipstick.

Sam wore a suit, lightweight blue seersucker. When I emerged, we looked at each other speechlessly.

“We clean up pretty good,” I said, smiling at him.

He nodded. And I could tell he was thinking that Jannalynn would have worn something really extreme, and his family wouldn’t have liked it. I felt a twinge of irritation with Sam. Why was he dating her, again? I was beginning to feel sorry for the girl. All weekend, Sam had been glad he hadn’t brought her to meet his family. What kind of relationship was that? Not one founded on mutual respect.

When we came out to go to the church, Jim Collins was standing in his yard holding a sign that read NO ANIMAL MARRIAGES IN HUMAN CHURCHES. Offensive, yes. Illegal, no.

I hadn’t forgotten from which direction Nathan Arrowsmith had come with his stink bomb.

I stopped on my way to Sam’s truck. I took a step off the driveway. I caught Jim Collins’s eyes. He wanted to look away, but he didn’t. He thought his pride required that he meet my gaze. He was full of hate and anger. He missed Don, thought Don was right to shoot Bernie since in Jim’s view she’d been a faithless liar. He knew Bernie hadn’t cheated on her husband, but concealing what she really was counted in his book. The constant pain that nagged at Jim Collins’s joints made his mind restless and angry. Advanced arthritis.

I said, “You’re alone, and lonely, and miserable, and you’ll stay that way until you get rid of all that hate.” And I turned, walked away, and met Sam at the truck.

Sam said, “Feel better, Sookie?”

I said, “That wasn’t a good thing to do. I know. I’m sorry.” A little.

“Too bad you couldn’t break his arm,” Sam said, and he was smiling. A little.

As we opened the truck doors, we both glanced down the street toward Main, alerted by the buzz of voices. The street that had been so oddly empty that morning was now lined with people.

“What the hell?” Sam said. The whole Merlotte party, including the children, froze in place by their vehicles. While we’d been dressing for the most important day in Craig’s and Deidra’s lives, people with other plans had been gathering.

There were signs, signs bearing hateful messages. HUMAN BEINGS WALK ON TWO FEET, read the mildest one I saw. The others ranged from biblical quotations to obscenities about Craig and Deidra’s wedding night. My hand flew up to cover my mouth as I read some of them, as if I could suppress my horror. Mindy covered her children’s eyes. Even though I didn’t think they could read the signs—and “abomination” is a pretty long word, even for older kids—I understood exactly how she felt.

“Oh my God,” Bernie said. “Has the world gone mad? My husband shoots me, and everyone hates me?”

“Maybe we should go back in the house,” Doke said. He’d picked up Mason, and Mindy had lifted Bonnie into her arms.

“I’ll never go back in the house,” Bernie growled. “You got the kids, you do what you think you have to. I’ll never let them win.”

Sam stood by his mother, his arm around her shoulders. “We go forward, then,” he said quietly.

“All right,” I said, bracing myself. “All right, here we go. Craig?”

“Yeah,” said Craig. “I’m going to the church. I hope the Lisles can get there. I’m not making Deidra wait for me on our wedding day.”

The excitement in all those brains, the churning emotions and thoughts, battered at me, and I staggered. Sam jumped over to grasp my arm. “Sookie?” he said. “This doesn’t have to be your fight.”

I thought of the dead animals at the shelter. “This is my fight.” I took a deep breath. “How did all these people get here?”

“The Internet,” said Sister. She and Rafe were looking around them, alert to approaching danger. “Everyone just showed up, said they’d heard about it on the Internet. That Twitter thing maybe.”

A television news van pulled up at the end of the street.

“That’s probably good, I think,” Sam said. “Witnesses.”

But I thought people would act out worse, so their protest would make the evening news. “We better get going,” I said. “Before the assholes build up their courage.”

“Do you figure the majority of the crowd is pro or anti?” There were signs for both camps. More for the anti, but haters are always the most vocal.

I scanned the signs. “The signs are mostly anti,” I said. “The anti folks are better organized, which isn’t a big surprise. People of goodwill don’t have to carry signs.”

We got welcome reinforcements from an unexpected direction. Togo, Trish, and the Biker Babes, along with the Suburban people, came through the backyards to arrive at our sides.

“Road was blocked farther on,” Trish explained. “Pile on in your cars. We have a plan.”

Bernie said, “Trish, maybe . . .”

“You-all get in, but drive slow,” Trish said. “We’re going to walk alongside the cars. Don’t want any of them getting close to the kids.”

“Doke?” Mindy said. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“I don’t know.” Doke sounded almost desperate. “But let’s go. If we all stay together, it’s better than being divided.” The two parents crowded into the backseat of Bernie’s car, their kids between them, buckled into the parents’ seat belts. Craig got into the driver’s seat, and Bernie ducked in the passenger side. Sam and I hugged, and then we got into his truck. We pulled away from the curb slowly and carefully, and Togo got on my side of the truck. He smiled in at me. Trish was on Sam’s side. The bikers and the other shifters who’d come from out of town surrounded Bernie’s car, which would be behind us.

We started down the street, and the yelling began. The people who were trying to keep the peace pushed to get in front of the protesters, linking arms to provide us clear passage to the corner. The news crew had scrambled out and gotten their equipment set up, and the reporter, a handsome young man in a beautiful suit, was talking earnestly into the camera. Then he stepped out of camera view so the lens could pick up the scene of our approaching vehicles.

Sam was punching in a number on his cell. He held it to his ear. “Porter,” he said, “if you’re in front of the church, we’re headed your way, and in case you have your head up your ass, we’re in a lot of trouble.”

He listened for a moment. “Okay, we’ll be there. If we get through.”

He tossed the phone onto the seat. “He says it’s worse the closer you get to the church. He’s not sure he could get through to help us. He’s having trouble just keeping the crowd out of the church. The Lisles have made it, because they came early so Deidra could dress in the bride’s room.”

“That’s something,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. I was scared to death. I was looking out the front windshield, and I saw people’s mouths moving, their faces distorted; I heard human beings hating, hating. They didn’t know Sam or Bernie. They didn’t care that the engaged couple couldn’t turn into anything at all. They were waving signs. They were screaming at us. Again Togo smiled through the window at me, but I couldn’t smile back.

“Courage,” Sam said to me.

“I’m trying,” I told him, and then the rock hit the windshield. I shrieked, which was stupid, but I was so startled and it was so sudden. “Sorry, sorry!” I gasped. There was a crack in the glass.

“Shit,” Sam said, and I knew he was as tense as I was.

The next rock hit Togo in the shoulder. Though he didn’t bleed, he did react, and I knew it must have hurt. Togo, so big and aggressive, probably seemed a better target than Trish, who was gray-haired and a woman.

“I wish I had my shotgun,” I said out loud, though I’d thought it twenty times.

“If you had it, you’d shoot someone, so maybe it’s better you don’t,” Sam said, which amazed me.

“You don’t feel like shooting some of these yahoos?”

“I don’t feel like going to jail,” Sam said grimly. He was staring ahead, concentrating on keeping the truck moving at a slow and steady pace. “I’m only hoping none of them throw themselves in front of the truck.” Suddenly, a tall figure appeared directly in our way. He turned his back to us and began walking ahead at the right pace to be point man for our little procession. Quinn. Bald head gleaming, he led us forward, looking from side to side, evaluating the crowd.

Sam’s phone rang, and I picked it up. “Sookie here,” I said.

“There are more of your people here,” Brother Arrowsmith said. “I’m sending them to meet you.”

“Thanks,” I said, and flipped the phone shut. I relayed the message to Sam.

“So he finally grew a pair,” Sam said. “And just in time.”

We’d gotten to the corner by then, and we had to turn right on Main and go north a couple of blocks to turn onto St. Francis. While we waited for traffic to pass—amazingly, some people were actually trying to go about their everyday routine—I saw someone running toward us out of the corner of my eye. I twisted to see Togo looking out at the traffic, and he met my eyes briefly before he was broadsided by a short, heavy man swinging his sign at Togo’s head. Togo bled and staggered and went down on one knee.

“Quinn!” I yelled, and Quinn turned to see what was happening. He bounded over the hood of the truck with a leap that was truly astounding, and he plucked Togo’s attacker off the ground and held him there.

