From Dead to Worse

Sam had some extra clothes in his truck, and he pulled them on matter-of-factly. Claudine said, "I have to get back to bed," as if she'd been awoken to let the cat out or go to the bathroom, and then pop! she was gone.



"I'll drive," I offered, because Sam was wounded.



He handed me his keys.



We started out in silence. It was an effort to remember the route to get back to the interstate to return to Bon Temps because I was still shocked on several different levels.



"That's a normal reaction to battle," Sam said. "The surge of lust."



I carefully didn't look at Sam's lap to see if he was having his own surge. "Yeah, I know that. I've been in a few fights now. A few too many."



"Plus, Alcide did ascend to the packmaster position." Another reason to feel "happy."



"But he did this whole battle thing because Maria-Star died." So he should have been too depressed to think about celebrating the death of his enemy, was my point.



"He did this whole battle thing because he was threatened," Sam said. "It's really stupid of Alcide and Furnan that they didn't sit down and talk before it came to this point. They could have figured out what was happening much earlier. If you hadn't persuaded them, they'd still be getting picked off and they'd have started an all-out war. They'd have done most of Priscilla Hebert's work for her."



I was sick of the Weres, their aggression and stubbornness. "Sam, you went through all of this because of me. I feel terrible about that. I would have died if it wasn't for you. I owe you big-time. And I'm so sorry."



"Keeping you alive," Sam said, "is important to me." He closed his eyes and slept the rest of the way back to his trailer. He limped up the steps unaided, and his door shut firmly. Feeling a little forlorn and not a little depressed, I got in my own car and drove home, wondering how to fit what had happened that night into the rest of my life.



Amelia and Pam were sitting in the kitchen. Amelia had made some tea, and Pam was working on a piece of embroidery. Her hands flew as the needle pierced the fabric, and I didn't know what was most astonishing: her skill or her choice of pastimes.



"What have you and Sam been up to?" Amelia asked with a big smile. "You look like you've been rode hard and put away wet."



Then she looked more closely and said, "What happened, Sookie?"



Even Pam put down her embroidery and gave me her most serious face. "You smell," she said. "You smell of blood and war."



I looked down at myself and registered what a mess I was. My clothes were bloody, torn, and dirty, and my leg ached. It was first aid time, and I couldn't have had better care from Nurse Amelia and Nurse Pam. Pam was a little excited by the wound, but she restrained herself like a good vampire. I knew she'd tell Eric everything, but I just couldn't find it in me to care. Amelia said a healing spell over my leg. Healing wasn't her strongest suit, she told me modestly, but the spell helped a bit. My leg did stop throbbing.



"Aren't you worried?" Amelia asked. "This is from a Were. What if you caught it?"



"It's harder to catch than almost any communicable disease," I said, since I'd asked almost every werecreature I'd met about the chances of their condition being transmitted by bite. After all, they have doctors, too. And researchers. "Most people have to be bitten several times, all over their body, to get it, and even then it's not for sure." It's not like the flu or the common cold. Plus, if you cleaned the wound soon afterward, your chances dropped considerably even from that. I'd poured a bottle of water over my leg before I'd gotten in the car. "So I'm not worried, but I am sore, and I think I might have a scar."



"Eric won't be happy," Pam said with an anticipatory smile. "You endangered yourself because of the Weres. You know he holds them in low esteem."



"Yeah, yeah, yeah," I said, not caring one little bit. "He can go fly a kite."



Pam brightened. "I'll tell him that," she said.



"Why do you like to tease him so much?" I asked, realizing I was almost sluggish with weariness.



"I've never had this much ammunition to tease him with," she answered, and then she and Amelia were out of my room, and I was blessedly alone and in my own bed and alive, and then I was asleep.



The shower I took the next morning was a sublime experience. In the list of Great Showers I've Had, this one ranked at least number 4. (The best shower was the one I'd shared with Eric, and I couldn't even think of that one without shivering all over.) I scoured myself clean. My leg looked good, and though I was even more sore from pulling muscles I didn't use too much, I felt a disaster had been averted and that evil had been vanquished, at least in a gray sort of way.



