Faced with the choice between loving me for my short lifetime and beginning an upward climb with the rich and beautiful Freyda, he had made the practical decision.

I'd always known that Eric was a pragmatist.

There was a quiet knock at the back door. Bill, checking on my well-being. I went out onto the porch and flung the door open, saying, "I just can't talk . . ."

Eric stood on the steps. The moonlight was kind to him, of course, gilding the blond mane and the handsome face.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I looked over his shoulder. Bill was nowhere in sight. "Now that I'm not your wife, I thought you and Freyda would be . . . consummating your new relationship."

"I told you not to pay attention to what happened," he said. He took a small step forward. "I told you it meant nothing to me."

I didn't invite him in. "Pretty hard to believe it meant nothing to your king. And Freyda."

"I can keep you," he said, with absolute confidence. "I can work out a way. You may not be my wife in name, but you are in my heart."

I felt like a pancake that had just been flipped over on the griddle. I had to go through this again? I snapped.

"Not just no, but hell no. Don't you hear yourself? You're lying to me and to yourself." I wanted to smack his face so badly my hand hurt.

"Sookie, you're mine." He was beginning to be angry.

"I am not. You said that in front of everyone."

"But I told you, I came to you in the night and told you I would - "

"You told me that you loved me as much as you were able," I said, almost bouncing on the balls of my feet in agitation. "It seems pretty clear that you're not able."

"Sookie, I would never have dismissed you like that, so publicly, if I hadn't been sure you understood that the ceremony was for the benefit of the others."

"Wait, wait, wait," I said, holding up a hand. "You're telling me that as far as you're concerned, you plan to find a way to keep me somewhere secret from Freyda, so you can sneak off and be with me from time to time? And to be your piece on the side, I'd have to move to Oklahoma and lose my house and friends and business?"

I knew from the expression on his face that that was exactly what he'd planned. But I was also sure he could never have really believed I would say yes to such an arrangement. If he had, he truly didn't know me.

Eric lost his temper. "You never gave our marriage honor! You always thought I would leave you! I should have turned you without asking, as I did Karin and Pam! Or better yet, gotten Pam to turn you! We need not have parted, ever again."

And then we were staring at each other - him furious, me horrified. We'd talked about my becoming a vampire one night in bed, after fireworks sex, and the idea had surfaced at other times. I'd always said clearly that I didn't want that.

"You considered doing that. Without my consent."

"Of course," he said, emphatically, impatiently, as if my not understanding his intent was ridiculous. "Naturally, I did. I knew if you were turned . . . you would be so glad. There is nothing better than being a vampire. But you seemed repulsed by the idea. At first I thought, 'She loves the sun - but she loves me, too.' But I began to wonder if in your heart you really despised what I am." His brows drew together; he was not only angry, he was hurt.

That made two of us.

I said, "And yet you were thinking of turning me into something you thought I despised." I felt incredibly depressed. My energy left me and I slumped in my shoes. I said wearily, "No, I do not despise what you are. I just want to live my human life."

"Even if it means without me."

"I didn't know I had to make a choice."

"Sookie, common sense - you have plenty of that - must have told you so. I am sure of it."

I threw up my hands in despair. "Eric, you tricked me into a marriage. I worked around that in my head because I could see you did it to protect me, and maybe you also did it out of your own sense of . . . mischief. I loved you. And I felt flattered that you wanted us to be united in your world's eyes. But you're right when you say I never regarded our marriage as equal to a human church marriage - which, the only time I brought it up, you mocked."

He flung his arm out as if he were struggling to make a point by gesture, a point that he couldn't make verbally.

I held up my hand again. "I'm being completely honest with you. Let me finish, then you can say whatever you need to. I have loved you for months, with . . . with ardor and devotion. But I don't think there's any way we can resolve this. Because you must know that saying you 'thought there would still be a way for us to be together' is just plain bullshit. You know that I would never leave home to live some kind of half life as your girl on the side, sneaking sex from time to time until Freyda found out I was there and killed me. Going through the same humiliation that I did tonight. Over and over."

