Heidi, a vamp who specialized in tracking, had become part of Eric’s crew courtesy of Victor. Of course she was supposed to spy on Eric, and because that was not a secret, no one seemed to mind. I didn’t know Heidi well, but I knew she had a living child, a drug addict in Reno, so I wasn’t at all surprised that she’d taken Victor’s lesson to heart. Learning this would indeed cause any vampire with living relatives, or any human loved ones, to fear Victor. But they’d also loathe him and want him dead—and this was the aspect Victor hadn’t thought of, I guessed, when he’d taught that lesson.

“Victor’s either shortsighted or super cocky,” I concluded out loud, and Eric nodded.

“Maybe both,” he said.

“How’d you feel when you heard that story?” I asked.

“I . . . didn’t want that to happen to you,” he said. He gave me a puzzled face. “What are you looking for, Sookie? What answer shall I give?”

Though I knew it was futile—knew I was barking up the wrong tree—I was looking for moral repugnance. I was looking for “I would never be so cruel to a woman and her son.”

At the same time I was wanting a thousand-year-old vampire to be upset about the death of a human woman he hadn’t known—a death he couldn’t have prevented—I knew it was crazy, wrong, and bad that I myself was plotting to kill Victor. His complete absence was what I longed for. I had no doubt that if Pam called to say a safe had fallen on top of Victor, I would dance around with glee.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Never mind.”

Eric gave me a dark look. He couldn’t see the depth of my unhappiness—not now, not since the bond was severed. But he certainly knew me well enough to see that I wasn’t content. I forced myself to address the problem at hand. “You know who you should talk to,” I said. “Remember the night we went to Vampire’s Kiss, that server who tipped me off about the fairy blood by just a look and a thought.”

Eric nodded.

“I hate to pull him in any further. But I don’t see we have another choice. We have to do this with everything we’ve got, or we’re going down.”

“Sometimes,” Eric said, “you astonish me.”

Sometimes—and not always in a good way—I astonished myself.