I was on the phone to Jason when I stepped off the streetcar on Monday morning. I didn't typically like to take calls when I was on public transport. I hated when people, especially strangers, were able to eavesdrop on the details of my life… Which was ironic, considering my inherited aptitude for doing just that. But Jason rarely called me, and I had a pretty good idea why he was calling today.

"You're gonna be an aunt for a second time, Sook!" he crowed. I could practically feel his excitement radiating all the way from Northern Louisiana.

As I piled on the surprise and congratulations (yet again, only needing to feign half of it) I spotted a figure lingering by the entrance of my work. His short dark hair, combed neatly to the side, shone distinctively in the morning sun. It was Agent Ray, and he was waiting for me.

I suppressed a groan and lifted my pointer finger to make the universal gesture for 'Gimme a minute, would ya?'

I crossed the road to Lafayette Square so I could talk in peace. The square was looking especially picturesque that morning with the fall leaves on the oak trees on bright display and pretty ornamental flowers planted en masse in the garden beds surrounding the park's many statues. Jason didn't keep me long on the phone, gushing with excitement. It seemed like Michele's earlier concern was wholly unfounded. I promised him to be back home to visit them soon and offered my duties as babysitter so they could have a few date nights before the baby arrived, maybe even Corbett could spend the night with me. Jason was thrilled and readily agreed.

"Good morning Ms. Stackhouse," Agent Ray said when I finally approached.

"Do you have to wait outside my work?"

"Where else do you suggest I wait?"

I thought about suggesting the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain but kept that to myself.

"I don't need my coworkers seeing me having chit-chats with FBI agents," I said. "It's not appropriate for you to be here."

"Relax," he said dismissively. "No one would know who I am."

"Are you kidding? Your multiple visits with Agent Weiss and the President Alpha was the talk of the office for a month. Don't underestimate the power of gossip and its effect on a person's reputation at work."

"I've been waiting for your call."

"I was getting around to it," I hedged. I still wasn't one hundred percent ready to dive headfirst into helping the agent. My past experiences with FBI's finest hadn't exactly ingratiated me to the institution. I spotted one of the associates making their way across the square towards the building's front doors. Damn it. I checked my watch. I was still twenty minutes away from needing to clock-in.

"Alright," I said, "follow me."

Agent Ray followed me around the corner to the Busy Bean. It was only a small café but the rest of the law office staff favored a bigger café where they'd recently started receiving a staff discount.

"Sookie!" said the barista behind the machine. "Long time no see."

I waved and gave Jeannie, the barista, a tight smile. It had been a while. The agent and I took the small table in the corner.

"This doesn't have to take long," Agent Ray said. "But if you want to buy me a coffee, I won't say no."

"How much help of mine do you need?" I huffed.

"I'm a government suit, very low on the totem pole. My office certainly doesn't look over Lafayette Square. I think you can afford it."

I bristled. I did well for myself these days, but he didn't know that. For starters, I wasn't exactly a high earner among my colleagues; rather, my income was bolstered by the regular monthly stipend from the trust my great-grandfather had set up for me.

I went up to the counter and placed Agent Ray's order. Jeannie had my coffee already waiting for me, in a to-go cup no less. Bless her. I paid and left a generous tip and sat back down with our coffees.

"So, I take it you've looked at the files. What did you think?" he asked.

"I told you I wasn't psychic."

"You've made that clear. I was after your professional opinion, from one investigator to another."

His comment swept every shred of my irritation away.

I was used to being regarded as many things—crazy, waitress, paralegal, blonde bimbo with a useful quirk, and even dinner (on more than one occasion). But never as an investigator. Which was silly, really. That was one of the roles I filled in my position at the law offices. But I wasn't an investigator in the way Curtis (the actual investigator for the law firm) was. I was the ace-up-the-sleeve, we're-out-of-options investigator that could listen in where others couldn't. And that was about as in-depth as my investigative work went... but here Agent Ray valued my abilities beyond my supernatural one and wanted my actual help. From one professional to another.

