Dead to the World

someone else, but it will take more time, more effort, since we don’t know what went into the making of the spell.”
    I was trying to avoid looking at Alcide, because he was still shaking with the violence of the emotions that had led him to cast out Debbie. Though I hadn’t known such an action was possible, my first reaction was to feel a little bitter about his not casting her out right after I’d told him a month ago she’d tried to kill me. However, he could have told himself I’d been mistaken, that it hadn’t been Debbie I’d sensed near me before she’d pushed me into the Lincoln’s trunk.
    As far as I knew, this was the first time Debbie had admitted she had done it. And she’d protested she hadn’t known Bill was in the trunk, unconscious. But shoving a person into a car trunk and shutting the lid was no kind of amusing prank, right?
    Maybe Debbie had been lying to herself some, too.
    I needed to listen to what was happening now. I’d have lots of time to think about the human ego’s capacity to deceive itself, if I survived the night.
    Pam was saying, “So you’re thinking we need to save Hallow? To take the spell off Eric?” She didn’t sound happy at the prospect. I swallowed my painful feelings and made myself listen. This was no time to start brooding.
    “No,” the witch said instantly. “Her brother, Mark. There is too much danger in leaving Hallow alive. She must die as quickly as we can reach her.”
    “What will you be doing?” Pam asked. “How will you help us in this attack?”
    “We will be outside, but within two blocks,” the man said. “We’ll be winding spells around the building to make the witches weak and indecisive. And we have a few tricks up our sleeves.” He and the young woman, who had on a huge amount of black eye makeup, looked pretty pleased at a chance to use those tricks.
    Pam nodded as if winding spells was sufficient aid. I thought waiting outside with a flamethrower would have been better.
    All this time, Debbie Pelt had been standing as if she’d been paralyzed. Now she began to pick her way through to the back door. Bubba leaped up to grab her arm. She hissed at him, but he didn’t falter, though I would have.
    None of the Weres reacted to this occurrence. It really was as though she were invisible to them.
    “Let me leave. I’m not wanted,” she said to Bubba, fury and misery fighting for control of her face.
    Bubba shrugged. He just held on to her, waiting for Pam’s judgment.
    “If we let you go, you might run to the witches and let them know we are coming,” Pam said. “That would be of a piece with your character, apparently.”
    Debbie had the gall to look outraged. Alcide looked as if he were watching the Weather Channel.
    “Bill, you take charge of her,” Chow suggested. “If she turns on us, kill her.”
    “That sounds wonderful,” Bill said, smiling in a fangy way.
    After a few more arrangements about transportation, and some more quiet consultation among the witches, who were facing a completely different kind of fight, Pam said, “All right, let’s go.” Pam, who looked more than ever like Alice in Wonderland in her pale pink sweater and darker pink slacks, stood up and checked her lipstick in the mirror on the wall close to where I’d been sitting. She gave her reflection an experimental smile, as I’ve seen women do a thousand times.
    “Sookie, my friend,” she said, turning to aim the smile at me. “Tonight is a great night.”
    “It is?”
    “Yes.” Pam put her arm around my shoulders. “We defend what is ours! We fight for the restoration of our leader!” She grinned past me at Eric. “Tomorrow, Sheriff, you will be back at your desk at Fangtasia. You’ll be able to go to your own house, your own bedroom. We’ve kept it clean for you.”
    I checked Eric’s reaction. I’d never heard Pam address Eric by his title before. Though the head vampire for each section was called a sheriff, and I should have been used to that by now, I couldn’t help but picture Eric in a cowboy outfit with a star pinned to his chest, or (my favorite) in black tights as the villainous sheriff of Nottingham. I found it interesting, too, that he didn’t live here with Pam and Chow.
    Eric gave Pam such a serious look that the grin faded right off her face. “If I die tonight,” he said, “pay this woman the money that was promised her.” He gripped my shoulder. I was just draped in vampires.
    “I swear,” Pam said.