As I stood under the pounding hot water, rinsing my hair, I thought about Priscilla Hebert. In my brief glimpse into her world, she'd been at least trying to find a place for her disenfranchised pack, and she'd done the research to find a weak area where she could establish a foothold. Maybe if she'd come to Patrick Furnan as a supplicant, he would have been glad to give a home to her pack. But he would never have surrendered leadership. He'd killed Jackson Herveaux to attain it, so he sure wouldn't have agreed to any kind of co-op arrangement with Priscilla - even if wolf society would permit that, which was doubtful, especially given her status as a rare female packleader.



Well, she wasn't one anymore.



Theoretically, I admired her attempt to reestablish her wolves in a new home. Since I'd met Priscilla in the flesh, I could only be glad she hadn't succeeded.



Clean and refreshed, I dried my hair and put on my makeup. I was working the day shift, so I had to be at Merlotte's at eleven. I pulled on the usual uniform of black pants and white shirt, decided to leave my hair loose for once, and tied my black Reeboks.



I decided I felt pretty good, all things considered.



A lot of people were dead, and a lot of grief was hanging around the events of last night, but at least the encroaching pack had been defeated and now the Shreveport area should be peaceful for a while. The war was over in a very short time. And the Weres hadn't been exposed to the rest of the world, though that was a step they'd have to take soon. The longer the vampires were public, the more likely it became that someone would out the Weres.



I added that fact to the giant box full of things that were not my problem.



The scrape on my leg, whether due to its nature or because of Amelia's ministrations, was already scabbed over. There were bruises on my arms and legs, but my uniform covered them. It was feasible to wear long sleeves today, because it was actually cool. In fact, a jacket would have been nice, and I regretted not having thrown one on as I drove to work. Amelia hadn't been stirring when I left, and I had no idea if Pam was in my secret vampire hidey-hole in the spare bedroom. Hey, not my concern!



As I drove, I was adding to the list of things I shouldn't have to worry about or consider. But I came to a dead halt when I got to work. When I saw my boss, a lot of thoughts came crowding in that I hadn't anticipated. Not that Sam looked beaten up or anything. He looked pretty much as usual when I stopped in his office to drop my purse in its usual drawer. In fact, the brawl seemed to have invigorated him. Maybe it had felt good to change into something more aggressive than a collie. Maybe he'd enjoyed kicking some werewolf butt. Ripping open some werewolf stomachs... breaking some werewolf spines.



Okay, well - whose life had been saved by the aforesaid ripping and breaking? My thoughts cleared up in a hurry. Impulsively, I bent to give him a kiss on the cheek. I smelled the smell that was Sam: aftershave, the woods, something wild yet familiar.



"How are you feeling?" he asked, as if I always kissed him hello.



"Better than I thought I would," I said. "You?"



"A little achy, but I'll do."



Holly stuck her head in. "Hey, Sookie, Sam." She came in to deposit her own purse.



"Holly, I hear you and Hoyt are an item," I said, and I hoped I looked smiling and pleased.



"Yeah, we're hitting it off okay," she said, trying for nonchalance. "He's really good with Cody, and his family's real nice." Despite her aggressively dyed spiky black hair and her heavy makeup, there was something wistful and vulnerable about Holly's face.



It was easy for me to say, "I hope it works out." Holly looked very pleased. She knew as well as I did that if she married Hoyt she'd be for all intents and purposes my sister-in-law, since the bond between Jason and Hoyt was so strong.



