The Sookie Stackhouse Companion

by Charlaine Harris

  Stackhouse, Jason (panther): Jason Stackhouse is a ladies’man, romancing his way through Bon Temps and surrounding areas. His carefree ways almost prove to be his undoing when he is suspected of killing several women, including his own grandmother, but he is cleared when his sister, Sookie, is attacked by Jason’s co-worker Rene Lenier, the real killer, and is able to defend herself, leading to Rene’s arrest. Jason attempts to change his ways but is unable to stick with one woman for long until he meets Crystal Norris, a werepanther from the nearby town of Hotshot. Crystal decides to find a man outside Hotshot and the panther pack, and his involvement with her causes another local werepanther, Felton Norris, to kidnap Jason and change him into a werepanther to level the playing field in the competition for Crystal’s affections. Jason is “bitten, not blood,” so he only partially changes with the moon, but he runs with the pack and continues dating Crystal. They marry on the spur of the moment when Crystal finds out she is pregnant again after an earlier miscarriage. Jason soon regrets his impulses, both sexual and legal, as Crystal turns out to be a most unsuitable wife. When he discovers that she is being unfaithful, he sets up Sookie and Calvin Norris, Crystal’s uncle, to catch her in the act with her lover. Sookie and Calvin stood for Jason and Crystal at their wedding, pledging responsibility for them, and when it comes time for the punishment of Crystal by the panther pack, Calvin stands for her, as she is pregnant, and Jason selfishly has Sookie stand for him. His sister must shatter Calvin’s fingers, symbolic of his panther claws, with a brick, and she vows to never speak to Jason again. Jason attempts to mend fences with his sister, but his charm is lost on her and he is finally forced to change his self-centered nature. Separated from Crystal, he begins dating Michele Schubert, a local divorcée with a no-nonsense attitude. When Crystal is found crucified in the parking lot at Merlotte’s, Sookie mourns the loss of his wife and baby with him, and they begin to reconnect. Jason suffers another loss when his new friend, fellow werepanther Mel Hart, is revealed to have injured Crystal after she taunted him about his feelings for Jason, leaving her vulnerable to her real killers. Mel admits his love for his friend before Jason, Calvin, and Crystal’s sister and cousin exact justice for his actions. Jason finds out about his fairy heritage from Sookie and is angered that his great-grandfather doesn’t want to know him because of his selfishness and his close resemblance to his great-uncle Dermot, and he says a bitter good-bye to Niall when he closes the door to Faery. He continues rebuilding his relationship with Sookie, escorting her to the Were trial at Alcide’s house, and continues dating Michele, seemingly serious about their relationship.

  For all his charm, Jason lacks the essential spark so treasured by his fairy grandfather, Fintan, so the telepathy gifted to his family by Desmond Cataliades passes him by, as it did with his father and aunt. (DUD, LDID, CD, DTTW, DAAD, DD, ATD, FDTW, DAG, DITF, DR; mentioned FD, OWA, L, GW)

  Stackhouse, Jonas: Jonas, Mitchell Stackhouse’s great-great-great-great-grandfather, knew Bill before he was turned. He lived at the Stackhouse family home with his wife and four children and owned two slaves, although he worked his own fields. (Deceased; mentioned DUD)

  Stackhouse, Michelle: Michelle Stackhouse never realizes that it is her husband’s fairy heritage that enthralls her, making her jealous even of the attention he pays his own children. That same heritage is responsible for her death alongside her husband when they are drowned by water sprites loyal to the enemy of his birth grandfather Niall. (Deceased; mentioned DUD, CD, FDTW, DAG, DITF, DR)

  Stackhouse, Mitchell: Adele’s husband, Mitchell, becomes sterile after having the mumps and is not the father of Corbett and Linda. (Deceased; mentioned DUD, FDTW, DAG, DITF, DR)

  Stackhouse, Sookie (telepath): Small-town girl Sookie Stackhouse waits tables and reads minds. She is never alone in her own head, constantly barraged by the thoughts of those around her. Vampires have been “out of the coffin” for two years when one comes into the bar and Sookie meets Bill Compton, former Confederate soldier and local landowner. When Bill foolishly leaves the bar with a couple who turn out to be Drainers (people who drain vampires of their blood to sell it), Sookie comes to his rescue. Bill returns the favor a few nights later when the couple return to retaliate against Sookie, beating her badly. Sookie discovers that she cannot “hear” Bill, and she finds in Bill that which she wants and needs most: companionship that gives her a respite from the “blah blah blah” of other people’s thoughts that crowd her brain. They begin a relationship that continues even after several local women connected with vampires are murdered. When suspicion falls on her brother, Jason, Sookie seeks information to clear him, going with Bill to a vampire bar in Shreveport to ask questions. She comes to the attention of Fangtasia bar owner Eric Northman, who is doubly interested when he realizes her telepathic abilities.

