I knew that Eric realized I was unhappy and worried. It was impossible for him not to know that. Maybe he thought by keeping me away he was protecting me. Maybe he didn’t know that his maker and Alexei were both in my consciousness. I took a deep breath and called him. The phone rang, and I pressed it to my ear as though I were holding Eric himself. But I thought, and I wouldn’t have believed this possible a week ago, What if he doesn’t pick up?

The phone rang, and I held my breath. After the second ring, Eric answered. “The pack meeting has been set,” I blurted.

“Sookie,” he said. “Can you come here?”

On my drive to Shreveport, I wondered at least four times if I was doing the right thing. But I concluded that whether I was right or wrong (in running to see Eric when he asked me to) was simply a dead issue. We were both on the ends of the line stretched between us, a line spun from blood. It trumped how we felt about each other at any given moment. I knew he was tired and desperate. He knew I was angry, uneasy, hurt. I wondered, though. If I’d called him and said the same thing, would he have hopped into his car (or into the sky) and arrived on my doorstep?

They were all at Fangtasia, he’d said.

I was shocked to see how few cars were parked in front of the only vampire bar in Shreveport. Fangtasia was a huge tourist draw in a town that was boasting a tourist increase, and I’d expected it to be packed. There were almost as many cars parked in the employee parking at the back as there were at the main door. That had never happened before.

Maxwell Lee, an African-American businessman who also happened to be a vampire, was on duty at the rear entrance, and that was a first, too. The rear door had never been specially guarded, because the vampires were so sure they could take care of themselves. Yet here he was, wearing his usual three-piece suit but doing a task he normally would have considered beneath him. He didn’t look resentful; he looked worried.

I said, “Where are they?”

He jerked his head toward the main room of the bar. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said, and I knew Eric’s maker’s visit wasn’t going well.

So often having out-of-town visitors is awkward, huh? You take them to see the local sights, you try to feed them and keep them entertained, but then you’re really wishing they would leave. It wasn’t hard to see that Eric was on his last nerve. He was sitting in a booth with Appius Livius Ocella and Alexei. Of course, Alexei looked too young to be in a bar, and that added to the absurdity of the moment.

“Good evening,” I said stiffly. “Eric, you wanted to see me?”

Eric scooted over closer to the wall so I’d have plenty of room, and I sat by him. Appius Livius and Alexei both greeted me, Appius with a strained smile and Alexei with more ease. When we were all together, I discovered that being close to them relaxed the tense thread inside me, the thread that bound us all together.

“I’ve missed you,” Eric said so quietly that at first I thought I’d imagined it.

I wouldn’t refer to the fact that he’d been completely out of touch for days. He knew that.

It took all my self-control to bite back a few choice words. “As I was trying to tell you over the phone, the pack meeting about Basim has been set for Monday night.”

“Where and when?” he said, and there was a note in his voice that let me know he was not a happy camper. Well, he could pitch his tent right alongside mine.

“At Alcide’s house. The one that used to be his dad’s. At eight o’clock.”

“And Jason’s going with you? Without a doubt?”

“I haven’t talked to him yet, but I left him a message.”

“You’ve been angry with me.”

“I’ve been worried about you.” I couldn’t tell him anything about how I’d felt that he didn’t already know.

“Yes,” Eric said. His voice was empty.

“Eric is an excellent host,” the tsarevitch said, as if I expected a report.

I scratched up a smile to offer the boy. “That’s good to hear, Alexei. What have you two been doing? I don’t think you’ve ever been to Shreveport before.”

“No,” Appius Livius said in his curious accent. “We hadn’t been here to visit. It’s a nice little city. My older son has been doing his best to keep us busy and out of trouble.”

Okay, that had been a tad on the sarcastic side. I could tell from Eric’s tension that he hadn’t entirely succeeded in the “keeping them out of trouble” part of his agenda.

“The World Market is fun. You can get stuff from all over the world there. And Shreveport was the capitol of the Confederacy for a while.” Geez Louise, I needed to do better than that. “If you go to the Municipal Auditorium, you can see Elvis’s dressing room,” I said brightly. I wondered if Bubba ever visited there to see his old stomping grounds.

“I had a very good teenager last night,” Alexei said, matching my cheerful tone. As though he’d said he’d run a red light.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out. If I said the wrong thing, I might be dead right then and there. “Alexei,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt, “you have to watch it. That’s against the law here. Your maker and Eric could both suffer for it.”

“When I was with my human family, I could do anything I wanted,” Alexei said. I really couldn’t read his voice at all. “I was so sick, they indulged me.”

Eric twitched.

“I can sure understand that,” I said. “Any family would be tempted to do that with a sick child. But since you’re well now, and you’ve had lots of years to mature, I know you understand that doing exactly what you want to do is not a good plan.” I thought of at least twenty other things I could have said, but I stopped right there. And that was a good thing. Appius Livius looked directly into my eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I don’t look grown up,” Alexei said.

Again, too many options on what I could say. The boy—the old, old, boy—definitely expected me to answer. “No, and it’s an awful pity what happened to you and your family. But—”

And Alexei reached over, took my hand, and showed me what had happened to him and his family. I saw the cellar, the royal family, the doctor, the maid, facing the men who had come to kill them, and I heard the guns fire, and the bullets found their marks; or in the case of the women, they didn’t, since the royal women had sewn jewels into their clothes for the escape that never came about. The jewels saved their lives for all of a few seconds, until the soldiers killed each groaning and bleeding and screaming individual. His mother, his father, his sisters, his doctor, his mother’s maid, the cook, his father’s valet. and his dog. And after the shooting, the soldiers went around with bayonets.

I thought I was going to throw up. I swayed where I sat, and Eric’s cold arm went around me. Alexei had let go, and I was never gladder of anything in my life. I would not have touched the child again for anything.

“You see,” Alexei said triumphantly. “You see! I should be free to go my own way.”

“No,” I said. And I was proud that my voice was firm. “No matter how we suffer, we have an obligation to others. We have to be unselfish enough to try to live in the right way, so others can get through their own lives without us fouling them up.”

Alexei looked rebellious. “That’s what Master says, too,” he muttered. “More or less.”

“Master is right,” I said, though the words tasted bad in my mouth.

“Master” waved for the bartender to come over. Felicia slunk up to the table. She was tall and pretty and as gentle as a vampire can be. She had some fresh scars on her neck. “What can I get you-all?” she said. “Sookie, can I bring you a beer or.?”

“Some iced tea would be great, Felicia,” I said.

“And some TrueBlood for all of you?” she asked the vampires. “Or, we do have a bottle of Royalty.”

Eric’s eyes closed, and Felicia realized her blunder. “Okay,” she said briskly. “TrueBlood for Eric, tea for Sookie.”