Dead Reckoning (Sookie Stackhouse #11)(66)
Author: Charlaine Harris

Sam looked away. I could feel the emotions sweeping over him. Truly, it felt wonderful to do something nice for him. He’d done so many nice things for me. He said, "All right." I could tell it was hard for him, as it would be for almost any man, but he knew it was the sensible thing to do, and he knew it wasn’t charity.

"It’s a love offering," I said, grinning at him. "Like we took up at church last Sunday." That love offering had been for the missionaries in Uganda, and this one was for Merlotte’s Bar.

"I’d believe that," he said, and met my eyes.

I kept my smile, but I began to feel a little self-conscious. "I have to go get ready," I said.

"What for?" His reddish eyebrows drew together.

"Tara’s baby shower," I said. "It’s an old-fashioned gals-only party, so you didn’t get invited."

"I’ll try to contain my misery," he said. He didn’t move.

"Are you getting up to go to the bank?" I asked sweetly.

"Uh, yeah, getting up right now." He did get out of the chair and call down the hall to let the servers know he was running a quick errand. I got in my car at the same time he got in his truck. I don’t know about Sam, but I was feeling really good.

I did stop by my lawyer’s to tell him what I’d done. This would be my human, local lawyer, not Mr. Cataliades. Whom, by the way, I hadn’t heard from.

I swung by Maxine’s house to get the punch, thanked her profusely, left her a list of what I was going to do and had done for the shower arrangements (to her puzzlement), and took the frozen containers back to my house to pop in the little chest freezer on my back porch. I had the ginger ale set out on the counter to mix with the frozen juices.

I was as prepared as I could be for the baby shower.

Now I had to get ready to kill Victor.

Chapter 14

Sam called me as I was putting on my makeup.

"Hi, I said. "You got the check to the bank, yes?"

"Yes," he said. "Since you told me like a million times. No problem there. I’m calling to tell you I just got a very weird phone call from your friend Amelia. She said she was calling me because you wouldn’t want to talk to her. She said it was about that thing you found. She looked it up. The cluviel dor?" He sounded it out very carefully.

"Yeah?"

"She didn’t want to talk over the phone to me about it, but she said to tell you urgently to check your e-mail. She said you were pretty bad about forgetting to do that. She didn’t seem to think you’d answer your phone if you knew from your caller ID that it was her on the phone."

"I’ll go look at my e-mail right now."

"Sookie?"

"Yeah?"

"You okay?"

Almost certainly not. "Sure, Sam. Thanks for standing in place of the answering machine."

"No problem."

Amelia had certainly figured out how to get my attention. I took the cluviel dor out of the drawer and took it with me to the little desk in the living room where I’d put the computer. Yes, I had a lot of mail.

Most of it was junk, but there was one from Amelia, sure enough, and one from Mr. Cataliades that had come two days before. Color me surprised.

I was so curious I opened his message first. Though he wasn’t brief, he was to the point.

Miss Stackhouse,

I got your message on my answering machine. I have been traveling so certain individuals cannot find me. I have many friends, but also

many enemies. I am watching you closely, but I hope not intrusively. You’re the only person

I know who has as many enemies as I. I’ve done the best I can to keep you a step ahead of that hellspawn Sandra Pelt. She’s not dead

yet, though. Beware.

I don’t believe you knew that I was a great friend of your grandfather, Fintan. I knew your grandmother, though not well. In fact, I met your

father and his sister, and your brother Jason, though he will never remember it since he was quite small. So were you when I first saw you.

They were all disappointments except you.

I think you must have found the cluviel dor, since I plucked the term out of Miss Amelia’s head when I saw her at the shop. I don’t know

where your grandmother hid it, I only know she was given one, because I gave it to her. If you have discovered it, I advise you to be very

careful about its use. Think once, and twice, and three times before you expend its energy. You can change the world, you know Any .

series of events you alter by magic can have unexpected repercussions in history. I’ll contact you again when I can, and perhaps stop by

to explain more fully. Best wishes for your survival.

Desmond Cataliades, attorney-at-law, your sponsor

As Pam might say, "Fuck a zombie." Mr. Cataliades was indeed my sponsor, the dark stranger who’d visited Gran. What did that mean? And he said he had read Amelia’s mind. Was he a telepath, too? Wasn’t that quite a coincidence? I had a feeling there was a lot to know about this, and though he’d only warned me about Sandra Pelt and using the cluviel dor, I got the distinct impression he was paving the way for a Big Bad Talk. I read over the message two more times hoping to extract some solid piece of information about the cluviel dor from it, but I had to conclude I got zilch.

I opened Amelia’s e-mail, not without a deep feeling of misgiving and a residue of indignation. Her brain was open for the picking, apparently. Amelia had a lot of information in her head about me and my doings. Though this wasn’t exactly her fault, I resolved not to tell her any more secrets.

Sookie,

I’m sorry for everything. You know I don’t think before I act, and I didn’t this time. I just wanted you to be as happy as I am with Bob, I guess,

and I didn’t think about how you’d feel. I was trying to manage your life. Again, sorry.

After we got back home, I did some more research and found the cluviel dor. I guess one of your fairy kin must have been talking about

this? There hadn’t been one on the earth for hundreds of years. They’re fairy love tokens, and they take a year to make, at least. The

cluviel dor gives the beloved one wish. That’s why it’s so romantic, I guess. The wish has to be personal. It can’t be for world peace, or an

end to hunger, or something global like that. But on an individual level, apparently this magic is so potent it can really change a life in a

drastic way. If someone gives a loved one a cluviel dor, it’s really a serious gesture. It’s not like flowers or candy. It’s more on the level of a

diamond necklace or a yacht, if the jewelry or the boat had magical powers. I don’t know why you need to know about fairy love tokens, but

if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen something amazing. I don’t think the fae can even make them anymore.