thought again. I gave the money to the local mental health center, earmarking it for the treatment of children who were victims of molestation and rape.

They were glad to get it.

I took vitamins, loads of them, because I was a little anemic. I drank lots of fluids and ate lots of protein.

And I ate as much garlic as I wanted, something Bill hadn’t been able to tolerate. He said it came out through my pores, even, when I had garlic bread with spaghetti and meat sauce one night.

I slept and slept and slept. Staying up nights after a work shift had me rest-deprived.

After three days I felt restored, physically. In fact, it seemed to me that I was a little stronger than I had been.

I began to take in what was happening around me.

The first thing I noticed was that local folks were really pissed off at the vampires who nested in Monroe. Diane, Liam, and Malcolm had been touring bars in the area, apparently trying to make it impossible for other vampires who wanted to mainstream. They’d been behaving outrageously, offensively. The three vampires made the escapades of the Louisiana Tech students look bland.

They didn’t seem to ever imagine they were endangering themselves. The freedom of being out of the coffin had gone to their heads. The right to legally exist had withdrawn all their constraints, all their prudence and caution. Malcolm nipped at a bartender in Bogaloosas. Diane danced naked in Farmerville. Liam dated an underage girl in Shongaloo, and her mother, too. He took blood from both. He didn’t erase the memory of either.

Rene was talking to Mike Spencer, the funeral director, in Merlotte’s one Thursday night, and they hushed when I got near. Naturally, that caught my attention. So I read Mike’s mind. A group of local men were thinking of burning out the Monroe vampires.

I didn’t know what to do. The three were, if not exactly friends of Bill, at least sort of coreligionists. But I loathed Malcolm, Diane, and Liam just as much as anyone else. On the other hand; and boy—there always was another hand, wasn’t there?—it just went against my grain to know ahead of the fact about premeditated murders and just sit on my hands.

Maybe this was all liquor talking. Just to check, I dipped into the minds of the people around me. To my dismay, many of them were thinking about torching the vampire’s nest. But I couldn’t track down the origin of the idea. It felt as though the poison had flowed from one mind and infected others.

There wasn’t any proof, any proof at all, that Maudette and Dawn and my grandmother had been killed by a vampire. In fact, rumor had it that the coroner’s report might show evidence against that. But the three vampires were behaving in such a way that people wanted to blame them for something, wanted to get rid of them, and since Maudette and Dawn were both vampire-bitten and habitues of vampire bars, well, folks just cobbled that together to pound out a conviction.

Bill came in the seventh night I’d been alone. He appeared at his table quite suddenly. He wasn’t by himself. There was a boy with him, a boy who looked maybe fifteen. He was a vampire, too.

“Sookie, this is Harlen Ives from Minneapolis,” Bill said, as if this were an ordinary introduction.

“Harlen,” I said, and nodded. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Sookie.” He bobbed his head at me, too.

“Harlen is in transit from Minnesota to New Orleans,” Bill said, sounding positively chatty.

“I’m going on vacation,” Harlen said. “I’ve been wanting to visit New Orleans for years. It’s just a mecca for us, you know.”

“Oh . . . right,” I said, trying to sound matter of fact.

“There’s this number you can call,” Harlen informed me. “You can stay with an actual resident, or you can rent a . . .”

“Coffin?” I asked brightly.

“Well, yes.”

“How nice for you,” I said, smiling for all I was worth. “What can I get you? I believe Sam has restocked the blood, Bill, if you’d like some? It’s flavored A neg, or we’ve got the O positive.”

“Oh, A negative, I think,” Bill said, after he and Harlen had a silent communication.

“Coming right up!” I stomped back to the cooler behind the bar and pulled out two A neg’s, popped the tops, and carted them back on a tray. I smiled the whole time, just like I used to.

“Are you all right, Sookie?” Bill asked in a more natural