"No Eric," Sookie said upon opening the door.
She'd known he wasn't coming so it was hardly a surprise. It might have been a statement, a greeting, an utterance of resignation. Whatever it was, I didn't get a hello, just the acknowledgement of the fact that I wasn't a very tall, blond Viking vampire, but rather a short, red-headed, freckly Irishwoman.
"I look like shit," she said. "Before you think it."
"You look tired," I said kindly and Jason shot me a smile to show me I'd given the right answer.
The last time I'd seen Sookie, she'd had a healthy tan, even though it had been the middle of December, she'd been slim and carefully dressed, with a spring in her toes like a person who cannot sit still for an instant. Now she was heavily pregnant and her tan had faded to a sallow yellow. There were dark rings under her eyes and her blond hair was limp, dark at the roots. She looked like someone or something was slowly sucking the life out of her.
"This one," she said, turning around and walking down the hall. I followed her, looking at the walls of the snug little house that were covered in photos and framed newspaper cuttings.
"Sorry?" I asked, distracted.
"This one inside is sucking the life out of me. She has my curse," she said, slumping down at the kitchen table.
"Oh, Sook," Jason admonished. "Don't say that. You don't know for sure. And it's not a curse, besides."
"She'll be like me," Sookie said sadly.
"Do you know for sure that it's a girl?" I asked eagerly. "When are you due?"
"Three weeks," she answered. "And I'm pretty sure it's a girl, I just have a feeling and I'm pretty sure I'm right. Anyway," she said changing the topic with a hint of her old pertness, "Jason told me Pam came with you. Where did you dump her?"
"At that vampire hotel in Shreveport," I said. "We'll come over tonight, after we've been to see the sheriff."
"Fine," Sookie said and added in sugared tones, "Can I possibly offer you an iced tea?"
I was momentarily started by personality change but then the back door opened and a man walked in. He was quite tall, with dark hair that needed a lot of attention not to be unruly, his skin was brown from being outdoors and he had the most extraordinary blue eyes, the same blue eyes I had seen in his daughter Adele.

"Home already, honey?" she sang and threw her arms around his neck. "Maggie, this is my husband, Luke. Luke, this is an old friend from New Orleans, Maggie Kennick. I invited her to stay over tonight, I hope you don't mind. We have so much to catch up on - girl talk and all of that," she batted her eyelashes at him, a gesture that seemed oddly girlish in contrast to her heavily pregnant state.
"We can go out for a drink!" Jason cried. "We ain't hit the bars in a long time, man. Maybe I can get Hoyt to join us."
Luke shrugged. "Sure, yeah, why not? You passing through, Maggie?"
I caught Sookie's eye and she glared at me for an instant and I lied, "Yes, I'm visiting some friends in Shreveport for a couple of days with my..."
Sookie shook her head rapidly and I decided not to mention my vampire pal, Pam.
"... with my, eh, intention of seeing as many of them as possible!" I finished with a kind of manic enthusiasm and beamed at Sookie's husband, who was looking at me a little quizzically.
"You're not from New Orleans?" Luke asked, fixing me with his cobalt blue eyes.
"I'm from Ireland," I answered.
"Iowa?" he said. "Really?"
I sighed. I really had to learn to enunciate more clearly.

xxx

Pam rapped smartly on the door of the sheriff's house. It was a large residence next to an old cemetery and it was brightly lit from the inside. As we waited for someone to answer the door, I could hear the sound of a television and high-pitched laughter. The man who flung the door open was tall, taller than Pam, and dressed in a faded t-shirt and sweatpants. He drew a breath when he saw Pam and said, "Hey," in greeting.
"Hey, Hoyt," she answered. "Jessica in? Official business, sent here by his majesty, King Eric of Louisiana."
She could rarely pronounce Eric's official title without making it sound comical, and this was one such occasion.
"Please come – " Hoyt began but she was in the door before he got to the preposition.
"Hello, nice to meet you, I'm Maggie," I said as I followed her. He nodded and closed the door, pointed in the direction of a door, from which we heard the sound of the TV, tuned to an episode of Dancing With the Stars.

