True Blood Book 13 Chapters 11-14

Chapter 11
When I got up the next morning, it was pouring rain again—yay, no watering!—and I was still tired. I
discovered that I didn’t know when I’d scheduled myself to work, I didn’t have any clean uniforms, and I
was almost out of coffee. Also, I stubbed my toe on the kitchen table. All of it was annoying, for sure, but
still better than being arrested for murder or waking up in jail.
I decided to pluck my eyebrows while the uniforms were tumbling in the dryer. One of the hairs was
suspiciously light. I yanked it out and examined it. Was it gray?
I put on extra makeup, and when I thought I could sound calm, I called my co-boss.
“Sam,” I said, when he answered the phone. “I can’t remember when I need to be there.”
“Sookie,” he said, sounding simply weird. “Listen, you stay home today. You were a real trooper
yesterday, but give yourself a break.”
“But I want to work,” I said, speaking very slowly, while I scrambled to figure out what was
happening with my friend.
“Sook . . . today, no, don’t come in.” And he hung up.
Had the whole world gone crazy? Or was it just me? While I stood there holding my phone,
doubtless looking like an idiot (which was okay, since there was no one to see me), the phone vibrated in
my hand. I shrieked and almost threw it across the room, then gathered myself together and held it to my
ear.
“Sookie,” said Amelia Broadway, “we’ll be there in a little over an hour. Mr. C said I should call
you. Don’t worry about breakfast, we’ve already eaten.”
It was a measure of how busy my head was that I’d completely forgotten that my New Orleans
company was arriving this morning. “Who all’s with you?”
“It’s me, Bob, Diantha, Mr. C, and an old buddy of yours. You’ll be so surprised!” And Amelia hung
up.
I hate surprises. But at least I had something to do. Upstairs, the bed in Claude’s former room was
made up with clean sheets, and I hauled an air mattress I’d gotten for Dermot into the former attic, now a
large, empty room with a very large closet. The cot Dermot had used until I’d gotten the air mattress was
easy to set up in the second-floor sitting room. After everything was ready upstairs, I made sure the
downstairs hall bathroom was still clean, the bedroom across the hall from mine was ready, and the
kitchen was orderly. Since I wasn’t going to work, I put on some civilian shorts, black with white polka
dots, and a white shirt.
Clean enough. Oh, food! I tried to figure out a menu, but I didn’t know how long they’d be staying.
And Mr. Cataliades was quite an eater.
By the time I heard a car on the gravel driveway, I was more or less ready for company, though I
have to admit I wasn’t too excited about having more visitors. Amelia and I hadn’t parted on good terms
in our last face-to-face discussion, though we’d been extending hands to each other across the Internet.
Mr. Cataliades always had something interesting to say, but it was seldom news I wanted to hear. Diantha
was a mother lode of unexpected talents and very handy to have around. And then there was the mystery
guest.
Amelia dashed in first, rain spots all over her blouse, and her boyfriend, Bob, was right on her heels.
Bob particularly hated getting wet. I didn’t know if that was because he’d spent time as a cat, or if it was
because he simply liked dryness. Diantha danced inside, her small bony figure outlined with tight clothes
in bright colors. Mr. Cataliades, in his usual black suit, pounded up the steps after her, moving swiftly
despite his bulk.
The last person into the house was Barry Bellboy, formerly known as Barry Horowitz.
Years younger than me, Barry was the first telepath I met. Mr. Cataliades was Barry’s great-great-
grandfather, though I didn’t know if Barry had been made aware of that or not.
Like Amelia and me, Barry and I hadn’t parted on perfect terms. But we’d gone through a great
ordeal together, and that made a bond between us that nothing could break, especially considering the fact
that we shared the same disability. The last I’d heard, he’d been working for Stan, the King of Texas . . .
though since Stan had been badly injured in the explosion in Rhodes, I had figured Barry’d really been
working for Stan’s lieutenant, Joseph Velasquez, since then.
Since I’d last seen Barry at a hotel in Rhodes, he had aged and his body had matured. He’d
completely lost his endearing gawkiness. Now he seemed more . . . intense and spidery. I handed him a
towel to dry his face, which he did with vigor.
How are you? I asked him.
It’s a long story, he said. Later.
“Okay,” I said out loud. I turned away to greet my other guests. Amelia and I hugged rather
awkwardly, inevitably reminded of our final quarrel the last time she’d been here, when she’d totally
crossed the line into my personal life. Amelia had rounded out.
“Okay,” she began. “Listen, just getting this out of the way. I’ve said this before, but I want to say it
again. I’m sorry. Being such a good witch gave me inflated ideas of running your life, and I’m aware I
overshot my boundaries. I won’t do it again. I’ve been trying to mend my fences everywhere. I’ve been
trying to create a relationship with my father, though he turned out to be nothing like I thought he was, and
I’m learning some impulse control.”
I looked at her carefully, a little confused about the reading I was getting. Amelia had always been
an exceptional broadcaster, and she still was. She was sending off waves of sincerity and fear that I’d
reject her apology. (However, she still thought very highly of herself, with some justification.) But there
was an extra vibe from her. “We’ll give starting over a shot,” I said, and we smiled at each other in a
tentative way. “Bob, how you doing?” I turned to her companion. Bob was not a big man. If I had to pick
two adjectives for Bob, they would be “dark” and “nerdy.” But I could see that Bob, like Barry, had
changed. He was carrying more weight, which looked good. Gauntness had not become him. And Amelia
had been smartening up his wardrobe, including his glasses, which now looked sort of European and
sophisticated.
“Dang, Bob, you clean up good,” I told him, and his thin lips parted in a surprisingly charming smile.
“Thanks, Sookie, you’re looking good yourself.” He glanced down at his clothes. “Amelia thought I
ought to update.”
I still couldn’t imagine how Bob had forgiven Amelia for turning him into a cat when she didn’t
know how to turn him back, but after his initial spasm of loathing sent him running to find his remaining
family when he’d been returned to human form, he’d come back to her.
“Dear Sookie,” said the nearly-all-demon Desmond Cataliades, and I embraced him. It was an effort,
but that was what you did with friends. He didn’t feel human to the touch, though he looked human enough,
with his circular body and scanty dark hair, his dark eyes and jowly face. But there was a certain rubbery
feel to his flesh that was not standard. He inhaled deeply while his arms were around me, and I had to
fight to keep myself from flinching. Of course, he knew that. He was very skilled at keeping it secret that
he could read minds like I could—but he was the one who’d made me what I was, and Barry, too.
“HeySookie,” Diantha said. “Igottapee. Bathroom?”
“Of course, down the hall,” I said, and off she sped, her hair and clothes dark with rain.
I made sure everyone had a towel, and there was a lot of milling around as I assigned rooms: Bob
and Amelia downstairs across from me, Mr. C and Diantha in Claude’s bedroom and sitting room
upstairs, and Barry got the air mattress in the former attic/unfinished bedroom. My house was full of
voices and activity. Feet went up and down the stairs, the bathroom door opened and shut repeatedly, and
there was life around me. It felt good. Though Claude and Dermot had been less-than-stellar houseguests
(especially the traitorous Claude), I’d missed the sound of them in the house, and most of all I’d missed
Dermot’s smile and willingness to help. I hadn’t admitted that to myself until now.
“You could have put us upstairs, put the lawyer down here,” Amelia protested.
“Yeah, but you need to save all of your energy for the baby.”
“What?”
“The baby,” I said impatiently. “I thought you might not like to hike up and down those stairs several
times a day, plus you need to be close to a bathroom at night. At least, that’s the way Tara was.”
When she didn’t reply, I turned away from the coffeepot to see that Amelia was staring at me very
oddly. Bob, too.
“Are you telling me,” Amelia said very quietly, “that I’m pregnant?”
I’d stepped right in it and gotten stuck. “Yeah,” I said weakly. “I can feel the brain waves. You got a
little one on board. I’ve never sensed a baby before. Maybe I was wrong? Barry?” He’d come in to hear
the last part of our exchange.
“Sure. I thought you knew,” he told Bob, who looked pretty much as if someone had socked him in
the stomach. “I mean . . .” He looked from Bob to Amelia. “I thought you both knew. You’re witches,
right? I figured that was why we could sense the baby early. I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it
yet. Not publicly. I was trying to be tactful.”
“Come on, Barry,” I said. “I think we need to give them the room.” I’d always wanted to say that. I
took his hand and pulled him out to the living room, giving the parents-to-be the kitchen. I could hear the
rumble of my godfather talking to his niece upstairs. For the moment, it was just me and Barry.
“What have you been doing?” I asked my fellow telepath. “Last time I saw you, you were pretty
unhappy with me. But now you’re here.”
He looked unhappy and a little embarrassed. “I went back to Texas,” he said. “Stan was pretty slow
recovering, so I was under Joseph Velasquez. Joseph was struggling to keep control, threatening everyone
with what would happen when Stan was back at full strength. Like a mom threatening her kids that their
dad’s going to come home and whip their butts. Finally, a vamp named Brady Burke sneaked into the
recovery crypt—don’t ask—and staked Stan. Brady’s people came after Joseph, too, but Joseph beat them
down and put Brady and his vamps out in the sun, and then killed Brady’s human buddies.”
“Joseph thought you should have warned him.”
Barry nodded. “Of course, and he was right. I knew something was up, but I didn’t know what. I was
friends with a gal named Erica, one of Brady’s donors.”
“Friends with?”
“Okay, I was sleeping with Erica. So Joseph felt I should have known.”
“And?”
He sighed and didn’t look at me. “And yes, I knew they were planning something, but since I didn’t
know what it was, I didn’t tell Joseph. I knew he’d come down on Erica like a ton of bricks to get it out of
her, and I just couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it was anything as drastic as a change of regimes.”
“And what happened to Erica?”
“She was dead before I even knew about the coup.”
There was a depth of self-loathing in his voice.
