True Blood Book 13 Prologue and Chapters 1-5

Prologue
JANUARY
The New Orleans businessman, whose gray hair put him in his fifties, was accompanied by his much
younger and taller bodyguard/chauffeur on the night he met the devil in the French Quarter. The meeting
was by prearrangement.
“This is really the Devil we’re going to see?” asked the bodyguard. He was tense—but then, that
wasn’t too surprising.
“Not the Devil, but a devil.” The businessman was cool and collected on the outside, but maybe not
so much on the inside. “Since he came up to me at the Chamber of Commerce banquet, I’ve learned a lot
of things I didn’t know before.” He looked around him, trying to spot the creature he’d agreed to meet. He
told his bodyguard, “He convinced me that he was what he said he was. I always thought my daughter was
simply deluded. I thought she imagined she had power because she wanted to have something . . . of her
own. Now I’m willing to admit she has a certain talent, though nowhere near what she thinks.”
It was cold and damp in the January night, even in New Orleans. The businessman shifted from foot
to foot to keep warm. He told the bodyguard, “Evidently, meeting at a crossroads is traditional.” The
street was not as busy as it would be in the summer, but there were still drinkers and tourists and natives
going about their night’s entertainment. He wasn’t afraid, he told himself. “Ah, here he comes,” the
businessman said.
The devil was a well-dressed man, much like the businessman. His tie was by Hermes. His suit was
Italian. His shoes were custom-made. His eyes were abnormally clear, the whites gleaming, the irises a
purplish brown; they looked almost red from certain angles.
“What have you got for me?” the devil asked, in a voice that indicated he was only faintly interested.
“Two souls,” said the businessman. “Tyrese has agreed to go in with me.”
The devil shifted his gaze to the bodyguard. After a moment, the bodyguard nodded. He was a big
man, a light-skinned African American with bright hazel eyes.
“Your own free will?” the devil asked neutrally. “Both of you?”
“My own free will,” said the businessman.
“My own free will,” affirmed the bodyguard.
The devil said, “Then let’s get down to business.”
“Business” was a word that made the older man comfortable. He smiled. “Wonderful. I’ve got the
documents right here, and they’re signed.” Tyrese opened a thin leather folder and withdrew two pieces
of paper: not parchment or human skin, nothing that dramatic or exotic—computer paper that the
businessman’s office secretary had bought at OfficeMax. Tyrese offered the papers to the devil, who gave
them a quick glance.
“You have to sign them again,” the devil said. “For this signature, ink is not satisfactory.”
“I thought you were joking about that.” The businessman frowned.
“I never joke,” the devil said. “I do have a sense of humor, oh, believe me, I do. But not about
contracts.”
“We actually have to . . . ?”
“Sign in blood? Yes, absolutely. It’s traditional. And you’ll do it now.” He read the businessman’s
sideways glance correctly. “I promise you no one will see what you are doing,” he said. As the devil
spoke, a sudden hush enveloped the three men, and a thick film fell between them and the rest of the street
scene.
The businessman sighed elaborately, to show how melodramatic he thought this tradition was.
“Tyrese, your knife?” he said, looking up to the chauffeur.
Tyrese’s knife appeared with shocking suddenness, probably from his coat sleeve; the blade was
obviously sharp, and it gleamed in the streetlight. The businessman shucked off his coat and handed it to
his companion. He unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his sleeve. Perhaps to let the devil know how tough
he was, he jabbed himself in the left arm with the knife. A sluggish trickle of blood rewarded his effort,
and he looked the devil directly in the face as he accepted the quill that the devil had somehow supplied .
. . even more smoothly than Tyrese had produced the knife. Dipping the quill into the trail of blood, the
businessman signed his name to the top document, which the chauffeur held pressed against the leather
folder.
After he’d signed, the businessman returned the knife to the chauffeur and donned his coat. The
chauffeur followed the same procedure as his employer. When he’d signed his own contract, he blew on it
to dry the blood as if he’d signed with a Sharpie and the ink might smear.
The devil smiled when the signatures were complete. The moment he did, he didn’t look quite so
much like a prosperous man of affairs.
He looked too damn happy.
“You get a signing bonus,” he told the businessman. “Since you brought me another soul. By the way,
how do you feel?”
“Just like I always did,” said the businessman. He buttoned up his coat. “Maybe a little angry.” He
smiled suddenly, his teeth looking as sharp and gleaming as the knife had. “How are you, Tyrese?” he
asked his employee.
“A little antsy,” Tyrese admitted. “But I’ll be okay.”
“You were both bad people to begin with,” the devil said, without any judgment in his voice. “The
souls of the innocent are sweeter. But I delight in having you. I suppose you’re sticking with the usual
wish list? Prosperity? The defeat of your enemies?”
“Yes, I want those things,” the businessman said with passionate sincerity. “And I have a few more
requests, since I get a signing bonus. Or could I take that in cash?”
“Oh,” the devil said, smiling gently, “I don’t deal in cash. I deal in favors.”
“Can I get back to you on that?” the businessman asked after some thought. “Take a rain check?”
The devil looked faintly interested. “You don’t want an Alfa Romeo or a night with Nicole Kidman
or the biggest house in the French Quarter?”
The businessman shook his head decisively. “I’m sure something will come up that I do want, and
then I’d like to have a very good chance of getting it. I was a successful man until Katrina. And after
Katrina I thought I would be rich, because I own a lumber business. Everyone needed lumber.” He took a
deep breath. He kept on telling his story, despite the fact that the devil looked bored. “But getting a supply
line reestablished was hard. So many people didn’t have money to spend because they were ruined, and
there was the wait for the insurance money, for the rest. I made some mistakes, believing the fly-by-night
builders would pay me on time. . . . It all ended up with my business too extended, everyone owing me,
my credit stretched as thin as a condom on an elephant. Knowledge of this is getting around.” He looked
down. “I’m losing the influence I had in this city.”
Possibly the devil had known all those things, and that was why he’d approached the businessman.
Clearly he was not interested in the businessman’s litany of woes. “Prosperity it is, then,” he said briskly.
“And I look forward to your special request. Tyrese, what do you want? I have your soul, too.”
“I don’t believe in souls,” Tyrese said flatly. “I don’t think my boss does, either. We don’t mind
giving you what we don’t believe we have.” He grinned at the devil, man-to-man, which was a mistake.
The devil was no man.
The devil smiled back. Tyrese’s grin vanished at the sight. “What do you want?” the devil repeated.
“I won’t ask again.”
“I want Gypsy Kidd. Her real name is Katy Sherboni, if you need that. She work at Bourbon Street
Babes. I want her to love me the way I love her.”
The businessman looked disappointed in his employee. “Tyrese, I wish you’d asked for something
more lasting. Sex is everywhere you look in New Orleans, and girls like Gypsy are a dime a dozen.”
“You wrong,” Tyrese said. “I don’t think I have a soul, but I know love is once in a lifetime. I love
Gypsy. If she loves me back, I’ll be a happy man. And if you make money, boss, I’ll make money. I’ll
have enough. I’m not greedy.”
“I’m all about the greed,” said the devil, almost gently. “You may end up wishing you’d asked for
some government bonds, Tyrese.”
The chauffeur shook his head. “I’m happy with my bargain. You give me Gypsy, the rest will be all
right. I know it.”
The devil looked at him with what seemed very much like pity, if that emotion was possible for a
devil.
“Enjoy yourselves, you hear?” he said to both of the newly soulless men. They could not tell if he
was mocking them or if he was sincere. “Tyrese, you will not see me again until our final meeting.” He
faced the businessman. “Sir, you and I will meet at some date in the future. Just give me a call when
you’re ready for your signing bonus. Here’s my card.”
The businessman took the plain white card. The only writing on it was a phone number. It was not
the same number he’d called to set up the first rendezvous. “But what if it’s years from now?” he said.
“It won’t be,” said the devil, but his voice was farther away. The businessman looked up to see that
the devil was half a block away. After seven more steps he seemed to melt into the dirty sidewalk,
leaving only an impression in the cold damp air.
The businessman and the chauffeur turned and walked hastily in the opposite direction. The chauffeur
never saw this version of the devil again. The businessman didn’t see him until June.
JUNE
Far away–thousands of miles away–a tall, thin man lay on a beach in Baja. He was not in one of the
tourist spots where he might encounter lots of other gringos, who might recognize him. He was patronizing
a dilapidated bar, really more of a hut. For a small cash payment, the proprietor would rent patrons a
large towel and a beach umbrella, and send his son out to refresh your drink from time to time. As long as
you kept drinking.
Though the tall man was only sipping Coca-Cola, he was paying through the nose for it—though he
didn’t seem to realize that, or perhaps he didn’t care. He sat on the towel, crouched in the umbrella’s
shade, wearing a hat and sunglasses and swim trunks. Close to him was an ancient backpack, and his flip-
flops were set on the sand beside it, casting off a faint smell of hot rubber. The tall man was listening to
an iPod, and his smile indicated he was very pleased with what he heard. He lifted his hat to run his
fingers through his hair. It was golden blond, but there was a bit of root showing that hinted his natural
color was nearly gray. Judging by his body, he was in his forties. He had a small head in relation to his
broad shoulders, and he did not look like a man who was used to manual labor. He didn’t look rich,
either; his entire ensemble, the flip-flops and the swim trunks, the hat and the cast-aside shirt, had come
from a Wal-Mart or some even cheaper dollar store.
It didn’t pay to look affluent in Baja, not with the way things were these days. It wasn’t safe, gringos
weren’t exempt from the violence, and most tourists stayed in the established resorts, flying in and out
without driving through the countryside. There were a few other expats around, mostly unattached men
with an air of desperation . . . or secrecy. Their reasons for choosing such a hazardous place to live were
better not discovered. Asking questions could be unhealthy.
One of these expats, a recent arrival, came to sit close to the tall man, too close for such proximity to
be an accident on a thinly populated beach. The tall man gave the unwelcome newcomer a sideways look
from behind his dark glasses, which were obviously prescription. The newcomer was a man in his
thirties, not tall or short, not handsome or ugly, not reedy or muscular. He was medium in all aspects,
physically. This medium man had been watching the tall man for a few days, and the tall man had been
sure he’d approach him sooner or later.
The medium man had carefully selected the optimum moment. The two were sitting in a place on the
beach where no one else could hear them or approach them unseen, and even with satellites in the
atmosphere it was probable that no one could see them without being spotted, either. The taller man was
mostly hidden under the beach umbrella. He noticed that his visitor was sitting in its shadow.
“What are you listening to?” asked the medium man, pointing to the earbuds inserted in the tall man’s
ears.
He had a faint accent; maybe a German one? From one of those European countries, anyway, thought
the tall man, who was not well traveled. And the newcomer also had a remarkably unpleasant smile. It
looked okay, with the upturned lips and the bared teeth, but somehow the effect was more as if an animal
were exposing its teeth preparatory to biting you.
“You a homo? I’m not interested,” the tall man said. “In fact, you’ll be judged with hellfire.”
The medium man said, “I like women. Very much. Sometimes more than they want.” His smile
became quite feral. And he asked again, “What are you listening to?”
The tall man debated, staring angrily at his companion. But it had been days since he’d talked to
anyone. At last, he opted for the truth. “I’m listening to a sermon,” he said.
The medium man exhibited only mild surprise. “Really? A sermon? I wouldn’t have pegged you for a
man of the cloth.” But his smile said otherwise. The tall man began to feel uneasy. He began to think of the
gun in his backpack, less than an arm’s length away. At least he’d opened the buckles when he’d put it
down.
“You’re wrong, but God won’t punish you for it,” the tall man said calmly, his own smile genial.
“I’m listening to one of my own old sermons. I spoke God’s truth to the multitudes.”
“Did no one believe you?” The medium man cocked his head curiously.
“Many believed me. Many. I was attracting quite a following. But a girl named . . . A girl brought
about my downfall. And put my wife in jail, too, in a way.”
“Would that girl’s name have been Sookie Stackhouse?” asked the medium man, removing his
sunglasses to reveal remarkably pale eyes.
The taller man’s head snapped in his direction. “How’d you know?” he said.
JUNE
The devil was eating beignets, fastidiously, when the businessman walked up to the outside table. The
devil noticed the spring in Copley Carmichael’s step. He looked even more prosperous than he had when
he was broke. Carmichael was in the business section of the newspaper frequently these days. An infusion
of capital had reestablished him very quickly as an economic force in New Orleans, and his political
clout had expanded along with the money he pumped into New Orleans’s sputtering economy, which had
been dealt a crippling blow by Katrina. Which, the devil pointed out quickly to anyone who asked, he’d
had simply nothing to do with.
Today Carmichael looked healthy and vigorous, ten years younger than he actually was. He sat at the
devil’s table without any greeting.
“Where’s your man, Mr. Carmichael?” asked the devil, after a sip of his coffee.
Carmichael was busy placing a drink order with the waiter, but when the young man was gone, he
said, “Tyrese has trouble these days, and I gave him some time off.”
“The young woman? Gypsy?”
“Of course,” said Carmichael, not quite sneering. “I knew if he asked for her, he wouldn’t be
pleased with the results, but he was so sure that true love would win in the end.”
“And it hasn’t?”
“Oh, yes, she’s crazy about him. She loves him so much she has sex with him all the time. She
couldn’t stop herself, even though she knew she was HIV positive . . . a fact she didn’t share with
Tyrese.”
“Ah,” the devil said. “Not my work, that virus. So how is Tyrese faring?”
“He’s HIV positive, too,” Carmichael said, shrugging. “He’s getting treatment, and it’s not the instant
death sentence it used to be. But he’s very emotional about it.” Carmichael shook his head. “I always
thought he had better sense.”
“I understand you wish to ask for your signing bonus,” the devil said. Carmichael saw no connection
between the two ideas.
“Yes,” Copley Carmichael said. He grinned at the devil and leaned forward confidentially. In a
barely audible whisper he said, “I know exactly what I want. I want you to find me a cluviel dor.”
The devil looked genuinely surprised. “How did you learn of the existence of such a rare item?”
“My daughter brought it up in conversation,” Carmichael said, without a hint of shame. “It sounded
interesting, but she stopped talking before she told me the name of the person who supposedly has one. So
I had a man I know hack into her e-mail. I should have done that earlier. It’s been illuminating. She’s
living with a fellow I don’t trust. After our last conversation, she got so angry with me that she’s refused
to see me. Now I can keep tabs on her without her knowing, so I can protect her from her own bad
judgment.”
He was absolutely sincere when he made this statement. The devil saw that Carmichael believed that
he loved his daughter, that he knew what was best for her under any circumstance.
“So Amelia had been talking to someone about a cluviel dor,” the devil said. “That led her to bring it
up with you. How interesting. No one’s had one for . . . well, in my memory. A cluviel dor would have
been made by the fae . . . and you understand, they are not tiny, cute creatures with wings.”
