Dead and Gone

I had vampire protection, of a sort, waiting for me after work. Bubba was standing by my car when I left Merlotte's. He grinned when he saw me, and I was glad to give him a hug. Most people wouldn't have been pleased to see a mentally defective vampire with a penchant for cat blood, but I'd become fond of Bubba.

"When did you get back in town?" I asked. Bubba had gotten caught in New Orleans during Katrina, and he'd required a long recovery. The vampires were willing to accommodate him, because he had been one of the most famous people in the world until he'd been brought over in a morgue in Memphis.

"'Bout a week ago. Good to see you, Miss Sookie." Bubba's fangs slid out to show me how glad. Just as quickly, they snicked back into concealment. Bubba still had talent. "I've been traveling. I've been staying with friends. But I was in Fangtasia tonight visiting Mr. Eric, and he asked if I'd like the job of keeping watch over you. I told him, 'Miss Sookie and me, we're real good friends, and that would suit me just fine.' Have you gotten another cat?"

"No, Bubba, I haven't." Thank God.

"Well, I got me some blood in a cooler in the back of my car." He nodded toward a huge old white Cadillac that had been restored with time and trouble and lots of cash.

"Oh, the car's beautiful," I said. I almost added, "Did you own it while you were alive?" But Bubba didn't like references to his former state of existence; they made him upset and confused. (If you put it very carefully, from time to time he'd sing for you. I'd heard him do "Blue Christmas." Unforgettable.)

"Russell give that to me," he said.

"Oh, Russell Edgington? The King of Mississippi?"

"Yeah, wasn't that nice? He said since he was king of my home state, he felt like giving me something special."

"How's he doing?" Russell and his new husband, Bart, had both survived the Rhodes hotel bombing.

"He's feeling real good now. He and Mr. Bart are both healed up."

"I'm so glad to hear it. So, are you supposed to follow me home?"

"Yes'm, that's the plan. If you'll leave your back door unlocked, close to morning I'll get into that hidey-hole in your guest bedroom; that's what Mr. Eric said."

Then it was doubly good that Octavia had moved out. I didn't know how she would have reacted if I'd told her that the Man from Memphis needed to sleep in her closet all day long.

When I got home, Bubba pulled in right behind me in his amazing car. I saw that Dawson's truck was there, too. I wasn't surprised. Dawson worked as a bodyguard from time to time, and he was in the area. Since Alcide had decided he wanted to help, Tray Dawson was an obvious choice, regardless of his relationship with Amelia.

Tray himself was sitting at my kitchen table when Bubba and I came in. For the first time since I'd known him, the big man looked seriously startled. But he was smart enough not to blurt anything out.

"Tray, this is my friend Bubba," I said. "Where's Amelia?"

"She's upstairs. I got some business to talk with you."

"I figured. Bubba's here for the same reason. Bubba, this is Tray Dawson."

"Hey, Tray!" Bubba shook hands, laughing because he'd made a rhyme. He hadn't translated real well. The spark of life had been so faint by the time a morgue attendant of the fanged persuasion had gotten hold of him, and the drugs in his system so pervasive, that Bubba had been lucky to survive the bringing over as well as he had, which wasn't too well.

"Hey," Tray said cautiously. "How are you doing ... Bubba?"

I was relieved Tray'd picked up on the name.

"I'm real good, thank you. Got me some blood in the cooler out there, and Miss Sookie keeps some TrueBlood in the refrigerator, or at least she used to."

"Yes, I have some," I said. "You want to sit down, Bubba?"

"No, ma'am. I think I'll just grab me a bottle and settle down out in the woods. Bill still live across the cemetery?"

"Yes, he does."

"Always good to have friends close."

I wasn't sure I could call Bill my friend; our history was too complicated for that. But I was absolutely sure that he'd help me if I was in danger. "Yes," I said, "that's always good."

Bubba rummaged around in the refrigerator and came out with a couple of bottles. He raised them to me and Tray, and took his leave smiling.

"Good God Almighty," Tray said. "That who I think it is?"

I nodded and took a seat opposite him.

"Explains all the sightings," he said. "Well, listen, you got him out there and me in here. That okay with you?"

"Yes. I guess you've talked to Alcide?"

"Yeah. I'm not trying to get in your business, but it would have been better to hear all this from you directly. Especially since you talked to Amelia about this guy Drake, and Amelia's all upset because apparently she's been blabbing to the enemy. If we'd known about your troubles, she would have kept her mouth shut. I would have killed him when he first introduced himself. Saved all of us a lot of trouble. You think about that?"

