Dead to the World Book Four

Plot Summary

This novel opens on New Year's Eve, three weeks after the events of Club Dead. Bill and Sookie have broken up due to his betrayal with Lorena. As the book opens, he informs Sookie he is going to Peru.

Shortly after Bill’s departure, Sookie, on her way home after working at Merlotte’s New Year’s Eve party, finds Eric running madly down the road, half naked. He has a forlorn look, an expression Sookie has never seen in the confident Eric. He does not recognize her nor does he have any idea who he is. Sookie takes him to her home, washes his feet and calls Fangtasia to let Pam know that she has found Eric.

The next night, Pam and Chow come to her house and explain to her that several nights ago a group of witches arrived in Shreveport. Pam explains to Sookie the true nature of witches, revealing that real witches can do plenty of bad things to vampires because witches control magical forces. This group seems to be more powerful than other witches and they either want to take over Eric's businesses or make Eric pay them money to leave him alone. The leader, Hallow, and her brother threatened Eric that they would curse him by turning Fangtasia's alcoholic drinks bad, and cause patrons to trip over the dance floor and sue them, which would badly affect Fangtasia’s revenues.

Pam tells Sookie that a witch had come with a message from Hallow saying that Hallow lusted for Eric and offered that if he would entertain her for seven nights, she would only demand a fifth of his business, rather than half. Eric had refused and suddenly vanished from the office where they were discussing this offer. Eric says he does not remember anything and that he was born the moment he was running down the road.

Sookie also meets her Fairy Godmother in the form of Claudine, who is a real live fairy and is considered absolutely scrumptious by Vampires.

Pam and Chow ask Sookie to keep Eric safe while they solve the problem with the witches. Later Sookie learns through Holly Cleary (another waitress at Merlotte's) that this coven of witches has a lot of power that they are willing to use for evil, that they drink vampire blood, and that they are werewolves as well. Holly also tells Sookie that this new coven has called all local witches and Wiccans to join them.

Furthermore, Sookie learns that her brother, Jason, is missing and starts looking for him. Sookie informs Alcide Herveaux of the existence of this werewolves/witch coven in Shreveport and heads to Hotshot to speak to Crystal Norris, (a werepanther), as she was the last person Jason was seen with.

Throughout all these chaotic events, Sookie and amnesiac Eric’s relationship grows, and they begin a sexual affair. Sookie is physically and emotionally attracted to this gentle and caring Eric. Sookie is happy to be with Eric, a man who has told her she is beautiful, and who has not only given her sexual pleasure, but also had held her and laughed with her. He starts calling her “lover” and they admit to each other that they have feelings towards one another. This Eric even offers to stay with Sookie forever, to work and help her, renouncing his life as a Sheriff and owner of Fangtasia, and he tells her that she will never be poor.

The novel reaches its climax when the Shreveport pack (including Alcide and Debbie Pelt and a returned Bill, who informs everyone that Debbie engaged in his torture with Lorena), the Area Five vampires, and the local Wiccans fight together against Hallow and her coven. The coven is defeated and Hallow is tortured until she un-hexes Eric, and then Pam kills her. But before Hallow can reverse the curse on Eric he and Sookie go back to her house to find Debbie Pelt waiting with a gun, which she quickly fires at Sookie. Eric takes the bullet for Sookie, who then kills Debbie. Eric discards her body once he has recovered from the gunshot wound. The next night, Eric gets his memory back, and he has no recollection of his time with Sookie.

Eventually, Sookie, Sam, and Calvin Norris discover that Felton Norris (Calvin and Felton are both werepanthers from Hotshot) has been keeping Jason captive because Felton is in love with Crystal and did not want to see Crystal with Jason—who Felton thinks Crystal is attracted to only because he is not a were. Felton has bitten Jason several times in order to turn him into a werepanther at the next full moon. Calvin and Sookie agree to not tell the authorities, with Calvin implying that the citizens of Hotshot will kill Felton for his crimes.

