A/N: SVM is owned by Charlaine Harris. I heard she finished DEA this week! Too bad we have to wait. Thanks as always to FiniteAnarchy who is the beta for this story. She continues to encourage me and give wonderful feedback.

She's got an an entry, "Leave Me Alone To Cities Carved In Stone," in the IWTS contest, for which voting is open. You can check out the community page for user "I Write The Songs" where her story is listed along with 24 other entries. There are a lot of great stories in that collection; the contest seems to have been a huge success! If you are looking for something else to read, check them out. I've got one in there too.

Chapter 20 - Rise at a Vampire

"It was, wasn't it," Hadley said, astonished.

I looked down at the crumpled figure of what had indeed been a fairy. It was a body now. I'd made him just a body now.

"We need to go inside," I told Hadley with an unnatural calm. I seized her arm, leading her back into Gran's house.

"Hello?"

"This is Sookie Stackhouse calling. I need to talk to Niall, please. Right now."

Hadley sat quietly in a chair at the kitchen table while I stood at the window with my phone pressed to my ear. I was having difficulty concentrating on keeping part of my mind open to any other brains that might be in the area while blocking her thoughts out. She was sure having a lot of them. In the end, I threw my shields up entirely so I could focus on the telephone.

"I'm sorry, but he is unavailable at the moment. Would you like to leave a message for him?"

"There is a dead fairy in my grandmother's yard."

There was a long pause. "A dead fairy?" the voice finally asked, sounding merely mildly curious.

"A very dead fairy," I informed the voice. "He tried to kill my cousin. She is here with me."

"How did he die?"

"Scrap metal to the abdomen."

"I see."

"So you think you could get a hold of Niall please?" I asked. I could hear my voice starting to go. "Really soon maybe?"

"Yes. I think I can do that."

"Okay, that would be great," I said. There was silence on the line, but it didn't go dead. "Maybe immediately?" I prompted.

"I will contact the prince immediately and let him know that there is a dead fairy in your grandmother's yard."

"Okay great." I said, and I hung up.

"Who...?" Hadley asked.

"Tell me what you know about fairies," I said to Hadley.

"Just that...I've heard they are real. Just like werewolves are real. But I didn't think they really..."

"Heard from whom?"

"From Camille. She used to say I smelled like one, sometimes."

That was just perfect. She won't explain about her own species enough so that her girlfriend can understand the obligations she has to her Were-pack, but makes freaking fairies a subject for pillow talk?

"We're going to need to talk more about Camille," I murmured.

Hadley was still clutching a hand to her shoulder. I could see that it was bloody. I wiped my hand down my pants leg as an absent minded gesture before I approached her to have a look at her injury and nearly stumbled as pain shot through me. I cried out involuntarily with the shock of it. There was a large gash across my palm and my fingers where I'd clutched my crude weapon.

I turned from Hadley to the sink and fumbled to turn the faucet on. The icy water stung like the dickens when I thrust my hand beneath it but it wasn't long before it had come down to a dull throb. When my hand was clean I grabbed a clean towel and held it in my fist before turning to tend to Hadley. She was nicked across her collar and though it bled a lot, it wasn't deep. She stripped off her shirt and sat there in her bra while I cleaned and bandaged the wound.

I started to worry about poison, but I had no idea how to test for its presence. Then I realized it didn't make much sense to poison a blade when you intended to use it to kill, and quickly. Fairy minds can be as difficult to read as shifters', but the fact that he planned to kill us both had been as plain as the nose on his beautiful, homicidal face. It would have been a waste of poison. I shook my head and muttered to myself and when I looked at her face, I didn't have to read Hadley's mind to know I was freaking her out. I forced myself to snap out of it.

"Go put on a clean shirt," I ordered her. I needed a moment alone.

