“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wish there was something I could do about it, Octavia. Make things better for you.”

“You’ve already made things better for me,” she said. “I’m grateful.”

“Oh, please,” I said miserably. “Don’t. Thank Amelia.”

“All I know how to do is magic,” Octavia said. “I was so glad to help you out with Tanya. Does she seem to remember?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think she remembers anything about Calvin bringing her over here, or the spell casting. I’ll never be her favorite person, but at least she’s not trying to make my life miserable anymore.”

Tanya had been sent to sabotage me by a woman named Sandra Pelt, who bore me a grudge. Since Calvin had clearly taken a shine to Tanya, Amelia and Octavia had worked a little magic on her to cut her free from Sandra’s influence. Tanya still seemed abrasive, but that was just her nature, I figured.

“Do you think we should do a reconstruction to find out who Crystal’s killer was?” Octavia offered.

I thought it over. I tried to imagine staging an ectoplasmic reconstruction in the parking lot of Merlotte’s. We’d have to find at least one more witch, I thought, because that was a large area, and I wasn’t sure Octavia and Amelia could handle it by themselves. They’d probably think they could, though.

“I’m afraid we’d be seen,” I said finally. “And that would be bad for you and Amelia. Besides, we don’t know where the actual death took place. And you have to have that, right? The death site?”

Octavia said, “Yes. If she didn’t die there in the parking lot, it wouldn’t do a bit of good.” She sounded a bit relieved.

“I guess we won’t know until the autopsy if she died there or before they put up the cross.” I didn’t think I could stand to witness another ectoplasmic reconstruction, anyway. I’d seen two. Watching the dead—in a watery but recognizable form—reenact the last minutes of their lives was an indescribably eerie and depressing experience.

Octavia went back to her ironing, and I wandered into the kitchen and heated up some soup. I had to eat something, and opening a can was about as much effort as I could expend.

The dragging hours were absolutely negative. I didn’t hear from Sam. I didn’t hear from the police about opening Mer lotte’s. The FBI agents didn’t return to ask me more questions. Finally I decided to drive to Shreveport. Amelia had returned from work, and she and Octavia were cooking supper together when I left the house. It was a homey scene; I was simply too restless to join in.

For the second time in as many days, I found myself on the way to Fangtasia. I didn’t let myself think. I listened to a black gospel station all the way over, and the preaching helped me feel better about the awful events of the day.

By the time I arrived, it was full night, though it was too early for the bar to be crowded. Eric was sitting at one of the tables in the main room, his back to me. He was drinking some TrueBlood and talking to Clancy, who ranked under Pam, I thought. Clancy was facing me, and he sneered when he saw me walking toward the table. Clancy was no Sookie Stackhouse fan. Since he was a vampire, I couldn’t discover why, but I thought he simply didn’t like me.

Eric turned to see me approaching, and his eyebrows rose. He said something to Clancy, who got up and stalked back to the office. Eric waited for me to sit down at his table. “Hello, Sookie,” he said. “Are you here to tell me how angry you are at me about our pledging? Or are you ready to have that long talk we must have sooner or later?”

“No,” I said. We sat for a while in silence. I felt exhausted but oddly peaceful. I should be giving Eric hell about his high-handed handling of Quinn’s request and the knife presentation. I should be asking him all kinds of questions . . . but I couldn’t summon up the necessary fire.

I just wanted to sit beside him.

There was music playing; someone had turned on the all-vampire radio station, KDED. The Animals were singing “The Night.” After he finished his drink and there was only a red residue staining the sides of the bottle, Eric lay his cold white hand on top of mine. “What happened today?” he asked, his voice calm.

I began to tell him, starting with the FBI visit. He didn’t interrupt to exclaim or to ask questions. Even when I ended my tale with the removal of Crystal’s body, he didn’t speak for a while. “Even for you, that’s a busy day, Sookie,” he said finally. “As for Crystal, I don’t think I ever met her, but she sounds worthless.”

Eric never waffled around to be polite. Though I actually enjoyed that, I was also glad it wasn’t a widely held trait. “I don’t know that anyone is worthless,” I said. “Though I have to admit, if I had to pick one person to get in a lifeboat with me, she wouldn’t have made even my long list.”

Eric’s mouth quirked up in a smile.

“But,” I added, “she was pregnant, that’s the thing, and the baby was my brother’s.”

“Pregnant women were worth twice as much if they were killed in my time,” Eric said.

He’d never volunteered much information about his life before he’d been turned. “What do you mean, worth?” I asked.

“In war, or with foreigners, we could kill whom we pleased,” he said. “But in disputes between our own people, we had to pay silver when we killed one of our own.” He looked like he was dredging up the memory with an effort. “If the person killed was a woman with child, the price was double.”

“How old were you when you got married? Did you have children?” I knew Eric had been married, but I didn’t know anything else about his life.

“I was counted a man at twelve,” he said. “I married at sixteen. My wife’s name was Aude. Aude had . . . we had . . . six children.”

I held my breath. I could tell he was looking down the immense swell of time that had passed between his present—a bar in Shreveport, Louisiana—and his past—a woman dead for a thousand years.

“Did they live?” I asked very quietly.

“Three lived,” he said, and he smiled. “Two boys and a girl. Two died at birth. And with the sixth child, Aude died, too.”

“Of what?”

He shrugged. “She and the baby caught a fever. I suppose it was from some sort of an infection. Then, if people got sick, they mostly died. Aude and the baby perished within hours of each other. I buried them in a beautiful tomb,” he said proudly. “My wife had her best broach on her dress, and I laid the baby on her breast.”

He had never sounded less like a modern man. “How old were you?”

He considered. “I was in my early twenties,” he said. “Perhaps twenty-three. Aude was older. She had been my elder brother’s wife, and when he was killed in battle, it fell to me to marry her so our families would still be bonded. But I’d always liked her, and she was willing. She wasn’t a silly girl; she’d lost two babies of my brother’s, and she was glad to have more that lived.”

“What happened to your children?”

“When I became a vampire?”

I nodded. “They can’t have been very old.”

“No, they were small. It happened not long after Aude’s death,” he said. “I missed her, you see, and I needed someone to raise the children. No such thing as a househusband then.” He laughed. “I had to go raiding. I had to be sure the slaves were doing what they ought in the fields. So I needed another wife. One night I went to visit the family of a young woman I hoped would marry me. She lived a mile or two away. I had some worldly goods, and my father was a chief, and I was thought a handsome man and was a noted fighter, so I was a good prospect. Her brothers and her father were glad to greet me, and she seemed . . . agreeable. I was trying to get to know her a bit. It was a good evening. I had high hopes. But I had a lot to drink there, and on my way home that night . . .” Eric paused, and I saw his chest move. In remembering his last moments as a human, he had actually taken a deep breath. “It was the full moon. I saw a man lying hurt by the side of the road. Ordinarily I would have looked around to find those who had attacked him, but I was drunk. I went over to help him; you can probably guess what happened after that.”