"I should have known you would never leave Sam," Eric said, with heavy bitterness.

"Leave Sam out of this. This is about you and me."

"You never believed we would be lovers forever. You were sure someday I would leave you, when you grew old."

I thought that over. "Since I'm trying to be honest here, you should try that, too. You would never have even considered staying with me when I grew old. You always assumed you would turn me, even though I told you I never wanted to be a vampire." We'd come full circle in this awful conversation. I stepped back and closed the porch door. To put an end to the pain, I said, "I rescind your invitation."

I went back into the house, and I did not look out the windows. The love we'd had for each other lay broken irreparably. It bled out somewhere on my back doorstep.

If the day had been rough, with Arlene's murder and the subsequent furor, and the trip to Fangtasia had been rougher, this conversation with Eric was the roughest thing of all. I sat in my living room in Gran's favorite chair, staring into space, my hands on my knees. I didn't know if I wanted to cry or scream or throw something or throw up. I sat there like a sphinx, thoughts and images tumbling through my head.

I was sure I had done the right thing, though I regretted bitterly some of the things I'd said. But they'd all been true. The hour after Eric left was like the second after I'd persuaded myself to rip off a bandage so I could tend to the wound.

Who could not love Eric? He was bigger than life, literally. Even dead, he was more vital than almost all the men I knew. Clever and practical, protective of his own, a renowned fighter, he was nonetheless full of joie de vivre - or maybe I should call it joie de mort. And he had a sense of humor and adventure, qualities I'd always found incredibly attractive. Plus, jeez, sexy. Eric's wonderful body matched his great skill in using it.

But still . . . I would not be a vampire for him. I loved being human. I loved the sunshine; I loved the daytime; I loved to stretch out on a chaise lounge in the backyard with the light surrounding me. And though I was not a good Christian, I was a Christian. I didn't know what would happen to my soul if I was turned into a vampire, and I didn't want to risk it - especially since I'd done some pretty bad things in my time. I wanted some years to atone.

I wasn't blaming Eric for those bad things I'd done. Those transgressions were on me. But I didn't want the rest of my life to be like that. I wanted a chance to come to terms with the lives I'd taken, the violence I'd seen and I'd dealt out, and I wanted to be a better person . . . though at the moment, I wasn't sure how to accomplish that.

I was sure that being Eric's secret mistress was not the path to that goal.

I pictured myself in some little apartment in Oklahoma, without any family or friends, spending long days and longer nights waiting for Eric to steal an hour or two to come by. I'd be waiting every night for the queen to find me and kill me . . . or worse. If Eric turned me, or got Pam to do the deed, I'd at least have my days taken care of; I'd be dead in a small, dark space. Maybe I'd spend my nights hanging around with Pam and Karin, we three blondes, waiting at Eric's beck and call - for eternity. I shuddered. The mental image of me hanging around with Karin and Pam - like Dracula's females, waiting for an unwary passerby in some Gothic castle - was simply disgusting. I'd want to stake myself. (After a year or two, probably Pam would be glad to oblige me with that.) And what if Eric ordered me to kill someone, someone I cared about? I'd have to obey him.

And that was if I survived the change, which was by no means certain. I read every week about bodies that had been found in hastily dug graves, bodies that had never reanimated, never clawed their way to the surface. People who'd thought it would be cool to be undead and persuaded or paid some vampire to turn them. But they hadn't risen.

I shuddered again.

There was more to think about and more ground to retread, but suddenly I was dazed with exhaustion. I wouldn't have imagined I could get into bed and close my eyes ever again, after a day like today . . . but my body thought otherwise, and I let it rule.

I might rue what I'd said this night when I woke up in the daytime. I might call myself a fool and pack my bags for Oklahoma. Right now, I had to let my regrets and conjectures go. As I scrubbed my face at the bathroom sink, I remembered I'd made a promise. Instead of calling Sam and having to answer questions, I texted him. "Home okay, bad but over."

I slept without dreams and woke to another day of rain.

The police were at my door, and they arrested me for murder.