"I'm not sure I'm qualified enough to warrant a professional opinion," I said with honesty. Ray leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs and shook his head.

"We both know that's not true."

"I'm not yet even qualified for my role as paralegal, and my investigation work is limited to my…" I trailed off, searching for any other word to say except 'ability'.

"Your years of experience speaks for itself."

"I have no idea to what you refer."

"You've assisted your local police department in your hometown more than once. In fact, your help was integral to bringing more than one serial killer to justice."

I blinked, caught off guard, before realizing he was referring to René Lenier and Sweetie des Artes. His assessment was a stretch—unless by 'bringing to justice' he actually meant 'barely escaped the clutches of.' I regarded him frankly, diving into his thoughts. It wasn't false flattery, or even buttering me up for some sort of subterfuge. It was his actual opinion of me.

Beyond what he knew of my assistance in the aftermath of the Rhodes bombing, he also knew how I'd assisted Andy Bellefleur in catching Sweetie des Artes on her shooting spree, and René Lenier, and even how I helped solve poor Lafayette's murder. He even knew some vague details of the work I'd done for Queen Freyda back in Oklahoma.

"I think I'd like to see this file your employer has on me," I said carefully.

"That could be arranged," he said, "with your assistance. One might even be able to disappear your file..."

Ah, so this was the proverbial carrot he was planning to dangle in order to secure my services.

"Fine, I'll help you. I don't have time to discuss it here, though."

Agent Ray's eyes drifted up above my shoulder, and I sensed the presence behind me that had just entered the cafe. Oh, hell. This was why I avoided coming here nowadays. I turned in my seat and plastered a bright smile on my face.

"Hi, Danny," I said.

"Good to see you," said my handsome Assistant District Attorney ex-boyfriend. "I was beginning to think I'd never bump into you here again."

Well, I hadn't been planning on it.

"I took some vacation days and went home to study," I said.

Danny's gaze briefly flitted between my companion and me. Oh Lord, I needed to explain this. It looked like I was on a coffee date. I cleared my throat and gave Agent Ray a look, in a cue that was both obvious and hopelessly awkward to everyone present. Agent Ray cottoned on and stuck out his hand. I introduced him, with his job title.

"Danny Sullivan." Danny reached over and shook Agent Ray's hand in the smooth, well-practiced manner of a man who was used to politicking with bureaucrats. "I'm with the DA's office."

"Ms. Stackhouse is assisting the bureau in some inquiries," Agent Ray said.

"In a consulting capacity," I followed up, whip-crack fast. The fool was making it sound like I was a suspect. "I think we're done here for now, anyway." I stood and picked up my coffee cup.

"Everything okay?" Danny mouthed. His boyishly handsome features were full of concern.

"Yes," I said with a sad smile. My feelings for him still lingered, they were as warm as they had ever been. He was a good guy. He was a good-looking guy. It was the butterflies that were gone. "Agent Ray and I became professionally acquainted during Lydia Ryker's murder investigation. He's currently on cold cases and hoping a fresh set of eyes might help a particular case he's working."

"Yes," the agent said belatedly, only just now picking up on my all-too-obvious social cues. He was not my date. I was not his suspect. "What she said."

"Good to see you, Danny. I hope you're well. Agent" I said icily, "I'll be in touch."

I marched out, chin high, overwhelmed with imposter syndrome and the sense that I was still that clueless twenty-something barmaid that had no idea how to navigate men.

• •

I'd checked my watch a third time before Agent Ray felt the need to comment.

"I'll get you back to the office in time," he said.

"I hope so." We hadn't traveled far but the traffic was unusually busy for the time of day. I'd worked late on Tuesday in order to take an extra long lunch break today just so I could ride along for this re-interview. I didn't want to have to stay late at work again tonight to make up for lost time.

We pulled off the highway into a long suburban avenue in Carrollton. The homes here were more akin to what I was used to seeing in Bon Temps. Many of the clapboard homes featured colorful facades, wrought-iron accents, and spacious porches. Large oaks towered over the street, and the yards were green and lush. The flooding that arrived after Hurricane Katrina hadn't affected this part of town nearly as terribly as it had most of the city. That is to say, this area wasn't completely under water.