“We have limitations,” I said. “We can’t get accurate readings of every thought in every brain every
minute. You know people don’t think in whole sentences, like, ‘I’m going to the First National Bank today
at ten o’clock, and when I get there, I’m getting in line at Judy Murello’s window. Then I’m pulling out my
.357 Magnum and robbing the bank.’ ”
“I know that.” The storm in his head subsided a little bit. “But Joseph decided I didn’t tell him
because of my relationship with Erica. Mr. Cataliades showed up out of nowhere. I don’t know why. Next
thing I knew, I was leaving with him. I don’t know why he rescued me. Joseph made it pretty clear I
would never work for vampires again; he was putting the word out.”
Yep, Mr. C had definitely not told Barry about their blood relationship. “You think Erica knew about
Brady’s plan?”
“Yeah,” Barry said, sounding tired and sad. “I’m sure she knew enough to warn me, and she didn’t. I
just never picked up the plan from her. I’m sure she was sorry she hadn’t told me, before she died. But she
died, anyway.”
“Tough,” I said. Inadequate, but sincere.
“Speaking of tough, I hear your vamp’s going to get hitched to someone else.” Barry was all too
quick to change the subject.
“It’s all over vampireland, I guess,” I said.
“Sure. Freyda is outstanding. Plenty of guys have been trying to get in line to get a piece of Freyda
since it went around that she was looking for a consort. Power plus looks plus money, and plenty of room
for expansion in Oklahoma. Casinos and oil wells. With an ass-kicker like Eric behind her, she’ll build
an empire.”
“That’ll be just lovely,” I said, sounding as tired and sad as he had. Barry seemed much more
plugged into the gossip in the vampire world than I’d ever been. Maybe I’d been “among but not of” more
than I’d needed to be. Maybe there was more truth to Eric’s accusations about my prejudice against
vampire culture than I’d believed. But vampires were users of humans, so I was mostly simply glad I’d
never told Eric about my cousin Hadley’s son, Hunter.
“So, there’s another one of us?” Barry asked, and the question hit me hard. I was so damn used to
being the only mind-reader around. In a second I was about an inch from his face, and my hand was
gripping the front of his T-shirt.
“You say anything about Hunter to anyone, and I’ll bet you have a really bad visitor some night,” I
said, meaning it with every atom in my body. My cousin Hunter was going to stay safe if I had to be the
bad visitor myself. Hunter was only five, and I wasn’t having him kidnapped and trained to serve some
vampire king or queen. It was hard enough to reach adulthood if you were telepathic. Having people
wanting to snatch you for the advantage you could give them? That would be a million times worse.
“Hey, back off!” Barry said angrily. “I came here to help you, not to make things worse. Cataliades
must know.”
“Just keep your mouth shut about Hunter,” I said, and stepped away. “You know what a difference
that will make. I’m not worried about Mr. Cataliades telling anyone.”
“All right,” Barry said, relaxing a fraction. “You can be sure I’ll keep my mouth shut. I know how
hard it is when you’re a kid. I swear I won’t tell.” He expelled a deep breath to let out all the agitation. I
did, too.
“You know who I saw ten days ago in New Orleans?” Barry said, his voice so hushed I had to lean
forward to hear. I raised my eyebrows to let him know to get on with it. Johan Glassport, he said silently,
and I felt a shiver run down my spine.
Johan Glassport was a lawyer. I’ve known many nice people who were lawyers, so I’m not going to
make a lawyer joke out of this; Johan Glassport was also a sadist and a murderer. Evidently, when you’re
a brilliant lawyer, you can get away with a lot of stuff. He had. I’d last seen Glassport in Rhodes. I’d
understood he’d gone to Mexico to hide out after the terrible explosion at the hotel. He’d been on
television then, part of the bedraggled and injured cluster of survivors, and I had always thought he feared
he might be recognized by someone. There had to be plenty of people who dreaded the sight of him. Did
he see you? I asked.
“I don’t think so.” He was on a streetcar, and I was on the sidewalk.
“It’s never good to see Johan,” I muttered. “Why is he back in the States?”
“I hope we never find out. And I’ll tell you something strange. Glassport’s brain was opaque.”
“Did you tell Mr. Cataliades?” I said.
Yes. He didn’t say anything, though. But he looked grim. Grimmer than usual.
“I did see him,” Desmond Cataliades said, making one of his sudden appearances. “In fact, New
Orleans has been full of unexpected creatures lately. But more about that later. Glassport told me he’d got
business in Louisiana. He’d been hired by someone who had a great store of wealth. Someone who didn’t
want to be seen by anyone. Glassport said he had been out of the country recruiting at this someone’s
behest.”
“I wonder who?”
“Ordinarily, I could have told you,” the part-demon said. “But as Barry has said, Glassport has
acquired some kind of protection charm, perhaps fae in origin. I can’t hear his thoughts.”
“I didn’t know you could buy such an item!” I was surprised. “Surely that’s a hard thing to create?”
“Humans aren’t capable of it. Only a few supernaturals.”
That was why we were all looking anxious and concerned when Amelia came out of the kitchen,
hand in hand with Bob.
“Aw, that’s so sweet! But don’t worry about us,” she said, smiling. “Bob and I are happy as clams
about the baby, now that we’ve gotten over the shock of it.” I was glad to see her happiness, and Bob’s,
but I was also sorry I couldn’t pursue the conversation about Johan Glassport to its conclusion. It was bad
news that he was anywhere in Louisiana.
Amelia’s smile began to falter when she didn’t get the reaction she’d expected.
“Amelia and Bob are having a baby!” I said, making myself beam at Mr. Cataliades. Of course, he
already knew it.
“Yeah, I’m pregnant, Mr. C!” She recovered her excitement in telling the part-demon lawyer.
Obligingly, he did his best to look startled and delighted.
“We’re going to raise the baby together. Wait until I tell my father! He’s gonna be so ticked because
we’re not married,” Amelia said. She seemed a bit pleased at vexing her father, who ordered other
people around all day, every day.
“Amelia,” I said, “Bob doesn’t have a real father left to share with this baby. This baby might enjoy
having a grandfather.”
Amelia was totally taken aback. I hadn’t known I was going to say that until it popped out of my
mouth. I waited to see if she’d be angry. I saw the flash of offense cross her mind, then a more mature
thoughtfulness. “I’ll think about that,” she said, and that was certainly more than enough. “My dad’s
changed a lot lately, for sure.” I could hear her thinking, And kind of inexplicably. I didn’t know what to
make of that.
“Interesting that you said that, Amelia,” the demon lawyer said. “Let’s talk about why we’re here.
There’s much I wanted to say on the drive up here, but not only was I busy trying to check to see if we
were being followed, I didn’t want to have to repeat everything for Sookie.”
Everyone settled in the living room. Diantha helped me carry out drinks and cookies and little
napkins. I had definitely overbought for that baby shower. No one seemed to mind the green and yellow
rattles motif, though. I hadn’t seen any napkins at Hallmark themed for a supernatural summit.
Mr. Cataliades acted as the chairman of this meeting. “Before we plan our course of action about the
main topic—the accusation that Sookie murdered Arlene Fowler—there are others we need to discuss.
Miss Amelia, I have to ask you to keep the news of your pregnancy confined to this group, just for the
moment. Please don’t make it the subject of any telephone calls or text messages to your nearest and
dearest, though I know you’re excited.” He smiled at her in a way clearly meant to be reassuring.
Amelia was startled and concerned, expressions that sat oddly on someone as fresh and bright-eyed
as she was. Bob dropped his gaze to the floor. He knew what Mr. Cataliades was saying, while Amelia
did not.
“For how long?” she said.
“For only a day or two. Surely the news will wait that long?” He smiled again.
“All right,” she agreed, after a glance at Bob, who nodded.
“Now to talk about the murder of Arlene Fowler,” Mr. Cataliades said, as heartily as if he’d just
announced that earnings for the last quarter were way up.
Clearly, the lawyer knew a lot of things I didn’t know and was choosing not to share those items,
which bothered me. But after he said the word “murder,” he had my complete attention.
“Please tell us everything you know about the late Arlene, and tell us how you came to see her again
after her release from prison,” Mr. Cataliades said.
So I began talking.
Chapter 12
It took a surprisingly long time to relate everything I knew about Arlene and her activities, including
my concerns about Alcee Beck. Bob, Amelia, Barry, Diantha, and Mr. Cataliades offered a lot of
opinions and ideas, and asked a lot of questions.
Amelia focused on the two men Arlene had mentioned, presumably the same two men Jane had
witnessed her meeting behind Tray Dawson’s empty house. Amelia proposed to lay a truth spell on them
to find out what Arlene had handed them. She was a little hazy about how she intended to track them
down, but she told us that she had a few ideas. She made an effort to sound nonchalant, but she was
quivering with eagerness.
Bob wanted to call a touch psychic he knew in New Orleans, and he wondered if we could persuade
the police to let the psychic hold the scarf to get a reading. I said that was a definite no.
Barry thought we should talk to Arlene’s kids and Brock and Chessie Johnson, to see if Arlene had
said anything about her plans to them.
Diantha thought we should steal the scarf, and then they’d have no evidence on me at all. I have to
admit, that option really resonated with me. I knew I hadn’t done it. I knew the police weren’t looking in
the right direction. And, frankly, even more than I wanted Arlene’s murderer to be found, I knew I didn’t
want to go to jail. At all. Ever again.
Diantha also wanted to search Alcee Beck’s car. “I’ll know a magic object when I see it,” she said,
and that was a truth no one could argue. The problem was, a skinny, strangely dressed white girl was
going to look a little conspicuous searching anyone’s car, much less the car of an African-American
police detective.
Desmond Cataliades told us that in his opinion, the case against me was weak, especially since I had
a witness who could place me in bed at my home at the probable time of the murder. “It’s a pity your
witness is a vampire—not only a vampire, but one new to the area and bound to your ex-lover,” he said in
his ponderous way. “However, Karin is certainly better than no witness at all. I must talk to her soon.”
“She’ll be out in the woods tonight,” I said, “if she follows her pattern.”
“You truly believe that Detective Beck was spelled with something?”
