Dead Reckoning

said. “Back away. Go downstairs now .” The odor of fairy blood, intoxicating to a vampire, must seem as though it were filling the attic to Bill.
    “I could just lick it clean,” Bill said, his dark eyes fixed on the wound with yearning.
    “No, you wouldn’t stop. Back off, Bill! Leave!” But his face dipped lower, closer to Dermot’s head. I hauled off and slapped Bill as hard as I could.
    “You have to go,” I said, though I wanted to apologize so badly it made me shake. The look on Bill’s face was awful. Anger, craving, the struggle for self-control . . .
    “I’m so hungry,” he whispered, his eyes swallowing me. “Feed me, Sookie.”
    For a second, I was sure Bad Choice time was upon me. The worst choice would have been letting Bill bite Dermot. The next worst would have been letting Bill bite me, because with the intoxicating scent of fairy in the air I wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop in time. As all this flashed through my mind, Bill was struggling to master himself. He managed . . . but only by the thinnest of threads.
    “I’m going to check to see if they’ve left,” he said, lurching toward the stairs. Even his body was at war with itself. Clearly, his every instinct was telling him to drink blood somehow, some way, from the two tasty, tempting donors at hand, while his mind was telling him to get the hell away before something awful happened. If I’d had a spare person around, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have thrown him to Bill, I felt so sad for him.
    But he made it down the stairs, and I heard the door slam behind him. In case he lost his control, I hurried down the stairs to lock both back doors so at least I’d have a little warning if he returned. I glanced through the living room to make sure the front door was locked, as I’d left it. Yes. Before I returned upstairs to Dermot, I went to fetch my shotgun from my front closet.
    It was still there, and I let myself savor a moment of relief. I was lucky the men hadn’t stolen it. Their search must have been cursory. I’m sure they would have spied something as valuable as the shotgun if they hadn’t been looking for something much larger—me.
    With the Benelli in my hand I felt much better, and I grabbed the first aid kit to take up with me. I hobbled up the stairs to kneel again by my great-uncle. I was getting pretty damn sick of coping with the huge shawl, which unwound at the most inconvenient moments. I wondered briefly how Indian women coped, but I just couldn’t take the time to dress until I’d helped Dermot.
    With a wad of sterile wipes, I cleaned away the blood on his head so I could inspect the damage. It looked bad, but I had expected that; head wounds always do. At least this wasn’t bleeding much at all anymore. While I was working on Dermot’s head, I was having a fierce inner debate about calling an ambulance. I wasn’t sure the ambulance crew would be able to get in without Hod and Kelvin’s interference—no, that couldn’t be a concern. Bill and I had gotten over here without being stopped.
    More important, I wasn’t sure how compatible fairy physiology was with human medical techniques—enough that humans and fairies could cross-breed, I knew, which argued that human first aid would be all right, but still . . . Dermot groaned and rolled over to his back. I put a towel under his head just in time. He winced.
    “Sookie,” he said. “Why are you wearing a tablecloth?”

Chapter 12
    “You have both your ears,” I assured him, feeling a wave of relief so strong I almost fell over. I touched the points lightly so he could be certain.
    “Why would I not?” Dermot was confused, and considering the amount of bleeding he’d had, I was sure that was understandable. “Who attacked me?”
    I looked down at him and couldn’t decide what to do. I had to bite the bullet. I called Claude.
    “Claude’s phone,” said a deep voice I pegged as belonging to Bellenos, the elf.
    “Bellenos, it’s Sookie. I don’t know if you remember me, but I was there the other day with my friend Sam?”
    “Yes,” he said.
    “Here’s the deal. Someone attacked Dermot, and he’s hurt, and I need to know if there’s anything I should or shouldn’t do to an injured fairy. Anything besides what you do for a human.”
    “Who has hurt him?” Bellenos’s voice was sharper.
    “Two human guys who broke into the house coming for me. I wasn’t here, but Dermot was, and there was machinery running, and he