We first passed two mothers pushing strollers along the cracked sidewalk and a moment later a leafy park with play equipment. Agent Ray took a right at the end of the road, and we traveled for many blocks alongside a cemetery. I found it hard not to be moved by the sight of it. It was so different to my little cemetery that bordered the property of my ancestral home. Sweet Home cemetery was set on pasture, dotted with gravestones going back to before the civil war days. Here, it was crypt after crypt, all constructed in drab gray concrete weathered by moisture, mildew and moss. It possessed its own eerie sort of beauty.

The dead in this city couldn't be buried underground due to the water table being too high. Instead the dead were "buried" in family or municipal crypts, left to decompose inside the above-ground tombs with their remains to only be swept to the back to make room for any new occupant. It might seem morbid… but that's because it was. The business of dying was rarely pretty and in its place practicality ruled.

The cemetery passed us by and Agent Ray pulled up to a narrow shotgun house painted in a faded cornflower blue. It was cute, if you ignored the iron bars affixed to the windows. The home protection measures weren't an unusual sight in the city, but it seemed to contrast strangely with the home's otherwise happy exterior.

Shotgun houses were an iconic part of New Orleans' architecture. The clapboard homes were narrow and long, sometimes attached, sometimes single standing like this one happened to be. When I'd first arrived in New Orleans and helped to look after Amelia's little boy Felix, I'd done a walking tour of the city. The guide had said they called them shotgun houses because you could stand at the front porch and fire a shotgun through the open door and the slug would sail straight out the back door without hitting a wall. I didn't know if that was the actual provenance of the name, but it was certainly true.

"Does he know I'm coming here?" I asked.

The person we were interviewing today was one of the victims of an alleged specter stalking the neighborhood. I'd read over the transcript of his interview back in 2005 but it read more like fiction than fact. I wasn't sure exactly what to expect today. More than four years had passed. Time had a way of dulling some memories, then again it also had a way of adding perspective and depth of understanding to others. Speaking purely from experience.

"It's just a casual chat. Your presence won't raise any questions."

Agent Ray knocked on the locked screen door and after the rattling shake of bolts and chains, the door opened a crack.

"Who is it?" The drawl was thick and raspy as rough bark on a cypress.

"Agent Ray from the FBI. Are you Horace Crevier?"

"Yessir. I've been expectin' you, and who's this?"

"I'm Sookie Stackhouse." I stood slightly behind Agent Ray and gave a little wave.

"She's assisting me today," the agent said.

"Very well," Horace said, not unkindly. "Come on in."

He unlatched the screen door with a key that was attached to a retractable key chain on his belt. We followed him inside into a cozy living area that smelled warm and pleasant, like potpourri and baked spice. Though Horace Crevier walked with a pronounced limp and the aid of a walking stick, his straight-backed posture lent him an air of agility not frequently seen for a gentleman his age.

"Bernie just made some cookies, if you'd like some?"

"I can make a pot of coffee too," came a voice, and from the next room a woman appeared, similarly aged to Horace. The curls of her salt and pepper hair were pulled back with diamante studded barettes, and she smiled broadly at me, her crooked bottom teeth making for a disarmingly friendly grin. Horace introduced us to his wife, Bernadette.

"Coffee would be wonderful," I said.

We sat at a worn wooden table in the kitchen and as Bernadette fussed over us, I complimented her on their home. She told us a little of their history. How they'd lived in this home since the 1950s after marrying and had raised two children in the neighborhood.

"It wasn't easy raising two kids in this place," Horace said.

"Oh, it was no hardship," Bernadette said. "Kids back then spent all their time playing on the street."

"Looks like it might still be the same." There'd been a group of kids on bikes and scooters riding around at the end of the street when we'd parked.

"Ain't the same," Horace said. The tenor of his thoughts darkened. "Ain't the same no more."

"Why?" I asked. "What's changed?"

"Ever since Katrina..." Horace said.

"When you were attacked?" Agent Ray said.

"That's right."