Adaptations to the book:

Sookie has been gone to Faery for year and was thought dead by all her friends and family except for Eric.

Bill does not go to Peru. In fact he has become the King of Louisiana after having tricked Queen Sophie Anne to her death. Bill and Eric Kill Nan Flanagan.

Eric owns Sookie's family home.

Jason is a deputy on the Bon Temps police force.

Tara has made a new identity for herself and become Toni- the cage fighting lesbian. Her true identity is discovered by her lover. When her gf comes to see her, they are attacked by a vengeful Pam. Tara sends her gf away to try and protect her. She joins the witches and actually agrees with Antonia's agenda until Bill actually helps her during a fight in the cemetery outside his and Sookie's house. She then is held captive by Antonia and tells Sookie where Bill is so she can go save them. Tara and Holly actually try to take the spell locking them in the Moon Goddess Emporium.

Marnie is a z-list witch and medium who has become possessed by the spirit of a witch that was burned at the stake by Vampire priests of the Inquisition who wants to cause Vampires to walk out into the day and meet the sun. She does not have a brother. The spirit of Antonio overcomes Vampires and tries to make them walk into the sun but Bill and Eric and all the local Vampires silver themselves to keep from being resurrected during the day and only one Vampire is lost. She then goes to a local Tolerance meeting and tries to use Eric to kill Bill. Eric and Bill eventually get into MGE and kill Marnie.

Lafayette is dating Heysoos who is a witch and has pulled Lafayette into a dangerous adventure with the Vampires and an exploration of something Lafayette has always been able to do. Heysoos gets inside the MGE and it is actually not Antonia in charge but Marnie.Lafayette then becomes possessed by the spirit of Marnie. He then kills Jesus and takes his Brujo magik temporarily and tries to burn Eric and Bill at the stake. Sookie, Tara and Holly intervene calling on the ancestors to help them since tonight is Samhain, and the spirits of the dead are out and about. Gran comes in and drags Marnie literally from Lafayette's body and Marnie is helped to cross over by Antonia and the other dead.

Bill and Portia have a one night stand and then he has the revelation of his family connection to the Bellefleurs.

Jason was not only bitten by Felton but by Crystal too and he was gang raped in order to bring up a new crop of werepanthers.

Alcide and Debbie are still together and they join the Shreveport pack. Debbie gets jealous of Sookie and goes back on V and tries to help Sookie apparently in a bid to get Alcide away from her. Debbie turns to the pack master of Shreveport. Alcide abjures Debbie and Debbie in turn goes and hunts for Sookie. She shoots and kills Tara and then Sookie kills her. Alcide is called to a parking structure which has big whole in it, obviously, Russell Edgington has escaped.

Pam is cursed with rotting. Dr. Ludwig does help her cosmetically but she is still afflicted with the curse. When the curse is lifted from Eric, she is cured as well, but not very pleased with the fact that Eric is obviously smitten with Sookie, more so than he was before. Pam has really had it up to here with Sookie and Eric's infatuation with her. When Bill and Eric hesitate, Pam tries to blow up MGE with an RPG and Eric is so angry he tells her to get away from him before he kills her. Pam is still devastated about being thrown over for Sookie by Eric.

Andy is hooked on V and is flirting with Holly Cleary. That does not go so well and Jason is at the end of his rope trying to deal with Andy. Terry runs an intervention on Andy to get him off V. Andy then runs into a fairy and makes passionate love with her, but comes back a new man and he goes to try to connect with Holly.

Terry and Arlene are married now and Mikey seems to be haunted by a mysterious woman. The house burns down after they have the house blessed. The woman they discover is the ghost of a woman who died in the 30's. The woman was killed by her married boyfriend after he killed their child. She possesses Lafayette who discovered he was a medium and through him, steals Arlene's baby and returns to her home, the little house Hoyt and Jessica lived in. Jesus comes to help Jason, Andy, Terry and Arlene and gets the ghost to tell him what happened and they dig for her body and find both she and the baby buried together and her soul goes on. On Halloween, a strange guy who was a marine corps buddy has come to see Terry and the ghost of Rene comes to warn Arlene.