Carmichael nodded. “I’m astounded to discover what exists out there,” he said. “I have to believe in
fairies now. And I have to consider that maybe my daughter isn’t such a screwball after all. Though I think
she’s deluded about her own power.”
The devil raised his perfect eyebrows. There seemed to be more than one deluded person in the
Carmichael family. “About the cluviel dor . . . the fae used them all. I don’t believe there are any left on
earth, and I can’t go into Faery since the upheaval. A thing or two has been expelled out of Faery . . . but
nothing goes in.” He looked mildly regretful.
“There is one cluviel dor available, and from what I can tell, it’s being concealed by a friend of my
daughter’s,” Copley Carmichael said. “I know you can find it.”
“Fascinating,” the devil said, quite sincerely. “And what do you want it for? After I find it?”
“I want my daughter back,” Carmichael said. His intensity was almost palpable. “I want the power
to change her life. So I know what I’ll wish for when you track it down for me. The woman who knows
where it is . . . she’s not likely to give it up. It was a legacy from her grandmother, and she’s not a big fan
of mine.”
The devil turned his face to the morning sun, and his eyes glowed red briefly. “Imagine that. I’ll set
things in motion. The name of your daughter’s friend, the one who may know the whereabouts of the
cluviel dor?”
“She’s in Bon Temps. It’s up north, not too far from Shreveport. Sookie Stackhouse.”
The devil nodded slowly. “I’ve heard the name.”
JULY
The next time the devil met with Copley Carmichael, three days after their conversation at Café du
Monde, he dropped by Carmichael’s table at Commander’s Palace. Carmichael was waiting for his
dinner and busy on his cell phone with a contractor who wanted to extend his credit line. Carmichael was
unwilling, and he explained why in no uncertain terms. When he looked up, the devil was standing there in
the same suit he’d worn when they’d met the first time. He looked cool and impeccable.
As Carmichael put the phone down, the devil slid into the chair across from his.
Carmichael had jumped when he recognized the devil. And since he hated being surprised, he was
unwise. He snarled, “What the hell do you mean coming here? I didn’t ask you to visit!”
“What the hell, indeed,” said the devil, who didn’t seem to take offense. He ordered a single malt
whiskey from the waiter who’d materialized at his elbow. “I assumed you’d want to hear the news of your
cluviel dor.”
Carmichael’s expression changed instantly. “You found it! You have it!”
“Sadly, Mr. Carmichael, I do not,” said the devil. (He did not sound sad.) “Something rather
unexpected has thwarted our plans.” The waiter deposited the whiskey with some ceremony, and the devil
took a sip and nodded.
“What?” Carmichael said, almost unable to speak for anger.
“Miss Stackhouse used the cluviel dor, and its magic has been expended.”
There was a moment of silence fraught with all the emotions the devil enjoyed.
“I’ll see her ruined,” said Copley Carmichael venomously, keeping his voice down with a supreme
effort. “You’ll help me. That’s what I’ll take instead of the cluviel dor.”
“Oh my goodness. You’ve used your signing bonus, Mr. Carmichael. Mustn’t get greedy.”
“But you didn’t get me the cluviel dor!” Even though he was an experienced businessman,
Carmichael was astonished and outraged.
“I found it and was ready to take it from her pocket,” said the devil.
“I entered the body of someone standing behind her. But she used it before I could extract it. Finding
it was the favor you requested. You used those words twice, and ‘track it down’ once. Our dealings are
concluded.” He tossed back his drink.
“At least help me get back at her,” Carmichael said, his face red with rage. “She crossed us both.”
“Not me,” said the devil. “I’ve seen Miss Stackhouse up close and talked to many people who know
her. She seems like an interesting woman. I have no cause to do her harm.” He stood up. “In fact, if I may
advise you, walk away from this. She has some powerful friends, among them your daughter.”
“My daughter is a woman who runs around with witches,” Carmichael said. “She’s never been able
to make her own living, not completely. I’ve been researching her ‘friends,’ very discreetly.” He sighed,
sounding both angry and exasperated. “I understand their powers exist. I believe that now. Reluctantly.
But what have they done with those powers? The strongest among them lives in a shack.” Carmichael’s
knuckles rapped against the table. “My daughter could be a force in society in this town. She could work
for me and do all kinds of charity stuff, but instead she lives in her own little world with her loser
boyfriend. Like her friend Sookie. But I’ll even the score there. How many powerful friends could a
waitress have?”
The devil glanced over to his left. Two tables away sat a very round man with dark hair, who was
by himself at a table laden with food. The very round man met the devil’s eyes without blinking or looking
away, which few men could do. After a long moment, the two nodded at each other.
Carmichael was glaring at the devil.
“I owe you nothing for Tyrese any longer,” said the devil. “And you are mine forever. Given your
present course, I may have you sooner than I’d expected.” He smiled, a chilling expression on his smooth
face, and he rose from the table and left.
Carmichael was even angrier when he had to pay for the devil’s whiskey. He never even noticed the
very round man. But the very round man noticed him.
Chapter 1
The morning after I raised my boss from the dead, I got up to find him sitting half-dressed in my
backyard on my chaise lounge. It was about ten a.m. on a July day, and the sun was bathing the backyard
in brilliant heat. Sam’s hair was turned into a bright tangle of red and gold. He opened his eyes as I came
down the back steps and crossed the yard. I was still in my nightshirt, and I didn’t even want to think
about my own hair. It was pretty much one big snarl.
“How are you feeling?” I asked very quietly. My throat was sore from the screaming I’d done the
night before when I’d seen Sam bleeding out on the ground in the backyard of the country farmhouse
Alcide Herveaux had inherited from his father. Sam drew up his legs to give me room to sit on the chaise.
His jeans were spattered with his dried blood. His chest was bare; his shirt must have been too nasty to
touch.
Sam didn’t answer for a long time. Though he’d given his tacit permission for me to sit with him, he
didn’t seem to embrace my presence. Finally, he said, “I don’t know how I feel. I don’t feel like myself.
It’s like something inside me changed.”
I cringed. I’d feared this. “I know . . . that is, I was told . . . that there’s always a price for magic,” I
said. “I thought I’d be the one paying it, though. I’m sorry.”
“You brought me back,” he said, without emotion. “I think that’s worth a little adjustment period.”
He didn’t smile.
I shifted uneasily. “How long have you been out here?” I asked. “Can I get you some orange juice or
coffee? Breakfast?”
“I came out here a few hours ago,” he said. “I lay on the ground. I needed to get back in touch.”
“With what?” I may not have been as awake as I thought I was.
“With my natural side,” he said, very slowly and deliberately. “Shapeshifters are nature’s children.
Since we can turn into so many things. That’s our mythology. Back before we blended into the human
race, we used to say that when we were created, the mother of all the earth wanted a creature so versatile
it could replace any race that died out. And that creature was a shapeshifter. I could look at a picture of a
saber-toothed tiger and be one. Did you know that?”
“No,” I said.
“I think I’ll go home. I’ll go to my trailer and . . .” His voice trailed off.
“And what?”
“Find a shirt,” he said, finally. “I do feel strange. Your yard is amazing.”
I was confused and not a little worried. Part of me could see that Sam would need some alone time
to recover from the trauma of dying and coming back. But the other part of me, the one that had known
Sam for years, was upset that he sounded so un-Sam. I’d been Sam’s friend, employee, occasional date,
and business partner—all those things and more—for the past few years. I would have sworn he couldn’t
surprise me.
I watched him, narrow-eyed, as he worked his keys out of his jeans pocket. I got up to give him room
to slide off the chaise and walk to his truck. He climbed into the cab and looked at me through the
windshield for a long moment. Then he turned the key in the ignition. He raised his hand, and I felt a surge
of pleasure. He’d lower his window. He’d call me over to say good-bye. But then Sam backed out, turned
around, and went slowly down the driveway to Hummingbird Road. He left without a word. Not “See you
later,” “Thanks a lot,” or “Kiss my foot.”
And what had he meant about my yard being amazing? He’d been in my yard dozens of times.
At least I solved that puzzlement quickly. As I turned to trudge inside—through some extraordinarily
green grass—I noticed that my three tomato plants, which I’d put in weeks ago, were heavily laden with
ripe red fruit. The sight stopped me in my tracks. When had that happened? The last time I’d noticed them,
maybe a week ago, they’d looked scraggly and in dire need of water and fertilizer. The one on the left had
seemed on its last legs (if a plant can have legs). Now all three plants were lush and green-leafed, sagging
against their frames with the sheer weight of the fruit. It was like someone had dosed them with an
elevated version of Miracle-Gro.
With my mouth hanging open, I rotated to check out all the other flowers and bushes in the yard, and
there were plenty of them. Many of the Stackhouse women had been ardent gardeners, and they’d planted
roses, daisies, hydrangeas, pear trees . . . so many blooming and green things, planted by generations of
Stackhouse women. And I’d been doing a poor job of keeping them in good trim.
But . . . what the hell? While I’d been sunk in gloom the past few days, the whole yard had taken
steroids. Or maybe the Jolly Green Giant had paid a visit. Everything that was supposed to be blooming
was laden with brilliant flowers, and everything that was supposed to bear fruit was heavy with it.
Everything else was green and glossy and thick. How had this come about?
I plucked a couple of especially ripe and round tomatoes to take in the house. I could see that a
bacon-and-tomato sandwich would be my lunch choice, but before that I had a few things to accomplish.
I found my cell phone and checked my list of contacts. Yes, I had Bernadette Merlotte’s number.
Bernadette, called Bernie, was Sam’s shapeshifter mom. Though my own mother had passed when I was
seven (so maybe I wasn’t the best judge), Sam seemed to have a good relationship with Bernie. If there
ever was a time to call in a mom, this was it.
I won’t say we had a comfortable conversation, and it was shorter than it should have been, but by
the time I hung up, Bernie Merlotte was packing a bag to come to Bon Temps. She’d arrive in the late
afternoon.
Had I done the right thing? After I’d hashed the issue over with myself, I decided I had, and I further
decided I had to have a day off. Maybe more than one. I called Merlotte’s and told Kennedy that I had the
flu. She agreed they’d call me in a crisis, but otherwise they’d leave me alone to recover.
“I didn’t think anyone got the flu in July. But Sam called in to say the same thing,” Kennedy said with
a smile in her voice.
I thought, Dammit.
“Maybe y’all gave it to each other?” she suggested archly.
I didn’t say a word.
“Okay, okay, I’ll only call if the place is on fire,” she said. “You have a good time getting over the
flu.”
I refused to worry about the rumors that would undoubtedly start making the rounds. I slept a lot and
wept a lot. I cleaned out all the drawers in my bedroom: night table, dressing table, chest of drawers. I
pitched useless things and grouped other items together in a way that seemed sensible. And I waited to
hear . . . from anyone.
But the phone didn’t ring. I heard a lot of nothing. I had a lot of nothing, except tomatoes. I had them
on sandwiches, and the minute the red ones were gone, the plants were hung with green ones. I fried a few
of the green ones, and when the rest were red, I made my own salsa for the first time ever. The flowers
bloomed and bloomed and bloomed, until I had a vase full in almost every room in the house. I even
walked through the cemetery to leave some on Gran’s grave, and I put a bouquet on Bill’s porch. If I
could have eaten them, I’d have had a full plate at every meal.
ELSEWHERE
The red-haired woman came out of the prison door slowly and suspiciously, as if she suspected a
practical joke. She blinked in the brilliant sun and began walking toward the road. There was a car
parked there, but she didn’t pay it any attention. It never occurred to the red-haired woman that its
occupants were waiting for her.
A medium man got out of the front passenger seat. That was how she thought of him: medium. His
hair was medium brown, he was medium tall, he was medium built, and he had a medium smile. His teeth,
however, were gleaming white and perfect. Dark glasses hid his eyes. “Miss Fowler,” he called. “We’ve
come to pick you up.”
She turned toward him, hesitating. The sun was in her eyes, and she squinted. She’d survived so
much—broken marriages, broken relationships, single motherhood, betrayals, a bullet wound. She was
not of a mind to be an easy target now.
“Who are you?” she asked, standing her ground, though she knew the sun was mercilessly showing
every line in her face and every deficiency in the cheap hair dye she’d applied in the jail bathroom.
“Don’t you recognize me? We met at the hearing.” The medium man’s voice was almost gentle. He
took off his dark glasses, and a chime of recognition sounded in her brain.
“You’re the lawyer, the one that got me out,” she said, smiling. “I don’t know why you did that, but I
owe you. I sure didn’t need to be in jail. I want to see my children.”
“And you will,” he said. “Please, please.” He opened the rear door of the car and gestured for her to
get in. “I’m sorry. I should have addressed you as Mrs. Fowler.”
She was glad to climb inside, grateful to sink back onto the cushioned seat, delighted to revel in the
cold air. This was the most physical comfort she’d had in many months. You didn’t appreciate soft seats
and courtesy (or good mattresses and thick towels) until you didn’t have them.
“I been Mrs. a few times. And I been Miss, too,” she said. “I don’t care what you call me. This is a
great car.”
“I’m glad you like it,” said the driver, a tall man with graying hair clipped very short. He turned to
look over the seat at the red-haired woman, and he smiled at her. He took off his own dark glasses.
“Oh my God,” she said, in an entirely different tone. “It’s you! Really! In the flesh. I thought you was
in jail. But you’re here.” She was both awed and confused.
“Yes, Sister,” he said. “I understand what a devoted follower you were and how you proved your
worth. And now I’ve said thank you by getting you out of jail, where you in no way deserved to be.”
She looked away. In her heart, she knew her sins and crimes. But it was balm to her self-regard to
hear that such an esteemed man—someone she’d seen on television!—thought she was a good woman.
“So that’s why you put up all that money for my bail? That was a hell of a lot of cash, mister. More money
than I’d ever earn in my life.”
“I want to be as staunch an advocate for you as you were for me,” the tall man said smoothly.
“Besides, we know you’re not going to run.” He smiled at her, and Arlene thought about how fortunate she
was. That someone would put up over a hundred thousand dollars for her bail seemed incredible. In fact,
suspicious. But, Arlene figured, so far so good.
“We’re taking you home to Bon Temps,” said the medium man. “You can see your children, little
Lisa and little Coby.”
The way he said her kids’ names made her feel uneasy. “They ain’t so little anymore,” she said, to
drown out that flicker of doubt. “But I sure as he . . . sure want to lay eyes on them. I missed them every
day I was inside.”
“In return, there are a few little things we want you to do for us, if you will,” the medium man said.
There was definitely a slight foreign cadence to his English.
Arlene Fowler knew instinctively that those few things would not really be little, and definitely not
optional. Looking at the two men, she didn’t sense they were interested in something she might not have
minded giving up, like her body. They didn’t want her to iron their sheets or polish their silver, either.
