I coming back for the crucifixion?” I told him.

“Who said that to you?” He bent over me, his face intent, dark eyes wide.

“Guards at the gate.”

“The guards at the gates of the mansion asked you if you were coming back for a crucifixion tonight? This night?”

“Yes.”

“Whose?”

“Don’t know.”

“I would have expected you to say, ‘Where am I? What happened to me?’ ” Eric said. “Not ask whose crucifixion would be taking place—perhaps is taking place,” he corrected himself, glancing at the clock by the bed.

“Maybe they meant mine?” Bill looked a little stunned by the idea. “Maybe they decided to kill me tonight?”

“Or perhaps they caught the fanatic who tried to stake Betty Joe?” Eric suggested. “He would be a prime candidate for crucifixion.”

I thought it over, as much as I was able to reason through the weariness that kept threatening to overwhelm me. “Not the picture I got,” I whispered. My neck was very, very sore.

“You were able to read something from the Weres?” Eric asked.

I nodded. “I think they meant Bubba,” I whispered, and everyone in the room froze.

“That cretin,” Eric said savagely, after he’d had time to process that. “They caught him?”

“Think so.” That was the impression I’d gotten.

“We’ll have to retrieve him,” Bill said. “If he’s still alive.”

It was very brave for Bill to say he would go back in that compound. I would never have said that, if I’d been him.

The silence that had fallen was distinctly uneasy.

“Eric?” Bill’s dark eyebrows arched; he was waiting for a comment.

Eric looked royally angry. “I guess you are right. We have the responsibility of him. I can’t believe his home state is willing to execute him! Where is their loyalty?”

“And you?” Bill’s voice was considerably cooler as he asked Alcide.

Alcide’s warmth filled the room. So did the confused tangle of his thoughts. He’d spent part of last night with Debbie, all right.

“I don’t see how I can,” Alcide said desperately. “My business, my father’s, depends on my being able to come here often. And if I’m on the outs with Russell and his crew, that would be almost impossible. It’s going to be difficult enough when they realize Sookie must be the one who stole their prisoner.”

“And killed Lorena,” I added.

Another pregnant silence.

Eric began to grin. “You offed Lorena?” He had a good grasp of the vernacular, for a very old vampire.

It was hard to interpret Bill’s expression. “Sookie staked her,” he said. “It was a fair kill.”

“She killed Lorena in a fight?” Eric’s grin grew even broader. He was as proud as if he’d heard his firstborn reciting Shakespeare.

“Veryshort fight,” I said, not wanting to take any credit that was not due me. If you could term it credit.

“Sookie killed a vampire,” Alcide said, as if that raised me in his evaluation, too. The two vampires in the room scowled.

Alcide poured and handed me a big glass of water. I drank it, slowly and painfully. I felt appreciably better after a minute or two.

“Back to the original subject,” Eric said, giving me another meaningful look to show me he had more to say about the killing of Lorena. “If Sookie has not been pegged as having helped Bill escape, she is the best choice to get us back on the grounds without setting off alarms. They might not be expecting her, but they won’t turn her away, either, I’m sure. Especially if she says she has a message for Russell from the queen of Louisiana, or if she says she has something she wants to return to Russell . . .” He shrugged, as if to say surely we could make up a good story.

I didn’t want to go back in there. I thought of poor Bubba, and tried to worry about his fate—which he might have already met—but I was just too weak to worry about it.

“Flag of truce?” I suggested. I cleared my throat. “Do the vampires have such a thing?”

Eric looked thoughtful. “Of course, then I’d have to explain who I am,” he said.

Happiness had made Alcide a lot easier to read. He was thinking about how soon he could call Debbie.

I opened my mouth, reconsidered, shut it, opened it again. What the hell. “Know who pushed me in the trunk and slammed it shut?” I asked Alcide. His green eyes locked onto me. His face became still, contained, as if he was afraid emotion would leak out. He turned and left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. For the first time, I