As she left the kitchen I took a couple of deep centering breaths, and pushed my mind outward, ignoring the space in the house which contained the confused and worried jumble of my cousin's brain. We were alone. Good. I looked down to tend to my own wound then. The metal had bit into the crease of my hand where I'd clutched it, so there wasn't a lot that I could do to bandage the thing short of wrapping my entire hand up like an oven mitt. I didn't want to do that as I needed to be able to use my hand in case something else came back for us. I settled for Neosporin across my palm and a strip of gauze. Hadley returned to find me grappling with the tape and helped me sort myself out.

Once that was done I let her put Band-aids over the cuts on each of my fingers. She was glad to have something to busy her hands with and I was glad to put off the conversation we were about to have for another couple of minutes. When I was patched up as well as I could be I peeked out the window again. The fairy was still lying there. It takes a few minutes for them to start to turn to dust. It's not as quick as vampires.

"Is he still out there?" Hadley asked.

"Yes."

"Still dead?"

"Definitely dead."

"That was really a fairy?"

I breathed out a sigh. I wanted to ask her a bunch of questions; what he'd said to her, how he'd approached her, what exactly she knew about the supernatural world, what Camille had told her. There was a more pressing matter.

"Hadley, do you remember when I graduated from high school and I got that visit from the lawyer from my mom's parents letting me know there was money for me to go to college?"

That had been the party line. It had pissed off Jason to no end, but he'd finished community college himself by then, and had no more tuition bills to worry about. He'd gotten over it, eventually. After all, he had our parents' house.

"Yeah?"

"Alright, well those people weren't here on behalf of my mom's family. They were here on behalf of my dad - your mom's."

Hadley frowned as she tried to work that out. "Gran's?"

"There's no way to say this that isn't ugly. Mitchell Stackhouse was our grandfather in every way but genetically."

"Gran... Gran had an affair?"

"Yes. With a half-fairy named Fintan Brigant."

"Are you shitting me?"

"No."

"You're telling me that my grandfather was actually a fairy."

"Half-fairy."

"A half-fairy. So I'm a what, a..." I watched as she tried to do the math in her head.

"An eight, technically. But for all intents and purposes, you're a human," I assured her quickly. "And Jason's a human. And my dad and your mom."

"And you're not."

"I am but..."

"But you're not." I almost winced. She sounded accusing.

"I guess not entirely, no," I said softly.

"Is that why you can read people's minds?"

"Sort of." That was complicated and off topic. "We can talk more about this later. What you need to know right now is that our grandfather's father, Niall, is hopefully on his way here right now, and when he arrives, he will..." I wasn't sure how to finish the sentence. Ignore you? Deal with what's left of the body?

"He will help," I settled on, hoping it was true.

She sat thoughtful for a moment and I stayed out, giving her that privacy.

"Does Jason know about all this?"

"No. And it would be better if he didn't," I said honestly.

"And if I hadn't seen...that...would you have ever told me?"

"Probably not."

"Don't you think I had the right to know?"

"It's not really my place to decide that," I said gently. "This thing, with Gran, it's not something she's proud of. Granddaddy couldn't give her babies and she wanted them so much, but there's a lot of regret. Please Hadley, don't bring it up with her. It's so hard."

"Right," she said, and I could hear her frustration. I could only hope that after she'd had more time to digest, she'd understand. "So this guy who is coming here, he's my great grandfather?"

"Only technically."

"What does that mean?"

"It means don't expect him to have a handful of penny candies and John Deere cap. He's not a human and doesn't act like one, nor any great grandfather I've ever met. They're not like Weres. Most of them don't live in this world. Fintan hid our family from him, but he's known about us all along. He's never...he's not...he's..." I floundered.

"He's here," she said flatly, focusing on a point over my shoulder just as the knock came on the wooden porch door. I swung my head around to see not Niall, but his son, Dillon, standing there.

Though he is technically my, our, great uncle, Dillon has always held himself aloof on the few occasions I've met him. He doesn't object to humans, not like some fairies do. Niall once explained to me that we are just not to his taste. When he told me this, he said it in the same way someone else might say, "He does not care for lima beans." It was a preference. That illustrated quite a lot; not just about fairies, but about supes in general.

I greeted Niall's son with a courteous nod and beckoned for Hadley to follow us outside.

