“We’re going to see the sights and gamble,” Pam said. The headlights of a passing car glinted on Pam’s pale, straight hair. Pam was paler than her hair and approximately a hundred and sixty years old, give or take a decade. She’d become a vampire when Victoria was still a young queen.

“It’s hard to believe you’d want to go to Mississippi. For that matter, it’s hard to believe you’d want to take me along.”

“Are we not friends, Sookie?”

“Yes,” I said, after a little hesitation. Though it didn’t seem polite to say so, I was closer to being a friend of Pam’s than I was of any other vampire. “Somehow, I got the feeling you really didn’t think enough of humans to want to claim one as a friend.”

“You’re not as intolerable as most,” Pam said lightly.

“Thanks for the glowing testimony.”

“Oh, you’re quite welcome.” She grinned, flashing just a bit of fang.

“I hope this is fun, considering I’m using my two days off to make this little trip.” I sounded a little grumpy, with good reason.

“It’s a vacation! A chance to get out of your rut. Don’t you get tired of Bon Temps? Don’t you get tired of hustling drinks at Sam’s bar?”

Truthfully, no. I love my little Louisiana town. I feel as comfortable as a telepath can be among the people I know so well (better than most of them will ever understand). And I love working for Sam at Merlotte’s. I’m a very good waitress and barmaid. My life brings me enough excitement without me having to leave town to get more.

“Something always goes wrong when I go out of town,” I said, trying not to sound whiny.

“Such as?”

“Remember when I went to Dallas? All those people got shot? When I went to Jackson, I got staked.” Which was pretty ironic, since I’m human. “And when I flew up to Rhodes with you-all, the hotel got blown up.”

“And you saved my life,” Pam said, suddenly serious.

“Well,” I said, and then could think of nothing more to add. I started to say, You would have done the same for me, but I was by no means sure that was true. Then I started to say, You would have been okay, anyway, but that wasn’t true, either. I shrugged, at a loss. Even in the darkness, Pam saw me.

“I won’t forget,” she said.

“So, we’re really just going to see the casinos and gamble? Can we go see a show?” I wanted to change the subject.

“Of course we’ll do all those things. Oh, we do have one tiny errand to perform for Eric.”

Eric and I are—I’m not sure what we are. We’re lovers, and in an unofficial vampire way, we’re married. Not that I had anything to do with that; Eric maneuvered me into it. He had good intentions. I think. Anyway, it’s not a straightforward situation, me and Eric. Pam is gung- ho Eric, because she’s his right hand. “So what do we have to do? And why do I need to come along?”

“A human is involved,” Pam said. “You can let me know if he’s sincere or not.”

“All right,” I said, not caring one little bit that I sounded reluctant. “As long as I get to see all the casinos and a good show that I pick.”

“It’s a promise,” Pam said.

As we went up Highway 61, we started to see casino billboards flashing by in the night. Pam had been driving since darkness had fallen . . . That had been at five thirty, since it was February. Though I remembered February as being the coldest month when I was a child, now it was an eerie sixty degrees. Pam had picked me up in Bon Temps, then we’d gone through Vicksburg to turn north on Highway 61. There were a few casinos in Vicksburg and a few more in Greenville, but we kept driving up the western side of Mississippi. It was flat, flat, flat. Even in the dark, I could tell that.

“Nowhere to hide, here,” I said brightly.

“Even for a vampire,” Pam said. “Unless one found a bayou and crouched down to bury oneself in the mud.”

“With the crawdaddies.” I was full of cheerful thoughts.

“What do people do here?” Pam asked.

“Farm,” I said. “Cotton, soybeans.”

Pam’s upper lip curled. Pam was a city girl. She’d grown up in London. England. See? We couldn’t be more different. City girl, country girl. Experienced and well traveled, inexperienced and stay-at-home. Bisexual, heterosexual. She’s dead, I’m alive.

Then she turned on the CD player in her Nissan Murano, and the Dixie Chicks began singing.

We did have something in common, after all.

We saw the first turnoff to the casinos at two in the morning.

“There’s a second turnoff, and that’s where we’re staying,” Pam said. “At Harrah’s.”

“Okay,” I said, peering at the signs. To find these street lights, this traffic, and all the neon in the distance in the middle of the Mississippi Delta was like finding out Mrs. Butterworth had pierced her navel. “There!” I said. “We turn there.”

Pam put on her blinker (she was an excellent driver) and following the signs, we pulled up in front of the casino/hotel where we had a reservation. It was large and new, as everything in the casino complex seemed to be. Since there wasn’t a whole lot going on at that hour, several jacketed young men made a beeline for the Murano.

Pam said, “What are they doing?” Her fangs popped out.

“Chill. They’re just going to valet-park the car,” I said, proud that I knew something Pam didn’t.

“Oh.” She relaxed. “All right. They take the keys, park the car, and bring it back when I require it?”

“Right.” A high school classmate of mine had had that job at a casino in Shreveport. “You tip ’em,” I prompted, and Pam opened her purse, a Prada. Pam was a purse snob.

She laughed when one of the young men wanted to carry her luggage. We both entered the hotel with our weekend bags slung over our shoulders. Eric had given me my bag as a Christmas gift, and I really, really liked it. My initials were embroidered on it, and it was red with blue and gold flowers. In fact, it coordinated with the coat he’d given me the year before, the coat I didn’t need this unseasonably warm night.

Pam had reserved one of the designated vampire rooms, a no-window space with two sets of doors. Our rooms were on the same floor at the back of the hotel. Of course, I’d gotten one of the much cheaper regular human rooms. I was glad we were here on a weekday, because one glimpse of the weekend rates had almost rendered me speechless. I really didn’t travel much.

Very few people turned to look as we made our way to the elevator. Not only were vampires seen pretty frequently at casinos—after all, they were open all night—but everyone was absorbed in the gambling. The slot machines were in rows across the huge floor, and it was always night in here. Sunlight didn’t have a hope of penetrating. The noise was incredible. The chiming and ringing and humming never came to a stop. I don’t know how the people working there managed to stay sane.

