Dead Reckoning

 

As dramatic statements go, Eric's had a high impact. Both Audrina and Colton tensed up. But I'd ridden this pony before.

I puffed out my cheeks in exasperation and looked away.

"You're bored, my lover?" Eric asked, in a voice that could have taught icicles something about chilly.

"We've been saying that for months." That might have been a slight exaggeration, but not much. "All we've done is talk smack. If we're going to do something bad, let's go on and do it--not talk it to death! You think he doesn't know he's on our hit list? You think he's not waiting for us to try?" (Apparently, this was a speech I'd kept secret even from myself, for way too long.) "You think he's not doing all this shit to you and Pam to provoke you into something, so he'll be justified in smacking you down? This is a win-win situation for him!"

Eric looked at me as though I'd turned into a nanny goat. Audrina and Colton were openmouthed.

Eric started to say something, then closed his mouth. I had no idea if he was going to yell at me or walk out silently.

"So what's your solution?" he said, his voice quiet and steady. "Do you have a plan?"

"Let's meet with Pam tomorrow night," I said. "She should be in on this." Also, it would give me a time to think of something so that I wouldn't embarrass myself.

"All right," he said. "Colton, Audrina. Are you both sure you want to risk this?"

"Without a doubt," Colton said. "Audie, baby. You don't have to do this."

Audrina snorted. "Too late, buddy! Everyone at work knows we live together. If you rebel, I'm dead anyway. My only chance is to join in so we can do this thing right."

I like a practical woman. I looked at her outside and I looked at her inside. I came up with sincerity. However, I would've been na?ve not to see that it would be extremely practical if Audrina went to Victor and turned us in. That would be the most practical course of all. "How do we know you won't be on the phone the minute we're out of the trailer?" I asked, deciding I might as well be blunt.

"How do I know you won't do the same?" Audrina retorted. "Colton done you a good turn in letting you know about the fairy blood. He believed what Heidi said about you. And I guess you want to live through this as bad as we do."

"`Survival' is my middle name. See you tomorrow night at my house," I said. I'd written directions down on an old grocery list. Since my house was isolated and warded, we'd at least have some warning if anyone was following Eric and Pam or Colton and Audrina.

It had been a very long night, and I was yawning hard enough to crack my jaw. I let Eric drive us to Shreveport, since we were closer to his house than mine. I was so sleepy (and sore) that another bout of sex was out of the question, unless Eric had suddenly developed an interest in necrophilia. He laughed when I said as much.

"No, I like you alive and warm and wiggling," he said, and kissed my neck in his favorite spot, the one that always made me shiver. "I think I could wake you up enough," he said. Confidence is attractive, but I still couldn't summon any energy. I yawned again, and he laughed. "I'm going to find Pam and bring her up to date. I should ask about her friend Miriam, too. In the morning, Sookie, go home when you get up. I'll leave a note for Mustapha about the car."

"Who?"

"My new daytime man's name is Mustapha Khan."

"Seriously?"

Eric nodded. "Plenty of attitude," he said. "Be advised."

"'Kay. I think I'll stay in the upstairs bedroom since I have to get up," I said. I was standing in the doorway of the largest ground-level bedroom, the one Eric wanted me to move into. The one Eric used had formerly been a walk-out game room downstairs. Eric had gotten some builders to make the wall solid, and he had the protection of a very heavy door that double-locked to bar the stairs. It made me just a wee tad claustrophobic to spend the night in there, though I had done it a few times if I knew I could sleep late. The upstairs bedroom had shutters and heavy curtains installed to make it light-tight for visiting vampires, but I left the shutters open and that made the room tolerable.

After the catastrophic visit of Eric's maker, Appius, and his "son" Alexei, I'd imagined I could still see blood everywhere when I came to Eric's house; and I smelled it, too. But a decorator with a big budget had swapped the carpets and repainted. Now it was hard to tell anything violent had occurred, and the house had a sort of pecan pie smell. That homely fragrance was underlain with the faint dry scent of vampires, a smell not at all unpleasant.