"That was after Katrina, actually," Bernadette corrected.

"The community changed," Horace said. "In some ways it made us closer, and in other ways more distrusting. First, there was all the looting. Crime went up. Then it took so long to get the government around to clean up the streets, to repair roofs, make homes safe, fix the roads. Even insurance dragged their heels replacing our front porch."

"Did it flood through here?" I asked. "I was living in Northern Louisiana at the time."

"We were lucky," Bernadette said. "We missed the worst of it. No flood damage, just general damage from the hurricane. Thank the Lord, he was watching over us."

"Do you think that's why you were attacked? Looters?" Agent Ray asked.

"Actually," I said, butting in. "I think I'd like to hear the full story from start to finish."

Agent Ray's displeasure rolled over me, but I bore it with a polite smile. "If it's not too hard to talk about," I followed up.

"Horace is happy to talk about it," Bernadette said. "I always tell him it's important to share. People need to know what our there."

"I will if my wife will let me get a darn word in," he said. Bernadette laughed and told him to hush.

"We hadn't needed to evacuate, not like the rest of the city," Horace began. "We bunkered down through the hurricane and stayed on afterward. Mind you, we copped a lot of damage."

"The government failed us. Failed the city. Every level of government," Bernadette said, directing her words to Agent Ray. "So much death, so much tragedy. It could've been avoidable. "

"We were the lucky ones, first things first, you gotta get that straight," Horace said. "You drive through this city—I mean it—go on and drive through all of it. And you'll see what I mean. Some people, they got their home back, they got those government funds, they recovered. Others? Corruption, embezzlement, greed. They're victims twice over. They lost their home and they were failed again by those who were meant to help. Elected to help! They're living in squalor, still. Living in homes not fit for living in. And no surprises who it is—the elderly, the poor, and us black folks."

"This neighbourhood gentrified in the last two decades," Bernadette said. "If we hadn't bought here so long ago, we'd never be able to afford living here. Who knows if we would've survived Katrina living anywhere else?"

"So, how does that figure into what happened to you?" Agent Ray asked.

"Well, we're getting to that. So hold your horses, young man," Horace said, his bushy brows meeting together in a frown.

I smiled into my coffee cup as I took a sip. I saw the same fighting spirit in this couple that my Gran also had. And, just like her, there was no use rushing a story out of them.

"The neighborhood was full to the brim with people. The looters aren't the evil villains the news made 'em out to be. There were a bad few, but majority of those were desperate folk looking for food and water. There was some burgling here, but people mostly opened their doors to one another. We shared meals, checked in on one another, helped repair homes."

"Glenn next door patched our roof and made sure everything was water tight," Bernadette added.

"See?" Horace said. "But there were a lot strangers about. Even in the months after. Many took people in, people who had nowhere else to go."

"Horace had taken to going for evening walks."

"That's right, I did," he said, nodding to his wife. "It was good to stop and chat, see how others were getting on. Try to get a sense of everything coming right again, see if anyone needed a hand."

"Those weeks after the hurricane it felt like the world was ending," Bernadette said. "I tell you, it was hard to believe the city would come back from it."

"I had some friends from New Orleans come to live with me up north after the hurricane," I said. "They said similar things."

"New Orleans will always bear the scars of Katrina. It's recovering still, even now."

"What were you saying about your walks, Horace?" Bernadette prompted as she topped up my coffee cup.

"All right, all right. That night, I was walking up Burdette Street, not far past the Baptist church. It was dark, the electric had been back on a while by then, but street lighting was poor. Some of the lights hadn't been replaced, some had been clean blown over in the hurricane."

"How long was this after Katrina?"

"About six weeks."

"It was October 17," Bernadette said.

"Someone had gone missing a couple nights before. A young fella, who lived up on Hickory."

"Did you know him?" I asked.

"No. And well, you didn't put much credence in what was being said at the time. People were still in shock; people were still coming and going. Wasn't unusual for someone to disappear and reappear later. But this night, it was all I could think about. What could've happened to that young guy? Apparently he'd just stepped into his yard and whoosh." Horace snapped his fingers; the sound resonated off the tiled kitchen. "Just gone. No one saw a thing. "

"Dina knew his wife through the church, Sherrie her name was, and she said something evil took Joey. A specter."

