"So much better," I said. That was only half a lie. I was better.

"Can I come by and pick up your laundry? I'm doing mine tonight, so Jason and me can go line dancing tomorrow night."

"Oh, have a good time!" It had been ages since I'd been dancing. "I'm caught up on my laundry, thanks so much."

"Why don't you come to Stompin' Sally's with us, if you're feeling so much better?"

"If my shoulder isn't too sore, I'd love to," I said impulsively. "Can I let you know tomorrow afternoon?"

"Sure," she said. "Anytime before eight, that's when we're leaving."

I finally got to the guest bedroom. Copley was there, unconscious, still breathing. I hadn't been sure how Mr. C had silenced him, but at least it was not by snapping his neck. And I still didn't know what to do about him.

I called up the stairs to Mr. C and Diantha to tell them supper was ready. They came down the stairs lickety-split. Each of us had a heaping bowlful of the ground meat, beans, sauce, and chopped peppers, and I shared out the bag of tortilla chips to use in scooping up the mixture. I had some shredded cheese, too. And Tara had left a pie made by Mrs. du Rone, so we even had dessert. By tacit agreement, we didn't discuss the disposition of Copley Carmichael until we'd finished eating. The locusts were singing their evening chorale while we tried to reach a consensus.

Diantha's opinion was that we should kill him.

Mr. Cataliades wanted to lay some heavy magic on him and put him back in place in New Orleans. Like substituting a ringer for the real Copley Carmichael. Obviously, he had a plan for using the new version of Amelia's father.

I couldn't see letting him back into the world, a soulless, devil-tied creature with no impulse for good. But I didn't want to kill anyone else, either. My own soul was dark enough. While we debated and the long evening turned into darkness, there was another knock at the back door.

I couldn't believe I'd ever longed for a visitor.

This one was a vampire, and she didn't bring any food.

Pam glided in, followed closely by Karin. They looked like pale sisters. But Pam seemed energized, somehow. After I'd introduced the two vampires to the two part-demons, they took seats at the kitchen table and Pam said, "I feel that I've interrupted you when you were talking about something important."

"Yes," I said, "but I'm glad you're here. Maybe you can think of a good solution for this situation." After all, if anyone was good at disposing of humans or bodies, it was Pam. And perhaps Karin was even better, since she'd had longer to practice. A lightbulb lit up suddenly in my brain. "Ladies, I wondered if either of you happens to know how a man ended up in my bedroom closet?"

Karin raised her hand, as if she were in grade school. "I am responsible," she said. "He was skulking. You have many people watching you, Sookie. He came through the woods the night you were in the hospital, and he didn't know what had happened, that you weren't here. He meant you ill, if the gun and knife he had on him are any indicators, but your magic circle didn't stop him as Bill says it stopped Horst. I would have liked to see that. Instead, I had to stop him. I didn't kill him since I thought you might want to talk to him."

"He did mean me ill, and I thank you most sincerely for stopping him," I said. "I just don't know what to do with him now."

Pam said, "Kill him. He is your enemy, and he wants to kill you." This sounded pretty funny coming from someone who was wearing flowered crops and a teal T-shirt. Diantha nodded vigorously in wholehearted agreement.

"Pam, I just can't."

Pam shook her head at my weakness. Karin said, "Sister Pam, we could take him with us and . . . think about a solution."

Okay, I knew that was a euphemism for "get him out of sight and kill him."

"You can't wipe his memory?" I said hopefully.

"No," Karin said. "He has no soul."

It was news to me that you couldn't put the whammy on a soulless person, but then, it had never come up before. I hoped it would never come up again.

"I'm sure I can find a use for him," Pam said, and I straightened up. There was something expansive about the way my vampire buddy said that, something that made me pay attention.

Mr. Cataliades, who'd had more years than I to study language (both body and spoken), said, "Miss Pam, do we have reason to congratulate you?"

Pam closed her eyes in contentment, like a lovely blond cat. "You do," she said, and a tiny smile curved her lips. Karin smiled, too, more broadly.

