“You didn’t call Eric.” It was a simple observation.

“Take too long,” I said. I told him what I’d done. “I can’t believe I forgot Amelia,” I said, stricken by my self-centeredness.

“I think forgetting one thing after such a day is actually permissible, Sookie,” Bill said.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. “It’s just that . . . I can’t go in there and find them dead. I just can’t do it. My courage has just collapsed.”

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “What’s one more dead person to me?” he said. And then he was out of the car and moving silently in the faint light peeking around the curtains of the house next door. He got to the front door, listened intently. He didn’t hear anything, I knew, because he opened the door and stepped inside.

Just as he vanished, my cell phone rang. I jumped so hard I almost hit my head on the roof. I dropped the phone and had to grope for it.

“Hello?” I said, full of fear.

“Hey, did you call? I was in the shower,” Amelia said, and I collapsed over the steering wheel, thinking, Thank you God thank you God thank you thank you.

“You okay?” Amelia asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m okay. Where is Tray? Is he there with you?”

“Nope. I went to his house, but he wasn’t there. I waited a while for you, but you didn’t show, so I figured he’d gone to the doctor, and I decided you must have been held up at work or something. I went back to the insurance agency, and I just got home about thirty minutes ago. What’s up?”

“I’ll be there soon,” I said. “Lock the doors and don’t let anyone in.”

“Doors are locked; no one’s knocking,” she said.

“Don’t let me in,” I said, “unless I give you the password.”

“Sure, Sookie,” she said, and I could tell she thought I’d gone over the edge. “What’s the password?”

“Fairypants,” I said, and how I came up with that I have no idea. It simply seemed super unlikely that anyone else in the world would say it.

“I got it,” Amelia said. “Fairypants.”

Bill was back at the car. “I’ve got to go,” I said, and hung up. When he opened the door, the dome light showed his face. It looked grim.

“He’s not there,” he said immediately. “But there’s been a fight.”

“Blood?”

“Yes.”

“Lots?”

“He could still be alive. From the way it smelled, I don’t think it was all his.”

My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed, and it felt almost good to say it out loud. “I don’t know where to go to find him or how to help him. He’s supposed to be working as my bodyguard. But he went out in the woods last night and met up with a woman who said she was your new girlfriend. She gave him a drink. It was bad vampire blood, and it made him sick as the flu.” I looked over at Bill. “Maybe she got it from Bubba. I haven’t seen him to ask. I’m kind of worried about him.” I knew Bill could see me far more clearly than I could see him. I spread my hands in query. Did he know this woman?