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He could have slain me about sixty times in the seconds I stood there Despite the fact that he didn&039;t, I still didn&039;t want to takewith a grace that Jason could never have matched He moved like his joints were h numb lips, "Can&039;t help it"

"I want to explain," he said as he drew nearer

"Explain?"

"I wanted to get closer to both of you," he said He ell into my personal space by then His eyes were blue like Jason&039;s, candid like Jason&039;s, and really, seriously, crazy Not like Jason&039;s "I was confused"

"About what?" I wanted to keep the conversation going, I surely did, because I didn&039;t knoould happen when it came to a halt

"About where racefully as a swan

"Sure Tell un, loaded with lemon juice, in htstand when Claude had come to live with me, so that here it lay And the iron trohere it was supposed to be, in the toolshed

"I will," he said, standing close enough that I could sreat Fairies always do "I know you met my father, Niall"

I nodded, a very small movement "Yes," I said, to make sure

"Did you love him?"

"Yes," I said without hesitation "I did I do"

"He&039;s easy to love; he&039;s char," Dermot said "My mother, Einin, was beautiful, too Not a fairy kind of beautiful, like Niall, but she was human-beautiful"

"That&039;s what Niall told h a conversational minefield

"Did he tell you the water fairies murdered my twin?"

"Did Niall tell me your brother was murdered? No, but I heard"

"I saw parts of Fintan&039;s body Neave and Lochlan had torn him limb from li led to speak, his face desperate "But I wasn&039;t there INiall " It was terrible to watch Derle to speak I shouldn&039;t have had any mercy for him, since Niall had told me about Dermot&039;s part in my parents&039; deaths But I really couldn&039;t endure his pain

"So how co with Breandan&039;s forces in the war?"

"He told me my father had killed my brother," Dermot said bleakly "And I believed him I mistrusted my love for Niall When I re to visit her, I thought Breandan le with humans It never seems to turn out well for them And I hated what I was, half-hu better now? About being a little bit human?"

"I&039;ve co, and I&039;rieved thatblue eyes looked sad I was too busy trying not to shake to get the full impact

In a breath, out a breath Cal Jason and I are okay? You don&039;t want to hurt us any Sookie" season, and no one had told me ahead of time Fairies were very touchy-feely, and personal space didn&039;t reat-uncle to back off But I didn&039;t dare I didn&039;t need to read Der could set him off, so delicate was his mental balance I had to stiffen allso I wouldn&039;t shiver and shake His nearness and the tension of being in his presence, the huge strength that huh his arms, took me back to a dark ruined shack and two psycho fairies who really had deserved their deaths My shoulders jerked, and I saw a flash of panic in Dermot&039;s eyes Calm Be calm

I sh I know it&039;s a little too bright, a little nuts However, that suited the conversation perfectly "The last time you saw Jason," I said, and then couldn&039;t think how to finish

"I attacked his companion The beast who&039;d hurt Jason&039;s wife"

I sed hard and smiled some more "Probably would&039;ve been better if you&039;d explained to Jason why you were going after Mel And it wasn&039;t Mel who killed her, you know"

"No, it was my own kind that finished her off But she would have died anyway He wasn&039;t taking her to get help, you know"

Wasn&039;t much I could say, because his account of what had happened to Crystal was accurate I noticed I hadn&039;t gotten a coherent response fronorance of Mel&039;s cri in and out - in a very soothing way I hoped It seeer I touched Derot And Dermot was markedly more coherent

"I was very conflicted," he said seriously, unexpectedly borrowing frooing to get I decided to take another tack "Did you want to see Claude?" I said hopefully "He&039;s living with ht"

"I&039;m not the only one, you know," Dermot told reat-uncle was trying to tellI wished to God I could make him rational Just for five ure out what he needed

"You&039;re not the only fairy left out in the human world I know Claude&039;s here Someone else is, too?" I would&039;ve enjoyed my telepathy for a couple ofwith me to understand

I&039;d risk a direct question "Who else is on this side of Faery?"