Then Sam began telling us about a problem he was having with one of his beer distributors, and Holly and I tied on our aprons, and our working day began. I stuck my head through the hatch to wave at the kitchen staff. The current cook at Merlotte's was an ex-army guy named Carson. Short-order cooks come and go. Carson was one of the better ones. He'd mastered burgers Lafayette right away (hamburgers steeped in a former cook's special sauce), and he got the chicken strips and fries done exactly right, and he didn't have tantrums or try to stab the busboy. He showed up on time and left the kitchen clean at the end of his shift, and that was such a huge thing Sam would have forgiven Carson a lot of weirdness.



We were light on customers, so Holly and I were getting the drinks and Sam was on the phone in his office when Tanya Grissom came in the front door. The short, curvy woman looked as pretty and healthy as a milkmaid. Tanya went light on the makeup and heavy on the self-assurance.



"Where's Sam?" she asked. Her little mouth curved up in a smile. I smiled back just as insincerely. Bitch.



"Office," I said, as if I always knew exactly where Sam was.



"That woman there," Holly said, pausing on her way to the serving hatch. "That gal is a deep well."



"Why do you say that?"



"She's living out at Hotshot, rooming with some of the women out there," Holly said. Of all the regular citizens of Bon Temps, Holly was one of the few who knew that there were such creatures as Weres and shifters. I didn't know if she'd discovered that the residents of Hotshot were werepanthers, but she knew they were inbred and strange, because that was a byword in Renard Parish. And she considered Tanya (a werefox) guilty by association, or at least suspicious by association.



I had a stab of genuine anxiety. I thought, Tanya and Sam could change together. Sam would enjoy that. He could even change into a fox himself, if he wanted to.



It was a huge effort to smile at my customers after I'd had that idea. I was ashamed when I realized I should be happy to see someone interested in Sam, someone who could appreciate his true nature. It didn't say much for me that I wasn't happy at all. But she wasn't good enough for him, and I'd warned him about her.



Tanya returned from the hallway leading to Sam's office and went out the front door, not looking as confident as she'd gone in. I smiled at her back. Ha! Sam came out to pull beers. He didn't seem nearly as cheerful.



That wiped the smile off my face. While I served Sheriff Bud Dearborn and Alcee Beck their lunch (Alcee glowering at me all the while), I worried about that. I decided to take a peek in Sam's head, because I was getting better at aiming my talent in certain ways. It was also easier to block it off and keep it out of my everyday activities now that I'd bonded with Eric, though I hated to admit that. It's not nice to flit around in someone else's thoughts, but I've always been able to do it, and it was just second nature.



I know that's a lame excuse. But I was used to knowing, not to wondering. Shifters are harder to read than regular people, and Sam was hard even for a shifter, but I got that he was frustrated, uncertain, and thoughtful.



Then I was horrified at my own audacity and lack of manners. Sam had risked his life for me the night before. He had saved my life. And here I was, rummaging around in his head like a kid in a box full of toys. Shame made my cheeks flush, and I lost the thread of what the gal at my table was saying until she asked me gently if I felt all right. I snapped out of it and focused and took her order for chili and crackers and a glass of sweet tea. Her friend, a woman in her fifties, asked for a hamburger Lafayette and a side salad. I got her choice of dressing and beer, and shot off to the hatch to turn in the order. I nodded at the tap when I stood by Sam, and he handed me the beer a second later. I was too rattled to talk to him. He shot me a curious glance.



I was glad to leave the bar when my shift was up. Holly and I turned over to Arlene and Danielle, and grabbed our purses. We emerged into near-darkness. The security lights were already on. It was going to rain later, and clouds obscured the stars. We could hear Carrie Underwood singing on the jukebox, faintly. She wanted Jesus to take the wheel. That seemed like a real good idea.



We stood by our cars for a moment in the parking lot. The wind was blowing, and it was downright chilly.



"I know Jason is Hoyt's best friend," Holly said. Her voice sounded uncertain, and though her face was hard to decipher, I knew she wasn't sure I'd want to hear what she was going to say. "I've always liked Hoyt. He was a good guy in high school. I guess - I hope you don't really get mad at me - I guess what stopped me from dating him earlier was his being so tight with Jason."



