Deadlocked: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel

even wearing the dark glasses.
    “Try, jungle bunny,” Jannalynn said, and held out her hand. She got a sword, too, handed to her by Roy. I was a little surprised; execution seemed more in order than the right to fight. But nobody had asked me.
    She was trying to make Mustapha angrier with her insult, but the epithet didn’t have any effect on him whatsoever. Some of the pack looked disgusted. The rest looked … like people waiting for a sporting event to begin. I looked up at Eric, who seemed interested, nothing more. Suddenly, I felt like punching him. This woman had talkeda desperate stripper into drinking fairy blood and seducing a vampire, both dangerous processes with unknown outcomes. Kym might have been reckless enough to risk her own death, but that didn’t make Jannalynn’s scheming any less pernicious, or the pain I’d felt as a result any more bearable.
    I thought she deserved to die for what she’d done to Sam alone. His face was rigid with the effort of holding in his feelings. My heart hurt for him.
    The two combatants circled each other for a moment, and suddenly Jannalynn executed one of her flying leaps, hoping to come down on top of Mustapha. The lone wolf pivoted, and his sword blocked hers. She went spinning to the ground, but she was up in a second and back on the attack. Mustapha had told me he wasn’t sure he could win a fight with Jannalynn, and for a few seconds she had the advantage. Not only did she hack away at him—this wasn’t fencing, not like Robin Hood—but she shrieked, she screamed, she did everything she could to confuse and distract her opponent.
    I noticed that she was working gradually closer to the edge of the sand. Closer to Alcide and Sam.
    She might be a Were, but some intents were so strong I couldn’t miss them.
    “She’s after you,” I yelled in warning, and just as the words left my mouth Jannalynn leaped, spun, and came down on Alcide, who leaped aside at the last fraction of a second.
    She got Sam.
    He crumpled to the ground as his blood spurted. Jannalynn paused in shock at having cut her lover, and in that moment Mustapha grabbed her by the hair, threw her to the sand, and beheaded her. I’d seen beheadings before, but they’re pretty spectacularly horrible.I didn’t even remember Jannalynn’s until much later, because I was launching myself across the intervening space to crouch by Sam, who was bleeding out into the grass by the patio. I heard someone screaming and knew it was me. Alcide crouched down by me and reached out to touch Sam, but I shoved him away. Sam’s eyes were wide and desperate. He knew the severity of his wound.
    I started to call for Eric, so he could give Sam his blood, but as I put my hand to Sam’s neck, Sam’s pulse stopped. His eyes closed.
    And everything else in the world did, too.
    In my universe, everything fell silent. I didn’t hear the chaos around me. I didn’t hear a voice calling my name. I shoved Alcide away for a second time. My course was perfectly clear. I reached in my right pocket, pulled out the cluviel dor, and put it on Sam’s chest. The creamy green glowed. The band of gold radiated light.
    Amelia had always told me that will and intent are everything in magic, and I had plenty of both.
    “Sam. Live.” I hardly recognized my own voice. I didn’t have spells, but I had the will. I had to believe that. I pressed the cluviel dor to Sam’s heart, and I put my left hand over the terrible wound in his neck. “Live,” I said again, hearing only my own voice and the silence in Sam’s body.
    And the cluviel dor opened at its gold seam, revealing a hollow interior, and the concentrated magic inside it flew out and poured into Sam. It was clear and shining and otherworldly. It flowed through my fingers and into Sam’s neck, and it vanished into the terrible wound. It filled Sam’s body, which began to glow. The cluviel dor, now empty of magic, slipped from my right hand, which rested still on Sam’s chest. I felt movement with my left hand, so I pulled it away from the gash and watched.
    It was like watching a film run in reverse. The severed vessels and tendons inside Sam’s neck began to knit. I held my breath, afraid even to blink or move. After a long moment, or several long moments, I could feel Sam’s heart begin to beat under my fingers.
    “Thanks, Fintan,” I whispered. “Thanks, Gran.”
    After a small eternity, Sam’s eyes opened. “I was dead,” he said.
    I nodded. I couldn’t