From Dead to Worse

house was dark, so I was sure they were in bed, unless they’d been delayed at the bus station when they delivered Bob.
    “Great-grandfather,” I said. “I’m glad to see you.”
    “You’re tired, Sookie.”
    “Well, I just got off work.” I wondered if he ever got tired himself. I couldn’t imagine a fairy prince splitting wood or trying to find a leak in his water line.
    “I wanted to see you,” he said. “Have you thought of anything I can do for you?” He sounded mighty hopeful.
    What a night this was for people giving me positive feedback. Why didn’t I have more nights like this?
    I thought for a minute. The Weres had made peace, in their own way. Quinn had been found. The vampires had settled into a new regime. The Fellowship fanatics had left the bar with a minimum of trouble. Bob was a man again. I didn’t suppose Niall wanted to offer Octavia a room in his own house, wherever that might be. For all I knew, he had a house in a babbling brook or under a live oak somewhere deep in the woods.
    “There is something I want,” I said, surprised I hadn’t thought of it before.
    “What is it?” he asked, sounding quite pleased.
    “I want to know the whereabouts of a man named Remy Savoy. He may have left New Orleans during Katrina. He may have a little child with him.” I gave my great-grandfather Savoy’s last known address.
    Niall looked confident. “I’ll find him for you, Sookie.”
    “I’d sure appreciate it.”
    “Nothing else? Nothing more?”
    “I have to say . . . this sounds mighty ungracious . . . but I can’t help but wonder why you seem to want to do something for me so badly.”
    “Why would I not? You are my only living kin.”
    “But you seem to have been content without me for the first twenty-seven years of my life.”
    “My son would not let me come near you.”
    “You told me that, but I don’t get it. Why? He didn’t make an appearance to let me know he cared anything about me. He never showed himself to me, or...” Played Scrabble with me, sent me a graduation present, rented a limousine for me to go to the prom, bought me a pretty dress, took me in his arms on the many occasions when I’d cried (growing up isn’t easy for a telepath). He hadn’t saved me from being molested by my great-uncle, or rescued my parents, one of whom was his son, when they drowned in a flash flood, or stopped a vampire from setting my house on fire while I was sleeping inside. All this guarding and watching my alleged grandfather Fintan had allegedly done had not paid off in any tangible way for me; and if it had paid off intangibly, I didn’t know about it.
    Would even worse things have happened? Hard to imagine.
    I supposed my grandfather could have been fighting off hordes of slavering demons outside my bedroom window every night, but I couldn’t feel grateful if I didn’t know about it.
    Niall looked upset, which was an expression I’d never seen him wear before. “There are things I can’t tell you,” he finally said. “When I can make myself speak of them, I will.”
    “Okay,” I said dryly. “But this isn’t exactly the give-and-take thing I wanted to have with my great-grandfather, I got to say. This is me telling you everything, and you telling me nothing.”
    “This may not be what you wanted, but it’s what I can give,” Niall said with some stiffness. “I do love you, and I had hoped that would be what mattered.”
    “I’m glad to hear you love me,” I said very slowly, because I didn’t want to risk seeing him walk away from Demanding Sookie. “But acting like it would be even better.”
    “I don’t act as though I love you?”
    “You vanish and reappear when it suits you. All your offers of help aren’t help of the practical kind, like the stuff most grandfathers—or great-grandfathers—do. They fix their grand-daughter’s car with their own hands, or they offer to help with her college tuition, or they mow her lawn so she doesn’t have to. Or they take her hunting. You’re not going to do that.”
    “No,” he said. “I’m not.” A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “You wouldn’t want to go hunting with me.”
    Okay, I wasn’t going to think about that too closely. “So, I don’t have any idea of how we’re supposed to be together. You’re outside my frame of reference.”
    “I understand,” he said seriously. “All the great-grandfathers you know are human, and that I am not. You’re not what I expected,