When the elevator stopped at the ground level, we got out of it like we owned the hotel. We rounded a corner, and there was the back door, Palomino walking toward it ahead of us. She glanced over her shoulder and looked faintly gratified to see us coming. She tapped the code into the keypad by the door, and then she opened it. We strode by her into the parking lot. Palomino, on the way to her red car, looked curiously at the street beyond the fenced lot for a moment, as if she sensed something strange. I didn't have time to check it out as we walked briskly between the parked employee cars and out the gap in the fence.

We were almost to Bill's car when the Weres caught up with us. There were four of them. I only recognized one; I'd seen him at Alcide's house. He was a gaunt-faced, long-haired, bearded guy named Van.

Vamps and Weres just don't mix, generally speaking, so I stepped ahead of Bill and did my best to manage to smile. "Van, good to see you tonight," I said, struggling to sound sincere when every nerve in my body was screaming at me to get the hell out of the vicinity. "You gonna let us get on our way?"

Van, who was several inches taller than me, looked down at my face. He wasn't thinking about my body, which was a nice change, but he was thinking about ... making some kind of choice. It's very hard to read Were thoughts, but that much I could discern.

"Miss Stackhouse," he said, and nodded. His dark hair swung forward and back with the motion. "We been looking for you."

"How come?" I might as well get this settled. If we were going to fight, I needed to know why I was going to get beat up. I sure didn't want that.

"Alcide's found Warren."

"Oh, good!" I was really pleased. I smiled up at Van. Now Mustapha could come in from the cold, tell us what he'd seen, and all would be well.

"Thing is, what we found is a dead body, and we ain't sure it's really him," Van said. When my face fell, he added, "I'm real sorry, but Alcide wants you to have a look at him and tell us it's Warren for sure."

So much for a happy ending.

Chapter 12

"You-all were headed somewhere?" Van asked.

"We were taking this one to the airport," Bill said, nodding at Colton. This was news to me and to Colton, but it was good news. There really was a plan to get Colton away from the reach of Felipe.

"Why don't you two continue on, then," Van said reasonably. He didn't ask any further questions or demand to know Colton's identity, which was a relief. "I can take Sookie to the body, she'll check the identity, and I'll get her home. Or we can meet up somewhere."

"At Alcide's?" Bill asked.

"Sure."

"Sookie, you okay with that?"

"Yeah, all right," I said. "Let me get my purse out of your car."

Bill clicked his car open and I reached inside to get my purse, which held a change of clothes. I definitely wanted to find a couple of minutes of privacy to put on something a little less revealing.

I felt uneasy without knowing exactly why. We'd recovered Colton, and if he could get the hell out of town, he'd probably be safe. If Colton couldn't tell the little he remembered about that evening at Fangtasia, Eric would be safer, and therefore I would be safer-and so would all of the Shreveport vamps. I ought to be feeling happier. I slung my bag over my shoulder, glad that I had the cluviel dor with me.

"You're okay with these wolves?" Bill asked in a very low voice as Colton got into Bill's car and buckled his seat belt.

"Uh-huh," I said, though I wasn't so sure. But I shook myself and called myself paranoid. "These are Alcide's wolves, and he's my friend. But just in case, call him when you're on your way, would you?"

"Go with me," Bill said suddenly. "They can identify Warren by smell, maybe. Mustapha could definitely do that, when he resurfaces."

"Nah, it's okay. Get Colton to the airport," I said. "Get him out of town."

Bill looked at me searchingly, then nodded in a jerky way. I watched as Bill and Colton drove off.

Now that I was alone with the werewolves, I felt even odder.

"Van," I said, "Where did you find Warren?"

The other three crowded around: a woman in her thirties with a pixie haircut, an airman from the Air Force base in Bossier City, and a girl in her teens with very generous curves. The teenager was in the first throes of experiencing her power as a Were, almost drunk with her newfound ability; it dominated her brain. The other two meant business. And that was all I could get of their thoughts. We were walking north on the street to a gray Camaro, which seemed to belong to Airman.

