Behind him, Jason stood with his back to me. 'I'll take good care of him,' Calvin Norris said. Stocky, graying, sturdy, he looked like a hundred other men I'd seen in Merlotte's Bar, except for those eyes. His golden-green eyes were as startling as I'd remembered, and the rest of him was just as unremarkable. Calvin Norris waited until Jason was climbing out the passenger's door of my old Nova before he walked over and bent to my window. This man's eyes were closed, and his bearded face was raised to the darkening sky. He was standing outside one of the little houses, the one that was freshly painted. A cold wind was blowing across the bare fields, and the pines and oaks were shivering in the gusts of frigid air. Tiny Hotshot was silent and still in the waning light. But he still hadn't put two and two together. When I stopped the car, Jason turned to look at me, and even in the dim light I saw the change in his eyes. Tonight would be the first full moon of the New Year. It was still afternoon, but at the end of January the dark comes early. But Jason just nodded instead of snapping at me. 'You got your cell phone in your pocket?' I asked, knowing I'd already asked him as soon as the words left my mouth. His face was tense with the need to control his fear and his excitement. He hunched inside his bulky camo jacket, looking straight ahead. Jason was dressed in old clothes, and he had a plastic Wal-Mart bag containing a few things he might need - toothbrush, clean underwear. As I drove to the remote crossroads community of Hotshot, my brother watched the sunset in silence. I KNEW MY brother would turn into a panther before he did.

Dead as a doornail by charlaine harris