  Believing she was the intended target when her grandmother becomes a victim of the killer, Sookie struggles with her guilt even as her relationship with Bill deepens. Adding to her problems, Eric Northman has decided to use her abilities to uncover an embezzler at Fangtasia. When the culprit is revealed as vampire Long Shadow, the bartender, Eric stakes Long Shadow as he attacks Sookie. Bill leaves town to campaign for a place in the vampire hierarchy as a measure against Eric, and Sookie is assaulted by the murderer, Rene Lenier, stabbing him in self-defense. Bill returns with the news that he has been named Area Five investigator, placing him under Eric’s protection.

  Bill and Sookie are on the way to Fangtasia to get an assignment from Eric when the car breaks down and they quarrel. Sookie is attacked by a maenad as she walks home. Bill is able to get her to Fangtasia, where blood draining and then transfusions wash the maenad’s poison from her system, and after some recovery time, Eric informs them that they are going to Dallas to help find a missing vamp. Once there, Sookie and a human companion attempt to infiltrate the Fellowship of the Sun, an anti-vampire “church,” but her companion betrays her. Sookie is injured while escaping, with the help of first Godfrey, a vampire renouncer who seeks to meet the dawn, and then Luna, a shifter who has also infiltrated the organization. After Bill and the local vamps rescue the missing vamp, Sookie returns in the morning to the deserted compound to witness Godfrey’s self-immolation. Upon her return to Bon Temps, Sookie becomes involved in finding the murderer of the cook at Merlotte’s, Lafayette Reynold, whose body she had found in the bar’s parking lot in Andy Bellefleur’s car before going to Dallas. Invited to an orgy by those she suspects, Sookie asks Eric to escort her, as Bill has had to make a brief trip back to Dallas. She finds out the identity of the murderers, but before she, Eric, and a just-returned Bill can leave the orgy, a drunken Andy stumbles from the woods. Desperate to find the murderer and clear his name, he calls on Sookie to read the minds of the orgy participants. Callisto, the maenad, arrives, drawn by the atmosphere of lust and drunkenness. She sends her madness into the orgy, and Sookie is almost drawn into the insanity through her telepathy. Satisfied by her tribute, the maenad moves on, leaving Bill and Eric to clean up her mess. Andy is cleared when evidence of the murder is found in one of the automobiles of the deceased partygoers. Bill and Sookie relax at her home, finding a cake from Andy’s grandmother on her doorstep the next day as a gesture of thanks. Hearing her full name, Bill realizes that the Bellefleurs are his descendants through his daughter Sarah.

  When Bill leaves town under suspicious circumstances, Sookie is hurt and angry but nevertheless becomes determined to find him when told he is now missing and considered kidnapped. Accompanied by werewolf Alcide Herveaux, she travels to Jackson and goes to Josephine’s, a supe bar nicknamed Club Dead, hoping to “hear” something about Bill. After being staked while protecting the King of Mississippi’s second-in-command, she locates Bill at the king’s mansion and is able to rescue him after killing his maker. Locked in a car trunk by Debbie Pelt, Alcide’s jealous ex-girlfriend, Sookie suffers a physical assault from a starved and tortured Bill, who is lost in bloodlust. They are finally able to esc
ape the trunk, and Sookie has Eric, who has tagged along, take her home. Eric is attacked by thugs hired by the biker gang that frequents Club Dead when they stop for gas, and Sookie hurries to save both him and the young clerk. When they finally get to her house, they are attacked again by some of the gang members themselves. Sookie is beaten, but Eric and Bill, who drove home as well, burst in to kill all the bikers.

  Sookie and Bill remain estranged, and soon after he goes on a research trip, she finds Eric running down the road to her home early on New Year’s morning. Confused and half-naked, Eric has been cursed with amnesia by a witch who wants to take over part of his holdings. Sookie agrees to shelter the befuddled vamp while Pam and Chow plan to restore Eric’s memory. Sookie’s brother, Jason, goes missing, and even as she worries about him, she heads to Shreveport to warn Alcide about the witches because some of them are Weres, and together they find that the coven has killed the Long Tooth pack’s second, Adabelle Yancy. Returning to Bon Temps, Sookie finds comfort with Eric, and the two begin a brief, passionate affair.

