Chapter 3: Can't Change Me
Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to.
Sookie awoke with a start. She sat up, brushed the sleep from her eyes, and peered beyond the windshield.
She was confused for a moment, then realized she fell asleep inside her car…right outside a small bed and breakfast. Sookie yawned and massaged the crick in her neck. She hurriedly fixed her hair up in a ponytail, decided against checking her breath, and got out of the car. She made her way into the bed and breakfast. It looked a bit like Merlotte's, minus Arlene's red hair and Jessica's fangs. A few customers looked up at the new arrival but no one really cared. Sookie managed to block out their thoughts. She met the eyes of a waitress and motioned for a phone. The girl, maybe a few years younger than Sookie, pointed out back. Sookie went and found a payphone, then dialed Fangtasia.
It was not Pam who answered given the time of day but one of the human waitresses.
"Hi, it's Sookie Stackhouse. I know Pam's asleep but do you have any idea if Eric called…"
There was some sort of a scuffle on the other end of the line and then Pam's scratchy voice came on.
"Look, I really need to be very dead right now but I do have to talk to you. You're right. Eric is troubled. He called, or rather, I found out from a nice little guy from immigration."
"Immigration?"
"Yeah, a Fangtasia regular. I don't know how he did it with the sun up. But Eric hired vampire transport to the airport in Mississippi and flew to Europe via Anubis Air."
"Well, did your guy say where Eric was going?"
"No. The plane is due to land in Paris but from there, if he decides to go someplace else, I don't know. Eric doesn't care much for the French." There was a pause. "Going after him, Sookie?"
Sookie sighed. There was a compulsion to do as Pam said but part of Sookie told her she should let Eric be.
"No. Go to sleep, Pam. Thanks."
"Yeah." There was a click and the line went dead.
Let Eric be. Maybe this is what he needs. He may be a very old vampire but part of him and every other vampire no matter how evil, Sookie believed, retained some memory of their human selves…like feelings. And needs.
Sookie hung the phone and turned. The smell of freshly baked bread and bacon entered her nostrils. The growling of her stomach told her it needed more attention as of now than Eric Northman did.
How fitting that he would end up in Paris, his two-hundredth visit. But before French-themed memories assaulted him, he felt the pull northward, to his human birthplace. Another day and he was on Norwegian earth, the plains and fjords of Scandinavia glittering in the night. Unlike America, much of Europe remained stuck in its ancient fashion. In a way, so did his Motherland.
Eric checked himself into the only vampire hotel in Orland. The idea of vampires living among humans out in the open has not yet caught on with the present-day Viking population. Like the mountains, traditions in the north continued…and so did the dark myth of the vampire. Nevertheless, Eric could not care less what they thought. Or that no one knew he had not fed in a very long time. Or that he need not feed in the meantime.
Then, he went out, searching for that piece of windy shit-hole he willed to Pam months before.
It was no longer there.
All that was left of his father's small kingdom were the rocks by the sea, the caves, brown grass, and the wilderness. The log house no longer existed. He imagined the Romans and Gauls managed to reach their shores and destroyed what was left of his father's legacy. Eric closed his eyes and inhaled thought it was unnecessary. It was not the breeze from the North Sea he took pleasure in; it was the memory of it. And that of his father, his mother, his infant sister. His wife and his sons…
And the howl of the wolves and his mother screaming. The smell of blood had never been more disgusting than on that day. The cursed day.
"Sir! Excuse me, sir!"
Eric looked behind him and saw what looked to be a local pointing a halogen light at him.
"Please step away from the edge, sir, or you might fall to your death!" he was warned. Eric smiled and walked toward the light, held by an old man. He looked up at Eric's impressive height and stepped back.
"Many a person has fallen down to the rocks and the sea," the man said, walking towards what looked to be a battered hay wagon. Eric expected it to be attached to a mule or a cow. Instead, it was attached to a tractor machine.
"You're not from around here. Tourist?"
"Oh, no. I was born here. Right on this spot," Eric replied, waiting to see how the old man would react.
Predictably, the old man rattled off the names of people (mostly women) who had given birth from thirty or so years ago. "Mary Villsson's boy? Olga Magnusson? No?"
"Her name was Ingvild," Eric said, looking out toward the North Sea. "My father was Fritjolf."