I didn't know how to respond. "You don't like Jason," I said finally.



"Oh, sure, I like Jason. Who doesn't? But is he good for Hoyt? Can Hoyt be happy if that cord between them is weaker? 'Cause I can't think about getting closer to Hoyt unless I believe he can stick with me the way he's always stuck with Jason. You can see what I mean."



"Yes," I said. "I love my brother. But I know Jason isn't really in the habit of thinking about the welfare of other people." And that was putting it mildly.



Holly said, "I like you. I don't want to hurt your feelings. But I figured you'd know, anyway."



"Yeah, I kinda did," I said. "I like you, too, Holly. You're a good mother. You've worked hard to take care of your kid. You're on good terms with your ex. But what about Danielle? I would've said you were as tight with her as Hoyt is with Jason." Danielle was another divorced mother, and she and Holly had been thick as thieves since they were in first grade. Danielle had more of a support system than Holly. Danielle's mother and father were still hale and were very glad to help out with her two kids. Danielle had been going with a guy for some time now, too.



"I would never have said anything could come between Danielle and me, Sookie." Holly pulled on her Windbreaker and fished for her keys in the depths of her purse. "But her and me, we've parted ways a little bit. We still see each other for lunch sometimes, and our kids still play together." Holly sighed heavily. "I don't know. When I got interested in something other than the world here in Bon Temps, the world we grew up in, Danielle started thinking there was something a little wrong with that, with my curiosity. When I decided to become a Wiccan, she hated that, still does hate it. If she knew about the Weres, if she knew what had happened to me..." A shapeshifting witch had tried to force Eric to give her a piece of his financial enterprises. She'd forced all the local witches she could round up into helping her, including an unwilling Holly. "That whole thing changed me," Holly said now.



"It does, doesn't it? Dealing with the supes."



"Yeah. But they're part of our world. Someday everyone will know that. Someday... the whole world will be different."



I blinked. This was unexpected. "What do you mean?"



"When they all come out," Holly said, surprised at my lack of insight. "When they all come out and admit their existence. Everyone, everyone in the world, will have to adjust. But some people won't want to. Maybe there'll be a backlash. Wars maybe. Maybe the Weres will fight all the other shifters, or maybe the humans will attack the Weres and the vampires. Or the vampires - you know they don't like the wolves worth a durn - they'll wait until some fine night, and then they'll kill them all and get the humans to say thank you."



She had a touch of the poet in her, did Holly. And she was quite a visionary, in a doom-ridden way. I'd had no idea Holly was that deep, and I was again ashamed of myself. Mind readers shouldn't be taken by surprise like that. I'd tried so hard to stay out of people's minds that I was missing important cues.



"All of that, or none of that," I said. "Maybe people will just accept it. Not in every country. I mean, when you think of what happened to the vampires in eastern Europe and some of South America..."



"The pope never sorted that one out," Holly commented.



I nodded. "Kind of hard to know what to say, I guess." Most churches had had (excuse me) a hell of a time deciding on a scriptural and theological policy toward the undead. The Were announcement would sure add another wrinkle to that. They were definitely alive, no doubt about it... But they had almost too much life, as opposed to already having died once.



I shifted my feet. I hadn't intended on standing out here and solving the world's problems and speculating on the future. I was still tired from the night before. "I'll see you, Holly. Maybe you and me and Amelia can go to the movies in Clarice some night?"



"Sure," she said, a little surprised. "That Amelia, she doesn't think much of my craft, but at least we can talk the talk a little."



Too late, I had a conviction the threesome wouldn't work out, but what the hell. We could give it a try.



I drove home wondering if anyone would be there waiting for me. The answer came when I parked beside Pam's car at the back door. Pam drove a conservative car, of course, a Toyota with a Fangtasia bumper sticker. I was only surprised it wasn't a minivan.