In fact, one of the servers wending her way through the chaos in a slacks-shirt-vest uniform was a vampire. She was a thin strawberry blonde with such large boobs that I suspected she’d had a little augmentation before she was brought over. She was carrying a heavy tray of drinks and managing it with ease. She caught Pam’s eyes and gave her a nod. Pam nodded back, giving her own head exactly the same degree of inclination.

On the third floor, Pam peeled off to find her room, and I followed the numbers to mine. Once I’d tossed my bag on my bed, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Pam knocked, and when I let her in she said, “My room is adequate. I’m going to go down and look around. Are you going to bed?”

“I think I will. What are our plans for tomorrow?”

“Do whatever you like during the day. There’s a shuttle that runs between the casinos, so you can go to whichever one you like. There are shops, and there are restaurants. If you notice a show you’d like to see, book us for the first one after dark. After that, we’ll run our errand.”

“Okay. I think I’ll turn in, then.” You notice I didn’t ask about the errand? That was because I wanted to enjoy myself the next day. I’d find out soon enough what Eric wanted us to do. It couldn’t be too bad, right? He was my lover and Pam’s boss. On the other hand, he was frighteningly practical about taking care of himself. No, I told myself. He wouldn’t risk both of us. At the same time.

“Good night, Sookie.” She gave me a cold kiss on the cheek.

“Have a good time,” I said faintly.

She smiled, happy at having startled me. “I plan on it. There are plenty of us here. I’ll go . . . network.”

Pam would always rather hang with her own kind than grub around with “breathers.”

It took me all of ten minutes to unpack and get ready for bed. I crawled in. It was a king, and I felt lost in the middle of it. It would be more fun if Eric were here. I pushed the thought away and turned on the television. I could watch a movie on pay-per-view, I discovered. But if I paid specially for a movie, I’d feel obliged to stay up. Instead, I found an old Western that I followed for maybe half an hour until my eyes wouldn’t stay open anymore.

About ten the next day, I was eating a wonderful breakfast at a buffet that was as long as the Merlotte’s building. I had sausage and biscuits and gravy, and some chopped fruit so I could say I’d eaten something healthy. I also drank three cups of excellent coffee. This was a great way to start the day, and no dishes to do afterward. That was the kind of vacation I could appreciate.

I retreated to my room to brush my teeth, and then I went outside to catch the bus. The sky was overcast, and the temperature was as unnaturally warm as it had been the day before. One of the valet-parking attendants told me where the shuttle bus would pick me up to take me to the other casinos, and I waited for it with a stout couple from Dyersburg, Tennessee, who had cornered the market on chattiness. They’d won some money the night before, their son was going to the University of Memphis, they were Baptists but their pastor liked to visit the boats (all the casinos were theoretically boats, since casinos couldn’t be built on solid land) so that made a little gambling okay. Since I was young and alone, these two decided I was applying for a job at the casinos. They assured me someone as young and perky and pretty as me would have no trouble.

“Now, don’t you go to that bad place north of here!” the woman said, with mock admonishment.

“What place would that be?”

“Henry, close your ears,” she told her husband. Henry good-naturedly pretended to hold his hands over his ears. “There’s what’s called a gentleman’s club up there,” she said in a stage whisper. “Though what someone calling himself a gentleman would be doing there, I don’t know.”

I didn’t say that I was pretty sure real gentlemen had sex urges, too, because I understood what she meant. “So it’s a strip club?”

Mrs. Dyersburg said, “My Lord, I don’t know what all goes on in a place like that. I won’t ever see the inside of one, you can bet. Listen, our oldest son is twenty-four, and he’s single, got a good job. You dating anyone?”

Then, thank God, the bus came. Whatever casino the Dyersburgs chose, I’d pick another one. Luckily, they got off pretty quickly, so I waited to disembark at Bally’s. I went in, to be assaulted by the newly familiar chiming and clicking of slot machines. I saw a sign for a huge buffet. I got a discount coupon immediately from a smiling older woman with elaborate brown hair and lots of gold jewelry. There were three restaurants in Bally’s, and I could eat till I popped at any one of them, according to the material on the coupon. I wondered how much of an appetite I could work up playing a slot machine.

Out of sheer curiosity I walked over to an empty machine, looked at it carefully while I worked out what to do, fed it one of my hard-earned dollars, and pulled the lever. There, I felt it—a distinct frisson of excitement. Then my dollar was lost for good. Was I willing to spend my money on that thrill? No.

I wandered around for a while, looking at the people who were so intent on what they were doing that they never glanced at me, or smiled. The casino employees, on the other hand, were full of good cheer.

Over the course of the day, thanks to the shuttle, I discovered that all the casinos were basically the same. The “décor” changed, the staff uniforms were different colors, the layout might vary a bit, but the noise level and the gambling facilities . . . those were constant.

I had lunch at yet another casino in the middle of the afternoon. Each casino seemed to have two or three places to eat. I decided I couldn’t face another buffet. I made my way to the lower-priced restaurant that offered menus. When I tired of people-watching, I pulled out the paperback I carried in my purse.

At the casino after that, I had to fend off a persistent admirer, a man missing an important front tooth. He wore his hair pulled back in a long, graying ponytail. He was sure we could have some fun together, and I was just as sure we could not. I got back on the shuttle.

I returned to Harrah’s with a feeling of relief. I’d seen lots of new things, including a riverboat and a golf course, but all in all the casinos seemed kind of sad to me. The gamblers weren’t people like you see in James Bond movies, rich people dressed to the nines who could afford losing. Some of the people I’d seen today didn’t look like they could afford to waste even ten dollars. But I had to admit, they’d seemed to be having a good time, and after all, that was the point of a vacation.

It was lovely to shut the door of my room and enjoy the silence. I threw myself down on the bed and closed my eyes. It wouldn’t be long until Pam rose.

Sure enough, she knocked on the door thirty minutes later. “Did you get some tickets?” she asked.

