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strings and get the human blood,” the dwarf said. “At least half the transfusion can be synthetic. I’m Dr. Ludwig, by the way.”
    “I can get the blood, and we owe her the healing,” I heard Eric say, to my relief. I would have given a lot to see Bill’s face, at that moment. “What is your type, Sookie?” Eric asked.
    “O positive,” I said, glad my blood was so common.
    “That shouldn’t be a problem,” Eric said. “Can you take care of that, Pam?”
    Again, a sense of movement in the room. Dr. Ludwig bent forward and began licking my back. I shrieked.
    “She’s the doctor, Sookie,” Bill said. “She will heal you this way.”
    “But she’ll get poisoned,” I said, trying to think of an objection that wouldn’t sound homophobic and sizist. Truly, I didn’t want anyone licking my back, female dwarf or large male vampire.
    “She is the healer,” Eric said, in a rebuking kind of way. “You must accept her treatment.”
    “Oh, all right,” I said, not even caring how sullen I sounded. “By the way, I haven’t heard an ‘I’m sorry’ from you yet.” My sense of grievance had overwhelmed my sense of self-preservation.
    “I am sorry that the maenad picked on you.”
    I glared at him. “Not enough,” I said. I was trying hard to hang on to this conversation.
    “Angelic Sookie, vision of love and beauty, I am prostrate that the wicked evil maenad violated your smooth and voluptuous body, in an attempt to deliver a message to me.”
    “That’s more like it.” I would have taken more satisfaction in Eric’s words if I hadn’t been jabbed with pain just then. (The doctor’s treatment was not exactly comfortable.) Apologies had better be either heartfelt or elaborate, and since Eric didn’t have a heart to feel (or at least I hadn’t noticed it so far) he might as well distract me with words.
    “I take it the message means that she’s going to war with you?” I asked, trying to ignore the activities of Dr. Ludwig. I was sweating all over. The pain in my back was excruciating. I could feel tears trickling down my face. The room seemed to have acquired a yellow haze; everything looked sickly.
    Eric looked surprised. “Not exactly,” he said cautiously. “Pam?”
    “It’s on the way,” she said. “This is bad.”
    “Start,” Bill said urgently. “She’s changing color.”
    I wondered, almost idly, what color I’d become. I couldn’t hold my head off the couch anymore, as I’d been trying to do to look a little more alert. I laid my cheek on the leather, and immediately my sweat bound me to the surface. The burning sensation that radiated through my body from the claw marks on my back grew more intense, and I shrieked because I just couldn’t helpit. The dwarf leaped from the couch and bent to examine my eyes.
    She shook her head. “Yes, if there’s to be any hope,” she said, but she sounded very far away to me. She had a syringe in her hand. The last thing I registered was Eric’s face moving closer, and it seemed to me he winked.

Chapter 3
    I OPENED MY eyes with great reluctance. I felt that I’d been sleeping in a car, or that I’d taken a nap in a straight-back chair; I’d definitely dozed off somewhere inappropriate and uncomfortable. I felt groggy, and I ached all over. Pam was sitting on the floor a yard away, her wide blue eyes fixed on me.
    “It worked,” she commented. “Dr. Ludwig was right.”
    “Great.”
    “Yes, it would have been a pity to lose you before we’d gotten a chance to get some good out of you,” she said with shocking practicality. “There are many other humans associated with us the maenad could have picked, and those humans are far more expendable.”
    “Thanks for the warm fuzzies, Pam,” I muttered. I felt the last degree of nasty, as if I’d been dipped in a vat of sweat and then rolled in the dust. Even my teeth felt scummy.
    “You’re welcome,” she said, and she almost smiled. So Pam had a sense of humor, not