Pam and Amelia were watching a DVD in the living room. They were sitting on the couch but not exactly twined around each other. Bob was curled up in my recliner. There was a bowl of popcorn on Amelia's lap and a bottle of TrueBlood in Pam's hand. I stepped around so I could see what they were watching. Underworld. Hmmm.



"Kate Beckinsale is hot," Amelia said. "Hey, how was work?"



"Okay," I said. "Pam, how come you have two evenings off in a row?"



"I deserve it," Pam said. "I haven't had time off in two years. Eric agreed I was due. How do you think I would look in that black outfit?"



"Oh, as good as Beckinsale," Amelia said, and turned her head to smile at Pam. They were at the ooey-gooey stage. Considering my own complete lack of ooey, I didn't want to be around.



"Did Eric find out any more about that Jonathan guy?" I asked.



"I don't know. Why don't you call him yourself?" Pam said with a complete lack of concern.



"Right, you're off duty," I muttered, and stomped back to my room, grumpy and a little ashamed of myself. I punched in the number for Fangtasia without even having to look it up. So not good. And it was on speed dial on my cell phone. Geez. Not something I wanted to ponder just at the moment.



The phone rang, and I put my dreary musing aside. You had to be on your game when you talked to Eric.



"Fangtasia, the bar with a bite. This is Lizbet." One of the fangbangers. I scrounged around my mental closet, trying to put a face with the name. Okay - tall, very round and proud of it, moon face, gorgeous brown hair.



"Lizbet, this is Sookie Stackhouse," I said.



"Oh, hi," she said, sounding startled and impressed.



"Um... hi. Listen, could I speak to Eric, please?"



"I'll see if the master is available," Lizbet breathed, trying to sound reverent and all mysterious.



"Master," my ass.



The fangbangers were men and women who loved vampires so much they wanted to be around them every minute the vampires were awake. Jobs at places like Fangtasia were bread and butter to these people, and the opportunity to get bitten was regarded as close to sacred. The fangbanger code required them to be honored if some bloodsucker wanted to sample them; and if they died of it, well, that was just about an honor, too. Behind all the pathos and tangled sexuality of the typical fangbanger was the underlying hope that some vampire would think the fangbanger was "worthy" of being turned into a vampire. Like you had to pass a character test.



"Thanks, Lizbet," I said.



Lizbet set the phone down with a thud and went off looking for Eric. I couldn't have made her happier.



"Yes," said Eric after about five minutes.



"Busy, were you?"



"Ah... having supper."



I wrinkled my nose. "Well, hope you had enough," I said with a total lack of sincerity. "Listen, did you find out anything about that Jonathan?"



"Have you seen him again?" Eric asked sharply.



"Ah, no. I was just wondering."



"If you see him, I need to know immediately."



"Okay, got that. What have you learned?"



"He's been seen other places," Eric said. "He even came here one night when I was away. Pam's at your house, right?"



I had a sinking feeling in my gut. Maybe Pam wasn't sleeping with Amelia out of sheer attraction. Maybe she'd combined business with a great cover story, and she was staying with Amelia to keep an eye on me. Damn vampires, I thought angrily, because that scenario was entirely too close to an incident in my recent past that had hurt me incredibly.



I wasn't going to ask. Knowing would be worse than suspecting.



"Yes," I said between stiff lips. "She's here."



"Good," Eric said with some satisfaction. "If he appears again, I know she can take care of it. Not that that's why she's there," he added unconvincingly. The obvious afterthought was Eric's attempt at pacifying what he could tell were my upset feelings; it sure didn't arise from any feeling of guilt.



I scowled at my closet door. "Are you gonna give me any real information on why you're so jumpy about this guy?"



"You haven't seen the queen since Rhodes," Eric said.



This was not going to be a good conversation. "No," I said. "What's the deal with her legs?"



"They're growing back," Eric said after a brief hesitation.



I wondered if the feet were growing right out of her stumps, or if the legs would grow out and then the feet would appear at the end of the process. "That's good, right?" I said. Having legs had to be a good thing.