Bluntness was the way to go with Tray. "I think you are kind of getting in my business, Tray. When you're here as my friend and Amelia's boyfriend, I tell you what I think I can without endangering you or Amelia. It never occurred to me that Niall's enemies would think of getting information through my roommate. And it was news to me that you couldn't tell a fairy from a human." Tray winced. "You may not want to be responsible for guarding me, with the personal complication of having your girlfriend under the same roof as the woman you're supposed to protect. Is this too big a conflict of interest for you?"

Tray regarded me steadily. "No, I want the job," he said, and even though he was a Were, I could tell that his real goal was keeping Amelia safe. Since she lived with me, he could kill two birds with one stone by getting paid for protecting me. "For one thing, I owe that Drake payback. I never knew he was a fairy, and I don't know how he managed that. I got a good nose."

Tray's pride had been bruised. I could understand that. "Drake's dad can mask his smell, even from vampires. Maybe Drake can, too. Also, he's not completely fae. He's half-human, and his real name is Dermot."

Tray absorbed this, nodded. I could tell he felt a little better. I was trying to figure out if I did.

I had misgivings about the arrangement. I thought of calling Alcide and explaining why Tray might be a less than perfect bodyguard, but I decided against it. Tray Dawson was a great fighter and would do his best for me ... up to the point where he had to make a choice between Amelia and me.

"So?" he said, and I realized I'd been quiet for too long.

"The vampire can take the nights and you can take the days," I said. "I should be okay while I'm at the bar." I pushed back my chair and left the kitchen without saying anything else. I had to admit that instead of feeling relieved, I was even more worried. I'd thought I'd been so clever asking for an extra layer of protection; instead, now I was going to worry about the safety of the men providing that layer.

I got ready for bed slowly, finally admitting to myself that I was hoping Eric would put in an appearance. I'd love to have his brand of relaxation therapy to help me sleep. I expected to lie awake anticipating the next attack. As it turned out, I was so tired from the night before that I drifted off to sleep very quickly.

Instead of my usual boring dreams (customers calling me constantly while I hurried to catch up, mold growing in my bathroom), that night I dreamed of Eric. In my dream, he was human and we walked together under the sun. Oddly enough, he sold real estate.

When I looked at the clock the next morning, it was very early, at least for me: not quite eight o'clock. I woke up with a feeling of alarm. I wondered if I'd had another dream, one I didn't remember. I wondered if my telepathic sense had caught something even while I slept, something wrong, something askew.

I took a moment to scan my own house, not my favorite way to start the day. Amelia was gone, but Tray was here and in trouble.

I put on a bathrobe and slippers and stepped out into the hall. The moment I opened my door, I could hear him being sick in the hall bathroom.

There are some moments that should be completely private, and the moments when you're throwing up are at the top of that list. But werewolves are normally completely healthy, and this was the guy who'd been sent to guard me, and he was obviously (excuse me) sick as a dog.

I waited until a lull in the sound. I called, "Tray, is there anything I can do for you?"

"I've been poisoned," he said, choking and gagging.

"Should I call the doctor? A human one? Or Dr. Ludwig?"

"No." That sounded definite enough. "I'm trying to get rid of it," he gasped, after another bout of retching. "But it's too late."

"You know who gave it to you?"

"Yeah. That new girlfriend ..." He faded out for a few seconds. "Out in the woods. Vampire Bill's new fuck."

I had an instinctive reaction. "He wasn't with her, right?" I called.

"No, she - " More awful noises. "She came from the direction of his house, said she was his ..."

I knew, without a doubt, that Bill didn't have a new girlfriend. Though it embarrassed me to admit it to myself, I was so sure because I knew he wanted me back. I knew he wouldn't jeopardize that by taking someone else to his bed or by permitting such a woman to roam in the woods where I might encounter her.

"What was she?" I said, resting my forehead against the cool wood of the door. I was getting tired of yelling.

"She was some fangbanger." I felt Tray's brain shift around through the fog of sickness. "At least, she felt like a human."

"The same way Dermot felt human. And you drank something she handed you." It was kind of mean of me to sound incredulous, but honestly!

"I couldn't help it," he said very slowly. "I was so thirsty. I had to drink it."

He'd been under some kind of compulsion spell. "And what was it? The stuff you drank?"

"It tasted like wine." He groaned. "Goddammit, it must have been vampire blood! I can taste it in my mouth now!"