I locked the bedroom door after Eric left (on the theory that you never knew) and had a quick shower. I kept a nightgown here, something nicer than my usual Tweety sleep shirt. I thought I heard Pam's voice in the living room as I relaxed on the excellent mattress. I groped around in the night table drawer, found my clock and my box of Kleenex, and placed them close to hand.

That was the last thing I remembered for a few hours. I dreamed about Eric and Pam and Amelia; they were in a house that was on fire, and I had to pull them out or they'd be consumed. Didn't need a shrink to figure out that one. I only questioned why I'd put Amelia in the house. If dreams were more true to life, Amelia would have started the fire herself by some strange accident.

I stumbled out of the house at eight in the morning, having had maybe five hours' sleep. It didn't feel like enough. I stopped at a Hardee's and got a sausage biscuit and a cup of coffee. My day got a little brighter after that. A little.

Aside from a brand-new pickup parked at the front by Eric's car, my house looked sleepy and normal in the warm morning light. It was a dazzlingly clear day. The flowers blooming around the front steps lifted their faces to the morning sunshine. I drove around back, wondering who was visiting and what bed they were in.

Amelia's car and Claude's car were in the graveled area at the back door, leaving just enough room for mine. I found it very strange to walk into my house when there were so many people there already. No one was stirring yet, somewhat to my relief. I started a pot of coffee and went into my room to change clothes.

There was someone in my bed.

"Excuse me?" I said.

Alcide Herveaux sat up. He was bare-chested. The rest of him I couldn't see under the sheet.

"This is pretty fucking weird," I said, riding a rising swell of anger. "Let's have an explanation."

Alcide dropped his slight smile, which was pretty much the wrong expression to be wearing if you're in my bed without asking me first. He looked serious and embarrassed, which was far more appropriate.

"You've broken the bond with Eric," the Shreveport packmaster said. "I've been wrong in my timing on every single occasion we could get together. This time I didn't want to miss my chance." His eyes steady, he waited for my reaction. I collapsed onto the old flowered chair in the corner. I often toss my discarded clothes on it at night. Alcide had tossed his there, too. I hoped my rear end was mashing wrinkles in his shirt that would never come out.

"So who let you in?" I asked. He must have good intentions toward me or the wards wouldn't have let him in, or so Amelia had told me. But just at the moment I didn't care.

"Your cousin, the fairy. What does he do, exactly?"

"He's a stripper," I said, oversimplifying in the heat of the moment. I was not aware this would be big news until I saw Alcide's face. "So, what, you just decided to sack out here and seduce me when I walked in the door? Home from spending the night at my boyfriend's? After having sex with him that could go in the Guinness Book of Records?"

Oh, God, where had that come from?

Alcide was laughing now. He couldn't seem to help it. I relaxed, because as snarly as Were brains are, I could see that he was also laughing at himself.

"It didn't seem like a good idea to me, either," he said frankly. "But Jannalynn thought this would be like a shortcut, and we could draw you into the pack."

Huh. That explained a lot. "You did this on Jannalynn's advice? Jannalynn just wanted me to feel uncomfortable," I said.

"Seriously? What does she have against you? I mean, why would she want to do that? Especially when she must have realized that would mean making me uncomfortable, too."

Him being her boss and all, and pretty much the center of Jannalynn's universe. I understood what he meant, and I agreed with his assessment of Jannalynn. However, in my opinion Alcide wasn't uncomfortable enough. I was convinced that he hoped if he sat in my bed and looked rumpled and handsome, I might reconsider. But looking good wasn't all it took with me. I wondered when Alcide had turned into the kind of guy who thought it might.

"She's been dating Sam for a while," I said. "You know that, right? I went to a family wedding with Sam, and I think Jannalynn had expected to go."

"So Sam's not as crazy about Jannalynn as she is about him?"