  Sookie locates Crystal Norris, Jason’s date on New Year’s Eve, in the tiny town of Hotshot, hoping the young woman can offer some information. Although Crystal is unable to help, her uncle, Calvin Norris, offers Sookie his protection. Admitting that he has seen her in Merlotte’s, the Hotshot packleader begins a quiet courtship of Sookie, joining in an organized search of the woods surrounding Jason’s house with Bon Temps locals, along with Crystal and Hotshot’s best tracker, Felton Norris. Sookie despairs when there is no sign of Jason.

  The Weres decide to partner with the vamps to destroy the coven, and Sookie attends the conflict with Eric, using her abilities to identify the innocent local witches who are being forced to participate. The Weres and vampires prevail, and Pam takes Hallow, the coven leader, captive to force her to break the spell on Eric. Attacked by Debbie Pelt on their return home, Sookie is forced to shoot and kill her. Eric disposes of her body and her car while Sookie cleans up the mess. When he awakens the next evening, the spell has been broken, his memories are restored, and he has no recollection of the time they spent together. Pam arrives to take him home and fill him in on the Were war and the damage done to Fangtasia by the coven. When Sam informs Sookie that the Hotshot shifters are panthers, she tells him that a panther track was found at Jason’s, and the two race out to Hotshot. With Calvin’s help they locate a badly bitten and freezing Jason in Felton’s toolshed. Calvin assures them that Hotshot will see that Jason’s kidnapper is punished, and Sookie takes her brother home, knowing the chances are good that he will now shift with the moon.

  Sookie approaches Eric on Sam’s behalf when Sam is shot by a sniper targeting local shifters and needs to borrow a bartender. He complies, sending newly hired Charles Twining back to Bon Temps with her. Shortly thereafter, Alcide Herveaux escorts Sookie to the funeral of the Shreveport packmaster, who has died in a car accident. Sookie doesn’t realize at first that Alcide is also hoping she will use her ability for his father’s benefit on the Were running against his father for the packmaster position. At the funeral, her attention is caught by a tall, bald man who seems to be watching over the proceedings, including her furious albeit hushed discussion with Alcide on the church steps about his deceit. After work that night she takes Charles home with her to stay in the vampire hidey-hole. She is awakened in the night first by Charles confronting Bill in her yard and then by a fire. Claudine pops in to rescue her, and Charles claims he killed the arsonist in self-defense. Sookie is shaken but soon begins to rebuild her damaged kitchen, staying in a rental house in town. While returning books to the library, Sookie is winged by a sniper.

  Sookie asks Eric for assistance for her friend Tara, who is being abused by a vampire named Mickey. Eric is happy to do a favor for Sookie, providing she repay it by telling him the truth about what happened while he had amnesia. She complies, and he is stunned to find that he was willing to give up everything to be with her.

  She attends the packmaster contest and finds Quinn, the tall man from the funeral, officiating. Although she catches Alcide’s father’s opponent, Patrick Furnan, cheating, the pack decides to allow the contest to continue anyway, and Alcide’s father is ultimately killed by his opponent. Alcide turns from her, seeking comfort with another Were, and she goes to work that night with a heavy heart. She realizes that the bartender Eric lent to Sam is not who he says he is, and the vampire admits that he is there to kill her in revenge for the staking of Long Shadow. She is able to stuff her silver chain in his mouth and escape, and the vampire is staked by the regular patrons at Merlotte’s.