Vampire blood was still the hot drug on the underground marketplace, and human reactions to it varied so widely that drinking the blood was very much like playing Russian roulette, in more ways than one. Vampires hated the Drainers who collected the blood because the Drainers often left the vampire exposed to the day. So vampires also loathed the users of the blood, since they created the market. Some users became addicted to the ecstatic sensation that the blood could offer, and those users sometimes tried to take the blood right from the source in a kind of suicide attack. But every now and then, the user went berserk and killed other humans. Either way, it was all bad press for the vamps who were trying to mainstream.

"Why would you do that?" I asked, unable to keep the anger out of my voice.

"I couldn't help it," he said, and the bathroom door finally opened. I took a couple of steps back. Tray looked bad and smelled worse. He was wearing pajama pants and nothing else, and a vast expanse of chest hair was right at my eye level. It was covered in goose pimples.

"How come?"

"I couldn't ... not drink it." He shook his head. "And then I came back here and got in bed with Amelia, and I tossed and turned all night. I was up when the K - when Bubba came in and went to bed in your closet. He said something about a woman talking to him, but I was feeling really bad by then, and I don't remember what he said. Did Bill send her over here? Does he hate you that bad?"

I looked up then and met his eyes. "Bill Compton loves me," I said. "He would never hurt me."

"Even now that you're screwing the big blond?"

Amelia couldn't keep her mouth shut.

"Even now that I'm screwing the big blond," I said.

"You can't read vampire minds, Amelia says."

"No, I can't. But some things you just know."

"Right." Though Tray didn't have enough energy to look skeptical, he gave it a good shot. "I have to go to bed, Sookie. I can't take care of you today."

I could see that. "Why don't you go back to your own house and try to get some rest in your own bed?" I said. "I'm going to work today, and I'll be around someone."

"No, you gotta be covered."

"I'll call my brother," I said, surprising even myself. "He's not going to work now, and he's a panther. He should be able to watch my back."

"Okay." It was a measure of Tray's wretchedness that he didn't argue, though he wasn't a Jason fan by any means. "Amelia knows I'm not feeling good. If you talk to her before I do, tell her I'll call her tonight."

The werewolf staggered out to his truck. I hoped he was good to drive home, and I called after him to make sure, but he just waved a hand at me and drove down the driveway.

Feeling oddly numb, I watched him go. I'd done the prudent thing for once; I'd called in my markers and gotten protection. And it hadn't done me a bit of good. Someone who couldn't attack me in my home - because of Amelia's good magic, I had to assume - had arranged to attack me in other ways. Murry had turned up outside, and now some fairy had met up with Tray in the woods, compelling him to drink vampire blood. It might have sent him mad; he might have killed all of us. I guess, for the fairies, it was a win-win situation. Though he hadn't gone crazy and killed me or Amelia, he'd gotten so sick that he was effectively out of the bodyguard business for a while.

I walked down the hall to go into my room and pull on some clothes. Today was going to be a hard day, and I always felt better when I was dressed while handling a crisis. Something about putting on my underwear makes me feel more capable.

I got my second shock of the day when I was about to turn into my room. There was a movement in the living room. I stopped dead and took a huge, ragged breath. My great-grandfather was sitting on the couch, but it took me an awful moment to recognize Niall. He got up, regarding me with some astonishment while I stood gasping, my hand over my heart.

"You look rough today," he said.

"Yeah, well, not expecting visitors," I said breathlessly. He wasn't looking so great himself, which was a first. His clothes were stained and torn, and unless I was much mistaken, he was sweating. My fairy prince great-grandfather was actually less than gorgeous for the very first time.

I moved into the living room and looked at him more closely. Though it was early, I had my second stab of anxiety for the day. "What's up?" I asked. "You look like you've been fighting."

He hesitated for a long moment, as if he was trying to pick among several items of news. "Breandan has retaliated for the death of Murry," Niall said.

"What has he done?" I scrubbed my dry hands across my face.

"He caught Enda last night, and now she is dead," he said. I could tell from his voice that her death had not been a quick one. "You didn't meet her; she was very shy of humans." He pushed back a long strand of his pale hair so blond it looked white.

"Breanden killed a fairy woman? There aren't that many fairy women, right? So doing that ... isn't that extra awful?"

"It was intended to be," Niall said. His voice was bleak.

For the first time, I noticed that my great-grandfather's slacks were soaked with blood around the knees, which was probably why he hadn't come closer to hug me.