The Prince of the Sky Fae stood over the corpse which was just beginning to flake away in minuscule specks of shimmering gold and silver. This was actual fairy dust and that term suddenly seemed a deal less whimsical and romantic. I'd known what to expect, but it was the first time I had actually seen the process. It was slow, prolonged. I watched for a moment as I came to stand beside Niall until he looked up. A troubled expression was painted on his perfect face. I found it deeply unnerving. His eyes flickered over Hadley for a moment and then landed on me.

"This was Wallace," Niall observed. "What has happened here?"

He held his grave expression as I explained. I did my best to cover everything from seeing him on Christmas Eve, to the fire yesterday and Gran's heart attack, to him showing up at the hospital, to him trying to kill Hadley today.

Niall addressed his questions to me and I did my best to answer, even when Hadley would have been better. I could feel her emotions as we talked; confusion, frustration, fear, awe, and the longer the conversation went on, anger.

"I am pleased that you killed him before he could kill you," Niall finally said.

"He was an enemy?" I asked.

Dillon treated me to a sardonic look and I quickly clarified, "Was he known to be your enemy, great grandfather?"

"He was one of my people, but clearly he was not loyal to me. I am saddened to learn of his betrayal. I do wonder how he found you."

Niall did manage to sound tired, which I suppose was close enough to sad.

"What do you mean, 'how did he find us?' He just walked into our Gran's church!" It was the first time Hadley had done more than murmur her assent and the look Niall gave her was unnecessarily cool, but at least he spoke to her directly when he answered.

"Yes, but how did he find the church? Your family remains shrouded from my kind. These protections have been in place since your birth. Since the births of your mother and your uncle."

"Pretty clear these protections have failed," Hadley replied hotly and immediately I said her name in a warning tone.

"Watch yourself," I muttered darkly.

"I guess I'll have to, won't I? Since whatever protection I've had since birth isn't doing a lick of good, huh?"

Frowning, Niall gestured to his son then, and Dillon approached Hadley cautiously. She was clearly upset, and that was perfectly understandable. When he moved to put his arms around her she jerked away at first but quickly allowed herself to be embraced. I heard him murmuring softly and unintelligibly to her and very gradually her tension waned. Fairies all have different magics, different talents. I'd never had occasion to see Dillon in action before, but I was fairly certain I was seeing it now. He didn't strike me as a hugger in the normal course of events, and neither did he bear much of the demeanor of someone whose embrace would be comforting. Some people just give off that vibe, like Gran. Dillon didn't, but Hadley sure calmed down quick.

"She knows who I am," Niall said. It was not exactly accusatory, so I tried not to sound defensive when I answered.

"I gave her the briefest explanation after I called. She recognized this Wallace for a fairy. She watched me kill him."

"Perhaps it would be better if she did not remember any of this."

"No. He was thinking of three, the three of us. Jason too. She needs to know to be wary. She isn't wrong. She does need to watch her own back until all of this is sorted out."

"But the culprit is dead," he said, surprised.

I frowned at him.

"You said yourself you do not know how he found us. We don't know who started the fire here yesterday. We don't know who's been out lurking in the woods here. It could have been him, or it could have been someone helping him, or it could have been someone else. Don't leave her unaware. She is staying with Jason. She can look out for him too. If afterwards..." I trailed off.

I did think it was important that Hadley keep her memories of what she'd seen and heard today so that she would stay on her guard. Hadley might have been selfish and she might have been petulant, and a whole spate of bad qualities that our family had been working so hard to ignore in the last week, but she was also a survivor. She'd lived a hard life while she was gone from us, one that many people don't get out of. She'd had a hard childhood too, yet here she stood.

"Her not knowing what's going on right now puts all of us in greater danger," I stressed to Niall.

"You are injured," he observed, glancing at my hand. I suppose the subject change was to be taken for acquiescence?

"Yes," I agreed. "I'll heal."

"I am proud of you," Niall said then, as he placed a hand on either of my shoulders. "He was young, but not weak. You thought quickly and you saved your cousin too. You are very clever, and the strength of my blood flows in you."