“I do,” I said. “Though I didn’t understand what I was seeing at the time. I tried to get Andy
Bellefleur to tell Alcee to search his car. I hoped Alcee would find the hex, or whatever you call it, and
understand that he’d been supernaturally influenced against me. Obviously, that’s not going to work. So if
we can think of a way to get the magic object out of Alcee’s vehicle, we need to move on that plan. When
it’s removed, I hope things will get a lot better for me.” And God knew, I wanted things to get better. I
glanced at the clock. It was one p.m.
“Amelia, we have some things we need to talk about,” Mr. Cataliades said, and Amelia looked
apprehensive. “But first, let’s go into town and get lunch. Even passive deliberations call for energy.”
We packed into Mr. Cataliades’s rental van for the short drive into town. As we were seated at
Lucky Bar-B-Q, we garnered more attention than I wanted. Of course, people recognized me, and there
were a few glances and a few mutters—but I was pretty much prepared for that. The real eye-catcher was
Diantha, who’d never dressed like an average human being because she wasn’t. Diantha’s clothes were
bright and random. Green yoga tights, a cerise tutu, an orange leotard, cowboy boots . . . well, it was a
bold ensemble.
At least she smiled a lot; that was something.
Even aside from Diantha’s exceptional wardrobe choices (and that was a big “even aside”), we
simply didn’t look like we belonged together.
Luckily, our waiter was a high school kid named Joshua Bee, a distant cousin of Calvin Norris’s.
Joshua wasn’t a werepanther, but as a connection of the Norris clan, he knew a lot about the world most
humans didn’t see. He was polite and quick, and he wasn’t a bit frightened. That was a relief.
After we’d ordered, Desmond Cataliades was telling us about the progress of post-Katrina
reconstruction in New Orleans. “Amelia’s father has played a large part,” he said. “Copley Carmichael’s
name is on a lot of rebuilding contracts. Especially in the last few months.”
“He had some difficulties,” Bob said quietly. “There was an article in the paper. We don’t see
Copley a lot, since he and Amelia have issues. But we were kind of worried about him. Since the New
Year came in . . . well, everything’s turned around for him.”
“Yes, we’ll talk about that when we’re in a more private place,” Mr. Cataliades said.
Amelia looked worried, but she accepted that well.
I knew she didn’t really want to know that her father was up to no good. She suspected it already,
and she was frightened. Amelia and her father had an adversarial relationship on many fronts, but she
loved him . . . most of the time.
Diantha was making cat’s cradles with a piece of string she’d pulled from her pocket, Barry and Mr.
Cataliades were having an awkward conversation about the true meaning of the word “barbecue,” and I
was trying to think of another conversational topic when an old friend of mine walked into Lucky’s.
There was a moment’s silence. You couldn’t ignore John Quinn. Sure, Quinn was a weretiger. But
even when people didn’t know that (and most didn’t), Quinn stood out. He was a big bald man, with olive
skin and purple eyes. He looked spectacular in a purple tank top and khaki shorts. He was a man people
noticed, and he was my only lover who looked his true age.
I jumped up to give him a hug and urged him to sit down. He pulled up a chair between me and Mr.
Cataliades.
“I think I remember who’s met Quinn and who hasn’t,” I addressed the table in general. “Barry, you
met Quinn in Rhodes, I think, and Amelia, you and Bob know him from New Orleans. Quinn, you’ve met
Desmond Cataliades and his niece, Diantha, I think.”
Quinn nodded all around. Diantha abandoned her piece of string to look at Quinn full-time. Mr.
Cataliades, who also knew Quinn was a large predator, was cordial but very much on the alert. “I went to
your house first,” Quinn told me. “I’ve never seen flowers bloom in the middle of the summer like that.
And those tomatoes! Damn, those things are huge.” It was like we’d seen each other yesterday, and I felt
that warm and comfortable feeling I got around Quinn.
“My great-grandfather soaked the ground around my house with magic before he left,” I said. “I think
it was probably some kind of spell to make the land flourish. Whatever it was, it’s working. How’s Tij
doing, Quinn?”
“Everything’s going great,” he said. He grinned, and it was like seeing a whole different person.
“The baby’s growing like crazy. You want to see a picture?”
“Sure,” I said, and Quinn extracted his wallet and drew out one of those shadowy ultrasounds. There
were two markers on the picture, showing where the baby began and ended, Quinn explained.
I’d seen a lot of Tara’s ultrasounds—this baby seemed pretty big for a couple of months. “So, will
Tijgerin have a baby sooner than a regular human?” I asked.
“Yeah. Weretigers are unique in that. And it’s another reason traditional tiger moms spend their
pregnancy and birth times away from people. Including the dad,” Quinn said grimly. “At least she e-mails
me every few days.”
Time to change the subject. “I’m glad to see you, Quinn,” I said, looking pointedly at Mr. Cataliades,
who hadn’t yet relaxed. And Diantha’s wide-eyed stare didn’t mean she was thinking of jumping Quinn’s
bones, but exposing them with her knife if the occasion arose. Diantha didn’t like predators. “What brings
you to Bon Temps?” I asked. I put my hand on his arm. This man is my friend, I said silently, and Mr.
Cataliades nodded slightly but didn’t look away.
“I came to help,” Quinn said. “Sam put it on the board that someone had it in for you. You’re a friend
to the Shreveport wolf pack, you’re a friend of Sam’s, and you’re a friend of mine. Plus, the scarf used to
kill the lady was a Were gift to you.”
Sam had definitely put a good spin on the scarf’s history. The Weres had “gifted” it to me by using it
as a blindfold so I wouldn’t know where they’d taken me . . . the night I’d first met a werewolf. That night
seemed so long ago! I had a fleeting second of incredulity that there’d ever been a time I hadn’t known the
extent of the supernatural world. And here I sat in Lucky Bar-B-Q with two witches, two part-demons, a
telepath, and a weretiger.
“Sam has always been a good friend to me,” I said, wondering again what the hell was going on with
my good friend. (He’d put forth all this effort on my behalf, trying to drum up help for me in my time of
need, but he could barely manage to look me in the face. Something was definitely rotten in the state of
Bon Temps.) “That two-natured board must be hopping with news.”
Quinn nodded. “Alcide had posted, too, so I stopped in at his office on my way here. He wants to
know if one of his pack can scent in your house. I told him I was capable of any tracking that needed to be
done, but he insisted the Weres help you out. You assume that the scarf was stolen from your house?”
Everyone at the table was listening intently, even Mr. C and Diantha. They’d finally accepted Quinn
as a friend of mine. “Yes, that’s what I believe. Sam remembers me wearing it to church, and that must
have been to a funeral months ago. And I’m pretty confident I saw it when I cleaned out my scarf drawer
last week. I think maybe I would have noticed if it hadn’t been there.”
Amelia said, “I can help there. I know a spell that might help you remember, especially if we have a
picture of the scarf.”
“I don’t think I’ve got one, but I can draw a picture,” I said. “It’s got a feather pattern.” The first
couple of times I’d worn it, I hadn’t realized that the subtle sweeps of color represented feathers. With the
bright peacock colors, you’d think I’d have noticed earlier, but hell, it was just a scarf. A free scarf. And
now it might cost me my life or my freedom.
“That might work,” Amelia said.
“Then I’m willing to try it,” I told Amelia. I turned to Quinn. “And the Weres can come sniff my
house anytime they like. I keep it pretty clean, so I’m not sure what they’ll pick up.”
“I’m going to search your woods,” Quinn said. He wasn’t asking.
“It’s awful hot, Quinn,” I said. “And snakes . . .” But my voice died away when I met his eyes. Quinn
wasn’t afraid of heat or snakes or much of anything.
We had a good time eating together, and Quinn ordered a sandwich because our food smelled so good.
I couldn’t even begin to tell everyone how grateful I was that they’d come, that they were helping me.
When I’d thought three days before that I had only Jason on my side, how wrong I’d been. I was
immensely, deeply grateful.
After lunch, we went by Wal-Mart to get some groceries for supper. To my relief, Mr. Cataliades
and Diantha went to fill up their van at the gas station while the rest of us shopped. I simply couldn’t
imagine those two in Wal-Mart. I divided the list and handed it out, so we were done in no time.
As we filled up our cart, Quinn, a supernatural event planner, was telling me about a werewolf
coming-of-age party that had turned into a free-for-all. I was laughing when we turned a corner and met
Sam.
After his weirdness yesterday at the bar and on the phone today, I hardly knew what to say to Sam,
but I was glad to see him. Sam looked pretty grim, and he looked even grimmer when I reintroduced him
to Quinn.
“Yeah, man, I remember you,” Sam said, trying to smile. “You come to give Sookie moral support?”
“Any kind of support she needs,” Quinn said, not the happiest choice of words.
“Sam, I’ve talked about Mr. Cataliades, I know. He’s brought Diantha and Barry and Amelia and
Bob,” I said hastily. “You remember Amelia and Bob, though maybe Bob was a cat last time you saw
him. Come visit!”
“I remember them,” Sam said between clenched teeth. “But I can’t come by.”
“What’s stopping you? I guess Kennedy is working the bar.”
“Yeah, she’s got this afternoon.”
“Then come on out.”
He closed his eyes, and I could sense the words beating at his head, wanting to come out. “I can’t,”
he repeated, and he rolled his cart away and left the store.
“What’s up with him?” Quinn asked. “I don’t know Sam well, but he’s always been standing right
behind you, Sookie, always in your corner. There’s something compelling him to step aside.”
I was so confused I couldn’t speak. While we checked out and loaded the groceries into the back of
the van, I chewed at the problem of Sam and what was happening with him. He wanted to come out to the
house, but he wouldn’t come out to the house. Because? Well, why would you not do something you
wanted to do? Because you were being prevented.
“He’s promised someone he won’t,” I muttered. “That’s gotta be it.” Could it be Bernie? I thought
she liked me, but maybe I was reading her wrong. Maybe she thought all I was was trouble for her son.
Well, if Sam had made her—or someone else—such a promise, there didn’t seem to be anything I could
do about it, but I would put the situation on the back burner of things that worried me. When there was
room on the front burner, I’d move it forward. Because it sure made me hurt inside.