"You need to get out of those clothes," I said. "Please, Niall, go climb in the shower, and I'll put your stuff in the washing machine."

"I have to go," he said, and I could tell my words hadn't registered. "I came here to warn you in person, so you would take the situation very seriously. Powerful magic surrounds this house. I could appear here only because I'd been in here before. Is it true that the vampires and the Weres are looking out for you? You have extra protection; I can feel it."

"I have a bodyguard night and day," I lied, because he didn't need to be worrying about me. He was hip-deep in alligators himself. "And you know that Amelia is a strong witch. Don't worry about me."

He stared at me, but I didn't think he was seeing me at all. "I have to go," he said abruptly. "I wanted to be sure of your well-being."

"Okay ... thanks a lot." I was trying to think of an improvement on this limp response when Niall poofed right out of my living room.

I'd told Tray I was going to call Jason. I wasn't sure how sincere I'd been about that, but now I knew I had to. The way I saw it, Alcide's favor to me had expired; he'd asked Tray to help, and now Tray was out of commission in the course of duty. I sure wasn't going to request that Alcide himself come guard me, and I wasn't close to any of his pack members. I took a deep breath and called my brother.

"Jason," I said when he answered the phone.

"Sis. What's up?" He sounded oddly jazzed, as if he'd just experienced something exciting.

"Tray had to leave, and I think I need some protection today," I said. There was a long silence. He didn't rush into questioning me, which was strange. "I was hoping you could go around with me? What I plan on doing today," I began, and then tried to figure out what that was. It was hard to have a good crisis when real life kept asking to be lived. "Well, I need to go to the library. I need to pick up a pair of pants at the dry cleaners." I hadn't checked the label before that particular purchase. "I have to work the day shift at Merlotte's. I guess that's it."

"Okay," Jason said. "Though those errands don't sound exactly urgent." There was a long pause. Suddenly he said, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said cautiously. "Should I not be?"

"The weirdest thing happened this morning. Mel slept at my place last night, since he was the worse for wear after he met me at the Bayou. So early this morning, there was a knock at the door. I answered it, and this guy was there, and he was, I don't know, nuts or something. The strangest part was, this guy looked a lot like me."

"Oh, no." I sat on the stool abruptly.

"He wasn't right, sis," Jason said. "I don't know what was wrong with him, but he wasn't right. He just started talking when Mel answered the door, like we knew who he was. He was saying crazy stuff. Mel tried to get between him and me, and he threw Mel clear across the room and called him a killer. Mel might've broken his neck if he hadn't landed on the couch."

"Mel's okay, then."

"Yeah, he's okay. Pretty mad, but you know ..."

"Sure." Mel's feelings were not the most important issue here. "So what did he do next?"

"He said some shit about now that he was face-to-face with me he could see why my great-grandfather didn't want me around, and crossbreeds should all die, but I was clearly blood of his blood, and he'd decided I should know what's going on around me. He said I was ignorant. I didn't understand a lot of it, and I still don't get what he was. He wasn't a vamp, and I know he wasn't a shifter of any kind or I'd've smelled him."

"You're okay - that's the big thing, right?" Had I been wrong all along about keeping Jason out of the fairy loop?

"Yeah," he said, his voice abruptly going all cautious and wary. "You're not going to tell me what this is all about, are you?"

"Come over here, and we'll talk about it. Please, please, don't open the door unless you know who's there. This guy is bad, Jason, and he's not picky about who he hurts. I think you and Mel were real lucky."

"You got someone there with you?"

"Not since Tray left."

"I'm your brother. I'll come over if you need me," Jason said with unexpected dignity.

"I really appreciate that," I said.

I got two for the price of one. Mel came with Jason. This was awkward, because I had some family stuff to tell Jason, and I couldn't with Mel around. With unexpected tact, Mel told Jason that he had to run home and get an ice pack for his shoulder, which was badly bruised. While Mel was gone, I sat Jason down on the other side of the kitchen table, and I said, "I got some things to tell you."

"About Crystal?"

"No, I haven't heard anything about that yet. This is about us. This is about Gran. You're going to have a hard time believing this." I'd given him fair warning. I remembered how upset I'd been when my great-grandfather had told me about how my half-fairy grandfather, Fintan, had met my grandmother, and how she'd ended up having two children with him, our dad and our aunt Linda.

