4

The detective hustled me off after that, telling me he was going to get the crime scene officer out to the house, and he'd be in touch. I got the idea, right out of his brain, that there was something he didn't want me to see, and that he'd thrown Carla Rodriguez at me to distract me.

And I thought he might take the shotgun away, since he seemed much more sure now he was dealing with a crime, and the shotgun might be part of some bit of evidence. But Alcee Beck didn't say anything, so I didn't remind him.

I was more shaken than I wanted to admit to myself. Inwardly, I'd been convinced that, though I needed to track my brother down, Jason was really okay - just misplaced. Or mislaid, more likely, ho ho ho. Possibly he was in some kind of not-too-serious trouble, I'd told myself. Now things were looking more serious.

I've never been able to squeeze my budget enough to afford a cell phone, so I began driving home. I was thinking of whom I should call, and I came up with the same answer as before. No one. There was no definite news to break. I felt as lonely as I ever have in my life. But I just didn't want to be Crisis Woman, showing up on friends' doorsteps with trouble on my shoulders.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wanted my grandmother back. I pulled over to the side of the road and slapped myself on the cheek, hard. I called myself a few names.

Shreveport. I'd go to Shreveport and confront Dovie and Carla Rodriguez. While I was there, I'd find out if Chow and Pam knew anything about Jason's disappearance - though it was hours until they'd be up, and I'd just be kicking my heels in an empty club, assuming there'd be someone there to let me in. But I just couldn't sit at home, waiting. I could read the minds of the human employees and find out if they knew what was up.

On the one hand, if I went to Shreveport, I'd be out of touch with what was happening here. On the other hand, I'd be doing something.

While I was trying to decide if there were any more hands to consider, something else happened.

It was even odder than the preceding events of the day. There I was, parked in the middle of nowhere at the side of a parish road, when a sleek, black, brand-new Camaro pulled onto the shoulder behind me. Out of the passenger's side stepped a gorgeous woman, at least six feet tall. Of course, I remembered her; she'd been in Merlotte's on New Year's Eve. My friend Tara Thornton was in the driver's seat.

Okay, I thought blankly, staring into the rearview mirror, this is weird. I hadn't seen Tara in weeks, since we'd met by chance in a vampire club in Jackson, Mississippi. She'd been there with a vamp named Franklin Mott; he'd been very handsome in a senior-citizen sort of way, polished, dangerous, and sophisticated.

Tara always looks great. My high school friend has black hair, and dark eyes, and a smooth olive complexion, and she has a lot of intelligence that she uses running Tara's Togs, an upscale women's clothing store that rents space in a strip mall Bill owns. (Well, it's as upscale as Bon Temps has to offer.) Tara had become a friend of mine years before, because she came from an even sadder background than mine.

But the tall woman put even Tara in the shade. She was as dark-haired as Tara, though the new woman had reddish highlights that surprised the eye. She had dark eyes, too, but hers were huge and almond-shaped, almost abnormally large. Her skin was as pale as milk, and her legs were as long as a stepladder. She was quite gifted in the bosom department, and she was wearing fire engine red from head to toe. Her lipstick matched.

"Sookie," Tara called. "What's the matter?" She walked carefully up to my old car, watching her feet because she was wearing glossy, brown leather, high-heeled boots she didn't want to scuff. They'd have lasted five minutes on my feet. I spend too much of my time standing up to worry about footwear that only looks good.

Tara looked successful, attractive, and secure, in her sage green sweater and taupe pants. "I was putting on my makeup when I heard over the police scanner that something was up at Jason's house," she said. She slid in the passenger's seat and leaned over to hug me. "When I got to Jason's, I saw you pulling out. What's up?" The woman in red was standing with her back to the car, tactfully looking out into the woods.

I'd adored my father, and I'd always known (and my mother herself definitely believed) that no matter what Mother put me through, she was acting out of love. But Tara's parents had been evil, both alcoholics and abusers. Tara's older sisters and brothers had left home as fast as they could, leaving Tara, as the youngest, to foot the bill for their freedom.

