paint, “That’s just crazy Sookie Stackhouse.”

I looked at the woman with more attention. I recognized her at last, when I mentally erased a few miles of hard road and half the makeup. Janella Lennox had worked at Merlotte’s for two weeks until Sam had fired her. She’d moved to Monroe, Arlene had told me.

The male vampire with the tattoos put his arm around Janella and rubbed her breasts. I could feel the blood drain out of my face. I was disgusted. It got worse. Janella, as lost to decency as the vampire, put her hand on his crotch and massaged.

At least I saw clearly that vampires can sure have sex.

I was less than excited about that knowledge at the moment.

Malcolm was watching me, and I’d showed my distaste.

“She’s innocent,” he said to Bill, with a smile full of anticipation.

“She’s mine,” Bill said again. This time his voice was more intense. If he’d been a rattlesnake his warning could not have been clearer.

“Now, Bill, you can’t tell me you’ve been getting everything you need from that little thing,” Diane said. “You look pale and droopy. She ain’t been taking good care of you.”

I inched a little closer to Bill.

“Here,” offered Diane, whom I was beginning to hate, “have a taste of Liam’s woman or Malcolm’s pretty boy, Jerry.”

Janella didn’t react to being offered around, maybe because she was too busy unzipping Liam’s jeans, but Malcolm’s beautiful boyfriend, Jerry, slithered willingly over to Bill. I smiled as though my jaws were going to crack as he wrapped his arms around Bill, nuzzled Bill’s neck, rubbed his chest against Bill’s shirt.

The strain in my vampire’s face was terrible to see. His fangs slid out. I saw them fully extended for the first time. The synthetic blood was not answering all Bill’s needs, all right.

Jerry began licking a spot at the base of Bill’s neck. Keeping my guard up was proving to be more than I could handle. Since three present were vampires, whose thoughts I couldn’t hear, and Janella was fully occupied, that left Jerry. I listened and gagged.

Bill, shaking with temptation, was actually bending to sink his fangs into Jerry’s neck when I said, “No! He has the Sino-virus!”

As if released from a spell, Bill looked at me over Jerry’s shoulder. He was breathing heavily, but his fangs retracted. I took advantage of the moment by taking more steps. I was within a yard of Bill, now.

“Sino-AIDS,” I said.

Alcoholic and heavily drugged victims affected vampires temporarily, and some of them were said to enjoy that buzz; but the blood of a human with full-blown AIDS didn’t, nor did sexually transmitted diseases, or any other bugs that plagued humans.

Except Sino-AIDS. Even Sino-AIDS didn’t kill vampires as surely as the AIDS virus killed humans, but it left the undead very weak for nearly a month, during which time it was comparatively easy to catch and stake them. And every now and then, if a vampire fed from an infected human more than once, the vampire actually died—redied?—without being staked. Still rare in the United States, Sino-AIDS was gaining a foothold around ports like New Orleans, with sailors and other travelers from many countries passing through the city in a partying mood.

All the vampires were frozen, staring at Jerry as if he were death in disguise; and for them, perhaps, he was.

The beautiful young man took me completely by surprise. He turned and leapt on me. He was no vampire, but he was strong, evidently only in the earliest stages of the virus, and he knocked me against the wall to my left. He circled my throat with one hand and lifted the other to punch me in the face. My arms were still coming up to defend myself when Jerry’s hand was seized, and his body froze.

“Let go of her throat,” Bill said in such a terrifying voice that I was scared myself. By now, the scares were just piling up so quickly I didn’t think I’d ever feel safe again. But Jerry’s fingers didn’t relax, and I made a little whimpering sound without wanting to at all. I slewed my eyes sideways, and when I looked at Jerry’s gray face, I realized that Bill was holding his hand, Malcolm was gripping his legs, and Jerry was so frightened he couldn’t grasp what was wanted of him.

The room began to get fuzzy, and voices buzzed in and out. Jerry’s mind was beating against mine. I was helpless to hold him out. His mind was