  Sookie meets up with weretiger Quinn again a month later, when he walks into Merlotte’s with two purposes: to deliver a message from the vampire Queen of Louisiana, whose wedding he has just overseen for his company, and to ask Sookie out. She is delighted to go out on a real date, but their good time is ruined when they are attacked by two bitten Weres while leaving the theater. After filing a police report, Quinn takes Sookie to a shifter bar to inform them of the attack and remind them that she is a friend of the pack. Quinn takes her home, and they set up another date, but Mr. Cataliades arrives to take her to New Orleans to settle her late, twice-deceased vampire cousin Hadley’s estate. Bill accompanies them to New Orleans, where Sookie and Amelia, Hadley’s landlord, are attacked by a vampire whom no one realizes Hadley has created. A Were who has been missing for several months, Jake has lain hidden in Hadley’s closet, held in stasis by a spell Amelia cast. Bill and Eric both come to the hospital where Sookie waits for treatment, and Eric forces Bill to admit that his pursuit of Sookie began as an assignment from the queen. Devastated, she leaves the hospital and wanders back to the apartment. The next night, Sookie, Queen Sophie-Anne Leclerq, and her bodyguards watch an ectoplasmic reconstruction arranged by Amelia to determine why Hadley, the queen’s favorite, turned the Were. Quinn arrives to break the tension, having come to New Orleans to look for the missing Were, Jake, one of his employees. Sookie welcomes him the next day to help her pack, but they are attacked again and kidnapped by Weres, who drive them toward the swamps. They escape, track their attackers to a cabin in the woods, and discover that the family of Debbie Pelt is behind their troubles. Sookie decides to tell the family the story of Debbie’s death. They believe that it was self-defense, and Debbie’s parents promise that they will not seek vengeance. Sookie and Quinn attend the queen’s spring ball, where a battle breaks out between the Louisiana vamps and the Arkansas vamps of the queen’s new husband. Sookie escapes with Quinn and is happy to finish her business and leave New Orleans the next day.

  Although initially asked by Eric, Sookie attends a summit of vampires in the city of Rhodes as part of the queen’s entourage. She and Quinn have become serious, and she hopes to spend time with him at the summit, which he is overseeing for his company. Sookie is the only witness to the death of Peter Threadgill, Sophie-Anne’s husband, and expects to be called to testify on the queen’s behalf. The queen’s second, Andre Paul, believes Sookie can be of more use to the queen if she is connected to him by a blood bond. Eric interrupts as Sookie tries to resist. He suggests that Andre allow him to forge the blood bond with Sookie instead, since they have already had each other’s blood. Andre allows this, and Sookie unwillingly gives and receives blood with Eric. Quinn bursts onto the scene, furious that the vampires have forced Sookie into such a situation. Sookie tries to walk away with her head held high but breaks down in a stairwell.

  Barry, the telepath she met while in Dallas, is in service to Stan Davis, who is now King of Texas. They both sense that something is wrong at the summit, and Barry awakens Sookie on the final morning in a panic. They discover that there are bombs planted throughout the hotel and frantically try to save both the humans and the vampires with the help of Mr. Cataliades, his niece Diantha, and a human named Cecile, who is also in service to Stan. Sookie alerts Quinn to get out of the hotel, Cecile pulls the fire alarm to evacuate the humans, and they rush to get their vam
pires to safety. Sookie manages to rouse Eric long enough to stuff Pam into her traveling coffin and get them all out of a window, while Mr. Cataliades is able to save Sophie-Anne. Working to rescue both humans and vampires, Sookie spies an injured Quinn in the rubble, with his sister and Andre lying nearby. Although badly hurt, Quinn insists that Sookie leave to help others, and she walks away knowing that he is going to stake Andre to protect her from his influence. After Sookie and Barry combine their talents to save people from the wreckage, they finally make their way to a motel in exhaustion. Although Mr. Cataliades has arranged a flight the next afternoon, Sookie decides to see Quinn instead and then makes her own way home.

  Sookie is back in Bon Temps waiting to hear from Quinn when Eric calls and asks her to dinner on behalf of someone who wishes to meet her. He takes her to a restaurant in Shreveport, where she is surprised to be introduced to a fairy who explains that he is her great-grandfather. His half-human son Fintan had an affair with Gran, fathering both Sookie’s father and his sister, Linda. On the way home, Sookie and Eric are stopped by a Were pretending to be a policeman, who takes a shot at Sookie. The next day she discovers that Maria-Star Cooper, Alcide Herveaux’s girlfriend, has been murdered, and that Alcide suspects the packmaster is behind it. Sookie arranges a meeting between the two Weres, acting as a go-between and truth barometer, and Patrick’s innocence is proven as he tells them his own wife is missing. They are ambushed by a female packmaster seeking to take over their territory. Among the casualties are Patrick, Amanda, and most of the enemy Weres. Sam surprises Sookie by shifting into a lion and fighting to protect her. Once again, Claudine pops in to rescue Sookie and reveals that Sookie’s great-grandfather Niall is also Claudine’s grandfather.