Yet now that I was in trouble, here she was, ready to help.

"Well, Jason's gone missing," I said, in a fairly level voice, but then I ruined the effect by giving one of those awful choking sobs. I turned my face so I'd be looking out my window. I was embarrassed to show such distress in front of the new woman.

Wisely ignoring my tears, Tara began asking me the logical questions: Had Jason called in to work? Had he called me the night before? Who had he been dating lately?

That reminded me of the shifter girl who'd been Jason's date New Year's Eve. I thought I could even talk about the girl's otherness, because Tara had been at Club Dead that night. Tara's tall companion was a Supe of some kind. Tara knew all about the secret world.

But she didn't, as it turned out.

Her memory had been erased. Or at least she pretended it had.

"What?" Tara asked, with almost exaggerated confusion. "Werewolves? At that nightclub? I remember seeing you there. Honey, didn't you drink a little too much and pass out, or something?"

Since I drink very sparingly, Tara's question made me quite angry, but it was also the most unremarkable explanation Franklin Mott could have planted in Tara's head. I was so disappointed at not getting to confide in her that I closed my eyes so I wouldn't have to see the blank look on her face. I felt tears leaving little paths down my cheeks. I should have just let it go, but I said, in a low, harsh voice, "No, I didn't."

"Omigosh, did your date put something in your drink?" In genuine horror, Tara squeezed my hand. "That Rohypnol? But Alcide looked like such a nice guy!"

"Forget it," I said, trying to sound gentler. "It doesn't really have anything to do with Jason, after all."

Her face still troubled, Tara pressed my hand again.

All of a sudden, I was certain I didn't believe her. Tara knew vampires could remove memory, and she was pretending Franklin Mott had erased hers. I thought Tara remembered quite well what had happened at Club Dead, but she was pretending she didn't to protect herself. If she had to do that to survive, that was okay. I took a deep breath.

"Are you still dating Franklin?" I asked, to start a different conversation.

"He got me this car."

I was a little shocked and more than a little dismayed, but I hoped I was not the kind to point fingers.

"It's a wonderful car. You don't know any witches, do you?" I asked, trying to change the subject before Tara could read my misgivings. I was sure she would laugh at me for asking her such a question, but it was a good diversion. I wouldn't hurt her for the world.

Finding a witch would be a great help. I was sure Jason's abduction - and I swore to myself it was an abduction, it was not a murder - was linked to the witches' curse on Eric. It was just too much coincidence otherwise. On the other hand, I had certainly experienced the twists and turns of a bunch of coincidences in the past few months. There, I knew I'd find a third hand.

"Sure I do," Tara said, smiling proudly. "Now there I can help you. That is, if a Wiccan will do?"

I had so many expressions I wasn't sure my face could fit them all in. Shock, fear, grief, and worry were tumbling around in my brain. When the spinning stopped, we would see which one was at the top.

"You're a witch?" I said weakly.

"Oh, gosh, no, not me. I'm a Catholic. But I have some friends who are Wiccan. Some of them are witches."

"Oh, really?" I didn't think I'd ever heard the word Wiccan before, though maybe I'd read it in a mystery or romance novel. "I'm sorry, I don't know what that means," I said, my voice humble.

"Holly can explain it better than I can," Tara said.

"Holly. The Holly who works with me?"

"Sure. Or you could go to Danielle, though she's not going to be as willing to talk. Holly and Danielle are in the same coven."

I was so shocked by now I might as well get even more stunned. "Coven," I repeated.

"You know, a group of pagans who worship together."

"I thought a coven had to be witches?"

"I guess not - but they have to, you know, be non-Christian. I mean, Wicca is a religion."

"Okay," I said. "Okay. Do you think Holly would talk to me about this?"