The crowd was shocked, and some of them stared, stunned by Quinn’s speed and strength. Then they became enraged because this difference was exactly what they feared. I glimpsed more swift movement, Sam yelled, and I saw a tall woman, brown hair flying behind her like a banner, loping across Main at an inhuman rate. She looked normal in her jeans and sneakers, but she was definitely more than human. She went right to the knot of Togo, Quinn, and the protester. She seized the man from Quinn’s grip and carried him over to the side of the street. With elaborate care, she placed him on his feet, and then she did an amazing thing. She patted him on the head with one long brown hand.

There was a scattering of laughter from the crowd. The man literally had his mouth hanging open.

She turned to Quinn and Togo, who’d lurched to his feet, and she grinned.

Togo’s shoulders relaxed as he realized the crisis had passed—for the moment. But Quinn seemed frozen, and then . . . so did she.

He bowed his head slightly to her. I couldn’t hear what he said, but she bobbed her head at him in return, and she said one word. And though I couldn’t really hear her, somehow I knew what it was: “tigress.”

Whoa. I wished like hell I had time to think about that, but the road cleared in both directions and it was time to turn. I rolled down the window to let the people on foot know what we were planning, and then we moved out, the shifters running easily beside our little motorcade. We drove only a short distance before the left turn. Just two more blocks west to the church.

If Bernie’s street had been crowded and frightening, St. Francis was even more crowded, and emotions were jacked up accordingly.

Sam was concentrating so hard on driving while watching the crowd for any sudden moves that I didn’t dare talk to him. I crouched in my seat, every muscle twanging with tension.

The tigress and Quinn were loping ahead of the truck in tandem, their paces matched as if they were in harness. It was beautiful to watch. A woman darted in front of them with a bucket of paint in her hand, and before she could aim it at them, the tigress bent to hit the bottom of the bucket. The paint splashed upward all over the woman, who had the neat, casual look of a soccer mom . . . one who’d strayed way out of her league. Covered in red paint, the woman staggered back the way she’d come, and half the crowd laughed while the other half shrieked. But tiger and tigress kept on running at their easy pace.

I looked in the rearview mirror to see how Bernie’s car was faring, and watched, horrified, as a group surged forward with pieces of wood and bats in their hands to pound on the roof. The children! Togo, drawn by the noise behind him, turned and then cast a quick, doubtful glance at me.

“Go!” I yelled. “Go!”

Togo didn’t hesitate but sprinted back to the crowd and began pulling people away from the car and tossing them to the side of the road as if they were cockleburs he was removing from his pants hem. Sam had stopped, and I glanced over at his agonized face. I realized that he didn’t know whether to leap out of the car and go to help, or if that would leave the truck—and me—open to attack. Trish was back at Mindy’s car helping Togo.

Then I saw a blur move by the truck and recognized Quinn. I swiveled in my seat and looked through the rear window. Quinn vaulted into the pickup bed, making the truck rock on its shocks.

I thought we were all done for, that this violence would spread and spread, and we’d be attacked and overwhelmed. Instead, the people of the town and the shifters who’d come in to support us began to shout for calm.

For the first time in its existence, most likely, the town of Wright heard a tiger roar. Though the sound came from an apparently human throat, it was unmistakable.

The crowd fell nearly silent. Togo and Trish, both bleeding, covered the windows of Mindy’s car with their bodies. I could see Trish heaving for breath, while Togo’s shirt was soaked on one side with blood. I peered through the windshield to see if help was coming from the church direction. I saw a thick crowd, and way at the rear I could glimpse the brown of the Wright police uniform. Two uniformed officers were trying to make their way through to come to us, but they’d never be here in time if the crowd decided to rush us. I looked back through the window to see Quinn drawing himself up tall.

“There are children in this car!” Quinn called. “Human children! What example have you set them?”

Some protesters looked ashamed. One woman began crying. But most seemed sullen and resentful, or simply blank, as if they were waking up from a trance.

“This woman has lived here for decades,” Quinn said, pointing at Trish, whose hair was soaked with blood. “But you harm her enough to make her bleed while she’s protecting children. Let us pass.”

He looked around, waiting to see if he’d be challenged, but no one spoke. He leaped down from the truck and jogged back up to resume point position with his new friend. She touched him, her brown hand resting on his arm. He looked directly at her. It lasted a long moment.

I had the feeling that Quinn might not need to have a talk with me anymore.

Then the two weretigers began their run again, and we moved behind them.

Porter Carpenter and another uniform had kept an area in front of the church blocked off for our arrival, and they moved the sawhorses aside so we could park. They looked relieved.

“They didn’t come help us,” I said, and I found that my lips and mouth had been so tense that I could hardly talk now.

Sam turned the truck off and shuddered, having his own reaction. “They were trying,” he said, his voice ragged. “I don’t know how hard they were trying, but they were on their way.”

“I guess this was a little more than they could handle,” I said, making a determined attempt to be less than furious.

“Let’s not beat them up,” Sam suggested. “What do you say?”

“Right. Contraindicated,” I said.

Sam managed to laugh, though it was a sad little snort of amusement.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Before we get out and the madness starts all over again . . . forgive me for dragging you into this.”

“Sam, not necessary!” I said, genuinely surprised. “We’re friends. Of course I’m here, and glad to do it. Don’t bring it up again, you hear? I’m just glad Mindy’s already married!”

My weak joke lightened his mood. He grinned at me and leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, and we both opened our doors.

The noise had begun rising again. The car’s passengers had emerged, too. Mindy and Doke, carrying their children, hurried up the steps of the church. Bernie, her fists clenched, faced the crowd, her eyes fixing on face after face. Some people had the grace to look ashamed, and some people were cheering for her, but some faces were twisted with loathing for this small, ordinary woman. Sam stood by his mother, his back straight.

I was so proud of him.

Craig moved to flank them, and I seized his hand. “Craig, you need to go on in the church now. We’ll be in there in a second,” I said, and I felt the anger come through him for a second before he understood that I was right. After giving his mother and brother one more look, he hurried into the church to reassure his bride that he’d arrived intact.

“Sam, you and your mom need to go in,” I said. “See, Togo’s brought Trish.”

All the two-natured who’d flooded into Wright were pressed into service by Quinn and his new friend. Togo carried the stunned and bleeding Trish into the church and laid her on a back pew before he took his place in the shifter barrier that formed around the church. The three Biker Babes and the Suburban Weres were joined by the Wright law enforcement officers, though some were more willing than others to man the barricade. They were joined by a score of others.

I saw a tiny woman I knew. “Luna!” I exclaimed, and gave the twoey a hug. I hadn’t seen her since I’d stayed in Dallas; it seemed like years ago, but it wasn’t.

“You always in trouble?” she asked, flashing me a grin. “Hey, look down the line.”

A few bodies away in the living chain, two Weres grinned and waved. One called out, “Hey, Milkbone,” and I realized that they were the ones who had picked us up in Dallas. Amazing.

“It’s like playing Whac-A-Mole,” Luna yelled, to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “We may have busted up that phony church in Dallas, but I bet some of the same people are still here yelling that we ought to die. In fact, I already saw one of ’em. Sarah’s here!”

I gaped at her. “Sarah Newlin?” She was the wife of the founder of the Fellowship of the Sun, and she’d gone underground with her husband after the raid.

Luna nodded. “Ain’t that something?”

“I got to get into the church,” I said. “I came all this way to go to a wedding, and I better go watch it. I hope I get to talk to you later.”

She nodded back and turned to scream in the face of a man twice her size who said he wanted to get into the church to shoot the minister who’d perform such a travesty of a ceremony. That’s exactly what he said, though he stumbled over “travesty.” (Prompted? I think so.) Luna didn’t even use words to respond. She just screeched. She scared the hell out of the man, who stumbled backward.

I ran quickly up the steps to the double doors of the church, amazed at Luna’s revelation and cursing my high heels. (Today had turned out to be about so much more than looking good.) The FBI had been looking for the Newlins since the night Luna and I had escaped from the Fellowship building. They’d found all kinds of interesting things—guns, a body—concealed in the huge building, a former church. Steve and Sarah Newlin had continued their ministry of hate while on the run. The pair had a huge following. I would love to catch Sarah Newlin and turn her over to the law. It was no thanks to her that I hadn’t been raped or murdered at the Fellowship building.

Nothing could drown out all the noise from the street, but the vestibule of the church was calm and relatively quiet. I could see through the open doors into the sanctuary that the candles were burning and the flowers were in place. Deidra’s army brother, Jared, had brought a rifle with him, and he was standing by the church door ready to use it. Sam was with him.