When the groceries were put away, we assembled again in the living room. I wasn’t used to sitting
around all day, and I felt a little restless as we all took the chairs we’d been in earlier. Quinn took the
only one left, a kind of dumpy armchair I’d always planned on exchanging for something better . . . but I’d
never gotten around to it. I tossed him a cushion, and he gamely tried stuffing it in the small of his back to
make the chair a bit more comfortable.
“I have some things to tell all of you,” Mr. Cataliades said. “And later, some things to tell Sookie
individually . . . but now I have to tell you what I’ve witnessed and suspected.”
This sounded so ominous that we all turned our attention to the part-demon.
“I’d heard that there was a devil in New Orleans,” he said.
“The Devil? Or a devil?” Amelia asked.
“What an excellent question,” Mr. Cataliades said. “In fact, a devil. The Devil himself seldom
makes a personal appearance. You can imagine the crowds.”
None of us knew quite what to say, so perhaps we couldn’t.
Diantha laughed as if she were remembering something very funny. I, for one, didn’t want to know
what it was.
“Here’s the most interesting fact,” he said precisely. “The devil was dining with your father, Miss
Amelia.”
“Not dining on my dad, but dining with him?” She laughed for a second, but suddenly Mr.
Cataliades’s meaning sank in. Amelia’s face drained of color. “Are you shitting me?” she asked quietly.
“I assure you I’d never do such a thing,” he replied, with some distaste. He gave her a moment to
absorb the bad news before continuing, “Though I know you aren’t close to your father, I must tell you that
he and his bodyguard have struck a deal with the devil.”
Again, I kept my mouth closed. This was Amelia’s thing to react to, I figured. Her dad.
“I wish I could say that I was sure he wouldn’t do anything so dumb,” she said. “But I don’t even feel
the impulse to say, ‘He’d never do anything like that.’ He would if he felt he was losing his business and
his power . . . oh. So the reports in the papers were true a few months ago. His business didn’t make a
miraculous recovery. Not miraculous. Miracles are something holy. What’s a miracle a devil would do?”
Bob took her hand, but he didn’t speak.
“At least he didn’t know I was pregnant, so he couldn’t promise the devil our child,” she said to
Bob, and there was something feral about Amelia as she said that. She’d known she was pregnant for a
few hours and already she’d switched into mom mode. “You were so right, Mr. Cataliades, to tell me not
to telephone or text anyone to let them know about the baby.”
Mr. Cataliades nodded gravely. “I am giving you this distressing news because you need to know it
before you see him. Once you make a bargain with a devil, any devil, you begin to change, because your
soul is forfeit. There’s no redemption, so there’s no incentive to try to be better. Even if you don’t believe
in an afterlife, the downward path is permanent.”
Though I was sure the part-demon knew more than I did about the subject, I didn’t believe
redemption was ever beyond the power of God. But I knew this was not the moment to air my religious
beliefs. This was the time to gather information.
I said, “So . . . I’m not trying to make this all about me, because obviously it’s not, but . . . are you
saying Mr. Carmichael is the one trying to get me put in jail?”
“No,” said the lawyer. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I think someone else is doing that,” he continued,
and my relief vanished. How many enemies could I have? “However, I know for a fact that Copley
Carmichael asked the devil for a cluviel dor.”
I gasped. “But how would he even know about such a thing?” I asked. And then I glared at Amelia. I
literally bit the inside of my mouth to keep from ripping into her. She looked stricken, and I forced myself
to remember that Amelia was having a very rough day.
“I told him . . . Sookie had asked me to look it up . . . and we never have anything to talk about,
seems like . . . He’s never believed I was a real witch, never given any sign he thought I was anything but
ridiculous. I didn’t imagine. How could I? That he would . . .” She faltered to a stop.
Bob put his arm around her. “Of course you didn’t imagine that, Amelia,” he said. “How could you?
That this one time he’d decide to take you seriously?”
There was another uncomfortable pause. I was still exercising all my self-control, and everyone in
the room realized it and gave me some slack.
Gradually, as Amelia wept, I let go of the arms of my chair (I was surprised not to see any dents). I
wasn’t going to rush over to hug her, because I wasn’t that comfortable with Amelia’s loose lips yet, but I
could understand. Amelia had never been what you’d call discreet, and she’d always had a love/hate
relationship with her father. If they were having one of their rare tête-a-têtes, she’d try to keep him
interested in her conversation. And what was more interesting than a cluviel dor?
I knew one thing for sure: If my friendship with Amelia continued, I’d never, never tell her anything
more important than a recipe or a prediction about the weather. She’d stepped over the line again.
“So, he knew I had a cluviel dor and he wanted it,” I said, impatient with Amelia’s tearful
repentance. “What happened then?”
“I don’t know why the devil owed Copley a debt,” said Mr. Cataliades. “But apparently, the cluviel
dor was the payment Copley requested, and he steered the devil to you, Sookie. But you used the cluviel
dor before the devil could wrest it from you . . . very fortunately for all of us. Now Copley is feeling
thwarted, and he’s not used to that, at least he’s not since the New Year. He feels you owe him,
somehow.”
“But you don’t think he’d kill Arlene and try to pin it on me?”
“He would have if he’d thought of it,” Mr. Cataliades said. “But I think that’s too devious, even for
him. That is the work of a more subtle mind, a mind that wants you to suffer in jail for many years. Copley
Carmichael is enraged and intends to harm you in the more direct way.”
“Sookie, I’m sorry,” Amelia said. She was composed now, and she held her head up with some
dignity despite the tears on her cheeks. “I just mentioned the cluviel dor that once in a conversation I had
with my dad. I don’t know where he got all his other information. I don’t seem to be a very good friend to
you, no matter how much I love you and how hard I try.”
I couldn’t think of any response that wouldn’t sound lame. Bob glared at me over Amelia’s head. He
wanted me to say something to make this all right. There simply wasn’t any way to do that.
“I’m going to do everything I can to help you out,” Amelia said. “That’s why I came up here in the
first place. But I’ll try even harder now.”
I took a deep breath. “I know you will, Amelia,” I said. “You’re truly a great witch, and I’m sure
we’re going to get through this.” And that was the best I could do, just at this moment.
Amelia gave me a watery smile, and Quinn gave her a pat on the arm, and Diantha looked totally
bored. (Not big with the emotional dialogue, Diantha.) Mr. Cataliades may have felt the same way,
because he said, “We seem to have gotten over that bump in the road, so let me move on to something else
of interest.”
We all tried to look attentive.
“There’s much more to talk about, but as I look around me, I see people who are tired and need
recovery time,” he said unexpectedly. “Let’s resume tomorrow. A couple of us have little tasks to perform
this evening or tonight.”
Amelia and Bob went into their bedroom and shut the door, which was a relief to everyone. Barry
asked if he could use my computer since he’d come away without his laptop, and I said yes, providing he
didn’t give anyone his location. I was feeling double paranoid, and I thought I had good reason. Mr.
Cataliades and Diantha retreated upstairs to make phone calls about Mr. Cataliades’s law practice.
Quinn and I took a walk, just so we could have some time by ourselves. He said he’d thought of
resuming his dating life, after Tijgerin had given him the word that she wouldn’t see him for a long time,
but he just couldn’t do it. He was going to have a child with Tij, and that gave him the feeling he was
bound to her, even if she told him to stay away. It was galling that she wouldn’t let him share in the
upbringing of the baby, that she clung to the old ways with such determination and ferocity.
“You heard from your sister, Frannie?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t bringing up another doleful subject.
My heart lightened when he smiled.
“She’s married,” he said. “Can you believe it? I thought I’d lost her forever when she ran off. I
thought she’d take drugs and whore around. But once she got away from us, from me and Mom, she got a
job as a waitress in a café in New Mexico. She met a guy at the café who does something in the tourist
industry. Next thing you know, they went to a wedding chapel. So far, so good. How’s your brother?”
“He’s getting married to a woman who’s not a supe,” I said. “But she seems to love him for what he
is, and she doesn’t expect more than he can give.” My brother’s emotional and intellectual ranges were
limited, though they were expanding bit by bit. Like Frannie, Jason had grown up a lot recently. After
being bitten and becoming a werepanther, Jason’s life had gotten chaotic, but now he was getting it
together.
Besides our families, Quinn and I didn’t really talk about anything in particular. It was a relaxing
walk, even in the steamy heat that had followed the end of the rain.
He didn’t ask me any questions about my situation with Eric, and that was a relief.
“After I do a tour through your woods, what else can I do for you, Sookie?” Quinn asked. “I want to
do something besides sit around and hear stuff that’s just embarrassing.”
“Yeah, that was pretty awful. No matter how hard Amelia and I try to be friends, something always
happens.”
“It happens because she can’t keep her mouth shut,” Quinn said, and I shrugged. That was the way
Amelia was. To my surprise, Quinn put his arm around me and pulled me close, and I wondered if I’d
sent out the wrong signal.
“Listen, Sookie,” he murmured, smiling down at me in a fond way, “I don’t want to scare you or
anything, but someone’s in the woods and they’re walking along the driveway parallel to us. You got any
ideas who it might be? If they’re armed?” His voice was not agitated, and I did my best to match his ease.
It was incredibly hard not to turn to stare into the woods.
I made myself smile up at Quinn. “I sure don’t. Not a human, or I’d get the brain signature. Can’t be a
vamp, it’s daylight.”
Quinn expelled all the breath in his lungs and drew in a chestful of air. “Ask me, it might be a fairy,”
he whispered. “I’m just getting a touch of fae. There are so many scents in the air after the rain.”
“But the fae are all gone,” I said, reminding myself to let my expression change. After all, I wouldn’t
be beaming at Quinn for five minutes while we strolled down the road. “That’s what my great-grandfather
told me.”
“I think he was wrong,” Quinn said. “Let’s casually turn to head back to the house.”
I took Quinn’s hand and swung it enthusiastically. I felt like an idiot, but I needed something physical
to do while I sent out my other sense. I finally found the brain signature of whatever creature lurked in the
woods, which provided easy concealment due to the natural effects of summer (rain and light) and the
benefits of Niall’s blessing on the land. The closer to my house we got, the thicker the vegetation became.
The area right at the edge of the yard might almost be a jungle.