"I don't know why not." Tara went back to her car to get her cell phone, and paced back and forth between our vehicles while she talked to Holly. I appreciated a little respite to allow me to get back on my mental feet, so to speak. To be polite I got out of my car and spoke to the woman in red, who'd been very patient.

"I'm sorry to meet you on such a bad day," I said. "I'm Sookie Stackhouse."

"I'm Claudine," she said, with a beautiful smile. Her teeth were Hollywood white. Her skin had an odd quality; it looked glossy and thin, reminding me of the skin of a plum; like if you bit her, sweet juice would gush out. "I'm here because of all the activity."

"Oh?" I said, taken aback.

"Sure. You have vampires, and Weres, and lots of other stuff all tangled up here in Bon Temps - to say nothing of several important and powerful crossroads. I was drawn to all the possibilities."

"Uh-huh," I said uncertainly. "So, do you plan on just observing all this, or what?"

"Oh, no. Just observing is not my way." She laughed. "You're quite the wild card, aren't you?"

"Holly's up," Tara said, snapping her phone shut and smiling because it was hard not to with Claudine around. I realized I was smiling from ear to ear, not my usual tense grin but an expression of sunny happiness. "She says come on over."

"Are you coming with me?" I didn't know what to think of Tara's companion.

"Sorry, Claudine's helping me today at the shop," Tara said. "We're having a New Year's sale on our old inventory, and people are doing some heavy shopping. Want me to put something aside for you? I've got a few really pretty party dresses left. Didn't the one you wore in Jackson get ruined?"

Yeah, because a fanatic had driven a stake through my side. The dress had definitely suffered. "It got stained," I said with great restraint. "It's real nice of you to offer, but I don't think I'll have time to try anything on. With Jason and everything, I've got so much to think about." And precious little extra money, I told myself.

"Sure," said Tara. She hugged me again. "You call me if you need me, Sookie. It's funny that I don't remember that evening in Jackson any better. Maybe I had too much to drink, too. Did we dance?"

"Oh, yes, you talked me into doing that routine we did at the high school talent show."

"I did not!" She was begging me to deny it, with a half smile on her face.

"'Fraid so." I knew damn well she remembered it.

"I wish I'd been there," said Claudine. "I love to dance."

"Believe me, that night in Club Dead is one I wish I'd missed," I said.

"Well, remind me never to go back to Jackson, if I did that dance in public," Tara said.

"I don't think either of us better go back to Jackson." I'd left some very irate vampires in Jackson, but the Weres were even angrier. Not that there were a lot of them left, actually. But still.

Tara hesitated a minute, obviously trying to frame something she wanted to tell me. "Since Bill owns the building Tara's Togs is in," she said carefully, "I do have a number to call, a number he said he'd check in with while he was out of the country. So if you need to let him know anything... ?"

"Thanks," I said, not sure if I felt thankful at all. "He told me he left a number on a pad by the phone in his house." There was a kind of finality to Bill's being out of the country, unreachable. I hadn't even thought of trying to get in touch with him about my predicament; out of all the people I'd considered calling, he hadn't even crossed my mind.

"It's just that he seemed pretty, you know, down." Tara examined the toes of her boots. "Melancholy," she said, as if she enjoyed using a word that didn't pass her lips often. Claudine beamed with approval. What a strange gal. Her huge eyes were luminous with joy as she patted me on the shoulder.

I swallowed hard. "Well, he's never exactly Mr. Smiley," I said. "I do miss him. But..." I shook my head emphatically. "It was just too hard. He just... upset me too much. I thank you for letting me know I can call him if I need to, and I really, really appreciate your telling me about Holly."

Tara, flushed with the deserved pleasure of having done her good deed for the day, got back in her spanky-new Camaro. After folding her long self into the passenger seat, Claudine waved at me as Tara pulled away. I sat in my car for a moment longer, trying to remember where Holly Cleary lived. I thought I remembered her complaining about the closet size in her apartment, and that meant the Kingfisher Arms.