I could see that the Lisles were waiting in the aisle, though Deidra’s mother was struggling not to cry, and Deidra’s father looked very grim. He had come armed, too. I didn’t blame him. Craig and Bernie were right by them, along with Brother Arrowsmith’s wife. She’d brought their son with her, cast and all. He looked angry and horrified and humiliated, and most of all he looked ashamed, because Bernie stood in front of him and looked him right in the face, not letting the boy dodge her gaze.

A door in the east wall of the vestibule opened, the door to the bride’s room, and Deidra’s sisters peeked out in their bridesmaid dresses, both pretty and very young. And very frightened. Their older brother nodded at them, trying to look reassuring.

“Where are Denissa and Mary?” the younger sister asked.

“The girls who were supposed to sing? They didn’t make it,” Jared said. The door closed. I knew Deidra was waiting in the little room in her wedding dress. “Their parents were too scared to let them come,” Jared told Sam and me. “Sookie, you want to sing instead?”

Sam snorted.

“That’s one thing I can’t help with. You hear me singing, you’d run the other way.” I wouldn’t have thought anything could make me laugh, but I did. I took a deep breath. “I’ll stay right here and watch the door. You two are members of the wedding.”

Jared hesitated. “You know how to use this?” he asked, handing me the rifle. It was a .30-.30. I looked it over. “I prefer a shotgun,” I said. “But I can make this work.”

He gave me a straight look and then vanished through the double doors. Sam patted my shoulder and followed Jared.

I heard the music starting up in the sanctuary. The older of Deidra’s sisters came out of the side room, her lavender dress rustling around her feet, and her eyes widened at the sight of me standing there with the rifle.

“I’m just insurance,” I said, trying to look reassuring.

“I’m going to ring the bell,” she told me, as if she had to get my permission. She pointed at the door in the west side of the vestibule, the bell tower door.

“Good idea.” I had no idea whether it was or not, but if tradition demanded the bell be rung at the time of the wedding, then the bell would be rung. “You need me to help?”

“If you wouldn’t mind. My little sister needs to stay with Deidra. She’s real nervous. You’ll have to put down the rifle for a second.” She sounded almost apologetic. “My name’s Angie, by the way.”

I introduced myself and followed her through the little door into the bell tower. A long red velvet rope hung down like a big thick snake. I looked up at the bell hanging overhead, wondered how many pounds it weighed. I hoped the builders had known what they were doing. I laid down the rifle, and Angie and I seized the rope, braced ourselves on our heels, and pulled. “Four times,” she said jerkily, “For a four o’clock wedding.”

This was actually kind of fun. We almost came off our feet when the bell swung up, but we managed the four rings. And I heard the crowd go quiet.

“I wonder if there’s a speaker outside,” I said.

“They put in one for Mr. Williston’s funeral,” Angie said. “He was in the state legislature.” She opened the door to an electrical panel and flipped a switch.

I could hear a crackle outside, and then “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” poured over the heads of the crowd. I heard a yell or two, but I could tell that people were turning to listen.

Angie went over to open the door to the bride’s waiting room, and Deidra and her youngest sister came out. Mr. Lisle joined them, and I could tell he was trying to focus on his daughter instead of on the mob in the street. Deidra was a vision in white, and her hands were holding a happy bouquet of sunflowers and daisies.

“You look beautiful,” I said. Who could not smile at a bride?

“That’s our cue,” Angie told her sister, and she opened the door to the sanctuary. The bridal march began, and I could hear it from in the church and from outside. Deidra turned to me, startled.

“All rise,” said Brother Arrowsmith’s sonorous church voice, and though there were precious few to rise, I could hear a rustle of movement.

Angie went down the aisle first, then her sister. Finally Deidra, her face glowing, took her father’s arm and went slowly down to join her fiancé.

I had retrieved the rifle, and I stood in the vestibule halfway between the outer and the inner doors, glancing from one to the other. I saw Deidra’s father step forward to whisper something to Brother Arrowsmith, who said, “Please join me on this holy occasion, as all of us, inside these walls and outside, stand together in God’s sight to say the Lord’s Prayer.”

He really came through in a pinch. I stepped closer to the outer doors, put my ear to one of them. After a moment, I could hear voices outside saying the prayer right along with the wedding party. Not all the people outside were joining in, but some were.

I risked going into the bell tower to look out one of the small windows there, and what I saw amazed me.

Some people had fallen to their knees to pray. The few protesters who felt like keeping up with the yelling were being decisively silenced by means both fair and foul by the devout. I dashed to the inside double doors and gestured to the minister to keep it up. Then I went back to look some more.

And I saw her. Sarah Newlin. She was wearing a hat and dark glasses, but I recognized her. She had a sign, of course: IF YOU BARK AND GROWL, IN HELL YOU WILL HOWL. Nice. She was looking around with baffled resentment, as if she couldn’t believe we’d played the God card and it had trumped hatred.

Next we had the Apostles’ Creed. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty . . . ” chorused voices inside the church and out. Brother Arrowsmith’s voice rang with sincerity. There was a long moment of silence when the creed was over.

“Today we gather together to join in holy matrimony. . . .” Brother Arrowsmith was off and running with what was probably the most ceremonious, solemn wedding ever held in this church; I was willing to put money on that. The people outside listened as Deidra, her voice shaking, agreed to be the wife of Craig, who sounded both strained and reverent.

It was beautiful.

It was just what we needed to turn the corner.

Gradually, the hostiles began dispersing, until only a few die-hard haters were left. All the two-natured stayed. When Craig and Deidra were pronounced man and wife and the organ music swelled triumphantly, there was actually applause out in the street.

I leaned against the wall by the church doors. I felt like I’d just run a marathon. The little wedding party milled around, hugging and congratulating, and Sam detached himself and hurried down the aisle to join me in the vestibule.

“That was some good thinking,” he said.

“Figured it couldn’t hurt to remind everyone where they were, and who was watching,” I said.

“I’m calling the closest liquor store to get a keg delivered at the house and a lot of snacks from the grocery,” Sam said. “We’ve got to thank everyone that came from so far away.”

“Time to go to the reception?” The bride and groom, who looked as happy as two young people can be, were leading the way out of a rear door of the church to go back to the fellowship hall.

“Yeah.” Sam was busy on his iPhone for a few minutes, making the arrangements for an impromptu party following the church reception.

I didn’t want to distract Sam from this happy family occasion, but there were a few things we had to talk about. “How’d they all know to get here on time?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sam said, startled. “I thought Twitter or the Internet. . . .”

“Yeah, I get that. But some of those people had to travel for hours. And the trouble started just this morning.”

Sam was intensely thoughtful. “I hadn’t even thought about that,” he said.

“Well, you’ve had other fish to fry.”

He gave me a wry grin. “You could say that. Well, do you have a theory?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Of course not. I don’t like anything about this. But spill it anyway.” We were standing on the covered walkway between the church and the fellowship hall, and I realized the entire property was ringed by the two-natured, and they were all looking out. They hadn’t relaxed their vigilance, though perhaps seventy percent of the protesters had left. I was glad of that because I didn’t really think this was over. I thought the worst had been staved off, at best.

“I thought about this some when I saw how many people were here. I think that this was all planned. I think the word about the wedding spread, and someone decided this was the chance to see how an organized protest went . . . kind of a testing of the waters. If this went well for the assholes who were out there screaming—if the wedding had been put off, or if the weres had attacked and killed a human—then this would have become a model for other events.”

“But the weres showed up, too.”

I nodded.

“You mean the twoeys were also alerted early? By the same . . . ?”

“By the same people who alerted the anti-furries.”

“To make this a confrontation.”

“To make this a confrontation,” I agreed.

“My brother’s wedding was a test-drive?”

I shrugged. “That’s what I think.”

Sam held open the door for me. “I wish I could say I was sure you’re wrong,” he said quietly. “What kind of maniac would actually make things worse than they are?”

“The kind of person who is going to make his point no matter how many people have to die in the process,” I said. “Luna told me she saw someone in the crowd. And then I saw her, too.”

Sam looked at me intently. “Who?”

“Sarah Newlin.”