"I'll show you. It's a little ways east of town. Since Mustapha wasn't a pack member, we never met Warren."

"Okay," I said doubtfully. And I thought of making some excuse not to get in the car, because my uneasiness was mounting like a drumroll. We were alone on a dark street, and I realized they had boxed me in. I had no real reason to doubt that Van was telling me the truth-but I had an instinct that was telling me this situation stank. I wished instinct had spoken up more clearly a few minutes ago when I'd had Bill at my side. I got in the car, and the Weres crowded in. We buckled up, and in a second we were driving in the direction of the interstate.

Curiously, I almost didn't want to discover that my suspicion was valid. I was tired of crises, tired of deceit, tired of life-or-death situations. I felt like a stone being skipped across a pond, longing only to sink to the anonymous bottom.

Well, that was stupid. I gave myself a mental shake. Not time to long for things I couldn't have at the moment. Time to be alert and ready for action. "Do you really have Warren?" I asked Van. He was sitting to my right in the backseat of the Camaro. The plump teenager was crowded in to my left. She didn't smell particularly good.

"Nope," he said. "Ain't ever seen him, that I know of."

"Then why are you doing this?" I might as well know, though I already felt sadly sure this was going to end poorly.

"Alcide asked that black bugger Mustapha to join the pack," Van said. "He ain't asked us."

So they were all rogues. "But I saw you at the last pack meeting."

"Yeah, I was going through rush, like they do in fraternities," Van said, deeply sarcastic. "But I didn't make the cut. Guess I got blackballed."

"I thought he had to let you in," I said. "I mean, I didn't know the packleader got to pick and choose."

"Alcide is a little too selective," said the airman, who was driving. He turned a little so I could see his profile as he spoke. "He doesn't want anyone with a serious criminal record in his pack."

Alarm bells sounded then in my brain, way too late. Mustapha had been in prison, though I didn't know the charge ... yet Alcide had been willing to accept him into the pack. What had these rogues done that had been so bad that a wolf pack wouldn't have them?

The girl beside me tittered. The woman in the passenger's side of the front seat cast her a dark look, and the girl stuck out her tongue like a ten-year-old.

"You got a police record?" I asked the plump girl.

Plump gave me a sly look. She had straight brown hair that fell to her shoulders. Her bangs were almost in her eyes. She'd stuffed herself into a striped tube top and blue jeans. She was wearing flip-flops. "I got a juvenile record," she said proudly. "I set my house on fire. My mama got out just in time. My daddy and the boys didn't."

And I got what her daddy had been doing to her, just a single line of memory from her, and I was almost glad he hadn't made it out. But the brothers? Little boys? I didn't think she was too happy her mom had made it out, either.

"So Alcide wouldn't admit any of you?"

"No," said Van. "But when there's a changeover, and the pack has a new leader, we'll be in. We'll have security."

"What's going to happen to Alcide?"

"We're gonna overthrow his ass," said Airman.

"He's a good man," I said quietly.

"He's a douche," said Plump.

During this charming conversation the woman in the front seat had not spoken, and though I couldn't read her thoughts, I could read the ambiguity and regret that were making it hard for her to sit still. I sensed she was on the cusp of a decision, and I feared to say something that would tip her over to the wrong side.

"So where are you taking me?" I said, and Van put his arm around me.

"Me and Johnny might appreciate a little alone time with you," Van said, his free hand lodging itself under my skirt. "You looking so fine and all."

"I wonder what you were in jail for," I said. "Gee, let me guess."

The woman looked back at me, and our eyes met. "You going to put up with that?" she asked Plump. Thus goaded, Plump grabbed Van's wrist and pulled his hand away from my crotch.

"You said you wouldn't do this again," she growled, and I mean growled. "I'm your woman now. No more."

"Course you're mine, but that doesn't mean I don't want to cleanse my palate with a little country-fried steak," Van said.

"Charming," I said, which was unfortunate, because Van punched me and I saw bright lights for a second. You don't want to get hit by a werewolf. Really.