The sheriff stood up when we entered. She had startling red hair and her skin, which had been pale as a human, was almost translucent as a vampire. Her eyes were slightly slanted, like a cat's, and when she smiled, her earnest face became quite sweet. She'd been young when she'd been turned and probably local, as she spoke with the kind of accent I'd gotten used to in my time in Shreveport.
"Hey, Pam," she said. "What's up? Who's this?"
She pressed the volume button on the remote control, shooting a regretful glance at the TV screen where a couple of spangle-clad dancers were gyrating to an old Ricky Martin song.
"This is Eric's human, Maggie Kennick," Pam said dismissively.
"So you're the human Queen?" Jessica asked in an eager tone. "They told us about you when we went to New Orleans."
This was beginning to wear me out.
"No," I said. "I'm really not. I'm kind of like a very badly paid personal assistant."
"She really is," Pam agreed. "And she's shit at it. Anyway, love what you've done to the house, marriage suits you, congratulations on your sheriffdom, blah, blah, blah. Now, down to business: Sookie Stackhouse. What the fuck is going on?"

Reluctantly, Jessica dragged her gaze from me and focussed on Pam. "Yes, well, Sookie says someone or something is stalking her. Or haunting her. She can't make up her mind. She says windows are rattling at night, she's hearing voices, she says she thought she saw a figure outside... but no one else has heard anything, seen anything. I went over there myself and spent the night outside – nothing. We had weres track the woods around the house; nothing."
"So she's just fucking loo-lah," Pam summarised.
"Well," Jessica said earnestly, "there is such a thing as pregnancy-induced psychosis. I looked it up on the internet and then spoke to a friend of mine who – "
"This is Sookie Stackhouse," the other vampire interrupted coldly. "Sookie, whom we all know and love. She's addicted to drama. Clearly her little blond head is in overdrive, trying to come up with something to alleviate her boredom, trying to get Eric to snap at her heels again. Sorry," she added, shooting a look at me.
I wasn't sure what she was sorry for so I shrugged. Pam gave another one of her theatrical sighs.
"Nothing for it, I suppose," she said. "We had better get over there and do our duty. Maggie gets to spend a night chit-chatting with the psychotic fairy; I get to spend the night filing my nails on her porch, waiting for a ghost to come rapping on her windows. Come on," she said and I gave Jessica and Hoyt a little wave.
"Thank you," I said.
"Good bye, your majesty," Jessica said with a cheeky grin. "Do come again, y'all."
Pam wriggled her fingers in approximation of a wave. We slammed the doors of her hired car and drove off down the avenue.

To my surprise, Sookie's house was practically next door to the Sheriff's, separated only by the cemetery. I walked up the wooden steps and stood on her porch with Pam looming behind me as I tried to knock the net thing that covered the door.
"That's a screen," Pam said with a sigh and whipped it open, rapping smartly on the wood of the front door. I wanted to point out that I didn't come from a place with screen doors, but figured it was pointless, so I looked around instead. Sookie's house was like something from a 1940s film: it had a long porch out front with a swing seat and a rocking chair, the windows had old wooden frames and probably rattled on stormy nights. The little yellow house was set into a clearing surrounded by woods, which was idyllically peaceful by day, but seemed a little shadowy and threatening by night.

She opened the door.
"Please come in, Pam," she said and Pamela flew over the threshold.
"My, aren't you extra tasty?" she said, smiling fangfully.
"Pamela," I said warningly and smacked her arm. "Don't mind her, Sookie."
"I don't pay her any attention at all. Pam and I go way back," she said. "Don't we, Pam?"
"Way back," Pam agreed. "I'm going to let you girls get all caught up while I have a look around outside and see if I can find any trace of anything. Then I'll make myself comfortable on your porch."
"Back porch," Sookie said. "My husband doesn't know you're here and I'd appreciate it if it stayed that way. He ..." She paused and swallowed. "He worries about me."