“Hi, Pam, good to see you. Yes, I had an interesting day,” I said. “I got us tickets to the Mucho Macho contest.”

“It’s a strongman competition. I wasn’t sure you’d like any of the music acts. The groups I actually knew, they were all sold out for tonight. So I got tickets to see big strong guys. I thought you’d like that? You like guys too, right?”

“I like men,” Pam agreed guardedly.

“Well, we have an hour before the show,” I said. “You want to go get some warm blood?”

“Yes,” she said, and followed me to the elevator, still looking dubious.

While Pam drank a couple of bottles of TrueBlood Type A, I had a bowl of ice cream. (Calories don’t count while you’re on vacation.) Then we went to the casino next door to watch the Mucho Macho contestants do their manly thing. I got to say, I really enjoyed it: muscular guys lifting heavy weights, swinging big hammers, pulling farm equipment with their teeth. No, I’m just kidding about the teeth. They used a rope harness.

It was like monster trucks, but with men. Even Pam got into the spirit, yelling encouragement to Billy Bob the Brawler from Yazoo City as he harnessed up for his second attempt to move the tractor a yard across the floor.

Of course, Pam herself could have done it easily.

She got a call on her cell phone as we were leaving the show.

“Yes, Eric. Oh, we’ve just finished watching big, muscular, sweaty men move large things around. Sookie’s idea.”

Her eyes went sideways to meet mine. She grinned at me. “I’m sure you could, Eric. You could probably do it without your hands!” She laughed. Whatever Eric said next got her serious attention. “All right, then. We’ll go now.” She handed the phone to me. I didn’t like the compressed lips and narrowed eyes. Something was up.

“Hey,” I said. I felt a surge of lust down to my toenails just knowing that Eric was on the other end of the connection.

“I miss you,” he said.

I pictured him in his office at Fangtasia, the nightclub he and Pam owned. He’d be sitting in his leather office chair, his thick golden hair falling in a waving curtain past his shoulders, and he’d be wearing a T-shirt and jeans. Eric had been a Viking, and he looked like it.

“I miss you, too,” I whispered. I knew he could hear me. He could hear a cricket fart at twenty paces.

“When you return, I’ll show you how much.”

“I look forward to that,” I said, trying to sound brisk and businesslike, since Pam could hear the conversation.

“You’re not in any danger tonight,” he said, sounding more businesslike himself. “Victor insisted you go with Pam. The vampire you’re meeting has a human companion. You will know if Michael is dealing with us in good faith or not.”

“Can you tell me what this is about?”

“Pam will brief you on the way. I wish I’d had time to discuss it with you myself, but this opportunity came up very quickly.” He sounded, just for a second, like he was wondering why it had come up so quickly.

“Is something funny about that?” I asked. “Funny strange, I mean?”

“No,” he said, “I was considering that . . . but no. Let me talk to Pam again.”

I handed the phone back. A glimmer of surprise crossed Pam’s face. “Sir?” she said.

Whatever transpired in the rest of the conversation was lost to me, because the Ittabena Hulk plowed through the crowd in his street clothes, looking neither to the right nor the left. He was intent on the stacked brunette who was waiting for him by the “wait to be seated” sign at the entrance to yet another buffet. She curved in all the right places. She was wearing a tight leopard-print stretch top and a black leather miniskirt grazing the tops of her tan legs. Four-inch black heels completed the ensemble.

“Wow,” I said, in genuine tribute. “I wish I had the guts to wear something that bold.” The cumulative effect was literally stunning.

“I would look excellent in that,” Pam said, a simple statement of fact.

“But would you want to?”

“I see what you mean.” Pam looked down at her own silk blouse and well-cut pants, her low heels and conservative jewelry.

“So where are we going?” I asked, after the valet had retrieved Pam’s car. We turned north on 61. The traffic was heavy. Though it was a weekday, everyone seemed to be in a great hurry to lose their hard- earned cash and experience something a little different from their everyday lives.

“We’re going to a club that’s just west of this highway, about ten miles north of here,” Pam said. “It’s called Blonde, and it’s owned by a vampire named Michael.”

I remembered my conversation with the couple on the bus. “This would be a ‘gentleman’s club’?”

Pam looked massively sardonic. “Yes, that’s what they call it.”

“Why are we going there? Eric said a vampire runs it. We’re across the state line in Russell Edgington’s territory.” Russell Edgington was the vampire king of Mississippi. Though most humans didn’t know it, there were other systems of government in the USA besides the one in Washington, D.C.

Not every state has its own vampire ruler; some states are populous enough to have two or even more. (New York City has its own king, I understand.) Visiting vamps were supposed to check in when they had to cross into another vamp’s territory. I’d met Russell, and he was no joke.

“This must go no further, you understand?” Pam gave me a very meaningful look before turning her attention back to the road. The oncoming traffic heading south from Memphis was moving easily, but it was also nonstop.

“I understand,” I said. I didn’t sound enthusiastic. Vampire secrets are unpleasant and dangerous.

“Our new masters have been chipping away at Edgington’s control of Mississippi,” Pam said.

This was very bad news. Louisiana, where Bon Temps lay, had been taken over from its previous management by the vampires of Nevada. Since Arkansas had previously allied with Louisiana (long story), the king of Nevada (Felipe de Castro) had gotten two states for the price of one. His ambitious lieutenant, Victor Madden, had apparently decided to go for the trifecta.

“Why would they want to do that?” Felipe owned two poor states. If he added Mississippi, he’d have the equivalent of one prosperous state, but his people would be spread thin.

“The casinos,” Pam said.

Of course. The big business in Nevada was casinos, and there were lots of casinos in Mississippi. Felipe had already acquired casinos in Louisiana, and had the state of Arkansas thrown in for free.

“Vampires can’t own casinos,” I said. “It’s against the law.” A powerful human lobby had pushed that legislation.

“Do you imagine that Felipe doesn’t control what happens at the casinos in Las Vegas? At least in large part?”

“No,” I admitted. I’d met Felipe.

