“Murry?” Jason asked, and I closed my eyes. Shit.
“He was a fairy,” I said. “He tried to kill me. He’s not a problem now.”
Jason gave me an approving nod. “You go, Sookie,” he said. “Okay, let me see if I’m getting this straight. My great-grandfather didn’t want to meet me because I look a lot like Dermot, who’s my . . . great-uncle, right?”
“Right.”
“But Dermot apparently likes me a little better, because he actually came to my house and tried to talk to me.”
Trust Jason to interpret the situation in those terms. “Right,” I said.
Jason hopped to his feet and took a turn around the kitchen. “This is all the vampires’ fault,” he said. He glared at me.
“Why do you think so?” This was unexpected.
“If they hadn’t come out, none of this would be happening. Look at what’s happened since they went on TV. Look at how the world has changed. Nowwe’re out. Next, the fucking fairies. And the fae are bad news, Sookie; Calvin warned me about ’em. You think they’re all pretty and sweetness and light, but they’re not. He’s told me stories about them that would make your hair curl. Calvin’s dad knew a fairy or two. From what he’s said, it would be a good thing if they died out.”
I couldn’t decide if I was surprised or angry. “Why are you being so mean, Jason? I don’t need you arguing with me or saying bad things about Niall. You don’t know him. You don’t . . . Hey, you’re part fairy, remember!” I had an awful feeling that some of what he’d said was absolutely true, but it sure wasn’t the time to have this discussion.
Jason looked grim, every plane of his face tense. “I’m not claiming kin to any fairy,” he said. “He don’t want me; I don’t want him. And if I see that crazy half-and-half again, I’ll kill the son of a bitch.”
I don’t know what I would have said, but at that moment Mel came in without knocking, and we both turned to look at him.
“I’m sorry!” he said, obviously flustered and disturbed by Jason’s anger. He seemed, for a second, to think Jason had been talking about him. When neither of us gave him a guilty reaction, he relaxed. “Excuse me, Sookie. I forgot my manners.” He was carrying an ice bag in his hand, and he was moving a little slowly and painfully.
“I’m sorry you got hurt by Jason’s surprise visitor,” I said. You’re always supposed to put your company at ease. I hadn’t put a whole lot of thought into Mel, but right at that second I realized I would have been happier if Jason’s former BFF, Hoyt, had been here instead of the werepanther. It wasn’t that I disliked Mel, I thought. It was just that I didn’t know him very well, and I didn’t feel an automatic trust in him the way you feel about people from time to time. Mel was different. Even for a werepanther, he was hard to read, but that didn’t mean he was impossible.
After offering Mel something to drink, which was only polite, I asked Jason if he was going to stay the day, run around on my errands with me. I had serious doubts he would say yes. Jason was feeling rejected (by a fairy great-grandfather he’d never met and didn’t want to acknowledge), and that was a state of affairs Jason didn’t handle well.
“I’ll go around with you,” he said, unsmiling and stiff. “First, let me run over to the house and check out my rifle. I’ll need it, and it hasn’t been sighted in a coon’s age. Mel? You coming with me?” Jason simply wanted to be out of my presence to calm down. I could read it as easily as if he’d written it on the grocery list pad by the telephone.
Mel rose to go with Jason.
“Mel, what did you make of Jason’s visitor this morning?” I asked.
“Aside from the fact that he could throw me across the room and looked enough like Jason to make me turn to make sure your brother was coming out of his bedroom? Not much,” Mel said. Mel had managed to dress in his usual khakis and polo shirt, but the blue bruises on his arms kind of ruined his neat appearance. He shrugged on a jacket with great care.
“See you in a while, Sookie. Come around to get me,” Jason said. Of course, he’d want to ride in my car and burn up my gas, since we were running my errands. “In the meantime, you got my cell number.”
“Sure. I’ll see you in an hour or so.”
Since being alone hadn’t been a normal state of affairs for me lately, I would have actually enjoyed the feeling of having the house to myself if I hadn’t been worried that a supernatural killer was after me.
