Definitely Dead

Crystal didn’t want me to tell you, either, but I got to have help.”
    Though her mom wasn’t living, Crystal had female relatives galore in Hotshot. I’d never had a baby, I’d never even been pregnant, and I wasn’t a shifter. Any one of them would know more about the situation than I did. I told Jason this.
    “I don’t want her to sit up long enough to go back to Hotshot, specially in my truck.” My brother looked as stubborn as a mule.
    For an awful minute, I thought that Jason’s big concern was Crystal bleeding on his upholstery. I was about to hop down his throat, when he added, “The shocks need replacing, and I’m scared the bouncing of the truck on that bad road would make Crystal worse.”
    Then her kin could come to Crystal. But I knew before I spoke that Jason would find a reason to veto that, too. He had some kind of plan. “Okay. What can I do?”
    “Didn’t you tell me that time when you got hurt, there was a special kind of doctor the vamps called to look at your back?”
    I didn’t like to think about that night. My back still bore the scars of the attack. The poison on the maenad’s claws had nearly killed me. “Yes,” I said slowly, “Dr. Ludwig.” Doctor to all that was weird and strange, Dr. Ludwig was herself an oddity. She was extremely short—very, very short. And her features were not exactly regular, either. It would come as an extreme surprise to me if Dr. Ludwig were at all human. I’d seen her a second time at the contest for packmaster. Both times, I’d been in Shreveport; so the chances were good that Dr. Ludwig actually lived there.
    Since I didn’t want to overlook the obvious, I fished a Shreveport directory out of the drawer below the wall-mounted telephone. There was a listing for a Doctor Amy Ludwig. Amy? I bit back a burst of laughter.
    I was very nervous about approaching Dr. Ludwig on my own, but when I saw how worried Jason was, I couldn’t protest over making one lousy phone call.
    It rang four times. A machine picked up. A mechanical voice said, “You have reached the telephone of Dr. Amy Ludwig. Dr. Ludwig is not accepting new patients, insured or uninsured. Dr. Ludwig does not want pharmaceutical samples, and she does not need insurance of any kind. She is not interested in investing her money, or giving to charities she hasn’t personally selected.” There was a long silence, during which time most callers presumably hung up. I didn’t. After a moment, I heard another click on the line.
    “Hello?” asked a gruff little voice.
    “Dr. Ludwig?” I asked cautiously.
    “Yes? I don’t accept new patients, you know! Too busy!” She sounded both impatient and cautious.
    “I’m Sookie Stackhouse. Is this the Dr. Ludwig who treated me in Eric’s office at Fangtasia?”
    “You are the young woman poisoned by the maenad’s claws?”
    “Yes. I saw you again a few weeks ago, remember?”
    “And where was that?” She remembered quite well, but she wanted another proof of my identity.
    “An empty building in an industrial park.”
    “And who was running the show there?”
    “A big bald guy named Quinn.”
    “Oh, all right.” She sighed. “What do you want? I’m rather busy.”
    “I have a patient for you. Please come to see her.”
    “Bring her to me.”
    “She’s too sick to travel.”
    I heard the doctor muttering to herself, but I couldn’t make out the words.
    “Pooh,” the doctor said. “Oh, very well, Miss Stackhouse. Tell me what the problem is.”
    I explained as best I could. Jason was moving around the kitchen, because he was too worried to sit still.
    “Idiots. Fools,” Dr. Ludwig said. “Tell me how to get to your house. Then you can take me where the girl is.”
    “I may have to leave for work before you can get here,” I said, after glancing at the clock and calculating how long it would take the doctor to drive from Shreveport. “My brother will be here waiting.”
    “Is he the responsible party?”
    I didn’t know if she was talking about the bill for her services, or the pregnancy. Either way, I told her that Jason definitely was the responsible party.
    “She’s coming,” I told my brother, after I’d given the doctor directions and hung up. “I don’t know how much she charges, but I told her you’d pay.”
    “Sure, sure. How will I know her?”
    “You can’t mistake her for anyone you know. She said she’d have a driver. She wouldn’t be tall enough to see over the steering wheel, so I