“In fact, our king is bringing a lawsuit to challenge that legislation through the human courts, and I’m confident he’ll win,” Pam said. “In the meantime, Victor told Eric to use us as an advance team.”

I had seen Victor much more often than the king himself. Victor Madden was Felipe de Castro’s man on the ground in Louisiana, while Felipe stayed at his castle in Las Vegas. “Ah, Pam, do you think this is all on the up-and-up?”

“What do you mean?”

I thought she knew perfectly well what I meant. “Victor specified us. Why do we have this top secret mission, instead of someone better at negotiation? Not that you’re not a great fighter,” I added quickly. “But you’d think if we’re trying to pinch off parts of Mississippi, Victor would send Eric himself.” Eric was the only remaining sheriff that the previous ruler had put in place. All the others were dead. I remembered Victor’s adorable, smiling face, and I got worried. “You sure this Michael is willing to ditch Russell?”

“Victor says so.”

“And Michael has a human companion.”

“Yes, a man named Rudy.”

“This is dangerous, no matter what Victor told Eric. We’re in foreign territory. This isn’t a real vacation. We’re poaching.”

“Russell doesn’t know why we’re here.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I told his headquarters that I was having a weekend here, so they wouldn’t think my presence was caused by business of any kind.”

“And?”

“Russell himself came on the phone to extend his hospitality. He told me to feel free to enjoy myself in the area, that Eric’s second in command was always welcome.”

“And you don’t think that’s fishy?”

“If Russell had any idea what Felipe was considering, he would have counterattacked by now.”

Vampires pretty much wrote the book on chicanery, double dealing, and what you might call drastic politics. If Pam wasn’t worried, should I be?

Sure. Pam could take a lot more damage than I could.

Blonde was not an attractive edifice. No matter how much female beauty might be on the inside (and the billboards promised plenty), on the outside it was a metal building in the middle of nowhere. It had a huge parking lot, and there were at least forty vehicles there. The ground had risen as we approached Memphis and its bluffs, and the club stood on top of a hill with a deep ravine behind. The whole area outside the parking lot was covered with kudzu, like it had been carpeted in the plant. The trees were covered, too.

“We go to the back,” Pam said, and she drove around the building.

The back was even less appealing than the front. The parking lot was poorly lit. Michael was not too concerned for the safety of his workers. Of course, I told myself, maybe he walks each of the girls to her car every night. But I doubted it. “Pam, I have a bad feeling about this,” I said. “I want to be on record as letting you know that.”

“Thanks for the pep talk,” Pam muttered, and I realized that she had more misgivings than she’d revealed. “But I have my orders and I have to do this.”

“Who issued those orders—Felipe, Victor, or Eric?”

“Victor called me into Eric’s office and told me what to do and to take you. Eric was present.”

“How do you think he feels about this?”

“He isn’t happy,” Pam said. “But he’s under new management, and he has to obey direct orders.”

“So we have to do this.”

“I have to. I am Eric’s to command.” Eric had made Pam a vampire. “You aren’t, though Eric pretends to Victor that you obey him in all things. You can leave. Or you can stay in the car and wait for me. There’s a pistol under the backseat.”

“What?”

“A pistol, a gun, you know? Eric thought you’d feel more comfortable with one, since we’re so much stronger than you.”

I hate guns. Having said that, I also have to admit that a firearm has saved my life in the past. “You’re not going in by yourself, armed or unarmed,” I said. I hesitated, because I was afraid. “Give it to me,” I said. We were parked at the very back of the lot, right by the kudzu. I hoped it wouldn’t take Pam’s car while we were inside.

Pam reached under the seat and drew out a revolver. “Point and shoot,” she said, shrugging. “Eric got it for you specially. He says it is called a Ruger LCP. It fires six shots, and there’s one in the chamber.”

It was about as big as a cell phone. Good God Almighty. “What if I need to reload?”

“If you have to shoot that much, we are dead.”

I got that feeling that had become familiar since I’d started hanging with vampires; the feeling that says, How the hell did I get into this? If you examined the process step by step, you could see how it had happened; but when you looked at where you’d ended up, you just had to shake your head. I was walking into a very dubious situation, and Eric thought I needed a gun. “Hey, at least we’ll match the décor,” I said at last.

Pam looked blank.

“Blondes,” I said helpfully. “Us.”

She almost smiled.

We got out of the car. I tucked the gun in the small of my back, and Pam checked to make sure it was covered by my fitted black jacket. I never looked as put-together as Pam, but since we’d been going to a show and then out, I’d worn my good black pants and a blue and black knit top with long sleeves. The jacket didn’t look ridiculous, since the temperature had fallen into the forties. Pam pulled on her white trench coat and belted it tightly around her waist, and then off she went.

I trotted along behind her, second-guessing myself every step of the way. Pam knocked once on the employee entrance. After a pause, the door opened, and I saw that the male holding it was a vampire. Not Michael, though, if I was any judge at all. This male had only been a vampire for a few years. He had a Mohawk, colored green and gelled to a high crest on his otherwise bald head. I tried to imagine going through the centuries like that, and I thought I might throw up.

“We’re here to see Michael,” Pam said, her voice especially cool and regal. “We’re expected.”

“You the ladies from Shreveport?”

“We are.”

“There’s a lot going on here tonight,” he said. “You going to try out after you talk to Michael? I’m in charge of the tryouts.” He was proud of that. “Just come right to this door when you’re ready.” He pointed at a door to the right that had a hand- lettered sheet of typing paper taped to it. Straggly letters spelled DANCERS IN HERE.

We didn’t say anything to that, and he cast a glance back at us that I couldn’t read.

“Let me see if the boss is ready,” Mohawk said.

When he’d knocked and been admitted through a door on the left, Pam said, “I can’t believe they let someone so deficient answer the door. In fact, I can’t believe anyone bothered to turn him. I think he’s slow.”

Mohawk popped back out of the door as quickly as he’d popped in.

“He’s ready for you,” he said, which I found an ominous way to put it.