She felt more comfortable now that the cards were spread out on the table and about to be flipped over.
“Uh-huh,” she said. “Like what?”
“I really don’t think you’ll mind when you hear,” said the driver. “I truly don’t.”
“All you have to do,” said the medium man, “is have a conversation with Sookie Stackhouse.”
There was a long silence. Arlene Fowler looked back and forth at the two men, measuring and
calculating. “You going to get me put back in jail if I won’t?” she said.
“Since we got you out on bail pending your trial, I guess we could make that happen,” said the tall
driver mildly. “But I would certainly hate to do that. Wouldn’t you?” he asked his companion.
The medium man shook his head from side to side. “That would be a great pity. The little children
would be so sad. Are you afraid of Miss Stackhouse?”
There was silence while Arlene Fowler wrestled with the truth. “I’m the last person in the world
Sookie’d want to see,” she hedged. “She blames me for that whole day, the day . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“The day all those people got shot,” the medium man said pleasantly. “Including you. But I know her
slightly, and I think she’ll let you have a conversation. We will tell you what to say. Don’t worry about
her talent. I think all will be well in that regard.”
“Her talent? You mean her mind-reading? Some talent!” Arlene, surprisingly, laughed. “That’s been
the curse of her life.”
The two men smiled, and the effect was not pleasant at all. “Yes,” agreed the driver. “That has been
a curse for her, and I imagine that feeling will get worse.”
“What do you want with Sookie, anyway?” Arlene asked. “She ain’t got nothing but that old house.”
“She’s caused us, and a few other people, a great deal of trouble,” said the driver. “Let’s just say
she’s got some trouble coming.”
Chapter 2
The night of my second day of solitude, I faced the fact that I had to go to see Eric. Sure, he really
should have visited me. He’d been the one to skedaddle when I’d raised Sam from the dead, because (I
figured) he was sure it meant I loved Sam more than I loved him. But I would go to Shreveport, and we
would talk, because Eric’s silence was painful to me. I watched some of the fireworks go up in the city
park—today was the Fourth of July—but then I went inside to dress. I was giving in to my impulse. I was
going to Fangtasia.
I wanted to look as good as I could, but I didn’t want to overdo it. I didn’t know who I’d be seeing,
though I wanted to talk to Eric by himself.
I hadn’t heard from any of the vampires I knew who frequented Fangtasia. I didn’t know if Felipe de
Castro, King of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Nevada, was still in Shreveport, meddling in Eric’s affairs,
making Eric’s life difficult. Felipe had brought his girlfriend, Angie, and his second-in-command, Horst,
with him, just to compound Eric’s vexation. Felipe was treacherous and wily, and his little entourage was
much of a kind with their leader.
I also didn’t know if Freyda, Queen of Oklahoma, was still in town. Eric’s maker, Appius Livius
Ocella, had signed a contract with Freyda that (to my mind) basically sold Eric into slavery with Freyda,
but in a really cushy way: as her consort, with all the benefits you might imagine would pertain to such a
job. Only thing was, Appius hadn’t checked with Eric first. Eric was torn, to put it mildly. Leaving his job
as sheriff was not something he’d ever planned to do. If ever there was a vampire who enjoyed being a
big fish in a small pond, that vampire was Eric. He’d always been a hard worker, and he’d made plenty
of money for the ruler of Louisiana, whoever that happened to be. Since the vampires had come out of the
coffin, he’d done much more than make money. Tall, handsome, articulate, dynamic, Eric was a great
poster boy for mainstreaming vampires. And he’d even married a human: me. Though not in a human
ritual.
Of course, he had his darker side. He was a vampire, after all.
All the way to Shreveport from Bon Temps, I wondered for the fiftieth time if I was making a huge
mistake. By the time I’d pulled up to the back door of Fangtasia, I was so tense I was shaking. I’d put on
my favorite pink dotted sundress, and I yanked the halter into place and took a few deep breaths before I
knocked. The door swung open. Pam was leaning against the wall in the hallway, her arms crossed on her
chest, looking broody.
“Pam,” I said, by way of greeting.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she said.
Granted, I knew that her first allegiance was to Eric, and it always would be. Nonetheless, I’d
thought Pam liked me a bit, as much as she ever would a human, and her words smarted like a slap in the
face. I didn’t need to hurt any worse than I already did, but I’d come here to see if I could smooth things
over with Eric a little, tell him that he was wrong about Sam and me, find out what he’d decided about
Freyda.
“I need to talk to Eric,” I said. I didn’t try to enter. I knew better.
At that moment, the door to Eric’s office flew open. He stood framed in the doorway. Eric was big
and golden and all male, and normally when he saw me, he started smiling.
Not tonight.
“Sookie, I can’t talk to you now,” he said. “Horst will be here any second, and he doesn’t need to be
reminded you exist. They’ve called in a lawyer to go over the contract.”
It was like he was talking to a stranger, and furthermore, a stranger who had very little business
appearing on his doorstep. In fact, Eric seemed both angry and wounded.
I had a mouthful—and heart full—of things I wanted to say. More than almost anything else in the
world, I wanted to put my arms around him and tell him how much he meant to me. But as I took a half
step in his direction, Eric moved back and shut the office door.
I froze for a moment, trying to absorb the shock and hurt, and keep my face from crumpling. Pam
glided toward me and put one hand on my shoulder to spin me around and guide me away from the door.
After it clanged shut behind us, she said into my ear, “Don’t come here again. It’s too dangerous. There’s
too much going on, too many visitors.” And then she raised her voice and said, “And don’t come back
until he calls you!” She gave me a little shove that propelled me into the side of my car. And then she
zipped back inside and closed the door with that quick vampiric movement that always seemed like
magic, or a really good video game.
So I went home, brooding over Pam’s warning and Eric’s words and demeanor. I thought about
crying but didn’t have the energy. I was too tired of being sad to make myself even sadder. Obviously,
there was a lot of upheaval at Fangtasia and a lot of things hanging in the balance. There was nothing I
could do about it except stay out of the way in the hope that I’d live through the change in regime,
whatever that turned out to be. It was like waiting for the Titanic to sink.
Another morning went by, another day I passed holding my emotional breath, waiting for something
to happen . . . something conclusive, or terrible.
I didn’t feel as though I were waiting for the other shoe to drop; I felt as though I were waiting for an
anvil to fall on my head. If I hadn’t met with such a crushing reception when I went to Fangtasia, I might
have tried to shake things up on my own, but I was discouraged, to put it in the mildest possible way. I
took a very long, hot walk through the woods to put a basket of tomatoes on the Prescotts’ back porch. I
mowed my meadowlike lawn. I found I always felt better when I was outside: more whole, somehow.
(And that was good, because there was a shitload of yard work to do.) But I brought my cell phone with
me every step I took.
I waited for Sam to call me. But he didn’t. Neither did Bernie.
I thought Bill might come over to let me know what was going on. He didn’t.
And so ended another day of noncommunication.
The next day, when I got up, I had a message of sorts from Eric. He had texted me—texted me!—and
not even personally, but through Pam. She relayed a stiff message, informing me that he’d talk to me later
in the week. I had cherished a hope that perhaps Pam herself would show up to bawl me out or to
enlighten me about how Eric was faring . . . but no.
As I sat on the front porch with a glass of iced tea, I examined myself to see if my heart was broken. I
was so emotionally exhausted, I couldn’t tell. As I saw it, maybe melodramatically, Eric and I were
struggling with the chains of the love that had bound us together, and it didn’t seem we could either break
free of those chains or resume them.
I had a dozen questions and conjectures, and I dreaded the answers to all of them. Finally, I got out
the weed whacker, my least favorite yard tool.
My gran used to say, “You pays your money, and you takes your choice.” I didn’t know where the
saying had originated, but now I understood what it meant.
“Of course,” I said out loud, because the radio was playing and I couldn’t hear myself think over it,
“if you make a decision, you have to abide by the consequences.” I hadn’t even made a conscious
decision to use the cluviel dor to save Sam; I’d acted instinctively when I saw him die.
Finally, I’d reached my saturation limit on this retroactive second-guessing. I threw down the weed
whacker and screamed out loud. Screw all this brooding.
I was sick of thinking about it.
So I was delighted, after I’d put away all the yard tools and showered, to hear a car crunching up my
gravel driveway. I recognized Tara’s minivan. As she drove past the kitchen window, I peered out to see
if the twins were strapped into their car seats, but the windows were tinted too dark. (Seeing Tara in a
minivan was still a shock, but during Tara’s pregnancy she and JB had vowed to be model parents, and
part of that picture was a minivan.) Tara’s shoulders were rigid as she walked to the door, but at least she
was coming to the back door as friends should. She didn’t fool with knocking. She opened the back door
onto the laundry room/porch and yelled, “Sookie! You better be here! Are you decent?”
“I’m here,” I said, turning to face her as she came into the kitchen. Tara was wearing some stretchy
brown pants and a loose white blouse, her dark hair in a braid down her back. Her makeup was minimal.
She was lovely as always, yet I couldn’t help but notice she’d let her eyebrows stray all over.
Motherhood could sure wreak havoc on a woman’s grooming. Of course, having two at one time would
make “me time” extra hard to come by. “Where are the babies?” I asked.
“JB’s mom’s got ’em,” she said. “She was drooling at the chance to keep ’em for a few hours.”
“So . . . ?”
“How come you’re not going to work? How come you’re not answering your e-mail or picking up
your mail at the end of the driveway?” She tossed a bundle of envelopes of all sizes and a magazine or
two onto the kitchen table. She glared at me as she continued, “You know how nervous that makes
people? People like me?”
I was a little embarrassed at the chunk of truth in her accusation that I’d been selfish in staying out of
touch while I’d been trying to understand myself and figure out my life and my future. “Excuse me,” I
said sharply. “I did call in sick to work, and I’m surprised you want to risk taking my germs back to the
babies!”
“You look fine to me,” she said, without a speck of sympathy. “What happened to you and Sam?”
“He’s all right, isn’t he?” My anger faltered and disappeared.
“He’s had Kennedy working in his place for days. He talks to her by phone. He doesn’t come over to
the bar.” She was still glaring at me, but her stance was softening. I could tell from her thoughts that she
was genuinely concerned. “Kennedy’s real happy to do extra bartending, since she and Danny are saving
up to rent a house together. But that business can’t run itself, Sookie, and Sam hasn’t missed four days at
the bar, if he was in Bon Temps, since he bought the place.”
That last part was mostly a muted blahblahblah. Sam was all right.
I sat in one of the kitchen chairs a little too hastily.
“Okay, tell me what happened,” Tara said, and sat opposite me. “I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. But
I guess now you better tell me.”
I did want to talk to someone about what had happened at Alcide Herveaux’s country place. But I
couldn’t tell Tara the whole story: the captive rogue Weres, Jannalynn’s betrayal of her pack and her
leader, the horrible things she’d done. I couldn’t imagine how Sam was feeling. Not only had he learned
the true nature of his girlfriend—though evidence suggested that he’d always suspected Jannalynn was
playing a deeper game—but he had to absorb her death, which had been truly gruesome. Jannalynn had
been trying to kill Alcide, her packleader, but she’d given Sam a mortal wound instead. Then Mustapha
Khan had executed her.
I opened my mouth to try to begin the story, and found I didn’t know where to start. I looked at my
friends-since-childhood buddy helplessly. She waited, with a look that said she intended to sit right there
in my kitchen until I answered her. Finally, I said, “The gist of it is that Jannalynn is now completely and
permanently out of the picture, and I saved Sam’s life. Eric feels that I should have done something for
him, instead. Something significant, that I was aware of.” I left off the punch line.
“So Jannalynn hasn’t gone to Alaska to visit her cousin.” Tara was compressing her lips to keep
from looking as freaked as she felt. But there was a hint of triumph, too. She was thinking she had known
something was fishy about that story.
“Not unless Alaska has gotten a lot hotter.”
Tara giggled; but then, she hadn’t been there. “She did something that bad? I read in the paper that
someone had confessed over the telephone to the officer in charge of Kym Rowe’s murder and then
vanished. Would that be Jannalynn, by any chance?”
I nodded. Tara didn’t seem shocked. Tara knew all about people who did bad things. Two of them
had been her parents.
“So you haven’t talked to Sam since then,” she said.
“Not since the next morning.” I hoped Tara would say she’d seen him, talked to him, but instead she
moved on to a topic she considered more interesting.
“What about the Viking? Why is he pissed? His life didn’t need saving. He’s already dead.”
I held my hands palms up and open, trying to think how to phrase it. Well, I might as well be honest,
if not graphic. “It’s like . . . I had a magic wish. I could have used it for Eric’s benefit, to get him out of a
bad situation. And it would have changed his future. But instead, I used it to save Sam.” And then I’d
waited for the repercussions. Because using strong magic always had consequences.
Tara, who had had bad experiences with vampires, smiled broadly. Though Eric had saved her life
once upon a time, she included him in her generic dislike of the undead. “Did a genie grant you three
wishes or something?” she said, trying to keep the pleasure out of her voice.
Actually, though she was joking, that was almost the truth. Substitute “fairy” for “genie” and “one
wish” for “three wishes,” and you’d have the story in a nutshell. Or in a cluviel dor.
“Kind of like that,” I said. “Eric does have a lot on his plate right now. Stuff that will completely
transform his life.” Though what I said was absolutely true, it came out sounding like a weak excuse. Tara
tried not to sneer.
“Has anyone from his posse called you? What about Pam?” Tara was thinking I had reason to worry
if the area vampires had decided I was nothing to them. And she was right to be concerned. “Just because
you break up with the big guy doesn’t mean they hate you, right?” She was thinking they probably did.
“I don’t think we’ve exactly broken up,” I said. “But he’s pissed off. Pam passed along a message
from him. A text message.”
“Better than a Post-it note. Who have you heard from?” Tara asked impatiently. “All this weird shit
has happened, and no one’s calling you to talk about it? Sam’s not over here scrubbing your floors and
kissing your feet? This house should be full of flowers, candy, and male strippers.”
“Ah,” I said intelligently. “Well, the yard’s strangely full of flowers. And tomatoes.”
“I spit on the supes who’ve let you down,” Tara said, fortunately not suiting action to words. “Listen,
Sook, stick with your human buds and leave the others by the side of the road.” She meant it all the way
down to her bones.
“Too late for that,” I said. I smiled, but it didn’t feel as though it fit my face right.
“Then come shopping. I need some new bras, since I’m Elsie the Cow these days. I don’t know how
much longer I can keep this up.”
Tara, breastfeeding twins, was notably more bosomy. Maybe more than a bit curvier, too. But I was
hardly one to point fingers, and I welcomed the change of focus in our conversation. “How are the kids
doing?” I said, smiling more genuinely. “I’m gonna have to babysit them some night so you and JB can go
to the movies. How long has it been since you went out together?”