Now Fintan was dead - murdered - and our grandmother was dead, and our father and his sister were dead. But we were living, and just a small part fairy, and that made us a target for our great-grandfather's enemies.

"And one of those enemies," I said after I'd told him our family history, "is our half-human great-uncle, Fintan's brother, Dermot. He told Tray and Amelia that his name was Drake, I guess because it sounded more modern. Dermot looks like you, and he's the one who showed up at your house. I don't know what his deal is. He joined up with Breandan, Niall's big enemy, even though he's half-human himself and, therefore, exactly what Breandan hates. So when you said he was crazy, I guess there's your explanation. He seems to want to connect with you, but he hates you, too."

Jason sat staring at me. His face was completely vacant. His thoughts had gotten caught in a traffic jam. Finally he said, "You tell me he was trying to get Tray and Amelia to introduce you? And neither of them knew what he was?"

I nodded. There was some more silence.

"So why did he want to meet you? Did he want to kill you? Why'd he need to meet you first?"

Good question. "I don't know," I said. "Maybe he just wanted to see what I was like. Maybe he doesn't know what he really wants." I couldn't figure this out, and I wondered if Niall would come back to explain it to me. Probably not. He had a war on his hands, even if it was a war being fought mostly away from human view. "I don't get it," I said out loud. "Murry came right here to attack me, and he was all fairy. Why is Dermot, who's on the same side, being all ... indirect?"

"Murry?" Jason asked, and I closed my eyes. Shit.

"He was a fairy," I said. "He tried to kill me. He's not a problem now."

Jason gave me an approving nod. "You go, Sookie," he said. "Okay, let me see if I'm getting this straight. My great-grandfather didn't want to meet me because I look a lot like Dermot, who's my ... great-uncle, right?"

"Right."

"But Dermot apparently likes me a little better, because he actually came to my house and tried to talk to me."

Trust Jason to interpret the situation in those terms. "Right," I said.

Jason hopped to his feet and took a turn around the kitchen. "This is all the vampires' fault," he said. He glared at me.

"Why do you think so?" This was unexpected.

"If they hadn't come out, none of this would be happening. Look at what's happened since they went on TV. Look at how the world has changed. Nowwe're out. Next, the fucking fairies. And the fae are bad news, Sookie; Calvin warned me about 'em. You think they're all pretty and sweetness and light, but they're not. He's told me stories about them that would make your hair curl. Calvin's dad knew a fairy or two. From what he's said, it would be a good thing if they died out."

I couldn't decide if I was surprised or angry. "Why are you being so mean, Jason? I don't need you arguing with me or saying bad things about Niall. You don't know him. You don't ... Hey, you're part fairy, remember!" I had an awful feeling that some of what he'd said was absolutely true, but it sure wasn't the time to have this discussion.

Jason looked grim, every plane of his face tense. "I'm not claiming kin to any fairy," he said. "He don't want me; I don't want him. And if I see that crazy half-and-half again, I'll kill the son of a bitch."

I don't know what I would have said, but at that moment Mel came in without knocking, and we both turned to look at him.

"I'm sorry!" he said, obviously flustered and disturbed by Jason's anger. He seemed, for a second, to think Jason had been talking about him. When neither of us gave him a guilty reaction, he relaxed. "Excuse me, Sookie. I forgot my manners." He was carrying an ice bag in his hand, and he was moving a little slowly and painfully.

"I'm sorry you got hurt by Jason's surprise visitor," I said. You're always supposed to put your company at ease. I hadn't put a whole lot of thought into Mel, but right at that second I realized I would have been happier if Jason's former BFF, Hoyt, had been here instead of the werepanther. It wasn't that I disliked Mel, I thought. It was just that I didn't know him very well, and I didn't feel an automatic trust in him the way you feel about people from time to time. Mel was different. Even for a werepanther, he was hard to read, but that didn't mean he was impossible.

After offering Mel something to drink, which was only polite, I asked Jason if he was going to stay the day, run around on my errands with me. I had serious doubts he would say yes. Jason was feeling rejected (by a fairy great-grandfather he'd never met and didn't want to acknowledge), and that was a state of affairs Jason didn't handle well.

"I'll go around with you," he said, unsmiling and stiff. "First, let me run over to the house and check out my rifle. I'll need it, and it hasn't been sighted in a coon's age. Mel? You coming with me?" Jason simply wanted to be out of my presence to calm down. I could read it as easily as if he'd written it on the grocery list pad by the telephone.

Mel rose to go with Jason.