Pam and I followed his sweeping gesture, which led into an unexpectedly luxurious office. Michael believed in treating himself well. The room was carpeted in dark blue and topped with a lovely Persian-style rug in cream, blue, and red. The furniture was dark and polished. The contrast with the bare corridor was almost painful.

Michael himself was a short, broad blond with a distinct Slavic look. Russian, maybe. A dull throb underlay all the polish of his office, and I realized the throb, which I’d been aware of since I entered the building, was the sound of the music playing in the club. The bass was turned up all the way. It was impossible to tell what the song was, not that the lyrics were the point.

“Ladies, be seated, please,” Michael said. He gestured toward the two very impressive guest chairs in front of his desk. He had a heavy accent and a bad suit. He was smoking. It smelled just as bad when a vampire did it. Of course, he wouldn’t suffer any consequences. An open bottle of Royalty Blended was on the desk by the ashtray. “This is my associate, Rudy,” Michael told us.

Rudy was standing behind Michael. He was the human I’d come to read. He was slim and black-haired, with an extensively scarred face. He looked as if he was eighteen, but I figured he was at least ten years older than that. He gave off a very strange mental signature. Maybe he wasn’t completely human. Everyone I know has a brain pattern: Humans have one kind, weres of all sorts have another, fairies are opaque but identifiable, and vampires leave a sort of void. Rudy didn’t fall into any of those categories.

“You can leave,” Michael said to Mohawk, his voice contemptuous. “Go back to organize the tryouts. We’ll be there soon.” Mohawk backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him. The noise level abruptly dropped, thank God. The boss’s office was soundproofed. But the drumbeat was pulsing in my head, and I swore I could feel it through my feet even if I couldn’t hear it any longer.

“Please let me offer you a drink,” Michael said, smiling at both of us. Rudy decided to smile, too. His teeth were very sharp; in fact, they were pointed. Okay, half-human at most. I was suddenly and deeply frightened. The last time I’d seen teeth like that, they’d bitten bits out of me.

“You’ve never met anyone like Rudy?” Michael asked. He was looking directly at me.

I’m good at schooling my face. Telepaths learn that lesson early in life, or they don’t survive, is my guess. How had he known?

“I sense your pulse speeding up,” Michael said charmingly, and I knew I didn’t like him at all. “Rudy is a rarity, aren’t you, my darling one?”

Rudy smiled again. It was just as bad the second time.

“Half human and half what?” Pam said. “Elf, I suppose. The teeth are a giveaway.”

“I’ve seen teeth like that before,” I said, “on fairies who’d filed them to look that way.”

“Mine are natural,” said Rudy. His voice was surprisingly deep and smooth. “What can I get you to drink?”

“Some blood, please,” Pam said. She loosened her coat and leaned back in the chair.

“Nothing for me, thank you.” I didn’t want to drink anything Rudy had touched. I hoped the human-elf hybrid would leave the room to get Pam’s drink, but instead he turned and bent down to a little refrigerator to extricate a bottle of Royalty Blended, a premium drink that mixed synthetic blood with a large dash of the real blood of certified royalty. He popped the top off the bottle and put it in a microwave sitting atop a low filing cabinet. There were odds and ends on top of the microwave: a bottle opener, a corkscrew, a few straws in paper wrappers, a small paring knife, a folded towel. Quite the home away from home.

“So, you come from Eric? How is the North man?” Michael asked. “We were together in St. Petersburg at one time.”

“Eric is flourishing under our new ruler. He wishes you well. He’s heard good things about your club,” Pam said, which was outrageous flattery and almost certainly untrue. Unless there was a lot below the surface, this was a sleazy little club catering to sleazy little people.

The microwave dinged. Rudy, who’d been fiddling with the items on top of the microwave, took the drink out, putting one of his thumbs over the open top of the bottle so he could shake it gently. Not the most hygienic way of doing the job, but since vampires almost never get ill, that wouldn’t make any difference to Pam. He came around the desk to hand the bottle to her, and she accepted it with a nod of her head.

Michael picked up his own bottle and raised it. “To our mutual venture,” he said, and they both drank.

“Are you truly interested in having a further discussion with our new masters?” she asked. She took another sip, a longer one.

“I am considering it,” Michael said slowly, his accent even heavier. “I am tired of Russell, though we share a liking of men.” Russell liked men as fish like water. I’d been in his mansion, and it was full of guys who ranked from cute to cuter. “However, unlike Russell, I also like women, and women like me.” Michael gave us an unmistakable leer.

This woman didn’t like him. I glanced at Pam, who also enjoyed sex with either gender, to see her reaction. To my dismay, her cheeks were red—really red. I was so used to her milky pallor I found the effect shocking.

She looked down at the bottle in her hand. “This was poisoned,” she said slowly, almost slurring her words. “What did you put in it, elf?”

Rudy’s smile became even more disagreeable. He held his hand up so we could see the cut in his thumb. He’d put his own blood into the Royalty Blended. The human blood had disguised the taste.

“Pam, what’s this going to do to you?” I asked, as if the men weren’t there.

“Elf blood isn’t intoxicating like fairy blood, but . . . it’s like taking a huge tranquilizer or having lots of alcohol.” Her speech was even slower.

“Why have you done this?” I asked Michael. “Don’t you know what will happen to you?”

“I know how much Eric will pay me to get you two back,” Michael said. He was leaning forward over the desk, his expression one of sheer greed. “And while he’s getting the ransom together, Rudy will be drawing up a paper about your mission in coming here, which you and the vampire will sign. That way, when we return you to Eric, he can’t retaliate. If anything happens to us, Russell will have the ammunition to start a war. Your new masters will be quick to dispose of Eric if he causes a war.”

Michael was as deep a thinker as he was charming. That was to say, not at all. “Do you have something personal against Eric, or are you always this double-dealing?” Keep ’em talking while Pam got in a little recovery time.

“Oh, always,” he said, and he and Rudy laughed. They were certainly two peas in the same pod; they were relishing my anxiety and Pam’s intoxication.