"You don&039;t want to meet him," Dermot assured ht now He&039;s aht" Whoever "he" was, he wasn&039;t the only one who had ht nutcracker that would open up Dermot&039;s head

"Sometimes he&039;s in your woods" Derently It was like he was trying to transs he couldn&039;t say directly into my flesh

"I heard about that," I said sourly

"Don&039;t trust other fairies," Derhtbulb had popped on above ic put on you? Like a spell?"

The relief in his eyes was almost palpable He nodded frantically "Unless they&039;re at war, fairies don&039;t like to kill other fairies Except for Neave and Lochlan They liked to kill everything But I&039;ht be reluctant to kill their own kind, but they didn&039;tI can do to reverse this spell? Can Claude help?"

"Claude has littlelike a hu My dearest niece, I love you How is your brother?"

We were back in nutty land God bless poor Der an i a woman who suits him, and she won&039;t take any shit off him, either Her name is Michele - like my mom&039;s, but with one l instead of two"

Dermot smiled down at

"Dead things love you," Der

"Eric the vas, too They&039;re pulling on you"

That was a not-so-welco Eric through our bond, as usual, but there were two other gray presences with me every moment after dark: Alexei and Appius Livius It was a drain on ht," Dermot said, "you&039;ll receive visitors"

So noas a prophet "Good ones?"

He shrugged "That&039;s a matter of taste and expedience"

"Hey, Uncle Dermot? Do you walk around this land very often?"

"Too scared of the other one," he said "But I try to watch you a little"

I was figuring out if that was a good thing or a bad thing when he vanished Poof! I saw a kind of blur and then nothing His hands were on my shoulders, and then they weren&039;t I assuotten to Derlanced around e Hehappened There wasn&039;t a sound except the prosaic growl ofme that I hadn&039;t eaten lunch and that it was now suppertis and collapsed at the table Conversation with a spy Intervieith an insane fairy Oh, yes, phone Jason and tell hi I could do sitting down

After that conversation, I res to working again While I baked a Marie Callender&039;s pot pie, I read the past two days&039; papers

Unfortunately, there was a lot of interest on the front page There had been a grueso-related The victi colors, which was like a blinking arrow to the police, but he hadn&039;t been shot He&039;d been stabbed multiple times, and then his throat had been slashed Yuck Sounded ht the saain, this ti colors He&039;d died the sa , andand very worrisoistration issue was rising According to the newspapers, the Weres were the big controversy The stories hardly mentioned the other two-natured, yet I knew at least one werefox, one werebat, teretigers, a score of werepanthers, and a shapeshifter Werewolves, thethe brunt of the backlash And they were sounding off about it, as they should have

"Why should I register, as if I were an illegal alien or a dead citizen?" Scott Wacker, an ar "My faenerations, all of us arhter&039;s in Iraq What overnor of one of the northwestern states said, "We need to knoho&039;s a olf and who&039;s not In the event of an accident, officers need to know, to avoid blood contaed my spoon into the crust to release soht that over Bullshit, I concluded

"That&039;s bushwah," General Wacker responded in the next paragraph So Wacker and I had soe back to hulove up when they&039;re handling bodies Identification is not going to be any more of a probleo, Wacker

According to the newspaper, the debate raged fro soress, frohters, from law experts to constitutional scholars

Instead of thinking globally or nationally, I tried to evaluate the crowd at Merlotte&039;s since the announceht decrease at first, right after the bar patrons had watched Sa and Tray beco as much as they had for issue?

