Club Dead

aggravation. He made a point of insisting she come back.”
    “Club Dead on a full-moon night, Alcide. This isn’t wise.”
    “What am I gonna do? Russell calls the shots in Mississippi.”
    “I can understand. But watch out, and if you see Jerry Falcon there, you turn the other way. This is my city.” The deep voice was heavy with authority.
    “I understand, Packmaster.”
    “Good. Now that you and Debbie Pelt have broken up, I hope it’s a while before we see you back here, Alcide. Give things a chance to settle down. Jerry’s a vindictive son of a bitch. He’ll do you an injury if he can, without starting a feud.”
    “He was the one who caused a blood offense.”
    “I know, but because of his long association with the vampires, Jerry has too good an opinion of himself. He doesn’t always follow the pack traditions. He only came to me, as he should, because Edgington backed the other side.”
    Jerry wasn’t going to be following any tradition anymore. Jerry was lying in the woods to the west.
    While I’d napped, it had gotten dark outside. I heard a tap on the glass of the window. I jumped, of course, but then I padded across as quietly as I could. I opened the curtain and held a finger across my lips. It was Eric. I hoped no one on the street outside looked up. He smiled at me and motioned me to open the window. I shook my head vehemently and held my finger across my lips again. If I let Eric in now, Terence would hear, and my presence would be discovered. Terence, I knew instinctively, would not like to find he had been overheard. I tiptoed back to the door and listened. Good-byes were being said. I glanced back at the window, to see that Eric was watching me with great interest. I held up one finger to indicate it would just be a minute.
    I heard the apartment door close. Moments later, there was a knock at my door. As I let Alcide in, I hoped I didn’t have those funny creases on my face.
    “Alcide, I heard most of that,” I said. “I’m sorry I eavesdropped, but it did seem like it concerned me. Um, Eric is here.”
    “So I see,” Alcide said unenthusiastically. “I guess I’d better let him in. Enter, Eric,” he said, as he slid open the window.
    Eric entered as smoothly as a tall man can enter a small window. He was wearing a suit, complete with vest and tie. His hair was slicked back into a ponytail. He was also wearing glasses.
    “Are you in disguise?” I asked. I could hardly believe it.
    “Yes, I am.” He looked down at himself proudly. “Don’t I look different?”
    “Yes,” I admitted. “You look just like Eric, dressed up for once.”
    “Do you like the suit?”
    “Sure,” I said. I have limited knowledge of men’s clothes, but I was willing to bet this sort of olive-brown three-piece ensemble had cost more than I made in two weeks. Or four. I might not have picked this out for a guy with blue eyes, but I had to admit he looked spectacular. If they put out a vampire issue of GQ, he’d definitely be in the running for a photo shoot. “Who did your hair?” I asked, noticing for the first time that it had been braided in an intricate pattern.
    “Oooh, jealous?”
    “No, I thought maybe they could teach me how to do that to mine.”
    Alcide had had enough of fashion commentary. He said belligerently, “What do you mean by leaving the dead man in my closet?”
    I have seldom seen Eric at a loss for words, but he was definitely speechless—for all of thirty seconds.
    “It wasn’t Bubba in the closet, was it?” he asked.
    It was our turn to stand with mouths open, Alcide because he didn’t know who the hell Bubba was, and me because I couldn’t imagine what could have happened to the dazed vampire.
    I hastily filled Alcide in on Bubba.
    “So that explains all the sightings,” he said, shaking his head from side to side. “Damn—they were all for real!”
    “The Memphis group wanted to keep him, but it was just impossible,” Eric explained. “He kept wanting to go home, and then there’d be incidents. So we started passing him around.”
    “And now you’ve lost him,” Alcide observed, not too chagrined by Eric’s problem.
    “It’s possible that the people who were trying to get to Sookie in Bon Temps got Bubba instead,” Eric said. He tugged on his vest and looked down with some satisfaction. “So, who was in the closet?”
    “The biker who marked Sookie last night,” Alcide said. “He made a pretty rough pass at her while I was in the