“Stand up, Pam,” I said, and she laboriously worked her way to her feet.

Rudy laughed again. My insides were burning with a huge brushfire of hate.

My friend’s face was mottled, her movements sluggish, and her eyes were frightened. I had never seen Pam scared of anything. She was a revered fighter, even among the vampires, who were known for savagery and ruthlessness. “Let’s try walking it off.”

“That won’t help you,” Rudy said with a sneer. He was lounging against the wall. “She won’t be feeling herself again for a couple of hours. In the meantime, we’ll have fun with you first, Michael and me. Then we’ll have her.”

“Pam, look at me,” I said sharply, trying not to picture their idea of fun. She did look. “You have to help me,” I said intently, trying to get a message into her addled brain. “These men are going to hurt us.” Her eyes finally focused on mine, and she nodded slowly. I moved my head slightly to the right, pointed a thumb at my own chest. Then I inclined my head oh-so-slightly toward Michael, pointing the same thumb at her.

“I understand,” Pam said clearly, but only with great effort.

Michael was still seated, but Rudy had pulled away from the wall at the moment I drew the gun. They smelled it as I was drawing (and they might have sooner if Michael hadn’t been smoking) and reacted with the quickness of their races. I fired into Rudy’s face as he grabbed for me, and Pam threw herself across the desk to grip Michael’s ears. He clawed at her arms and slammed her down onto the desk. Ordinarily she would have tossed him over her shoulder or something equally spectacular. But in her drugged state, she could only hold on to what she had. He was hitting her repeatedly, too angry to pry her hands away when he could be doing damage to her body. She’d have to loosen her grip, eventually.

While Rudy gurgled and grabbed at the hole in his face under his left cheekbone, I said, “Pull, Pam!” and she obeyed.

She pulled Michael’s ears off.

When he flinched back, his mouth open with the pain, she lunged again and stuck her thumbs in his eyes. Instead of throwing up, I shot Rudy again, this time in the chest.

Michael wasn’t dead, of course, but he was rocking in silent agony. While he was distracted, Pam pulled out his tongue. I averted my eyes as quickly as I could and swallowed down the bile that rose in my throat. This was Pam on a bad night.

I checked on my target. Rudy was down, though he wouldn’t stay that way. If elves were as tough as fairies, he’d be up within a half hour. I grabbed the towel from the top of the microwave and wiped off the gun, then tossed it on the desk. I don’t really know why—I just had to get rid of it.

“We have to get out of here,” I said to Pam, and she dropped the bloody ears. Slowly and deliberately, she wiped her hands on the chair cushion. The ears lying on the desk looked like discarded Play- Doh shells with red paint sprinkled on them. I wondered briefly if Michael could stick the ears back on, if the eyes and tongue would regenerate.

Whoops! Rudy was already up on his elbows, trying to drag himself toward us. I kicked him under the chin as hard as I possibly could, and he collapsed. Pam had started to waver, but I put my arm around her again and she steadied.

“I took care of him,” Pam said, enunciating with care. She smiled at me. Speckles of blood had landed on her pink silk blouse, so I told her to button her coat up again. I tied it shut. “That was fun,” she said guilelessly.

“I’m glad you had a good time,” I muttered, “since I planned all this for your benefit.” We stepped out of the office in the corridor and let the door shut behind us. If we could just make it to the car . . . Mohawk was staring at us from his place on the stool by the back door.

Then that door opened, and two cops walked in.

And we’d been doing so well.

The pulsing noise of the stripper music and the office soundproofing had drowned out the shots. I knew this, because no employees had come to check on the gunfire. So no one had summoned these guys; therefore, they must be friends of the management, since they’d entered through the rear.

I was trying to think, and think fast, and my brain was a little too crowded (what with shooting an elf, seeing a guy lose his facial features, and whatnot). One thing I was clear about was wanting to stay out of jail. These cops might not even be within their own jurisdiction, but we had to avoid coming to their attention.

After giving Mohawk a casual wave, they’d stopped to talk to a short, curvy stripper in a platinum wig, which meant they were blocking the rear exit. If we reversed direction and tried to walk out through the front, we’d attract even more attention, I figured.

“Whoops,” said Pam cheerfully. “What now, my perky friend?”

“You girls ready to try out?” Mohawk called, and the cops glanced at us before resuming their conversation. Mohawk pointed to the DANCERS IN HERE sign.

I said, “We sure are, sugar! We go in there to put on our costumes?”

He nodded, and his Mohawk swayed. Pam giggled. I’d never heard Pam giggle like that. “Course, most girls don’t even bother with a costume,” Mohawk said, grinning.

“I think you’ll find we’re not most girls,” I said, arch as all hell.

He was interested. “How’re you two different?”

“We’re always together,” I said. “Get what I mean?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said. His eyes darted from the clearly sloshed Pam to me. “So, go change. It’s audience night. They vote after you take your turn. You could end up on permanent staff.”

Oh . . . yay. I knew there were speckles of blood on Pam. Vampires could always smell blood. As we passed him in the narrow hall, I didn’t dare to meet Mohawk’s eyes.

I steered my drunken vampire friend into the designated room. It was a huge nothing. There were about twenty folding chairs set around at random, and about six of those were occupied by women waiting their turn. The others had already had their stage time and left, I assumed. No screen to change behind, no makeup table, no hangers—no clothes hooks, even. There was a full- length mirror propped against the wall, and that was it. The glamour just overwhelmed me.

The aspiring strippers were all blondes: At least, they’d achieved blonde-dom by some means. They glanced at us and looked away. One face looked vaguely familiar.

I helped Pam to a chair. She sat heavily. Her complexion was still hectic, but at least the red patches were fading and she looked more like a regular vampire and less like cherry vanilla ice cream. Speaking of red dots, I hastily spat on a tissue and dabbed at the specks of blood on Pam’s blouse. I’d been very fortunate; a quick glance into the full-length mirror confirmed that I was unbloodied. “All right, genius, what do we do now?” I asked myself, aloud.

