After Niall pulled a chair close to the bed, he took my hand. Maybe the events of the past few days had made the fine wrinkles in his skin a fraction deeper. Maybe he looked a little sad. But my royal great-grandfather was still beautiful, still regal, still strange, and now that I knew what his race could do . . . he looked frightening.
“Did you know Lochlan and Neave killed my parents?” I asked.
Niall nodded after a perceptible pause. “I suspected,” he said. “When you told me your parents had drowned, I had to consider it possible. They all had an affinity to water, Breandan’s people.”
“I’m glad they’re dead,” I said.
“Yes, I am, too,” he said simply. “And most of Breandan’s followers are dead, as well. I spared two females, since we need them so much, and though one of them was the mother of Breandan’s child, I let her live.”
He seemed to want my praise for that. “What about the child?” I asked.
Niall shook his head, and the sheet of pale hair moved with the gesture.
He loved me, but he was from a world even more savage than mine.
As if he had heard my thoughts, Niall said, “I’m going to finish blocking the passage to our land.”
“But that’s what the war was over,” I said, bewildered. “That was what Breandan wanted.”
“I have come to think that he was right, though for the wrong reason. It isn’t the fae who need to be protected from the human world. It’s the humans who need to be protected from us.”
“What will that mean? What are the consequences?”
“Those of us who’ve been living among the humans will have to choose.”
“Like Claude.”
“Yes. He’ll have to cut his ties with our secret land, if he wants to live out here.”
“And the rest? The ones who live there already?”
“We won’t be coming out anymore.” His face was luminous with grief.
“I won’t get to see you?”
“No, dear heart. It’s better not.”
I tried to summon up a protest, to tell him that it wasnot better, it was awful, since I had so few relatives, that I would not talk to him again. But I just couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth. “What about Dermot?” I said instead.
“We can’t find him,” Niall said. “If he’s dead, he went to ash somewhere we haven’t discovered. If he’s here, he’s being very clever and very quiet. We’ll keep trying until the door closes.”
I hoped devoutly that Dermot was on the fairy side of that door.
At that moment, Jason came in.
My great-grandfather—our great-grandfather—leaped to his feet. But after a moment, he relaxed. “You must be Jason,” he said.
My brother stared at him blankly. Jason had not been himself since the death of Mel. The same edition of our local paper that had carried the story about the awful discovery of the body of Tray Dawson had carried another story about the disappearance of Mel Hart. There was wide conjecture that maybe the two events were connected somehow.
I didn’t know how the werepanthers had covered up the scene in back of Jason’s house, and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t know where Mel’s body was, either. Maybe it had been eaten. Maybe it was at the bottom of Jason’s pond. Maybe it lay in the woods somewhere.
The last was what I suspected. Jason and Calvin had told the police that Mel had said he was going hunting by himself, and Mel’s truck was found parked at a hunting preserve where he had a share. There were some bloodstains discovered in the back of the truck that made police suspect Mel might know something about Crystal Stackhouse’s awful death, and now Andy Bellefleur had been heard to say he wouldn’t be surprised if old Mel hadn’t killed himself out in the woods.
“Yeah, I’m Jason,” my brother said heavily. “You must be . . . my great-grandfather?”
Niall inclined his head. “I am. I’ve come to bid your sister good-bye.”
“But not me, huh? I’m not good enough.”
“You are too much like Dermot.”
“Well, crap.” Jason threw himself down on the foot of the bed. “Dermot didn’t seem too bad to me,Great-grandfather . Least, he came to warn me about Mel, let me know that Mel had killed my wife.”
“Yes,” Niall said remotely. “Dermot may have been partial to you because of the resemblance. I suppose you know that he helped to kill your parents?”
We both stared at Niall.
“Yes, the water fae who followed Breandan had pulled the truck into the stream, as I hear it, but only Dermot was able to touch the door and pull your parents out. Then the water nymphs held them underwater.”
I shuddered.
“Ask me, I’m glad you’re saying good-bye,” Jason said. “I’m glad you’re leaving. I hope you never come back, not a one of you.”
Pain flitted over Niall’s face. “I can’t dispute your feeling,” he said. “I only wanted to know my great-granddaughter. But I’ve brought Sookie nothing but grief.”
I opened my mouth to protest, and then I realized he was telling the truth. Just not all the truth.
“You brought me the reassurance that I had family who loved me,” I said, and Jason made a choking sound. “You sent Claudine to save my life, and she did, more than once. I’ll miss you, Niall.”
“The vampire is not a bad man, and he loves you,” Niall said. He rose. “Good-bye.” He bent and kissed my cheek. There was power in his touch, and I suddenly felt better. Before Jason could gather himself to object, Niall kissed his forehead, and Jason’s tense muscles relaxed.
Then my great-grandfather was gone before I could ask him which vampire he meant.
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2009 by Charlaine Harris, Inc.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
eISBN : 978-1-101-04762-0
1. Vampires—Fiction. 2. Werewolves—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3558.A6427D4 2009
813’.54—dc22
2009001834