I held out my hand and wobbled it to and fro. "He likes her a lot. But he's older and more cautious." Why were we sitting in my bedroom talking about this? "So, Alcide, do you think you could get dressed and go home now?" I glanced at my watch. Eric had left me a note to say that Mustapha Khan was supposed to be here at ten, just an hour from now. Since he was a lone wolf, he wouldn't want a meet'n' greet with Alcide.

"I'd still be glad if you joined me," he said, and he sounded both sincere and self-mocking.

"It's always nice to be wanted. And you're plenty hunky, of course." I tried not to sound like I'd thrown that in as an afterthought. "But I'm going with Eric, bond or no bond. Plus, you went about trying to court me the completely wrong way, thanks to Jannalynn. Who told you we weren't bonded, anyway?"

Alcide slid out of bed and held out a hand for his clothes. I got up and handed them to him, keeping my eyes raised to his. He did have on underwear, kind of a monokini. Manakini? As he shrugged into his shirt, he said, "Your buddy Amelia. She and her boyfriend came into Hair of the Dog last night to have a drink. I was pretty sure I'd met her, so I started talking to them. When she heard my name, she already knew that you and I'd been friendly. She got pretty chatty."

Oversharing was one of Amelia's flaws. I began to have a darker suspicion. "Did Amelia know you were going to do this?" I asked, waving my hand toward the rumpled bed.

"I followed her and her boyfriend back here," Alcide said, which was not exactly a denial. "They consulted with your cousin--the stripper. Claude? He thought me waiting for you in here was a really great idea. In fact, I think he would've joined us for about fifty cents." Alcide paused in zipping up his jeans to raise an eyebrow.

I tried not to let my distaste show. "That Claude! What a kidder!" I said with a ferocious smile. I had never felt less amused. "Alcide, I think Jannalynn was having a big joke at my expense. I think Amelia needs to keep my business quiet, and I think Claude just wanted to see what would happen. He's like that. Besides, you got good-looking Were women hanging all over you, you big ole packmaster, you!" I punched him on a brawny shoulder playfully--more or less--and I saw him flinch just a little. Maybe I was stronger with my fairy kin around me.

Alcide said, "I'll drive back to Shreveport, then. But put me on your dance card, Sookie. I want a chance with you, still." He gave me a big white smile.

"Haven't found a shaman for your pack yet?"

He was buckling his belt and his fingers froze. "Do you think that's why I want you?"

"I think that might have something to do with it," I said, my voice dry. Having a pack shaman had gone out of style in modern times, but the Long Tooth pack was trying to find one. Alcide had induced me to take one of the drugs that shamans took to enhance their vision, and it had been both deeply creepy and weirdly empowering. I never wanted to do that again. I had liked it too much.

"We do need a shaman," Alcide admitted. "And you did a great job that night. Obviously you've got the aptitude for the job." Gullibility and poor judgment must be prerequisites. "But you're wrong if you think that's the only reason I'd like us to have a relationship."

"I'm glad to hear that, because otherwise I wouldn't think much of you," I said. This exchange completely slammed the door shut on my good nature. "Let me reemphasize that I don't like the way you went about this, and I'm not nuts about the way you've changed since you became packmaster."

Alcide was genuinely amazed. "I've had to change," he said. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"You're way too used to being king of everybody," I said. "But I'm not here to judge you or tell you that you ought to change because that's just my opinion. God knows, I've been through plenty of changes myself, and I'm sure some of them haven't done my character any good."

"You don't even like me." He sounded almost dismayed, but with an edge of incredulity that enforced my feeling.

"Not so much anymore."

"Then I've made a fool of myself." Now he was a little angry. Well, join the club.

"An ambush is not the way to my heart. Or any other part of me."

Alcide left without another word. He hadn't been listening until I'd said the same thing in several different ways. Maybe that was key? Saying things three times?