“Since six weeks before I was due,” she said. “Mama du Rone has kept them twice during the day so
I could go to the store, but she doesn’t want to keep ’em at night when Papa du Rone is home. If I can
pump enough milk to get ahead of the little monsters, JB would take me to the Outback. We could eat
steak.” There was an avid look to her mouth. Tara had been craving red meat ever since she’d started
nursing. “Besides, since Hooligans closed, JB doesn’t have to work at night anymore.”
JB had been employed at Hooligans as well as at a health club, where he was a trainer. At
Hooligans, he’d been doing the (nearly) full monty on ladies’ night to raise extra money for the twins’
birth. I hadn’t spared a moment to think about the fate of the building and business since the owner, my
cousin Claude, had vanished from the human world. That was definitely something to worry about when I
ran out of other, more important stuff.
“Just let me know next time you’re in a steak mood,” I assured Tara, pleased at the prospect of doing
her a good turn. “Where were you thinking of shopping today?” Suddenly, I was anxious to get out of the
house.
“Let’s go to Shreveport. I like the maternity and baby shop there, and I want to drop by that
consignment shop on Youree, too.”
“Sure. Let me put on some makeup.” In fifteen minutes I was dressed in clean white shorts and a sky
blue T-shirt, my hair in a neat ponytail and my skin thoroughly moisturized. I felt more like myself than I
had in several days.
Tara and I talked all the way over to Shreveport. Mostly about the babies, of course, because what’s
more important than babies? But included in the conversation were Tara’s mother-in-law (a great
woman); Tara’s shop (not faring too well this summer); Tara’s assistant, McKenna (whom Tara was
trying to fix up with a friend of JB’s); and other items of interest in the Taraverse.
On this very hot summer day in July, it felt comfortingly normal to be having this gossip session
while we took a gal-pal road trip.
Though Tara owned and operated an upscale boutique, it didn’t carry specialty clothes like maternity
and new-mom wear. She said, “I want me some breastfeeding bras and a breastfeeding nightgown from
Moms ’N More, and at the consignment place I want to pick up a couple of pairs of shorts, since I can’t
get my fat baby ass into my pre-baby shorts. You need anything, Sookie?”
“I do have to get a dress for Jason and Michele’s wedding,” I said.
“Are you in it? They set a date yet?”
“I’m the only attendant as of now. They narrowed it to a couple of dates, but they’re waiting to pick
one after they hear from Michele’s sister. She’s in the army, and she may or may not be able to get leave
on those dates.” I laughed. “I’m sure Michele will ask her, too, but I’m a sure thing.”
“What color you need to wear?”
“Any color I like. She says she doesn’t look good in white, and besides, she went that route for her
first wedding. Jason’s wearing a tan suit, and Michele’s wearing chocolate brown. It’s a cocktail dress,
and she says it looks great on her.”
Tara looked skeptical. “Chocolate brown?” she said. (Tara did not think that was suitable for a
wedding.) “You should look today,” she continued more cheerfully. “Of course, you’re welcome to look
at my shop, but if you see something today at the consignment shop, that would be perfect. You’re only
going to wear it once, right?”
Tara carried pretty clothes, but they were expensive, and her selection was limited by the size of the
shop. Her suggestion was really practical.
We stopped at Moms ’N More first. The maternity and new-mom shop held little interest for me. I’d
been dating vampires for so long that pregnancy was not something I thought about, at least not very often.
While Tara talked lactation with the saleswomen, I looked at the diaper bags and the adorable baby items.
New mothers were certainly beasts of burden. Hard to believe that once upon a time, babies had been
raised without diaper bags, breast pumps, special trash cans for disposable diapers, plastic keys,
walkers, premade baby food, plastic pads for changing, special detergent to wash baby clothes . . . and on
and on and on. I touched a tiny green-and-white-striped sleeper with a lamb on the chest. Something deep
inside me shivered with longing.
I was glad when Tara completed her purchase and we left the store.
The consignment shop was only a mile away. Since “fancy used clothes” didn’t sound very enticing,
the owners had gone for Second Time’s the Charm. Tara seemed slightly embarrassed at visiting a used-
clothing store, no matter how upscale it looked.
“I have to look nice since I’ve got a clothing store,” she told me. “But I don’t want to spend a lot on
bigger pants, since I hope I won’t be wearing a size up for long.” Tara was actually two sizes up, her
head told me.
This is one of the things I hate about being telepathic.
“Only makes sense,” I said soothingly. “And maybe I’ll see something for the wedding.” It seemed
highly unlikely that the original owner of the dress would turn up at Jason’s wedding, and that was my
only qualm about purchasing a garment someone else had worn a time or two.
Tara knew the owner, a bony redhead, whose name appeared to be Allison. After a hug of greeting,
Tara hauled out pictures of the twins . . . maybe a hundred pictures. I was completely unsurprised.
I’d seen the real thing, so I wandered away to check out the “better” dresses. I found my size and
began to slide the hangers along the rack one by one, taking my time about it. I was more relaxed than I
had been in a week.
I was glad Tara had winkled me out of the house. There was something wonderfully normal and
reassuring about our shopping expedition. The air-conditioned shop was peaceful, since the music was
turned down very, very low. The prices were higher than I’d expected, but when I read the labels, I
understood why. Everything here was good quality.
I scooted aside a hanger holding a terrible purple-and-green garment, and I came to a complete stop,
enraptured. The next dress was a rich yellow. It was sleeveless, lined, and scoop-necked, with a large,
flat bow curving around the middle of the back. It was beautiful.
“I love this dress,” I said out loud, feeling profoundly happy. This was shallow, all right? I knew
that. But I’ll take joy where I find it.
“I’m going to try this on,” I called, holding it up. The owner, deep in Tara’s delivery story, didn’t
even turn around. She raised her hand and waved it in acknowledgment. “Rosanne will be right with you,”
she called.
The dress and I went past the curtain into the changing area. There were four cubicles, and since no
one else had entered the store, I wasn’t surprised to find them all empty. I wriggled out of my shorts and
my T-shirt in record time. Holding my breath with suspense, I slid the dress off its hanger and over my
head. It settled on my hips like it was happy to be there. I reached behind me to zip it up. I got the zipper
halfway to its destination, but my arms can only bend so far. I stepped out to see if I could detach Tara
from her fascinating conversation. A young woman, presumably Rosanne, was standing right outside,
waiting for me to emerge. When I saw her, I felt a faint buzz of familiarity. Rosanne was in her late teens,
a sturdy kid with her brown hair braided and rolled in a bun. She was wearing a neat pants outfit in
French blue and cream. Surely I’d seen her before?
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t on the floor to help you!” she said. “What can I do for you? You need help
with that zipper?” She’d started speaking almost as soon as I’d emerged from the curtain, and it wasn’t
until she finished that she took a good look at my face.
“Oh, shit!” Rosanne said, so sharply that the shop owner turned around to look.
I gave the elegant Allison an “everything’s all right here” smile, hoping I wasn’t lying.
“What’s the matter with you?” I whispered to Rosanne. I looked down at myself, searching for
something that would explain her alarm. Had I started my period? What? When I didn’t see anything
alarming, I looked up at her anxiously, waiting for her to tell me why she was so agitated.
“It’s you,” she breathed. “You’re the one.”
“I’m the one what?”
“The one who has such big magic. The one who raised that twoey from the dead.”
“Oh.” Revelation. “You’re in the Long Tooth pack, I guess? I thought I’d seen you somewhere
before.”
“I was there,” she said, with an unblinking, unnerving intensity. “At Alcide’s farm.”
“That was kind of awful, huh?” I said. And it was the last thing I wanted to talk about. Back to the
matter at hand. I smiled at Rosanne the werewolf. “Hey, can you zip me up?” I turned my back to her, not
without trepidation. In the full-length mirror, I saw her looking at me. It didn’t take a telepath to interpret
that expression. She was afraid to touch me.
The remnants of my good mood crashed and burned.
When I’d been a child, some people had regarded me with a blend of unease and disgust. Telepathic
children can say the worst things at the worst times, and no one likes them for it or forgets that they
blurted out something private and secret. Telepathy in a child is nothing short of terrible. Even I, the
actual telepath, had felt that way. Some people had been absolutely frightened by my ability, which I
hadn’t had the skill to conceal. After I’d gained some control over what I said when I “overheard”
something startling or awful from the thoughts of a neighbor, I’d seldom seen that expression. I’d forgotten
how painful it could be.
“You’re scared of me,” I said, stating the obvious because I simply couldn’t think of what else to do.
“But you have nothing to fear from me. You’re the one with claws and fangs.”
“Hush, Allison’ll hear you,” she whispered.
“You’re still in the closet?”
“Here at work I am,” she said, her voice deeper and rougher. At least she didn’t look frightened any
longer, which had been my goal. “You know how hard it is for two-natured girls, when they start
changing? Harder than it is for the boys. One in twenty of us ends up a permanent psycho bitch. But if you
can get through your teens, you’re pretty nearly home free, and I’m almost there. Allison is nice, and this
is a low-stress place. I’ve worked here every summer. I want to keep this job.” She looked at me
pleadingly.
“Then zip me up, okay? I have no intention of talking about you. I just need a frickin’ dress,” I told
her, really exasperated. I wasn’t unsympathetic, but I truly felt I had enough problems at the moment.
She hesitantly reached up with her left hand to grip the top of the dress, held the zipper with her
right, and in a second I was enclosed properly. The bow covered the zipper and was held in place by
snaps. Since summer is prime tanning time, I was a lovely brown, and the deep yellow looked . . .
wonderful. The dress wasn’t cut too low at the top, and it was just high enough at the hem. A little dab of
my previous good mood returned.
While I hadn’t enjoyed Rosanne’s assumption that I’d “out” her simply for my own pleasure, I could
understand her worries. Sort of. I’d met two or three women who hadn’t made it through their supe
adolescence with their personality intact; this condition was something to fear, all right. With an effort, I
shoved the whole exchange away. When I could focus on my image in the mirror, I felt a flutter of sheer
gratification. “Wow, it’s so pretty,” I said. I smiled at her reflection, inviting her to lighten up with me.
But Rosanne was silent, her face still unhappy. She was not going along with my “we’re all happy
girls” program. “You did do that, right?” she said. “Bring the shifter back from the dead.”
I could see I wasn’t going to get to enjoy the thrill of shopping victory. “It was a one-time-only
event,” I said, my smile vanishing. “I can’t do it again. I don’t even want to do it again.” I realized I might
not have used the cluviel dor if I’d had time to think about it. I might have doubted it would work, and that
doubt would have weakened my will. My witch friend Amelia had told me once that magic was all about
will.
I’d had plenty of will when I’d felt Sam’s heart quit beating.
“Is Alcide doing all right?” I asked, making another effort to shift the topic.
“The packmaster is well,” she said formally. Though she was a Were, I could see into her mind
clearly enough to tell that though she’d overcome her initial fear, she had deep reservations about me. I
wondered if the whole pack now shared that distrust. Did Alcide believe I was some kind of super witch?
Nothing could be further from the truth. I’d never been super anything.
“Glad to hear he’s okay. I’ll take the dress,” I said. At least, I figured, I can salvage something from
this encounter. When I went to the checkout counter, I saw that while Rosanne and I had had our
uncomfortable heart-to-heart, Tara had found a couple of pairs of shorts and a pair of jeans, very good
labels. She seemed pleased, and Allison did, too—because she wouldn’t have to look at any more baby
pictures.
As I left the shop, the dress in a bag over my arm, I looked back to see the young Were watching me
through the front window, a mixture of respect and fear on her face.
I’d been so absorbed in my own reaction to what I’d done to Sam—for Sam—that I’d never worried
about how other witnesses might react.
“So what was with you and that girl?” Tara said abruptly.
“What? Nothing.”
Tara gave me a massively skeptical look. I was going to have to explain. “She’s a Were from
Alcide’s pack, but she’s keeping her second nature a secret from her employer,” I said. “You don’t feel
obliged to tell Allison, I hope?”
“No, who Allison hires is up to her.” Tara shrugged. “Rosanne’s been there since she was a kid,
coming in after school. As long as she does the work, what difference does it make?”
“Good. We’ll keep it under our hats, then.”
“Rosanne didn’t look happy with you,” Tara said, after a long moment.
“No . . . no, she wasn’t. She thinks . . . I’m a witch, a really terrible witch. Terrible in the sense of
being very powerful and scary.”
Tara snorted. “I can tell she doesn’t know you worth a damn.”
I smiled, but it was a weak effort. “I hope it’s not a widespread opinion.”
“I would have thought they could smell if you were bad or not.”
I tried to look indifferent. “They should know better, but since they don’t, I’m just going to have to
weather it out.”
“Sook, don’t you worry. If you need us, you call JB and me. We’ll strap those babies into their car
seats, and we’ll be right over. I know I’ve failed you some . . . disappointed you some . . . in the past
couple of years. But I swear I’ll help you, no matter what.”
I was taken aback by her vehemence. I looked sharply at my friend. There were tears in her eyes,
even while she pulled out into traffic and turned the car back toward Bon Temps.
“Tara? What’re you talking about?”
“I did fail you,” she said, her face grim. “In so many ways. And I failed myself. I made some really
dumb decisions. I was trying so hard to escape the way I was brought up. For a couple of years, I would
have done anything to make sure I never had to live like I had at my folks’ house again. So I looked for
protection, and you know how that turned out. When that was over, I hated vampires so much I couldn’t
listen to your problems. I’ve grown up now, though.” She gave a sharp and decisive nod, as though in her
opinion she’d taken the final step in spiritual growth.
This was the last thing in the world I’d expected: a declaration of reconciliation by my oldest friend.
I started to deny every negative thing she’d said about herself. But she’d been so honest that I had to be
honest in return—at least, in a tactful kind of way. “Tara, we’ve always been friends. We’ll always be
friends,” I said. “If you’ve made mistakes, I have, too. We just got to do the best we can. We’re coming
out the other side of a lot of trouble, both of us.” Maybe.
She pulled a Kleenex out of her purse and blotted her face with one hand. “I know we’ll be okay,”
she said. “I know it.”
I wasn’t convinced of that, at least about my own future, but I wasn’t going to ruin Tara’s moment.
“Sure we will,” I said. I patted her hand on the steering wheel.
For a few miles we drove in silence. I looked out the window at the fields and ditches, choked with
growth, the heat hovering over them like a giant blanket. If weeds could flourish with such vigor, maybe I
could, too.
Chapter 3
Our shopping trip jolted me out of my rut of worry. When Tara went home, I sat down to make some
resolutions.