“You think he’s going to shoot?” I said with a smile. I swung Quinn’s hand like I was a child
walking with her grandpa.
“I don’t smell a gun,” he said. “Enough with the hand swinging. I need to be able to move quick.”
I let go, somewhat embarrassed. “Let’s try to get into the house. Without getting killed.”
But whoever was stalking us didn’t make a move. It was almost an anticlimax to walk across the
enclosed back porch, wondering every second if something terrible would happen, and then to make it in
the door and shut it behind us . . . and nothing happened. Nothing at all.
Barry had decided to make hamburgers to cook on the grill in the backyard. He was putting chopped
onion and seasoned salt and green peppers in the meat and forming the patties, and he was mighty startled
when we bolted into the kitchen and ducked.
“What the hell?” he said.
“Someone was out there,” I said.
He crouched, too. He closed his eyes and concentrated. “I have no idea,” he said, after a moment.
“Whoever it was, he’s left, Sookie.”
“Smelled like a fairy,” Quinn told Barry.
“They’re all gone,” Barry said. “That’s what the Texas vampires told me. Said they’d cleaned out
lock, stock, and barrel.”
“They are all gone,” I said. “I know that for a fact. So either Quinn’s nose is wrong or we have a
rogue.”
“Or a reject,” Barry said quietly.
“Or an escapee. Whatever he is, why is he skulking in the woods?” Quinn asked.
But I didn’t have any answer. And when nothing else happened, we three began to think nothing
would. Quinn decided to delay his search of the woods until the evening. There wasn’t any point going out
there now.
Though it felt anticlimactic, I began slicing tomatoes for the hamburgers, and then I cut up a
watermelon. Quinn volunteered to make some home fries. Since he’d put a ten-pound bag of potatoes in
the cart today, I was glad he had a plan to use them up.
With all three of us working in the kitchen, supper came together. I pretended not to see when Quinn
ate one burger before it was cooked, and Barry hastily volunteered to take the others out to the grill. I put
together a baked bean casserole, and Quinn began frying the potatoes. I set the table and washed the
preparation dishes.
It was almost like running a boardinghouse, I thought, when I called everyone down for dinner.
Chapter 13
Amazingly, the meal went well. There was just enough room for us at the kitchen table when I opened
two folding chairs my gran had kept in the living room closet.
Amelia had obviously been crying, but she was calm now. Bob touched her every chance he got. Mr.
Cataliades explained that he and Diantha had recalled an errand in town, and after we’d shared
hamburgers and French fries and beans and watermelon, they took off.
We all helped clear away the kitchen. After dinner, Barry sat in a living room armchair with his feet
propped up, focusing on his e-reader. Bob and Amelia cuddled on the couch watching a rebroadcast of
The Terminator. Cheerful. After consuming three cooked hamburgers and a quart of French fries, Quinn
loped outside to conduct a fruitless search of the woods. After an hour, discouraged and filthy, he returned
to the house to tell me that he had smelled two vampires (presumably Bill and Karin) and a faint trace of
fairy in the place we’d been when we were followed. But there was nothing else to find. He was leaving
for a motel by the interstate.
I felt hostess guilt over not having a bed to offer him. I did tell him I’d be glad to pay for his hotel
room, and he gave me a look that would’ve made paint peel.
The two part-demons returned after dark, while I was reading, and they didn’t look happy. They said
good night very politely and clattered up the stairs to their room. With everyone in for the night, I decided
my day could officially come to a close. It had been a pretty damn long one.
It’s always possible for human beings to spoil their own peace of mind, and I did a good job of it
that night. Despite the friends who had shown up with no expectation of reward, the friends who’d come a
long way to help me, I worried about the friend who hadn’t tried. I just couldn’t figure Sam out any more
than I could figure out why Eric had posted my bail when I was no longer his wife, or even his girlfriend.
I was sure he’d had some reason for doing me that large good turn.
Does it sound like I was labeling Eric as ungenerous, uncaring? In some respects, and to some
people, he was never those things. But he was a practical vampire, and he was a vampire about to
become the consort of a true queen. Since dismissing me as his wife apparently was one of Freyda’s
conditions for marrying Eric (and frankly, I could sure understand that), I couldn’t imagine her accepting
Eric’s decision to put up an awfully large amount of money to secure my freedom. Maybe that had been
part of some negotiation? “If you’ll let me bail out my former wife, I’ll take a decreased allowance for a
year,” or something like that. (For all I knew, they negotiated how many times they would have sex.) And
I had the most depressing mental image of the beautiful Freyda and my Eric . . . my former Eric.
Somewhere in the midst of wandering through a mental maze, I fell asleep.
I slept twenty minutes too late the next day and woke up to the awareness that my house was full of
guests. I threw myself out of bed, aware of other brains firing into thought all over the house. I was
showered and out in the kitchen quicker than greased lightning, and I fixed pancakes and bacon, put the
coffeepot on, and got out the juice glasses. I listened to Amelia being sick in the hall bathroom and sent a
groggy Diantha into mine to speed up the shower process.
As the pancakes came off the griddle, I slid them right onto plates so my guests could eat them while
they were hot. I put out all the fruit I had, for the healthy minded.
Mr. Cataliades loved pancakes, and Diantha was not far behind him in pancake consumption. I had to
make up some more batter in a hurry. Then there were dishes to wash (Bob helped) and my bed to make.
So I had plenty to do, but throughout the busyness of my hands and thoughts, I was unhappily aware that I
hadn’t heard from Sam.
I e-mailed him.
I chose that format so I could say exactly what I wanted to say without having to restate it several
times. I worked on my composition for a while.
Sam, I don’t know why you don’t want to talk to me, but I wanted you to know that I’m ready to come to work any day you need me.
Please let me know how you’re feeling.
I read this message over several times and decided it put the ball in Sam’s court pretty firmly. It was
perfect until I impulsively typed, “I miss you.” And then I clicked Send.
After years of having what I considered a happy relationship with Sam—for the most part—with no
effort at all, now that I’d actually made a sacrifice for him, we were down to e-mails and mysterious
silences.
It was hard to understand.
I was trying to explain this to Amelia a few minutes later. She’d come upon me staring at the
computer as if I were trying to will the screen to talk to me.
“What did you sacrifice?” she asked, her clear blue eyes intent on my face. When Amelia was in the
right mood, she could be a good listener. I knew that Bob was shaving in the hall bathroom, Barry was out
in the yard doing yoga stuff, and Mr. C and Diantha were having an earnest conversation at the edge of the
woods. So it was safe to be frank.
“I sacrificed my chance to keep Eric,” I said. “I gave it up to save Sam’s life.”
She bypassed the big important part of that to go straight to the painful questions. “If you have to use
big magic to keep someone with you, was it really meant to be?”
“I never thought about it as an either/or,” I said. “But Eric did. He’s a proud guy, and his maker
began the process of hitching him to Freyda without consulting Eric at all.”
“And you know this how?”
“When he finally told me about it, he seemed . . . genuinely desperate.”
Amelia looked at me like I was the world’s biggest idiot. “Right, ’cause it’s nobody’s dream to go
from managing a backwater area of Louisiana to being consort of a beautiful queen who’s hot for you.
And why did he end up telling you?”
“Well, Pam insisted,” I admitted, feeling doubts overwhelm me. “But he hadn’t told me because he
was trying to think of a way to stay with me.”
“I’m not saying anything different,” she said. Amelia has never been tactful, and I could tell she was
making a huge effort. “You’re pretty great. But you know, honey . . . Eric is all about Eric. That’s why I
was so willing to encourage Alcide. I figured Eric would break your heart.” She shrugged. “Or turn you,”
she added as an afterthought.
I jerked, involuntarily.
“He did mean to turn you! That asshole! He would have taken you away from us. I guess we’re lucky
all he did is break your heart!” She was absolutely furious.
“In all honesty, I don’t know that my heart is broken,” I said. “I’m depressed and sad. But I don’t feel
as bad as I did when I found out about Bill’s big secret.”
Amelia said, “With Bill—that was the first time, right? The first time you’d found out someone
important to you had been deceiving you?”
“It was the first chance anyone had ever had to deceive me,” I said, a new way to look at Bill’s
betrayal. “With humans I’ve always been able to tell, at least enough to be wary or mistrustful . . . not to
buy into whatever line of bullshit they’re handing out. Bill was the first sexual adventure for me, and he
was the first man I ever said ‘I love you’ to.”
“Maybe you’re just getting used to being lied to,” Amelia said bracingly, and that was so much like
Amelia that I had to smile. She was self-aware enough to look a bit abashed, “Okay, that was awful. I’m
sorry.”
I mimed amazement, my eyes wide and my hands held open by my face.
“Bob told me that I needed to work on my people skills,” Amelia said. “He said I was pretty blunt.”
I tried not to smile too broadly. “Bob might be handy to have around after all.”
“Now that I’m pregnant, especially.” Amelia looked at me anxiously. “You sure we’re having a
baby? I mean, when I thought about it, I could kind of see that my body hadn’t been working the way it
was supposed to for a little while. And I feel thicker. But I’d never thought of having a baby. I just thought
I was hormonal. I’m all weepy.”
“Even witches sing the blues,” I said, and she grinned at me.
“This is going to be one awesome baby,” she said.
Chapter 14
Mr. Cataliades came in to tell us he’d been talking to Beth Osiecki by cell phone and that he had an
appointment to meet her and review my situation. Diantha rode into town with him; I didn’t ask what her
part in this consultation was supposed to be, and she didn’t volunteer. Barry decided to ride in with them,
too, and see if there was another car to rent locally while he was in town. He’d called ahead to make sure
Chessie Johnson would be at home and was willing to talk to him.
Barry was used to getting answers from people indirectly, by listening to their heads when they were
in conversation with others. In other words, eavesdropping. Since he’d be the one asking the questions in
this instance, he was a little anxious about the process. I briefed him as thoroughly as I could on the
Johnsons and on Lisa and Coby. He had prepared a list of questions to which he needed answers: Whom
had Arlene been planning to meet? Where had she been staying since she got released? Whom had she
talked to? Who had paid for the new lawyer and her bail?
