Sookie 10 Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

have a run on his own land. I guess he thought the campers were government agents. What would the new agency be called?” I asked. It wouldn’t be BVA, would it? If the BVA was still only “representing” vampires.
    Pam shrugged. “The legislation going through Congress proposes it be called the Bureau of Vampire and Supernatural Affairs.”
    “Get back to your issues, my lover,” Eric said.
    “Okeydokey. Well, when they were leaving, Basim came to the front door and told me he’d smelled at least one fairy and some other vampire traveling through my land. And my cousin Claude says he wasn’t the fairy.”
    There was a moment of silence.
    “Interesting,” Eric said.
    “Very odd,” Pam said.
    Eric ran his fingers over the manuscript on the coffee table as if it could tell him who’d been traipsing around my property. “I don’t know the credentials of this Basim, except that he was thrown out of the pack in Houston and Alcide took him in. I don’t know why he was expelled. I expect it was for some disruption. We’ll check on what Basim told you.” He turned to Pam. “That new girl, Heidi, says she’s a tracker.”
    “You got a new vamp?” I asked.
    “This is one sent us by Victor.” Eric’s mouth was set in a grim line. “Even from New Orleans, supposedly, Victor is running the state with a tight hand. He sent Sandy, who was supposed to be the liaison, back to Nevada. I suspect Victor thought he didn’t have enough control over her.”
    “How can he get New Orleans up and running if he travels around the state as much as Sandy did?”
    “I’m assuming he’s leaving Bruno Brazell in charge,” Pam said. “I think Bruno pretends Victor is in New Orleans, even when Victor isn’t. The rest of Victor’s people don’t know where he is half the time. Since he killed off all the New Orleans vampires he could find, we’ve had to rely on the information of our one spy who survived the massacre.”
    Of course I wanted to veer off and discuss the spy—who would be that brave and reckless, to spy for Eric in the bailiwick of his enemy? But I had to stick to the main subject, which was the sneakiness of Louisiana’s new regent head honcho. “So Victor likes to be in the trenches,” I said, and Eric and Pam looked at me blankly. Older vampires don’t always have a complete grasp of the vernacular. “He likes to see for himself and do for himself, rather than rely on the chain of command,” I explained.
    “Yes,” Pam said. “And the chain of command can be quite heavy and literal, under Victor.”
    “Pam and I were talking about Victor on the drive over here. I wonder why Felipe de Castro chose Victor to be his representative in Louisiana?” Victor had actually seemed okay the two times I’d met him face-to-face, which only went to show that you can’t judge a vampire by his good manners and his smile.
    “There are two schools of thought about that,” Eric said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. I had a flash of how those long legs looked spread wide on crumpled sheets, and I forced my mind back to the current subject of discussion.
    Eric gave me a fangy smile (he knew what I was feeling) before he continued. “One is that Felipe wants Victor as far away as he can get him. I believe that Felipe feels that if he gives Victor a big chunk of red meat, he won’t be tempted to try to snatch the whole steak.”
    “While others of us,” Pam said, “think that Felipe simply appointed Victor because Victor is very efficient. That Victor’s devotion to Felipe is possibly sincere.”
    “If the first theory is correct,” Eric said, “there isn’t perfect trust between Felipe and Victor.”
    “If the second theory is correct,” Pam said, “and we act against Victor, Felipe will kill us all.”
    “I’m getting your drift,” I said, looking from First Theory (shirtless with blue jeans) to Second Theory (cute vintage suit). “I hate to sound really selfish, but the first