When I got to the U-shaped building on the southern approach to Bon Temps, I checked the mailboxes to discover Holly's apartment number. She was on the ground floor, in number 4. Holly had a five-year-old son, Cody. Holly and her best friend, Danielle Gray, had both gotten married right out of high school, and both had been divorced within five years. Danielle's mom was a great help to Danielle, but Holly was not so lucky. Her long-divorced parents had both moved away, and her grandmother had died in the Alzheimer's wing of the Renard Parish nursing home. Holly had dated Detective Andy Bellefleur for a few months, but nothing had come of it. Rumor had it that old Caroline Bellefleur, Andy's grandmother, had thought Holly wasn't "good" enough for Andy. I had no opinion on that. Neither Holly nor Andy was on my shortlist of favorite people, though I definitely felt cooler toward Andy.

When Holly answered her door, I realized all of a sudden how much she'd changed over the past few weeks. For years, her hair had been dyed a dandelion yellow. Now it was matte black and spiked. Her ears had four piercings apiece. And I noticed her hipbones pushing at the thin denim of her aged jeans.

"Hey, Sookie," she said, pleasantly enough. "Tara asked me if I would talk to you, but I wasn't sure if you'd show up. Sorry about Jason. Come on in."

The apartment was small, of course, and though it had been repainted recently, it showed evidence of years of heavy use. There was a living room - dining room - kitchen combo, with a breakfast bar separating the galley kitchen from the rest of the area. There were a few toys in a basket in the corner of the room, and there was a can of Pledge and a rag on the scarred coffee table. Holly had been cleaning.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," I said.

"That's okay. Coke? Juice?"

"No, thanks. Where's Cody?"

"He went to stay with his dad," she said, looking down at her hands. "I drove him over the day after Christmas."

"Where's his dad living?"

"David's living in Springhill. He just married this girl, Allie. She already had two kids. The little girl is Cody's age, and he just loves to play with her. It's always, 'Shelley this,' and 'Shelley that.'" Holly looked kind of bleak.

David Cleary was one of a large clan. His cousin Pharr had been in my grade all through school. For Cody's genes' sake, I hoped that David was more intelligent than Pharr, which would be real easy.

"I need to talk to you about something pretty personal, Holly."

Holly looked surprised all over again. "Well, we haven't exactly been on those terms, have we?" she said. "You ask, and I'll decide whether to answer."

I tried to frame what I was going to say - to keep secret what I needed to keep secret and ask of her what I needed without offending.

"You're a witch?" I said, embarrassed at using such a dramatic word.

"I'm more of a Wiccan."

"Would you mind explaining the difference?" I met her eyes briefly, and then decided to focus on the dried flowers in the basket on top of the television. Holly thought I could read her mind only if I was looking into her eyes. (Like physical touching, eye contact does make the reading easier, but it certainly isn't necessary.)

"I guess not." Her voice was slow, as if she were thinking as she spoke. "You're not one to spread gossip."

"Whatever you tell me, I won't share with anyone." I met her eyes again, briefly.

"Okay," she said. "Well, if you're a witch, of course, you practice magic rituals."

She was using "you" in the general sense, I thought, because saying "I" would mean too bold a confession.

"You draw from a power that most people never tap into. Being a witch isn't being wicked, or at least it isn't supposed to be. If you're a Wiccan, you follow a religion, a pagan religion. We follow the ways of the Mother, and we have our own calendar of holy days. You can be both a Wiccan and a witch; or more one, or more the other. It's very individualized. I practice a little witchcraft, but I'm more interested in the Wiccan life. We believe that your actions are okay if you don't hurt anyone else."

Oddly, my first feeling was one of embarrassment, when I heard Holly tell me that she was a non-Christian. I'd never met anyone who didn't at least pretend to be a Christian or who didn't give lip service to the basic Christian precepts. I was pretty sure there was a synagogue in Shreveport, but I'd never even met a Jew, to the best of my knowledge. I was certainly on a learning curve.