I promised myself I would go in to work the next day, whether or not I heard from Sam. I had a part
interest in the bar, and I didn’t have to get Sam’s permission to show up. I gave myself a rousing speech
before I realized I was being ridiculous. Sam wasn’t denying me entrance to the bar. Sam hadn’t told me
he didn’t want to see me. I had stayed at home of my own volition. Sam’s noncommunication might mean
many things. I needed to get off my butt and find out.
I heated up a DiGiorno’s that night, since no one would deliver out on Hummingbird Road. Actually,
the Prescotts, my neighbors closer to town, got their pizza delivered, but no one wanted to venture onto
the long, narrow driveway to my house after dark. I’d learned lately (from the thoughts of patrons at
Merlotte’s) that the woods around my house and along Hummingbird Road had a reputation of being
haunted by creatures frightening beyond belief.
Actually, that was absolutely true—but the creatures that had sparked the rumor were now departed
to a country I couldn’t visit. However, there was a dead man strolling through my yard as I tried to fold
the cardboard disk that had been under the pizza. Those things are hell to get into kitchen garbage bags,
aren’t they? I’d finally managed it by the time he reached the back door and knocked.
“Hey, Bill,” I called. “Come on in.”
In a second he was standing in the doorway, inhaling deeply to better catch the scent he was scouting
for. It was strange to see Bill breathe. “Much better,” he said, in a voice that was almost disappointed.
“Though I think your dinner had a little garlic on it.”
“But no fairy smell?”
“Very little.”
The smell of a fairy is to vampires what catnip is to cats. When Dermot and Claude had been in
residence, their scent had pervaded the house, lingering even when they were not actually there. But my
fae kin were gone now. They’d never come back. I’d left the upstairs windows open for one whole night
to dispel the lingering eau de fae, and that was no small step in this heat.
“Good,” I said briskly. “Any gossip? Any news? Anything interesting happening at your place?” Bill
was my nearest neighbor. His house lay right across the cemetery. In that cemetery was his headstone,
erected by his family. They’d known Bill’s body wasn’t there (they thought he’d been eaten by a panther),
but they’d given him a place of rest. It hadn’t been a panther that had attacked Bill, but something much
worse.
“Thanks for the beautiful roses,” he said. “By the way, I’ve had a visitor.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Good one? Bad one?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Depends,” he said.
“Well, let’s go sit in the living room while you tell me about it,” I said. “Do you want a bottle of
blood?”
He shook his head. “I have an appointment with a donor later.” The Federal Bureau of Vampire
Affairs had left that issue up to the individual states. Louisiana had permitted private registries first, but
the state donor program was much safer for the donor and the vampire. Bill could get human blood under
supervised conditions.
“How is that? Is it creepy?” I’d wondered if it might be like making a sperm donation: necessary and
even admirable, but somewhat awkward.
“It’s a little . . . peculiar,” Bill admitted. “The element of the hunt, the seduction . . . all gone. But it’s
human blood, and that’s still better than the synthetic.”
“So you have to go to the facility, and then what?”
“In some states they can come to you, but not in Louisiana. We make an appointment and go in and
register. It’s a storefront clinic. In the back there’s a room with a couch. A big couch. And they show in
the donor.”
“You get to pick the donor?”
“No, Louisiana BVA wants to take the personal element out of it.”
“So why the couch?”
“I know, mixed messages. But you know how good a bite can be, and there was going to be more
than biting going on, no matter what.”
“You ever get the same person twice?”
“Not yet. I’m sure they keep a list, trying to keep the vampires and the humans apart after they’ve met
at the bureau.”
While we talked, Bill had taken a seat on my own couch, and I tucked my legs under me in the big
old armchair that had been Gran’s favorite. It was curiously comfortable to have my first real boyfriend
as a casual visitor. We’d both been through a few relationships since we’d broken up. Though Bill had
told me (often) that he would be very glad to resume our intimacy, tonight that topic was not on his mind.
Not that I could read Bill’s thoughts; since vampires are dead, their brains just don’t spark like human
brains. But a man’s body language usually lets me know when he’s considering my womanly attributes. It
was really great, really comforting, to have a friendship with Bill.
I had switched on the overhead light, and Bill looked white as a sheet beneath its glare. His glossy
dark brown hair looked even darker, his eyes almost black. He was hesitating over his next topic, and I
was not as relaxed and comfortable all of a sudden.
“Karin is in town,” he said, and looked at me solemnly.
I could tell I was supposed to be smacked in the face with this information, but I was utterly at sea.
“Who would that be?”
“Karin is Eric’s other child,” he said, shocked. “You hadn’t ever heard her name?”
“Why would I? And why should I be excited that she’s in town?”
“Karin is called the Slaughterer.”
“Well, that’s silly. ‘The Slaughterer’ is just . . . cumbersome. ‘Karin the Killer’ would be way
better.”
If Bill had been prone to such gestures, he would have rolled his eyes. “Sookie . . .”
“Look at what a great fighter Pam is,” I said, diverted. “Eric must really like strong women who can
defend themselves.”
Bill looked at me pointedly. “Yes, he does.”
Okay, I was going to take that as a compliment . . . maybe kind of a sad one. I hadn’t set out to kill
people (or vampires or werewolves or fairies) or to conspire to kill them or even to feel like killing them
. . . but I had done all those things in the course of the past two years. Since Bill had walked into
Merlotte’s and I had seen him—my first vampire—I had learned more about myself and the world around
me than I’d ever wanted to know. And now here we were, Bill and me, sitting in my living room like old
buddies, talking about a killer vamp.
“You think Karin might be here to hurt me?” I said. I gripped my ankle with my hand and squeezed.
Just what I needed, another psycho bitch after me. Hadn’t the Weres pretty much cornered that market?
“That’s not the feeling I get,” Bill said.
“She’s not out to get me?” Your life was not right when you were actually surprised that someone
didn’t want to kill you.
“No. She asked me many, many questions about you, about Bon Temps, about the strong people and
the weak people in your circle. She would have told me if her intent had been to harm you. Karin is not as
complex as Pam . . . or Eric, for that matter.”
I had about four instant responses to Bill’s information, but I wisely shut my mouth on all of them. “I
wonder why she didn’t come right to my door to ask, if she wanted to know all that,” I contented myself
with saying.
“I believe she was gathering information for some purpose of her own.”
Sometimes I just didn’t get vampires.
“There are a few things you need to understand about Karin,” Bill said briskly, when I didn’t
respond out loud. “She takes . . . umbrage . . . at any perceived slight to Eric, any disparagement. She was
with him for many years. She was his guard dog.”
I was glad I always had a Word of the Day calendar on the kitchen counter. Otherwise, I’d have had
to whip out a dictionary to get through that sentence. I started to ask Bill, if Karin was so hung up on Eric,
why hadn’t I met her before? But I skipped that in favor of telling him, “I don’t go around disparaging
Eric. I love Eric. It’s not my fault he’s upset with me. Or that his asshole of a maker engaged him to a
vampire he hardly knows.” I sounded just as bitter as I felt. “She should take umbrage with that.”
Bill looked thoughtful, which made me very nervous. He was about to say something he knew I
wouldn’t like. I squeezed my ankle a little harder.
“All the Area Five vampires know what happened at the Long Tooth pack meeting,” he said.
That wasn’t exactly a shocker. “Eric told you.” I cast around for something else to say. “It was a
horrible night,” I said honestly.
“He returned to Fangtasia in a towering rage, but he wasn’t specific about what had made him that
way. He said, ‘Damn wolves,’ a few times.” Here Bill was careful to stop. I figured Eric had added
“Damn Sookie” a few times, too. Bill continued, “Palomino is still dating that Were, Roy, the one who
works for Alcide.” He shrugged, as if to say there was no accounting for taste. “Since we were all
naturally curious, she called Roy to discover the details. She relayed the story to us. It seemed important
for us to know.” After a moment Bill added, “We’d asked Mustapha, since we could tell he’d been
fighting, but he would not comment. He is very closemouthed about what’s going on in the Were world.”
There was a long silence. I simply didn’t know how to respond, and Bill’s face at this moment didn’t
give me any clues. Mostly, I was feeling a rush of appreciation for Mustapha, the Were who was Eric’s
daytime guy. Mustapha was that rare thing, a person who could keep his mouth shut.
“So,” I made myself say, “you’re thinking . . . what?”
“Does it make any difference?” Bill asked.
“You’re being very mysterious.”
“You’re the one who kept a huge secret,” he pointed out. “You’re the one who had the fairy
equivalent of a wishing well in your possession.”
“Eric knew.”
“What?” Bill was genuinely startled.
“Eric knew I had it. Though I didn’t tell him.”
“How did he know this?”
“My great-grandfather,” I said. “Niall told him.”
“Why would Niall do such a thing?” he said, after an appreciable pause.
“Here’s Niall’s logic,” I said. “Niall thought that I needed to find out if Eric would pressure me to
use the cluviel dor for Eric’s own benefit. Niall wanted it himself, but he didn’t take it because it was
intended for me to use.” I shivered when I remembered how Niall’s impossibly blue eyes had blazed with
desire for the enchanted object, how sharply he’d had to rein himself in.
“So in Niall’s view, giving Eric this piece of knowledge was a test of Eric’s love for you.”
I nodded.
Bill contemplated the floor for a minute or two. “Far be it from me to speak in Eric’s defense,” he
said at last, with a hint of a smile, “but in this instance, I will. I don’t know if Eric actually intended you
to, say, wish Freyda had never been born or to wish that his maker had never met her . . . or some other
wish that would have gotten him out of Freyda’s line of sight. Knowing the Viking, I’m certain he hoped
you would be willing to use it on his behalf.”
This was a conversation of significant pauses. I had to think over his words for a minute to be sure I
understood what Bill was telling me. “So the cluviel dor was a test of Eric’s sincerity, in Niall’s eyes.
And the cluviel dor was a test of my love for Eric, in Eric’s eyes,” I said. “And we both failed the test.”
Bill nodded, one sharp jerk of his head.
“He would rather I had let Sam die.”
Bill let me see how startled he was. “Of course,” he said simply.
“How could he think that?” I muttered, which was a stupidly obvious (and obviously stupid)
question to ask myself. A much more pertinent question was, How could two people in love so misjudge
each other?
“How could Eric think that? Don’t ask me. It’s not my emotional reaction that matters,” Bill said.
“I’d be glad to ask Eric, if he’d just sit down and talk to me,” I said. “But he turned me away from
Fangtasia two nights ago.”
Bill had known that, I could tell. “Has he gotten in touch with you since that happened?”
“Oh, yes indeedy. He got Pam to text me to say he’d see me later.”
Bill did a great impression of a blank wall.
“What do you think I should do?” I asked out of sheer curiosity. “I can’t bear this halfway state. I
need resolution.”
Bill sat forward on the couch, his dark brows raised. “Ask yourself this,” he said. “Would you have
used the cluviel dor if it had been—say, Terry or Calvin—who was mortally wounded?”
I was stunned by the question. I groped for words.
After a moment, Bill got up to leave. “I didn’t think so,” he said. I scrambled to my feet to follow
him to the door.
“It’s not that I think Terry’s life, anyone’s life, isn’t worth a sacrifice,” I said. “It’s that it might not
ever have occurred to me.”
“And I’m not saying you’re a bad woman for that hesitation, Sookie,” Bill told me, reading my face
accurately. He put a cold hand to my cheek. “You’re one of the best women I’ve ever met. However,
sometimes you don’t know yourself very well.”
After he had drifted back into the woods and I had locked the house up tight, I sat in front of my
computer. I had planned to check my e-mail, but instead I found myself trying to unravel Bill’s meaning. I
couldn’t concentrate. Finally, without clicking on the e-mail icon, I gave up and went to bed.
I guess it’s not too surprising that I didn’t sleep well. But I was up and out of bed by eight, utterly
tired of hiding out in my house. I showered and put on my makeup and my summer work uniform—
Merlotte’s T-shirt, black shorts, and New Balance walking shoes—and got in the car to drive to work. I
felt much better now that I was following my normal routine. I was also very nervous as I parked on the
graveled area behind the bar.
I didn’t want to stand staring at Sam’s trailer, centered in its little yard at right angles to the bar. Sam
might have been standing at a window, looking out. I averted my eyes and hurried in the employees’
entrance. Though I had my keys in my hand, I didn’t need them. Someone had gotten there before me. I
went directly to my locker and opened it, wondering if I’d see Sam behind the bar, how he’d be, what
he’d say. I stowed my purse and put on one of the aprons hanging from a hook. I was early. If Sam wanted
to talk to me, there was time.
But when I walked up front, the person behind the bar was Kennedy Keyes. I felt distinctly flattened.
Not that there was anything wrong with Kennedy; I’d always liked her. Today she was as bright and shiny
as a new penny. Her rich brown hair was glossy and hanging in loose curls across her shoulders, she was
made up with great care, and her sleeveless pink tank fit very snugly, tucked into her linen slacks. (She
had always insisted bartenders shouldn’t have to wear a uniform.)
“Looking good, Kennedy,” I said, and she spun around, her phone to her ear.
“I was talking to my honey. I didn’t hear you come in,” she said chidingly. “What have you been up
to? You over ‘the flu’? I started to bring you a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle.” Kennedy couldn’t
cook and was proud of it, which would have shocked my grandmother, I can tell you. And she hadn’t
believed I was sick for a moment.
“I felt awful. But I’m a lot better now.” In fact, I was. I felt surprisingly glad to be back in
Merlotte’s. I’d worked here a lot longer than I’d held any other job. And now I was Sam’s partner. The
bar felt like home to me. I felt as though I’d been away a month. Everything looked just the same. Terry
Bellefleur had come in real early to get everything sparkling clean, as usual. I began to take the chairs off
the tables where he’d put them while he mopped. Moving swiftly, with the efficiency of long practice, I
got the tables squared away and began rolling silverware into napkins.
After a few minutes, I heard the employee entrance opening. I knew the cook had arrived because I
heard him singing. Antoine had worked at Merlotte’s for months now, longer than many other short-order
cooks had lasted. When things were slow (or simply when the spirit moved him), he sang. Since he had a
wonderful deep voice, no one minded, least of all me. I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket if it were raining,
so I thoroughly enjoyed his serenades.
“Hey, Antoine,” I called.
“Sookie!” he said, appearing in the service hatch. “Glad you back. You feeling better?”
“Right as rain. How are your supplies holding out? Anything we need to talk about?”
“If Sam don’t come back to work soon, we got to make a trip to Shreveport to the warehouse,”
Antoine said. “I’ve got a list started. Sam still sick?”
I borrowed a leaf from Bill’s book. I shrugged. “We’ve both had a bug,” I said. “Everything’ll be
back to normal in three shakes of a lamb’s tail.”
“That’ll be good.” He smiled and turned to get his kitchen ready. “Oh, a friend of yours come by
yesterday.”
“Yeah, I forgot,” Kennedy said. “She used to be a waitress here?”