Every supe in America knew that name. He turned that over in his mind for a few seconds. Bernie, resplendent in beige lace, glanced back at us, clearly wanting Sam to rejoin her. The bride was ready to cut the cake, a traditional moment that demanded our attendance. Sam and I drifted over to join the knot of people around the white-draped table. Craig put his hand over Deidra’s, and together they sliced the bridal cake, which turned out to be spice cake with white icing, homemade by the bride’s mother. This was the most personal wedding I’d attended in some time, and I enjoyed the hominess of it. The little plates for the cake were paper, and so were the napkins, and the forks were plastic, and no one cared. The cake was very good.

Brother Arrowsmith came over to me, and though burdened with a plate and punch, he found a way to free a hand to shake mine. I got a huge gust of his relief, his pride that he had done the right thing, his worry about his son, and his love for his wife who had been by his side all day, both in her prayers and physically.

The minister’s chest was burning, and he was having heartburn, which he seemed to have pretty frequently these days, and he thought maybe he’d better not drink the punch, though of course it wasn’t alcoholic.

“You need to go to a heart specialist in Dallas or Fort Worth,” I said.

Brother Arrowsmith looked as though I’d hit him in the head with an ax handle. His eyes widened, his mouth fell open, and he wondered what I really was, all over again.

Dammit, I knew the signs of possible heart problems. His arm hurt, he had heartburn, and he was way too tired. Let him think I was supernaturally guided if he chose. That might up the chances he’d make an appointment.

“You were really smart to turn on the speaker,” Brother Arrowsmith said. “The word of God entered those people’s hearts and changed them for the good.”

I started to shake my head, but then I had second thoughts.

“You’re absolutely right,” I said, and I realized I meant it. I felt I was such a bad Christian that I hardly deserved to call myself that anymore, but I understood at that moment that I still believed, no matter how far my actions had strayed from those of the woman my grandmother had raised me to be.

I gave Deidra and Craig a hug apiece, and I automatically told Bernie how beautiful it had been, which was simply weird. I met the Lisles, and it was easy to sense their profound relief that this wedding was done, that Deidra and Craig would not be living here, and that they could maybe regain some semblance of their former life. They liked Craig, it was easy to tell, but the whole trauma of the controversial wedding after the revelation of Craig’s mom’s heritage had smothered their initial pleasure at his joining their family. Mrs. Lisle was hoping fervently that the other two girls would never, ever give a were or shifter a second look, and Mr. Lisle was thinking he’d greet the next two-natured boy who came to call for one of his daughters with a shotgun.

This was all sad, understandable, and inevitable, I guess.

When it was time to leave the church, the tension ratcheted up again.

Sam stepped outside and explained to the waiting shifters what was about to happen. When Deidra and Craig stepped out of the fellowship hall, they went through the church so they’d be protected by a building for as long as possible. By the time we’d gotten back to the church vestibule, I cracked the doors open to look outside. The two-natured had formed a solid phalanx of bodies between the doors of the church and the parked cars. Trish and Togo had recovered enough to join them, though the dried blood on their clothes looked awful.

Craig and Deidra came out first, and the people still there began clapping. Startled, the couple straightened from their hunched-over postures, and Deidra smiled tentatively. They were able to leave their wedding reception almost normally.

The plan was that we would all go to Bernie’s house. Deidra’s parents had suggested that maybe Deidra should change into her going-away clothes there, and I didn’t want to think too hard about why they’d thought it was such a good idea. They’d also told their two younger girls to get in the car and go home with them, and they hadn’t made it an option. I managed to hug Angie, who’d pulled the bell rope with me. I had high hopes for her future. I don’t think I ever spoke two words to the younger girl or Deidra’s other brother.

I was looking around in the remaining crowd. There were still a few protesters, though they were notably quieter about their opinions. Some signs waved in a hostile way, some glares . . . nothing that didn’t seem small after the ordeal of getting to the church. I was looking for a particular face, and I spotted it again. Though she looked older than she should have, and though she was wearing dark glasses and a hat, the woman standing with a camera in her hands—she’d discarded the sign—was Sarah Newlin. I’d seen her husband in a bar in Jackson when he was supporting a follower who’d come prepared to assassinate a vampire. That hadn’t worked out for Steve Newlin, and this wasn’t working out for Sarah. I was sure she’d taken my picture. If the Newlins tracked me down . . . I glanced around me. Luna caught my eye.

I jerked my head, and she came over. We had a quiet conversation. Luna drifted over to Brenda Sue, one of the Biker Babes, a woman nearly six feet tall who sported a blond crew cut. The two started a lively conversation, all the time moving closer and closer to Sarah, who began to show alarm when they were five feet away. Brenda Sue’s hand reached out, twitched the camera from Sarah’s grasp, juggled it for a moment, then tossed it to Luna.

Luna, grinning, passed it from her right hand to her left hand behind her back. The blonde made several playful passes with it. All the while, Luna’s hands were busy. Finally, the blonde was able to retrieve the camera, and she tossed it back to Sarah.

Minus the memory chip.

By that time, those of us who had ridden to the wedding were back in the vehicles. Luna and Togo and Trish got into the truck’s flatbed, and the bikers each gained a passenger. Somehow we all got back to Bernie’s house without any bad incidents. There were still a lot more people in the streets of Wright than normal, but the protest had lost its heart, its violence.

We pulled up in front of the house to find that the beer was being unloaded and carried into the backyard, and that even more people were bringing food. The manager of the grocery store was personally unloading more sandwich platters and tubs of slaw and baked beans, plus paper plates and forks. All the people who had been too frightened to come to the wedding were trying to find some way to make themselves feel better about that, was the way I took it. And I’m usually pretty accurate about human nature.

All of a sudden, we were in the party business.

The two-natured who’d flooded into Wright now surged through the house and into the backyard to have a drink and a sandwich or two before they had to take the road home. With a pleasing sense of normality, I realized I had work to do. Sam and I changed from our wedding finery into shorts and T-shirts, and with the ease of people who work together all the time, we set up folding tables and chairs, found cups for the beer, sent the rapidly healing Trish to the store with Togo, and arranged the napkins and forks and plates by the food. I spotted a big garbage can under the carport, found the big garbage bags to line it, and rolled it to the backyard. Sam got the gas grill going. Though Mindy and Doke offered to help, both Sam and I were glad when they went home with the kids. After such a day, they didn’t need to hang around. Those kids needed to go back to Mooney.

Few humans remained to party with the twoeys. Most of the regular people had seemed to get a whiff of the otherness of the guests, and they’d drifted away pretty quickly.

Though we were short on folding chairs, everyone made do. They sat on the grass or stood and circulated. When Togo and Trish returned with soft drinks and hamburger patties and buns, the grill was ready to go and Sam took charge. I began putting out the bags of chips. Everything was going very well for an impromptu celebration. I went to pump beers.

“Sookie,” said a deep voice, and I looked up from the keg to see Quinn. He had a plate with a sandwich and some chips and some pickles on it, and I handed him a cup of beer.

“There you go,” I said, smiling brightly.

“This is Tijgerin,” Quinn said. He pronounced it very carefully. It sounded like “Tie” plus a choking noise, and then “ine” as in “tangerine.” I practiced it in my head a couple of times (and I looked up the spelling later). “That’s ‘Tigress’ in Dutch. She’s of Sumatran and Dutch descent. She calls herself Tij.” Pronounced “Tie.”

Her eyes were as dark a purple as Quinn’s, though perhaps a browner tone, and her face was a lovely high-cheekboned circle. Her hair was a shiny milk-chocolate brown, darker than the deep tan tone of her skin. She smiled at me, all gleaming white teeth and health. I figured she was younger than me, maybe twenty-three.

“Hallo,” she said. “I am pleased to meet with you.”

“Pleased to meet you, too,” I said. “Have you been in America long?”

“No, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I am here just now. I am European employee of Special Events, the same company Quinn works for. They send me here to get the American experience.”

“You’ve certainly gotten to see the bad part of the American experience today. Sorry about that.”

“No, no,” she said again. “The demonstrations in the Netherlands were just as bad.” Polite. “I am glad to be here. Glad to meet Quinn. There are not so many tigers left, you know?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” I said. I looked from her to Quinn. “I know you’ll learn a lot while you’re here, Tij. I hope the rest of your stay in America is better than today.”

“Oh, sure, it will be!” she said blithely. “Here we are at a party, and I am meeting many interesting people. And the praying at the church, that was very interesting, too.”

I smiled in agreement—“interesting” was one word for it. “So, Quinn,” I asked, since we were being very polite in front of Tij, “How’s your mom?”

