"Mel, what did you make of Jason's visitor this morning?" I asked.
"Aside from the fact that he could throw me across the room and looked enough like Jason to make me turn to make sure your brother was coming out of his bedroom? Not much," Mel said. Mel had managed to dress in his usual khakis and polo shirt, but the blue bruises on his arms kind of ruined his neat appearance. He shrugged on a jacket with great care.
"See you in a while, Sookie. Come around to get me," Jason said. Of course, he'd want to ride in my car and burn up my gas, since we were running my errands. "In the meantime, you got my cell number."
"Sure. I'll see you in an hour or so."
Since being alone hadn't been a normal state of affairs for me lately, I would have actually enjoyed the feeling of having the house to myself if I hadn't been worried that a supernatural killer was after me.
Nothing happened. I ate a bowl of cereal. Finally, I decided to risk taking a shower despite myPsycho memories. I made sure all the outside doors were locked, and I locked the bathroom door, too. I took the quickest shower on record.
Nobody had tried to kill me yet. I dried off, put on some makeup, and dressed for work.
When it was time to go, I stood on the back porch and eyeballed the distance between the steps and my car door, over and over. I figured I'd have to take ten steps. I unlocked the car with the keypad. I took a few deep breaths and unlocked the screen door. I pushed it open and fairly leaped off the porch, bypassing the steps entirely. In an undignified scramble, I yanked open the car door, slid inside, and slammed and locked the door. I looked around me.
Nothing moved.
I laughed a little breathlessly. Silly me!
Being so tense was making all the scary movies I'd ever seen pop into my head. I was thinking of Jurassic Park and dinosaurs - maybe my thought link was that fairies were the dinosaurs of the supernatural world - and I half expected a piece of goat to fall on my windshield.
That didn't happen, either. Okay ...
I inserted the key and turned it, and the motor turned over. I didn't blow up. There was no Tyrannosaurus in my rearview mirror.
So far, so good. I felt better once I'd begun going slowly down the driveway through the woods, but I was sure keeping my eyes busy. I felt a compulsion to get in touch with someone, to let someone know where I was and what I was doing.
I whipped my cell phone out of my purse and called Amelia. When she answered, I said, "I'm driving over to Jason's. Since Tray is so sick, Jason's going around with me today. Listen, you know Tray was spelled by a fairy into drinking rotten vampire blood?"
"I'm at work here," Amelia said, caution in her voice. "Yes, he called ten minutes ago, but he had to go throw up. Poor Tray. At least the house was okay."
Amelia's point was that her wards had held. Well, she had a right to be proud of that.
"You're great," I said.
"Thanks. Listen, I'm really worried about Tray. I tried calling him back after a few minutes, but he didn't answer. I hope he's just sleeping it off, but I'm going over there after I leave work. Why don't you meet me there? We can figure out what to do about getting you some more security."
"Okay," I said. "I'll come over right after I get off work, probably around five." Phone in my hand, I jumped out and grabbed the mail from my mailbox, which sat up on Hummingbird Road. Then I got back in my car quick as I could.
That had been stupid. I could have gone without checking the mail for one day. Habits are very hard to break, even when they're unimportant habits. "I really am lucky you live with me, Amelia," I said. That might have been spreading it on a little thick, but it was the absolute truth.
But Amelia had gone off on another mental path. "You're speaking to Jason again? You told him? Aboutthings ?"
"Yeah, I had to. Great-grandfather can't have everything his own way. Stuff has happened."
"It always does, around you," Amelia said. She didn't sound angry, and she wasn't condemning me.
"Not always," I said after a sharp moment of doubt.In fact, I thought, as I turned left at the end of Hummingbird Road to go to my brother's,that point Jason made about everything changing when the vamps came out ... that just might have been something I really agree with .
Prosaically, I realized my car was almost out of gas. I had to pull into Grabbit Quik. While I was pumping the liquid gold into my car, I fell back to puzzling over what Jason had told me. What would be urgent enough to bring a reclusive and human-hating half fairy to Jason's door? Why would he tell Jason ... ? I shouldn't be thinking about this.
This was stupid, and I should be watching out for myself instead of trying to solve Jason's problems.
But after a few more seconds of turning the conversation over in my head, I began to have a sneaking suspicion that I understood it a little better.
I called Calvin. At first he didn't get what I was saying, but then he agreed to meet me at Jason's house.
I caught a glimpse of Jason in the backyard when I pulled into the circular driveway of the neat, small house my dad had built when he and my mother were first married. It was out in the country, out farther west than Arlene's trailer, and though it was visible from the road, it had a pond and several acres lying behind it. My dad had loved to hunt and fish, and my brother did, too. Jason had recently put in a makeshift range, and I could hear the rifle.
I decided to come through the house, and I took care to yell when I was at the back door.
"Hey!" Jason called back. He had a 30-30 in his hands. It had been our father's. Mel was standing behind him, holding a box of ammo. "We decided we better get in some practice."
"Good idea. I wanted to be sure you didn't think I was your crazy caller, come back to yell some more."
Jason laughed. "I still don't understand what good Dermot thought he'd do, coming up to the front door like that."
"I think I do," I said.
Jason held out his hand without looking, and Mel gave him some bullets. Jason opened the rifle and began loading. I looked over at the sawhorse he'd set up, noted all the empty milk jugs lying on the ground. He'd filled them with water so they'd sit steady, and thanks to the bullet holes, the water was flowing out onto the ground.
"Good shooting," I said. I took a deep breath. "Hey, Mel, you want to tell me about Hotshot funerals? I haven't ever been to one, and Crystal's will take place as soon as the body comes back, I reckon."
Mel looked a little surprised. "You know I haven't lived out there for years," he protested. "It's just not for me." Except for the fading bruises, he didn't look like he'd been thrown across the room by anyone, much less a crazed half fairy.