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I thought a terrible attack must be imminent and I froze, my heart racing, but after a few seconds of calm I figured out they must be there all the time. This was why vampires stayed here, and at other similar specialty hotels. No one would get past these guards to the elevators. No one would make it into the hotel rooms where sleeping and helpless vampires lay. This was why the fee for the hotel was exorbitant. The two guards on duty at the moment were both huge, and wearing the black livery of the hotel. (Ho, hum. Everyone seemed to think vampires were obsessed with black.) The guards’ sidearms seemed gigantic to me, but then, I’m not too familiar with guns. The men glanced at me and then went back to their bored forward stare.

Even the desk clerks were armed. There were shot-guns on racks behind the counter. I wondered how far they would go to protect their guests. Would they really shoot other humans, intruders? How would the law handle it?

A man wearing glasses sat in one of the padded chairs that punctuated the marble floor of the lobby. He was about thirty, tall and lanky, with sandy hair. He was wearing a suit, a lightweight summer khaki suit, with a conservative tie and penny loafers. The dishwasher, sure enough.

“Hugo Ayres?” I asked.

He sprang up to shake my hand. “You must be Sookie? But your hair . . . last night, you were blond?”

“I am. I’m wearing a wig.”

“It looks very natural.”

“Good. Are you ready?”

“My car’s outside.” He touched my back briefly to point me in the right direction, as if I wouldn’t see the doors otherwise. I appreciated the courtesy, if not the implication. I was trying to get a feel for Hugo Ayres. He wasn’t a broadcaster.

“How long have you been dating Isabel?” I asked as we buckled up in his Caprice.

“Ah, um, I guess about eleven months,” Hugo Ayres said. He had big hands, with freckles on the back. I was surprised he wasn’t living in the suburbs with a wife with streaked hair and two sandy children.

“Are you divorced?” I asked impulsively. I was sorry when I saw the grief cross his face.

“Yes,” he said. “Pretty recently.”

“Too bad.” I started to ask about the children, decided it was none of my business. I could read him well enough to know he had a little girl, but I couldn’t discover her name and age.

“Is it true you can read minds?” he asked.

“Yes, it’s true.”

“No wonder you’re so attractive to them.”

Well, ouch, Hugo. “That’s probably a good part of the reason,” I said, keeping my voice flat and even. “What’s your day job?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Hugo said.

“No wonder you’re so attractive to them,” I said, in the most neutral voice I could manage.

After a longish silence, Hugo said, “I guess I deserved that.”

“Let’s move on past it. Let’s get a cover story.”

“Could we be brother and sister?”

“That’s not out of the question. I’ve seen brother and sister teams that looked less like each other than we do. But I think boyfriend-girlfriend would account for the gaps in our knowledge of each other more, if we get separated and questioned. I’m not predicting that’ll happen, and I’d be amazed if it did, but as brother and sister we’d have to know all about each other.”

“You’re right. Why don’t we say that we met at church? You just moved to Dallas, and I met you in Sunday school at Glen Craigie Methodist. That’s actually my church.”

“Okay. How about I’m manager of a . . . restaurant?” From working at Merlotte’s, I thought I could be convincing in the role if I wasn’t questioned too intensively.

He looked a little surprised. “That’s just different enough to sound good. I’m not much of an actor, so if I just stick to being me, I’ll be okay.”

“How did you meet Isabel?” Of course I was curious.

“I represented Stan in court. His neighbors sued to have the vampires barred from the neighborhood. They lost.” Hugo had mixed feelings about his involvement with a vampire woman, and wasn’t entirely sure he should’ve won the court case, either. In fact, Hugo was deeply ambivalent about Isabel.