This praise was clearly intended to gratify me, but it certainly didn't. I bit down on my lip as I nodded up at him, acknowledging the words if nothing else.

"Thank you," I told him.

By then, the corpse of the fairy had all but disappeared and after leaning to kiss my forehead and then releasing me, it seemed that Niall was ready to go. Dillon was still using his soothing magics on Hadley, but at his father's infinitesimal gesture he gradually withdrew. She hugged herself more tightly as she felt the loss of his influence.

"You will hear from me again when we have an answer for this treachery. In the meantime, you will contact me if you see any other fairies."

Niall spoke to the air in general, which I suppose was the closest he'd return to addressing Hadley again. I nodded and said goodbye, inclining my head to Dillon once again, and then watched from Hadley's side as the two fairies walked to the edge of the woods and disappeared.

"Do you want to come inside?" I asked Hadley.

"Just take me to Jason's okay? I have his key."

"You're sure? We could-"

"I can't be around you right now, Sookie," she cut in. "It's just too much, okay?"

"Okay." I nodded. I dashed to the house to lock it up and when I returned, Hadley was already sitting in the passenger seat of my car.

I'd have to come back after I dropped her off. It looked a bit like someone had dumped a big bag of glitter on the driveway. Any visitors in the next hour would just have to assume we'd had an arts and crafts catastrophe.

Hadley remained subdued as we drove to Jason's, and while I wished I could talk to her, I knew she wasn't up for chatting. I did have to warn her again about staying quiet in general though, which I did just as we pulled into the driveway of the home that belonged to my parents while they were alive.

"Yeah. I get it. Big secret."

"The biggest," I said honestly. "Had, even Jason. You can't say anything."

"I get it," she said again, before getting out of the car. She asked if she'd see me tomorrow and I nodded as she slammed the car door. I watched as she let herself in to the house and shut the door behind her, then turned back for Gran's.

Randall Shurtliff finally called as I drove, apologizing for not being able to stop by today and promising he'd be over first thing in the morning. It was definitely for the best that he hadn't made it. I was anxious for the whole fifteen minutes I ran the hose over the gravel, trying to disseminate the fairy remains. Fairies don't have burial customs. The body is merely a vessel for the soul and the soul moves on. They don't call it heaven; they call it the Summerlands. I figure it can't be too far off, though.

I forced myself to wind up the garden hose again before I left. Had it been my own house, I might have just left it out overnight. I also found my murder weapon and packed it into the car. It wasn't that I wanted to keep it, but I didn't want to leave it. It felt really wrong to leave something like that just lying in Gran's yard.

I phoned Eric on my way home. There was no avoiding it.

"My lover, what a pleasant surprise." He answered just after the first ring with a smooth, sexy voice.

"Yeah," I said wearily. "I'm sorry to bother you Eric, and I'm not calling as your lover tonight. There is a problem you should probably be aware of."

"Tell me."

I breathed a sigh. "My cousin was attacked by someone in my great grandfather's retinue today," I said guardedly. Cellphones.

"Does she live?" Clearly he understood the gravity of the situation.

"Yes. Partly thanks to you, I think. I am still quicker than I ought to be."

"Really?"

"Yes, really," I said, crooking the phone against my shoulder and trying in vain to rub some of the tension out of my neck. "It would be helpful if we could chat about that, and some other things from yesterday. Likely things you'd have an interest in even beyond me."

"Where are you now?"

"Driving home. I'll be fine there."

"I have a meeting," he said, sounding almost surprised.

"Ah," I said. "I'd say it can wait, but it probably shouldn't."

"I'll send you Pam."

"Great."

"Are you well?" Nice of him to ask.

"Not especially, no. Please let Pam know I'll be home in another half hour then?"

"Yes. And I will see you later," he assured me.

"Thanks, see you then. Bye."

I hung up.

I'm aware that I didn't exactly address him like an inviting bedmate, but that's not what this was about, and besides, I was tired. That ham sandwich also seemed like a long time ago.