I watched his truck on its way back out to the road to be sure he was really gone. I looked at my watch again. Not yet nine thirty. I changed the sheets on my bed with lightning speed, stuffing the removed bedding into the washing machine and starting it. (I could not imagine Eric's reaction if he climbed into bed with me and found it smelling like Alcide Herveaux.) I opted to use my remaining minutes before Mustapha Khan arrived to do some much-needed grooming rather than wake up Amelia or Claude and lay into them. As I brushed my hair and pulled it into a ponytail, I heard a motorcycle on the driveway.

Mustapha Khan, punctual lone werewolf. He had a small passenger clinging to him. I watched out the front window as he swung off the Harley and sauntered to the front door to knock. His companion stayed on the motorcycle.

I opened the door and looked up. Khan was about six feet tall with his head shaved close, leaving a mosslike burr. He was wearing dark glasses, trying for a "Blade" look, I figured. He was the golden brown of a chocolate chip cookie. When he took off the glasses, I saw that his eyes would be the actual dark chips. And that was the only thing remotely sweet about him. I took a deep breath, inhaled the smell of something wild. I heard my fairy kin come down the stairs behind me.

"Mr. Khan?" I said politely. "Please come in. I'm Sookie Stackhouse, and these two guys are Dermot and Claude." From Claude's avid expression, I was not the only one who'd thought of chocolate chip cookies. Dermot only looked wary.

Mustapha Khan glanced at them and dismissed them, which showed he wasn't as bright as he might be. Or maybe he just didn't think they were pertinent to his errand.

"I'm here to get Eric's car," he said.

"Could you come in for a minute? I made coffee."

"Oh, good," Dermot muttered, and headed for the kitchen. I heard him talking to someone and deduced that Amelia and/or Bob were staggering around. Good. I wanted a word with my buddy Amelia.

"I don't drink coffee," Mustapha said. "I don't take stimulants of any kind."

"Then would you like a glass of water?"

"No, I'd like to head back to Shreveport. I got a long list of things to do for Mr. High and Mighty Dead Guy."

"How come you took the job if you think so little of Eric?"

"He ain't bad, for a vamp," Mustapha said grudgingly. "Bubba's okay, too. The rest of 'em?" He spat. Subtle, but I got his drift.

"Who's your buddy?" I asked, tilting my head at the Harley.

"You want to know a lot," he said.

"Uh-huh." I stared right back at him, not backing down.

"Come here a minute, Warren," Mustapha called, and the small man hopped off the Harley and came over.

Warren proved to be about five foot seven, pale and freckled, and missing a few teeth. But when he took off his goggles, his eyes were clear and steady, and I didn't see any fang marks on his neck.

"Ma'am," he said politely.

I reintroduced myself. Interesting that Mustapha had a real friend, a friend he didn't want anyone (well, me) to know about. While Warren and I were exchanging comments on the weather, the muscular Were was having a hard time reining in his impatience. Claude drifted away, uninterested in Warren and losing hope of interesting Mustapha.

"Warren, how long have you been in Shreveport?"

"Oh my gosh, I been there all my life," Warren said. "'Cept when I was in the army. Course, I was in the army fifteen years."

Easy to find out about Warren, but Eric had wanted me to check out Mustapha. So far the Blade wannabe wasn't cooperating. Standing in the doorway was not a good way to have a relaxing conversation. Oh, well. "So you and Mustapha have known each other for a while?"

"Few months," Warren said, glancing at the taller man.

"Twenty Questions over?" Mustapha said.

I touched his arm, which was like touching an oak branch. "KeShawn Johnson," I said thoughtfully, after a little rummage in his head. "Why'd you change your name?"

He stiffened, and his mouth was grim. "I have reinvented myself," he said. "I am not the slave to a bad habit who was named KeShawn. I am Mustapha Khan, and I am my own man. I own myself."

"Okeydokey," I said, doing my best to sound agreeable. "Nice to meet you, Mustapha. You and Warren have a safe trip back to Shreveport."