There were so many ex-waitresses that I’d take half an hour if I started trying to guess her name. I
wasn’t interested enough to do that, at least not right then, when there was work to be done.
Keeping the bar staffed was a constant issue. My brother’s best bud, Hoyt Fortenberry, was soon to
marry a longtime Merlotte’s barmaid, Holly Cleary. Now that the wedding was close, Holly had cut back
on her work hours. The week before, we’d hired tiny, bone-thin Andrea Norr. She liked to be called “An”
(pronounced Ahn). An was curiously prim but attracted men like soda cans attract wasps. Though her
skirts were longer and her T-shirts were looser and her boobs were smaller than all the other barmaids,
men’s eyes followed the new hire every step she took. An seemed to take it for granted; we’d have known
it if she hadn’t, because of all the things she liked (and by now we knew most of them), most of all she
liked to talk.
The minute An came in the back door, I could hear her, and I found myself smiling. I hardly knew the
woman, but she was a hoot.
“Sookie, I seen your car outside, so I know you’re back at work, and I’m real glad you came in,” she
called from somewhere back by the lockers. “I don’t know what bug you had, but I hope you’re over it,
’cause I sure don’t want to get sick. If I can’t work, I don’t get paid.” Her voice was getting progressively
closer, and then she was standing face-to-face with me, her apron strapped on, looking spic-and-span in a
Merlotte’s T-shirt and calf-length yoga tights. An had told me during her job interview that she never
wore shorts outside the home because her father was a preacher, that her mother was the best cook in
An’s hometown, and that she herself had not been allowed to cut her hair until she’d left home at eighteen.
“Hi, An,” I said. “How’s it been going?”
“It’s been going great, though I missed seeing you and I hope you’re all better.”
“I do feel much better. I have to run over and talk to Sam for a minute. I noticed that the salt and
pepper shakers need topping up. You mind?”
“Let me get right on that! Just show me where the salt and pepper are stored. I’ll fill those up in a
jiffy.” I’d say this for An: She was a hard worker.
Everyone was doing what they should be doing. I had to, myself. I took a deep breath. Before I could
chicken out, I marched out the back door of the bar and over to Sam’s trailer, following the path of
stepping-stones. For the first time, I registered that a strange car was parked beside Sam’s pickup, a little
economy car with dents and dust as its main motif. It had Texas plates.
I wasn’t completely surprised to find a dog curled up on the welcome mat on the little porch Sam had
added outside the front door of his trailer. My approach was no surprise to the dog, either. It was on its
feet at the sound of my footsteps, watching intently as I passed through the gate and crossed the green
grass on the neat stepping-stones.
I stopped a respectful distance from the steps and eyed the dog. Sam could transform himself into
almost anything warm-blooded, so it was possible this dog was Sam . . . but I didn’t think so. He usually
picked a collie form. This sleek Labrador just didn’t have the right feel.
“Bernie?” I asked.
The Lab gave a neutral sort of bark, and her tail started wagging.
“Are you going to let me knock on the door?” I asked.
She seemed to think about it for a minute. Then she trotted down the steps and out onto the grass. She
watched me go up to the door.
I turned away from her (with a little misgiving) and knocked. After a long, long minute, Sam opened
it.
He looked haggard.
“Are you okay?” I blurted. It was clear he was not.
Without speaking, he backed up to let me in. He was wearing a short-sleeved summer shirt and his
oldest blue jeans, worn so thin in spots that there were little splits in the fabric. The interior of the trailer
was surprisingly gloomy. Sam had tried hard, but he couldn’t make the trailer completely dark—not on a
bright, hot day like today. Between the drawn curtains, the light came in in sharp shards, like brilliant
glass slivers.
“Sookie,” Sam said, sounding somehow remote. That scared me more than anything else. I eyed him.
Though it was hard to see the details, I could tell Sam was unshaven, and though he was naturally wiry, he
looked as though he’d lost ten pounds. He’d showered, at least; maybe Bernie had insisted. When I’d
evaluated Sam, I looked around at the living room, as best I could. The sharp contrasts of light hurt my
eyes.
“Can I open the curtains?” I asked.
“No,” he said, his voice sharp. Then he seemed to reconsider. “Well, okay, one.”
Moving slowly and carefully, I pulled back a curtain over the window mostly shaded by an oak tree.
Even so, as light brightened the trailer, Sam winced.
“Why does the sunshine bother you?” I asked, trying to sound absolutely calm about it.
“Because I died, Sookie. I died and came back.” He didn’t sound bitter, but he sure didn’t sound
happy.
Okayyyyy. Well, since I hadn’t heard a word from Sam, I’d figured he wasn’t dancing in the streets
over his experience, but I guess I’d thought he’d at least be, I dunno, pleased about it. That he would say
something along the lines of, Gosh, you wonderful woman, now that I’ve had time to rest and reflect, I
thank you for altering your life forever by bringing back mine. What an amazing gift.
That’s what I’d figured.
So. Wrong again.
Chapter 4
Sam’s mom scratched at the door. Since Sam was still standing in his “tense and tortured” pose, I
obliged. Bernie walked in on four paws, nosed at Sam’s leg for a second, and went into the little corridor
leading to the bedrooms.
“Sam,” I said, to get his attention. He looked at me, but I wasn’t getting a lot of expression from him.
“You got a bar to run,” I said. “You got people depending on you. After all the stuff you’ve been through,
don’t flake out now.”
His eyes seemed to focus on me. “Sookie,” he said, “you don’t understand. I died.”
“You don’t understand,” I retorted with some heat. “I was there. I had my hand on you when your
heart quit beating. And I brought you back. Maybe that’s what you should be thinking about, huh? The
‘brought back’ part?”
If he said “I died” one more time, I was going to slap him silly.
Bernie, in woman form, entered into the living room dressed in khaki shorts and a blouse. Sam and I
were too locked in our conversation to speak to her, though I sort of waved my hand in her direction.
“You had a cluviel dor,” Sam said. “You really had one.”
“I did,” I said. “Now it’s only a pretty thing that looks like a compact.”
“Why did you have it with you? Did you expect what was going to happen?”
I shifted uneasily. “Sam, who could expect that? I just figured there wasn’t any point in having
something like that if you didn’t have it on you to use. Maybe Gran wouldn’t have died if she’d kept it on
her.”
“Like a fairy Life Alert,” Sam said.
“Yeah. Like that.”
“But you must have had a plan for it, a use. I mean, it was a gift . . . to keep. Maybe to save your own
life.”
I looked away, getting more and more uncomfortable. I’d come over here to find out what was
happening in Sam’s head, not to raise questions (or answer questions) that might lay a burden on him he
shouldn’t have to assume.
“It was a gift, which means I could use it as I chose,” I said, trying to sound brisk and matter-of-fact.
“And I chose to start your heart again.”
Sam sat down in his dilapidated armchair, the only item in the trailer that looked as though it needed
to be kicked to the curb.
Bernie said, “Have a seat, Sookie.” She came farther into the room and stared down at her oldest
son, the only family member who had received the shifter gene. “I see you looking at the old chair,” she
said conversationally, when Sam didn’t speak. “That was my husband’s. It was the only thing of his I gave
away when he died, because it just reminded me of him too much. Maybe I should have kept it, and maybe
if I’d looked at it every day, I wouldn’t have married Don.”
Maybe Bernie’s problem wasn’t so much marrying Don as not telling him before the wedding that
she could turn into an animal. But Don shouldn’t have shot her when he found out, either. You don’t just
haul off and shoot the one you love.
“ ‘Maybe’ is such a bad word,” I said. “You can ‘maybe’ yourself back to Adam and Eve and the
serpent.”
Bernie laughed, and Sam looked up. I could see a glimmer of his former self in that look. The bitter
truth welled up in my throat like bile. The price of bringing back Sam from death was that he wasn’t quite
the same man anymore. The experience of death had changed him, maybe forever. And maybe resurrecting
him had changed me.
“How are you feeling physically?” I said. “You seem a little shook up.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he said. “The first day Mom was here, she had to help me walk. It’s
weird. I was okay riding back with you that night, and I drove home okay next morning. But after that it
was like my body had to relearn things. Sort of like . . . after a long sickness. I’ve felt so bad, and I can’t
figure out why.”
“I guess part of it is that process of grief.”
“Grief?”
“Well, it would only be natural,” I said. “You know. Jannalynn?”
Sam looked at me. His expression was not what I expected; it was compounded of confusion and
embarrassment. “What about her?” he asked, and I could swear his puzzlement was genuine.
I cut my eyes toward Bernie, who was every bit (and more understandably) as unenlightened as Sam.
Of course, she hadn’t been at the pack meeting, and she hadn’t talked to anyone else who’d been there
until now. She’d met Jannalynn, though I wasn’t sure she’d known how involved Sam had been with the
werewolf. There’d been sides of Jannalynn that few men would want their moms to see.
“That Were that showed up at the house?” Bernie said. “The one Sam didn’t want me to know he’d
been seeing?”
I felt horribly awkward. “Yes, that Jannalynn,” I said.
“I have been wondering why I hadn’t heard from her,” Sam said readily. “But considering all the bad
things she was accused of—and the fact that I believed she’d done them—I hadn’t planned on seeing her
again. Someone told me she’d gone to Alaska.”
There wasn’t a psychologist hotline at hand. I didn’t know how to handle this.
“Sam, do you remember what happened to you that night? You remember why we were there?”
Begin at the beginning.
“Not exactly,” he admitted. “It’s pretty hazy. Jannalynn was accused of doing something to Alcide,
right? I remember feeling mad and pretty miserable, because I’d liked her so much when we started
dating. But I wasn’t exactly surprised, so I guess I’d figured out that she wasn’t basically . . . a good
person. I remember driving to Alcide’s farm with you, and I remember seeing Eric and Alcide and the
pack, and I think I remember—there was a swimming pool? And some sand?”
I nodded. “Yeah, a swimming pool and a sand volleyball area. Remember anything else?”
Sam began to look uneasy. “I remember the pain,” he said. He sounded hoarse. “And something
about the sand. It was all . . . I remember riding back in the truck, with you driving.”
Well, shit. I hated to be the designated revelator. “You’ve forgotten a few things, Sam,” I said, as
gently as I could. I’d heard of people forgetting traumatic stuff, especially when they’d been badly
injured: people in car wrecks, people who’d gotten attacked. I figured Sam was entitled to blank out on a
thing or two since he’d actually passed over.
“What did I forget?” He was looking at me with the sidelong wide eyes of a nervous horse, and his
back was stiff as a board. Somewhere in his head, he knew what had happened.
I held out my hands to him, palms up. Do you really want to do this now?
“Yeah, I guess I should know,” he said. Bernie crouched by her son’s chair in a distinctly nonhuman
way. She was looking at me with a level gaze. She knew I wasn’t going to say anything that would make
Sam feel better. I could understand her unhappiness with me, but Bernie or no Bernie, I had to go through
with it.
“Since Jannalynn turned traitor and almost killed Warren with neglect while she held him hostage,
she and Mustapha Khan fought,” I said, paring down the story to the essentials that affected Sam. “You
remember Mustapha?”
Sam nodded.
“She got a trial by combat, though I don’t know the hows and whys of that. I was surprised they’d
give her the privilege. But she and Mustapha were fighting with swords.”
Suddenly Sam’s face went white. I paused, but he didn’t say anything, so I went on.
“Jannalynn was doing real well, but instead of focusing on beating Mustapha, she decided to make
one last attempt to control the pack—at least, I guess that was her goal.” I exhaled deeply. I’d thought
about that night over and over, and I still didn’t understand. “Or maybe she just had an impulse, to get the
better of Alcide, to have the last word, sort of. Anyway, Jannalynn maneuvered the fight until she was
close to where you and Alcide were standing.” I paused again, hoping that he would tell me to stop, that
he remembered what came next.
He didn’t, though by now he looked almost as pale as a vampire. I bit my lip and braced myself to
continue.
“She leaped for Alcide and swiped down with her sword, but Alcide saw her coming in time and
jumped to the side. Instead, you got cut. She never intended to hurt you.”
Sam didn’t respond to my lame attempt at consolation. Sure, your lover killed you, but she didn’t
really mean to. ’Kay?
“So . . . the blow was bad, as you know. You fell down, and there was . . . It was pretty awful.” I’d
thrown away the clothes I’d been wearing. And Sam’s shirt, the one he’d left at my house. “You got cut,” I
said. “You got cut so bad you died.”
“It hurt,” he said, hunching over as if a strong wind were blowing at him. Bernie put her hand over
her son’s.
“I can’t even imagine,” I said quietly, though I was certainly no stranger to pain. “Your heart stopped
beating. I used my cluviel dor to heal you and bring you back.”
“You were calling me. You told me to live.” Now he was finally looking at me directly, meeting my
eyes.
“Yes,” I said.
“I remember opening my eyes again to see your face.”
“Your heart started beating again,” I said, as the enormity of it swept over me. My skin tingled all
over.
“Eric was standing behind you, looking down at us as though he hated us,” Sam said. “And then he
was gone, vamp quick.”
“Do you remember us talking on the way home?”
He ignored that question. “But what happened to Jannalynn?” he said. “Isn’t that what you were
going to tell me?”
He’d walked right by her body—and her head—as I’d helped him get to his truck. He’d looked at the
corpse. I could see why he didn’t want to recall that. I didn’t, either, and I hadn’t even liked Jannalynn.
“Mustapha executed her,” I said. I didn’t elaborate.
Sam’s gaze was fixed on me, but there wasn’t anyone home. I had no idea what he was thinking.
Maybe he was trying to recall what he’d seen. Maybe he remembered very clearly and didn’t want to.
Bernie was shaking her head at me from behind Sam’s shoulder. She thought Sam had had enough,
and she was ready for me to go; that was easy to read even if you weren’t a telepath. I’m not so sure I
would have walked out otherwise—I figured I needed to offer a little more debriefing—but this was
Sam’s mother. I heaved myself to my feet, feeling about ten years older than when I’d knocked on the
trailer door.
“See you later, Sam,” I said. “Please come back to work soon.” He didn’t answer. He was still
staring at the spot where I’d been sitting.
“Good-bye, Sookie,” Bernie said. “You and me need to have a talk later.”
I would rather walk on nails. “Sure,” I said, and left.
Back in the bar, the working day proceeded in a strangely normal rhythm. It can be hard to recall that
not everyone knows all the big events that occur in the supe world, even when those events take place
right under the noses of the general human populace. And even if every human soul in the bar knew, they
might not care very much.
The big topic of bar gossip was Halleigh Bellefleur fainting at the Rotary Club when she’d stood up
to go to the bathroom. Since she was seven months pregnant, everyone was concerned. Terry, her
husband’s cousin, came in to get some fried pickles, and he was able to reassure us that Halleigh was
fine, that Andy had taken her right in to her doctor. According to Terry, the doctor had told Andy and
Halleigh that the baby had been pressing against something, and when the baby shifted, Halleigh’s blood
pressure had, too. Or something like that.
