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my presence an issue?” he asked. “I’m sitting here eating breakfast with my great-niece. I have no problem with you.”
    Mustapha seemed to gather up his stoic Zen-like impassivity, an important part of his image, and within a few seconds he was his cool self. “If Eric don’t have a problem with it, why should I?” he said. (It would have been nice if he had realized that earlier.) “I’m here to tell you a few things, Sookie.”
    “Sure. Have a seat.”
    “No, thanks. Won’t be here long enough.”
    “Warren didn’t come with you?” Warren was most often on the back of Mustapha’s motorcycle. Warren was a skinny little ex-con with pale skin and straggly blond hair and some gaps in his teeth, but he was a great shooter and a great friend of Mustapha’s.
    “Didn’t figure I’d need a gun here.” Mustapha looked away. He seemed really jangled. Odd. Werewolves were hard to read, but it didn’t take a telepath to know that something was up with Mustapha Khan.
    “Let’s hope no one needs a gun. What’s happening in Shreveport that you couldn’t tell me over the phone?”
    I sat down myself and waited for Mustapha to deliver his message. Eric could have left one on my answering machine or even sent me an e-mail, rather than sending Mustapha—but like most vamps, he didn’t really have a rock-solid trust in electronics, especially if the news was important.
    “You want him to hear this?” Mustapha tilted his head toward Dermot.
    “You might be better off not knowing,” I told Dermot. He gave the daytime man a level blue stare that warned Mustapha to be on his best behavior and rose, taking his mug with him. We heard the stairs creak as he mounted them. When Mustapha’s Were hearing told him Dermot was out of earshot, he sat down opposite me and placed his hands side by side on the table very precisely. Style and attitude.
    “Okay, I’m waiting,” I said.
    “Felipe de Castro is coming to Shreveport to talk about the disappearance of his buddy Victor.”
    “Oh, shit,” I said.
    “Say it, Sookie. We’re in for it now.” He smiled.
    “That’s it? That’s the message?”
    “Eric would like you to come to Shreveport tomorrow night to greet Felipe.”
    “I won’t see Eric till then?” I could feel my face narrow in a suspicious squint. That didn’t suit me at all. The thin cracks in our relationship would only spread wider if we didn’t get to spend time together.
    “He has to get ready,” Mustapha said, shrugging. “I don’t know if he got to clean out his bathroom cabinets or change the sheets or what. ‘Has to get ready’ is what he told me.”
    “Right,” I said. “And that’s it? That’s the whole message?”
    Mustapha hesitated. “I got some other things to tell you, not from Eric. Two things.” He took off his sunglasses. His chocolate-chip eyes were downcast; Mustapha was not a happy camper.
    “Okay, I’m ready.” I was biting the inside of my mouth. If Mustapha could be stoical about Felipe’s impending visit, I could, too. We were at great risk. We had both participated in the plan to trap Victor Madden, regent of the state of Louisiana, put in place by King Felipe of Nevada, and we had helped to kill Victor and his entourage. What was more, I was pretty sure Felipe de Castro suspected all this with a high degree of certainty.
    “First thing, from Pam.”
    Blond and sardonic, Eric’s child Pam was as close to a friend as I had among the vamps. I nodded, signaling Mustapha to deliver the message.
    “She says, ‘Tell Sookie that this is the hard time that will show what she is made of.’”
    I cocked my head. “No advice other than that? Not too helpful. I figured as much.” I’d pretty much assumed Felipe’s post-Victor visit would be a very touchy one. But that Pam would warn me … seemed a bit odd.
    “Harder than you know,” Mustapha said intently.
    I stared at him, waiting for more.
    Maddeningly, he did not elaborate. I knew better than to ask him