I had leftover Christmas dinner heating in the microwave when Eric's child arrived at my door. Tonight she was wearing a long full skirt, a snug black bodice, and a high Victorian lace collar. Her hair was pulled back and she wore a peacock feather fascinator. It was still very much a costume, and certainly on the goth side of the scale, but her ensemble was actually quite pretty. It was certainly classier than her usual pleather and vinyl.

"Dressing your age I see," I grinned at her, gesturing to my own neckline to indicate her collar.

"The latex was giving me a rash." She said latex the way my brother might say pig shit.

"Can that really happen?" I asked, distracted with genuine curiosity.

"No," she said. "May I come in? I understand something important is going on."

I beckoned her inside and popped a bottle of blood in to heat for her while I served my food.

"You're not going to faint again, are you?"

"Nope."

I gave her bottle a gentle shake and opened it for her, placing it, and the cap, down on the table in front of her before taking my own seat. I took one bite of the mashed potatoes and instantly felt a few degrees better. I started to talk as I filled my belly with the remnants of Christmas dinner, telling her about the fire and what I heard in the woods. I had to jump back to Christmas Eve.

"So this fairy was trying to lead her off that night?" Pam interjected.

"I guess he was, but then my brother stepped in. He thought she was going off to canoodle or something."

"Canoodle?"

"Uh. Fool around. Make whoopee. Get, er, intimate with."

"Oh, she was going to have sex with him," Pam said, stripping away the euphemisms without an ounce of embarrassment. "Well that's understandable. So then this same fairy showed up with Hadley again today and attacked her in front of you?"

"Right. He meant to attack both of us."

"And then your great grandfather came?"

"He came later. And he said this Wallace guy is one of his people."

"So how did you escape?"

"Um. I stuck him with a piece of steel. He died."

"You killed a fairy?"

"I had to."

She eyed me for a long moment and I began to feel uncomfortable. Apart from the initial few minutes of shock, I hadn't let myself dwell on what I'd done, and as she continued to stare, I started to spiral. I'd taken a life. I had no choice. I was a murderer. It was a fluke that I'd even been able to do it. Fairies are strong. He could have done it quickly. He could have literally ripped our heads off. He'd apologized to Hadley. I heard the clatter of my fork on my plate as I let it fall from my hand.

"Sookie! Snap out of it." Pam.

I blinked. "I've never killed somebody before," I said quietly.

"And a fairy. What a waste," she said wistfully.

"That's not even a little funny, Pam."

"No, wasting good blood is no joking matter," she deadpanned.

I breathed out my exasperation. "You never feel uneasy about killing?" I asked and then answered my own question. "No, of course you don't, you're a vampire, you're a murderer by nature."

"I have never felt guilty about defending my life from someone who meant to take it," Pam said. "And you shouldn't either. As for the other, certainly I have felt uneasy. You are aware we do not have to kill to feed. That loss of control, when it happens, is certainly troubling."

"That's not what I mean. That's troubling to you because of your failing, not because of the loss of life."

"He threw his life away, why do you mourn that?"

"It's not quite mourning. I just hate that it had to be done. I hate that I had to do it."

"If by some chance you had managed to capture or incapacitate him, his fate would have been worse. At least you gave him a quick death." She pondered me for a moment before seeming to reach a conclusion. "Times have changed, Sookie. There was a time when a woman would be expected to grieve a death indefinitely. Nowadays, you are permitted to get on with your life. I suggest that you do so."

"What?"

"I'm giving you sound advice."

"...About what?"

"About coping with death and loss. Dear Abby says that it's acceptable in our modern era to move on. Dwelling on such things will only keep you down," she scolded.

I stared at her like the crazy person she was.

"You're quoting Dear Abby to help me cope with being a murderer."

She gave me a look that clearly said, 'Yes, so?'

"That's wildly inappropriate."

"Suit yourself. I'll warn you though, no one likes a Negative-Nancy."

"I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it." I realized that, if nothing else, she had thoroughly distracted me from my gloom for the moment. "So now Niall is trying to determine what the goal of this Wallace was, and if he was working alone, and how he found us in the first place."

