Dead to the World Page 0,41

there alone?"

"Well, he didn't know anything was going to happen," I said, trying not to sound defensive, and then I thought, What am I saying? "Alcide, I haven't seen Bill since I came back from Jackson, except when he came over to tell me he was leaving the country."

"But she told me you were back with Bill," Alcide said in a very strange voice.

"Who told you that?"

"Debbie. Who else?"

I'm afraid my reaction was not very flattering. "And you believed Debbie?"

"She said she'd stopped by Merlotte's on her way over to see me, and she'd seen you and Bill acting very, ah, friendly while she was there."

"And you believed her?" Maybe if I kept shifting the emphasis, he'd tell me he was just joking.

Alcide was looking sheepish now, or as sheepish as a werewolf can look.

"Okay, that was dumb," he admitted. "I'll deal with her."

"Right." Pardon me if I didn't sound very convinced. I'd heard that before.

"Bill's really in Peru?"

"As far as I know."

"And you're alone in the house with Eric?"

"Eric doesn't know he's Eric."

"He doesn't remember his identity?"

"Nope. He doesn't remember his character, either, apparently."

"That's a good thing," Alcide said darkly. He had never viewed Eric with any sense of humor, as I did. I'd always been leery of Eric, but I'd appreciated his mischief, his single-mindedness, and his flair. If you could say a vampire had joie de vivre, Eric had it in spades.

"Let's go see the packmaster now," Alcide said, obviously in a much grimmer mood. We slid out of the booth after he'd paid for the coffee, and without phoning in to work ("No point being the boss if I can't vanish from time to time"), he helped me up into his truck and we took off back into Shreveport. I was sure Ms. Crispy would assume we'd checked into a motel or gone to Alcide's apartment, but that was better than Ms. Crispy finding out her boss was a werewolf.

As we drove, Alcide told me that the packmaster was a retired Air Force colonel, formerly stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, which flowed into Shreveport. Colonel Flood's only child, a daughter, had married a local, and Colonel Flood had settled in the city to be close to his grandchildren.

"His wife is a Were, too?" I asked. If Mrs. Flood was also a Were, their daughter would be, too. If Weres can get through the first few months, they live a good long while, barring accidents.

"She was; she passed away a few months ago."

Alcide's packmaster lived in a modest neighborhood of ranch-style homes on smallish lots. Colonel Flood was picking up pine cones in his front yard. It seemed a very domestic and peaceable thing for a prominent werewolf to be doing. I'd pictured him in my head in an Air Force uniform, but of course he was wearing regular civilian outdoor clothes. His thick hair was white and cut very short, and he had a mustache that must have been trimmed with a ruler, it was so exact.

The colonel must have been curious after Alcide's phone call, but he asked us to come inside in a calm sort of way. He patted Alcide on the back a lot; he was very polite to me.

The house was as neat as his mustache. It could have passed inspection.

"Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Hot chocolate? Soda?" The colonel gestured toward his kitchen as if there were a servant standing there alert for our orders.

"No, thank you," I said, since I was awash with Applebee's coffee. Colonel Flood insisted we sit in the company living room, which was an awkwardly narrow rectangle with a formal dining area at one end. Mrs. Flood had liked porcelain birds. She had liked them a lot. I wondered how the grandchildren fared in this room, and I kept my hands tucked in my lap for fear I'd jostle something.

"So, what can I do for you?" Colonel Flood asked Alcide. "Are you seeking permission to marry?"

"Not today," Alcide said with a smile. I looked down at the floor to keep my expression to myself. "My friend Sookie has some information that she shared with me. It's very important." His smile died on the vine. "She needs to relate what she knows to you."

"And why do I need to listen?"

I understood that he was asking Alcide who I was - that if he was obliged to listen to me, he needed to know my bona fides. But Alcide was offended on