Nothing happened. I ate a bowl of cereal. Finally, I decided to risk taking a shower despite myPsycho memories. I made sure all the outside doors were locked, and I locked the bathroom door, too. I took the quickest shower on record.
Nobody had tried to kill me yet. I dried off, put on some makeup, and dressed for work.
When it was time to go, I stood on the back porch and eyeballed the distance between the steps and my car door, over and over. I figured I’d have to take ten steps. I unlocked the car with the keypad. I took a few deep breaths and unlocked the screen door. I pushed it open and fairly leaped off the porch, bypassing the steps entirely. In an undignified scramble, I yanked open the car door, slid inside, and slammed and locked the door. I looked around me.
Nothing moved.
I laughed a little breathlessly. Silly me!
Being so tense was making all the scary movies I’d ever seen pop into my head. I was thinking ofJurassic Park and dinosaurs—maybe my thought link was that fairies were the dinosaurs of the supernatural world—and I half expected a piece of goat to fall on my windshield.
That didn’t happen, either. Okay . . .
I inserted the key and turned it, and the motor turned over. I didn’t blow up. There was no Tyrannosaurus in my rearview mirror.
So far, so good. I felt better once I’d begun going slowly down the driveway through the woods, but I was sure keeping my eyes busy. I felt a compulsion to get in touch with someone, to let someone know where I was and what I was doing.
I whipped my cell phone out of my purse and called Amelia. When she answered, I said, “I’m driving over to Jason’s. Since Tray is so sick, Jason’s going around with me today. Listen, you know Tray was spelled by a fairy into drinking rotten vampire blood?”
“I’m at work here,” Amelia said, caution in her voice. “Yes, he called ten minutes ago, but he had to go throw up. Poor Tray. At least the house was okay.”
Amelia’s point was that her wards had held. Well, she had a right to be proud of that.
“You’re great,” I said.
“Thanks. Listen, I’m really worried about Tray. I tried calling him back after a few minutes, but he didn’t answer. I hope he’s just sleeping it off, but I’m going over there after I leave work. Why don’t you meet me there? We can figure out what to do about getting you some more security.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come over right after I get off work, probably around five.” Phone in my hand, I jumped out and grabbed the mail from my mailbox, which sat up on Hummingbird Road. Then I got back in my car quick as I could.
That had been stupid. I could have gone without checking the mail for one day. Habits are very hard to break, even when they’re unimportant habits. “I really am lucky you live with me, Amelia,” I said. That might have been spreading it on a little thick, but it was the absolute truth.
But Amelia had gone off on another mental path. “You’re speaking to Jason again? You told him? Aboutthings ?”
“Yeah, I had to. Great-grandfather can’t have everything his own way. Stuff has happened.”
“It always does, around you,” Amelia said. She didn’t sound angry, and she wasn’t condemning me.
“Not always,” I said after a sharp moment of doubt.In fact, I thought, as I turned left at the end of Hummingbird Road to go to my brother’s,that point Jason made about everything changing when the vamps came out . . . that just might have been something I really agree with .
Prosaically, I realized my car was almost out of gas. I had to pull into Grabbit Quik. While I was pumping t
he liquid gold into my car, I fell back to puzzling over what Jason had told me. What would be urgent enough to bring a reclusive and human-hating half fairy to Jason’s door? Why would he tell Jason . . . ? I shouldn’t be thinking about this.
This was stupid, and I should be watching out for myself instead of trying to solve Jason’s problems.
But after a few more seconds of turning the conversation over in my head, I began to have a sneaking suspicion that I understood it a little better.
I called Calvin. At first he didn’t get what I was saying, but then he agreed to meet me at Jason’s house.
I caught a glimpse of Jason in the backyard when I pulled into the circular driveway of the neat, small house my dad had built when he and my mother were first married. It was out in the country, out farther west than Arlene’s trailer, and though it was visible from the road, it had a pond and several acres lying behind it. My dad had loved to hunt and fish, and my brother did, too. Jason had recently put in a makeshift range, and I could hear the rifle.