"There will be fairies in the area?" She perked right up.

"I guess it's possible. It'll be hard to say if they are good or bad, though."

"I'm sure there will be interesting times. If you're intact, I suppose I should get going."

"I suppose you're needed at Fangtasia with Eric at his meeting."

"Yes, I should. Long Shadow is running the place right now."

"Is that a good thing?"

"The incident with Clancy seems to have bolstered loyalty across the board."

"I suppose that is good then."

"Yes."

Pam left then, and with nothing else to do I cleaned up the kitchen then got ready for bed. I took the time to more properly clean the wound on my hand and applied fresh gauze and tape. I let myself fall asleep for a few hours on the couch but twice I awoke with a jolt of panic. Each time I stretched out my mind and found nothing, checked my phone and found nothing. Considering the last couple of days, weeks even, it probably wasn't unusual that I'd been sleeping badly, but it didn't exactly feel like nightmares. When it happened again just after four o'clock I groaned and concluded that Eric probably wasn't going to show after all. Just as I started to trudge down the hall towards my bedroom I felt the void of his brain on the front porch.

I paused for a moment, waiting to see if he would knock, and he, most likely knowing or feeling me awake, seemed to be waiting to see if I would open the door. I gave in and let him inside.

He closed the door behind him and crossed to me. It wasn't sexy. It was a perfunctory looking me over. He took up my bandaged hand to examine it, bending my fingers as he searched my face for signs of pain. When he pressed my palm flat I winced and was almost certain the gash had reopened. When his nostrils flared a moment later that confirmed it.

I tried to pull back because it actually was quite uncomfortable. "It's fine."

He flicked his eyes up in response and held my wrist firmly as he unwrapped the gauze and began to nurse the wound with his tongue. I watched for a moment until his eyes turned to mine and I felt an inexplicable shot of lust sweep through me. It just wasn't the time, so I found a nice place on the floor. It was probably equal parts caring and late night snack, for him, but it did feel soothing. I let him lap at my hand until he was satisfied that I wasn't bleeding anymore and let it drop. I looked at it, acknowledging that he'd probably taken a day or two off the healing process.

"Thank you. I thought you were held up, I was just going to bed."

"I was held up, yes."

"Everything alright?"

"It will be tomorrow night."

"Going to share?"

"Pam tells me that you are full of uneasy feelings about what happened to you today."

"Are you going to tell me that I shouldn't? Because she has already done a thorough job of that."

"No. I understand that you are uncomfortable with having to kill. I will say that I am glad you did though. If it was you or him, I am glad that you chose you."

"I didn't have time to think."

"Then I am glad your instincts for self-preservation are good."

I remembered something from earlier in the day, or from yesterday, at this point. In an effort to get off the subject I decided to ask him.

"Eric? Besides Jack Mason, do you know of any local witches?"

He stepped away from me in an instant, literally holding me at arm's length.

"Why are you asking me about witches?" He looked angry. I was too exhausted to be frightened by that. I was just confused. I pushed ineffectually at his hand where it gripped my shoulder. He was squeezing.

"I just thought you might know. I want to have wards put in place at my Gran's house, and maybe my brother's too. Do you have them at your house, or Fangtasia?"

"I would not let any witches near my home. I have grown exceedingly tired of fucking witches." He said it with such venom in his voice. He was seething, but thankfully not at me.

"So that's a no, then?"

"That's a no."

"Something you want to talk about there, buddy?"

"There is another coven. They are not from here, but they are here now. I don't know them. I don't know why they chose to come here. They say they want to take half of my business, or else they will work their magic against us."

"That's strange. So they are threatening you?"

"Yes."

"Was that your meeting? With them?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to do?"

He looked at me scathingly.

"After what happened with Pam, you will understand that we are not inclined to negotiate with witches."

"Ah. Okay," I said. "I get it."

"As I said, after tomorrow, it will not be a problem."

"That's enough now, you were good with the subject changing earlier."

