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eyes of Sonny.

Sonny immediately walked down from the clerk's platform and around the counter while his companion was gaping.

"Stay," said Eric. The no-color man squeezed his eyes shut so he couldn't glimpse Eric, but he opened them just a crack when he heard Eric take a step closer, and that was enough. If you don't have any extra abilities yourself, you just can't look a vampire in the eyes. If they want to, they'll get you.

"Who sent you here?" Eric asked softly.

"One of the Hounds of Hell," Sonny said, with no inflection in his voice.

Eric looked startled. "A member of the motorcycle gang," I explained carefully, mindful that we had a civilian audience who was listening with great curiosity. I was getting a great amplification of the answers through their brains.

"What did they tell you to do?"

"They told us to wait along the interstate. There are more fellas waiting at other gas stations."

They'd called about forty thugs altogether. They'd outlaid a lot of cash.

"What were you supposed to watch for?"

"A big dark guy and a tall blond guy. With a blond woman, real young, with nice tits."

Eric's hand moved too fast for me to track. I was only sure he'd moved when I saw the blood running down Sonny's face.

"You are speaking of my future lover. Be more respectful. Why were you looking for us?"

"We were supposed to catch you. Take you back to Jackson."

"Why?"

"The gang suspected you mighta had something to do with Jerry Falcon's disappearance. They wanted to ask you some questions about it. They had someone watching some apartment building, seen you two coming out in a Lincoln, had you followed part of the way. The dark guy wasn't with you, but the woman was the right one, so we started tracking you."

"Do the vampires of Jackson know anything about this plan?"

"No, the gang figured it was their problem. But they also got a lot of other problems, a prisoner escape and so on, and lots of people out sick. So what with one thing and another, they recruited a bunch of us to help."

"What are these men?" Eric asked me.

I closed my eyes and thought carefully. "Nothing," I said. "They're nothing." They weren't shifters, or Weres, or anything. They were hardly human beings, in my opinion, but nobody died and made me God.

"We need to get out of here," Eric said. I agreed heartily. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the night at the police station, and for Eric, that was an impossibility. There wasn't an approved vampire jail cell any closer than Shreveport. Heck, the police station in Bon Temps had just gotten wheelchair accessible.

Eric looked into Sonny's eyes. "We weren't here," he said. "This lady and myself."

"Just the boy," Sonny agreed.

Again, the other robber tried to keep his eyes tight shut, but Eric blew in his face, and just as a dog would, the man opened his eyes and tried to wiggle back. Eric had him in a second, and repeated his procedure.

Then he turned to the clerk and handed him the shotgun. "Yours, I believe," Eric said.

"Thanks," the boy said, his eyes firmly on the barrel of the gun. He aimed at the robbers. "I know you weren't here," he growled, keeping his gaze ahead of him. "And I ain't saying nothing to the police."

Eric put forty dollars on the counter. "For the gas," he explained. "Sookie, let's make tracks."

"A Lincoln with a big hole in the trunk does stand out," the boy called after us.

"He's right." I was buckling up and Eric was accelerating as we heard sirens, pretty close.

"I should have taken the truck," Eric said. He seemed pleased with our adventure, now that it was over.

"How's your face?"

"It's getting better."

The welts were not nearly as noticeable.

"What happened?" I asked, hoping this was not a very touchy subject.

He cast me a sideways glance. Now that we were back on the interstate, we had slowed down to the speed limit, so it wouldn't seem to any of the many police cars converging on the convenience store that we were fleeing.

"While you were tending to your human needs in the bathroom," he said, "I finished putting gas in the tank. I had hung up the pump and was almost at the door when those two got out of the truck and just tossed a net over me. It is very humiliating, that they were able to do that, two fools with a silver net."

"Your mind must have been somewhere else."

"Yes,"