“She’s doing all right,” he said. “And my sister’s gone back to school. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but she seems a little more serious about it this time.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said.

“How’s Eric?” Quinn was really making an effort. Tij looked mildly inquiring.

“Eric is my boyfriend,” I explained to her. “He’s a vampire.” I automatically looked out at the backyard to gauge how much sunlight was left. Eric wouldn’t be up for another hour. “He’s fine, Quinn.”

Tij seemed intrigued, but Quinn took her arm and steered her away. “We’ll talk later,” he said.

“Sure.” They fell into conversation with Togo. The three looked like trees among regular people.

Deidra and Craig had already made a round of handshaking, thanking the people who’d come to save their lives and their wedding. Then the newlyweds changed and slipped away on their honeymoon, which was the most sensible thing in the world for them to do. Quinn and Tijgerin walked them out to Craig’s car, and when they came back inside, Quinn tracked me down in the kitchen, where I was mining Bernie’s pantry for some more garbage bags.

Quinn looked very serious. We were alone in the kitchen, which was pretty amazing.

“Hey,” he said, and leaned against the counter. I pulled a bag from the cardboard box and shook it out. Then I pulled the crammed bag from the kitchen garbage can and cinched it shut.

“It’s been a long day, huh? What did you want to talk about?” Might as well get right to it. I stuck the full bag by the back door and inserted the new one.

“The last time I saw you, Bill and I got stupid and you got hurt,” Quinn said. “Eric ordered me out of Area Five, and I had to go. I don’t know if you realized that E(E)E and Special Events are mostly vampire owned?”

“No.” I wasn’t surprised, though. The two catering and event companies employed both humans and shifters, but I was sure they’d required lots of capital to start up, and they’d begun their operations in a very luxe way. That’s kind of a vampire signature.

“So I can’t afford to offend a lot of deaders,” Quinn said, looking away as if he were sure this admission would make him look weak. “They’re silent partners in the rest home my mother stays in, too.” Quinn had already paid off one family debt he owed the vampires.

“They’ve got you every which way,” I said. We looked at each other directly.

“I want you to know,” he said. “I want you to know that if you don’t want to be with Eric, if he’s using any kind of coercion on you, if he’s got any leverage on you the way they do on me . . . I’ll do anything in my power to get you free.”

He’d do it, too. I suddenly saw a whole different life opening up before me, and my imagination painted it rosy, for a moment. I tried to picture living with Quinn, who was warm and generous and a magnificent lover. He really would do everything he could to pry me away from Eric if he thought I had the slightest misgivings about my relationship with the vampire, no matter what the consequences were for him.

I’m not a saint. I thought of how wonderful it would be to be with a man who could go shopping with me in the daytime, a man I could have a baby with, a man who knew how to treat a woman well. But even if I decided I wanted to leave Eric, Eric would always be sure, through his vampire contacts, that Quinn paid and paid and paid.

I looked past his shoulder out the bay window to see Tijgerin, who was happily devouring her third hamburger. I didn’t know much about her, but I did know there were very few weretigers left in the world. If Quinn and Tijgerin mated, they could have a tiger baby. And from the way she’d looked at Quinn, I thought I could assume she was unencumbered by a boyfriend at present. She and Quinn had been smacked in the face with their mutual attraction, and I admired him all the more for sticking to his declared program in making this offer.

I took a deep breath before I spoke, aware that this was a huge honor he’d paid me.

“Quinn, you’re a great man, and you’re so attractive, and I am so fond of you,” I said. I looked him right in the eyes because I wanted him to see how much I meant every word. “But . . . and some days I think, unfortunately for me . . . I love Eric. He comes with a thousand years of baggage . . . but he’s it for me now.” I took another deep breath. “With regret, I’m going to turn you down, but I am your true friend, and I always will be.”

He pulled me close. We hugged each other hard, and I stepped back. “You go have a good time,” I said, blinking furiously, and then he was gone.

After a few moments of recovery—and feeling definitely on the noble side—I drifted into the backyard to see if Sam needed anything. The gas grill had been turned off, so he’d cooked everything there was to cook. The outside lights were on, but there was a sharp contrast of light and shadow in Bernie’s backyard. Someone had brought out a CD player and turned the volume up. I wondered why Jim Collins hadn’t appeared to protest.

I saw a small figure emerge from the shadows at the corner of the house. It was a woman wearing a vest with a bra under it, and a tiny skirt, and gladiator sandals. The evening was cooling off rapidly, and I figured the newcomer would be covered in goose pimples soon. Her short dark brown hair was slicked back smoothly.

And then I recognized her.

Jannalynn was dressed to kill. I’d imagined her being here in a moment of craziness, and here she was.

Awkward.

Sam saw her at the same moment I did, and I could read him like a book in that moment. He was happy to see her, but he was also flabbergasted—and that’s the best way I can put it.

“Hello, young woman,” said Bernie, stepping in the Were’s path. “I don’t believe I’ve met you yet. I’m Bernie Merlotte.”

Jannalynn took in the cheerful gathering, saw all the twoeys having a good time, and I guess she had her own black moment when she wondered why Sam hadn’t invited her when there were so many other two-natured guests. I was glad I wasn’t in her line of sight. I stepped back into the kitchen . . . because frankly, I was scared to death of Jannalynn. I’d seen her in action, and it was no fluke that the packleader of Shreveport had named her his enforcer.

“Hey, honey,” she called, spotting Sam over his mother’s shoulder.

Bernie turned to check that this young woman was addressing her son. It was hard to read Sam’s face, especially from the kitchen. I was looking out the window, thinking it would be better not to make an appearance until this situation had been smoothed out a little. Though this was a minor problem compared to the terrors we’d faced today, I still wasn’t rushing into some kind of touchy greeting with Sam’s girlfriend.

I didn’t know if I was being a coward or simply being prudent. Either way, I was staying put until I got a cue.

“Jannalynn!” he said, and he embraced her quickly. It wasn’t exactly a boyfriend hug, more a “Hi, buddy, good to see you!” thing. “I didn’t expect you could come.” When he took a step back, I could see that his brows were sort of knit with doubt.

“I know, I know, you brought Sookie to meet your family. And I know why. But I couldn’t stay away when I heard the news on the Fur and Feathers website.”

None of this was scanning naturally. Jannalynn was smiling too brightly and doing a weird imitation of a brittle socialite. She looked exactly like someone who knew she was making a huge mistake.

Maybe I should just stay in the kitchen? For a long time? Maybe the rest of the night? I was pretty tired, but I also didn’t want to feel I was being held hostage by my own social sense.

I heard the toilet flush, and Luna came into the kitchen, making a beeline for the back door. When she saw me, she stopped by my side and took in the scene.

“Okay, who’s the fashion-challenged skinny chick?”

“Sam’s real girlfriend.” Luna raised her eyebrows at me, and I hurried to explain. “He’d already asked me to come to the wedding with him, and he hasn’t been dating Jannalynn that long. Plus, she has some social issues that he kind of wanted to prepare his family for, and not while they were trying to deal with a pressure situation like a wedding.”

“Hmmm. So he brings home the more presentable date, leaving the skinny . . . and very weirdly dressed . . . one at home. And then she shows up. And you think she’s his real girlfriend? You are having a hell of a day, Sookie.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not only me who’s having it. It’s Sam and his mom, too.” I scanned the crowd. “Well, at least I only see one or two more humans.” Sam’s friend Sister was still partying, and I glimpsed Jared Lisle talking to one of the Biker Babes. They were flirting in a major way.

“So, you know, I just thought I’d tell you,” Luna said offhand, “I went through the hedge into the yard next door to make out with that cute guy in the camo pants, the Chinese guy? He’s a Were cop from Fort Worth, on the tactical response team.” She paused for my reaction.

“A hunk,” I said. “Way to go, Luna.” Lots of pairing off going on at this after-the-reception reception.

She looked pleased. “Anyway, while we were locking lips right on the other side of the hedge there, I smelled something funky in the house next to this.”

I closed my eyes for a long moment. Then I told Luna the history of the past two days with Jim. “Can you get more specific than ‘funky’?” I asked.

“Funky, as in dead meat. So someone’s killed that guy, maybe.” Luna’s chirpy voice didn’t sound especially dismayed. “He doesn’t sound like a great loss, but you know the twoeys are going to get the blame.”

