“Getting away from Katrina,” the boy said. “My sire was staked by a human when we ran out of bottled blood substitute after the flood. I stole a car outside of New Orleans, changed the license plates, and got out of town. I reached here at daylight. I found an empty house with a FOR SALE sign and a windowless bathroom, so I moved in. I’ve been going out with a local girl. I take a sip every night. She’s none the wiser,” he sneered.

“What’s your interest?” Bill asked me.

“Have you two been going into her dad’s office at night?” I asked.

“Yeah, once or twice.” He smirked. “Her dad’s office has a couch in it.” I wanted to slap the shit out of him, maybe smacking the jewelry in his nose just by accident.

“How long have you been a vampire?” Bill asked.

“Ah… maybe two months.”

Okay, that explained a lot. “So that’s why he didn’t know to check in with Eric. That’s why he doesn’t realize what he’s doing is foolish and liable to get him staked.”

“There’s only so much excuse for stupidity,” Bill said.

“Have you gone through the files in there?” I asked the boy, who was looking a little dazed.

“What?”

“Did you go through the files in the insurance office?”

“Uh, no. Why would I do that? I was just loving up the girl, to get a little sip, you know? I was real careful not to take too much. I don’t have any money to buy artificial stuff.”

“Oh, you are so dumb.” Amelia was fed up with this kid. “For goodness’ sake, learn something about your condition. Stranded vampires can get help just like stranded people. You just ask the Red Cross for some synthetic blood, and they dole it out free.”

“Or you could have found out who the sheriff of the area is,” Bill said. “Eric would never turn away a vampire in need. What if someone had found you biting this girl? She’s under the age of consent, I gather?” For blood “donation” to a vampire.

“Yeah,” I said, when Dustin looked blank. “It’s Lindsay, daughter of Greg Aubert, my insurance agent. He wanted us to find out who’d been going into his building at night. Called in a favor to get me and Amelia to investigate.”

“He should do his own dirty work,” Bill said quite calmly. But his hands were clenched. “Listen, boy, what’s your name?”

“Dustin.” He’d even given Lindsay his real name.

“Well, Dustin, tonight we go to Fangtasia, the bar in Shreveport that Eric Northman uses as his headquar ters. He will talk to you there, decide what to do with you.”

“I’m a free vampire. I go where I want.”

“Not within Area Five, you don’t. You go to Eric, the area sheriff.”

Bill marched the young vampire off into the night, probably to load him into his car and get him to Shreveport.

Amelia said, “I’m sorry, Sookie.”

“At least you stopped him from breaking my neck,” I said, trying to sound philosophical about it. “We still have our original problem. It wasn’t Dustin who went through the files, though I’m guessing it was Dustin and Lindsay going into the office at night that disturbed the magic. How could they get past it?”

“After Greg told me his spell, I realized he wasn’t much of a witch. Lindsay’s a member of the family. With Greg’s spell to ward against outsiders, that made a difference,” Amelia said. “And sometimes vampires register as a void on spells created for humans. After all, they’re not alive. I made my ‘freeze’ spell vampire specific.”

“Who else can get through magic spells and work mischief?”

“Magical nulls,” she said.

“Huh?”

“There are people who can’t be affected by magic,” Amelia said. “They’re rare, but they exist. I’ve only met one before.”

“How can you detect nulls? Do they give off a special vibration or something?”

“Only very experienced witches can detect nulls without casting a spell on them that fails,” Amelia admitted. “Greg probably has never encountered one.”

“Let’s go see Terry,” I suggested. “He stays up all night.”

The baying of a dog announced our arrival at Terry’s cabin. Terry lived in the middle of three acres of woods. Terry liked being by himself most of the time, and any social needs he might feel were satisfied by an occasional stint of working as a bartender.

“That’ll be Annie,” I said, as the barking rose in intensity. “She’s his fourth.”

“Wife? Or dog?”

“Dog. Specifically, a Catahoula. The first one got hit by a truck, I think, and one got poisoned, and one got bit by a snake.”

“Gosh, that is bad luck.”

“Yeah, unless it’s not chance at all. Maybe someone’s making it happen.”

“What are Catahoulas for?”

“Hunting. Herding. Don’t get Terry started on the history of the breed, I’m begging you.”

Terry’s trailer door opened, and Annie launched herself off the steps to find out if we were friends or foes. She gave us a good bark, and when we stayed still, she eventually remembered she knew me. Annie weighed about fifty pounds, I guess, a good-sized dog. Catahoulas are not beautiful unless you love the breed. Annie was several shades of brown and red, and one shoulder was a solid color while her legs were another, though her rear half was covered with spots.

“Sookie, did you come to pick out a puppy?” Terry called. “Annie, let them by.” Annie obediently backed up, keeping her eyes on us as we began approaching the trailer.

“I came to look,” I said. “I brought my friend Amelia. She loves dogs.”

Amelia was thinking she’d like to slap me upside the head because she was definitely a cat person.

Annie’s puppies and Annie had made the small trailer quite doggy, though the odor wasn’t really unpleasant. Annie herself maintained a vigilant stance while we looked at the three pups Terry still had. Terry’s scarred hands were gentle as he handled the dogs. Annie had encountered several gentleman dogs on her unplanned excursion, and the puppies were diverse. They were adorable. Puppies just are. But they were sure distinctive. I picked up a bundle of short reddish fur with a white muzzle, and felt the puppy wiggle against me and snuffle my fingers. Gee, it was cute.

“Terry,” I said, “have you been worried about Annie?”

“Yeah,” he said. Since he was off base himself, Terry was very tolerant of other people’s quirks. “I got to thinking about the things that have happened to my dogs, and I began to wonder if someone was causing them all.”

“Do you insure all your dogs with Greg Aubert?”

“Naw, Diane at Liberty South insured the others. And see what happened to them? I decided to switch agents, and everyone says Greg is the luckiest son of a bitch in Renard Parish.”

The puppy began chewing on my fingers. Ouch. Amelia was looking around her at the dingy trailer. It was clean enough, but the furniture arrangement was strictly utilitarian, like the furniture itself.

“So, did you go through the files at Greg Aubert’s office?”

“No, why would I do that?”

Truthfully, I couldn’t think of a reason. Fortunately, Terry didn’t seem interested in why I wanted to know. “Sookie,” he said, “if anyone in the bar thinks about my dogs, knows anything about ’em, will you tell me?”

Terry knew about me. It was one of those community secrets that everyone knows but no one ever discusses. Until they need me.

“Yes, Terry, I will.” It was a promise, and I shook his hand. Reluctantly, I set the puppy back in its improvised pen, and Annie checked it over anxiously to make sure it was in good order.

We left soon after, none the wiser.

“So, who’ve we got left?” Amelia said. “You don’t think the family did it, the vampire boyfriend is cleared, and Terry, the only other person on the scene, didn’t do it. Where do we look next?”

“Don’t you have some magic that would give us a clue?” I asked. I pictured us throwing magic dust on the files to reveal fingerprints.

“Uh. No.”

“Then let’s just reason our way through it. Like they do in crime novels. They just talk about it.”