Not asread a few more articles

Some people really hated the idea that individuals they&039;d known all their lives had another side, a reat word? It had been on eneral public That was the iotten before, and it see on that position; the Weres got angrier, and the public got htened At least a very vocal part of the public

There had been de, Michigan I wondered if there were going to be riots here or in Shreveport I found that hard to believe and painful to picture I looked through the kitchenat the gathering dusk, as if I expected to see a crowd of villagers with torchesto Merlotte&039;s

It was a curiously e There wasn&039;t much to clean up after I&039;d eaten,on television I wanted to watch I checked e froe fro for Monday night at eight at ing I&039;ll see you and Jason then" It had been nearly a week since we&039;d found Basim&039;s body in the woods, and this was the first I&039;d heard The pack&039;s "day or two" had stretched into six And thattiain and left voice mail on his cell phone I tried not to worry about the pack , but every ti violent had happened

I thought again about the deadWho had put him there? Presumably, the killer had wanted Basim&039;s silence, but the body hadn&039;t been planted on my land by mistake

I read for thirty minutes or so, and then it was full dark and I felt Eric&039;s presence, and then the lesser though undeniable company of the other two vampires As soon as they woke, I felt tired This made me so twitchy I broke my own resolution

I knew that Eric realized I was unhappy and worried It was iht by keepingme Maybe he didn&039;t know that his maker and Alexei were both in my consciousness I took a deep breath and called hih I were holding Eric hiht, and I wouldn&039;t have believed this possible a week ago, What if he doesn&039;t pick up?

The phone rang, and I held , Eric answered "The packhas been set," I blurted

"Sookie," he said "Can you come here?"

On my drive to Shreveport, I wondered at least four ti But I concluded that whether I was right or wrong (in running to see Eric when he asked me to) was simply a dead issue We were both on the ends of the line stretched between us, a line spun froiven ry, uneasy, hurt I wondered, though If I&039;d called hi, would he have hopped into his car (or into the sky) and arrived on tasia, he&039;d said

I was shocked to see ho cars were parked in front of the only vae tourist draw in a town that was boasting a tourist increase, and I&039;d expected it to be packed There were al at the back as there were at the main door That had never happened before

Maxwell Lee, an African-American businessman who also happened to be a vampire, was on duty at the rear entrance, and that was a first, too The rear door had never been specially guarded, because the vampires were so sure they could take care of the his usual three-piece suit but doing a task he normally would have considered beneath him He didn&039;t look resentful; he looked worried

I said, "Where are they?"

He jerked his head toward the lad you&039;re here," he said, and I knew Eric&039;sout-of-town visitors is aard, huh? You take thehts, you try to feed them and keep the they would leave It wasn&039;t hard to see that Eric was on his last nerve He was sitting in a booth with Appius Livius Ocella and Alexei Of course, Alexei looked too young to be in a bar, and that added to the absurdity of the ," I said stiffly "Eric, you wanted to see me?"

Eric scooted over closer to the wall so I&039;d have plenty of rooreeted me, Appius with a strained sether, I discovered that being close to them relaxed the tense thread inside ether

"I&039;ve ht I&039;d iined it

I wouldn&039;t refer to the fact that he&039;d been completely out of touch for days He knew that

It took all my self-control to bite back a few choice words "As I was trying to tell you over the phone, the pack ht"

"Where and when?" he said, and there was a note in his voice that let me knoas not a happy caside mine

"At Alcide&039;s house The one that used to be his dad&039;s At eight o&039;clock"

"And Jason&039;s going with you? Without a doubt?"

"I haven&039;t talked to hiry with me"

"I&039;ve been worried about you" I couldn&039;t tell hi about how I&039;d felt that he didn&039;t already know

"Yes," Eric said His voice was empty

"Eric is an excellent host," the tsarevitch said, as if I expected a report

I scratched up a sood to hear, Alexei What have you two been doing? I don&039;t think you&039;ve ever been to Shreveport before"

"No," Appius Livius said in his curious accent "We hadn&039;t been here to visit It&039;s a nice little city My older son has been doing his best to keep us busy and out of trouble"

Okay, that had been a tad on the sarcastic side I could tell from Eric&039;s tension that he hadn&039;t entirely succeeded in the "keeping theenda

"The World Market is fun You can get stuff from all over the world there And Shreveport was the capitol of the Confederacy for a while" Geez Louise, I needed to do better than that "If you go to the Municipal Auditoriuhtly I wondered if Bubba ever visited there to see his old stoht," Alexei said, h he&039;d said he&039;d run a red light