Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse #9)(51)
Author: Charlaine Harris

"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 f**king 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.