“I guess I better go check it out,” I said, and I can’t tell you how reluctant I was. If Jannalynn hadn’t shown up, I would’ve asked Sam to go with me. But that was out of the question at the moment.

I didn’t want to try entering the Collins house through the front door. Who knew who might still be watching Bernie’s house, maybe taking pictures? I didn’t know if the TV stations had gone home or not. Probably yes, but there might be a few die-hards out there with their own cameras. But if I went out the back door, I’d run into Jannalynn—and although that was going to happen sooner or later, the longer I could postpone it, the better. I was trying not to watch her. She was working the party—shaking hands, laughing, with a beer she took long swallows from every few seconds.

“Fuck,” I said.

“She’s looking good,” Luna admitted. “I bet Sam comes inside to get her a jacket within the next three minutes.”

I admitted to myself that I didn’t like Jannalynn because I thought Sam deserved someone much better, someone with some impulse control. Here I was, peering out the window like a criminal trying to make my escape, just so this girl wouldn’t get her panties in a twist.

“She’s hungry,” Luna said. “She’ll go for the food in a minute.”

Sure enough, Jannalynn completely turned her back to the house so she could bend over the table, putting condiments on her hamburger bun. I slid out of the house and across the lawn going west at a smooth, fast clip . . . and Luna was right on my heels as I went through the gap in the overgrown hedge.

“You didn’t have to come,” I muttered. With a yard full of shifters, I had to take care to keep my voice down.

“I was getting bored anyway,” she said. “I mean, I get to make out with gorgeous Chinese guys all the time.”

I smiled in the darkness. There weren’t any lights on in the Collins backyard or in the Collins house, which was odd because it was getting dark now.

There was a living brain in the house. I told Luna that, and she rolled her eyes at me. “Big whoop,” she said. “So what?”

“That’s my specialty,” I said.

“But I can smell something dead,” she told me. “Hasn’t been dead long, but it’s dead. That’s my specialty. I know a dog or a Were would be better at this, but any twoey nose is better than a oney nose.”

I shrugged. I’d have to concede that one. To knock or not to knock? As I stood flattened against the wall by the back door, debating furiously with myself, I heard a little whimper from inside. Luna stiffened beside me. I crouched and pulled open the screen door. It made the wheezy noise so common to screen doors, and I sighed.

“Who’s here?” I said, keeping my voice hushed.

A sob answered me. I felt Luna come in, and she crouched beside me. Neither of us wanted to present a target against the faint light from the Merlotte backyard.

“I’m turning on the light,” I told Luna in a tiny whisper. I patted the wall where the switch should be, and sure enough it was there. There were two. One would control the outside lights, and one the kitchen light. Was there a rule? If so, I didn’t know it. I flicked the one on the left.

I couldn’t have been more shocked by what I saw.

Jim Collins was absolutely, messily dead. He lay sprawled across the low kitchen counter, gun resting loosely in his right hand. Closer to the doorway into the interior of the house, Sarah Newlin sat on the floor. She was hurt somehow, because there was blood on her arm and more on her stomach. Her legs were extended in front of her. She was crying almost silently. There was a gun lying by her side, though I couldn’t see what make.

“Call the police from his phone,” I said instantly.

“No,” Sarah said. “Don’t!”

Luna punched in numbers so fast that I thought the phone was going to break.

With convincing hysteria, Luna said, “Oh my God! Bring an ambulance to Jim Collins’s house! Some woman has shot him; he’s dead and she’s bleeding out!” She hung up and snickered.

Sarah Newlin made a halfhearted attempt to climb to her feet. I went over to her and put my foot on her gun. I didn’t think she had enough sand in her to grab it, but better to be sure.

“You’re not going to get away,” I said dispassionately. “They’ll be here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. You’re hurt too bad to escape. If you don’t go to the hospital, you’ll die.”

“I might as well,” she said drearily. “I’ve killed a man now.”

“You’re counting this as the first?” I was shocked. “You’ve been responsible for so many deaths, but this is the one that matters?” Of course, this one counted to Sarah because Collins had been human and on her side, and the others who’d died had been vampires and weres and humans who didn’t believe what the Fellowship of the Sun advocated.

“Why’d you shoot your disciple here?” I asked, since Sarah seemed to be in confession mode.

“Steve and I knew Collins from his website,” she said weakly. “He had all the right ideas, and he was full of the fire of God. But the plans we had for today failed. God must have changed his mind, turned his face from us. Collins never came to the church. I came here to ask him why, but he was angry, angry with me, with himself. I think he may have been drinking. He challenged me to go with him, to shoot you-all next door. He said we could kill most of you, just like he killed the dogs.”

“You weren’t up for that?” Luna asked bitterly. “You sure missed an opportunity to get a bunch of us at once.”

“Couldn’t risk myself,” Sarah whispered. “I’m too important to the cause. He even thrust a gun in my hand. But God didn’t want me to sacrifice myself. When I told Collins that, he went nuts.”

“He was already nuts,” I said, but she wasn’t listening.

“Then he said I was a hypocrite, and he shot me.”

“Looks like you shot him back.”

“Yes,” Sarah whispered. “Yes, I shot him back.”

A police car pulled up in front of the Collins house, the flickering light visible from the kitchen. Someone called from the front door, “Police! We’re coming in!”

“Hurry with the ambulance,” I called back. “There are two of us who came and discovered the situation. We’re unarmed.”

“Stand with your hands against the wall!” the officer’s voice called back, and it sure as hell sounded like Porter Carpenter.

“Porter,” I said. “It’s me, Sookie Stackhouse, Sam’s friend. And my buddy Luna Garza is with me.”

“Hands!” Porter said. “Anyway.”

“Okay.” I appreciated his caution. Luna walked over to me, and we turned our backs on the doorway and put our hands on the wall. “We’re ready,” I yelled.

You’d think I’d be distraught and upset. You’d think I’d be overwhelmed, having seen this horrible scene.

But you know what? I was tickled pink. I’d never been a squeamish person, and I’d seen other and worse scenes of carnage, featuring people I cared about to some extent or other.

As it was, it was hard for me to suppress a smile when I saw Sarah Newlin hauled off to the hospital under arrest. And since the dead man was Jim Collins, I didn’t feel a moment’s grief for him, either. He would have loved it if the tables had been turned, if he’d walked in on someone who’d just killed Bernie and Sam. He’d have patted them on the back. And I’m being honest when I say that after the hate I’d seen that day, I couldn’t be sorry that if someone had to die, that person was Jim Collins, and if someone had to be a murderer, I was fine with that murderer being Sarah Newlin.

“Sookie,” said Luna into my ear, “it doesn’t hardly get any better than this.”

“I think you’re right,” I said.

Porter Carpenter himself took our statements. I could tell that Luna—and the fact that she’d smelled the dead body—made him uneasy. But he wrote everything down, made note of our phone numbers, and then sent us on our way. Finally, we got to go back to the Merlotte house, where everyone was waiting anxiously to find out what had happened. I’d heard Sam’s voice raised outside several times while I’d been answering questions—or simply waiting to be asked questions—and each time I’d smiled involuntarily. Sam was on the offensive.

Luna and I were glad to enter Bernie’s kitchen, still crowded with weres, though the bulk of the party had drifted away—including Tijgerin and Quinn.

Sam grabbed me by the shoulders, looked intently into my face, and said, “You okay?” He was vibrating like a tuning fork with anxiety.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said. I smiled at him. “Thanks. I could hear you yell.”

“I wanted you to hear me.”

“We had quite an evening over there,” Luna said. “Man, getting questioned by the cops is thirsty work!” Her cute Chinese cop took the hint and got Luna a beer from the refrigerator.

“We still have some food, if you’re hungry,” Bernie said. I could tell she was exhausted, but she was upright.

“Not me,” I told her. Luna shook her head, too. “First, let me be sure you-all know Luna Garza from Dallas. Luna did me a good turn at the Fellowship of the Sun church some time ago, and seeing her here tonight turned out to be lucky for me again. . . .”

When we’d related the whole story, Brenda Sue began laughing. And she was joined by some of the other twoeys. “That’s just too good,” she said. “It’s perfect. I know this is probably wrong of me, but I can’t help feeling okay about this.” There was a lot of silent agreement in the room.