It took a minute for me to get it. "You're the sheriff now, Pam?"

"I am," she said, opening her eyes, her smile growing. "Felipe saw reason. Plus, it was on Eric's wish list. But a wish list . . . Felipe didn't have to honor it."

"Eric left a wish list." I was trying not to feel sorry for Eric, going to a strange territory with a strange queen, without his trusty henchwoman at his side.

"I think Bill told you about a few of his conditions," Pam said, and her voice was neutral. "He had a few wishes he expressed to Freyda in return for signing a two-hundred-year marriage contract instead of the customary one hundred."

"I would be . . . interested . . . to hear what else was on it. The list."

"On the selfish side, he told Sam that he could not tell you that Sam had actually been the moving force behind bailing you out. On the less selfish side, he made it an absolute condition of his marrying Freyda that you never be harmed by any vampire. Not harassed, not tasted, not killed, not made a servant."

"That was thoughtful," I said. In fact, that changed my whole future. And it wiped out the bitterness I'd begun to feel toward a man I'd loved a lot. I opened my eyes to see the pale faces staring at me with round blue eyes, eerily alike. "Okay, what else?"

"That Karin guard your house from your woods, every night for a year."

Eric had already saved my life again and he wasn't even here. "That was real thoughtful, too," I said, though with an effort.

"Sookie, take my advice," Pam said. "I'm going to give it to you for free. This was not 'nice' of Eric. This was Eric protecting what used to be his, to show Freyda that he is loyal and protects his own. This is not a sentimental gesture."

Karin said, "We will do anything for Eric. We love him. But we know him better than anyone, and this calculation is one of Eric's strengths."

"As a matter of fact," I said, "I agree." But I also knew that Eric liked to kill two birds with one stone. I thought the truth lay somewhere in between.

"Since we agree that Eric is so practical, how come Eric can do without you both?"

"Freyda's condition. She did not want him to bring his children with him; she wanted him to assimilate into her vampires without having a cadre of his own people."

That was real smart. I had a second of thinking how lonely Eric would be without anyone familiar around, and then I choked off that sadness at the throat.

"Thank you, Pam," I said. "Freyda banned me from Oklahoma, which is not important. But Felipe banned me from Fangtasia, so I won't be visiting you at work. However, I'd love to see you from time to time. If you're not too important now that you're sheriff!"

She inclined her head with an elaborately regal gesture, meant to amuse. "I'm sure we can meet somewhere in the middle," she said. "You're the only human friend I've ever had, and I would miss you a little if I never saw you again."

"Oh, keep up the warm and cuddly," I said. "Karin, thanks for stopping this man from killing me and for putting him in here. I'm guessing the house was unlocked?"

"Yes, wide open," she said. "Your brother, Jason, came to get some things he needed for your hospital stay, and forgot to lock it."

"Ah . . . and how do you know that?"

"I may have asked him a few questions. I had no idea what had happened at your house, and I could smell your blood."

She'd taken him under with her vampire wiles and interrogated him. I sighed. "Okay, bypassing that, I guess Copley came along later?"

"Yes, two hours later. He had a rental car. He parked it in the cemetery."

I could only laugh. The police had removed Copley's own car, driven there by Tyrese. Copley had repeated the pattern of his bodyguard, but hours later. But by now I'd resolved I wouldn't have Copley in my house any longer. "If he left his rental car so close, maybe you all should drive him away in it. I assume the keys are in his pockets."

Diantha obligingly went to look and returned with the keys. Searching for things was definitely her favorite occupation.

Mr. Cataliades and Diantha offered to move the prisoner outside. Mr. C carried Amelia's father over his shoulder, and Copley's head bounced limply against Mr. C's broad back. But I had to harden my heart about it. He couldn't be hypnotized, and he couldn't be set free, and I couldn't keep him prisoner forever. I tried not to think that it would have been better (by which I meant easier) if Karin had killed him immediately.

