This was not the summons I’d expected or the kind of conversation I’d foreseen with the vampire sheriff of Area Five. Given the fact that we had some personal issues to discuss, I’d imagined Eric would call me when things had settled down with the new regime, and we’d make some kind of appointment—or date—to talk about the several items on our mutual plate. I wasn’t pleased by this impersonal summons by a flunky.

“You ever hear of a phone?” I said.

“He left you messages last night. He told me to talk to you today, without fail. I’m just following orders.”

“Eric told you to spend your time driving over here and asking me to come to his bar tonight.” Even to my own ears, I sounded unbelieving.

“Yes. He said, ‘Track her down, deliver the message in person, and be polite.’ Here I am. Being polite.”

He was telling me the truth, and it was just killing him. That was almost enough to make me smile. Bobby really didn’t like me. The closest I could come to defining why was that Bobby didn’t think I was worthy of Eric’s notice. He didn’t like my less-than-reverent attitude toward Eric, and he couldn’t understand why Pam, Eric’s right-hand vampire, was fond of me, when she wouldn’t give Bobby the time of day.

There was nothing I could do to change this, even if Bobby’s dislike had worried me . . . and it didn’t. But Eric worried me plenty. I had to talk to him, and I might as well get it over with. It had been late October when I’d last seen him, and it was now mid-January. “It’ll have to be when I get off here. I’m temporarily in charge,” I said, sounding neither pleased nor gracious.

“What time? He wants you there at seven. Victor will be there then.”

Victor Madden was the representative of the new king, Felipe de Castro. It had been a bloody takeover, and Eric was the only sheriff of the old regime still standing. Staying in the good graces of the new regime was important to Eric, obviously. I wasn’t yet sure how much of that was my problem. But I was thumbs-up with Felipe de Castro by a happy accident, and I wanted to keep it that way.

“I might be able to get there by seven,” I said after some inner computation. I tried not to think about how much it would please me to lay eyes on Eric. At least ten times in the past few weeks, I’d caught myself before I’d gotten in my car to drive over to see him. But I’d successfully resisted the impulses, because I’d been able totell that he was struggling to maintain his position under the new king. “I’ve got to brief the new gal. . . . Yeah, seven is just about doable.”

“He’ll be so relieved,” Bobby said, managing to work in a sneer.

Keep it up, asshole, I thought. And possibly the way I was looking at him conveyed that thought, because Bobby said, “Really, he will be,” in as sincere a tone as he could manage.

“Okay, message delivered,” I said. “I got to get back to work.”

“Where’s your boss?”

“He had a family problem in Texas.”

“Oh, I thought maybe the dogcatcher got him.”

What a howl. “Good-bye, Bobby,” I said, and turned my back on him to go in the back door.

“Here,” he said, and I turned around, irritated. “Eric said you would need this.” He handed me a bundle wrapped in black velvet. Vampires couldn’t give you anything in a Wal-Mart bag or wrapped in Hallmark paper, oh, no. Black velvet. The bundle was secured with a gold tasseled cord, like you’d use to tie back a curtain.

Just holding it gave me a bad feeling. “And what would this be?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t tasked with opening it.”

Ihate the word “tasked,” with “gifted” running close behind. “What am I supposed to do with this?” I said.

“Eric said, ‘Tell her to give it to me tonight, in front of Victor.’ ”

Eric did nothing without a reason. “All right,” I said reluctantly. “Consider memessaged .”

I got through the next shift okay. Everyone was pitching in to help, and that was pleasing. The cook had been working hard all day; this was maybe the fifteenth short-order cook we’d had since I’d begun working at Merlotte’s. We’d had every variation on a human being you could imagine: black, white, male, female, old, young, dead (yes, a vampire cook), lycanthropically inclined (a werewolf), and probably one or two I’d completely forgotten. This cook, Antoine Lebrun, was real nice. He’d come to us out of Katrina. He’d outstayed most of the other refugees, who’d moved back to the Gulf Coast or moved on.

Antoine was in his fifties, his curly hair showing a strand or two of gray. He’d worked concessions at the Superdome, he’d told me the day he got hired, and we’d both shuddered. Antoine got along great with D’Eriq, the busboy who doubled as his assistant.

When I went in the kitchen to make sure he had everything he needed, Antoine told me he was really proud to be working for a shapeshifter, and D’Eriq wanted to go over and over his reaction to Sam’s and Tray’s transformations. After he’d left work, D’Eriq had gotten a phone call from his cousin in Monroe, and now D’Eriq wanted to tell us all about his cousin’s wife being a werewolf.

D’Eriq’s reaction was what I hoped was typical. Two nights before, many people had discovered that someone they knew personally was a were of some kind. Hopefully, if the were had never shown signs of insanity or violence, these people would be willing to accept that shape-changing was an unthreatening addition to their knowledge of the world. It was even exciting.

I hadn’t had time to check reactions around the world, but at least as far as local stuff went, the revelation seemed to be going smoothly. I didn’t get the feeling anyone was going to be firebombing Merlotte’s because of Sam’s dual nature, and I thought Tray’s motorcycle repair business was safe.

Tanya was twenty minutes early, which raised her up in my estimation, and I gave her a genuine smile. After we ran over a few of the basics like hours, pay, and Sam’s house rules, I said, “You like being out there in Hotshot?”

“Yeah, I do,” she said, sounding a little surprised. “The families out in Hotshot, they really get along well. If something goes wrong, they have a meeting and discuss it. Those that don’t like the life, they leave, like Mel Hart did.” Almost everyone in Hotshot was either a Hart or a Norris.

“He’s really taken up with my brother lately,” I said, because I was a little curious about Jason’s new friend.

“Yeah, that’s what I hear. Everyone’s glad he’s found someone to hang with after being on his own so long.”

“Why didn’t he fit in out there?” I asked directly.

Tanya said, “I understand Mel doesn’t like to share, like you have to if you live in a little community like that. He’s real . . . ‘What’s mine is mine.’ ” She shrugged. “At least, that’s what they say.”

“Jason’s like that, too,” I said. I couldn’t read Tanya’s mind too clearly because of her double nature, but I could read the mood and intent of it, and I understood the other panthers worried about Mel Hart.

They were concerned about Mel making it in the big world of Bon Temps, I guessed. Hotshot was its own little universe.

I was feeling a bit lighter of heart by the time I’d finished briefing Tanya (who had definitely had experience) and hung up my apron. I gathered my purse and Bobby Burnham’s bundle, and I hurried out the employee door to drive to Shreveport.

I started to listen to the news as I drove, but I was tired of grim reality. Instead, I listened to a Mariah Carey CD, and I felt the better for it. I can’t sing worth a damn, but I love to belt out the lyrics to a song when I’m driving. The tensions of the day began to drain away, replaced by an optimistic mood.

Sam would come back, his mother having recovered, and her husband having made amends and having pledged he’d love her forever. The world wouldoooh andaaah about werewolves and other shifters for a while, then all would be normal again.