Gradually, the remaining guests of the unofficial party began to leave. I couldn’t avoid talking to Jannalynn anymore. She’d been sitting behind the table within reach of Sam since I’d returned, and she hadn’t said a word. I knew this situation was hard for her, and I felt sorry it was, but there was nothing I could do about it. She’d known when she’d come to Wright that it was the wrong thing to do.

What could I see in her brain? I saw grief, resentment, and envy. Jannalynn was wondering why Sam couldn’t see that she was just like me. She was brave and pretty and loyal, too.

“I have a boyfriend,” I said. “You know I go with Eric Northman.”

“Doesn’t make any difference,” she said stoically, not meeting my eyes.

“Sure it does. I love Eric. You love Sam.” Already I could tell that saying anything at all had been the mistake I’d thought it would be, that we were compounding the unhappiness. But I couldn’t simply sit there in silence staring at her.

Jannalynn could do that, though, and she did. She stared a hole through me and didn’t say a word. I didn’t know where she proposed to sleep that night, but it wasn’t going to be in the sewing room with me, and I was going to bed.

Luna was ready to depart (by a huge coincidence, so was the cute cop), and I gave her a hug and told her I hoped to see her in Bon Temps someday.

“Girlfriend, just say the word,” she murmured, and returned the hug.

I didn’t see Sam anywhere, but I told Bernie good night and took my turn in the bathroom.

I don’t know what anyone else did after that, but I took the quickest shower on record and slipped into my nightgown and unfolded the couch. I had time to pull the sheet up over me about halfway before I was out like a light. My phone buzzed a couple of times in the night, but all I did was moan and turn over.

The next morning, it was raining like hell when I woke. The clock told me it was after eight o’clock, and I knew I had to get up. I could smell coffee and a trace of a sweet scent that made me suspect someone had gone to a bakery.

In fact, Bernie had gone to the store and gotten some Pillsbury cinnamon rolls. Sam and Bernie were sitting at the table. Sam got up to get me a cup of coffee, and I hunched over it gratefully.

Bernie shoved the paper over to me. It was the Waco paper. There was a short article about the upset at the wedding.

“Was it on the TV?” I asked.

“Yeah, apparently,” Sam said. “But Jim’s murder is upstaging the wedding.”

I nodded. All my glee had faded, leaving me feeling sort of dirty.

“Bernie, you did great yesterday,” I said. Bernie looked ten years older than she had the day before, but there was vigor in her step and purpose in her voice.

“I’m glad it’s over. I hope I never have to go through anything like that again. I hope Craig and Deidra are happy.” Three true things.

I nodded emphatically. I agreed all the way around. “You going to church today?” I asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Sam said, “Sook, you think you can be ready to leave in an hour or so?”

“Sure. All I have to do is grab up my stuff and put on some makeup.” I’d pulled on my shorts and a shirt and packed my nightgown already.

“No hurry,” Sam assured me, but I could tell from the way he was sitting that he wanted to get on the road again. I wondered where Jannalynn was. I sort of felt around the house for her mentally, got no other brain signal. Hmmm.

We were actually out the door in forty-five minutes, after I said all the correct things to Bernie. I didn’t want her to think I hadn’t been brought up right. She smiled at me, and she seemed sincere when she told me she’d enjoyed having me in the house.

Sam and I were silent for a long time after we left Wright. I checked my cell phone for messages, and sure enough, I had two from Eric. He didn’t like to text, though he would if he had to. He’d left voice messages. First message—“I’ve seen you on the evening news. Call me.” BEEP. Second message—“Every time you leave town you get into trouble. Do you need me to come?” BEEP.

“Eric all bent out of shape?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. About like Jannalynn, I expect.” I had to say something. Better to get it over with.

“Not exactly. You and Eric have been together longer, and you seem to know each other a little better.”

“As well as a human and a thousand-year-old vamp can, I guess. You don’t think you and Jannalynn know each other?”

“She’s a lot younger than me,” he said. “And she has some impulse control issues. But she’s really brave, really loyal.”

Okay, that was just weird. It was like listening to an echo of Jannalynn’s thoughts the night before.

“Yes,” I said. “She is.”

Sam shrugged. “When she left last night, we agreed we’d talk when I got back to Bon Temps and recovered from the wedding. We have a date for next weekend.”

I had a limited menu of responses to choose from. “Good,” I said, and left it at that.

We continued our near-silence most of the way across Texas. I thought of the hateful crowd the day before, their distorted faces. I thought about the flash of sheer pleasure I’d felt when I’d realized who’d killed Jim Collins. I thought of how much fun the party had been before Jannalynn had shown up and Luna had told me about the smell in the house next door.

“I was surprised that the police didn’t come over to ask any questions last night,” I said.

“Sister called this morning and told me that they were going to, but—well, it seemed so obvious what had happened—”

“That’s great. You’re free and clear.”

This was good. Now we were talking like we had before. A knot in my stomach eased up.

“She said that even before they knew Jim was dead, the Arrowsmiths prodded their son to come forward and tell Porter that he’d seen the e-mails between Sarah Newlin and Jim about marshaling both sides to clash at the wedding. She’d urged Jim to make trouble, to enlist his like-minded neighbors and friends to take action, and encourage them to disrupt the wedding in any way they could. In turn, Jim had insisted she come to town herself to witness the work he was doing. The theory is that the shooting started when the two of them were arguing because the plan didn’t work out.”

That was pretty much the truth and should sure clinch the case against Sarah. “Why do you think we didn’t hear the shots?” I asked Sam.

“According to Sister, all the windows were shut. Probably because the noise of a yard full of folks he hated enjoying themselves was bothering Jim,” Sam said. “And with our CD player turned up loud . . . Sarah Newlin told them that she’d been at Jim’s house almost an hour before he got worked up enough to suggest they go over and shoot us all. But then her lawyer arrived, and she clammed up.”

“You think there’s anyway she’ll get off?” I asked incredulously.

“She won’t go to prison for murder. Maybe manslaughter. Of course, she’ll claim self-defense.” He shook his head and accelerated to pass a beat-up minivan that was poking along in front of us.

“Just think on it, Sook—if Luna hadn’t gone on the Collins side of the hedge to make out in private, maybe Sarah Newlin would have called someone to come get her, or managed somehow to crawl out of the house. She might even have made it into her car. Then I think Mom and I would have had a visit from the police for sure.”

But that hadn’t happened, and now Sarah Newlin would be in jail for a while anyway. That was something, a big something. “I’m not drawing any big life lesson from yesterday,” I said.

“Were you sure you were going to?”

“Well, yes.”

“We survived,” Sam said. “And my brother got married to the woman he loves. And that’s all that’s important.”

“Sam, do you really think that?” I didn’t want to pick at him, but I was genuinely curious.

My boss smiled at me. “Nah. But what would you say the moral of the day was? There was a lot of hate, there was some love. The love won out for Craig, the hate did Jim Collins in. End of story.”

Sam was right, as far as his “moral” went.

But I didn’t think it was truly the end of the story.

SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 2004. Sookie Stackhouse, telepath, is working the evening shift at Merlotte’s bar when a vampire comes in to order a drink. Although vampires have been “out of the coffin” for two years, Bill Compton is the first one to come to her little town of Bon Temps, and she is delighted by the new experience. Local lowlifes Mack and Denise Rattray soon move to Bill’s table, where Denise flirts with the vampire. Worried by their avid interest in Bill, Sookie “listens” and finds, to her horror, that the Rattrays have been in jail for draining vampires, a practice that involves forcibly restraining a vampire (a feat unto itself), draining its blood to sell on the black market, and leaving the vampire to die in the rising sun. When Bill leaves with the Rattrays, Sookie dithers but finally follows them to the parking lot, only to find Bill wrapped in silver chains with Denise crouched over him holding a Vacutainer and with several vials of blood already beside her. Grabbing a heavy chain from her brother Jason’s truck, Sookie manages to drive off the Drainers. She unwraps Bill, pulling him out of the way when the Rattrays attempt to run them down on the way out of the parking lot. Sookie is stunned to realize that she cannot “hear” Bill. The vampire, who is being less than gracious after being rescued by a human woman, asks if she wants the blood already taken by the Drainers, suggesting that she sell it when she assures him she does not need its medicinal properties. She is insulted but begins to laugh upon finding out that his name is the very mundane Bill, and she cheerfully leaves him. She shares the encounter with her grandmother, Adele, when she gets home from work.