“If you can,” I said quietly, “please find out what’s going to happen to the kids. I feel bad for all
they’ve been through.” Barry could see what was in my head. He nodded, his face serious.
Bob got on the phone to a touch psychic, though since we didn’t have possession of the scarf I
couldn’t see the point. Bob seemed sure we’d be able to lay hands on it. The touch psychic, a Baton
Rouge woman named Delphine Oubre, would drive up to Bon Temps the next morning, he said.
“And do what?” I tried hard to sound grateful and appreciative, but I didn’t think I managed. I had
done the most accurate drawing of the scarf that I could, and I’d described the pattern and the colors to
Diantha, since saying “teal green” and “peacock blue” to Mr. Cataliades had just resulted in a blank stare.
Diantha had done a second version in color, and it had looked very like what I’d remembered.
“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you. Your demon buddies are pretty resourceful.” Bob smiled
mysteriously and glided out of the room. In some ways, Bob was still very catlike.
Amelia was researching spells to make Arlene’s mysterious male friends talk, if we could find them.
I had a moment of longing for Pam. She could make anybody talk, no spell involved, unless you
considered vamp hypnosis a spell. Pam would rather beat it out of them, anyway. Maybe I’d give her a
call.
No. I told myself this firmly, and frequently. At this point, it was better if I simply let all connection
with the vampires drop. Sure, Bill still lived next door, and it was inevitable that I’d see him from time to
time. Sure, Eric had left a couple of things in the hidey-hole in my guest bedroom. Sure, Quinn reported
that he’d smelled two vamps (almost surely Bill and Karin) in the woods. But I’d decided I was going to
pretend there was a wall between me and every vampire in Area Five. Between me and every vampire in
the world!
I checked my e-mail. I’d gotten one from Sam. Full of anticipation, I clicked on it. “Come to work
this morning,” was all it said. Quinn had e-mailed me, too. “Saw a couple of people I thought I recognized
in the motel bar last night,” I read. “I’m going to follow them today.”
Who on earth could it be? But at the idea that things were moving along, I felt a rush of optimism. I
went into my room to shower and dress with a smile on my face.
When I emerged from my room ready to go to work, I found Bob and Amelia in the backyard. They’d
built a little fire in a circle of old bricks, and they were scattering some herbs on it and chanting. They
didn’t invite me to join them; and truthfully, magic smelled weird and made me really nervous, so I wasn’t
eager to ask any questions.
I went into Merlotte’s to find it was exactly as usual. No one blinked an eye at my presence or
expressed surprise that I’d turned up. As it happened, we were extremely busy. Sam was there, but every
time our eyes met he looked away, as if he were ashamed of something. But I swear he was glad to see
me.
Finally, I trapped him in his office. I was blocking the only exit, unless he wanted to duck into his
tiny bathroom and lock the door, and he wasn’t craven enough to do that.
“Okay, spill,” I said.
He seemed almost relieved, as if he’d hoped I’d demand an explanation. He looked directly at me,
and if I could have climbed inside his brain and looked at it, I would have. Damn shifters.
“I can’t,” he said. “I swore not to.”
I narrowed my eyes while I considered. It was a serious thing, swearing, and I could hardly threaten
to tickle him until he talked, or tell him I was going to hold my breath until he spilled. But I had to know
what had changed. I’d thought we were getting back to normal, that Sam had started to rebuild himself
after his death experience, that we were on solid ground.
“Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me what’s wrong,” I said reasonably. “If you can think
of any way to give me a hint, that would be a good thing.”
“I better not.”
“I wish you could have come out last night,” I said, changing tack. “We had a good supper, and the
house was full last night.”
“Did Quinn stay?” Sam asked stiffly.
“No, too crowded for that. He’s got a motel room out on the interstate. I wish you’d be friendly to
him. And all my guests.”
“Why do you want me to be friendly with Quinn?”
Yeah, some jealousy there. Good Lord. “Because all my company came from miles away, and they
all came to help clear my name.”
Sam froze for a minute. “Are you hinting that I’m not helping you like they are? That they care more
about you than I do?” He was obviously angry.
“No,” I said. “I don’t think that.” Wow, he was super-touchy. I said hesitantly, “I did kind of wonder
why you didn’t come to the court hearing?”
“You think I want to see you in handcuffs, robbed of your dignity?”
“I’d like to think I always have my dignity, Sam, cuffs or not.” We glared at each other for a second
or two. Then I said, “But it was pretty humiliating,” and to my embarrassment, my eyes filled with tears.
He held out his arms to me and I hugged him, though I could feel the uneasiness in him. The oath he’d
sworn had something in it about physical contact, I concluded. When the hug naturally ended, he kind of
held me away. I let it be. I could see he thought I was going to ask him more questions. But I thought better
of it.
Instead, I invited him out to the house for dinner the next night. I’d looked at the work schedule, and
I’d seen that Kennedy would be behind the bar. He agreed to come, but he looked wary, as if he suspected
I had a secret motive. Not at all! I just thought the more I was in his company, the more chances I’d have
to find out what was going on.
I’d been worried that people would shy away from me, since I’d been accused of killing Arlene. As
I waited tables, I came to understand the shocking truth: People weren’t worried much about Arlene’s
death. Her trial had taken her reputation away from her. It wasn’t so much that people loved me; it was
that people realized a mom shouldn’t lure her friend to her death, and then get caught, because then her
children were left in the lurch. I came to see that despite the fact that I’d dated vampires, I had a good
reputation in many respects. I was reliable and cheerful and hardworking, and with the people of Bon
Temps that counted an awful lot. I put flowers on my family’s graves every holiday and on the anniversary
of their deaths. Plus, through area gossip, it had become known that I was taking an active interest in my
cousin Hadley’s little boy, and there was a widespread, pleasant hope that I would marry Hadley’s
widower, Remy Savoy, because that would tie things up neatly.
Which would have been great . . . except Remy and I weren’t interested in each other. Until real
recently, I’d had Eric, and to the best of my knowledge, Remy was still dating the very cute Erin. I tried to
imagine kissing Remy and simply wasn’t inclined to go there.
All of these thoughts kept me engaged and busy both outside and inside, until it was time for me to
go. Sam smiled and waved when I took off my apron and handed over my tables to India.
No one at all was at my house when I unlocked the back door. That was strange, since it had been
such a beehive that morning. Moved by an impulse, I went into my bedroom and perched on the side of the
bed, close to my bedside table. Thanks to my compulsory cleaning during my three days off, neatly
located in the top drawer were all the things I might need at a moment’s notice during the night: a
flashlight, Kleenex, ChapStick, Tylenol, three condoms Quinn had left when we’d dated, a list of
emergency phone numbers, a cell phone charger, an old tin box (full of pins, needles, buttons, and paper
clips), some pens, a notepad . . . the usual mixture of handy items.
But the next drawer held memorabilia. There was the bullet I’d sucked out of Eric’s flesh in Dallas.
There was a rock that had hit Eric in the head in the living room of Sam’s rental house in town. There
were various sets of keys to Eric’s house, Jason’s house, Tara’s house, all neatly labeled. There was a
laminated copy of my gran’s obituary and my parents’, and another laminated newspaper story published
the year the Lady Falcons had won their division at state, with a few nice lines about my performance.
There was an ancient brooch in which Gran had placed a lock of my mom’s hair and a lock of my dad’s.
There was the old pattern envelope containing a letter from Gran and the velvet bag that had contained the
cluviel dor, and the cluviel dor itself, now dull and divested of all its magic. There was a note Quinn had
written me during our dating period. There was the envelope in which Sam had given me a partnership
agreement to the bar, though the actual partnership document was in a lockbox at my lawyer’s. There were
birthday cards and Christmas cards and a drawing made by Hunter.
It was dumb to keep the rock. It was too heavy for the drawer, anyway, and made it hard to open and
close. I put it on top of my night table, planning to set it in the flower bed. I got out the keys to Eric’s
house, wrapped them in bubble wrap, and put them in a padded mailer to send to him. I wondered if he’d
put the house up for sale, or what? Maybe the next sheriff would move into it. If Felipe de Castro
appointed him or her, I realized that my grace period was very short. With any new vampire regime, it
would be open season on me . . . or would they just forget about me? That would be almost too good to be
true.
A knock at the back door was a welcome diversion. The packmaster himself had come to call, and
he seemed more at ease than I’d ever seen him. Alcide Herveaux looked comfortable in his own skin and
pleased with the world. He was wearing his usual jeans and boots—a surveyor couldn’t tromp through
ditches and woods in flip-flops. His short-sleeved shirt was well worn and tight across his wide
shoulders. Alcide was a working man but not an uncomplicated one. His love life, up until now, had been
nothing short of a disaster. First, Debbie Pelt, who had been a bitch on wheels until I’d killed her; then the
very nice Maria-Star Cooper, who’d been murdered; then Annabelle Bannister, who’d been unfaithful to
him. He’d had a thing for me until I’d persuaded him that would be a bad idea for both of us. Now he was
seeing a werewolf named Kandace, who was new to the area. She would be up for membership in the
pack later this month.
“I hear we need to try to find a trail of someone who stole that scarf,” Alcide said.
“I hope you can pick up something,” I said. “Wouldn’t be court evidence, but we’d be able to track
down him or her.”
“You’re a clean woman,” he said, looking around the living room. “But I can tell there’ve been lots
of people in here lately.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I got a houseful of company. So the best place to catch a scent would be in my
room.”
“That’s where we’ll start,” he said, and smiled. He had white teeth in a tan face and lovely green
eyes, and Alcide’s smile was something else. Too bad he wasn’t for me.
“You want a glass of water or some lemonade?” I said.
“Maybe after I get the job done,” he said. He took off his clothes and folded them neatly on the
couch. Wow. I struggled to keep my face neutral. Then he changed.
It always looked like it hurt, and the sounds were unpleasant, but Alcide seemed to recover quickly.
The handsome wolf in front of me padded around my living room, his sensitive nose recording scent trails
before he followed them into my bedroom.
I stayed out of his way. I sat at the little desk in the living room where the computer was plugged in,
and I passed the time by deleting a lot of old e-mail. It was something to do while he searched. I banished
all the spam and the department store ads before a big wolf head thrust its way into my lap, and there was
Alcide, tail wagging.