I decided to come through the house, and I took care to yell when I was at the back door.
“Hey!” Jason called back. He had a 30-30 in his hands. It had been our father’s. Mel was standing behind him, holding a box of ammo. “We decided we better get in some practice.”
“Good idea. I wanted to be sure you didn’t think I was your crazy caller, come back to yell some more.”
Jason laughed. “I still don’t understand what good Dermot thought he’d do, coming up to the front door like that.”
“I think I do,” I said.
Jason held out his hand without looking, and Mel gave him some bullets. Jason opened the rifle and began loading. I looked over at the sawhorse he’d set up, noted all the empty milk jugs lying on the ground. He’d filled them with water so they’d sit steady, and thanks to the bullet holes, the water was flowing out onto the ground.
“Good shooting,” I said. I took a deep breath. “Hey, Mel, you want to tell me about Hotshot funerals? I haven’t ever been to one, and Crystal’s will take place as soon as the body comes back, I reckon.”
Mel looked a little surprised. “You know I haven’t lived out there for years,” he protested. “It’s just not for me.” Except for the fading bruises, he didn’t look like he’d been thrown across the room by anyone, much less a crazed half fairy.
“I wonder why that guy threw you around instead of Jason,” I said, and felt Mel’s thoughts ripple with fear. “Are you hurt?”
He moved his right shoulder a little. “I thought I’d broken something. But I guess it’s just going to be sore. I wonder what he was. Not one of us.”
He hadn’t answered my question, I noticed.
Jason looked proud that he hadn’t blabbed.
“He’s not entirely human,” I said.
Mel looked relieved. “Well, that’s good to know,” he said. “My pride was pretty much shot to hell when he threw me around. I mean, I’m a full-blood panther, and it was like I was kindling or something.”
Jason laughed. “I thought he’d come on in and kill me then, thought I was a goner. But once Mel was down, this guy just started talking to me. Mel was playing possum, and here’s this fella looks a lot like me, telling me what a favor he’s done me . . .”
“It was weird,” Mel agreed, but he looked uncomfortable. “You know I’d’ve been on my feet if he’d started punching on you, but he really rang my bell, and I figured I might as well stay down once it looked like he wasn’t going to go after you.”
“Mel, I hope you’re really okay.” I made my voice concerned, and I moved a little closer. “Let me have a look at that shoulder.” I extended my hand, and Jason’s eyebrows knit together.
“Why do you need to . . . ?” An awful suspicion was creeping over his face. Without another word, he stepped behind his friend and held him firm, his hands gripping Mel on either side right below Mel’s shoulders. Mel winced with pain, but he didn’t say anything, not a word; he didn’t even pretend to be indignant or surprised, and that was almost enough.
I put a hand on either side of Mel’s face, and I closed my eyes, and I looked in his head. And this time Mel was thinking about Crystal, not Jason.
“He did it,” I said. I opened my eyes and looked at my brother’s face across Mel’s shoulder. I nodded.
Jason screamed, and it wasn’t a human sound. Mel’s face seemed to melt, as if all the muscles and bones had shifted. He hardly looked human at all.
“Let me look at you,” Mel pleaded.
Jason looked confused, since Melwas looking at me; he couldn’t look anywhere else, the way Jason was holding him. Mel wasn’t struggling, but I could see every muscle under his skin standing out, and I didn’t think he’d be passive forever. I bent down and picked up the rifle, glad Jason had reloaded it.
“He wants to look at you, not me,” I told my brother.
“Goddammit,” Jason said. His breathing was heavy and ragged as if he’d been running, and his eyes were wide. “You have to tell mewhy .”
I stepped back and raised the rifle. At this distance, even I couldn’t miss. “Turn him around, since he wants to talk to you face-to-face.”
They were in profile to me when Jason spun Mel around. Jason’s grip refastened on the werepanther, but now Jason’s face was a foot from Mel’s.