When Eric's children rose to leave, I got up, too. To my astonishment, they gave me a cold kiss apiece, Karin on the forehead and Pam on the lips.

Pam said, "Eric told me that you refused his healing blood. But if I may offer mine?"

My shoulder was aching and throbbing, and I figured this might be the last time in my life I could dodge physical pain. "Okay," I said, and took off the bandage.

Pam bit her own wrist and let her blood drip sluggishly onto the ugly wound on my shoulder. It was puffy and red, and scabby and sore, and altogether yucky. Even Karin made a moue of distaste. As the dark blood ran slowly over the damaged flesh, Karin's cool fingers gently massaged it into my skin. Within a minute, the pain subsided and the redness vanished. The skin itched with healing.

"Thanks, Pam. Karin, thanks for looking out for me." I looked at the two women who were so like me and yet so completely different. Hesitantly, I said, "I know Eric intended to turn . . ."

"Don't talk about it," Pam said. "We're as close to friends as we can be, human and vampire. We'll never be more, and I hope never less. You don't want us to think too much about how it would be if you became like us." I made a resolution then and there to never refer to Eric's intention of having the three of us as his children.

When Pam was sure I was not going to add to her statement, she said, "Knowing you, I'm sure you will worry about Karin being bored out in the woods. After the past few years of her life, that will be a good thing for Karin, to have a year of peace."

Karin nodded, and I knew I really didn't want to find out what she'd been up to the past few years. "I'll be well fed from the donor's bureau," she said. "I'll have a mission, and I will get to be outside all the time. Perhaps Bill will come over for a conversation every now and then."

"Thanks again to both of you," I said. "Long live Sheriff Pam!" Then they were gone out the back door, to drive Copley Carmichael away in his rental car.

"A neat solution," said Mr. Cataliades. He'd come into the kitchen while I was taking a pain pill, the last one I would need. My shoulder was healing but twingeing as it did so, and I had to go to bed. Frankly, I also figured taking a pain pill would squash staying awake to worry about Barry.

"Barry's got demon blood and he's a telepath. Why can I read his mind and not yours?" I asked him out of the blue.

"Because your power was a gift from me to Fintan's lineage. You're not my child as Pam and Karin are Eric's, but the result is somewhat the same. I'm not your maker; I'm more like your godfather or your teacher."

"Without ever actually teaching me anything," I said, and then winced when I heard how accusing that sounded.

He didn't seem to take offense. "It's true, perhaps I failed you in that respect," Desmond Cataliades said. "I tried to make up for it in other ways. For example, I'm here now, which is probably more effective than any attempt I might have made when you were a child to explain myself to your parents and tell them they had to trust me alone with you."

There was a pregnant silence.

"Good point," I said. "That would not have flown."

"Plus, I had my own children to raise, and pardon me if they took precedence over the human descendants of my friend Fintan."

"I get that, too," I said. "I am glad you're here now, and I'm glad you're helping." If I sounded a little stiff, it was because I was getting tired of the need to thank people for helping me out of trouble, because I was tired of getting in trouble.

"You are very welcome. It's been most entertaining for Diantha and myself," he said ponderously, and we went our separate ways.

Chapter 20

The demons departed the next morning before I got up. They left me a note on the kitchen table to the effect that they were going to comb Bon Temps to look for traces of Barry. It was kind of nice to have a morning to myself again and to prepare breakfast only for myself. It was Monday and Sam had called to say Holly was working in my place. I'd started to protest that I could work, but in the end I just said, "Thanks." I didn't want to answer questions about the shooting. Give the excitement a week to die down.

I knew exactly what I did want to do. I put on my black and white bikini, slathered myself with lotion, and went outside wearing dark glasses and carrying a book. Of course it was hot, really hot, and the blue sky was decorated with only a few random clouds. Insects hummed and buzzed, and the Stackhouse yard bloomed and bloomed with flowers and fruit and all sorts of vegetation. It was like living in a botanical garden, except without the gardeners to keep the yard mowed.