"It hurts very much," Eric said, "when you lose parts and they grow back. It'll take a while. She's very... She's incapacitated." He said the last word very slowly, as if it was a word he knew but had never said aloud.



I thought about what he was telling me, both on the surface and beneath. Conversations with Eric were seldom single-layered.



"She's not well enough to be in charge," I said in conclusion. "Then who is?"



"The sheriffs have been running things," Eric said. "Gervaise perished in the bombing, of course; that leaves me, Cleo, and Arla Yvonne. It would have been clearer if Andre had survived." I felt a twinge of panic and guilt. I could have saved Andre. I'd feared and loathed him, and I hadn't. I'd let him be killed.



Eric was silent for a minute, and I wondered if he was picking up on the fear and guilt. It would be very bad if he ever learned that Quinn had killed Andre for my sake. Eric continued, "Andre could have held the center because he was so established as the queen's right hand. If one of her minions had to die, I wish I could have picked Sigebert, who's all muscles and no brains. At least Sigebert's there to guard her body, though Andre could have done that and guarded her territory as well."



I'd never heard Eric so chatty about vampire affairs. I was beginning to have an awful creeping feeling that I knew where he was headed.



"You expect some kind of takeover," I said, and felt my heart plummet. Not again. "You think Jonathan was a scout."



"Watch out, or I'll begin to think you can read my mind." Though Eric's tone was light as a marshmallow, his meaning was a sharp blade hidden inside.



"That's impossible," I said, and if he thought I was lying, he didn't challenge me. Eric seemed to be regretting telling me so much. The rest of our talk was very brief. He told me again to call him at the first sight of Jonathan, and I assured him I'd be glad to.



After I'd hung up, I didn't feel quite as sleepy. In honor of the chilly night I pulled on my fleecy pajama bottoms, white with pink sheep, and a white T-shirt. I unearthed my map of Louisiana and found a pencil. I sketched in the areas I knew. I was piecing my knowledge together from bits of conversations that had taken place in my presence. Eric had Area Five. The queen had had Area One, which was New Orleans and vicinity. That made sense. But in between, there was a jumble. The finally deceased Gervaise had had the area including Baton Rouge, and that was where the queen had been living since Katrina damaged her New Orleans properties so heavily. So that should have been Area Two, due to its prominence. But it was called Area Four. Very lightly, I traced a line that I could erase, and would, after I'd looked at it for a bit.



I mined my head for other bits of information. Five, at the top of the state, stretched nearly all the way across. Eric was richer and more powerful than I'd thought. Below him, and fairly even in territory, were Cleo Babbitt's Area Three and Arla Yvonne's Area Two. A swoop down to the Gulf from the south-westernmost corner of Mississippi marked off the large areas formerly held by Gervaise and the queen, Four and One respectively. I could only imagine what vampiric political contortions had led to the numbering and arrangement.



I looked at the map for a few long minutes before I erased all the light lines I'd drawn. I glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since my conversation with Eric. In a melancholy mood, I brushed my teeth and washed my face. After I climbed into bed and said my prayers, I lay there awake for quite a while. I was pondering the undeniable truth that the most powerful vampire in the state of Louisiana, at this very point in time, was Eric Northman, my blood-bonded, once-upon-a-time lover. Eric had said in my hearing that he didn't want to be king, didn't want to take over new territory; and since I'd figured out the extent of his territory right now, the size of it made that assertion a little more likely.



I believed I knew Eric a little, maybe as much as a human can know a vampire, which doesn't mean my knowledge was profound. I didn't believe he wanted to take over the state, or he would have done so. I did think his power meant there was a giant target pinned to his back. I needed to try to sleep. I glanced at the clock again. An hour and a half since I'd talked to Eric.



Bill glided into my room quite silently.



"What's up?" I asked, trying to keep my voice very quiet, very calm, though every nerve in my body had started shrieking.



"I'm uneasy," he said in his cool voice, and I almost laughed. "Pam had to leave for Fangtasia. She called me to take her place here."



