relationship. The shifters and Weres mocked the vampires, and the vampires jeered right back. But it looked like the supernaturals had agreed to present a united front, at least for a while.
The reactions of governments varied wildly. I think the U.S. policy had been formed by werewolves in place within the system, because it was overwhelmingly favorable. There was a huge tendency to accept the weres as if they were completely human, to keep their rights as Americans exactly on a par with their previous status when no one knew they were two-natured. The vampires couldn’t be too pleased about that, because they hadn’t yet obtained full rights and privileges under the law. Legal marriage and inheritance of property were still forbidden in a few states, and vampires were barred from owning certain businesses. The human casino lobby had been successful in banning the vamps from direct ownership of gambling establishments, which I still couldn’t understand, and though vampires could be police officers and firefighters, vampire doctors were not accepted in any field that included treating patients with open wounds. Vampires weren’t allowed in competition sports, either. That I could understand; they were too strong. But there were already lots of athletes whose ancestry included full- and part-weres, because sports were a natural bent for them. The military ranks, too, were filled with men and women whose grandparents had bayed under the full moon. There were even some full-blooded Weres in the armed services, though it was a very tricky occupation for people who had to find somewhere private to be three nights a month.
The sports pages were full of pictures of some part- and whole-weres who’d become famous. A running back for the New England Patriots, a fielder for the Cardinals, a marathon runner . . . they’d all confessed to being wereanimals of one kind or another. An Olympic champion swimmer had just discovered that his dad was a wereseal, and the number-one ranked women’s tennis player in Britain had gone on record as saying that her mother was a wereleopard. The sports world hadn’t been in such a tumult since the last drug scandal. Did these athletes’ heritage give them an unfair advantage over other players? Should their trophies be taken away from them? Should their records be allowed to stand? Another day, I might enjoy debating this with someone, but right now I just didn’t care.
I began to see an overall picture. The outing of the two-natured was a much different revelation than the vampires’ announcement. The vampires had been completely off the human grid, except in legend and lore. They’d lived apart. Since they could subsist on the Japanese synthetic blood, they had presented themselves as absolutely nonthreatening. But wereanimals had been living among us all the time, integrated into our society yet maintaining their secret lives and alliances. Sometimes even their children (those who weren’t firstborn and therefore not weres) didn’t know what their parents were, especially if they were not wolves.
“I feel betrayed,” one woman was quoted as saying. “My granddad turns into a lynx every month. He runs around and kills things. My beautician, I’ve been going to her for fifteen years, and she’s a coyote. I didn’t know! I feel I’ve been deceived in an ugly way.”
Some people thought it was fascinating. “Our principal is a werewolf,” said a kid in Springfield, Missouri. “How cool is that?”
The very fact of the existence of wereanimals frightened some people. “I’m scared I’ll shoot my neighbor by accident if I see him trotting down the road,” said a farmer in Kansas. “What if he gets after my chickens?”
Various churches were thrashing out their policy on weres. “We don’t know what to think,” a Vatican official confessed. “They’re alive, they’re among us, they must have souls. Even some priests are wereanimals.” The fundamentalists were equally stymied. “We were worried about Adam and Steve,” a Baptist minister said. “Should we have been more worried about Rover and Fluffy?”
While my head had been in the sand, all hell had broken loose.
Suddenly it was easier to see how my werepanther sister-in-law had ended up on a cross at a bar owned by a shifter.
Chapter 6
“Sounds good,” I said politely, though I’d hate that kind of job. Working with the same people every day? I’d get to know them all too well. I wouldn’t be able to stay out of their thoughts, and I’d reach the point of wanting to get away from them because I knew too much about them. At the bar, there were always different people coming in to keep me distracted.
“How’d the Great Reveal go for you?” I asked.
“I told ’em at Norcross the next day,” she said. “When they found out I was a werefox, they thought that was funny.” She looked disgusted. “Why do the big animals get all the press? Calvin got huge respect out in the plant from his crew. I get jokes about bushy tails.”
“Not fair,” I agreed, trying not to smile.
“Calvin is completely wiped out about Crystal,” Tanya said abruptly. “She was his favorite niece. He felt awful bad for her when it turned out she was such a poor shifter. And about the babies.” Crystal, the product of a lot of inbreeding, had taken forever to change into her panther form and had had a hard time reversing the process when she wanted to become a human again. She’d miscarried several times, too. The only reason she’d been allowed to marry Jason was that it had become obvious she would probably never carry a pureblood baby to term.
“Could be this baby was lost before the murder, or she aborted during the murder,” I said. “Maybe the— whoever did this—didn’t know.”
“She was showing, but not a whole lot,” Tanya said, nodding. “She was real picky about her food, ’cause she was determined to keep her figure.” She shook her head, her face bitter. “But really, Sookie, does it really make any difference if the killer knew or not? The end is the same. The baby is dead, and so is Crystal, and she died afraid and alone.”
Tanya was absolutely right.
“Do you think Calvin can track whoever did this from the smell?” I asked.
Tanya looked uneasy. “There were lots of scents,” she said. “I don’t know how he can tell which one’s
“Besides, it might be one of them,” I said, nodding toward the group gathered around the dead woman. Tanya looked at me sharply.
“You mean law enforcement might be in on it?” she said. “Do you know something?”
“No,” I said, sorry I’d opened my big mouth. “It’s just . . . we don’t know anything for sure. I guess I was thinking about Dove Beck.”
“He’s the one she was in bed with that day?”
I nodded. “That big guy, there—the black guy in the suit? That’s his cousin Alcee.”
“Think he might have had something to do with it?”
“Not really,” I said. “I was just . . . speculating.”
“I’ll bet Calvin’s thought of that, too,” she said. “Calvin’s very sharp.”
I nodded. There was nothing flashy about Calvin, and he hadn’t managed to go to college (I hadn’t either), but there was nothing wrong with his brain.
Bud beckoned to Calvin then, and he got out of his truck and went over to the body, which had been laid on a gurney spread with an open body bag. Calvin approached the body carefully, his hands behind his back so he wouldn’t touch Crystal.
We all watched, some with loathing and distaste, some with indifference or interest, until he’d finished.
He straightened, turned, and walked back in the direction of his truck. Tanya got out of my car to meet him.