SUNDAY, JUNE 13. Jason arrives at the Stackhouse home, upset after hearing that Sookie beat up the Rattrays the previous night. Sookie explains what really happened. Jason then tells Sookie and Adele that Maudette Pickens, a former classmate of Sookie’s, was found dead in her apartment that morning and that she had several vampire bites on her thighs, although that wasn’t the cause of her death. On the subject of vampires, Adele wonders how old Bill is and if he remembers the Civil War, hoping that he will speak to the Descendants of the Glorious Dead. Sookie promises to ask him.

When Sookie arrives at Merlotte’s for her shift that afternoon, Sam pulls her into the storeroom and berates her for taking on the Rattrays in the parking lot. She is close to tears but finally realizes that Sam was frightened for her. After touching him, she also perceives that her boss has feelings for her that she did not expect.

MONDAY, JUNE 14. Sookie is relieved that she and Sam are able to return to their comfortable relationship.

TUESDAY, JUNE 15. Bill returns to Merlotte’s. Sookie is once again aware that she cannot read his thoughts and feels more relaxed in his silence. While taking his order, she arranges to meet him in the parking lot after closing so she can ask the favor for her grandmother. She looks around for him after work, but when he doesn’t appear, she heads to her car to drive home. The Rattrays attack her, beating and kicking her. Although she tries to fight back, a kick to her spine does great damage. As she’s lying on the ground, she hears a dog’s growl from one direction, a snarl from another, and the screams of the Rattrays. When silence falls, the dog licks her ear, but she is unable to respond. A bloody Bill appears in front of her, picking her up to take her back into the woods. Although she is certain that she is dying, after checking her over Bill assures her that she will live. He offers his blood to speed the healing process, and as she drinks from his wrist, she begins to feel better and finally slips into sleep. She wakes in the woods sometime later to find Bill lying beside her, licking the blood from her head wounds. Feeling much better, she admits to Bill that she is a telepath and reveals that it causes her to avoid dating and relationships. She makes her request, and he agrees to meet her grandmother and to speak to the Descendants of the Glorious Dead. He also asks if he can visit Sookie at her home.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16. Adele gets a phone call about a tornado touching down in the vicinity of the Rattrays’ trailer, killing them both. While Gran finds the local gossip interesting, she is more excited about the idea of Bill coming to the house, and she vows to make sure it’s spotless. Sookie stops by the Rattrays’ place on her way to work and is stunned by the amount of damage Bill did to the area.

Rene Lenier—Jason’s co-worker, and ex-husband of Sookie’s fellow waitress Arlene—is in the bar and comes to Sookie’s defense when someone makes an inappropriate pass at her. Rene tells Sookie that she reminds him of his sister, Cindy.

THURSDAY, JUNE 17. Adele and Sookie spend the day cleaning in preparation for Bill’s visit. After inviting him in, they discover that the vampire is actually a local—just not a recent one. A Confederate soldier, he returned safely from the Civil War only to fall prey to a vampire. As was customary for vampires at the time, he then left the area so that he would not be recognized. Now that the vampires have revealed themselves, he’s finally come back to reclaim his ancestral home, which lies across the cemetery from Sookie’s house. Adele happily questions him about the past and about her late husband’s family, and they set a date for him to speak with the Descendants. Sookie and Bill go for a walk, and he meets her cat, Tina. Sookie is able to completely relax in Bill’s presence, and he admits that he is enjoying her company as well. She carefully asks questions about vampires, and they discover that she cannot be glamoured. She also gets Bill to levitate for her. They speak a bit about Sookie’s telepathy and how hard it has been on her, about Bill’s family before his turning, and about his difficulties in getting workers to come to his house for renovations. Sookie offers to help. She gives in to her impulses and kisses him good night when he walks her back to her door.

FRIDAY, JUNE 18. Sookie finds various contractors willing to be called at night by a vampire. Sam calls to tell her that Dawn, one of the Merlotte’s waitresses, did not show up for work, and Sookie arranges to take part of Dawn’s shift that evening. While at work, she inadvertently reads Arlene’s mind, and Arlene snaps at Sookie, bringing her almost to tears. Sam comforts her, reminding her that it’s not her fault that she can read minds, and she reveals the torment of trying to function with the thoughts of others in her head. After she confirms that she cannot read Bill’s mind, Sam invites her to read his sometime, something she has always tried to avoid doing.

She takes the list of contractors over to Bill’s after work but finds that he has company. She meets vampires Malcolm, Liam, and Diane, along with their human companions, Jerry and Janella. Bill fears for Sookie and claims her as his to protect her from the other vampires. Diane disbelieves Bill’s claim, telling him he obviously needs real blood and offering him the two fangbangers. Janella is busy performing sexual acts with Liam, so Jerry willingly steps up. Bill is tempted, but before he can indulge, Sookie reads the human’s mind and discovers that he has Sino-AIDS, a virus that weakens and can even kill vampires, and that he wants to infect as many vampires as possible in revenge for his lover leaving him for a vampire. Jerry attacks Sookie, choking her, and Bill breaks Jerry’s wrist to free her. Malcolm slings the unconscious human over his shoulder, and the group leaves. Sookie is certain that Jerry will be made to suffer before his death. She is appalled at the behavior of the trio. Bill reassures her that not all vampires are the same.

SATURDAY, JUNE 19. Sookie is dragged out of bed early by a phone call from Sam. He informs her that Dawn hasn’t shown up for work again and asks if Sookie will stop by Dawn’s house and check on her because she is not answering her phone. After Sookie dresses for work, she reluctantly heads to Dawn’s duplex. There Sookie looks in the bedroom window and sees Dawn’s murdered body. Rene is across the street at his home and calls the police and Sam. JB du Rone, a friend of Sookie’s who lives next door, sees her standing outside the duplex and comes out to help. Police officers Kenya Jones and Kevin Pryor soon arrive, with Sam not far behind. Sookie is surprised that Sam has keys to the duplex until JB informs her that her boss owns the building. She also realizes that Sam is able to shut her out of his mind and picks up that he is not quite human. He apologizes for involving Sookie in this situation. Detective Andy Bellefleur comes to the scene and, after questioning Sookie and Sam, allows them to return to Merlotte’s.

Bill is waiting for Sookie in her yard when she gets off work. She informs him of Dawn’s death, and he casually lets her know that Dawn stopped by his house the previous night after the vampires and Sookie left. He also tells her that he doesn’t think he would have bothered to protect Dawn from Malcolm, Diane, and Liam had she arrived while they were still there. Sookie asks him why he protected her, and he responds that she is different—although she is not like vampires, she is also not like regular humans, a statement that sends Sookie into a violent rage. She strikes out at him, but he effortlessly controls her until her rage subsides. He continues their discussion as if nothing has happened. He tells her that while he physically could have killed the murdered women, he would not and did not. Sookie knows that Bill will be a suspect in the deaths, so she decides to have him take her to the vampire bar in Shreveport to investigate other possibilities.

MONDAY, JUNE 21. Merlotte’s is full of talk of the killings, and half the patrons suspect Bill was involved. Jason also falls under suspicion, as he had relationships with both women.

Sookie dresses carefully for the visit to the vampire bar Fangtasia. She finally chooses a bright dress that flatters her figure and her tan, but when Bill sees her, he worries that her attire will draw unwanted attention. Once at Fangtasia, Sookie is able to briefly question the bartender about Dawn, Maudette, and even Jason, asking if they’ve been in the bar. She and Bill find a booth, and she watches with distaste as human fangbangers offer themselves to Bill. He points out that she has caught the eye of the powerful vampire owner of the bar, Eric Northman, and takes her over so she can speak to him. When she shows Eric and his vampire associate Pam the pictures of Dawn and Maudette, Eric acknowledges that he has been with Dawn, and Pam admits to seeing them both at the bar. Sookie thanks them and turns to leave, but Bill remains in front of Eric and Pam, holding her beside him. When Eric asks about Sookie, Bill once again states that Sookie is his.

They return to their booth, and Sookie idly scans the bar, “hearing” that the place is about to be raided by the police. She and Bill quickly exit, and Bill gives Eric a sign to leave while Sookie looks at the bartender who answered her questions and gestures for him to get out as well. Once in the parking lot, Eric questions their obvious certainty of the impending raid, and Sookie admits that she read someone’s mind. After they flee the lot, a sexually excited Bill pulls the car over, and they have a romantic moment, which is interrupted by the police.