I patted him automatically. That was what you did when a canine head presented itself. You
scratched between its ears and under its chin, you rubbed its belly . . . well, maybe not a wolf’s belly,
especially a male wolf’s.
Alcide grinned at me and changed back. He’d become the fastest changer I’d ever seen. I wondered
if that ability came with the packmaster job.
“Any luck?” I asked, keeping my eyes modestly focused on my hands while he got dressed.
“At least you didn’t clean the throw rug by your bed,” he said. “I can tell you that one person who’s
been in your room, I don’t know at all. But your friend Tara’s been there, right by your bed. Your two fae
buddies were in there, but then, they lived here.”
“They were searching my house while I was gone every day,” I said. “They were searching for the
cluviel dor.”
“That’s sad, that your kin would do that,” Alcide said, and he patted me on the shoulder. “Who else
did I smell? Eric, of course. And you know who else? Arlene. She was carrying a charm of some kind,
but definitely Arlene.”
“I didn’t remember you’d met Arlene.” I grasped at an irrelevant issue because I was stunned silly.
“She served me once or twice when I came by Merlotte’s.”
I figured out her access after five seconds’ more cogitation. “She knew where I hid my keys from
when we were friends,” I said, infuriated by my own carelessness. “I guess before, or even after, she
came to Merlotte’s, she let herself in here and got the scarf. But why?”
“Someone told her to, I expect,” Alcide said, buckling his belt.
“Someone sent her here to get the scarf that would be used to kill her.”
“Apparently, that’s what happened. Ironic, huh?”
I couldn’t think of any other explanation.
And it made me sick.
“Thanks so much, Alcide,” I said, remembering my manners. I got him the glass of lemonade I’d
promised him, and he drank it in one long gulp. “How’s Kandace doing, integrating into the pack?” I
asked.
He smiled broadly. “She’s doing real well,” he said. “Taking it slow. They’re warming up to her.”
Kandace had been a rogue wolf, but because she’d turned in some worse rogues, she’d gotten a chance to
join the pack while the bad ones had been banished. Kandace was quiet and tall, and though I didn’t know
her well, I knew she was the calmest person Alcide had ever been with. I had the sense that after a life on
rough seas, Kandace was looking for inland waters.
“That’s real good to hear,” I said. “I wish her luck.”
“Call me if you need me,” Alcide said. “The pack stands ready to help you.”
“You’ve already been a help,” I said, and I meant it.
Two minutes after he left, Barry pulled up in a car he’d rented from a new place out by the interstate.
He’d also brought Amelia and Bob. Amelia said, “I’m asleep on my feet,” and headed for the bedroom to
take a nap, Bob hard on her heels. Barry ran upstairs to plug his cell phone into his charger. I glanced at
the clock and realized it was time to get busy. I began cooking supper for six. Country-fried steak took a
while, so I got that in the oven first. Then I cut up crookneck squash and onions to sauté, and I chopped
okra and breaded it to fry, and I put bakery rolls on a baking sheet to pop in the oven right before I served
supper. I’d start the rice soon.
Barry came into the kitchen, sniffing the air and smiling.
“Did you have a productive day?” I asked.
Barry nodded. He said, I’ll wait until everyone gets here so I’ll only have to say it once.
Okay, I said, and wiped the flour off the kitchen counter. Barry cleared the counter of dirty dishes in
the best possible way, by washing and drying them. He was far more domesticated than I’d ever
suspected, and I realized there was much more to know about him.
“I’m going outside to make some phone calls,” he said. I knew he wanted to be out of my earshot and
mindshot, if I can put it that way, but that didn’t bother me in the least. While he was outside, Bob ambled
through the kitchen and straight down the porch steps, carefully easing the porch door closed.
A few minutes later, Amelia came out into the kitchen sleepy-eyed. “Bob went for a walk in the
woods,” she muttered. “I’m going to splash some water on my face.” Mr. Cataliades and Diantha came in
the back door ten minutes later. Diantha looked exhausted, but Mr. C was positively bubbly.
“I am smitten with Beth Osiecki,” he said, beaming. “I’ll tell you all about it over our meal. First, I
must shower.” He sniffed the air in the kitchen appreciatively and told me how much he looked forward to
dinner before he and a silent Diantha went upstairs. Amelia came out of the bathroom; Mr. Cataliades
went in. Bob returned from the woods, sweaty and scratched and with a bag full of various plants. He
collapsed in a chair and begged for a big icy glass of tea. He drank it dry. Diantha had stopped at a
roadside stand to buy a honeydew melon, and she cut into it. I could smell the sweetness as she cut out the
fruit and diced it.
My cell phone buzzed. “Hello?” I said. The rice was boiling, so I turned it down and covered it. I
glanced at the kitchen clock so I could turn it off in twenty minutes.
“It’s Quinn,” he said.
“Where are you? Who were you tracking down? We’re about to eat. You coming?”
“The two men I saw were gone this morning,” he said. “I think they caught a glimpse of me and
checked out during the night. I’ve spent all day trying to find them, but they’re in the wind.”
“Who were they?”
“Do you remember . . . that lawyer?”
“Johan Glassport?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Barry saw him in New Orleans.”
“He was here. With some guy who looked kind of familiar, though I couldn’t put a name to him.”
“So . . . what are your plans?” I glanced at the clock anxiously. It was hard to concentrate when I
was trying to put a meal on the table. My gran had always made it look so easy.
“I’m sorry, Sookie. I have other news. I’ve been called away to take a job, and my employer says
I’m the only one who can do it.”
“Uh-huh.” Then I realized I hadn’t responded to his tone of voice, but his words. “You sound pretty
serious.”
“I have to stage a wedding ceremony. A vampire wedding ceremony.”
I took a deep breath. “In Oklahoma, I take it?”
“Yes. In two weeks. If I don’t do it, I’ll lose my job.”
And now that he was going to have a kid, he couldn’t afford to do any such thing. “I get it,” I said
steadily. “Really, I understand. You showed up, and I love that you came here.”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t catch up with Glassport. I know he’s dangerous.”
“We’ll find out if he has anything to do with this, Quinn. Thanks for your help.”
And we said good-bye a few more times, in different ways, until we had to hang up. By that time, I
had to get busy with the gravy or supper would be ruined. I simply had to postpone thinking of Eric and
Freyda’s wedding until later.
After twenty minutes, I was calmer, the food was ready, and we were all seated around the kitchen
table.
No one joined in my prayer but Bob, but that was okay. We’d said one. Getting everyone served was
a ten-minute process. After that, the floor seemed open to discussion.
Barry said, “I visited Brock and Chessie, and I talked to the kids.”
“How’d you get in?” Amelia asked. “I know you called ’em before you went.”
“I said I’d known Arlene and I wanted to say how sorry I was. I didn’t lie to them after that.” He
looked defensive. “But I did tell them I was a friend of Sookie’s, and that I didn’t think she had anything
to do with Arlene’s death.”
“Did they believe that?” I said.
“They did,” he said, with an air of surprise. “They don’t believe you killed Arlene, strictly from a
practical point of view. They said you’re smaller than Arlene and they didn’t think you could have either
gripped her neck hard enough or gotten her into the Dumpster. And the only person they could think of
who would help you is Sam, and he wouldn’t have put the body behind his own bar.”
“I hope a lot of people have figured that out,” I said.
“I said Arlene hadn’t called me when she got out of prison. They told me that they hadn’t had any
warning, either, which was what I wanted to know. She’d just shown up on their doorstep three days
before her death.”
“What did they observe about her demeanor before her death?” Mr. Cataliades said. “Was she
frightened? Secretive?”
“They thought Arlene looked kind of nervous when she came by to see the kids. She was excited to
see them, but she was scared about something. She told Chessie she had to meet some people and she
wasn’t supposed to talk about it, that someone was going to help her pay her legal bills so she could get
back on her feet and take care of her kids.”
“That would have interested her, sure,” I said. “Maybe applying for a job at Merlotte’s wasn’t her
idea. Maybe these mysterious men put her up to it. Maybe she did know how unlikely it was that she’d be
hired back.”
“The Johnsons don’t know anything more specific than that? They didn’t see the people she was
going to talk to?” Amelia was impatient. This didn’t seem like much information to her.
“It confirms what I heard from Jane Bodehouse,” I said. “Jane saw Arlene meeting with two men in
back of Tray’s old place the night before we found her body.”
A shadow crossed Amelia’s face at the mention of Tray Dawson. They’d been close, and she’d
hoped they’d get closer, but Tray had died.
“Why there?” Bob said. “It would have been a lot easier to meet at an isolated place rather than out
back of someone’s house, especially someone who would definitely ask questions.”
“That house is empty, and the garage next to it, too,” I told him. “And I don’t know if Arlene had a
vehicle or not. Her old car was parked at the Johnsons’ house, but it may or may not have been running.
Plus, as the crow flies, Tray’s place is not far from Merlotte’s, and that’s where they were going to take
her. They didn’t want her to have time to figure out what was going to happen.”
There was a long pause while my friends worked this through.
“Possible,” Bob said, and everyone nodded.
“How are Coby and Lisa?” I asked Barry.
“Stunned,” Barry said shortly. “Confused.” From his head, I could see the images of the kids’
bewildered faces. I felt horrible every time I thought about those kids.
“Did their mom tell them anything?” Amelia asked quietly.
“Arlene told them she was going to take them away to live with her in a cute little house—that they’d
be able to get nice food and clothes without her having to work such long hours. She told them she wanted
to be with them all the time.”
“How was she going to do that?” Amelia said. “Did she tell them?”
Barry shook his head. He was feeling a twinge of self-disgust, and I didn’t blame him. Somehow it
seemed ignoble to read the minds of children when they’d suffered such a string of misfortunes. But it
wasn’t like Barry had been giving them the third degree, I told myself.
“The bottom line is, Arlene planned on doing something for these two men, something that would pay
off big,” Barry concluded.
“When is your touch psychic coming?” Mr. Cataliades asked Bob.