"I understand. Do you know lots of witches?"

"I know a few." Holly nodded repeatedly, still avoiding my eyes.

I spotted an old computer on the rickety table in the corner. "Do you have, like, a chat room online, or a bulletin board, or something?"

"Oh, sure."

"Have you heard of a group of witches that's come into Shreveport lately?"

Holly's face became very serious. Her straight dark brows drew together in a frown. "Tell me you're not involved with them," she said.

"Not directly. But I know someone they've hurt, and I'm afraid they might've taken Jason."

"Then he's in bad trouble," she said bluntly. "The woman who leads this group is out-and-out ruthless. Her brother is just as bad. That group, they're not like the rest of us. They're not trying to find a better way to live, or a path to get in touch with the natural world, or spells to increase their inner peace. They're Wiccans. They're evil."

"Can you give me any clues about where I might track them down?" I was doing my best to keep my face in line. I could hear with my other sense that Holly was thinking that if the newly arrived coven had Jason, he'd be hurt badly, if not killed.

Holly, apparently in deep thought, looked out the front window of her apartment. She was afraid that they'd trace any information she gave me back to her, punish her - maybe through Cody. These weren't witches who believed in doing harm to no one else. These were witches whose lives were planned around the gathering of power of all kinds.

"They're all women?" I asked, because I could tell she was on the verge of resolving to tell me nothing.

"If you're thinking Jason would be able to charm them with his ways because he's such a looker, you can think again," Holly told me, her face grim and somehow stripped down to basics. She wasn't trying for any effect; she wanted me to understand how dangerous these people were. "There are some men, too. They're... these aren't normal witches. I mean, they weren't even normal people."

I was willing to believe that. I'd had to believe stranger things since the night Bill Compton had walked into Merlotte's Bar.

Holly spoke like she knew far more about this group of witches than I'd ever suspected... more than the general background I'd hoped to glean from her. I prodded her a little. "What makes them different?"

"They've had vampire blood." Holly glanced to the side, as if she felt someone listening to her. The motion creeped me out. "Witches - witches with a lot of power they're willing to use for evil - they're bad enough. Witches that strong who've also had vampire blood are... Sookie, you have no idea how dangerous they are. Some of them are Weres. Please, stay away from them."

Werewolves? They were not only witches, but Weres? And they drank vampire blood? I was seriously scared. I didn't know how could you get any worse. "Where are they?"

"Are you listening to me?"

"I am, but I have to know where they are!"

"They're in an old business not awful far from Pierre Bossier Mall," she said, and I could see the picture of it in her head. She'd been there. She'd seen them. She had this all in her head, and I was getting a lot of it.

"Why were you there?" I asked, and she flinched.

"I was worried about talking to you," Holly said, her voice angry. "I shouldn't have even let you in. But I'd dated Jason.... You're gonna get me killed, Sookie Stackhouse. Me and my boy."

"No, I won't."

"I was there because their leader sent out a call for all the witches in the area to have, like, a summit. It turned out that what she wanted to do was impose her will on all of us. Some of us were pretty impressed with her commitment and her power, but most of us smaller-town Wiccans, we didn't like her drug use - that's what drinking vampire blood amounts to - or her taste for the darker side of witchcraft. Now, that's all I want to say about it."

"Thanks, Holly." I tried to think of something I could tell her that would relieve her fear. But she wanted me to leave more than anything in the world, and I'd caused her enough upset. Holly's just letting me in the door had been a big concession, since she actually believed in my mind-reading ability. No matter what rumors they heard, people really wanted to believe that the contents of their heads were private, no matter what proof they had to the contrary.

I did myself.

I patted Holly on the shoulder as I left, but she didn't get up from the old couch. She stared at me with hopeless brown eyes, as if any moment someone was going to come in the door and cut off her head.