Pam said, “I’ll, I’ll . . . appeal to her. She has two extra costumes.” She nodded toward the woman I sort of recognized.

Pam was oddly sure about what the wannabe dancer—who I realized was a vamp—had in her huge tote bag.

“Pam, you did great in there,” I whispered.

“So did you. You’re so cute,” she said. “No wonder Eric likes you.”

I glanced out into the hall. The cops were still there, still having a lively conversation with the curvaceous stripper. Crap.

Pam rose cautiously and went over to the vamp, who was sitting by herself, looking bored. She had the requisite blond hair (so did the only African American applicant, by the way) and enormous boobs, and she was a few decades old, I figured. She was thin, with the sulky expression of someone who’s used to being spoiled. She wore a yellow bikini top with a tiny pleated gray and yellow skirt, a take on the “naughty schoolgirl” image. Where had I seen her before?

As soon as Pam acknowledged her, the vamp straightened in her chair, inclined her head, and dropped the sulkiness. When Pam murmured in her ear, she began rummaging around in the big bag. She handed Pam a handful of material and two pairs of shoes. I was amazed until I realized that she could have carried twenty costumes in there, if the size of the one she was wearing was any gauge.

Pam cocked her head at me, and I hurried to help.

“What you got?” I asked. She dropped the garments into my hands. She’d snagged a glittery gold spandex bandeau to go around the chest and a matching—well, it was flattering it to call it a thong. There was a pair of translucent heels to wear with it. Then there was a sort of sky blue leotard with black trim: a former leotard, since most of it had been snipped away. A little swath of blue for boob coverage, descending in a tiny strip to the bottom part, which was like an abbreviated bikini. Black heels and thigh-high black hose completed the look.

Pam sat down on a chair, hard. She giggled again. “Get ready, buttercup! I’ll take the gold; you take the blue. It’ll look great with your tan.” She shrugged off her coat, and when the speckled blouse came into view, she read the alarm on my face correctly. She turned her back to the room to unbutton it, then turned it inside out and tossed it on the floor, close to the vamp. To my amazement, the vamp waited for a moment, then in one quick movement picked up the blouse and stuffed it into her huge bag.

Pam was out of her clothes and into the costume as if it were her daily routine.

I turned my back on the room, though no one seemed in the least bit interested in my goodies. In the course of wriggling into the thing, I found out the descending strip Velcroed to the bottom of the costume. Convenient.

I looked at us together. “Wow,” I said. “Pam, we look great.”

“We do,” Pam agreed, with no attempt at modesty. We gave each other a high five. “I’m coming down,” Pam said. “Really, I’m feeling almost like myself.”

Mohawk called from the door. “Okay, the doubles act!”

I had no idea how we were going to get out of this, so we started toward the door. Even drugged, Pam managed walking in her platform shoes without a wobble in her step, but I had to concentrate ferociously to master the spike heels.

“What’s the names?” Mohawk asked.

“Sugar and Butterscotch,” I said, and Pam turned her head to give me a look that clearly said she thought I was an idiot.

“Cause she’s white and you’re brown,” Mohawk said. “Cute.”

I hadn’t spent all that time tanning for nothing.

“Okay, you’re on,” Mohawk said, opening the door at the end of the corridor to reveal a short flight of steps leading up into darkness. The noise surged out at us. A Latina blonde stomped down the steps, topless, followed by the sound of whistles and catcalls. She looked sweaty and bored.

The cops were still in the hall.

“Shepherd of Judea,” I muttered, and Pam and I looked at each other and shrugged.

“New skills,” she said. “Eric told me you are quite the dancer. You just have to try doing it naked.”

So we went up the steps, teetering in our high, high heels, to begin our careers as strippers. Suddenly we were on the stage, which was simply wood painted black, punctuated with three stripper poles.

The emcee was a brunette guy with a big white smile. He was saying, “Remember, gentlemen! The applause each girl gets is measured with our applause-o-meter, and out of all our dancers tonight, the three girls getting the most audience response will be hired to appear right here at Blonde!”

So we were supplying the audience with free entertainment in the faint hope that we might get a job out of it. Michael was an even bigger asshole than I’d thought, which was saying something.

“Here, straight from their record-breaking engagement in Vegas, I give you Sugar and Butterscotch!” the emcee said, with considerable drama. I figured he took drugs.

I put on my biggest and emptiest smile, and managed to make it to the front of the stage without falling down, thanks to Pam’s sudden grip on my hand. Together, we looked out at the men hidden in the darkness, catching a glint of beard here, shine reflecting off a belt buckle there. The hoots and whistles were deafening.

We hadn’t specified a song, of course. Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” came blaring over the sound system, and that was all right with me. “Move it,” yelled a rough voice.

We had to dance. NOW. And then we had to get the hell out of here before Michael and Rudy recovered enough to come after us.

I half turned to look at Pam flirtatiously, and she stared blankly back at me until she got my drift. “The pole,” I muttered, and she gave the audience a saucy smile and wound herself around the nearest pole. The cheering started. I felt the lust begin to dominate the men’s minds as I hugged Pam from behind. Pam got with the program, and we swung around the pole together as if we’d been glued. I caught a glimpse of Pam’s face. She was licking her lips in a lascivious way.

“You go, Pam!” I said.

“They want a show, we’ll give them a show,” she said. She bent me over her knee and pretended to spank me in perfect time to the music. In fact, Pam got a little carried away. But the guys loved it; oh boy, did they. I got spanked, licked in the ear, had Pam’s hands running over my barely covered chest, and more stuff I just won’t mention. We both ended up doing things the stripper pole had probably endured many times.

You know, it was kind of fun after I got the hang of it.

I wouldn’t go close enough to the side of the stage to get grabbed. And since I already felt naked, I wouldn’t take off my top. Since that was something the audience clearly expected us to do, it was lucky that at that moment the police pulled the plug on the music and switched on the house lights.

They weren’t the cops who’d been in the hall. “All right, everyone!” called a tall detective in a blue Windbreaker. “There’s been a murder here, and we need to talk with all of you.”

