At this time a year ago, no one in the world really understood what I was, or cared. I was just Crazy Sookie, the one with the wild brother, a woman others pitied and avoided, to varying degrees. Now here I was, on a freezing street in Shreveport, gripping the hand of a vampire whose face was legendary and whose brain was mush. Was this betterment?

And I was here not for amusement, or improvement, but to reconnoiter for a bunch of supernatural creatures, gathering information on a group of homicidal, blood-drinking, shape-changing witches.

I sighed, I hoped inaudibly. Oh, well. At least no one had hit me. My eyes closed, and I dropped my shields and reached out with my mind to the building across the street.

Brains, busy busy busy. I was startled at the bundle of impressions I was receiving. Maybe the absence of other humans in the vicinity, or the overwhelming perversion of magic, was responsible; but some factor had sharpened my other sense to the point of pain. Almost stunned by the flow of information, I realized I had to sort through it and organize it. First, I counted brains. Not literally ("One temporal lobe, two temporal lobes . . ." ), but as a thought cluster. I came up with fifteen. All of them were in an area to the rear. I figured that had been the work area.

Everyone in the building was awake. A sleeping brain still gives me a low mumble of a thought or two, in dreaming, but it's not the same as a waking brain. It's like the difference between a dog twitching in its sleep and an alert puppy.

To get as much information as possible, I had to get closer. I had never attempted to pick through a group to get details as specific as guilt or innocence, and I wasn't even sure that was possible. But if any of the people in the building were not evil witches, I didn't want them to be in the thick of what was to come.

"Closer," I breathed to Bubba. "But under cover."

"Yes'm," he whispered back. "You gonna keep your eyes closed?"

I nodded, and he led me very carefully across the street and into the shadow of the Dumpster that stood about five yards south of the building. I was glad it was cold, because that kept the garbage smell at an acceptable level. The ghosts of the scents of doughnuts and blossoms lay on top of the funk

of spoiled things and old diapers that passersby had tossed into the handy receptacle. It didn't blend happily with the magic smell.

I adjusted, blocked out the assault on my nose, and began listening. Though I'd gotten better at this, it was still like trying to hear twelve phone conversations at once. Some of them were Weres, too, which complicated matters. I could only get bits and pieces, but all the minds were thinking the same thing.

… In ius voco te

Quia repleta est voluntas

Exaudivit vocem meam, fortis sanguiem libidine

Exaudivit vocem meam, et inimicios tous occidet

In ius voco te...

My first thought was that they were casting a spell in Latin, but it could have been Spanish or Portuguese for all I knew. The magic in the air felt thicker with each passing minute. Little alarm bells began to ring in the back of my mind and I turned to Bubba with wide eyes.

"Bubba," I said, just a little louder than a thought, "you go tell Pam there are fifteen people in there, and as far as I can tell, they're all witches. And tell her they're casting a spell right now."

"Yes'm."

"You remember how to get to Pam?"

"Yes'm."

"So you can let go my hand, okay?"

"Oh. Okay."

"Be silent and careful," I whispered.

And he was gone. I crouched in the shadow that was darker than the night, beside the smells and cold metal, listening to the witches. Three brains were male, the rest female. Hallow was in there, because one of the women was looking at her and thinking of her . . . dreading her, which kind of made me

uneasy. I wondered where they'd parked their cars unless they flew around on broomsticks, ha ha.

Then I wondered about something that should already have crossed my mind.

If they were so darn wary and dangerous, where were their sentries?

At that moment, I was seized from behind.

"Who are you?" Asked a thin voice.

Since she had one hand clapped over my mouth and the other was holding a knife to my neck, I couldn't answer. She seemed to grasp that after a second, because she told me, "We're going in," and began to push me toward the back of the building.

I couldn't have that. If she'd been one of the witches in the building, one of the blood-drinking witches, I couldn't have gotten away with this, but she was a plain old witch, and she hadn't watched Sam break up as many bar fights as I had. With both hands, I reached up and grabbed her knife wrist, and I twisted it as hard as I could while I hit her hard with my lower body. Over she went, onto the filthy cold pavement, and I landed right on top of her, pounding her hand against the ground until she released the knife. She was sobbing, the will seeping out of her.

"You're a lousy lookout," I said to Holly, keeping my voice low.

"Sookie?" Holly's big eyes peered out from under a knit watch cap. She'd dressed for utility tonight, but she still had on bright pink lipstick.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

"They told me they'd get my boy if I didn't help them."