Calvin walked around the house. Crystal’s sister, Dawn, was with him. There was also a boy of about fifteen trailing along. I remembered meeting the boy at the wedding. He was Jacky, Crystal’s oldest first cousin. Adolescents practically reek of emotion and confusion, and Jacky was no exception. He was struggling to conceal the fact that he was both nervous and excited. Maintaining a cool demeanor was just killing him.
The three newcomers took in the scene. Calvin shook his head, his face solemn. “This is a bad day,” he said quietly, and Mel jerked at the sound of his leader’s voice.
Some of the tension leaked out of Jason when he saw the other werepanthers.
“Sookie says he did it,” he said to Calvin.
“That’s good enough for me,” Calvin said. “But, Mel—you should tell us yourself, brother.”
“I’m not your brother,” Mel said bitterly. “I haven’t lived with you for years.”
“That was your own choice,” Calvin said. He walked around so he could see Mel’s face, and the other two followed him. Jacky was snarling; any pretense at being cool had vanished. The animal was showing through.
“There isn’t anyone else in Hotshot like me. I would have been alone.”
Jason looked blank. “There are lots of guys in Hotshot like you,” he said.
“No, Jason,” I said. “Mel’s gay.”
“We’re not okay with that?” my brother asked Calvin. Jason hadn’t yet gotten the party line on a few issues, apparently.
“We’re okay with people doing what they want to do in bed after they’ve done their duty to the clan,” Calvin said. “Purebred males have to father a young ’un, no matter what.”
“I couldn’t do it,” Mel said. “I just plain couldn’t do it.”
“But you were married once,” I said, and wished I hadn’t spoken. This was a matter for the clan now. I hadn’t called Bud Dearborn; I’d called Calvin. My word was good enough for Calvin, not for court.
“Our marriage didn’t work in that department,” Mel said. His voice sounded almost normal. “Which was okay with her. She had her own fish to fry. We never had . . . conventional sex.”
If I found this distressing, I could only imagine how hard it had been for Mel. But when I remembered what Crystal had looked like up on that cross, all my sympathy drained away in a hurry.
“Why did you do that to Crystal?” I asked. I could tell from the rage building in the brains around me that the time for talking was almost over.
Mel looked beyond me, past my brother, away from his leader, his victim’s sister and cousin. He seemed to be focused on the winter-bare limbs of the trees around the still, brown p
ond. “I love Jason,” he said. “I love him. And she abused him and his child. Then she taunted me. She came here that day. . . . I’d stopped off to get Jason to help me build some shelves at the shop, but he wasn’t here. She drove up while I was out in the yard writing Jason a note. She began to say . . . she said awful things. Then she told me I had to have sex with her, that if I did, she’d tell them at Hotshot and I’d be able to go back to live there, and Jason could come live with me. She said, ‘His baby’s inside me; doesn’t that get you all hot?’ And it got worse and worse. The bed of the truck was down because the wood I’d bought was sticking out, and she kind of backed up to it and lay down, and I could see her. It was . . . she was . . . she kept telling me what a pussy I was and that Jason would never care about me . . . and I slapped her as hard as I could.”
Dawn Norris turned to one side as though she was going to throw up. But she pressed her lips together in a hard line and straightened up. Jacky wasn’t that tough.
“She wasn’t dead, though.” My brother forced the words between his clenched teeth. “She bled all down the cross. She lost the baby after she’d been hung up.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Mel said. His gaze returned from the pond and the trees and focused on my brother. “I thought the blow had killed her—I really did. I would never have left her to go in the house if I’d thought she was still alive. I would never have let someone else get her. What I did was bad enough, because I intended for her to die. But I didn’t crucify her. Please believe me. No matter what you think of me for hurting her, I would never have done that. I thought if I took her somewhere else, no one would think you did it. I knew you were going out that night, and I figured if I put her somewhere else, you’d have an alibi. I figured you’d end up spending the night with Michele.” Mel smiled at Jason, and it was such a tender look that my heart ached. “So I left her in the back of the truck, and I came in the house to have a drink. And when I came back out, she was gone. I couldn’t believe it. I thought she’d gotten up and walked away. But there wasn’t any blood, and the wood was gone, too.”
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