I'd learned as much as I was going to today. If Mustapha Khan was going to be around Eric for a while, I'd gradually catch enough glimpses into his head to piece him together. Oddly enough, I felt better about Mustapha after I'd met Warren. I was sure Warren had had some very hard times and maybe done some very hard things, but I also thought at his core he was a reliable man. I suspected the same might be true of Mustapha.

I was willing to wait and see.

Bubba liked him, but that wasn't necessarily such a recommendation. After all, Bubba drank cat blood.

I turned away from the door, bracing myself to face my next set of problems. In the kitchen, I found Claude and Dermot cooking. Dermot had found a cylinder of Pillsbury biscuits in the refrigerator, and he'd mastered opening the can and putting them on a baking sheet. The oven had even preheated. Claude was cooking eggs, which was kind of amazing. Amelia was getting out plates and Bob was setting the table.

I hated to interrupt such a domestic scene.

"Amelia," I said. She'd been suspiciously focused on the plates. She looked up as sharply as if she'd heard me pump my shotgun. I met her eyes. Guilty, guilty, guilty. "Claude," I said even more sharply, and he glanced at me over his shoulder and smiled. No guilt there. Dermot and Bob simply looked resigned.

"Amelia, you told my business to a werewolf," I said. "Not just any werewolf, but the packmaster of Shreveport. And I'm sure you did that on purpose."

Amelia flushed red. "Sookie, I thought with the bond broken, maybe you'd want someone else to know about that, and you'd talked about Alcide, so when I met him, I thought . . ."

"You went there on purpose to make sure he knew," I said relentlessly. "Otherwise, why pick that bar out of all other bars?" Bob looked as though he were about to speak, and I raised my index finger and pointed it at him. He subsided. "You told me you were going to the movies in Clarice. Not to a werewolf bar in the opposite direction." Having finished with Amelia, I turned to the other culprit.

"Claude," I said again, and his back stiffened, though he kept on cooking eggs. "You let someone into the house, my house, without me here, and you gave him permission to get in my bed. That's inexcusable. Why would you do such a thing to me?"

Claude carefully moved the frying pan off the burner, turning it off as he did so. "He seemed like a nice guy," Claude said, "and I thought you might like to make love with something with a pulse for once."

I actually felt something snap inside me. "Okay," I said in a very level voice. "Listen up. I'm going to my room. You all eat the food you've cooked, then you pack up and leave. All of you." Amelia started crying, but I wasn't going to soften my stance. I was royally pissed off. I looked at the clock on the wall. "In forty-five minutes, I want this house empty."

I went in my room, shutting the door with exquisite quietness. I lay on my bed with a book and tried to read. After a few minutes there was a knock at the door. I ignored it. I had to be resolute. People staying in my home had done things they knew damn good and well they ought not to do, and they needed to know I wouldn't tolerate such interference, no matter how well intended (Amelia) or simply mischievous (Claude). I buried my face in my hands. It was hard to keep up this level of indignation, especially since I wasn't used to it--but I knew it would be very bad to give in to my craven impulse to throw open the door and allow them all to stay.

When I tried to imagine myself doing that, it felt so wrong and bad that I knew I genuinely wanted them out of the house.

I'd been so happy to see Amelia. I'd been so pleased that she was willing to rush up from New Orleans to do magical repairs on my protection. And I'd been so startled she'd actually found a way to break the bond that I'd let myself be rushed into actually doing it. I should have called Eric first, warned him. No excuse for doing it so brutally, except I'd been sure he'd talk me out of it. That was just as poorly done as letting myself be persuaded to take the shaman's drugs at Alcide's pack meeting.

Those two decisions were my fault. They were mistakes I had made.

But this impulse of Amelia's to try to manipulate my love life had been a bad one. I was an adult woman, and I had earned the right to make my own decisions about who I wanted to be with. I had wanted to remain Amelia's friend forever, but not if she was going to manipulate events in an attempt to try to turn my life into one she liked better.

And Claude had been playing a Claude sort of joke, a sly and naughty trick. I didn't like that, either. No, he needed to go.