"Right. And that night I had the heebie-jeebies. My hair was standing on end. I don't know what it was."

By this point, I was lost in Horace's story, how his mind and words melded to form a fuller picture for me.

"You thought you were being watched," I said.

"I didn't think it, I knew it. I was coming up around a dark corner, one home was empty, half its roof still blown off, and the other house was dark. No street light." He was envisioning it clearly in his mind's eye. It was uncommon, though not unusual, that I'd catch visuals from humans, but Horace was a storyteller, and I was so caught up in his words that the vivid elements from his memory was what my ability saw.

"What happened next?" Agent Ray asked.

"I was getting ready to cross the street, I may be slow, but when your gut instinct tells you to get, you get. But that fool part of me wanted to look, all the same."

"Look at what?" I asked.

"Look into the dark between those houses to see if something was staring back."

"Was something there?" I saw the darkened gulf between the two homes as he remembered it, and the shadows that lurked there.

"I looked and–" His palm landed on the table with a slap. In his mind, a figure lay hunched, obscured by shadows, and it launched itself at his leg. "It got me." I jumped in my seat, letting out a soft cry. "I went down a sack-o-potatoes. The noise it made…" He shook his head slowly. "I'll never forget."

"It attacked your leg," Agent Ray said. "Could it have been a vampire?"

Horace lifted the leg of his pants to reveal a shiny red scar, dipped and mottled.

"Well, a vampire's got fangs, ain't it?" Horace said. "Look at that—it took a hunk from my leg. Whatever it is didn't sink no vampire fangs into me."

After going over the story again, we left the house and made our way on foot toward the cemetery. That was the direction Horace said the 'thing' that had attacked him had disappeared into. Whatever it was that had attacked him had disappeared the moment Horace began to raise the alarm by shouting.

Gravel crunched underfoot as Agent Ray spoke, going over the details of what we'd just heard but I found my mind wandering. Thinking back to those terrible weeks, months, after Hurricane Katrina and how it must've felt for everyone who lived in this city. The shock had rippled outward in Louisiana like a stone falling in a pond, and I remembered the anxiety I felt in the weeks after the storm. The horror stories that emerged in its aftermath. As we moved through the cemetery, Agent Ray caught onto my mood and quietened.

"Lots of places to hide here," I said as we passed another vault. I cast my mental net wide and sensed we were alone.

"Tell me about your impressions," Agent Ray said.

"He was truthful," I replied. A row of sparrows perched atop the rim of a Greek-revival style mausoleum and they took off in a noisy flutter. It was hard not to be emotionally affected by the gothic beauty around us. Each crypt was ornately decorated, some had columns similar to the Greek revival mansions in the garden district, others bore statues of angels, or small spires bearing crosses. I waited till the sparrows disappeared from view before continuing. "Generally time muddies a person's recollection of events, but his seemed pretty clear to me. Vivid, even. I saw…"

"You saw what?" Agent Ray turned eagerly toward me.

"I don't know." I struggled for how to put it. "Not human, I think."

"But human-like?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Four limbs, a head…"

"Well, I guess." I grimaced, trying to think of what blurry flash of an image I'd caught from Horace. "Maybe. I'd call it human-like. Not necessarily human, but of that form."

"Okay," he said, nodding with some satisfaction. It offered him a lead to pursue, and others to discard. After hearing the agent's thoughts during the interview, he was approaching the investigation and interviews using a deductive method akin to Sherlock Holmes. And despite feeling that my input during the interview was minimal, he was already pleased with the insights I'd offered. Which was something, I suppose.

"He could be wrong. Could be misremembering the whole thing. For all we know it could be one of his neighbors that attacked him," I mused. We turned a corner and began down another narrow path lined with more crypts. "Though I can't really see why a human would attack a person and manage to bite a chunk out of their leg."

"Unless they're a zombie?"

