I stayed away from Sookie Stackhouse for the next couple of weeks. It was tough because I remembered how delicious she tasted and how interesting I found her, but the practical part of me knew that getting involved in her life would be a mistake that would most likely end in my having to kill her, and a part of me just thought it would be such a shame to kill such a rare find.

And so I went back to my boring routine and satisfied my needs with my usual fare again. I had a call one night from Bobby Burnham letting me know that my signature would be required in order for him to file my income taxes online. He always did such a thorough job of taking care of my business and I felt very fortunate to have found him. He said he'd call me when he was ready, but it would be very soon. I waited for a couple of nights, but didn't hear from him again. I called but just got his voice mail. I decided to just drop by his house to get it out of the way, but knew that something was wrong the minute I pulled into his driveway. I smelled death.

I was Bobby's landlord as well as employer and so I let myself in. (I had been invited in years before.) I punched in the code for the alarm and did a quick sweep of the house, but saw nothing out of order. I followed my nose out to the garage and went around the back to let myself in the side door. Bobby was tied to his work table with duct tape and had clearly been dead for at least a day or so. His fingernails were missing and his scalp had been sliced off and there were multiple fang marks all over his neck. Longshadow. Stupid fucking idiot. What kind of lame-ass vampire leaves his victim strapped to a table with fang marks? And what kind of Native American still scalps his victims? Why didn't he just leave his business card, for crying out loud. I hate sloppy vampires.

I buried Bobby behind the garage and cleaned up his workshop area where he'd been tortured. Then I went through the house again with a more careful eye. Nothing was out of place, so I assumed that Longshadow had not procured an invitation which was pretty impressive. Bobby was tougher than I thought. I wondered why an invitation hadn't been glamored out of him, but then thought that maybe whatever Longshadow wanted wasn't in the house. In fact, he may have gotten what he wanted right off the bat and then tortured Bobby just for the sport of it. It's not uncommon. I went through Bobby's desk and pulled my files out and stuffed them in a box I found in the closet. Then I unplugged his computer and put the tower in the box as well. I'd buried Bobby's cell phone with him, so I knew my number couldn't be retrieved from it. My phone number clearly held no interest for Longshadow unless he was planning on making some prank calls. I went back to the garage and rummaged through the car and my heart sank when I popped the trunk and knew what was missing: Bobby's laptop. He kept it in a black leather briefcase and that was nowhere to be seen. Fuck.

I knew that Longshadow hated me. The feeling was mutual. Ever since he'd settled in Area Five, he'd been a pain in my ass. At first I kind of felt sorry for him because he was young and stupid and clearly in need of some help getting settled. I had loaned him some money to buy a house, although why he couldn't have obtained wealth the old fashioned way was beyond me. We can glamor. We can kill. There's simply no excuse for needing money. Whatever. When I asked about repayment, he got defensive and vague about when he'd be able to pay me back. I told him to get his shit together or find another area and that was the last communication we'd had.

If Longshadow was so stupid that he couldn't get money from humans, and yet he tracked Bobby Burnham here, it was clearly time for me to do some business transactions. Periodically, I sold my properties to myself by generating a new identity to make sure that I couldn't be tracked through public records. Even vampires have to pay taxes. What's that saying? Nothing's certain but death and taxes. Funny.

So now Longshadow had Bobby's laptop which meant that he had my personal information. Fuck. I drove home but parked my car a few blocks away from my house and then flew into the trees by the lake. I sat there the rest of the night waiting for Longshadow, but he never came. I buried myself in the woods across the lake for the day even though I knew that I'd awaken much earlier than Longshadow because of my age. I just didn't want to get too comfortable in my house until I knew what was going on.

I'd been up in my tree for a couple of hours, wishing I could just go home and take a nice hot shower when the asswipe showed up. I watched him sneaking around my house and then peering into my garage. He was one worthless fool and being rid of him would be a relief. I snapped a tree branch off, flew down and plunged it into his chest before he even registered what had happened. Idiot. Then I pulled the hose out and sprayed down the grass where he had dissolved. It wasn't perfect, but a couple of good hard rains should take care of it. I did a quick fly over the neighborhood looking for unfamiliar cars, but saw nothing unusual.

I finally got that hot shower and relaxed in front of the TV for awhile before calling the palace in New Orleans to report Longshadow's demise. It was a fair staking and I made the wire transfer so that his maker, Hot Rain, would be compensated. Then I flew to my car and drove downtown to find myself a new day man.

I could usually find decent help in the bars down near the courthouse. Lots of lawyers. Even though I didn't require a law degree for my employees, it was always a reasonable place to start. I took a few business cards and had a sip from a drunk woman vomiting behind one of the bars before I went back home.

I retrieved the box from my car that held my files and Bobby's computer tower. I hooked Bobby's computer up and scrolled through the files. I found my income tax return and filed it electronically myself. I had no way of knowing where Bobby's laptop was and so knew I'd need to change my identity quickly. I emailed a couple of the lawyers I'd just met and asked for appointments the following night. Before I unhooked Bobby's computer, I dug around a little more and noticed his personal photos of his two young sons and his ex-wife. I felt a twinge of guilt that Bobby had suffered and died simply because of his connection to me. He seemed like a decent sort of fellow and was a parent, after all. I wired a few hundred thousand into his checking account before heading up to get ready for bed.

I stared at the ceiling waiting for dawn and thought of Sookie Stackhouse. I couldn't get her taste out of my mind and thought of how enticing she was. I had stayed away from her before because my self-preservation instincts told me to avoid an unglamorable human who knew of my existence. Now, my guilty conscience was telling me that being in my world could get a human killed as well as myself. I pictured Sookie sprawled out on Bobby's work table with missing fingernails and fangmarks on her neck and it strengthened my resolve to stay away from her. My last thought was of her beautiful face.