Hoyt and Jessica are living together and trying to navigate a Vampire/human relationship. But they eventually break up and Jessica and Jason begin to have a relationship. Jason though has an attack of the guilts and asks Jessica to glamour him which she refuses to do. Jessica saves Jason again and they admit they both are attracted to each other. Jessica tells Jason she doesn't want a commitment, but wants to have a relationship with him. Jason confesses to Hoyt he and Jessica slept together and Hoyt beats him up. Jason is confronted by Steve Newlin who has been made Vampire.

Bill arrests Eric and was going to give him the true death but decided not to because Eric passionately argues he does not like being the Vampire he was. He goes to Sookie and they make love in the woods, in her house and in every position in a deck of dirty deck cards. After Sookie rescues Bill and Eric and gives them blood to heal from their burns, she tells them she loves both of them, forgives Bill, confesses she always found Eric attractive, even when he was cold and ruthless, but she can't do this with both of them and she won't chose between them because she loves them...Bill even tries to give Sookie an out and she doesn't take it.

Eric drained Claudine to death and day walked and seems to mourn the day. He also has a tricked out cubby in Sookie's house. Eric is cursed again by Antonia who uses him as a weapon against other Vampires at a Human/Vampire unity meeting. Sookie breaks the spell and Eric is given his memories back, including loving Sookie, who is still also in love with Bill though she blames the blood. Both Vampires offer to kill each other to get Sookie out of MGE.

Lafayette and Heysoos travel to Mexico to visit with Heysoos' powerful brujo witch. There, his grandfather allows Jesus to be bitten and Lafayette becomes possessed with the spirit of Jesus uncle Luca who was a healer and Jesus is healed of the snake bite. Heysoos uses his brujo powers to release Antonia who has been bound to Marnie against her will and Lafayette sees Heysoos turn into the demonic face.

Sam falls in with a group of shape shifters where he meets Luna Garza. He falls for her but discovers her ex is a werewolf and is still jealous of her. She also revealed that she is a Skin Walker. Her ex, Marcus, is the Shreveport pack master. On Halloween, Sam sees the ghost of Marcus in his wolf form.

Tommy, Sam's brother, kills his parents and Tommy them becomes a Skin Walker, a shifter with the ability to shift not only into animals but humans. Tommy shifts into Sam and has sex with Luna. He also turns himself into Sam to meet with Marcus and the werewolves and gets the stuffing beaten out of him. Alcide saves him. Tommy dies however and Alcide and Sam join up to get a little revenge. Sam and Alcide go after Marcus, who has taken Luna's little girl Emma and he is trying to get Debbie, with whom he has been carrying on an affair. to leave with him and the child. Sam and Alcide find him there and Sam and Marcus fight but he lets Marcus go. When Sam turns his back, Marcus tries to kill him and Alcide jumps Marcus and kills him and he abjures Debbie. Sam buries Tommy.

Tommy was being taken care of Hoyt Fortenberry's momma after Sam shot him and he pays back her kindness by trying to steal possible Natural Gas rights on her property.





Sources: Wikipedia, The Sookie Stackhouse Novels and Raki

SHORTLY AFTER CHRISTMAS, 2004. Bill leaves a note on Sookie’s door
asking to see her. When she agrees, he tries to explain about Lorena. He tells her he
is going to Peru to collect more information for his vampire database.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 2005. Sookie finishes working the Merlotte’s New
Year’s Eve party at three a.m. and heads home. Stunned to see a nearly naked Eric
running down the road to her house, she stops to ask what he is doing and realizes
he doesn’t know her or his own identity. She gets Eric to come with her, calls
Fangtasia when they get to her house, and finds that the vampires are under some
kind of attack. Sookie reluctantly agrees to keep Eric until Pam can come for him.