“Murder,” I said to Pam. “Murder?”

As our eyes met, I could see she was just as bewildered as I was. And I have to say here: With the lights up, we could see our audience, and they looked even worse than I’d expected.

“You ladies talked to the manager of this club earlier, I understand?” he asked. He had a pad and pencil out. By now we knew that the victims were Michael and Rudy.

“Yes, we had an appointment,” I said.

“What for? None of the other strippers had to talk to the manager.”

“We used to work at another vamp-owned club,” I said, improvising. I could give Fangtasia’s phone number. “We hoped if we told him that, we’d get the job. He said he’d take it into account.”

Pam and I shrugged, at very nearly the same moment. Pam seemed to be a little high even now, but there was more control in her movements and she was keeping her mouth resolutely shut. She was still holding my hand, though.

We’d waited our turn in the bigger room where we’d left our clothes. We’d been allowed to change, thank goodness. Pam was still wearing her gold bandeau top. In sympathy, I’d only pulled on my slacks.

Our friend the stripper vamp had passed by the door on her way out. She was escorted by a cop. She glanced our way, her face composed and indifferent. I finally remembered where I’d seen her: working at Harrah’s, carrying drinks, when we’d checked in. Huh. She had a sizable purse hanging from her shoulder; I wondered where the big bag was? Pam’s bloodstained blouse was in it . . .

As the other strippers had been questioned, they’d been released. We were the last ones to be brought to this room, which I figured had been Rudy’s office. Officer Washington had been waiting for us there.

“What else happened while you were in there? They want you two to give them a free sample?” Washington was young enough to look faintly self-conscious.

“They seemed more interested in each other,” I said carefully.

The policeman glanced at our linked hands and didn’t comment. “So they were both alive and well when you left the room?”

“Yes, sir,” I said. “In fact, they wanted us to hustle out of there because they were about to talk to someone else, had a guy coming in from out of town, they said.”

“That right? Did they say anything else about this man? Vampire or human?”

“No,” Pam said, opening her mouth for the first time. “They were just anxious for us to leave so they could get ready.”

“Get ready? How?”

We shrugged simultaneously. “They wouldn’t hardly tell us,” I said.

“Okay, okay.” Officer Washington snapped his notepad shut and stowed away his pencil. “Ladies, good night to you. You can go pick up your personal items.”

But we didn’t have any. Pam only had the car keys in her pants pocket and her white trench coat. We had nothing we could have brought costumes in. Would Officer Washington or Windbreaker Guy wonder about that?

Now that the big room was empty, it looked even more depressing. Only a litter of tissues and cigarette butts showed that the women had been here at all. That, and the big bag the vamp stripper had carried, sitting on the chair that was draped with Pam’s white coat and my jacket. Windbreaker Guy was staring at the bag. Without hesitation, Pam strode across the floor in those incredible shoes and scooped it up by the shoulder strap.

“Come on, Butterscotch,” she told me, “We need to hit the road.” Her voice had no trace of the faint English accent I was used to.

And just like that, we left Blonde, doing our stripper walks all the way out to Pam’s car.

Mohawk was leaning against the driver’s door.

He smiled at us as we approached. His smile was not dim or goofy or naïve.

“Thanks for giving me the opening, ladies,” he said, and there was nothing slow in his speech, either. “I’ve been waiting a year to have them down long enough for me to finish them off.”

If Pam was as shocked as I was, she didn’t show it. “You’re welcome,” she said. “I take it you’re not going to tell the police anything about us?”

“What’s to tell?” He looked up at the night sky. “Two strippers wanted to tell the boss and his buddy something before they tried out. I’m sure you explained that. When you went on stage, that asshole Michael and his buddy Rudy were alive and kicking. I made sure the cops knew that. I’m betting you also told them something about Michael mentioning he was expecting someone else or expecting trouble.”

Pam nodded.

“And stupid, slow me, I was cleaning the toilet, like my boss Michael had told me to do. No one was more surprised than me when I went in the office later and found Rudy dead and Michael flaking away.” Mohawk rolled his eyes theatrically. “I must have just missed the killer.” He grinned. “By the way, I threw the gun in the ravine back there, right down into the kudzu, before I called the local law. The skinny blond vamp did the same thing with your blouse—Sugar.”

“Right,” Pam said.

“So off you go, ladies! Have a nice night!”

After a moment of silence, we got in the car. Mohawk watched us as we drove away.

“How long do you think he’ll last?” I asked Pam.

“Russell has a reputation for acuity. If Mohawk is a good club manager, he’ll get away with killing Michael, for a while. If he doesn’t earn money, Russell will make sure he doesn’t last. And Russell won’t forget that Mohawk is patient and wily, and willing to wait for someone else to do the dirty work.”

We drove for a few minutes. I was anxious to get back to my room and wash away the atmosphere of the Blonde.

“What did you promise the vamp that helped us?” I asked.

“A job at Fangtasia. I had a conversation with Sara—that’s her name—after you went to bed last night. She hates her job in Tunica. And she used to be a stripper, which gave me the idea of planting her here in case we needed some help. Besides extra costumes, she brought a number of handy items in her bag.”

I didn’t inquire as to their nature. “And she did all that for us.”

“She did all that because she wants a better job. She doesn’t seem to have much . . . planning ability.”

“In the end, the trip was for nothing. It was a trap.”

“It was a bad trap,” Pam said briskly. “But it’s true that because of Victor’s greed, we were almost in serious trouble.” She glanced over at me. “Eric and I never thought Victor was exactly sincere about his motives in sending us here.”

“You think he was trying to hamstring Eric by getting rid of both you and me? That he knew Michael really wasn’t going to defect?”

“I think we’re going to keep a very sharp eye on our new master’s deputy.”

We rode in silence for a couple of minutes.

“You think Sara would mind if we kept the costumes?” I asked, now that Eric was on my mind.

“Oh,” said Pam, “I’m planning on it. Without some souvenirs, it’s not a real vacation.”