"Why?"



He sat in the chair in the corner. It was pretty dark in my room, but the curtains weren't drawn completely shut and I got some illumination from the yard's security light. There was a night-light in the bathroom, too, and I could make out the contours of his body and the blur of his face. Bill had a little glow, like all vampires do in my eyes.



"Pam couldn't get Cleo on the phone," he said. "Eric left the club to run an errand, and Pam couldn't raise him, either. But I got his voice mail; I'm sure he'll call back. It's Cleo not answering that's the rub."



"Pam and Cleo are friends?"



"No, not at all," he said, matter-of-factly. "But Pam should be able to talk to her at her all-night grocery. Cleo always answers."



"Why was Pam trying to reach her?" I asked.



"They call each other every night," Bill said. "Then Cleo calls Arla Yvonne. They have a chain. It should not be broken, not in these days." Bill stood up with a speed that I couldn't follow. "Listen!" he whispered, his voice as light on my ear as a moth wing. "Do you hear?"



I didn't hear jack shit. I held still under the covers, wishing passionately that this whole thing would just go away. Weres, vampires, trouble, strife... But no such luck. "What do you hear?" I asked, trying to be as quiet as Bill was being, an effort doomed in the attempt.



"Someone's coming," he said.



And then I heard a knock on the front door. It was a very quiet knock.



I threw back the covers and got up. I couldn't find my slippers because I was so rattled. I started for the bedroom door on my bare feet. The night was chilly, and I hadn't turned on the heat yet; my soles pressed coldly against the polished wood of the floor.



"I'll answer the door," Bill said, and he was ahead of me without my having seen him move.



"Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea," I muttered, and followed him. I wondered where Amelia was: asleep upstairs or on the living room couch? I hoped she was only asleep. I was so spooked by that time that I imagined she might be dead.



Bill glided silently through the dark house, down the hall, to the living room (which still smelled like popcorn), to the front door, and then he looked through the peephole, which for some reason I found funny. I had to slap a hand over my mouth to keep from giggling.



No one shot Bill through the peephole. No one tried to batter the door down. No one screamed.



The continuing silence was breaking me out in goose bumps. I didn't even see Bill move. His cool voice came from right beside my ear. "It is a very young woman. Her hair is dyed white or blond, and it's very short and dark at the roots. She's skinny. She's human. She's scared."



She wasn't the only one.



I tried like hell to think who my middle-of-the-night caller could be. Suddenly I thought I might know. "Frannie," I breathed. "Quinn's sister. Maybe."



"Let me in," a girl's voice said. "Oh, please let me in."



It was just like a ghost story I'd read once. Every hair on my arms stood up.



"I have to tell you what's happened to Quinn," Frannie said, and that decided me on the spot.



"Open the door," I said to Bill in my normal voice. "We have to let her in."



"She's human," Bill said, as if to say, "How much trouble can she be?" He unlocked the front door.



I won't say Frannie tumbled in, but she sure didn't waste any time getting through the door and slamming it behind her. I hadn't had a good first impression of Frannie, who was long on the aggression and attitude and short on the charm, but I'd come to know her a fraction better as she sat at Quinn's bedside in the hospital after the explosion. She'd had a hard life, and she loved her brother.



"What's happened?" I asked sharply as Frannie stumbled to the nearest chair and sat down.



"You would have a vampire here," she said. "Can I have a glass of water? Then I'll try to do what Quinn wants."



I hurried to the kitchen and got her a drink. I turned on the light in the kitchen, but even when I came back to the living room, we kept it dark.



"Where's your car?" Bill asked.



"It broke down about a mile back," she said. "But I couldn't wait with it. I called a tow truck and left the keys in the ignition. I hope to God they get it off the road and out of sight."



"Tell me right now what's happening," I said.



"Short or long version?"



"Short."



"Some vampires from Vegas are coming to take over Louisiana."



It was a showstopper.