Dead in the Family

fists.”
    “Oh. Interesting.” Pam still had an air of disapproval. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Eric hasn’t had anyone like you in a long, long time, Sookie. I think he’s levelheaded enough to keep on course, but you have to consider his responsibilities. This is a perilous time for the few of us in his original crew remaining since Sophie-Anne met her final death. We Shreveport vampires doubly belong to Eric, since he’s the only surviving sheriff from the old regime. If Eric goes down, we all go down. If Victor succeeds in discrediting Eric or somehow eating into his base here in Shreveport, we’ll all die.”
    I hadn’t put the situation to myself in terms that dire. Eric hadn’t spelled it out to me, either. “It’s that bad?” I said, feeling numb.
    “He is male enough to want to look strong in front of you, Sookie. Truly, Eric’s a great vampire, and very practical. But he isn’t practical nowadays—not when it comes to you.”
    “Are you saying you don’t think Eric and I should see each other anymore?” I asked her directly. Though generally I was very glad that vampire minds were closed to me, sometimes I found it frustrating. I was used to knowing more than I wanted to know about how people were thinking and feeling, rather than wondering if I was right.
    “No, not exactly.” Pam looked thoughtful. “I would hate to see him unhappy. And you, too,” she added, as an afterthought. “But if he’s worried about you, he won’t react the same as he would—as he should . . .”
    “If I weren’t in the picture.”
    Pam didn’t say anything for a while. Then she said, “I think the only reason Victor hasn’t abducted you to hold you over Eric is because Eric married you. Victor’s still trying to cover his ass by doing everything by the book. He isn’t ready to rebel against Felipe openly. He’ll still try to show justification for whatever he does. He’s walking on thin ice with Felipe right now because he almost let you get killed.”
    “Maybe Felipe will do the job for us,” I said.
    Pam looked thoughtful. “That would be ideal,” she said. “But we’ll have to wait for it. Felipe’s not going to do anything rash when it comes to killing a lieutenant of his. That would make his other lieutenants uneasy and uncertain.”
    I shook my head. “That’s too bad. I don’t think it would bother Felipe very much at all to kill Victor.”
    “And it would bother you, Sookie?”
    “Yes. It would bother me.” Though not as much as it ought to.
    “So if you could do it in a rush of rage when Victor was attacking you, that would be far preferable to planning a way to kill him when he couldn’t fight back effectively?”
    Okay, put like that my attitude didn’t make much sense. I could see that if you were willing to kill someone, planning to kill someone, wishing someone would die, quibbling about the circumstances was ridiculous.
    “It shouldn’t make a difference,” I said quietly. “But it does. Victor has to go, though.”
    “You’ve changed,” Pam said, after a little silence. She didn’t sound surprised or horrified or disgusted. For that matter, she didn’t sound happy. It was more as though she’d realized I’d altered my hairstyle.
    “Yes,” I said. We watched the rain pour down some more.
    Suddenly, Pam said, “Look!” There was a sleek white car parked on the shoulder of the interstate. I didn’t understand why Pam was so agitated until I noticed that the man leaning against the car had his arms crossed over his chest in an attitude of total nonchalance, despite the rain.
    As we drew abreast of the car, a Lexus, the figure waved a languid hand at us. We were being flagged down.
    “Shit,” Pam said. “That’s Bruno Brazell. We have to stop.” She pulled over to the shoulder and stopped in front of the car. “And Corinna,” she said, sounding bitter. I glanced in the side mirror to see that a woman had gotten out of the Lexus.
    “They’re here to kill us,” Pam said quietly. “I can’t kill them both. You have to help.”
    “They’re going to try to kill us?” I was really, really scared.
    “That’s the only reason I can think of that Victor would send two people on a one-person errand,” she said. She sounded calm. Pam was obviously thinking much faster than I was. “Showtime! If the peace can be kept, we need to keep it, at least for now. Here.” She pressed something into my hand. “Take it out of the sheath.