"I will arrange to have Tray Dawson outside your home in the daytime."

"That's unnecessary; besides, I am running back and forth to Bon Temps all week."

He clutched my wrist again firmly and held my injured hand up between us.

"It is necessary. For now."

"Fine," I sighed, too tired to argue.

"Good. Now, I am afraid that it is nearer to dawn than I would prefer to join you in your bed, so I will say good night."

I rolled my eyes at that. At least he was definitely interested in having more of that wonderful sex with me at some point. Romance on top of that would just be too much to hope for.

"Good night then, Eric. Have a nice day rest. Good luck dealing with the evil witches tomorrow night."

"Thank you. I will see you soon."

He moved in to kiss me then and I let him, resting more of my weight in his arms than I probably meant to. He didn't seem to mind, holding me tightly. Before I even realized what was happening, the arm he'd drawn around my waist lifted me up so that our heights nearly matched and I felt my toes pointing downward into thin air, not even brushing the ground. There is definitely something to be said for vampire strength. He brushed his fingers through my hair with his free hand, and when he finally broke the kiss he inhaled deeply against my neck.

I breathed out, trying to pull my head out of the clouds so I could focus long enough on seeing him out.

"Would you let me know how it goes at least? Just that you and Pam and your people are all safe?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

"Alright. Well. Bye," I said, stepping away after he lowered me back to the ground. I patted his chest twice in a gesture of sending him on his way.

After watching Eric walk out and take off into the sky I shot the deadbolt and stumbled back to my room. I fell asleep thinking of Eric, and I was grateful for that. It was a lot better than thinking of anything else.

I woke up around ten to my phone ringing. It was the contractor asking if I could meet him at the house by noon. I told him that would work well enough for me and pulled myself up and out to put the coffee on. Through the window I saw Tray sitting out in his car parked right in front of my house. I pulled on a heavy sweatshirt and went right out to the road in my slippers and pajama pants. He had the window rolled down before I was halfway down the front path. Definitely an attentive guard.

"Morning Tray," I greeted.

"Morning Miss Stackhouse."

"Uh huh. Your boss is dead for the day so it's Sookie and come in out of the cold for a coffee would you? I've got to be in Bon Temps in two hours. I guess you're coming with me."

Tray folded up his newspaper and got out of his car to follow me back inside. I pulled the rest of the sweet potato pie out of the fridge along with some whipped cream and milk. I got him down a plate and a mug and a spoon and told him to have at it while I showered and dressed. I didn't take very long and I sat back in the bedroom to call Gran. Hadley was with her, but she wasn't interested in talking to me. I let Gran know I'd bring my cousin up a lunch. I meant to stop by and find out all she knew of Wallace anyway.

Tray rode with me in my car, and even with the stop for gas we made it to Gran's house by quarter to twelve. Tray took a big whiff when we arrived, and I imagined that he was smelling the stink of the fire. Dennis Pettibone was already in attendance out back, collecting some samples to try to determine the actual cause of the fire.

"Woo, that's potent."

"Yeah, propane tank exploded."

"I can see that," he chuckled, gesturing to the scorch marks that dotted the long and the random debris. "But I meant the smell of fairies," he said, lowering his voice.

"You can smell fairies here?"

"I'd need to shift to tell you how many, but yeah, it's heavy in the air."

"I didn't know Weres could smell fairies."

"Same as the vamps. It's there. It's just a matter of recognizing it."

"Tray, did Eric tell you why you're here with me?"

"Said in the past two days there've been two attempts to harm you. I take it that's the cause of the smell?"

I nodded slowly.

"Any idea why they want you?"

"I've got ideas," I said uncomfortably. "We don't know for sure yet."

"Helps to know what I need to look out for."

"Fairies. Maybe a female Were."

"A Were?"

"My cousin cheated on her girlfriend back in Houston. She was in the pack there. We aren't sure how big her vendetta is."

"Maybe when this guy clears out," he said, lifting his chin towards the back of the house, "I'll shift and have a good look around."

"Sounds like a very good plan," I agreed.