That look frightened me more than her words, more than her ideas, and I left the Kingfisher Arms as quickly as I could, trying to note the few people who saw me turn out of the parking lot. I didn't recognize any of them.

I wondered why the witches in Shreveport would want Jason, how they could have made a connection between the missing Eric and my brother. How could I approach them to find out? Would Pam and Chow help, or had they taken their own steps?

And whose blood had the witches been drinking?

Since vampires had made their presence known among us, nearly three years ago now, they'd become preyed upon in a new way. Instead of fearing getting staked through the heart by wanna-be Van Helsings, vampires dreaded modern entrepreneurs called Drainers. Drainers traveled in teams, singling out vampires by a variety of methods and binding them with silver chains (usually in a carefully planned ambush), then draining their blood into vials. Depending on the age of the vampire, a vial of blood could fetch from $200 to $400 on the black market. The effect of drinking this blood? Quite unpredictable, once the blood had left the vampire. I guess that was part of the attraction. Most commonly, for a few weeks, the drinker gained strength, visual acuity, a feeling of robust health, and enhanced attractiveness. It depended on the age of the drained vampire and the freshness of the blood.

Of course, those effects faded, unless you drank more blood.

A certain percentage of people who experienced drinking vampire blood could hardly wait to scratch up money for more. These blood junkies were extremely dangerous, of course. City police forces were glad to hire vampires to deal with them, since regular cops would simply get pulped.

Every now and then, a blood drinker simply went mad - sometimes in a quiet, gibbering kind of way, but sometimes spectacularly and murderously. There was no way to predict who would be stricken this way, and it could happen on the first drinking.

So there were men with glittering mad eyes in padded cells and there were electrifying movie stars who equally owed their condition to the Drainers. Draining was a hazardous job, of course. Sometimes the vampire got loose, with a very predictable result. A court in Florida had ruled this vampire retaliation justifiable homicide, in one celebrated case, because Drainers notoriously discarded their victims. They left a vampire, all but empty of blood, too weak to move, wherever the vamp happened to fall. The weakened vampire died when the sun came up, unless he had the good fortune to be discovered and helped to safety during the hours of darkness. It took years to recover from a draining, and that was years of help from other vamps. Bill had told me there were shelters for drained vamps, and that their location was kept very secret.

Witches with nearly the physical power of vampires - that seemed a very dangerous combination. I kept thinking of women when I thought of the coven that had moved into Shreveport, and I kept correcting myself. Men, Holly had said, were in the group.

I looked at the clock at the drive-through bank, and I saw it was just after noon. It would be full dark by a few minutes before six; Eric had gotten up a little earlier than that, at times. I could certainly go to Shreveport and come back by then. I couldn't think of another plan, and I just couldn't go home and sit and wait. Even wasting gas was better than going back to my house, though worry for Jason crawled up and down my spine. I could take the time to drop off the shotgun, but as long as it was unloaded and the shells were in a separate location, it should be legal enough to drive around with it.

For the first time in my life, I checked my rearview mirror to see if I was being followed. I am not up on spy techniques, but if someone was following me, I couldn't spot him. I stopped and got gas and an ICEE, just to see if anyone pulled into the gas station behind me, but no one did. That was real good, I decided, hoping that Holly was safe.

As I drove, I had time to review my conversation with Holly. I realized it was the first one I'd ever had with Holly in which Danielle's name had not come up once. Holly and Danielle had been joined at the hip since grade school. They probably had their periods at the same time. Danielle's parents, cradle members of the Free Will Church of God's Anointed, would have a fit if they knew, so it wasn't any wonder that Holly had been so discreet.

Our little town of Bon Temps had stretched its gates open wide enough to tolerate vampires, and gay people didn't have a very hard time of it anymore (kind of depending on how they expressed their sexual preference). However, I thought the gates might snap shut for Wiccans.

The peculiar and beautiful Claudine had told me that she was attracted to Bon Temps for its very strangeness. I wondered what else was out there, waiting to reveal itself.

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