Jason comes to visit that evening and meets Eric. Afraid to leave Eric alone, Sookie
asks Jason to buy clothes and synthetic blood for the vampire. Pam and Chow
arrive and explain that the leader of a group of witches wants to take over Eric and
his businesses. The witches had sent a representative to Fangtasia the night before
with an offer: If Eric would spend seven nights with the coven leader, they would
only demand one-fifth of his business. Eric refused, and Chow attacked the
representative, causing a spell to activate that left Eric on Sookie’s road several
hours later with amnesia. Jason returns from shopping with the news that the
witches have posters all over town offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for
information on Eric’s whereabouts. The vampires reason that the witches don’t
know about Sookie, so Eric should be safe with her. Jason negotiates a deal, and a
surprised Sookie finds herself responsible for Eric.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 2. Sookie is disturbed the next day when Jason’s boss,
Catfish Hennessy, calls and tells her Jason didn’t show up for work. Sookie reports
his disappearance to the police, but they discount it based on his reputation. Going
to Jason’s home, she discovers Alcee Beck, a police detective, searching the area. A
blood smear, later determined to be a panther print, is found on Jason’s deck. After
leaving Jason’s house, Sookie pulls over on the side of the road to try to gather her
thoughts. While she is sitting there, Tara Thornton pulls up behind her. Claudine
Crane, who is helping Tara at her store, Tara’s Togs, is also in the car. Sookie tells
Tara that Jason is missing and asks if there are any witches in the area. Sookie is
surprised when Tara tells her that her fellow waitress at Merlotte’s, Holly Cleary, is
Wiccan.

Sookie visits Holly at the Kingfisher Arms Apartments and learns that a group
of Were witches, who use vampire blood, are trying to gain control of the witches
in the area and that they have threatened Holly and her son.

Still seeking some clue about Jason, Sookie goes to Shreveport to speak to one
of his old girlfriends, but the young woman hasn’t seen Jason. Hoping to get help
from Pam, Sookie goes to Fangtasia to question the daytime employees and leave a
message, but she is horrified to find that they have been attacked by the witches in
a brutal attempt to find Eric. One woman is injured and another dead. Sookie
decides to contact Alcide to learn if the Shreveport pack knows anything about the
group. As soon as Alcide hears the story, he contacts his packmaster, Colonel
Flood. The packmaster immediately suspects that a missing member of his pack,
Adabelle, may have been contacted, and Alcide and Sookie go to Adabelle’s
business to question her. They find her dismembered body, and the Weres realize
they have a serious problem.

Upset by all the terrible events of the day, Sookie returns home that evening to
a kind and compassionate Eric. They begin an affair, and she realizes that she cares
for this gentle stranger.

MONDAY, JANUARY 3. Still determined to find Jason, Sookie travels to
Hotshot, the secretive community where Jason’s date from New Year’s Eve, shifter
Crystal Norris, lives. Sookie meets Calvin Norris, Crystal’s uncle and the
packmaster of the Hotshot shifters, who helps her question the girl. Sookie
discovers that something happened to Jason in the yard at his home while Crystal
was waiting for him in the house. As Sookie is leaving Hotshot, Calvin makes her
an unusual offer.

