“Oh. Interesting.” Pam still had an air of disapproval. She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Eric hasn’t had anyone like you in a long, long time, Sookie. I think he’s levelheaded enough to keep on course, but you have to consider his responsibilities. This is a perilous time for the few of us in his original crew remaining since Sophie-Anne met her final death. We Shreveport vampires doubly belong to Eric, since he’s the only surviving sheriff from the old regime. If Eric goes down, we all go down. If Victor succeeds in discrediting Eric or somehow eating into his base here in Shreveport, we’ll all die.”

I hadn’t put the situation to myself in terms that dire. Eric hadn’t spelled it out to me, either. “It’s that bad?” I said, feeling numb.

“He is male enough to want to look strong in front of you, Sookie. Truly, Eric’s a great vampire, and very practical. But he isn’t practical nowadays—not when it comes to you.”

“Are you saying you don’t think Eric and I should see each other anymore?” I asked her directly. Though generally I was very glad that vampire minds were closed to me, sometimes I found it frustrating. I was used to knowing more than I wanted to know about how people were thinking and feeling, rather than wondering if I was right.

“No, not exactly.” Pam looked thoughtful. “I would hate to see him unhappy. And you, too,” she added, as an afterthought. “But if he’s worried about you, he won’t react the same as he would—as he should . . .”

“If I weren’t in the picture.”

Pam didn’t say anything for a while. Then she said, “I think the only reason Victor hasn’t abducted you to hold you over Eric is because Eric married you. Victor’s still trying to cover his ass by doing everything by the book. He isn’t ready to rebel against Felipe openly. He’ll still try to show justification for whatever he does. He’s walking on thin ice with Felipe right now because he almost let you get killed.”

“Maybe Felipe will do the job for us,” I said.

Pam looked thoughtful. “That would be ideal,” she said. “But we’ll have to wait for it. Felipe’s not going to do anything rash when it comes to killing a lieutenant of his. That would make his other lieutenants uneasy and uncertain.”

I shook my head. “That’s too bad. I don’t think it would bother Felipe very much at all to kill Victor.”

“And it would bother you, Sookie?”

“Yes. It would bother me.” Though not as much as it ought to.

“So if you could do it in a rush of rage when Victor was attacking you, that would be far preferable to planning a way to kill him when he couldn’t fight back effectively?”