When the forty-five minutes were up and I emerged from my room, I was a bit surprised to find that they'd actually done what I'd told them to. My houseguests were gone . . . except for Dermot.

My great-uncle was sitting on the back steps, his bulging sports bag beside him. He didn't try to draw attention to himself in any way, and I guess he'd have sat there until I opened the back door to leave for work if I hadn't happened to go out on the back porch to move the sheets from the washer to the dryer.

"Why are you here?" I asked in the most neutral voice I could summon.

"I'm sorry," he said, words that had been sorely lacking until now.

Though a knot inside me relaxed when he said those magic words, I wasn't totally won over. "Why'd you let Claude do that?" I said. I was holding the door open, obliging him to twist around to talk to me. He stood and turned to face me.

"I didn't think what he was doing was right. I didn't think you could want Alcide when you seem tied to the vampire, and I didn't think the outcome would be good for you or either of them. But Claude is willful and headstrong. I didn't have the necessary energy to argue with him."

"Why not?" It seemed like an obvious question to me, but it surprised Dermot. He looked away, over the flowers and bushes and lawn.

After a thoughtful pause my great-uncle said, "I haven't cared very much about anything since Niall enchanted me. Well, since you and Claude broke the enchantment, more accurately. I can't seem to achieve any sense of purpose, of what I want to be doing with the rest of my life. Claude has a purpose. Even if he didn't, I think he'd be content. Claude is very human in his nature." Then he looked appalled, perhaps realizing that in my clear-the-decks mood I might find his opinion a good reason to tell him to hit the road with the others.

"What's Claude's purpose?" I asked, because that seemed like a pretty interesting point. "Not that I don't want to talk more about you, I do, but I find the idea of Claude with an agenda pretty interesting." Not to say alarming.

"I've already betrayed one friend," he said. After a moment, I realized he meant me. "I don't want to betray another."

Now I was even more worried about Claude's plans. However, that issue would have to wait. "Why do you think you're feeling this inertia?" I said, returning to the topic at hand.

"Because I have no allegiance. Since Niall made sure I was put out of Faery . . . since I roamed around crazy for so long . . . I don't feel part of the sky clan, and the water clan wouldn't have me even though I allied with them. While I was cursed," he added hastily. "But I'm not a human, and I don't feel like one. I can't really pass for a man for more than a few minutes. The other fae at Hooligans, the cluster of them . . . they're only united by chance." Dermot shook his golden head. Though his hair was longer than Jason's, shoulder length to cover up his ears, he'd never looked more like my brother. "I don't feel like a fairy anymore. I feel . . ."

"Like a stranger in a strange land," I said.

He shrugged. "Maybe so."

"You still want to work up in the attic?"

He exhaled a long slow breath. He looked at me sideways. "Yes, very much. Can I . . . just do that?"

I went into the house and got my car keys and my secret stash of money. Gran had been a great believer in keeping a secret stash. Mine had been hidden in the inner zip pocket of my weatherproof winter jacket at the back of my closet. "You can take my car to Home Depot in Clarice," I said. "Here. You can drive, can't you?"

"Oh, yes," he said, looking from the money to the keys eagerly. "Yes, I even have a driver's license."

"How'd you get that?" I asked, absolutely taken aback.

"I went to the government office one day while Claude was busy," he said. "I was able to make them think they were seeing the right papers. I had enough magic for that. Answering the questions on the test was easy. I'd watched Claude, so taking the officer for a drive wasn't too difficult, either."

I wondered if a lot of drivers on the road had done the same thing. It would explain a lot. "Okay. Please be careful, Dermot. Ah, you know about money?"

"Yes, Claude's secretary taught me. I can count it. I know what the coins are, too."

Aren't you the big boy, I thought, but it would have been unkind to say. He really had adapted amazingly well for a driven-insane-by-magic fairy. "Okay," I said. "Have a good time, don't spend all my money, and be back in an hour, 'cause I got to go to work. Sam said I could come in late today, but I don't want to push it."