"Mel, what did you make of Jason's visitor this morning?" I asked.

"Aside from the fact that he could throw me across the room and looked enough like Jason to make me turn to make sure your brother was coming out of his bedroom? Not much," Mel said. Mel had managed to dress in his usual khakis and polo shirt, but the blue bruises on his arms kind of ruined his neat appearance. He shrugged on a jacket with great care.

"See you in a while, Sookie. Come around to get me," Jason said. Of course, he'd want to ride in my car and burn up my gas, since we were running my errands. "In the meantime, you got my cell number."

"Sure. I'll see you in an hour or so."

Since being alone hadn't been a normal state of affairs for me lately, I would have actually enjoyed the feeling of having the house to myself if I hadn't been worried that a supernatural killer was after me.

Nothing happened. I ate a bowl of cereal. Finally, I decided to risk taking a shower despite myPsycho memories. I made sure all the outside doors were locked, and I locked the bathroom door, too. I took the quickest shower on record.

Nobody had tried to kill me yet. I dried off, put on some makeup, and dressed for work.

When it was time to go, I stood on the back porch and eyeballed the distance between the steps and my car door, over and over. I figured I'd have to take ten steps. I unlocked the car with the keypad. I took a few deep breaths and unlocked the screen door. I pushed it open and fairly leaped off the porch, bypassing the steps entirely. In an undignified scramble, I yanked open the car door, slid inside, and slammed and locked the door. I looked around me.

Nothing moved.

I laughed a little breathlessly. Silly me!

Being so tense was making all the scary movies I'd ever seen pop into my head. I was thinking of Jurassic Park and dinosaurs - maybe my thought link was that fairies were the dinosaurs of the supernatural world - and I half expected a piece of goat to fall on my windshield.

That didn't happen, either. Okay ...

I inserted the key and turned it, and the motor turned over. I didn't blow up. There was no Tyrannosaurus in my rearview mirror.

So far, so good. I felt better once I'd begun going slowly down the driveway through the woods, but I was sure keeping my eyes busy. I felt a compulsion to get in touch with someone, to let someone know where I was and what I was doing.

I whipped my cell phone out of my purse and called Amelia. When she answered, I said, "I'm driving over to Jason's. Since Tray is so sick, Jason's going around with me today. Listen, you know Tray was spelled by a fairy into drinking rotten vampire blood?"

"I'm at work here," Amelia said, caution in her voice. "Yes, he called ten minutes ago, but he had to go throw up. Poor Tray. At least the house was okay."

Amelia's point was that her wards had held. Well, she had a right to be proud of that.

"You're great," I said.

"Thanks. Listen, I'm really worried about Tray. I tried calling him back after a few minutes, but he didn't answer. I hope he's just sleeping it off, but I'm going over there after I leave work. Why don't you meet me there? We can figure out what to do about getting you some more security."

"Okay," I said. "I'll come over right after I get off work, probably around five." Phone in my hand, I jumped out and grabbed the mail from my mailbox, which sat up on Hummingbird Road. Then I got back in my car quick as I could.

That had been stupid. I could have gone without checking the mail for one day. Habits are very hard to break, even when they're unimportant habits. "I really am lucky you live with me, Amelia," I said. That might have been spreading it on a little thick, but it was the absolute truth.

But Amelia had gone off on another mental path. "You're speaking to Jason again? You told him? Aboutthings ?"

"Yeah, I had to. Great-grandfather can't have everything his own way. Stuff has happened."

"It always does, around you," Amelia said. She didn't sound angry, and she wasn't condemning me.

"Not always," I said after a sharp moment of doubt.In fact, I thought, as I turned left at the end of Hummingbird Road to go to my brother's,that point Jason made about everything changing when the vamps came out ... that just might have been something I really agree with .

Prosaically, I realized my car was almost out of gas. I had to pull into Grabbit Quik. While I was pumping the liquid gold into my car, I fell back to puzzling over what Jason had told me. What would be urgent enough to bring a reclusive and human-hating half fairy to Jason's door? Why would he tell Jason ... ? I shouldn't be thinking about this.

This was stupid, and I should be watching out for myself instead of trying to solve Jason's problems.

But after a few more seconds of turning the conversation over in my head, I began to have a sneaking suspicion that I understood it a little better.

I called Calvin. At first he didn't get what I was saying, but then he agreed to meet me at Jason's house.