The lunch rush was moderate, which made sense since the Rotary was meeting at the Sizzler Steak
House. When we were down to a light sprinkle of customers, I turned my tables over to An while I ran to
the post office to pick up the bar mail. I was horrified to see how much had accumulated in the Merlotte’s
box. Sam’s recovery took on a new urgency.
I brought the mail back to the bar and settled in Sam’s office to go through it. Sure, I’d been working
at Merlotte’s for five years. I’d paid attention, and I knew a lot about how the business was run. Now I
could write checks and sign them, but there were decisions that had to be made. Our cable contract for the
bar was up for renewal, and Sam had talked about switching providers. Two charity fund-raisers had
asked for expensive liquor to auction off. Five local charities just flat-out asked for money.
Most startling of all, we’d gotten a letter from a Clarice lawyer, a guy new to the area. He wanted to
know if we were going to pay for the emergency room visit of Jane Clementine Bodehouse. The lawyer
gently threatened to sue Merlotte’s for Jane’s mental and physical suffering if we didn’t cough up. I
looked at the figure at the bottom of a copy of Jane’s bill. Damn. Jane had ridden in the ambulance and
had an X-ray. She’d also required some stitches, which might as well have been of spun gold thread.
“Shepherd of Judea,” I muttered. I reread the letter.
When Merlotte’s had been firebombed the previous May, Jane, one of our alcoholic customers, had
been cut by flying glass. She’d been treated by the ambulance drivers, who’d taken her to the emergency
room to be checked over. She’d had a few stitches. She’d been fine . . . drunk, but fine. All her injuries
had been minor. Jane had been reminiscing about that night in the past week or two, recalling her own
bravery and how good that had made her feel. Now she was sending us a huge bill and threatening to sue?
I scowled. This was way beyond Jane’s thinking capacity. I was willing to bet this new lawyer was
trying to drum up some business. I figured he’d called Marvin, told him that his mom was due some
money to compensate for all her suffering. Marvin, who was sick to death of hauling Jane away from
Merlotte’s, must have been very open to the notion of getting some money back from Merlotte’s, after his
mom had poured so much into it.
A knock at the door put an end to my speculations. I swung around in Sam’s swivel chair to see
someone I’d never expected to see again. For a second, I thought I’d pass out, like Halleigh Bellefleur at
the Rotary Club.
“Arlene,” I said, and got stuck. That was all I could manage. My former coworker—my former good
friend—seemed to be waiting for me to say something more. Finally, I thought of adding, “When did you
get out?”
This moment was not only awkward in the extreme but completely unnerving. The last time I’d seen
Arlene Fowler (aside from in a courtroom), she had been part of a conspiracy to murder me in a
particularly horrible way. People had gotten shot that day. Some had died. Some had been wounded.
Some of those had recovered in jail.
Oddly enough, considering I was facing a conspirator in my murder, I was not afraid of her.
All I could think about was how much Arlene had changed. She’d been a curvy woman a few months
ago. Now she was thin. Her hair was still defiantly red, but it was shorter and drier, lank and lifeless. The
wrinkles around her eyes and mouth were cruelly evident in the overhead light. Arlene’s time in jail
hadn’t been that long, but it seemed to have aged her in dog years.
“I got out four days ago,” she said. She’d been giving me the same kind of scrutiny I’d given her.
“You’re looking good, Sookie. How’s Sam?”
“He’s sick today, Arlene,” I said. I felt a little light-headed. “How are Lisa and Coby?”
“They’re confused,” she said. “They asked me why Aunt Sookie hasn’t come by to see them.”
“I thought it would be real weird if I visited them, all things considered.” I held her eyes with my
own until she nodded reluctantly and looked away. “Specially since I was sure you must have said some
awful things about me. You know, when you decided to lure me to your place so your buddies could nail
me to a cross.”
Arlene flushed and looked down at her hands.
“Did they stay with Helen when you were away?” I asked, not knowing what else to talk about.
Arlene’s new best bigot buddy had promised to take care of the kids when she’d taken them from
Arlene’s trailer before the shooting started.
“No. She got tired of ’em after a week. She took ’em to Chessie.”
“Chessie Johnson?”
“She was Chessie Fowler before she married Brock,” Arlene explained. “Chessie is—was—first
cousin to my ex.” (The ex whose name Arlene had kept, though she’d been married several times. Rick
Fowler had perished in a motorcycle accident in Lawton, Oklahoma.) “When Jan Fowler died out at the
lake in that fire, she left Chessie some money. Chessie ain’t hurting. She loves those kids. It could have
been worse.” Arlene didn’t sound angry with Helen, just resigned.
Frankly (and call me punitive), what I wanted to see was Arlene feeling angry with herself. Yet I
didn’t detect anything like that, and I could see Arlene inside and outside. What I heard from her thoughts
was a bright streak of malice, a lack of hope or enterprise, and a dull loathing of the world that had
treated her so ill . . . in her estimation.
“Then I hope the kids are doing well with the Johnsons,” I said. “I’m sure they’ve missed their
mama.” I’d found two true things to say. I wondered where Sam’s gun was. I wondered how fast I could
get to it if it was in the right-hand drawer of his desk, as I suspected it was.
She looked as if she were about to cry, just for a second. “I think they have. I’ve got a lot of
explaining to do to those two.”
Gosh, I’d be glad when this conversation was over. At least there was one emotion I could
recognize, and it was regret for what she’d done to her family. “You got out awful early, Arlene,” I said,
suddenly realizing what was most surprising about her presence in Sam’s office.
“I got me a new lawyer. He bonded me out on appeal,” she said. “And my behavior in jail was good,
naturally, since I had a lot of motivation. You know, Sookie, I never would have let them hurt you.”
“Arlene, you can’t lie to me,” I reminded my former friend. The pain of Arlene’s betrayal was a red,
sore scar on my spirit.
“I can tell you don’t trust me,” Arlene said.
No shit, Sherlock. I waited for the words I saw coming next. She was going to play the reformation
card.
“And I don’t blame you,” Arlene said. “I don’t know where my head was at, but it sure wasn’t on my
shoulders. I was full of unhappiness and rage, and I was looking for a way to blame it on someone else.
Hating the vampires and werewolves was the easiest thing to do.” She nodded solemnly, righteously.
Someone had had a little therapy.
I’m not mocking therapy; I’ve seen it do people a lot of good. But Arlene was aping the ideas of the
counselor just as she’d aped the ideas of the anti-supernatural Fellowship of the Sun. When was she going
to come up with some convictions of her own? It seemed incredible to me now that I’d admired Arlene so
sincerely for years. But she had a great zest for life, she had an easy chemistry with men, she had two cute
children, and she made her own living. These were enviable things to lonely me.
Now I saw her differently. She could attract men but not keep them. She could love her children but
not enough to stay out of jail and take care of them. She could work and raise her kids but not without a
constant stream of men through her bedroom.
I’d loved her for her willingness to be my friend when I had so few real ones, but I understood now
that she’d used me as a babysitter for Coby and Lisa, an unpaid house cleaner, and a cheering section and
admirer. When I came into my own life, she’d tried to have me murdered.
“Do you still want me dead?” I said.
She winced. “No, Sookie. You were a good friend to me and I turned on you. I believed everything
the Fellowship was preaching.”
Her thoughts matched her words, at least as far as they went. I was still not much of a person in
Arlene’s estimation. “And that’s why you came by today? To mend fences with me?”
Though I saw the truth in her thoughts, I couldn’t really believe it until she said, “I came to see if
Sam would think of hiring me again.”
I could not think of a response, I was so astonished. She began to shift around as I stared at her.
Finally, I felt able to answer. “Arlene, I feel sorry for your kids, and I know you want to get them back
and take care of them,” I said. “But I can’t work with you here at Merlotte’s. You must know that would
be impossible.”
She stiffened and raised her chin. “I’ll talk to Sam,” she said, “and we’ll just see what he has to
say.” The old Arlene surfaced. She was sure if she could appeal to a man, she’d get her way.
“I do the hiring here now. I’m part owner,” I said, poking myself in the chest with my forefinger.
Arlene stared, definitely shocked. “It wouldn’t work in a million years. You must know that. You
betrayed me in the worst possible way.” I felt a pang of grief, but I wasn’t sure what element of this
encounter grieved me most: the fate of Arlene’s kids or the fact that people could hand out hate like candy
and find takers.
The struggle in Arlene’s face made for uncomfortable viewing. She wanted to lay into me, but she’d
just told me she had changed and that she understood her former ways were wrong, so she couldn’t really
defend herself. She’d been the dominant one in our “friendship,” and she was grappling with the fact that
she had no sway over me any longer.
Arlene took a deep breath and held it for a moment. She was thinking about how angry she was,
thinking about protesting, thinking about telling me how disappointed Coby and Lisa would be—when she
realized none of that would make any difference because she’d been willing to see me hung on a cross.
“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t hate you, Arlene.” I was surprised to realize that was true. “But I can’t
be around you. Ever.”
Arlene spun on her heel and left. She was going to find her new friends and pour all her bitterness
into their ears. I could tell that right from her head. Not surprisingly, they were guys. Trust Arlene. Or
rather, don’t.
Sam’s mother slipped into the doorway in Arlene’s wake. Bernie remained standing half in, half out,
watching Arlene’s progress until my former friend was out Merlotte’s front door. Then she took the chair
Arlene had vacated.
This was going to be my day for really uncomfortable conversations.
“I heard all that,” Bernie said. “And someday you’ll have to tell me the backstory. Sam’s asleep.
Explain what happened to him.” Bernie looked a lot more human. She was about my height, and slim, and
I noticed that she’d restored her hair to the same color as Sam’s, a red-gold. Bernie’s hair minded better
than Sam’s ever had. I wondered briefly if she was dating someone. But at the moment, she was all
business and all mother.
She already knew the gist of the story, but I filled in the blanks.
“So Sam was involved with this Jannalynn, the one who showed up at our house in Wright, but he
was beginning to have doubts about her.” Bernie was scowling, but she wasn’t angry with me. She was
angry that life wasn’t being good to Sam, because she loved him dearly.
“I think so. He was nuts about her for a while, but that faded.” I wasn’t going to attempt to explain
his relationship, and it wasn’t my responsibility. “He’d come to a few realizations about her, and it was
—well, not exactly breaking his heart; at least, I don’t think so—but it was painful.”
“What are you to him?” Bernie looked me right in the eyes.
“I’m his friend, his good friend, and I’m his business partner now.”
“Uh-huh.” She eyed me in a way I could only describe as skeptical. “And you sacrificed an
irreplaceable artifact to save his life.”
“I wish you’d quit bringing that up,” I said, and winced. I’d sounded like a ten-year-old. “I was glad
to do it,” I added in a more adult tone.
“Your boyfriend, this Eric, left the werewolf land right after.”
She was drawing some incorrect conclusions. “Yeah . . . it’s a long story. He didn’t expect me to use
the cluviel dor like that. He thought I should use it to . . .”
“Use it to benefit him.” She ended my sentence for me, which is one of my least favorite things.
But she was right.
She dusted her hands together briskly. “So Sam’s alive, you’re out a boyfriend, and Jannalynn’s
dead.”
“That sums it up,” I agreed. “Though the boyfriend thing is kind of hanging fire.” I suspected I was
clinging to ashes rather than fire, but I wasn’t going to say that to Bernie.
Bernie looked down at her own hands, her face inscrutable while she thought. Then she looked up. “I
may as well go back to Texas,” she said abruptly. “I’ll stay tonight to make sure he wakes up stronger
tomorrow before I take off.”
I was surprised at her decision. Sam appeared far from recovered. “He seems pretty unhappy,” I
said, trying to sound nonjudgmental.
“I can’t make him happy,” Bernie said. “He’s got all the raw material. He just has to work with it.
He’s going to be all right.” She gave a little nod, as if once she said the words, he had to be so.
Bernie had always seemed like a down-to-earth woman; however, I thought she was a little too
dismissive of Sam’s emotional recovery. I could hardly insist she stay. After all, Sam was in his thirties.
“Okay,” I said uncertainly. “Well, you have a good night, and call me if you need me.”
Bernie got out of the chair and knelt before me. “I owe you a life,” she said. She got to her feet more
easily than I would have, though she was almost twice my age. And then she was gone.
ELSEWHERE
in Bon Temps
“She said no,” Arlene Fowler told the tall man and the medium man. The old trailer was hot and the
door was open. It was musty and cluttered inside. No one had lived in it for a while. The sun flowed
through the bullet holes, creating odd patterns of light on the opposite wall. Arlene was sitting in an old
chrome-and-vinyl dinette chair while her two guests sat forward on the battered couch.
“You knew she would have to,” said the medium man, a bit impatiently. “We expected that.”
Arlene blinked. She said, “Then why’d I have to go through it? It just made me feel terrible. And it
took time off from what I had to spend going over to see my kids.”
“I am sure they were glad to see you?” the medium man said, his pale eyes fixed on Arlene’s worn
face.
“Yes,” she said, with a small smile. “They were real glad. Chessie, not so much. She loves them
kids. They looked like they’d settled in there. They’re doing real well in school, both of them.”
Neither of the men was at all interested in the children’s progress or welfare, but they made
approving noises.
“You made sure to go through the bar’s front entrance?” the tall man asked.
Arlene nodded. “Yeah, I spoke to three people. Just like you said. Am I through now?”
“We need you to do one more thing,” the tall man said, his voice smooth as oil and twice as
soothing. “And it won’t be hard.”
Arlene sighed. “What’s that?” she said. “I need to be looking for a place to live. I can’t bring my
kids here.” She glanced around her.
“If it weren’t for our intervention, you wouldn’t be at liberty to see your children,” the medium man
said gently, but his expression wasn’t gentle at all.
Arlene felt a prickle of misgiving. “You’re threatening me,” she said, but hardly as if that surprised
her. “What do you want me to do?”
“You and Sookie were good friends,” the tall man said.
She nodded. “Real good friends,” she said.
“So you know where she keeps an extra key outside her house,” the medium man said.
“Yes, I do,” she said. “You planning on breaking in?”
“It’s not really breaking in if you have a key, is it?” The medium man smiled, and Arlene tried to
smile back.
“I guess not,” she said.
“Then what we need is for you to use that key and go inside. Open the drawer in her bedroom where
she keeps her scarves. Bring us a scarf you’ve seen her wear before.”
“A scarf,” Arlene said. “What you going to do with it?”
“Nothing to worry about,” the tall man said. He smiled, too. “You can be sure she won’t enjoy the
result. And since she turned you down for a job, and since you wouldn’t be here in this place if it weren’t
for her, that shouldn’t bother you at all.”