Sookie is appalled when the witch leader, Hallow, and her brother come into
Merlotte’s seeking information about Eric. As the witches question Sookie and Sam,
they learn that Bill Compton’s home is temporarily empty. Sookie realizes that they
plan to search Bill’s home, so she rushes home to tell Eric to stay out of sight. To her
horror, he wants to see what is going on, and they go over to the Compton home,
finding the yard full of Weres: Alcide’s pack has arrived and is hoping a surprise
attack will result in the witches’ defeat. The witches escape and seriously injure a
Were woman, Maria-Star Cooper, whom Sookie rushes to the hospital. As an
exhausted Sookie drives back toward Bon Temps, she falls asleep at the wheel but
is startled awake when Claudine suddenly appears in her car. Sookie returns to
Merlotte’s to find that the Weres and vampires have joined forces to fight Hallow
and her followers. She is disturbed when Debbie Pelt arrives, obviously involved
with Alcide again. Sookie and Eric return to her home after the meeting. He
declares his feelings for her and tells her that when he is restored, she will share all
he has. Sookie is touched but knows it is a fantasy.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 4. Jason’s friends organize a search around his house for
clues to his disappearance. The fruitless search ends in disaster when a feral hog
gores Crystal Norris. Sookie returns to her home to find a message from Pam,
letting her know that the vampires and Weres will be attacking the coven that night
and telling her to bring Eric for the battle. She falls asleep, exhausted by the events
of the day, and awakens to find Eric in her bed. They share another intimate
moment before leaving for Pam’s house.

When they arrive at the gathering at Pam’s, they are surprised when Bill
appears, having returned from Peru. He questions why Debbie Pelt is present and
reveals that she participated in his torture in Jackson. Finally confronted by
irrefutable proof of Debbie’s true nature, Alcide shocks the gathering when he
abjures her.

The coalition is able to defeat the witches, and Hallow is taken prisoner so that
she can free Eric from the curse. Debbie attempts to kill Sookie during the
confusion of the battle but is stopped by Eric and flees. Sookie is disappointed
when Jason is not found with the witches.

Returning to her home, Sookie and Eric enter the kitchen and are surprised to
find Debbie with a gun in her hand and murder in her eyes. Debbie fires to kill
Sookie, but Eric steps between them and takes the bullet. Before a shocked Debbie
can fire again, Sookie grabs her shotgun and kills the werefox. Sookie revives Eric
with synthetic blood, and as she cleans the kitchen, Eric takes the body and
Debbie’s car and hides them.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5–THE EARLY HOURS OF THURSDAY, JANUARY
6. When Eric rises the next evening, his memory is restored, and he has no
recollection of the time he has spent with Sookie. She is relieved that he will not
remember the killing of Debbie but is saddened that he doesn’t remember caring
for her. Pam arrives to accompany him back to Fangtasia, and Sookie gets ready for
work.

As Sookie tells Sam about the previous day’s unusual events, she learns for the
first time that the shifters at Hotshot are not werewolves as she believed but
werepanthers, and that Felton Norris is in love with Crystal. Sam and Sookie rush
to Hotshot to confront Calvin with the evidence of the panther print, and he leads
them to Felton’s home. Jason is found imprisoned and weak after being repeatedly
bitten by his rival. As they leave with Sookie’s injured brother, Calvin assures them
that Felton will be punished and that Calvin will help Jason during the next full
moon, when Jason will find out if he’s been turned into a werepanther by Felton’s
bites.

Sookie and Sam get Jason to her house, where she puts him in the shower, feeds
him, and then sends him to bed. Sitting at the kitchen table to talk with Sam, she
spots a check from Eric for fifty thousand dollars.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 6. After Sookie calls the police to let them know Jason
has returned, Andy Bellefleur and Alcee Beck arrive to question him. She and Jason
stick to the story that he was knocked out and taken from outside his home and
then just dumped in Sookie’s yard with no memory of what had happened or
where he had been. Sookie takes Jason to his own home to recuperate. Eric visits
later that night and questions Sookie about their time together and why he found
brain tissue on his sleeve. While he is still at her home, one of Alcide’s pack
members, Amanda, arrives to question Sookie about the apparent disappearance of
Debbie. While they talk, Eric explores the house. When Amanda leaves, he tells
Sookie she should destroy her old coat and get another.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 7. Sookie is not surprised to receive a cranberry red coat
from Eric.