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Jake Purifoy was leaning against the wall, watching the couples dance. I’d glimpsed him earlier steering a young vampire woman around the floor, and she’d been laughing. So it wasn’t all melancholy for Jake, and I was glad.

“Hey,” I said.

“Sookie, that was quite some action at the trial.”

“Yeah, it was scary.”

“Where’d that guy come from?”

“Rogue, I guess. Eric’s got me looking at archery ranges tomorrow to track him down, try to find out who hired him.”

“Good. That was a close call for you. I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I know you must have been frightened.”

I’d really been too worried about Quinn to think about the arrow being aimed at me. “I guess I was. You have a good time, now.”

“Something’s got to make up for not being able to change anymore,” Jake said.

“I didn’t know you’d tried.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Over and over,” he said. We looked at each other for a long, long moment. “Well, I’m off to find another partner,” he told me, and headed purposefully in the direction of a vampire who’d come with Stan Davis’s group from Texas. She looked glad to see him coming.

By that time I was ducking into the ladies’ room, which was small, of course; most of the females at the Pyramid of Gizeh wouldn’t need to use such a facility, except to comb their hair. There was an attendant, a nicety I’d never seen before though I’d read about it in books. I was supposed to tip her. I still had my little evening purse with my room key in it, and I was relieved to recall I’d slipped a few dollars in there, along with some tissues and breath mints and a tiny brush. I nodded to the attendant, a squatty, dark-skinned woman with an unhappy face.

I took care of business in the nice clean stall and then emerged to wash my hands and to try to smooth out my hair. The attendant, wearing a name tag that read “Lena,” turned on the water for me, which kind of weirded me out. I mean, I can turn a faucet. But I washed my hands and used the towel she extended to me, figuring this was the routine and I shouldn’t act ignorant. I dropped two dollars in the tip bowl, and she tried to smile at me, but she looked too unhappy to manage it. She must be having a bad night.

“Thanks,” I said, and turned to leave. I don’t know why, but I glanced into the mirror on the inside of the door before I pulled on the handle. There Lena was, staring a hole into my back. She’d looked so unhappy because she’d been having to suppress how much she loathed me.

That’s always a bad feeling, when you know someone hates you; especially when it’s for no good reason. But her problems were not mine, and if she didn’t want to turn on the faucet for women who dated vampires, she could find another job. I didn’t want her damn faucet-turning-on, anyway, by God.

So I forged my way through the crowd, checking with the queen to see if she had any humans around who needed scanning (no), checking to see if I could find a Were or shifter to give me an update on Quinn (no).

By a stroke of luck, I did find the weather witch, the male witch I’d spotted earlier. I confess it made me a little proud to find my conjecture had actually been right. His being here tonight was his reward for good service, though I couldn’t detect who his patron was. The weather witch had a drink in his hand and a middle-aged woman on his arm. Mrs. Witch, I discovered with another quick dip into his mental pool. He was hoping she hadn’t observed that he was very interested in the beautiful vampire dancer and the pretty blond human coming toward him, the one who’d looked at him earlier like she knew him. Oh . . . that would be me.

I couldn’t pick up his name, which would have greased the skids, and I didn’t know what to say to him. But this was a person who should be brought to Sophie-Anne’s attention. Someone had used him against her.

“Hello,” I said, giving them my biggest smile. The wife smiled back, a little cautiously, because the sedate couple weren’t normally approached by young