stake’s sharp enough.”

Oh,dammit . The next thing I knew I was on my feet, walking away from the table.

IWAS INCHINGalong, blocking the noise of the music and the voices so I could listen sharply to what was being said silently. It was like walking underwater. At the bar, slugging back a glass of synthetic blood, was a woman with a poof of teased hair. She was dressed in a tight-bodiced dress with a full skirt fluffing out around it. Her muscular arms and broad shoulders looked pretty strange with the outfit; but I’d never tell her so, nor would any sane person. This had to be Betty Joe Pickard, Russell Edgington’s second in command. She had on white gloves and pumps, too. All she needed was a little hat with a half-veil, I decided. I was willing to bet Betty Joe had been a big fan of Mamie Eisenhower’s.

And standing behind this formidable vampire, also facing the bar, were two male humans. One was tall, and oddly familiar. His gray-threaded brown hair was long, but neatly combed. It looked like a regular men’s haircut, allowed to grow however it wanted to grow. The hairstyle looked odd with his suit. His shorter companion had rough black hair, tousled and flecked with gray. This second man wore a sports coat that maybe came off the rack from JCPenney on a sale day.

And inside that cheap coat, in a specially sewn pocket, he carried a stake.

Horribly enough, I hesitated. If I stopped him, I would be revealing my hidden talent, and to reveal that would be to unmask my identity. The consequences of this revelation would depend on what Edgington knew about me; he apparently knew Bill’s girlfriend was a barmaid at Merlotte’s in Bon Temps, but not her name. That’s why I’d been free to introduce myself as Sookie Stackhouse. If Russell knew Bill’s girlfriend was a telepath, and he discovered I was a telepath, who knew what would happen then?

Actually, I could make a good guess.

As I dithered, ashamed and frightened, the decision was made for me. The man with the black hair reached inside his coat and the fanaticism roiling in his head reached fever pitch. He pulled out the long sharpened piece of ash, and then a lot happened.

I yelled,“STAKE!” and lunged for the fanatic’s arm, gripping it desperately with both my hands. The vampires and their humans whirled around looking for the threat, and the shifters and Weres wisely scattered to the walls to leave the floor free for the vampires. The tall man beat at me, his big hands pounding at my head and shoulders, and his dark-haired companion kept twisting his arm, trying to free it from my grasp. He heaved from side to side to throw me off.

Somehow, in the melee, my eyes met those of the taller man, and we recognized each other. He was G. Steve Newlin, former leader of the Brotherhood of the Sun, a militant anti-vampire organization whose Dallas branch had more or less bit the dust after I’d paid it a visit. He was going to tell them who I was, I just knew it, but I had to pay attention to what the man with the stake was doing. I was staggering around on my heels, trying to keep my feet, when the assassin finally had a stroke of brilliance and transferred the stake from his pinned right hand to his free left.

With a final punch to my back, Steve Newlin dashed for the exit, and I caught a flash of creatures bounding in pursuit. I heard lots of yowling and tweeting, and then the black-haired man threw back his left arm and plunged the stake into my waist on my right side.

I let go of his arm then, and stared down at what he’d done to me. I looked back up into his eyes for a long moment, reading nothing there but a horror to mirror my own. Then Betty Joe Pickard swung back her gloved fist and hit him twice—boom-boom. The first blow snapped his neck. The second shattered his skull. I could hear the bones break.

And then he went down to the floor, and since my legs were tangled with his, I went down, too. I landed flat on my back.

I lay looking up at the ceiling of the bar, at the fan that was rotating solemnly above my head. I wondered why the fan was on in the middle of winter. I saw a hawk