I felt sick. "How long have you been helping them? Before I came to your apartment, asking for help? How long?" I shook her as hard as I could.

"When she came to the bar with her brother, she knew there was another witch there. And she knew it wasn't you or Sam, after she'd talked to you. Hallow can do anything. She knows everything. Late that night, she and Mark came to my apartment. They'd been in a fight; they were all messed up, and they

were mad. Mark held me down while Hallow punched me. She liked that. She saw my picture of my son; she took it and said she could curse him long distance, all the way from Shreveport make him run out in the traffic or load his daddy's gun. . . ." Holly was crying by now. I didn't blame her. It made me

sick to think of it, and he wasn't even my child. "I had to say I'd help her," Holly whimpered. "Mark said they had something big planned and needed the extra juice."

"Are there others like you in there?"

"Forced to do this? A few of them."

That made some thoughts I'd heard more understandable.

"And Jason? He in there?" Though I'd looked at all three of the male brains in the building, I still had to ask.

"Jason is a Wiccan? For real?" She pulled off the watch cap and ran her fingers through her hair.

"No, no, no. Is she holding him hostage?"

"I haven't seen him. Why on earth would Hallow have Jason?"

I'd been fooling myself all along. A hunter would find my brother's remains someday: it's always hunters, or people walking their dogs, isn't it? I felt a falling away beneath my feet, as if the ground had literally dropped out from under me, but I called myself back to the here and now, away from emotions I couldn't afford to feel until I was in a safer place.

"You have to get out of here," I said in the lowest voice I could manage. "You have to get out of this area now."

"She'll get my son!"

"I guarantee she won't."

Holly seemed to read something in the dim view she had of my face. "I hope you kill them all," she said as passionately as you can in a whisper. "The only ones worth saving are Parton and Chelsea and Jane. They got blackmailed into this just like I did. Normally, they're just Wiccans who like to live real quiet, like me. We don't want to do no one no harm."

"What do they look like?"

"Parton's a guy about twenty-five, brown hair, short, birthmark on his cheek. Chelsea is about seventeen, her hair's dyed that bright red. Jane, um, well Jane's just an old woman, you know? White hair, pants, blouse with flowers on it. Glasses." My grandmother would have reamed Holly for lumping all old women together, but God bless her, she wasn't around anymore, and I didn't have the time.

"Why didn't Hallow put one of her toughest people out here on guard duty?" I asked, out of sheer curiosity.

"They got a big spell thing set up for tonight. I can't believe the stay-away spell didn't work on you. You must be resistant." Then Holly whispered, with a little rill of laughter in her voice, "Plus, none of 'em wanted to get cold."

The alarm bells were back and ringing louder than ever. What exactly kind of spell where they casting in there that they needed to blackmail people into helping them perform it.

"Go on, get out of here," I said almost inaudibly, and helped her up. "It doesn't matter where you parked your car, go north out of here." In case she didn't know which direction was north, I pointed.

Holly took off, her Nikes making almost no sound on the cracked sidewalk. Her dull dyed black hair seemed to soak up the light from the streetlamp as she passed beneath it. The smell around the house, the smell of magic, seemed to intensify. I wondered what to do now. Somehow I had to make sure that the three local Wiccans within the dilapidated building, the ones who'd been forced to serve Hallow, wouldn't be harmed. I couldn't think of a way in hell to do that. Could I even save one of them? I had a whole collection of half thoughts and abortive impulses in the next sixty seconds. They all led to a dead end.

If I ran inside and yelled, "Parton, Chelsea, Jane out!" that would alert the coven to the impending attack. Some of my friends or at least my allies would die.

If I hung around and tried to tell the vampires that three of the people in the building were innocent, they would (most likely) ignore me. Or, if a bolt of mercy struck them, they'd have to save all the witches and then cull the innocent ones out, which would give the coven witches time to counterattack. Witches didn't need physical weapons.

Too late, I realized I should have kept a hold of Holly and used her as my entree into the building. But endangering a frightened mother was not a good option, either.

Something large and warm pressed against my side. Eyes and teeth gleamed in the city's night light. I almost screamed until I recognized the wolf as Alcide. He was very large. The silver fur around his eyes made the rest of his coat seem even darker.

I put my arm across his back. "There are three in there who mustn't die," I said. "I don't know what to do."

Since he was a wolf, Alcide didn't know what to do, either. He looked into my face. He whined, just a little. I was supposed to be back at the cars by now; but here I was, smack in the danger zone. I could feel movement in the dark all around me. Alcide slunk away to his appointed position at the rear door

of the building.