The old man peered up at Eric and chuckled. "How interesting! When I was a boy, my grandfather told me stories about a king who lived in Orland, before the Romans. Fritjolf the Merciful and his son, Erik Viking, the Night Hunter. Your name wouldn't be Erik, too, eh?"
His father, Merciful. Yes, perhaps. His father had been a right pain in the ass but he was a great leader of men. Erik Viking, on the other hand… Yes, he remembered a little of those days, nights. He led a militia group to aid King Ranulf of the southern borders and his army when the Roman legions advanced north from Gaul. They watched in the night and fought in the night. And on one particular occasion, Eric underestimated their enemies, earning him a mortal wound, and a fate that there was no escaping from.
Unless he decided to go the way of his maker.
"Old Man, tell me more of this Erik Viking," Eric said, suddenly wanting to know what happened when we was turned. He never went back to Orland after he met Godric, never set foot in Scandinavia, not even to bury his wife or his sons and their sons. The old man grinned toothlessly and motioned for Eric to follow him. He led the vampire to a small cottage across the dirt path leading to the sea. They went in, the old man turned on the electricity, and began bustling in the small kitchen. Eric dwarfed everything in the cottage. He remembered the walls and the feel of a busty servant girl pushed against their cold surface.
The old man came back with two mugs of something warm. He placed one near Eric. Eric took a seat on a battered couch while the old man chose a rocking chair.
"This cottage has been in my father's family for centuries, they say a thousand years. My ancestors served the kings of Orland," the old man said proudly, sipping his warm drink. "I would not wonder if I have some royal blood in me. The nobles liked taking their serving girls, such were those times."
Eric nodded. "Yes, those were the days."
"Ah! You wanted to learn more about Erik Viking? Well, Erik's not a Viking. Viking means 'seafarer', and that prince was no sailor. He wasn't even able to get out of Europe, died in the hands of the Roman legions. Who's to know? No one from his militia ever came back alive. Legend has it that he melted into the night, vanished into thin air. Stories about him scare little children."
"Is that so?" Eric felt proud of himself. Even after death, he was still popular in his hometown.
The old man nodded. "Yes, even his own children. My grandmother often told me that Erik's wife, the Queen, went mad when he did not return. She believed he had turned into a traitor and warned her own sons about their father."
Eric glared at the old man. That was something he did not know."What do you mean?"
"She was mad, not right in the head. The story spread, everyone was afraid of Erik Viking, and his ghost. Some from King Ranulf's army said they saw the prince walking under the moon, hunting like an animal. Townsfolk believed them, no one dared go out at night. No one called his name. In the end, the queen's madness overcame her and she murdered her sons."
"Her sons?"
"All of them. Or so the old ballads say," the old man replied, finishing his drink. "And so the Viking no longer hunts the enemies from Rome. He hunts his own at night. But I don't believe such stories. I'm an old man, I've fought in the war against those Nazis, and I've seen other horrors more believable."
Eric was silent for a while, then he asked, "No one survived of Fritjolf's clan?"
"Maybe. No one really cared much for history here except for the university scholars. No one knows if the ancient kings' blood still flows. Are you one of those students?"
Eric shook his head. "I am only trying to reconnect…to my roots." Which are no longer there. Apparently, I have no branches or fruits either.
The old man sighed. "You're not the first, I believe. So many of the youth do come back, trying to see if they can remember, if the blood can remember. But mostly, they go back to where they came from with nothing. Just an imagined past."
But mine is not imagined. Everything was real.
There was no more conversation to be had. Eric had known with a look, a sound, a feel of the thinning veins and clotting blood. The light was fading. Within minutes, the old man was dead of a stroke. Eric remained where he was and watched death—true death—run its course. He had seen human death thousands of times before but nothing as mundane as the old man's.
Death seemed so ordinary. It was not even sad.
The trip back to Orland was fruitless. The one Eric took to Paris to catch a vampire ride back to America was not. At least not for the vampire trio waiting for him outside the airport terminal. Vampires in America are easy to spot. They have an otherworldly quality to them, it is an obvious look and feel to them.
The Parisien vampires are even less inconspicuous. They loved to flaunt their uniqueness. Movies like Underworld make for a great fashion catalogue. Pam herself had always pestered him about the Yves Saint Laurent Winter Collection. When he told her she needed no winter clothing because she was already cold, Pam thrashed his office. He realized if she was not his offspring, he would have bled her dry.
