Dead as a Doornail

was back to normal; the new bartender had been absorbed into the background.
    After I’d worked about an hour, Jason came in. He had Crystal cuddled up in the curve of his arm. He was as happy as I’d ever seen him. He was excited by his new life and very pleased with Crystal’s company. I wondered how long that would last. But Crystal herself seemed of much the same mind.
    She told me that Calvin would be getting out of the hospital the next day and going home to Hotshot. I made sure to mention the flowers he’d sent and told her I’d be fixing Calvin some dish to mark his homecoming.
    Crystal was pretty sure she was pregnant. Even throughthe tangle of shifter brain, I could read that thought as clear as a bell. It wasn’t the first time I’d learned that some girl “dating” Jason was sure he was going to be a dad, and I hoped that this time was as false as the last time. It wasn’t that I had anything against Crystal . . . Well, that was a lie I was telling myself. I did have something against Crystal. Crystal was part of Hotshot, and she’d never leave it. I didn’t want any niece or nephew of mine to be brought up in that strange little community, within the pulsing magic influence of the crossroads that formed its center.
    Crystal was keeping her late period a secret from Jason right now, determined to stay quiet until she was sure what it meant. I approved. She nursed one beer while Jason downed two, and then they were off to the movies in Clarice. Jason gave me a hug on the way out while I was distributing drinks to a cluster of law enforcement people. Alcee Beck, Bud Dearborn, Andy Bellefleur, Kevin Pryor, and Kenya Jones, plus Arlene’s new crush, arson investigator Dennis Pettibone, were all huddled around two tables pushed together in a corner. There were two strangers with them, but I picked up easily enough that the two men were cops, too, part of some task force.
    Arlene might have liked to wait on them, but they were clearly in my territory, and they clearly were talking about something heap big. When I was taking drink orders, they all hushed up, and when I was walking away, they’d start their conversation back up. Of course, what they said with their mouths didn’t make any difference to me, since I knew what each and every one of them was thinking.
    And they all knew this good and well; and they all forgot it. Alcee Beck, in particular, was scared to death of me, but even he was quite oblivious to my ability, though I’d demonstrated it for him before. The same could be said of Andy Bellefleur.
    “What’s the law enforcement convention in the corner cooking up?” asked Charles. Jane had tottered off to the ladies’, and he was temporarily by himself at the bar.
    “Let me see,” I said, closing my eyes so I could concentrate better. “Well, they’re thinking of moving the stakeout for the shooter to another parking lot tonight, and they’re convinced that the arson is connected to the shootings and that Jeff Marriot’s death is tied in with everything, somehow. They’re even wondering if the disappearance of Debbie Pelt is included in this clutch of crimes, since she was last seen getting gas on the interstate at the filling station closest to Bon Temps. And my brother, Jason, disappeared for a while a couple of weeks ago; maybe that’s part of the picture, too.” I shook my head and opened my eyes to find that Charles was disconcertingly close. His one good eye, his right, stared hard into my left.
    “You have very unusual gifts, young woman,” he said after a moment. “My last employer collected the unusual.”
    “Who’d you work for before you came into Eric’s territory?” I asked. He turned away to get the Jack Daniel’s.
    “The King of Mississippi,” he said.
    I felt as if someone had pulled the rug out from under my feet. “Why’d you leave Mississippi and come here?” I asked, ignoring the hoots from the table five feet away.
    The King of Mississippi, Russell Edgington, knew me as Alcide’s girlfriend, but he didn’t know me as a telepath occasionally employed by vampires. It was quite possible Edgington might have a grudge against me. Bill had been held in the former stables behind Edgington’s mansion and tortured by Lorena, the creature who’d turned Bill into a vampire over a hundred and forty years before. Bill had escaped. Lorena had died. Russell Edgington didn’t necessarily know I was the agent of these events. But then again, he