SUNDAY, MARCH 20. Sookie is suspicious and displeased when Tanya Grissom arrives at her house uninvited and makes obvious overtures of friendship. Sookie’s inhospitable attitude soon sends the shifter away, but her negative feelings are soothed when Quinn calls and they set up another date for the following night. Much to her surprise, Mr. Cataliades soon arrives, expecting her to be ready to accompany him back to New Orleans to settle her late cousin Hadley’s estate. He is equally surprised that his niece Gladiola did not deliver his message and sets out with his other niece, Diantha, to find Glad’s body, knowing that only death would have kept her from her task. Diantha locates Gladiola, cloven in two, at the edge of the woods, and Diantha and her uncle burn the body in Sookie’s driveway. Sookie goes to Sam’s trailer to arrange the time off and leaves the two supes to their solemn pyre. Remembering that Bill has asked if he can join her when she travels to New Orleans, Sookie calls him to let him know they will be leaving soon. As they travel, Sookie tells her companions about the Were attack in Shreveport and about the visit she and Quinn paid to Hair of the Dog. Bill is unhappy because it’s clear Quinn is becoming a part of Sookie’s life. When Sookie asks Mr. Cataliades’s opinion, he suggests that Quinn knows that the Shreveport pack may already be planning a challenge to the new packmaster.

Arriving at Hadley’s apartment in New Orleans, Bill again offers to help. Exhausted, Sookie just wants to be left alone to rest.

MONDAY, MARCH 21. The landlady and apartment owner, Amelia Broadway, who is also a practicing witch, startles Sookie awake. She assures Sookie that wards and a stasis spell (which has kept the place just as it was on the day Hadley died) have protected the apartment. After Amelia returns to her own apartment downstairs, Sookie begins to explore and is disturbed when she finds bloodstained towels in the bathroom hamper. She opens the hall closet and discovers a man’s body. Realizing the body must have been there since Hadley died, she goes in search of Amelia to tell her they have a problem. They have just decided that the stasis spell has kept the body from decomposing when Sookie notices the man’s fingers moving. She realizes they have a rising vampire to deal with. Amelia just has time to call for help before they are attacked and must fight for their lives against the hungry new vampire, Jake Purifoy, a Were. Both are seriously wounded before they are rescued by the vampire police.