Dermot said, "You won't regret this, Niece." He opened the kitchen door to toss his gym bag into the house, leaped down the steps, and got in my car, looking at the dashboard carefully.

"I hope not," I said to myself as he buckled up and drove away (slowly, thank God). "I sincerely hope not."

My departed guests had not felt obliged to do the dishes. I couldn't say I was that surprised. I set to work and wiped down the counters afterward. The spotless kitchen made me feel I was making progress.

As I folded the sheets, warm from the dryer, I told myself I was doing okay. I wish I could say I didn't think about Amelia, feel sorry all over again, decide all over again that I'd done the right thing.

Dermot returned within an hour. He was as happy and animated as I'd ever seen him. I hadn't realized how depressed Dermot had been until I saw him actually lit up with purpose. He'd rented a sander and bought paint and plastic sheeting, blue tape and scrapers, brushes and rollers and a paint tray. I had to remind him he needed to eat something before he started work, and I also had to remind him that I needed to leave for work in the not-too-distant future.

Also, there was the summit meeting here at the house. "Dermot, is there any friend you can hang around with tonight?" I asked cautiously. "Eric, Pam, and two humans are coming over after I get off work. We're kind of a planning committee, and we have some work to do. You know how it is with you and vampires."

"I don't have to go anywhere with other people," Dermot said, surprised. "I can be in the woods. That's a happy place for me. The night sky is as good as the day sky, as far as I'm concerned."

I thought about Bubba. "It's possible Eric may have stationed a vampire in the woods to watch the house at night," I explained. "So could you be in some other woods kind of away from here?" I felt awful about putting so many strictures on him, but he was the one who'd wanted to stay.

"I suppose so," he said, in the voice of one trying hard to be tolerant and helpful. "I love this house," he added. "There's something amazingly homelike about it."

And seeing him smile as he looked around the old place, I was more than ever sure that the unseen presence of the cluviel dor was the reason my two fairy kinsmen had come to stay with me, rather than my own little dash of fairy blood. I was willing to concede that Claude believed that my fairy blood was the attraction. Though I knew he had a mellower side, I was also sure that if he realized I held a valuable fairy artifact, one that could grant his most ardent wish--to be allowed passage into Faery--he'd tear the house apart looking for it. I felt instinctively that I would not like to stand between Claude and the cluviel dor. And though I sensed something warmer and more genuine in Dermot, I wasn't about to confide in him.

"I'm glad you're happy here," I said to my great-uncle. "And good luck with the attic project." I didn't actually need another bedroom up there now that Claude was gone, but I'd made a snap decision to keep Dermot on task. "If you'll excuse me, I'll go get ready for work. You can sand away on the floor." He'd told me that would be his starting point. I had no idea if that was the right order or not, but I was content to leave it to him. After all, considering the state of the attic before he and Claude had helped me clean it out, any work he did would be an improvement. I did check to make sure Dermot had a face mask to wear while he used the sander. I knew that much from home improvement shows.

Jason dropped by on his lunch break while I was putting on my makeup. I came out of my room to find him surveying all of Dermot's Home Depot loot. "What you doing?" he asked his near twin. Jason obviously had very mixed feelings about Dermot, but I'd observed that he was much more relaxed around our great-uncle when Claude wasn't there. Interesting. They clattered up the stairs together to look at the empty attic, Dermot talking all the way.

Though I was running seriously late, I fixed Jason and Dermot some sandwiches, putting the plate on the kitchen table with two glasses of ice and two Cokes while I hurried into my Merlotte's uniform. When I emerged, they were at the table having a lively conversation. I hadn't had enough sleep, I'd had to sweep my house clean of visitors, and I hadn't gotten very far with Mustapha or his buddy. But seeing Jason and Dermot chattering away about grout, spray painters, and weatherproof windows somehow made me feel that the world was on some kind of even keel.