Eric knew no one from the group but they seemed to know him well enough to ambush him. Not wanting to cause any trouble for vampire immigration on French soil, Eric decided to play their game.
"Whatever it is, I'm an American now, and as such, am protected by the American Vampire League. I don't want any trouble."
A skinhead female vampire stepped forward, obviously the leader with the way her male companions stepped away to allow her passage. She had bright blue eyes and blood-red lips. There was a flush to her cheeks. She has just fed.
"We don't want any trouble either, Herr Northman," she said in an unFrench accent. And she addressed him as any German would.
"How did you know me?" he asked. He wondered if, after the events in Mississippi, the American Vampire League and Homeland Security were tracking him. He wondered also if the Interpol was no longer above hiring vampires as secret agents.
"The Countess requires your presence in Thuringia," the skinhead vampires said, lifting a finger. Within moments, a black Humvee appeared in front of them. The rear door opened.
Eric followed her into the vehicle. When her companions were in, they sped off towards Germany.
"You must be under Iliana's employ or her offspring," Eric remarked. He did not like being ambushed or played for a fool. Iliana was the oldest vampire he knew, older than even Godric. Possibly older than even Russel Edgington. Iliana and Godric shared the same maker. She must have known he was in Europe the minute Anubis landed in Paris. And if she wanted to talk to him, there was no need to "kidnap" him and bring him to her territory.
The skinhead vampire replied, "Yes, my maker. In more ways than one."
"And would you mind sharing with me why she wants to see me now all of a sudden? If you do not know yet, your maker and I are not exactly, forgive me for my poor German, friends."
The female smiled. She looked almost alive. "I know you're not on good terms. This is not a kidnapping, Herr Northman, but you are free to think it so, if it makes you comfortable. However, I do not know why the Countess wishes for an audience with you."
"She must be lonely," Eric muttered, staring at the other vampire. She stared back.
"There are so few of the Ancient Ones now," she murmured.
The ride after that was a silent one. And a long one. Inside the Humvee, Eric and his female companion were able to sleep like the dead, shielded from the sun by black-tinted windows and locked doors. When Eric woke again, it was already dusk. As he got older in vampire years, it was easier for him to wake earlier, even with the sun still just about to disappear. Sometimes, when Pam was not looking, he would go out and feel the sun, even it only amounted to pain. It was a guilty pleasure.
The female vampire finally woke when the sun was gone. She looked up at Eric. He knew he somehow caught the vampire's fascination. He stared back at her and bared his fangs.
To his consternation, she laughed. "Your fangs don't intimidate me, Herr Northman. I know many things about you, things you've done, things you've thought, things you've felt."
"You must be a very good researcher," he quipped.
"I ask questions. The Countess answers. She keeps nothing from me," she said with pride in her voice. "Except who you were to her. That was one question she refused to answer."
Eric raised an eyebrow. "And now you are asking me?"
"Yes, I am."
Eric paused for a moment. Then, he replied, "I was the one who got away because she wanted to change me. She could not even if she tried."
The Humvee stopped. The door opened to darkness. Eric got out and looked around him.
After almost six hundred years, he was back inside the Black Forest.
The male vampires flanked him, the female walked in front of him. They went onward, several more steps from where the Humvee was parked and then Eric saw himself gazing up at a Medieval castle. He half-expected Vlad Dracul himself to step out and welcome him. They went up stone steps, through a set of heavy oak doors, and farther into a marble hall.
The castle was empty of life but was not empty of occupants. Other vampires watched him walk by, not before inclining their heads to the female in front. He knew none of them. Eric was led up more steps and down a hallway until finally, they stopped in front of a door. Music escaped through the cracks of the room. The female vampire knocked thrice and the door was opened by another female vampire.
The room was illuminated and decorated as any room in a medieval castle should. In the midst of the rugs, tapestries, and furniture, sat the perpetrator, bent towards a giant harp, her long, white fingers plucking at the strings.
"Leave us," she intoned, without stopping her activity. Immediately, the room was empty save for the two of them.
Eric remained standing, staring at her profile.
The woman he and Godric feared.
She has the daylight at her command.
She gives the night its dreams.
I can see that she's trying to free me.