"Well, that's certainly a possibility," I said dryly.

Agent Ray's steps faltered and he turned to me, aghast. "Tell me you're joking."

"Of course!" I let out a laugh. He resumed his pace, cheeks turning bright with embarrassment.

"So, not human… Not vampire. Doubtful it's a were. That doesn't leave us with many possibilities," Agent Ray said. If only he knew. He looked back at the notebook where he'd jotted notes during our chat with Horace.

"Are you going to canvas the neighborhood?" I asked.

"Yes, and I'm hoping to talk to Sherrie Jacobs, the one who lost her husband. She's not returning my calls. I did want to get a sense of this place, though." He gestured to the tombs around us.

"Somber… Spooky," I said.

"A lot of places for something sinister to hide."

"A lot of places for the remains of missing individuals to disappear into. I mean, how would you even begin to locate someone here? There're generations of people interred here."

"I checked. Several thousands of sets of remains."

I whistled low. We exited the cemetery through wrought iron gates onto a different street, maybe two blocks from where we'd left the car and stopped at the door of a neat clapboard home. The letterbox had pictures of lady birds painted on it and hanging planter-pots brimming with lush ferns lined the porch.

"This is where Sherrie lives," Ray said. He tucked the notebook in the breast pocket of his shirt.

This time I stood, waiting, on the street while Agent Ray walked up the steps to knock on her door. I spied the curtains twitching but there was no answer.

"She's not going to talk," I called.

"Are you sure?" he said.

"Yes." The last person she wanted to talk to was law enforcement, of any form.

Agent Ray scribbled something onto a business card and left it onto her doormat.

"She has no intention of talking to you," I said as we made our way together back to where he'd parked the car.

"Any idea why?"

I shrugged. I'd sensed the woman's distrust of law enforcement and had backed away from her thoughts. It was one thing to use my skills to bring more clarity to witness testimony, but I wasn't prepared to intrude on this woman. She'd lost her husband.

Agent Ray took a call as we got back to the car and stepped away to talk in hushed tones about some sort of official FBI business. I leaned on the hood of his car waiting. No longer in a government issued SUV, Agent Ray was now getting around in his own used sedan.

I took in the leafy little slice of New Orleans suburbia. There was a lot of pride in the homes in this street, every home had a lot of care put into the garden, even though many of the houses showed the wear of their years or simply some of the battering they received from the hurricane. Beautiful old elms lined the street and near the end I could see a gap between the homes that led to a drainage entrance. There were many in the area that fed into the larger canal that drained out into the Mississippi. Necessary for a city that was built upon a swamp.

I turned to look at the kids still riding their bikes nearby. They'd fashioned together a bike jump with plywood and bricks. It made me smile. It reminded me of the gaggle of kids Jason used to ride around with on his old BMX bike. The things those boys got up to and the trouble they used to cause; they had practically lived on the streets of Bon Temps. That very thought did make me wonder, however…

"Hey!" I called out to the couple of kids closest to me.

They slowed and looked over at me.

"What?" one boy asked.

"Can I ask you a question?"

A couple of the kids rode over to me, the others looking on from a safe distance.

"Are you a cop?" the other boy asked.

I snorted. "Not even close."

"You look like a cop."

I looked down at my outfit. I was in work attire. Pencil skirt, cream colored blouse, dangly pearl drop earrings, with my hair slicked back in a bun. "Do I?"

"No, she doesn't, Mac, cops don't dress like that," his friend said. "I've never seen a cop with a broken arm."

"Are you a narc?" Mac asked. His friend whacked him on the shoulder and told him to shut it.

"Do you even know what that means?" I asked him, suppressing a laugh.

"Yes," he insisted with a jutted jaw. "What do you wanna ask?"

"I just wanted to know what scary stories you boys tell each other about this neighborhood?"

They both looked at me blankly.

"I mean… Picture you're around a campfire and everyone is telling ghost stories or spooky tales about where they're from. What story would you tell about here? What are the urban legends here?"

"What do ya mean, urban legend?"

"Mac!" his friend said in exasperation. "She means the shadow man."