"What are you doing here?" Bill said furiously, though it sounded strange corning out in a tiny thread of a whisper. "Pam told you to leave once you'd counted."

"Three in there are innocent," I whispered back. "They're locals. They were forced."

Bill said something under his breath, and it wasn't a happy something.

I passed along the sketchy descriptions Holly had given me.

I could feel the tension in Bill's body, and then Debbie joined us in our foxhole. What was she thinking, to pack herself in so closely with the vampire and the human who hated her most?

"I told you to stay back," Bill said, and his voice was frightening.

"Alcide abjured me," she told me, just as if I hadn't been there when it happened.

"What did you expect?" I was exasperated at her timing and her wounded attitude. Hadn't she ever heard of consequences?

"I have to do something to earn back his trust."

She'd come to the wrong shop, if she wanted to buy some self-respect.

"Then help me save the three in there who are innocent." I recounted my problem again. "Why haven't you changed into your animal?"

"Oh, I can't," she said bitterly. "I've been abjured. I can't change with Alcide's pack anymore. They have license to kill me, if I do."

"What did you shift into, anyway?"

"Lynx."

That was appropriate.

"Come on," I said. I began to wriggle toward the building. I loathed this woman, but if she could be of use to me, I had to ally with her.

"Wait, I'm supposed to go to the back door with the Were," Bill hissed. "Eric's already back there."

"So go!"

I sensed that someone else was at my back and risked a quick glance to see that it was Pam. She smiled at me, and her fangs were out, so that was a little unnerving.

I had been listening to the chanting of the witches in the back of my head while I had been talking to Bill and Debbie. The ringing of those all important bells that warned me of danger growing louder by the minute. I opened my mouth to warn Pam about the spell the witches were casting when the chanting rose to a crescendo and a burst of magic washed over us all.

My shields flew down in an effort to see what was happening in the back room. There was a general sense of satisfaction with a dose of unease and in some cases out right fear. I figured the fear came from the three hostages.

"There's another person in there who wasn't there before!"

"Who is it?" Debbie asked.

I tried to focus my mind on the sixteenth brain but it was hard to pin down. I had never felt anything like it. The mind of the new person (supe?) was warm and growing hotter. Hollow was saying something to the person feeling smug but it was quickly overshadowed by the warm brain as it reached a blistering hot rage. And that's when an inhuman roar thundered through the still night. Screams and barking followed from inside the building. A battle was taking place in that building and our people weren't even in position yet.

An embarrassing sound escaped my throat as I took a step back. I had only been able to brush the mind for a moment, but that was enough.

"I don't know what it is, but its not human and it's mad."

"No shit." Debbie snarled.

Normally I would have taken issue with that sort of tone directed at me especially from some one who had locked me in the trunk of a car with a hungry vampire. I'd let it slide just this once, there were bigger fish to fry.

"We need to get in there now." Pam said.

I was struck with a sudden inspiration. I moved a few feet away with Bubba.

"Can you run back to the Wiccans, the ones on our side? You know where they are?" I whispered.

Bubba nodded his head vigorously.

"You tell them there are three local Wiccans inside who're being forced into this. Ask if they can make up some spell to get the three innocent ones to stand

out."

"I'll tell them, Miss Sookie. They're real sweet to me."

"Good fella. Be quick, be quiet."

He nodded, and was gone into the darkness.

More screaming pierced the night and several minds within the building went dark. I relayed this to Pam. She and Debbie must have somehow felt what was going on in the witches layer because they were antsy with anticipation.

Pam said, "Where have you sent Bubba?"

"Back to our Wiccans. They need to make three innocent people stand out somehow so we won't kill 'em."

"But he has to come back now. He has to break down the door for me!"

"But . . ." I was disconcerted at Pam's reaction. "He can't go in without an invitation, like you."

"Bubba is brain damaged, degraded. He's not altogether a true vampire. He can enter without an express invitation."

I gaped at Pam. "Why didn't you tell me?" She just raised her eyebrows. When I thought back, it was true that I could remember at least twice that Bubba had entered dwellings without an invitation. I'd never put two and two together.

"So I'll have to be the first through the door," I said, more matter-of-factly than I was really feeling. Another roar ripped through my mind and ears. "Then I invite you all in?"

"Yes. Your invitation will be enough. The building doesn't belong to them."

"Should we do this now?"

Pam gave an almost inaudible snort. She was smiling in the glow of the streetlight, suddenly exhilarated. "You waiting for an engraved invite?"