I had to keep from gagging from the pain, but I resolved that if I threw up I was going to do it all over Van.

He grabbed my hand and squeezed it, squeezed it until I could feel the bones rubbing together. This time, I had to cry out, and he liked that. I could feel the pleasure radiating out from him.

Help, I thought. Can anyone hear me?

No answer. I wondered where Mr. Cataliades was. I wondered where his great-great-grandson, whom I'd always called Barry Bellboy, was. Too far away in Texas to hear my mental voice ...

I wondered if I'd see tomorrow. I had planned on it being a happy day for me, a special day.

At least Van seemed to be taking Plump's hostility seriously now, and he quit hurting me. Dealing out pain to me excited her jealousy just as much as him feeling me up. Unhealthy. Not that it was my problem, not that it would make any difference after we got wherever we were going. I'd picked up on a stray thought or two. I was beginning to get the bigger picture. It had a big skull and crossbones right in the middle.

The traffic was fairly heavy, but I knew what would happen to me if I signaled another car. I knew, too, what would happen to the people in that car. Not a single police car in the stream of traffic ... not a one. We were on the interstate going east, back toward Bon Temps. There were a dozen exits, and when we left the interstate, none of them would have this much traffic. Once we got into the woods, I'd be doomed.

Well, I had to do something.

Just as a motorcycle began passing the car, I attacked Van. He'd been thinking about something entirely different, something involving the plump girl, so my sudden twist and lunge was a huge shock. I tried to grasp his neck, but my fingers wouldn't meet around it, and I had a hank of his hair bundled into my grip. He yelled and his hands shot up to grip mine. I dug my thumbs in ferociously, and Airman turned to glance back. Glass shattered and as I closed my eyes I saw a fine mist of red. Someone had shot Airman in the shoulder.

We were at a level spot on the interstate, thank God. As we abruptly swerved off the pavement, the quiet woman in the front seat reached over and switched the car off. Remarkable presence of mind, I thought in a daze, and we began gliding to a stop. Plump was screaming, Van was beating the shit out of me, and there was blood all over everything. The smell triggered the wolf in them, and they began to change. If I didn't get out of the car, I was going to get bitten, and then I'd qualify to be a pack member myself.

As I struggled with Van in a vain attempt to reach the door handle, that door flew open and a black-gloved hand reached in to grab mine. I seized it like a drowning man seizes a rope, and just like a rope, that hand hauled me out of deep trouble. I barely managed to grab my bag with my free hand.

"Let's get out of here," Mustapha said, and I jumped on the back of his Harley behind him, my bag slung over my shoulder and mashed between us to keep it secure. Though I was still trying to grasp what had just happened, my wiser self was telling me to think later, get the hell out of there now. Mustapha lost no time. Just as we zipped across the grassy median to head back into Shreveport, I watched a car pull up to offer help to the apparent wreck.

"No, they'll get hurt!" I yelled.

"It's Long Tooth wolves. You stay on." And off we took. After that, I concentrated on clinging to Mustapha as we rocketed through the night. After my initial gush of relief, it was frustrating not to be able to ask any of the fifty questions racing through my mind. I wasn't totally surprised when we pulled up in the circular driveway in front of Alcide's house. I had to exert a conscious effort to unclench my muscles so I could dismount. Mustapha took off his helmet and gave me a thorough look. I nodded to let him know I was okay. My hand would hurt from the squeeze Van had given it, and I was covered with dots of blood, but it wasn't mine. I looked down at my watch. Bill had had time to deposit Colton at the airport, but he should be driving here. The whole thing had happened that quickly.

"What you doing wearing prostitute clothes?" Mustapha asked severely, and hustled me over to the front door.

Alcide opened the door himself, and if he was bowled over with surprise, he did a good job of hiding it.

"Damn, Sookie, whose blood?" he said, and waved us in.

"Rogue werewolf," I said. I reeked.

"No cars coming, so I had to take action then," Mustapha explained. "I shot Laidlaw. He was driving. The pack's taking care of the others."