Arlene mulled that over for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t,” she said.
“Well, you know she’s at work now,” said the medium man. “So I think right now would be a good
time to go there. And in case her house is warded, carry this.” He handed her a strange old coin. At least,
it looked old, and it was surprisingly heavy for its size. “Keep it in your pocket at all times,” he said.
Arlene was startled. She looked down at the small object dubiously before she put it in her pocket.
“Well, okay. I’ll go to Sookie’s now. Then I got to go look at rental places. When will that money be in
my account?”
“Tomorrow,” the tall man assured her. “And you’ll find your own place, and your kids will be able
to move back in with you.”
“And this is all you want me to do? I asked her for a job, and in a little bit I go get a scarf from her
drawer? With this thing in my pocket?”
“Well, you’ll have to meet us and give us the scarf and coin,” the tall man said, shrugging. “That’s no
big deal.”
“Okay,” said Arlene. “If my old car will make it there. It isn’t doing too good after being parked in
Chessie’s backyard since I been in jail.”
“Here’s some gas money,” the tall man said, pulling out his wallet and handing Arlene some cash.
“We wouldn’t want you running out of gas.”
“No,” said the medium man. “We wouldn’t want that.”
“I’ll call you on that cell phone you gave me, when I got the scarf,” Arlene said. “We can meet
tonight.”
The two men looked at each other silently. “Tonight will be great,” the tall man said after a second
or two. “Just great.”
Chapter 5
I saw Terry Bellefleur for the second time that day while I was putting gas in my car at the Grabbit
Kwik. He was filling up his pickup. Terry’s Catahoula, Annie, was in the back of the truck. She was
interested in everything that was going on at the gas station, though she was panting heavily in the heat.
I knew just how she felt. I was glad I’d waited until evening to take care of this task. At least the
pavement didn’t look like it was rippling, and I didn’t have to let my tongue hang out.
After Terry pulled his charge slip from the pump, I called to him. He turned and brightened. “Hey,
Sook. How’s Sam doing? I was glad to see you today. I wish I’d sat at your tables instead of that An’s.
She talks the hind leg off a donkey.”
He was the only guy I knew who didn’t want to howl at the moon when he saw An Norr. “Sam may
be back on the job tomorrow,” I said.
“Crazy, you both getting sick at the same time.”
He was also the only person in Bon Temps who would say that without leering. I’d “overheard”
several comments in the bar today about Sam and me both being AWOL for four days. “So, how’s
Jimmie?” I asked. Jimmie was his girlfriend; at least I thought that was their relationship. I was pleased to
see that Terry’s hair had been cut and combed, and that he’d shaved in the past couple of days. Jimmie
was a good influence.
“She’s real good,” he said. “I asked her dad if I could marry her.” Terry looked down a little
nervously as he told me this important fact. Terry had had a rough time as a POW in Vietnam. He’d come
away with a multitude of physical and mental problems. I was so happy he’d found someone, and proud of
his determination to do the right thing.
“What did her dad say?” I was genuinely curious. Though Jimmie was a little younger than Terry, I
was a little surprised to hear she still had her father.
“He said if Jimmie’s kids didn’t mind, it was okay with him.”
“Kids,” I said, scrambling to get a foothold on the slippery slope of the conversation.
“She got two sons and a daughter, nineteen, twenty, and twenty-two,” Terry said, and to give him
credit, he seemed happy about that. “They all got children. I now have me some grandkids.”
“So her children were happy about the idea of a stepfather?” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah,” he said, turning red. “They were real pleased. Their dad passed away ten years ago, and he
was a mean bastard, anyway. Things ain’t been easy for Jimmie.”
I gave him a hug. “I’m so happy for you,” I said. “When’s the wedding?”
“Well.” He turned even redder. “It was yesterday. We went across the state line to Magnolia and got
married.”
I had to exclaim a little and pat him on the back a few times, but people were waiting for us to move
so they could pull up to the pumps. I couldn’t leave without patting Annie, too, and congratulating her also
on gaining a spouse. (Her last litter had been sired by Jimmie’s Catahoula, and surely her next one would
be, too.) Annie seemed as pleased as Terry.
I was still smiling to myself as I stopped at the end of my driveway to check my mailbox. I told
myself this was the last time I’d be out in the heat until tomorrow. I almost dreaded getting out of the
airconditioned car again. In July, at seven o’clock, the sun was still up and would be for more than an
hour. Though the temperature was no longer approaching one hundred, it was plenty hot. I still had sweat
trickling down my back from pumping my gas. All I could think about was getting in my shower.
I didn’t even look through my little pile of mail. I tossed it on the kitchen counter and made a beeline
for my bathroom, stripping off my sweaty clothes as I walked. A few seconds later, I was under a stream
of water and blissfully happy. My cell phone rang while I was rinsing off, but I decided not to hurry. I
was enjoying the shower too much. I toweled off and turned on my hair dryer. The whir of the warm air
seemed to echo through the rooms.
I cast the chest of drawers a proud glance when I went in the bedroom. I knew everything in it was
organized, as was everything in the night table and everything in the vanity. I didn’t have control over
much in my life, but by golly, my drawers were tidy. I noticed one was pulled out, just a little. I frowned.
I habitually pushed drawers all the way in. That was one of my mom’s rules, and though I’d lost her when
I was only seven, it had stuck with me. Even Jason was careful to close drawers all the way.
I pulled it open and looked inside. My odds-and-ends drawer (stockings, scarves, evening purses,
and belts) was still orderly, though the scarves didn’t seem to be lined up quite like I’d left them, and one
of the brown belts was mixed in with the black belts. Huh. After staring at the drawer’s contents for a
long moment, wishing I could get the items to talk, I pushed the drawer shut, this time making sure it
closed properly. The sound of wood meeting wood was loud in the quiet house.
The big old place, which had sheltered Stackhouses for more than a hundred and fifty years, had
never seemed particularly empty until I’d had long-term houseguests. After Amelia had left to go back to
New Orleans to pay her debt to the coven, I’d felt like my home was a lonely place. But I’d readjusted.
Then Claude and Dermot had moved in . . . and left for good. Now I felt like a small bee bumbling around
inside an empty hive.
Just at this moment, I found it was actually comforting to think that across the cemetery, Bill would
rise; but he was dead until dark.
I felt a touch of melancholy when I thought of Bill’s dark eyes, and slapped myself on the cheek.
Okay, now I was just being silly. I wasn’t going to let sheer loneliness drive me back to my ex. I reminded
myself I was still Eric Northman’s wife under vampire custom, though he wasn’t talking to me right now.
Though I was reluctant to attempt to approach Eric again for several reasons (I have my pride and it
was hurt), I was sick of waiting and wondering what was happening in the closed society of the vampires.
Oh, sure, I reflected, they’re glad to see me when I have a good plan for killing someone, but
when I want a relationship update, I’m not hearing from a single soul.
Not that I was bitter or anything. Or mad, or hurt. Or knew if vampires had souls.
I could feel myself shake all over like a dog coming out of a pond. Regret, impatience, flying off me.
Was it my place to worry about souls? No. That was up to a higher power than me.
I glanced outside to see that it was just full dark. Before I could have another thought, I picked up my
cell phone and speed-dialed Eric. I had to do this before I lost my nerve.
“Sookie,” he said, after the second ring, and I let myself feel surprised. I’d truly doubted he’d
answer.
“We need to talk,” I said, making a huge effort to sound calm. “After my visit to Fangtasia, I
understand that you’re dodging me. You made it clear that you don’t want me visiting the club. I assume
you don’t want me dropping by your place, either. But you know we have to have a conversation.”
“Then talk.”
Okay, this was going pretty damn badly. I didn’t have to look in a mirror to know I was wearing my
mad face. “Face-to-face,” I said, and it sounded like I was biting out the words. Too late, I had second
thoughts. This was going to be painful in the extreme. Wouldn’t it be better to just let our relationship drift
away—avoid having the conversation I was almost certain I could script ahead of time?
“I can’t come tonight,” Eric said. He sounded as if he were on the moon, he was so distant. “There
are people in line to see me, much to be done.”
And still his voice was empty. I let my anger rip, in that sudden way I have when I’m tense. “So we
take second place. You could at least sound sorry,” I said, each word distinct and bitter.
“You have no idea how I feel,” he said. “Tomorrow night.” And he hung up.
“Well, fuck him and the horse he rode in on,” I said.
After gearing up for a marathon conversation, Eric’s quick cutoff left me overflowing with restless
energy.
“This is no good,” I told the silent house. I turned on the radio and I started dancing. That is
something I can do, though at the moment my skill was not important. It was the activity that counted. I
threw myself into it. I thought, Maybe Tara and I can do a dance exercise program together. She and I
had done routines together all through high school, and it would be easy for Tara to get back in shape that
way (not that I needed to bring that up when I asked her). To my dismay, I was huffing and puffing after
less than ten minutes, a not-so-subtle reminder that I myself could use a regular exercise program. I drove
myself to continue for fifteen more minutes.
When I collapsed onto the couch, I felt relaxed, exhausted, and just about in need of another shower.
As I sprawled there, taking deep breaths, I noticed my answering machine was blinking. In fact, it was
blinking frequently. I had more than one message. I hadn’t checked my e-mail in days, either. Plus, I’d
gotten that call on my cell phone while I’d been in the shower. I had to reconnect with the world.
First, the answering machine. After the first beep, I heard a hang-up. I didn’t recognize the number.
Then a call from Tara to tell me she thought baby Sara had allergies. Then a request to take an important
survey. It wasn’t too surprising that amid all this exciting communication, I began to think about the
lawsuit again.
Jane Bodehouse loved wrestling. Maybe if I called the only wrestler I knew, a guy named T-Rex, I
could get her some ringside tickets. She’d be so happy she’d drop her lawsuit against Merlotte’s . . . if
she was even aware of it.
And there I was, back to worrying.
After my phone messages, I checked my e-mails. Most of them suggested I enlarge my nonexistent
penis or help desperate lawyers get huge sums of money out of Africa, but one was from my godfather,
Desmond Cataliades, the mostly demon lawyer who had (in my view) given me the bane of my existence
when he “gifted” me with telepathy. In his view, he’d endowed me with a priceless advantage over other
humans. I’d received this birth present because I was the granddaughter of Mr. Cataliades’s great friend
Fintan and Fintan’s, well, his girlfriend—my grandmother, Adele Stackhouse. Not only was I a
descendant of a fairy, I possessed the “essential spark.” Whatever that was. And that was why I’d been
lucky enough to manifest the telepathy.
Mr. Cataliades wrote:
Dearest Sookie, I am back in New Orleans, having settled my issues with the local supernatural community and done some essential
detective work. I hope to visit you very soon to verify your well-being and to give you some information. I hear rumors of what is
happening in your life, and those rumors disturb me.
Me, too, Mr. C. Me, too. I responded by telling him that I was doing okay and that I’d be glad to see
him. I wasn’t sure if any of that was true, but it sounded good.
Michele, Jason’s fiancée, had e-mailed me two days ago from her job at the car dealership.
Hi Sookie! Let’s get a pedicure together tomorrow! I have the morning off. What about nine o’clock at Rumpty?
I’d had only one pedicure before, but I’d enjoyed it, and I liked Michele fine; but we didn’t
necessarily have the same idea about what constituted a good time. However, she was going to be my
sister-in-law soon, and I sent back an abject apology for not checking my e-mail sooner.
Tara had sent me a message.
Hey girlfriend, I really enjoyed our road trip. I’m wearing the shorts right now, lol. We have to do something about the babies’ room, I
can hardly get my fat ass in there. I thought it was big enuf before I had twins! I’m hiring a babysitter so I can get back to work part
time. Here are some more pictures of the babies.
They didn’t look much different from the way they had in the pictures she had yesterday.
Nonetheless, I sent her an admiring message. I know what a friend should do. I wondered how Tara and
JB could increase the size of the babies’ little room. Sam was pretty handy with carpentry. Maybe they’d
rope him in, too.
I’d gotten a text from Jason. “U working 2morrow?” I assured him I was. He probably needed to
drop in to talk about some detail of the wedding, which was going to be about as casual as a wedding
could be.
I thought of turning on the television, but it was summer, so there wasn’t much point. I’d read instead.
I got the top book off the library stack on my bedside table and was pleased to discover it was the latest
Dana Stabenow. It’s really a treat to read about Alaska when it’s a summer day that peaked at 104
degrees. I hoped that maybe someday I’d get up there. I wanted to see a grizzly bear, and I wanted to see a
glacier, and I wanted to eat fresh salmon.
I found I was holding the book in both hands and imagining. Since I couldn’t concentrate on the page,
I might as well throw supper together. It was getting late. While I made a salad with cherry tomatoes and
dried cranberries and chopped chicken, I tried to picture how big a grizzly might be. I’d never seen any
kind of bear in the wild, though twice I’d found prints in the woods I was pretty sure were a black bear’s.
I was in a better mood altogether as I ate and read, two of my favorite activities.
It had been a long day, what with one thing and another, and by the time I crawled into my bed, I was
ready to sleep. A peaceful night with no dreams; that was what I wanted. And for a while, I got it.
“Sookie.”
“Mmmh?”
“Wake up, Sookie. I need to talk to you.”
My bedroom was quite dark. Even the little night-light I left on in the bathroom was out. But I knew,
even before I caught his familiar scent, that Eric was in my room.
“I’m awake,” I said, still struggling to clear the sleep out of my head. The jolt of fear I’d gotten had
gone far toward that end. “Why are you sneaking in like this? I gave you a key for emergencies, not for
surprise night visits.”
“Sookie, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.” Not happy about this approach to conversation, though.
“I had to be curt on the phone. There are ears all around me. No matter what happens in public—no
matter what—don’t doubt that I love you and care about your welfare . . . as much as I am able.”
Not good.
“And you’re telling me this because you’re going to do something bad to me in public,” I said, sadly
unsurprised.
“I hope it won’t come to that,” he said, and he put his arms around me. In happier times, I’d found
that being close to Eric in the summer was very pleasant because his body temp was so low, but I wasn’t
in the mood to enjoy the sensation just at the moment. “I have to go,” he said. “I had only an hour when I
wouldn’t be missed. I was angry when you saved Sam. But I can’t just dismiss you as if I didn’t care. And
I can’t leave you unprotected tonight. My guard will be here if you consent.”
“What guard? Okay,” I said dazedly. He was leaving someone in the yard?
I felt him get off the bed, and after a second I heard the back door open.
What the hell?
I collapsed back onto the bed, and I spent a few minutes wondering if it was even possible I’d get
some more sleep. I looked at the clock. Eleven forty-five p.m.
“Sure, wander in and get in bed with me. I don’t mind,” I said. “Please, wake me up and scare me to
death. I love it!”
“Is that an invitation?” said a voice from the dark.
I did scream then.