“She’s getting here tomorrow morning after she finishes feeding her animals or something.” Bob
reached out for another piece of country-fried steak. He narrowly missed getting stabbed in the hand by
Mr. Cataliades, who was after the same piece.
“I got your scarf, Sookie,” said Diantha, who was eating very slowly. Her voice and demeanor were
pale shadows of her normal hypervitality. She was even speaking slowly enough to be understandable.
Silence fell around the table as we all regarded her with awe. Mr. Cataliades was looking at his
niece fondly. “I knew she could do it,” he told us, and I wondered if he’d actually had a foreseeing or if
he just had a lot of faith in Diantha.
“How?” Amelia asked. (Amelia never hesitated when it came to asking a direct question.)
Diantha said, “I went in the police station after I saw the big woman cop.”
Everyone else looked at her blankly.
“She turned herself into Kenya Jones,” I explained. “Kenya’s a patrolwoman who’s been trained to
do crime-scene processing.”
“We waited at the police station a long time this morning, Sookie,” Mr. Cataliades explained. “I had
to interview Detective Bellefleur personally, and Detective Beck, too, since I am now co-counsel on your
case, thanks to Ms. Osiecki. During our long, long wait we had time to find out all kinds of interesting
information. Like where the evidence locker is and who can check out items from it. Diantha is so quick
and devious!”
Diantha smiled faintly.
“How’d you manage it?” Amelia asked. She looked admiring.
“I had a scarf in my pocket in a plastic bag. It was pretty close to Sookie’s description. We found it
at Tara’s Togs. I turned myself into Kenya. I went to the locker and storage area. I told the policeman
there I needed to see the scarf. The old guy, he brought it to me in a plastic bag. I looked at it, and when he
went to the bathroom, I swapped it for the scarf I’d brought. I handed it to him when he came back. I
walked out.” She reached for her glass of tea in a weary way.
“Thank you, Diantha,” I said. I was both happy she’d done such a ballsy thing and sorry she’d done
something illegal. My law-abiding half was kind of appalled that we were screwing around with real
evidence in a real murder. But my self-preserving half was relieved that we might find out something,
now that we had the real scarf . . . if the touch psychic lived up to her billing.
Diantha perked up after receiving a good helping of praise from all of us. Though she was still
moving and speaking slowly, after she ate everything on the table that wasn’t on someone’s plate she
seemed to have taken a big step toward restoring her strength. Obviously, the transformation she’d
accomplished had burned up a tremendous amount of energy.
“It’s much harder when she has to speak as the person, rather than just resemble them,” Mr.
Cataliades said quietly. He’d read my mind. He treated her with courtesy and respect, refilling her glass
with tea and passing her the butter with great frequency. (I made a mental note to add butter to my store
list.) Barry had bought a cake at the bakery. Though Gran would have thrown up her hands in horror at
having a store-bought cake in her house, I was not so proud, since I hadn’t had time to bake. Diantha was
definitely on board for dessert, which I planned to dish up as soon as the kitchen was clean.
Amelia was such a clear broadcaster. She stared across the room at Diantha, lost in thought. While
we were clearing the table, I had to listen to her reassessing Diantha’s abilities and cleverness. She was
really impressed with the part-demon girl. Amelia was thinking about Diantha’s amazing elasticity. She
wondered if Diantha was transforming her actual flesh or if she was casting an illusion. Diantha’s success
made Amelia feel she hadn’t done her share of the detecting.
“Of course,” Amelia said abruptly, “Bob and I couldn’t cast the spell we wanted to cast, since we
haven’t found the two men yet. But after Barry came back to get us in his snazzy rental”—this was a joke;
Barry had come back in a battered Ford Focus—“we did go to all the apartment and house rental places
in Bon Temps, including answering the newspaper ads. We were ready to insist on seeing any unrented
apartments or houses we’d seen an ad for, because we thought the owner would say, ‘Oh, sorry, we just
rented that place to two guys from wherever.’ Then we could go check them out. But we didn’t get a
lead.”
“Well, that’s good information to have,” I said. “They’re too smart to stay locally.” I could tell
Amelia was steamed that she and Bob hadn’t tracked down the two guys and handed them over to us.
“However,” Bob said, “we did verify why your flowers and tomatoes are growing so well.”
“Ahhhhh . . . great. Why?”
“Fairy magic,” he said. “Someone has charged all the Stackhouse land with fairy magic.”
I didn’t tell them I’d already figured that out, because I wanted them to feel good. I remembered my
great-grandfather’s good-bye embrace, when I’d felt a jolt of power. I’d thought it was the finality of his
farewell . . . but he’d been, for want of a better term, blessing me and my house. “Awww,” I said softly.
“That’s so sweet.”
“He would have done better to put in a giant ring of protection,” Amelia said darkly. She’d been
outmagicked on several fronts, and while normally she was a practical person, she was also proud. “How
did Arlene get past your old wards?”
“Alcide thought she had a charm,” I offered. “I’m assuming someone gave her magic.”
Amelia flushed. “If she did have a charm, another witch is involved in this, and I want to know who.
I’ll take care of that.”
“Gran would have loved seeing the yard like this,” I said, to change the subject. I smiled at the
thought of the pleasure my grandmother would have felt. She’d loved her yard and worked in it tirelessly.
The flowers would bloom and flourish, the bulbs would spread, the grass . . . well, it was growing like
wildfire. I was going to have to mow it tomorrow, and frequently thereafter.
That was fairies for you. Always some blowback.
“Niall did more for you than that,” Mr. Cataliades said, distracting me from my unwelcome thoughts.
“What are you talking about?” I said, and that didn’t sound as civil as I meant it. “I’m sorry. You
must know something I don’t.” I managed a more cordial tone.
“Yes,” he said with a smile. “I do know many things you don’t, and I’m about to tell you one of them.
I would have come to Bon Temps without your being charged with murder, because I have business with
you as your great-grandfather’s lawyer.”
“He’s not dead,” I said immediately.
“No, but he doesn’t plan on returning here. And he wanted you to have something to remember him
kindly.”
“He’s my family. I don’t need anything else,” I said. Which was crazy, I knew it the moment I said it,
but I have a little pride, too.
“I would say you do need a few things, Miss Stackhouse,” said Mr. Cataliades mildly. “Right now,
you need a defense fund. Thanks to Niall, you have one. Not only will you be receiving a monthly income
from the sale of Claudine’s house, your great-grandfather deeded the club to you, the one called
Hooligans, and I have sold it.”
“What? But that belonged to Claude, Claudine, and Claudette, the triplets who were his fae
grandchildren.”
“Though I don’t know the story, I understood from Niall that Claude did not buy the club, but was
given it because he threatened the true owner.”
“Yes,” I said, after I thought about it a bit. “That’s true. Claudette was dead by then.”
“That’s a story I’d like to hear another time. Be that as it may, when Claude plotted treason against
Niall and became his prisoner, he forfeited all his possessions to his ruler. Niall gave me instructions to
sell the properties and give the proceeds to you in the ways I’ve described.”
“Who—? To me? You already sold the business and the house?” And Claude was a prisoner. I
hadn’t missed that part of the speech. Though he richly deserved to be imprisoned after attempting a coup
that would have ended with Niall dead, I would always have some sympathy for anyone in a cell. If that
was how they locked up people in Faery. Maybe they stowed them in giant pea pods.
“Yes, the properties have already been sold. The proceeds have been put in an annuity. You’ll be
getting a check every month. After we fill out the papers, it can be direct-deposited to your checking
account. I’ll bring them down after we dine, along with the check for the business. Though part of the
proceeds from that went into your annuity.”
“But Claudine already left me a huge chunk of money. There were some whistles blown on the estate
bank, and everything froze. A week ago, the paper said the inspectors hadn’t found anything.” I should call
my bank again.
“That was from Claudine’s personal estate,” the lawyer said. “She was a frugal fairy for many
decades.”
I couldn’t comprehend my good fortune. “It’s a huge relief to have the money to defend myself. But I
still hope that someone will confess and spare me the trial,” I murmured.
“We all hope that, Sookie,” Barry said. “That’s why we’re here.”
Amelia said, “After supper, while it’s still light, Bob and I are going to cast a circle of aggressive
protection around the house.”
“I’m grateful,” I said, taking care to make eye contact and parcel out some sincerity to both of them.
It was lucky that Barry could read minds, but not Amelia. While I knew Amelia was anxious to do
something to contribute, and I knew she was powerful, sometimes things went wrong when she cast
important spells. But I couldn’t see a way to turn down her offer that would sound polite. “I guess Niall
was concentrating on making the land fertile, and that’s a really wonderful thing. But some protection
would be great.”
“There’s an elvish warding spell in place,” Amelia admitted. “But since it’s not human in origin, it
may not be totally effective in protecting against human attackers or vampires.”
That made sense, at least to me. Bellenos the elf had scoffed at Amelia’s spells and added his own,
and there wasn’t anything human about Bellenos.
I felt guilty at doubting her. It was time for me to act happy. “Having defense money calls for some
ice cream with that cake. How about it, you all? I’ve got Rocky Road and Dulce de Leche.” I smiled all
around the kitchen. While I was dishing up the ice cream (everyone wanted some), I was keeping my
fingers crossed that Amelia and Bob would cast a good spell.
After dessert, as the two witches went outside to work and Barry covered the remains of the cake
while I put away the ice cream, Diantha said she was going upstairs to sleep. She still looked exhausted.
Mr. Cataliades went up with her and came down with the papers about the monthly payment and a check
for the property sale. It was attached to the legal documents with a paper clip in the shape of a heart.
I rinsed my hands and dried them on a dish towel before I took the documents from him. I glanced
down at the check, with no idea what to expect. The amount made my head swim, and the letter clipped to
it said I would be getting three thousand dollars a month. “This year?” I asked, to be sure I understood.
“Three thousand a month? Wow. That’s amazing.” A whole year of luxury!
“Not this year. For the rest of your life,” Mr. Cataliades said.
I had to sit down very quickly.
“Sookie, you okay?” Barry asked, bending over. Bad news or good news? he asked.
I can pay for my legal defense, I told him. And I can get the house sprayed for bugs.