Pam slipped outside and Sookie offered me another iced tea. I declined and asked her if I could have a hot tea instead. She looked at me weirdly then took a bottle of iced tea out of the fridge, filled a cup and put it in the microwave. I bit my lip to stop myself laughing – I'd been hoping for a cup of real tea, preferably with milk, but this was as close as I was going to get to it. We sat opposite each other, tea in hand, smiling awkwardly. I had never managed to get a handle on Sookie or Sookie's feelings towards me. She always had the upper hand, of course, as she could read my mind and I had to rely on interpreting her behaviour towards me, which was generally reserved and wary.
"How's Eric?" she asked abruptly.
"Same old," I answered. "He's settling into the job."
We smiled at each other and sipped our tea.
"Jason said you guys are married," Sookie said, not meeting my eye. "So it's official, then. Like, official official, not just the blood-bond thing?"
"Eh, no. We're not."
"Would you like to?" she asked carefully, pretending to focus on bringing her glass to her lips, not looking me in the eye. I tried to think about an answer and as I did, I saw Sookie's eyes flicker, reading my thoughts. Aware that I couldn't hide anything from her, I said:
"Well, it's not marriage, per se. It's called a ceremony of symbiosis and it sets out the rules governing things like, oh, my rights to an income and inheritance and his rights to my blood and any offspring I might have, if I decided I wanted to have someone impregnate me."
Sookie pulled a face.
"Yeah. It's very technical and legal and not a bit romantic. A contractual agreement with some Latin gobbled-gook and Eric in a robe and me in a big dress. It would make my life safer. Easier. The vampires down in New Orleans don't know what to make of me, I'm like Eric's pet or something. Being officially tied to him would get me more respect, for sure. Then we'd register as married over here so I'd have some of the same legal rights in the eyes of the American law – and I'd get a proper green card to stay here."
"But – ?" Sookie supplied.
"But ..." I tried to answer and put into words the thoughts that were flying around. Being committed – shackled? – to Eric would signal the end of the plans I had made for my life's path. It would mean giving up a lot of the dreams I had had for myself. And as strongly as I felt about him, I never knew if he felt the same, or whether I was just another human woman he would kindly love, watch age and bury in a plot in a New Orleans cemetery, putting my wedding ring with the other fourteen he kept as mementos of his human wives. When I glanced over at Sookie, I saw that she was deeply entrenched in my head. She nodded and reached out to squeeze my hand, a gesture warmer than any Sookie had ever extended to me before.
"I understand," she said. "More than you can imagine, I understand."

And that seemed to finally break the ice between us. We started to exchange stories of some of Eric's foibles: his neatness tic (he did most of the cleaning in our little flat), his bizarre love of Barry Manilow's greatest hits (the Copacabana might be the hottest spot north of Havana but I personally wanted to torch the place), his dislike of decorative buttons (he kept demanding to know what the 'point' of the buttons on our sofa cushions was and when I told them they were just there to look pretty, he stared at me, bulgy-eyed, as though I had sewn turds onto the cushions instead.) We were laughing when a car drew up outside and Jason came in, supporting her drunk husband, who laughed along with us even though he had no idea what was going on.

"I'm getting this one to bed," Sookie said, trying to escape his drunken embraces. "Maggie, you're in the room at the top of the stairs, overlooking the back of the house. The bathroom is right next door."
I said goodnight to Luke and Jason, gave Sookie a quick hug, which she returned warmly, and went upstairs. The room was under a sloping ceiling and the metal-framed bed was soft, sagging slightly in the middle, and covered in a faded patchwork quilt. My sleep rhythm had been turned upside-down since I'd started working for vampires that I usually didn't get to sleep before four or five a.m. I looked at the alarm clock beside the little bed and saw it was just after midnight. I got changed and lay under the blanket, listening to the sounds of Sookie and Luke coming up the stairs, she scolding light-heartedly while he declared his love over and over, the alcohol making him slur his words. I grinned and decided to read a book on my phone for a while - but even as I was thinking it, my eyes grew heavy, so I decided to close them for five minutes. Just five minutes. I wanted to wait till Luke was asleep, then go down to Pam, so I just closed my eyes for a little bit. A tiny bit.

And fell fast asleep, only waking when Sookie shook me hard.
"Do you hear that?" she said pointing at the window. The panes were rattling in their frames, rapidly, as though they were being beaten by the wind.
"Is there a storm?" I asked, confused.
"Good," she said, dragging me out of the bed, "so you can hear it, too."
"Of course," I said. "but it's just the wind, Sookie."
"There is no wind," she hissed.
I walked over to the window, flicked the latch and threw the window up. To my surprise, she was right. The window continued to rattle in its frame but outside the night was still, quiet, no insects or birds to be heard.
Weird, I thought and even as my sleepy brain was formulating this notion, I felt something grip my neck like a vice. I gasped as the invisible hand shook me once, twice, then flung me back inside the room. I skittered across the floorboards on my back, coming to a halt at Sookie's feet.
Wide-eyed, she stared at me then, in chorus, we both yelled, "Pam!"