Deadlocked

acknowledge her ensemble. “What’s up at Fangtasia?”

“We came to wish you a happy day,” Eric said. “And I suppose, as usual, Bil wil want to express his undying love that surpasses my love, as he’l tel you—and Pam wil want to say something sarcastic and nearly painful, while reminding you that she loves you, too.”

Bil and Pam looked decidedly miffed at Eric’s preemptive strike, but I wasn’t going to let anything dim my mood.

“And what about you, Eric?” I asked on counterattack. “Are you going to tel me that you love me just as much as Bil , but in a practical way, while finding some way to subtly threaten me and simultaneously remind me that you may be leaving with Freyda?” I bared my teeth at him in a ferocious smile as I trotted by the trio on my way up my back steps. I unlocked the screen door, crossed the porch, unlocked the kitchen door, and went inside with my armful.

After dumping the presents on the kitchen table, I stepped back out onto the porch and opened the screen door. “Any of you have anything new to say?” I looked from one to the other. “Or shal I just consider al this as said?” Pam was looking away to hide her grin.

“Just that he was right,” Bil said, smiling openly. “I do love you more than Eric does. Have a great night, Sookie. Here is a gift for you.” He held out a little box with a bow on it, and I extended my arm to take it.

“Thank you, Mr. Compton,” I said, returning his smile, and he strode off into the woods. At the edge, he turned to blow me a kiss.

Pam said, “Sookie, I brought you something, too. I never thought I’d want to spend time with a human, but you’re more tolerable than most. I hope no one hurts you on your birthday.” As birthday wishes went, that kind of sucked, but it was genuine Pam. I stepped down off the porch to give her a hug. She returned it, which made me smile. You never knew with Pam. Her touch was cold and she smel ed of vampire. I was very fond of her. She produced a smal box, highly decorated, and pressed it into my hand.

She stepped back and looked from me to Eric. “I’l leave you two to whatever talk you want to have,” she said, her voice neutral. Eric was her maker, and there was a limit to the verbal abuse she could deal out. In a moment she was gone.

“Won’t you give me a hug, too?” Eric looked down at me, one eyebrow hiked up.

“Before I start giving out hugs to you I need to know what our situation is,” I said. I sat down on the back steps, setting my presents careful y to the side. Eric sat down, too.

I wasn’t happy anymore, of course, but I was much calmer than I’d thought I’d be when I’d realized we had to have this conversation. “I think you owe it to me to level with me,” I began. “For weeks, it seems like we haven’t real y been a couple, though you stil tel everyone I’m your wife. Lately, that’s just meant we have sex. I know it’s a tradition that guys don’t like relationship talks. I don’t think I do, either. But we have to have one.”

“Let’s go inside.”

“No. That might end up with us in bed. Before we do that again, we need to have an understanding between us.”

“I love you.” The security light glinted off his blond hair and was swal owed in his al -black getup. He’d dressed for a funeral tonight.

“I love you, too, Eric. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it?”

Eric looked away. “I think not,” he said reluctantly. “Sookie … it’s not just a straightforward decision, you over Freyda. If it were only one woman over another … it’s you I love. That’s a given, not a choice at al . But it’s not that simple.”

“It’s not that simple?” I repeated. I felt too many things to select one emotion, to say, That’s the way I feel; I’m in dread. Or I’m angry. Or I’m numb with fear. I had al those feelings, and more. Since I couldn’t bear to look at Eric’s face any more than he could bear to look at mine, I looked up at the starlit sky. After another moment’s silence, I said, “But it is, isn’t it. That simple.”

The night swel ed with magic; not the beneficent kind of love-magic that sweeps couples away, but the kind of magic that rips and tears, the enchantment that creeps out of the woods and pounces.

“My maker gave this to me as his last order,” Eric said.

“I would never have believed you’d try this argument,” I said. “‘I’m just obeying orders.’ Come on! You can’t hide behind Appius’s wishes, Eric.

He’s gone.”

“He signed a contract, and it’s legal y binding,” Eric said, stil keeping his composure.

“You’re giving yourself an excuse for doing something painful and wrong,” I said.

“I’m locked into it,” he said, his expression savage.

I looked down at my feet for a minute. I was wearing my happy sandals again, high-heeled and with little flowers on the strap across my toes.

They looked ridiculously frivolous, appropriate for a single woman’s twenty-eighth birthday. They weren’t kiss- your-lover-good-bye shoes.

“Eric, you’re a strong vampire,” I said. I took his cool hand. “You’ve always been the boldest, baddest guy around. If your maker were alive, I’d believe you couldn’t help this. But I watched Appius die, right here in my yard. So here’s my bottom line; here’s what I real y believe. I think you could get out of this if you hated Freyda. But you don’t. She’s beautiful. She’s rich. She’s powerful. She needs you to watch her back, and the reward wil be lots of the stuff you love.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “Al I got is me. And I guess that’s not enough.” I waited, praying to hear a rebuttal. I looked up at him. I saw no shame. I saw no weakness. I saw instead a laserlike intensity in his blue eyes, so like my own.

He said, “Sookie, if I turn down this opportunity, Felipe wil punish both of us. Our lives wil not be worth living.”

“Then we’l leave,” I said quietly. “We’l go somewhere else. You’l work for some other king or queen. I’l find a