I had plenty to worry about.

The next morning, Tanya showed up at my house. It was Sunday, and I was off work, and I felt pretty cheerful. After all, Crystal was healing, Quinn seemed to like me, and I hadn't heard any more from Eric, so maybe he would leave me alone. I try to be optimistic. My gran's favorite saying from the Bible was, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." She had explained that that meant that you don't worry about tomorrow, or about things you can't change. I tried to practice that philosophy, though most days it was hard. Today it was easy.

The birds were tweeting and chirping, the bugs were buzzing, and the pollen-heavy air was full of peace as if it were yet another plant emission. I was sitting on the front porch in my pink robe, sipping my coffee, listening to Car Talk on Red River Radio, and feeling really good, when a little Dodge Dart chugged up my driveway. I didn't recognize the car, but I did recognize the driver. All my peacefulness vanished in a puff of suspicion. Now that I knew about the proximity of a new Fellowship conclave, Tanya's inquisitive presence seemed even more suspicious. I was not happy to see her at my home. Common courtesy forbade me from warning her off, with no more provocation than I'd had, but I wasn't giving her any welcoming smile when I lowered my feet to the porch and stood.

"Good morning, Sookie!" she called as she got out of her car.

"Tanya," I said, just to acknowledge the greeting.

She paused halfway to the steps. "Um, everything okay?"

I didn't speak.

"I should have called first, huh?" She tried to look winsome and rueful.

"That would have been better. I don't like unannounced visitors."

"Sorry, I promise I'll call next time." She resumed her progress over the stepping stones to the steps. "Got an extra cup of coffee?"

I violated one of the most basic rules of hospitality. "No, not this morning," I said. I went to stand at the top of the steps to block her way onto the porch.

"Well… Sookie," she said, her voice uncertain. "You really are a grump in the morning."

I looked down at her steadily.

"No wonder Bill Compton's dating someone else," Tanya said with a little laugh. She knew immediately she'd made an error. "Sorry," she added hastily, "maybe I haven't had enough coffee myself. I shouldn't have said that. That Selah Pumphrey's a bitch, huh?"

Too late now, Tanya. I said, "At least you know where you stand with Selah." That was clear enough, right? "I'll see you at work."

"Okay. I'll call next time, you hear?" She gave me a bright, empty smile.

"I hear you." I watched her get back into the little car. She gave me a cheerful wave and, with a lot of extra maneuvering, she turned the Dart around and headed back to Hummingbird Road.

I watched her go, waiting until the sound of the engine had completely died away before I resumed my seat. I left my book on the plastic table beside my lawn chair and sipped the rest of my coffee without the pleasure that had accompanied the first few mouthfuls.

Tanya was up to something.

She practically had a neon sign flashing above her head. I wished the sign would be obliging enough to tell me what she was, who she worked for, and what her goal might be, but I guessed I'd just have to find that out myself. I was going to listen to her head every chance I got, and if that didn't work—and sometimes it doesn't, because not only was she a shifter, but you can't make people think about what you need to them to, on demand—I would have to take more drastic action.

Not that I was sure what that would be.

In the past year, somehow I'd assumed the role of guardian of the weird in my little corner of our state. I was the poster girl for interspecies tolerance. I'd learned a lot about the other universe, the one that surrounded the (mostly oblivious) human race. It was kind of neat, knowing stuff that other people didn't. But it complicated my already difficult life, and it led me into dangerous byways among beings who desperately wanted to keep their existence a secret.

The phone rang inside the house, and I stirred myself from my unhappy thoughts to answer it.

"Hey, babe," said a warm voice on the other end.

"Quinn," I said, trying not to sound too happy. Not that I was emotionally invested in this man, but I sure needed something positive to happen right now, and Quinn was both formidable and attractive.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, sitting on my front porch drinking coffee in my bathrobe."

"I wish I was there to have a cup with you."

Hmmm. Idle wish, or serious "ask me over"?

"There's plenty in the pot," I said cautiously.

"I'm in Dallas, or I'd be there in a flash," he said.

Deflation. "When did you leave?" I asked, because that seemed the safest, least prying question.

"Yesterday. I got a call from the mother of a guy who works for me from time to time. He quit in the middle of a job we were working on in New Orleans, weeks ago. I was pretty pissed at him, but I wasn't exactly worried. He was kind of a free-floating guy, had a lot of irons in the fire that took him all over the country. But his mom says he still hasn't shown up anywhere, and she thinks something's happened to him. I'm looking around his house and going through his files to help her out, but I'm reaching a dead end. The track seems to have ended in New Orleans. I'll be driving back to Shreveport tomorrow. Are you working?"

"Yes, early shift. I'll be off around five-ish."

"So can I invite myself over for dinner? I'll bring the steaks. You got a grill?"

"As a matter of fact, I do. It's pretty old, but it works."

"Got coals?"

"I'd have to check." I hadn't cooked out since my grandmother had died.

"No problem. I'll bring some."

"Okay," I said. "I'll fix everything else."

"We have a plan."

"See you at six?"

"Six it is."

"Okay, good-bye then."

Actually, I would have liked to talk to him longer, but I wasn't sure what to say, since I'd never had the experience of much idle chitchat with boys. My dating career had begun last year, when I'd met Bill. I had a lot of catching up to do. I was not like, say, Lindsay Popken, who'd been Miss Bon Temps the year I graduated from high school. Lindsay was able to reduce boys to drooling idiots and keep them trailing after her like stunned hyenas. I'd watched her at it often and still could not understand the phenomenon. It never seemed to me she talked about anything in particular. I'd even listened to her brain, but it was mostly full of white noise. Lindsay's technique, I'd concluded, was instinctive, and it was based on never saying anything serious.

Oh well, enough of reminiscence. I went into the house to see what I needed to do to get it ready for Quinn's visit the next evening and to make a list of necessary purchases. It was a happy way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I'd go shopping. I stepped into the shower contemplating a pleasurable day.

A knock at my front door interrupted me about thirty minutes later as I was putting on some lipstick. This time I looked through the peephole. My heart sank. However, I was obliged to open the door.

A familiar long black limo was parked in my drive. My only previous experience with that limo led me to expect unpleasant news and trouble.

The man—the being—standing on my front porch was the personal representative and lawyer for the vampire queen of Louisiana, and his name was Mr. Cataliades, emphasis on the second syllable. I'd first met Mr. Cataliades when he'd come to let me know that my cousin Hadley had died, leaving her estate to me. Not only had Hadley died, she'd been murdered, and the vampire responsible had been punished right before my eyes. The night had been full of multiple shocks: discovering not only that Hadley had left this world, but she'd left it as a vampire, and she'd been the favorite of the queen, in a biblical sense.