I caught a glimpse of Jason in the backyard when I pulled into the circular driveway of the neat, small house my dad had built when he and my mother were first married. It was out in the country, out farther west than Arlene's trailer, and though it was visible from the road, it had a pond and several acres lying behind it. My dad had loved to hunt and fish, and my brother did, too. Jason had recently put in a makeshift range, and I could hear the rifle.

I decided to come through the house, and I took care to yell when I was at the back door.

"Hey!" Jason called back. He had a 30-30 in his hands. It had been our father's. Mel was standing behind him, holding a box of ammo. "We decided we better get in some practice."

"Good idea. I wanted to be sure you didn't think I was your crazy caller, come back to yell some more."

Jason laughed. "I still don't understand what good Dermot thought he'd do, coming up to the front door like that."

"I think I do," I said.

Jason held out his hand without looking, and Mel gave him some bullets. Jason opened the rifle and began loading. I looked over at the sawhorse he'd set up, noted all the empty milk jugs lying on the ground. He'd filled them with water so they'd sit steady, and thanks to the bullet holes, the water was flowing out onto the ground.

"Good shooting," I said. I took a deep breath. "Hey, Mel, you want to tell me about Hotshot funerals? I haven't ever been to one, and Crystal's will take place as soon as the body comes back, I reckon."

Mel looked a little surprised. "You know I haven't lived out there for years," he protested. "It's just not for me." Except for the fading bruises, he didn't look like he'd been thrown across the room by anyone, much less a crazed half fairy.

"I wonder why that guy threw you around instead of Jason," I said, and felt Mel's thoughts ripple with fear. "Are you hurt?"

He moved his right shoulder a little. "I thought I'd broken something. But I guess it's just going to be sore. I wonder what he was. Not one of us."

He hadn't answered my question, I noticed.

Jason looked proud that he hadn't blabbed.

"He's not entirely human," I said.

Mel looked relieved. "Well, that's good to know," he said. "My pride was pretty much shot to hell when he threw me around. I mean, I'm a full-blood panther, and it was like I was kindling or something."

Jason laughed. "I thought he'd come on in and kill me then, thought I was a goner. But once Mel was down, this guy just started talking to me. Mel was playing possum, and here's this fella looks a lot like me, telling me what a favor he's done me ..."

"It was weird," Mel agreed, but he looked uncomfortable. "You know I'd've been on my feet if he'd started punching on you, but he really rang my bell, and I figured I might as well stay down once it looked like he wasn't going to go after you."

"Mel, I hope you're really okay." I made my voice concerned, and I moved a little closer. "Let me have a look at that shoulder." I extended my hand, and Jason's eyebrows knit together.

"Why do you need to ... ?" An awful suspicion was creeping over his face. Without another word, he stepped behind his friend and held him firm, his hands gripping Mel on either side right below Mel's shoulders. Mel winced with pain, but he didn't say anything, not a word; he didn't even pretend to be indignant or surprised, and that was almost enough.

I put a hand on either side of Mel's face, and I closed my eyes, and I looked in his head. And this time Mel was thinking about Crystal, not Jason.

"He did it," I said. I opened my eyes and looked at my brother's face across Mel's shoulder. I nodded.

Jason screamed, and it wasn't a human sound. Mel's face seemed to melt, as if all the muscles and bones had shifted. He hardly looked human at all.

"Let me look at you," Mel pleaded.

Jason looked confused, since Mel was looking at me; he couldn't look anywhere else, the way Jason was holding him. Mel wasn't struggling, but I could see every muscle under his skin standing out, and I didn't think he'd be passive forever. I bent down and picked up the rifle, glad Jason had reloaded it.

"He wants to look at you, not me," I told my brother.

"Goddammit," Jason said. His breathing was heavy and ragged as if he'd been running, and his eyes were wide. "You have to tell me why ."

I stepped back and raised the rifle. At this distance, even I couldn't miss. "Turn him around, since he wants to talk to you face-to-face."

They were in profile to me when Jason spun Mel around. Jason's grip refastened on the werepanther, but now Jason's face was a foot from Mel's.

Calvin walked around the house. Crystal's sister, Dawn, was with him. There was also a boy of about fifteen trailing along. I remembered meeting the boy at the wedding. He was Jacky, Crystal's oldest first cousin. Adolescents practically reek of emotion and confusion, and Jacky was no exception. He was struggling to conceal the fact that he was both nervous and excited. Maintaining a cool demeanor was just killing him.

The three newcomers took in the scene. Calvin shook his head, his face solemn. "This is a bad day," he said quietly, and Mel jerked at the sound of his leader's voice.

