Dead Ever After

killed him immediately.
    When Eric’s children rose to leave, I got up, too. To my astonishment , they gave me a cold kiss apiece, Karin on the forehead and Pam on the lips.
    Pam said, “Eric told me that you refused his healing blood. But if I may offer mine?”
    My shoulder was aching and throbbing, and I figured this might be the last time in my life I could dodge physical pain. “Okay,” I said, and took off the bandage.
    Pam bit her own wrist and let her blood drip sluggishly onto the ugly wound on my shoulder. It was puffy and red, and scabby and sore, and altogether yucky. Even Karin made a moue of distaste. As the dark blood ran slowly over the damaged flesh, Karin’s cool fingers gently massaged it into my skin. Within a minute, the pain subsided and the redness vanished. The skin itched with healing.
    “Thanks, Pam. Karin, thanks for looking out for me.” I looked at the two women who were so like me and yet so completely different. Hesitantly, I said, “I know Eric intended to turn . . .”
    “Don’t talk about it,” Pam said. “We’re as close to friends as we can be, human and vampire. We’ll never be more, and I hope never less. You don’t want us to think too much about how it would be if you became like us.” I made a resolution then and there to never refer to Eric’s intention of having the three of us as his children.
    When Pam was sure I was not going to add to her statement, she said, “Knowing you, I’m sure you will worry about Karin being bored out in the woods. After the past few years of her life, that will be a good thing for Karin, to have a year of peace.”
    Karin nodded, and I knew I really didn’t want to find out what she’d been up to the past few years. “I’ll be well fed from the donor’s bureau,” she said. “I’ll have a mission, and I will get to be outside all the time. Perhaps Bill will come over for a conversation every now and then.”
    “Thanks again to both of you,” I said. “Long live Sheriff Pam!” Then they were gone out the back door, to drive Copley Carmichael away in his rental car.
    “A neat solution,” said Mr. Cataliades. He’d come into the kitchen while I was taking a pain pill, the last one I would need. My shoulder was healing but twingeing as it did so, and I had to go to bed. Frankly, I also figured taking a pain pill would squash staying awake to worry about Barry.
    “Barry’s got demon blood and he’s a telepath. Why can I read his mind and not yours?” I asked him out of the blue.
    “Because your power was a gift from me to Fintan’s lineage. You’re not my child as Pam and Karin are Eric’s, but the result is somewhat the same. I’m not your maker; I’m more like your godfather or your teacher.”
    “Without ever actually teaching me anything,” I said, and then winced when I heard how accusing that sounded.
    He didn’t seem to take offense. “It’s true, perhaps I failed you in that respect,” Desmond Cataliades said. “I tried to make up for it in other ways. For example, I’m here now, which is probably more effective than any attempt I might have made when you were a child to explain myself to your parents and tell them they had to trust me alone with you.”
    There was a pregnant silence.
    “Good point,” I said. “That would not have flown.”
    “Plus, I had my own children to raise, and pardon me if they took precedence over the human descendants of my friend Fintan.”
    “I get that, too,” I said. “I am glad you’re here now, and I’m glad you’re helping.” If I sounded a little stiff, it was because I was getting tired of the need to thank people for helping me out of trouble, because I was tired of getting in trouble.
    “You are very welcome. It’s been most entertaining for Diantha and myself,” he said ponderously, and we went our separate ways.

Chapter 20
    The demons departed the next morning before I got up. They left me a note on the kitchen table to the effect that they were going to comb Bon Temps to look for traces of Barry. It was kind of nice to have a morning to myself again and to prepare breakfast only for myself. It was Monday and Sam had called to say Holly was working in my place. I’d started to protest that I could work, but in the end I just said, “Thanks.” I didn’t want to answer questions about the shooting. Give the excitement a week to die down.
    I knew exactly what I did want to do. I put on my black and white bikini, slathered myself with