Lord save me from sarcastic vampires. "You think Bubba's had enough time to get to the Wiccans?"

"Sure. Let's nail some witch butt," she said happily. I could tell the fate of the local Wiccans was very low on her list of priorities. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to this but me. Even the young Were was showing a lot of fang.

There's not going to be much left." I said. "What ever's in there with them has killed most of them already."

"I kick, you go in," Pam said ignoring my statement. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek, utterly surprising me.

I thought, I so don't want to be here.

Then I got up from my crouch, stood behind Pam, and watched in awe while she cocked a leg and kicked with the force of four or five mules. The lock shattered, the door sprang inward while the old wood nailed over it splintered and cracked, and I leaped inside and screamed "Come in!" to the vampire behind me and the ones at the back door.

For a single moment, I was in the lair of the witches by myself and a single pair of lamp-like, yellow eyes zeroed in and pinned me to the spot. This was the brain that was burning hot, but when our eyes locked a flash of a memory so fast I almost missed it crossed the other persons mind. Normally, I never would have been able to process something that I had only glimpsed so quickly. But the memory was of a face I recognized. I had seen the same person in my mirror just this morning.

Then the room was full of hissing vampires and snarling wolves. And just like me they had all stopped once they had gotten into the room. Confusion was heavy, but I didn't need to be a telepath to figure that out. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a glow and followed it to see three of the witches huddled in a corner together shining. Okay, the Wiccans had come through with a spell and it was working.

Out of the fifteen brains I had originally sensed, only seven were still active. One of which was flickering between life and death. The sixteenth person, the one with the glowing yellow eyes, was the only one without injury. She was a gruesome sight, naked and dripping in the blood of the fallen witches. Hallow was kneeling before her whimpering with her throat in the other woman's clawed grasp. Mark was laying on the floor, his blank eyes open and mouth slack. He had been gutted from crotch to Adam's Apple by razor sharp claws. I looked away unable to stomach the sight.

"P-please," Hallow managed to gasp out. "Help me."

The other woman squeezed her hand tighter cutting off oxygen to the Were witch who struggled weakly for breath. The woman scanned around her and the unease grew. Her gaze briefly crossed with mine and the heat in her mind cooled a tiny bit to where it was tolerable. I never thought I'd had to worry about my brain melting before until I crossed this mind.

"Are you allies of this one?" Her voice was what I'd imagine a five star general would sound like, full of authority and just harsh enough to get the desired result. Even some of the younger wolves seemed to stand up straighter. The woman shook Hallow like a rag doll to emphasize her point.

"No!" I answered and once more I was pinned to the floor by the intensity of the woman's eyes. "But we need her alive to reverse a spell."

The woman's fierce expression softened, marginally, to aggravated annoyance as she turned to Hallow. "You heard her. Do it." There was such finality in her voice that Hallow didn't even hesitate before she began to wheeze out a counter spell in some old language.

The smell of magic rose in the air again but not as strong as it had been when all of the witches had been alive and chanting. When she was finished she coughed and tried to rub her sore throat but the other woman wasn't letting up. As a group, we all turned, or in my case, leaned to look at Eric who was looking around him angrily.

Bill was the one to confirm. "Sheriff?"

"What's happened?" He looked over to where Hallow was still in her subservient position in front of the woman. The naked woman. Covered in blood.

His fangs dropped at the sight and he lowered down to a crouch. That was proof enough for me. I looked to Pam to see her smiling triumphantly and with vampire speed she had crossed the room extinguishing the life of one of the three witches in Hallow's coven that were still alive. The woman didn't so much as flinch at the supernatural feat, or even when some of the wolves moved forward to finish off the other two.

The gray wolf I had come to associate with Colonel Flood rolled onto his back to transform back into the man I had first met. Now there were two people stark naked and unashamed in the room and by the looks of it all the wolves were transforming.

The coven, except for Hallow, was dead. The three other Wiccans who had been forced to help the witches were alive and free. Eric had been returned to his old self and didn't appear to have any memory of the past few days if Pam's recounting of events was anything to go by. All the Were's in the Shreveport pack were alive and uninjured as well as the vampires (sort of).

Now, the only issue was who this woman was and where had she come from?

A/N

I don't know why but I've just had this strong urge to write OC's lately. I'm actually worried because I've just read so many over the top OC's that I'm worried mine will follow the same path. Please let me know if you think its headed that way or if you have any suggestions or scene requests. No promises, but if it fits in with the story I can try to fit it in. And as always, please let me know what you think.