Some of the tension leaked out of Jason when he saw the other werepanthers.

"Sookie says he did it," he said to Calvin.

"That's good enough for me," Calvin said. "But, Mel - you should tell us yourself, brother."

"I'm not your brother," Mel said bitterly. "I haven't lived with you for years."

"That was your own choice," Calvin said. He walked around so he could see Mel's face, and the other two followed him. Jacky was snarling; any pretense at being cool had vanished. The animal was showing through.

"There isn't anyone else in Hotshot like me. I would have been alone."

Jason looked blank. "There are lots of guys in Hotshot like you," he said.

"No, Jason," I said. "Mel's gay."

"We're not okay with that?" my brother asked Calvin. Jason hadn't yet gotten the party line on a few issues, apparently.

"We're okay with people doing what they want to do in bed after they've done their duty to the clan," Calvin said. "Purebred males have to father a young 'un, no matter what."

"I couldn't do it," Mel said. "I just plain couldn't do it."

"But you were married once," I said, and wished I hadn't spoken. This was a matter for the clan now. I hadn't called Bud Dearborn; I'd called Calvin. My word was good enough for Calvin, not for court.

"Our marriage didn't work in that department," Mel said. His voice sounded almost normal. "Which was okay with her. She had her own fish to fry. We never had ... conventional sex."

If I found this distressing, I could only imagine how hard it had been for Mel. But when I remembered what Crystal had looked like up on that cross, all my sympathy drained away in a hurry.

"Why did you do that to Crystal?" I asked. I could tell from the rage building in the brains around me that the time for talking was almost over.

Mel looked beyond me, past my brother, away from his leader, his victim's sister and cousin. He seemed to be focused on the winter-bare limbs of the trees around the still, brown pond. "I love Jason," he said. "I love him. And she abused him and his child. Then she taunted me. She came here that day... . I'd stopped off to get Jason to help me build some shelves at the shop, but he wasn't here. She drove up while I was out in the yard writing Jason a note. She began to say ... she said awful things. Then she told me I had to have sex with her, that if I did, she'd tell them at Hotshot and I'd be able to go back to live there, and Jason could come live with me. She said, 'His baby's inside me; doesn't that get you all hot?' And it got worse and worse. The bed of the truck was down because the wood I'd bought was sticking out, and she kind of backed up to it and lay down, and I could see her. It was ... she was ... she kept telling me what a pussy I was and that Jason would never care about me ... and I slapped her as hard as I could."

Dawn Norris turned to one side as though she was going to throw up. But she pressed her lips together in a hard line and straightened up. Jacky wasn't that tough.

"She wasn't dead, though." My brother forced the words between his clenched teeth. "She bled all down the cross. She lost the baby after she'd been hung up."

"I'm sorry about that," Mel said. His gaze returned from the pond and the trees and focused on my brother. "I thought the blow had killed her - I really did. I would never have left her to go in the house if I'd thought she was still alive. I would never have let someone else get her. What I did was bad enough, because I intended for her to die. But I didn't crucify her. Please believe me. No matter what you think of me for hurting her, I would never have done that. I thought if I took her somewhere else, no one would think you did it. I knew you were going out that night, and I figured if I put her somewhere else, you'd have an alibi. I figured you'd end up spending the night with Michele." Mel smiled at Jason, and it was such a tender look that my heart ached. "So I left her in the back of the truck, and I came in the house to have a drink. And when I came back out, she was gone. I couldn't believe it. I thought she'd gotten up and walked away. But there wasn't any blood, and the wood was gone, too."

"Why Merlotte's?" Calvin said, and his voice came out like a growl.

"I don't know, Calvin," Mel said. His face was almost sublime with his relief from the load of his guilt, with the release of confessing his crime and his love for my brother. "Calvin, I know I'm about to die, and I swear to you that I have no idea what happened to Crystal after I went into the house. I did not do that horrible thing to her."

"I don't know what to make of that," Calvin said. "But we have your confession, and we'll have to proceed."

"I accept that," Mel said. "Jason, I love you."

Dawn turned her head just a fraction so her eyes could meet mine. "You better go," she said. "We got things to do."

I walked off with the rifle, and I didn't turn to look even when the other panthers began to tear Mel apart. I could hear it, though.

He didn't scream after a second.

I left Jason's rifle on his back porch, and I drove to work. Somehow having a bodyguard didn't seem important anymore.