ELSEWHERE

in a motel on the interstate fifteen miles from Bon Temps

The tall man was lying back on the double bed, his big hands clasped over his belly, his expression totally satisfied. "God be praised," he said to the ceiling. "Sometimes the evildoers get punished as they deserve."

His roommate ignored him. He was on the telephone again. "Yes," the medium man was saying. "It's confirmed. She's been arrested. Are we through here now? If we stay any longer, we run the risk of being noticed, and in my companion's case . . ." He glanced over at the other bed. The tall man had left his bed to go to the bathroom, and he'd shut the door. The medium man continued in a hushed voice. "In his case, recognized. We couldn't use the trailer because the police were sure to search it, and we couldn't risk leaving trace, even with the Bon Temps police department. We've been changing motels every night."

The rich male voice said, "I'll be there tomorrow. We'll talk."

"Face-to-face?" The medium man sounded neutral, but since he was alone, he let his expression show his apprehension.

He heard the man on the other end laughing, but it was more like a series of coughs. "Yes, face-to-face," the man said.

After he'd ended the conversation, the medium man stared at the wall for a few minutes. He didn't like this turn of events. He wondered if he was worried enough to forgo the remainder of his pay for this job.

He hadn't lasted this long without being wily and without knowing when to cut his losses. Would his employer really track him down if he left?

Gloomily, Johan Glassport concluded that he would.

By the time Steve Newlin came out of the bathroom zipping up his pants, Glassport was able to relate the conversation without revealing by any blink of an eyelash how repugnant he found the idea of meeting their employer again. Glassport was ready to turn out the lights and crawl into his bed, but Newlin wouldn't shut up.

Steve Newlin was in an exceptionally good mood, because he was imagining several things that might happen to the Stackhouse woman while she was in jail. None of these things was pleasant, and some of them were pornographic, but all of them were couched in terms of what Steve Newlin's personal Bible interpreted as hellfire and damnation.

Chapter 9

I never would have imagined I could be glad my grandmother was dead, but that morning I was. It would have killed Gran to see me arrested and put into a police car.

I never had experimented with bondage, and now I surely never would. I hate handcuffs.

I had a trite-but-true moment when Alcee Beck told me he was arresting me for murder. I thought, Any minute now I'll wake up. I didn't really wake up when I heard the doorbell. I just dreamed it. This isn't real, because it can't be. What convinced me that I was awake? The expression on Andy Bellefleur's face. He was standing behind Alcee, and he looked stricken. And I could hear right in his brain, he didn't think I deserved to be arrested. Not on the evidence they had. Alcee Beck had had to talk long and hard to convince the sheriff that I should be arrested.

Alcee Beck's brain was strange; it was black. I'd never seen anything like it, and I couldn't get a handle on it. That couldn't mean anything good. I could feel his determination to put me in jail. In Alcee Beck's mind, I might as well have "GUILTY" tattooed on my forehead.

When Andy put the cuffs on me, I said, "I assume I'm uninvited to Halleigh's baby shower."

"Aw, Sookie," he said, which was hardly adequate.

To do Andy justice, he was embarrassed, but I wasn't exactly in the mood to do him any justice when he was doing me none. "I think you know I never hurt Arlene," I said to Andy, and I said it very evenly. I was proud of myself for keeping a sealed and stern façade, because inside I was dying of humiliation and horror.

He looked as if he wanted to say something (he wanted to say, I hope you didn't but there's a little evidence says you did but not enough I don't know how Alcee got a warrant), but he shook his head and said, "I got to do this."

My sense of unreality lasted all through the booking process. My brother, God bless him, was standing at the jail door when they brought me in, having heard through the instant messaging circuit what had happened. His mouth was open, but before he could vocalize all the angry words I could see crowding his brain, I started talking. "Jason, call Beth Osiecki, and tell her to get down here soon as she can. Go in the house and get the phone number for Desmond Cataliades, and call him, too. And call Sam and tell him I can't come to work tomorrow," I added hastily, as I was marched into the jail and they shut the door on my brother's anxious face. Bless his heart.