"Well, it's not good," I said, just to put him on the right track.

His face darkened, the blond brows drawing in to meet, his mouth turning down.

"We did find an archery range that Kyle Perkins visited. You were right about that. Barry went with me to be nice, and I really appreciated it," I said, getting my opening credits in. "To condense the whole afternoon, we found the right range at our third stop, and the gal behind the counter said we could look at the security tape from the night Kyle visited. I thought we might see someone we knew coming in with him. But she wanted us to come back at the end of her shift, seven o'clock." I paused to take a deep breath. Eric's face didn't change at all. "We came back at the appointed time, and she was dead, murdered, in the store. I went past her to look in the office, and the tapes had been burned."

"Killed how?"

"She'd been stabbed, and the knife was left in her chest, and the killer or someone with him had thrown up food. Also, a guy who worked at the store was killed, but I didn't check him out to see how."

"Ah." Eric considered this. "Anything else?"

"No," I said, and got to my feet to leave.

"Barry was angry with you," he observed.

"Yeah, he was, but he'll get over it."

"What's his problem?"

"He doesn't think I handled the... He doesn't think we should've left. Or... I don't know. He thinks I was unfeeling."

"I think you did exceptionally well."

"Well, great!" Then I clamped down on myself. "Sorry," I said. "I know you meant to compliment me. I'm not feeling all that good about her dying. Or leaving her. Even if it was the practical thing to do."

"You're second-guessing yourself."

"Yes."

A knock at the door. Since Eric didn't shift himself, I got up to answer it. I didn't think it was a sexist thing; it was a status thing. I was definitely the lower dog in the room.

Completely and totally not to my surprise, the knocker was Bill. That just made my day complete. I stood aside to let him enter. Darn if I was going to ask Eric if I should let him in.

Bill looked me up and down, I guess to check that my clothes were in order, then strode by me without a word. I rolled my eyes at his back. Then I had a brilliant idea: instead of turning back into the room for further discussion, I stepped out of the open door and shut it behind me. I marched off quite briskly and grabbed the elevator with hardly any wait. In two minutes, I was unlocking my door.

End of problem.

I felt quite proud of myself.

Carla was in our room, naked again.

"Hi," I said. "Please put on a robe."

"Well, hey, if it bothers you," she said in a fairly relaxed manner, and pulled on a robe. Wow. End of another problem. Direct action, straightforward statements; obviously, those were the keys to improving my life.

"Thanks," I said. "Not going to the judicial stuff?"

"Human dates aren't invited," she said. "It's Free Time for us. Gervaise and I are going out nightclubbing later. Some really extreme place called Kiss of Pain."

"You be careful," I said. "Bad things can happen if there are lots of vamps together and a bleeding human or two."

"I can handle Gervaise," Carla said.

"No, you can't."

"He's nuts about me."

"Until he stops being nuts. Or until a vamp older than Gervaise takes a shine to you, and Gervaise gets all conflicted."

She looked uncertain for a second, an expression I felt sure Carla didn't wear too often.

"What about you? I hear you're tied to Eric now."

"Only for a while," I said, and I meant it. "It'll wear off."

I will never go anywhere with vampires again, I promised myself. I let the lure of the money and the excitement of the travel pull me in. But I won't do that again. As God is my witness... Then I had to laugh out loud. Scarlett O'Hara, I wasn't. "I'll never be hungry again," I told Carla.

"Why, did you eat a big supper?" she asked, focused on the mirror because she was plucking her eyebrows.

I laughed. And I couldn't stop.

"What's up with you?" Carla swung around to eye me with some concern. "You're not acting like yourself, Sookie."

"Just had a bad shock," I said, gasping for breath. "I'll be okay in a minute." It was more like ten before I gathered my control back around me. I was due at the judicial meeting, and frankly, I wanted to have something to occupy my mind. I scrubbed my face and put on some makeup, changed into a bronze silk blouse and tobacco-colored pants with a matching cardigan, and put on some brown leather pumps. With my room key in my pocket and a relieved good-bye from Carla, I was off to find the judicial sessions.

Chapter 16

The vampire Jodi was pretty formidable. She put me in mind of Jael, in the Bible. Jael, a determined woman of Israel, put a tent peg through the head of Sisera, an enemy captain, if I was remembering correctly. Sisera had been asleep when Jael did the deed, just as Michael had been when Jodi broke off his fang. Even though Jodi's name made me snicker, I saw in her a steely strength and resolve, and I was immediately on her side. I hoped the panel of judges could see past the vampire Michael's whining about his damn tooth.

This wasn't set up like the previous evening, though the session took place in the same room. The panel of judges, I guess you'd call them, were on the stage and seated at a long table facing the audience. There were three of them, all from different states: two men and a woman. One of the males was Bill, who was looking (as always) calm and collected. I didn't know the other guy, a blond. The female was a tiny, pretty vamp with the straightest back and longest rippling black hair I ever saw. I heard Bill address her as "Dahlia." Her round little face whipped back and forth as she listened to the testimony of first Jodi, then Michael, just as if she was watching a tennis match. Centered on the white tablecloth before the judges was a stake, which I guess was the vampire symbol of justice.

The two complaining vampires were not represented by lawyers. They said their piece, and then the judges got to ask questions before they decided the verdict by a majority vote. It was simple in form, if not in fact.

"You were torturing a human woman?" Dahlia asked Michael.

"Yes," he said without blinking an eye. I glanced around. I was the only human in the audience. No wonder there was a certain simplicity to the proceedings. The vampires weren't trying to dress it up for a warm-blooded audience. They were behaving as they would if they were by themselves. I was sitting by those of my party who'd attended – Rasul, Gervaise, Cleo – and maybe their closeness masked my scent, or maybe one tame human didn't count.

"She'd offended me, and I enjoy sex that way, so I abducted her and had a little fun," Michael said. "Then Jodi goes all ballistic on me and breaks my fang. See?" He opened wide enough to show the judges the fang's stump. (I wondered if he'd gone by the booth that was still set up out in the vendors' area, the one that had such amazing artificial fangs.)

Michael had the face of an angel, and he didn't get that what he'd done was wrong. He had wanted to do it, so he did it. Not all people who've been brought over to be vampires are mentally stable to start with, and some of them are utterly conscienceless after decades, or even centuries, of disposing of humans as they damn well please. And yet, they enjoy the openness of the new order, getting to stride around being themselves, with the right not to be staked. They don't want to pay for that privilege by adhering to the rules of common decency.

I thought breaking off one fang was a very light punishment. I couldn't believe he'd had the gall to bring a case against anyone. Apparently, neither did Jodi, who was on her feet and going for him again. Maybe she meant to snap off his other fang. This was way better than The Peoples' Court or Judge Judy.